Chapter 1

I'm old now and ready to die but you tell me you want to hear the story of my life for the chronicles? Very well, if you are willing to listen to an old man talking, I will do my best to keep you entertained. Come, let us sit in the shade here in the garden while I talk. Where should I start, my later adventures, the beginning of my life as a sword dancer, or... The beginning? Very well, but I must tell you something of what happened before so you know how I became a sword dancer.

We were decended from the Basque sheepherders and the Indians with which they intermarried after the Dying. For many years we remained isolated from the others who survived the Dying and we prospered in our isolation. Then came the cold years when the crops failed and we had to reach out to others to survive. Thus we became a nation of traders and learned the languages and customs of the various people with whom we traded.

I was born in the great mountains where the water changes direction, the third of five living children born to my parents R'nold and L'na into a family of merchants. No. Not like the ones around here. We had no servants to cook and fetch for us. We worked in the fields to grow our food and herd our animals.

I had been pledged to the daughter of our neighbor after I reached my fifth birthday and they were sure I would survive my milk years. Her child name was Lina and she was my constant companion from the time she was born. She was four to my five and we played in the streets and the fields of our village. She was a beautiful child with hair and eyes of a dark brown and a smile that lit the room...

Silently he remembered a day:

"Lina! Lina, wait for me!" I called as I ran toward her.

Lina turned around with her basket in her hand, "Have you been sent to work in the fields today too?"

"No, I've got to work for H'nri in the black smithy today. I just wanted to give you a gift that I traded for", handing her a straw hat that I had seen her admiring.

With a squeal, she jumped into my arms and kissed me. I held her in my arms not sure of what I should be doing. The feelings I was experiencing disturbed me. I knew we were to be married when I reached manhood but I felt Lina was more like a sister than a lover. I kissed her without passion and wondered what was wrong with me...

Sorry. Sometimes when you get old the memories of long ago seem stronger than what is happening now. I was lost in the memory of what might have been.

Every year we would make a caravan and head toward either the lands of the Clans and the Strange Folk or to the east and the many lands there to trade the wool from our herds and the cloth our women wove from it. We had our feuds but nothing like the south lands, where they fight over some slight from generations ago. It was a simple life but a good one.

What do I know of the Clans and the Strange Folk? Only that they live to the west and they are somehow related. Those allowed to enter the lands of the Clans never speak of what they have seen and no one enters the land of the Strange Folk. How do I know the Strange Folk are real?

If you go from here and travel to the west for three months or more you will find a great salt lake. Travel to the north and you will come to the edge of the land of the Strange Folk. Go west of there and you will find the trading grounds where all but a few are restricted. To the west there are the mountains and the Clans and to the north the Strange Folk I traveled there with a caravan of my folk seeking the trade grounds where we sought the steel and strange devices of the Clans and the Strange Folk.

A merchant from the east would not believe us when we warned him and sought to enter the lands of the Strange Folk. We all heard a voice telling him, "Go no further. You trespass on the lands of the Folk!" He persisted and we felt rage, fear and pain so great that we fell to the ground, merchants and guards together. When we revived we found the man who would try to trespass, dead, with a look of great fear on his face. We quickly buried him and hurried away to the trading ground lest we be struck dead as well. We talked about the voice and no one agreed on what it sounded like or even the language in which it spoke but all agreed that it was like that of the person they most feared.

If you wish to listen to tales of strange places, go to the market place and seek a story teller! I thought you wished to learn of my life!.

You apologize? Very well I will give you one more chance to hear my story.

We went with our fathers to learn the routes after we had finished our training in the languages and customs of the people we might meet. Our family was like many others in the village where we might be speaking Mercan one day, Basque the next and a different one the third day. By the time I was seven I had learned ten languages and had begun my studies on the customs of the people I might meet in my travels as a trader. How I looked forward to my first trip as an apprentice trader! I was sure I would be able to trade so effectively that I would come back laden with such riches that the people of the village would come to look upon me like a god because of my wisdom.

My first trip was when I was eleven when we went to the lands of the Clans. It was a hard trip over wide prairies and along many rivers. We saw many of the hairy animals called buflo during our journey as well as many deer and antelope. The folk of this area are nomads who follow the herds in their journey from north to south. While dangerous to those who mistreat them they are generous to their friends. I discovered during this journey the difference between learning something and really experiencing it yourself. I was shocked at their custom of casting out weak newborns and those too old to continue on their endless journey even though I had learned of this custom during my training. I found myself fascinated at the same time with the colorful clothing they wore and the decorative items they carried with them on the covered wagons that they drove.

I continued my training on the trip and learned to judge the worth of items at the place I bought them against the worth at the point to which they were being taken. I was surprised to find items I thought of as having little value were prized as exotic goods elsewhere and things I considered of great worth being considered as items to throw away. I learned much during that trip about myself and the craft of being a trader that helped me a great deal in my later life.

When we returned I regaled Lina about my travels and the sights I had seen. I could hardly wait for the journey to the east the next year. I continued my training, learning to judge men by the way they acted and their posture as much as by the words they spoke. I learned to look for eyes turning toward someone else during a trade and the way hands left an item someone desired.

Finally it was time to go to the east and the exotic lands there. This was a more dangerous journey as pirates both on land and on the rivers infested the areas between the civilized lands. We had had no trouble on the trail we had followed for the last two trips so the leaders of the village decided to use it one more time.

We had no trouble on the first part of our journey and we made several profitable trades at our stops. Finally we arrived at the M'sip River where we were to begin our raft trip to the sea where we would find merchants from the lands to the east in large numbers and possibly even some merchants from the even more mysterious lands over the sea I had never seen. I was not to make that journey however.

We had separated the goods and the people on several rafts for our journey and for the first few days we enjoyed the trip. All but one of the rafts had passed a small island where the current flowed rapidly and the channel narrowed when a large rope was pulled up from the river forcing the raft on which I was on toward the island. The guards hacked at the rope but were unable to cut it before we ran aground. I could see my father and the other merchants looking at us as we fell to the many pirates who swarmed aboard. I saw my father looking back as I fell in a spattering of blood from the blow of a pirates club. He must have thought me killed for I was covered with blood when he last saw me. No one ever tried to find me and I know that my mother, at least, would have insisted that an effort be made.

When I revived I found myself a slave of the pirates, becoming a beast of burden to move the goods they seized in their trap. For the next three years we were treated like animals as well, given just enough food and clothing to keep us able to perform our tasks and no more.

Did I like the food? Fool! I was a slave! You ate what ever they gave you and only that which you were able to defend from others. Those who refused to eat died quickly and the weak ones soon afterward. We were fed from a common bowl into which they placed the two meals we received a day during the good times. In winter, or when they failed to take their prey, we received one meal or none at all. I survived because I had a useful skill the pirates needed. I was able to communicate with the various captives the pirates took when they sought to find if it was worth offering them back for ransom and to order the slaves to their tasks until they knew enough of the pirates language not to need my help and they were transferred to other groups.