Kencyr Temples and a tidbit
I'm drawing a blank. There are Kencyr temples in Kothifir, Tai-tastigon, and Karkinaroth for sure. I know where three others are, but don't think I've mentioned them yet, except perhaps for Tai-than.
Oh, and here's the first bit of the next novel, still very much a work in progress, so comments/corrections are welcome:
Halfway to the top, the lift cage shuddered to a stop and hung, swaying, on its ropes. Leather-winged birds flitted around it, jeering through sharp teeth. The morning sun poured between its bars like molten gold, bright and hot, and wood creaked.
Its sole occupant swore.
Through the slatted floor under her feet, Jame could see the garrison of the Southern Host spread out like a toy city at the foot of the cliff. There was the inner ward, there the quadrilateral barracks of each Kencyr house. Ant-like dots moved through the streets with deceptive slowness. How high up was she? One thousand feet? Two? Kendar had warned her, with a shudder, that it was nearly three thousand to the top of the Escarpment at this point, not counting Kothifir's towering spires above that. At least she didn't suffer from the Kendars' inbred fear of heights – not that dangling here on a few strands of hemp was exactly reassuring.
Commandant Harn's headquarters were somewhere within the office block north of the inner ward. Jame remembered her reception there some ten days ago, how the burly man had fidgeted around the room, bumping into furniture, avoiding her eyes.
"Ah, Jameth … er, Jame. So you've come at last, all the way from the Riverland. Have a nice trip?"
It had at least been a long one, some forty days on the River Road with time enough to learn the rudiments of the native language from her Southron ten-commander, Brier Iron-thorn. While she had been as far south before as the Cataracts, if not so far west, it had been by the Builders' step-forward stones under the earth. Traveling over ground between the seven kingdoms made up of shattered Bashti and Hathor had given her a new sense of Rathillien's size, never mind that huge stretches of the Eastern and Western Lands remained unexplored. She thought about the empty spaces on Marc's stained glass map and wondered if they would ever be filled.
Three thousand years on this world, and yet we know so little about it.
However, she had found that the Southern Host was trying to remedy this by sending far patrols off in all directions to explore and, incidentally, to collect materials for the great stained glass map growing at Gothregor under Marc's hands.
Maps fascinated the Host.
So did mysteries.
In general, the southern Kencyr seemed much more curious about the world in which they found themselves than any but the Mount Alban scrollsmen had been in the Riverland – a change of attitude that came as a surprise to many cadets, given their lords' general indifference. Although the Barrier was farther away here than in the north, on the other side of the Wastes, Perimal Darkling itself seemed closer and the end of all things nearer.
"Archaic," some said scornfully about such concerns, and dismissed them.
Others kept their silence, but wondered if, here, they might be touching something more vital to their people than they had in a long, long time.
To have come such a long way, though, to receive such a wary welcome …
Oh, and here's the first bit of the next novel, still very much a work in progress, so comments/corrections are welcome:
Halfway to the top, the lift cage shuddered to a stop and hung, swaying, on its ropes. Leather-winged birds flitted around it, jeering through sharp teeth. The morning sun poured between its bars like molten gold, bright and hot, and wood creaked.
Its sole occupant swore.
Through the slatted floor under her feet, Jame could see the garrison of the Southern Host spread out like a toy city at the foot of the cliff. There was the inner ward, there the quadrilateral barracks of each Kencyr house. Ant-like dots moved through the streets with deceptive slowness. How high up was she? One thousand feet? Two? Kendar had warned her, with a shudder, that it was nearly three thousand to the top of the Escarpment at this point, not counting Kothifir's towering spires above that. At least she didn't suffer from the Kendars' inbred fear of heights – not that dangling here on a few strands of hemp was exactly reassuring.
Commandant Harn's headquarters were somewhere within the office block north of the inner ward. Jame remembered her reception there some ten days ago, how the burly man had fidgeted around the room, bumping into furniture, avoiding her eyes.
"Ah, Jameth … er, Jame. So you've come at last, all the way from the Riverland. Have a nice trip?"
It had at least been a long one, some forty days on the River Road with time enough to learn the rudiments of the native language from her Southron ten-commander, Brier Iron-thorn. While she had been as far south before as the Cataracts, if not so far west, it had been by the Builders' step-forward stones under the earth. Traveling over ground between the seven kingdoms made up of shattered Bashti and Hathor had given her a new sense of Rathillien's size, never mind that huge stretches of the Eastern and Western Lands remained unexplored. She thought about the empty spaces on Marc's stained glass map and wondered if they would ever be filled.
Three thousand years on this world, and yet we know so little about it.
However, she had found that the Southern Host was trying to remedy this by sending far patrols off in all directions to explore and, incidentally, to collect materials for the great stained glass map growing at Gothregor under Marc's hands.
Maps fascinated the Host.
So did mysteries.
In general, the southern Kencyr seemed much more curious about the world in which they found themselves than any but the Mount Alban scrollsmen had been in the Riverland – a change of attitude that came as a surprise to many cadets, given their lords' general indifference. Although the Barrier was farther away here than in the north, on the other side of the Wastes, Perimal Darkling itself seemed closer and the end of all things nearer.
"Archaic," some said scornfully about such concerns, and dismissed them.
Others kept their silence, but wondered if, here, they might be touching something more vital to their people than they had in a long, long time.
To have come such a long way, though, to receive such a wary welcome …
Published on February 01, 2012 22:09
No comments have been added yet.
P.C. Hodgell's Blog
- P.C. Hodgell's profile
- 355 followers
P.C. Hodgell isn't a Goodreads Author
(yet),
but they
do have a blog,
so here are some recent posts imported from
their feed.
