The city of Ragash was bursting at the seams with color, voices, scents. Delicate feats of architecture fluttered with garish fabrics suspended on pillars, to protect the chattering merchants below from the fiery sun. Camels bleated. The smell of spicy sausages on sticks mixed with the whiff of dung and the calls of the braga-vendors carrying their refreshing beverage in clattering ceramic jugs.
After the weeks spent travelling with the army through the nothingness of the Blightlands and the additional week with the caravan, Nina was overwhelmed.
The travelling painter stared wide-eyed at the tiled domes and the ivory arches of bridges that seemed to have jutted out of a miniaturist’s dreams, as shoulders brushed against her. Her fingers ached with the need to paint. She stumbled forward with long steps. Sometimes she even managed to pull herself to the side of the street, close her eyes and take a deep breath before she froze and was carried away by the human river. She’d been sent here as an eyes-and-ears, but how could she ever hope to describe in words the sheer heartbeat of a civilization that thrived in ways that the Blightlands couldn’t even conceive? Perhaps only her paintings, and the vivid pigments she’d haggled from the Bazaar, could do it a mockery of justice.
The one who sent her…Nina’s fingers brushed against the painted enamel words in a prayer niche, and a shiver went up her spine. ‘Investigate my brother,’ he said. ‘Find out if it is really him. If he is the conqueror of Amol-Khalit.’ What the Warlord had failed to mention was the conqueror of Amol-Kalit had since claimed the title of God-Emperor, and that he ruled as much as he conquered. If God-Emperor Gerra was indeed a fire giant, Nina thought, this display of civilization was somewhat unexpected. Proof: the civilization was not currently on fire.
Looking at her reflection in the waters of the Baal-Asha as she crossed a bridge, Nina wondered whether her employer was an unusually astute judge of character, or just plain incompetent. She wondered whether employee is the right word when you are not technically being paid. The fact that the Warlord’s ‘army’ consisted of a ragtag few hundred Blight Orcs with some assorted mercenaries gave her pause. The fact that his only ‘witch’ was a travelling painter made of more lies than actual magic pretty much settled it. And now, Nina thought with a chuckle, she had been given a task of enough subtlety that she questioned whether there were any proper spies in the Warlord’s employment.
And yet-
The travelling painter grasped the parapet of the bridge, and looked over the city of ivory and stone as a gust of fiery wind peppered her laugh with sand.
It was working.
Nina passed through crowds unnoticed, as she always had. There were hundreds of vagabonds like her, foreigners donning on loose Kaliti garb to protect themselves from the sun, too poor to be worth stealing from, speaking in strange accents, their skin as red as sausages. Reflexively, Nina scratched her eyebrow, and a long ribbon of sunburnt skin peeled off from her face. She asked questions, harmless questions, and her heart always jumped in her throat. But people answered. Gossip and chit-chat was social glue for Kaliti merchants, and Nina had found out more about Gerra when trying to escape a haggling fruit merchant than she ever wanted to know. Apparently there were ditties about the God-Emperor getting involved with (as far as Nina could tell) all of his female underlings that had a pulse. Plus a necromancer. That, on top of the harem. Surely that was mere embellishment…however, the presence of a powerful necromancer in Ragash remained of interest.
Her mission was not to investigate the Emperor’s love life, but to confirm whether God-Emperor Gerra was the same as Gerra of Molthal; to investigate his plans of expansion, in particular as to whether he’d return to the Blightlands; to discourage said return as a brotherly message, if required, and if possible find out whether the Emperor was already collaborating with the Molten Halls.
The information gained for now was somewhat inconsistent. Recently there had been acts of aggression focused on the orcs in Ragash, after the rumor spread that the Vizier himself razed a nearby orc settlement down to the last babe. Was this, Nina thought, Gerra’s way of cutting off his past as an orc leader once it was no longer of use to him?
How disgustingly civilized.
A throwaway comment of how the God-Emperor might bring in some of those rumored Molthal mercenaries, so she’d heard just a street away, triggered contemptuous sneers and a rich flurry of rumors. An emissary from Molthal had been brought in chains and executed. No, they had been welcomed by a high-ranking member of the government. Then executed. There had been two fire giants. The God-Emperor’s voice could be heard all over Amol-Kalit by the faithful although, the speaker admitted when pressed, at the moment in question it had been limited to the town of Lazular. An old man remembered a name, Argath of Molthal, or Argent, or Agamemnon. Nina wondered whether the woman necromancer was part of an alliance with Molthal. She wondered at what she’d found.
That people are quite happy to speak when they can prove you wrong.
So the travelling painter traveled around the walls of the Alabyad Palace, pointing to various buildings and asking whether this or that building was the administration, or the kitchen, or the courtesan’s quarters, and she was usually wrong but every now and then she would find someone happy to chat about anything and everything, including how their sister’s husband’s nephew got a job in the stables and they fancy one of the maids working in the laundry, but she’d told them they should aim for one of the girls in the kitchen at least, and-
So now Nina had a very rough map. It might come in handy.
Outside one of the minor palace gates, surrounded by paintings of strange places, from the ancient battlefields of the Blightlands to the grand storms of the Spine, a vagabond sat against a wall with a drawing block on her knees. She watched the change of guards and sipped her braga, a local sweet-sour drink, and swirled her bottle to bring up all the tasty floating bits. Under her makeshift hood, gleamed beads of coral and glass.
Gerra
After the weeks spent travelling with the army through the nothingness of the Blightlands and the additional week with the caravan, Nina was overwhelmed.
The travelling painter stared wide-eyed at the tiled domes and the ivory arches of bridges that seemed to have jutted out of a miniaturist’s dreams, as shoulders brushed against her. Her fingers ached with the need to paint. She stumbled forward with long steps. Sometimes she even managed to pull herself to the side of the street, close her eyes and take a deep breath before she froze and was carried away by the human river. She’d been sent here as an eyes-and-ears, but how could she ever hope to describe in words the sheer heartbeat of a civilization that thrived in ways that the Blightlands couldn’t even conceive? Perhaps only her paintings, and the vivid pigments she’d haggled from the Bazaar, could do it a mockery of justice.
The one who sent her…Nina’s fingers brushed against the painted enamel words in a prayer niche, and a shiver went up her spine. ‘Investigate my brother,’ he said. ‘Find out if it is really him. If he is the conqueror of Amol-Khalit.’ What the Warlord had failed to mention was the conqueror of Amol-Kalit had since claimed the title of God-Emperor, and that he ruled as much as he conquered. If God-Emperor Gerra was indeed a fire giant, Nina thought, this display of civilization was somewhat unexpected. Proof: the civilization was not currently on fire.
Looking at her reflection in the waters of the Baal-Asha as she crossed a bridge, Nina wondered whether her employer was an unusually astute judge of character, or just plain incompetent. She wondered whether employee is the right word when you are not technically being paid. The fact that the Warlord’s ‘army’ consisted of a ragtag few hundred Blight Orcs with some assorted mercenaries gave her pause. The fact that his only ‘witch’ was a travelling painter made of more lies than actual magic pretty much settled it. And now, Nina thought with a chuckle, she had been given a task of enough subtlety that she questioned whether there were any proper spies in the Warlord’s employment.
And yet-
The travelling painter grasped the parapet of the bridge, and looked over the city of ivory and stone as a gust of fiery wind peppered her laugh with sand.
It was working.
Nina passed through crowds unnoticed, as she always had. There were hundreds of vagabonds like her, foreigners donning on loose Kaliti garb to protect themselves from the sun, too poor to be worth stealing from, speaking in strange accents, their skin as red as sausages. Reflexively, Nina scratched her eyebrow, and a long ribbon of sunburnt skin peeled off from her face. She asked questions, harmless questions, and her heart always jumped in her throat. But people answered. Gossip and chit-chat was social glue for Kaliti merchants, and Nina had found out more about Gerra when trying to escape a haggling fruit merchant than she ever wanted to know. Apparently there were ditties about the God-Emperor getting involved with (as far as Nina could tell) all of his female underlings that had a pulse. Plus a necromancer. That, on top of the harem. Surely that was mere embellishment…however, the presence of a powerful necromancer in Ragash remained of interest.
Her mission was not to investigate the Emperor’s love life, but to confirm whether God-Emperor Gerra was the same as Gerra of Molthal; to investigate his plans of expansion, in particular as to whether he’d return to the Blightlands; to discourage said return as a brotherly message, if required, and if possible find out whether the Emperor was already collaborating with the Molten Halls.
The information gained for now was somewhat inconsistent. Recently there had been acts of aggression focused on the orcs in Ragash, after the rumor spread that the Vizier himself razed a nearby orc settlement down to the last babe. Was this, Nina thought, Gerra’s way of cutting off his past as an orc leader once it was no longer of use to him?
How disgustingly civilized.
A throwaway comment of how the God-Emperor might bring in some of those rumored Molthal mercenaries, so she’d heard just a street away, triggered contemptuous sneers and a rich flurry of rumors. An emissary from Molthal had been brought in chains and executed. No, they had been welcomed by a high-ranking member of the government. Then executed. There had been two fire giants. The God-Emperor’s voice could be heard all over Amol-Kalit by the faithful although, the speaker admitted when pressed, at the moment in question it had been limited to the town of Lazular. An old man remembered a name, Argath of Molthal, or Argent, or Agamemnon. Nina wondered whether the woman necromancer was part of an alliance with Molthal. She wondered at what she’d found.
That people are quite happy to speak when they can prove you wrong.
So the travelling painter traveled around the walls of the Alabyad Palace, pointing to various buildings and asking whether this or that building was the administration, or the kitchen, or the courtesan’s quarters, and she was usually wrong but every now and then she would find someone happy to chat about anything and everything, including how their sister’s husband’s nephew got a job in the stables and they fancy one of the maids working in the laundry, but she’d told them they should aim for one of the girls in the kitchen at least, and-
So now Nina had a very rough map. It might come in handy.
Outside one of the minor palace gates, surrounded by paintings of strange places, from the ancient battlefields of the Blightlands to the grand storms of the Spine, a vagabond sat against a wall with a drawing block on her knees. She watched the change of guards and sipped her braga, a local sweet-sour drink, and swirled her bottle to bring up all the tasty floating bits. Under her makeshift hood, gleamed beads of coral and glass.
Gerra