His second wife, Asha, who divided her time between her private villa near the Olabar palace and the soldan-shah’s guest residence
in Ishalem, was much more adoring and attentive… but utterly obsessed with her pets. Any animal that Ondun had seen fit to
place upon His world, Asha wanted to keep and adore. Imir had not seen her in months and looked forward to their reunion in
Ishalem, though he did not relish the prospect of all the noise from the hounds, songbirds, cats, peacocks, and whatever other
creatures she had managed to acquire in the meantime.
As the burning coppery sun settled to the horizon, Imir could see the distinct line of the isthmus like a barrier against
the setting sun. As they neared the eastern curve of the sandy harbor, pelicans wheeled overhead. Fishing boats plied the
waters, bringing in the day’s catch; small sailing craft dipped out to deeper water, then circled back in toward the coastline.
Though the day was clear and bright, the smoky torch of Urec’s Lighthouse had been lit as soon as spotters saw the approach
of the soldan-shah’s dromond.
Even from far away, Imir could see the great hulk of the Arkship, Urec’s ship, washed high and dry upon the tallest hill.
The prime Urecari church, a lovely construction comprised of a central dome surrounded by tall, thin spires, was an unmistakable
landmark on the eastern hillside below the wreck.
Ur-Sikara Lukai rejoined him, pointed to where a slow-moving passenger barge emerged from the city’s main canal and proceeded
toward them. “Look, Asha is coming to welcome you.” Her tone dripped with disrespect.
Imir hardened his voice. “Asha means well, and you will be polite to her. That is my command.”
The ur-sikara gave him a sour look, but he insisted, and she finally bowed slightly. “As the soldan-shah wishes.”
Though she had her own power as the church’s lead priestess, Lukai was also close friends with Villiki, the soldan-shah’s
third wife and mother of Imir’s second son. Villiki stridently expressed her opinions of her husband’s leadership and complained
frequently to Lukai. He supposed he was lucky, in a way, that only one of his three wives was so obviously ambitious. Men
had their wars, but women had their schemes.
Asha never harbored an unkind thought toward anyone, and it was her childlike innocence that had endeared her to him in the
first place (as well as her exceptional body). Her welcome barge approached, and Imir realized he was smiling. She must have
spent days festooning the barge with garlands and ribbons. Now she stood waving at him, accompanied by three small dogs that
yapped constantly. But even that did not discourage the soldan-shah; he hoped Asha had prepared a private—quiet—room for the
two of them… someplace without her pets. He needed a good night’s sleep before the all-important Edict ceremony.
Zarif Omra loved to study maps of the world—not out of mere intellectual curiosity, but in order to understand the resources,
boundaries, and limitations of Uraba. “Tactical geography,” he called it. Sitting in the palace throne room, Omra traced his
finger along the lines on the chart spread out on his mahogany side table while he waited for the first supplicants to be
shown in. He needed to familiarize himself with the entire continent he would one day rule. He was only twenty-four, but there
had never been any doubt he would succeed the soldan-shah.
Uraba was defined by sea and sand, anchored in place by Ishalem, and divided into five soldanates. The lands north of Ishalem
were much sketchier, since few details of Tierra were known to Uraban cartographers. Zarif Omra did not worry about those
unfamiliar lands, however. When his father retired, Omra would have enough work simply managing his own people.
Now that Imir had sailed off to Ishalem, Omra got a taste of the work that lay in store for him. He wore a loose purple chalwar
and a sleeveless tunic; he rested comfortably upon the cushions piled upon the dais, from which he would listen to supplicants.
A gold earring hung from his left ear in the fashion of the Missinia soldanate, to honor his mother. While his father had
gone soft and heavyset, Omra was fit and muscular, his lean face edged by a neatly trimmed black beard. His hair was long
and oiled, and sometimes he let his beloved wife, Istar, plait it for him. Teasingly, he threatened to shave his head as his
father had done, but Istar had convinced him how much she liked his hair. She was now pregnant with his firstborn child, and
he could deny her nothing.
Istar would arrive soon to join him, since she loved to hear the people present their issues before the dais, even though
Omra found her to be distracting when he most needed to show his strength. Anxious to get started, he clapped his hands to
summon the first visitor.
Dressed in dyed linen garments, a young man entered—his cousin Burilo, the eldest son of Xivir, the soldan of Missinia. Burilo
was the same age as Omra, but gangly and awkward, since his growth spurt had occurred much later than Omra’s. The zarif welcomed
him warmly. “What news have you brought from Arikara? Is my mother well?”
“Lithio is quite comfortable and happy, though she’d be happier if you visited her more often.”
Omra chuckled. “Yes, whenever I can break away from my obligations here in Olabar.” His mother often asked him to make the
trip down to the capital of Missinia, and he suspected she did it more as a teasing way to annoy his father than because she
had a heartfelt desire to see him. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”
“I bring you a joyous gift, Zarif.” Burilo called his servant, who entered the throne room carrying a large square box. Burilo
lifted the lid and reached in to withdraw a decapitated head that had been smeared with tar. The dead man’s lips were drawn
back to reveal crooked and yellowed teeth; dark tattoos showed on the skin even through the preservative coating. In disgust,
Burilo tossed the head to the floor, and the tar from the head stained the polished driftwood tiles. “One less desert bandit
to prey upon our villages and farms. Our soldiers killed the leader of the band.”
Omra leaned forward to inspect the head. Years ago, Soldan-Shah Imir had declared a bounty on the ruthless bandit tribes who
lived in the inhospitable sands of the Great Desert. The bandits emerged like a sandstorm on swift and sturdy horses to harass
small Missinian villages. After stealing, raping, and pillaging, they vanished back into the dunes faster than Soldan Xivir’s
armies could respond. Whenever a military force pursued them into the sands, the bandits ran circles around the soldiers,
picking them off until they were lost.
Omra’s expression darkened. “I doubt the bandits will be deterred by their loss. They are like a demon serpent—cut off one
head, and two more grow in its place.”
Burilo gave a strange, cockeyed grin as he answered. “Then there will be more bandits to kill, and more bounties to earn.”
Omra told his chamberlain to pay Burilo the promised reward, then directed servants to place the head in a trophy case. Two
silent slaves hurried forward to clean the tar stain from the polished floor.
Beautiful Istar entered the throne room. After bowing formally before her husband, she sat on a pale green cushion below the
raised dais. He reached out and took her hand. At five months, her pregnancy had begun to show, though draping Yuarej silks
covered her. In private, he loved to run his palm over the swelling curve of her belly. Istar’s dark hair hung in a single
braid interwoven with gold ribbon. As a secret between the two of them, she had decided to wear her hair in one braid for
the first child she would bear; when she gave birth a second time, it would be two braids, and so on. They often joked about
how many braids her lovely head could sustain. Omra wondered if other Urabans would adopt the tradition.
“Before your next visitor, I have called for tea and almonds,” she told him demurely. The treat was as much for herself as
for him.
Istar was the daughter of one of the most powerful merchants in Olabar, a man whose ships ran the coast of the Middlesea to
trade with Sioara and other ports of Inner Wahilir. Omra had fallen in love with Istar and married her. However, since Istar’s
blood wasn’t noble, the zarif’s choice of her as his
first
wife raised eyebrows among the extended families of the other soldans; conversely, his selection pleased the merchant families.
His half-brother Tukar also entered the throne room, finding a seat in the back where he could observe quietly. A stocky young
man two years younger than Omra, Tukar rarely participated in the discussions—in fact, he usually appeared bored—but his mother
Villiki insisted that he watch and learn from court politics. Villiki had great plans for him, though the young man himself
showed no signs of being dissatisfied with his subordinate role.
Merchants from the soldanate of Yuarej entered next, carrying bolts of the finest silk, which they spread out to display dyed
patterns of the unfurling fern, the Urecari religious symbol representing rebirth and potential. Istar delighted in the brilliant
green, blue, and scarlet fabrics. “We can have garments made for Sikara Fyiri, since she made such a wonderful blessing for
the baby.”
Omra squeezed her hand. “It was a wonderful blessing, indeed.”
With the church’s main sikara accompanying the soldan-shah to Ishalem, Omra and Istar had enlisted the service of a young
priestess with no obvious political agenda, though the zarif was sure she would develop one in time, as sikaras usually did.
Fyiri had come for the sunset ceremony, bringing her copy of Urec’s Log and ribbons of colored paper on which she would write
prayers before tying them to sticks to flutter in the wind where Ondun could read them.
“We accept your offering of the silk,” Omra said to the merchants. “My wife certainly approves.” He ate one of the warm almonds
roasted in sea salt, while Istar poured cups of sweet tea for both of them. At the back of the room, Tukar employed a piece
of chalk on a square of slate, writing a note to himself.
Omra called the next visitor, knowing that this was what his father did every day. No wonder Soldan-Shah Imir had been so
eager to make the voyage to Ishalem.
Prester Hannes wore dirty clothes in the Uraban style, shapeless rags draped over his shoulders to make him look like a beggar,
because beggars drew very little attention. The people he encountered on this side of Ishalem automatically assumed he was
a follower of Urec. Though that meant his disguise was perfect, he still resented being confused for one of the loathsome
heretics.
But he had to be convincing, had to fit in. “Consider yourself a spy for God,” Prester-Marshall Baine had told him more than
a year earlier, before sending him to Ishalem. Fortunately, Hannes’s faith in Aiden was unwavering, and Ondun Himself knew
the difference between truth and lies.
Head down, he wandered the streets in the Urecari District, noting how the merchants cheated their customers, listening to
the gossip and the delusions. These people went about their lives without even realizing their sins. As a prester, he was
a kind and compassionate man, doing the work of Ondun, but sadly none of these Urabans could be forgiven.
Beneath the gigantic wreck of the Arkship—
Aiden’s
ship, though all these people pretended it was Urec’s—devout Urecari made pilgrimages up the switchbacked path to stand in
the shadow of the ancient, ruined hull. Pilgrims petitioned sikaras, paying fees to climb the hill and even touch the holy
wood of the enormous beached vessel. Prester Hannes had been up to the Arkship many times since arriving in Ishalem. He climbed
the hill at night and slipped past the church guards, just so he could have private time with his prayers.
Now, as thin brass bells pealed in the minaret towers of the prime church, he moved along the streets, blending into the crowd
of worshippers called to sunset services. The outside of the monumental heathen church bore carved stone stations, each panel
depicting part of the story. Some images were correct, in order to lull the faithful: Ondun and his sons in Terravitae… Aiden
and Urec sailing off in their separate vessels, leaving Holy Joron behind… Urec with his map, Aiden with his sacred compass.
Then the deception began: Urec and his ship arriving on the shores of Uraba… battles with the natives who viewed them as enemies…
Urec’s decision to take multiple wives for himself, a rule that all Aidenists despised… then an aged Urec planting the golden
fern before wandering off to become the Traveler.
Hannes had seen these images many times, had heard the lies in the sermons given by the sikaras. He still felt the knot of
anger each time he witnessed the dissemination of such blatant untruths.
Aiden
had become the Traveler, not Urec. Unable to build their own religion, the Urecari had obviously co-opted the tenets of Aidenism.
And yet they were blind to their delusions. He both pitied them and reviled them for it.
With the sunset services about to begin, Hannes followed the crowd, steeling himself. “The truth of Aiden is the truth of
God,” he muttered, reciting a well-known prayer that Prester-Marshall Baine had taught him. “And the truth of God is the truth
for all, even those who refuse to hear it.” Hannes squared his shoulders and, still wearing rags, approached the church.
Outside the large stone-and-wood building, numerous banners hung down, swirled with the unfurling fern symbol. Vendors sold
trinkets to visiting pilgrims; a majority of the vendors were Saedrans, “Ondun’s stepchildren,” who believed that their people
had left Terravitae at a later time and were not descendants of either Aiden’s crew or Urec’s. As a people, Saedrans kept
to themselves, but their craftsmen created mementos, candles, or prayer ribbons, which they sold outside the kirks and churches,
catering to both great religions.
Prester Hannes didn’t hate the Saedrans for their lack of belief; at least they weren’t as completely
wrong
as the Urecari.
The truth of God is the truth for all.