Splitting the party when there are only two players– ouch. But it did work. The king didn’t wake up the next day either, at least we didn’t see him. (I slept a lot myself too!) We were preparing to go back with the delegation and collecting everybody, when Fikmet and Sepideh beckoned me from the side of the camp and Fikmet said “I’m not coming and Sepideh isn’t either! We have to take the armour back.” “To where you got it from? Is it a holy place?” I asked, and yes, it was. “Can I come?” I said, because I suddenly felt that it was important to thank the warrior woman’s spirit, and all the gods as well. “I don’t see why not,” they said, “we’ll go on, not back, and catch up with the rest at the tower.” So I went to ask Ferin if he needed me. The only thing he could possibly need me for was the direction sticks, and several of the other people could do that and the head of the Spear tribe was going along, surely he could do it too! Well, perhaps he needed me for bitching at him, but he said it […]

Companion piece to Ferin’s, here. It starts approximately where that stops. Nobody told me that the drinking contest was also a boasting contest! Good thing that I’d been having Ferin’s example all that time. I’ll never be as good as him, but at least I was better than the king. Made of stronger stuff, too, though that may have been all the Síthi wine I grew up with and all the fatty meat I ate before the match. And everything I told was true– I did outrun a yak and cut its throat with my knife, the king didn’t have to know that it had Makane’s spear in its side at the time, right? And all the gods were with me, I could see them right there. The king is a mage, he should be able to see gods better than me, but perhaps he was already too drunk for that. I’m glad it didn’t go on any longer, though, because we had work to do afterwards, Ferin had invited Naranbataar to our tent to show him how semsin worked, at least how you could get power from the world without killing people for it. And he understood most of […]

Not really a story, just a couple of thoughts from Ailin. To be continued, because we had to stop after the hunt but before we actually talked to the children. Khas are strange people. It’s true that I’m now in a Khas tribe, and I count as the tribe’s headman’s sister, so that makes me at least a little Khas, but still. All the real Khas –the born Khas– knew that we were at the king’s –well, court, camp, gathering, whatever– when we arrived but they hadn’t known where it was before we nearly fell into it. And It’s also strange that we didn’t see the camp at all until we were almost upon it, not smoke from the fires and not the people either. Ferin did see some people but not by far so many! Perhaps their mages were hiding it! But I’ve seen lots of mages now, and none seem to be actually doing anything. They just walk around looking important, and most Khas men who aren’t mages themselves look down on them a bit and call them effeminate because they wear brightly coloured clothing and long robes. But I’m learning to shoot with a bow! Ferin started […]

Either there’s more behind this than we know, or it’s a really elegant way for the GM to relieve himself of a handful of NPC hangers-on. Anyway, makes for interesting dynamics. The next night I went to sleep determined to notice when I was dreaming. Ferin wouldn’t let me take a watch, but I did wake up in the middle of the night and saw a glow on the horizon as if there was a fire. I pinched myself –no, probably not dreaming– and then went and poked Ferin, who woke up and saw it too. He took the watch along, I think Ot and Bayat, and went to investigate while I kept watch instead. After a while, it must have been half an hour, they still weren’t back, and I couldn’t see Ferin with my mind at all! I woke up the captain, because we’d talked about going in military force the next time, and I didn’t know anything about military force. But the captain was sort of… well, not very military about it, not taking things in hand as I’d expected (or like Ferin would have done). In fact he let me make all the decisions! So I […]

She is sixteen and impetuous. And this part of the world is so strange that she also wants to stick with what she’s already familiar with. Sort of, at least. (But I have an idea of what to do– thought of it when writing this so I won’t divulge it yet.) Ferin has told the story about what happened in the world, but I have to tell what happened to me because of course other people haven’t seen that. Some of it was in dreams, some just in my head, and I can’t tell it apart very well. So we’d killed that mage –I don’t even remember which of us killed him, only that it wasn’t me because I do remember saying that I didn’t want to kill another one– but he kept haunting me in my dreams. Not right away, first I had different dreams, but the first time I didn’t even know I was dreaming. I’d been trying to pray to Anshen –take a bit of fire from the great communal fire in a pot because I wanted to be alone, not sit with all the strangers– just to make sure that he knew I was there, and […]

It is a kind of jealousy all right, but Ailin doesn’t want what Tamsyn has– no component of envy. Ferin thinks I’m jealous of Tamsyn. Nonsense! It’s not as if I want him to fuck me instead, far from that! He thinks it because I’ve started feeling so comfortable around him that I don’t mind if he touches me, brotherly-like, teaching me to wrestle and things like that. Only I was stupid enough to tell him. On the other hand it’s annoying to see the little limpet clinging to him all the time, I thought he was a nice guy but when she’s around he starts thinking only with his pecker. Oh wait… Well, perhaps I am jealous. Anyway. We went off north, and found not only Bakmet and her kid –I’d expected a toddler, but she turned out to be older than Fikmet, perhaps ten or eleven– but also four women who were hammering iron out of the mountain. And I almost cut another mage’s throat, but fortunately Makane did it so I didn’t have to. (Do they really die so easily? Aren’t they used to Valdyans and Síthi and some of their own people who take initiative for […]

In which Ailin learns things. This starts in medias res because the main story is Ferin’s, but Ailin has to tell the parts that men aren’t let in on. Come to think of it, it also ends in medias res, there’s little that Ailin can tell apart from her learning that Ferin hasn’t told already. Ferin says that some of the story is mine, and he’s right of course but I don’t really know how to tell it. Or where to start for that matter. But I’ll tell the women’s things because Khas men and women are really so different, you can’t imagine even if you were brought up in Aumen Síth where there are enough different people to see that not everybody thinks the same way. Not even if they’re of the same people, the Síthi for instance, the old trade families keep their daughters inside much more than my family did, when I still had a family. And of course the Valdyans don’t seem to care if someone is a man or a woman, not for most things anyway. So we got the boys and the little girl Fikmet to take us to the village. It wasn’t as […]