Then we arrived in Ruby Village. This was a small hamlet — a couple of shacks, a factory or two, and a few larger buildings. We were expecting the worst — a village without humanity, where the women bound their toddlers to neighbouring farms in return for a bit more money to be made in the brothels. It was both bleaker and better than that.

The town was filthy, and the work hard. We saw children sorting out lumps of stone in running cold water, red sores on their hands. But on the other hand, there was a nurse inspecting the lines who slathered on goose grease where needed. Though not too much.

There was the office, where the fat, nasty-looking boss was just doling out generous bonuses to his workers, and also a pension to a miner who had gotten wounded. Still, it was clear from what we saw that his profits were incredible.

The inside of the mines were also incredible, especially when I started to project light in various colors. We made some incredible color sketches!

We had taken one of the children of one of the women in the brothel, and she was happy enough to see her son, but in the end, she was doing this because she liked looking pretty with pretty jewelry, and she could get that here, this way.

But we were glad when we went on our way to Nalenay, Ruby Village just felt icky.

We came through a lot of villages, and painted everywhere. The scenery was always amazing, and the weather astonishingly nice: sometimes a bit of rain, but no storms, no downpours. And now and then something amusing happened, like in Ashinay.

There we found two guildmates in the guild of Archan quarreling. Apparently they had been quarreling for forty years. And they were spoiling my appetite! So I protested, and then they turned on me. So I… Made a maze of light and darkness that filled most of the common full of little tricks and traps, and that they could only get out of if they’d cooperate…

They failed, of course, and kept failing, but then there were a bunch of people my age, and they could see and feel the maze, too, so they were gifted. And they asked, could they give it a try, too? And I said, sure!

And they went in, and got out, and when they got out I disappeared the maze, and the two quarrelers, they were astonished! And I asked the kids to lecture them, which they did with gusto, especially since two of them were children of the opponents, and secretly sweet on each other, but had never gotten their dads to give them permission to get together.

Leaving Ferin’s old village, Ashinay, we first arrived in Tal-Polsen. There we heard of Tal-Foryas, where there was rumoured to be an the ruins of an eight-sided tower, but we never went there, because there had been a mudslide, and all the Tal-Foryani had fled and were now spread over the countryside.

Tal-Polsen was a pretty ordinary farming village, though curiously located on top of a hill, with its own elected village council and village head. There are several wells here, so even on top of a hill, there was no lack of water.

We did a good bit of sketching and painting there, and people were so glad that there were visitors, they actually had a bit of an autumn/early-harvest celebration! With dancing. Oh gosh, and Cynla, you sly baggage! Cynla kissed a dairy maid just after the dancing finished, and I caught her in the act, with my silverpoint!

That night, when we went to the wagon, we let Master Jeran sleep inside, and I made light and a bit of fire, and we had a nice, long talk about love and kissing and other stupid things. And when Cynla had noticed the drawing of her kissing her maid, she was like, that’s hard to do! The angles! And then I said, I’ll do you one better, and I drew a close-up of their mouths, and tongues, and added extra saliva in drops and strands for extra emphasis.

And she was, we weren’t that wet! And I was, oh, yes, you were, and if not, I can draw what I want!

So Cynla challenged me, and in another corner of the page, I drew two girls with snake tongues, kissing each other by entwining their tongues and even scissoring the forks of the tongues! (Yes, travelling with Cynla has enlarged my vocab, she has learned a lot in the brothel.)

Cynla tried to top that by making two horses make out like humans, but failed that, and then made two men entwine their necks like horses do, making the outer neck improbably long, but it was still great!

And before we knew it, we had several pages of people with animal-like attributes kissing like the animals they looked like, and several pages of animals kissing like humans. And then it was dawn, and we hadn’t slept…

From Tal-Polsen, we went to Sorynay. This was also a pretty prosperous village, surround by fields and meadows, and pigs, sheep and cattle. In the middle of the village, there was a slightly raised brick stone wall-let, filled with earth and grass. We thought we’d camp the wagon there, but couldn’t get it up there, so we put it next to it.

There was the most impressive ancient farmer who told, told you so (and he had), you cannot get a wagon like that up on that, it stands to reason, it’s too high, though your donkey can graze there, just stay where you are — ever and over again, for long enough that I could do his portrait in pretty finely rendered charcoal.

And then Cynla and I went for a walk through the village and found the uncommonly neat and tidy and clean Temple of Naigha, where the Priestess was searching for her chickens’ eggs. Gods… She was pretty! Tiny, so clear-skinned, such beautiful braided silver-gold hair, such big blue eyes in such a small face. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a prettier woman. Her tiny, smooth, agile hands. When she spotted us, she smiled, so cute, and she invited us into the Temple, so she could give us some freshly pressed cider.

The inside of the Temple was equally neat and tidy, and she was so obviously proud of it, that I said, excuse me, and ran to the cart to get a panel, my brushes and some paint I had made previously, and put back in egg-shells closed up with wax.

And I asked her, would you like a painting of the outside, or the inside of the Temple, with the Statue of Naigha. She choose the latter, looking very bewildered, and I painted the inside of the Temple, taking care to carefully treat the light filtering through the door and the two windows, falling on the Statue, lighting the hands and the inside of the mantle.

And when I gave it to her, she almost danced into the small room off the side of the temple, where she put it on a shelf so she could look at it from her cot. (That seemed a bit strange to me, but by then, I was feeling she was kind of intense, or strange, or at least unusual. She’s only a year or two older than me, in any case.)

Then I invited her to dinner, and in the meantime, Cynla had made sure we had pasties enough, also for the people who had helped us rainproof the canvas of our wagon, and put up a canvas awning to sit under, because it had started to finally rain after a very, very dry summer, and all over the village people were fixing roofs and cursing because the hay was still in the fields.

So we ate, and while we ate, and fed the priestess, Selle, she almost forgot to eat, so intent she was on listening. And I painted her, in all her undefiled knowledge — she knew, she helped, she forgave, she never judged. I think I put all of her in my painting, a solid tempera sketch. I almost fell in love with her…

Then I mentioned we had with us a book published by the Hospital School in Turenay, and she immediately begged to be allowed to copy as much of it as she could. Of course we couldn’t give it her — we had used it before when someone we met, or one of us, had encountered a misfortune, and we only had one copy — but that was possible. So I gave her our copy, heavily bookmarked, made light with my mind underneath the awning, and she got her own book, pen, ink well and ink jar.

And she copied, in an amazingly neat hand, and amazingly quickly, everything I had bookmarked, and sometimes we would chat a bit — I told her all the temple novices in Ryshas were obliged to serve in the Hospital for at least half a year — and sometimes I would refill her inkwell without her noticing, and in the meantime I painted her. It was far after midnight that my tempera sketch was done, and I grabbed some of my shells with oils in there, and started touching it up.

I thought I did either something awful, or something great, there wasn’t much color, but a whole lot of depth, and the light did something weird, it showed her centered, with much — but still not muddy — dark around her, her braid curling like a lightning bold over her dark cloak, the snake tattoos on her wrists contrasting with her very white skin, and then the concentration, the sparkling eyes, the tiredness showing the in the shoulders drooping under her cloak. And, as a bit of comic relief, my hand, refilling her inkwell from the pitcher in the shadow.

This was her other side — the side that gives all to help her people, to acquire all she’d need to know to help her people now, and in the future. She had told us before she had only once done a delivery… She needed an older mentor pretty soon! A midwife might be better than an older priestess, though.

And then it was dawn, and I hadn’t slept, and Selle hadn’t slept, either.

When Master Jeran came out of the wagon I asked him about my painting. I was so unsure about it! It looked weird, and unusual, and, to me, pretty strong. He first asked, “Do you think it’s good?”

And I was like, I feel it’s the best thing I’ve ever done!

And he was like, well, then it is that — but don’t expect everyone to understand it.

So I slept on the wagon.