This story arc ended on such a climax that we’re not going to have a long wrapup (though Thulo may write up his experiences after Ashas); it’s my turn now to take Lyse and either Fikmet or someone else to the East. As we passed the place where we had seen the people under the ground, I took Thulo to see if we could find them. Maha came along, and Nima too — we were really a team now! It was quite some way into the wood. Strange wood, though: we didn’t hear any birds or see any tracks or droppings of animals. Eventually we stood practically on top of the people but we still couldn’t find an entrance. Maha needed all her tracking skill to find first a discarded snakeskin — there must have been snakes, at least, though we hadn’t seen any actual ones — and then a wooden hatch in a thicket in the middle of a clearing. (Well, clearing — it was under the forest roof, but there weren’t any trees growing there.) Thulo and I thought at the same time of knocking on the hatch. As soon as we’d done that, there were people around […]

Not completely unexpected. But we didn’t quite expect to have it here. (Also, Sedi got even less time to sort things out than usual, but one thing she did may have made things start to sort themselves out.) I found myself on a sandy plain, bare except for a few wispy dry plants that smelt strongly of brus. I didn’t know they grew like that, I thought, even before I started wondering what in the world I was doing here. In the distance I could see a young man and woman who had much trouble going forward. I felt I ought to know who they were but the smell was making me light-headed. Beside me a man appeared, his skin dark blue in the harsh light. “We have to go there,” I said to him and pointed to the other people. “But I can’t!” “You are strong!” he said, with the formal ‘you’ word that I had trouble mastering in trade Iss-Peranian. “Let’s go together!” He took my hand, and it was easier that way though we still weren’t catching up. I tried to get strength from the ground, but it was barren sand, drained of all power. “Aren’t there […]

Sedi is learning to be the boss! Sorting out Ghilas was taking a couple of days. I was actually having a rest: apart from the temple services and other things that people need a priest for, and sword training, I had time to write letters and have my hair cut by the army barber. I also found a smith to make a new set of lockpicks. Not as good as Rava’s, but I didn’t expect that, they were good enough. Thulo had, wisely, tasked everybody in the lockup who could hold a needle with making water-bags from goatskins. When he went to look how it was going –with me trailing along but doing my best not to meddle– he noticed that one lot was much better than the others, using one of the legs as a spout. “Who made these?” he asked, and the guard pointed out a woman of about forty, Zivaya. “What, aren’t they all right?” she asked belligerently. “More than all right,” Thulo said. “Then I’ve made them, otherwise I wouldn’t have. I won’t fill them for you, you need boys for that, us girls can’t manage.” “Hmm, would you like to come along with us?” She […]

That was suspiciously easy. Probably my own fault because I chose “the seeds of his own destruction” over “a hard fight”. Either that, or there’s something that the GM isn’t telling us (apart from all the other things he’s not telling us). When I was at sword practice with Aftabi after the morning service a sergeant came and stood just out of reach, looking impatient, so we stopped to hear what he had to say. “They’re fighting in the town!” “Who, us?” “No, among themselves, the market-master’s people against another bunch.” Just then another sergeant came to say that they’d seen some of Miham’s troops descend into the desert and go south, and they’d put up a blockade there in case anyone else went the same way. “Well, if they’re fighting anyway we’d better use the opportunity and go in,” I said. Maha promptly went with the other doctors and the new nurses to set up a field hospital. We found the town in disarray but not much fighting was going on any more. The market-master was lying in the middle of the market, dead of sword wounds. “Good riddance, I must say,” I said, and people around me agreed. […]

The GM told me about the point in any narrative where the protagonist can’t do anything else than go along with it. “We reached that point in Zameshtan,” I said. He agreed. We travelled for a few more days through fields that were mostly planted with a strange kind of grain. “Millet,” Samada said, “that’s for farmers, it makes chickens fat, not for civilized people to eat!” My apprentices and acolytes were dealing with the village priest and the villagers, I didn’t get into the villages myself any more. On the one hand it was a pity, but I really can’t do everything myself! I appointed the two girls who had wanted to dance for Dayati to organise the bits of service for the various gods, and they were so enthusiastic about having a task in the temple that I trusted it would go right. (Perhaps not as I’d have done it, but right nevertheless.) On the second or third day of travel Cheliân brought a young couple with a baby. “The baby is ill,” he said, “she has a fever, we don’t know what’s wrong.” I couldn’t see what was wrong either, but I did see that the father […]

It happens every time. EVERY SINGLE TIME. She does what she needs to do, this causes a lot of chaos, and she moves on before it’s resolved. She’s beginning –no, continuing, she already thought it in Kushesh– to think it’s a curse. And I admit the boots are a running gag now, as inadvertently foreshadowed here. When I found Maha she was bubbling with giggles. “They were making love!” “Who?” I asked. “Aftabi and Zahmati, of course! But you’ll have to talk to her fathers because I’m afraid they won’t like it.” I promised to do that, hoping I’d find the right occasion before there was trouble. That evening there wasn’t time for anything any more, of course, Two services, more name-givings, though Thulo and the acolytes wouldn’t let me stay up all night. The next morning a boy came to tell me at breakfast that the market-master wanted to speak to me. “After the service,” I said, but Pesar and the captain of the Zameshtan regiment caught me first. “We talked about staying here another few weeks,” they said, “but would you mind leaving earlier? The caravan is getting larger every day.” I’m a farm girl. I knew what […]

We were prepared for an epic fight but got tragedy instead. It must have been after midnight, but we were still making the rest of the plan. The princes came to show a company of soldiers in the other army’s uniforms: not everything fit and I could also see some evidence of hasty alterations, but they would pass at first sight, and that was all that was needed. “We’ll relieve the dawn watch,” Prince Ishan said, “so we’ll be all ready for you.” We’d go right after the morning service, taking all the temple stones with us, to build our own temple around the city one. I got some sleep. Not much. The morning service came all too early. I announced the expedition to the city right at the beginning — I was in uniform already instead of the Ishey clothes, sword on my back, so it was likely that at least some people would expect something out of the ordinary — and all we did was ask for the blessing of Anshen and all the other good gods, so we finished early too. I saw the royal family kneeling practically at my feet, and each of them picked up […]

Yes, she is learning to be the boss. She isn’t sure if having services for thousands of people is what she intended, but meting out justice seems to agree with her. Also, apparently you can take the girl out of the farm, but not the farm out of the girl. In the middle of the city there was a very busy market. I recognised several people from our caravan among the crowd. “I want to go, too!” Thulo said. Beyond the marketplace we went through a broad avenue with statuary on both sides, people and animals and people riding animals, all larger than life. Like the statues in Albetire, except that here they were still whole. They were of some kind of greyish-white stone, green with moss in places, and some with traces of paint — brown faces, blue eyes. Nakash Bayad, the king’s steward (what the flunky had introduced himself as) apologised for the statues, “these remnants of popular religion, outdated now we have the wisdom of the real gods”. I made a polite noise at that. “It’s a pity that we will not be able to open up the temple for Her Holiness,” he contiued, “but our high […]

GM: “We can’t really call it ‘priest’ any more, she’s in fact a bishop.” And she’s about to be an ambassador, and will be a judge next… We sat with Pesar’s wives for a while afterwards with food and wine. Pesar himself went back to his meeting, walking much less painfully. Dunya beckoned Maha to follow her into the tent and we heard whispers and giggles. (An experienced woman giving tips to a young woman? Might be useful, and it sounded fun from where I was.) The children were still running around. “You take those scamps back, please, Samada,” Ababe asked. When she’d rounded them all up and gone off with them, Ababe pulled me closer. “I’d like to say this when she’s not present, and the children either. You see, we like our younger sister a lot, but I am already a lot younger than our husband, twenty-two years, and Samada is more than thirty years younger! It would never have occurred to me before, well, before everything changed so much.” It’s not an ordinary caravan any more, Dunya had said last time. I’d never seen an ordinary caravan but I was more than willing to believe it. “She’s […]