‘What? Are you bereft of reason? Are you Tsurani claiming these lands again?’
‘No,’ said Pug, his voice echoing with sorrow. ‘They are leaving, too. Something terrible is coming into this world and all must flee. Just know that the more your people prepare, the more they will be able to take with them.’
Jakam was about to ask another question, but Pug knew that further talk would be pointless. He spied a distant rise where the trail could clearly be seen, and transported himself there. It was an old mode of travel he had employed before, jumping from place to place along his line of sight. It was fatiguing, but effective, for like all magicians save Miranda and Magnus, he could not jump to a place he had never seen before.
He reached his goal at nightfall, as he had anticipated. He could see the many fires up on the hillside around the springs, and made his way into town. Unlike Turandaren, Tasdano Abear was a classic Thuril town comprising wattle-and-daub buildings, only the inn making concessions to more modern requirements. On the top of the hill above the town was the fortress, the Thuril log emplacement surrounded by a ditch full of bramble and thorn bush. The Thuril had been impossible to conquer because they simply refused to die defending a particular piece of land. The fortress was designed more to maul an invader before being quickly evacuated than it was to withstand any long siege. These highlanders regarded all of the highland plateaus, valleys, meadows and mountains as their home, and didn’t particularly care from season to season where they resided. A town like Tasdano Abear would flourish for a decade, then vanish when people got tried of trading there. Still, over the last century, reports from the highlands indicated peace was having the long term effect of turning a semi-nomadic people into permanent residents of specific areas.
Clans traditionally had claimed ranges and meadows, but who within that clan got rights to what was often a matter of very difficult, convoluted clan politics. As most families had several blood ties to every other family in the clan, bloodshed between families in clans was rare, but brawls were a staple of the hot blooded highlanders.
Pug entered the tavern and looked around. As he expected it was crowded with many young warriors here in support of clan leaders at the Confederation Council. And while the mood was mostly festive, with this many young men from this many different families, they were always one moment away from a brawl.
The Thuril were an odd race in contrast to the Tsurani, for while the Tsurani were reticent to the point of near-silence, the Thuril were a ferociously outspoken people. Insult was an art form, and the art was to be as loud, boastful, and obnoxious as one could be, without starting a fight.
By the time Pug sat down at a long table in the corner, in the one unoccupied seat, the room had fallen silent. Never in the memory of the oldest living Thuril warrior had a Tsurani Great One walked into an inn during a Confederation Council and sat down.
Finally one of the older warriors, obviously drunk, said, ‘Are you lost?’ He was a red-headed, brawny fellow, with ruddy cheeks and a long drooping moustache. He wore a beaten copper necklace that sparkled in the torchlight. It was a very valuable piece of jewellery on this metal-poor world.
Pug shook his head. ‘I think not.’
‘So, you know where you are then?’
‘This is the Sandram Valley, right?
‘It is.’
‘And this is the town of Tasdano Abear, right?’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘And that’s the Confederation Council up on the hillside at the Shatanda Warm Springs isn’t it?’
‘Yes, that it is.’
‘Then I’m not lost.’
‘Well, then, Tsurani, if you don’t mind me asking, what brings you to this place?’
‘I need to speak to the Council and especially the Kaliane.’
‘Ah, the Kaliane, is it?’
‘Yes,’ said Pug.
‘And supposing she doesn’t wish to see you?’
‘I think she will.’
‘And why would that be?’
‘Because I have something to say to her that she will certainly wish to hear.’
‘Then why are you sitting here, you ill-gotten offspring of a musonga,’ —invoking the name of a particularly stupid burrowing pest that was the bane of all fanners on Kelewan— ‘and not toddling up there to tell her what you’ve got to say?’
‘Because, you rock-headed son of a flatulent needra and a mud wallowing baloo,’ —Pug rejoined with a pair of domestic animals, the stupid beast of burden and filthy, and stupid, but edible meat animal— ‘it would be bad manners for me to "toddle" without an invitation to an audience, which you would know if your mother had birthed any children who could tell it was daylight while standing outside staring into the sun, and had you half the wits the gods gave to a bag of rocks. It’s called "good manners".’