'You are a complete fool, Iskaral Pust.'
'Let her think that,' he said, then added a chuckle. 'Now she'll wonder why I have laughed – no, not laughed, but chuckled, which, all things considered, is far more alarming. I mean, it sounded like a chuckle so it must have been one, though it's the first I've ever tried, or heard, for that matter. Whereas a chortle, well, that's different. I'm not fat enough to chortle, alas. Sometimes I wish-'
'Go sit by your mule's fire,' Mogora said. 'I must prepare my ritual.'
'See how that chuckle has discomfited her! Of course, my darling, you go and play with your little ritual, that's a dear. Whilst I make tea for myself and my mule.'
****
Warmed by the flames and his tralb tea, Iskaral Pust watched – as best as he was able in the darkness – Mogora at work. First, she assembled large chunks of stone, each one broken, cracked or otherwise roughedged, and set them down in the sand, creating an ellipse that encompassed the Trell. She then urinated over these rocks, achieving this with an extraordinary half-crab half-chicken wide-legged waddle, straddling the stones and proceeding widdershins until returning to the place she had started. Iskaral marvelled at the superior muscle control, not to mention the sheer volume, that Mogora obviously possessed. In the last few years his own efforts at urination had met with mixed success, until even starting and stopping now seemed the highest of visceral challenges.
Satisfied with her piddle, Mogora then started pulling hairs from her head. She didn't have that many up there, and those she selected seemed so deeply rooted that Iskaral feared she would deflate her skull with every successful yank. His anticipation of seeing such a thing yielded only disappointment, as, with seven long wiry grey hairs in one hand, Mogora stepped into the ellipse, one foot planted to either side of the Trell's torso. Then, muttering some witchly thing, she flung the hairs into the inky blackness overhead.
Instinct guided Iskaral's gaze upward after those silvery threads, and he was somewhat alarmed to see that the stars had vanished overhead.
Whereas, out on the horizons, they remained sharp and bright. 'Gods, woman! What have you done?'
Ignoring him, she stepped back out of the ellipse and began singing in the Woman's Language, which was, of course, unintelligible to Iskaral' s ears. Just as the Man's Language – which Mogora called gibberish – was beyond her ability to understand. The reason for that, Iskaral Pust knew, was that the Man's Language was gibberish, designed specifically to confound women. It's a fact that men don't need words, but women do. We have penises, after all. Who needs words when you have a penis? Whereas with women there are two breasts, which invites conversation, just as a good behind presents perfect punctuation, something every man knows.
What's wrong with the world? You ask a man and he says, 'Don't ask.'
Ask a woman and you'll be dead of old age before she's finished. Hah.
Hah ha.