My Travels Through Imaginary Lands, Pt. 9

The hiss of the rainfall was quickly followed by the rumble of thunder, and as the skies turned in seconds from yellow to black, by the anxious cries of men.  The forewoman had not stopped looking at me and now as an immense crowd of drenched labourers began to fill the space behind me, she beckoned me through the door where she stood and closed it after me.

So sudden had been the flow of events that I hadn't really taken the time to think through what I was doing, or what motive my new companion might have for inviting me in.  When I stood awkwardly there, she gave me a sharp look, like she was waiting for something.  All I had in my repertoire at that moment was the wherewithal to place my bag down at my feet, so I did that and then waited for further instruction.


The room was sparse and functional as you might expect, but it had the odd touch that hinted at the predilections of its occupier.  The bed in the corner was wide and the sheets were of far higher quality than anything else here.  The bed was made but a single corner was folded back, as if to invite the weary labourer to rest.  A small upright mirror, the kind a man might use for shaving, stood on a nightstand immediately next to the bed. Close to me, a sand-coloured set of drawers was topped by a single red rose in a quartz vase.


The forewoman was gazing into the mirror.  I watched her press a calloused fingertip to the loose skin below her eye and then reach towards her hair.  A peppering of unselfconscious grey lurked there among the darker strands.  For a moment she was still as she pulled at the bandanna, and with an artist's eye, I committed that moment above others to memory.  It seemed important somehow, though for what reason I could not hope to articulate.  Not a second later, her hair was loose and fell away.  It didn't tumble exactly, but there was a joyous flourish to the movement; a storyteller's embellishment it might seem and somewhat trite to boot, but it was as if in that second she sprang off a canvas and came to life.

For the first time, her eyes met mine in the mirror.

'We don't get many tourists this far out,' she said.  'I felt I had to save you.  If I'd left you in there, you'd have some damp, sweaty farmer sitting in your lap right now.  You're not in a place for the faint-hearted.'

I smiled, despite myself.  The air in here was cooler, and I was quickly beginning to feel better.  At some point I would have to take stock of the shame I would feel for my earlier grumpiness, but that was something for the future.

'The train journey here was pretty much like that.  It was okay, once you got used to it.'

She said, 'Ha!  If I'd have been you, I'd have stayed on the train.'

'The train already took me where I wanted to go,' I said.

She tugged underneath her blouse, shifted the strap of a linen undergarment that seemed rather distressed by her dimensions.  'Well, if you came looking for profundity, we have that in spades.  That, and sorgha.  Lots and lots of sorgha.'

'I shall have to take some with me as a memory of my journey.'

She turned towards me, shook the bottom of her skirt and grains disentangled themselves from the wool, pooling around her bare feet.  'When the rain stops, go and take a walk outside.  I guarantee you you'll still be finding it in your pockets weeks from now.'

The idea of returning to the Ministry with my expanded mind full of dangerous ideas and my pockets full of sorgha amused me greatly and I hid my expression behind the pretense of scratching my nose.  She continued to loosen and rearrange her clothing, and when she finally reached a level of comfort that she was happy with, she let out a short sigh.  I stood politely, feeling myself slip into a conversational rhythm.

'I'm Petra,' she said, lighting an oil lamp and placing it on the nightstand.  'I take it I can trust you to be a gentleman while I change?'


'Patrick.  And of course.'  I turned to face the wall, though I'll admit to studying the intriguing, blurred shadow that leaned over my shoulders.  In a few seconds, she indicated that I could turn round.  She was now wearing a maroon blouse that left very little to the imagination.  A small heart-shaped stone hung from a chain between her breasts.

'So, Patrick,' she said.  'You're an artist, or a writer.  Which is it?'


'I'm a diplomat,' I replied.  She tensed a little at this.  One of the things you learned early when the Corps posted you to Rhigo was that the local language did not distinguish between diplomats and spies.  'Please don't be alarmed.  I'm just a man on holiday, nothing more.'

'Just as well,' she said, carefully clipping tiny jewelled earrings onto her lobes.  'There's not much to see here that you haven't already seen.'

'I had this idea that I could walk west from here until I got to Camir, but it's pretty clear that if I try, the local weather is going to broil me and then drown me.'

She laughed.  'That, like everything else you've seen, is something you'll have to get used to.'

'Have you worked here long?'

It was a ridiculous question, given her tanned skin and absolute dominion.  Nevertheless, she bore it with good grace.  'Only my entire life.  Fifty years and more in the Sholl.  It's all I've ever known.'

'You've never wanted to travel yourself?'

'There was a time when I thought about it.  One of the men that worked here with me wanted me to give up my role and travel round the world with him.  I told him that he'd have to marry me before I did that.  He said to me, "I don't think I'd be a good husband.  I'm a great lover, a good friend, but I don't think I'll make a good husband."  And I laughed, because it was impossible not to, and I replied, "My sweet, you are a very good friend, but you are not such a great lover."  He agreed to marry me the next day.'

'And yet, you still didn't go travelling?'

She rubbed a pink powder onto her lips with a forefinger.  'He was every bit as bad a husband as he said he would be.  I should have listened to him, but if I listened to everything men said...'  She tailed off.

'Careful,' I said with a grin.  'I am a man, you know.'

'As if the beard didn't give it away.  No, I haven't travelled.  And in recognition of my hard work, I now own this little plot of land in the centre of the world.  Everything for a hundred miles around is my garden.'

There was a knock at the door and she flashed me an ugly, devilish grin.  'Best of all, forewomen privileges mean that I get my pick of the younger men, whenever and however I want.'  It immediately became clear why she had been preparing herself.

'Get the door, please.'  I did so, to be greeted by a stocky young man in his late teens with a bashful expression on his face.  He seemed surprised to see me, but averted his eyes respectfully.  Petra said, 'Come in, Ioan.'

The young man followed orders.  She took him by the hand and led him over towards the bed.  I hadn't been sure how Ioan might feel about being hand-picked for this purpose, but he seemed to be quite excited - even honoured - by the prospect.  Certainly he had no qualms about peeling off his clothes in double quick time and sliding beneath the sheets.

Petra looked over her shoulder at me.  'I know what you're thinking.  But I make it very much worth their while.  Stay if you like.  Watch - or join in.  I haven't been with an Ondian before.'

Some part of me was revolted by the thought, but another quite separate part of me was massively intrigued.  I retrieved my bag, offered my goodbyes and made my way outside before that part of me could gain some purchase.  When I stepped through the door, I found myself face-to-face with a group of young Rhigan farmers.  At first they seemed astonished, and then as one they grinned and each one patted me as I passed through the group.

As I made my escape back in the direction of the railway station, one called in Ondian, 'Best trip ever, right?'

CHAPTER TEN WILL BE COMPLETED SHORTLY.

My Travels Through Imaginary Lands, Pt. 8

The sun was still climbing in the sky as I and my freshly-laundered daysuit stepped onto the northbound Y-train for Rhigo’s northern climes.  My cloth bag was a little heavier by this point, as I had added to it yesterday a copy of Bernird Doregun’s childhood classics.  It had been nice to spend the previous evening under soft candlelight, reacquainting myself with long-forgotten heroes and villains.

I had no particular destination in mind this day, and the northern tip of the country had little to offer to casual sightseers unless they had particular interest in the historical sea-fortresses that guarded the forelegs of the Barking Dog, or in the Carrier Birds that lived on the rock beaches there.  For my part, neither held any particular fascination, but I was not feeling any pressure to commit myself and it would not have come as a surprise to me if I had spent the evening alone on a stony shoreline, eating my dinner in the company of Carriers.

Exposed to the sea to the north, south and east, invasion from the waves has been a frequent feature of Rhigan history.  Several centuries ago, my own kinsfolk sailed across the narrow expanse between us and seized control of the southern half of the country within days.  Before that, northern pirates, buccaneers sailing on the behalf of states whose names are now long lost to us, raided the exposed towns year after year, burning crops and buildings, and carrying off the residents as slaves.  It was these incursions that prompted the building of the sea fortresses, early examples of Rhigo’s engineering prowess.  History suggests that they were paid for directly from the pockets of local military officers, who had no other means of responding to the lightning raids of the northmen.
 

Of course, these days it was land-invasion that presented the greatest concern to military minds across the continent.  With Ondia adopting an isolationist stance in response to its fading military influence, it was the Rzermis raiders to the far north who had started to make incursions southwards.  Camir, their enemy for the better part of two millennia, had responded to repeated raids by strengthening troop and ship numbers on its own borders, but the northern tribes, normally notable for their infighting, had recently been showing signs of uniting.  Each month their armies swelled with greater numbers, greater purpose, and by now even the Ministry had concerns about their ultimate intentions.

Still, one cannot allow the shadow of war to dictate one’s actions.  It is precisely when the stakes are highest that cool heads are most in demand.  At some point I would have to head west, towards the escalating conflict.  First though, I would cross the Sholl of Grains.

What can I say about this place that more able scholars have not already said?  Imagine a land longer than anything a man could walk, in one day or ten.  Then imagine you are standing in the middle of that land, and all you can see in every direction are the bowing heads of the various sorgha grasses that feed the continent of Nebra.  Feel their softness in your hands as you pass by.  For a sholl, think of a waist-high ochre sea, one that you could wade through in any direction until the strength in your legs failed you and you dipped beneath the surface into a world of endless green stalks.  Above you, as you lay there, clouds rushed across the yellow sky with all the speed and adroitness of windborne caravels.

The Y-train was absent of tourists, but packed to the brim with buff Rhigan labourers.  They were dressed for conditions in lightweight, light-coloured clothes.  Loose trousers were secured at the waist with sashes, and many went bare-chested altogether.  Each of them seemed to know all of the others, and their erstwhile greetings were repeated time and time again, swelling up the body of the engine like a wave.  In their hundreds, they swarmed the carriages, taking up the seats, the tables, one another’s laps.  Outside, they climbed upon the roofs and hung from the sides.  Many of those who arrived early could have got inside but chose to stay outside anyhow, proud of their acrobatic prowess.  In this ubermasculine environment, I became the focus of much attention and merriment.  As per usual, I did my best to bear this with good grace, but as we accelerated into the countryside, the temperature in the carriage rose dramatically and quickly became wearing on everyone.

It was some hours later when the train pulled into one of the tiny nameless supply depot stations that acted as storage for villages within the Sholl.  I was hungry, cranky and desperate to get out of the baking carriage, which by now smelled hellishly fruity and oppressive.

I was whistled as I hauled my bag through the crowd and fought my way out the door.  At no point had their attentions moved beyond simple ribbing for my beard or the smartness of my daysuit, but the heat had left me ill-tempered and I was conscious of dozens of pairs of curious dark eyes following me as I stepped out onto the platform.  Still more traced my steps through to the sand-coloured tent that doubled as a mess canteen for labourers passing through the area.  Such was my antagonistic mood that none of the food there appealed to me, and I was forced to eat a stew that would normally have been quite palatable but which on this day conspired to burn my mouth while simultaneously tasting of nothing.  I rejected all attempts at conversation with an escalating succession of glares, and sulked to myself in the discouraging atmosphere.

When my dish had been taken away, I picked up my bag and considered my options.  There was nothing except sorgha fields for fifty miles in every direction, and there seemed little point in wandering when all it would lead to was sunstroke.  I had heard much of the sweeping beauty of the vistas in the Sholls, but those I had spoken to had been people like myself, passing through on the way to somewhere else.  Now that I was here, amongst the sweat and the stifling, endless nature of the toil, there was far less glamour to it than I had imagined.  It was no wonder that an artist and storyteller like Doregun had made whatever sacrifices were necessary in order to leave this place.

When this thought had come and gone, I moved onto a different and still more sobering one.  How many more artists, storytellers, potential legends, lived their lives in the middle of this vast expanse and were so tired from their labours in the field that they never so much as picked up a pen?  In my mind, I could feel the righteous anger of whole mistreated generations, and they queued within my fevered mind, eager to denounce their wasted existences.

I was alerted to a change in the mood of those outside, many of whom suddenly stopped in their labours and began to run across the fields in the direction of the tent.  Still others called to one another, and there was evidently some curiosity.  All I was able to see through the rapidly-growing crowd was flashes of light on the horizon, as though projected by flames.  Then, in the wake of the light came a distant hissing noise, which gradually grew in both volume and intensity.

I could feel eyes upon me, and I turned to see one of the Rhigan forewomen who would have sole responsibility for a single farming detail.  Her loose cotton blouse was white and simply tailored, her body beneath it hard and heavyset.  A thick skirt prevented scratches from the grasses as one walked amongst them with a scythe, and a pair of leather moccasins completed the ensemble.  Maybe fifty years old, she had a light red bandanna knotted through her hair and burnished features that swelled outwards in their prominence, giving her the appearance of a large olive-skinned bullfrog. 

She met my eye with a measured stare, and said in Ondian, ‘Storm.’  Five seconds later, the hissing outside the tent intensified to a roar, and the rain fell upon the Sholl in torrents.

Go to Chapter 9 > > >

My Travels Through Imaginary Lands, Pt.7

I'm pleased to say that sobriety arrived before breakfast, but then breakfast came later in the day than usual, merging seamlessly into lunch in a most agreeable manner.  Both Taly and her late father, safely ensconced in his glass prism, attended, and they retained their genial good humour from the day before.

'Tell the world,' Taly said when I approached the table.  'Even when nursing a hangover, it's possible to be quite the dapper gentleman.'

She was being kind.  This was my third day in this particular day-suit, and while it was impeccably tailored, I was nonetheless keen to take it to be cleaned.  First though, I wanted an opportunity to sit and reflect.  I had returned to my room yesterday to a message from the Ministry informing me of Hernan's passing.  While I had of course been aware of this for several hours, it was still enough to cause me to sink into melancholia.  I had lain awake in bed while the room spun around me, thinking of the language projects we had worked on together.  True polymaths were rare in Ondia, and finding one who shared my passion for literary nuance had been a rare thing.

Secondary to that concern but still prominent had been the knowledge that the Ministry was clearly watching my movements.  This was of no particular surprise, and could be viewed in some ways as a compliment; I was clearly important enough in their eyes to be worth watching.  What I found to be discomfiting was the thought that anybody I met - the casual conversationalist in the bar, the fruit-seller in the market, the peasant woman with the empty eyes - any or all of them might be a person reporting on me.  In the same way that I was trading Ondian bonds for local currency as I travelled, so eyes and ears were the Ministry's currency on the ground.  It was inevitable that eyes would end up watching ears, and that ears would be listening to eyes.

And yet, one can only spend so much time reflecting on nostalgia or mindful of benevolent surveillance.  I was on holiday, keen only to stretch my legs, broaden my horizons and have a tasty lunch.  What better companion for that task than Taly, who charmed the waiter with her amazing smile and arranged us fresh fish fillets?

'What are your plans?' I asked when we had eaten.

'I'm hoping I can charter a boat that will take me to the northern coast.'

'It's a dubious strategy.  When the gunboats see you, they'll turn you back.  Just go south and take the train.'

She sighed.  'If I do that, I'll have to travel through Kassium to get home.  I have lots of memories of spending time with him there.  I'm not ready to deal with that just yet.'

It was a sentiment I could appreciate.  Here I was on the road, entirely free to travel as I wished, but not yet ready to commit to a route, to decide how to get where I was going.  Instead, I became the eternal wanderer, my simple cloth bag my home away from home.

I walked Taly to the docks and wished her farewell.  She gave me an enthusiastic hug.  When she had disappeared into one of the dockside taverns in search of her captain, I felt a wholly unaccountable sense of loss.  It took several deep breaths of the sea air before I felt fortified enough to head wearily back towards the centre of town.

I hadn't been walking long when I came across a small square, tucked back from the road, that I hadn't seen coming the other way.  In no particular hurry, I wandered over.  The paving was dark and even, very different to the roughly-hewn yellow sandstone so prevalent elsewhere.  Neatly-trimmed bushes lined the edges, and a number of dark wooden benches were arranged in a circle around a bronze statue.  The benches were occupied by children, some sitting quietly with parents, others seemingly devoid of adult company and instead grouping with their peers.  All of them were listening intently to the tall thin man who was standing in front of the statue, reading a story from a book.

The story was about a bird who stole a magic plum from the Gods, and was seeking to flee their wrath.  Such was the ingenuity of the text, evocative and yet deceptively simple, that both children and adults were rapt.  Even I became one with the tale, and felt a secret satisfaction when the bird grew magnificent red-gold plumage, and fled to safety disguised as a candle flame.  I sat down as others around reluctantly got up and left, and in a few minutes, I and the reader were the only two left in the square.  He smiled at me as he packed books away in his bag.

'That was quite excellent,' I said.  'Is it your work?'

'I wish.  Have you heard of Doregun?'

I had heard of Bernird Doregun, and so had every other boy who had spent part of their childhood outside of Ondia.  He had come to Vairin a hundred years ago, the youngest son of a farming family somewhere up in the nameless villages that made up the Sholl of Grains, and he had travelled to the coast in hopes of escaping that life and earning passage as a sailor.  However, he quickly realised that sea travel left him hopelessly seasick, meaning that a life on the waves was not for him.  Crestfallen and faced with a humiliating return to his homeland, Doregun instead tried to make his way as a musician.  In that regard too he was terribly unlucky, and at the point that he first began to attract attention, his threadbugle was stolen. 

With no money to replace his instrument, he was forced to fall back upon the spoken word as a means of entertainment.  Here, finally, he struck gold.  He told bawdy tales of maidens and knights in the taverns in the evenings which were always well-received, but it was writing for children that was his calling.  His stories combined thaumaturgy, miraculous events and a string of heroes who resisted the will of the divine.  In time, he became an international sensation and readings of his stories packed out market squares across the land. 

Given that the Gods were frequently characters in his stories, Doregun's work had never achieved the acclaim in Ondia that it received elsewhere, but the fact that it had not been banned outright was a reflection of its power and influence.  Some things transcended rules.

The man tapped the statue's leg, which echoed dully.  'Doregun is Vairin's favourite adopted son,' the man said.

The man in the statue was short and stood with a stoop.  He wore a baggy cap and other clothes that seemed to be two sizes too big for him.  Over one shoulder, he carried a bag that stretched down to his knees, giving him the appearance of a child carrying a man's possessions.

'I know what you're thinking,' the man said, finishing his packing and lifting his own bag up.  'But not all things are as they seem.'

'Surely,' I replied.  In my head, I was thinking: this one is definitely Ministry.

Go to Chapter 8 > > >

My Travels Through Imaginary Lands, Pt.6

Upon arrival in Vairin, I realised quickly that the send-off Taly had planned for her father was not going to be a slow or sombre affair.  Furthermore, by the time she finished her third shot of danxo before we had spent half an hour in the small dockside bar, I realised that if I tried to match her tin for tin, she was going to drink me under the table.

At this point, I should perhaps apologise, dear reader, for assuming that you are Ondian, or otherwise familiar with our death customs.  Unlike the countries on the mainland (and as every true-hearted Ondian patriot would remind you, the narrow strip of land that chains us to the continent does not make us part of the mainland, any more than falling off a cliff means that you can fly), we have no links to gods or afterlife.  None whatsoever.  We are not secular, but rather actively atheist.  It surely seems obvious that your primary goal in life should be success and self-improvement within your allotted timescale.  In accordance with those nihilist principles, the Ministry rejects all applications to build places of worship.  You are here, it says, you are now.  Every day you get closer to the abyss, so do your best before you go.

Also, given that we are the most densely populated country in all of Nebra, we cannot simply allot land for burial purposes.  Not for us, the brutish Rzermis funeral pyre, or the simple Rhigan burial somewhere beneath the countless miles of dust.  No, we chose a process that was sophisticated, elegant, and in keeping with our place as world-leading innovators.

Okay, perhaps it's the danxo.  Perhaps.

So anyway, actually, we stole it.  But don't tell the people back home.

Once, a long, long time ago, before Ondia ruled half of Nebra, before the nation of Camir rose from the flaming ruins of Yzyrobia, before Gresia and Merin split into separate fiefdoms, the southern end of the Kolkas was part of a wider territory called Selii.  The mountains in those days contained a number of active volcanoes, and on one particularly portentous day, a superheated cloud of ash descended onto a village at the base of the mountains, instantly smothering all the residents.

The remains of those individuals was subjected to intense vibration under certain thaumic conditions that flushed out any remaining liquids and caused them to break down into powder.  The residents of the area knew of glass already, from the frequent lightning strikes on the sandy beaches.  All that remained was to move the dust to containers sculpted from the lightning glass.  They were placed on display and honoured.

That might have been the end of it, except that the first Ondian emperor chose a place in lightning glass in the same manner after his death.  The Empire collapsed, but the ideas at the heart of it fled back to our tiny southwestern peninsula.  Our own active volcano was used for centuries, and glass procured from the continent at great expense.  Now we can reproduce many of the conditions scientifically, with freeze-drying via chemically-induced cold being a popular choice instead. 

I stared at the pale blue cube as it sat forlornly on the table.  One day, I too would be placed inside one, and my remains transported back to my homeland, where I would be bricked into a wall, a ceiling or a floor in some important civic building; both a stepping stone and a curio for a future generation.  Not for the first time, I wondered who would carry me home when my time came.

'Are you going to stare at him all night?' Taly asked.

'No,' I said, immediately proving myself a liar by being unable to look away.  She rolled those beautiful violet eyes in an easy manner and placed my cloth bag between it and me.

'There.'

'It seems strange to be here,' I said, looking at her flushed features, 'celebrating someone I met on the other side of the bay who did all his best work on the other side of the continent.'

Taly crossed her feet over the table.  Away, behind her, a group of sailors were singing songs at the bar.  'I get the feeling that he wouldn't have cared much to be remembered as a glass brick in a wall back home.  He was a problem solver, a brilliant mind.  Plus, he was my father.'

'I expect he shared much wisdom with you.'

'Honestly, I think his opinion was that people should find their own way and make their own mistakes getting there.  It amused him no end when I followed him into cultural anthropology.'

'Really, if we're to celebrate him in style, we should send out for cruorweed tobacco,' I said.

She regarded me carefully.  'I didn't have you pegged as a smoker.'

'I'm not really, but it would be fitting.  Food is here.'  The last comment was accompanied with a nod past her shoulder, where the waiter was carrying a steaming plate of the ubiquitous spear peppers.  He laid it before us, placed two more glasses of danxo next to it, bowed and left.

A shanty kicked off at the bar, and one or two in beards and bandannas tried to dance.  It wasn't the most elegant show.  Taly seemed less amused by their antics than I.

'Well,' she said, 'will you go first, or will I?'


'Ladies first,' I said, settling back.  The chairs here were well upholstered, fat and luxurious.  I could certainly think of less agreeable ways to kill a hot afternoon.

We had already discussed the circumstances of her father's passing.  Perhaps predictably, Hernan had been found at his breakfast table immediately after repast, newspaper folded across his lap, sunbeam illuminating his restful face.  'The earliest memories I have of my father were of him reading the newspaper at the table.'

'Every morning, regular as clockwork,' I said.  Hernan had been a great believer in breakfast.  You could have set your watch by his morning routine.

'So, what's your story, Patrick?'  The girl relaxed, dangled a pepper between her fingers, allowing it to cool.

'My story?'

'Yes.  You've talked lots about my father, but said hardly anything about what you're doing here in Nebra.  It seems inevitable that you're here on Ministry business, but you're allowing me to distract you with alcohol and idle chitchat.  That's not the behaviour of a man keen to get where he's going.'

'Oh, I am keen,' I said.  'Just not in a hurry.'

'Where are you going?'

'To visit a friend who's been assigned to a diplomatic post in Camir.  I am to meet the Rum, talk to him about matters of state.'

'So should I feel honoured,' she said, stretching in her seat, 'that a man who associates with kings in his professional capacity chooses to spend time with me in a personal one?'

I reached for a pepper myself and blew on it to cool it.  It dripped translucent oil into the bowl.

I said, 'I don't believe you feel that way for a minute.  Kings are just men, after all.  Fellows like the sailors at the bar.  Just better dressed.'

She bit into her pepper and giggled as green juice dribbled down her chin.  'Hopefully he'll be a better singer than those sailors at the bar.'

'Oh, I don't know.  They aren't so bad.'

Her eyes sparkled.  'Why don't you sing with them?  I bet you have a great voice.'

'I don't sing.'

'You could!'  She turned, waved to the sailors and called out in Rhigan, 'Hey, gentlemen!  This man here wants to sing with you!  Play him a tune!'

The sailors laughed and one of them pulled out a tin whistle.  He picked out a cheery tune and they broke into an eye-watering harmony, gesturing to me to sing along.  Instead, I bit into the pepper, intending to claim that my mouth was full.  This was a mistake.

The one pepper in a batch was hot, they said, but in truth even the hot ones could be manageable and a man could go many batches without even encountering one.  This time, I had picked one hot enough to sear my soul.  It slipped down my throat before I could stop it, causing me to cough and then to inhale deeply, trying to get cool air into my mouth.

'He's found a hot one!'  'Ondians shouldn't be trusted with real food, see what it does to them!'  'The danxo, quickly!'

After a delay I can only put down to heat-induced panic, I found the danxo and downed it in one.  It lessened, but not ended, the pain.  Quickly, Taly passed me her glass too and I duly drank that one as well.  All the time, she was doubled over with laughter, and when the inferno within me was quelled, I started to laugh too.

More peppers followed, and then hot zur soup with croutons, and much, much more danxo.  Needless to say, I did get involved in the sailing ditties that followed, and Taly duly congratulated me on my acapella.  'See?  I told you you would be excellent!'

So it was that with hazy, cloudy heads, we stumbled onto makeshift seats on the wharfside, and talked for hours more.  The good people of Vairin laughed and danced and sang around us as the evening progressed.  I think I had an innocent arm around Taly's shoulders when the lanterns in the bars were lowered and the night sky was suddenly pinpricked with white and blue lights.  Each colourful explosion was punctuated with a bang that sounded like the firing of a distant cannon, and behind us, the crowd murmured appreciatively.  Taly hugged her father as he rested in his ignoble cloth casing, and we smiled together in acknowledgement that we had given him a very appropriate send-off after all.

Go to Chapter 7 > > >

My Travels Through Imaginary Lands, Pt 5.

By mid-morning, the residents of Pitchek had roused themselves from their collective hangover and they all seemed to be milling aimlessly around the town while I waited at the flagpole for a carriage to take me east.  With the holiday weekend in full swing, the soldiers from yesterday's parade were already out in force, drinking openly in the square, and those same bordellos I'd been warned off before had their doors open and bead curtains pulled discreetly across the entrances.  The beads clicked merrily with the warm breeze.

Yesterday, in the dusk, I'd evidently missed the sapphire-and-alabaster bunting that had been strung across the streets and between the houses.  Some had inevitably fallen casualty to excessive frivolity and the roped triangles of cloth tied themselves into despairing knots that drooped in the dust.  Those that remained added much-needed threads of colour to the sandy visage of the town.

Unlike the peasant carts I'd already seen, the passenger carriages were far grander affairs.  Rose-coloured Vaariewood panels stretched across wide iron cages the same shape as the flaxseed pumpkins that they brought across the western border and crushed here for lamp oil.  The vertical boiler at the centre fed two twin-cylinder engines, each of which powered a pair of wheels via chain and sprocket mechanisms.  The front wheels turned about a centre that lay on the extended line of the back axle, allowing for a wide, safe turning circle and a top speed reputed to be in excess of twenty miles an hour.  Lower frictional resistance meant that the Ondian steam trains could travel far more quickly; however, they were of course restricted to their tracks.  Personal vehicles were always regarded suspiciously in Ondia, where any deviation from collective commitment to societal development was seen as vulgar and pretentious.

 

There was an evident degree of confusion in the square around which carriage was to go where; while my own countrymen would have had a rigid timetable and been tutting as they checked the seconds off on their pocket watches, here there was a delicious sense of anarchy.  The drivers called destinations out to one another, and there followed joyous negotiations and loud appeals to the crowd for customers.

I had been lingering around the fringes of the crowd for some time, when one saw me and pointed.  'You!  Ondian!  You go home?  Hamrh, or further south?'

'No,' I said.  'I'm looking to go north.  I want to soak up some sun.'

There were a few laughs and a sense of general agreement.  Out here on the plains, they probably saw hot sun most of the summer long, but there was precious little time to sit and enjoy it.  Pitchek was a worker's town.

I'd expected the coachman to move onto someone else, but he stayed with an eye on me, clearly having me pegged as someone here with a long journey in mind.  'Vairin, then,' he said.

Vairin fitted the bill; it was on the coast, but it was a proper resort town rather than one of the working ports further south.  If I chose, from Vairin I could catch a ferry around the tip of the continent, travelling around the spurs of land that formed the back legs of the Nebran Barking Dog (looking south to north, Ondia was the tail.)  If I left now, I would be there early afternoon and would have the chance to wander.  I could soak up some of the sea air and salty atmosphere that I was missing in this desolate chalky outpost.

The coachman beckoned me on, lifting my bag over the heads of the crowd members who turned in curiosity at the sight of my beard and dark creased suit.  The inside of the coach was pleasantly cool, though it would soon became apparent that the boiler in the centre of the carriage hissed incessantly throughout the journey, meaning one had to shout to make oneself heard.

I was the first passenger to board for Vairin, and I was joined in due course by two elderly tourists from somewhere to the south-west who had managed to get themselves lost looking for the coast, a pair of dark-eyed soldiers who looked like they wished they were anywhere else, and last but definitely not least, a beautiful young Ondian woman with shapely legs inside leather trousers and a fur-lined cloak clasped at the neck over a plain, Merin-cotton blouse.  She caught my eye as I caught hers and coolly held my gaze; so as she would have immediately recognised my nationality from my beard, so I could tell hers from her violet eyes and dreadlocks.

'Good morning,' I said, smiling.

She nodded back to me and returned the smile.  I looked around for her baggage and at first saw nothing.  Only at second glance did I see a vacuum-sealed flatpack bag pressed into the space behind her.  As if reading my mind, she reached back and produced a smooth glass box, the perfect size to hold between two small hands.  It was perfectly see-through, and I noticed that the inside of the box was moulded into a shape not unlike that of a spiralling, curved bottle.  At the very bottom of the mould lay a small pile of dust, no more than an inch deep.

It was an Ondian funeral box.  'Oh.  I'm very sorry for your loss,' I said automatically.

'Thank you,' she said, her lips thin and sallow.  Beyond that point, I expected her to say no more to me, and I wouldn't have presumed to have forced further conversation upon her, particularly at a time of grief.  But quite unexpectedly, it was she who seemed to have the desire to break the silence.

'Sir,' she said, and it was the kind of sir that implied at best jokey, token respect, 'you'll forgive me, but I'm sure I've seen your face before somewhere.'

I shook my head.  'That seems unlikely.  I'm no-one particularly special.  Just a simple traveller, making my way to the coast.'

'Oh, of course...as you say.  I'm sure I must be mistaken.'  She scratched a spot on her cheek with a single fingertip, and once again, I expected conversation to end there, but she persisted.  'Still, your face really does look familiar.  It's the shape of your nose.  Wide.  Handsome.'

Immediately, she looked as though she regretted the last word and bowed her head.  I was more than a little nonplussed, not least because she was so stunning in her own right.  The soldiers glanced at me and then sulked quietly to one another, perhaps jealous that she hadn't made conversation with them instead.

More to end the lengthening sense of awkwardness than because I wished to know, I pointed to the box that she clung to tightly.  'Is it a friend, or relative?'

'My father,' she said, by way of explanation.

'His box looks quite amazing,' I said.  'The wave in the glass shows impeccable craftsmanship.  He must have been a man of some importance.'

'Hernan Sera-Stahl,' she said.  'He was a linguistic anthropologist, a man of some repute.  Perhaps you've heard of him?'

Hearing the name was a tremendous shock to me.  Not only had I heard of Sera-Stahl, I had worked with him on a number of projects, the latest of which had been a study of dying languages in central and western Nebra. He was - had been - a quiet, cultured man, fond of sports, the scented inhalant known as cerba, and cruorweed tobacco, which he had smoked relentlessly by the pipeful.

'I'm...greatly surprised.  In fact, quite shocked.  I'm sorry.  I knew your father well.  We worked together at the ministry some years ago.'  The girl looked momentarily startled, and raised a hand to me.  I had the realisation at the exact same moment.  'Of course, that would make you Taly...Taly Sera-Stahl.  We only met briefly.  At the time, you were still at the academy in Hechda.'

'I've been finished there for eighteen months now.'

'Yes, and your father had written to me to tell me that you qualified with distinction.  One of the top five in your field in the country, he said.'

She was embarrassed now, but smiled again despite herself.  'Cultural history isn't a popular subject back in Ondia.  A lot of people tend to be fairly...introspective in their inclination.'  I could tell she'd chosen her words carefully so as not to risk even the smallest chance of offending me.  For what it was worth, I couldn't have agreed with her more.  Many Ondians had a strong cultural appreciation for their military history without actually being able to tell you anything about it.  In these fearful, feverish times, this was a useful political crutch for the ministry.

'Like father, like daughter.  He was incredibly proud of you.'  The words flowed automatically and they were no less true for that, though I was still startled that my old colleague had died so recently and no-one else had thought fit to tell me.

Taly looked at me for a moment, opened her mouth as if to respond and then shut it again without doing so.  She seemed to think deeply on a matter for a second or two, as though unsure if she was asking an appropriate question, before taking the chance and doing it anyway.

'You'll forgive me - this is terribly presumptuous - but my father has had no ceremony yet to mark his passing, and as an old colleague of his, would you perhaps be interested in celebrating his life here in Rhigo?  Of course, there'll be a formal ceremony when I return him to Kassium, but he identified strongly with the continental way of life, and I can't help thinking that a Rhigan celebration might be more appropriate for him.'

She was absolutely right.  While he might have seemed typically Ondian in the stuffy style of his dress and the relentlessly formal manner of his professional bearing, the Herman Sera-Stahl that I remembered was a tenacious man, with a keen, jocular wit.  Having already gone through the process of being freeze-dried, crushed and placed in the traditional glass container, I saw no joy in a final ceremony in the cold, gray halls of his alma mater.

'I would be delighted,' I said.  At that moment, the carriage hissed like a sea-kettle and sprang into life.

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My Travels Through Imaginary Lands, Pt 4.

The hazy pink sun was already sinking below the horizon on the following day by the time I reached the town of Pitchek.  I was now comfortably in the Rhigan heartlands, a bronze-hued grain hub that fed millions across Nebra.  For hundreds of years, this had been a garrison town, high on a hill above miles of farmland, and when I arrived today, Rhigan troops were parading through the marketplace.  The strident sound of threadbugles could be heard from some distance away.

Such had been Ondian might over the centuries that the Rhigan military had never posed a serious existential threat.  However, the ceaseless toil in the chaff fields meant that the peasantry here tended to breed for sturdiness, and the commander of the unit on show in the sand-cobbled square accentuated his already stern appearance with a moustache that was possibly more bushy than any other I had ever seen.  From a certain angle, one could believe that a fat vole from the lowlands had attached itself to his face and was clinging there now, waiting for him to retire for dinner where it could steal scraps from his plate.

I had never seriously considered a military career myself, though I had completed the two years of military service that were still compulsory in Ondia.  I had spent the vast majority of that in a Gresian shoreline barracks in the light south-west, where even the winters were warm and the only form of excitement we had was stealing punts at the local boathouse and trying to pitch enough water into those steered by our colleagues to sink them.  Even though my time in infantry had been brief and largely dishonourable, there was still something about a well-appointed parade that impressed me.  I settled in under a low arch and rested there as I watched.

As you might expect, given the largely khaki palette of their environment, Rhigan soldiers' fatigues tended towards tan-coloured, though given the dusty conditions, there was a surprising shine to the rows of heavy boots that clumped across the square.  They were orderly and well-disciplined, a quality often ascribed to the Rhigan disdain for showiness and individual flair.  The aforementioned commander wore a quilted jacket with tiny epaulettes that one might charitably have called olive-green, though honestly it could have just been that the dust thrown up by hours of parading to and fro obscured one's vision somewhat.  The length of the display did nothing to dent the vigour of the commander or the resolve of his unit.  The crowd was sizable given the population of the town, and entirely appreciative of their conscripts' efforts.

When the display was finished and the military men had returned in the direction of their billets, the residents of Pitchek filled the space themselves and got on with their day.  I was, of course, too late for the market, but I was hopeful of seeing it tomorrow and sampling some of the hearty Rhigan fare.  In addition to the food, I was keen to see what else they would have to offer.  Clothes here would be less than glamorous, but they would easily be able to withstand the rigours of the road.  Furthermore, I was keen on sampling both the local tobacco and alcohol, both of which being yardsticks by which I measured a town and its populace. 

Treading the margins of the gravelly plaza, I came immediately to the attentions of some the market's wizened patriarchs, who had clearly been enjoying the hospitality of the taverna since early in the day.  They hooted at me from beneath stark whitened pates and rugose caps, gesturing to me and throwing barbless insults in an attempt to goad me into joining their party.

'Hey, Ropebeard!  Will you drink a tin, Ropebeard?  We could find you a wife here.  Or maybe we should tie you by your chin to the flagpole!'

Little did they know that I am nerveless in the face of provocation, and I gave them only my best smile and a brief wave to let them know that I was party to their scheming.

Nonetheless, refreshment was required, and it was duly procured.  Ducking inside another of the dark, low-ceilinged tavernas that seemed to make up this entire side of the square, I instructed the barman to bring me his recommendations from the menu.  I was duly served salt-tack biscuits (more of a luxury than the name suggests) and deep-fried spear peppers, which were mostly tame but occasionally recipients of a fiery heat that could shock the unwary.  They have a spirit here, a thick white concoction called danxo which is said to be one of the reasons Rhigans enjoy long life.  I ordered one and sipped at it, and noted a vague, uninspiring taste of mint.  Thankfully, the cooling edge completely disarmed any hidden savagery in the peppers.

Upon inquiring with the barkeep, I was disquieted to find that there would be no market tomorrow, as the whole weekend was a national holiday.  Furthermore, as a result of this, many boarding houses would already be filled by travellers.  I was unlikely to find any accommodation now, he said, unless I was willing to rub shoulders with the soldiers in the redlit bordellos.  The face he pulled that accompanied these words was not the greatest advert for their services.

I am not averse to roughing it when necessary; indeed, I have met many fun and colourful people in supposedly reduced circumstances, only to be reminded that circumstances tend to be what you make of them.  There was a further problem though, one that I saw no reason to share with the imperious barman, but which was an issue for me regardless.

It was this.  Barely had I left the chilly coast some three days ago, but I was already missing the sea air.  Here, mid-country, the weather was tepidly warm, despite this not being the season for such temperatures.  So much space was there across central Rhigo and so few landmarks of note that even the weather saw little need to hang around here, leaving in its stead a kind of languorous lull.  Perhaps, after all, a detour was in order.

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My Travels Through Imaginary Lands, Pt 3.

I had left the misty docklands and the sandstone steps of Hamrh behind some hours before, and the land turned into a valley only a short way outside the city.  The vegetation was sparse and brown, with gorse hinterlands stretching away into a vague, undulating horizon.  Several carts passed me by on their way to the fields, laden down with the curious thistle crop of the area, which looks fierce to the touch but releases a sweet nectar when pressed between heavy surfaces.  I found out later that it is usually added to teas, or baked in trays to produce a kind of sweet bread.

The path beneath my feet was broken and hosted many stones large enough to turn an ankle.  This was not a problem for the carts, which were of typically sturdy construction and pulled by yoka, a type of ox with winding curved horns that folded in upon themselves to produce wide protrusions above their ears.  To my eye, these agglomerations looked like massive clenched fists.  If they went ungelded, the yoka males would spend all summer butting heads cheerfully together over females.  These ones were as docile as you can imagine, and their passive grunting as they passed by could be taken for a friendly greeting - or at least, a more friendly greeting than I was going to get from the farmers atop the carts themselves.

Northwest was the goal, in virtually a straight line for some two hundred miles.  Nebra is split in two at its heart by the fearsome Kolkas mountain range.  It is said that many of the peaks touch the very skies themselves, and while I cannot confirm that with certainty, I had trekked up several of the tallest in my younger days and they present a test of skill and endurance to sate any man.  In the heart of a Kassium winter, when the temperature drops precipitously and the snow begins to fall, I am immediately transported back to those glorious days and the heady sense of my own indomitability.

While I am still a young man in so many respects (No wife! No children! Limitless exhilarating potential for society scandal!) my days of mountain climbing are, I fear, behind me.  If I headed northwest as planned, I would reach a pass between the haphazard Vaarine lakes and Camir's easternmost border, where as if burned by the people of that fine nation's pride, the mountains die away in just a few short miles.

There are several optional detours I can take from the relentless northwestern trek.  Sheleb is a region directly to the west which is largely unremarkable except for their spring festival, when the young women dress in white robes and fight one another with cudgels for the right to be named their village's sankelveld, or spice-witch.  Wede lies at the eastern base of the Kolkas and is another of those cities from my youth where I was able to indulge in all of the traditional follies that young men can imagine and still others that they cannot have hoped to comprehend in advance thereof.  Wede has perhaps seen better days, but it is the place where I first fell in love and hence it is a city that still appeals to me, even for purely nostalgic reasons.

In addition to these colourful locations, I had not forgotten Ruth, who I had met on the train to Kassium before my adventure began.  She lived far to the north, past Rhigo's ancient ring of sea fortresses, beyond a massive harvest region known as the Sholl of Grains.  I am not a man to take such a warm invitation lightly, and I had no doubt of its sincerity; still, she would be with her husband for at least a while, and to visit would take me massively out of my way.  Still, I didn't feel it would necessarily be against the spirit of my journey to double back on myself, spend a day on the coast and then catch a Y-train north.  I would see where my whims took me.

And what, you might ask, of Nebra's verdant south-western plains, where Wilders still run free?  What of Tarnet and Crab Island, home to some of the finest gemcrafters and seafood dishes in the world?  What of the gleaming Milk Sea, where one can hang their head over the side of their vessel and drink their fill?  Of course, these are places too far away for me to visit ahead of Camir; still, I have seen them all, and I can (and will) tell you stories of them at more opportune times.

 

As I plotted my itinerary and wrote this section in my travel diary, I was sitting in a small hut at the centre of a Rhigan village.  I have touched before on Rhigan hospitality, which is a curious mixture of warmth and formality represented by the guest huts at the heart of each of their settlements.  It had been made available to me freely with a bare minimum of fuss, and before I bedded down for the night, one of the village elders bought me some dried zur flesh and yoka dung so I could build a fire.  I was well acquainted with rural Rhigan customs, which dictated that no-one should eat alone lest they choke on their fare.  Still, this old woman had an intense, challenging stare, and she availed me of it in utter silence throughout the length of my repast.

When I was done, I nodded to her, offered mumbled thanks and she immediately took the remains of my meal away with her.  It would be the last time I saw her.

The hut was perfectly circular.  Three platforms were stacked against the walls, and I took one of those now as my bed for the night.  I had a blanket in my own pack but the villagers had offered me one as well.  It was a heavy weave and scratchy as sackcloth, but I would be glad of it if the temperature dropped.  Here, by the light of my dung fire, I pressed my lead to the velveteen pages of my diary and planned my nightly dreams.

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My Travels Through Imaginary Lands, Pt 2.

Two days later, I stepped off the ferry in Hamrh, second city of Rhigo and mainland Nebra's most eastern port.  Ports all over the world are no different from one another; fractious, busy places, and Hamrh was busier than most.  The dock area was split in two, with the southern half reserved for passengers and the northern half dedicated to countless small fishing boats that bobbed easily on the silver waves.  The fishermen themselves were grouped together, blowing on their hands and laughing readily in the early morning chill.  Their work for the day was already done - tables of wriggling daggerfish were laid out on the quay, and the puffball-sized waterskaters that the locals called 'zur' were being carved up by expert hands and salted for transport inland.


Above them, tethered to stone posts on the dock with ropes thicker than an arm, the waveballoons swept from side to side with the whims of the breeze.  Earlier, they would have been shining their spotlights onto the inky sea, searching for the schools of fish and elusive zur that made the port such a hub of enterprise.

It was, in short, a scene of some incredible industry, and the workers added to the scene themselves.  Those fishermen I have already mentioned wore tough woollen cloaks over their broad shoulders, loose shirts and undershirts in layers, and heavy leather trousers tucked into their boots.  The dockworkers, almost exclusively women, tied their long hair back with dark scarves and wore shawls over dresses and trousers.  The swiftness and exactitude of their movements as they sliced, gutted and prepared is surely unmatched anywhere else in the continent.

The scene was afforded an ethereal air by the billowing banks of mist that floated off the water, obscuring and then suddenly revealing row after row of pinched white faces, all focused intently on the job at hand.  The sea mist became no less sinister for knowing that somewhere out beyond it, pods of Ondian gunships lay in wait for any force that would attempt to cross with invasion in mind.

Any man awake at the crack of dawn with a long walk before him will have just one thing on his mind - breakfast.  Ducking the crowds and heading into the streets, it wasn't long before my nose guided me down sandstone steps to a canteen where the narrow yellow doors had just opened.

A blubbery, shirtless man seemingly with no body hair whatsoever waddled through before me, easing a stew pot that really should have needed two men to carry.  When he saw me standing there, he greeted me with a nod of his head.

'Good morning,' I said.

Having manouevred the pot into an empty corner, he turned to me and mimed pulling at a non-existent beard.  'Ondian?'

I smiled.  It was the same everywhere.  Ondian beards, oiled, plaited, braided, often worn down as far as the wearer's knees, were a telltale sign of one's origin.  Here, I was a single Ondian face among many, and though there were fairer options for tourism further up the coast, Hamrh offered the most convenient gateway to those looking to head west. 

The blubbery man was evidently the owner of the establishment and he pointed to two tall chairs at the bar.  I took the nearest and sat my small canvas bag beneath me, leaving the one next to me as an option for others who might wish to sit at the bar.  Before me, rough wooden shelves laden with bottles bedecked the crumbling brick facade.  Beneath them, two stew pots that made their cousin from earlier seem small bubbled and frothed with volcanic intensity.

I was offered a choice.  'Which you want?'

My poor overworked nose failed me in a most uncharacteristic manner.

'Whichever doesn't have fish in it,' I replied.  'I can't stomach them so early in the day.'

The blubbery man grinned and ladled out a bowl from the rightmost of the two pots.  True to my request, the fatty red contents had some form of meat, a starchy root to give it body and strawcumbers, cut into rough slices.  It was delicious, and breathing in the steam did wonders for my constitution.

Other customers had filed in behind me while I was eating, but no-one took the seat next to me.  Rhigans regarded Ondians as being rather officious, unwelcoming types, a throwback to several hundred years in the past when much of eastern Nebra had been subject to Ondian rule.  The capital of the empire in those days, Esteryn, was now just ruins.  Modern Ondians held little affection for it, given that it had been closer to Camir than the peninsula we now called home, but for those with little historical knowledge, there was still a faint cultural call, a reminder within the bones that we had once been part of something much greater than ourselves.

The barkeep busied himself wiping glasses with the corner of an apron that was probably dirtier than the glasses.  When he saw me looking at him, he grunted.  'Holiday?'

'I suppose,' I said, tapping the spoon thoughtfully on the edge of the bowl.  'Visiting a friend, really.  But taking a long route.  I have lots of time.'

He nodded.  'You take the Y-train?'

'No.  I'm going to walk, and see where my feet take me.'

I could tell he thought I was mad.  Still, the Y-trains moved no faster than walking, and I wasn't about to fight someone for the chance to hang off the side and take the weight off my feet.

I finished the bowl with relish, and left a sizable tip.  The barkeep's eyes rested just a little too long on the coins as they jingled onto the bar.  I scooped up my bag and was already halfway out of the door when he called me.

'Hey.'

I turned around and he motioned above my head to a sign in Rhigan on the lintel.  'Before you go, touch it.  Is lucky.'

I could speak Rhigan fluently.  The sign read, 'Our true friends never really leave us.'

'True, that,' I said, tapping it with my fingertips and waving before closing the door.

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My Travels Through Imaginary Lands, Pt 1.

It was on the train to Kassium, in one of the open-topped tourist cars that I frequent when heading to the capital, that the pigeon found me. It alighted on the polished brass bar beside the table and turned a beady eye side-on, the better to judge my lack of providence.

I checked with the man sitting opposite, thinking that maybe the bird was intended for him, but he merely shook his head and disappeared beneath his newspaper. My interest suitably piqued, I took the tiny missive from my winged Hermes and began to read.

'Dearest Patrick,

It has been such a long time since I heard from you that I felt compelled to send you a missive. My sister sends news of your success in convincing the cabinet of the need for further negotiations in Nebra. I must congratulate you for your efforts, though surely, these are difficult times.

I have news of my own to share, and hopefully it will lift your spirits. Upon my arrival in the west, I was able to make acquaintance with several of my father's oldest friends, and thanks at least in part to their efforts, I have been inducted into the Diplomatic Corps. Naturally, this means I might be able to apply some of my own efforts to avoiding war. In my first posting, I have been aligned with the Rum of Camir.

It is for this reason that I am writing to you now. A diplomatic appointment in Camir will be an important step in securing political and economic cooperation. Your presence at my inauguration some ninety days hence would do much to give my appointment credibility, not to mention how much personal pleasure I would get from seeing your face again.

Yours, with affection

Sarielle.'

I folded the note, smiled, unfolded it, read it again and smiled some more. Its role performed, the pigeon vanished once more into azure skies, and the train skidded onward through the rose-tinted countryside, the great river Onn glistening in the distance. I breathed the scented air, feeling quite content.

'Excuse me,' a fair-haired woman sitting close to me asked. 'But are you Ondian?'

I smiled at her. 'Does my beard give it away?'

She may have blushed, though equally it could have been a reflected tint from the landscape. 'Well, yes, as a matter of fact. Many of the Nebran men have beards but not too many braid them like you.'

I was especially proud of those braids. The woman's name was Ruth, and she was on her first visit to Kassium. Plenty of tourists took the long road route to the south, joining the train only when they got onto Ondian soil. Ruth, being the wife of a businessman and a woman of some means, had taken the sea route via the port at Silvouth.

'So what you do?' she asked.

'I'm basically a social scientist, though honestly it's a title that may be a little grand for what I really do. I work for the Diplomatic Corps – measuring migration patterns in and out of the country, studying cohesion between communities. It's quite interesting work.'

'It sounds it. But tell me, if this is your own land, why travel in the tourist carriages?'

'Oh, I find the Dirges quite objectionable. I would rather meet people than be secured in a box for the duration of the journey.' The Dirges were the dark, loud commuter carriages, always found at the front of Ondian trains. They were dirt-cheap, unlike the outdoor ones, but they offered some protection from the elements, given the famously unpredictable local climate.

Ruth told me all about her own work, mostly with non-profits, and shared some peaches that she'd bought with her from the continent. The white flesh was tart, but pleasing on the tongue.

I passed the time in pleasant conversation with Ruth, who was on her way to her husband's side. 'Taking the chance', she said, 'to see Kassium while I can.' Behind me, the dianthan-hued countryside gave way to bushes of vellum, and then to grey soil as we approached the city.

'So what's your business in Kassium?' she asked.

'I was going to meet with some ministers,' I replied. 'But honestly, I think that I've told them everything they need to know. They can do some of the legwork themselves from here. Obviously, there's a lot of tension in Nebra just now. But you'll know that people there are keeping their heads down, quietly getting on with things. I've been invited to an event in Camir. It's been nearly a year since I travelled to the continent. I'm keen to revisit a few of the places I love.'

My plan was made then and there. I would take ninety days away from my job – quite possible in a field which was both well-paid and notoriously slow – and go to visit Sarielle in Camir. Once there, I would request an audience with the Rum and assist the new diplomat with the instigation of a dialogue which would facilitate trade and if necessary, some measure of military support, though the ministry were keen that as many resources as possible should be saved for defence of the narrow strait between Ondia and the mainland.

I could probably have made the journey across the continent by train in three days, but my wandering mind was tapping at the back of my head, and I decided instead to travel the whole distance between Hamhr and Uyusfan, the Camiran capital, on foot. It would be a journey of some four hundred miles, but over ninety days, it would be quite manageable. I would also have the chance to visit some of the most beautiful cities in Nebra along the way.

Ruth eventually got off the train before the Heartlands began, two stops before the Iron Gates. We parted with warm words, and I received an invitation that I should visit and stay at her house when I went through her country on the way west. Before she left, she said, 'May I...just?' Before I could respond, she had reached out with a hand and was stroking my beard. 'I should get my husband to grow one, but I doubt he would braid it.'

I watched her walk away with no small bemusement. She had only a small tartan travelling bag with a long handle, which ran on squeaky metal wheels. In seconds, she was lost in the crowd, though the squeak of the wheels persisted a few seconds longer. Before me on the platform, there was an old man selling cotton-boar trotters. The threads of his shirt were so worn that they were literally coming apart at the seams. Unperturbed, he weaved through the throng, gurning hopefully at anyone who paused. Not many did.

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