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though, or you dip your beak again, men you can probably count on getting
together with Father Obilade."
ELSE TRIED TO SLIP AWAY USING THE SERVANTS' GATE. THAT did not work. He picked
up a tail anyway.
He worried who and why for a few minutes, decided that it didn't matter.
There were only two of them and they were inept. He shed them near Anna
Mozilla's house. Thoughts of Anna distracted him momentarily. But he could
reward himself later. He headed for the Devedian quarter.
Brothe's Devedian elders admitted that twenty thousand Deves lived in the
city. Rumor suggested there were several times that. If true, then more Deves
lived in the seat of the inimical Episcopal faith than in the Holy Lands
themselves. But in Suriet the towns could not grow large, except on the coast
of die Mother Sea. The coast where western invaders established their crusader
principalities and kingdoms.
There were many times more Devedians in their Diaspora than remained
resident in the mad country that had given them birth.
Else tried and failed to imagine what it must be like to live in those
madlands, in amongst the Wells of Ihrian, where the magic boiled out of the
earth incessantly, warping everything around it, birthing malignant new
spirits, feeding the Instrumentalities of me Night, and incidentally,
unleashing die only power capable of holding the ice at bay.
Even today many Devedian native sons were perfectly willing to leave Suriet
and let it become a nesting place of Chal-darean conquerors and Praman
liberators alike. Or mjiybe the reverse.
Let them bash one another's heads amidst the floods from the magical
springs. One day He Whose Name Is Legion would cleanse the earth of all but
His Chosen.
Aaron, Eis, Kelam, and the other prophets who laid the foundations of
Arianism, which evolved into Chaldaieanism, departed the Holy Lands themselves
as soon as their preaching and witnessing gifted them with donations
sufficient to let them travel without having to sleep under bridges. They
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scattered across the Brothen Empire, carrying their message to those whose
lives consisted primarily of despair.
The preaching, the witnessing, the performing of miracles most of that had
taken place far from the Wells of Ilirian, in provinces now part of Lucidia or
the Eastern Empire.
As he moved southward Else began to sense a potent electric tension.
Something significant had happened. Something bigger was expected to happen.
Its threatened scale iroubled everyone.
Else could not get an answer when he asked why. There was an immense
prejudice against foreigners with blond hi dr.
His Devedian contact could explain.
There was no threat of rain, but the Deves and Didnshaus scurried about in a
jerky hurry, as though trying to get the day's business done before bad
weather arrived.
Else entered a tiny papermaker's shop. A sign on the artist's own product
proclaimed it the source of the best papers in Brothe. A stereotypical little
old Deve, bent, leaning on a cane, his features camouflaged by thickets of
wiry gray hair, came from the back in response to the bell tha: jingled when
Else opened the front door. Chemical smells accompanied the shopkeeper.
"How may I be of... ?" the little man asked as he forced his head to turn
upward. He did not complete his question.
"I'm here to buy paper, not collect heads. I want an inexpensive, working
grade. Twenty sheets. Then I want a better grade, suitable for permanent
records and letters expected to survive travel over extended distances. Again,
twenty standard sheets.
Finally, I want some of that erasable parchment or vellum that students use."
The old man found his tongue. "That's an animal product, not paper, though
normally we keep some around. You need a special ink, a treatment sponge, a
sanding stone, an ink remover, and Halmas clay. Plus calligraphy brushes."
"I'm in the market for those things, too."
"We don't carry any of that."
"And that isn't a problem. There seems to be a paper shortage in Brothe. I'm
prepared to go from shop to shop until I find everything."
"You can pay for all that?"
"Of course. You have a problem with me? You're averse to making a sale?"
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