The Amber river runs slowly through the months of median. The waters shrink in the heat and the shoreline widens to a stinking bed of hot mud, quickly hardening under the cloudless glare of the suns.
At the mouth of the river, under the crimson shadows of the Cinnabar mountains, sits Amber Point, a waystation for the barges coming up the Amber to unload their cargoes onto the wagontrains that carry the crates of ambergems up through the mountains and across the continent. But as the waters dry up, so does the trade, and the town lays shriveled and empty, waiting for the fall rains.
The thin, murky layer of water under the dock smelt of fish and rotting wood. Zass sat with his feet dangling over the side, a smoking pipe to his lips and his eyes staring blankly as a river chang floundered uselessly in the mud. He did not look up as a shadow fell across his lap and the deep, bemused voice greeted him.
"May Aa find you well in both mind and spirit this morning Zass."
"Leave it be Aastrim, the heat has drained my patience for today."
"It only takes a little of the suns to dry a shallow pool."
Zass took his eyes from the dying fish and turned to the man deeply cloaked in a hooded, unmarked white robe standing above him. "Better a shallow pool of wine than a thousand fathoms of water."
Aastrim folded the robe around his knees and sat on the dock . "Drink is a tool of discord and the water of the weak." He pulled the hood from his face to reveal a clear blue eyes and a study, not unhandsome face, completely devoid of hair. "Besides, Zass, it is not even midday yet. If you drink all your stores now they will not last until the rains. Here, drink of this. It will better quench your thirst." A thin white hand slipped from his sleeve, a heavy wooden cup in his fingers. It was slick with the condensation and filled with ice and water.
Zass took the cup and looked skeptically into the glass. "I'm not likely to go bald if I drink this am I?"
"Bald Nettle root turns the water a creamy yellow. Were I to try such a trick, small pieces hidden in your food would be the better deception."
Zass eyed the Aamanian before taking a sip of the chilled water. There was silence save for the crunch of ice and the ever present hum and click of the insects. After a while, Zass set the empty cup on the dock. "Thank you."
Aastrim nodded and swabbed his brow with a piece of cloth. "Iced water is a simple spell. It took no trouble."
Zass picked at the wilted orange lace at his cuff and ran his hand through his long dark hair. "How goes work on the schoolhouse?"
"Fine." Aastrim nodded "I have not the skills of a carpenter, but my hands, guided by Aa, work well enough. I will be completed when the tribes return with the rains."
"A noble effort, even if I fail to see the point. In the years we have been here Aastrim, how many converts have you made?"
"As many as you yourself have turned to your unholy altar."
"Right. None." Zass turned to look at Aastrim. "Every spring the Mogroth whelps leave with their tribes quoting full verse from the Omnival. And every fall they return bragging about their coming of ages ceremonies or the magics of the Rituals of Sleep and you are forced to start again from the very beginning. After two years here in this forsaken backwater, does that not bother you?"
"The beginning is the only place to start."
"Why are you here Aastrim? I know why I am here, your people set up a mission here and mine must follow. And with every letter I write to get me pulled from this place, you entrenching yourself deeper into his mudpit."
"I go where the will of Aa send me." The cleric blinked in the sunlight. "I hold no illusions of my work. Listening to my sermons the only fee I ask and the parents wish their children read. But every year those Mogroth children carry away a piece of the glory of Aa. And every year that light grows bigger until it soon cannot be extinguished. Such is the nature of my work and the reason I stay. I may ask of you the same question Zass. Why are you here?"
"Bad luck. A Cartomancer I consulted drew The Lesser Sun and The Laeolis Moon the day I signed to be a missionary and I should have heeded him. I had hoped for adventure and exotic travel." He made a sweeping gesture over the empty town. "Instead I wind up here among the mud and the trees, as far away from the exiting and exotic as downtown Andurin. The slaves of a dead man could not be less bored."
"You do little to allay such boredom."
"There is little to do. I am here primarily to act as a trade advisor. Otherwise I bless a few cargoes and tend the last rights and preside over the Night of Fools for the few Zandir traders. It is hardly enough to fill my days."
"Do as you have been taught. Teach and spread the word of your faith."
"To whom? Did I ever tell you what happened the week I took your classes when you took sick with swamp fever? I asked the first question of Paradox. 'What is life?' and the Mogroth children took it as a quiz! They left and returned a few days later with an actual answer. Some long winded explanation that tied sex, breath and death into some complex analogy involving the suns and a tree. Let no man ever say that the Mogroth are not a complex people. Slow and slightly smelly yes, but never simple."
Aastrim did little to hide his smile. "Perhaps you would do better with the Jhangaran tribesmen."
Zass nodded. "They do seem to see life as a mystery wrapped in a secret. However they have a disturbing tendency to take things with too much, often violent vigor. Preaching to them is the equivalent to inciting a riot. I was truly sorry about your hut by the way."
"The incident is forgotten and the hut rebuilt. Nonetheless, you could count it as a success."
"My only one in all my long years stuck here. You and your school draw in more students every year and I do less and less to prevent the evil of Orthodoxy from infiltrating and undermining the minds and souls of the locals. I grow tired to tired to fight Aastrim. This town will soon be filled with bald Mogroth and Jhangaran warriors in white armor and I do nothing to stop it. And I do nothing because I know that the Mogroth will treat your sermons with bemused disinterest and the Jhangarans will forget them with the next tribal clash. We are wasting our time Aastrim and I am weary. This is not my home."
"I do not see my time here as having no worth. The word of Aa has spread to into the deep jungles. A stepping stone for those who will follow me when I am dead. Soon a highway will open and the light of Aa will flow through these jungles like the rivers. And on that road a mighty fortress, each brick a member of the faith."
"White, sterile and square." Interrupted Zass.
Aastrim nodded. "Such is the will of Aa. You see such a thing as evil. Yet in your streets, people starve and beg for coppers. There are no such beggars in the streets of Aaman. Each member of the faithful has his purpose, and with each purpose that road and that fortress grow stronger. You and your faith are like leaves in a river, floating aimlessly in the currents."
"Some are leaves, others fish and others ships, zaratan, and wallowing lurkers. Some float, others swim against the current and others take hold of a rock and build a damn. We all float in the same river Aastrim, not all of us chose to drown in it."
"And yet here you sit at the bottom of your shallow pool. Fight against the waters soon Zass, before the air in your lungs grows too stale to breathe." The cleric stood and straightened his robes. "It grows close to the noon hour and I must return to prepare the midday prayer. I shall see you here on the morrow Zass. May Aa see you well."
"On the morrow Aastrim. Take care."
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