Empty.

I climbed back down and decided to hide. After fashioning a nest in the straw at the back of a remote stall, I stored my gear, covered myself over, and tried to settle in to wait for darkness. If I could not steal a horse or ass from Lhassen, I would nevertheless wait until night to make my escape — hopefully none of the guards would be sent to check on me in my cell; they never were — and then try to steal another mount in the village or somewhere along the way: without transportation, I could not make the journey; the distances were too vast and my supplies too meager for me to make it on foot.

Compared to the warm, mostly level stone of my cell, my refuge in the straw was miserably uncomfortable. Individual stalks kept poking at my ears, nose, mouth, eyes, and neck; I was soon itchy all over. Moreover, the hay was old, and teeming with insects, and they had either not shoveled the stall for months or else kept some sort of massive draft horse in it, for the straw was clumped with immense turds in various states of decomposition. Some were dry and as large and round as serving platters; some were still reasonably fresh and clammy and stunk as if they had been feeding the horse a combination of oats and rotten flesh. There were dozens of the royal-eyed rats scurrying everywhere, and their turds were like a million grains of black rice sprinkled in the hay.

…since I had not heard anyone moving through the stables, I felt reasonably secure and made my way back toward the compound to see if there was any more activity in the yard or house.

After an hour I could not stand it any longer.

Insects had crawled into my robes and were biting me all over. The rats, cousins to the ones who had occupied the cell, either stared at me or ran back and forth across me as a convenient bridge from one place to another.

I stood and shook off the rats and then proceeded to delouse. So much for hiding. Yet since I had not heard anyone moving through the stables, I felt reasonably secure and made my way back toward the compound to see if there was any more activity in the yard or house. When I reached the archway, I peered cautiously out at the guards atop the walls.

After staring at them for a long time, I realized that they did not move. At all. Their robes trembled by times in the breeze, but they did not shift from foot to foot, as all soldiers on prolonged guard duty will do, or move their arms to adjust their robes or rifles or turn their heads in the slightest. After studying them for a time more, I stepped out into the light of the courtyard. None of them turned. I scuffed my feet.

Nothing. Waved my arms. Nothing. Coughed. Still nothing.

Finally, I climbed the stairs in the corner that led up to the ramparts and cautiously approached the nearest guard. He did not turn to face me, even when I tapped him on the shoulder.

He and his companions, I soon discovered, were as mannequins, reinforced straw men. Their faces were covered with the usual desert face-wrap, but their eyes and eyebrows showed clearly. They were incredibly lifelike: the parts of their faces that I could see were expertly molded and covered with some sort of gauzy, yet sturdy fabric. Their eyes and features were as if painted into and not merely on the material. Their bodies were firm-to-the touch beneath their robes, and the attention to detail extended to their arms and hands which were expertly proportionate, also firm, and wrapped in the same fabric. Their fingers were perfectly shaped, individual, and whole as if real. I could feel ears beneath their turbans and hood.