Author: Lajaka, Posted: Fri Jan 8, 2016 6:40 PM, Post Subject: A Rift in Time (P, R)

Dun Lainne. It had been some time since she’d thought about the place much, or about Eamon. A good man, he was, and she hoped the rumours were right about him escaping. Lajaka didn’t say anything, just nodded to accept the suggestion. There was nothing to say.

“Hair’s darker than she’s used to,” Lajaka added. “Same eyes, though, and even the beard don’t hide a smile.” She cocked her head to look at him, trying to discern his age. “She ain’t that young, though. Or you’re a lot older than you look, in which case, there’s many a vain woman who’ll want to know the secret.”

Lajaka had only been in Adeluna a few days before being swept up to Arri, but she had to agree that it wasn’t what she was used to. The valley she hadn’t seen, being that she got south by ship. Good to know she might be able to pass through it a bit easier compared to her world.

“Aye, folk are the same everywhere,” she replied, nodding. Three world she’d seen, and people really didn’t change much. “Need a real shake-up of things if you want anything to change. You were doing something about it, though, the other you. No arses on chairs and silly gold bands. Men picked their leader, and voted on their laws. A system like that lets people like you and me— well, people like you, people like me didn’t get a say, and you can bet I wasn’t happy about that— decide if there’s to be any fighting and dying at all. Better world, that.” And when Mathuin got back to his world, she hoped he’d remember what she said.

“That’s the hill,” Lajaka said, pointing to a rising mound not far off. “We need to get to the top.” Once they’d arrived, she dismounted, and guided Mathuin to the right spot. Using the butt of her spear, she started digging in the ground, matching the symbols she remembered seeing in the ritual two years ago. When she finished, she guided Mathuin to the centre. “Here. On your knees. You were tied up when I saw you, but that probably wasn’t an essential component. I ain’t got rope, anyway.”

Closing her eyes, Lajaka tried to bring herself back to that moment, in his world, as the ritual was being preformed. She could picture it perfectly: the hall in place of a lightly-wooded hill, men in robes, all of it. The words, those were a bit harder. Lajaka stood where she remembered their leader had been, a straight line between herself, Mathuin, and where the crack would have been at the time. She started the chant, then stopped. “No, accent’s wrong,” she mumbled, then started over, this time mimicking the speech of those men a bit better. It took a few tries to get it right. She did the motions, too, bowing when she remembered they had, rising when they did.

The scene was playing out in her mind. Time was supposed to stop at this point, but Lajaka had no idea if that was true now. She opened her eyes, crossed over to where Mathuin knelt, and drew a rune on on his forehead with her thumb.

Nothing happened. It was supposed to glow, she remembered that for certain. Maybe she did something wrong? Lajaka returned to her original position and went through the motions again, and it was hard not to rush it a little. Again, she went to draw the rune on his forehead, and again, nothing happened. “Dammit,” she muttered, and went to try again. This time she couldn’t help but rush, her frustration too strong. When the rune still failed to glow, she paced around the circle, muttering to herself. “Circle is right, but it’s drawn in dirt instead of in chalk on stone, would that make a difference? And I’m just me, they had a dozen, but I can’t exactly get anyone else to help.”

After she’d made her way around the circle, she let her anger show. “Why isn’t it working!” An idea occurred to her. “Blood. You were injured last time. Maybe they needed blood.” Her dagger was at her side and she pulled it out, then stood in front of him. “Always blood with them. Just a bit…” Her hands were unsteady. This was too familiar. Lajaka dropped the dagger, then fell to her knees, blinking hard.

“Why isn’t it working?” she asked again, softer. It was hard to push out the words over the lump in her throat. “You need to go home. Home to her, to your war, to the family you’ll have, that’s where you need to be, not here. You need to go home.”

Then, in a whisper, she added, “And so do I.”

Author: Mathuin, Posted: Thu Jan 7, 2016 10:41 AM, Post Subject: A Rift in Time (P, R)

"Dun Lainne,” Mathuin said without a second’s thought. “It was a small herding vill that was burned out a few years back by Orcs from over the border, not many survivors. Folk would hear the name and not ask many more questions. Ain’t a memory worth stirring up. Eamonn was the chief around there and rumor is he was able to escape, but ain’t heard the truth of it yet. But you could easily have been down in Adeluna in the south when it happened, and have come back here now to be among your own people.” Mathuin remembered the ruins of the village and the bodies left unburied in the ash. He had stayed there a week, digging graves and setting the dead to their rest. It was the least he could do, he thought to himself. If he were to die in this Maker-forsaken land, he would be grateful if a man took the time to do the same for him.

Mathuin scratched between the ears of his hired horse and smiled. It was good to be back in familiar, if foreign, surroundings with the rolling, heather-covered hills slowly giving way to harsher, windswept peaks. It was the land of his birth, the land of his people, and even in this strange land, that leant him some comfort. Lajaka’s question, while not unexpected, gave him pause and he considered them in silence before he answered as their mounts picked their way up the side of another steep hill. “Aye, I saw her. She was about half my age here, and looked the same as I remembered. She didn’t seem to know me, but I never did have this beard nor the great scar, you see. Maybe she did, though. It was a bloody cock up so it was hard to tell. She had no idea about the elf, and that’s for the best, I should think, considering who she was. The bloody, self-righteous, back-stabbing…” He allowed himself to trail off and spit eloquently to his side to show his feelings for the fallen one whose own shame had sent the world into a bath of blood and tore apart his life at the seams.

The days passed tolerably well and the weather held, though a chill was creeping into the air as they turned east, the wind whipping down off the higher hilltops. “The oddest is Adeluna. Whole south, really. Culture’s different, folk are different, even the way they fight’s different. Used to be, they were like near on cousins of us in the Highlands, a lot like the ones from down the south, the archers and skirmishers and the like. Mooncrest’s archers could make a man piss his breeches at the thought of their arrows and now? It ain’t the same. Plus the Valley ain’t my Valley. All green and shite, and mine was sand and heat and death. It’s still unnerving to think on,” he said, chewing his lip contemplatively. “As for the same… folk. Folk are still the same greedy, self-centered shites I had back in my time, only their causes and names are different. End of the day, though, it’s the same result.

“Look at Adeluna. Civil war over which royal bum gets to grace a chair and wear a silly gold band ‘bout their ears. The same shite happened in my time, different royal arse in the royal chair, but the same thing. And for the same damned reasons, all about the money and the power. Part of me always wished the Order’d won. At least then it would have had a pretense of nobility and a new beginning. But then I remember folk stay the same. It would have just been a different royal arse in a different royal chair and buggers like you and me would go on fighting and dying and working and weeping same as ever for what little it mattered to the bastards.” He growled and then breathed heavily. “So that’s what’s the same. The folk.”

Author: Lajaka, Posted: Fri Jan 1, 2016 9:30 AM, Post Subject: A Rift in Time (P, R)

Staying with Fergal had been an unexpected treat, with drink and stories both lasting long into the night. Lajaka herself didn’t have many to share, having been in this world only a short time, and her best stories being from another world. Unless she was addressed directly, she didn’t speak much, but she laughed often, and listened. Every story told her a bit more about this world, and the people in it, especially in the Highlands. This was important, since while her name was odd, her speech and arms gave her away as one of the North, but she didn’t know the people as well as she should.

“I need a village,” Lajaka said when they set off the next day, too early for her liking, but best not to waste the light. “Place I can say I was born, and it ain’t likely I’d run into someone who’d call my bluff.” She’d thought about using Dun Caric, but she knew the place too well in her world, and might mention a person or place that didn’t fit. Might be she could get away with telling some people the truth, but not here. People in the North didn’t often take well to that sort of thing.

After a while, Lajaka spoke again. “You never told me you saw her at the clock. Did it look like she recognized you? Or the elf?” If it didn’t show on her face, she probably didn’t; her Ma was never might good at hiding her face that way, not unless she was really trying. “And… how was she? Anything I should know?”

Fergal’s was the last proper hall they were able to stay at. After that, it was barns and the like for the next few nights, steadily moving east until Lajaka figured they were within a few hours’ ride of the hill. “You never did tell me what you figure is the oddest thing about this world,” she reminded Mathuin. “Or what’s the same. I figure we got another two hours to go and we’ll be there, so out with it.”

Author: Mathuin, Posted: Thu Dec 31, 2015 11:19 AM, Post Subject: A Rift in Time (P, R)

Drinking deeply from the silver-inlaid cup, Mathuin smirked at Lajaka’s joke at his expense. “In my defense, I thought her a particularly ugly woman at the time! And I’ll bet she still looked better in a dress that you, you savage.” Mathuin leaned back in his seat, running a finger over the hunting scene engraved on his cup. Fergal was certainly doing well for himself in these hills, even with Dun Caric and its petty chief only a day or so away. It spoke highly of the man’s acumen as well as the ruthlessness he was rumored to have shown during the war. Fergal’s company, by the end of the war he commanded it, had been assigned to root out the pockets of resistance to the Conclave and he waged a brutal, bloody, but effective war against the diehard members of the New Order. It had brought him the wealth he used to situate himself back in the Highlands and now he seemed to be using that same single-minded approach to growing his fortunes, which meant Mathuin would be able to earn some coin trading in information.

Lajaka spoke of her arrival in Sularia and Mathuin nodded along, noting that she skirted some details, details that he was also glad to leave unsaid. She was good thinking on her feet, something that Mathuin valued both when he lead men in battle and when he was out on the road, surviving on his wits. If he were stuck here, she might make a good companion, he decided. It could be a good change, having someone with him on his travels. But somehow, if he remained in this time, he felt that something had already changed, that his days of wandering were coming to a close, rift or no rift, and the thought made him uneasy. “Aye, more women than you can shake your stick at, Fergal, and just the way you like ‘em, with lovely faces, flowing hair, and an insatiable appetite. I am surprised ye haven’t visited there yourself more often. You can always tell Mairead it’s for business!”

He slowed his drinking, letting the others share the flagon between them, sipping instead on his first cupful. “She’s right, though she can’t tell a proper story. Makes the whole thing into a bore of historical proportions. The world was about to bloody sunder itself into ruin and she can’t make a damn story of it, Maker love her. Allow me, friend, to tell a proper story.

“So I was traveling north through these lands to Sularia, looking to see about this land of women who rule and men who are more weak-kneed than your esteemed self.” Fergal tossed a crust of bread at Mathuin who swatted it aside easily. “So there I am, in the market square, sword drawn, challenging the flower of their warrior womanhood to test their skill. Never once was I bested by the lot of them, though considering they were women, I ain’t surprised.” He paused to wink at Lajaka, and then continued his tale. “So I’ve bested ‘em and then this bedraggled creature comes across the market, offering to fight me as they had but I didn’t have the heart to wail on such a wee, waifish thing, so I took her in like a stray and gave her a drink and a meal. The next day, though, that was the bloody greatest of it.

“That morning I left the city for the maze in the oasis. There was the water clock there, as big as the whole of your vill here, and damn me if it wasn’t falling into ruin. And the people, oh the people you could see there. Folks from all over the damned world, both continents. Elves, dwarves, men from every kingdom, duchy, and princedom under the sun, scholars and mages and a whole host of nobles of every stripe, all wanting to be there if the damned thing was fixed so they could steal their share of the glory. And from the clock came radiating these rippling waves, you see, great ones and small ones both that tore at time itself. Folk were standing there one moment and disappeared the next, the Maker only knows where.

“So there I am, riding out, and I come upon the strangest bunch of buggers you’d ever see. There’s a southron woman, armed like a Highlander, a wee boy, scarcely a man, barefoot if you’ll credit it, riding on dark tentacles of magic like some bleeding fair-ground freak, and a wee elf woman who, well, let us just say, was intimately acquainted with the problems at the clock. So I come upon them, so I do, and the boy wraps us in magic like a bubble and we head to the maze when we come across the strangest bloody thing I have ever seen.” He paused, letting tension build as he took a drink to wet his throat before continuing.

“So we are heading to the maze, the four of us, and we come upon bodies, at least a hundred of ‘em, and each of them us. It was madness, I tell you Fergal, seeing a dead self at my feet and another a yard away, looking like they’d all torn themselves to pieces in a great melee. Maker knows what that was about, but the boy and the elf magician seemed to think there’s a whole host of worlds and a whole host of each of us in each. Who knows, it may even be true! There might be a world where Lajaka there’s a proper lady and you aren’t a tight-fisted bastard!” Laughing, he finished his pint and poured another from the flagon. “So there we were, standing in what looked like the Valley after the fighting, and then…”

Mathuin paused and cocked his head to the side, looking at Fergal. “This, my old friend, is when you toss a few crescents to your loyal hound of a man here for the end of the story and the sorts of things that might turn a fellow in your position a tidy profit. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.” Smirking, he put his feet up on the table and looked at Lajaka. “And that, lass, is how you tell a damned story.”

Author: Lajaka, Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2015 1:49 PM, Post Subject: A Rift in Time (P, R)

"Honour?" Lajaka snorted. "I'm the bastard daughter of a southern woman. It don't get much lower than that. Fortunately, Ma had a trade, so we did alright,  but I ain't never been an authority on honour. Had to make my own, and then broke it within a month of landing here." She was still sour about the raid with Aelle. A success, in that they went in, took what they wanted and without heavy losses, but not a fight Lajaka would remember fondly like so many of the other men. Mathuin's assessment of the coastal men being like hounds sounded about right to her, and she nodded along. 

It didn't escape Lajaka's notice when Mathuin didn't answer her question. He agreed that her Ma was the same, but didn't state his own observations about his world. Instead, he moved on to discussing the conflict, and she chewed on her own lip as she thought, then stopped when she realised she was imitating him. "You need more men," she said finally, shrugging. "We took out a force twice our size, by engaging them in a valley with our main force, a good shoving match that didn't accomplish much except to keep them busy. Meanwhile we had a warship, one of the flying kind from Tarishitar, full of special forces, and we took them from behind. Right slaughter after that. Could also ambush them if you can't afford to divide your own men. Quick. Rush in, take out their officers and supplies, then back into the hills. Don't let them get comfortable in your land. They're unwele, and they need to know it. Takes longer, though."

 By the time she'd finished, a cluster of homes was visible, and earlier than expected. Lajaka was especially glad to see the hall, and then she spotted the chief. Fergal was a bit younger than she remembered from her world, but about the same otherwise. She remembered Mathuin mentioning him fondly, and while that had been the Fergal from his world, the way the two men greeted each other, Lajaka wondered if maybe Mathuin was less alone than he thought.

Fergal asked Mathuin if he'd taken a wife, and while she didn't let it show, Lajaka was suddenly nervous. She had been so used to thinking of him as a father that she forgot that story wouldn't work here. He was younger than her Galin had been, and she didn't look young enough to pass as his daughter. She would be about the right age for a wife, though, but while Lajaka was a good liar, she didn't know if she could pull off a deception like that.

Fortunately, Mathuin didn't put her in the awkward position of needing to try. He made it clear that she wasn't his type, and when he called her feral, Lajaka raised an eyebrow, bore her teeth, then continued smirking. Mathuin made introductions, and she nodded at Fergal since she didn't have the skirt- or the grace- to curtsey.

Once food and drink had been served, Fergal asked again how she found herself travelling with Mathuin. Either he was hoping for a good story or he was suspicious. Either way, there wasn't anything wrong with the truth, or at least part of the truth, but she would be careful. "He ain't my type! Like you said, he'd bed anything with two legs, and I don't want a man who'd be tempted by an ewe missing her forelegs!" she said with a laugh. "No, ours was a chance meeting. I was in Adeluna just a few days ago, and somehow I landed in Sularia, though I didn't know it at the time. Ain't sure how it happened, but an unpleasant feeling. Anyway, heard this sorry excuse selling himself, and I figured he might be one to help me out. Hoping to get back to Dunholm, then sail back. There's work down there, and I'd like to go back to it. And most of my kit's there, too." Lajaka drank most of her ale in one go, just as Fergal had done, and she likewise refilled her cup when he did. "As for the clock, I ain't sure. Didn't see it. Strange place, Sularia is, and I didn't want to spend more time around those weird-eyed women than I needed to. I can see why Mathuin liked the place, though. Barely any blokes! No competition!"

Author: Mathuin, Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2015 2:01 PM, Post Subject: A Rift in Time (P, R)

“They are a bit. Those, in my time, were the men that gravitated toward the Spirit Lord most and were the diehard supporters even when the war was swinging our way. Sticklers for their personal honor but with a rather loose definition of the word, so far as I understand it. But I’m just a herder’s son, so what do I know of honor? That’s for knights and nobles, not poor sods like us that have to earn a proper living.” He chuckled, amused as he always was by the hard and fast distinctions in class and rank that permeated this world and his own. A man could be born low and live with honor and was still below the basest son of a knight by an accident of birth. After the war, there were offers from those that supported the Conclave for him to claim titles and lands as a reward for his service, offers he flatly refused. Even if he had lifted his banner for the Conclave, he did not agree with their heavy handed authority over the lands and would not participate in the same, even indirectly. So instead, he took to the hills with his trusted company and fought one of the Conclave who sought to impose his will on the Highlands. “Good men in a fight though, and loyal to a fault,” he allowed about the coastal clans, “but they can be more trouble than they’re worth if they aren’t let off the leash. Like wolfhounds, they are, needing to stretch their legs and bloody their maws or else they are ill-tempered.”

Her answer was a shifty one and Mathuin narrowed his eyes. It was an answer, and likely an honest one, but something about it smacked of a deliberate attempt to avoid the issue. He would revisit the subject later, hopefully after drink lowered her guard. “She is very much the same as I remember her as well,” he said, chewing his lip as he remembered the desert maze and the bodies there. He had seen her in a hundred different ways dead but at least the one he had encountered was alive in this world. His Luthene, he feared, may not have been so lucky when he returned.

Her information about the disposition of the enemy was disheartening in the extreme. Forty thousand men under arms was enough to crush most nations on the continent, let alone the two or so thousand men he had been able to call on in times of crisis in the Highlands. Twenty to one were steep odds, even for a Highlander who had once boasted that every Highland man could whip ten servants of the Lord. At least he had at least a decade to prepare for a situation like that, he thought, already planning everything he could do to prevent it from coming to pass. “The clans were always a problem, more concerned with feuds from their great great great grandfathers over a handful of sheep rather than the wolf at their bloody door,” he spat, his frustration coming back even though he had spent the best part of two years trying to avoid the idea entirely. But with the chance to make it back being dangled in front of him, he thought he had best prepare for a return to that world. “Might have to change tactics.” His voice was soft but full of energy as he began to plan for the campaign he would undertake. The plan he was forming took over his thoughts, leaving Lajaka in silence as the general drafted his next order of battle in his mind.

Their journey was faster than Mathuin expected and less than an hour later, as the sun was just starting to dip over the horizon, a chief’s holding came into view, backlit by the orange glow of the setting sun. There was a cluster of homes around the chief’s walled hall and smoke drifted lazily from their roofs in the soft evening breeze. Mathuin turned his horse’s head toward the vill and kicked back his heels, wanting to arrive before the sun had fully set and the gates to the hall would likely be barred until morning. Once in the hall’s courtyard, he vaulted from the saddle, a grin on his face. The owner of the hall was a friend, a chief who, in his time, had been a comrade in arms, and in this, knew Mathuin as a traveling vagabond with the latest in gossip from all the realms and bawdy songs to fill the hall with laughter. The chief, his green and black checkered cloak thrown back over his shoulders, strode out of the hall and embraced Mathuin in a giant bear hug. “So, you rogue, what’s the good word? Finally settled down and taken yourself a wife, you tomcat?”

Mathuin laughed and slapped the man on his broad back. “No, no, not my type, you know that Fergal. Maker’s bollocks, just look at her,” he said, grinning over his shoulder at Lajaka. “She’s practically feral!” He waved her over. “Lajaka, this is Fergal, chief in these parts. He fought in the war in one of the Highland companies the Conclave hired out and with a few bits of good information from a certain wandering Highland peddler or sorts, has made enough off a few choice investments of his spoils to be a proper power in this valley. Not that I am saying you owe me, you know,” he finished, poking Fergal in the ribs. “Now, take us inside, you old goat and get us something to eat and I’ll tell you a grand one about the clock and the maze.”

Fergal ushered them into his hall, calling for food to be brought and insisted on serving them ales himself, bringing a pair of heavy silver flagons out to the main table in the hall. “So, Lajaka, how is it you are traveling with this sorry excuse for a man that clearly has gone blind, saying you’re not his type. I’ve known him to sleep with anything on two legs. And if memory serves, there was that one-legged cobbler’s daughter when he was in Vilpamolan over the last winter!” Laughing easily, he poured drinks for them all and raised a glass. “To our wives and sweethearts, may they never meet!” He drained half the mug and refilled it, sitting across from them in a finely carved chair. “And now Mathuin, tell me of this clock, and you as well, Lajaka, if you know aught of it. We are starved for news in my wee valley.”

Author: Lajaka, Posted: Sat Dec 26, 2015 11:23 AM, Post Subject: A Rift in Time (P, R)

"Aye, I know it ain't a proper city, I been there," Lajaka mumbled. "But there wasn't a war here like there was in my world, and it was only starting in your world. The clans need an enemy. Find someone they all agree is an asshole, someone trying to take the land- all four regions- and they'll come together long enough to fight him off. And then when it's done might be they'll decide they're better off that war. The right man to lead them might help, too." In her world, that man had been Galin, and he was the one to make Dun Caric into the great power it was. She didn't know yet if Galin was that sort of man; this man, who called himself Mathuin, might have it, if he stopped thinking it wasn't possible. It was, and she knew it, and it would be possible in his world, too, once he got back. She knew he wasn't sure he'd make it back, but she'd get him to see that, too.

They'd been riding for days and were low on supplies, but the small stop-in-the-road that was Dun Caric would give them the chance to get more. That was a day away, though. She hoped Mathuin was right about a manor being near, as a good meal there would let their supplies last longer. The trek through the desert had been the worst; hot and dry and even the night didn't bring much relief. She probably still had sand in places sand shouldn't be.

The clans had been united under Dun Caric since she was a child, so learning about the regional divisions was valuable information. "Men like Aelle, along the coast, they remind me a bit of the Spirit Lord's men, or the version in my world and yours. Ain't seen or heard about anyone like that here. Good thing, too, seeing as I'd hate to see those men united against the rest." Lajaka wasn't too fond of Aelle. Any man who kept a woman against her will- or another man, for that matter- wasn't the sort she wanted to run with. She'd done a job with him because she was down to her last crescent and the opportunity was there. As long as she didn't get desperate, she wouldn't work with him again.

Mathuin asked her what seemed the most odd about this world, and what was most similar. Lajaka paused to think about that a bit. "What's odd is that this place exists at all. I mean, I know how your world and mine divided, because of folding time. Your world went off the same as it was, and my world branched off. But this world? I ain't sure where it came from, and it's got me wondering how many others there might be. As for what's similar…" She shrugged. "Her. Only seen her once, in Vilpamolan, but she ain't really changed. Looks the same, sounds the same, she knows how to plan an attack, and probably just as uptight." Again she paused. "I ain't sure if the man who hurt her exists in this world, but I aim to fix it so he never gets a chance. I don't think I exist in this world, and I don't want to."

His next question was more the sort of thing she wanted to talk about, though there wasn't much to say. "Most of it is guessing. Because of it boy, I figure it would be at least fifteen years later, but I can't get more precise than that. Might have been twenty years. Probably not much more than that, though. War with the lord wasn't going your way. They had…" She chewed on her lip. "Maybe twenty thousand men at that hall? And about as many ready to march on Dun Caric on my side. Would have been a mess for both of us if they'd been able to use the crack like they wanted to. I ain't sure if the lord was still alive- he was dead in my world- but if he wasn't, he had someone else in his place who had plenty of support. On the bright side, you had the border and interior clans working together against him, and I think you were leading them." The more she spoke of it, the more she was convinced how important it was that he go back. There was too much he needed to do.

"What do you think? Strangest thing about this world, and what's most similar?"

Author: Mathuin, Posted: Fri Dec 25, 2015 8:41 PM, Post Subject: A Rift in Time (P, R)

A chance to return home was not something that Mathuin truly believed was in his grasp. For the last two years, he had traveled all of Canelux, preferring to remain on a single continent rather than spread himself over two, and searched for other who came from his side of the rifts in time. There were three he had found, most suffering from ill effects from their transportation. One had lost his sight and aged a quarter century overnight and another had lost his wits nearly completely. There was no real way back, or even through, Mathuin thought, only the dumb luck of the rifts and the capricious intermeddling of the Maker in the affairs of men as though they were pieces on a gaming board. But for a chance to speak with Lajaka about his time and to educate her about the world in which they now found themselves, he would gladly entertain the hope that there was a way to tear open the fabric of time again and send him leaping through, back to the ambush where he had been fighting when the world tore apart and deposited him in Revaliir.

Their journey was uneventful, with Mathuin leading them down the tracks and paths he had learned during his travels, the paths of the locals, not plagued by highwaymen as the main roads were in the wilds. It was along these roads that he learned the true character of his new home in Revaliir and it was his intention, in case the ceremony on the hill did not work, to teach it to Lajaka as well, so that, if they were stuck in this place, she would be as well versed in the world as he was, able to blend in as though she were native born. “No, for the last damned time, no. Dun Caric ain’t a proper city here. It ain’t a city at all. It’s a hall and a tavern and a palisade and not much more. The tavern’s the same as the one you know, the Codpiece, so you ain’t that far off, but it ain’t a grand city where the North gets its laws and protection, that’s for damned sure.

“This is the North the way it was for me and is here, alright? There’s the clans and they can’t stand each other more than a few days at a time. So we raid, steal some sheep here, some cattle there, and it trains us to be good fighters. Now, in the North, there’s about three or four distinct sections. On the coast, the folks are traders and raiders and have these great longships, wide bellied with a good keel, sail, and oars. You’ve met them, of course, like Aelle,” he said, mentioning the Highland sea lord Lajaka had raided with. “From what you told me, he’s about the right sort when you think of that part of the world. Then there’s the southern lands, more farms and fields than hills and paddocks. Here we get farmers, a bit more sedate and civilized, and handier with a bow than a blade for the most part.”

He paused and took a drink for him waterskin and passed it over to Lajaka. They were running toward the end of their supplies but they would be in Dun Caric in a day and the ale and food at the Codpiece seemed to be as good in this world as in his own. “Then there’s the hills and mountains. There’s where the folk like me are from. Warriors meant for close combat, sword and spear men. They are herders for the most part, and retreat into the hills when they’re attacked, drawing an enemy in and them falling on him like an avalanche. And last, in the valleys, in the farthest northern reaches, are horsemen. Some are scouts and some, a very few, are heavy horses, bred for war, ridden by men who grew up to ride. They are a cantankerous bunch, prickly pride and honor sorts, the lot of them.”

He spat onto the rough cart track they took into the Highlands, squinting at the sun as it passed the midday point in the sky. “Another few hours and we’ll either hit a farmstead that can shelter us in a barn for the night or maybe, if the Maker’s kind, we may hit a lord’s hall. I remember one this way, a petty lord, of course, but with enough room in the hall to keep us. The laws of hospitality, of course, are the same here as there. Never turn out a stranger and the like.” He paused and decided to let Lajaka have a chance to talk rather than ramble on through the afternoon. “So, Lajaka, what is it that strikes you as most odd about this place? I figure it must be a lot to take in, so what of it’s the most strange. And, by the same token, what’s the most similar to your place? Gives me a good idea where your head’s at and what this other me might be like. Or later me. And… if you’re of a mind, tell me a bit about what you know of my time, after I was there? In case this madness does work, it might do me well to go back with some information that could serve me well in the face of the Spirit Lord’s troublemaking, no?”