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Chanting Lily
2dd843
The city-state of Kuhlta sits upon the Wet Road through the great Pale Desert, grown to wealth from off the stream of travellers and merchants following the only path survivable, from oasis to oasis, across a barrier that chokes a continent. Its water is its first wealth, the greenery it grows the second, its stepped buildings spilling fountains into its canals and carpeted with gardens. It is the greatest jewel in a string of emerald and sapphire gems, sunk into a great canyon; the poorer sections of the city stretch a web of tunnels through the surrounding stone, saving precious surface space for the sunken farmlands arrayed as far about the city's edges as the terrible white glare of the dust and rock beyond can be withstood. Those mad enough to press further find that past a certain distance, nothing grows, even fed and watered from afar. The nearly maddest brave the dunes and stone to find the mines that bring up further wealths of gold and tin, but the maddest of the mad... he lives far closer, and has been living here much longer, than any other mortal creature.
Rakathel is not that man - but he thinks about him. Rakathel is only a record-manager now, a coordinator of supplies and stores and people for the city's queen, though once he mastered quarter for a storied company of mercenaries. He still bears the prouder scars, though a few of those are from life in the city. The people of Kuhlta are passionate, notoriously so, and dueling is a common practice for cutting through a tricky knot inside your heart. Yet they are friendly and considerate to foreigners, for foreigners they have in plenty - especially these days, when on one side of the Wet Road wars are raging, a spirit-speaking emperor keeping warriors in his army past their death, another empire wielding only men and metal but much of it against him, and a hasty weld of smaller states and tribes between. Rakathel sends as many of the city's baskets on to feed the hungry as t
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