Got you that time, didn’t I, Silk?
At any rate, Darion and Selana lived out their lives in Kotu,
respected and secure in the good opinion of their neighbors. Khelan,
their son, was raised as a Drasnian, but after our obligatory ‘little
talk’ on his eighteenth birthday, he knew who he really was and
why it was necessary for him to keep that information to himself.
To his credit, Khelan didn’t ask that almost inevitable question,
‘Why didn’t you tell me before, Aunt Pol?’ Since he was culturally
a Drasnian, he realized that I hadn’t told him before because he
hadn’t needed to know before.
We apprenticed him to a ship-builder, and he did very well in
that line. Drasnian vessels of the forty-fifth century were little more
than coastal freighters that plied the trade-routes in the Gulf Of
Cherek. They were broad of beam so that they could carry more
cargo, and they wallowed along like pregnant whales. They
resembled Cherek war-boats only insofar as both kinds of vessels
were propelled by sails and both floated. The Cherek war-boats
almost flew before the wind, but anything beyond a healthy sneeze
tended to capsize a Drasnian freighter. Khelan was intelligent
enough to pinpoint the reason for this distressing tendency, and he
promoted the idea that a deeper keel might help to keep Drasnian
ships right-side up. I’m sure that Drasnian sea-captains understood
what he was driving at, but they resisted all the same – probably
because they were so fond of shallow, hidden coves in secluded
spots along various coasts. Far be it from me to suggest that all
Drasnian sea-captains are smugglers. There almost have to be at
least a few law-abiding Drasnians, and just because I’ve never met
one doesn’t prove that there aren’t any.
My line of proteges – if that’s the proper term – lived and
prospered in Kotu until the end of the forty-fifth century, and then I
relocated them to Boktor. I usually avoided national capitals over
those long centuries. Ctuchik was relying heavily on the Dagashi,
and the Dagashi aren’t visibly Murgo. They could move around in
the west without being readily identifiable, and the logical place to
start looking for something in any kingdom is the capital. The
problem with Drasnia is the fact that there aren’t really that many towns
there. Oh, there are a few fishing villages in the fens to the west of
Boktor, but I absolutely refused to live in that stinking swamp. Silk
once referred to the western part of his homeland as ‘dear old mucky
Drasnia’, and that more or less sums it up.
The moors of eastern Drasnia are almost as bad. The moors are
a vast emptiness where winter comes early and stays late. It’s a
region suitable only-for the raising of reindeer, the primary
occupation of prehistoric Drasnians. It wasn’t the weather that kept me out
of eastern Drasnia, however. That region butts up against Car og
Nadrak, and I didn’t think it prudent to live that close to an Angarak
kingdom. Moreover, eastern Drasnia is the natural home of the
Bear-Cult in that kingdom. The combination of isolation and
miserable weather insulates the minds of eastern Drasnian Cultists from
such dangerous outside innovations as fire and the wheel.
MY little family lived in Boktor for about seventy years, and then
I uprooted them and took them to Cherek, where we resided in a
village some distance to the west of Val Alorn. The growing season
is short that far to the north, and the local men-folk devoted their
winters to logging. A sea-faring nation such as Cherek always needs
more timber than even the most industrious peasantry can provide.
One of Iron-grip’s heirs, Dariel, turned out to be an inventor, and
after looking rather closely at the local mill, where a water-wheel
Provided power to grind wheat into flour, he devised a way to make
a water-wheel power a saw that converted raw logs into beams and
planks. Dariel made a fortune with that idea, and his saw-mill was
the family business for well over two centuries. I felt safe in cherek
because Chereks, the most elemental Alorns, automatically killed
any Angarak they came across. There were plenty of taverns in
Cherek, but there weren’t any Murgos asking questions in any of
them. Even the Dagashi avoided Cherek.
Eventually, however, mother suggested that it was time to move
on, more to prevent the line from becoming so totally Cherek that
it’d be impossible to erase certain inborn Cherekish traits. The
ultimate product of the Rivan line was to be ‘the Godslayer’, and mother
thought it might be best if he knew which God he was supposed to
slay. The notion of a berserker wielding Iron-grip’s sword and
hacking his way through the entire pantheon didn’t sit too well with
mother.
Strangely, given my prejudices, I rather enjoyed our stay in
Cherek. The long succession of busty, blonde Cherek ladies who
married my assorted nephews all shared the legendary Cherek
fertility, and I often found myself literally awash with blonde children.
I always had babies to play with while we were in Cherek.
In the year 4750, however, mother grew insistent, and after a long
talk with the boy’s parents I took the most recent heir, Gariel, to
Algaria. Back in the forty-first century, Prince Geran of Riva had
married the daughter of Hattan, the younger brother of a clan-chief,
and so Gariel was a hereditary member of Hattan’s clan. I pointed
this out to Hurtal, the then-current clan-chief, and Gariel and I were
accepted into the extended family of the clan.
I don’t enjoy the nomadic life of the Algar clans. It probably has
to do with my upbringing. I like permanence and stability, and I
find the notion of having a cow decide where I’m going to live
slightly offensive. About the best thing you can say about the life
of a nomad is the fact that he doesn’t stay in one place long enough
for his garbage pile to overwhelm him.
Gariel learned how to ride horses and herd cows, and I fell back
on my sometime occupation as a physician. I delivered babies by
the score and aided mares in difficult foaling. I wasn’t really
offended when I was called from my bed to help a pregnant horse.
I noticed almost immediately that a mare in foal doesn’t ask silly
questions during the birth the way my human patients did.
Since Gariel had grown up in Cherek where almost everyone
was blond, the only brunette he’d ever encountered had been me. Algars
are darker than Chereks, and Gariel was absolutely fascinated by
the dark-haired Algar girls. Since Gariel was new to the clan, the
girls hadn’t watched him go through all the awkward stages of
growing up, !so they found him to be equally fascinating. I was
hard-pressed to keep my young charge and his new-found friends
from exploring the outer reaches of those shared fascinations.
I’m sorry, but that’s about as delicately as I can put it. Mother was
much more blunt when she told me that Cariel’s first son would be
his heir – with or without benefit of clergy.
We finally got him safely married to a tall, beautiful Algar named
Silar, and I was able to catch up on my sleep. when their son was
born in 4756, I suggested that we might dust off one of the traditional
names of the line, and they obliged me by naming the infant Daran.
There were a dozen or so names we’ve used off and on down
through the centuries, and I’ve found that these repetitions give us
a sense of continuity and purpose that sustains a little family that’s
obliged to live in obscurity.
Young Daran quite literally grew up on horseback, and I think
that when he was a boy he hovered on the very brink of becoming
what the Algars call a Sha-Dar – even as Hettar currently is. The
Sha-Darim are known as ‘Horse-Lords’, men whose affinity for
horses somehow links their minds with the group minds of entire
horse-herds. I moved decisively to head that off. The Sha-Darim are
so obsessed with horses that they seldom marry, and that option
simply wasn’t open to Daran. The Sha-Darim also became irrational
in some ways – as Hettar demonstrated in Ulgoland that time
he tried to tame a Hrulga stallion. The Hrulgin look like horses,
but they’re carnivores, so Hettar didn’t have much success – except
that he managed to keep the Hrulga from having him for
breakfast.
In time, Daran did marry a young Algar named Selara, and their
son, Geran, was born in 4779. Note that repetition again. I was
determined to keep the line of succession Rivan, and one of the
ways I accomplished that was to make sure that they all had Rivan
names. Like his father, Geran grew up to be a horse-herder, and I
began to give some thought to relocation again. Algars are perfectly