Sanctuary had not even recovered from or grown accustomed to Rankan rule before the seaward invasion of the folk called Bey sins. Both men had by now seen examples of that strange womanish sea-race with the unblinking eyes equipped with nictitating membranes.
They merely turned up one day “in about a million boats,” as a man had told
Strick at breakfast, and after that it was essentially “Hello: Welcome to the
Beysib Empire!” That turned the city on its ear-on its rear, as Fulcris put it.
The Beysin gynecharch, the Beysa, moved herself right into the palace. No one in power did anything. About ten minutes later, out of the gutters crawled something called the Popular Front for the Liberation of Sanctuary: a rabble organization of the unorganizable led by a feisty-swaggery street-lord-and-dolt.
His avowed dedication was to throwing out the invaders and their (god-related?) lady boss with her twining snakes and bare jigglies, along with her people’s ghastly habits with small, preposterously lethal serpents.
What he and his PFLS accomplished was a great deal of mischief and murder and discomfort among his fellow Ilsigs. The fish-folk nourished.
“Ilsigi,” Strick corrected Fulcris. “It’s plural and possessive both. No s.”
Next came still another group, this one with the unlikely name of the Rankan 3rd
Commando, whatever that meant. By then the staggering town was divided some four ways and none of the rival groups could claim to be in charge.
All did.
Meanwhile gods wrangled and rassled, people murdered each other indiscriminately, and consumption of alcoholic spirits increased dramatically.