2

      As the Victory sailed along the east coast of the Land of Dhrall, Andar spent more and more of his time looking at the trees. ‘Are you having some thoughts about going into the lumber business, Andar?’ his lean, dark-haired friend, Brigadier Danal, asked on their fourth day out from the harbor near Veltan’s house.

      ‘Not really,’ Andar replied in his deep, rumbling voice. ‘What I’m really looking for is color. Autumn isn’t too far off, And the leaves of certain trees change color when autumn rolls around. Red leaves mean winter uniforms, wouldn’t you say?’

      ‘I hate those winter uniforms,’ Danal replied. ‘That wool makes me itch all over.’

      ‘Itching’s better than freezing, isn’t it?’

      The boundary between Veltan’s Domain and Aracia’s wasn’t really clear, but after three or four days at sea, Andar was fairly certain that they were now in Aracia’s part of the Land of Dhrall.

      Aracia and her little girl, Lillabeth, came out on deck a few times, but they spent most of their time in the cabin near the bow of the Victory. Andar didn’t really miss Veltan’s older sister that much. Her superior attitude and shrill voice didn’t sit very well with him, so he tried to avoid her as much as possible.

      As the Victory and the rest of the fleet continued sailing in a generally northeasterly direction, Andar saw several farming villages and even a few small cities along the coast. The cities seemed sort of unfinished to Andar, largely because they didn’t have walls like cities should. Of course the Land of Dhrall was generally peaceful, so walls weren’t really necessary, but still, that unfinished look made them appear incomplete, for some reason.

      The wheat fields appeared to have no boundaries, and that was something else that seemed most unusual. Property owners back in the Trogite Empire always marked the edges of their land with fences, but so far as Andar was able to determine, ‘mine’ and ‘yours’ didn’t really mean all that much to the people here. It seemed most unnatural to Andar, but it might just be that ‘ours’ was the guiding principle here.

      It was approaching autumn now, and the endless wheat-fields lay golden under the late-summer sun. The soil here must be quite a bit richer than the soil back in the empire, Andar concluded, since the wheat-stalks stood almost twice as high as was normal back home. ‘It looks to me like they won’t run out of food around here,’ he murmured.

      ‘That’s ridiculous, Narasan,’ Padan protested when they were all gathered in Narasan’s cabin for their daily meeting a few days later. ‘The city has to have a name.’

      ‘I don’t think she sees it as a city, Padan,’ Narasan disagreed. ‘She refers to it as “the temple”. There are some shops there, I understand, but we’re still talking about a land without money, so what we might call a “business” wouldn’t be exactly the same here. Anyway, Aracia’s temple is the only significant part of the town as far as she’s concerned. Maybe a few of you should nose around in the city outside the temple walls a bit after we get there. The word “temple” suggests a priesthood, and sometimes priests haven’t got a very firm grip on reality. Let’s find out what the real people think. We’ll also need to know if there’s anything at all resembling an army in this part of the Land of Dhrall. Omago built a fair military in Veltan’s Domain, and Longbow’s archers did their share of the work in Zelana’s. There might just be some sort of defensive force here, but I don’t think Aracia would even be aware of it. She’s too busy being important to pay very much attention to what’s going on around her.’

      Andar was fairly sure that Narasan had been glossing over a goodly number of Aracia’s faults. Of course, if what they’d heard about the elder gods was anywhere close to being accurate, they were nearing the end of their cycle, and there was a distinct possibility that some ugly terms like ‘dotage,’ ‘senility,’ and ‘foolish’ might apply, despite the fact that, with the exception of Dahlaine’s grey hair and beard, they showed none of the usual signs of extreme age – on the outside, at least.

      It was about mid-afternoon on the following day when the Victory led the fleet into what civilized people would call ‘the harbor’ of Aracia’s temple-town. There were a couple of crudely-constructed docks jutting out from the beach, but nothing at all resembling the piers of Castano. There were several small buildings above the tide-line, but the major structure in the town – if anyone could call it a town – was what was quite obviously the temple.

      ‘I don’t think letting the men go ashore here would be a very good idea,’ Narasan told them as they gathered again in the large cabin near the stern of the Victory. ‘We know very little about the people of this part of the Land of Dhrall, so let’s not take any chances. Let’s keep things sort of formal until we get to know the people here a little better.’

      ‘Should we leave our swords behind, Commander?’ Brigadier Danal asked a bit dubiously.

      ‘I don’t think so, no,’ Narasan replied. ‘We are soldiers, after all, and we have been hired to fight a war. Just the presence of our swords should let everybody in the temple know why we’re here and what we’re capable of doing. No jokes or laughing, Padan. I’m sure it’ll hurt your face just a bit, but force yourself to look grim and bleak. We want the high-ranking people – priests, most likely – to know just exactly what we are and why we’re here.’ He looked around at them. ‘Any questions?’ he asked with one raised eyebrow.

      Nobody answered.

      ‘All right, then. Andar, would you be so good as to go advise “holy” Aracia that we’ve arrived and that we’re ready to go ashore whenever she wants us to?’

      ‘I’ll see to it, Commander,’ Andar replied a bit reluctantly. Then he went out onto the deck of the anchored Victory.

      He tapped on the door of Aracia’s cabin. ‘We’ve arrived at your temple-town, ma’am,’ he called out. ‘Commander Narasan wants to know if you’d like us to escort you to your temple.’

      ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea,’ she replied through the door. ‘I’d better go on ahead and prepare my people to meet you. They aren’t used to seeing soldiers, so let’s not frighten them.’

      ‘Whatever you think best, Lady Aracia,’ Andar said in a neutral tone. Then he went back to Narasan’s cabin. ‘She’s not ready for us to go ashore yet,’ he reported. ‘She wants to prepare her people before we make our appearance.’

      ‘Or maybe clean house,’ Padan suggested. ‘You know – mop the floors, dust the furniture, wash the windows, order the servants to put on clean clothes – all those important things a lady absolutely must do to impress the visitors.’

      ‘That’s absurd, Padan,’ Danal scoffed.

      ‘I know,’ Padan conceded, ‘but unfortunately, it might just come very close to being the truth.’

      It was almost noon on the following day when a rather awkward canoe approached the Victory. Unlike the canoes of Lady Zelana’s Domain, this one appeared to be a hollowed-out log with a dozen or so paddlers on each side. A grossly fat man wearing a black linen robe and an ornate miter was standing at the front – which didn’t seem to be a very good idea to Andar. Standing up in a canoe could be a very good way to get wet in a hurry.

      ‘Holy