Journal Entry
Tenth day on Hystzos
I am finally on land again, and—furnished with paper and a quill pen that is spongy rather than hollow—may resume this journal. It is urgent that I put down what I learned between finding a ship in Pakobsid and arriving here in the Sarmese capital, not only because I wish to record the events while they are still fresh in my mind, but because it is prudent to review them one more time before my unexpected meeting with the Vizierate of Sarmasid.
Having the use of my ambushers’ two mounts, I was passing villages and even two sizable towns as my first day of travel came to an end. And pass them I did; I had no way of knowing if the horses, or my newly salvaged gear, was identified either by subtle physical marks or some wyrdcrafted tag. Until I was farther from the site of the attack, and until I had greater facility in the local language, I preferred the known risks of sleeping in one of the now-ubiquitous meadows or orchards. Furthermore, I wanted solitude when I made a detailed assessment of the salvage; it is not wise to undertake such a task where eyes at peepholes might see and wonder at unusual and still-bloodstained gear.
As I spread the salvage out on the dusty margin of a long-neglected vineyard, I was struck by the same sad realization that had first struck me in the wake of another, more costly, ambush that my friends and I repelled on the frontier of Kar Krathau. The rumors of riches lost in the ruins of long-dead civilizations or in the lairs of great beasts are not only chimerical but ironic: such riches are usually realized by vanquishing other self-seeking fortune-hunters.
The kit spread out before me certainly supported that sad observation. There were many philters and powders and vials. I suspected some were mundane compounds, others the creation of alchemists, or the local equivalent. The weapons—shortswords and daggers—were of respectable quality and all coated with a clinging, viscous paste: no doubt poisons to kill or incapacitate. Oddly, they had not possessed any armor, but unless I am much mistaken, their traveling cloaks have been treated by a compound that resists flame.
They had coins of various kinds and alloys (what I would give for a proofing kit!), few of which bore any resemblance to some of the ones I’d found in the hilltop ruins. However, they each had well-cut gems, all with lacquer characters on one facet; an appraisal, perhaps? They also possessed several tomes, many papers, and even a map, albeit for a location of which I had no knowledge; profitless in the present, but perhaps of great value later. Of immediate use was their basic kit: well-made sleeping rolls, ample dry rations, and an unusually compact compass.
By the time I had gone through the lot of it, there was little I was determined to keep from the hilltop ruin, other than the armor and the mantic handle. The excess I decided to sell or trade, as circumstances and opportunities allowed.
The next day’s travel was unique in my short experience of Hystzos; it was blissfully uneventful. The skies were hazy and the air was wet and warm, but the road was dry and the palfrey was slightly calmer. Much of the grass—or what passed for it—had patches that the horses seemed keen to graze in. I trusted that, being native to the place, they knew far better than I which were safe. But just in case some of the ground cover was the local equivalent of sour grass, I did not allow them to eat much or for very long in any one place and remained alert for signs of colic or sourgut.
But none arose and as the sun began its descent, I caught sight of Pakobsid—or so I conjectured, given the tan and gilt domes that peeped over its smooth, thick walls and the amber-gold glitter of the sun on the sea beyond them.
As I approached, I was glad to see many of the region’s typical mud-brick buildings cluttering the approaches to the city’s various gates, albeit always half a bow shot from the walls. Until I learned—either through observation or conversation—a bit more about the tolls, taxes, and prices inside the city, it was always more economical to remain outside, where lodging was usually less dear. Or, failing that, fields provided cover for a few hours’ sleep.
From Aleasha’s remarks on Sarma, I was not surprised to discover that Pakobsid’s most noticeable, and arresting, features were the stark distinctions of wealth and the ill treatment of persons beneath one’s own station. It brought to mind some of the harshest caste-based realms I had encountered on Arrdanc. However, here there were no theological or even inherited bases for the obvious distinctions. The only factor that determined one’s social status was affluence—or the appearance of it.
Leading both horses through the cramped streets, the sights and smells of unwashed and abject poverty rose along with the dust. From the distance, the mudbrick structures had appeared to be predominant, but once among them, I discovered that margins separating them were often packed tight with crudely built houses and shacks. Even tents became permanent features, some sporting waist-high walls built from loose stones and fragments of adobe. In some cases, these were also the stalls of the poorest class of merchants, who were beginning to store their wares and dismantle their tables: usually just discarded doors thrown across the tops of empty crates and barrels. Yet it was in the midst of this unpromising jumble that I came across my first true treasure: a door through which I was able to enter into the language and history of Sarma.
Its physical manifestation was a wide pair of folding doors. They took up almost the entire front of a shop that had begun as a narrow wooden house, one side of which now leaned against a moneychanger’s squat adobe establishment. The doors were folded back to display an intriguing mélange of odds, ends, and artifacts which burgeoned out over their threshold and spread down to the very edge of the parched lane. I could not discern what its trade might be and so ventured within.
There I discovered a fingerless grandfather, moving various objects from one perfectly good place to another, carrying them between his seamed and leathery palms. His first response to my entry was brief annoyance; it reminded me of the reaction of the Archive Recondite’s head facilitator whenever I had the temerity to ask a question.
But then the Sarmese grandfather threw a second glance my way, shrewd eyes reading my garb and gear as if it too were a book. His words of invitation were meaningless, but his hand-stumps communicated clearly; I was bidden to come fully within his shop. I did so, explaining and apologizing with my polyglot patois of local languages that I spoke no Sarmese.
His eyes widened—whether in surprise or aroused avarice, I could not tell—and he answered me in a similar mix, inviting me to examine his wares.
“Which are?” I asked.
His voice was injured; his eyes remained shrewd. “Why, antiquities, far traveler. All artifacts of great rarity and historic importance.”
I nodded, guessing that as many as one in ten might indeed warrant that description. The rest were a bit worse for wear, and would more accurately have been described as “junk.”
He surely noticed my assessment of his dubious wares—how could I conceal it?—but he was also canny enough to see where my eyes lingered: several objects that were given more space and which, by their style and means of manufacture, distinguished themselves not only from the other wares, but anything I had ever seen before.
He smiled, sat, and invited me to do the same. As he did, his look changed from a narrow and disdainful assessment of my penury to one of hunger for conversation with a visitor who not only had an eye for true antiquities but who hailed from parts unknown.
In the course of his descriptions of the various items, he moved us from the initial combination of tongues to an increasing amount of Sarmese. But it was evident that he knew many more languages still. When I did not prove interested in any of his priceless objects, he seemed genuinely crestfallen, and indicated that he regretted being uncourteous, but he had to begin closing his shop. I smiled and passed him two silver coins across the tabletop. “For your trouble,” I said, “and to trouble you a little further.”
As I withdrew my arm, a pouch on my harness gapped—and his quick eyes caught on the torc which I had decided to store there. The antiquarian’s carefully casual inquiry to inspect it told me that my suspicion was indeed correct: “That is an interesting curio,” he almost drawled, nodding in the direction of the exposed end of the torc.
I shrugged.
His persistence told me that it was valuable indeed. “If you wish, I could examine it to determine if it possesses any value.”
Again I shrugged… but handed it over.
He took it a little too quickly, his fingerless palms surprisingly deft. He studied it closely, sniffing at it. I was left with the strong impression that he had seen its like before. “Interesting,” he admitted, laying it back on the table. “I might be persuaded to buy it as a native bauble.”
I smiled. “I am not selling it.”
His demeanor became less casual. “Perhaps you would be interested in knowing what I would pay for such a bauble.”
“Perhaps I would… if you stop calling it a ‘bauble.’” I allowed my smile to widen.
He stared, then smiled back—again, genuinely. It told me that, whatever else he might deem me, “fool” was no longer among the descriptors. He quoted me a very handsome sum.
I shook my head, and instead, pushed two more coins across the table toward him.
He looked at them and sighed. “I cannot persuade you?”
“That depends upon what you tell me about it.”
I watched as a mental abacus worked rapidly just behind his eyes, calculating the odds of misleading me just enough to get me to be willing to sell it for an even higher price. But something he saw in my own eyes made him sigh again. He palmed the two additional coins to his side of the table and commenced to explain that the torc was not exactly arcane, but it belonged to a very old, and now very rare, form of artifacture that required the skills of both an alchemist and a wyrdcrafter.
This particular torc was designed to assist the wearer in the learning of unfamiliar languages. An improbably lucky find, I thought for a moment, then realized that the man who had been in possession of it was clearly a traveler also, and very possibly one who needed to remain comparatively innocuous and capable of blending into new places.
My host did not fully understand how the torc worked, but it apparently did not confer understanding of a foreign language through wyrding. Rather, it accelerated normal learning by alerting the wearer to when their understanding of words were accurate or in error and could create mental impressions that suggested more correct understandings. He refrained from calling it a device, implying instead that it altered its behavior in response to each new wearer, becoming more effective the more frequently that person used it.
“Has it ever visited any harm upon its wearers?” I asked.
He shrugged. “If so, I have never heard of it.”
“Well,” I said, “then let us see if it works.” And despite my lighthearted tone, I had two great misgivings as I put it around my neck. Firstly, that what the Lady called my dragon-mind would make this object useless to me. And secondly, whether I would sense any deleterious effects in time to tear it off.
Happily, it worked and in just the way he’d foretold. He nodded, glad or at least gratified that I had not collapsed after placing it around my neck, but also sad; I could well imagine how much he might have been able to charge for such an artifact. I offered a small smile of commiseration and pushed one of the larger garnets across to him. “Again, for your troubles.” He stared at it, at me, smiled broadly enough to show that he still retained about half of his teeth, rose, and returned with tea, after which we chatted amiably for two hours.
On reflection, I suppose I should say that it was he who chatted—more animated than amiable—insofar as I interrupted him only to ask for increasingly subtle corrections to my rapidly growing mastery of Sarmese. For he was in his glory as he unwound the tale of his land’s strange and ill-starred history.
If there has ever been another realm so ruled and obsessed by coin and prestige, I have yet to hear of it. Sarma’s origins are obscured by the many tides of history that have washed through, and occasionally over, it, but when reached by Great Hsytzos’ expansion, it was a motley collection of city-states ruled by self-styled kings. After a few years of obedient groveling toward their new masters, they once again fell to fighting among themselves, which disrupted the commerce that made them marginally valuable as a province of the empire. Rather than sending an army, the autocrat of Great Hystzos sent a decree. It required that the Sarmese accept one of two alternatives. Either the petty kings would find a way to end their incessant internecine wars, or they would be stripped of their titles, lands, and very likely, their limbs. My host pointed out that the Hystzarchy did not make threats; it made promises, and was renowned, respected, and resented for always making good on those oaths.
That one decree accomplished what generations of bickering had not: a settlement that all parties could live with. The many petty kings became the Princes of Sarma, who nominated one of their number to be the King-Father (who later became more commonly known as the Father of Princes). His possessions were shielded within an inviolable trust and guaranteed handsome rents in perpetuity. In exchange, he and his family withdrew from the affairs of the nation with one crucial exception; he was not merely Sarma’s titular head, but became the foundation of the blood brotherhood of all the Princes by adopting them all as his sons. However, shortly after, this initially symbolic linkage was replaced by a tradition of ensuring universal consanguinity amongst the offspring of all the Princes—or at least the legitimate possibility of it.
More specifically, it became the duty of all King-Fathers and their sons to have conjugal relations with the First Wife of any Prince that was desirous of fathering a child in line for the succession of that Principality. A monthly assignation was arranged until the First Wife was announced to be with child, thereby making the actual parentage of the offspring uncertain. That uncertainty allowed the King-Father to legitimately claim progenitorship, which in turn conferred the legal imprimatur for that child to be an inheritor of the Prince in question. Trade flourished, as did scheming and mercenary opportunism. As one mordant moralist favored by my host had written, “Greed became Sarma’s only civic virtue.”
The depredations of the Annihilators brought disarray and confusion to the agreements, partnerships, and even bloodlines that had grown as thick and entangled as a nest of adders. By the time that blood-tide receded, the intricate arabesque of relationships upon which Sarma was founded had been riddled by fire, disease, death, and the destruction of most of its immense repositories of records, deeds, and contracts. Loud claims and counterclaims to Principalities and the bloodline of the King-Father filled the streets of Sarmasid even before it had finished burning.
Ultimately, a group of families—including many of the most duplicitous and ruthless—came to dominate the coastal trading cities that lined the Straight Sea. They quickly put a new King-Father on the Quartz Divan, who was chosen not only for the comparatively reliable pedigree of his claim to it, but also his family’s extreme depletion. And so Sarma’s new aristocrats—the self-styled Merchant Princes—got exactly the leader they wanted: one so weak that he was little more than a figurehead embodiment of what was now called Old Sarma.
The antiquarian smirked sadly as he congratulated those architects of modern Sarma on their cunning and shrewd decision to appeal to tradition, but averred that its success also dissolved whatever modest national spirit had existed beforehand. He held up his hand as if it still possessed an index finger to raise in didactic remonstrance. “Base meretricious opportunism,” he pronounced, “has become the defining trait of Sarma. Those who pursue wealth and position no longer bother to wrap themselves and their deeds in appeals to strengthening the nation; they announce their ambitions without excuse or apology.”
The sun had almost sunk beneath the horizon as he concluded this declamation of his own country and, realizing the time, commenced to pepper me with questions. Did I have lodgings yet? Was I planning to take ship to Sarmasid after all? Had I considered the problem of doing so with my horses? And would I be amenable to showing him any other curios I might have picked up in my travels?
While he inspected my “curios” (which were certain to mysteriously transmogrify into “priceless antiquities” the moment they touched his shelves), he gave me valuable guidance on the concerns he had raised about my travel. He commended me to the services of a small caravansary just beyond Sarmasid’s docks yet still outside its walls. It was slightly more expensive, but in all probability, would be an excellent place to liquidate any of my excess goods and even trade away my horses. Also, since it served no small number of captains and pursers, it was likely to provide me with news of the best rates for taking ship to Sarma. And lastly, he felt that among other non-native speakers, my limited aptitude in Sarmese—which he charitably dubbed “promising”—meant I was less likely to become a target for the confidence men who roamed the docks and merchant’s quarter, looking to “assist” foreigners with the local bureaucracy and line their pockets in the process.
However, his voluble stream of advice ended abruptly when he came across the strange hide or shell fragments of armor and weapons that I had found in the hilltop ruins, and which had reminded me of similar Mihal’ji implements. “Where did you find these?” he breathed with a quaver in his voice. At first I thought it was from a surge of avarice, but by the time he’d finished, I’d discerned the actual cause: terror.
“Near the southern limit of the Godbarrows, east of Trawn.”
He folded their wrappings over them, averting his eyes as he did. “These are the remains of Annihilator artifacture. You must report this to the Princes in Sarmasid. And tell no one else—especially me!—how you came by them. I want no part of this.” He handed them back, even as he eyed them covetously. “I have enjoyed our discussion. It is rare to meet someone, especially of your age and origins, whose interest and learning makes them… well, interesting to one of my age.” His eyes crinkled in a painful smile. “But now, you must go. Quickly. Please.”
I did not ask any questions about the Annihilators until I was safely off the boat in Sarmasid, a city of such scope and grandeur—and desperate poverty—that by comparison, it made Pakobsid seem a sleepy little town.
Domes of many shapes, colors, and metallic finishes towered bright and high over the broad urban skirts that spread out from the steeply sloped walls of its center: the restricted precincts known as the Princely City. The Merchant’s District ringed that aristocratic core of gold leaf and filigree with spired palaces and broad, palm-lined avenues, all of which announced that this was where the commercial magnates dwelled. The Trade Quarter was wedged between its walls and those which comprised Sarmasid’s defenses. It was a place of impressive stone buildings and cobbled streets, where elephants and purpose-bred supragants (called gigasenes) bore passengers and dragged loads to and fro, albeit much more slowly than the bustling tempo of commerce through which they moved. As the outermost of Sarmasid’s concentrically-walled sub-cities, it fronted on an immense harbor which was in turn shielded from foul weather by serried ranks of cays which trailed from a long spit of land like ellipses.
Beyond its outer defenses, Sarmasid underwent abrupt changes. A higher, wall-hugging arc of stone and mud-brick buildings defined the reasonably prosperous Peddler’s Crescent, its narrow streets dotted with cisterns and spanned by brightly-colored awnings: poor refuges from the heat and sun compared to cooling effects of the walled districts’ many fountains.
But beyond the outer bulwark of the Crescent’s solid buildings, the streets narrowed and writhed outwards like the tightly clustered roots of a distempered swamp bush. There, Sarmasid became a trackless, chaotic tangle that began with houses and suqs, descended into shacks and flimsy stalls, and finally devolved into a welter of tents, huts, and hovels built from cast-off ships’ sides and wagon beds. And as unbearable as the heat was, the stench was even more so.
Had I not heeded the antiquarian’s advice about the caravansary, and thereby acquired a great deal more of both the language and coin of the realm, I would have been fortunate to find, and lodge within, Peddler’s Crescent. However, the lessons learned in Pakobsid about the layout and administration of Sarmese cities now paid excellent dividends. In Sarmasid, most foreigners were shown scant patience and charged inflated prices. But I now knew enough of their ways and tongue that neither my purse nor trust were presumed to be easily had and so found a room in an inn normally reserved for merchants. I was able to claim that status simply by posting a sale price from my palfrey: a loophole that the ship’s captain passed along while laying an index finger alongside his aquiline nose.
After my conversation with the antiquarian, I was mindful not to speak of my origins. The larger the city and the more powerful the persons I might encounter, the more likely that they would have either the breadth of experience or depth of means to investigate any story’s veracity—or lack thereof.
So on my first day in Sarmasid, because I was already present in the Trade Quarter it was relatively simple to enter the Merchant’s District. After presenting a not entirely untrue explanation that I had business with the powers within, and a few coins to demonstrate that I understood how business was done, I was through the gates and on my way to the citadel of the city’s most accessible yet formidable bureaucrat: the Hazdrabar.
While I knew no personal details of the current holder of that post, I did not really need to. I chose the Hazdrabar simply because his is an office that must deal with the public in his role of overseeing security for and access to the council of viziers known as the Vizierate. It may seem strange that viziers have their own council, but among the prestige-conscious Princes, a negotiation between their highest respective functionaries is a prerequisite to any royal meeting, let alone contemplation of joint endeavor.
However, because of their prestige, the viziers dwelt in the Princely City and were loath to emerge from its high, alabaster walls. So they had long ago created the position of the Hazdrabar, whose job was to assess and then recommend or reject the petitions of supplicants. Not surprisingly, the Hazdrabar’s place of work was a citadel that was both a garrison for his security forces and intelligencers and housing for the considerable bureaucracy that supported his service to the viziers and Princes.
I did not dress as anything other than what I was: a traveler, now of reasonable means, who was clearly accustomed to providing for his own needs and safety while making his way through the world. The guards manning the postern gate in the citadel walls would almost surely have turned me away as a lost, imbecilic outlander except that I had reasonable facility with their language, knew the proper way to address them and state my business, and whom to ask for. Such knowledge was common among the silk-robed foreign merchants who waited at the main gate with their attendants. But it was uncommon at the postern gate, where I approached them alone and in armor. As soon as I saw their uncertainty and hesitation, I played the card I had held for that very moment.
“Here,” I said, holding out the smallest of the Annihilator shards. “If you would be kind enough to bring this to the attention of your master’s master, I would be grateful.” They took the object and studied it in mute perplexity… which doubled when I turned to leave.
“Will you not await an answer?” one asked.
I shook my head. “I have business to attend to. In two hours, I will return to hear whatever answer has come down from the Hazdrabar’s second assistant, and also, to tangibly express my appreciation to you both. I presume you shall still be here?” Their eager nods told me that they would not miss the opportunity to pocket a gratuity, even if they had to remain beyond the duration of their watch.
Sure enough, two hours later, they were not only still at the postern gate, but with a senior guardsman present. He asked what my business was. I responded that I was putting myself at the disposal of anyone who desired information regarding where I had found the shard—as well as many others—and the circumstances under which I took possession of it. The guardsman instructed me to tell him these things; I demurred, saying that I would not wish the weight of so delicate and confidential a matter to fall on anyone other than myself. Annoyed, he instructed me to wait. Shortly after, I was ushered within the walls of the Citadel of the Hazdrabar.
Over the rest of the day, I went through four more almost identical bureaucratic rituals, although each was in a more grand and imposing space than the one before. At each step, the officer or bureaucrat in question attempted to inveigle me to share more information and more of the shards I claimed to have. In every instance, I demurred for the same reasons. Twice we reached an impasse. Twice I was on my feet to leave. Twice I was called back with greater deference than I had been shown before, and asked to wait—before being shown to the next, more senior interviewer.
The last one was less fixated upon where I had found the shards and what I had seen there. Instead, his inquiries focused on my origins, my business in the Last Lands, and ultimately, how I earned a living.
My answer to the last question led to deceptively casual remarks about my armor, my gear, and the unusual sword that I refused to be parted from but had allowed to be peace-bonded. In fact, each one of those conversational gambits were means of determining if the equipment of my apparent profession was part of a sham. Eventually, he was satisfied that I was what I appeared to be, and soon I was following him to a location deep within the citadel.
After a great many twists and turns, we emerged into a training yard. He called over a waiting warrior—the Sarmese term for “soldier” is actually quite degrading—and proposed a quick sparring match with wooden training swords. They were well weighted, quite accurate to the real blade in every regard, but the weapon itself was not to my liking. It was a stolid, point-heavy cleaver, something between a broadsword and a tulwar.
Instead, I scanned the racks of ready weapons, and chose two shortswords with long quillons. The warrior and my interviewer exchanged glances. The former shrugged, the latter raised an eyebrow, and we squared off.
Two passes later, both of the warrior’s eyebrows were lowered in consternation. After the fifth pass, they were curved down in ferocious chagrin. My interlocutor waved away any further exercise, asked me where I dwelt, and bade me be alert to receive a message before nightfall.
He evidently knew the minds of his masters (for so one’s employers are called in Sarma). A young runner arrived just before the sun set. I could not read the message, of course, but that had been anticipated. The boy told me what was written, reciting it from memory, no less. I was peremptorily instructed—not requested—to report to the West Gate of the Princely City just after dawn, where the First Guardsman of the Hazdrabar would be waiting for me with an escort.
I thanked the young fellow, asked why his “masters” had bothered with a letter at all since he knew the message word for word. He told me that, if I had misgivings, I might thus take the letter to one who could read it for a fee (because everything in Sarma requires a fee) and so be satisfied that he had accurately conveyed the contents. I nodded my thanks and extended a small silver coin toward him. He shook his head, almost in fear. Reflecting upon what I had seen of Sarma, understood; in this money-conscious—or -crazed—society, so precious a metal was likely to quicken suspicions. Where could one such as he have come by such a coin? Surely, not by honest means.
I changed my token of gratitude to a small piece of what I conjectured was base billon. His eyes shone—because they watered—and with a deep bow, he stepped closer. He reached his hand toward mine, a question in his eyes. I nodded. He took the coin, stepped back, bowed even more deeply than the first time, and ran out of the room as if hordes of red urzh were hot on his heels.
And now I lay the quill aside and will hope to sleep rather than restlessly count the gonged watches of the night, eager to see what tomorrow brings.