The Heart of the Nomad (Closed)

[Mordelain]

The taste of wheat and poppy and butter on her lips were heavenly, and she kicked Kales with a gentle tap of her stirrups to drive her forwards. Slowly they cleared the outpost, the satisfaction of sustenance mingling with freedom to lift her weary mind out of the gutter. She polished off the first half of the loaf with three greedy swallows and struggled to breathe between dough and sand. It got everywhere, and the citizens of Ikkaram had grown used to finding salt accompanying food when they did not wish it to be seasoned so. With precision, she nestled the remaining half on her lap whilst she reached for the map she kept in her right glove.

Alongside the belt she had been given an il'Jhain compass parchment when she had pledged an oath to the Freerunners. It had been her main source of information since she arrived. It displayed spidery lines of her planned routes, magically enchanted to change at the touch of her employer and the will of the Abdos. She held it up to the wide open horizon that set out the next leg of her journey and sighed with relief as the landmarks matched those on the paper.

They travelled for three miles before cresting the last of the gentle dunes between the Outpost and Karachi’s spice field. Of the many dozens of territories along the western banks of the river, Karachi was the first, ending in Saravesh much farther north before the Dead Lands. Beyond those lands were of course the Ruuya and the open waves of the violent sea. The dust trail Mordelain had found herself on quite by accident was a sign of irrigation at work. The shifting sands became solid soil, dirt, but by another name. Two long fences, stretching a thousand yards left and right of the road loomed suddenly, separating the land on either side of her advance into two massive paddocks. In their fertile grounds slouchy camels grazed amongst the bewildering array of furrows, troughs and desert flora.

A well versed traveller in farming practices might have expected to see the fields full of workers, clad in light robes and digging and working beneath vast parasols to shrug heatstroke and famine off their backs. Karachi however had mastered the art of constructing noria to irrigate his land. Spread over the paddocks, there were several such devices; great wheels pulled in circles by what Mordelain believed were creatures the farmers called oxen. Whilst she could never hope to learn the hundreds of names for each spice that grew around them, the mechanics of irrigation she could understand and appreciate.

They welled up water from deep underground caves and collected them into aquifers just below the surface of the paddocks. From their number, and the bounty of his crop of late, Mordelain assumed that he had all but mastered their secrets. Their trundling noise added to the silence of the desert, suggesting life and community even when there was none.

“Strange,” she mumbled, tucking the map into her robes before returning to her bread. She bit into it pensively, as if she were using the chewing motion to piece together the fragments of a particularly enthralling mystery. Her mind found itself wandering back to Karachi’s letter she had discovered in the abattoir of the Outpost, and she set her gaze onto the large door archway on the south facing wall of the spice farm’s central and only building. “Stranger still…” she added, picking out the elegant murals on the outer surface of the building, which was heavy mud lattice over a sturdy sandalwood frame, as all the buildings in Fallien were, except for the palaces and forts, and those of the scattered envoys and the wealthy. She had expected sheds, stables, store houses, but to be greeted with only one large compound, three hundred yards wide on its visible wall was a strange thing indeed.

As she pulled up before the large double doors, she noticed that ‘Karachi Sollum’ was painted in white paint and three languages on the curve of the arch. In the shade of the wall she dismounted, and started to pull off her muslin wraps to reveal the purple and leather garb of the Troubadour in all its splendour. Even with its light smattering of dust, she looked like a regent’s daughter or a priestess of Suravani’s temple. She draped it over Kales’ saddle and absent minded unstrapped the bundle of spices from her side. She whinnied as her load was lightened, or perhaps under the comfort of Mordelain’s hand as she patted her down with her free hand. The horse's hot breath ran down Mordelain's back as it tried to veer around to nuzzle it's rider.

“We will be home before nightfall, Kales,” she promised, finishing the bread in her mouth between syllables.

She turned and stepped forwards, trying to maintain the façade that she had not just risked life and limb to deliver her goods to his door. With a shaking hand she pattered out a loud knock on the worn wood. It was a series of sounds that she had been taught to deliver by the Freerunners, a code of sorts so that even if she were to fall to the perils of the Dagger Spine or the claws of the harpies, no rival could take up her load and profit from its continuance. She had considered that small fact no comfort, but it was nice to know that the price of good business was infallible when its actioners were brutally murdered.

[Mordelain]

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The door opened slowly as if the opener was still uncertain about the sounding of the code. Through the crack in the grand entrance, Mordelain’s glittering eyes and youthful smile met with an old man’s, a moustache as bristly as a cactus and a face as wrinkled as a date returning the intrusion with a stern grimace. He pulled it open more after he had inspected the visitor, measuring up her belt, parcel and erratic headdress with suspicion and distrust. He waved her inside and in a blur of movement, she was set upon by a waft of cinnamon and oranges, much like the incense which burnt in the outpost.

What she saw inside Karachi’s home was not what she had expected.

“They will see,” he said coarsely, his voice tempered by age and wisdom, but also fear and weariness.

Something, Mordelain guessed was out to get the spice farmer and his abode.

“I…bring you a parcel from Suresh,” she held it out, oblivious for now to the dark overhang and the beautiful and well hidden garden courtyard that sat at the centre of the large square compound. A trickle of running water sounded through the silence, which came from a large silver embroiled fountain in the heart of the square. She looked hesitantly at the tall palms and the fig trees then back to her host. He took the parcel with gruff and eager fingers and walked back inside.

“Save your greetings,” Karachi said, setting the parcel down on the edge of the fountain before disappearing into the alcove on the left wall. There were two such hovels from what Mordelain could make out, circular indents in the walls that formed a sleeping quarter to the right, a kitchen to the left and a separate space behind a salmon pink wall divide she assumed lead to a private part of the courtyard. The half domes were laden with shelves, bunks and bundles of books and scrolls she guessed were his ledgers, recipes and auditing papers. “Sit by the fountain, you must take a message to the Abdos. It is urgent.”

She strolled into the courtyard and looked up through the roof which was opened to allow the sun to shine down and cast a glow onto the crystalline waters. It was then that the reason for the defended building dawned on Mordelain. Though the noria were easily repairable, to build noria, you required a water source. This was the source. Karachi had built his home on top of an oasis, its remnants trickling through the wrought iron frame and silver plating of the fountain. She leant towards it to inspect the images in the metal, which depicted jinn striding over the desert and people running and screaming from their daemonic assailants.

Trailing her eyes over the beautiful mosaic which surrounded the fountain, in resplendent jade and navy blue that moved with the sunlight she sighed. For business competition to come to murder was simply out of the question, but she could see why any man would covet this heaven. The gentle wind fell into the courtyard as it whistled over the building, its dying strength enough to rustle the tree canopy and sway the ferns and palm spruces in their terracotta pots. A clash of metal and clay swung Mordelain around to the left chamber and she caught the bowl as it rolled into the sunlight with a quick stoop. She rose and peered around the corner. She juggled the crockery uncertainly, until she gave up and set it gently onto the tiles with sheepish stealth.

“Are you alright Karachi?” Her voice trailed into soft melody, unsure wherever or not he had a title she was not aware of.

The old man coughed before emerging with a tray in his hand laden with delicacies. At it's centre stood the customary tall silver coffee percolator and two small espresso cups; they were silver too and beautifully engraved with spiralling swirls and as he drew closer, elephants and more exotic creatures still. He nodded to the small mosaic table by the fountain, nearest the door but already set with two chairs. The pattern was a simple geometric design of diamonds, arranged into the circle frame in a star pattern. The black and white shades in the metalwork stood in stark contrast to the rainbow of ocean colours of the tiles and flora in the courtyard. They seemed out of place as much as she did.

“Tell me what news of the Abdos,” he said, less a question, more a command. She sat with her back to the large double doors and crossed her legs to allow herself the momentary pleasure of resting without the threat of winged devils leering down over her shoulder. He set clumsily opposite, all the while avoiding eye contact and trying to hide the sides of his face with his turban and headdress. She knew enough of the desert culture beyond the confines of the Outsider Quarters to know that Karachi was an oasis druid – a glass weaver, one of the few folk of Fallien who possessed magic naturally. How could someone so powerful be oppressed so easily and readily by bandits and thieves?

[Mordelain]

“The Abdos rides as swift as it’s runners to a bright future,” she said with customary observance of her position and its requirements. There was much she could say, but much more she could not. At least not to a stranger. He adjusted himself in his seat and folded his robes below the waist so that his bare legs were not showing. She stopped herself from smiling, and from leaning to see if the rumours that the Bedouin wore no underwear were as true as the urchins of Ikkaram suggested.

“You will have heard of my troubles I am to take it?” He continued his charade of keeping out her gaze, and went about pouring the steaming coffee into the small cups with the attention of an artiste at work and the patience of a saint. Much like tea in Scara Brae, or the consumption of mead in Bulganin or Breen, coffee in the desert was as much a bonding ritual as it was a relaxant and stimulant of long winded conversation. The tray was laden with sweet delicacies and luxurious goods from all the corners of the island; finely ground carob powder, date syrup in long vials and fruit preserves. Rarer still, there were falafel tarts and crystalline ginger and small cubes of marzipan on crushed oat and arrowroot flour shortbread.

After her long ordeal, it was a veritable feast.

“I read your letter you sent to your brother,” she reached into her robes, but stopped as she caught sight of his eyes.

Karachi had two unusual traits to his appearance; the first was his tanned skin, which was much darker than most inhabitants of Fallien. The second were his eyes, one green, one red, which now they shone with fear. It was a look, a twinkle, a shudder in the heart that she was all too familiar with. “However, I fear you did not send it…” she unfolded it slowly, allowing the bells in her head gear to tinkle softly. She swayed her head to make them play their song, and he felt calmer as she read the message her brother had received, perhaps moments from his death.

“I did not send that letter,” he said coarser than ever.

“Then who did, Karachi? Who would wish you dead, your family hurt, your business failed?” She asked with genuine curiosity, and nodded politely as he extended his cup laden hands and took it with grace. She kept it to her chest, and let the aroma drift into her nostrils like a draught of smelling salts. Ground coffee had become quite a treat for her, something she enjoyed with Suresh on his sun roof long into the golden sunlight of the humid evenings. They watched the skies darken together, and the birds flock south, and the children flee home as their parents heckled for them to come in before the night came.

“I have many rivals; it is only natural when so many spice farmers and merchants work in such close proximity. Though the ships bring goods from afar, there is much demand for the spice of Fallien, so only the best gets to the docks in the hands of the il’Jhain, as you will well know.” He leant back in his chair and pulled off his headgear, revealing two bruises on his left cheek, clearly from a blunt instrument or side swipe. “When I became Jya’s royal signatory and obtained the sole rights to supply spices to Scara Brae’s Royal Court and the Rangers in Corone, several of those rivals did not take kindly to the appointment.”

Giving in to temptation to take in the caffeine and the bitter sweet taste, Mordelain examined the man’s wizened visage with curiosity befitting a small child looking upon an ancient and venerable fable. His skin was much darker than the hood had shown, and his eyes, though dual coloured, possessed a universal golden sheen to them that suggested omniscience. They in fact displayed his allegiance to the Bedouin of the east, who dwelt alongside the Exile Coradan and kept vigil over his treachery. They were a hard wearing people, whose traditions were stranger than her own and much older still. He was the polar opposite to her pale skin, elongated eyes and supple tone. She was lithe, he ganger; she was graceful, he forceful in his motions.

“Why did you not send work to the Abdos and seek the aid of the Freerunners?”

He rocked his head back and laughed as if the notion were absurd. He looked back into his cup and swirled the contents wistfully, before downing them in one gulp. He was a venerable man well accustomed to the consumption of stimulants, which perhaps contributed to his jittery hands and the erratic mood. Mordelain hoped as much at least. He picked up a marzipan slice and gestured with his free hand for his guest to help herself. He stuffed it between his moist lips and ate it noisily, crumbs rolling down his lap between wet and soggy mouthfuls.

[Mordelain]

She reached out with a polite bow to take one of the vials of date syrup. With caution, she dribbled it over the back of her hand in the customary fashion of the upper classes seated in their secluded cafes. It was warm and satisfying on her skin. She set the vial down carefully and sprinkled three pieces of ginger onto the syrup, before sucking it from her body greedily. Karachi nodded with satisfaction that his guest was being satisfied, before he leant back into his chair once more and folded his hands over his lap.

“The Freerunners will do nothing, because it is two merchants well in the coffers of your elfin employer that have been forceful in their methods. I cannot, and have not left my home for two months, chained to the defence of these walls and the creation of glass guardians to see off the bandits they send when darkness falls.” He cleared his throat and licked the crumbs from his lips. “I must speak with the Abdos Viceroy himself, to put an end to the spice feud before it turns into all-out war.”

Mordelain could not believe that the Freerunners would simply stand back and watch their clients kill one another. War was always distasteful as far as resolutions went; she had to do something, if she could. She took a marzipan cube and finished the rest of her coffee before savouring the thick and creamy almond texture, laced with mint with barely contained glee. She shook her legs like a little girl at solstice and then composed herself for the severity of the news she was hearing.

“I will deliver a message to the Abdos, by all means, but I must also ask who the bandits were sent by? The guards in the outpost were killed by kukri, il’Jhain kukri at that. If they are framing messengers and trying to indicate that you are being besieged, when I note that your walls are well polished and radiant in the sun and the surrounding paddocks I see no flames, then we must be wary.”

Karachi furrowed his brow, surprised to hear a woman speak in such plain and simple and tactical terms. Though he was not beset in the xenophobic ways of the city folk, Bedouin tribes still placed men as thinkers, and women as artisans and creators; both equal, but very much different in their society. He smiled, re-assuring himself that he was not dealing with a simple minded errand girl and pulled out a piece of paper from his robes. The white and unblemished parchment stood in starker contrast to the blue tiles, and to his black, dirtied and well-worn robes.

“The two nearest spice-fields belong to Surdaya of the Irrakam house Jared, and to the unruly farmer Mohammed. Both men born in Fallien and wary of my people are to blame for these tricks. I could not say why they resort to these games, the wisdom of Jya will see through them soon enough.I think by then though, too much damage will be done.”

He held out the parchment and Mordelain snatched it into her hands.

“Give it to the Viceroy of the Abdos as soon as you return to Irrakam, and if he does not believe you show him this,” he fetched out a small pin, with an eagle motif on its head and she took it too. “It is my symbol of council on the mercantile court, he will know what it means. It is a summons he cannot ignore.”

“I cannot just leave you here, Karachi. What if they resort to more blunt methods? They killed the Jya guard in clear daylight; they will not hesitate to do the same to you, surely?” She expressed genuine concern, but also, a concern that if he died whilst she was in tandem between the spice fields and the city limits, she would lose her reputation, and not receive the token for her endeavour.

“Don’t worry about me child, they have besieged me and played tricks with the wind for many weeks. Despite all their efforts I have not once heard them press their blades against the walls, nor set foot in the paddocks to tear out my crops. They have however been quite successful in stopping any messengers getting to the spice fields, and interfering with any deliveries I send with private couriers…” he trailed off into deep thought, rubbing his chiselled chin with his fingers before setting his cup down onto the mosaic table.

“By what divine guidance did you get here?” He asked with a hint of accusation in his words. She stumbled with a reply, but settled on a wink.

“I am the fastest of the Freerunners, or so they say. Suresh’s steed bore me here, through harpies’ lair and mausoleum sorrowful. She will spurn me back to the Sun Goddess’s bridge and cross me into the Outlander’s Quarters by nightfall too.”

Seemingly content with her answer, Karachi stood, and Mordelain followed suit. He stepped away from the table and waved behind her to the door. She did not need to be familiar with the customs of Fallien to know that she was kindly being shown the exit. She nodded politely and turned to leave.

“Then may you be faster still, and bring me peace, and the city’s merchants better fortunes. Your kin’s reputation and lives are at stake, Freerunner. See to it that order is restored and that the spice can make it to the city walls, and to the frontiers of the lands beyond without any more blood being spilled.”

Mordelain vowed to, and promised her own pantheon of strange gods that she would succeed in her assignment.

[Mordelain]

The Toll of a Long Road

---

The first thing that entered Mordelain’s thoughts as she stepped out into the searing heat was how rippling the horizon was. It formed a vast wall miles long of impenetrable mirage. It told her all she needed to know about how dangerous, and indeed how foolish it would be to attempt to cross the Dagger Spine and the Shifting Sea without luck, a lot of water and the grace of Jya herself. She shook her head, and longed to turn on a heel and step back into the cool and calm serenity of Karachi’s Oasis. She would receive no welcome if she did. A business man deranged, that is what Karachi had become, and his words span into a storm in her stomach; something was stirring in Irrakam, and she did not like the sound of the swell.

“I am afraid you journey alone, Kales,” she said glumly, a cheeky grin on her face, arms dangling loosely and emptily by her sides as she approached her steed. If she were made of sterner substance she would have braved the deserts duty bound to her oath. As a planes walker, however, she had another path available to her, and she knew deep in her heart that her steed, once spurned south would be home more than likely before she was. With a loving embrace she draped her arms over Kales’ mane and ruffled her pointy and dainty nose through the roughage. It smelt of warm sand, glassy kilns and manure but it was a comforting scent all the same.

Content with her goodbye she stepped away and slapped the steed on her side. Her response to which was a whinny and a quick start into a galloping turn. Before Mordelain could wipe a single salty tear from the canal of her lip, Kales was fading into nothing down through Karachi’s paddocks, garnering a few absent minded stares from the still trundling oxen. Carrion birds circled overhead as if they were expecting the riderless messenger to keel over, and their cries pierced the gentle silence cast by the wind as it picked up smatterings of crystalline sand, keeping everything constantly moving, everything constantly new. She prayed silently that Kales would indeed live up to Suresh’s promises once more, and that she would be the ‘pigeon horse’ once again.

With heavy feet she made to follow the horse through the spice fields, each step an arduous task as if her muscles rejected the idea of getting further away from the shade. They resisted her, reminding her of the sweet crystalline fruits and hams they knew Karachi had in his cool house. Though she had taken her fill, they left a taste on her tongue that would linger for a long, long time, a wonder that could not be bested by anything the nine worlds had to offer. When she cleared two hundred or so feet from the palisade walls she looked up at the circling birds and covered her eyes from the glare of the sun.

With a lull in her senses she felt herself fall through the folds between realms and descend into the silent skies of Phantaria once more. It was a rush of blood to the head and a twirl of emotion without feeling she never tired of, never ceased to be excited by. Her eyes shone when she opened them, reflecting the intense light of the spherical balls of fire that surrounded her. She was suspended in a sea of suns, each one brighter than the last, each one hotter than the desert. Once, she would have cried at such a spectacle, but she knew its secrets now. She named them each in turn, nine in total, and rekindled a brief moment of connection with each of the Kalithrism planets. With a kick, she back flipped through the nothingness and extended a finger out towards a green sun that burnt with sulphur, forming a vision of the sickly green sands of the world it warmed with feeble glow.

“Hudde,” she mouthed, before the sickness rose in her chest and she fell out of Phantaria onto cooler climes. The familiar smell of death hit her nostrils seconds later, replacing the candour of the date leaves and the hot fence varnish of Karachi’s spice field with the eternal scent of exile, abandonment and hopelessness. She arrived upright, for once, and standing on the same plateau she had fled to from the bandits’ clutches hours before. It was one of the few places she felt she had a connection to, which allowed her to anchor her walking to this spot, above any other. That bond allowed her to arrive dutifully and timely into safety. She let out a long sigh and folded her hands over her chest to try and rub some warmth into them, forever surprised at the juxtaposition between the planes.

“I’ve never been glad to see you, but today, I greet you with great relief…”

[Mordelain]

Hudde had been one of the last worlds to be bound to the vortex, dragged into alignment by the Troubadours too many centuries ago for Mordelain to contemplate. When the first war broke out between Bulganin and its Behemoth Kings, great creatures bore of the primordial spirit of their world the Tama saw to it that a place where the immortal tyrants could be contained was brought into the Khalithrism. The deserts of Hudde they had decided were a perfect prison in design and location. They sealed the Phantaria gate to the desert realm from anyone other than a Tama. In time, tombs and necropolis and barrier domes had risen high on every rocky outcrop as new inmates were brought to their doom on the lonely walk.

Mordelain had tried to learn their names and who resided in them. There were so many hovels and warlock caverns and gods in sarcophagi it was a futile task, one that could drive the stoutest mind insane. The pyramid on the horizon however was very familiar, burnt into her mind like the still lingering halo of the Fallien sun in her cornea. It was the resting place of Alfas, the Troubadour who Danced Death. It was his dance and breaking of the Oaths that bound their people that had caused Junkyo’s destruction. The planet’s spirit, which had leant its will to the formation of the Kalithrism in the First Days sundered itself to spite the usurpers, who had become daintily dressed and fair haired gods amongst the denizens of the nine worlds.

It accused the Tama of becoming nothing more than self-proclaimed prophets of the ‘good will,’ sick on the power they possessed to walk from danger and into divinity at a moment’s notice. Alfas had been one of the few Tama that had agreed, and he had tried to warn the council what Junkyo was intending to do. When the crystal spires erupted from the planet’s surface and the Cataclysmic of the world ripped through Phantaria's heart, it was his laughter that echoed on the winds of change. His dance was still today performed in the streets as they burned.

Mordelain traced the detail of the pyramid with judgemental eyes, which narrowed into slits of contempt. She saw echoes of her own people’s mistakes in the political machinations of Fallien’s citizens, and started to wonder if she had any right to be part of such turbulent and changing times. She guessed in the end each player in the great game had to make choices about what moves to make, and like Karachi, who had chosen to castle his walls and wait for the storm to pass, she too would have to make her choice. Would she stay and aid the Freerunners to prosperity, or rise to Karachi’s challenge and deliver the message that may well start a war between rivals, kings and scholars?

“War underserves an end for any man,” she recited from her fables, the long ballads of the Troubadour that she had recounted to a thousand souls on a thousand islands in her short years. “That does not justify one starting in one man’s name,” she continued.

She did not entirely know what it meant, but it was justification for her to deliver Karachi’s pin to the viceroy. She would take her token, add it to her belt, and then find the tools to better unravel the mystery of the spice wars and the business world she was still so unfamiliar with. She could just about fathom noria, and the art of preparing sweets from rose petals and coconut shavings but the exchange of goods for money was beyond her. On Junkyo there was only creation and story, fable and artistry; there was never a need to buy because through the charity of the other worlds they had everything they needed. People threw food at them practically, offered them fine silks in the streets to sew together for their continued performance.

“Now all I get thrown at me is excrement, stone and sand,” she said solemnly, turning her back on Afras’ Tower to face the setting sun.

Pulling on the faint scent of Phantaria once more she allowed herself to draw in the connection between her anchor and the next step in her journey back to the Outlander’s Quarters. The sulphurous air of Hudde was exchanged for the heady and humid heartland of Bulganin, lashing vines and drum beats in the knot root glades north of the planet’s largest tree city. She did not linger long, needing only the touch of the dirty, murky, dangerous water to kindle hope in her heart and to send her back into Phantaria and then on to Fallien.

[Mordelain]

The great fork in the Attireyi River was a welcoming sight. Without turning to look Mordelain knew that she was standing on the northern tip of the island on which Irrakam stood. The crystal waters and the muddy embankment in front of her went left and right around the bastion city and flowed south, beneath the great bridge and down into the sea many leagues away. The heavy, deafening toll of the great bells of Jya’s Temple rang out their peal overhead. She turned to gaze up at the impregnable walls of the mother’s citadel. Against the sun, Jya’s golden and pearl white heights shone almost with their own radiance, sparkling and bedazzling on the sky line wherever one looked from the city.

Six hundred years ago Fallien had been devastated by some still unknown tragedy. Suresh had told her that it had happened, but not why. To see the Outpost and the Irrakam architecture rise so beautifully and wonderfully now at the foot of their matriarch’s temple seemed to instil a sense of great achievement in the Tama. Even though she stood amongst barren trees, twisted up righted roots with bulbous tubas and gourd fruit dangling from their branches, she felt that life in Fallien was so very much alive. Though the Ruuya housed many tribes and the tribes of the Mitra inhabited most of the eastern side of the Zaileya Mountains, it did not sing as loudly as it did here.

Mordelain padded over the craggy outcrops with youthful exuberance. She wove, despite her fatigue with grace between the plant life which clung to the bountiful shores of the Attireyi, slowly approaching the walls of the keep to rest a delicate palm against the scorching surface. Through concentration she ignored the heat and felt the pulse of Althanas through the painted sand. She did not care for women gods or men clad in pious robes, but the symbolism spoke to her in a thousand tongues.

All she cared for was life.

She was so very glad to be alive.

She set her headdress straight and padded the sand of Hudde’s fell winds from her attire before making her way anti-clockwise around the base of the Keep. Arnabiss pounced and sprang out of sight as she progressed over the ruptured landscape, hand outstretched to steady her advance and eyes bouncing along with the strange creatures. They were called hare cats by the foreigners in the city, and she had come to grow fond of their sight. They would not have looked at all out of place on Bulganin, or even in the bazaar of the Eternal Night, a place where every manner of creature, cute and deadly could be brought, traded or stolen. It did not take her long for the creatures to fall from her thoughts, replaced instead with languishing heat, the sweat rolling down her spine and the dizzy sensation that came with hunger, tiredness and the onset of heatstroke.

She kept an eye on the clumps of dried leaves and herbs that clung to life in the shallow shade beneath the trees. When she ventured out on the south side in sight of the great gates of the Keep, who would unsheathe their Nirakkal forged glass blades if she dared to step onto Irrakam proper she found what she was looking for. There were many strange herbs in the wastelands of Fallien, all of which held properties some would call wondrous. Some induced sleep within minutes; others brought the dead, the Artra and the succubus to heel.

The delicate leaves of the Larkspur were an aid for many things, including indigestion, heat fatigue and general cornucopias. She checked the underneath of the flower’s head, to ensure that she was not in fact picking the deadlier cousin that went into the creation of the poison Kanyaa’dhe. Satisfied that her knowledge would not fail her to an abrupt and painful end, she picked several of the leaves and ran her nail across them to release the liquid. Whilst she waited for it to ooze out she picked the flower, a yellow dandelion like head with a white, fluffy centre and blew the seeds away. They drifted for several feet before coming to a rest on the sand, struggling like trapped fish in a net to be free of the glass dust. She ate the yellow leaves, which tasted of onion and pepper whilst she waited.

[Mordelain]

“The desert gives and the desert takes,” she said chirpily as she sucked the leaves dry.

Suresh had told her about the slow warming effects of their medicine. It would be at least half an hour before she felt the calming effect, before her stomach stopped churning and her head stopped spinning. She tossed the husks back to the dirt. With a delicious smack of her lips she declared her satisfaction as her immense thirst was temporarily sated, before making her away over the rocks down to the shore. Her descent was followed by an ascent up and around the crag rise to the outskirts of the Outsider’s Quarters. Her hands became quickly calloused and dry, grasping at sandstone, dried skeleton moss and Narayan roots through the rising pain.

It was only a mile walk along the buttress walls. Mordelain traipsed with a skip and arms prancing through the melange of rubbish, spice plants and shanty towns. All wonders of life which had grown out of the discarded food from the parapets of the city. She had promised to be back before nightfall, yet from the searing sun, it was no later than three in the afternoon. The hopes of Suresh’s face being slapped with surprise kept her tired, aching limbs moving, and her heart beating in its pallid, sweaty cage just long enough to count.

Her advance garnered the attention of the mud covered fishermen and robe clad women, tall and gangly and without substance to their form. They peered around rickshaw hulls, trade relics with Akashima and over mud walls greased with straw, oil and pig muck to stare at the strange creature that walked openly through their home. Though the feathers in her hat were crooked and her skin was porous and covered in red patches from salt rub and bruising, Mordelain stood out amongst the squalor almost in a divine light. They whispered of Jaya’s priestesses lost, reincarnations and strangers daring to break the code of the Outsider’s Quarters by venturing out of the walls. She bowed where was needed and danced over rock and excrement with agile, beautiful steps. Her sandals, barely recognisable as fine, Bulganin leather slapped against the dirt and pattered out a rhythm which the Tama hummed along to.

As she turned the curve of Ikkaram, to accompaniment of slop buckets falling from the walls and reengage merchants exclaiming the quality of the questionable goods on display on neck ropes, she was graced with relief and the presence of the titanic bridge which connected the centre of the city with the mainland. There was a massive wooden structure leading from the shore up to the gatehouse, a zig zag of rickety wood built no doubt by pressganged foreigners to give the glass weavers access to the shore. It also served as access for the workers who lived in the shanty towns to be able to tend to their stables, kilns and abattoirs. There was a steady stream of unwashed and in some instances, enrobed people trotting up and down the walkway. Gulls called their cries overhead and as Mordelain closed in, dogs began to bark and the great bell of Jya’s keep sounded once more.

“Four O’clock,” she muttered, keeping loose track of time to sign her assignment documents when she returned to the Abdos. The people of Fallien were fond of paperwork, as much as the shanty town dwellers were fond of cooking rat and clothing themselves in discarded bed linen from the refuse of Ikkaram’s envoys. It was annoying ad tiresome, but she understood why there were so many forms to sign for the slightest of errands; records were valuable.

She approached the heart of the slum town which grew up around the foot of the great walkway.

“As-Salāmu `alayk,” several street merchants proclaimed with false joy the very second she stepped into the central street. It was a long mud furrow which ran in a curve along with the city walls. As Mordelain waved them away in turn, her hands careful to swat away unwanted attention and to keep pick pocketing fingers from her wares, she could hear them scoot away with a bow and repeat the same traditional greeting to anyone and indeed everyone they crossed. She had not looked at what they were selling, but from the odour, which burnt her tongue over the sluice of the mud and the sewers she was thankful her curiosity had not gotten the better of her.

Orphans ran past her laughing, bare feet nimbly dodging rubbish and splashing in the drying waters of the great river. Music drifted out from the tents and grander looking shacks that had built up over the long years around the walkway’s base. Military men, perhaps looking for off shift entertainment wandered in between the streams of workers and paupers, coffee beans in their purses and marzipan in their satchels to trade their trinkets for the treasures of others.

Mordelain bowed at them politely as she passed, not wanting to draw unwanted attention to her by forgetting her manners. They nodded back, catching the silver buckler of her il’Jhain belt and deeming her worthy of their presence. She wove through the pulsing masses, by now quite used to the smell and came at last to the foot of the ascent back into Ikkaram. She found herself confronted by two gruff looking men with skin as dark as chocolate, both armed with partisans twice as long as their bodies.

[Mordelain]

Without thinking she reached into the folds of her attire and pulled out her Exit Pass, the document that allowed her to leave the city under the jurisdiction and providence of the guilds of the Abdos. The left guard took it with a snatch, his heavy beard shaking like the gruff bellow of an ox. Mordelain tried to look official as she remembered her first few weeks in the city. The guards had chased her from the Outsider’s Quarter to the estuary ruin of Kithdir on many an occasion, shouting and heckling at her from horseback as she skitter leaped between the realms like a will-o-wisp. He scanned it, checking for nothing more than a signature or seal from one of the messenger houses, and upon seeing the Freerunner symbol he chuckled sardonically.

“You may pass,” he said in a monotone voice, befitting the rigid attire of stewed leather, deep brown tunic and a polished steel kukri at each waist to compliment his pole-arm. Neither wore helmets, only turbans, adorned with a large owl feather running up the front of their headdress. She bowed and took back the papers before slipping between them to begin the ascent upwards. Very quickly she started to catch hints of clay and cinnamon drifting down over the wall. It was the scent from the shisha cafes that overlooked the steady flow of traffic between the city and the desert, where highbrow envoys passed comments from sedan sofas and piles of satin cushions stitched with elegant gold spirals.

By the time she reached the top of the walkway she sighed with relief as she felt the hard stone of the bridge beneath her feet. To her right, it crossed the crystal waters and turned from cobble into dust and wasteland. To her left it split into two paths, each veering off in respective directions into the two halves that made up Irrakam proper. North of course was the true Irrakam of Fallien, home of Jya and the trueborn. South, which is the road Mordelain trod along was the ragtag assortment of strange architectures and tradesmen brought from all the corners of the world to make their fortunes in a new land.

"Home..."

The sound of busy streets and artisans dancing with ribbons in the hot afternoon sun warmed Mordelain’s heart. The relaxing, calming effects of the Larkspur took a grip of her innards and soothed away the fatigue from her journey. She walked with a pleasant and almost docile smile on her face as she wove her way through the crowd heading to the intercity temple for afternoon prayer. She did not need to look over her shoulder to picture the great glass dome, resplendent in the sun and ablaze at night with torchlight to admire its splendour. Though she had been gone only a morning she had started to long for this strange place.

She took two left turns into the residential district of Harrah before looping round through the elven alleys and leafy arches of palms and chestnut. A right turn brought her through a sandy furrow in the island where the stone buildings gave way to wooden shacks, clad with iron and smattered with industry. Dwarves lived here, though she seldom saw them, busy as they were beneath the city in their bombastic forges that you could hear exploding at all hours.

“Home at last,” she said with a long gasp of air, a slouch of her shoulders and a rub of her sweaty brow. She did not look a pretty sight but she smiled at the sight of the Abdos. Even in the twilight, it stood truimphant. The vast courtyard in front of the familiar three doorways that lead inside was unusually quiet for this time of the day, occupied only by two carts, loaded with crates and tended to by two weary farmhands in straw hats and jade sari. Their tanned flesh seemed to shine in the heat, their backs crooked, hands dirtied by hours of hard toil. Mordelain scanned the many wide streets that ran away from the courtyard, each turning into a bazaar selling everything you could imagine and turning back into residential districts and calm, shaded date nurseries.

Without thinking she approached the Abdos and waltzed through the Freerunner entrance bold as brass. The cool rush of air from the constantly whirring fans overhead, turned by pulleys and gears blew away her growing sun stroke and welcomed her home with pomp and facetious promises of a comfortable bed and a cold bath in lavender and fennel scrub. She crossed the white and black cheque tiles and patted the large statue of the first il’Jhain to die in the Nirakkal.

She approached the reception desk of the Freerunner Outpost.

She unbuckled her belt, shook it free of sand and dropped it with a heavy clang onto the mahogany veneer of the counter. The receptionist looked up with a start.

"Good evening," her surprise quickly turned into the calm and collected masque of duty, powered by the sight of a runner and a belt which no doubt needed to be filled.

[Mordelain]

Epilogue

---

By nightfall, contented by a long sleep and another token in her belt Mordelain strolled through the Hussein Bazaar wearing little more than a white sari and a dull white shirt. She had procured them from Suresh’s stores whilst her attire and her uniforms were laundered on the banks of the Attireyi. By day, Irrakam was a well of life and activity, busy hands trading and laughter and conversation to be overheard everywhere you went. By night it was another place entirely. The sand shook with laughter, the stones crumbled with joy, the very waters under the great bridge churned with excitement.

Lanterns hung from every available pole, casting dancing lights over sandstone walls and jovial faces pilfering the tables of spices. They were piled high in careful mountains, a rainbow of culinary colour. Mordelain could literally not keep her concentration on one stall for more than two minutes before something else caught her attention. She strolled from one side of the street to the other, eyes wide as chapattis and head spinning from the delirium of choice, selection and the long swirl of names that she ran through to try and keep on top of Fallien’s bewildering lexicon of plants and roots and animals.

Suresh trailed after her slowly, politely pointing out pronunciation errors whenever she exclaimed something in harsh trade speak. Every now and then he coughed politely and pointed at things he thought she might like.

“I take it from this childish bewilderment that you want to stay in Irrakam?” He pressed inquisitively, hands tucked into the small of his back and smile turned flat and dull. Mordelain was not fazed by his tone; she simply stopped to inspect a stand with a red canopy that was piled so high with precarious mosaic bowels it looked as though it might topple over with the slightest breeze. She traced the zig zag pattern on a red and gold fruit bowl and touched it with careful fingers, as though it too might fall apart if she got too close.

“I have an allegiance to uphold with the Freerunners, and with you Suresh. I will not abandon them now, not until the viceroy sends word of his decision regarding the trouble in the north.” She picked up the bowl and without haggling, which confused the merchant standing behind the table in the half light of an oil lantern’s glow, paid for it in hard coin. The man mouthed objection through his heavy moustache and ochre attire but settled on a shrug as the strange women walked away.

“You will let me teach you how to defend yourself, if you were thinking of going out into the desert again, won’t you?” He expressed the same concern he had done all afternoon, ever since Mordelain had recounted her journey and all she had heard from Karachi.

Mordelain cocked her head back and laughed loudly. She had known Suresh only for a month, but he already acted like an uncle at best, an estranged father at worst. She shook her head and cradled her purchase with care. It was cool, contrasting the humidity of the night sky and the gentle twang of cool breeze nicely. They broke out onto a wide street, lined on either side with simple wooden wagons laden with foods from all the tribes of the desert. Mordelain suddenly found herself famished, and ran to the nearest to buy whatever was being offered.

“Of course,” she added as an afterthought, turning back to Suresh with a bowl of steaming rice and hot lamb stew to show for her money. The infusion of cordovan and thick broth like texture practically made her swoon, and she held out her mosaic bowl for him to hold whilst she shovelled it down her dainty neck. Her eyes shone in the torchlight, little portals into the strange mannerisms of an outsider in Ikkaram. Suresh simply shook his head.

“We do not have long then. Do you have an assignment?”

Her cheeks were too full of soft, melt in your mouth meat to answer, so she shook her head with a grin.

“Then you shall come with me at dawn, north to Kesta. There we shall see what use can be made of those hands of yours about a pole-arm.” He rested his hands on his hips as if he were measuring up a new recruit to the military and then huffed. He adjusted his headdress and robes and pulled out a silver kukri with a flick of his wrist. Mordelain jumped, nearly tossing rice down her shirt with surprise.

“This is a gift, from the Freerunner armoury. I have sent your partisan to your room in my apartment; you can collect it when you return to sleep.” He handed it to her and she wolfed down the last hunk of lamb, laden with the mint that had settled in the sauce before accepting it.

Her chest fluttered as if she had been given more than a dagger. It felt as if Mordelain Saythrou, the wandering Troubadour had finally found a home.

She felt as she had finally been gifted with the heart of a nomad.

Spoils:

+ Kukri: A steel kukri purchased from the Freerunner Armoury in the il'Jhain Abdos, for the price of 15 gold. It was a gift from the merchant Suresh to Mordelain, so that she can learn to better protect herself in the harsh wilderness of the desert.

+ Steel Pole-Arm: A 6 foot steel tipped pole-arm with a black shaft and cross inlay below the weapon's tip. It has a small spike on the base, for balance and to counter-thrust. It was purchased from the Freerunner Armoury by Suresh.

+ il'Jhain Map: A rectangle parchment roughly 30 centimetres by 20 enchanted to show Fallien to a messenger, as well as his current assignment and the route required to most safely traverse the sands by approved routes of their house.

+ North Gate Belt: A belt with a silver clasp with several circular holes in it to mount tokens, Freerunner currency and status symbols amongst the il'Jhain. It is enchanted to give the wearer (not just a messenger) the innate sense of knowing where north is at all times.

• Token: First Delivery
• Token: Spice War Mission

+ Mosaic Fruit Bowel: Made of sugar glass from Nirrakal, this fruit bowel is a delicate piece of artwork as well as a convenient vessel to keep fruit fresh and aired in.

+ She of the Desert: Average knowledge of Fallien's flora, fauna and it's customs.

Loses the following dances:

• Becalming Admiration: If in a city, or near flowers, the aura extends ten feet and calms non-evil humans with euphoria and a desire to lessen their attacks against her.

• Subtle Emancipation: If near water, ice or glass, Mordelain is surrounded by a mirage of swirling lights and heat, which averts eyes and attention but not sound.

- 178 gold (for the weapons and goods purchases. The weapons, though not normally awarded to people of Mordelain's rank, it is appropriate for her continued success as a messenger for her to receive the proper tack of a Freerunner and to be trained in self defence before she continues to investigate the interference with spice deliveries, and the mystery of Karachi's Oasis.