The Flame Iris Temple by Colin Glassey

Author:Colin Glassey [Glassey, Colin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fantasy, epic fantasy, swords and sorcery, adventure
Publisher: Colin Glassey
Published: 2020-03-25T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

Sailing the Sukanea River

That evening, at the New Year dinner, Lord Vaina showed off a brand-new set of twenty-four bronze bells. Four robed men played an odd piece of music with no discernable melody, although the bells themselves were beautiful, gleaming like gold in the lamplight. Lord Vaina explained that this set of bells had been commissioned to celebrate his victory over the Kitran at the Battle of Devek. “It’s a modest set, and even so, absurdly expensive. But it was a glorious victory, and I trust my descendants will remember what I did for them.”

Then he lifted a large cup and formally welcomed in the New Year. The assembled guests toasted Lord Vaina in return. The wine was strong, the food delicious, and everyone seemed buoyant and cheerful.

Afterward, Lord Vaina’s wives Ituka and Iela performed a beautiful dance together, accompanied by the finest musicians in the city of Tokolas. The two women wore lovely silk dresses with very long sleeves, somewhat reminding Sandun of Miri’s wedding outfit. Ituka and Iela danced and spun around together in a complex duet that surprised him. Back home in Hepedion, dances were communal activities, usually with ten to twenty young men and women dancing with shifting partners in a time-honored manner. Sometimes the dances were just for the women as a group, with each woman trying to perform the same steps exactly. However, in the dance by Lord Vaina’s wives, the two women rarely copied each other; instead, their graceful gestures were complementary, and the dance had a form and structure that hinted at things like flowing water or petals drifting down from flowering trees. Sandun had never seen anything like it before.

Arch-governor Vaina (he had officially assumed the new title on this, the first day of the Year of the Turtle) gave each of the women a necklace of shimmering gold beads mixed with lustrous freshwater pearls. Sandun, with Miri at his side, formally presented to Lord Vaina the book of the design drawings for the Shila warship. Lord Vaina, initially puzzled by the gift, became more excited as he looked through the plans and listened to Miri as she extolled the virtues of her father’s warship.

“An armor-covered boat, like a turtle, but fast, and stable in the water? Amazing! I would never have guessed such a ship was possible.” Lord Vaina paged through the book again and then called over his old friend, Sinki Vereb, the man responsible for building Kunhalvar’s navy. Sinki received the book from Lord Vaina and flipped through it with rapidly blinking eyes, occasionally sipping from the icy fruit-juice-and-alcohol concoction that was a special treat at this New Year celebration.

Sinki closed the book with snap. “This looks straightforward to build,” he said. “If you say the word, we could have fifty built before midsummer. The crew of these boats is tiny; no archers and no ballistae. How many marines would you put on one of these boats? Two or three, no more. All these ships do is ram other boats and then row away.

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