With another hour to go before the expected evening meal, I flipped the hourglass over and informed Kidu that I would be going downstairs to take a bath. He just grunted and nodded knowingly as he continued sorting out and familiarizing himself with his own gear.
Going down the stairs again, I tried to pay Athinad for the use of the baths. However, the innkeeper waived away my payment with a quick smile saying that it was included with the clock I’d bought. Soon after, he called the boy to see to my laundry. Again, just the mere mention of that boy drew feelings of irrational suspicion to the fore of my mind.
Entering the baths, I was able to ease some of the tensions of the day as the hot water began working its magic on my knotted muscles. I would have to ask the innkeeper later how he heated the water. The Children of the Tides, for all their barbarity, definitely did have a good understanding of water and plumbing. It would be interesting to see how magic had affected this society’s technological development, or lack thereof.
After a good soak and a stay in the dry room, I returned to our rooms and left my borrowed bathrobe at the door for the boy to collect. I felt another stab of irrational fear; was the boy spying on us again? I quickly dismissed that thought and conversed with Kidu, asking him about his life in the north of the continent whilst he helped me don my armor once more.
Kidu spoke of his people, who inhabited a massive area of frozen tundra known, in his language, as the Kar-Kaphon, which directly translated meant the ‘Trial of Man.’ The group of people who lived their life there was called ‘The People of Trial,’ or ‘They Who Are Tested.’ The people of the North were then broken down into many independent tribes, each named after their totem animal. Kidu’s own tribe was named after the great bears, which they venerated as totem animals.
Like the Eskimo of Earth, with their vocabulary for snow, the northern tribes had many different words for the myriad of tests that their savage land brought. The elements tested their fortitude, the beasts and ever-hungry semi-sentient Ice Drakes tested their cunning, and the harshest of winters, requiring great sacrifice from the older members of the Tribes, tested their resolve as a people. There was even a word for leaving the arms of a passionate lover to enter a cold blizzard for the good of the tribe.
Life in the furthest reaches of the North was difficult and short, with every day a raw struggle to survive in the icy wastes. So harsh were the conditions there that the mothers of the tribe would hold a funeral ceremony for each babe on the day of their birth, and would give them a name only once they reached their tenth birthday. They only celebrated each decade of life and a man or woman who had seen five such celebrations was seen as a venerable elder of the tribe and earned the title of ‘Icewalker.’ These highly esteemed people were well respected and their voices were heard and given due weight at tribal gatherings.
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Their women, more resistant to the rigors of the cold, were highly regarded and often held positions of great esteem within the tribe. When the survival of the tribe depended on level-headed rationing and easing tensions in crowded tents in the bitterest of winters, it was the women to whom the tribes looked.
Some were even trained as ‘Windspeakers’ to guide their tribes through the frozen storms and to keep their laws, oral histories, and ancient traditions. So in tune were they to frozen wastes that a rare few were even able to call upon the raw elemental power of the ice and storm to protect the interests of their tribe. Thus the culture of the north was, for the most part, a matriarchal society.
Their whole culture was based around two eternal constants - the freezing cold and the massive Cronir. These heavy, six-horned, muscular, deer-like animals were, according to Kidu, almost forty hands high and moved across the frozen north like the caribou of Earth would. The Cronir provided them with their meat, their clothing, their primitive weapons, and even their fermented blood provided them with a form of strong alcohol they called ‘Kazass.’
Permanent settlements were few and far between, all of them centered around rare hot springs that gushed from the ground and provided warmth for the tribes. These settlements were exclusively neutral grounds and were used as trading centers for the people of the north and were not owned by any single tribe.
The people of the north were cousins to another group called the Nords. While Kidu and his tribes followed the migratory herds of Cronir across the tundra and forests of the North, the Nords followed the currents of the seas and were eminent sailors. The would-be bully, Harun, Gunne’s protector, was one fine example of a bellicose Nord. I still occasionally savored the taste of his death and the cathartic power it brought me.
Both peoples were also skilled raiders and would send parties to what they called the ‘Hot Lands’ or ‘Warm Lands’ to bring wealth and honor to their tribes. On occasion, they would venture down as mercenaries or swords for hire, their skills forged in the frozen north and then forged anew in the heat of battle of the internecine wars of the south. Not all would make it back, either fallen in battle or seduced by the easy life of the southern lands.
With the hourglass finally emptying and the evening now upon us, I judged it to be a good time to head downstairs for the evening meal. I thanked him for telling me about his people and apologized for not being able to say much about my own. I promised him and myself that one day I would tell him everything, but for the sake of simplicity, that day was not today.
Hauntingly beautiful music echoed up to my ears as I opened the thick door to our room. I followed the trail of musical notes down the stairs to the common room and was greeted by a strange and mysterious sight. An armored man, of average height and build, clad in chainmail and boiled leather scale armor, sat cross-legged in the corner. His raven dark hair splayed across his shoulders like a dark waterfall and his brown eyes glowed warmly, reflecting the fire’s light.
He sang in a resonant tenor, filling the room with the enchanting beauty of his melody, as his fingers danced across the strings of his delicate, lute-like instrument. I did not understand a single word of his song but understood fully the beauty of his message. The song was about life, death, loss, and the siren’s call of finality. The room fell into a respectful silence as the final notes of his song died in the air. Moments later, the solemn atmosphere was burst apart by thunderous applause.