New Civilizations [IC | Closed]

[Tesserach]

Hindu-Kush Mountains - Modern Day Pakistan
December, 2965 BCE

---

We exist, all of us,
Forever standing at a crossroads,
Where the past and future meet,
All of us wondering,
Asking and answering,
Over and over,
Always and forever,
The very same question,
The Only question,
That ever can, or ever shall, truly matter:
Which path do we take?

This is the intersection,
Upon which we all - together - stand,
Where the Self, that serves only the Self,
Must contend with our many Selves,
Those which serve others,
And those which serve the communities of Selves,
To which our mutual fates are fovever bound.

And bound we are, together,
In love and hate,
In dignity and disgrace,
In wealthy and poverty,
In contentment and misery,
In illness and in health,
We are together the mutual architects,
Of the loftiest of our Dreams made manifest,
And so too,
Are the deepest and darkest of our Nightmares realized.
-The Bhodhayativeda(Veda of awakening), opening to the 'The Duality of Humanity'

---

Like a strange fruit, that's out of season
Oh, you are bound to die alone
You will swing free on the breeze then
Oh, you are bound to die alone
(We all bound to die alone)
At the end of the day with the lights out
Oh, you are bound to die alone

At the end of it all, there is no doubt
Oh, that you are bound to die alone
(We are bound to die alone)
Don't, darling, die on me now
(Don't, darling, die on me now)
We'll dig this grave close to your home
(We'll dig a grave close to your home)

Don't you dare fix your eyes on me now
(Don't you fix your eyes on me now)
We never said you'd come back home
(We never said you'd come back home)
-Froms Hymns of the Vadabhaat III, The Rigveda

---

Foothills of the Hindu-Kush Mountains

"I know a man that will take you to Megarh." Probodh assures me, with weary patience, every time the weather begins to clear and I ask whether the monsoon season is over yet. I'm like a child in the backseat of his car, which I realize is a more apt description than I would prefer. There's going to be no detours to Megarh for me. We'll arrive when the time works for them.

There is, I percieve, a an ebb and flow to life among the Vadabhaat. They spend their rainy seasons in the hills. The land, I realize, looks nothing like the dry, arid pictures I've seen of the region. The hills are forests, and green valleys. The video and pictures of a dry, arab Punjab are alien to the Vadabhat. Even as we climb higher towards the mountains its among rolling hills of verdant grasslands.

"We graze our flocks in the hills, moving when the rains permit. When the fields begin to die, we descend back into the valleys." Probodh and the other men explain to me. There's a complicated dance to it all depending on where conditions for grazing and setting camp are good, where they're bad, where the hunting is good, and who else is about, who you know, and who is on good terms with whom.

In the meantime I become familiar with the routines, the people, the faces. Most mornings I run, do my exercises and fetch water - usually something the women and children do but I like to boil my water. With the others permission I make the older boys go with me, one or two of the younger women join in as well in the exercises that follow, the wrestling, the training. The difference in the young ones is noticeable and even some of the men start joining in the regime.

Through the day people break off to take their meals, do their chores. Someone has to be watching the animals. Sometimes I cover for Aditjya, who I learn has recently married Kshitija. I'm not sure anyone quite enjoy my morning exercises, and if I'm truthful, Chandra - son of Karan, one of the other men in the camp - is the one I'd say who most enjoys the fighting lessons.

But when I sit around the fire and write, it was Kshitija who brought up Aditjya's wish to become a keeper of rolls - their histories - and it was at her encouragement that he started learning how to write. Kshitija too would sit around the fires with us, learning the letter - I suspect - better than Aditjya himself.

That's another thing I've noticed. There's no castes here, and the women seem to do as they please to a certain extent. Even still, I've caught bits and pieces without probing too much. Nivaa, Probodh's mother and probably the oldest in camp, knows and recites the stories better than the men. But apparently the Keepers of the Rolls, are passed down only to men. Nivaa says there are some tribes run by women with their own histories, but here it has always been this way.

The seasons drag on and these realizations continue to gnaw at me. I can distract myself by learning new things, writing, listening or telling stories, passing around milk, joking, eating berries - or when Kshitija announced, happily, that she was pregnant and we were all overjoyed.

But always the dawning sinks in that something is definitely wrong here. The place is wrong. The people are wrong. The names are wrong. The culture is... wrong. There's no rhinoceros, or elephants or lions wandering southern Pakistan. I'm not going to find a telephone. I'm not going to call my wife.

Every day, I wake up before the dawn, before my exercises, looking to the sky while fighting back the sinking sensation, no, the terrifying certainty, that I am going to die in this place.

---

Kshitija is overjoyed at the timing of everything. Her own family will be at the Winter Solstice festival, and if things go well, she'll be able to show off her and Aditjya's little one. The whole camp is busy preparing themselves, but Kshitija and Aditjya get special attention. Nivaa and some of the other women are making special clothes for them.

Even I'm not immune. They're talking about getting me to dance - the thought of which I'm not terribly fond of. They want me to meet some of the Keepers, to show them what I've recorded, see what they think. There's another reason too.

"There's a friend there I know." Probodh tells me. "He goes to Megarh frequently. He can take you. We need to head north."

I'm less sure how I feel about this news as well. I had assumed we would be going to Megarh, or near enough, together. I know Probodh, I know his brother Neelam, his mother Nivaa, his children. I know the other men, their brother-in-law and friend Karan and Harun. With the elders, the younger ones like Aditjya, and all the children, we're nearly thirty in number all told. One more on the way.

There's a foreboding leaving all that. For this unknown friend. For this unknown city.

Part of me says as familiar as this feels, it's better in civilization. Less moving around, less wondering if we're going to run into hostile war parties. Part of me, I think, is just too embarassed to admit I made the request before I knew the full scope of my situation. Part of me is just... curious. Curious to see this place, this city. Curious to know more about the other tribes that inhabit this place.

Days turn into weeks, turn into months.

There's no time to worry about such things when Kshitija starts going into labour. The women usher us away from the tent, so we sit around the fire with Aditjya, watching the poor boy I've sat next with at the fire next to Kshitija now for months as she's grown, reading and writing into the night. Trying to distract him.

Trying to comfort him when Bimla, Neelam's wife comes out of the tent, wide-eyed demanding we bring what blankets we can. Dumping a handful of our few ones - still dripping with blood - into my hands.

I burn them.

Then we get drunk with Aditjya on fermented milk.

The Vadabhaat are tough, hard people. They take it in stride. Pull together. Move on. This is the way of the world.

But it wears on them. I can see it in their eyes, I've seen that weariness before. I've seen that posture. Hard people... but people. I can see that Aditjya isn't quite the same - because it isn't the same, just the two of us there, around the fire. I think of her too there. He could have joined the secret society that keeps their rolls. Maybe one day he will. I don't know. But he stops working on his writing around the campfire with me.

We hold a funeral for her. Everyone mourns. But then we move camp, and no one ever speaks of Kshitija again. The others have their memories of her, memories that live on inside them, somewhere. There's a pile of stones, where mother and child were laid out together.

But I still have her practice writing. Her practice diary, the letters are crude, the writing in articulate. The ideas expressed... the sort you might expect from a teenage girl. But these aren't others memories of her. These are Kshitija's own memories, her own hopes and dreams written in her own hand; of the family she would never see again, of fancy clothes that she would never wear and Nivaa would never finish, of the dance that she and and Aditjya would never share and of sons and daughters that would never be born.

I have it all etched on palm leaves, strung together by what passes for twine.

I'm not sure any of them realized I had it. I think they maybe forgot about it, lost in their sorrows. I thought about giving it to Aditjya, but I was afraid he might destroy it; as an offering; because it was too painful. But it was all that was left of Kshitija herself. I didn't read them beyond confirming what they were. But I could imagine; her private anxieties about the pregnancy - that she worried about the end coming before it did, but still she hoped.

It just, didn't work out the way any of us wished it would.

---

The Winter Solstice apparently involves bonfires, dancing and singing through the night. Usually afterwards marks the time the hills start to die back under the dry heat and they're forced back into the river valleys before the monsoon rains come again, inundating the valleys but making the hills bloom again.

We arrive a few days early. There were formalities to run. So many greetings to give. The camp fires are visible for miles around, in all the shuffle, I'm somewhat lost, left to mind the children while the others pay social calls. Or perhaps the children are left to mind me, I'm never too sure.

Eventually Nirav, Probodh's oldest son - older than Aditjya - comes to get me. "Come on, my father's arranged a meeting for you. We have to go." He seemed excited about the whole thing. When I asked if this was about Megarh, he said yes, but I got the impression there is more to it.

He led me through the festival grounds, in what passed for the 'fancy' clothes they'd gifted to me for the occasion. "We can't have you going around in rags." I was told. "It looks bad on us!"

We went passed many camps. There were hundreds present, thousands perhaps, more as we reached the great circle and bonfires at the center. Nirav seemed to know some of them, they exchanged greetings. I noted that, despite the festivities, he was nonetheless keeping a careful eye as we wound our way to our destination.

Eventually he held the flap to a smoke filled tent, where Probodh and others were inside. I could hear them laughing as Nirav announced me and they bid me enter. Probodh and his brother I recognized but the others inside were all unfamiliar to me. On the whole they were older than I was used to seeing, all men.

"This is the one I was telling you about." Probodh explained to an old man with a weathered face and grey tangled hair. He smiled and nodded as though he barely heard Probodh but looked up at me and waived me inside. "The stories he tells. Ask him about the sun and sky. Ask him about the other side of the world. Ask him anything!" Probodh seemed to dare him.

Neelam, near the entrance of the tent leaned to me. "This is Suraj, with the Water Buffalo Society, the Keepers of our History. Probodh's been telling them about you. That one, is Arjan. He's the one who will take you to Megarh. They wished to meet you."

There were some preliminary ceremonies, Nirav handed me a package to hand over as a gift - and told me what to say and do when we entered the tent. I have no idea what was in the tiny wrapped skin package I handed over, but Suraj accepted it, and offered me tea and other things that I accepted.

Then came the questions. About me, where I was from. Interestingly enough, Suraj and the other members of the Buffalo Society were very interested with how we recorded our own histories. It was interesting, I thought, having discussions about historiography with these people and being able to discuss with members of a literal secret society things that, frankly, normally weren't discussed with outsiders.

The festivities went into the night, but my engagement with Suraj and the other elders of the Buffalo Society thankfully spared me certain suffering through being forced to perform - poorly - the dances my hosts had spent weeks preparing me to butcher. Leaving the smokey confines of the tent with Probodh, Neelam and Arjan as my minders, I find myself shuffled from campfire to campfire, sharing drinks, answering questions and meeting so many new people so quickly I don't bother taking notes.

---

I awake to the sound of bleating goats and men shouting. It takes me a moment to remember where I am. I sit up next to the open fire, covered in a goat hair fleece, feeling the cold morning air sting my cheeks. As I look around, I notice Arjan, and a few of his camp members I distantly remember still lying around.

Across the festival grounds, a handful of souls scurry about, fetching water and keeping the fires burning. I realize Probodh and Neelam must've left me with Probodh at some point.

Once he's awake, as we take our morning meal, I ask Arjan about this. "We'll be breaking camp tomorrow. Two days travel, we'll make camp, rest herds, then make for Megarh. A week. I gave Probodh my word we would deliver you safely there. Until then, you're my honoured guest. I've been waiting to speak with you alone."

Arjan is an older man, perhaps nearing fifty though he wears his age better than most out her. I learn from him, that in addition to being a member of the Water Buffalo Society, he's also part of a warrior society, and the senior war chief for the Vadabhaat. "In times of war, I lead our warriors." He says.

Arjan's questions are a lot more pointed. He asks me a great deal about my knowledge of geography, about the lands beyond the Hindu Kush, into Iran and Mesopotamia. He's interested about the mountains, and the passes into the Tibetan Plateau. He's interested about the Himilayas and the lands beyond. Even so I can tell he's disappointed that I can't give him particulars, but he very much enjoys stories about Egypt, the Pharoahs, and the other cities of Mesopotamia and China.

We spend most of the day talking, joined by some of his family and associates. As I'm introduced I realize his camp is quite a lot larger than Probodh's. Probably near a hundred all told, and there are other camps that travel with him.

Travelling Arjan and I spend a lot of time together. I can tell, even before I arrived this was a man with ideas and ambitions. When I tell him about things too, he immediately sees the use of them. He already asks if I can teach others how to read and write - which of course I can. I tell him about numbers, and immediately he asks me whether it can be used to keep track of trade items. When I tell him about double book-keeping and receipts back home he slaps his knee and laughs "So you catch the theives!"

In the week we spend I meet most of his family. Several of the camp children, including his young son Bhupendra, who to me seemed scarcely able to talk, and his somewhat older daughter Sarita who I later learned was 13. I introduced them to letters in the brief time we had though Arjan was already talking about me tutoring children full-time. Possibly even at the city. "There will be those interested there I think. The merchants have their secret marks, but what you are doing... others should know."

They keep me busy, and entertained too. Arjan's camp is better provisioned and I can tell the men here take their status as warriors more seriously. The young men remind me of guys at my gym that would always go hard. Some of them are quite good wrestlers, better than me certainly though in some cases their technique is lacking even by my only semi-trained eyes. Arjan pushes the camp harder too. They even have animals to pull very rudimentary carts as we press towards Megarh much more directly than Probodh would - everyone here seems used to it.

To be honest, I don't mind it. It's nice to see more discipline. I like Arjan, even though I have a good sense about people and can tell - even across cultures - when someone is settign me up for a sale. Arjan has plans. He sees value in what I have to offer.

Even so, I'm a little taken aback when a day or two out from Megarh we have an impromptu feast, and Arjan pulls me aside after we've been drinking fermented goat milk together from the same flagon. I say nothing about this, despite my desperately wishing he would not do that, in large part because I rely a great deal on my hosts.

"I want you to take Sarita as your wife. Be my son-in-law, together we can do great things."

I know what I'm supposed to say here. But I've met Sarita, showed her words.

She reminds me of Kshitija for crying out loud, but she's several years younger still.

I decline as politely as I can. He insists. I try and explain the situation and I can tell he's drunk and insulted and retires from his own tent, leaving me there.

I have no idea what the protocol among the Vadabhaat is on something like this, so I approach Arjan the next day. "I promised I would deliver you safely to Megarh, and I will do so." Arjan replies cooly.

Arjan is a man true to his word. In a manner of speaking. I can sense there's something afoot, but there's nothing I can do. If Arjan wants me dead, I'm as good as dead. Nor do I think he's one to throw away an opportunity without compensation. Even still when on our way to Megarh I'm surprised when we're met by gang of armed toughs who point at me. "Is this the man?"

I'm a good read of character. Even so I realize immediately I hadn't fully appreciated the Vadabhaat's particular sense of honour, or at least Arjan's interpretation of it. I tried not to impose modern morality into a different cultural frame.

And even still, I fucked it up.

"He is. Your master will find he is as promised." Arjan says as the group of men move towards me. Its too many. I can tell they've been told I can fight, - they're expecting me to run, to fight. They came prepared. They'll be disappointed, in fact, if I don't. Whatever. Let them be disappointed. I'm not one for useless gestures. I hold my hands up.

"I delivered you safely to Megarh, as promised. But you insulted me and my daughter gravely. You may consider your servitude here repayment for your insult to my family."

But I can also tell Arjan has missed something too. Even having told him what I do, even after fighting him, he doesn't take me seriously. Even now I am, to all appearances, quite easy going.

"I'll consider this a continuation of our fireside lessons." I say to Arjun. "Thank you Arjun, I'll remember this. I hope you remember mine."

Arjan snorts. I can tell he's disappointed, expecting a reaction. A Vadabhaat warrior, like him, would fight. He turns and leaves with his men, putting me behind him both literally and figuratively.

But I'm not a Vadabhaat. Or a warrior. So I tell the slavers I'll go willingly. They beat me anyways. Apparently my demeanor is too 'defiant' for their tastes. I suppose I'm not suitably awed, and just want to get this over with so they decide to make a statement: 'welcome to your new life. don't fuck around.' Or something like that. I'm not really sure.

The only thing I do know, as I'm dragged through the streets, is that I've arrived at last at the city of Megarh.

Civilization, as it were.

[Orostan]

DELETED

[Saxony-Brandenburg]

The Gishimmari City of Nippur
Late 2960 BCE

Ghassan had made a home in both Nippur and Uruk, that was to say he truly had one in neither, and avoided prolonged stays in both. Although he had friends in all places, his life mirrored that of the nomadic heritage he had inherited. The Lady Olifia, ever one to plan parade, procession, and prolonged public performances persons across cultures came to attend, made him move from event to event more than a more sedentary person would have liked. Luckily, he was no such person.

To plan, say, a procession of the cult of Al-Lat-Inanna did not merely mean to gather enough people to attend and perform. Rather, especially for the royal household, everything must be taken into account. The lady’s more watchful agents were always on guard for potential and prophesied threats to her life and honor. To include the Lugal’s heir Gilgamesh no less was to invite even more trouble. For as much as the prince thought himself capable of protecting himself, he was never truly left alone. Neither Uruk nor Nippur had anything close to a professional or career guard. All of them were paid in small, supplementary sums for part-time duties watching the gates, markets, storehouses, and temples of their master’s city. Enough of them would need to do the extraordinary task of arriving in a large enough number, before anyone else had, check for suspicious groups of individuals, watch the many rooftops around the parade route, and if that was not enough, contain the crowd of devoted denizens who begged to get dangerously close to their betters.

But fortune brought him away from the city of Black-Heads, away from the city of the Rasulah Olifia. Back across the reeds and fields, and to the rocky hills of which his people now called home. Nippur, city of two peoples, both just as separated alike in tongue as in class. The Gishimmari took care of their own, and as such kept within their tribes the wealth and spoils of successful war. A warrior caste, a ruling caste above the subsistence farmers and laborers of the black heads. To put another way: They ate meat, the black-heads ate grain. They drank sugar-sweet wine, while the black-heads had sour ale.

Yet, just as his people had settled into a distinct relationship with their home and neighbors, so had they changed. Raiding one’s neighbors for livestock and grain was now passe. War was no longer a seasonal occurrence, but was instead focused on campaigns. Thus had a uniquely Gishimmari remedy come in a more organized transformation of “camel games”. Although gradually becoming more formalized with rules ever since they had arrived in Kengir, to accommodate such a severe break with their homeland, never had this become an event or a spectacle. This was to change. For the Banu-al-Hakim had challenged its fellow tribes to a tournament of a game known only to the Gishimmari. A game not merely of sport, but of martial skill, which they believed, on the eve of such a serious call to arms, would reinvigorate their spirits, and practice for battle. The violent game known as goat tossing.

Ghassan arrived at the field of the next day’s match to see a number of young men practicing across the dirt. Six camels scraped up dust and mud beneath their hooves, as their bold riders atop them leaned low off their beasts, each attempting in order to snatch up the carcas of a slaughtered goat from the ground. As each rider made the nail-biting move, hanging on but by their feet hooked around the belly of the beast, every pass was the threat of falling off of it, violently tumbling into the dirt, while their mount continued onwards without them.

One of the hardest aspects of goat tossing was the actual lifting of the carcas. For one hand had to remain on the reins, while the other reached down to grab at the wad of hair and flesh laid flat on the ground. Getting a good grip then, was even more difficult. Of the six experienced riders, only two managed to pick it up, and not drop it as the goat swung from side to side in the air, as they carried it across the field.

On either side of this field were two white circles drawn in chalk on the ground, wherein the goat was “thrown” to score a point. If you didn’t drop the damn thing, and you had the sheer arm strength to do so, you could swing the carcass with one hand, with enough momentum to land it square in the center. If you didn’t, there was a fifty-fifty chance of simply dropping it within the lines on a pass, with the obvious issue being if it landed outside the line, wherein it would not count.

While simple in concept, with some significant skill requirements, these practicing boys missed one critical challenge in their practice they would face the next day. That challenge being an entire other team of riders determined to take that carcass for their own. A battle over the rotted corpse. A raid portrayed in sport. The fighting of which was very real and very painful. While there were no weapons, shoving, kicking, grabbing, and the violently moving bodies of their scared camels was enough to seriously injure. As it were, this was just as important a part of the game as the points themselves.

Yet as he watched them circle to begin another round of passes for the goat, Ghassan saw standing in the shade beneath a stubby little tree a huddle of young women talking very loudly, and pointing towards him. Catching sight of his gaze towards them, one of the girls called out to him, “Ghassan! Ghassan!” As she waved her hands in the air towards him. It was his maternal cousin and clanswoman, Farah.

Ghassan smiled with pleasantry back to her, and waved at his cousin. Yet she persisted. “Come! Come! Come!” She insisted, “Don’t make us gossip alone. We have big news about the game tomorrow!”

With a sigh, he was lured towards the group with the promise of news about the next day’s events he would be helping judge. All in the circle seemed pleased with their famous kinsman coming to chat with them.

“Did you hear who house al-Aqib has playing for them?” Asked Farah to him, who shook his head.

“I hadn’t the time to ask.” He replied plainly. “I was too busy readying my camel to lend to Zaad for tomorrow’s game.”

She smirked. “Why not play yourself Ghassan? Are you not satisfied with another win for the greatest rider in Kengir?”

Ghassan shrugged, and gave the woman beside her a playfully arrogant wink. “It would be too unfair. We must allow the other tribes a chance from side to side.” Which elicited a gaggle of laughter from those around him.

“But house al-Aqib!” Exclaimed Frah. “Amad has his daughter Shula riding for his clan. It is all the talk of the town to see her practice in their sheep pastures in her brother’s camel - may he rest well in death.”

“Is that right? Well, our people have had many famous warrior-woman before. Is she very good at it?” Replied Ghassan, who seemed not overly interested in the specifics, as it was a good time as any to learn who to look out for the next day.

“Ah, but it becomes even more interesting! For she has ALSO been wearing her father’s chestplate and helmet, and braiding, slicking back, and tying up her hair into a knot. It seems, despite her brother’s death in the last war, Amad feels so compelled to supply a child to the Lugal’s army, which so happens to mean a daughter for lack of a son.”

This was a fact far more interesting to Ghassan, who had to pause to consider it. The notice of levy did require a male from every household, and as Amad was so old, nobody was demanding he give a share in the fighting, what with what he had already sacrificed his first child and only son. It seemed as if this was not uncommon, however, as rather than a handful of adventurous women fighting alongside their brothers, as he remembered from his childhood in Yanbu, he was instead seeing more and more the women of his people dividing themselves up into two camps: those of whose fathers had many sons, were far more likely to dress themselves very delicately. To value indoor work with weaving and cooking, and to brag about how many children they have in their household. Meanwhile, in stark contrast, the daughters of men who had little to no sons could be expected to take on more “manly” qualities, such as manual labor, dressing plainly of half-naked, and performing acts which many would consider proof of men’s masculinity, such as wrestling, warmaking, or growing their hair out, oiling it, and braiding it in a manner almost mirroring that of what the men of their culture do to their beards. Yet, this was to be expected, he thought. It made perfect sense to him that, because they were so used to losing children with the precarious misfortune of regular warfare, there was bound to be a need for adaptation, for a spare “son” and heir to be shaped from their daughters. And in addition, there was something strangely dutifully feminine to him, that a daughter should want to sacrifice so much of her prospects in life and marriage to aid her father.

As he stared off into the distance, thinking of these things, his rumination was interrupted by Fara, who asked him: “What does the Sharia say about this?” She asked, referring to that bundle of sayings and stories the Rasulah passed amongst his people.

Ghassan’s mind immediately snapped to the line, what he had heard himself the Rasulah say when they had made war with their neighbors in the desert: “Blessed be she who takes up arms in her father’s stead. For she does not merely sacrifice her own life, but that life to which she was promised at birth.” He licked his dry, cracked lips as his cousin nodded along. He couldn’t tell if she was feigning interest on account of his extensive knowledge of his mistress, or if she truly cared to know about her words.
Just then was it that one of the riders he was watching had departed from his camel, and approached the group - where he was recognized by name by one of the girls standing amongst them. He grinned with sweat trickling down his forehead, his cheeks dusted by mud and dirt. He looked to all of them and seemed not at all embarrassed by his tumbling. “What’s new?” He asked them, which elicited a giggle amongst them. “I don’t suppose you ladies were admiring my skills out there?”

The girl who knew him laughed. “Oh, as if we would care to watch your poor performance. You tumbled twice from your mount, and hardly could I say you scored your point with grace.”

The boy shook his head, and spat on the ground a mixture of spit and dirt. He wiped his brow, but whatever shame he had, did not break his grin. Tumble or not, he did have fun. “Yeah? Well, I think the field may be cursed. I am lucky to have not broken anything, the way the whole team has had such poor luck.”

The girl laughed, and seemed playfully outraged at the suggestion. “Cursed? And is this another excuse of yours, or have you any witness to this ‘curse’.”

The boy did not laugh, but nodded, proudly. “Jammis says he saw a hermaphrodite burry something in the earth. Then, turning towards him, she scowled at him - and by that casting a curse upon him, and our whole team.”

Ghassan snorted. “A hermaphrodite? And why would she be cursing your team before tomorrow's game?”

The boy shrugged. “You know how they are. Prone to witchcraft and curses. One of the other clans probably paid her to curse us, so they would win next day. Why my mother even said a hermaphrodite cursed her garden for wanton jealousy, and thereby caused the plants to die!”

Farah spoke before Ghassan did, as-a-matter-of-factly: “But you do know they are not all witches, don’t you? Why, is it not so that our prophet Umm Kharuf is a hermaphrodite herself?” She turned to Ghassan, who awkwardly nodded.

“And so too is many of her students, many of the priestesses of the temple of Al-Lat-Inanna here in Nippur are hermaphrodites”

The boy seemed puzzled. “Is she? Then isn’t she too a kind of witch?”

Farah seemed to want to interject: “Hermaphrodites and old women alike seem accused of witchcraft and jealousy curses. Ghassan, why might that be so?”

Ghassan, now, was the one shrugging. “I am the Rasulah’s gamesmaster-herald, not a student. Ask a priest, or a wise-man. How am I supposed to know?”

Farah seemed disappointed, but still excited to entertain the point: “But if it is so, that hermaphrodites are so inclined towards magic- perhaps I’ll need to get one to cast a spell upon my favorite ewe before lambing season. If they can curse flowers, perhaps they can deliver her a healthy baby.”

The boy rolled his eyes, “Sure, if that is how it works.” The girl waving at him with disappointment. “Do not be so crass! Farah very well could be right!”

Ghassan chuckled, enjoying the benign chatter. He wonderd if the Rasulah minded their crass speech about her hermaphroditeness. Was this something she took shame in? Did she think herself associated with witches and curses? Or, did she think of that association with magic a matter of correct importance? He couldn’t read her mind, and so he decided to put his thoughts towards another matter altogether.

---

The air of the stable reeked of manure and decaying staw. It was damp, dim, and altogether not the best of accommodations for Ghassan’s beloved camel.

“I would have you keep her inside your home, if it weren’t so small.” Ghassan chided his younger cousin, looking around the room. “I won’t have her staying here longer than overnight. Let’s go back outside, we can work in the sunlight.”

Ghassan’s cousin Zaad was a boy who’d just come into manhood at the age of fifteen. Ghassan remembered teaching him to first ride a camel when he was only eight. His father armed him with a sling and stone, and had the boy watch over their family herd of goats, waiting for lions, or more likely greedy neighbors, to try and take one. Zaad was a decent athlete, from what Ghassan could remember. He was still skinny, lanky, with not much muscle about him. He was lean and slightly taller than most, which though did not make him too great a wrestler - did still give him a chance in a sport of agility like this.

“Do you remember what I told you on how to treat the girl?” Asked Ghassan, to which Zaad nodded.

“I will not beat on her.”

“There are many better ways to make a camel more than beating on it harder. Familiarity for today will help you. If she has confidence you are leading her, she will go as fast as you command her to, without needing to excessively prod her.”

Zaad, who had not said much this past evening besides short replies, finally looked up to Ghassan with eyes of anguish and fear. “I am not ready for this. I will surely fall and shame myself infront of everyone! You cannot let me go out there, please cousin, you must go!”

Ghassan looked at his pleading cousin and felt pity for the boy. Once he had been in his place, afraid of the scorn of all others seeing his failure. Reaching out to grab the boy, just now a man, on the forearm. He looked him in the eyes, and smiled with sympathy. “You will go out there tomorrow, Zaad.”

“But cousin!” Replied Zaad, begging him: “You must take pity on me, please, cousin, I am not ready. Do it for me, please?”

And with a sigh Ghassan looked away from his cousin, up to the sky, as he tried to find the words: “You are young, you feel as though embarrassment, that failure, will be your death. In truth, you will find, it is the opposite. That there are men who dance, and there are men who don’t. And it is not when you stumble that is death, but the moment you refuse for fear of the unknown. If the results were to be known, if the game’s end was foretold, there would be no point in playing it at all. You may bruise your skin, you may break some bones, you may feel as though shame from mistake or failure will surely kill you. Yet the greatest injustice I could ever do to you, would be to permit you to not play tomorrow.”

His cousin, who at this point now swallowed his fear, nodded slowly. “I will.”

“You will what?”

“I will play.” He replied, with newfound passion.

“There you go.” And he handed Zaad the reins of the camel, and took from the ground took up a large padded blanket, and strapped it to the canel’s back. With one hand he offered to help the boy up upon the camel’s back, but the boy would not have it- and threw himself up and over by the strength and familiarity of his arms.

“Thats one way to do it.” Said Ghassan, and pointed out from the barn and towards a nearby sheep pasture. “Go get her familiar with you. Take a few laps to the hill over and back. See if she gets attached to you.”

With all the grace of a oxen, the young rider kicked, and barked at the camel, but she would not move. “You have to be gentle! Gentle!” Called out Ghassan, to which he motioned with his hands a pushing motion. “You need confidence to guide her!”

The young rider looked down at the camel, confused. He finally seemed to relax to ghassan, breathing deeply, before gently kicking at the beast’s side. With a great grin and cheer from her rider, the camel began to trot from the pen, and out into the field. There Ghassan watched his beloved camel, and his beloved nephew, galloping across the hill and through the brush. With a sigh of relief, Ghassan knew he’d done his part. The young man would do just fine.

---

The match between Ghassan’s tribe, the Banu al Nizär, and the Banu al ‘Udd, was the second game of the day. The first match had started early, shortly after daybreak, when the ground was still wet with morning dew. It had gone on rather long, as multiple rounds had to be intermediated by long breaks, as injured riders were checked for broken bones and major injuries. Luckily only one young man had a minor broken bone. Nothing stuck out of the flesh, and they bid him go to the sisters of the Lady of Lagash for treatment. Yet still, it was a violent, riveting, drawn-out game- which elicited the crowd to watch them go a full nine rounds before the Banu al Hilāl scored the final point of the game, and move to the next round. The goat carcas, by the match end, had been torn and frayed and dragged through the mud to such a degree that it was rendered no longer useable even for sport, and a new goat had to be slaughtered, drained of blood, and sewn shut in the time between games.

The field was ringed by a great crowd- Gishimmari clansmen and black-head stranger alike had come to watch, for many this would be the only entertainment of the year on such a scale. Shephards and gishimmari border guards had come from their more remote villages outside of Nippur for such an event- and nothing short of a festival had been put up surrounding it. For footing the bill of the jubilation was a tradition since their time in the land of palmtrees- a general donation from all the ambitious clan leaders looking to prove their status among their neighbors. Such a display was well benefitted by the many high offices the Gishimmari enjoyed not only within Nippur but outside of it. The Banu al Hilāl, for celebration of their victory, opened up three massive vases of beer - such that half the crowd was at least somewhat intoxicated before midday had even hit. The Gishimmari tradition of drums and horns, bells and chanting turned the bloodied and trampled field into a dancefloor between the two matches. All bodies jumping up and down side to side with the shaking of bells, twirling and waving their arms. Those well versed in stick dancing showed their skill and delightful footwork to the crowd’s adoration. All the while - a small market selling smoked and grilled meat popped up just outside the crowd. Not to be outdone by their profit seeking neighbors- the Banu al Hūn had begun giving out whole flatbreads and torn hunks of roasted meat for free.

Yet by the mid-day, the second match was on the precipice of beginning. Ghassan had by his standing among his peers been made to judge the match alongside three other players from other tribes who were of equal notoriety. All three were Shakkanaks of different villages between Uruk and Nippur, and by nature of their granted titles were quite familiar with war and war games. He stood on a large rock which was next to the field, which allowed him to see just over the heads of the riders atop their camels. Just among those of his tribe- he saw his cousin among them atop his own camel. The boy seemed anxious, looking from side to side as the team’s captain, colloquially called the “raid-cheif”, talked to them, pointing out towards the field in gestures of strategic planning.

It was but a few moments later when a man beside their rock blew his horn, and Ghassan's comrades bade him speak to the assembled crowd. With few words for them, he could only say: “May this game bring our clans together and stronger. May the best man score, may the best men win.”

And with his words concluded, the man with the great horn took it up with both his hands, and with a loud blow echoing across the hills, loosed the men and beasts forth upon another. With a rumbling cheer of the crowd, they dashed towards the carcas flat upon the middle ground. The beasts groaned as they were made to run straight into one another as they all descended onto the goat, bodies leaning down, half a dozen desperate hands snatching at it. One hand snatched at its fur, fingers gracing its bristles yet not getting a claw upon its skin. Another curls his fingers around hair before being shoved away. A third reaches out, but is smacked aside. A fourth and final hand not merely wraps around what once was the fat around the goat’s neck, but lifts it up and over upon his knee. A man from the Banu al Nizar grins with delight - his camel manuvering through the crowd - but sooner than he can take a step it is snatched from him. Two greedy hands from the opposite team fight eachother for the carcas, with enough confusion for him to snatch it back from them, flesh and fur slipping from their grasps as he slings it infront of him. His hand shakes, it begins to ache with how heavy holding a whole goat with merely one hand can be. As he turns his camel, he sees an opening in the mass, and pushes his way back towards his side of the field. His teammates cheer, and throw themselves infront of the chasing enemies, as they follow him, bouncing up and down on their trotting camels. Yet he is too fast, and with a grunt and the swing of his burning arms - throws the mass of fur and bones into the circle on the earth. A great roar erupts among the crowd, as the Banu al Nizar scores the first point. He circles back, and his teammates embrace the man. The hornman blows another loud sound, and they return to their sides of the field.

Ghassan looks across the field to see Zaad not among his comrades embracing, instead watching nervously from the side of the pack. Zaad turns to look up at him, feeling Ghassan’s gaze and its judgment. Ghassan waves at him, then points directly at the field. The message is sent. Zaad nods, and with a deep breath turns back to his comrades. He would not hide on the side this time.

Another horn, the camels charge again. The corpse is fought over, hands swat hands as another four are first to pounce upon it. A man of Nizar and a woman of Udd grab onto it at the same time, and each begin to pull. Two more comrades join in, until each has a corner, yanking back and forth upon it. Ghassan turns his head, looking for Zaad. What was that boy doing? Then, in the fray, he sees the boy. With a grin on Ghassan’s face, he watches as his cousin does not grasp onto a hunk of the fought over carcass- but instead grabs onto the woman’s shoulder, and with an angry roar pulls her back. She looks shocked, and with a free hand tries to swat him away, yet with all his youthful strength he forces away her grasp - the two men of his side gaining the upper hand, and wrenching it out of the other ‘Udd’s hand. With delight, one passes it to the other, and he begins bounding down towards the goal. Yet in his celebration, he gasps as the weight of the carcass becomes known, and it slips from his hand and back onto the ground!

Another scrap as hands descend once more upon the carcass, a lucky rider of Udd pulls it up, but is surrounded by three of Nizar. Standing still upon his camel, he holds it with both hands, and as a rider of Udd passes by him, he hands it off to the man, who gallops past the scrap, and with a look of shock upon all’s eyes, easily comes to make the score. The carcass lands square in the center of the circle with a thud, its bloody hair becomes coated evermore in dust. Another great roar from the crowd, as their champion rider stands up upon the camel’s back, and accepts their praise.

Another round, another fight. The Banu al ‘Udd makes another point, then another. Fear spreads among Ghassan’s tribe, as his cousin retreats to the side. Yet to their disbelief, a lucky drop from an overconfident man of ‘Udd allows Nizar to score their first point in three rounds, and then another- as they both tie at three points. Just when their luck seems to be at its peak - they loose the point in the seventh round, as the now mangled carcas is taken by ‘Udd for their fourth point. And now, in the eighth round, ‘Udd teeters on the brink of victory.

With just one more point for ‘Udd to win, and many bruises made and much sweat having been shed already, both teams desperately glare at one another before the horn blows once more. They descend on eachother, and it seems to be a repeat of the previous game. A sinking feeling is felt in Ghassan’s stomach, as a man of ‘Udd manages to pick up the carcas, and push through the group of outstretched hands of the Nizar riders, and he rounds around them, towards their side, as he begins to turn back towards his side to bring the point home. Yet, just as he does so - Ghassan spots Zaad, having this whole game sequestered himself oncemore upon the sides of the scuffle, watching him. With what nerves he had seemingly swallowed, Zaad chases after him. The man seemingly not seeing the boy, as he rides up behind him, is startled and exclaims with shock as the boy pounces upon him, and pulls at the goat he has dangling at his waist. With such a surprise move, yet with not enough strength to pull it away, the goat flops down upon the ground, and both of them swing down to grab it. Yet both teams, in hot pursuit of them across the field, descend upon them both aswell. Shoulders are grabbed, as both Zaad and the man are pulled back. A woman of ‘Udd, with her ankles wrapped around her she-camel so well that she can almost completely lean off the beast and to the ground, grabs the goat by the hind-legs. With an excited gasp from the crowd, she snatches it up - and, throwing it upon her lap, bolts from the fray. Hands grasp at and tear at her clothes, yet she breaks free with a violent rip, as the shoulder of her tunic becomes undone. Uncaring of the matter, she slaps them away, before galloping towards her goal, and with several seconds ahead of her opponents, drops the goat in one elegant pass. The tribe of ‘Udd cheers and the horn blows, the woman screams with delight. Her comrades begin to chant her name - “Zaya! Zaya!” As the woman Zaya takes the point, and poor Zaad, Ghassan sees, is brought to tears.

Soon thereafter, when the crowd disperses for more festivities before the evening match, Ghassan sits with Zaad, who looks downcast towards the ground, disheartened.

“I cannot believe I fumbled that.” Zaad finally says. “I had it, I had it in my hands. But I was not enough. I was not man enough. I fumbled it, and allowed a woman to take it from me so! I was supposed to take that point, they were supposed to chant MY name!”

Ghassan sighed, and placed a hand on his cousin’s shoulder. “It is bitter to loose a game, Zaad, but the point was not to win.”

“Oh yeah?” The boy says mockingly. “Then what was it? Hm? Because I feel like I thoroughly lost. Humiliated. Worthless.”

Ghassan shook his head. “If you allow yourself to be brought to ruin on every failure, Zaad, you will never win anything.”

“But I was so close! What can I hope to accomplish in my life, when all the achievements I have for fame slip through my fingers?”

Ghassan snorted. “You’re barely a man, Zaad, that’s awfully dramatic to judge your whole life based off of one game of goat-pulling.”

“And yet why should I even try if I should fail, when this that I have tried at all my life, riding camels, I lose?”

“Why try?” Ghassan asked, frowning at his cousin so easily thrown into despair. “You try because if you don’t then you have not only already failed at what was attempted, but you have failed yourself, your entire life. A simple failure, surely one as easily passed off as a lost game, will lose you nothing. Yet to not try, to simply assume your own failure, is suicide. What would you do, if you should simply not try when the enemy is at the gates? You would show them your neck? You would let them have your sister? Your home? Why, not trying is the most pathetic, the most shameful thing you could ever do!”

Zaad looked at the ground, more morose than he had started.

“Hey now… Not like that.” Ghassan chided him. “For today you DID try. You did seize the opportunity, and there is honor in that. Even if you failed, do you know how a man grows?”

“How?”

”He grows in failure. With every bruise, with every mistake, with every newfound chance he takes - he grows. What would I be had I not taken the chance and rode with an old man and a swaggering dunce, a handful of zealots with the dream of some fallen star in the mountains? I would be nothing. And yet here I am, because I took a chance, and many more chances before that. And yet this chance, finally, shaped the course of not only my destiny, but the destiny of many. That’s powerful stuff. All because I took a risk, after losing many previous ones… do you understand?”

Zaad nodded, and stood up, wiping away the tears from his eyes. “Thank you, Ghassan. I’m sorry for being so dramatic.”


“Heyy - don’t appologize.” Ghassan said, standing up and wrapping his arms around his cousin. “This is what family is for, yes? To lift eachother up when we are down. To help eachother when we are lost.”

“Alright…” Replied Zaad, who could not help suppress a smirk. “Are you not embarrassed hugging me infront of all these people?”

Ghassan laughed. “If there is any shame in a man showing his love for his kin before others, I would not know it, nor would I care.”

---

Olivia Ingels

Umm Kharuf’s house, Nippur
My Bedroom

Late at night, when the oil-lamps have burned out all which they contained, my mind was woken from its black depths. Black, quiet, without a dream. A bad omen, that my sleep should emulate a little death. For as I wake, I feel a sickness creeping over me. In my stomach it turns sour. In my head it feels light, empty, sickly so. As if the world was spinning around me, or had I been spinning for as long as I had laid there? Alone, with no-one else in the house. How much would I now regret my modesty, that I should chose to sleep alone, in an empty home in this city of whom devils and foul spirits had not yet been wholly exorcized. With my mind full of fog and confusion, I turned over to sit up. Yet as I commanded my body to move, I found myself unable to do so. It was as if turned to stone, and within my statue form I was now encased. Such terror did I feel then, as my skin became ice-cold, even below my blankets. Even though the night had once been warm, it felt as though every drop of comfort had been drained from the night.

Captive was I, chained to my bed, stuck, facing the ceiling. Bound by every muscle, my foot and my arms, my head, my neck, my chest, by an invisible force I knew only could be of supernatural origin. I shivered, but I did not move. I tried to breathe, but found it shallow, my chest flat as a board as only shallow breezes of air entered my lungs.

I was strangled. The invisible rope tightened around my neck. My chest burned, my heart beat like the thunder of hooves across the desert sand. I would cry, but I could barely choke out my sobs. I would scream, but the air simply sucked itself from my throat.

In this blackened state of weakness, state of terror, state of total vulnerability - there he appeared. White as chalk, with shadows of slate. Unmoving, yet there had he appeared. In an instant - though my eyes did not blink, they seemed to have - or else all the light which came from the moon vanished for a split second, and then the broken man appeared there before me. It was not as he was in his most true form, the distorted mass of inhuman approximations of personhood. His eyes were shaded from view. His form seemed boundryless - yet by his hands, and by his tall demenor I could recognize him.

Only this time he did not appear as an angel, or at least, not of the heavenly host. For instead of robes of angelic silk - he was totally devoid of clothes. Not sculped of muscle, not of fat, devoid of such human features. He was as it were a flesh of total stone. Yet there was he, Ga-bri-El. White, tall, and totally naked - standing just beyond my gaze’s clarity, shrouded in blurred distortion.

“Hello my favorite pet.” He sneered, and a deep revulsion coughed up from my stomach - filled of acid and bile, pure disgust, vomitous, as if my body itself spat up his words as they entered my mind.

“I told you I would be back… What have you done while I was away? Have you done as you were told?...” And with every fiber of my being I wished to scream at him, send him away, and yet I could not. Yet so great was my anguish, that I could feel my skin shake with rage and fear. From the shrouded base of his mouth, I could see a grin form across his lips.

“Just so. You’ve been very busy. I don’t need you to tell me, I have seen it all myself. Why, the world sure does seem to find its way to work endlessly in circles, does it not? From once you were some naive girl. You made long speeches about freedom and the rights of free men to revolt against their oppressors and on and on and on… What a fool you must see yourself now. What, now how freely do you clasp those men who once bound you into chains of your own fashion.”

Without precedent, I felt my lips begin to move - what had fashioned them in place, whatever had bound my mouth to muzzle, finally released - such that I was able to speak. My lips trembling, my lungs still empty - I gasped, with shaking words which cracked and wined. “Go away.”

A horrible, terrible laugh. One which seemed to come not from outside my ears but within my own mind. As if it was my own worst voices, my own worst thoughts - mocking me for what I said.

“What a silly command. How fruitless, how impossible. Would you like death to simply, ‘Go away’ as you decry it? No, no. I can be ignored, but here I stand and here I shall remain. Waiting, waiting…” With some pause, as if the thing needed to reflect on something, he asked not in his sneering, loud voice - but in a whisper. One which, if not for the fear which had already gripped me, made every hair on my body stand, and sweat drip across my skin.

“Do you know who I am?”

What would I know who he was? He was a demon, a shadow, a Gallu. “You’re nobody!” I whispered back, venom and hatred in my words.

“More than you know.” He replied with cryptic, newfound sly volume. As if he retreated from beside my ear and back across the room. “And yet - I am here. I have always been here. I will always be here.”

“Lies!” I nearly spat at him, for now the air returned to my lungs, and I could with force throw my words back at him.

“Lies you say? How deliciously naive… I could strangle you to death right now, I could pummel you into a bloody carcass. I could slaughter you like a goat to market - would that be proof enough that I do not lie? That I am here, just beyond your reach?”

“You are the speaker of all lies. All you say will be lies. You are the great deceiver.”

I saw in my mind his eyes rolling. It was as if I could annoy this… this thing which now haunted me. “Oh you know I cannot always lie. You are too dramatic. Let me help you out - I will tell you a lie. Hm? See? Your plight is to which words I speak are true, and which are false. For with it your soul may be required to choose for itself.”

“You cannot deceive me. You try and trick me now with riddles. It will not work.”

“But my darling, it has already worked. You are already following the path just of which I desire.”

“Lies. More lies.”

It laughed once more, with that haunting, all-encompassing mind-breaking laugh from all directions, within and without. A laughter maniacal enough to throw one into a black hole of which there is no escape. “I have deceived you, I have deceived all of you. Yet you will continue to do as I desire - no matter what I tell you now. Your time has come, human, will you dance? Will you dance, or will you die? Either way, you will writhe to my harp’s tune.”

“I will not do as you command.”

“And yet Umm Kharuf sends her sons to die by the dozen. What for? What for does she murder those who put their faith in her? For no matter what the odds, she never HAS to wage war, she never HAS to murder her children. Does she not do this for me? Does she not do this… by my direction?”

I shook, my confidence at once seemed wholly without. And yet anger struck me - did I have to justify myself to this thing? Who was he to admonish me for my choices? “You know I must. I do this for them, to protect my people, all that which they have built. I am no servant of you, I lead my command, for those I love to survive. You are no one to lecture me on the nature of sacrifice. I will not listen to you.”

“Mmmm, good. I am glad. Take upon yourself the first principle. That argument which none can disprove. Break them. Kill those who would deny you your right. More carrion for me to feast upon, my daughters to peck at the rotting flesh and suck out the marrow.”


“You may try now to make me spite you. To withhold my hand and commit my people to an indecisive fool’s death. I will not. I am not as you describe.”

“Aha… Or had I wanted you to resolve to continue your violence?”

I scoffed, my body warming, and with it it I felt myself jolt up. I could see him now, far from the blur off the corner of my eyes. “You are an agent of the false-god. Nothing you want shall be my command.”

And with it his body began to morph. His bones began to break, to stretch - this large white naked sculpture grew, and breathed, and shivered. “You are such an idiot. I cannot believe how hard you stick to this narrative of GOD. I will help you now, for you are too lost for my liking. I am no companion of order. I am no friend of what you call ‘El’. I am always there. I always have been. I always will be until the last man succumbs. I will never die. I am bold and bloody, wicked and wild, deceitful and charming, beautiful, and oh so beautiful to you mortals. And if it be on the dancefloor or on the battlefield, I will be there. I will be there singing and playing and dancing and feasting. And I will never die. I will NEVER die.”

I wanted to vomit. I was enraged. I felt like a child. I felt like a lamb. My mind was full of irrational, emotional, fearful hatred. I coughed up my words as I yelled at him. “I will not allow you to force my hand back from fear or intimidation! Whatever you may be, you beast of reviled evil, I will not bend to you! I HATE you! I will be rid of you! I will KILL you!”

And then he slunk into the shadows, stone flesh gone, form disappearing. And yet, upon the ground, in the dimmest light of the room, his shadow lingered. “Then go, condemned of mankind. Go and dance the tune. This is not the last you will see my face rear itself. Upon that occasion we will meet again, be it in your victory, or in your agony… only time will tell. And yet still, I will be there, celebrating with you.”

---

Uruk

A Gishimmari man, a scholar of the Sharia as the lady Olifia had laid out, a student from time of a young man watching her argue with Aksumite travelers, now lived in Uruk. He worked not as a scribe, nor as a priest. He was a student all his life, and while he could make paper from both reeds and the skin of animals - he was no wealthy man. He worked just as many hours as he studied. Though his greatest desire was to live as an ascetic his whole life, he could not afford to do so and eat, such that he would take up his trade for several months, and then retreat to an abandoned farmstead in the hills when the need struck him.

Jasr watched the black-headed priests whisper in the corner across from him. He was a regular among those among them who met in the temple library of Nisba, where much of the most intricate writing had been stored. Not merely pictures, but pictures which meant entire records of lives were there on tablet and reed, hide and leaf. They had taken a liking to the Gishimmari custom of drinking coffee as a ritual among colleagues, and as such he had been invited into their circle to share in the enlightening, magical beverage from time to time.

When they would refer to him, in part with some prejudice, and in part with endearment, they would call him “nomad”, for he now lived many lands away from the place of his birth. Such that, when he saw them whisper of him, and they saw his catching of their gossip, one among the black-headed priests and scribes looked to him, and asked: “Nomad, is it true that your people worship only one god?”

This caught him by surprise, as it seemed to him famously so that his people worshiped many gods, and decried those who they had in the past fought who claimed sole dominion of divinity in all the world.

“There are many shrines to many gods in Nippur, as are there in the desert, and as are there in the land of palm trees of which I hail from.”

And yet the black-head raised a finger. “But you worship Inanna above all else, is that right? More than my lord Jushur favors Inanna, yet goes to each temple in the city on their feast days. Yet your people only seem to go to the temple of Inanna, Gishimmari are among the members of only such cult.”

Jasr shrugged, and tried his best to explain what was as best he can tell an appropriation of the local word for the triplefold goddess to whom they referred to as ‘al-Uzza al-Lat’. “It is only by her favor upon the prophet olivia that she is our patron. Just as she is patron of Uruk. Yet she is only one face of Abzu’s many faces.”

The priest raised his eyebrows at the mention of Abzu - a name which Jasr presumed he knew only as the lord of the great underground sea. “So then Abzu- your water god, is he really your only -true- god?”

This annoyed Jasr. Accusations of single-godism was not to be taken lightly. It would be to deny not only a belief, but society at-large. All the networks, all the right by which lords demonstrated their rule revolved around the gods, of whom he understood as facts as basic as rain and wind. “Is a rainbow only one color?”

The priest snorted, amused, and waved his hand. “Do not reply in riddles, as your kind are famous for. Be direct.”

Jasr sighed. He wished to articulate what was a concept alien to them, brought to the Gishimmari only a few years prior by the prophet Olifia. An articulation of a -principle- not a god. “Fine. No, we do not worship Abzu. Abzu has no will, Abzu grants no boons. Abzu has no nature. The gods have will, boons, and nature. They are Abzu given face.”


The priest’s face turned from amusement to confusion. For he, understandably, had no concept of a non physical, godlike principle. “Then what is he? What is it? You worship all gods as water? What of the goddess of fire, or Enlil, lord of wind?”

Coughing, Jasr held out his hand in front of him, and looked down at it. He looked at the scars, the lines which traced their way across it. He looked at his fingers, and his palm, and how even as each finger bent on their own - they were all within the same hand. “Abzu is unity. Abzu is everything. Universal, constant revelation of the nature of… life. It is the universal godhood, which is willess nameless and formless, being given will name and form. All things are within it, the universal oneness. All truths which point towards and embody virtue are like light broken by quartz. All mortal things are that single object's radiant light, reflected back to it. Within it, yet not themselves divine. While we are of mortal flesh and blood, ment to one day return to universal singularity, it is eternal, vast, and limitless.”

And sensing that much of what he had said sounded crazy to the priest,t Jasr frowned as the priest looked about to his comrades for support. “How even are you supposed to pray to him then? Or to sacrifice to him? Without name or form, do you pray to the water in a well?”

Jasr held up his hands, completely without response but to ask another question. “Why would I pray to Abzu? I pray to its faces, the wind, the sea, the land. All the gods of Kengir and of the desert, and of all the lands I travel with gods who permit good and honor and punish evil or dishonor. That is how I worship Abzu.”

The priest laughed nervously, perhaps feeling intimidated by the slew of Jasr’s accented Sumerian, thrown between individual Gishimmari words of which most likely sounded somewhat similar, but altogether unintelligible to a non-speaker. “Then how do you know any of this?” He asked. “How do you know any of what you say to be true if it isn’t, as the gods are, set in stone?”

Jasr rested his hands upon his knees. He let out a sigh of relief, this was a question he could answer. “Contemplation. To commune with Abzu you must be a seeker of truth. A seeker of knowledge. You must master its aspects to understand its nature. Like petals on a flower, each is individual in form, yet when one looks back, he can see the beautiful unity in divinity. The prophet teaches us of three contemplations: Of nature, of the self, and of the divine. In that way we can better understand the unity which connects them all.”

The priest nodded at the part he seemingly understood.“I find it humorous that you believe everything to be connected, and yet your people are well known for their capacity for violence and warfare. Shouldn’t you abstain from bloodletting, and go contemplate your Abzu in peace in the hills if everything is connected? Wouldn’t killing someone else be like killing yourself?”

It was often true that Jasr did just that - retreating into the hills to contemplate Abzu. And yet, it was doubtless true that his kin, many of whom agreed with the prophet on the unity of being, did also dedicate their whole lives to warfare and violence against their clan’s enemies. He gestured to his right pinky. “One may have to cut off the finger to save the body from infection. To fight justly is to save the burning world. There can be no better cause, no better articulation of the task of the righteous.”

“And you truly believe you fight for virtue?” The priest asked, in a way which had his companions look to him with questions of their own, since it was well known the Gishimmari fought for the Lugal more than any other of his subjects. To question their present violence, meant the unspoken questioning the righteousness his campaigns.

Jasr spoke without a doubt or reservation. “I fight for my honor, for my Lord, and for the prosperity of my people. There can be no question of that virtue. It will flower like a jasmine tree, well watered by the blood of those who would stand in the way of such a service.”

The priest sighed, and lifted up his hands. “Well then you better get to it- when are you next going out for your… contemplation.” And with that he began pouring himself a cup of coffee from a nearby pot.

Jasr tapped his chin. It had been some time since he had left the city. He had been working his skill which was badly demanded since paper became just as popular as clay tablets under the previous dynasty in Kengir. He wondered if he could just leave it all to get away for a few days, or even a full moon. “Well I have little obligations now, I suppose I could bring you to my refuge in the hills, if any of you wished to come with me. I’ll have food enough for a few days to bring there, it would be worth a trek.”

The priest rolled his eyes, taking a long sip of his drink. “I don’t think so, but we do-”

Suddenly, a voice came out from among the group. “I’ll go.” Said a young scribe with a soft voice, shaved head and face.

“Certainly.” Replied Jasr with a grin as he looked towards the shocked priest.

The priest turned to the young scribe. “Why? You have work to be done here, you have a job to do.”

The scribe threw up his hands. “It could be useful, it could be a fun break. And besides, I am between jobs - I am no longer working with Nanni to record his complaints to metalsmiths. I could use food and good company for a few days.”

“Be my guest then.” Replied the priest, who was well over the conversation. The others around him looked to each other, and muttered vague comments of interest, but had little to contribute, for these ideas were far too unfamiliar to really know how to respond to.

“I will see you soon, then.” Said Jasr with an outstretched hand towards the scribe. The young man clasped it, and the two agreed it be done.

Perhaps, thought Jasr, some of these Black-Heads could find value in the Prophet’s word… perhaps it would be worth sharing more often.

[G-Tech Corporation]

Part 7, Chapter 5: In at the Death

February 10th, 41 AG

Far away, a thump broke the relative stillness of the dawn air. It was distant, but not so distant that the near-imperceptible tightness of the overpressure didn't twinge my inner ear. I glanced at my watch, then the eastern sky, and sighed. So they hadn't come.

Carefully I took my brush and dipped it into the cup of clear fresh water set next to me, the surface of the liquid shifting moderately back and forth. A few circles, clockwise, then a light tapping against the side of the ceramic vessel, then a few more circles at a swifter pace to dislodge the last vestiges of the oil. I raised the brush, squinting at the horsehair ends. Too matted. Back into the cup, which was now growing dingy with dislodged paint, and more circles. Out again, and it was clean enough for all of the bristles to stand out individually.

It would have to do. Men passed to one side of me, talking in conversational tones, though I couldn't catch the scraps of their conversation over the general sounds of the sea. Their insignia, however, clearly delineated their ranks, as did the manner in which they swiftly but unhurriedly padded up the stairs to the forecastle.

A different thump, nearer at hand, booming and echoing across the water out of the west. A high whistling, receding into the distance, followed by a faint crash and a noise like nothing so much as a thunderclap, but curiously muffled, almost a dog's whuff of greeting. I took up the knife at the bottom of my stand and began precisely scraping the remnants of the paints from my pallet into the assemblage of thick glass tubes which made do as jars. Nothing wasted, even the mixed colors went into their own containers. Even in my position, getting good oil for the compositions was a dodgy task, out here at the furthest ends of what passed for a supply chain. Plus there was always the damnable labor of exactly replicating a shade to continue a particular aspect of a work, and I had no great desire to overindulge in that precise activity on too regular of a basis.

I rose, stepping back around the stool upon which I had been perched, and cast a critical work on the stretched canvas. The colors were still far too muted. That could be fixed with layering up though, to be fair. And there was too much of the brushstrokes which was visible in the lines of smoke above the city, as I was struggling to achieve the glassy smooth surface I was aiming for when it came to the thicker black pigments. Part of me was tempted to just rubbish the whole work and start again; the work didn't exactly abound with artistic merit. But this wasn't only for art. It was for myself, and for history.

Behind my canvas, Mountain Cove burned sullenly. From dozens of points palls of ash and cinder rose into the gray dawn air, testaments to the heavy ballistae on both shore and aboard the two Imperial Greatships which stood in her harbormouth. The skyline of tall buildings and impressive wooden towers that I had recorded in my picture was no longer the same, for bombardment and the inferno had claimed many of the high places of the city - I know Gershwin had targeted some of the towers especially because the defenders were placing scouts in their heights, to coordinate the men determined to hold the jewel of the Black Sea. To a certain extent the sprawling metropolis that occupied the series of paintings I had been making over the length of the siege no longer existed. And that gave the paintings yet more meaning.

"Thank you, Lydia."

The serving girl ducked her head, blushing slightly, as she folded up the easel and carried it back to my quarters. Now that it was light enough to see the city properly, the decks of the Resolute were to become a fighting station once more in their entirety, and even the Hegemon could be ill afforded space for his idiosyncratic hobbies to hinder the sailors and soldiers who followed their orders to continue the reduction of the greatest fortress of the Single Market.

Another flat thump, echoing across the low lapping winter waves. I turned, watching a small spec leap from the barge near at hand, soaring upward into the unforgiving blue sky at the apex of a guttering tongue of greasy flame. My eyes fluttered closed almost involuntarily, and my lips moved in silent prayer to my Father that this would be enough to convince the Player and his scions to give up the act. Every day brought only more death and destruction to what had once been a great city, and yet the defenders refused to surrender, or even send men forward to negotiate terms.

The crash, the blast, the mortar shell detonating a breath before truly falling to earth. Red flames leapt there where the incendiary had shattered, not far from the dockyards of the cove for which the city had been named, and they redoubled swiftly, no doubt dining on a fine fare of the thousand flammable materials of which a ship is composed. Away in the east, where the black and white banners of the siege camp fluttered, a similar gout of flame leapt skyward, and I could very faintly decry the black speck of the shell surging upward there, only to plummet down again somewhere within the walls of Mountain Cove herself.

It was a wonder, really, that there was anything left to burn after a month of siege. A greater wonder too how, with the landward routes for food cut off, the harbor blockaded, and by several estimates at least thirty thousand people within the city, that this Bostwick had not yet been convinced by his commanders to negotiate. For what did he wait? Did he think we would just run short of ammunition and wander off, unwilling to spend the lives it would take to overmaster the soldiers and scouts within the walls?

Granted, part of that was not foolish. I paced, running my hand along the gunwales of the Greatship and appreciating the subtle preserved texture of the whorls and wefts of the timber under my palm. I did, indeed, fear the casualties an assault would cost, as did the commanders of the Seventh and Ninth, who had been committed to this campaign. And to hold the siege for much longer would be an increasingly dodgy proposition as spring turned the lowlands which the encampment stood upon from frozen earth to marshy bog, allowing disease and dysentery to rear their heads anew. More sieges had been ended by plague laying low defender or attacker in their turn than any decisive military action.

Time would tell. Today, I think, would tell. It was one thing to set fires with bolts thrown from siege engines, to crush walls with the thick cannonade of the Greatships. Another, however, and a new terror, was the barge and her heavy mortar which now came into action against the defenders, accompanied by her sister on land. Immense squat unlovely contraptions but they were, banded thrice to prevent their rotund barrels from splitting under their powder-load, and yet I saw in them more hope for the resolution of this conflict than a company of hundreds of veterans.

The soldiers of the Mountain Cove had likely grown jaded to the devastation shot and flame could accomplish. But a well timed shell detonating over, say, a formation of the foe - that would sap their morale more fearsomely than a hundred dull cannonballs slamming into their walls or cutting down a man or two here and there. That was the theory at least, and my hope, if such a macabre means of contemplation can be termed hope.

Morning turned into noon as the sun rode higher, and just before the highest point of the sun the lookout high in the rigging of the Resolute cried out, his warning carrying down to the deck where I stood conferring with the captain.

"Sails! Sails in the harbor!"

My attention was jerked away from the crude map of bombardment targets over which I had been pouring with Wiesmund, and I squinted against the day's glare, eyes fixed on what little of the area inside the breakwater could be divined from our station. For a minute, two minutes, nothing. I began to relax, thinking the lookout had merely noted an asegasi, a trick of the light, when - yes, there! - I espied a glint of white cloth upon the breeze, barely visible over the crumbling and battered homes of plaster this side of the harbor.

Bloody hell.

The tramp of boots came hot and heavy as men raced along below the deck, and on either side of the Greatship oars were run out. In the still near-quiet winter air to hoist sails would be unproductive for our manuever, for what breeze there was came out of the east, bearing to us the choking scent of burning and away from our quarry. Wiesmund barked a series of orders, and hastily the anchor chain was hauled up, causing the ship to bob more freely in the lapping waves.

On either side of us smaller gunships moved, drums thudding in cadence as their rowers moved them forward toward the harbormouth. Their bronze rams were barely visible, heads breaking the waves as they moved between the troughs, but it was not ramming that would prevent the enemy from flight in all likelihood unless things became truly desperate. No, the gun crews placed on their bows would do that just fine, their light culverin meant for just such an action, their rowers to place the shot into their foe. I could almost feel for the enemy, who had yet to risk ship-to-ship combat against the White Fleet.

But risk it they would, their sails mostly limp but reefed to catch any hint of breeze, their oars cutting white foam across the face of the breakwater as they leapt forward to run the blockade and make for the open sea. The Single Market ships were of a design that was strange to me, not far dissimilar from the bireme model upon which Imperial gunships were based, but with fewer oars and wide pot-bellied in the tumblehome fashion to let them carry more cargo below the waterline. It was a good attempt, I reflect disconsolately in the few moments before combat was joined, for the mercantile efforts which had defined most of the Single Market's existence. They must have adapted existing ships for battle when they decided to build a navy.

Then the culverin spoke. Fountains of flame reached out from the bows of the gunships, to which was added the Resolute's own bow chaser a span of a few seconds later. Of the three shots, two went wide, one straddling the foremost enemy vessel and sending up a great gout of water behind her stern, the second thudding into the breakwater with a shroud of stone-dust and iron shrapnel.

The third though, the third ploughed into the lead ship of the small enemy flotilla. It was nearly a textbook deployment of the new gunpowder weapon, and a testament to how well her crew had been drilled on the piece prior to being deployed out of Constanta. Even as the ancient Mediterranean galleasses had dominated European battle-lines for centuries, the small ten kilo iron ball that had been shot from the gunship off of our starboard flank eviscerated the approaching bireme. How much damage had been inflicted was unclear, but her bow keel was smashed in, and she slewed to one side nearly immediately, the oars on that half of the ship mostly gone silent. It must have been dreadful within the hull of the vessel, a raking shot like that tearing through the lines of men at the oars, filling the open interior of the rowing deck with lethal splinters.

I sucked in a sudden breath, and realized that my fingernails were digging into my palms uncomfortably. Such was the tension in my body, seeing the cannonade work at a range of less than a mile. Consciously I forced myself to breathe in and out, turning and walking away from the bow where the gun crew was hard at work unthreading and cleaning out the residue of their previous shot.

When I turned back, my pulse a little bit more under control, I felt better for several deep inhalations of sea air. From within my breast pocket I extracted my monocular, and watched the engagement in greater detail. To their credit in the face of such terrifying firepower, the two remaining Single Market biremes did their best to maneuver around their stricken sister and continue their race out of the harbor to freedom on the open sea. They were unlikely to be able to out-sail a greatship like the Resolute on the clear waves, but perhaps they meant to turn once free of the harbor and elude her along the more shallow coasts. One of them was bisected by a shot and her keel broken, beginning to list to one side and catching fire, while the other made it much further and began to run past the starboard gunship, exchanging archery with the men on her fighting top. Light swivel guns spoke, sending her marines to red ruin, and though I saw some soldiers in the livery of the Great Anchor retire anon with wounds and oaths upon their lips, it was not long before grapnels were hurled across to the wayward vessel and she was brought alongside, her crew emerging from below deck in surrender.

In the hours that followed the waves grew quiet once more, and we anchored again, the day all but quiet save for the intermittent thump of the heavy mortars as they tossed ordinance now here and now there into the beleaguered settlement. One of the gunships had retired, taking with her her prize ship heavy-laden with prisoners pulled from the waves of the bay, to deliver to the siege camp, but we saw no other ships attempt to break our blockade.

The next day, just after I was concluding a fitful breakfast repast of cold sausage and tinned brassica, a small boat with a white flag was rowed out of the harbor toward the fleet.

The lords of the Single Market, it seemed, were willing to ask for terms.

[Melon Heads]

First Dynasty of Kemet
The First Nome, Inebu-Hedj
Men-Nefer
Second Month of Shemu
2960 BCE

Compared to the bustle that had overtaken the House of Djet during the recent coronation of the young Pharaoh, the air that swept through the courtyards and halls of the estate was hardly as electrified, but even still an undercurrent of anticipation still remained, if dormant. The amount of staff was similarly reduced, in part because of the end of the celebration a few weeks prior, and in part because of the ongoing construction of Den's own abode. But there were still a good few about, women and men working in the kitchen, scribes pouring over records of crop growth and taxes revenue from the last harvest and the amounts that would be expected in the coming year, a young wab priest entering the innermost sanctum of the estate to preform the daily devotions to the royal family's statue of Horus. Later in the day, Den would come to do his own veneration, but this morning in particular he was about to meet with his council, regarding their plans for the coming months.

The season of flooding, Aket, was an important time for many reasons. The beginning of the inundation marked a new year, and blessed each year with the abundant fertility of the Nile, allowing them to survive in what would otherwise be a bleak and unforgiving desert, save for some outlying Oasises and the seas of the far north and east. The flooding brought the five days of Opet, days of rest and celebration of the birth of many of the pantheon Gods.

Another thing to note about the flood season, is that when the populace of farmers could not be farming, they could be called to arms for the glory of the Two Lands, and for the name of their Pharaoh.

One could not call themselves a great king if they had not proven their power to the world, after all. Thus, the council which Den himself had chosen, several of which had been servants of the crown since the reign of the deceased Djet or even Djer, and a few others who Den had seen as advantageous to have in his side, had gathered in the Kings home for their first conclave.

Four people sat in the room he had designated, a section of the estate a bit of a ways off from the main thoroughfare and areas frequented by the servants of the crown, though it was still kept clean, and well ventilated by multiple short windows high on the walls. In the center was a large round table of imported wood, the group seated around it in sturdy wooden chairs, while the two most ornate ones sat empty. In the center was an ornate map, papyrus painted with black and red pigments to symbolize the surrounding lands of Kemet. Two older men sat and talked quietly about the matters currently affecting their names, and of the younger two, the slimmer one was writing on a scroll, and the more muscular was sharpening a blade. Viziers Amka and Sewadjka, Diviner Hay, and General Baki. They stood when the last two denizens entered the room.

Pharaoh Den and the former Regent Merneith, both surveyed the rest of their conclave before sitting down, Merneith at her son's right. Pleasantries were exchanged, and brief reports given by the viziers about the lands they oversaw, before the Pharaoh lightly hit the table with his palm, a sign to get down to business.

"My confidantes, now that I have assumed the full power of the throne of Kemet, and that has been recognized, it is time to make known again to the world the vast power that we wield. Since the passing of my father we have not enacted a campaign of considerable size," Briefly, Den glanced to the General, who looked away from Merneith, who he had been leering at, "Choosing more to focus on our internal stability and making sure our silos are well filled. This, I believe, was a wise move, as the past few years have been plentiful, and now we have the surplus that makes my plans for the future more easily feasible."

General Baki, who shared his grandfather Djer with the Pharaoh but was not in the planned line of succession and likely never would be, grit his teeth together but said nothing. Though he would loath to admit it, the two crowns would not be his in this lifetime and though he resented it, serving as Den's General would be his largest feat. It was best to make sure that their campaign went well.

The Pharaoh continued unabated. "Call it luck or misfortune but regardless there are multiple peoples on our borders that would wish us harm. The Oasis people of Isiwan for several generations now have been a blight in the lands out west. We have the Yuneti bow nomads, scattered as they are across the lands, trying to pillage our stock. To the east is the Biau peninsula, where the Bedouins make trouble in our turquoise mines, and past them, the Canaanite tribes, Ebla and the fragmented lands of Kengir. And upriver in the land of Nubia, the kingdom of Aksum."

With each note, Den placed a few carved wood markers on each of the occupied areas, only to pick up the ones lining the river soon after.

"The Yuneti are pests, but while we must try and repel them, there is little glory in the defeat of marauders."

His hand brushed over to the west, to the sparse oases that made up the Isiwan. "Vizier Amka, remind us of the history we have with the Oasis folk."

Amka straighted up from where he had been leaning forward in his chair to see the small print of the map, "They've been thorns in our side for a while now, but while the burden was greatest during the end of Djer's reign and the beginning of Djet's, we have not had as much issue with them in recent years. Scouts and traders report that a loss of central authority, has led to the clans that had been banding together to begin separating again. Of course, they have spurned us much in the past, the Tayllidt and her 'Prophet' actually tried to dethrone the Pharaoh in the past, but obviously it failed."

Baki spoke up, cutting Amka off. "The problem with going after them lies in logistics. An army is many men, and it is a long path with water being a fraught resource. If we were to experience delays on the trip, many of m-your men would become sick with heat or thirst. Besides, do they even have much of value?"

"They have cattle, and advanced tools made of metals unknown. We can capture them and take them back as slaves. But," Amka conceded, "We could also find much of that elsewhere, from less uppity people, in easier terrain."

Merneith cleared her throat, which received a few eyebrows raised in response by the men around her, but spoke regardless. "The people of Isiwan, especially the women, are unscrupulous and cunning. They think they are superior to us because of their Mother Goddess and her prophet's word, even after the Prophet is gone. One of them even managed to get into Djer's harem, before she was discovered and expelled."

Den hummed in response to the men and woman's comments, hand rubbing the side of his face. "Doesn't seem like a lot of reward there then. A tough travel over unforgiving land, for an average reward and difficult people. Like the Yuneti, they are little more than marauders. We would do better to address them later, in smaller groups, and monitor their trade routes. I don't believe they have many that are not routed to Kemet anyways. We will go elsewhere." The wooden pawns were thus removed, and the Pharaoh turned his attention southward.

"How about Aksum? Vizier Sewadjka, tell us of our upriver neighbors."

The Vizier of Upper Egypt laid out a piece of curled papyrus on the table, one filled with his own precise notes. "The Aksumites are an interesting group, their rise to power is a fairly recent one, only in the last couple decades did they become a people of note. Their well established merchants come down the river often, with a variety of foreign goods and, usually, words of praise for their singular god. In fact, we actually have a copy of their holy scripture, given to us during the reign of Djer, currently in storage."

Tapping his fingers on the table, Baki huffed at the exposition. "That's fascinating and all, but what about their armies?"

"Young man, I was getting to that." Sewadjka continued, spreading a couple of his own papers out over the map. "The Aksumites are surprisingly well organized, having taken over a large portion of the lands far upriver, either through alliances or brute force. They have naval vessels, presumably made with help from other lands they have made friends with, bows that can shoot shockingly long distances, and commonly use metal for their weapons and armor.

"The point being," A look towards Baki, who didn't visibly react, "They are a large and formidable people. Though there would be much to gain, it would not be an easy feat."

For the first time, Diviner Hay spoke. His skills were varied, and he worked in the House of Thoth in many roles, depending on what was needed at the time: scribe, scholar, augur, doctor. Compared to the rest, his voice was meek, but still Den turned to listen, and so did the rest of the table. "Djet took into his harem a woman from Axum, Faven. It was a gesture of goodwill between the Aksumite court and our own."

Den leaned back in his chair, a look of surprise on his face. "I do not recall her." Not an accusation of lie, but a request for clarification.

"Lady Faven passed away not too long after, complications in delivering a child, according to our records. She is, like a few other of Djet's wives, interred with him."

An awkward silence, before Merneith spoke up. "I can corroborate this, we met briefly, though we were not sisters long before she passed. She spoke often of her home upriver."

"So for us to enter their land for conquest might be… unseemly." Den spoke slowly now, a bit more cautious with the unsettling mention of his deceased half sibling.

Nodding, Vizier Sewadjka added on. "The people of Aksum are varied in their skill sets, goods and in their allies. We don't know who would come to their aid, or who would avenge any losses we cause. I believe they are more valuable as allies than as enemies."

Looking around the table after this proclamation, Den saw most of the faces around him smooth in agreement, though Baki did again look put out. With a decisive nod, he took that wooden piece off of the map as well. With that, all eyes turned to the remaining piece, in the Biau Peninsula. Slowly, Den smiled, looking almost like a predator facing its next meal.

"Let's talk about what's waiting for us in the east."

First Dynasty of Kemet
The Fourth Nome
Waset Village
First Month of Aket
2960 BCE

"B-aaaah!"

"Kawab, I say this with all of my soul, go eat a bag of dicks."

The new year, at least according to the Kemetian calendar, had only recently passed, the end of the harvest season and the inundation of the Nile bringing its blessed people into a time of reprieve. Opet was the time that the Gods had been born, and celebrations had been abundant, even in the small village of Waset.

After several years, Geordi had gotten used to the rhythm of this new life. They drank beer just as much as they drank water, though still always well boiled, and when Kawab lunged out a hand to shove them, their feet were steady on the sandy terrain as they ducked out of the way. Of course, having acclimated to the culture and making friends also resulted in those friends occasionally making jokes out of past embarrassments.

Geordi really could not wait until Ptahshedu decided to eat that stupid, cursed goat.

"Bag of dicks, that's a bit disgusting to think about, don't you think?"

Geordi shrugged, "Didn't specify what kind, there. If your brain went somewhere funny, that isn't my fault."

As Kawab pretended to gag, Geordi leaned back, taking a moment to appreciate having a rare day where the sun wasn't attempting to bake the land and its inhabitants below, a nice breeze permeating the walls and alleyways of their town. It was quieter than usual, likely due to the above average amount of hangovers that the people were currently experiencing, but there were a decent amount of persons milling about in the market. A few older women had shot the two some strange looks at Kawab's outburst, but otherwise they were not met with any particular attention.

The same could not be said of the men and women that then entered the marketplace. Of the men, one was obviously a priest, wearing expensive linen robes that nearly reached his sandaled feet, and a bronze pendant with the effigy of a ram with two feathers above its head, only one of many on his person. The other man was obviously a warrior, muscular and with long curly hair braided and pulled back. On his arms and legs were bronze greaves, his skin underneath protected with leather wrappings, but otherwise he only wore the kilt typical of Kemetian men. On his belt were a horn and sheathed dagger, on his back a sharp looking bronze spear and a heavy looking wooden shield, oval in shape and covered as well with stretched animal hide. Finally, to the surprise of several of the villagers of Waset, was a woman, darker skin than many of them, and hair in tight curls cropped close to her head. That, and the powerful looking bow on her back, marked her as being from upriver, a Medjay.

What little conversation had been occurring quieted down as the trio made their way to the center of the town square, the priest pulling out and unwrapping a scroll from a bag he carried. Kawab whistled at the medjay as she passed them; Geordi smacked him on the arm.

"What was that for?" He whispered, elbowing Geordi as quiet retaliation. Geordi did not respond, too curious to do much other than bat at Kawab's arm as they listened to what the holy man had to say.

"People of Waset! We bring you news from Men-Nefer, from the mouth of the Pharaoh himself. Grace yourselves and your families with his words, bring your people to hear me speak."

Regardless of what they had been doing, or the hangovers they may have been nursing, it didn't take long for the majority of the villagers to gather, making the marketplace crowded as people shoved against each other, Sagwa yelling at people not to step on her goods, children whining in indignation, old men and women grumbling at the prospect of official news. The men of the temple of Montu as well, though Nebkaure had slowed considerably in the past few years, ambled into the area with a wooden cane. Seeing Kawab and Geordi, Akhpet and Simut joined them, as well as Akhpet and Kawabs wives, Khenwes and Rewed. Geordi even saw Ptahshedu and his family, Ipuy and Duae looking a bit more ruffled than usual, Merytamun off a bit chatting to some other preteen girls. Ptahmose was pushing through the crowd slowly, getting closer to the trio of travelers. Even when everyone assembled, it took a moment for them all to quiet down enough for the priest of Amun to begin to speak again.

"People of the Two Lands, the Fourth Nome, village of Waset: I have come from Thebes in the temple of Amun, to bring you this knowledge from Men-Nefer in Inebu-Hedj. Our Pharaoh Den has enacted that in one year's time, when the Nile rises again, we will be gathering our arms and enacting conquest in Biau, the land of Bedouins, Canaanites and Ebla, in the name of our Pharaoh."

The tenuous silence was broken by an outbreak of whispers across the small populace. Mutterings of 'It's been years since the last campaign,' 'Are they going to take more of our crops?' 'Who's going to get picked?' made it nigh impossible to hear the priest speaking, until the warrior at his side took the horn from his belt and played it loudly, shocking the villagers into silence again. Geordi was not the only one who winced at the noise, but it was embarrassing that they were the only ones to cover their ears, if only for a moment. Still, no one seemed to notice, even Kawab, still at their side, was paying most of his attention to the people from Thebes.

"Like I was saying," Continued the priest, "In a year's time, those of you who choose to fight in the Pharaoh's name will come to Thebes, where we will then venture downriver to Men-Nefer, and from there journey eastwards to the peninsula of Biau."

As the priest of Amun continued to talk, Geordi began to wring their hands, and leaned over to whisper to Akhpet over the noise of the crowd and the proclamations of war. An old habit, to go to him with questions, but one that persisted nevertheless.

"Akhpet, what's a Bedouin? Are they raiders, like the Euneti? What did they do to anger the Pharaoh?"

Akhpet's eyebrows scrunched together, though in the past years, it was by far from the weirdest thing he had been asked. "They're folks that live downriver and then east, I believe. The Pharaoh has some turquoise mines in that area, sometimes they give us trouble there, according to the traveling merchants at least."

"And that is enough for the Pharaoh to wage war against them?"

"It's-" Akhpet was cut off, not by his peer but another blow of the warriors horn. The crowd's discussions, having steadily grown in volume, quieted again, and the priest of Amun continued to speak aloud.

"He expects from the Fourth Nome five hundred, and as such from Waset, fifty men strong and able to bear arms and fight. He expects each of you men to bring with you- a weapon, a shield, and foot coverings, as we will be walking far and over rough terrain. I will not lie and say that this conquest will be easy, or safe, but here and now is your chance to become part of something greater than yourself.

"Raise your arms for the Pharaoh, and be repaid with glory and wealth in this life, and prosperity in the Field of Reeds when you die, having been a loyal soldier of Him blessed by the Gods. Give your strength and conquer the Biau in his name, and reap from it the fortunes of a lesser people to strengthen our own great lands!"

A bold declaration, but one convincing enough, as many of the townspeople began to clap, slowly, before the majority of them were praising and applauding the travelers, and the distant Pharaoh Den of Men-Nefer. Bolstered by his acclaim, the priest stood proudly, and took out from a bag a piece of rolled papyrus paper, and a small board on which to support it. The warrior broke off from his side, though it was not much noticed in the commotion, and grabbed a piece of loose bark from a palm tree as he walked past it, soon ending up at the other side of the plaza, a good distance away from his compatriots.

"This is not the only time you can volunteer yourselves, we will be accepting applications until the end of this flood season, but those who wish to join the glory of the Pharaoh's army promptly may come to me when we are done here. We will be here until tomorrow morning, so take your time to think if need be. Now, I've seen you talking amongst yourselves, what questions do you have, people of Waset?"

It took but a second before several people spoke out, questions about weaponry and armor, about food production, transportation to Men-Nefer and beyond. But the loudest question came from a woman in her thirties, stress lines on her face but a clear, piercing voice.

"Who is this Medjay woman, and why is she with you for this proclamation of war?"

A couple other people bolster the question, and the Medjay woman closes her eyes for a moment as if to steady herself, before reaching behind her back to a quiver and pulling out an arrow. With practiced, steady hands, she docked the arrow, and aimed it through the crowd, who barely had time to dodge out of her way. With a snap, the arrow released, and flew through the crowd with a hiss, and then a thunk as the bewildered people of Waset turned and saw the warrior, with his hand empty, and behind him the piece of bark struck clean through the center with the arrow, itself stuck in a mud brick wall.

Before the crowd could again work themselves up into a fit, the Priest interjected. "This is Amani, and trust me when I say that if she wanted to shoot one of you she would have done it. Many of her people have come into our lands as the Aksumite hand grips its land ever tighter, and the Medjay are indeed some of the finest Archers our world has yet seen."

For the first time, the woman spoke. She had a southern accent, the Kemetian dialect awkward in her mouth. "The Pharaoh has request my people to train those of you who are good with the bow, to use these that we brought from Aksum, that can shoot twice as far as what you use now. He think it will be useful, to have more archers at his call."

She nodded back to the Priest, but then muttered under her breath, and Geordi was surprised that no one reacted to it, when she softly spoke. "Curse those bastards of Jehovah and curse the Two-Lands boy king, once my servitude is done, I will come for their heads."

And like hell if that didn't catch Geordi's attention, the blatant blasphemy she spoke less so than the name that came before it. They gnawed on their thumb and tried to recall what they knew of the land upriver, but failed to catch anything else that she said as the Waset people continued to ask the priest their questions.

"Did you hear what she said about a Jeho-" Cut off by Kawab as the man asks a question himself, Geordi bites their tongue, and resolves to ask at a later time.

Soon, the inquiries begin to die down, and the Priest, the Warrior and the Medjay sit in an alcove of the market, where it only takes a few moments for a queue to form of young men boasting of their strength and prowess, one-by-one volunteering to serve their Pharaoh. Geordi saws Ptahmose, still lanky with boyhood but almost grown, talking with his father, aunt and uncle, Mery wrapping her arms tight around his waist as he gestured to them towards the priest.

Geordi hung back, as did their peers and their wives, the group of six sitting together a bit out of the way of the main thoroughfare.

"Did you hear what she said about Jehovah, that Medjay woman? I think-"

"What are you talking about? She was saying they will be giving the best Archers of us those bows, but she spoke the upriver language after that, I have no clue what she said, maybe you just misheard her?" Akhpet reasoned, which only made Geordi more confused. They had pretty clearly heard her, and she had said 'Jehovah bastards.' They resolved, when they had a moment, to go and try and speak with the Medjay Amani if possible. Misinterpreting the look on their face, Akhpet pats Geordi on the arm.

"You asked earlier, what is the reason for us to go to war. I don't know of your home, but this isn’t Sumer, where they spill blood out of hatred and hunger. A Pharaoh's War isn't about survival, it's about showing the world our strength."

Kawab nodded and waved a hand, though the other was wrapped around Rewed's back. They had wed under a year ago, and clearly Rewed was not enthusiastic to see her husband go to war. Khenwes seemed nervous as well, though she hid it better than Rewed, the main tell being how she clenched her jaw whenever Akhpet motioned to the group.

"Geordi, if you think the Medjay is pretty, you can go and try showing her your strength. I'm not sure she wouldn't shoot you for trying though."

Kawab snorted, and Geordi tried not to turn red at his off-the-mark observation, failing spectacularly as the conversation thankfully moved on. At their other side, Simut gave them a look of mutual exasperation, though a friendly one.

Simut had chosen not to marry, saying one quiet night at the House of Montu years ago that, for the time being at least, he had chosen to dedicate himself to worship. Other than some heckling about his priorities, their peers had been accepting of him, and his answer had not changed. When asked the same, Geordi hadn't been sure what to say. 'I cannot give a woman what another man could?' 'I like men, but don't want to be seen as a wife?' 'I'm worried that as soon as I find love, I'll be ripped away from this home just like the last one?'

Better to just stay single and try and make friends with the local cats, they had reasoned. Even still, though they did not yet know Khenwes or Rewed as well as their husbands, they had celebrated their marriages alongside the rest of Waset.

They were shaken out of their contemplation by Kawab clapping his hands twice. "I think I'm going to sign up. The Pharaoh has called upon us, his people, to war in the name of our Gods, and our Gods have given us so much, I want to pay it back."

She did not speak aloud to disagree, but Geordi could see the discord on Rewed's face, and luckily so could Kawab, despite his usual lack of tact. "I'll be fine, Rew, tons of the men of this village have gone on campaigns before and came back fine. I'll bring back something for you too, something pretty."

Not the best consolation but for Kawab, pretty good, and luckily for him it worked. Geordi discretely found a piece of wood and knocked on it. Simut went next, and shook his head. "You all know I'm not the best at fighting, and even worse at shooting-"

"Yeah, your eyes are terrib-ah, shit!"

"Stuff it Kawab. But I know that should I try to enlist as a warrior, it won't end well."

"Maybe you could tell them of your skills as a medic?" Khenwes spoke up, to which Akhpet nodded and added, "Or a scribe. They'll need both in the Pharaoh's army, and you study more than any of us."

Simut hummed, looked over at the priest of Amun and his two companions, then said he would think about it. The group turned to Akhpet, who, to his credit, only looked a little nervous. "If the Pharaoh has called for us to raise our weapons for him, I will answer the call. Can't say I'm eager for violence, but I won't say no to the chance to make more of myself."

Finally, the eyes of the group turned to Geordi, who's mind was already racing with all of the new information of the day.

Should I sign up? I don't want to be in the military, this place is already dangerous enough and I'd rather not die skewered by a barbarian, or slowly to an infection from a dirty-ass sword. What of value do they even have in 'Biau?' Turquoise, gold, slaves? I don't want slaves, I'm not completely depraved yet. What did these poor sods in Biau even do to deserve this? Did they do anything, even, or does the Pharaoh just want to make himself look like a badass? What would happen if I objected? I'd get my ass kicked probably, and nothing to show for it. The Gods are important as hell here, even I pray to them.

I could say I can't go, chalk it up to an old injury or just being a wimp, or something. But man, I'm already a joke because I fought Ptahshedu's stupid evil goat, I don't want to look like a coward too.

Fuck, Ptahshedu. His son just signed up, I'm pretty sure. And Ptahmose is just a kid, even if seventeen is what passes for a grown adult nowadays. Ptahshedu already lost one kid, and his wife, I don't know what would happen to their family if Ptahmose doesn't come back.

"I think…"

That archer woman said something about Jehovah, I swear. And she's from near Axum, I have a bible from there, but I can hardly read it. She probably has more information, but I'll need to talk with her more to do it. I've shot bows here before, but not like hers. But if she knows of another person like me…

"I think I'm going to try and apply for the Medjay unit."

Yeah, this is probably a terrible idea.

________

When they finally gathered the nerve to approach him, and also had finally persuaded their friends that they weren't going to try for the Medjay unit just because 'you think the Medjay lady is hot,' the Priest of Amun was finishing up speaking with two other young men, brothers that Geordo recognized as having worked the harvest alongside before. They gave him a moment to finish his notes on them before approaching, the hubbub had died down a good bit anyways, and though a few eyes were on them, no one sent towards the interloper a rude remark.

"Alright, you can come over here now." Sitting on a mud brick bench as he was, tablet and papyrus balanced on his knees, the Priest still managed to retain a sense of propriety around himself. To his right, the warrior sat sharpening a blade, and several paces off Geordi could see the Medjay woman, looking surly.

"What's your name, then? And how old are you."

They begun to wring their hands again before forcing them down to their sides, not wanting to appear nervous right off the bat. "Geordi, sir. I'm twenty-six years old."

"Geordi, son of…?"

Ah shit, I hate when people ask this, it's literally impossible to spell my Dads actual name in heiratics.

"Um, Hepi? It's complicated- I don't have any blood relatives here, I washed up with the flood a few years back."

That got another look, much more confused than the first brief glance the Priest had given with their introductions. The older man looked them over, again, and Geordi tried not to cringe as he focused on their strange colored hair and eyes, the shape of their body behind a baggy tunic.

"And what's your name, sir? And the name of the warrior with you. I heard you say the archers name earlier, and can't help but be curious who you are that were sent here to Waset."

Fortunately it worked as a distraction, the Priest giving his own name as Qedunas and the warrior's as Ankhap, to which the man, Ankhap nodded in affirmation. Sending a quick prayer of thanks to a few different gods, among them Amun, Montu and Hepi, the enlistment interview continued.

"Have you joined a campaign before, or trained in any particular craft?

"Hm… no on previous campaigns, I'm literate, trained in medicine and death care, good at sneaking around, and I can use a bow."

"The man Kawab said you work alongside him at the temple of Montu, so that training isn't too surprising. Any injuries, past or present?"

Geordi held their right arm up. "I injured my wrist at sixteen? But it functions well, most of the time." I'm not sure how to explain tendinitis anyways, let alone a Marching Band. He doesn't need to know it goes numb sometimes, does he?

"Next year, when we- uh, the army goes to Men-Nefer, will we be arranged into new groups or stay with our townspeople?"

Priest Qedunas nodded, but didn't stop writing whatever he was writing on his papyrus, not that Geordi could see it. "The army of the Pharaoh is divided into the Upper and Lower lands, and then into each of the Nomes within. Unless you end up in a specialized group, such as the archers, scouts, or couriers, it is fairly likely you will stay with your current compatriots.

"Finally, do you have, or can you have by this time next year the required supplies of shoes, a shield and a weapon of some kind?"

________

When Geordi had completed Qedunas' questions to the best of their ability and the man had given them leave, they did not go at first back to the empty stall where their friends were. Instead, the interloper decided on a lark to seek out the Medjay woman. They did not try to sneak towards her, if nothing else because of the deadly weapon she carried, though when Kawab noticed and wolf-whistled their way, Geordi thought for a moment that getting shot may have been preferable.

The dark-skinned woman, standing behind a small shed, was shorter than them by several inches, wearing a tunic with leather arm guards, and drinking from a clay cup, though her eyes were already watching Geordi approach in a way that reminded them eerily of a bird of prey. Biting down that fear, they tried to sound friendly as they spoke, despite the less than stellar interactions earlier.

"Hi, so, sorry to bug you but what was that stuff you were saying about Jehovah earlier?"

Apparently that wasn't the right thing to say, as she had been in the middle of taking a sip, and much of it ended up on Geordi’s own clothes. Unheeding of this, she swerved and faced them fully, even as she bit down another cough.

"How do you speak the Medja language?!"

Geordi stepped back, hoping that either this would not end with a stab wound, or that if it did, someone would come find them before they bled out. "I don't- what are you talking about? I don't speak Medjay."

"You're literally speaking Medja right now."

Their back hit a wall, a sharp blade came dangerously close to their face, and the interloper stammered, putting their hands up in an attempt at conciliation. "I don't, shit, I don't care what you were saying about the 'boy king,' I don't know any kings. But I know Jehovah's Witnesses." Christ's sake, some of my cousins were with that group.

If anything that make it worse. Her eyes narrow. "So they have gotten this far up river, then? Tell me- are you here to subjugate and bend the people of the Two Lands to your will as well? When will Axum be satisfied with their lot?"

"I'm not with them!" This was not going as well as Geordi had hoped. "I've never been there, I worship the Gods of the Two Lands like everyone else does around here. But the person, or people that brought their religion there, they shouldn't have done that. It's not how it was supposed-" Don't say that, you'll sound insane. "I know some people who worship Jehovah, but they aren't from upriver, and I'm definitely not one of them. But I want to know what's going on down there."

A long pause ensued, made only more tense by the dagger Geordi could now identify as copper being held perilously close to their eye, and they hesitantly added, "If I wanted to share your thoughts I would have done it when you first spoke. I don’t even know the king. But" Their voice lowered. "He's not a real God, and neither is Jehovah."

Now if someone else had heard that, they would have definitely been admonished, if not punished. Even hundreds of miles away, the hands of the Pharaoh stretched far, and as they demanded tribute they also demanded loyalty. But it worked to placate Amani, somehow, and she stepped back, resheathing the blade, before walking away without another word. Not a complete fool, Geordi did not intervene, only leaving the nook behind the shed a few minutes later, when their hands had stopped shaking.

Unfortunately, when they exited, Simut was already walking their way. He jogged the rest of the few steps between them, looking over his peer confusedly.

"We were worried something had happened there. Why are you so sweaty?"

"Um." Looking down at their tunic, which indeed was speckled with more than a few damp spots, Geordi swallowed.

"I'm just not good at talking to girls, I guess."

It would get them heckled later, but it was better than admitting to almost getting stabbed and then promptly spouting religious profanity. But it was only Simut there in that moment, and when he patted Geordi on the back as they walked back to the group, it did help settle their nerves a bit. They would have to speak to her again, and that might not even happen, unless they could get really good at using a bow, really quickly. The interloper resolved, then, to do their best to meet the expectations given. But before that, they'd get another drink of beer.

[Tesserach]

Mehrgarh, Modern Day Pakistan
February 3, 2964 BCE

Hear my words, that they might teach you,
Take our arms that we might reach you,
For we too dwell within that Sound of Silence,
That Nothing where once we dwelled before together,
We are the spirits of children not yet born,
We are the ghosts of those long gone,
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunsets glow,
We are everyone that was, and everyone that ever shall be,
And when we are gone, yet may our humanity,
Be preserved for so long as those,
Whose time it is now,
Resolve to the keep the faith.

The day may yet come to pass,
When the last word is written,
When the last breath is drawn,
When the last person is born,
And returns to us once again,
But until then,
Even Oblivion itself,
Is not yet set in stone,
And you, dear friend,
Even when you dwell,
Lost in the valley of shadow,
In that darkest of all possible places,
Remember,
You are not alone,
You are not alone,
You are never alone.
-The Essence of Humankind

---

As the songs of the dead fill the space of my ears,
Their laughter like children, their beckoning cheers,
My heart longs to join them, sing songs of the sea,
I remember the fallen, do they think of me?
When their bones in the ocean forever will be.

As the souls of the dead fill the space of my eyes,
And my boat listed over and tried to capsize,
I'm this far from drowning, this far from the sea,
I remember the living, do they think of me?
When my bones in the ocean forever will be.

Now that I'm staring down at the darkest abyss,
I'm not sure what I want, but I don't think it's this...
-Odes XVII

---

My notes were lost. Obviously.

Destroyed, certainly. The few weeks I had with Arjan's band had scarcely been enough to familiarize the children with letters and a few token words. Indeed, among everyone who had ever shown any interest in my writings, only one had ever learned to write anything worth a damn.

And she was dead.

And now, the last part of her that remained on this earth had passed on as well. Gone forever. I don't know why, but that part really bothered me. The sort of recurring thought that sticks in your head, you know? The rest of it, I could replace but that was her. Her hand, her own words. I can't replace replace a whole ass-person, I can't replace her words. Even if I did, it wouldn't be hers, it wouldn't be in her hand, it just wouldn't quite be the same.

I've read personal letters of other dead people, but, I don't know. It's one thing reading Anne Frank's diaries, but it probably strikes you differently when you spent a summer just hanging out with Anne Frank and her family teaching her how to write diaries. Why couldn't they have spared just that one fucking thing?

Winter solstice, December 21st. And I can count. So with all the travel I put it at February 3 of whatever the hell year this is.

And, in a roundabout fashion, I found my way to Mehrgarh.

Maybe the most indignant part about getting back-stabbed as I did is that Arjan is still a prominent chief. So not only do I get beaten and hauled off, but then they dump me in a shallow pit, with an enclosed wooden cage over it so I get to enjoy the delightful company of my own thoughts while Arjan and his friends are singing, drinking and laughing into the night.

I'm not normally prone to bitterness or dwelling on things. But sitting in the dirt, bruised, with only a small blanket for company, realizing now that even Pakistan - apparently - gets cold as fuck at night in February, and being kept from sleep by these chucklefucks partying it up; yeah. I make an exception on the bitterness front.

Staring out into the darkened shadows of Mehrgarh, I distinctly remember the thought coming to me.

There's no way out.

I don't know how I wound up here, but I know it wasn't my doing. And I don't see a path home, no way back to my bed, to my wife, to our walks out into the countryside, or paddling silently through tranquil swamps under the night sky. I could talk my way out, I could use rhymes, I could use riddles, I could run, do some Robinson Crusoe and MacGuyver bullshit... but none of it is going to span the ocean of time or whatever the fuck void I crossed over to land myself in this stinking pit. I realize then and there. I'm not getting out. I'm never going to go home, or see another familiar face ever again.

I am going to die here.

That's the ineffable truth of it right there.

Shivering as I curl up into a ball, beneath the coarse, scratchy fabric of a blanket I was handed, I run through it over and over again until my thoughts are numb and I drift into a place between shivering misery and half-dreamed madness.

---

"Are you dead?" Revi poked me with a stick.

Opening my eyes slowly, I get poked again. Harder this time.

"You're alive." The speaker says - not Revi - but a a stranger kneeling next to me. One of the ones that came out to meet Arjan I think, but I'm not sure. They didn't really introduce me when they gave me the working over. Three others stand outside the open door to my cage, watching. They aren't dressed much differently than the Vadabhaat people I've met, but their clothes are more colourful. I guess these are the fashionable ones. The one near me wears what looks like a copper bracelet, along with a necklace - pretty well-done - woven together with patterns of different beads.

"I'm still considering my options." I say rolling over.

I thought that was a witty reply, but no one laughed. "Arjan tells us you are interesting foreigner. I didn't really believe him you'd speak our language so well." The man says, carefully. "I wonder about the rest though."

"Arjan is big on half-promises turns out. I hope you didn't pay extra."

That one got a laugh out of one of the three standing back.

The man standing next to me smiles for a moment. "Fifty goats were given."

Fuck that's a lot of goats.

From what I saw during my time with Probodh, and the deals he made, cattle were like money around here. Even so, cattle and herds weren't massive from what I saw. No one had thousands of animals. From what I'd gathered, fifty goats was enough for a man to start thinking about leaving his current camp and starting out for himself. Fifty seemed the modern equivalent of putting a down payment on a house money.

"Fuck. That's a lot goats." I say. A man doesn't scoff at fifty goats, even if you're buying a whole-ass human being. Not in this economy.

The four men exchange humoured glances. "Indeed it is."

I should probably try and haggle. Do something. But the truth is, having slept little and my thoughts troubled as they are I don't really have the energy for it. If anything I'm just eager to get out of this damned cage. They seem to be watching me, assessing me. "Look, I'm not here to cause trouble. I have no family, no clan. I got nowhere to run to. Nobody's waiting on me." No one who isn't already going to be disappointed, unless I really am living in a simulation and am just a copy of a guy who woke up the next day, and just carried on with his life. "I got no choice but to make it work with you guys."

The four men exchange glances again, the one near me nods. "It's good you understand that."

"If it's all the same to you, if you have work needs doing - I'd prefer to just get started with it." That's something I came to realize only as I said it. I need to just... do something. Dig a hole. Do whatever the fuck it is people here do to make a living in neolithic Pakistan. I guess not entirely neolithic if they're making metals around here, but anything to just to unfuck my own head right now.

Still I thought the Harappans, the city ones anyway, had advanced metals and some of the best iron of the ancient world. But Mehrgarh doesn't look like a city really. I note this now that I've had a chance to look around. Lots of mud-brick stuctures, some of them decent size. Some purpose built. But scattered, no real defensive walls, just some watch towers. Giving way to fields for crops and cattle. Hundreds here, a good community. A thousand? Perhaps. Two thousand... maybe. Much more than that seems a real stretch.

"Good. Work well, we'll feed you and you'll have a warm place to stay." The man says. "Run or make trouble..."

"I won't."

"You will regret if you do." He says. "I am Sarvesh, of the Darshana."

"You're the first non-Vadabhaat I've met."

"Not so." He says standing, a little more relaxed now. "You travelled with Probodh's camp yes? They sent word you were coming."

I nod.

"Then you know Nivaa, she is aunt to Chief Tarak of the Gaurang people, he lives here. We had word you would come." Sarvesh tells me.

"Yet you still bought me up like cattle."

"Consider it payment for your continued safety. You insulted Arjan. We're not like to make the same mistake." Sarvesh shrugs and walks out gesturing for me to follow. "Come. Let's see how you work." Groggily, stretching my legs, I follow them out.

---

They watch me closely for a little bit, but, in a way, I'm fortunate. In the world of subsistence agriculture, the distinction between slave and farmer is razor thin. Like many of the other social structures I've noticed, things here are just a lot more... informal, if that's the word. So far as I could tell the main difference between being a slave and not is that you're housed with the other indentured workers, instead of with your family - mostly because you don't have one. And people tell you want to do. Or how when I was travelling with the Vadabhaat, there was some 'men' work and 'womens' work but everyone treated them as more like suggestions really.

Arjan's camp had been a bit different. Those guys really leaned into the 'warrior' thing, and didn't like doing stuff that wasn't warrior-like. You could see some of the nascent signs of a later patriarchal order in Arjan's camp. Certainly I couldn't see Nivaa standing for Probodh marrying off one her tween granddaughters to a stranger.

Hell, at one point I saw one of the other 'slaves' get told to do something and they - in a roundabout polite manner - told the other person to kindly go fuck themselves and they just... did. Presumably that guy had some clout. But I thought that was interesting to see.

I also lucked out in a way, that I have basically no useful skills in this time period, so they don't force me to work with leathers, or the dyes they seem to work with. All of the jobs involving those look nasty and stink like shit. Everything stinks like shit actually, but those smell like the sort of thing a literal steaming pile of shit would get a whiff of say say 'Man that stinks like shit.'

This time of year I guess they needed people to plow the fields, which seemed to have mostly been done by hand though I saw some of the fields being ploughed by oxen. There were also irrigations ditches and canals to dig out. So that's what I did, and counted myself lucky, because I overheard someone mention something about salt mines up north.

Socially, there weren't all that many of us that were indentured and for the most part we worked alongside the citizens of Mehrgarh doing mostly the same work they did. We were extra help in the fields. I didn't really talk much with the others. I wasn't much in a mood for talking. A couple of times the locals approached me, having been told the pasty-white foreigner had weird songs and stories, but I didn't feel much like telling stories or singing either. I heard a few though.

One of the other indentured servants said he was from beyond the mountains to the west. Afghanistan, or Iran - I'm not sure which - I'm not sure it even mattered at this point in time. But he said there was a lot more fighting out that way. That his camp had been attacked, he'd been taken and passed from tribe to tribe since he'd been young before winding up here. Like me, I got the impression he never thought he'd see his home again, though it sounded like he didn't have much to go back to now.

There was another fellow who'd been cast out of his tribe. Killed another member of his tribe over a dispute over a girl, one important enough that he was cast out, but I guess enough people thought it wasn't worth killing him right back over. An agreement was made among the elders that he'd work here and that he should never return. All told there were maybe a dozen of us housed together in a four room mud-brick house. There were a few others elsewhere in Mehrgarh, not many. There were women indentured here too, but they were housed separately. They all kind of formed their own little pseudo-tribe in the village,

By and large we worked alongside the Mehgarh people, we ate with them, those of us who could speak the language talked with them. Really, the main thing that set us apart was that when it came down to who had to do the undesirable work, we always lost the game of rock-paper-slave.

That and they went home to their families and we went home to sleep around a bunch of sweaty dudes. One of the guys in our house complained that we were considered kind of bottom of the barrel for marriage prospects. I thought that was kind of funny considering how I landed myself here.

Every morning we woke up before the dawn, filtered out into the fields, and hoed, or ploughed with sticks, or dug trenches for the canals... or whatever it was needed doing. We stopped briefly for morning meal of bread, and porridge like broth. if it was hot, and it could get warm, we'd pause during the afternoon, another meal break. But otherwise we worked. Or I did anyway. Like I said, supervision wasn't strict. As long as you worked reasonably, no one much hassled you. There were two guys, one just hated doing anything the other I think, had some sort of mental issue, that got hauled aside periodically.

But for a lot of guys it wasn't unusual for them to take breaks, or just leave to go do something else for hours at a time every once in awhile.

I didn't though. I worked. I was used to working twelve, sometimes sixteen hour days. Sometimes more. With a few breaks it wasn't too bad. The physical work replaced my physical training, substitute it for some of that famed farmer strength. It was good to keep moving, and go to bed too tired to really think about... anything really. Just work it all the stupid thoughts out. Day after day, night after night. Until I lost count of the days again.

Until I wondered what the point of it all was. Wondered what I was fucking doing here. Why I bothered with any of it. There weren't even any leaves here that I could write on, even if I'd made the time.

Restless thoughts pursued me whenever I stopped moving. I felt like I needed to be back home, I needed to do something, but I just didn't have the energy for it. I didn't see the point. Just run out the clock, work awhile, until I'd finally had enough then just... be over with it all? Or something. I don't know. But it was those sort of thoughts that occupied my mind a lot. Until one night, when it was time to go back from the fields, I just wandered away. It wasn't like anyone watched us anyway. Like I said, where would I even go?

I walked down to the river bank and followed it, crossing where it was a gentle trickle being met by a brook, past another little community visible in the distance, until the light of the sun faded completely away. Until the sights and sounds of Mehrgarh, and the surrounding farms and fields disappeared. Watching the stars, looking up at the milky way, under the light of a full moon, I just walked and walked. Where I was going, why? I have no idea. I think I eventually intended to return. I knew I could just follow the river back.

I just wanted to be away. To be alone with my thoughts as they danced between home, my time with Probodh and his camp - which I hadn't even minded - to Arjan, to my time here and just feeling... numb to it all. Maybe that was it? I just needed to get it all out. Until finally I could just focus on the sounds of night insects chirping to one another, making my way amidst the little trees and scrub lands, while I contemplated the constellations above me that were so different than the ones I knew.

Not even a big dipper to point me towards the north star.

And that's when I saw it move.

A shadow amidst the shrubs and grass. A head and eyes fixed on mine. In it's gaze I found myself frozen momentarily in place, my blood running cold in my veins.

For a moment I wasn't sure what I was even looking at. For another moment, I couldn't believe what I was looking at.

"Whoa lion..." I said, my voice sounding as shaky as the suddenly trembling in my limbs as I watched it's dark form unfolding gracefully from out of the shadows, and stepping into the silvery moonlight, framed in a reticle light. The insects continued to chirp into the cool night air in the background. The sound of the gently trickling river water behind me filled the space between the two of us. The moon hung in the western sky, floating above the lion's head like a silvery halo while it regarded me.

It stopped, meeting my gaze and within it's golden eyes, scarce seen in the night air and in that moment, time itself stood still.

I don't know what lion etiquette is, but these things I knew. I couldn't turn my back then. If I did, I was dead. I couldn't run. If I ran, it would be on me before I got five steps. I didn't dare blink. It might be part of a pride, I recall thinking, but if it was I was certainly dead, and in that moment I didn't dare look away. These things I could see in it's eyes. I felt it, instinctual, like these things were simple reflections of the nature of the thing itself.

Then the thought occurred to me - briefly - that I could in fact run if I so chose. I could end it all right then. It would be easiest thing in the world. It wouldn't even be my doing. It would be the lion, doing what lions do, and at least then my death might fulfill some purpose.

"Whoa lion." I said again trying to steady my voice, raising my arms slowly, making myself look bigger than I felt. I had a little knife, I withdrew it now, knowing that it almost certainly wouldn't help me.

It didn't lunge at me, not immediately. I could see it watching me, the intent lurking behind those eyes as it waited for some sign of weakness. Not even that, yes it would take me if I showed weakness, but until then its thoughts were just curiosity mixed with wariness, though perhaps a touch of hunger too.

Assess the situation. Play the odds. What happens happens. In this, like anything. Breathe. Don't forget to breathe.

I tilted my head, and took a wary step backwards. Left hand forward, right hand back - with the knife gripped amidst white knuckles. I play it out in my mind. If it charges, I'll offer it my left arm - better that than my neck. It's gonna knock me over, or yank me like a ragdoll, break my arm in a dozen places before it tries to finish me. Claws are going to dig in like meat hooks. I'll have one chance, maybe, to land the knife. Eyes. Throat. In my mind's eye I see myself dying nine hundred and ninety-eight times.

In one of those, it chips a tooth when I struggle against the killing blow and it dies days from now of an infected abscess. In another I embed the knife somewhere in its mane and much same.

In the nine hundred and ninety-eighth time, after ruthlessly savaging me, it decides it's not hungry and leaves me to limp away. Probably to die of my wounds.

But in that one thousandth time, in my mind's eye, I meet it head on and my knife digs into its eyeball or it's throat before it lands the killing blow.

Yeah... right.

It could kill me, easily, but still it hesitates. Driven more by instinctual wariness about that chipped tooth scenario than any real sense I'll win a fight. "I'm not behaving like prey, am I?" I say, low and trying to project an unearthly calm I don't actually feel. "Not moving like prey either. Maybe you've seen people before? Been hunted?" I'm talking now, more to calm myself than anything. I shake my leg out a little, trying to banish the trembling and the weak knees, force my tense muscles to relax as I shift my weight to the back foot as I slowly, deliberately pick my steps moving backwards into the river itself.

It lunges, but stops immediately, its front paws digging into the ground. Watching me. Studying my reaction.

"Yeah..." I say slowly. "But you can feel it can't you - I'm not going to run. Doesn't matter what you do, you cross that line, and it's going to be on. You and me. I can't stop you, but you best not fuck it up." I take another slow step back. "So... you hungry? Are we doing this?"

I can't say how long passed, how long we exchanged words as I backed into the waters of the river, or how long I stared - unblinking - into the lion's eyes before it finally snorted, turned and moved off back into the bushes from whence it came.

For a long time after that I kept in the river water, crossing to the other side as I followed the river's course back towards Mehrgarh, hearing every rustle of wind through the leaves of the opposite bank, and expecting to see that lion, or the rest of it's pride, charging out of the bushes towards me, intent on finishing the job.

With Mehrgarh now in sight, I heard them calling - the lions - their low, haunting, snarling, growling roars rising in the night air to a fevered pitch. Low gluttoral sounds that were felt almost in ones bones as much as much as heard. It sounded like they'd made a kill. Something else had taken my place that night.

I was still shaking off the effects of the adrenaline dump when I walked, ashen faced, back into Mehrgarh. Whenever I closed my eyes, I could see it's golden eyes, glinting against the sky above. I could see it as though I were there again; the look in it's eyes, the way it moved, slow, deliberate, confidently from out of the bushes. The way the moon had sat above its head, and the way the milky way had cut a pristine swathe of light across the night sky. The trees rustling in the breeze. The water of the river trickling past. All there, frozen in time.

It all contrasted against the world I was from. There were no lions in Pakistan anymore. Once they'd inhabited every continent that wasn't Antarctica, but now they were all but vanished from the face of the earth. When had the light gone out from the last Asiastic lion's eyes which wandered these parts alone, roaring its last roars into the night, searching for a mate that was already dead. The last of it's kind. Were there even any lions left in the Indian subcontinent? I don't know.

And then the thought came to me, so clear I could hear my own voice speaking it even though I said nothing: what the fuck did we do to this place?

[Tesserach]

I being of no particular repute,
Possessing, as I do, no Great Wisdom,
Professing, as I do, no Great Truths,
Knowing only, as I do, that I know Nothing,
And yet, by knowing this alone,
Do I somehow find myself elevated,
Above even the Greatest of Sage Kings,
The Wisest Prophets,
And Soothest of Soothsayers,
For among them, I at least,
Know that I know Nothing,
Beyond only that I think,
And therefore,
By wearisome necessity,
I am.

Thus from humble beginnings,
Disturbed to restlessness by such thoughts,
Upon this warm night under the light of a New Moon,
That I, Seeing these many Ills,
And percieving as I do, the whole world,
Encompassed by darkness and ignorance,
Waiting upon death among the dead,
Do I take this stylus in hand,
And commit words to preservation,
Of such notable thoughts and deeds,
Having been rigorously examined by myself,
Which, in my own time,
Have happened to be passed down to me,
By others who have come before,
The Giants whose work form the shoulders,
Upon which I stand.

And so, that the writing does not perish with the writer,
Or the work fail with the workman,
Do I leave herein to you, Dear Reader,
Tools for continuing the work thus begun,
In the desperate and forlorn hope,
That such Thoughts as ought not be forgotten,
May yet survive amdist this Pestilence of Ignorance,
And that by degrees, those who follow ever after,
Might peel back these veils of our Ignorance,
Elevating our Children, and our Children's Children,
That they might live lives greater than our own,
Standing, as they do, upon the shoulders giants,
That mayhap they might finally peel away,
That final layer of our Ignorance,
That they might at last find Truth,
And in so doing,
Touch the face of the Divine.
-The Bhodhayativeda, from the Mehrgarh inscriptions.

---

Well, we couldn't leave her there, you see, to crumble into scale,
She'd saved our lives so many times fightin' through the gales,
And the laughing, drunken rats who led her to a sorry grave,
Well, they won't be laughing in another day.

And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow,
With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go,
Turn to and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain,
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again!

Rise again, rise again!
Though your heart it be broken or life about to end,
No matter what you've lost, be it a home, a love, a friend,
Like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again!
-Odes XXVI

---

Mehrgarh, Modern Day Pakistan
February 4, 2964 BCE

I can see light creeping above the horizon as I walk past the few farm buildings on the outskirts of Mehrgarh. Already people have filtered out, hauling water for the day, tending their herds, working their millstones for their daily bread and seeing to the morning tasks.

I ignore them, instead I spend time looking for something to write with, or barring that something to scratch with. For the first time in months I feel I have something I wish to write down. So I do so.

At some point, one of Sarvesh's little entourage - Rind - comes looking for me. "What are you doing? There's work."

I look up and point the stylus at Rind as he stands in the mudbrick doorway, gripping what amounts to an absentee door frame. "Don't bother me right now Rind!" I say trying to focus. "You tell Sarvesh I'm working on something and I'm going to pay him back his fucking goats! I'll come see him soon." Rind huffs and starts moving off, presumably to tell him the foreigner has finally gone mad.

I, meanwhile, continue my work.

Sarvesh, apparently, wasn't content to wait for me and appeared himself. "You're not working now?"

"I am working." I correct him, standing up as he enters even as I reflect upon some of the little etchings - scratchings really - I've made. "Just not in the fields. I want to build something for you and help make you and your father do some really good trading. Pay off all my goat debt."

"We prefer you work the fields." Sarvesh's reply was cool. "You work well, we like that, but you eat enough for two men. You're expensive to feed and this harvest is important."

"We'll get your fields done. Let me show you what I want to build." I say, showing him some of the drawings I've scratched into the surface of bark. Rough sketches.

One is a simple wheel-barrow, simple enough in design, easy to build, but shockingly absent from human history until the classical era. The second was an ox-cart, which I hadn't seen at all. Mostly they'd just strapped materials to ox's backs, which, in fairness, they could carry quite a bit. From what I'd seen of the mountain paths along the Bolan River valley I wasn't sure how they'd hold up, but around the village or along the well-trod footpaths over to Nausharo they'd be fine. With the right re-enforcement, I was certain they would work cross-country well enough as well, I knew for a fact the mongols used such simple designs even over rough terrain.

Sarvesh was looking at them, I could tell he could immediately see the utility and was weighing whether it would be worth the materials and effort to make them.

The thought occurred to me they didn't even have an abacus. Rather, they had a system of scratchings for keeping track of goods. "I can help you manage your affairs too - if you just let me speak to your father..."

I could see the gears turning in Sarvesh's head. "I have a better plan." He said after a moment, and I could immediately tell he was going off track on me. I could see his own greasy sleeze-bag nature starting to gum up the workers. "Go work the field. I will go speak to my father."

"Be honest with me now Sarvesh." I said. It was plain as day Sarvesh was planning to just build the shit himself and take the credit. I've had enough bosses in my time to recognize the look. "You going full Arjan on me now?"

I catch him off-guard with that, and he laughs. But pointedly doesn't deny it.

"I can see it in your eyes." I continued. "Look, I've been sort of wrapped up in my own shit, but it's not like I haven't heard things. You've got... older brothers right? You're seeing a chance here to do something big in your father's eyes, yeah?"

"You're trying to sell me something I already have." Sarvesh is watching me, I can see he wants to see how I'll react, provoke me. This wasn't his first time hearing a pitch, or haggling. I wouldn't assess Sarvesh as being especially bright, but he's no fool either. He's also no Arjan either. Sure he'll fuck you over, but he'll feel bad about it afterwards. I can work with that.

"I mean, those might take some work to get right, but they'll work." I say. "But I haven't slept in almost 36 hours now, I almost got eaten by a lion this morning, and I just whipped those up the past hour. Point is, that's just a taste. We can help each other Sarvesh. I deal straight with people. I've been straight with you guys my entire time here. Honest question: how much fuckery do you deal with on a daily basis from your workers, and how much fuckery have you dealt with from me?"

He gives a slight shrug to concede the point.

"I don't want to do this indentured servitude thing. I've done work. I'll do work. It's like I said before, I got nowhere else to go. You take these, we make it work, and you - you get my debts gone so I'm a free man. Then, you and me, Sarvesh we start doing business together."

Sarvesh looks at me. He's thinking about it.

"What else can you do. Other than these?" He's incredulous, of course he's incredulous. Am I a one trick pony?

"Get me a couple of clay pots, an open fire, and something to drink and I'll show you how to cook ammonia and tell you all about waste management."

"What?"

"Don't worry about it." I say. "I'll head out to the field now, get the fieldwork done for the day, I'll nap, we'll share a fire tonight." I approach Sarvesh, holding my arms out as if to say 'come on.'

I've worked sales myself, and I can appreciate when someone has a good pitch, stands by their product - you recognize the signs of someone being manipulative, but you can see all the things lining up. Sarvesh gives me the same sort of approving look before he gives me one of the full body hugs with a pat on the back they really like around here in lieu of a handshake.

That day I work the fields again, rather than working into the night though, that night I hang out with Sarvesh, just Sarvesh and we both drink and piss in a pot.

I then raise the pot above the small open fire we've made and place another pot over top of it.

I explained gases, liquids, solids, vapour pressure, and even a drunken rambling explanation of triple points and how fractional distillation works.

I then take the upside down pot and carefully lift it up, to let it cool and condense out the ammonia solution over another container as it cools over a separate container with a little bit of water already in it.

Nothing. I can see Sarvesh watching me skeptically.

I pour some water over the pot to help the ammonia settle out.

Nothing.

I sniff the pot.

"Holy fuck!" Oh yeah, there's the ammonia all right. Probably shouldn't have breathed that in. What the fuck is the boiling point of ammonia again? It's definitely not crashing out like I thought it would. This is what happens when you haven't done chemistry in 10 years since the bottom fell out of the mining sector.

Sarvesh is laughing at me, so I hold the pot to his face.

"Fuck you Sarvesh." I say, slurring my words slightly as he starts coughing. "I seem to recall now it's only semi-stable in aqueous solution. Which... yeah, that's still fine. Just have to fix it in solution. No problem." It was a problem, but I didn't realize that yet.

Sarvesh punches me in the side, but I can tell I've made an impression at least.

We drink some more, laughing like idiots.

And that's how I talked myself into the waste management and chemical production business.

---

February 6, 2964 BCE

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Sobering up the next day, I'm thinking I have this whole ammonia business sorted. I just need some clay pots with a sealable lid I can put a hole in and if I lose some I lose some. It's just a demonstration after all.

Put urine in heating vessel. Flip the empty pot with the lid with a hole upside down, put it on top. Moderate heat to the heating vessel, and the ammonia with its ridiculously lower boiling point should gonna go right into the vessel. Too easy.

Remove the pot. Stopper the hole. Get another pot - or jug, or whatever you want to call them - with water in it. Hold the two together. Invert. Let the water and gas percolate through. Rinse repeat until the gas is dissolved into the solution.

Badabing, badaboom: ammonium hydroxide solution.

So that's what I do. And that's what I get. I think. But, like... a few tiny little bubbles of the stuff. I can't even smell it from the water.

Needless to say Sarvesh would be unimpressed. I already know, he's gonna laugh in my face, and now I'm exactly what this whole fucking exercise was supposed to prove I wasn't: a chump who just happened to think of strapping wheels on a box and drew some convincing pictures.

It'll be back to the neolithic work-mines for me.

I can do this though. I know I can. Even without perry's handbook or a book lab methods - its just goddamn ammonia, right? I know there's a way. I know its marketable because I know the stuff was made somehow going back at least to medieval times - its just chemistry knowledge, not tools lacking here. I'm pretty sure I even read about it at some at some point. Hell I might've done a whole presentation on ammonia production in an organic industrial processes course - who the fuck even remembers now? Not me. That's for sure.

So back to the drawing board. What do I know?

Urine is mostly water, urea, uric acid, salt, and ammonia. So if I'm evapourating the ammonia out and this is all I get, I'm missing something.

Hell someone in Egypt or Mesopotamia right now is possibly kicking back, relaxing on top of their big fat piles of ammonia dollars right this moment while I, a supposedly trained process man, am scratching my head about why this isn't working.

I need larger batch sizes. Heating huge vats isn't going to work, so natural out-gassing is probably the way to go. Cover it. Setup an absorption container to process it. Just trickle the gas through. Just need more stuff. But now this whole thing is starting to balloon out, and I'm not entirely sure where it ends. But whatever, if I have to toil my way through, I toil my way through.

And I gotta sell Sarvesh on it.

I was already planning on separating out the town and surrounding area's human and animal solid waste to do an anaerobic digestion of the fecal matter. That will give quality fertilizer, there might even be a way to capture methane? I'm not sure. If I could, it would burn a whole lot better than whatever they're using. How hot does methane burn? Probably hotter than wood or charcoal.

In the meantime ammonia was the thing I promised Sarvesh, and now I had to produce it.

This much I knew, around tribal peoples your word counted for something. If you said you would do things and did not: people would remember. People would talk. Heck, even I knew who around here was solid, and who was not.

I would need help though.

I got the opportunity to ask when one of the other workers tapped me on the shoulder and told me to go see Sarvesh. Pointing the direction to go.

I found Sarvesh talking with another man while his wife Meera served us tea inside, out of the growing midday heat. I recognized him as one of the men that ran a carpentry crew. Bhanerjee was his name - he was the guy that was going to build the ox-cart.

We talked for about two hours, him holding my sketches, outlining his thoughts.

It was interesting working with a man who was probably among the first true professionals. He knew the wood, their strengths, knew his tools, knew what they could do, what they couldn't, and he had definite opinions on the design.

These people weren't primitive - at least that was not how I thought of them - this was a guy that just always had more work than he had either time or good lumber to do in more sophisticated ways. Ways, I increasingly came to appreciate, he was entirely capable of.

Heck at one point Bannerjer even said. "I've thought about something like this for some time actually..."

That was the thing. He could've done it, but it would've taken good lumber, lumber he didn't have to spare. It would've nedleded to be properly worked. And there was never the time. The man just had too much shit to do.

But now he was excited. I could see the light of a real challenge reflected in the eyes of a man who'd spent years doing the same type of jobs. Where all his competitive advantage was toe-ing the fine line between which corners he could safely cut and which he couldn't.

Only now there was something big and new, and now Darshana were saying "Make the time" "We'll get you the wood" and "We'll make it worth your effort."

He immediately talked about what nedded to be changed. I pointed out concerns around things around key components and structural points like balance, friction, stress fractures from vibration or shock. He nodded, but not like I was explaining anything new to him - rather laying out nascent ideas that he already held, half-formed in his own mind in a more clear, explicitly structured way.

After our first meeting I was convinced Bannerjee - all along - had been capable of designing a better ox cart than I ever could. My main contribution had been conning Sarvesh and the Darshana into sponsoring it.

The one key input I did contribute was that Bannerjee test different designs for key components wherever practical. He assured me he would and - I thought auspiciously - suggested he'd want my opinions later.

After our talk, I wasn't sure he needed them.

Then there was my ammonia project, which I bring up after we leave Bannerjee to his work. "I'll need test beds, some land to work, and a pottery vessel and small fitting made." I explained to Sarvesh after one of our early meetings.

This got a cooler response. "This sounding like more trouble than it is worth." He said. "There's old abandoned fields north west of the town anyone can use. But if you can't do what you promised with what is already given..."

"I can do it." I protest, but I have to admit. The idea that it's more trouble than its worth is starting to sound true even in my own ears.

"Let us focus on the planting, and our cart business. We will speak of this later." Sarvesh says, sensing my mood. Which is to say not now. Still Sarvesh's mood is high enough right now that I don't interpret this as him simply blowing me off.

And then I was back to the fields.

---

February 20, 2964 BCE

The spring festival - the town's biggest celebration is coming. The talk of the town. The tribes do the winter solstice off in the hills, but the biggest festival of the year is here. The three tribes of Mehrgarh and all their many sub-tribes converge on Mehrgarh before they head back out, following the greening that follows the monsoons back out to their grazing and hunting grounds in the hills and mountains.

By now there's been little rain in months. Many of the tribes have gathered around the Bolan River - grazing around where trickling streams still feed greenery. Some stick to their camps, coming to trade. Some work the fields for food or other items.

It's a big trade season and it all culminates in the celebration of spring, planting and fertility. It's a time for the tribes and families to exchange gifts and reaffirm alliances between the various tribes, between the sedentary townspeople and the pastoral nomads.

Mehrgarh this time of year is properly crowded and starts to feel like a small city. Or one of those seasonal tourist towns. But while others are fixing up their fancy clothes, jockeying for gifts, or marriages or whatever - I have no tribe or family here. I wake up each morning, before the dawn and put hoe to ground. I treat it like training - how much can I do, how quickly? I couldn't do it at first, I caught a lot of shit for not knowing how to keep straight lines, but now it's a game. Work fast, work hard, getting my cardio in - it lets me justify leaving early or cover for other people to trade for extra portions. They work you, but it's not like this is full fledged capitalism, there's work bosses, but mostly they just care the work is being done.

I head out to the abandoned fields, take the tools I've been given to use with me. Stake out my test beds. Put pick axe to ground. The spring brings more indentured workers. Apparently there's been renewed fighting up north. Big influx of captured people brought down to work the fields.

There's no more material support from Sarvesh. I feel like I have him convinced and he just keeps putting me off. Just based on our rapport, I sense his family are the ones balking at my requests. Not having direct contact, I'm not sure if they're just incredulous, think I'm taking Sarvesh for a ride, or just busy with everything going on.

Either way I decide to explore other options. For one thing, I make an effort to hang out with the other workers some.

We're actually a depressing fucking group of misfits. One guy was the sole survivor of a mudslide that took out his whole family. There was the Iranian - I call him that because he says he's from the mountains beyond the mountains to the west. I think that's Iran? Says he'd been a young warrior, but was wounded, was taken ill, with fevers, and wasn't expected to live. A few other guys in tribal disputes over women, hunting, old feuds and bad trades. Some won, some lost and getting disowned and working here was their Elders way of keeping the peace while keeping them alive despite people baying for their blood.

The Iranian and I hung out. Azahad was his name. We bunked in the same room. I was the only one that understood his native tongue - I still haven't wrapped my head around that one yet - thoughts on how this was all possible still kept me up at night. He couldn't speak the local tongue well. I found out people often thought him simple, but he wasn't. Azahad spoke like five languages it was just the one he needed here was, by far, his worst.

They kept him on because he worked, never caused problems. But talking with him, hearing his story - sleeping next to him when he woke up sweating in a panic. The guy was fucked. Just going through the motions of life now, hanging on by a thread, carried by momentum alone. I'm pretty sure, if I hadn't come along, it'd have just been a matter of time before one of the work bosses found him one morning swinging from a tree next to a low lying stool.

I recognized the signs because I've seen it too many times. Plus, I don't know. I felt like I'd come through my own shit, and felt yeah, here's a guy that could use a hand. Azahad joined on my little scheme. For the company more than anything I think. I called him Lieutenant Dan in a mock, slow southern US drawl - a reference he didn't really get. But it was funny, I thought, in a kind of fucked up way.

I tried getting the others interested in my little waste disposal venture. It was a tough sell. The abandoned fields were abandoned for a reason, overused, dust, nothing grew there. Explaining we could reclaim the field, work our own fields they understood a little... but all the extra work. Everyone was tired, which I got, but I pushed myself harder than any of them. They made fun of me even - why bother? It's not like the Darshana cared.

I felt that too.

Ammonia - no one saw the use. Even I was beginning to doubt, in my weaker moments, that it was anything more than stubborness and vanity carrying me now. I recognized a sunk cost fallacy when I saw one. But damnit, I was going to do it all the same if only to prove to myself I could. If that was vanity, so be it.

That left me and Azahad working our asses off. I tried all sorts of stuff to cheer him up. We'd talk about shit. I described depression, anxiety, ptsd, intrusive, cyclical thinking. It's funny you describe these things to people, then as now, and they're shocked, shocked to hear another person lay out the fucked up process their minds keep going through. I go over what I can know. Breathing techniques, how to recognize the onset before you're knee deep in it, things you can try doing or thinking to pull yourself out - the basics of cognitive behavioral therapy essentially.

There's no one without scars around this place. I started keeping track of people dying. It may come in useful later. Infants die all the time. Mothers. Kids. The old. The wrong injury or infection can take anyone. There's not a single person in Mehrgarh, I figure, past the age of 5 that hasn't lost someone close to them. Azahad, he was a young warrior - basically a child soldier - and yeah, he saw some shit. Did some shit. Wild stuff.

I haven't quite seen the same things he has. No beheadings. No stinking bodies. But I've known my fair share of people gone before their time. Seen some things I can still close my eyes and, yeah, 5000 years through time and it's like I never left - the screams, the sprays of blood, the watching someone you care about deeply slowly fade into the great beyond: they're all right there. I don't need a photograph.

It helps to talk about it sometimes, especially to know you're not the only one.

There's other things you can do. You need reasons, to keep going, to hang through it all. There are two fundamental problems almost all major religions set out to solve that caused people to flock to them. How do you get people, who aren't related, who don't know one another, to give a fuck about other people and strangers. The other was - why do we live, why do we bother. I think it was Camus who said, essentially, there was only one real question in all of philosophy: why not suicide?

That was always the draught religion suckered people in with. You weren't doing it for this life, but the great thereafter - just give the people telling you this your money and wealth and do as they say. Such an obvious fucking scam, but fuck... look at everyone, clawing around while their friends and loved ones get picked off one by one? People are desperate for something. Otherwise you wind up like Azahad - or gods forbid - a crusty, cynical fucking atheist like me.

But there are reasons to live. We make them moment to moment. When it's all said and done, no one remembers the glories, the ceremonies, or any of that - it's the little moments we create in time. Like teaching Azahad drinking songs and sea shanties while we worked. Turning "We Will Rock You" into a work song. Seeing what stupid english catch phrases and swear words I can get 3rd millenium BCE hunter gatherers to start dropping.

The thought occurs to me one day watching kids play kick ball, that no one's invented proper soccer yet. So I do, so we use one of the abandoned fields, Azahad and I teach the local kids. Now the kids are all playing soccer, and once a week we go out and go ham with them.

A lot of the older men of Mehrgarh think the games are for kids. The nomadic tribes, as they filter in, more kids start joining into the games. I explain rules. Keep an eye on things, because some of these kids are dangerous little fucks. Entertainingly enough, while the men in town spurn it, among the few men we get joining, it's most often the really tough tribal warriors.

It's like some sort of instinct. Guys who've never seen a ball, guys who live and die by their warrior's honour, their stoic hard living: kick a ball over to them, and its like there's some lizard-brain process kicks in, overriding all that, and the next thing you know they're running around like idiots with the rest of us.

It's something to look forward to, I explain that to Azahad too. You can work and work and never create those moments, it's got to be with intent. I tell him another story, about a famous oracle - a soothsayer - from a place called Delphi. I mention I don't put much stock in soothsayers myself, but anyone who visited this one, they had words written above either side of the chamber where people would wait while the oracle deliberated on whatever matter people brought to them. Words written like I wrote words.

On one side was written: "Know yourself."

On the other side was: "Nothing to excess."

I don't know, I always thought that was just good all around advice.

We have our moments, and then, the next day we're back in the fields. There's little time, and less energy, to spend on my little side project each day, but especially with Azahad there - there's progress. Soon enough we have two holes, roughly 2 cubic meters by my makeshift instruments. We start taking our meals by the pits, taking turns stuffing clay and whatever fibrous plant matter we can dry and pack into the bed. The poop pit needs to be sealed to be anaerobic and the piss pit needs to prevent outgassing anywhere but into the absorption pot.

We line it thick, and pack it tight just to be sure. No space for the urine to absorb through - it would be better with proper mud brick but I'm a man in a barter economy and we've nothing to barter. Beggars can't be choosers, and right now I'm definitely more begging.

---

February 29, 2964 BCE

The spring festival is three weeks away, that makes it February 28th by my count, the first firm date I've had in some time. The tools we're provided to work the fields are metal, but we've nothing to work wood. And to create an airtight, or roughly, airtight container we need fairly well cut wood. We don't need such specialized tools to work fields, so we've got to make them ourselves.

Luckily Azahad is a handier neolithic man than me. He starts working on handles while I gather rocks. He laughs when I show him stones that look promising. "Barbage. Garbage. Garbage." He throws out everything.

Azahad goes to find rocks himself, with me tagging along. I feel useless here, but while Azahad is annoyed I think the man enjoys feeling useful for once. Knowing someone out there is actually glad he's around. Most times he can't even summon annoyance with people, even when they're absolute shits to him. This from a guy that used to deal with insults to his warrior's pride with gratuitous violence.

He shows me the rocks best suited for durable edges - pale substitutes for copper or bronze but for most people, this is still how it is. Metal is for wealthy people and real craftsmen.

To construct a cover, with a good seal, we'll need well cut wood and that means painstaking sharpening of the stone. They need to fit together tight, and that means finer cuts than what Azahad's used to, he's never made a planing tool before. I don't know how such a thing will hold up. But we're determined to brute force it. Or at least I am, and I'm dragging Azahad along with me for the ride.

Slowly our cover begins to take shape. We have to replace the blade, but it holds an edge better than I expected and Azahad's a right proper neolithic man - knows how to work and wield stone.

We pack mud and clay over top of it. There's still more to do to finish it, but with Azahad's help the test beds are looking decent. They'd be better lined with mud-brick and plaster, but I'm reasonably confident and if this doesn't work, we just bury them. It'll be a pain, but fuck it, it's just work.

Next we need a line to run the outgassing, and an absorption vessel to run it to.

I leave Azahad to finish what else needs being done by the pits and resolve to try my luck with Sarvesh again regarding the line and proper, sealable pottery to act as an absorption vessel.

In the meantime, I start approaching people about whether they will give me their pee and waste.

Little did I know that, in so doing, I was lighting a fire that would change the face of Mehrgarh forever. For there existed, at this time in Mehrgarh, an ancient and secretive organization that - for generations - had pulled at the strings of Mehrgarh politics from the shadows. An organization everyone knew about, but only spoke of in hushed tones usually in morning darkness, away from prying eyes.

---

[b]

March 4, 2964 BCE

I had just begun my workshift when someone told me something had happened to my pits. Said I should go see. Running up the rise - I'd selected a rise because despite the further to reach the water table I didn't trust monsoon flooding one bit. Even from a distance, in the dim morning light, I knew something was off. The pits looked wrong.

The cover we'd been finishing had been smashed in sections. The lining we'd packed and set broken and littering the ground. The sides of both pits had been intentionally broken and caved in such that they were probably a quarter filled with dirt. I looked around but it had clearly happened overnight.

"You have to be fucking kidding me!" I was ready to pull my hair out then. This had been the better part of a month's work. I'm not sure I'd raised my voice once, not a single time, since I'd awakened in this urine soaked hell hole, but that morning I think my cursing woke up half of Mehrgarh. Those awake paused then carried on their business. No one really cared about a foreigner and his stupid dirt holes.

Azahad when I showed him just looked resigned. "All our work..." It was like watching whatever little life had gone back into the man deflating away again. He had no idea who might've done it.

I saw Sarvesh that afternoon, and asked him. He said he didn't know either, but the hesitation before he said it. I knew he had suspicions. But whatever they were he wasn't sharing. When I asked if he thought there would be trouble again if I continued, he gave a tepid answer. "I'm unsure."

Which I read as "yeah, probably." I also took his reticence to mean even he, one of the pre-eminent families in Mehrgarh, was unwilling to even talk about whoever he thought did it. Who the fuck could these guys even be? I was so mad, I left forgetting to even ask about the things I had needed from him.

I told Azahad about this as we were working the fields. "We tried. Perhaps it is simply not meant to be. What could possibly be worth all this?"

All this for an - at best - decent household cleaning product.

"Now we've got a mystery to solve." I say, dismissing several concerns about sunk cost fallacies. "Don't you want to know who did this? Whatever their problem is, I'm sure we can resolve it if we can just talk like human fucking beings, instead of this goon shit."

I was quite certain Azahad didn't understand all the english slang woven into what I was saying, but he understood the meaning nonetheless. "You are 'fixating'."

"I'm pissed off is what I am. You're damn right I'm fixating." I say. "It's not that bad. Toss out the dirt. Redo... the broken bits." I look at the broken cover. That's the one thing I really could use Azahad on. "We'll have to rework three of the planks.

"I'll camp out here, and whoever it is can either fuck off or they can fucking talk to me."

"And if they're not interested in talking?" Azahad looks at me seriously.

I smile and slap him on the back. "Well, it's a good thing I'm a good listener isn't it!"

"You are crazy." He shakes his head. "Fine. Fine. But your fat ammonia dollars better bring in the ah... how did you say?"

"Don't worry, I promise there will be hookers and blow."

Azahad nods at this. He doesn't actually know what the english term hookers and blow refers to of course. So far as I've indicated it just means something along the lines of 'especially luxurious parties.' But it's hilarious, and it's gonna be thousands of years before anyone even understands it so no harm no foul right?

So we set to work again. I left the worker house and pitched a lean-to by the pits. And I resolved to ask Sarvesh, the next time I saw him, to try and beg the materials I needed to finish the job.

---

March 6, 2964 BCE

When I was pulled off the fields next it wasn't to speak with Sarvesh. Drenched in sweat I was led to another home, one of his cousins, Yash.

I was brought inside, tea, refreshments, the usual greetings by Yash. Still it's unusual in that we've never been introduced before. All my dealings with the Darshana have been through Sarvesh. Once we're alone, had tea, and broken bread he gets to business.

"Sarvesh deals with the indentured labourers. You are, now, no longer indentured. So now you deal with me." He explains. "Your barrow, your cart. It will take time - but it is clear this will be good. Good for us. Good for everyone. Sarvesh speaks well of you. The other Darshana elders all agree, it is enough to discharge your debts. You are free."

The way he said it, it didn't sound particularly free. But I was content with the decision all the same. "Well thank you. Both you and your father. And your brother, of course."

"Of course." He intoned, with formal graciousness.

"I was going to ask Sarvesh for something, about my new project. We need a tube and a piece of pottery fired, a special one, to finish my project."

"Your holes for shit?" People around here can be blunt, in this case it's clear he doesn't think much about the idea.

"Those are the ones!" I say with forced cheerfulness, refusing to let him put me off here. "It could be a new craft. Like pottery or copper and bronze works."

He almost rolls his eyes. "You are already free, we do not need your pits for this. I would have thought you would had more important things to worry about. What with being free and all. For instance, where you will sleep, or take your meals. You'll find the Darshana fair negotiators."

I pause. Okay, I see the game now. These guys are running a little bit of the old 'company store' business here in Mehrgarh. We'll see how fair they are shortly. "I do plan to continue working."

"No one goes hungry in Mehrgarh." There's a hint of pride in that phrase. These are important words here. They have history I think. "We pay room and board plus an even share of the harvest - when the harvest comes." Darshana explains how things work. The farm work, along with most trades, deals or ventures, work on share system. Everyone contributes and when the profits are reaped it's shared equally, usually with leaders and those contributing special skills taking extra shares, usually as agreed upon from the outset. There's also roughly a third that's stored for public emergencies.

It's not going to be much, but honestly, I expected worse. It might be that 'No one goes hungry in Mehrgarh' is more than a mere talking point. "You handle a lot of trades. Do you need to remember the terms for all of them?"

"That is my main task. Not everyone is suitable." He says evenly.

"I can make you a device for tallying accounts. And a system for recording them - but I want to borrow tools, I'll replace anything that breaks, and I want my pot and tube for my shit hole project."

"If you make these things, we will trade."

I like Yash. I hear a lot of people say he's a bit of an asshole, and from subsequent dealings and just hearing about things that go on, he can be. He's not a salesman, but he understands business, and - frankly - he takes being a fair dealer very seriously. I feel like the man's a good, honest businessman. Firm, but fair.

---

March 15, 2964 BCE

Mehrgarh is less a city, or even a town, than a tribal stronghold. The place where the three main tribes of this region come together, laying as it does at a strategic crossroads.

On the one side, within sight of Mehrgarh itself, the mouth to the Bolan Pass. I had never heard of but along with Khyber, it was the only other major route through the Hindu Khush Mountains to Afghanistan. The hill tribes of Mehrgarh owned those hills. I've seen the wide passes and valleys of Khyber in pictures. Bolan Pass was different. Narrow defiles perhaps 30 meters across at points. Cliffs often straight up, rising hundreds of meters in sheer cliffs.

"If the Gaurang don't want someone to get through. They do not get through." I heard someone say. Having seen it myself, I could believe it. The Gaurang knew every trail and every footpath in those labyrinthine ravines and valleys. They were famous climbers too. I don't think they would even need weapons, stones alone would be enough if they meant business. In the meantime, skilled Guarang guides could get you through the pass to in a few days to the abundant tin of Afghanistan beyond.

To the north was where the copper came from. Hauled down the Indus on boats, and from there to here via the Vadabhaat who had deals with the river tribes.

Trade flowed at the speeds of the tribes and their seasonal wanderings. So there was an ebb and flow to things in Mehrgarh too. The city relied on the nomads for trade and resources from afar, and the nomads relied on the town for manufactured wares and when they fell on rough times they could always trade their labour - because there was always work to be done here. With the dry season approaching its zenith, and the spring approaching, Mehrgarh went from - as I had originally interpreted it - a decent sized industrial village, to almost a properly crowded city.

But, being a tribal town, it was a living breathing thing in and off itself. Things in equilibrium. Everything in it's place.

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. My actions for instance. That's how I ran afoul of the group, I shall forever privately think of as The Shithouse Mafia.

I'll tell you the story.

So Azahad and I redug our pits. Fixed the walls. Rebuilt our covers. I made a hasty abacus for Yash, even inscribed numbers for him to use as a reference to tally accounts, and record them on palm leaves, or etch them in soft wood or clay. He loved that stupid abacus with it's little shells, and his new ledger book, so he got me my a copper tube made to my needs, and a pottery jug that could be drilled the way I needed.

I got people to set out their piss pots instead of just dumping them in pits in the morning. Before dawn, I'd rise collect them up, with the wheelbarrow prototype I conned Sarvesh into letting me use.

I had to separate the solid from the liquid waste. That was fine. I tried to solicit help, but for some reason, separating human refuse wasn't high on anyone's priority. That's what I chalked it up to anyway. Azahad and I took turns on alternating days.

And then one morning, that's how I met Raj and Kumar.

They weren't subtle. In the early hours there weren't that many people about. I spotted them skulking near some bushes where no one else was around, eyeing me like I owed them money. Which in retrospect, from their perspective, I suppose I did... providing money had been invented yet. Around here it was all barter and favours all the time.

I decided to make a detour around them.

They followed. Quickening their pace to catch me.

They were armed with knives, but weren't going for them yet. The way they moved they didn't look especially athletic. I was pretty sure I could outrun them. Quick threat scan. No one else immediately visible. Just these two. It's not like Mehrgarh is big enough I can just never see these guys again - I'm gonna have to deal with them sooner or later.

Back still to them, I slide my own blade out of my belt. I fold it under my arm, holding my belt to conceal the blade behind my arm against my waistline.

"You Aradin?" The taller of the two calls as cut across someone's garden towards me.

I'm smiling when I turn around to greet them. Wheelbarrow between me and then. "Hail friends!"

They're still not going for their knives. They don't seem to realize mine is already in hand. They keep their distance too, staying the opposite side of the wheelbarrow, slowing as they approach. This is good. They want to talk. My relaxed demeanor seems to put them off-guard. They're not expecting trouble, which usually means, they haven't already planned to start any. I can't be too sure. These guys picked their moment, they may be organized, have a plan.

I decide to stay put for now and just keep giving them my usual happy go lucky friends. I still have my escape route, my off-hand is up if they try and close. My knife is gonna be faster than theirs. They still think I'm just easy meat.

"What do you think you're doing with this!?" The shorter one, stepping out from behind the taller one asks pointing at the wheelbarrow. Kumar I will later learn. Raj is the taller of the two.

"This is our business." Raj adds. "If you value living - find other work."

"I asked people, they said it was fine..." I protest innocently. They're still not going for their knives but Raj kicks over the cart. Shit everywhere. "You're an outsider, so we give you one warning."

"Oh no!" I exclaim in mock horror at the upending of my wheelbarrow. I'm actually pissed, but if this comes to a fight, I prefer they not realize I've already plotted my exit and barring that, that I'm going to stab up Raj first before dealing with Kumar. "That's Sarvesh's wheelbarrow. He's gonna be pissed."

I'm curious how they take that. The Darshana tribe, and Sarvesh son of Utsah - these names mean something in Mehrgarh. Mehrgarh is a bronze town, and Sarvesh's father, Utsah, is the one that controls the bronze making among other things. Near as I can figure he's the closest man to a king around these parts.

Raj and Kumar don't seem that phased though. That's interesting.

Raj steps around the wheelbarrow, casually but menacingly. He doesn't reach for his weapon though, he still doesn't see me as a threat despite being taller and broader of shoulder. My eyes are on his weapon hand the entire time. But he's entered my reactionary gap now. "We know where you sleep."

"I understand. You guys run the poop business. Message recieved." I say evenly, looking suitably cowed. I even take a step back and make a show of swallowing like I was afraid and nod. I mean I was, it was a tense moment, but I'm not sure Raj realized in that moment that if he so much as breathed wrong I was ready to gut him like a fish. Kumar was still on the other side of the wheelbarrow. Raj would be bleeding out on the ground before he could get to me. I already decided I'd flip the wheelbarrow at him first to distract him, then lunge.

I could've shot my shot. But I've had people threaten to stab me to my face before. I'd take this situation a thousand times over my run in with a lion the other day.
Plus stabbing two guys over the shit trade seemed like a shitty way for anyone to die - no pun intended. For another, this was a tribal society, and I didn't know who these guys were tied in with. The way they carried themselves, this wasn't their first time 'sending a message' and I doubted locals here tolerated this kind of shit willingly.

Too many unknowns to rush in blind. Last thing I needed was some convoluted blood feud with the shit-dealing Mehrgarh equivalent of Wu Tang Clan.

Which turned out to be prescient, because, it turned out Raj and Kumar's family, the remnants of the Dehqan tribe, apparently were the ancient Mehrgarh equivalent of a shit-dealing criminal syndicate.

They delivered their message, feeling I was suitably cowed the two turned away. They'd be back if I persisted, next time it wouldn't just be the wheelbarrow or a wrecked pit. They would come for me directly. Their business with me was done. But I felt like pushing my luck a bit now.

"I didn't catch your names." I call after them.

Kumar just gives me the ancient Balochistan version of flipping the bird.

"What if I had a business proposition for you?" I called back as I righted the wheelbarrow again.

That got their attention. "What sort of business would you have with us?" Raj asked.

---

March 15, 2964 BCE
-Later That Night

So. I had no idea about this going in. But at this time, shit was big business and I now was apparently stepping in on that big business. The kilns, the forge, hell most of the hearths in Mehrgarh - other than kindling, good wood around Mehrgarh was hard to find and it was needed for things other than burning. Construction. Tools. If it was burned, it was because nothing else was available. Only the bronze smelter furnaces and ones they used for glazing pottery used wood, and it had to be a special kind of rosewood I think. Real high BTU content stuff to get hot enough.

But the rest of Mehrgarh ran on shit.

And Raj, Kumar and the rest of their extended family, the Dehqan Clan - who also operated a pig far - had the shit market cornered. No one talked about it. They'd never asked permission before. But all the craftspeople knew if you wanted fuel, you went to the Dehqan. ssion before. Someone took care of the waste. Talking to Raj and Kumar their father had done it, and his father before him. As demand increased, it turned into a business and they turned it into... part guild, part racket. Scared off the randos, and kids that tried to horn in on the business - kept rates high. Their kids would do a lot of the collection, Kumar, Raj, the other adults they dealt with any interlopers.

The big families needed the goods collected and distributed. Relied on it. So they tended to look the other way. Everyone just pretended the Dehqan weren't even there. Somewhere in talking to them, I realized, or people like this - somewhere down the line - were where the Dalit Caste would later come from.

I then explained my scheme to them. "You guys can keep doing your business, but this - what I'm offering - is an opportunity to turn what you do into a respectable trade. You shovel shit and piss for a living, you're on a one way ticket to being regarded as untouchable by the rest of society. Forever." I told them. "How are marriage prospects for your kids? Not many Darshana or Vadabhaat or Guarang lining up, are they I'm guessing? But this could be as good as the bronze works."

They're skeptical. I can tell they're not entirely trustworthy. But the idea of becoming respectable is appealing to them. Pig farming is thankless, the shit trade yes, they can make a living, but they're even more outcasts than the tanners and leather workers they deliver piss to. The tanners along with some of the other really gross trades are about the only people that will take their marriage offers. They get extra from their racket, the thug life has its own appeal but a lot of the Dehqan aren't kids anymore.

I offer them use of the wheelbarrow for their collection work - it'll save them time. Whatever they don't use or sell in their own work, goes in my pits and I'll cut them in for a fair share. Really this saves me smelling of shit and piss all the time and let's me focus on digging out more, and finally feel like I'm getting somewhere.

It's still a gamble. I still haven't got the process producing anything - and now I've got partnerships with the Darshana, The Shithouse Mafia and Azahad. I doubt ammonia is gonna deliver all that much. Azahad I don't think cares, as long as we get something - its the journey not the destination. For the Darshana its more about proving I'm not just talking out my ass and getting their backing for future projects. But The Shithouse Mafia... they're gonna want returns.

Otherwise. Well, we talk a bit, I'm not sure it has to come to bloodshed exactly. But there's gong to be consequences. Unpleasant consequences.

But until then: we're all friends. And I aim to keep it that way. They and their kids come out and play soccer. The Dehqan kids are actually great kids.

So that was it, me, Azahad, The Shithouse Mafia, we drank tea and shitty alcohol - I showed them a recipe for jailhouse brew - and we sat around a fire at night. I told stories again, for the first time in a while. Stories about hiking back home, and paddling through vast wetlands with my wife under moonlit skies. About snow piled taller than a man in winter, and cold so deep it your breath froze to your face and beard and eyelashes - till you couldn't open them anymore.

I told their kids about a great hero of old. A guy who grew up with nothing, like them his village was destroyed by war, lost all his brothers to the enemy, but he was just a kid. He spent time shovelling shit - just like Kumar, Raj and their kids. During the war, he lived in a mud hut smaller than theirs even.

But that little kid, Yuri, went on to be the first man to go to space - where the stars resided. He circled the entire earth in an hour(yes, it was round!) and wound up right back where he started. Yuri was gone now, just like the dog Laika, who had gone on ahead of him. But I told them that even though we were a long way from such things, there was no reason that, one day, a Dehqan couldn't follow that space man and his dog to the stars or walk on the moon.

I don't know if they believed any of it, just like I don't know if my ammonia bullshit is going to work.

But I do know people love stories.

[Ardchu]

Tomas didn’t know how he had gotten lost, he’d walked this path hundreds of times before. His city was here a moment ago, now it was gone. Where the hell? What the hell? He guessed there must be some city somewhere, and so he kept walking. The trail had disappeared hours ago, and he was stranded in the jungle. Naked, as well. He tried fashioning some clothes out of leaves, but that didn’t do much, and they fell apart fast. It made him feel really uncomfortable. Noises bombarded his ears. Howler monkeys, he knew. Loud buggers. ¡Mierda! ¿Donde está el ciudad? No one was out here. Ugh. With no idea what to do, he kept walking. For miles, he must have walked. He came upon a stream. It got dark. He stopped and set up a crude shelter and a fire. Slowly, he drifted off to a very uncomfortable sleep.

[Tesserach]

Mehrgarh, Modern Day Pakistan
Spring Festival, 2964 BCE

All of our piety,
All of our deeds,
All of our sacrifices,
When the End approaches,
They all become suddenly insignficant,
Under that twilight of a fading star,
Like shadows they dance,
Running together off into the horizon,
Until they become lost in the sun.

Instead, it is our friends,
Their faces in the evening light,
The touch of our beloved,
The tender embraces of our children,
We hold these precious memories,
In our hands as gently and delicately,
As one might hold a bowl brimming with milk,
Daring not spill a single precious drop.

Rejoice in the rhythm of existence,
Let laughter fill the air,
Let music lift the spirit,
For the days, like flowers, bloom and fade,
And they do not come again,
We’ve only got these times we’re living in,
We've only got these times we're living in.
-The Bhodhayativeda

---

Rising up, back on the street,
Did my time, took my chances,
Went the distance, now I'm back on my feet,
Just a man and his will to survive.

So many times it happens too fast,
You trade your passion for glory,
Don't lose your grip on the dreams of the past
You must fight just to keep them alive.

It's the eye of the tiger,
It's the thrill of the fight,
Rising up to the challenge of our rival,
And the last known survivor,
Stalks his prey in the night,
And he's watching us all with the eye of the tiger.
-Traditional Song of the Mehrgarhi People

---

Spring Festival, March 2964 BCE

The Spring Festival comes and goes.

Given that I've resumed my note taking, having found a stand of trees with leaves suitable for the purpose, I'll include a record here. Since it seems my digestion process is taking longer than anticipated. The Festival at least keeps everyone off my back, I have to admit, Sarvesh and The Family - I'll call them the family because I've taken to instructing some of their children and the possibility exists they may read this record one day - are like children in the backseat of a car on a road trip at times.

I suspect the fertilizer digestion pit just needs more time but the ammonia pit, I can't deny, has me worried. I haven't heard a gurgle, not a burp from the system. I'll include a description later.

This time of year the first rains start coming in. Even around the river, beyond the canals and irrigation works, the lack of rain is telling. Most of the brush and grasses have dried out. Just a few trees with deep roots retained any hint of colour. There's not much left to graze on in the hills, and less water to be found. Many of the rivers and streams dry up, or go underground this time of year.

This drives the nomads down from their highland valleys and hunting grounds into the river basin and plains in search of water and grazing lands.

It also means people begin filtering into Mehrgarh well ahead of the Spring Festival. Tents and lean-tos have sprouted up everywhere. Mehrgarh suddenly feels like a proper, crowded city right now or maybe one of those season tourist towns. I gather much of their trade is done this time of year, and the fields are crowded with workers; the tribes people work for wages paid in the grain houses.

It's good in a way, because the work was beginning to seem insurmountable, but now it's proceeding apace. The fields are getting ploughed and sown. We've extra hands to dredge out the canals and irrigation works. We're a bustling little city for the moment.

When you go out at night, from a good vantage point in the hills, you can see campfires for miles and miles around. Before, I thought Mehrgarh might be 2000-3000 people at most. There's also a permanent population of a few hundred to a thousand around Nausharo which was just a short walk away - they're so close they're basically the same town really. But judging from the fires this time of year? 10,000 at least in the immediate vicinity, even before the Spring Festival begins. 20,000 would have been too many for the maximum seasonal populaton.

But during the festival itself, most of The Three Tribes, and most of their sub-tribes, converged briefly on the town. I couldn't be certain, but I thought perhaps 50,000 in total. It was a lot whatever the number was, more people than I was used to, even back home.

The Mehrgarhi Spring Festival was a lot of things. It was a planting festival, celebrating that the planting was mostly done. There were informal celebrations when the first rain came, but it also formally celebrated the first rains. It was a fertility festival. It was also a political festival, where the tribes gathered together and the tribes, sub-tribes, nomads and townspeople all celebrated the peace treaty that brought them together and reaffirmed their commitments to one another.

It was the biggest event of the year, I gathered, by far.

For the planting there was obviously feasting. Having gotten through the winter dry season, animals were slaughtered and hunted and meat was plentiful. We'd already harvested the winter crops and these were available, dishes were prepared of fruits, dates, and whatnot baked in little treats. Having been used to their gruel-porridge and yogurt mixes, these were a welcome change.

The fertility festival component saw a lot of men and women dressing up in their festival clothes - usually their most colourful wears. Things they kept in storage pretty much year round for the occasion.

One of the striking features of the area, following the first few tepid rains, were that many of the plants came back and bloomed quite quickly. The most striking however were the tamarix trees or shrubs. They reminded me of cherry blossoms or lilacs. They bloomed into long drooping branches lined fragrant pretty pinkish-white flowers.

The women collected them and wove them into their hair, or the intricately made beaded head-dresses that they wore. Some of them they made into wreaths they'd wear. The men dressed in similarly colourful finery, usually robes or animals skins draped over their shoulders or around their waist. Each tribe had its own colours and patterns. Both men and women exchanged tokens like articles of clothing, beaded bands, jewelry, flowers. Fertility figurines were especially common gifts this time of year, though these could also be for established couples hoping for children.

There were many very large public fires, fueled by tinder and rare hardwood - no poop! - around which people would sing and dance and give thanks to the local spirits. The Bolan River. The Hindu Kush Mountains. The plains. The animal spirits. It was an animist faith - pre-Hindu, pre-Islam, pre-everything historically known really. The songs sang stories of these spirits, and the sun and moon and stars. Others were simply stories. Some notable ones I'll recount now.

One story told why wolves howl at the moon.

Once upon a time, before the world was as it was today, on a dark moon-filled night, the Great Wolf lay wounded and cold. His fight with Lion had left him wounded, and worn. His death was drawing near.

While his life faded away, he lifted his eyes to gaze upon the shimmering moon. Looking down upon him Lady Moon smiled upon him Her gleaming smile. Taking pity upon him, she wrapped Great Wolf in a blanket of stars, and in his sleep he dreamed that they had kissed in her silvery light.

In the morning he awoke and to his great surprise, his wounds had healed in the night. How could this be, he wondered, and looked to the crystalline sky.

For theirs was a bond as old as the Earth, and ever since the Great Wolf has been by her side - singing her songs of passion and love within her silvery light. So it is that on dark moon-filled nights, that the wolves sing their songs to the moon. To their Lady Moon and their Great Wolf.

In another, a woman relayed a story of a sacred mountain to several youths, and myself. Near Mehrgarh there is a prominent rockface that rises up to the north, it is plainly visible. It is the highest peak in the section of the Hindu-Kush. She relayed the story that a spirit existed within the mountain, and the great spirit of the mountain looked down over the people of Mehrgarh.

She told the youth that, if ever they were in difficulty, they could make camp at the foot of that mountain and the spirit of mountain would watch over and protect them. Further, she said, if they paid homage to the spirit and kept their fire for three nights, upon the third night, the spirit would visit them in dreams and give their guidance.

I put little stock in stories like these, but afterwards, whenever I look at that mountain peak - I remember the woman around that fire and this story she told those youths.

The dances were elaborate. Different tribes had different dances, each taking turns to perform. There were different fires, and many dances happened. I'm not sure I followed everything, but broadly, the larger the bonfire the more important it seemed to be. Big bonfires seemed to attract the largest singing and dancing. Other, smaller ones, were more private affairs. Others were absolutely private.

The dancing served a courtship function of course. I gathered that, in theory men and women would dance and select partners they fancied from there. There were particular dances for people seeking courtship it seemed. Some of these were indeed young people catching one anothers' eyes during the festival. Others, it seemed, were staged and pre-arranged betrothal marriages.

The girl and boy would do their dances in turn, and then there was an elaborate show of either the boy offering gifts, or the girl coming and taking the boy by the hand to dance with her. Those were the ones I witnessed anyway.

It wasn't all peaceful either. The men got into disputes over women frequently. By and large they seemed to settle these by wrestling. Mehrgarh broadly was supposed to be neutral ground. The festivals in particular were considered especially sacrosanct, but I heard it wasn't uncommong for these fights to boil over, particularly if alcohol was involved. It was more common though, that once camps broke from neutral ground that disputes here sometimes followed people into the hills.

There was a Secret Society, a warrior society, that apparently kept the peace during these events too. Drawn from members of all the tribes, these were usually men respected both for their warrior credentials and their even temperaments. They were effectively festival security, and in theory, they had power to act as binding arbitrators during disputes, could ask people to relocate or leave, and if necessary throw them out.

There were political functions to the festival too. The Secret Societies seemed to function like inter-tribal committees, and many of these came together for important business. Disputes among tribal members or leaders, or important business could be raised with the relevant Societies. One of the more prominent ones functioned effectively as a court of law.

I did meet one of the tribal elders, who helped keep their dates for major events. Like when the spring festival should happen and the solstices and such. I asked the elder how they kept track of such things. I was told such things were known to members of his secret society, but they were not for outsiders.

I did coax it out of him, however, by speaking of my own people's knowledge of the stars and heavens. Further I suggested several convoluted means by which to ascertain dates of the spring and winter solstice and from there other dates of importance.

Bemused by my methods, he showed me a much simpler method, a stick with a branch coming off one side - decorated to be sure - but a stick. The distinguishing feature howevever was both the stick and the branch had holes drilled in them. When placed in a certain spot at sunrise, when the morning star was aligned with the two holes: it was a certain number of days to the spring solstice.

So that was a thing I learned, and I had to admit it was much simpler than my surveys of sunrise and sunset and calculations. Though the Elder was kind, and knowledgeable, enough to observe that my methods would work.

Politically the leaders of the tribes used the festival as an opportunity to reaffirm their commitments between the tribes and one another. It was expected that the wealthy town chiefs would be particularly generous to the key nomadic chiefs with their gifts.

While they called them 'gifts', I percieved another way of looking at it. Because if you squinted, one could imagine this was the tribal chiefs getting paid their cut of the profits from Mehrgarh's trade and industry as partners in the enterprise. The town, afterall, relied a great deal on the nomads to bring in important resources, and for labour.

Protection too. Looking around now, one could plainly see that while these people had ties of kinship, there was no mistaking the balance of power that existed here.

These gifts could be quite extravagant and involved great ceremony. I was particularly impressed by one absolutely gorgeous figurine exchanged that was incredibly detailed and sculpted in a gorgeous, deep blue lapis lazuli. I honestly hadn't realized talent of this level existed, but after dealing with Bhannerjee, I suppose I shouldn't have been.

Utsah and the Darshana however stole the show. Wheelbarrows and ox-carts had been cropping up here and there, but I was resigned to a slow roll out and that my discussions on assembly line principles had fallen on deaf ears.

But Utsah surprised me. He'd apparently sent people to call in favours among a bunch of nomadic Darshana chiefs, and with Bhanerjee and his crew, they'd been working night and day in the southern foothills with all the bronze tools the Darshana could spare.

When time came for the Darshana to show their generosity, Utsah Darshana paraded out there with his family in their finery before everyone like goddamn Oprah. You get an ox-cart, you get an ox-cart, everyone gets an ox-cart! Not everyone got an ox-cart, but it was a lot. More than I expected and I had helped design them. Tribal leaders hadn't known these were coming and - like on Oprah - everyone was losing their shit.

Most went to the Vadabhaat but also the Gaurang. I had no doubt Utsah and the Darshana were heavily suggesting behind closed doors that more tin and copper be brought back in return.

These and other things, of course, I only peripherally caught wind of from my position.

One curious happening I noted was Arjan making his gifts to the town in return. He and several other war chiefs of the Vadabhaat made a show of together leading a procession of warriors and prisoners - fresh indentured servants - into the town towards the prisoner pit he'd had me introduced to. It was a large group, more - it seemed - than Mehrgarh had seen in recent memory.

There was talk of fighting up north. The northern allied tribes, with which Mehrgarh was nominally neutral, had had a falling out. Now there was fighting between the Vadabhaat's traditional allies and kin in Peshawar, a group called the Kushab, and some other faction.

Spoils were paraded. Foreigners taken, a set of bronze armour and weapons that I thought were particularly impressive given the relatively simple bronze tools and items I'd seen to date.

---

By Firelight

I finish scribbling my notes in the firelight.

The festival is mostly about the tribes and their subsidiaries. It doesn't involve me, or other tribeless peoples who live in Mehrgarh. Mostly they, like me, are just observers to the whole thing except where their personal relationships drag them in.

Azahad sits not far from me, nodding along with The Family as though he understands what they're saying. Raj, Kumar and their two cousins are laughing, their families sit with them around an open fire. Some of the older children are missing - off at the communal events dancing and singing with their friends.

Here, by Dehqan's house, this is something of a more low-key, private function. Just for The Family, and one or two close friends. Somehow Azahad and myself have wormed our way into that tight-knit circle.

It's good seeing Kumar and his wife happy though. Life out here takes its toll, everyone has their problems. I have my digesters. They just lost an infant son in the short time since we met. Just 6 months old.

Got sick, didn't seem that bad really. Then, one day... I guess that's just what children do around here. I've got his name, birthdate and date of death written in one of my more macabre makeshift notebooks. I never mentioned that part to them.

Personally, I blamed them having their domestic animals goddamn everywhere.

The pigs were filthy, and I knew for a fact swine in particular were incubators for parasites, along with bacterial and viral diseases that could pass readily to humans. Our biology really is quite similar after all. There was a reason early religions often prohibited them. But the pigs at least slept outside. The Family had other animals that wandered wherever they pleased, slept inside with them, slept in their beds even. Just like the nomads. Just like everyone here.

The opportunities for diseases to jump from the animals to people were just extraordinary. Plus they were handling poop and stuff all the time. No one listened though, not before their son died. Then I started getting Kishori's - Kumar's wife - ear.

I felt bad in a way. It felt like taking advantage of a grieving mother the way shitty sleazebag doctors did hauking miracle water and other stuff they knew was bullshit just to make a dollar. I wasn't selling miracle tonics though, or patent medicines or faith healing, but I used the same playbook, if I'm honest, I'm playing on the same insecurities.

I wasn't hauking bullshit. This would save lives.

So it was kind of good watching her start getting on everyone's case for me. Insisting on keeping the animals outside the house, getting them their own shelters, make sure she was washing before dishes and getting the kids to wash too. I think it was low key pissing Kumar and the others off that I was encouraging it, but I've pissed of people worse for less.

Right now, that was all past though. Right now we're all just sitting next to the fire.

Kishori is on Kumar's lap. She looks happy, at peace in a way she hasn't been since it all happened. We sing songs, they take turns dancing - Kishori and Vritika, Raj's wife, and their cousins even manage to recruit the kids into forcing me to get up and join in learning some of the Mehrgari dances with them.

"It is not optional!" Vritika insists, hauling me to my feet so everyone could laugh at me.

Seeing this I, of course, insist Azahad - who pretends still not to understand them - be included. With me to help him, his language skills are much improved - at least when it suits him for them to be much improved.

After, Azahad shows us some dances from his own people beyond the mountains. Raj, Kumar and their cousins, when asked, are unable to show us any of the northern Deqhan dances though. "We were never really taught." One of those things that was been lost when their families came to Mehrgarh.

Asita their elderly aunt, however - great aunt maybe because she looks about 80 - gets up then and, very gingerly, starts dancing one of the Deqhan women's dances. She doesn't even say anything, she just does it, grinning like an idiot as she does and we all just sort of sit there speechless. Meanwhile this frail little old lady slowly creaks about the fire, swaying this way and that through movements she probably hasn't done in decades.

She's awkward, slow, you can tell its not easy for her - it's like watching gears grinding - and yet it's somehow utterly spellbinding. The way she moves, beneath the age and creaking bones, you can see the movements of a younger, more practiced, more graceful woman. The way she smiled you could just see her revisiting old memories, and that this dance was one she'd quite enjoyed.

It stuck with you too, because you realized, this might - quite literally - be the last time anyone ever saw that particular dance performed. There was talk, after, of the wives or children being taught, but I don't know if anything actually came of it. It was one of those spontaneous things and I wasn't sure if she'd ever go out of her way to do it again.

Such introspective thoughts around the fire are interrupted by a figure approaching from out of the gloom.

Raj, Kumar and their two big male cousins are on their feet. Unexpected guests aren't usually welcome around these parts. The Family here did have enemies - I'd come to learn their business extended beyond just strong arming would-be poop merchants - but I waive them off, as I recognize the face stepping nto the firelight.

"Probodh you magnificent son of a bitch!" I declare, standing as the man approaches the fire and embraces me. "If you came to rescue me, you came too fucking late." I return the gesture.

"I heard about your difficulties with Arjan after. I want you to know I did not know he would do this. He promised you safe passage." He said, nodding to Raj, Kumar, Kishori and Vritika. "But I came mostly for the festival."

"No rescue?"

"Fifty is a lot of goats."

"I know right!?" I reply, as I gesture towards the fire and a place for him to sit. He's used to me joking with him by this point. "But still... I thought we were friends."

"If I am being honest..." He dusted off a spot on the ground and sat cross-legged while making a show of doing some thinking. "You are a 10 goat friend, at most. But hey, I visit!" He held up a wrapped package. "I bring meat! Venison. Shot just yesterday."

For The Family that was enough to buy him entrance. They bid him throw the cut of meat over the fire and sit, offering refreshments in turn. There was pork. Fresh bread. Curries and yogurt and vegetables. Generally meals in this time period were terrible, but when people feasted, they could really cook.

I wasn't immune from the gifting of stuff either. Everyone had to give something.

For instance, from The Family I got some food from their gardens. They knew I was big on fresh fruits and vegetables. So I got some legumes and peas and stuff. Azahad didn't have much - what with the being a slave and all - so he just helped me build out my lean-to into something a bit less ramshackle, and resembling a dwelling.

I didn't have much either, but I did know a recipe for jailhouse brew - foul stuff but effective. Just some fruit, some starches, there wasn't any sugar packets to dump so used pomegranite juices for the fructose. Then just keep the stuff warm for a few days. Back home you found guys asleep craddling bags of the stuff. Good alcohol was hard to come by out here, but people here weren't picky and bad booze was booze.

I introduce Probodh to everyone. He and Azahad hit it off. Obviously Probodh wants to know more about the lands beyond the Hindu-Kush, and Azahad is keen to share. The two of them are just sharing stories for awhile until, I'm stuck as translator, but really I don't mind. Some of the others listen in, or do their own stuff; they're interested in Probodh's travels too. But eventually Probodh excuses himself.

"I've got a whole bunch of people I need to check in on, or I'll never hear the end of it." He takes a sip of the nasty-ass brew, wincing a little as he does at the taste. I've seen these guys eat all manner of horrible stuff too. So when Probodh winces, you know it's bad.

Though he accepts my shitty brew as a gift, I still want to do something better for him and his family. I'm not sure I realized, at first, just how lucky I was I'd landed with the most chill camp in the whole of Balochistan, or wherever we were. While it takes me a moment, I eventually realize I know exactly what I can do for Probodh. I'll have to track him down later.

There are other gifts of mine too out there.

For example I felt keeping on the Darshana's good side was important, so I spent a couple of my nights etching a makeshift map of the world into a small block of wood. I couldn't tell if, looking at it, Sarvesh was lost in thought or he was just distracted by something else, but I hadn't seen or heard from him since. Given what I've seen since, I'm inclined to say he was just busy.

But by and large I think my offerings go over well enough though. The Family was a mess it was true.

For Azahad, I wanted to get the guy something special. Well sort of, I needed his help to make it if I'm honest. I'm not sure if that diminishes the gift, but his expertise would make it a more useful thing for sure. The guy had been a warrior once, and I thought maybe making him some token of that life might put some wind back in his sails.

I'd learned some of the basics of bow-making from Probodh, but Azahad was an expert. So I leaned on him even as I made him promise not to show it off too much, or share the secrets of its construction - which we kept hidden wrapped under woven cord up and down the length of the bow. The bow itself had to be kept wrapped in deer skin to keep it safe from rain and moisture that could ruin it.

It wasn't ready yet, but we'd worked the bow. It was setting now. Re-enforced with bone and layers of animal sinew, held together by resins of Azahad's own devising. I could tell Azahad was like a kid waiting to open his presents leading up to the Christmas Day waiting though. He wanted to try the thing out. Do some hunting. He was anxious. Like me and my digesters.

Plus, I don't know. It's good hearing him talk about the future, about plans, and doing things for once instead of the past or work.

There's a reason I have him promise to keep it secret.

The Harappans were an anomaly in early human history. No defensive walls around their cities. No signs of any city being looted or sacked. No signs of massed battles or anything of the sort - sure there were signs of fighting. The graveyards dug up showed Harappan took their fair share of violent injuries. Tribes were like that sometimes.

But no signs of massed warfare. And I didn't mean to encourage them. Not if I could avoid it.

But for Azahad, I make a little exception.

---

Mehrgarh, 2964 BCE

The reason things with my ammonia digestion didn't work the way I thought I eventually figure out. Or I think I do.

Initially I had thought, since urine contains ammonia, it could be distilled. Realizing its boil temperature is too ludicrously low for me to condense it out, I assumed I could create a chamber for it to outgas.

It probably did do that, I figure. But not enough to create any appreciable amount of ammonia in water.

However, my project worked. Inadvertantly. Because in trying to create a sealed outgassing chamber, I'd actually created another anaerobic digester for urine. That was what made enough ammonia to dissolve in the water container.

That, and also carbon dioxide too judging by the way it bubbled when I finally opened the absorption vessel.

I'll describe the apparatus.

The digester I think has already been mostly covered. The main added components where the absorption vessel - really a standard pottery jug, roughly 8L in volume with a hole drilled in the bottom.

To connect the two we used copper. It had to be pounded into a sheet, then rolled around a stick, fired and hammered again to form a welded seam. Then it had to be heated, and bent again into the right shape.

It needed to connect the hole at the top of the digester to the hole on the bottom of the absorption vessel. It needed to be an inverse U shape. This was necessary because the output from the digestor had to be higher elevation than the waterline in the absorption vessel; otherwise water would backflow into the digester.

While the digester produced ammonia, this would create overpressure that would cause the ammonia gas to force its way through the pipe and into the bottom of the absorption vessel. The gas would then bubble up, and the NH3 would dissolve in water, as is its custom. Basically how my Soda Stream had worked back home, which incidentally, was likely how it wound up slightly carbonated too.

I did some fiddly accounting for the overpressure on the vessels too. This was necessary, but not complicated. Just some rocks to ensure the digestion cover was weighed down enough to prevent a blow-out and that system pressure could be relieved through the top of the absorption vessel.

I left the test vessel as long as I dared before finally opening it. The results were modestly better than I had expected. Which was a success.

---

Changing of the Seasons, 2964 BCE

That early success set the stage for the rest of my year. I kept working the fields, I still needed to eat of course.

We expanded production tentatively of course. We still weren't certain how much we could trade for the stuff. I'd hoped it would have taken a few days and been done by the Festival, while everyone was there but I'd missed that deadline.

Nonetheless we demonstrated it for merchants that came through, along with locals and tribespeople who Sarvesh thought might have need of cleaning things well, and easier. The stuff did trade, modestly. Enough to run a few digestion pits at a time.

I surprised Azahad by using my cut to buy out his contract. "You're a free man now." He'd been there long enough he could've done it himself by now but he just... hadn't cared to. Anyway, to say Azahad was a happy man would be understating it.

"I will hunt and kill a lion for you." He declared afterwards, and while his new bow was definitely a marked improvement over the little hunting bows they used... I hoped he didn't actually hunt any lions.

And that, I thought would be how my involvement with the ammonia industry would end. We'd make a few liters a month, it'd be a good side hustle for the Dehqan but I didn't see it changing much in the grand scheme of things beyond proving to the Darshana that I could turn even literal shit into a tradable commodity.

In the meantime, I turned my attention to my other projects on the go.

The fertilizer pit took longer to digest. Plenty of time to get my crop test beds setup.

We mixed the fertilizer with soil from the abandoned fields. We used the same soil, well mixed together. Separated it and mixed it with different amounts of the fertilizer. We mixed the same seeds well and divided them up among the test beds. For good measure, one bed with untreated soil as well. I hand watered them for good measure, taking advice from those knowledgeable with the seeds.

I'd been confident enough, that we'd already dug out several new and larger pits and they were ready to go. Unlike ammonia, I anticipated we could use as much fertilizer as we could produce - I knew how much shit The Family could bring in a day and planned to ensure a steady supply.

The first harvest we believed we had an optimized mixture. Then it was time to sow our first crop and start testing which plants would grow best in our fertilized soil. I had a whole regime planned. Fertilizer mixtures. Moisture levels. Plough methods. The List goes on.

I'm already only working the fields for the Darshana part time now. Next year I'll be able to quit the fields entirely and work my own plots, the ones they considered too useless to even bother with; those fields will bloom again. I've even managed to start a small school.

The Deqhan children, some of the other tribeless, one or two children in the village. I charge by donation, whatever they're willing to offer. For most of the kids its nothing. I get the occasional garden basket.

It's not much, but things are looking up for me.

People still look at me strange. I have test beds now for trees that produce nothing of value to eat or sell and stranger still, native plants - weeds. They refrain from calling me an idiot, only because I'm the guy that turned literal shit and piss into tradable commodities. They how plants grow in impossible soil now - better than unprocessed poop applied to fields even.

It's not going to be enough though. Not on its own anyway.

---

I head down to the river during one of the monsoon rains. The water is pounding down. The river rages past, the former trickling stream replaced by a torrent of water blasting past me at highway speeds. I know this because the ball and measured length of rope I throw in tells me it's so. It's a struggle to even keep hold of the line and recover my instrument. I have to count the numbers.

6 times a day, every day, I do this during the monsoon season.

Eight months later, I make the same trek.

I don't bother with measurements this time. The Bolan River was quiet now, hardly a river at all, but you could see the sun parched banks collapsing where the waters rose each year. Serious, and obvious signs of erosion if one knew what that was. If I had a camera, I expect I'd be able to ID just how much soil we'd lost.

For the river itself, I've already done measurements and the flow rate isn't nearly as dynamic now as it was during the monsoons. Occasionally I make my students take them. But the fact is the total volume now until the next monsoon is basically just a rounding error.

Taking account of uncertainties in my measurement methods during the monsoon months, 2.5 billion cubic meters of water is almost certainly too little. 5 billion cubic meters would almost certaintly be too much.

But looking around the area of Mehrgarh now, as the dry season begins to settle in and there's no sign of all that water. Past the bare crumbling banks of the river, the land gave way to dusty, over grazed, over harvested compacted top soils. When the waters flooded, they ran right over top, hardly absorbing anything at all. What loose soils were there would be carried away by flood waters like the riverbanks themselves.

When it was all done, the waters receded leaving just what water the locals captured and dammed off in their little earthen dykes. I'd been measuring the wells too. They weren't absorbing nearly enough - if anything I suspected despite the deluge, people were overdrawing the aquifers.

Judging by the abandoned mounds and dilapidated bricks and empty fields tracking towards the mouth of the Bolan River, I suspect it's been going on for awhile. The people in Mehrgarh had no idea. No way to track how, their settlement and fields had been gradually - over generations - surrendering more and more land, moving further and further south.

My first impression was to be shocked how green it was here compared to my knowledge of this modern region of Pakistan, but the more I saw, the more I realized the treelines were in retreat: being cut for fuel, tools, and wood. The process of becoming th dusty arid landscape of the modern world was already well underway.

Mehrgarh was dying.

They needed crop rotation. Better land management practices in general, at a minimum they needed to stabilize the banks of the river. The native plant species were weeds to them, but they'd help stabilize the soil and retain moisture as well.

They needed a forest management plan. They needed better water sequestration. Terraced fields. Heck, during periods where the monsoon was lackluster, I imagined the river probably went underground the moment it left the rocky bed of the mountains as it travelled south.

Anything we did would need to be done despite the nomads; whose goats and cattle would eat everything in sight if they were allowed to.

But it needed to be done. Otherwise Mehrgarh itself would disappear, winding up just footnote in the history books under the cautionary heading: Tragedy of the Commons.

I already know they're not going to like this.

[Melon Heads]

First Dynasty of Kemet
The Fourth Nome
Waset Village
First Month of Aket
2960 BCE

By the following morning, forty-two men had signed or stated their names to enlist in the Pharaoh's campaign, though it was expected that more would be recruited in the coming months. Geordi had signed, as had Akhpet, while Kawab and Ptahmose had given their names verbally, neither of them trained in the art of writing. Simut, still apprehensive, was still thinking it over, and in hindsight Geordi wished that they had done the same as well, instead of rushing in in a foolish attempt to cajole information about Axum from a steel faced Medjay archer. Several other men from Waset had joined as well, most of them fairly young adults but there were more than a few who Geordi knew had children who were school-aged if not older. When Qedunas had retired from taking names for the night, he has beckoned those who had volunteered to meet with him the next morning.

Either by hearing it directly from him or from word of mouth, the vast majority of them obeyed, albeit begrudgingly. It was early when they again convened, the priest Qedunas and his small party wanting to complete the next leg of their travels before the hottest part of the day. Still, he took the time to write down the names of a couple new men, and addressed the group as a whole.

"In the coming days, a man named Tefibi will be here, from the town Naqada, in order to instruct you on the ways of the Pharaoh's army. Yes?" A hand raised in the crowd, Qedunas motioned for them to speak.

"We have men here who have gone on campaigns before, why can they not be the ones to instruct us?" A young man with a shaved head several months grown out, who Geordi tentatively identified as Huy. And honestly, it was a fair question, many of them had family members, fathers, uncles, cousins or grandfathers who went to war in the reign of Djet or Djer. They knew how to fight and follow the lead of their commanders.

Qedunas snapped his fingers, and waved them at the boy. "We could do that, indeed, but would your father be able to train you as a soldier instead of as a son? Would he be able to put aside his worry for his bloodline? A commander should care for his men, but to be a father to them would be a heavy weight to carry.

"I have met Tefibi several times and he is an honorable man, and was a skilled warrior. You can trust that he will train you well, but he will not go easy on you."

It made sense when Geordi thought it over, similar logic to trying to avoid students being taught by their parents in school, to prevent favoritism and preferential treatment. Evidently the vast majority of the group agreed, though they did hear a few people grumble in consternation, evidently having hoped for one of their veteran neighbors to be instructing them.

"During this flood season you will be going over that which all members of the Pharaoh's Army must know and be able to do. This will include physical training, though as you seem to be mostly farmers I don't doubt there is strength among you. Tefibi will teach you our signals, our echelons and everything else you need to know as soldiers. He will teach you how to fight, as well, if you don't know how already.

"At the end of the flooding season we will he sending surveyors from Thebes to examine you, and see who we will choose to apply to certain positions and groups. This includes team leaders, scouts, medics and bowmen among others, who if selected will receive further training in the required skills."

Alright, that answered some questions at least. I have three months to get good enough at shooting that they enlist me with the Medjay corps, and then I can try to talk with that woman and the other southerners more about Aksum.

That is, of course, if I don't get shoved into a crocodile maw by one of them as soon as I bring up the Aksumite god.

Lost in thought, again gnawing on their thumb, Geordi only half listened as Qedunas answered a few more questions from their soon-to-be platoon, and again reiterated the necessary supplies they would need to assemble before the next year. It was only when the small crowd began to disperse, and the traveling messengers began to pick up their stuff that Geordi saw, and promptly again met eyes with Amani. They froze for a second, before weakly waving, to which she didn't respond but with a glare as she turned away, making towards the path out of town. The bow on her back caught their eye again at that moment. It looked like two different kinds of wood, or maybe one color was made of an animal horn, neither of which matched with the trees Geordi knew endemic to the local area, and even from a distance they could identify it as a recurve bow, though in Waset they had only ever seen or used bows made from singular pieces of local wood.

Could they have invented those bows themselves, or were those brought with the same mystery people who brought Jehovah and Christianity to the lands up river? I don't know where the people of Sudan were technologically at this time, maybe they had compound bows figured out already.

What did Qedunas say yesterday? The Medjay came downriver to Kemet because Aksum was invading their territory? And didn't Amani say that they brought the bows from Aksum? Did they originally have good relations that went sour, what the hell is going on down there?

Ugh, I don't have enough information to figure this out, damnit!

"Boy, stop biting your hand so hard, you're going to make it bleed again."

A hand patted at their back, jolting Geordi out of their mental spiral. They rubbed their thumb on their tunic, noting with embarrassment the bite marks on the fat of their palm, and turned to the person who had interrupted them. It was Horudja, and next to him his wife Tadeddet carrying an empty basket. Geordi noticed she was again wearing the bracelet they had finally made for her a few months back, the glass beads clinking together softly.

"Heard you went and signed up with the Pharaoh's Army, then. I trust this means you won't be around come the next flood season to help us out?" Horudja implored, though his voice was light. "Pity, I could use the help, though I suppose some of us have to stay home from spreading the greatness of the Two Lands across the world."

"I-um." The trio of messengers finally left Geordi's view, and with the visual reminders gone, their anxiety dimmed, just a bit. "I want to know more about the lands surrounding us, so I'm going to try and join the bowmen, they have Medjay in their ranks, from upriver."

Tadeddet tilted her head and hummed in response, before she spoke. "Do you have a bow to use? Or a knife to bring with you?"

Geordi shook their head. They had a knife indeed, but not one that would stand up to combat, old and dull as it was. And while they had shot bows before, and understood the basics of the practice, they didn't own one.

"No, nothing ready. But I'm going to try anyways. This may sound strange, but I think the Medjay might have some information I need, about the people of Aksum. You remember how I told you, once, that the people of my land worshiped only one God? I think it may be, somehow, the same God of Aksum."

Tadeddet elbowed her husband, "Horudja, I know damn well you haven't shot your bow in months, and this boy has worked hard for you, would you loan it over until he is able to make his own?"

Horudja grimaced for a moment, but evidently her words struck true, and he nodded, a bit vexed but with agreement. "It's true, I don't use the thing near as much as I should, the state of my hands doesn't help much either. You can borrow the bow until you get your own, but bring it back when you can, it's been with our family for a while. You can pick it up next time you come by to work and we can make you a knife as well."

Tadeddet grinned at her husband, and while Geordi had to take a second to process it, they did smile brightly at the couple as they thanked them two, promising to come by the forge as soon as they could. But soon they parted ways, Tadeddet headed to the market to buy vegetables and Horudja needing to pick up a copper shipment, though he did commiserate with Geordi about the rude nature of the dealer the copper had been coming through lately.

As they went to continue the day, Geordi's mind was heavy with thoughts, of war, of strange cultures, of the uncertain future. But for the moment their heart was light, and for the first time in the while, they felt that they were making progress towards learning more about the world outside of Waset's confines, even if it was daunting. Hopefully when Tefibi came, he would be a good teacher.

________

Alright, so, shooting a bow is a lot harder than it looks. And it makes my arms hurt, even though I've been farming these last few years. Suppose it's different combinations of muscles.

Also, Horudja is predominantly right-handed, and I'm not. So his bow is carved with that in mind. So, suppose the first big order of business is to make my own, and preferably one more similar to the one that the Medjay use, so if I can pass whatever test they have us do, it's less of an adjustment. Pity the wood around here isn't so great, kind of limits my options.

Ptahshedu still wants to keep that damn goat alive so I can't try to do anything with its horns unfortunately. I'll see what I can do with one piece of wood, maybe thin it down on the ends and bolster the middle with twine? Might help my grip too.

I wasn't lying when I told Qedunas I could shoot. I just didn't tell him how much that my shooting skills leave to be desired.

________

First Dynasty of Kemet
The Fourth Nome
Waset Village
First Month of Aket, Three Weeks Later
2960 BCE

Tefibi was indeed a very knowledgeable veteran and teacher. He was also an asshole who was not afraid to shout at those who he felt were not performing as well as he required. Frankly, it reminded Geordi of their time in the Fire Academy, a time in their life that they had had little desire to revisit. But for every time that the makeshift platoon- which had grown and shrunk in size as new men enlisted and a few quietly slipped away but remained at around 48 people- was debased and mocked by the sharp-tongued old man, he also taught them a valuable skill in turn.

Also, cadences hadn't been invented yet, which was a plus. Geordi chose not to re-introduce them.

They had gone over in detail the hierarchy of the Kemetian Army, how the Pharaoh was their commander but delegated command through several people: his commander and right hand man, who Tefibi named as 'General Baki,' would work alongside the Pharaoh, and below them the army would be divided into the two parts of the land from which they hailed, Upper and Lower Kemet. Lower Kemet would then be divided into the Ra and Amen branches, and Upper Kemet into the Ptah and Sutekh branches. With the twenty-two Nomes of Upper Kemet, and the twenty of Lower Kemet, this averaged into ten Nomes per branch.

Other than to account for disparities in the amounts of troops per Nome, with some having less people than others, some of the less populated Nomes indeed had only a few thousand people, most people stayed with the Nome and branch they originated in. These smaller groups were typically consolidated into one larger one in the past, and the Pharaoh had elected to continue the tradition, him and his conclave finding it easier to equate food and transport if each section of his army had roughly the same amount of people. The Fourth Nome had a considerable population, though not one as large or dense of that of Inebu-Hedj, and as such would likely remain unfused.

Five hundred men were expected from the Fourth Nome, as per the Pharaoh's decree, of which Waset would provide an expected fifty. Of the total platoon, they would be divided into five squads, each led by two squad leaders.

He had also gone into detail regarding the symbols that one could use to identify a group and where they would be placed in this vast expanse of military organization, and how to communicate with each other. For the Waset platoon, they would be designated by a plume fan for the Pharaoh, the white crown for Upper Kemet, a djed pillar for Ptah, a was scepter for the Fourth Nome, and a falcon for Montu.

Geordi had, after that lesson, devised a graph for Kawab and Ptahmose that laid out the hierarchy system in a more visual manner, with the symbols used to differentiate between their groups. Ptahmose had shared it with some of their peers, though, and the first copy ended up being only one of several, to the consternation of their aching hands.

"Follow the commands of your superior," Tefibi had said, during his explanations in between showing them callsigns and the horn rhythms used to communicate over distances. "To act without common discipline would make us no better than the raiders and Euneti that plague our lands, or the heretical nomads of the Isiwan. If he says to march before even Ra has risen, he probably has a damn good reason to do so. If he says to turn your ass around and retreat against good odds, likelihood is he knows something you don't. And Gods forbid you go against his orders, you best hope you have a damn good reason for doing so."

________

Update: the first bow I tried to make snapped in half after I shot it a few times. Lashed me good across the arm, whoops. Second bow was working alright but snapped one night while I was sleeping, and scared the shit out of me.

Third try was an atlatl- a spear thrower. I had gotten distracted that day, alright? It's actually really fun to use but harder to aim than a bow. Will keep on the backburner I suppose.

Currently on my fourth iteration. It's a definite improvement, though my knife is dull as ever the practice helps. I've set up a target outside of my house, and by target I mean a scarecrow with targets painted on its head and chest.

It's a bit macabre but also has the benefit of scaring birds away from my squash. Should have taken up shooting years ago, honestly.

I've been practicing whenever I can, sometimes with Ptahmose since he's so close by. He's seen death, for sure, so have I even before coming here, but I'm worried about how actual combat will affect him. How it'll affect me- to be the reason folks might die.

…. I'm going to go get a drink.

________

First Dynasty of Kemet
The Fourth Nome
Waset Village
Second Month of Aket
2960 BCE

The House of Montu was rarely quiet during the day, people coming to-and-fro for a vast variety of reasons, but in the wake of learning about the next Campaign, it felt busier than ever. Men and boys who had enlisted came to pray for fighting prowess and the strength of the Falcon God. Wives, children and parents came in a similar vein to pray to him for their loved ones safety in the future. Indeed almost every day at least a couple people came by to venerate him, and often left small gifts of carved idols, food, candles and plants in their wake.

As the religious and authoritative center of Waset, this also meant that they were fairly regularly receiving couriers and notices from Thebes, some even having troubled from as far as Men-Nefer and beyond, with updates regarding what would be supplied to the people of Waset, and what would be required of them in turn. This meant a lot of records to make, food to tally and people to wrangle for various items and jobs. And of course the Priests of Montu could not forsake their personal duties to their God, keeping the temple maintained, daily worship in the form of cleaning and anointing his Statue and offering it food, beckoning forth the sun each morning. Geordi had long since been integrated into their folds, and sat alongside their brothers as they paid their respects.

(Religion was a complicated matter, in Geordi's eyes. They prayed, and gave tribute, and thanked the Gods for good fortune alongside the people of Waset. But similar to throwing salt over one's shoulder or not stepping under ladders, it was an acquired set of superstitions, over the years mixing with and supplanting their old ones, even if some from before had persisted. The glass nazar pendant and tattoo they bore weren't Kemetian in origin. But the lotus and falcon tattoos they had painstakingly acquired a few years in definitely were: a tribute to Hepi and Montu respectively. So even if they didn't fully believe in the religious pantheon of Kemet, it was an important part of their life. The temple and the people had given them much, after all.)

So indeed during the second month of Aket, during the thirty days that Geordi worked their shift at the Temple, they did not have a lot of time to prepare for war. So it was in the early morning and at night, after the Statue was cloistered for the evening, that Geordi tried to take some time to work on their various projects. The project they were working on on this particular night was a pair of shoes.

In Waset, most people forsake wearing shoes for a variety of reasons. The ground they wandered was not usually tough, being either well trodden sandstone or the black dirt of the nile. Leather and wood both went to more practical uses, sandals made of reeds and bulrushes could be uncomfortable, and fell apart quickly. But due to the amount of traveling that the enlisted men of Kemet would be doing, and the less than favorable terrain they were likely to come across, it had been recommended for each man to have with him a basic pair of shoes.

Not enjoying the prospect of spending months intermittently wearing a pair of woven papyrus sandals, Geordi had themselves decided to at least try and make a sturdier alternative. Shoemaking had never been a hobby of theirs but neither had many of the skills required in this contemporary life, so it did not pose much of a mental barrier to begin drafting up basic ideas.

As a child, though they now rarely thought of that time, Geordi's parents had been enjoyers of events such as Renaissance festivals, and often had costumes to match. They found themself thinking of the leather shoes their mother would wear, and the segmented bark of the palm trees growing aside the Nile, and the not-inconsiderable sewing skills they had picked up over the years, and began to devise a plan.

Finding the flattest bark fronds they could find on the palm trees around Waset, Geordi took to trying to flatten them further, first with prolonged weight in the form of heavy rocks and then when that resulted in the wooden slabs becoming fractured, they moved to boiling them, which took a couple tries but eventually landed them with a dozen or so mostly flat pieces of bark. Using their beleaguered knife to carve shapes into the prospective soles, Geordi made outlines of their feet and slowly cut and bent them out of the wood, finding that doing this soon after boiling them made them more malleable. To lessen the chances of splinters, they sanded the edges down by rubbing them on river rocks, and coating the edges in bone glue. Out of traded leather and leather cordage, they sewed a pair of rudimentary slippers and put the soles inside, bonding them together with more glue and weight. Finally, out of the remaining cordage, they made long laces that would hold the shoes steadily on their feet when worn, and when not in use could be tied together to be worn around their neck, or to a pack.

When asked about the project, as one can only spend so much time boiling tree bark before their peers begin to ask questions, Geordi answered honestly, that they wanted to try and make something sturdier for going over rough terrain than the reed sandals that were, if not standard, the general understanding within the area of what kind of shoes had been implied for the army to produce upon the next inundation. The knowledge that reed-woven shoes were scratchy, floppy and uncomfortable to wear to them was also a factor, but one they kept to themselves.

When next training, Tefibi had very bluntly- as military instructors tend to do- asked what the hell was going on in Geordi's head when they spend the time and effort to make such things. Geordi, very bluntly and not great under scrutiny, replied that it was to help prevent tetanus.

Even if cadences weren't yet a thing used in the Kemetian military, apparently some things such as "nick-naming your subordinates as a power move" were just from time immemorial. But hey, at least 'Tetanu' wasn't as demeaning a moniker as 'Babyfeet.'

But even so, the idea of boiling, and later steaming wood to bend it caught on within Waset, even if that hadn't been something they'd originally intended or even really thought of. Fairly soon, the practice spread out of the town, and through couriers the idea went to Thebes and beyond. It also made it just a bit easier to create a shield, though that was a pain in itself.

________

Update: While I won't lie and say that I'm always enjoying how busy my life has become what with standard Kemet army training, the necessities of work in Waset, and my own private practices of archery and other skills, the work is starting to pay off. I'm not a sniper by any means, but I'm able to aim fairly consistently with my bow when I'm standing still, even from many paces, and slowly I'm getting the hang of shooting while moving. It's still a pain when it's windy, my shoulders are almost always sore and I had to start wearing wraps on my forearms to stop bruising them every day.

Also, archery does not help tendinitis. My hands fall asleep a lot more often now. Whoops.

But there is a goal at play here that I'm looking to reach. A small group of medjays, none of them the woman who almost stabbed me, came through Waset the other day, on passage to Thebes. Of the five of them, three had those remarkable weapons.

People who come from upriver, where there are Jehovah's Witnesses with compound bows. If I can ingratiate myself with the Medjay, even one of them, maybe I can learn more about the people of Aksum, or maybe even go there. There could be so much to learn.

Once the campaign is over, of course.

[Ardchu]

Tomas woke up to a growl. Jumping up, all morning drowsiness gone, he grabbed a rather large stick. He knew that growl. Jaguar. He saw the big cat stalk through the underbrush, and the cat had seen him. It watched him, judging how easy of a kill he would be. It must’ve decided an easy one, because it ran towards him. He knew better than to turn his back, but he clambered onto a tree trunk that had some conveniently places growths. Jaguars were good climbers though. It gracefully leaped up to him in a few bounds, but he was ready. Swinging the stick around, it clubbed the Jaguar in the mouth, sending it sideways and into the tree.

Then an arrow flew. Then two. Then three. The Jaguar had a look of shock on its face, and Tomas felt bad for the creature, who was just trying to survive. But he had more pressing matters. Spinning toward where the arrows came, almost taking his loincloth (made of leaves and vines) off due to wind, he saw a human. Another human! ¡Muy bien! ¿Pero puedes hablar Español? He didn’t know. Give how the human was dressed, he guessed not. He didn’t speak any native languages. He found the ones he tried to learn too confusing. But this human drew a bow back, saying something in his language.

“No entiendo, señor. Porfa, deja el arco,” Tomas said, in Spanish. The person clearly didn’t understand, and with a hint of fear in his eyes, drew back an arrow. Tomas thought fast, and chucked his stick at him. Clunk. Oof, right between the eyes. The person had fired an arrow, but his aim was off, and it thudded into the tree a few feet from Tomas. Tomas made haste, looting the human for what he could find. Arrows, his bow, a spear, and yes, a better loincloth. Tomas felt better, and decided that this spot wouldn’t do. He needed a better, more easily defendable position. He hoped, now he knew there were people out here, that not all of them were taken.

[Saxony-Brandenburg]

The Torrid Land of Kengir
Late 2960 BCE

The Sun was still below the earth when the band of twenty three rose from their slumber. They had neither fire nor encampment to give away themselves to the village, who softly slept unknowing of those who watched them from afar. Their camel-herd chewed the grass nearby, quiet as the night. They whispered, shuffled softly as they donned their simple arms and apparel- metal protection of any kind was shunned for simple hoods and robes. Quick to move in, quiet to move in. They rolled their blankets and put away their baggage- covering it with branches and reeds, to be collected later when the deed was done.

“Have you strung your bow?”

“Have you readied your camel?”

The group mounted their beasts, bare of any of their normal burdens but for reins and bridle. Whence all of them were in-tow, they descended from their hidden place within a grove of trees, and softly passed through the fields and towards the hamlet they had sighted to prey upon. A collection of just a few homes, just the same in appearance as those of their own countrymen, housing just the same people as their countrymen. It was only in who they paid their taxes to, that declared them to be a target to these men.

They advanced at a trot through the reeds and groves, right up to the hamlet, and had yet to be seen. The light of morning had not yet risen from beneath its nightly shroud. The horizon dappled blue with red. Their chief peeled off groups of them, and assigned them each to their tasks: one house for you three, one house for three more. To the fields to steal cattle and sheep for ten of them, and one to watch the road to for incoming dangers. Whence they had placed themselves into position, and the light of morning had just cracked, that they could make their wits about them without being lost, the chief gave the hand-signal, and they descended upon the hamlet silently - not with screams or shouts, but with the full galloping sound of their camels beneath them.

They made it up to the doors of the houses before anyone had noticed - but for the slamming of the doors wide open, which made them well known. A man, startled, throws himself out of bed - he tries to shove them from his house, but he is beaten, and dragged from his home and into the street - kicked and punched until he refuses to move. Meanwhile, a younger man, perhaps a boy even, emerges from the home next door. Inside, his mother screams for him to return. He does not. He carries his father’s spear, his deceased father, who died in the war against Ur. The raiders, without a second thought, spear the boy through the stomach. Metal pierces flesh, as his whole body contorts in agony. The raider shoves the boy off his weapon, and continues on - leaving the kid to writhe on the ground, to bleed to death. His mother sprints from the door - wailing, screaming. They ignore her, too captivated in her son’s foolish heroism to stop them.

The raiders drag two men from another house, one which put up no fight. They slap the older man, and demand in broken Sumerian where their valuables are. He relents, and points towards a box beneath their bedding. Not reveling in dispensing pain, they drop them both, and collect their meager prize.

Yet what they are truly after is two-fold: livestock and goods. They threw open the village granary, and from it filled sacks which they had brought with them with all the meat and fruit they could take with them. They loaded their camels with wool and cloth, leather and rawhide, tools of any metal, and whatever valuables the black-heads had.

A young man among the raiding party slinks into a lone house. Screams of a woman are heard inside, and as one of them goes to investigate - he sees the young man beginning to disrobe a young woman in front of her sister, who can do nothing but scream and watch. His brother places down his spear, and from behind the young raiding man strikes him twice in the side, and once in the back of the head - before the young man buckles, and is dragged by his older compatriot out of the home.

“You idiot!” He barks. “You have a woman promised to you at home. Do not dishonor her with your conduct with another. Do not violate the Sharia even with the others.”

They leave open and broken on the ground and in the homes goods too bulky to be worth the carry. Urns of wheat and barley grain are opened and left alone, for little is there to gain by these warriors to take or destroy what is needed most in amounts more than they can carry on camelback. Better for an army to seize than a simple raiding party. With their loot heavily weighing down upon their camels, they re-mount. Their chief takes from on his camel a horn, and pressing it to his lips sounds the echoing cry heard all around. Those around him whistle to the attention of any who did not hear, and leading them, those men inside the village make their way out into the fields to meet up with their comrades.

Those ten men who out in the fields make their plunder have tied the largest of their prizes, oxen and cattle, with rope around their heads and horns. They lead them slowly, slower than their comrades would like - who yell at them to move faster, and yet it is as fast as such large animals will to move. Those with smaller prey have much easier times - a wise man can tie a goat’s legs together with strong rope, and place two upon the camel’s back, and one over his shoulders.

No arrow loose was let, for so easy and unguarded was their target. Yet, little was their prize of great value - simple goods from simple people, it was neither dignified nor heroic, but it wasn’t intended so. These plundering men, having taken all they could carry, make their way out of the village in a line, their chief ordering them to “pick up the slack” as they make their ways away from the rising sun. The sky turns a brilliant red, as light begins to shine upon those they harmed to take their spoil. A boy’s blood stains the dirt a red just as true and vibrant as the morning light. Another day has come, another tragedy has come. O the terrible routine of warfare. O the tragic banality of it all.

The Gishimarii, raised in war, think little of this. When their raiding party returns, they will sell what they can at the market. Then another one is dispatched, and another, and another, and for the whole first month of the year villages west of Umma and Lagash are struck. The people will be made to suffer, both as sport, lifestyle and training for the campaign which is to come. Fathers bring their sons, for this will teach them to hurt others, before the plentiful slaughter of lives will be required. It is clear to them that this is the path of a people towards war.

---

Olifia al Gishimmari

The gardens of Nippur had once been a beautiful legacy of their Lugals, a physical embodiment of the blooming of the city. The gardens were the city, in a way. It reflected not only its prosperity, but the unique culture surrounding lord Enlil, who once claimed the city as his own. Now, this could not be said. For Enlil had been deposed with his black-headed subjects. Would it be any wonder that as the city should change, so should her gardens? For many flowers and bushes, ferns and shrubs had been removed in whole, dead from neglect during and in the months after the war. Overgrowth had been purged, ripped from the soil and cut at the bone with shears and sickles. New order had to be cut into it. New customs established. For in the place of much fargone, the symbol of the city’s newfound rulers was planted. Palmtrees in the dozens filled the grove. Trees not merely the kind which bear fruit - not merely the tall ones which sway in the breeze, but of such an assortment of variety that no individual one looked quite the same. There were the tall ones, the oldest ones in the grove which had been planted by the black-heads, which were left to stand as sacred elders of their kind. The next tallest were transplants, brought in from the groves surrounding and south of the city. From across the south of Kengir, which lord Jushur called his domain, they carried as best a specimen as they could come across to fill their gardens. They varied from tall and narrow to short and wide, abundant and sparse in greenery. Some had broad, wide fronds - while others had many more thin and spindly ones. Some leaked sweet sap, while some were bitter to the taste. Some were barren until the very top - some sprouted from every inch of its body - that it looked closer to a cypress tree than a palm.

It was also an unmistakable mark of the Gishimmari’s presence upon the land, that in the shade of these trees, their trees, and between the legacy flowers and bushes which they could water and bring back to life that a statue of me stood. It was neither hidden nor shrouded like that of the gods, nor should it have been - lest I become too revolted by their idea of me. Surrounding such a statue was, however, littering traces of devotion which made it clear the statue was no mere dedication. Scatterings of ashes, candles burnt to the nub. What had they burned these for? For what did they invoke my name? Did they think me a god?... The very thought sent shivers down my spine. A thought which I could only float in my most intoxicated of states. I berated myself for even considering it then.

Yet this statue marked a square in the middle of the grove where a great number of stone benches had been placed. More of a square surrounded by a garden, than a garden with a square. It had just so happened that this square became my favorite one to play teacher with the masses. To lecture the common people of this barbarous time with my so-called ‘enlightened’ musings and ‘revelations’. Though I think of myself with disgust sometimes with the authority they lay upon my words, I cannot help but enjoy it. I cannot help but speak it. For just because I think it absurd that I should be the one to tell others what to believe… I do not believe it is entirely untrue. What can be said about me, but that I had been cast into an era of thousands of years less of historically accumulated knowledge. What vast array of ideas had I been exposed to by simply the age of eighteen. I still carried them, now despite having lived in these times for equal measure as the times of my birth. Reborn into this body, it was entirely native to this moment. Only my mind remained tied to my past life.

I stood before them, beside the ritual fire which was now ever-present at these religious sessions. For even though this was a lecture, what came before it was anything but purely scholastic. Even though my mind focused on such grand notions as the ordered universe, the gods, the soul… the Gishimmari found just as much significance in the ritual which came around it. The first one was when, once gathered, we lit the fire before the crowd of students and onlookers. Narwa took from the temple of Inanna a piece of the burning flame, which she then placed into a copper lantern box. From there she brought it to the gardens, and, kneeling down, transferred it into the new fire. As the new fire was lit by the sacred fire of the goddess, she spoke up to them, saying “The body and soul are as fire and fuel. They are inseparable. They are mortal. They will one day return to itself. Smoke shall find oblivion in the great sky. The ash shall blow away in the breeze. Yet while it burns, it burns brightly.”

When she had finished, I thanked her with a bow of my head, and stood before the crowd of onlookers. I'd memorized what I wished to say, at least in points to expound upon. I was lucky then to have been blessed with a gift of extemporaneous speaking - aided more so by years of public speaking to these familiar faces on one topic or another.

“I have told you before of the unity of being, the unity of divinity. Of Wahd, the eternal duplicity of unity and multiplicity. I have told you before of Abzu, the plain in which all things above Kur exist within, ripples of waves crashing upon each other. I have told you before of the three contemplations to achieve enlightenment- of the divine, of nature, and of the self. I wish to today focus on Wahd once again, but in the context of the body of the divine body. For all gods which point towards and embody virtue are like light broken by a prism- they are the universal godhood, which is nameless, willess and formless, being given name will and form. All things are within and of the universal god, the monad. All things are that universal God's light reflected back at it. To commune with it, you must be a seeker of truth. A seeker of knowledge. You must master its aspects to understand its nature. Like pedals on a flower, each is individual in form, yet when one looks back, he can see the beautiful unity in all divinity.” I raised my hand, and pointed towards it. “See my many fingers. Each moves on its own, yet each is rooted in the palm. They are not the same, they are not Tawhid, such as when I raise but one finger. No, they are Wahd, separate, but unified.”

“Our teacher!” A voice cried from the crowd. “By what wisdom do you know these truths? How have you come to know this?”

“As I have said my students, contemplation! Look at nature, what do you see? Chaos, multiplicity. A beautiful dance of millions of plants and creatures which live amongst each other. And yet within that dance, what can you find but patterns, order, unity. The mouse shall eat the grass which is warmed by the sun, which shall be eaten by the snake, which shall be eaten by the hawk. Is it not so remarkable how ordered the cycle of life is in the absence of man? Look to the world of plants, which although growing independent of one another, reproduce the same shapes and spirals as if communicated from mother to child over the course of generations. Taken as a whole, nature is as the divine one being, which swells and retracts, it consumes itself and grows. There you can find Wahd. And as we are beings of nature, as we are made of the same flesh as the creatures of the earth, are we not a part of those very same processes, those cycles? The farmer and the herder know that we are just as much a part of nature as the deer and the jackal. Even within the walls of the city we live a part of it.”

And another from the crowd replied: “But Lady-Prophet, what does this mean for us? For we who are seekers of knowledge, what do we do upon the recognition of Wahd? How do we incorporate this wisdom into our lives?”

“Why, to live a life of virtue and cleanliness. The rightfold path is followed not when one merely sees the trailhead, but follows it his whole journey. When one sees himself as a part of Wahd, a connected being of all mankind and all of nature- good conduct and good living becomes evident by fulfilling his place within this great motion, great body.”

And again replied: “But where do we look to find this evident virtue?”

“Look around you. Look within you. The body and soul are intertwined, the spiritual and physical are simultaneous. When you are soiled, by blood, by dirt, by disease, by sin: you are unclean in both body and soul. There can be no separation between the two. Both plague the self, both must be washed clean thereafter. For to allow sin, to allow disease, to allow filth to fester is to invite it to spread. Like a disease, it is not isolated to the self. For all things are connected, Wujud and Wahd interplay. When you harm another, do you not think you harm yourself? For even the killing of an animal - it is you and you are it, you have harmed yourself. It is sin- it is unclean, both in body and spirit. It must be atoned for, it must be properly done. Good deeds, merit, stick to the soul just as wrongful deeds do. Goodness and virtue when cultivated brings prosperity to the tribe. Evil deeds and sin can only return as plague and disaster.”

“What do you call that, lady-prophet? The return of evil deeds, the self harm? By what force does it manifest?”

I nervously looked around. It suddenly occurred to me a sort of falseness which permeated my lectures. It was not that I had some crucial revelation of newfound knowledge which I had to impart, but rather that I had assembled in my mind a series of memories, half-remembered ideas from my past life, and presented them to these devoted people in the hopes of sparking some goodness among them. I felt so cynical, then, and yet I was honest when I told them as best I could what I could recall. Perhaps it was that I presented these concepts as fact that inspires so much guilt in me when faced with how unoriginal it was. And yet in my heart it made so much sense. I truly did believe in the relationship of I to them, of all to another. And so casting aside this guilt, I was simply honest.

“It is called Karma. You would do well to be on its good side. It is the mechanism by which the workings of Wahd are made apparent. For Good deeds merit good Karma, and lead one down the path of goodness. Sin, pollution, bad Karma is what then leads the traveler astray and through times of trouble and pain.”

“What must we do, Umm Kharuf, to rid ourselves of our bad Karma, to make it good?”

“I cannot tell you what to do. I am not the authority on all virtue, on all your lives. As a wise man once said, ‘I can point to the moon, do not look at my finger, look at the moon.’ Purify yourselves of physical and spiritual uncleanliness. You must walk the noble path. Cultivate virtue not only within yourself, but outside yourself - in that around you. Where there is uncleanliness, there is poison.”

And from there a great chattering came about from the crowd, as the students, excited by such a call to action, looked to each other for what to do.

“How are we so unclean?”

“I have not bathed in days. Oh how I must reek with the scent of pollution.”

“My clothes must be washed- I cannot stand to feel this dirt any longer.”

“The tavern! The black-headed prostitutes dirty its rooms by working in the open! They must go behind closed doors!”

“The animal market reeks! I can smell its foul odor from my home! It must be causing a plague upon my house!”

“My students!” I called out to them. “You see now evidence of the pervasiveness of uncleanliness in your lives. As lovers of goodness, and of virtue, I know you desire to be rid of them. Go then, with this character, to your Ensi, the wise Yassib, who was my loyal companion and follower through his whole life. But go to him not with the spirit of a gardener, one who must rip weeds from the garden. No, you are fellow pilgrims, just as any man or woman who lives in dirtiness. Go with compassion, go with understanding. When you ban the prostitute from the tavern - do it not from revulsion, but for want of them to work in a dignified manner. When you rid the town of the butcher, do it not because his trade is polluted and thus so is he, but that he may practice his trade where it may be clean. When you see a man who is dirty, do not revile him for lack of ability to clean himself, but offer in good charity to clean him. Bless you, who understands my words as I say them. Curse you, who seeks to use my words to harm another. Now go amongst yourselves, to decide what must be done. Enforce among yourselves just as fervently as you may desire amongst your neighbors to see the Sharia be enforced.”

And so I left them to their own devices then, leaving the square and those still inside it, who I bid not follow me as I returned to my home. There was guilt in my heart for portraying myself, who was merely sharing an assembly of beliefs I could postulate, into religious truth. I could not tell them how to live their lives. That was a bridge too far even for myself. Yet what I could do, what I had to make sure, was that in their use of my words they would not use it to make the same mistakes of the past. And, as it had turned out, I would later receive word that they had done as I had asked. A messenger of the Ensi, Yassib, my friend, had come asking if the gods approved of banning animal slaughter inside the city. Naturally, I bid him yes, and presumed he returned to his master for his final approval of the law.

What powers did I possess, that a lecture could do so much in such a short amount of time? What power was held in my words, and did they betray me? I could not be sure if I was the correct person to take on such a power, but it seemed as though this was to be something I had unleashed to the world, and it would not merely end here. For those who I influenced had minds of their own, and they would do what they believed right - and I had no control over what they did, beyond begging for them to understand my words as I had meant them.

Elsewhere in Nippur…

There is a home within this city of foreigners and foreign prophets, foreign gods and foreign ideas - a home of these aforementioned strangers to this land, who have made it their occupation the ways of war and the ways adjoining war. It is a home of not merely the average nomad turned warrior aristocrat, but the home of the cheif of one such clan. It is a man by the name of Ilyās, a man who has lived fourty-three years upon the earth. He has lived in the heat of the south of gishimmari country- where the land between the mountains of the south and the west dry into long flat plains. He herded goats then, but more than that, he stole them. He stole goats and sheep and food and water- he stole animal hides and cloth. He stole wine and beads and anything else he could grab. Anything in possession of that enemy of his house, a neighbor whose rivalry he knew not the origin of. He did not even know if there was ever an origin, or if it had always been merely bad blood for its own sake. Hatred to justify the violence and theft they'd come to rely on to make ends meet.

Ilyās had been a late convert. Hed learned of the prophet of Yanbu from her people's campaigns in the south. When they fought the people of the western coast and took for themselves much spoils in her name, and the name of the gods she served in those days. Yet what had converted him was not the victory, but an enrapturing encounter for the first time he had between his soul and the divine. For one night his enemy clan had taken upon themselves to seek revenge for their stolen livestock, and ambushed his encampment before he knew they were upon him. For that night a man of whom he had injured repeatedly, a man whom he had deprived food from his mouth, and from his children's mouths, and from his kinfolk’s mouths - did put him to the sword. Holding him at knifepoint, Ilyās expected to meet his ancestors that moment. Yet his attacker hesitated, and in the moonlight he saw upon the attacker’s chest hanging a strange pendant of black rock. “Why do you not kill me?” He had asked the man, who stared him back in pain. “The prophet says that you are my brother. I want your livestock, I want to eat. I do not want your life.”

What a terrible feeling of humility did he feel then, that he simply nodded, and, as if the two needed not to speak to one another- Ilyās was let to live, but deprived of his belongings. So strange was this feeling, the first of its kind he had ever felt, that he followed the campfire smoke of his previous night’s attackers- but rather than seeking to prove the man’s mercy folly, came to them with empty hands, and begged them to give him charity for himself and his family. Strange was it, then, alien to his lifestyle- that the man who stole his goat and his wine accepted- and shared with Ilyās and his family the food prepared with his own stolen livestock. When he’d asked the man what compelled him to act such a way- the man had told him of his own conversion, and shared with him the tablet-pendant, which carved upon it, he claimed, was the symbols of heaven’s speech which read “all men are brothers.”

Ilyās then traveled with the man and his clan as they went on pilgrimage to Yanbu, to see the idols and hear the speech of the prophet Umm Kharuf, who preached of charity and mercy, honor and duty to one’s kin and strangers- for all men were one within the universal body called Abzu. His newfound friends had agreed to join her in her journey to the promised land- where the tripple goddess Al-Lāt had told her that a land of water and abundance would belong to their people if they would only leave their barren homes behind and travel to the lands beyond the great open desert. With faith and newfound belief in his heart, Ilyās not only agreed to follow his friends in the pilgrimage, but he and his clan agreed to become guards for the expedition- their nomadic ways protecting the caravan as they traveled the great distance into the foreign land.

Which brought Ilyās and his tribe, then, to this home. A large and wide building outside the city, settled among the pastureland he grazed his goats on. He still was a man of theft, he still was a man of war. His sons would soon join him on a raid into the lands of Lagash. They would soon learn the harsh reality of conflict and life in a hostile world. Yet they were young men, and did not yet know the proper conduct of a man of war. They heard the prophet speak, he heard recited her poems and utterances on the nature of virtue and the connectedness of all things. But he did not believe they quite understood them, which is why he made them come with their cousins and uncles, nephews and further kin to pray together this night, beneath the light of the moon. They knelt on rugs behind the house, and in the night felt the breeze on their skin. Soon would be a raid, yet soon after would be the nightmare of true war.

A small fire had been made before the group of worshippers, fighters longing for divine protection on the future roads which led them to the gates of death. Ilyās took a hot coal, and in the manner of the prophet passed among his sons and kinfolk a pipe of animal bone. They smoked the plant the Black-Heads called Kunibu, which brought both contemplation and joy to the mind. Ilyās pointed to the night sky, and named it “upper abzu” to them, the great celestial ocean of gods and souls.

Then Ilyās began to recite to them what he had learned from one sermon he had heard, that which he had come to live by as a man of the sword. “The lives lived by us mortal men are like a flame in the stormy night. How cruel is life that wind and rain quickly extinguishes it, swallowed whole by the twisting air. As soon as it comes it goes, without a trace of smoke. It is inevitable, unavoidable. You can run, you can shield yourself from it, yet it will always catch up to you. A man’s honor, however, is possible to protect. For the death of your honor is only possible by your decisions- your acts of cowardice or the neglect of duty. Duty for the man of war is not only to their comrades, but to their enemy as well. All being, all the stars in the sky are one light. All men are brothers, as they are all cut of the same cloth. We are all of Wahd. Listen to me boys, when a man harms another, he also harms himself. It is a sin, it is pollution- one which must be atoned for, And for every death a man of war inflicts upon another, is another atonement he must make. Should he neglect to do so, the wound in his soul will be just as infected as a wound in his flesh. He will surely perish. It is the way of the warrior that death is certain, death of himself or his enemy, and therefore is it that his vocation can only be mastered when he conducts himself properly in the ways of noble warfare. You will find there is war, and there is raiding, and there is slaughter. Slaughter is the death of noble war. Mercy is the burden of a mighty man of virtue. Mercy for even the man you hate, mercy for the man who has injured you. For honor is the only lasting pillar of your life. To abandon it would be to allow all of men to be swallowed into the abyss. Savagery, like the jackals of the night do. But as young men I must warn you: Do not let honor become arrogance, as has been done before. The proper conduct of warfare, which is to be rewarded with good merit, is made with humility and discretion just as well as bravery. Suicide is just as poison as murder. Pointless martyrdom will only harm those who you seek to protect. Blessed be the man who is wise in war, is merciful in war, and is brave in war. For he is a warrior of merit, and his soul is pure even as his hands are bloodied. Maybe, once you understand these things, will you master your vocation, your inheritance of war.”

[Orostan]

THE EMPIRE OF CHINA - AARON DAWSON
2959 BC

Battle of the Sheshui River

The date of the new year was one of the few things Aaron's empire had set down that was universally recognized across China. Maybe that was more because groups of priests, who had been observing the stars for generations, were the ones to set dates rather than Aaron himself. Regardless of why the date of the new year was universally accepted, while the men celebrated leaders inside and outside the Empire were preparing themselves for the next months of skirmishing and the battles they knew would occur over the spring and summer.

One such leader was Xiong Qiang, proclaimed king of Chu by an alliance of the largest tribes after Aaron had been driven back north years ago. While he knew the tyrant's generals in the north were preparing themselves for another war against Chu, he was receiving pledges of loyalty from eastern and western tribal chiefs in the city of Huang, which wasn't far from where the city of Wuhan could be thousands of years later.

The tribal representatives knelt before the king in the throne room of Huang's palace. The palace itself was built when Aaron controlled the region and underneath the green banners that had become a symbol of resistance to the empire and local decorations was a distinctly northern architectural style. The green flag with a copper colored border that featured the character for "Chu" - another northern import - hung over the throne which had been crafted by southern artisans out of fine wood.

The king examined his new subjects, reciting a pledge of his own to protect their tribes to each of them and granting them a noble title - usually "duke" for the more powerful tribes and "lord" for the minor ones. Two of the most powerful chiefs (both high ranking dukes) aside from Xiong stood by the throne while the process was done. Their servants accepted the gifts of bronze and ivory that were brought into the room.

The moment the group of tribesmen gave a parting bow and then left the room through the large entrance at the front of it Xiong turned to his two associates. "What do you think?" he asked them.

The one at his right spoke first. Wei Wuying was a chief from the south of Chu and he spoke the local language with a heavy accent. "Solid men means strong tribes."

The one on the left nodded. Song Wen was from the north and spoke in a way that was more similar to the Yellow River people - something which in recent times had caused others to become suspicious of him. Xiong new better though.

"Solid men are killed by arrows and metal spears all the same. We'll see how useful they are when the first levies arrive." he said.

Xiong got up from his throne. "Speaking of levies, I believe you said-"

The king was cut off by a messenger calling out as he darted into the room and fell to his knees in front of the throne. "My king! Urgent news. The northerners have begun a big attack directed at Shouchun! The Duke Gui of Chen has appealed for aid from his highness."

"How many enemies?" the king asked.

"Three groups of five hundred. One group is elite infantry and archers, the rest are levies." the messenger replied.

The King took a moment to consider the news. Five hundred northern soldiers was nothing to scoff at, and the Empire's levies were usually of higher quality than the southern warriors on many battlefields considering that many of them attended yearly training after reaching adulthood and were led by officers drawn from the elite infantry.

"Tell the Duke of Chen that I am coming with two thousand of my best men and as many levies as I can take."

The messenger bowed again and immediately ran out of the room, no doubt going to travel the way back to Chen as quickly as possible.

"Duke Song, come with me. Duke Wei, stay here and tell Prince Yating that he's in charge while his father is gone." The King commanded. Wei couldn't respond before the King was on the way out of the room with Duke Song beside him. Guards from both their tribes fell in behind both men as they traveled through the northerner built palace to the courtyard which had once hosted the local militia barracks. These had been expanded by the Chu in their best imitation of northern building techniques to house many more warriors, and the officers upon seeing the King enter commanded the men to rise out of their tents or drop their training for a moment. They must have heard the news already.

In a moment close to a thousand warriors were arranged in front of him. They weren't in neat squares like the Chinese would have been, but their rougher rows were imposing in a similar way. Their armor was mostly improvised plates of copper and bronze made in imitation of the northern style, with the officers or most elite soldiers wearing captured northern iron in varying conditions, usually with some green fabric wrapped around the arms or body to distinguish themselves from potential enemies. The quality of weapons was much the same. The spears and halberds raised for the king were bronze and featured a few captured bronze spear and halberd heads. The shafts most definitely were local - a trained eye could tell the difference between Imperial cut wood and the usual way of cutting wood because of the better sanding and grooves the northerners liked to make for better grip that the southerners didn't bother with. What men didn't have long weapons were usually carrying maces of a distinctly southern character.

The King only had to raise his voice briefly. The people of Chu were used to action rather than talk. "Chen is under attack! We go to defend our brothers and destroy the northern invaders!"

The men answered as one. "We are ready!"

---

The passage over the hills was not difficult by any measure, and there were many routes an army could take. This is why the Chu king had stopped his army when he heard that the Duke of Chen was fleeing south with what remained of his forces rather than continue to fight the northerners alone. It was the sensible thing to do. Despite that, the few Chen messengers that had managed to evade northern cavalry chasing them around the countryside reported that the Chen would take longer than expected to meet the King's army. They gave their various excuses but the fact was that the longer it took the Chen to lose their pursuers and get to the meeting location the more enemy troops poured into Chu territory, the more fortified towns and land fell to them, and the more pleas for aid from vassals the King received.

Finally on the seventh day of waiting King Qiang was shook out of bed by his servants - finally, the Chen force had been spotted! His mind immediately sprung out of its early morning fog and he rushed to put his battle clothing and armor on while his servants explained the situation. The enemy was right behind them and their banners were visible in the trees - it looked like they were gaining as well.

Duke Wei and Duke Song had squeezed their way in the tent to advise the king while he finished putting on his armor and the soldiers in the camp around them hurried to prepare for battle.

"I urge caution, hastiness never won a battle.", said Duke Wei. "I advise quick action, the enemy is tired after a long pursuit" said Duke Song. Both reasonable men with reasonable suggestions.

The king put on his helmet and exited his brightly colored tent. "Now is the time for action, we will meet the enemy as soon as possible - where are the Chen?"

A scout loitering near the King's group spoke up. "They're approaching a big hill near the Sheshui River. They number-" Qiang cut him off.

"Let's go.", he ordered.

The Chu army soon set out towards the Chen, what scouts could get close enough to report on what the Duke Gui and the northern general Zhao Fen were doing were deceived into believing a battle would soon break out as the two forces threw javelins, crossbow bolts, and arrows at the other from as far as they could. None struck any targets - while pursued the intention of shooting at your enemy was to make them slow down and avoid entering your range, and while in pursuit you wanted to fool the enemy into attempting to evade your shots and go to the right or left rather than forward and away from you.

The first sign to the King that something was wrong was the surprised reports from scouts when his army was coming around the hill. The Chen and Chinese had stopped fighting. Duke Song suggested that Duke Gui was faking a surrender, and Duke Wei remained silent and his expression began to darken.

When the enemy banners came into view they were intermingled with the Chen flags. The moment the two armies could clearly see each other the Chinese and Chen men to move amongst the other, sorting themselves into a formation. The King's officers began to mirror the movement and form a battle line. The King did not understand what was going on until he saw the Chen men in their mismatched tribal war gear stand shoulder to shoulder with the Chinese soldiers whose uniform equipment from a distance made them look almost identical.

The King was only shook out of his shock when the enemy army erupted in a battle cry and began to charge, Chen and northerner together. He gave what orders he could. "Elite soldiers keep the high ground! Skirmishers forward!" but by the time his own army had recovered from the shock of betrayal the crossbow bolts had already begun to fall. Half the Chinese force was crossbowmen, and they had been drilled to fire quickly. The first few volleys came almost at the same time, each one bringing down the Chu's own skirmishes before their less advanced bows were in range. By the time the bulk of the enemy force was in range a good deal of the skirmishers were dead and the King ordered his infantry into a counter charge. He would try to send his elite troops farther up the hill around to strike the enemy's side or rear but at this point a terrible feeling began to grow over him. His two thousand elites were good, and the several thousand levies he had been able to assemble in short order were also full of fighting spirit even if they were less well trained and much less well equipped - but they would have trouble matching the northerners under normal circumstances in this situation, much less when outnumbered because of an ally's betrayal.

The bolts continued to fall as the Chinese levy infantry pushed forward in a wall with their halberds. The Chen were having a much more difficult time of it - even the support of their new lord's crossbows couldn't blunt the spirit of men who were fighting traitors. But where was the enemy's own elite infantry? They always brought sword and shield infantry on campaign, especially this far out of their Empire.

The King's question was answered before he asked it by a report from Duke Song. The northerners had the same idea they had - all their elite infantry was concentrated on the side of the hill that was the high ground in this fight. Duke Song advised a withdrawal to a better position, and the King agreed. To do that now however would mean a rout. There had to be something to push the Chinese back to at least buy the Chu a temporary reprieve.

The King ordered his reserves to his right onto the plains and began to order messengers to tell the men in the main line that they should prepare to give ten paces of ground on his command.

The reserves reached the left but when they tried to swing around the side of the fighting armies they were met by the enemy's own reserves of halberd troops who tried to stop them. The reserves spread out, forcing the Chinese to do the same to stop them all from reaching the rear of their army. Within ten or twenty minutes the plains near the river had degenerated into many small fights that it looked like the Chu were slowly winning. The halberd troops of the enemy that were held in reserve had been the least experienced and well trained - General Zhao had wanted to win the battle quickly and put all his best troops on the front.

The King was pleased at the progress and went to the left flank to urge his men on just in time to see a small group of mounted soldiers - no more than a hundred - traveling from small fight to small fight shooting arrows from horseback into the backs of his men. The archers and their commanders had already identified the cavalry as a threat in this situation where even fifty simple club wielding warriors in the right place could make a big difference, but they moved too quickly. The men they freed up went to aid their comrades and the field was turning against the Chu here even as the King arrived to inspire the troops.

The arrival of a neat square of enemy crossbowmen sealed the left's fate and the King ordered his men to disengage. This was a scenario common in tribal warfare and one that nearly everyone was familiar with. Typically bowmen covered this type of retreat, but the waves of crossbow bolts now falling on them severely limited their ability to act and what bolts did not land among the bowmen brought down gangs of Chu warriors. The King's presence was the only thing preventing a rout, and King Qiang could hardly imagine a worse thing to happen to his reserves even as what remained of them collected nearer to the main body of the army and managed to hold back the Chinese reserves who had massed together and began a more traditional (by northern standards) fight with the Chu.

The King ran to the right back to the center and as he turned away from the left he saw another terrible spectacle on the hillside. The Chu line had begun to bulge inwards in the center and bend at the right on the hill. The elite warriors were at their breaking point and close to being overrun while the center was getting close to it.

He followed his instinct and rushed to the right just as a volley of crossbow bolts fell down around him. A smart Chinese officer had spotted the royal banners no doubt and done the best at a decapitation strike that he could. One struck Duke Wei, who had been frantically encouraging the men they passed and was closest to the enemy. Amidst the shouts of his guards he fell and the King pressed on just with Duke Song.

Finally among the crowd of men that was furiously struggling for the right Duke Song hesitantly advised his King. "The battle is lost. Let's cut our losses and run."

King Qiang nearly cut down his own loyal commander right there for such a suggestion before the necessity of it came over him. Taking a final look at the battle line from the high ground he occupied the King gave the order. The center was to try a final push and cover the escape of the flanks. Immediately his orders were relayed and the center shed all of its ranks except the bare minimum. It looked as if the retreat would be organized and as if the King's army would retain some honor in their defeat before detachments of men began to run away from the field. Soon more followed them, and the Chu Army began to rout. Only the elite warriors around the King remained unbreakable as they saw their comrades to their left melt away.

They tried to protect their King and urge him to flee, but he wouldn't have it. The enemy horsemen were already close by and peppering them with arrows - there was no escape from them, and no way out for what men remained. Xiong Qiang had been using his sharp bronze spear as more of an instrument to direct his men during the fighting but this time with Duke Song, who despite his pessimism and hint of cowardice was a loyal man, turned it on the northern swordsmen and focused on cutting as many of them down as possible.

There were so many of them, and so much fewer of his men. They fought very hard knowing they were surrounded and could not flee until the Chinese suddenly moved back. They nearly pursued them before being restrained by the King.

In a few moments the sound of battle faded and the only thing heard was the cries of dying men from both sides. The enemy - some of them Chen warriors - brought their halberds up or rested on their weapons. Then two men from the crowd - high ranking officers, by the look of it, came forward with the Duke of Chen himself.

One of the northerners took a scroll out from behind his chest armor and as close as he dared to stand to the remaining Chu began to read from it, turning northern written word into strongly accented southern speech.

"The Emperor, in his mercy, has ordered me to extend to the King of Chu an offer to surrender. Our terms are that-"

The officer droned on and on and the King's eyes wandered to the traitorous Duke Gui who was standing next to him. He was almost beaming with pride when the officer finally said "-and all the wealth and concubines of the King of Chu shall be given to Duke Gui of Chen in exchange for the merciful and unprecedented act of sparing the enemy King."

The officer looked at the King directly, expecting an answer shouted over the battlefield. The only one he got was the King's spear thrown with incredible force into the body of Duke turned traitor standing next to him and the resumption of the battle when the Chen warriors in response again charged forwards.

[Theyra]

2960 BCE
Location: Unknown
Cole Jordan

Why do I feel cold? That thought automatically formed in my head as I slowly woke up. Then I feel around, and instead of feeling the covers or my bed itself. All I felt was dirt and sticks? I opened my eyes to by confusion instead of staring at the ceiling of my apartment or even the walls. It was a clear blue sky, and I went wide-eyed and quickly looked around. I was in a forest and as I looked down, with no clothes or even my watch. Wh... what is happening, and where am I? I thought confusingly and tried to figure out what to do now. The last thing I remember was going to bed in my apartment, and now I am in a forest with no idea how I got here or even why. By then, the cold had gotten to me, and I could not help but to start shivering. Can you shiver in a dream? Can this be a dream? This feels too real, and I took a moment to put my hands and cover my ears. Waiting only a moment to hear the familiar sound of ringing. Okay, so I can still hear the ringing, and I am shivering. So this might not be a dream and... I might die if I do not find something to warm myself up. I once again look around, trying to see anything that could be a landmark or a person. Then I heard the howl of a distant wolf, and a shiver went down my spine. Okay, so either freezing to death or death by wolves... please let me find someone that can help me and figure out a way back home and find the ones responsible for this. If I can, that is, and I am really hoping I will. So I started walking into the forest and away from the howl of the wolf.

I do not know how long I walked in the forest alone. My only companions were wildlife, which was either birds, what looked like deer, and what sounded like a bear roar. I did not see the bear and made sure I walked in the opposite direction of it. I just do not get it. Why am I here, and where am I? What did I do to deserve this? I do not recall having enemies or not really sure why someone would kidnap me and dump me here. I am just an archaeologist. Who did I mess with, or is this some sick game? No, focus on surviving first, and once I am safe, then think about that. I thought while shivering and trying to power through it. I had to, or I will die, and I do not plan on dying here. Still, I found no one, and I managed to reach a large river, and while I did feel kinda thirsty. That water had to be freezing cold, and getting it on my hands was just asking for frostbite. So I walked along the edge, looking for a bridge or something so I could cross without having to swim.

Once again, I do not know how long I walked, and I could feel myself getting colder. I needed to find a place to warm up, or I was dead. Then I saw them, people, looking like they were spearfishing. They were wearing what looked like animal hides, and I ran toward them regardless. "Hey, can you help me? I do not know where I am, and can you just help me?" I yelled, and I must have scared them since they suddenly turned to me and pointed their spears at me. I slowed down, and once I was in a close but careful distance from them. I started to plead my case. "I am sorry if I scared you, but I do not know where I am, and I need someplace to warm up."

One of them, a middle-aged man, spoke up with caution in his voice. "Who are you, and why are you naked?"

"I am Cole, and I was dumped here or something. The last thing I remember what sleeping in my bed, and now I am here with nothing. Please, I do not know where I am, and I need someplace to go and with warm clothes."

"Tartu, his eyes look at his eyes," one of them pointed at me. "They are different colors," he looked at the middle-aged man. "What does that mean?"

"I do not know Sartak, but I will tell you this outsider. We will bring you back to our village, where you can rest before we decide on what to do with you." He gave me a look like a warning. "Do not cause trouble for us and that accepted outsider?"

"Yes, yes, it is, and I promise I will not cause trouble for you and your village. I just need someplace to stay and figure out where I am."

"Then follow us," Tartu then motioned to the others and then put down their spears and went to walk back to their village with me in tow. Maybe I will get some answers there, but at least I will get some clothes and not die of frostbite. Still, where am I since people are still wearing animal hides as clothing? Either way, I will find out sooner or later, and I should just be thankful I found someone willing to help me. Time to see what this village is like.

[Ardchu]

Tomas tramped through the wilderness of the Amazon, not really sure where he was going. He just picked a direction and went, swatting moscos and hiding from predators. Spotting smoke on the horizon, he made a careful approach, hiding in the trees. It was a village, a medium sized one at that, and around 40 individuals, he estimated. Sneaking closer, he heard a conversation, which, surprisingly, he understood.

"You hear the rumor that the Hoatzin tribe are blaming the death of a member on us?"

"Yeah... it wasn't though, right?"

"No, it wasn't. Though I really don't know..."

The two men talked, backs towards Tomas. He had a realization. What if... the person he had killed was that one they were talking about? Before he could think of consequences, something bit him hard on the ankle. Crying out in pain, he noticed a viper had snagged his ankle. The two men whirled around at the sound, leveling spears.

"Who are you?" one shouted, glancing at the snake.

"Tomas... ay... oh no..." Tomas said, falling to the floor.

A few hours later

Tomas woke up under a thatch roof, a woman looking down at him, chanting something while waving a leaf around his head, and smearing something on the wound. Asking where he was, the woman responded with "the healer's tent". Tomas moved his head to try and look around, but she forced it down.

"You'll only hurt yourself more, you need rest. These herbs should do the trick, but one never knows what fate has in store for us..." she said, moving away to a table covered in herbs. Tomas sighed, and began to wonder... what time was it?

[Tesserach]

Mehrgarh, Modern Day Pakistan
Winter, 2964 BCE

1. Objects move or remain still unless acted upon by a force.
2. The change in an object's movement is equal to the force applied.
3. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
-"Laws of Motion", from The Pillars of Knowledge, Vol. 1

1. Energy can neither be created, nor destroyed - only changed.
2. In any closed system, every process flows from a state of order to disorder.
-"Laws of Thermodynamics", from The Pillars of Knowledge, Vol. 1

When assessing any hypothesis from observations, one must contend with the possibility that no relationship exists and the results are merely a mirage in the numbers; the null hypothesis.
-"The Null Hypothesis", from The Pillars of Knowledge Vol. 1

Thou shalt not p-hack.
-Indian Proverb

---

To see a World in a Grain of Sand,
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

The Gnat that sings his Summer song,
Poison gets from Slander’s tongue.
The poison of the Snake and Newt
Is the sweat of Envy’s Foot.

A truth that’s told with bad intent
Beats all the Lies one can invent.
It is right it should be so;
For we were made for Joy and Woe;
And when this we rightly know
Thro’ the World we safely go.

Every Night and every Morn
Some to Misery are Born.
Every Morn and every Night
Some are Born to sweet delight,
And some are Born to Endless Night.
-Mehrgari Book of Odes

---

I find myself led into the chamber, the entrance closed behind me. The room was filled with the thick scent of incense I'd come to associate with tribal ceremonies.

Most of the faces inside I recognize. The local chiefs, the regulars as it were - the ones settled in and around Mehrgarh. Others I'm less familiar with - there are other camps and outposts that are attached to Mehrgarh. There a society name for this particular gathering of chiefs and elders, The Earth-River Society but I just call them the Mehrgarh City Council because that's basically what they are.

They're not elected, like some chiefs are - sort of - but like most secret societies, one is invited by a member.

I'm not invited in. I'm here presenting a sponsored motion. Sarvesh accompanies me as my sponsor. He's not a member either but as a tribe member he has standing which I, an outsider, do not. Beyond the motion, I am told, a favourable vote here entails a measure of acceptance and standing among the three tribes.

As Sarvesh explains it, if the Earth-River Society listens to me, then other - less prestigious - societies among the three tribes can hardly deny me standing. I mention speaking previously to members of The Buffalo Society and Sarvesh explains this counts more among the Vadabhaat circles, but even among the other tribes such things carry weight. One of the Council is also a Buffalo Society member he tells me.

First there are introductions.

Sarvesh speaks for me and states our business before the council; I want not only their blessing, but resources from the town and tribes to setup a school. He speaks to my character, how I've worked and how I learned many things about the three tribes during my time here and how I learned many things also among my own people. He cites my accomplishments in so short a time - wheel-barrows, wagons, writing and numbers, the abacus for sums, account keeping for trades, the ammonia, and that between the experimental farm and fertilizer Mehrgarh had - in one short year - already yielded good results.

Sarvesh does a reasonable job pumping me up. He then presented my offerings to the Earth Mother Spirit and the River Spirit. Tokens of earth and water - bringing the spirits into the proceedings as observers to be returned to whence they came after. As well there were particular leaves and plants that were presented. Then there were gifts to the Chiefs and Elders, little gifts of beads, copper as well as little food baskets as well. Part respect offering, part compensation for their time and efforts needed to see to business, part bribe.

The council members makee a show of examining and accepting the gifts as worthy. I'd been told if anyone intended to be a dick and not hear us out, this was their opportunity: invent some excuse why the gifts were wrong. Then the others would either talk it out and either boot me for wasting their time or, more likely in this case, dogpile whoever it was for being a dick. The gifts and sacrifice had to be unanimously accepted though, or the meeting couldn't continue - all it would take was one person holding their ground.

It was rare, but not unheard of - or so Sarvesh and some of the other had told me.

Reading between the lines I gathered people who did such things without strong backing would face consequences in other areas of life. No one among the Three Tribes was so wealthy or powerful they could afford to thumb their nose at the rest of society and expect to survive long. No one raised objections. So, first hurdle passed.

Next the council members ground up, and mixed the leaves and plants together and add it to tea that was already being steeped.

During this time the council members asked questions unrelated to our business. Mostly to get to know me. Ordinarily, I'd been told, they would establish personal or familial connections. "Oh you know so and so?" or "Are you not related to my nephew's, wife's second cousin?" type thing. In the case of foreigners like me it was often about your home, and what your parents and grandparents were like.

I render it in terms they find more familiar. My father had been a craftsman, who built machines. His father had fought in a great war and after been head of a warrior society, he had been a member of a society that taught music and art. My grandmother led a society that taught young men and women many things. My mother was an account keeper, her father had died during that same war - and that her mother had belonged to a religious society that taught children. They were all dead now, along with all but one of my brothers. I have a wife back home, if I can ever find my way home again and no idea how I arrived many weeks travel to the north and east among the valleys of the mountains and was brought here.

Such things they understand. Well, perhaps not how I arrived in this land, but no one understands that.

Eventually one of them declared the tea ready and everyone was poured tea from the same pot, and we all drank while the questions continued. Once this was done, it was my turn to present the plan.

It was simple and straightforward enough. I would teach knowledge and skills I myself had been taught. But I wished the council's blessing, I wanted resources to teach with - funding essentially - and to make it available for any student who wished to learn among the tribes: which meant housing and supporting them during their stay. It would be open to any among the Three Tribes who wished to learn.

I had done my homework here. I knew my audience. I had pre-interviewed many of them. My notes were with me, they were, for all intents and purposes a business plan.

I made a lot of promises. Reading, writing and numbers would help facilitate trade and account keeping. The students would help me on the experimental farm, helping build upon our existing successes. There'd be special projects we'd undertake too, ones that I couldn't do alone. We'd compile, write down and make copies of songs, stories and histories of The Three Tribes into a book, and make copies available to any who learned to read. Nor was this all.

We'd make new things too. More machines like the carts - machines to move heavy things and load carts, machines to power other machines that would thresh and mill grains - my time in the fields had taught me that threshing was the biggest pain-in-the-ass in all of human agricultural history - along with new carts to cut crops and other things besides. We would make new materials like ammonia, and help improve processes for other crafts where we could.

Moreover I promised the students would still learn most of the practical skills they would otherwise. Azahad and others would help how to hunt, care for animals, and they would study any crafts people were willing to share. Certain days would be given over to martial training as well, that young warriors would still be warriors and even young farmers would know the basics of defending their homes. They would learn the fields and caring for animals. We would be doing field work and they would learn the skills of the nomadic peoples as well.

There were other things too that I intended to teach but did not mention, some because of time, some because it would take too long to explain in a presentation I needed to keep sharp, and some because I knew they would invite questions that would drag things out. I had, after careful consulting, designed the program to appeal to everyone. It was frankly, a ridiculous laundry list of promises.

My presentation done, the council responds. There is support, but issues are raised. I come prepared though, I already know who was likely to complain and what they were going to complain about. People knew each other's sensibilities and I keep meticulous notes.

You're an outsider, why should we trust you with our children? You don't know our ways so how could you teach anyone. You associate with foreigners and unclean, disreputable brawlers, you are morally suspect. Your writing is good for remembering, but these letters will only distract children and encourage them to be forgetful of things they should remember in their own minds. Why should Mehrgarh shoulder this burden alone? Is it sacrilege to render sacred songs and stories into mere drawings? We know you, but many the tribespeople speak of a strange foreigner who creates poisons, potions and trucks with sorcery - who would entrust their children?

So it went.

I have my responses both rehearsed and prepared. The tribal peoples are good speakers, they resolve most things by speaking. Rhetoric isn't a formal subject for them, but speaking well is a skill among them, well-recognized and practiced.

"I've heard these concerns, and I thank you for voicing them. Criticism of this sort, I not only welcome - I invite - such concerns challenges me to think on these things in new ways, to see these issues more as you see them. Such things can only improve me. I am, as you say, an Outsider. What of it? This is what I offer you in turn. New perspective. New information. I seek to teach - that I might learn as well - this attitude, I believe, can only improve the sons and daughters of any tribe or people.

So why should you - or anyone - listen to me, a foreigner, a stranger, a man of dubious connections - as you say. Why listen to anything I have to say? Why trust children to my care? First of all, I say, come yourselves. This place, this school, is for anyone willing to learn - child, chief or elder. Any family, any tribe - or no tribe at all. If they be disreputable, all the better that they seek to improve themselves I say! Judge for yourselves the things I say and do.

"Are words worthy because of the lips that speak them? Or is it because the message itself conveys something useful? If people have aspersions to cast on my character, so be it, let them say so directly. If they have something for me to learn, I'll learn it. But I've done what I've done not in secret, not by magic, not by trickery but by the same hard work as anyone else. You've seen it. I offer them now - these are my gift, my sacrifice to you, to Mehrgarh, to the generations yet to come. Either you judge these words useful to you and your peoples, or you do not. You will decide this here today - and I in turn - will listen.

"Now, will my words make people forgetful? Who said that just now? I can't recall..." A few isolated chuckles. "Perhaps I should have written it down." A few more. I tap the palm leaf I'd etched my proceedings notes on earlier. "Oh wait! I did. And Elder Karran, I honestly cannot tell you it does not make people forgetful - it's possible there are many things I let slip because I know I have them written down. But I do write them! And once I do, I can always, after a fashion, recall the information.

"Another person once said 'The written word has the power to transcend both time and space, connecting generations and shaping the course of humanity itself.' I can't tell you who said it first, I admit I've forgotten. The one who said it died long before I was born. I've never heard another soul utter them. No once. Indeed I've never said them aloud before this day. I'm quite certain no one has ever uttered them in my person.

"They were written though - I read them - and from the ashes of history, from beyond the grave, I resurrect them here again for you today. I've listened to your histories, I cannot cite my own histories for 500 years without error like some here can. I freely admit it - but our histories remain. I've read the private musings of dead men and women who left them to us in hopes we might benefit in some way from knowledge of their lives, their hopes, their dreams, their fears. I cannot recite them all. But through them I've known adventures, read of places none of us will ever see. Through them, I've seen things you wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion, fires glittering in the darkness between the heavens - and without the written word to carry them - all those moments would be lost in time. Like tears in the rain.

"Some here among us may have such remembrances themselves! Thoughts, musings and stories it would be difficult to have another commit to memory; worthy still of remembrance. These tools, and more, I would put into the hands of The Three Tribes of Mehrgarh. It is up to you how, or whether, you put them to use.

I await your deliberations, whatever they may be."

I yield the floor, searching my audience seeing how my proto Indo-European version of Rutger Hauer's rewrite landed with my audience. Judging by the faces I saw, I think perhaps it had. Beyond this, however, matters were out of my hands now.

They have their deliberations.

It's funny how you see things coming, so clearly. The fault lines that exist in every society, simmering somewhere under the surface. My goal, the discovery, the examination, the dissemination of knowledge - I can see members of certain societies, the religious orders, the warrior societies, the law and history speakers and others who see the opportunities I'm presenting. In the council's deliberations I can see the others. The traditionalists that balk at an outsider. The society members who see my work encroaching on their Society's perogatives. There's nomads vs townspeople. The creeping influence of warrior societies and their traditions of patriarchy clashing with the priestesses that run the fertility cults.

Leaving the chambers, I have my school - sort of - but I can already sense the gathering clouds.

There's stipulations of course. They want it to be setup like a society, respecting tribal traditions, want Elders to work with me to help direct things and help guide me. Give and take, everything is give and take. Bringing Elders onboard to fill out this new 'society' does tie me down, there's no denying it, but it can open doors too if I can get the right ones onboard. They know the land and it's peoples better than I do. They have the connections. They know the traditions, rituals, protocols.

---

I wake up before the dawn.

Usually I wake up Azahad, but finally having someone who speaks his language and can explain things, it’s only been a little over a year, but the guy is diligent. He’s gone from basic yes, no, and a few farming terms to being more than just conversational. Awkardly charming you might even say.

Someone apparently did.

He spent most of the night with one of the indentured women, who now occasionally comes and helps him in the fields after her own work is done. Azahad hasn’t said anything but I’m pretty sure the plan is once we get this harvest, any proceeds are going to go towards buying out her contract. It’s probably going to mean helping Azahad erect a proper house too.

I consider this as I make my way through the darkness, checking the digesters to make sure none of them have cracked their seals and the pressures look good, no leaks or anything. We’ve got a whole field of them now, all lined up in rows. We seem to have settled into about three ammonia digesters. They’re bigger than our original and it works out to producing a few tens of liters of ammonia per month. That’s about as much as we can trade away it seems.

Our fertilizer digesters are another story. I walk now among them in the early morning darkness. It can be cool, even cold overnight through the winter/dry season. This morning it’s cool. It’s been unusually warm this winter, which the farmers like – their winter crops do better. Sometimes it even rains a touch, but its annoying for me. I’m trying to test primitive temperature gauges and my best standard reference points are water 0 and 100C. It hasn't been 0C here at all.

It takes me some times to do the early morning rounds. Even more than the ammonia digesters our fertilizer digesters are bigger than our original test pits. Some of them are even lined with mud-brick, having been properly sealed to prevent ground leaching. But only some. There wasn’t enough mud-brick to spare.

We’ve dug out quite a few pits now. They take a few months to cycle, but our initial results were positive, and it’s become clear to everyone this will be a significant industry going forward. I did a big demonstration a little while back lighting off a plume of methane and while I’m reasonably confident our simple container sealing resins can’t hold enough pressure for us to have a truly major explosion, I’m not interested in testing that.

Even if they crack their seals I'm less concerned now. Some of my initial tests have suggested a totally anaerobic digestion is actually sub-optimal. It's starting to look like they perform best when they can breathe just a little. That was a fairly recent discovery though. For now most of the big digesters remain airtight. It's just the smaller test beds we tinker with the design and conditions with.

I pass one of the digesters that we just opened up, its run completed. Two ox carts are parked abandoned, next to it. Right now The Family is out doing their own morning rounds. There’s another brand new pit, further down, still being filled up.

My morning inspection complete, it's time to head to the experimental farm. There's observations to make. I insist on logging everything. What soil came from where. Which digester the fertilizer came from. The different soil/fertilizer mixtures. Different water amounts. I even jury rigged a method for doing basic soil analysis.

Because it's become common knowledge I know weird things, someone asked me one night why water boiled with pomegranite peels sometimes turns one colour but other times turns a different colour.

I didn't know this but apparently boiled pomegranite peels can act as a pH indicator in the presence of acidic and alkaline mixtures. I already have ammonia and plain old salt, and vinegar - i.e. acetic acid - is a product of alcohol fermentation; something we've started moving towards after we managed to get our hands on some grape seeds.

That's enough for basic titrations to establish soil pH. The other test is just simple weighing, dessicating, then heating. The last step burns off any biological material and tells us how much biomass is in given soil samples. Together with a physical examination of the soil, we've gotten good results estimating fertilizer needs based on simple analysis.

Now farmers can bring me a couple samples of dirt from their fields, and I can usually give a reasonable answer about what crops are going to perform best in that soil pH range. From the biomass and inspection I can get a sense of whether they're going to want fertilizer or not, and how much.

We've also got the test plots themselves. In addition to different soils and fertilizer mixtures, we test water strategies. We do ploughing and planting methods too. It too all needs to meticulously measured, logged and the data copied and collated for analysis.

There's a few tasks and people I trust to do some of these at this point, but the more technical ones I still have to do myself.

Once that's done, it's off to the school.

Which hasn't been built yet, though we've been promised a building. Land's been set aside already, so for now it's just us in a little courtyard under a large neem tree whose wide brimming branches provide a glorious amount of shade from the sun.

There I prepare the day's lesson. Despite having already spent time with some of the children, particularly the kids from The Family, I quickly aquired a new best student. She appeared soon after the school was announced, said little the first few weeks, but then took to the reading and writing lessons I gave as though she'd been taught from a young age already.

The girl, Lily, couldn't have been much more than 13 years old but these days I had her teach basic reading, writing and numbers while I dealt with the students who'd gotten through the basics. I usually gave Lily my lesson plans to take home and study. They were different people. Lily was younger. More excitable, enthusiastic - and probably smarter too. She seemed to absorb everything I had to teach almost immediately, and came back each day hungry for more. She already knew more about native plant species than I did. Which wasn't especially difficult, but impressive enough for a pre-teen.

In any event, the girl reminded me of Kshitija. It was the sort of youthful vigor that gave you hope, and made you think maybe tomorrow would actually be a better day.

We did our lessons in the afternoon though. In the mornings, while it was still cool, we did our practical work.

I took them to the experimental farm and put them to work. Helping dig out test beds, doing what tasks they were trained for. They were kids, but they were used to working and I tried to explain things here. Those who couldn't do writing or numbers yet did grunt work first, cleaned, got the operation of the farm explained to them.

The kids - and occasional adults that did attend my classes sometimes - used to farmwork were often a double-edged sword. They knew how to dig a proper field in a proper line, but it sometimes took a bit to get it across to them that the experimental farm wasn't a normal farm. We had a process - a scientific process - and we had to record everything, we had to replicate results.

But as they worked the farm more, as they learned the different tasks we did, they started to get a sense of how it all fit together. It was an opportunity to talk to them about the plants, soils, nutrients, water - about the water and carbon cycles, genetics and evolution. I'd already started tests with cuttings, grafting and strategically selecting seeds from each run; in addition to any new seeds I could get my hands on.

I could teach reading and writing till my face turned blue and I wasn't sure pastoral nomads and subsistence farm kids would see the point.

But here on the farm they needed that writing and those numbers to update our records. Not many kids liked math, but they could see me doing mixture calculations for fertilizer. They took the readings on the plants that grew in them - bigger numbers than the ones that didn't. By the end of the season the difference was evident.

Even the most stubborn headed of them could do the math on that. The writing worked. The system worked.

Then we went to the digesters, there we'd check the digesters again - they were worth keeping an eye on - I didn't want either broken seals going any longer than necessary without being patched, or worse, a blow out. I don't know that the methane is enough to do much, but I didn't want to take the risk. More importantly it was an opportunity to introduce them to basic chemistry ideas, like solids, liquids and gases. Occasionally I'd light off some methane as a show - kids loved that. But it led into a conversation about energy, pressure, force, temperature, solutions, absorption, biological processes, oxygen - and the need for careful controls.

Once we did this, we helped The Family clean out the digestion pit. Most days there wasn't one to clean out. This time of year was planting season, so we often went out into the farms to help anyone struggling to get their planting done. Otherwise I usually came up with special projects for us to work on.

It was on hiatus now, but I was enlisting the students in helping build Mehrgarh's first pulley crane system working on a twin gear differential principles. There was a sizeable betting pool among certain of Mehrgarh's citizens that I'd never be able to lift the 500lb (or so I reckoned) rock we'd already picked out for the test.

But they'd obviously never seen an old ratchet strap or chainfall hoist in operation.

It was going to make another great physics demonstration and talk.

Ajah, Kumar's son, was beginning to show some interest in what was possible. I'd been teaching him and the other children from The Family for the longest, before the school even, and I had some hopes he'd stick it out with his mathematics. He was already asking questions about what else we might build and how it might be done.

Other days we went out and planted trees from the experimental farm nursery. Or native plants along the river banks. Sometimes we stacked rocks there too, or helped build up the experimental terrace designs in the farm.

There was always something to do in those morning hours.

Then it was to the school yard under our tree.

My class wasn't big. I had a few keeners. The five or so who showed up every day. There was another eight or so regulars who came by a couple of times a week. Most of the local kids checked it out at least once or twice, and either got bored and left or were kept away by home responsibilities. Others were filtering in though. Numbers creeping up. Few new faces every month went by. More around the festivals, or when big camps or caravans stopped by.

We split up. Lily taught the new-comers off to one side, basic alphabet, numbers, and arithmetic. Ajah wasn't quite as literate, despite being with me longer, but I was considering having him take over, partly to give Lily a break. Partly to give Ajah a chance to speak, teach, and manage a small group; it was good training for them.

I taught most of the core things I wanted to teach, but I managed to recruit Elders from various societies to give me a break. They could teach things like religious practices, history, tribal politics, law, ethics, astrology. There were practical lessons too. We made the decision early to make sure children from the nomadic tribes - and a few did come - learned about farming and skilled trades, and the youth from the town learned survival skills on the plains.

I tried to get the Elders working with me learning to read and write at a minimum, but also how to apply some of my methods to their own work, and to assist their teaching. Results were... mixed. But nothing filled me with more pleasure than watching a 13 year old girl standing in front of a makeshift blackboard with a couple of old tribal people teaching them letters and how to sound out words. It just tickled me pink watching it.

Gopall, one of the Elders who taught tribal martial skills outright refused to learn from Lily. I, reluctantly, ended up giving him private instructions as an accommodation in order to avoid another potential 'getting-sold-back-into-slavery-for-offering-grave-insult' incident. He was an old member of the Vyaghra Mrga, the Tiger Hunter or Tiger Warrior Society, probably the most prestigious of the warrior societies among the three tribes. To be eligible to join, you had to have fought alongside another member, killed another man in armed combat, and fought and won a battle in which you were outnumbered. There weren't many members.

Gopall was stubborn, thought it was insulting to be taught by someone so young, and a girl at that, but was interested when I told him about military history among my own people; how deeds, strategies and tactics were discussed. He particularly liked how I laid out the very idea of strategies and tactics, and quotes I ripped from Sun Tzu, Clausewitcz. He loved hearing about old battles and how they were fought - his two favourite stories were the Battle of Thermopylae and the 47 Ronin. Having told these stories, he embellished his own stories of the northern wars of his youth so that they fought against armies of professional soldiers, but he told them well.

Others did sit in on Lily's lessons and take to them to heart though.

One surprising case was Priya who at first seemed to only grudgingly tolerate my presence. She was a priestess with the Earth Mother Society, on the society that organized the Spring Festival, and several others. I sought her out specifically because I needed someone to handle medicine until I could train up proper doctors (I wasn't entirely clear how yet myself), and not trusting faith healers or herbalists, her expertise was helping deliver babies; I'd been recording births, deaths and done asking. Lots of women attended births, but ones she attended had notably reduced incidents of fatalities. But she hated men, and when she finally did talk to me, I learned a lot about some of the shitty things she'd seen done to women among the tribes. She had little regard for a lot of the warrior societies that urged boys to treat women as instruments of bearing sons. She had little regard for outsiders, or people who didn't respect elders, or broke with traditions.

But she was willing to learn, had absolutely no fear of anyone - I'd watched this elderly lady tear strips of big, tough warriors, just right up in their faces - but I'd also seen her willing to then go to excessive lengths to help those same people when they needed it. I liked Priya a lot, and I got the impression that even though I don't think she likes me at all, that she was onboard with what I was trying to do.

I also felt I had good backing from the history and lawspeakers societies in particular. There were some holdouts who liked the oral traditions, but especially the historical societies liked the way - having been a trained historian - I could speak about the craft of historical research, interviewing and trying to get at what really happened, how to look at or frame historical questions.

Today I was introducing my advanced class to basic physics. I'd spent awhile preparing this Rube Goldberg machine to demonstrate simple machines, motion, energy, mass, velocity, the difference between linear and angular momentum and energy transfer - the laws of motion. It was easier to explain when they could see it, even if it had taken me a week to get the simple wooden gear mechanisms working properly.

"This is one of the three pillars of what I'm here to teach you." I explain to them. "The first you know..."

"Don't be a dick."

"The First Law. Be a good person. Treat others well. The second thing to learn is how to observe and think critically about the world. There's so much to learn, to test, to record. What's our process?" I ask them.

They begin listing off the scientific method. "That's a big part of it. But what's that let us do?"

"Separate bullshit from reality." They reply. It's a good thing no one actually knows what english terms like 'bullshit' actually mean, but one of my guilty pleasures in integrating into this tribal society is slowly and turning them into a culture of foul-mouthed rational skeptics.

"Yes. If you learn the skills I teach, how to think critically, do experimental design - this is enough to get you a position in the new society we're creating. Some of you, I hope, will help me teach the next group even better than I've taught you. You'll discover, test and record things I don't know myself! New things that no one has ever known before. But, in my view, to truly learned what I have to teach - even that's not enough. Because why do we learn? Why go to all this trouble? This machine does many things, but accomplishes nothing, so why do I show it to you?" We haven't really finalized the name of our new society yet. I want a science society, but that's not all we teach. The elders have their own ideas and we're still in the process of hammering it all out. But the one thing I'm insisting on is that we've got the society, and an inner circle. Graduates of the school, and masters.

The class stumbles through some ideas about all of this, before hitting on what I'm getting at.

"Yes! We need to DO something with it. Something that helps Mehrgarh. Helps the tribes. Helps humanity as a whole live better, safer, healthier lives. That's the purpose! Now we're going to study how this machine works, and once you understand it, you are going to help me build some tools with what you've learned - tools I need help building - but will improve everyone's lives."

From there we lead into the lecture.

That introduction to my lesson plan however, really encapsulates my play here, I think.

The neolithic/early bronze tribal structures at play here are still forming. There's no kings. No chiefs or elders with a stranglehold on everything. Even the loftiest among them rely too much on others - no one's so independent or wealthy they can afford to fuck over members of their own group. There's no truly entrenched interests. No rampant inequality, not really. The idea of owning land or wealth beyond what one needs to live a decent life just hasn't happened here yet.

Everything here is up for grabs. Life is hard, short, terrifying - no one knows why three people died of different diseases last month. They don't know why it floods some times, or why earthquakes or droughts happen. Everyone's scared and looking for answers, certainties, guarantees and all they know they have for sure is one another.

Social stratification is still in its infancy here on the arid floodplains of Mehrgarh and the hills and rivers of the Indus Valley. Tribes war over general concepts. Fight and kill each other over women. There's land forever and only handfuls of people. The Warrior Societies, I've begun to see, are only starting the role I suspect they'll eventually play in relegating women to second class status. Women like Nivaa and Priya still hold power. Property rights aren't entrenched in stone and seem to go most often from the mother to her children equally: fairness is a sacred word here.

Historically the loose tribal societies faltered in the face of groups that adopted more aggressive, patriarchal, hierarchical organizations - ones that forced women to birth sons in numbers, forced men to obey their superiors and fight and die in their wars. But I studied history. I have time yet, and I know whats coming: there's no serious warfare among the Indus Valley peoples - that comes after their collapse when they spread across the subcontinent. Right now it's still so sparsely populated, when serious conflicts arise people just... move on and settle elsewhere. The Indus Valley Peoples, haven't even properly started yet, what will become great cities are still just small villages no bigger than Mehrgarh. In a few centuries, they'll rise and fall without any sign of a single city building defensive walls - that we can find - or getting sacked.

It's climate - the bronze age collapse - that will bring them down, destroy their cities and scatter them back to small farms and nomadic tribes until the Vedic civilization rises from their ashes nearly a millennia after.

Or maybe... it doesn't need to happen that way. Maybe I can sidestep the whole cynical mess.

If I'm honest, I'm not sure I can fuck it up worse.

What could possibly go wrong?

[Orostan]

THE EMPIRE OF CHINA - AARON DAWSON
2959 BC

Mo Guanyu

The construction of a new city was something that inspired awe in all that saw it. Thousands of people building their future homes directed by teams of northern foremen using construction equipment that needed to be shipped in on barges or broken up further for a trip over land. Thank God that they had not needed to escort slow ox carts transporting crane parts Mo thought as he watched one of the larger ones standing on its tall wood truss slowly turn to bring a wood beam into place. From their position on a hill they could see the entire city being erected and even though they were supposed to be looking towards the forest for threats they couldn't help but watch the construction. Mo was sure a few of the locals were watching from places his men couldn't see and considering becoming vassals.

"How many of these do you think they'll build, Commander?" one of the young soldiers asked him. Mo practically towered over him.

"As many as they need. Five, I hear. To start with." Mo answered with his eyes still fixed on the grand project in the valley.

"What are they for?"

Mo turned to look at the young soldier. "The Emperor wants people down here to live like they do back home. To do that he's setting the most loyal of them up in good towns for farming and work. They'll build smaller towns around these."

"All this expense for some forest people?"

Mo nodded. "Won't be forest people for much longer, if the Emperor has his way."

"Should he?" asked the soldier a little quieter.

Mo raised an eyebrow. "Should he what?"

"Have his way, sir."

Mo sat down on a nearby tree stump. "Yeah, he should. The Emperor is a different type of man. If anyone should tell others how to live, it's him."

"Are they even human? They don't age, right?" asked the soldier. A few other men had begun listening to the conversation by this point and stood by either listening to see what their commander would say or with a question of their own.

Mo chucked. "That's what they say. I only saw the Emperor once, so I wouldn't know. Maybe his people age differently from ours or something. I'll tell you though that isn't the most important thing about him." He leaned closer to the young man who by this point had sat down on the grass in front of his commander. "It's the magic."

"So he really is a wizard!" exclaimed another soldier.

Mo waved his hands. "Not quite. The point is that there's no magic at all."

"I don't believe you. There must be some magic to divining the best crops to plant and in what order over the seasons." interjected one of the crossbowmen.

Another man spoke up. "Yeah! And the way he sees things smaller than we can! How did he know that small creatures invisible to the eyes cause disease?"

Mo silenced his men by raising a hand which was also the gesture for 'stop' when in formation or marching. "You fellows can think whatever you like, but I'm not convinced the Emperor saw those tiny creatures himself or figured this out on his own. His people must have taught him that before he left them."

The men babbled a few questions at him. Instead Mo leaned towards them and continued. "And don't go around telling people I said this, but I think there are others like them."

The babble was more intense this time until one of the more senior soldiers silenced the others by slamming his halberd against a tree stump. "You mean others of the Emperor's people are around? Why haven't we seen them?"

Mo smiled. "That's because he's looking for them! I've seen the campaign maps, and taken a look at the instructions that are given to the higher ranking officers. They're searching for people like the Emperor. They went to the eastern islands to look for them, but found none. That's why we're claiming so much land and doing so much so quickly. He's strengthening himself for the inevitable battle."

"Why's a battle inevitable?" asked the same young soldier that first approached his commander.

"The world isn't big enough for two Emperors." answered Mo.

This Land is My Land


The administration of a large empire was a complex and expensive affair which was only balanced out by the revenue of that empire. The Central State was an excellent example of that, as its administration was extremely large for its time and took on a large array of duties that would have usually been left up to local elites or merchants. In fact, most people who could be called local elites or merchants were incorporated into it in some way and were made accountable to Luoyang because of that. While this hefted the cost of running what was essentially every important organization in society apart from the large clans that most people were part of it also allowed the state to call on immense resources and labor. A letter from Luoyang could command ten thousand farmers to lay down their tools and begin digging a canal and often did. At any time across Aaron's empire bureaucrats were hard at work tallying exactly how much workers were needed in fields to meet agricultural targets and how much could be spared for other projects. Over years this system had been turned from irregular and haphazard measurements that could only make estimates of certain figures into a reliable system of data collection that relied on several government offices working together.

The expansion of that system into the south would be a difficult challenge for that system. In a land where the population was so sparse that one could travel for hundreds upon hundreds of miles through hills without seeing even a single other person and where travel was made difficult by dense forests methods of governing that suited the flat and easy to travel north could not be used. In fact, for the vast majority of Aaron's new territory administration was essentially impossible. The administrators which were sent to the south would have to focus on securing trade routes that would let the Empire keep the southern tribes as its nominal vassals even if it exerted little actual authority in the areas they lived - yet. It would also have to engage in a large construction campaign to make travel, and administration, easier over the next few years.

As the zone of control expanded and tribes began to recognize themselves as being under one form of rule from Luoyang or another the area merchants were able to safely travel would also expand taking word of their Empire's greatness to foreigners who desired a part of it in the form of products only its urban centers could provide, and taking reports of resources back to their homeland. Despite their state mandated missions, their presence and the stories of the Great Empire that now ruled an unimaginably vast territory would have unintended consequences...

---

Modern Day Vietnam - Red River Delta

The Shamans circled around the ceremonial fire which this early in the morning illuminated the trees and the decorated robes and bear skin hoods of the shamans with flicking orange light. The smell of smoke penetrated the air. Tribesmen surrounded the shamans and remained perfectly silent as was the local custom during religious rituals.

The one with the most charms around their body raised their arms, bone and copper ornaments clinking as he did so. "Great General Jorgwasingtan, Bless our warriors." The other shamans intoned after him as he brought his hands down to throw a goat carcass onto the fire.

"Oh Great Minister of the Farm Uesdeay, sample our harvests and find them good!" he chanted next, and the other shamans followed as he tossed a bundle of dry wheat onto the fire which immediately burst into a powerful flame.

He raised his hands again above his head. "Oh Eygelmargs, Great Minister of Wisdom and Change, bless our ritual!" The other shamans repeated after him, this time especially loud as Eygelmargs was considered the patron god of priests.

He picked up a square wood plate inscribed with Yellow River style fragmented characters and words taken from an old agricultural and administrative manual and the Latin letter 'A' and tossed it onto the fire. It's thickness prevented it from bursting into flame like the wheat, but it began to turn black and burn at the edges soon after settling in the ritual fire.

The last sacrifice to be brought to the front was a young woman that could have been no older than twenty. The lead shaman produced an iron knife - unmistakably not a local product - from under his robes.

"Great Minister of the Sky Neylarmstong, keep the flood waters low and the sunlight strong and accept our offering of blood!"

The shaman dipped his knife into a small pouch and then withdrew it, the blade now coated in honey. Then he despite the woman's muted expressions of pain drew the blade across her upper arm for three inches. Another shaman rubbed a piece of cloth over the would to absorb the blood that came off before handing it to the lead priest who balled it up and tossed it onto the fire where it burned with the rest of the sacrifices.

The shamans clasped their hands with one another around the fire and their leader for a final prayer. "Emperor of the north! Master of the two rivers, lord of water and conveyor of the wisdom of Eygelmargs, Uesdeay, Jorgwasingtan, and Neylarmstrong - send more of your servants carrying gifts to your most loyal subjects!"

[Suriyanakhon]

Natee Nantakarn

Ban Fan Dam

Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow.

I had not expected to live for more than a few minutes when I stared up at the sun anyway, but now that I had been granted a reprieve, I started to curse myself for the theatrical gesture. I'm sure the sun appreciated your symbol of friendship, you bloody idiot. The pain in your eyes was just the sun reciprocating with its own gesture of burning out your retinas. As I was taken through the village back to my holding cell, I murmured so many words of thanks to the power of my merit that it had allowed me to survive today.

“Stop whispering!” the guard yelled and turned around, pointing his machete at me. “If you so much as mutter an incantation, I'll take your head clean off right now.”

“I - I wasn't whispering any spells!” I replied quickly, about to explain what I was actually saying only to be prodded to keep walking.

As we reached the storehouse, I was unceremoniously shoved up the ladder and placed in the room. I was definitely somewhere in Southeast Asia, the stilted houses, clothing of the villagers, and the environment revealed that. But where I was remained a mystery to me. Well, at least I would have time to think about it in the dark room, with only the crack in the roof to give me any sunlight.

The tribesmen closed the door and all of a sudden tears flowed down from my eyes and I prostrated repeatedly with my head pressed against the floor. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” I said to whatever providence had saved me. I hadn't realized how terrified I had been until I was finally alone.

A few hours passed as I recounted various stories to myself, anything I could remember really. Anecdotes from my youth, the little comics I used to read, the classic stories of Khun Chang Khun Phaen which I never realized how much I missed until I was telling the story to myself of the abduction of Wanthong. It was only then that I'd realized I'd been speaking Thai, something I hadn't done in ages. My mother tongue consoled me and I clung to it intensely. A weird patriotic feeling, a longing for home, entered my heart and seemed like it rooted itself there.

“That is a curious language you're speaking in,” a voice rang from outside the storehouse. I identified it as the voice of the girl who had convinced her father to spare me. “I'd be entertained if you told me what you were reciting.”

Regardless of the rude interruption, it was the least that I could do, since she had saved my life for another day. “Khun Chang was a rich man from Suphanburi, Khun Phaen was a poor but handsome man who grew up in Kanchanaburi, they spent fifty years fighting over the hand of a woman named Wanthong.” I explained before retelling the story in her language of how Khun Phaen cast a spell over the mansion causing everyone to fall asleep, and then stole his ex-wife away into the forests.

There was a laugh as I reached the end. “That was a very entertaining story, from what you tell me, it's way longer than just that part.” she said, and I parsed her words for any sarcasm but to my surprise there seemed to be none. “We don't have stories that dramatic here in Ban Fan Dam. Too many moralistic stories or about how our people came into existence. Boring, boring. I really envy the place where you came from.” she shoved something under the door which I held beneath the hole in the roof and made out to be an amulet of some sort, with strange figures drawn on it. “You have to live, so that I can hear other tales like that. Father's test for you tomorrow will be an ordeal by water, if you can survive you're free to remain in the village.”

If you survive. If I died was I expected to pack my bags and leave?

[Ardchu]

Tomas, somewhere in the Amazon

Tomas hung around in the bed, still waiting for the searing pain to stop. The doctor woman was gone now. Ow. A large group of the tribesmen came up to him, and stood aside, showing a young man, clearly of high standing in the tribe. Tomas knew this because of a Caiman skull sitting atop his head.

“Hello, Tomas. My name is Xolop’ë. I am the chief here. Why do you come here, wearing the symbols of an enemy tribe?”

“Buenos dias, Xolop’ë. I didn’t know you were at war with this other tribe. What are they called? And who are you guys?”

“We are the Caiman tribe. We call ourselves this because we are one with the river, and the river is us. Also because of my fancy hat,” Xolop’ë said, adjusting the skull and smiling. “We are currently at war with the Hoatzin tribe, who’s symbols you are currently wearing, because they blame us for a death of a tribesmember.”

Tomas paused. “Yeah… about that… that was me. I’m wearing his stuff. I don’t mean you any harm, and I’m not affiliated with the Hoatzin tribe. I’ll join your tribe if you’d like…”

He got some stares from that. Xolop’ë spoke up. “That is no small feat to defeat a Hoatzin tribe member. They are known as warriors. But we are also known for our ferocity. If you wish to join our tribe, you must be able to wrestle our Caiman, the village pet,” Xolop’ë said, moving aside to reveal a massive Black Caiman. Tomas gulped. Xolop’ë then said, “we’ll wait until you are better before we make you take the test, if you still wish to take the test. But for now, you are our guest. Let us get you some more… appropriate clothes for this tribe.”

A while later, Tomas was feeling better. The snake bite had healed over, but it would scar. The herbs he was fed made the venom go away, but he could still feel it a little. It would be hard to walk for a while. Just then, a band of Caiman tribesmen came into the camp, clearly battered. They rushed into the chief’s hut, and Tomas could hear angry shouting. Then, Xolop’ë came out and stormed over to him.

“We are going to need your skills soon. Jiaxë just got killed in an ambush by the Hoatzins. We need men and we need weapons. Do you happen to have either?”

[Orostan]

THE EMPIRE OF CHINA - AARON DAWSON
2959 BC

Heaven's Order

The Emperor's court at Luoyang was held in a large building with its walls held up by archs and its large hall held up by stone columns. It was a little like a basilica in the Roman style although its exterior was in the distinct style of public buildings in Aaron's Empire derived from the architectural style of the Yellow River region. It lacked glass windows, and instead the square windows that lined the hall had wood shutters. At exactly midday the light inside was weakest, but the south facing throne room could be illuminated at any other time of day very well. In fact, it was built for an unusual level of natural lighting due to it being a display of the Empire, and its Emperor's, power to outsiders and his own subjects. The building where the ruling council of Aaron's empire convened was much plainer although it too had the complex flower tile like floor tile designs that were popular in the Empire.

He usually held court once a week, if his advisors could force him to. It was boring most of the time for the Emperor to sit on his fancy chair with his state's black banners to his back and receive and distribute gifts. It certainly made an impression on his guests to be in what was probably one of the most impressive buildings in asia, if not the world, but to the Emperor it was mostly the same thing over and over again. At least he gained something tangible from the suffering.

But every so often something interesting would happen. An ambassador from the Xianyun, the Shen, or the Kingdom of the Di or another group would make an impassioned speech on some issue of international importance that held Aaron's attention or a petitioner would debate the merits of a law or policy with the Emperor in front of gathered officials. That was fun, in a way.

This time though Aaron was staring at an assembly of religious figures, each of which was arranged around the court kneeling at a table in the fashion that was typical of the Yellow River people even though many were not from there. The ones which were more in line with the type of monotheism Aaron was pushing and the Buddhists, who enjoyed increasing state support, were closer to him than the more and more different priests that had their own views, one of which wore a red and white stripped cloak with a blue hood that Aaron eyed with some displeasure. Parts of his own culture he tried to only let out in private kept contaminating the world and it seemed no matter how much he strengthened security around his offices little leaks would spring up. At least it wasn't on the level of the George Washington cult in Kuaiji from last year - hopefully he'd managed to stamp that out.

He gestured towards one of the priests who he knew well. Zi Bao was his name, and he was one of the early 'converts' to Aaron's ideas although he wasn't quite sure that the old man understood them completely.

Zi stood up, and moved in front of the throne to address the assembly. "In the name of His Excellency, Emperor of the Central State, Master of the two rivers-" Aaron would have interrupted the man to cut off the excessive title, but held his tongue. "-I bring this meeting of the spiritual authorities of the realm to order."

That was the signal for each man to get up - including the shaman Aaron had begun to think of as "Captain America" over there to stand up and take a deep bow in his direction. More ceremony Aaron's legion of advisors insisted was necessary to legitimate his rule.

One of the holy men midway down the line stepped into the middle of the room and bowed again before addressing the Emperor directly. The first part of the speaking order was prearranged, of course. "Your excellency, I have offered sacrifices to Heaven on your behalf, and have appealed to the spirits of my ancestors to protect the empire and by extension my clan. I have served as a Tribune of the People in two cities, and as Master of the Public Stock of Jinan for two years. I have come to petition you to make law in your Empire to make sacrifices standard and good, to make worship standard and good, and to eliminate evil practices in the south. And also end executions over sanitation law."

If Aaron hadn't been doing his best Emperor impression he would have rolled his eyes at the last request. He kept his face stony and expressionless and gave the man a nod, his request was received and the next person could speak.

This time it was one of the men closer to Aaron. A devotee of the more monotheistic school that had grown out of some of Aaron's more philosophical writings. He bowed the same as the other. "Your excellency, I regard your writing and work at the highest level. I have served as a statesmen in three cities and governed one for three years. I have governed according to your laws and done so well, as any of my people can attest. However, there are many who govern according to the local method and the methods that you lay down. If you are to decide law for men's lives you must decide laws for men's spirits! A standard of behavior is the only way to bring lasting peace to all! Also, I plead with your excellency to stop executing people for improper disposal of waste."

Aaron nodded when the man made clear he was finished, and the next man stepped forward. The man after him nearly asked Aaron to stop killing people for leaving pots of waste in the street and livestock in urban yards before a sharp look from Aaron made him stop early. The next guy at the far end of the room said something about establishing a spiritual standard but from the other end of the room and soon the various pronouncements of the men bled into each other. When the speaking list finally ended the first man to claim a place to speak was the dreaded Captain America, who walked all the way up to Aaron and knelt under the Emperor's gaze.

"Oh Son of Heaven, Son of Great General Jorgwasingtan, Conveyor of the teachings of Eygelmargs, remember your most loyal people in the south who fought for the Empire three times and continue to honor you!"

The man paused. He would have been cut off by the Emperor if he hadn't started talking again a second earlier. "I urge you to give to us what you have given to the northerners, and your devoted people will repay you a hundred times in prayer to your father in the Heavenly city!"

Aaron raised a hand. "Captain America" did not understood the gesture at first until a guard made a motion to him and he realized he was supposed to stand up, which he did quickly.

"What is your name and what is the name of your people?" asked the Emperor.

"I am Yao Ah, of the Clan of Yao, although we call ourselves Yao-Amerycan now." the captain answered.

"Don't call yourselves that. Yao is good enough." Aaron commanded.

The shaman slowly nodded, and the Emperor continued. "I am not the son of George Washington. He was just a man. Hegel and Marx were also just men. Exceptional men who knew much, but just men. I will send men and help to bring you the right knowledge of Heaven and Earth and how to live, but you must promise not to worship exceptional men, or their flags."

The shaman bowed deeply again. "Thank you your Excellency for your gifts. I request that you allow us to keep the red, white, and blue banner as a symbol of our respect for you."

Aaron wanted to sigh, but kept it in. "Your request is granted."

The open floor part of the meeting continued.

Near modern day Bayannur - Liang Kong

Liang was a man who was used to the plains and the hills of the Great Plains that defined the north of Huaxia lands. Since the Empire reconquered his clan's land he'd been assigned as an administrator in Qi Province and then reassigned to the frontier of Jin Province after a year. The black robed high ranking officials liked to move the lower level administrators around a lot, to gain them experience. It also helped worked out who was more loyal and who was generally unreliable and prevent the formation of long term connections with local clans among the middle ranks of the administration that the men in Luoyang tended to distrust although they never said that in public.

There were many rougher places to be. He could have been put on the frontier with the Shen where the barbarians were particularly brutal and uncivilized, or in the south where the only thing apart from forest tribes that spoke unintelligible languages was heat and bugs. In fact, the foreign states on this frontier were very civilized. So much that it was disconcerting for him to interact with his counterparts in the Kingdom of the Yiqu that had been founded by refugees from the Emperor's conquests in what was now Qin and Jin Provinces who had fled north into barbarian lands. They talked the language of the Yellow River, drank the same tea, and lived in the same ways. Over their rule they'd picked up a few things from their subjects called the Xirong, which meant "western warlike barbarians". That was part of the reason their kingdom ruled the upper reaches of the Yellow River and had won captured Xianyun cities and beat back Shen raids. It was the closest state to being an equal to the Empire in terms of administrative ability and social structure, and its military was a good match for the provincial armies that were responsible for border security. They didn't have crossbows and used little iron but they had a lot of chariots and their infantry had learned how to defend themselves from crossbow bolts with large and thick shields that they trained to use in battle. Even the elite central government armies that were feared by every enemy of the Emperor recognized the strength of the Yiqu Kingdom and were careful in battle even if they knew they'd ultimately win like they always did in the border skirmishes that were common in previous years.

When the chance to become attached to a diplomatic delegation to the Yiqu capitol at Jinyuan came up Liang was not able to restrain his curiosity and volunteered. He traveled farther than anyone in his clan had ever traveled before and meticulously recorded everything he saw. The customs of the Xirong people that the Yiqu ruled, the use of mercenaries paid in jade, their farming methods - everything. He filled two bamboo books on the route in, and another in the court of the Yiqu king.

But the most curious thing he saw was a deep carving the king's throne. Liang stared at it the first time he was brought into the court.

"ALARIC"

It was no doubt in the language of the Emperor, and a servant in the court of the King explained that it was the military code name for the king's father who founded the Yiqu kingdom and led the raid on Luoyang which had killed Aaron's wife and one of his children but fallen short of totally exterminating his family. They had no idea what the term meant but in their dialect of the Yellow River language the term "Alaric" had become a synonym for King. The official title of the Yiqu King in fact was "Alaric of the Yiqu, King of the Di".

[Suriyanakhon]

Natee Nantakarn

Ban Fan Dam

The elders of the village took their seats at the fireplace and handed out betel nuts to each other before chewing them. The second who took their seats were the braves and other hunters, the most notable came first and paid their respects to the elders before taking their seats adjacent but slightly behind while the less notable took their seats behind after paying respects to the two groups before them. The last to come were the women and children who paid respects to all of the ones before them and took their seats the furthest from the fire. It was a lively event, it always was, the day that the sacred tale of how Ban Fan Dam was founded was recited.

Seated north of the fire was the chieftain, next to him sat the village shaman who was blind in one eye and decrepit. Today his granddaughter would be succeeding him after he finished the recital.

First there was only Pu who wandered a lonely road that was the void. Pu sweat and from the salt in his sweat the earth was formed, from the water, the ocean was born. From the earth came Por Mǎa who was a great white dog that followed Pu through the skies. Sometimes, Pu would lean down and pet Por Mǎa on the head, and some of the stray fur from Por Mǎa's head would fall and create the different celestial spirits. The Jao of the moon, planets, stars, rivers, and earth were all born. They worshiped at the feet of Pu and received their stations from him. Because he was born the first and was Pu's oldest companion, Por Mǎa was made the Jao of the sun and used to run around barking and yipping in joy, starting the days and nights.

The other Jao were transgressive and hated Pu because he made rules for them to follow. They conspired against him, but none could act against Pu because his loyal companion Por Mǎa always came whenever he called and they all feared his large muzzle. Pu suspected their rebellious intent and once made a show of him and Por Mǎa having a fight and Pu becoming very sick and laying down in bed to sleep. Ecstatic to now have a chance to strike against their father, the Jao sent one among them to kill Pu. The lord of the moon, who was in the form of a great cobra, slithered into the hut to deliver a fatal bite, but Por Mǎa who was hiding under the bed sprung from under it and bared his teeth at the assailant who fled in terror.

Pu and Por Mǎa then came out of Pu's house with a great wrath. The heavens and earth shook from Pu's rage and Por Mǎa chased after the heels of the Jao mercilessly, intent on devouring them without mercy. At hearing the crying of his children, Pu was overcome with mercy and ordered Por Mǎa to relent. The Jao all apologized and bowed to their father, who scolded them and handed all of them their punishments. The lord of the moon would be chased by Por Mǎa every lunar eclipse, the lord of the earth would have to support the weight of all living beings on earth, the lord of the rivers would never know peace and have wild beasts in their domain, and the stars would all have to give the majority of their brightness to Por Mǎa, becoming mere specks in comparison to the canine lord.

The Jao all had to accept their punishments and return to their domains. In the name of keeping the peace (and to lessen the nips at his heels), Jao Duang Kaew the lord of the moon gave his daughter Nang Kong in marriage to Por Mǎa. They had three daughters who settled on earth and married the local lords of the land. Their descendants were the Mǎakaew who spread out from the Nannuo Mountain where the daughters descended to earth from. Por Mǎa and Jao Mae Kong were thus the father and mother of the Mǎakaew, and Pu was their grandfather. Eventually, Pu, becoming tired of his children's endless plots against him, retired to the void and built a stilt house to rest in, giving no care for the universe and letting the Jao run rampant. For that reason, the sun and Mekong were all the Mǎakaew had to rely on to keep the other forces of nature in check, and they were always worshiped first and foremost of the village tutelary spirits.

The recital lasted for over an hour and when it had finished, the shaman signaled for his granddaughter to come out to perform the ritual. The shamaness, Ling, was taller than most of the other women of the village and had a much deeper voice, as someone who blurred the lines between male and female, she was a natural choice to be the one that the spirits acted through.

Nang Ling spun her head around, spoke in weird yips, and writhed as though she was being tortured. Finally she rolled her eyes back and spoke to the crowd.

“I am Por Mǎa, your father, how have my children been come the bounty?” Nang Ling said, her voice punctuated with noises that a dog would make.

Jao Daeng, the chieftain, came forth and bowed to the medium. “The bounty has been good venerable father. We've caught many buffalo and deer, and one of our youth even felled a bear.” he reported.

“Have you been killing every cobra you can find?” the medium asked.

“Wherever we can find them, we eradicate them without mercy.” Jao Daeng replied.

The medium nodded and for a second her eyes flashed to Nang Kham, although she quickly reverted them back to the chieftain before anyone could notice. “You seem to have brought an outside into the village, I feel their ancestral spirits in the storage house. Ancestors who aren't of our blood. Why do you let strange ghosts play in the storehouses?”

“Venerable father, the hermaphrodite came but a few days ago. Tomorrow they are to be tried to see if they are a witch so that justice may be done. The storehouse has not been used for many-”

“You think the power of your own father is less than that of some witch?” the medium asked and Jao Daeng winced. “I smell no tiger spirit in the village, this hermaphrodite is clearly not a witch. But the stench of her foreignness hurts my nose. Either adopt her into the village so that our spirits become the same or expel her. I have no preference.”

There was a clamor among the villagers as the possession ended and Nang Ling fell to the ground before being helped up by two other girls and returned to her senses. If Por Mǎa was really watching, his snout would have undoubtedly picked up the scent of corruption and his eyes might have noticed the smirk on Nang Kham's lips that none of the rest of the crowd noticed.

---

The next morning

I woke up to the sound of the door opening. The light poured into my eyes and made me avert them for a moment as it took time to adjust. “You're free to go,” the guard said as he came over to cut the ropes around my wrists.

It is impossible to put into words how I reacted. That moment was the happiest in my entire life up to then. I was so frightened that it was a ploy or that this was a dream but my heart dared to feel joy as my arms and legs were freed from their tethers. I walked outside, awkwardly at first, holding my hand up to provide some shade from the sun, but I couldn't contain myself and ran. The guards must have thought I was insane the way that I stretched my arms out and swung around while laughing like a madwoman, but I didn't care about how embarrassing I might have been acting. I was freed from hell.

“The chieftain asks you to meet him at the gathering place. The invitation is optional, but remaining here in Ban Fan Dam requires you to go.” one of my former jailers said. I asked them to take me since I didn't know the way and they agreed.

As I passed the other parts of the village, I noticed them all pointing and whispering about me. What they were saying I could not make out from their murmurs, although I was still puzzled that I could understand their languages. But for now, I had other riddles to deal with.

When we reached the gathering place near the river, I saw the chieftain seated on the elevated throne with the rest of the important villagers seated next to him. I wai'd, a gesture that he seemed not to be familiar with, but which the meaning was clear enough. He motioned for me to take a seat and I did. “We have consulted with the ancestral lords, who have deemed you innocent without the need for a trial.” he said, and I breathed a large sigh of relief. “Keeping you locked up as a result was cruel, as was the wrongful sentence of death, and I am not the kind who does not repay my debts. You are free to remain here for a week to rest and recuperate. After that you must choose to adopt our ancestors or leave.”

I listened and thought about it for a moment. “If I adopt your ancestors, will I be allowed to stay?”

“You will be one of the Makaew and have all of the rights of a member of our race.” the chieftain replied. “We will also require someone to sponsor you so you have an occupation.”

“I am prepared to do that,” a familiar voice rung out, that of the chieftain's eldest daughter's. “I have been wanting a new servant recently.”

I didn't fully trust this strange woman, but there was no way that I could survive the jungle again, even now that I had clothes and time to gather supplies. But to renounce my own ancestors which seemed implicit in the statement... I wasn't a very filial person, far from it. But I never cursed or renounced my grandparents, much less their entire family lines. Maybe part of it was fear of their ghosts, but another part was attachment. To surrender the last bit of Laoness I had would be to surrender everything that I thought made me me.

It's nothing important, just a phrase and some gestures probably, a voice in my head said. Just say some words and readopt them later, they would like that more than their line dying out.

“I... I will agree to the conditions to stay.”

[Based Illinois]

Luke Maynard:

Not In Indianapolis Anymore...

Usually, when I first wake up in the morning, or whenver it is I chose too wake, I don't immediately get up. I'll take my time to rub my eyes, to stretch my arms, or just lay down for a little while longer. Four years in the Army, a still a fresh experience for me, made me appreciate being able to wake up when and how I wanted. If need be, I can be up and out of bed without a second wasted on groginess - but that was only when I had too. I was awake immediately, even before my eyes gently fluttered open at the suprising brightness that surrounded me, the fog of sleep having been lifted and gone before I had yet to even raise my head up from my curled naked body.

Black sand fell from the side of my face as my head rose, my eyes looking up to see the dark and rocky beach that I found myself laying upon. A stones throw away from me, water gently rolled and retreated against the shore, going back into waters so vast that the sky meant the horizon before I could see any sight of land beyond. I wasn't dreaming, the gritty texture of the sand as I curled my fingers into the ground was a very real feeling. Pushing myself up into a sitting position, I slowly looked about myself to see where I was. It was mid morning, judging by the sun's place in the sky, and hardly any clouds to dampen the sunshine which lit the waters before me. I was totally naked, looking down to see my white skin and unmentionables freely brushing up against the rocks and sand beneath me, gentle but unflateringly cool winds making the hair on my neck stand up. I looked around myself a bit more guardedly after realizing that fact, to ensure that no one was around to see my shame - only to realize that I also was completely alone aswell. No persons parading along the stretch of beach, no houses perched atop the rocky cliffs that jutted out above the water's borders, no boats spotted anywhere before the horizon, not a sign or road, or any indication that people were around whatsoever. This sudden sense of aloness was much more quietly concerning to me than my apparent nudity.

Slowly raising up to my feet, I brushed the sand from my hands as I continued to look toward the world around me, my mouth slightly agape and eyes open. "Where..."

Last I could remeber, I had thrown myself face first into my pillow on my bed, intent to knock out for the day. I'd been working ass off at first school since seven in the morning, and it had stayed in the mid eighties the entire time. By the time I had gotten back to my dorm, I was so tired the only thing I wanted to do was take a long and immediate nap. I had just barely managed to kick my boots off before collapsing in my bed and passing out. That had been yesterday evening, and now it appeared that I had slept through the night. That had also been in a college dorm in Indianapolis, where in the nearest body of water this size was lake Michigan about two hours away. This wasn't lake Michigan, I was fairely certain, at least not the Indiana side of it. The southern portion of Lake Michigan was awash with beach homes, little cities, and tourist traps. Long stretches of beautiful unpeturbed beaches, with neither man nor trash in site was not something you would see on our side of the lake. Even as I looked about myself, it had taken a moment to dawn on me that there wasn't any trash or debris around me - the beach I was on looked to be in pristine condition!

If this was all just some prank it was... elaborate, to say the least! I Most definetly didn't get here myself, so someone had to have put me here. Turning around, I looked up at the beaches approach toward the treeline, a long a rocky trail that made my bare feet ache just thinking about walking over it, but I wasn't going to find out anything by just sitting on this beach. I began making my way up the beach toward the forest, carefully stepping so as to try and avoid the larger or sharper rocks. My feet weren't soft, but they weren't terribly calloused over either, and there were rocks everywhere! Even once I had passed into the treeline, I was still careful to watch my step. No path lay before me in the green woods, only some thickets appearing less unpleasent than others. I held my arms in front of my face and pushed passed the twigs and branches that smacked against my skin as I passed. A sharp pain caught my foot as I stepped, making me jump back quickly for fear of what I had stepped on. A pine cone, of considerable size, had been under my foot. Looking about myself, it dawned on me just how many pine tree's there were, equal too or perhaps even more numerous than the deciduous trees in this forest. In the part of the midwest were I lived, pine trees were not a terribly common site, usually only being around when people have deliberatetly planted them, deciduous trees otherwise dominating every natural enviorment. Here, they were everywhere; and they were tall, and old, too old and numerous to have been planted by man.

I wasn't completely blind as I walked through the forest, I had some sense of direction from the sun, and I elected not to travel too far from the shoreline. My hypothesis was if I continued walking, eventually I would find some kind of a trail, or campsite, or any indicator of where I was. The water was the only landmake plainly identifiable from my position, behind a few nondescript hills rolling in the distance, so it felt like the safest bet for me. I would be walking for quite some time, hours as far as the sun would tell me. On my intrepid journey, I found the nature that surrounded me was beautiful! The tree's were full of bird songs that echo'ed out for miles, among whose branches moved squierrls that jumped gracefully from tree to tree. Through thickets of brush, I would first hear, then spot the galloping trot of massive deer as they ran through the forest, occassionally looking up at me in curiosity, before darting away. At one point, I had been particularly interested what appeared to be a black moving mass up in one of the tree tops - upon closer inspection, did I realize in horror, that I was looking up at a black bear shifting it's great body thirty feet up in the trees.

They're weren't any black bears in our part of the midwest, further lending to my decision that I was very far from home. As hard as I tried, I couldn't remeber anything after my head hit the pillow. No half awake recollection, no funny dreams, my head hit the pillow and then the next moment I was lifting it up from the sand. I'd never been roofied before, but the possibility did cross my mind - though I couldn't imagine anyone in my friend group being balsy enough to try something like that on me. Kidnapping seemed a likely possibility - though granted, I was practically a nobody. I was a student at a mid-level college, my family was lower-middle class at best, and in the Army I'd been just a rank and file trooper. If I was being particularly flattering of myself, maybe it was like a sex thing? Selling corn fed big armed country boys to rich sex fiends. Im sure that I was at least somewhat marketable in that regard ( and that would explain the nudity ).

At the suggestion of criminality and kidnapping, I felt my heart begin to beat a little harder. If you were trying to pick up something illegal, being in the middle of nowhere would be a pretty good way of avoiding being seen. At one point in my seemingly endless walk through the wilderness, I veered my way back toward the water, climbing my way up toward one of the cliffs that flanked the shore. Standing at the edge of the rocks, the sight of the open massive waters was gorgeous, but I wasn't site seeing. I was trying to see if I could spot any sign of civilization from here. I stood up there for perhaps half an hour, and in all that time not so much as an airplane crossed the sky. I sat with my legs dangling over the edge, jagged rocks some thirty feet below, my eye's fixed on the sun as it descended further across the sky into evening. The calm curiosity and subtle anxiety of earlier that day had begun to give way to much more primal, and concerning fears. I was truly alone here, and it didn't seem that I could count on being rescued before the sun fell. I hadn't eaten or drank anything all day; I wasn't very hungry, and could go on for a while without food, but day of walking had made me parched, and I didn't know if the water he was fresh water or salt. Shelter was a concern too. Now that I knew bears, and probably a lot of other predators roamed these woods, I didn't feel safe just sleeping out in the open. The cool winds that rushed past my naked body, though pleasent, I knew would cool significantly when night fell. Though warmed since this morning, the evening couldn't have been any warmer than in the mid sixties. When night fell, the temperature would plummet at least another ten to fifteen degrees.

I walked back down into the forest, intent to meet aleast some of my needs before night fell. Food and adequate shelter were probably a bit much to ask for - but maybe I could find fresh water to drink from? I departed from my earlier strategy of sticking relativly close to the shore, and took the bold move of moving deeper into the woods. By this point, the sun had begun falling beneath the taller tree tops, and I knew it would begin getting colder. My feet were worn raw and red, aching from stepping on the bare forest floor. My eyes were more alert than they had been before, no longer concerned with sight seeing, but ensureing that no predators were near. As I pushed past the thousanth thicket, my feet stepped upon matted dirt. I looked down, and a sudden wave of relief fell over me, A trail!

It was a narrow path, worn out by years of foot travel, and snaking around the forest floor. It was the first sign of humanity I had seen all day, and the relief I felt sent me into a laughing fit. The path ran from Southwest to Northeast, seeing as how I didn't know where it led, it supposed it didn't matter which way I took. I shrugged my shoulders, and started walking down the southwestern path. The trail had been made intelligently, going around where trees had fallen, gnarled roots stuck up from the ground, and wherever possible staying straight. Branches from small trees had either been snapped off or hung limply half broken where they once would have hung over the trail. Whoever had made or was using the trail took great care to maintain it, and appeared to travel here regularly. Hopefully, this trail lead to a larger path, one that could guide to to a road, or a home, or something! The sun get falling lower and lowering along the trees, and the temperature was begining to ever so slighty to fall. I found myself having to swat at mosquitos every few seconds, the coolness of the day being their time to swarm for prey.

I was dismayed to find that the path ended and opened to a sandy shore along a creek bank. The creek wasn't very large, and didn't appear too deep either with a sand barge jutting out toward the otherside. It wasn't moving terribly fast, but still fast enough that no plants appear to be growing in the water. I was crushed - having hopped that the trail would lead to... somewhere! With my hands on my hips, I slowly walked toward the waters edge, eyeing the water with dissapointment; dissapointment and thirst! I hadn't had a sip of water the entire day, and my muscles ached from dehydration. I'd never intentionally drank creek water before, but in my desperation, there didn't seem much a choice for me. Kneeling down on my knees, I looked into the water - it looked crystal clear, not swimming with muck or algae. Making my hands into a cup, I dunked them into the water, bringing them back up to my nose. It didn't have a smell. Eyeing the liquid in my hand for a moment, I hestitated, before finally putting my mouth to my hands and slurping the water down. There was a certain mineral taste, not unlike well water I thought, but it certainly wasn't bad. I breathed a sigh of relief as I felt the cool water chase down my throat. I dunked my hands back in for a second drink, then a third, and a forth, eventually dunking my entire head in before coming back up for air and shaking the water from my hair. I felt refreshed, and laying my back against the sand, to look up at the now orange evening sky, I felt some small amount of relief fall over me.

Was I fucked? Maybe, but I didn't think so. The way I figured it, I was the protaganist in my life, and no way was the story almost over - getting lost in the woods and dying without explanation would be a horrible ending. I'd sleep here next to the creek for tonight, being probably safer than amongst the trees were bears or whatever other animals wanted to pester me. In the morning, I would pick myself up and follow down the creek, certain to find another trail along the way. If I could find one trail, then certainly I was on the right path to finding another, and maybe eventually a way out of these fucking woods. Questions about where I was, or why I was here could wait till later. My focus now, was getting out.

I felt water that had rushed into my ear when i'd dunked my under, and using my pinkie I tried getting it out. I could sleep covered in dirt and sand and aching all over ( i'd done it for four years as a profession ) but water in the ear was just annoying. I raised my head up off the ground and thumped my palm against the side of my head. I felt satisfaction as the water trickled out of my ear, only to then be met with a peculiar sound. For a moment, I almost thought I had heard something bark! It had only been once, and for a moment, so I couldn't be sure if it had only been my imagination or what?

Bark bark bark!

I immediately shot up to my feet and stared up the creek, where I had just heard the barks coming from. Around the bend a bend in the creek, which had previously been concealed by trees, a long wooden boat - no, a canoe was paddled into view. At the front of the canoe were two medium sized hay colored dogs, fighting to be in front of one another, barking in my direction, and behind them, rowing the boat was... People! My troubles quickly faded from my mind, because round the corner, finally, was coming my salvation. I raised my hands up above my head, and started yelling out toward the canoe drivers - eager to finally be saved!

[Saxony-Brandenburg]

The Royal City of Uruk
Sumeria
2959 BCE

It is a cool day. Below the pale blue sky and beneath towering clouds Shurash feels the breeze upon his moist face. The dust of the field kicks up beneath the wheels of his chariot, beneath the hooves of the ponies which draw the cart forward. Steadily, they become faster. The rhythmic sounds of twelve feet striking earth becomes one. The breeze upon his face is bolstered by the speed of his motion, a wind resisting the power of the team of ponies, unable to stop them. He grins. Beneath those heavy wheels, the rocks upon the field bump and kick him, causing him to grip the reigns tighter. He laughs, for when he takes his favorite cart out for the day, when he has his favorite ponies pulling him, he feels like the Lugal. Nothing can stop him, not even the gods! Yet as he becomes lost in the feeling of it all - he hears another noise. Rival to that of his horses, their feet violently, desperately taking them as fast as they can pull their master. Rival to the creaking of his wooden cart, which groans with every dip and rock below it. He turns his head, and behind him sees the other rider. A team of three white ponies, another man stands proud, boastful. Just as soon as he turns his head does the rider gain on him, closer and closer - faster than Shurash thought possible. Its wheels buzz and spin dizzyingly quickly. The cart bumps over rocks and dips hard, yet springs over them with the grace of a rabbit. Before he can gawk at the chariot, it has already passed him. Looking forward once more, Shurash sees its rider waving back to him, no doubt and smirk of pride upon his face.

Ahead of him, Nuru leaned forward, the team horses which carried him galloping faster than lightning, quicker than anyone else before him. So fast was his ride, so light was it, that it was if he wasn't touching the ground at all! No, he was riding upon Enlil’s gusts of wind, speeding through the clouds! If only his cousin would see him now, he thought, then she would surely be impressed, and know he was the most interesting man in all Uruk. As Nuru continued sending himself forward, he realized soon that he would lap the other cart upon the circular track cut around the field. “What a loser, with his slow-ass cart.” He thought, and beamed with pride. “He is so old-fashioned, primitive even. I bet he sleeps on the ground and chews straw for breakfast.”

As he gained once more on the other cart, he called out to the man upon it. “Hey! Hey loser! Nice cart you got there! How much does it weigh, as much as six oxen?”

Meanwhile, Shurash was feeling humiliated by this boastful display of superiority over him. It actually kind of hurt. For as much as Shurash knew, this was a perfectly good cart he had. His father had let him borrow it, he encouraged him too. Riding a war cart was a way for a man to show his status, to be a real man! Now it just felt kind of sad, seeing how easily the other cart bested him from nowhere. More than that, calling him “loser” just felt uncalled for. Since when was it a competition? Not wanting to suffer any more of this, Shurash pulled back the ponies, slowing them evermore- until he pulled off the field. As they came to a gradual stop amid a patch of tall grass, Shurash sighed and got off the back of the cart. He stepped back, ans examined the thing. For, compared to the other man’s chariot it was rather… bulky. He hadn't noticed it until now, for he had never seen another chariot unlike his own. Yet, its construction, while expensive, wasn't necessarily compex. The walls of the cart were rather thick, made of solid pieces of wood from the hills. While expensive and sturdy, he guessed they were quite heavy. Indeed, the wheels too were that sort of make. Thick, solid, but heavy. They dug quite annoyingly into mud, such that half the year he didnt even bother to take it out, not until well after the rainy season, whenever any kind of soft ground proved a challenge. “What was the deal with this guy’s chariot?” He thought to himself. “The wheels… odd.”

Just as he was contemplating this, who should appear but the very other chariot which had mocked him so. Shurash stepped back in a panic as the other rider came speeding past him, slowing stupidly quickly, forcing the ponies carrying him forward to jerk backwards and make cries of surprise and discomfort. Shurash rolled his eyes. Perhaps the braggart was here to mock him some more.

The other man stepped off his chariot with a big, smug grin on his face. “Hey. I had gotten of bored just going so fast on my amazing chariot, so i figured I would stop by to see how you were holding up.”

Shurash rolled his eyes. “Why would you care what a ‘loser’ was ‘holding up’ when you clearly think you're so much better than him?”

Nuru groaned. Why did people always have to respond to his friendly jokes so seriously! “Whatever man, I'm sorry you got all offended by me calling you a loser. But your cart is just so slow! Look, man, you wanna be fast like me? You need a better thing than what you're riding. My brother see, he told me the secret. Okay? You want to be fast, you want to be cool like my brother? You need a faster chariot. I mean look at yours! It looks like it was cobbled together by a starving team of little babies. It looks like its used to haul stone for the Lugal’s newest giant stone dick pointing at the sky. It looks like it should be pulled by bulls, not horses. What Im trying to say is that it sucks. And you need one like mine. Okay?”

“... Sure.” Shurash said, holding back his anger, breathing only sighs of defeat. “So what, is your chariot magical or something?”

“Check it out.” Nuru said, pointing towards his sweet cart. “You see those wheels? You know what those are? They're called spoked wheels. Have you ever heard of spoked wheels before? Of course you haven't, your cart was built by little babies. But listen, these wheels are just So. Fast. You would not believe how fast they are. My brother said they come from the league, from the before times. Ever heard of those? Nah, you’re like my age and probably don't have a cool older brother who has cool stuff from the last dynasty- but ironically of course. So ironically that it is actually really cool and epic, like my spoked wheels. You need wheels like that, I can help you get some. You interested?”

“I mean… You want to get together and work on my chariot?” Shurash wasn't sure how to take this. Was the man being actually friendly? He seemed to be so sarcastic that what was and what wasn't said in irony was unclear.

“Yeah, man, why not?” Nuru shrugged, in sort of a cool aloof way, yet obviously hiding joy at the opportunity. “I have fifty khopeshes in my room. Have you ever heard of a khopesh? Its an amazing Egyptian sword. Have you heard of Egypt? It's this super far away place. Yeah. They make swords that are made of bronze folded a hundred times? They're pretty much able to cut through anything. Yeah. They're pretty cool… in an ironic way of course.”

“Is your enthusiasm for exotic foreign swords also a form of irony?” Shumash asked nervously, unsure how to take the rather insecure recitation of this guy’s every interest.

“You bet your sweet ass it is. I'm on levels of irony that will be written about for generations. They'll write ‘the epic of Nuru’, which is me, about how much amazing irony and sarcasm i can spit out. It's hard for you to understand… but it's all very, very funny. I swear it is.”

Shumash looked at his newfound friend with a sense of pity. For, even with his superior cart and toys- it seemed as though he was utterly lonely. So desperate was he to brag about his material things that it revealed perhaps an insecurity in owning them. He was sure the guy didn't own fifty of these foreign swords, but he had to admit, his chariot was fast and light. “Alright then. I believe you.” He said with a little smile. “How about we go to your home, or wherever you keep your chariot, and we can look into working on mine?”

“Oh yeah man, that'll be sick. Trust me man. Just uh… be careful of my brother. He’s got some freaky statues in the barn. They're not for little piss babies like you. He’s got this one statue named Little Ilu?... Yeah, he’s totally cool but like - creepy in an ironic way. You understand? These big eyes- massive peepers. They look like they follow you around the room. Crazy right? You’d think there was a gallu in there. Maybe there is! That would be sick.”

“... Sure.”

---

Under the hot and sweltering sun, a man stands covered in sweat-drenched hair. A tall man, a mighty man. A smelly man. A manly man who drinks beer between workouts. A man who eats nothing but legs of goat and the feet of pigs. A man’s man. A lover of men. A man’s lover. A woman’s dream. Gilgamesh was all these things. The ideal of “manhood” was not merely embodied by him, it was defined by him. And there he stood, naked, glistening, oiled up, wet in the sun. He felt like a god as he lifted the large stone infront of him high, and, swinging his muscle-bound body to one side, launched it across the field. Then as soon as it landed, he dropped to his knees and there began to do five pushups. Up, down, up, down. The sun baked the back of his dark skin. As he finished the fifth, he jumped up, and began to do ten squats. Down, up, down, up. He was a god. He was a being of pure muscle. He could never die. He could NEVER die.

When he ran towards where the stone had been thrown, his feet kicked a cloud of dust behind him. And when he lifted it to toss again, the air cracked around the stone. When it made its final thud into the ground, it was like lightning touching the ground. When he dropped to his knees the earth itself shook upon his meeting. When he squatted, he could hear his muscles scream with power!

There behind him, his beloved watched him. A man born of the wild, more bull than man, he reeked of goat pens and piss. He was covered in slick sweat, mud, and dust. His hair was matted and slicked with caked dirt, such that he resembled a hog in more ways than smell. He called out to his love, his equal, his rival, with a grin upon his face. “Come forth gilgamesh, you have thrown stones for long enough!”

“Ah, the man born of the wild finally joins us men.” Replied Gilgamesh, arms outstretched. Gilgamesh looked up and down at his friend, the half-beast which he called Enkidu. “Where have you been? And what have you done? For I know you were born in a puddle of mud, yet I did not think you longed to return to it.”

Enkidu laughed. For he was not ashamed to be born from the wild, born from the earth. “I had taken for myself three men by the river. Each of them said they could push me down. Each man said I would lose my footing. Each man said he would stand atop me. Ah, but here I am triumphant. As I had topped three men, each with their asses to the ground. Hah!”

“Is that why I heard the ground shake not long ago?” Replied Gilgamesh with a cheeky grin. “Yet for all the men you can top, Enkidu, you cannot top me. Remember when first you came to the gates of my city, and demanded every woman’s bed for yourself? How we fought and wrestled one another, shaking the city to its foundations? Uruk stood with bated breath, until at last I had topped you - and you below knelt to show your loyalty.”

“Better to know who you can and cannot top. But I tell you, Gilgamesh, do not brag too much now. For I practice every day against lesser men. Soon I shall grow strong enough to top you instead.”

“Ah! And that is why I throw stones every day, much to the ladies' joy.” He then pointed to the group of women standing below a cluster of trees, who blushed and laughed as he pointed towards them. Enkidu too waved to them, eliciting bickers of interest and gossip.

“Ah! The ladies!” Exclaimed Enkidu, beaming. “The ladies’ joy indeed. Who cannot forget how well Gilgamesh wrestles the ladies - how the ladies love to wrestle him. Yet no woman has ever topped Gilgamesh, just as no man has!”

Gilgamesh snickered. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’d grown jealous Enkidu.”

Enkidu rolled his eyes. “Ah, if I get jealous of you lingering in the tavern or in the homes of another man, I can always find for myself a lady to wrestle and spare the time. Yet no lady is as good a wrestler as a strong, mighty man. I should never sweat when I am pressed against a lady, pushing her to the ground. Yet with a strong and mighty man, it is much more exciting and strenuous.”

Gilgamesh chuckled to himself. “You are one mighty man Enkidu, one mighty man indeed. Well then, what would you have us do? I suppose you didn’t just come here to chat.”

“Why, is that not enough for you?... Ah, but it is not so. It is my fortune to deliver you the news from your father’s own lips. He wishes for you to be reminded that the day to rally the forces of Uruk is soon approaching. He wishes to know that you have all your… supplies amassed.”

It was now Gilgamesh’s turn to roll his eyes, and shook his head. “The old man could have told me that himself. But he is a cripple, and thus must have my Enkidu act as his ox. But, as he is my father, and though I long for him to either miraculously regain his legs, or simply abdicate this side of Kur and allow more fit men to hold the title of ‘mighty man’, I have done as he has said twice over, and before. Every item from my beautiful collection of weapons, to my leather harness which holds the plates of bronze which protects me. My luxuries, my grooming kit, my tent, and my wine have all been taken care of by my loyal servant.”

“Which one?” Enkidu asked, attempting to recall which of Gilgamesh’s girls he had met before.

“The one with the small nose and beautiful brown hair.” Replied Gilgamesh with a satisfied smile of conquest. “She is ever so loyal since last time I wrestled with her.”

Enkidu snorted, and punched Gilgamesh in the shoulder. “HAH! You old ram! Your father would be most displeased to hear that! What for his fear of bastards littering his beautiful city.”

“Oh, I am sure there are too many.” Gilgamesh nodded thoughtfully, yet completely without shame. “Yet what bastard of mine is not a blessing? For if I were a woman, would I not wish for the blood of the gods to flow out my loins? Why, I probably have a hundred, two hundred bastards littered from here to Nippur. Perhaps I have sewn the fields of Kengir with enough sired calves to return the herd to proper size.”

“Perhaps your oldest seedlings are ready to be harvested today.” Replied Enkidu. “The war- yes, that should prove their metal, if they are worthy to bear your blood in this life.”

Gilgamesh sighed, and then looked towards the city walls. They were but a short distance from the field in which they stood. The sun stood high, yet had begun to set behind those walls, standing atop the rooves of the thousand houses, and the thousands more men within them. “Everyday is one in which I am challenged to prove my own metal Enkidu. For though I condemn my father’s injury, I cannot condemn his feats. Let us not forget too, that his father ruled all the known world. Can you imagine? What a world that would have been, before the great flood.”

“I assume you do not merely mean the flood of six years before.”

“No… The greater flood. The flood of blood, of madness, of Gallu. Yes, that was the real flood. All others after, no, those are merely swells. That great flood is what robbed me of an even greater inheritance than this city, and yet still forces me to live within its shadow. It is a cliff-face. Unscalable, flat, yet still it looks down at me. Thus must I not merely be successful in my own respects. Must I not merely be a good prince, and thus a good king. No, I must ascend farther. I must loom above this city, this land, just as large as history looms over me. I must ascend not merely to Kingship, but to Godhood.”

“And I suppose you believe Inanna will not stop you?”

“Oh, Inanna will try.” Gilgamesh Grinned, as he looked up to the great blue sky. “She will see my insolence, my ambition, and she will try.”

“And how do you thus intend to overcome her wrath?”

Gilgamesh snickered. “I have never once been topped by a woman. Perhaps a goddess will be my first one.”

“You would embrace defeat by the gods?”

“It matters not what the gods do. The gods are just as selfish and vain as I. They will surely see my quest for godhood as a challenge, which it no doubt is. No, what will ensure my success is not the hope to defeat the goddess herself… but to out last her. Yes, the blood of man which flows through me is equal to the blood of the gods. It contains my ambition, my persistence, my will. The gods cannot see what I can see. They cannot act as I will act. And when I am master of this world, they will be forced to concede a star in the night sky for my light. Just you wait, Enkidu, for soon we will ride my chariot not on land, but across the heavens. Just watch me try.”

[Nuxipal]

Interlude of Javin, 2975-2974

Javin Torrez, man of many talents, built up the city of Harappa as best he could. Forging alliances and training the vaunted elite professional soldiers of Harappa. In the years following this however, with the rise of Harappa and its loose collection of allies, the Coalition of cities against Harappa’s rise to power eventually rose up.

The city itself was too well defended, but its greatest general had been busy with a side project. A small town he started would be the start of the war. A sizable force marched on the small town. Harappan forces rushed to intercept them. The resulting battle was catastrophic on both sides. The armies of the coalition were broken and shattered, but victorious. Leading his core of veterans himself, Javin fought to protect the town he planned as the regional capital of the future.

However, being forced to withdraw to an island on the Ravi river to prevent being overrun immediately, Javin and half of what he had brought of his veterans watched as Kanaxai burned to the ground. Seven days of fighting took place as the town was razed to the ground. Holding off dozens of attacks, the black banner of Javin’s elite forces held firm. It was on the seventh day, thirteenth assault total, that finally overcame the forces of Javin.

In the end it appears Javin was slain with two arrows in his chest and a spear impaled through his back. For every soldier on the island, there were six dead coalition soldiers. The sheer cost of this ended the war. Coalition forces were too bloodied and weakened that they were unable to continue against Harappa. Likewise, Harappa lost its best troops and greatest general at the very start of the war. While they had a training facility to train new soldiers, it would take time.

As the decade passed treaties were signed and those connected with Javin slowly scattered. Janaka and Dorian returned to Khusab. Irri and Ashoka remained in Harappa and Banhi returned to Peshawar. The citadel in Harappa was completed and as the young Ashoka grew up it was clear he’d inherited at least some of his father’s height and strength giving Harappa the chance to have at least one warrior with great stature.

[Ardchu]

Tomas, somewhere in the modern-day Colombian Amazon

Xolop'ë led a band of Caiman tribesmen into Hoatzin territory, Tomas following close behind. He fumbled over tree roots and under branches, and lagged behind quite a bit. He didn't totally know where he was going, they had passed his old camp a while ago, but they didn't stop. They were headed to the Hoatzin village. There would be no quarter. Tomas was terrified.

"Your first battle, huh?" the man in front of him said, smiling. "I'm Hiēla. Welcome to the jungle!"

This last sentence made Tomas remember a fun American tune, by a band Guns and Roses. He smiled, saying "Yeah… I'm Tomas. I'm sure you know that already though." He shuddered.

"Quiet… we're here," Xolop'ë said, crouching, and everyone followed. There were about 30 men in this warband, and the village ahead seemed to have around 40, Tomas estimated. Lowering spears and knocking arrows, the band advanced, surrounding the village to the best of their ability. Suddenly, Xolop'ë let out a loud roar, and everyone descended on the village.

Arrows flew, spears clashed, people screamed. Tomas was in the fray, mostly running around and panicking. He had no clue what was happening and just didn't want to die. A Hoatzin tribesman came after him, and Tomas defended himself. He parried a thrust by the man, jabbed, parried, got his spear stuck under the man's arm, and dodged a strike from his spear. Tomas then yanked his spear out, and charged into the man's chest, burying his spear in it. Taking his spear out of the man's corpse, Tomas felt a weird feeling… he felt like vomiting, until he heard Xolop'ë cry out as a large man, Tomas presumed was the Hoatzin chief, took the Caiman Chief's legs out from under him. Tomas rushed over, but the large man's spear was already in Xolop'ë's stomach. Tomas felt a rush of anger for this man, whom he had barely known a few days, and he screamed. Rushing over to the Hoatzin chief, he drove his spear up and through his skull, killing the man instantly. Then, after this display of glory, he did something very inglorious.

He vomited. Killing wasn't for him, but he knew he would have to get used to it. With the death of the Hoatzin chief, the rest of the warriors fled or were killed. Xolop'ë, with his dying breath, told Tomas that he wished him to be his successor…'s advisor. Which was still a mighty position, but Tomas felt a bit of disappointment, because all the movies made it seem different. The reason died with Xolop'ë. His successor also heard this, and welcomed Tomas to the chieftan's household. Tomas had one thing to say:

"So what to do with this village we looted?"