The Flock of the Shore

By Richard Wyndbourne

Those who dreamed the most ancient pantheon of the heavens before the stars were named are gone and forgotten from all the Earth’s eight corners. But for one land. A chronicle of alternative history begins as from all quarters of Gaone Muru, the Middle Coast, come a dozen seekers and more---seasoned and green, wealthy and poor, woman and man, from society’s apex and its dregs also---to Great Tyrri on its seaside bay, the teeming, scheming, clan-ruled metropolis of the vibrant sea trader Ketts amidst their Eastlander clients and foes. Ambitions intertwine at the pinnacle of an ancient city-state society as complex as the Indus civilization, in its richest hour on the cusp of crisis and change.

While the slums roil with discontent and the warrior Wuroq stir in their serf-worked lowland over the coast crests, some of enterprise cross paths and seek their fortune in the City of Flowers, Tyrri: Timuras the youth, sworn as a militiaman bondservant, leaving his healer ‘sister’ Zorya in the countryside perhaps to follow; Marreike of the fens, a rambler and a gambler away north with the Passion Company; Bveron-Rim the messenger who well masks his cruel secret; cheery Dhurunna, come a courtesan to the Pleasure Station of Tyrri-Mah; Tabhitda the fisherman’s daughter, ill-content with small prospects; Tarqun, a wealthy and ambitious Eastlander striving for the heights of power; devious Uhlaicsa Wrau, richest clan Senior in all Gaone Muru, and her client-lover, the haunted poet-admiral Xupai Tdauetzi; and more besides. The Wheel of the heavenly pantheon turns; whose destiny does it favor?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard Wyndbourne
• Release date: May 25, 2014
• ISBN: 9780991657100

Richard Wyndbourne

Richard Wyndbourne is a resident of the Northleft Coast of the US of A since first he earned his own bread and vino; now here, now there. Seattle is where he presently hangs his hat. A sometime scholar of history and society, historical theory is his chiefest design. A graduate of The Evergreen State College, he is a Greener in all senses; wiser thereby, if unfit for a drone’s life therefore. To speak of callings, he’d best put ‘gym rat,’ ‘wordsmith,’ or ‘trekker in the Mountains of Imagination’ on the shingle. What most do with life, family, and career have sifted through his fingers like colorless talc: You too would find them hard to grasp if you reached for the stars. He whistles while he walks, and he walks on. Through the generation just preceding Richard Wyndbourne has read---and written---more poetry than fiction by far, while even so the seventh art has come first with the use of his stray time. He has your acquaintance, and you his, since he is now an accidental novelist. Yes, a figment of words waylaid him in a weak moment, and though he fled from that iridescent specter he was pursued and overcome, and a keyboard thrust into his smiling fingers to tell of Great Tyrri. Apart from that series now begun, the six best books you’ve never read are each one-third done on his laptop. To find the freedom to finish any amongst them, he’s written the one which you now have; a bit-work ladder from out of the Pit, he’ll climb till he gains the sun. Having advanced the proposition that he can live by his wits, he is presently in the discovery phase regarding whether he has any to speak of.

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Author’s Note

In the setting and deeds of this tale, some may recognize, in belief or fact, known places, peoples, and the languages of the latter. Notwithstanding a lens held to reality by the author, nothing in this work is intended to present a factual account of the lives, practices, beliefs, or character of any person or people in any time or place. This is a work of the imagination. It no more relates specific cultural, historical, or human experience than do the Tales of the Roundtable accurately depict Britain in the 5th and 6th centuries CE. To the extent that any of the concepts in this work have historical accuracy, the principle usage of non-English language included, they reflect the original scholarship of the author concerning a widespread ancient culture, now extinct and likely extant in no one place in the society here depicted. The ‘Exketi’ of this narrative and the Dana amongst them are an idealized reconstruction of such a folk drawn from their cultural anthropology and language family to the extent to which the author understands these. Other ethnic populations referenced here are similarly fictionalized.

An additional focus of prior original study incorporated into this narrative is the hypothesis that all pantheistic mythologies derive from a common, actual, historical prototype; that the great diversity of deities both within particular traditions of myth and between them are avatars (portent-laden manifestations) of a definable, finite set of discrete characters; that further individual deities correspond to major objects in the night sky from the observable behavior of which aspects of their ‘character’ are drawn; and that as well specific deities are associated with sections of the heavenly circumference, and hence with specific epochs of ‘rule.‘ Few portions of this model are original with the author, but their hypothesized synthesis into a system of archaeoastronomy with cultic interpretations practiced by a specific initial population in Deep Antiquity is without precedent. This body of palaeo-historical study demands its own text(s) which the author yet hopes to complete.

In the work you have here, such concepts receive only a cursory presentation, as an armature of deities, myth, constellations, and presumed destiny which permeates the principal culture envisioned in this narrative; an ‘arcane science’ of meanings latent in experienced life broadly known to and deeply believed by all. All individuals in this principal fictional culture are named for an avatar of the Khaian—High One or deity—whose section of the heavens saw the dawn sun on the day they were born, and thus they are presumed to have their personal identity and ultimate fate shot through with the character of that deity as for creatures worked from That One’s clay alone. In particular, the principal actors of this narrative are conceived as prime avatars of the deities to whom they are unalterably so bound by birth. For such is true in the great epics of history such as the Táin Bó Cúailnge, the Shahnameh, the Mahabharata, the Odyssey, and many more. There, the principal actors are all readily identifiable avatars of not simply deities in the pantheons of the places and times of those texts but of the underlying commonplaces of the elementary pantheon as the author understands that system at present. In epic, ‘characters’ are not personalities, though they may show such, nor stories, though they enact such, but symbol saturated archetypes drawn from matrices of legend and observed astronomical interaction which are a legacy shared across most ancient cultures of Eurasia and beyond; are more than human if recognizably of flesh. So then here too, in more modest measure.

An additional thesis braided into this tale is that a subtle core of traits within human personality is in fact defined by the period of one’s birth within the annual cycle. As refined by the author in an extensive model, this phenomenon differs from astrology, both ancient and modern, in all of pattern, form, influence, and hypothesized cause. One might speak of a templet of traits beneath and within intention whose aggregate is ‘character,’ a behavioral gestalt comparable to a watermark or web of pleats upon which a person’s unique, individual, personality develops through the vagaries of nature and nurture. This model of birth day driven types too requires its own text, a work which may follow rather sooner.

While such personality trait templets are a very real phenomenon in the author’s view, and one quite separate from the sequence of mythic archetypes tied to the seasons’ round in the prototypal pantheon of Deep Antiquity and its derivatives, these two ‘patterns of character’ share appealing correspondences. This may be no more than the consequence of many millennia of observed human behavior being spackled back as a conceptual residue into the warp of astronomical observation and the weft of myth. Still, the presence of ‘templets of human personality’ within ‘mythic character archetypes’ is easy to perceive and difficult to discard for an observer engaged with both. Accordingly, those whose tale this is step forth both as exemplars of human personality types and as mythic archetypes—unbeknownst to them, who live in their world as we in ours, too human and scarcely glimpsing schemata within and behind their choices and actions; ‘free’ but within limits little visible; dimly aware unlike we of a qizumetse, veiled destiny, which impels their steps unseen.

And therein lies a tale. Or tales. For in these Tales of Tyrri not one but many actors engage their common place and time; agents pursuing their own daemons, pursued by their own fates, whether those intentions and the ventures these map bring them together, hold them together, pull them apart, or keep then unknown to one another. Though plaited in their paths and destinies, these principals meet their world each for themselves; change their world and are changed by it; interact and go their ways. While the chapters which follow unfold in their entirety more or less in chronological order, the text functions as a composite novel. The affairs of individual principals are independent such that sections involving individual actors may be picked out at the reader’s discretion and read as distinct sequences if so desired. In some respects, the worldscapes of Tyrri and Gaone Muru are the true ‘characters’ of this account, the frame of the Tale. What is revealed layer by piece by glimpse, chapter on chapter, is the way in which the culture of the Ketts and the world of Gaone Muru shape what paths the agents of these tales may walk: There is a cumulative ‘cultural density’ which comes from reading the whole. These conjoined tales begin at a splice in time, when a span of ‘what is’ first shows the signature of ‘what will be,’ a reweaving great in scale and proceeding over years to follow. We see only the first hints of such trajectories in these initial chapters.

The language used extensively in this text will be unfamiliar to English speakers, being a limited reconstruction of a hypothetical protolanguage quite distinct from Indo-European. For those interested in linguistics, this is an agglutinative, tonal language, employing ergative agency, principally with SOV (subject-object-verb) order, and without declensions. The tonal system cannot easily be represented, and is vestigial in what is presented here. Very little of the grammar of this language appears in the text, and an understanding of it is not essential to the reader. As a reference, however, a list of Exketi affixes (plural markers, possessives, ergative particles, etc.) is included on the final pages here. This text contains substantial lexical content in Exketi, typically italicized where not a proper name. How a folk say their world is how they see it, so to see the ways of the Middle Coast basic terms for things and the flavor of Exketi discourse are kept before the reader. Each term or phrase is translated into English on its first usage. Thereafter, the English and Exketi forms are used interchangeably. As a practical measure, English affixes are sometimes used on Exketi words. A glossary of all Exketi terms used in the Tales of Tyrri is available as a separate download in Tales of Tyrri, Glossaries and Supplementa, a reference on the characters and the world of Gaone Muru.

The orthography (spelling) of Exketi is kept to the Latin alphabet for visual simplicity. For the convenience of the reader now, amongst the less familiar formations are:

bh - a minimally voiced b, which becomes a soft f before lower vowels; the soft Basque b

bhd - a voiced apical fricative

bv - a hard v which begins closed; a voiced bilabial fricative

ç - a gently lisped s, the Iberian cedilla; a voiceless alveolar fricative

chh - a soft k well back in the mouth; a voiceless uvular affricate

cs - a softer sch; a voiceless alveolo-palatal sibilant

cz - a gently buzzed z; a voiced alveolar fronted sibilant

dj - a hard j; a voiced alveolo-palatal affricate

dz - a voiced alveolar affricate

gk - a clicked k; a velar ejective

gx - a hard g further back in the mouth; a voiced velar fricative

gy - a voiced palatal affricate

kh - an aspirated velar stop

hl - a tongued l; a retroflex lateral approximant, aspirated as an initial consonant

hr - a mildly aspirated r; a retroflex flap

pb - a maximally voiced bilabial stop

qh - the initial consonant in ‘caw;’ a voiceless velar affricate

rh - a voiceless alveolar trill

rl - the American Southern l in ‘oil;’ a partially vocalized lateral approximant

rr - a hard trilled r

sz - a held z; a voiced dental sibilant

td - the New York English d in ‘dese;’ a voiced retroflex non-sibilant affricate

ts - a voiceless alveolar affricate

tt - t’, a short, expressed t; an alveolar ejective

tx - tch, weakening between vowels to ch (otherwise unused); a voiced alveolo-palatal affricate

tz - a plosive z; a voiced retroflex fricative

x - sh, although broadening to shy in many words; a voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant

xk - a clicked sh [Note: this my indicate distinct consonants in words, e.g. Ex-ket-i]

zh - the French j in Jeanne; a voiced palato-alveolar sibilant

consonant pairs are most always diphthongs, generally of rising vocalization

o is not used in Exketi, and where written represents a soft au diphthong

The research which contributed to the inventions which follow has had many sources. My thanks extend in particular to the Libraries of the University of Washington, and Wikipedia.org. The hypothetical linguistic reconstruction of Exketi was synthesized from many sources, chief amongst them Basque-English English-Basque Dictionary by Gorka Aulestia and Linda White, Sumerian Lexicon by John Halloran, and the Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary Project. My warmest thanks extend to Steve Castle who made his image available for the cover art.

Map of Tyrri

Map of Gkanone and Its Surrounds

Map of Gkanone and Gaone Muru Zundh

Looking Forward

If not a soul dwelt on the Sunshine Shore, the sky here wouldn’t care. The joy-blue ciel would yet blaze in bright summer come as now. The wind would comb rock scarps despite, would still smooth the shore beach flats, coming cool off the ocean but the days—other days—when drowned by fog. The heat to raise one’s sweat would be tamed just the same here at the vast land’s brim to a perfect mildness quite different from the upcountry swelter of towering hill forests or the bake of lowland plains. The creatures of the near sea would surely rest the easier if they alone yet ruled the tangled marine embrace of Gkanone’s stone and bush and hill pan, as in the long ago. The stars behind the daysky would heedless turn above-beyond in the night to show the tales told on them in other lands, waiting for those to come here too who knew the images scored amidst their shimmer-points and of all such their names, and the count of time marked in steps around their oblong circuit. But as they could come, those folk, so they had come; this far, and long before. Others had come here first, step by step as they might their ways from places apart in the Deep of Time; each folk for their own reasons, and few of them favoring a seascape for a home. Then those who knew tales had come; who told them of old, who made them new in their own young time as now. Come by the ocean, riding sturdy raft-craft down the westerlies, woman, child, and man, to seek the Door of the Dawn; such craft alike as those driving south in the sea this day clear of the cliffs. Not that many walked the ridges just here, old folk or new. Or any today, on the coast path coming up the headlands below the Tor. But one: a man by claim not many days from a boy’s part in things. And he came running.

The sky … tale; we follow, season on …. … The sun’s hem and with us … O’er the horizon. The fresh breeze snatched away by bits half the salute in txitxi-ssesu whistle-speech, from the fleet of the Auqu-Trukar, hailing the folk of Hapberdu Talur under the beach bluff.

"The sky is a tale; we follow season on season.

Catch the sun’s hem and with us come, o’er the horizon," called Timuras aloud. He ran on southward climbing slantwise through the seagrass up the bluff lip, seeming to outpace the great Southern Convoy of Tyrri as it edged more and more into view past the looming spire of Tor Arazhauna’s surf-thrust rocks, though in fact the outbound trading craft rode a good northwesterly tipping up whitecaps and were the faster hauling down the coast.

"Leave land’s qizumets’, and with the Gods …." The breeze came round enough it overmastered and lost to him the whistle-language of the Kettish mariners piped a-far through bark cones from well offshore, in the Ebud, Passage, landward of the pinnacle islets.

Ascend, he finished the line. It didn’t matter. Though Timuras spoke fine Kettish, he knew too little of the txitxi-ssesu worked from it to follow any lengthy passage of its mariners’ jargon. The only reason he could repeat the hail-verse was that Dukku had told him what it meant: it was the first three lines of a famous poem of the Sea-Traders, known since before he came to Exebarr and the Tor; indeed since before he was born. Timuras burst into a sprint, the esek-karle, carry-net, of still dripping mussels he’d gleaned from the rocks south of the Tor banging on his bare back as he reached the high point of the bluff line set north of the creek.

He pulled up there to watch the Convoy as it made headway past sleepy Talur-one, Farthest-beach, little port and fisher ville of Exebarr beyond the mouth of Urreka Xir, Shrine Creek. Though it was the southernmost landing of Gkanone, and indeed the last one before the pirate-haunted coves of the long Sachhuone beyond, the Convoy never put in here but in heavy weather; there wasn’t room for so many deepwater uhndau, sailing rafts, nor reason. Timuras spat over the verge and watched them go, grander and far, far richer than anything in the whole of Exebarr but for the Xi, Shrine, of Nin Arazhauna itself. The Hriexi south up the valley in the zidar-ma, redwoods, was larger of course, and much older, but simpler in the style of Hrie’s devotees. He’d wrapped a long training run down to the Tor to watch the Convoy go by this noon, marking its passage as he had done since a babe in arms, living with Zorya in the etja squats, wattle hutches, inshore beneath the Tor. The Convoy, in its manifest display of wealth, power, and enterprise. Of Tyrri. For the last time, he watched. They went south; tomorrow he’d return to the Hapberdu and take passage north. To Tyrri.

He sat in the grass then, watching them go, chawing a bit of corn cake from morning meal, with a fistful of kelp taken off the rocks too. The last water from the half-size batsu, pour-skin, he’d brought washed it down, though first he let a drop fall, for succor of the dead since as many wraith ever roamed as those yet live. Pulling out his aisu, sling, Timuras prized a right pebble from the sandy bluff, and winged it downslope to take the top off a flower. —An Utd without a sling is like a wolf short a limb,— he thought, citing the old proverb.

His luck was great that Dukku had found him preferment as a ginauqhen for gude mixkatsa, bondsman for militia training, and with the Danbor at that, a rising Line of influence. At seventeen, he was getting old for starting. Mixkatsan recruits began by sixteen once well of age, and bondservants of most kinds usually had a place by a year younger, or even two. Dukku, the one-time nagusi in the Gkanonna Auhrdagudar, sergeant in the Gkanone Army, had been three years trying, first quietly, then openly once he was of age. Tyrri militia, not in the closer Ninebvaxi, a great city in its own right. I know no one in Ninebva, he’d said. "And besides, the Guretani Lleina, Lineage, master everything there. They recruit from Ibarr Abvon, and outsiders can scarce get any place, and no advancement. Everything is greater in Tyrri, starting with opportunity."

Big sister Zorya had been dead against it, of course. Anything but gone for a soldier was her wish, and for long she had refused to help either of them. Finally she had told him, though, when he was of age, I knew you would be leaving here, and assented, if only to be sure he had a place to go and means rather than running off wild.

Timuras lay back in the grass then, brushing clear the midges which came buzzing. Though the Convoy hove south in their many score, the ritual of seeing them pass was stale, and his interest already moved on. There would be boats and craft of all kinds in the basins and landings of Great Tyrri every day, the grandest city in the world, and the other prime Convoys too. He meant to try his luck there; Exebarr was never for him. Zorya had brought them here, two near starved refugees from the Gi-Tul, Lesser Bottomland. Twice his age, she had learning and many gifts, and with time these had found her favor and a place as a healer with the Hrie cult here. As a fatherless, clanless, outlander, Timuras received more jeers than welcome from other children, especially once Zorya had taken them both up to Exebarrki town to live closer to the Hriexi. He’d bashed many a face, and taken plenty himself. He had sworn to leave their yokel smugness and gossip behind, and now he would.

Timuras felt a shadow’s brief caress then, and saw above him in the sky an eagle come coasting the bluff draughts; exceptionally, hawks were more common to this zone. He reared up on his arms, cocking his head to see against the sun. It was the Death God’s bird, but too the righteous Fisher King and Sun-swallower, seizing wraiths and fortunes beyond the Door; salmon and crab in heavenly image he’d been told, salar and maurra; had seen them in the stars. He knew the uhltattak, rune constellations. Who didn’t, who lived by the shores of the Middle Coast and rubbed shoulders with the Ketts who’d chosen all their names when the world was cold and young? Pin feathers splayed, the eagle held station near stilled against the wind; then in a slackening of the northerly it slid away upcoast toward the Tor and beyond. —An omen of some kind, maybe; who could read it?— thought Timuras.

He got to his feet, and brushed away sand where it clung to his drying back and thighs. He retied the bindings on the good high sandals with sharkskin soles Zorya had gotten him with thanks money for a tending when he started running competitively for the local Games. They were wearing, but good for another season, and he’d take them north in his kit. In only a plain clout and a mehzha, grassweave, peak against the sun otherwise, Timuras showed mostly skin, browned already with high summer. He flexed himself this way and that, dropped into a few low poses from the supple movement forms of Arazhauna. Sure nothing was tight, he began the long upgrade run south beyond the harborville back the ibarr, valley, to the town.

Zorya gathered the organs, and clapped them in a small pot with a dash of liquid for stock; the down was saved already. In its clay bake-box, the bird just began to crackle in its sauce in the deep outside oven. Timuras had sent her the urxuxuretse, farwhisper, when he turned in sight of the town on the bvia, way. Since his growth had come on him he couldn’t often catch when she sent it, but she always could when he did; he’d be home in minutes. She wiped her hands reflexively on the broad azalhrige, barkcloth, cooking apron she wore over her house skirt, then the healer in her thought more of it and she splashed them clean with stem soap and the last of the cook-prep water. The bark teased her rubbing on bare nipples, as her better gown of maroon aushrige, thistle cloth, hung on the hutch partition for later, safe from cooking mess. The brush and push of the apron against her made her think suddenly of Timu; she hadn’t weaned him fully until he was four, though she’d only let him at her when they were alone for the two years before. She slit angelica and greens with the slate kitchen aiçe, razor, dropped them on a wooden platter. It would be so strange without him. Not that they had never been apart. The Keepers of the Hriexi had more and more sent her out on missions in the last few years, to tiny gkarlerriak, hill villages, when there was sickness, and times in Ninebva, and once a year ago but one herself all the way up to Tyrri. He was all she had left, though, of her days in Tulutderri, already half a lifetime behind. —Thanks to all Gods.—

Zorya rose from the kitchen work bench with the stock pot, and went out front under the extended wattle eave of the etja where it formed a verandah over the stamped earth forecourt. She set the stock crock topside to the big oven off the verandah since it already had a fire going, and stooped to push another split into the oven firebox. Her generous adjuak, breasts, swung with it, and stroked the apron’s knap again. Zorya smiled her luxurious ‘cat’s smile,’ as her father had called it. Gatte-Zorya she’d been when small.

There was a rush, and a hand smacked her rump firmly. She leapt up with the old panic for an instant, then caught herself and spun around slower. Only one, here, would do that.

Crank imp, she said with a certain hiss.

Dull jade, he joked. Caught you careless.

"I never slapped when you were an ume, child said Zorya, but it’s not too late to make up for it." She rubbed her cheek. Her rich brown eyes had a glint of flint in vexation.

"Too late to make a mousy xamanar of me, sister, a divine, grinned Timuras. Let’s see you try." He fake-boxed some exkemaintsa-guda, handskill-combat, poses, skipping about in the sun just outside of the verandah’ s shade.

Zorya gazed at him. The sweat from his run glistened on his bare skin, dust up his legs chased through with muddy trickles. A little below middle height, but he had his full growth already; wiry strong, with square shoulders and lean hips, half visible but for his clout; muscles crisp from all that training with the time-was soldier. Herself tall, their heights were a whit from par. He had little hair to his body, but now had to scrape off the makings of a beard, like his aita, dad. He was a handsome youth, no question; a gifted athlete with a shock of glossy hair, and a rich smile like hers. His teeth could be more even, but they were all there and gleaming. His eyes were the best thing, though, bright and winning, green as his father’s though moreso; their spark made one look. Sharp as a blade from the first he was, and quick with a joke. But quick too to answer a blow with a blow. He’d tumbled more than one around Exebarr, she knew. —He’ll do well in Tyrri, true enough. If he keeps his head,— thought Zorya.

Suddenly, Timuras stepped forward, and threw his arms around her. "Don’t be mad Zorya Acs, Sister. You know I love you."

*Phhewgh* You stink, she said. Then, I couldn’t love you more, little brother, and embraced him too. Her arms felt the lumpy carry net over his back. Whatcha find, Timu?

Timuras pitched away the straw peak, and slung off the net. "Mussels, sister. Like you always had me gather up at the Tor when I was an ant and we scrabbled for dinner every day in the squats. I wanted a last look round the Vale and all. Since I was down to the Tor, I thought as my share to the last dinner I’ll eat in Exebarr I’d bring what I fetched to the first ones. We can be like you said, two Ontsutd eating Kettetse, like Ketts." He held the sack out to her, but she stood still a moment without taking it.

"Qizmet, she said with an odd look to her face. Finally, she took the bivalves and turned to go inside. —Fate.— Timu axala, cherished one, I’ve been thinking … After dinner, I want to talk. About our family. We’ll have plenty time."

"Baizh Sister, agreed; whatever you want, he said, just a little puzzled, following her in. What’s cooking?"

I bought a duck, said Zorya. "Greens and stalks. Suchhu-bearle, raisins, in mush, if you want it. And mussels. But wash off and put a kilt on."

He laced off his sandals. Nag, nag: you couldn’t be more on my neck if you were my mother. Zorya kneeling aside the kitchen bench leaned on it with both hands, closing her eyes. —Qizumetse. Destiny.—

Timuras spotted a plump ssu-batsu, wineskin, hanging in the kitchen space. Ho! Wine, too. We feast as the rich then, Zusa. Am I going to have to carry you up to the Hriexi giggling for Evening Rite? Or do I drink it alone?

You’ve seen me drink, she said tartly.

Timuras cast his clout aside, and pulled the bowl and sponge from under the jar shelf. He and Zorya were frank about everything in their lives, it was their nature. And as a healer, she put no stock in body-modesty or ‘cub names’ for anything.

Water’s empty, Timu. Fill it up, and bring it in when you’re done sponging. That’ll be just in time to get the mussels on. She pulled a boil-basket from the kitchen things, and dumped the mussels in. Dukku’s out back. I think he’s afraid he’d choke up ‘like a woman’ if he came down to see you off in the morning.

Timuras took the jar by its handle, and with the bowl and sponge in the other flicked the latch on the little back door from the mainroom of the etja. Comin’ out, Dukku. Close your eyes if you’ve gone timid.

The back eave was half the depth of the front one. The woodpile and the cistern were there, and a couple of stumps for sitting. A scrim of batxe-derle blossoms, lilac bush, dropping now with with high summer come but sill rich with color, screened the rear of the etja from others nearest at the low, north end of the town. It was on the windward side of the bvia whereas most dwellings were on the more sheltered inland side and further up. Zorya loved the view, and thanked her luck when they’d gotten the leasehold of it, drafty or not. The solid man there getting stout sat on one stump in a kilt and open cloak. His hands rested on the head of his ihlue-txe, rowan stick, his left leg out straight while he leaned against the back wall

Been running then Timuras, he said, a statement, not a question. In Kettish, not Utd.

Don’t know if I can keep race training up north, Dukk, as we said, Timuras gave back in the same tongue. If the Danbor think it good, though, I’ll try for the Games there.

Winning won’t come easy in Tyrri, boy, not like down here for you. There’s everyone there from all the Middle Coast who thinks he’s good at anything, even just playing a flute with his nose. It’s good you’re fit for the training, though. The Danbor will like that.

With the green-striped cistern gourd Timuras put one and a half dips into the bowl. Though Exebarr, Sacred Valley, had fair enough wells, water was dear this time of year on the edge of the Dry Hills. He started to sponge down as the two of them bided in silence a bit. Dukku’s coming to Sacred Valley had changed everything for him, put purpose to his maybes. … He should miss leaving Dukku more than he did; that part felt strange to him. No one had ever done more for him. Taught him physical training. Drilled him ragged with every weapon but the bow, saying he himself was an oaf with it. Timuras might be a year late starting as a recruit, but his combat skills were already exceptional. They’d even talked some egenetze at azmi, tactics and strategy, something Dukku didn’t do with his other practice pupils. But that was the least of it in many ways. The former nagusi had driven it into his head that a soldier wasn’t a brawler or a duelist, but one who could check his wrath and follow orders. The drilling and running had given Timuras a leash on his you-can’t-beat-me moxie. He won his fights now, and more importantly found far fewer of them. Dukku had taught him real Kettish. Oh, Zorya had learned him to speak it. And far rarer to read it and Utd both, but that was the formal Kettish of tomes and contracts. Dukku made it that they talked nothing else together, though not himself a Kett; learned him all the jargon of Tyrri and the Army both, as of five years since anyway. And some of the txitxi-ssesu; They’re using it for unit commands, now. Taught him to curse in Tyrri Kettish. And to drink. Mentioned this and that about women which weren’t the kind of things to ask Zorya, though she would’ve given him a blunt enough answer to anything, she surprised a person that way if asked. Hadn’t wanted to teach him to gamble, but a soldier has to join in to keep any friends in the gudar duss, barracks, so he showed Timuras enough not to play stupid and to know when someone was cheating.

It wasn’t my idea, Timu, though you know I couldn’t be prouder, said Dukku at length.

Zorya’s too canny to really blame you, Dukk. Everyone knows this is my notion: I want it. Timuras swept the coarse sea sponge down his lower limbs now, swiping away the grass and dust of Exebarr; the bowl water would just do.

The second day the gray-fringed ex-soldier had opened his little weapon-wright’s booth in town, Timuras had dodged in to see. He was eleven years then. From the moment he hefted a real xkipe-gudu, combat-spear, in his hand, he’d known what he wanted to be. Dukku saw it in him, and they were fast close as a clam and its shell. Zorya just hated it. Hrie was the Peaceful One, and she forbade him the shop. It was two miles up to the Hriexi, though, two miles back, and Timuras had no scruple when she was there. Dukku, however, was a bit shrewder than some thought, and played it the right way. He went to see Zorya himself alone.

"The boy wants to train, emme, ma’am, and he could be very good, said Dukku. But I told him what I tell you, that I will teach him nothing unless you both, brother and sister, consent to it; I want no quarrel. But he isn’t ready, even for that. What should be done, if you are willing, is for him to begin to train his body; learn to run, how to limber up and keep his balance, and in a bit to build strength. He’s the kind wants keeping busy or there’s trouble, that’s plain to see. And he needs to learn some simple handskill to look out for himself before he clouts a one in the head with a rock." Zorya’s silence was no help, and Dukku drank some iurrba-asa, good-herb brew, from the cup she had given him as they sat on mats on her verandah. Brew, outside the house; a barely civil welcome. His bad leg wouldn’t allow him to squat Utd style or sit Kettish, crosslegged, so he sprawled awkwardly with his leg out and his stick beside him. She had had the manners to sit down Kettish to be level with him.

His temper and weapons aren’t suited, she said after a time. And one can kill with their hands as fast and as dead as with arms. Don’t think I don’t know that.

"I haven’t the skill or the reason to teach him the full exkemaintsa-guda such as that, emme. And if it comes to weapon-skill, it would be soldier’s drill and formal fencing. I won’t countenance dueling or messing about with any cutthroat tricks. Honest arms."

"Did Varukha hear you say that, nagusi?" asked Zorya.

In the hearing of the Writher, I so swear, replied Dukku. With an inner gleam: he had the edge in, at least. "Dueling is for killers and braggarts; the curse of the Ketts, and they can have it. I wouldn’t take diru, money, to teach a man that."

"And yet you come here and sell your arms, nagusi. Who do you think it is that buys them?"

"I’m a busted up soldier, emme; it’s all I know. And I sell little; mostly repair. But is it such a bad thing, then? The Dry Shore south from here is pocked with pirates and broken men. They cause little trouble in Exebarr just now, it’s true—because those here run a little ‘quite trade’ with them out of sight at the valley heads, that’s why. But the boys upcountry herding apaca have to look sharp. Bad things can happen up the batxe, bush. They at least are safer if they have arms and know their use."

And those in outlaw down Sachhuone of whom you speak; do they not just buy your wares from others here, and so arm themselves?

"Those down there get all the arms they can carry from Ninebvaxar grifters zipping in by baruccha, dugout, so long as they have cove jade and boat loot to barter. I’ve been here so many months, Dukku waved a few fingers, and even I know this. All the more reason to train a few here to value their skill and keep their gear to watch out for each other. Do you see it as wrong that outsiders know we here in Sacred Valley can defend ourselves?"

"Ni-ey nyesse aizh; ni-ey nyesse bai-ezh, Zorya replied, in Kettish now, I don’t say yes; I don’t say not-yes." The weaponeer had said ‘we’ though, she noticed. He had a brother-by-marriage here, it was said.

Dukku’s mouth twitched at a smile at the famous and quintessential Kettish phrase, agreeing to disagree or demurring without insulting the listener. Ziltsu had said she was wise and strong-willed, but not petty. Usually. Just so. And a sultry one to sit by. Just just so.

Timuras says you speak Kettish to him, Zorya went on in that tongue, back to the thread of their talk.

"I’m Ontsutd like yourself, emme, but was twenty years in Tyrri-Ma, Great Tyrri. I’m no scholar like you; I can sign my name, that’s it. But I know Tyrri Kettish to speak it better than my mother tongue; in the tehreka, regiments, up there it’s all we talk. It was the boy that started talking it, but it would be a fine thing for him anywhere in the Middle Coast if he got good at it, without a kha gunaki, country accent. You learned him well, but he doesn’t have the feel of it quite, the pitches proper and such."

Timu’s good with tongues; he’ll pick it right up, said Zorya. I say no to weapons. If you see it a good use of your time to get him training his fitness, I’d think well of that. If you go against me in this though, Dukku, or put some wrong twist in his head, I can find trouble for you here in Exebarr.

"I want no quarrel with you, Zorya Emme. As I said, he and you must both consent to anything."

"And anything fitting that you do so that he holds his temper will leave Hrie free for other cares. Will you take an acorn cake, Dukku Kette, Mister Dukku? I can warm one. Come in out of the wind if you wish."

"A cake would be a favor, emme, replied Dukku, I’m a slow walker back to the south end. I like it here on your verandah, though. One can see to the sea."

Zorya knew well enough that Timuras needed a man around him then. Her time with Rom-Gid, Long Rom, was ending, and he and Timur had been like two scorpions anyway. And learning good Kettish was so much to Timuras’ advantage she couldn’t speak against it. Even she got fluent after that, talking it back to Timuras. Dukku looked the very ruffian, but he was surprisingly good with the young, and his haumne, honor, was solid about town even then. So Dukku had a practice yard stamped out up beside his brother-in-law’s place on the town’s south side where there was room against the headland; even a small shrine to Nan Atar, the Burner. Timuras wasn’t the only pupil he took, limping about the yard with the stiff leather brace he wore for practice, and not all of them were youths, either. Things just grew from there, like the vine from the seed.

Done with the washing, Timuras called in to Zorya, "Sister axala, hand me out a kilt you think fit. —Was Dukk who brought that wineskin,— he thought just then. Say Dukku-xein, xku for the ssu, Dukku-senior, thanks for the wine."

It wouldn’t be a Leaving Feast without it, boy, said Dukku, with the great closemouthed grin that seemed to take over his face. "Ssu-csu, redwine. Not local crush either; something worth pouring in your mouth from up the Winehills. Well, since you’re going, I want to say a few things. And I’m not dragging my crick leg all the way down to Farthest Harbor to chat you on at the landing. Dukku sat up. I’ve stuffed your head full of notions, so there’s just three things I want to say now, Timuras."

—Just,— thought Timuras. Dukku was the kind who had to talk. Five quiet minutes was like exile to him. But at least he had things to say worth hearing.

The first is, Czarcze spins the Wheel. No matter how sweet things are going, they can rot on you. No matter how tight a pinch, a crack may open to wriggle through. So don’t get your chin too up or your head too down. Take me, for the proof, said Dukku, waxing voluble. "Ontsutd like you up from the Gi-Tul to Tyrri. On with the Zahrna, then with the Txorrita Line. Finally, I get permanent list for the auhrdagudar, and things look up. Find me an ina bhakkaria, factory girl, up from Exebarr, and we fancy each other. So we fight some, most do; no dumuk, children, but there’s time enough. I’m nagusi, my haumne, honor, is good where it counts; I’m a made man. Then my Hrinna gets Bad-water Fever, and up and dies on me. Not a year on, the tehreka is doing field training up in the crests, and I go clambering on some wet rocks and snap my knee. No more marching for Dukku. There I am on a day, leaning on a stick in the middle of the Abva-An, Grand Avenue, of Tyrri with my ‘half-muster out for injury’ in my pouch, a du-chhurr, a stray-dog, bum, and where am I going to get a woman now? Well, thinks I, I always got on with Hrinna’s brother Ziltsu better then I did with her the times I met him, so just like that I get on an uhndau, come down here, and say, ‘Zil, have you got anything for me?’ He puts my stake in with the apaca he’s running up in the hills, and I set up my booth to turn over arms to keep my hand in. Now, I’m making more in apaca tsig, fleece, than ever I earned as a soldier, the flock’s bigger every year, and there’s ready money from the rest. Look to find out Zil’s wife’s sister Aud lost her man to Mason’s Sickness. Now Aud and I have a place, and a taur in the aumne, babe in the womb, forget the gray in my shag."

Look at me, I’m babbling, said Dukku. I’m sad to see you off, is what it is.

—Well there it is, he said it,— thought Timuras.

My meaning is, things change, and often not of your doing, Dukku went on. So don’t sew yourself up in however good or bad things are on a season. You’re young, so you won’t believe me, but it’s the plainest truth.

I’ll mind on it, said Timuras, as he ladled water from the cistern to the jar.

Dukku tapped his stick in the dirt and went on. "The second thing is, listen more than you talk. I know you’re snickering at me over there, ume, I can see your back. But that was my problem early on, see? It wasn’t until late in my time with the Txorrita Lleina that I learned to shut my mouth and started to advance. You’ve got plenty of head if you use it, and talent, but for all that you’ll be a gunak, countryman, hick, to most in Tyrri until you get some haumne to you, reputation. Look, the Ketts are a strange folk; clannish, all on their honor, clever, cool to those they don’t know—but they respect esai, enterprise, like no others. Northcoaster, Chirakyar, Utd, Waipaimay: one can rise there if they show a quick head and put some sweat-polish to it. And if they show the Kettar respect by learning their tongue and ways. But the Tyrri Kettar loathe bragging, and are quick to peel down a loudmouth. The boasting bumpkin is a stock joke but ba-zi, real truth, there are many enough of them, and every foot is out to hook ‘em for a fall. So don’t be one. Better to show a little dim and quiet at first, and let others get some confidence in you. Hear me on that one, Timu."

I’ve got ears, Dukku, said Timuras. He wasn’t one made to bend his neck much, but he wasn’t going to stick his chin out either; these last years, he’d made his mind up on that. A long, bare arm reached out past the etja doorway, waggling a kilt and clout. Timuras stepped over and took them. "And the third thing, Aita, Dad?" he said, as he pulled the garb on him.

"You’re the lippy one today, but I’ll let it go, imp. The third thing is, get all the muzh you can, pussy: You never know how long you’ve really got to live, or when might be the next time." They looked at each other and laughed, and the weaponeer smiled his Dukku-smile.

"Qhua, guda-apb, indeed so elder soldier, I heard that one," said Timuras. He didn’t see Dukku-Gxai-nagusi as a dad; he didn’t know what a ‘father’ was. But as a rather older older-brother none could have been finer.

I don’t need to tell you to watch your temper, said Dukku.

Pick it into my skin with dye, why dontcha? retorted Timuras.

Some used to do so without, gave back Dukku. I’ve had my say, so I’ll—

Timu: water, came the call from inside. Timuras quick scooped a few few more draws with the gourd, and motioning for Dukku to hold on hefted the jar into the etja.

—I need to be on my own,— thought Timuras, coming out again. —That’s the nut of it, why it’s no grief to leave Dukku. Everyone here has me for knee-high.— There would be orders a-plenty in the mixkatsa-batje, trained band militia, he knew; hard work and hard knocks, but they would treat him as a man if he stood up like one.

Dukku, since you’re here and I’m going, there’s two things trailing across my mind; one I need to know; one I’ve wondered for a time, said Timuras, squatting down Ontsudt style. As to the first, I’m not prying but if I don’t know I could put a foot wrong in the Danbor service. Was a bribe paid to get me preferment?

Dukku hesitated just a fraction before he said, "An honorative to the houseguards’ tahra, commander, is customary, unless he selects you himself. Don’t ask me who paid it, that’s not for you to know. But wait, he held up his hand when Timuras opened his mouth to press it, it wasn’t like that. Yes, you should know how things lie there, so I’ll lay it on the matting for you. The Gkanonna Auhrdagudar, Gkanone Armed Host, only takes a one direct from the country if he’s a seasoned man, so you must start as a bonded houseguard and train in the militia; you know that. It took so long to get you a place because I hadn’t much pull. The Txorrita took it a bit scratchy that I left them for the Host, and I was too far outside the circle anywhere else by now. But my best lagan, comrade, in the gudar is Ala-Mauri, Happy Mauri and he’s married up to the middle cousin of Laumtse-Nikh, Muddy Nikh, who got the Danbor Tahrameh last fall at Hriean Air, Gathering-fest; that’s how I finally got an ear. And don’t, for shit’s sake, ever call Nikkhul ‘MekNikkuhl that in anyone’s hearing unless you want your atse, arse, kicked back here to Exebarrki. But see, remember what I told you, all in Gkanone on the rise get an ehrauqhenedza, a following? Everyone does it, but especially those not of a Tyrri Name. That’s how it is, see? You get a couple to help you, and then as you get on you put in a word for them, and get them a place the higher you go. Well, Nikkhul-Tahra, he has a good place now. He’s got his own to help on like Ala-Mauri, but he needs to build out his following. That’s what you’re there for, Timu, not the honorative. Don’t get it in you head that Nikkhul is for you; the first year, he won’t even talk to you himself if I know him. You’ll have to prove you can handle yourself and be useful to him before he’ll let your haumne get tied onto his own in any way. But a half-year, a year on, if you’re looking like a sharpie, he’ll call you aside one day and say, ‘Ginne, Bondie, do this for me.’ Not ‘Do this’ but ‘Do this for me,‘ ginauqu, nihda hau agi. That’s how it’s done. Catch it?"

"Aizh, Dukku-xien, I caught it."

"You’ll have to decide if he’s the one you’re going to follow, but that’s how this lies. If ever he asks and you decline, you’d better have another place ‘cause you’ll be done there. Now, even as an ehrauqhenar, you’ll not have tenge-leze, communal right and privilege, and so can own no main property sole in your own name, nor can you bring claim to a magistrate on your own but another must announce for you; a Tyrrinar, citizen of Forest Isle. Can take two tens of years and good haumne to get City right—I never had it—but it can be gained if you choose to stay in Tyrri; many achieve it. Even outside of a following, established friends can aid you much, as we’ve talked on too. Dukku chipped at a stringy weed tuft with his stick tip, and went on. If it should come that you’re in a real spot up in Tyrri on a day, Ala-Mauri will likely give you a tip or a little diru, like I said before. Not lay it down for you, but y’know some help, for his friendship to me. But he sent word that his tatde, company, is going rotation this autumn up to Hrukhnabad, and they’ll be there for a year, so you won’t see much of him. And the other thing?"

Dukku, did you and Zorya ever ….

Dare me on my name, boy. I’ve told you, Timu, there’s some questions it’s better not to ask others, especially to their face and yours. Now that I’ve said that, if you ask again, I’ll give you an answer.

"Forget I lipped off, Dukku. I’m atse-etse, arsing it."

"You’re curious; it’s only natural. She and I could have fancied each other a bit time was; you’re sniffing at something there. But as I told you back when, we’re too far apart. I’m an old walloper who likes a man’s work, with no time for fine learning. Your sister … I don’t know what she’s still doing here, I’ll just say it. She’s got a head on her; she could go anywhere on the Middle Coast, what with her Hrie-skill as a ssenar, healer. Surgeon’s work too she’s learning: Find me a healer or a woman who’d take that up rather than call in a master butcher. In a big town, she could find private clients, fame even. Ba-zi, truth is, she has more head than most here, and that makes many a man feel small, but still … It’s not that she can’t get a man, Timu; ein Abussu, Hell no. She’s a fine handsome woman her age despite; riper now than when I first saw her. No lie and I say it though you’re her brother. And she knows what a man wants. She can scold, but the fair minds know it’s only if you give her cause; you know that better than me, boy. She could have a husband here if she’d just pick one. She’s wary, Timuras; very careful whom she picks, who she’s with, where. Something happened back up in the Gi-Tul, is what I think. If you known’t, then she alone could tell. I can guess maybe, but it’s not the kind of thing to suppose without knowing. Let’s not talk more on it."

Look out for her, Dukku. I’m asking because you’ll do it if I ask. We’ve no kin here.

Boy, maybe she should look out for me; she manages well, and I’m the half-cripple. … I will. If she stays herself that is.

Yes, that isn’t settled, is it? said Timuras, coming to stand.

Dukku heaved himself up then, too. His leg was good enough if he didn’t move quick on it, but it always stiffened as he sat. Well boy, he said, and clapped him hand to inner elbow, and when Timuras gripped him the same set his left hand on topside in the middle which Timuras in turn covered; the Kettish clasp of kin or close comrades.

"Yeatse tsehriera, easy traveling," said Dukku.

"Qauh acsar axkue, blessings for your kin," Timuras replied. They let go, and Dukku took up his stick. With parting come, Timuras felt a sudden urge to hug the burly ex-soldier to him; it would seem silly though, and spoil the moment since Dukku had given him a grown man’s parting. In the end, he did not.

I’ll throw a feast for you when I find the chance to come back, Dukk; for all you’ve done for me.

You won’t come back here, Timuras; trust me to know that, Dukku replied. He stepped to go, but paused. Comes to my mind, there’s one last thing. Some time in a man’s first year in the barracks, early or late, the others hang a by-name on him. Usually, it sticks. Make sure they give you a lucky one.

What was yours, then? asked Timuras.

Dukku smiled his smile, but there was a hardness of chert to it in the depth of his eye. "Dukku-Khihla." Killer-Dukku. With no word more, he turned, took the few paces to the bushes, stepped past, and was gone.

Looking Back

Timuras picked at a hunk of duck carcass with an aiçe-gu, dinner knife, worrying out the last morsels. Zorya cleared away this and that from the meal platters, then gathered the duck bones from Timuras and clapped them in the stockpot. She pushed another woodsplit onto the coals of the oven firebox. Timuras licked the grease and sauce form his fingers. Zorya squatted Utd, and took a long pour from the ssu-batsu, arcing the wine through the air from the spout to her mouth. It was still near half full; even so, Timuras had never seen her drink so much. The long light of a summer early evening canted in beneath the eaves, painting thick rays through the verandah. The fog was seaward yet, but the onshore breeze was enough to take the burn from the brightness. A perfect evening on the Middle Coast, with near two hours still before the day went in. Timuras scraped the last of the raisin mush from its bowl, then stood with it.

I’ll take it in, Timu; it’s your Leaving Feast, said Zorya, holding out her hand.

There are no servants here, my sister, he replied, and took it in to the kitchen himself.

"Axala, since you’re in, bring the nut jar, and come join me under the zelar, hazel, wontcha?" Zorya stood herself, and shook out the large mat on which they’d dined. With it and the wineskin, she walked the ten paces to the west edge of their place, where a thirty-foot hazel raised up its branches. One of the Paie Urutaak, Five Cultivars brought by the Ketts, zelar was now scattered and grew anywhere a town was raised in the Eastland. The yield of this one on the bit of property with the etja was by right the fruit of the owner, less the share to the town. However, he had remitted it to Zorya so long as she lived there as a thanks payment for a tending. Last year’s crop was eaten with the winter, but when she had the money Zorya always bought a small amount to keep in at the town asauki, market; Timuras liked them. She laid the mat on the seaward side beside the bole. The lea drew rougher as it sloped down from there into bush before the upsweep of the hillocks against the sea crags. Southwest, a patch of ocean was visible, bright with the moving sun. Northwest beyond a ridge ran the larger view of the sea, out past Hapberdu Talur though the Tor itself was hidden by bulk of the landside hills down the Vale. Zorya sat down Kettish in the shade of the crop-rich boughs.

Timuras joined her. He set the jar between them, and put two handfuls on the mat, taking the wineskin which she passed. Zorya pulled two small slablets of stone from the jar, not quite flat but close fitting, put a nut between, and squeezed on it with her hands till the shell gave. Timuras poured a draw from the skin into his mouth; strong, not sweet but firm and even glossy on the tongue. —Dukku told no boast: that’s the finest ssu I’ve ever had,— thought Timuras.

Didya say goodbye to Hutda? asked Zorya, munching a nut.

"Nosy. Aizh, yes answered Timuras. Last night this time. But I’d told her I was leaving here afore ever we laid down on the same mat."

She’ll forget yah, handsome—but she’ll remember you had the manners to say goodbye. She went on cracking nuts.

Zorya? … Don’t take this wrong, I’m not jibing … Would you even like me if I wasn’t your brother?

"That’s hard to say, Timu; I’ve known you since you came from the aumna. We’re so different. What you like is often crosswise to me; what I love you’ve little patience for. We’ve been so long side by side I couldn’t be closer to you, and still we never come quite in step. You’re as quick-minded as me, I as you; yet we see things different and see different things … You make me laugh, I’ll say it, and I like your spunk; have since you were a taur. I have much love for you Timu. We just have to work to keep from stepping on each other, that’s all."

"Baizh, said Timuras. Zusa, he asked in a bit, are you going to come up to Tyrri?"

I don’t know, Timu: yes, if I can. She flipped up a shelled nut, and caught it in her mouth. "They will teach me more to cut the body there. But it’s not like when they had the Chest Sickness and sent a call to other Hriexi for healers. I have to get a place. I met one there who could aid me; perhaps. There is a … Lleinra-xien, who craved hetj, hash, Senior to a Line. It’s mostly in the mind, not like those who crave ssu. So I did a xamn, trance, with that one and laid a charm on so they would lose the craving. I’ve ever had the knack, and it went easy. Later though, I think that one started with hetj again; anyway the answer was very cool when I asked for aid with something. Maybe the thinking will be different come Çirtse-Ine, Second Turning, and I’ll yet get aid for a place when these things are decided at Padhan Air, Festival of Spring Budding, in the Hriexi of Tyrri for the new year. I won’t know till then, though. I won’t come just to sit in a booth in some auza, quarter, giving herbs for sour stomachs."

Zorya passed him the qurh, cracker stones, and took back the wineskin in her turn. They went well together, hazel and wine, and she took a long, good pour. Timuras, she said as he cracked out some sweet nuts, tell me now all I have said to you of our family.

"Very well, Zusa. We’re Ontsutd, run from Tuludterri when the Ahkiyans took it that we not be made serfs as those who remained. Our Apba, Elder, was Easi son of Atem son of Obu, as the Utd say it, who have no Esanak atra Lleinak, Names or Lines. From Obu, they were amongst those who took up Kettish ways. Easi had land in the valley southeast of the city leased to a tenant, and other business. We were half-rich, and