Damien's Story

The red ochre handprint on the wall was dissolving in the rain, trickling roots down along the mortar between the fired mudbricks. Hunched against the unseasonal downpour, Damien watched as the print slowly disappeared, wishing that the day had broken dry, that he could have come upon the sign before the rain obscured it, that he could then have gained a sense of the hand that had made its mark here, on the outer wall of the old Falah'd Palace in the heart of Hissar.
The many cultures of Seven Cities seethed with symbols, a secret pictographic language of oblique references that carried portentous weight among the natives. Such symbols formed a complex dialogue that no Aetherian could understand. Slowly, during his man months resident here, Damien had come to realise the danger behind their ignorance. As the Year of Dryjhna approached, such symbols blossomed in chaotic profusion, every wall in every city a scroll of secret code. Wind, sun and rain assured impermanence, wiping clean the slate in readiness for the next exchange.
And it seems they have a lot to say these days.
Damien shook himself, trying to loosen the tension in his neck and shoulders. His warnings to the High Command seemed to be falling on deaf ears. There were patterns in these symbols, and it seemed that he alone among all the Aetherians had any interest in breaking the code, or even in recognising the risks of maintaining an outsider's indifference.
He pulled his cowl further over his head in an effort to keep his face dry, feeling water trickle on his forearms as the wide cuffs of his telaba cloak briefly opened to the rain. The last of the print had washed away. Damien pushed himself in motion, resuming his journey.
Water ran in ankle-deep torrents down the cobblestones beneath the palace walls, gushing down into the gutter bisecting each alley and causeaway in the city. Opposite the immense palace wall, awnings sagged precariously above closet-sized shops. In the chill shadows of the holes that passed for storefronts, dour-faced merchants watched Damien as he passed by.
Apart from miserable donkeys and the occasional sway-backed horse, the streets were mostly empty of pedestrian traffic. Even with the rare wayward current from the Sahul Sea, Hissar was a city born of inland drylands and deserts. Though a port and now a central landing for the Empire, the city and its people lived with a spiritual back to the sea.
Damien left behind the close ring of ancient buildings and narrow alleys surrounding the palace wall, coming to the Dryjhna Colonnade that ran straight as a spear through Hissar's heart. The guldindha trees lining the colonnade's carriage track swam with blurred motion as the rain pelted down on their ochre leaves. Estate gardens, most of them unwalled and open to public admiration, stretched green on either side. The downpour had stripped flowers from their shurbs and dwarf trees, turning the cobbled walkways white, red and pink.
The historian ducked as a gusting wind pressed his cloak tight against his right side. The water on his lips tasted of salt, the only indication of the angry sea a thousand paces to his right. Where the street named after the Storm of the Apocalypse narrowed suddenly, the carriage path became a muddy track of broken cobbles and shattered pottery, the tall, once royal nut trees giving way to desert scrub. The change was so abrupt that Damien found himself up to his shins in dung-stained water before he realised he'd come to the city's edge. Squinting against the rain, he looked up.
Off to his left, hazy behind the sheets of water, ran the stone wall of the Imperial Compound. Smoke struggled upward from beyond the wall's fortified height. On his right and much closer was a chaotic knot of hide tents, horses and camels and carts- a trader camp, newly arrived from the Sialk Odhan.
Drawing his cloak tighter against the wind, Damien swung to the right and made for the encampment. The rain was heavy enough to mask the sound of hs approach from the tribe's dogs as he entered the narrow, mud-choked pathway between the sprawling tents. Damien paused at an intersection. Opposite was a large copper-stained tent, its walls profuesely cluttered with painted symbols. Smoke drifted from the entrance flap. He crossed the intersection, hesitating only a moment before drawing the flap to one side and entering.
A roar of sound, carried on waves of hot, steam-laden air buffeted the historian as he paused to shake the water from his cloak. Voices shouting, cursing, laughing on all sides, the air filled with durhang smoke and incense, roasting meats, sour wine and sweet ale, closed in around Damien as he took in the scene. Coins rattled and spun in pots where a score of gamblers had gathered off to his left; in front of him a tapu weaved swiftly through the crowd, a four-foot-long iron skewer of roasted meats and fruit in each hand. Damien shouted the tapu over, raising a hand to catch the man's eye. The hawker quickly approached.
'Goat, I swear!' the tapu exclaimed in the coastal Debrahl language. 'Goat, not dog. Dosii! Smell for yourself, and only a clipping to pay for such delicious fare! Would you pay so little in Dosin Pali?'
Born on the plains of Dal Hon. Damien's darkened skin matched that of the local Debrahl slightly; he was wearing the telaba sea cloak of a merchant trader from the island city of Dosin Pali, and spoke the language without a hint of an accent. To the tapu's claim, Damien grinned. 'For dog, I would, Tapuharal.' He fished out two local crescents- the equivalent of a base 'clipping' of the Imperial silver jakata. 'And if you imagine the Mezla are freer with their silver on the island, you are a fool and worse!'
Looking nervous, the tapu slid a chunk of dripping meat and two soft amber gloves of fruit from one of the skewers, wrapping them in leaves. 'Beware Mezla spies, Dosii,' he muttered. 'Words can be twisted.'
'Words are their only language,' Damien replied with contempt as he accepted the food. 'Is it true then that a scarred barbarian now commands the Mezla army?'