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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