2

He had heard him approaching of course. The fear and loathing and respect and awe creating the unmistakable smell of the Kurashi caste. Still, he sat rigid and unmoving, other than for his eyes across the scroll surface until he heard the coded knock at the back of the palanquin. Three short, one long: the request for permission to approach and speak.

"Speak." His voice low, gentle, the picture of benevolent power. "Pardon, you Grace, we arrive at Oasis Divers soon. It shall be no more than a quarter hour yet." The Cardinal nodded slightly. Acknowledgement, permission and dismissal in one. The captain backed away, unseen, silent in his body armor, like another skin upon his powerful frame.

Frederick looked down. He had completed the appointed prayers. He re-rolled the scroll, carefully inseting its ribbon of precious crimson and put it back into the cabinet. he folded his hands. The overly ornate and costly ring of his office reflecting what rays of the sun could yet reach over the cliffs. One. Two. Three. He sighed, then kicked his pedicured foot at the still inert body at his left. "Wake up. Get dressed. The green." Black eyes in an oval face turned toward him. His August Majestery Frederick Cardinal Constantine Alejandro Echeberria did not return the gaze. He turned his head toward the mountains on his right. And thought about tomorrow's business. How tiresome this tiny progrom would be. Still, he would extract as much benefit as he could from the local Tetrarch. It would be amusing, mildly, to manipulate him. He wondered with a corner of his mind whether he would take the title of this wretched valley for his own. It might be useful.

1

a man reclines in a palanquin. next to him his lover lays, beautiful, the skin of a perfect back to him. the drapes of the palanquin are open on the sides, revealing a crushing vista.

mountains rise tens of thousands of feet into the air. their summits ruthlessly ravage and tear the skies and reach greedily into the heavens, impossible high, yet still unsatisfied.

below them lay the red rock roots reaching up. they touch only just the torso of these brothers of stone. these gods of their own making. and below them, beneath the bottom of their feet, the thinnest sliver-white blue strand of a stream winds in and out again, nearer then farther away from its neighbors.

the man watches, as the road upon which his bearers traverse brings him down, slowly, into the valley. for he too clutches the side of the mirror images of the mountains across from him

yet, the valley below is utterly flat, utterly green, utterly fertile. as pungently prolific and yielding as the rock above is sterile and rigid; as orderly and fragile as the mountains are all chaos and permanence.

the man looks away, back to his lover--still asleep. he reaches across into the intricately inlaid wood of his private library cabinet, and pulls out the scroll of the day. he opens it to the 48th day of Ailool, the 169th season of Common Time, the prayers for the hour of Mars. And he recites the coded runes in their gold and silver script under his breathe, while the crimson of his robes fall in folds, yet majestic in the cramped carriage. his silhouette reflecting the mountains parallel to him.