### 350

A great hooting yell signifies the presence of others in the leaf-green light of the tree tops. Some forty apelike men with long tails swing bundles of smoking leaves at the end of lengths of vine. The smoke gives off a choking stench that throws the huge insects into confusion. Within a few moments, they have dropped from the branches of the tree or are scurrying back along the trunk, fleeing from the swirling fumes.

Through watering eyes, you watch the strange, stunted men using their tails to swing from tree limb to branch with astonishing agility, flushing out the insect invaders with practised ease. These are the Kundi. You have found the Lost Tribe of Lara.

As you watch the one-sided battle draw to a close, two sets of hairy arms grab you and lift you bodily into the air. Your ape-like abductors carry you through the giddy heights, leaping and swinging from tree to tree, tossing you like a bale of hay. You are being carried through a fine mist of cloud, from which the Azawood tree draws much of its moisture. Up here, in the highest levels of the forest, is a complex of wooden houses and platforms. You are dumped unceremoniously outside the largest of these tree houses: the house of the Kundi king.

The old king regards you with undisguised displeasure. 'I am Okosa, Kundi king--why you come and who are you?'

Quietly you tell the king of your quest for the Moonstone of the Shianti, your search for the Shadow Gate and your need of the magical Kundi vision to guide you there.

'You no Shianti . . . You bring creeping death from below . . . Kundi guide you nowhere,' he says, eyeing you suspiciously. No matter how you try, you cannot convince him that you are a Shianti wizard and that you were trying to escape from the terrible Mantiz attack, not leading it. He turns his back on you with a derisive snort.

'I can make great magic,' you say hopefully, 'ancient magic, The Way of the Shianti.'

'Wytch-king make magic, Shadakine make magic. This prove nothing,' the king replies with a dismissive wave of the hand.

'How then, can I prove the truth of my words to you?' you ask, helplessly.

The Kundi King gives you a sly look over his shoulder, eyebrows raised. 'Prove?' he says. 'Yes, you prove many things, I think, when Urik, wise elder of the Kundi Tribe, has words with you. Then you see some Kundi magic! Not Shadakine spells and whispers.'

Patiently, you wait. Faintly, you can hear the jingling of tiny bells and a hoarse voice chanting a monotonous rhythm, tunelessly. At length, a wizened old Kundi is led into the room. He is covered in bird feathers and numerous small bells, and his mad, bulging eyes roll around their sockets. The Kundi king and the old Kundi's escorts look to him with reverence, for he is their Shaman and a respected figure in their society. To your eyes, however, he looks faintly ridiculous, shambling around you in a comic, bowlegged dance, waving and rattling a strange, fur-covered talisman in your face and repeating his dissonant litany in an endless monotone. Your own instinctive powers tell you that no magic is being performed here, and you look with interest, curious to see what happens next. Suddenly the mad old Kundi falls silent. He is short of breath, his bony chest wheezing. He bares the blackened stumps of his rotten teeth, and pressing his face close to yours, so close that you can smell the stink of his fetid breath, he speaks to you.

'You no look like Shianti,' he says, looking you up and down with a theatrical gesture.

'Shianti wizard,' you correct, drawing no response.

'You no feel like Shianti,' Urik continues, running his leathery fingertips along the filthy, tattered remains of your robe. He wrinkles his nose. 'You no smell like Shianti . . . smell more like swamp!' he says, exploding into a great fit of hoarse laughter, clapping his hands with glee.

'You see Shianti, you say?' he then asks, his eyes narrowing.

You nod your assent.

'The youngest Kundi child knows the "riddle of the Shianti". If you have truly looked upon them, then you will know the answer.'

The fate of your quest hangs upon the words of a child's nursery rhyme, it seems. Okosa, the Kundi king, agrees to grant you a guide to the Shadow Gate, only if you can answer the old Shaman's rhyme. Anxiously, you listen to his words, burning them into your mind.

'Answer me this, wizard . . .'

> 'Wise Shianti and Kundi man,
> Look eye to eye in tree,
> Shianti man see Kundi man,
> But what does Kundi see?'

The solution to the rhyme can be found in part two of the Grey Star series:

The Forbidden City

Concept copyright © 1985 Joe Dever and Gary Chalk.
Text copyright © 1985 Ian Page.