(no subject)

Royal Palace of Queen Salmissra
Sthiss Tor, Nyissa
Year 5189 of the Fourth Age

Dear Romana,

Apparently I’m about to find out whether I’m really not aging any more or it was just Senji’s alchemical weirdness. I’m kind of hoping it’s the former, because I seriously don’t want to spend enough time in Nyissa to start going grey. It’s hot and humid and buggy and there are leeches the size of very obscene things in the river- oh, God, and speaking of obscene, I have to find out if there are rubber trees growing in the jungle around here somewhere, because it looks like the only way I’m going to get the queen to let me go is to ruthlessly abuse my knowledge of small engine technology. . .

Year 5190

Saess the eunuch was not normally the sort of person to check up on the targets of his attempted poisonings until someone else had already spoken of them in the past tense, but the alchemist from Mallorea was proving annoyingly persistent. After four attempts at doping his food with all manner of concoctions (none of which seemed to do more to him than produce an intense odor of cinnamon, of all things), he’d gone straight to the top of his list and left his snake in the man’s rooms. Given the reptile’s propensity for slithering off after mice at inopportune moments, Saess felt it important that he at least make a show of concern for her welfare. The man’s rooms were near at hand; he leaned over to hear what were bound to be cries of distress-

“Eeeee! Whoosa cutest widduw neurotoxic hyper-venomous elapid anybody’s ever seen in this palace, hmm? Is it you? Is it you? Yes it is. . .”

Saess kept on walking. He was going to need the good drugs after this.

Year 5191

“Chersus,” said Ray patiently to the cheerfully smiling, eminently helpful servant, “I asked you to go down to the harbor and pick up my delivery for me.”

“I did,” Chersus said, swaying a little on the balls of his feet.

“Yes. You did. I have to give you that. This is very definitely a delivery,” said Ray. “But the thing is, I was expecting several packets of dye, half a pound of chicle, and a bottle of that acid that Didas recommended for etching stone. Unless I’m very much mistaken, and I have no reason to believe that I am, this box contains two rather interestingly shaped green sticks and a stunned mouse.”

“Oops,” said Chersus.

Year 5192

Dear Romana,

I WANT TO GO HOME NOW. I could’ve been out of here in less than two months if this were ANY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD OTHER THAN NYISSA, and that’s INCLUDING Cthol Murgos, the land whose clergy would make the Taliban go ‘oo, what nasty people’. Heck, that includes Mishrak ac Thull, Land of Stupid. It’s absolutely impossible to get anything detailed or specific delivered on time or located without trouble. When your best sources of conversation are the Queen’s pet snakes- who’re really pretty smart creatures, considering that their mistress seldom takes the time to actually talk with them except when she’s in between rounds with her latest boy toy- you know you’re not in a good position. On the bright side, I’ve been making more accidental discoveries and progress in the field of biochemistry than I ever would’ve thought possible, given the technological and environmental conditions here. The herbal medicine’s astonishing, and I don’t think I’ve ever encountered this many different kinds of fungus, all of which are active on the human body in one way or another. Remember how I always said that biology wasn’t my strong suit because it was too sticky? Well, I’m learning. . .

Year 5193

There were fourteen snakes of various colors and sizes curled up on Ray’s bed when he arrived at his quarters that night. He blinked, counting them over twice to be certain, and finally turned to the one on the end. Kneth, he said, I’ve been keeping watch on an alembic for the past twenty-three hours straight. This may not be the best time for this.

Please? begged the snake, a whip-slender black species with two white rings around its neck just behind the head. I promise we’ll go away once you’re done. We all wanted to hear, and you tell the best stories. . .

Oh, all right. Ray pulled up a stool, and the snakes, almost as one, drew themselves up to varying attentive postures to listen. When the Gods were making the world, they all had ideas, and they all wanted to put all of their ideas into the world they were making. But they couldn’t do that, because there wouldn’t have been room for them all. Lord Issa especially had more ideas than there was room for, so when nobody was looking, he went and found himself another place to work.

One of the bigger snakes nudged its nearest companion appreciatively.

He found somewhere very far away, where none of his brothers were, and he said, “I think I’ll work here. And I think I’ll put all my favorite creatures in one place, some of them in the ground, some of them in the trees, and some of them in the water. There won’t be anywhere that won’t have some of my extra ideas in it. Some of them will be snakes, and some of them will be other creatures, but they’ll all have all kinds of venom just like my serpent creations. And the humans will call this place ‘Australia’. . .”

Year 5194

“Saess,” said Ray, tapping the newly-minted Chief Eunuch on the shoulder, “I need to talk to you.”

Saess grimaced. He’d all but given up on poisonings by now and had moved on to trying to get rid of the man by means of ugly people with knives. “If this is about last month, Stantz-“

“It’s not.” Ray shook his head rapidly. “It totally isn’t. I know how it goes around here and frankly, I almost have to admire your persistence.”

“What is it, then? I have business to attend to.”

“I want you to help me,” said Ray bluntly. “You’re the Chief Eunuch. You can do nearly anything in this country, which is more than I can say for myself.”

Saess stared at the man, momentarily struck speechless by his gall.

Ray drew a deep breath. “More specifically, I want you to help me finish the project I have on the bench in my lab, because I’ve finally managed to get the basic design elements to work- and as soon as I can get my hands on the last three components necessary to run the thing, I can present it to the Queen and get out of your country. You’ll never see me again, you’ll never hear from me again- I’ll leave Nyissa forever and you can write off my presence here for the last seven years as a very bad dream. Call the thing a holy artifact of Issa once I’m gone, if you want. Just help me finish it, and I’ll never bother you or your people again.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you,” the eunuch said slowly. Behind the light fog of his usual daily mood evener, his thoughts were running especially rapid.

“As serious as the grave, Saess. I don’t want to be here and you don’t want me to be here. The thing in the lab is your ticket to getting rid of me. If you can make it possible for me to finish it-“

“If it gets you out of here and pleases Her Majesty enough to let me get some real work done, it’ll be worth it,” said Saess. “What do you need from me?”

Year 5195

The boat was small but serviceable, designed for river travel, and Ray was only too happy to head belowdecks and verify that all of his notes from Melcene and the Palace alike were in good condition. He’d waterproofed and moldproofed everything within a few days of his arrival at the Palace. It was all that a man could do in the face of a mess like that. His original clothes, a Melcene tailor’s copy of his Jedi outfit, were at the top of his pack. He changed into them gratefully- the iridescent robes he’d worn for six years to avoid sticking out too much in Salmissra’s palace were all right, but he never really felt comfortable in them. It could’ve been worse, he supposed. At least they didn’t try to make him wear a loincloth.

He clambered into the hammock and promptly fell asleep. It wasn’t until many hours later that he awoke and discovered Saess had taken out one more form of insurance that the foreigner would never bother him again- namely, bribing the boat’s captain to go up the River of the Serpent and drop the foreigner and all his things off on the northern bank.

Well, it could have been worse, Ray thought as he watched the boat recede in the distance. He could’ve been thrown in the river for the leeches, or he could’ve been put ashore with nothing at all. At least he still had all fourteen varieties of insect repellent that he’d invented during his time in the Palace. At least he had a general knowledge of the geography from here, thanks to the moldy documents he’d found in the royal astrologers’ archives. And at least he had something just a bit better than the common run of machete.

There was a snap-hiss, and the green of a lightsaber blade lit up the Nyissan night.

(no subject)

Ray only had the crudest and most basic of maps in his pack when he left Sthiss Tor, largely because he'd expected the Nyissans to get him out of the city and turn him over to the first Tolnedrans or Alorns they saw. He had a basic lodestone, at least, so even in the jungles he'd been able to find his way north. The problem had been that north didn't always work out the way he'd hoped, what with the trees being too big and the plants being too thick and the occasional stream or sinkhole or OH MY GOD IT'S A LION GET IN THE TREE incident. He'd been forced to alter course more times than he really liked, with the end result being a pronounced drift to the northeast. When the jungles finally gave way (and none too soon- his supply of anti-toxins, denaturers, and alchemical chelators had run out the day before), he found himself looking over a pleasant rolling green country, bounded in the far distance by mountains. Ahead there lay a river, although it looked as if he ought to be able to ford it.

If he remembered right, the Vale was bounded on three sides by mountains. He could discount the eastern ones, but to get there from here he was going to have to come up through the mountains to the south. That meant either passing through Tolnedra proper, or passing through Maragor. If he followed the river west, he could probably come to the vicinity of Tol Borune or Tol Rane or something- but he'd have to pass through the Wood of the Dryads to get there.

Maragor was full of ghosts dedicated to the proposition of driving would-be gold hunters mad. The Wood of the Dryads was full of attractive short women with homicidal impulses and short attention spans. Tol Borune would at least be civilization as he knew it, but it would be Tolnedran civilization, which was nearly as involuted in its politics as Salmissra's palace. Maragor, well- ghosts. Lots of ghosts. Either way he was going to have to go into the mountains sooner or later, and the Tolnedrans didn't have roads into the Vale, so either way it would all be on foot by whatever resources he could muster.

Ray adjusted the straps of the far-too-heavy pack and looked downstream, then upstream.

If he wound up in Tol Borune or the Wood he might screw up Ce'Nedra's ancestry. The Prophecy was still active here, and he really didn't want to upset the Destiny of the Universe. Maragor, on the other hand, was essentially the biggest DMZ in the world, and chock full of spirits with no reason to like him.

On the other hand, they didn't have any reason to dislike him, since he wasn't interested in gold. And they probably had better manners than Slimer, all things considered.

It's just like Central Park, he told himself as he made his way down to look for a spot where he could ford the river. The size of a country- but it's still basically Central Park. I can deal with that.