Skies by Kevin L. Nielsen

Author:Kevin L. Nielsen
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy
ISBN: 9781944452520
Publisher: Future House Publishing
Published: 2016-08-15T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

Scents and Sounds

“The Progressions were a belief stolen from the Relao, then changed once the Seven Sisters gained prominence in the religious capacities of the Orinai.”

—From the Discourses on Knowledge, Volume 15, Year 1023

Lhaurel smelled Geithoorn before she saw it. According to Talha, Geithoorn was a small town compared to just about any other place in the Empire. It wouldn’t have existed at all if it weren’t for the locks and the lake next to which it rested. Lhaurel only had a vague idea what the locks were, but she’d gathered from context that it had something to do with a means of transportation by water. Talha had briefly explained that the Sisters controlled the canals and the locks when they’d caught back up with the wagons earlier that morning. That control granted them a knife on the economic pulse of the Empire—whatever that meant—through the tariffs and tithes charged for their use. None of that, however, explained the smell.

“What is that horrid stench?” Lhaurel asked, unable to take it any longer. Next to it, Grunt’s odor was rather pleasant.

She and Talha were sharing the same wagon now, Talha having mostly returned to her normal absentminded self. Talha looked up from her book, which lay open on her lap, and glanced over at Lhaurel, blinking as if she had just woken up from a deep sleep.

“What’s that?”

“The smell. What’s that smell?” Lhaurel said. She brought a hand up to cover her nose and mouth.

Talha frowned and sucked a deep breath through her nose.

“It’s not Grunt, here, Honored Sister,” the wizened wagon driver said. “It’s the smokeweed. They bring it down from the plantations up north, see.”

“Ah yes,” Talha said, tapping one finger against her nose. “That must be it. I’d forgotten it was harvest season.”

“Aye,” the driver said, flicking the reins. “They have to be getting it done before the snows move down this far. I heard the winter’ll be bad this year. Snows in the mountains, crazy clouds up in the sky. The weather’s been something awful east o’ here, I heard. Crazy storms and the like.”

Talha mumbled something incoherent and turned back to her book.

“How can you stand it?” Lhaurel asked, nearly gagging.

“You get used to it,” the driver said. “Most don’t even notice it anymore. You’ve been gone from the big cities for a while if you’ve forgotten the smell . . .” The man trailed off and he suddenly gulped, as if remembering to whom he was speaking. A bead of sweat appeared on his bald head and dripped down over his nose. “Forgive me, Honored Sister. See, I didn’t mean to imply nothing.”

Lhaurel waved him to silence with her free hand, catching a glimpse of buildings on the horizon as they passed over a tall hill. Dozens of squat little buildings clustered around what appeared to be a rather wide street. Low walls rested on each side of the main roadway, blocking it off from the buildings near it. The buildings themselves looked to

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