| August 2005 | << July 2005 | September 2005 >> |
| Stone Dropped in the Farthest Wilds |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > King's Keep |
The King's Keep is as a great, gray quarried block, dropped by stoneworkers onto the green grass and left, far from anywhere. Such is as the Keep appears to traders and commonfolk atop the ridge above the Lothar, traveling to or from Three Stones on the New Road. For stranger folk emerging from the enclosing trees of the Traveler's Wood, the Keep is a mountaintop at the head of a gentle valley, a welcome sight after the shadowed Middle Road.
The King's Keep is sturdy and thick-walled, home to spearpriests who have taught the Way of the King of All the Ammand for generations. Many summers have come and gone since the first stones of the Keep were brought from the quarries of Krineth's Hills, now long-abandoned to Neth and the ravages of time. Over the years, villagefolk have come to dwell outside the high Keep walls, amongst them smiths, craftsmen and traders to match those who follow the King's Way within the Keep.
As year passes on year, Ammander spearmen come and go from the Keep. In winter, they come from throughout the Enclave to take the King's coin and carry their spears against the Neth. When last snow passes and the Known Roads turn to mud once more, all but the most dedicated leave to find summer coin in Port, Three Stones and the lesser towns.
There is no safer place for commonfolk in all the Enclave than the meeting of the Middle Road and New Road, in sight of the King's Keep, or so it is said - a hundred honest spears are but shouting distance away, and the King's Way is the way of this land.
[ Posted by Reason on August 24, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| Spears Gone To Ill Ways |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > King's Keep |
Tis true, leastways as Ferre told it to me just this morning, afore the clouds came from the Farthest Sky. Red iron from the Keep, a spearpriest and the King's horses too we're to be having! Old Reafus and his isleblood girl are away to the smith and the shrine, and the stable folk are hard awork even with the summer rain, see for yourself.
Hold yourself, hold yourself! I've only the one tongue for the telling. As Ferre tells it, a brace of spears are gone to ill ways on the Forest Road, stealing coin and slaying merchant folk. No better than Neth, I say - we're to ride and remind them of the King's Way for all spears and blades. Remind them well, mark my words! There's a tale we'll have to tell to those spears who bow to the King only after first snow!
[ Posted by Reason on August 23, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| Pick and Stone Fair of Ura |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Ura |
Stoneworkers and pick-wielders of Ura turn to other occupations while snow piles high in the hollows left from the past summer's work, sustained by coin from the Red Iron Guild. Around the time of last snow, when the ground softens and troubadors depart their winter retreats in Port, Three Stones and Mirael, the Pick and Stone Fair is held in Ura.
Since the Year of Winter, that terrible, unending season of Trespassers and wizardry, when snow and hail buried the Red Iron Road and a third of Ura's commonfolk starved, the Pick and Stone Fair has grown in significance. What was once a small, traditional occasion - marked by coin passed to the few troubadors who wintered in Ura and a late night of ale and carefully husbanded provisions in the tavern and manses - has become an event to rival the summer fair at One Stone. Coin flows freely from the Guildmaster, merchants and players brave the thawing, muddied Known Roads to claim their share, and even some cityfolk from Port - and thieves too, no doubt - have taken to making the journey in recent years.
A successful fair is taken as a good sign for the seasons to come; it is a defiance of the Farthest Winter and its hold over the Enclave lands. After troubadors have played their part and the last of the ale has gone, half of Ura follow the stoneworkers and minefolk out to the quarries, where they compete - often drunkenly - for the right to be first to break the earth and win a purse of Guild-pressed coin from the Red Iron Guildmaster.
[ Posted by Reason on August 22, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| That They Were Lost, Not I |
| The Enclave > Lore > The Farthest |
There was never a merchant's fear like it afore nor since, a cold craw grasping at my heart, as when the folk drew near upon the Coast Road. Close enough to see robes of red and stranger's beasts carrying I know not what, and I alone with my mules - watching my thoughts and not the Road, not the Road. Then it was, by the touch of the Beautiful Stranger, I saw the third-broken stone marker and its sapling tree beside the cliff. It was as the Unending Sea came up to wash away the blood of my legs, to know that they were Lost, not I!
[ Posted by Reason on August 22, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| Amidst Trees, the Farthest |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Traveler's Stone |
The homes and halls of Traveler's Stone are scattered amidst the trees and knolls of a wooded vale, linked by crossing paths and centered on the great black Stone itself. For all its modest size, Traveler's Stone calls to the Farthest like the streets and crowds of Three Stones or Port; the village borders on stranger villages, just as those cities border the Farthest City.
Traveler's Stone is as a wave-washed isle at the crossing of tides, reached across the narrow isthmus of the Middle Road and its passage through the dark, close Traveler's Wood. A glimpse of Visitors through the trees is not uncommon, or so the tales tell - and those who journey to Traveler's Stone must watch their path with care lest they become Lost.
A certain type of folk come to dwell in this place of the Power of Roads, a journey's end that isn't - folk less settled, the curious, those who honor the old ways of the Ammand that was, those with mystery in their blood.
[ Posted by Reason on August 19, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| Cudal Who Both Keeps and Breaks the Peace |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Traveler's Stone |
Barely half of the season is gone since I left for Three Stones, and how quickly you all forget, you of the trees and and you of the old shrine. But here I stand, returned to my manse in hope of quiet, and there you lie - and be glad I found pleasant company on the New Road, else I would run you through and through and leave you all speared upon the green grass, that much is truth. By the Powers and the Emerald, take your broken bones and be gone from my sight afore I change my mind!
[ Posted by Reason on August 18, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| The Traveler Met Twice and a View of the Middle Road |
| The Enclave > Known Roads |
I'd curse my boots, legs too, and the mule for the Beautiful Stranger's touch if I'd thought it'd make any difference. The New Road from Lothar up to the King's Keep on the rise will be the death of me this winter or the next - and yet I always journey after first snow. Ah, my road continues, leastways for another winter in Mirael with commonfolk and those who pretend to be for coin. If you had half the wit of my mule, you'd throw your seafarer's pipe into the Lothar and take on a more noble profession. There's an honesty in song, I'll grant, but not in those who sing - all you have to look forward to is ruin for a pretty face or an ugly old troubador.
Here we are, atop at least, and there's the Keep - empty as a tankard in the Players' Guild, spearmen gone to camp at Tean's Marker and brave the Forest Road as sport for Neth. We'd stop in summer, but not while snow falls. Look downslope, there at the Traveler's woods, sheathed in snow, a prettier thing than any work of Ammander or Islefolk. Through and through passes the Middle Road, but a step to either side and Lost you are; it takes a strange sort of folk to come and go from Traveler's Stone, carrying a torch between the closer trees.
There's a tale of the Middle Road, yes, and I'll tell. Let those who can yet prance and dance for coin be jealous of their tales - mine are of no use to me beyond the telling.
Folk say that Krineth, the explorer Krineth, mind, who bedded more than I've bowed to, met the Power of Roads not once but twice. The once in the Greenwood and the Neth Road, of that we all know, but the second is not so widely told as once it was. The explorer and his fellows - The Marked, Aylei and others I forget - camped here, where we walked, in a winter season much as this one. This was generations past, afore the King's Keep and the New Road, afore priests took Three Stones from the noble folk. Explorers braved the Farthest Enclave with each step from the Roads known then, armed with wit and wizardry, and for each we recall, a dozen were Lost to sight and memory.
From where they camped amidst deep snow, Krineth's companions watched an old man walk from the woods below, from afar and distant to beside their tents and fire set on cleared ground. The Power, for such the old man was, leaned on his staff to greet Krineth, asked him why he camped atop the Road, and whether he would journey through the woods that day.
No, I know not what Krineth said to the Traveler, nor do I know if he was the one to lay route markers for the Middle Road - but such is the tale as I heard it told, and I have passed the seasons of treating an unfinished song as a troubador would. Come, I have caught my breath. We have a way to travel, and the New Road will be made crude by snow, spearmen and the King's horses.
[ Posted by Reason on August 17, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| How the Work is Done |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Corner of Creation |
Where I passed the night is none of yours, Geath, and none of Rell's neither. If he's angry as a speared red crawcrab, then let him be. Come walk with me while the clouds make it pleasant - Rell will be back to his own self, eel teeth and bile, afore the day is out. You may owe him a purse, but that's all you owe him.
Here is good a place as any to sit for a while, across from that worm-eaten shop and the headman's manse. Honen is his name, the headman, and he has coin, or so they say ... and it's none of yours as to how I know who tells which tales. To my eyes, all the headman's coin is paid and gone to stone and wood, a sight heavy for three from the dockside. Oh, it'd be a fine place to live if you like farmfolk and woodsmen - and Neth each winter - but you can't carry away a manse and its furniture.
You see the watchtower yonder? The platform atop has been walled and closed for as many summers as certain folk recall, but someone up there takes provisions and watches the Forest Road for Neth after first snow. The villagefolk say it's an Ammanene from the Watch of Trees - no coin there either way, I'll wager, but any locked chest was put there to be opened, isn't that right Geath?
Rell was all for thieving from the smith or the old merchant? We won't be touching the smith's coin, and you know why. Rell must still be Lost in his ale - he may as well take coin right from the hand of the healer at the shrine of the Beautiful Stranger, there beyond the headman's manse. I'll not be throwing tomorrow to the cats.
[ Posted by Reason on August 16, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| The Morning After, the Price of Progress |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Corner of Creation |
Claws and spines, my head! Water, Geath, bring water from the well! By the Three Powers, I'm bleeding my brain from my ears to find us scent of coin, and where is Eslei? Warming some woodsman's cot, no doubt, after she showed you the shadows. You call yourself one of the safehouse favorites but couldn't even keep a drunk from trouble! As well for Eslei that she never thieved in your company - she'd be rotting with the prison hulks these past years.
If there's coin amidst these glowfish guts and village eels, it'd be with the merchant Greser or the smith beside the Forest Road. Good coin poured down that old fool's throat in the tavern and spears inside my head this morning to learn nothing more than any of us could see! We may as well have lost our fingers and fallen on the dockside for fisherfolk to throw their catch upon. We should have taken our wits and knives to the Stone Road for the summer season, mark me well!
[ Posted by Reason on August 15, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| Springhouse Beneath the Great Tree |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Traveler's Stone |
A natural spring bubbles up from between two great roots of the largest tree of Traveler's Stone, and Ammander folk long ago built a stone-walled springhouse to enclose it. Fresh water flows from the mouth of a crouching cat within the springhouse to a stone-lined channel that meanders slowly downslope between the trees and houses of the village. The springwaters empty into the green Still Water by the guardhouse, from there draining into a stream that runs away to unknown places and the Farthest.
The Great Tree has grown and broadened since the springhouse stones were first laid; one wall is close to collapse, and the cat crouches at an angle. As for so much of the old Ammander stonework in Traveler's Stone, little has been done to repair the ravages of root and branch beyond the placement of wooden beams for support.
The Springhouse would be a peaceful, contemplative place were it not for the constant coming and going of villagefolk. The stone channel is most crowded at dawn and dusk; the traditional times to fetch water and tell the tales of lesser folk since the seasons of the old Ammand.
[ Posted by Reason on August 15, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| Mortal Folk to Guard Datarii |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Ura |
You've never seen those below, have you? This is coin for standing still with polished arms from the Guildmaster's manse - not for those with fire in their blood and the King's Way in their heart. The stonefolk, they walk as men carrying timbers to a new cottage, or with arms full of blades fresh from the forge. Rightly so, I'll say; I'd no more want to be stepped on by a horse of the King's Keep than rub shoulders with Alla. Blood! She no more needs spears than the hills she lives beneath!
Still, easy coin it is, so long as you don't laugh at the Guildmaster and his ways as Meris did last summer. Alla and the other stonefolk, there they stand or sit, still and quiet as you like while all manner of fools come and go. All the while, the red iron goats are dancing and fawning. I'll say this, and may it go no further: the Guild may give us our purses, tell us to take our spears here and there, to bake ourselves on the Red Iron Road under summer sun, but stand beside the stonefolk for a single day and you'll see just what the Guild amounts to.
Blood! None of my concern were you to run to Port for militia coin until the leaves fall again. My tales are as I see the world; I'll be cold and buried without ever taking coin to carry my spear for anyone worthy of it.
[ Posted by Reason on August 13, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| Bending of the Middle Road |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Traveler's Stone |
The Traveler has walked all Roads, yes, and walked the wild Enclave before the Roads were laid by Magi traders and Ammander folk - for who but a traveler to see where a Road will one day pass? When the Traveler first carried pack and staff across Enclave grass and hills, through the forest vale where the Middle Road would be in seasons to come, he came to a most pleasant place - a town of honest, generous folk at the base of a high mountain, on the shores of a placid lake. The townsfolk made the finest wine and lived a simple life of plenty and comfort, untroubled by the ills of other mortal folk. There, the traveler rested, laid down his staff for the very first time, for the town was named Journey's End. Yet in time, the Power of Roads left the pleasant town beneath the mountain and beside the lake, left the honest folk and finest wine, for travels yet to come were in his blood and would not let him rest. He bade a fond farewell, with the promise that he would return in seasons to come.
Seasons passed, winters came and went. The Traveler walked far and wide, deep into the Farthest and upon many Roads. Where he walked, staff in hand and pack on his back, he walked in the manner of one who will one day return home - and in this, he differed from the Power who first came to the Middle Road.
In time, the Traveler turned his feet back to the Middle Road in Enclave lands - but he found the Road had changed. No longer did it lead to the town beneath the mountain and beside the lake, but rather the Road came to a great black stone, then circled and folded upon itself to return whence it came. Of Journey's End and its pleasant folk, there was no sign.
"Why have you bent the Middle Road away from Journey's End?" the Traveler asked of the stone. But stone is stone, even black stone, and has no voice, even to answer the Power of Roads. The Traveler asked only himself, knowing full well his own nature. So it was that he walked on in a journey without end, and so it was that Ammander folk followed the Middle Road to find the Traveler's Stone - and built their homes about it amidst the trees.
[ Posted by Reason on August 12, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| Voice of Stone |
| The Enclave > Folk > Datarii |
All Creation has a voice, if you know the way of listening. Rock and earth tell tales of their past and the future they imagine, for they are as we are. But the Black Stone of the Draugh is old and has passed beyond tales; just as we who journey to the Farthest Crafts, it has become silent in itself. By silence we know the Black Stone, and in respect for the Draugh who were, we do not shape it.
[ Posted by Reason on August 11, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| The Broken Pick |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Ura |
By all the stone I've broken, this is good ale! A sight better than when I was younger, and this inn was called the Forge. Here's a tale for you and yours: the old Guildmaster found the barkeep sitting atop red iron and coin, and all who knew were lucky to escape with their skins. Guildmaster Ferth was an angry one, mind, and that was a winter in which I would have been glad to keep goats rather than swing a pick!
Not just strong arms, then - all that talking you do instead of helping me load stone is giving you the heart of a sage. You'll be moonfaced, chasing the stonefolk in high summer with quill and fancy words afore we know it. Of course that's why the barkeep takes coin from the Guild! The Guildmaster here may be all milk and cheese with his smiles and his manse, but the Guild talks with a pick behind its back - always has, always will. The smiths in Port, they're hard red iron, and their Natramun is hardest of all, mark my words.
Ferth paid good coin to the first new barkeep to come from Port; he's the one who built up the walls and gave it the look of a place on the Dockside Market. You'd half expect eels to come flopping out of the door alongside the ale. That first barkeep gave it the name, too, as soon as he saw the rusted pick stuck in the fruit tree out front. Now there's another tale...
[ Posted by Reason on August 10, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| The Scowls |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Ura |
The Scowls lurk about the outskirts of Ura and the quarries, a clan of large black cats who stalk the line between wild and tamed. The Scowls have a distinctive set to their faces and an angry disposition to match - commonfolk claim they're not cats at all, but rather the Lost descendants of Trespassers from the Farthest Village. A few folk who work the quarries and thin veins of red iron have befriended the Scowls with food and patience over the seasons, but farmfolk cannot stand the creatures - Scowls have been known to scare goats and steal food from tables while backs are turned. Merchants and other travelers far little better: the unaware who arrive dusty from the Red Iron Road in warmer seasons risk a clawing in return for any overture of friendship toward a Scowl sunning itself atop orchard walls.
[ Posted by Reason on August 9, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| The Long Path to Ura Retii |
| The Enclave > Folk > Datarii |
Many great sculptings ago, when the Deep Hall of Draugh in the very center of Great Home was barely a sixth filled with the finest Unfinished Works, the Traveler first walked the path to Ura Retii. The Power of Farthest Vaults walked the difficult ways, the hidden ways to the Mountain of Distance Places. This he did for he knew that we would one day travel this path. To remind us of the path yet used, the Traveler took the smallest part of the mura beneath the Retii and made a gift of it to Ane, she who was Lost but then Returned.
Ane came to her craft once more from the Farthest Vaults when the Deep Hall of Draugh in the very center of Great Home was barely a fifth filled with the finest Unfinished Works. With the Traveler's mura and rare white stone Ane shaped the Map That Is The Way, a craft that spoke only to those on the very edge of the Farthest, those who have seen the Beautiful Stranger or who prepare their journey to the Crafter at the center of all Creation.
Mura yet lay deep in the heart of Ura Retii when Magi brought their gifts to our folk, when the Deep Hall of Draugh in the very center of Great Home was barely a quarter filled with the finest Unfinished Works. Mura shone in the Map That Is The Way, and we few walked the long path of the Traveler to shape the Retii vaults and crafts, deep and high, far from our folk. We spoke of the Mountain of Distant Places and Magi brought gifts to our deepest crafts to trade for mura, but the mura of the Retii is not ours to trade. It is mura of Powers, mura of ancient times when the Deep Hall of Draugh stood empty, mura that calls and speaks to each Datar who shapes Unfinished Works in the Farthest Crafts.
The Deep Hall of Draugh in the very center of Great Home is barely a third filled with the finest Unfinished Works, and we have made our home and craft of Ura Retii now, far from our folk.
[ Posted by Reason on August 8, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| The Sunlit's Marker on the Red Iron Road |
| The Enclave > Known Roads |
The tale is thisways, least when I first heard it told. The Sunlit strode from the Black Tower, or a manse of Port mayhaps, as this was a long time ago, many winters before the walls of Three Stones were dragged down from Krineth's Hills. Strode did the sage, strode to where his marker now stands on the Red Iron Road and said "Here it is, here you will find it, and a tenth is mine." So it was, the folk of Ura took picks to that very spot and there found a great vein of red iron, unnoticed beside the Road. The Sunlit's tenth, well there it stands forged beside the Road this day, just as it always has, and with those very words upon it.
[ Posted by Reason on August 7, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| An Explorer From the Farthest Hills |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Ura |
Aye, she was these eight summers past, the explorer on the Red Iron Road. We were blistering our feet on the Coast Road to Port, and learning why mules are better left to Landsmen - brand an islemark of warning on every last one of their hides, I would! It was a stranger's storm from the Farthest Sea left the Great Gemfish beached and broken-masted on the strand at Cael, and it would have been the worse for all the old crew were there not two strong eels at the rudder - aye, and two more for the sail afore it tore away to fly above the saltmarsh Odanmouth. You can be well and sure there was much crying and wailing from the merchant folk on the dockside over the coin and loss, and that was the last any of us sailed for Menas. Hah! The old eel is welcome to his own catch, and 'tis better that way.
Aye, the explorer. I recall it as though it were yesterday. Out of the gulley she stumbled, 'tween the two flat-faced hills beside the red iron marker half a day from Ura - dressed as Krineth would be, but pleasing to a seafarer's eye, mark me well. Lost as any seafarer could be, she was, clear as the marker itself. It was luck we had turned from the Coast Road to the Red Iron Road, luck or the touch of the Beautiful Stranger, mind. Gesal, as lazy an eel as I've ever seen, had upped and talked us into it at the joining of Roads - and I'll be thrown overboard if I recall just what he said that convinced us all. Gesal, aye, Lost to the Unending Sea he was, vanished on a day of fog after last snow three winters past. Taken coin to the Temple of Three we all have these past seasons, and may the Powers watch for him.
Well and well, the tale - aye, and show respect for the Lost, you should. There we were, footsore and trying to make sense of a Visitor's tongue. It's a strange thing, to be walking the Road paved by the Beautiful Stranger and almost to feel you can understand a Visitor, a word here, a word there. Afore too long, she was up, drinking from our water and drawing maps on sailcloth saved from the Gemfish. Came with us to Ura she did, for what else could she do?
[ Posted by Reason on August 6, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| Spears to Guard the Forge |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Ura |
Blood! I speak with Tenlei for a single pour and come back to find you've cost us a pretty purse of coin! You and I, we need to have a talk about the ways of the forge afore too long - I knew it'd be trouble when old Vars took sick right when the new spears come from the Forest Road to look for summer coin. He may have had a stench like bad ale in the sun, and be good for nothing more than holding a spear upright, but leastways he had a nose for coin.
You may have wet your spear in Neth and snow while I've been lazing under fur and down, but you've a few things to learn yet - you and your King's Way! What the Guildmaster's goats say is well and good, but then there's the ways of the forge guard. Who holds your spear while the sun is up, you or the Guildmaster? Mark my words, if someone from the Road comes to talk, all pleasant and friendly, send them to talk to me. You and I, we'll have words later - now get yourself to watch the high windows on the far side of the forge.
[ Posted by Reason on August 6, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| A Weight of Coin For Red Iron |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Ura |
Do you think me moonfaced, bowing to the Sea each night? I did not travel to Guildmastery on the backs of the beasts of ignorance and blindness! All of us here in my rooms know that Gresei no more represents the Black Tower than I represent the foul Neth of Krineth's Hills. I may not know just how much red iron you plan to load upon her mule, but more than would be needed for the quill and inkpot of a sage, mark my words!
I will say this - the Guild is not your adversary, but rather your partner in this noble enterprise of stone and red iron. It is we who set the great weight in coin you earn, and it is we who will gift you coin in return for the red iron you have so carefully set aside. My friends, skilled miners and crafters, I have let much pass beneath my notice these past seasons. For are we not all are of the same family, in the same vessel on the great Unending Sea? But do not forget that it is a boat, and it can be rocked to the detriment of all of us.
Look here, just as you have carefully set aside red iron from the last find against unforseen harder seasons, so too have I set aside coin against the fine products of your talent and hard work. Let this Gresei, whomever she may represent, depart empty-handed, for she will not honor you as will the Guild smiths of Port.
[ Posted by Reason on August 4, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| Coin For Watchful Eyes |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Ura |
I know you, Abental, always sneaking around after we bring the goats down from the hills. Up to no good, I'll wager! What do I hear from Mire about coin in your hands, hmm? What have you been spying while lazing on the High Rock and letting your mother's goats stray?
Aren't you the brave one, out of sight here? You'll keep your goat-games to yourself, least folk think I've been playing them with you - and least I be thinking ill of you. You're not so old you don't have to be afraid of my mother. She'll take a pick to your skull if she has it in her heart that you looked my way twice ... just as well she can't climb with the goats, hmm?
No, show me, stop hiding it! Look at this purse - the Guildmaster's seal and heavy too! How did this much coin find its way into your belt? Abental? Tell me!
[ Posted by Reason on August 3, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| Goats on the Unquarried Hillsides |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Ura |
The buildings of Ura nestle in a broad bowl between steep-sided hills, most quarried away over the generations. Come rain or shine, the sons and daughters of farmfolk are up on the few untouched hillsides amidst the high grass, keeping their goats from straying into the Farthest Hills. From the goatherd's vantage, all Ura is laid out in plain view, from Red Iron Road to the old, overgrown mine trenches, from the manse of the Red Iron Guildmaster and the Hall of Powers to the lesser manses of village folk aspiring to greater wealth. Muddy, well-used tracks lead away from Ura to hollowed hillsides, stoneworks and open mining pits, passing between orchards and walled farm plots.
Like the goats, few folk stray beyond sight of Ura. The villagefolk are not hunters like the Landsmen of Port, and no-one has left markers in the hills of Ura like those in the grasslands of Port, or in the stony valleys of Krineth's Hills beyond Three Stones. The Farthest presses close beyond the steep hills overlooking Ura, and overly curious folk - or goats - risk losing their way back to the Known Roads.
[ Posted by Reason on August 2, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
| The Modest Sage of Ura |
| The Enclave > Known Roads > Ura |
I am always pleased to see you, old friend. It is I who should apologise - what little coin I find in summer is put to more interesting use than the pay of servants and other comforts. I live as though an old man without daughters, a far cry from your more pleasant manse on the slopes of Port, I do not doubt. You would find a more seemly welcome with any of the commonfolk here - a life without ink is a life lived cleanly! Now who scribed that remarkable truth?
No, do not worry. The Guildmaster is a pleasant sort, but vain as black goat. He gifts me a purse around first snow in exchange for a little unseemly and overly flattering creativity. Just between the two of us, I have come to quite enjoy it these past winters; it can be a welcome distraction from more weighty words. Oh, no, it isn't that way at all - I have not become a moonfaced playwright in my solitude here! That said, I am told troubadors in Port are wondering on the source of certain complimentary works. They may like the craftmanship, but I fear the common folk are less enthusiastic. I wonder who shows the most sense? Still, one does what one must to find coin for important matters.
Ah, a patron, yes, I know your heart in this matter. My answer is the same as it was at last snow these two winters past. The childhood of a treatise cannot be rushed - I could no more make spearmen of village children, or apprentices of babes in arms. In truth, this is a large child indeed; I fear I will have need of priests and bookbinders from the Great Library in Three Stones before I am done. A patron for the work itself would not be helpful; I came to Ura in no small part to escape that spearman's pace, as you might recall.
One grows used to the sound of stonework in the distance, I assure you; it is quite condusive to a peaceful heart and meritous thought. You must try some of the cheese and bread - fresh, I promise you, for all the unsightly appearance of my home. You should send word ahead when you next plan to visit, so that at least I would not be forced to revel in the results of my own nature!
I admit, it is easy to forget the privileged position I find myself in. I can declare, without any thrill of mystery, that I talk to the ageless Datarii of the Mountain Below each summer in which they deign to open the stairway. They think it a foolish waste of time, but I have learned a little of what engages their interest these past summers. They are a strange folk, set in their ways like a court of elderly Ladies under a King of the old Ammand - yet knowledgeable and even noble in their own manner. My friend, I can say without doubt that my Conversations With the Datarii of Ura Retii will one day be an important work indeed ... but in time, in time. You can hurry neither white hair nor a Datar.
[ Posted by Reason on August 1, 2005 | Permanent Link ]
