Frustration dug a gentle furrow across the Magistrate Samir's brow. This small disappointment was no surprise; indeed, the situation was just as he had expected. Still, as will happen when even the most unlikely hope of an easy victory is dashed and the harder path one suspected one would eventually have to take becomes the only option, Samir's countenance momentarily soured.
"I'm afraid these are no good," he said, looking up from the handful of clay, wood, and etched hide maps laid out on the table. He had known at first glance that they would be of no use, bud had spent a few minutes examining them just to be sure. "One of them shows the Josef and Hosrus rivers flowing out of a boundless lake 20 miles southeast of Dauhius. This one arranges the Pillar Mountains and the Morning Range into a pretty double but mite-bit inaccurate double spiral. The Barquh mountains apparently deserve no mention, unless that's them making that blocky zigzag there along the edge of the tablet. The best of them go no farther south than our own maps, and aren't really any more accurate." He paused and made a tight lipped smile. "Thank you for your effort, though, Dakat."
Across the room an aged but not elderly man managed to maintain a dignified air while essentially lounging in one of those fantastically comfortable Hosrusian chair-couches. The man in the chair, who had been maintaining a still and neutral face, began nodding sagely at the sound of his own name. "Of course, of course. Those gold-buriers haven't sent an expedition south in all the time I've been here--"
"That long?" the third man in the room mumbled cantankerously and then went back to innocently staring at the shadows of shifting leaves playing upon the walls.
Dakat's smile might have deepened slightly, but otherwise he offered no recognition of the other's mocking query and went on evenly with hardly a pause, "--and they didn't take particular care in attention to detail in the few scouting trips they did send. I didn't even bother, of course, to bring the maps that somehow don't include the existence of our dear mighty Zhiro and the surrounding regions, of which these so-called 'scholars' have an inexplicably great many."
The instructions from the Court at Dauhius to these two men, Dakat and Tingo, had arrived long before Samir himself, who had been delayed in the already long journey from Zhiro lands to the dominion of Hosrus, and nearly everything was already in order by the time he finally reached the Hosrusian capital, Nortongrad.
Dakat had gone to the Hosrusian archives to find whatever maps or information they had about the unexplored reaches around Zhiro. As ambassador from Dauhius to Nortongrad for the last twenty-some years he frequently asked odd questions of the Royal Scholars, and they humored this request with no fuss but a chuckle about their eccentric foreign friends peculiar academic interests.
The man named Tingo sat less comfortably in his chair, apparently absorbed by his own musings. He was of the same age as Dakat, but noticeably less healthy and fit. A merchant from the Riverlands who had lived in Hosrus almost as long as Dakat, he had been asked to acquire supplies and equipment what could only be got from the skilled city workers of Hosrus and their spectacular looms and furnaces and potters wheels, which Zhiros own craftsmen could not yet match in strength and durability (though thanks in large part to these two men Zhiro had closed the gap considerably in many areas of craftsmanship and already exceeded Hosrus in several).
Samir shifted his attention to Tingo, who became much more lively and jovial as he began to speak. My own efforts have been rather more successful, he announced with satisfaction. I wasnt able to get quite as many water cloaks as the orders asked for, and the northern grain stocks they have available right now are entirely unsatisfactory. I am quite confident youll be able to pick up better quality stuff for a more favorable barter on your way back when you pass through Okelto, or perhaps at the Lateharvest Marketplace. Everything else was acquired successfully and is at my warehouse by the Yellow Wall.
Ah, good, Samir said, And how much compensation are you looking for?
Well, several of the items came costly, but I made some good deals elsewhere, so I think 4 ee-choh and say, 55 kuide will be fine. Or instead...28 bushels rig-pods if you can get them.
Samir made some quick marks on his tunic strap. The granaries are amply filled this season. Ill send a man with those bushels within 2 months time, and with the Guardians protection they should arrive sooner.
What about my compensation? Dakat interjected with mock-righteous-indignation. 28 bushels for this swindling rogue, and naught for me? He swindles some poor northern lad just trying to feed his family out of an extra armload of shovels and gets to eat dainties for a season (dainties which he would do well to forego, I tell you). While I, I descend into the very jaws of madness, risk tooth and limb in those dirty, hot, stuffy catacombs of academia, battling venomous spiders and giant rats and stammering, shifty-eyed Hosrusian archive assistants with no regard for anything but the selfless pursuit of my homelands wellbeing. Thirty days and nights I labored restless by torch light against all odds to retrieve these maps and bring them to the light of day. You know the Hosrusians consider them holy relics? I must have slain 60 broad-shouldered guards as I escaped to bring here what you see before you. Why, I barely made it out of the grasp of those ravenous temple maidens, and it was no easy task to slay each and every one of them, either, he finished with a grin.
Bah! Tingo derided with a wave of his hand. Ill give you what is owed to you: A moldy scrap of bread and a punch in the ear, and you can claim that reward any time you please!
Ill hold you to that. Dakat smiled triumphantly, and Tingo allowed a persecuted half-smile to creep onto his face, and again waved his hand dismissively at his friend and perpetual banter-opponent.
I wish I could stay to listen to you two crooks jaw all season, but alas I do have to head out tomorrow. Samir admitted.
Enough business then! Tingo proclaimed. I trust things are well down south? And how is your family? How old are your children now?
Good old Zhiro lives on, of course. You know they extended the East wall at Dauhius? Theyre going to have to completely re-dig the canals if things carry on so. The spirits seem to be watching vigilantly over my family. Corte was recently briefly ill, but recovered with no problem. Seleme is 14 now, and quite beautiful of course. Yoryogan is 8 and wants to be a soldier. Hefus would have been 13 now, and Zebyenos 10, but he didnt say that. He silently made the brief two-word prayer that he always made when he though of them.
How is Natalya? Samir asked. Natalya was a Hosrusian former acolyte priestess, and in years past a source of rivalry and contention between Tingo and Samir. Samir liked to think they had gotten past that.
Ah, she is well. Tingo answered fondly, and paused as if searching for the right words to continue.
Dakat, who had never married but had a handful of children, took this opportunity to jump in. All right, weve adequately addressed the trivialities, now lets hear something interesting! What exactly is our mad old chief up to? Wanax Hybalion had grown steadily more eccentric over the years, but for all his bizarre ideas he was also a competent, just, and strong ruler, and most everyone liked or at least respected him. "I've a creeping suspicion that reality keeps growing nearer to the rumors: Old Man Hybalion has firmly said no to the idea of death, and instead of growing frail he gains strength and vigor with each passing year, which he uses for absurd purposes, such as this most recent magician's trick of putting together an expedition to go traipsing through the craggy beyond, with himself leading the way. Now I've got my doubts, but they are steadily being swept away by what I hear every passing week."
"I only wonder," Tingo contemplated out loud, "why a man who can command birds and beasts and is as sure footed as a mountain goat and swift as a deer should need supplies? They could be for his entourage of less powerful magicians, but wouldn't he travel faster without them?"
Dakat graciously acknowledged Tingo's point with a nod and a generous gesture of outstretched hand. "Quite so. The contradictions are perplexing. Surely you can resolve some of them for us?"
Samir, who was himself a bit of a wit when in more gullible company than these two vagabonds, was not distracted by their straight-faced mockery. "The Wanax is well enough," he told them seriously, "but will not be coming along. I am leading the scouting expedition through the Pass of Mittoran and up the Hosrus River. We've found a local scout from the area and a translator, and other than that it will be a cartographer, a handful of soldiers, some donkeys, and a scribe to record our adventures and misdeeds."
Dakat was surprised but also fascinated. "You in charge, eh? An expedition all on the other side of the Pillars?"
"Quite. We recently found a good path around the Lower Cataracts of the Hosrus, and we're going to travel by boat as much as possible, until we run out of river or supplies. We want to see what's to the south and east of the Pillars and the Mornings, get a real good feel for the whole area. A month after we leave another expedition is going out, to explore ground we might miss. If the forage is good, we could be gone for a year and a half." He seemed to surprise himself with the last words he said, as if it was someone else and not he that had spoken them.
"A year and a half." Tingo looked to Dakat with raised eyebrows. "I do believe this..."
"I quite agree, friend." Dakat spoke before Tingo had even finished. "I'll get the wine jugs."
"My boy," Tingo asked Samir mischievously, "Are you at all familiar with Nortongrad's night life?"
