Chapter Sixty Eight

Carza leant back, and thought.

Things were coming to an end. Her time in the steppe was closing. Nothing more to do - she had an obligation to Kani's family for saving her, and generally giving her everything she needed, anthropologically speaking. Kani had become a good friend, Ayat was... honestly just fun to be around... there was no way she'd just nod, wave, and yell 'have a good time on the other side of the mountains'. She had obligations to them, to help them integrate over there, find their way in a country where they understood precisely zero of the languages spoken, and people operated by very different systems of belief and significance. She owed them for all they'd done, and she intended to stand by that debt. And... well, her notes were done. What remained was more an exercise in fruition than creation, she'd laid the foundation and now she could reap the rewards by building an elegant ethnography atop such sturdy groundwork. She had everything she wanted. Her only wish was that she could share it with Hull, who'd died getting her here.

She still missed him. And she doubted she'd ever stop missing him. It was less frequent these days, but her thoughts were still finding empty spaces where he'd have once existed. Thoughts he could've completed, now half-done and awkwardly concluded. But it was less frequent. Maybe, in time, she'd only find those thoughts happening every other day. Then every other week. Every other month... but they'd always be there, a cold core for her to stumble across. Even the alcohol which now passed her lips wasn't quite enough to soothe it, if anything, it made her thoughts run faster and faster, which made them run into Hull more and more often. But the sight of Kani and Ayat chatting casually, laughing at pointless in-jokes, and generally just relaxing now that their own obligations had been met... well. They'd delivered their message and their gold. The family would have everything they needed, and there was nothing more to be done. They had the right to leave, and they had no reason to stay. No more guilt, no more duty. To them, they were leaving their home to find new fates elsewhere - a place where Kani could keep her brother company and generally see the world beyond her little slice of strangeness, and a place where Ayat could live out his exile in peace and quiet, finding whatever form of absolution he wanted to find.

They could all wash their hands of the steppe and move on. Back home for Carza, into the unknown for these two. At least they'd know more about the continent than she knew about the steppe when she came here - not going in totally blind, they'd even have a guide, for crying out loud. A cat, too! Not that it could... lay eggs or provide milk or anything actually useful, but it would know when danger was coming and would immediately run away. So as long as they followed it, they ought to all be fine. Carza for languages, the cat for danger... good team, the rat and the cat. Oh, Founder, she should never have thought that, and she most certainly should never say it. Never live it down if the others caught on with the image. But she could... get back home. Surreal to imagine, but she would get back home.

And sure, there were regrets.

What was up with that temple? Could she have explored it further, made contact with the people of the salt marshes who may not recognise Ayat's sash and what it meant? Maybe built up another set of notes on their culture, their language... go north until she found the sea and could stare out into the waves, confident that she had done her work. Could network the two pieces of ethnography together into a single, reliable block of information, everything supporting everything else. A masterpiece, really, if she managed to pull it off. Or she could go west, into the desert. See what Ayat had been up to, what the nomads in general had done. A nomadic group would surely have been influenced by their sedentary neighbours, maybe she could see the source for some of the beliefs around here. Maybe she'd go out and find that the desert dwellers influenced the nomads when the former were victorious, and now they'd suffered a succession of defeats... well, their beliefs were abandoned as clearly being ineffective. Or something along those lines, maybe. No idea what she'd find if she went west.

No idea if she'd come back.

And maybe, even if she did, she'd never get back home because she'd be crushed under the weight of all her notes, all her work, all her research... enough to fill a whole library in the Court, enough to establish her as a supreme scholar, the sort that others would look up to centuries from now, if her work wasn't all proven to be woefully inaccurate by the next anthropologist to make their way out here. But... no, no, there was a time to go on, and there was a time to go back. The mountains could be crossed, the continent could be traversed, and she'd walk back into her own room in her own home, to sit on her own bed and smoke a fresh cigarillo, still bearing the heat of its toasting... no more adventures after that. And in her opinion? Good! Sod adventures, sod them once, sod them twice, sod them until they could be sodded no longer, and she'd still sod them a few more times just to be sure! Pardon her vulgarity, but she did not like adventures. Thinking back, she'd been terrified more often than she'd like, adrenaline was something that she found it hard to get used to, let alone addicted to. Exhaustion was not a state that suited her. She wanted to grow fat and old and content, the idea of being some rangy wanderer with skin the texture of old leather and so many scars that it was a wonder she was alive at all...

No. No no no. Never.

She'd lost three toes, two fingers, gained an eye, and suffered enough shocks to probably take a few years off her life. She wanted to go home, and relax. Already she had a vision of it, and she spoke softly, the others glancing over from their friendly bickering.

"When I get back to ALD IOM, I'm going to go to this... small place in the Court of Ivory. It's this little bar that the students use, but years ago they stopped using it regularly, so now it mostly serves the professors who don't want to fraternise with anyone. And so it's become this dark, smoky place with a few old hands standing by, lazing and smoking, only really coming alive when someone comes in - and almost no-one comes in. The beer's watery, the brandy is only mostly tolerable, it's not the most exciting place, and the company is never good... but they have this... thing. One of the old men who works there makes this... wonderful type of sausage, he uses spices and onions when he does it, serves it with this odd relish, it's... honestly very good."

She smiled to herself.

"I don't even like it that much. It's just... not something I've had for a while. That, and fruitcake, but... it's funny how the cravings come up on you. All I can think about now is how much I'd like to sit down in that smoky, grubby place which shouldn't really exist, definitely doesn't help enough people to warrant the people they waste on it, at this one chair which doesn't squeak at a table which doesn't wobble, where I can have that stupid little bit of meat on a good plate, with some brandy, some potatoes... have some beer, maybe. And I'd eat and drink and eat, then head off for a nap. And I could waste most of a day doing just that, be too sleepy to do anything after eating, be too eager to eat to do anything before eating, and be too busy eating when I was accomplishing the eating thing. Right now, at this moment, that's all I want. That's legitimately all I really desire in the world."

She looked up. Kani was staring at her thoughtfully, and Ayat was chewing the end of a stick, mulling it around like a pipe. Kani spoke quietly.

"...it sounds nice. I'd be interested in seeing it."

"Might not exist by the time we get back. Not profitable enough. Maybe I get back and nothing's there at all, the Court closed up shop and I'm out of a job. But... I want to go. I really do. I want to see my aunt, my acquaintances, get my work done and all, but I want to sit down, eat, and drink."

She paused.

"I never told you about Hull."

Ayat blinked in confusion, but Kani shook her head.

"Only that he was part of your expedition."

"...do you mind if I talk about him? I know it's bad luck, but-"

"We're going to a foreign place, luck's not the same everywhere. Go on, do as you like."

Carza paused for a moment, then lay back against the cool grass. The weather wasn't too bad tonight, not too cloudy, and they'd found a spot where they could rest and recuperate before the journey up the side of the mountain. It was dark, it was cold, but... there was company, and a small crackling fire which danced in front of her, until she surrendered her gaze to the stars rolling in the formless emptiness up above. And she found it calming, staring at them. They moved without her knowledge or consent, they moved whether she liked it or not, and if she lived or died they'd roll onwards by their own infallible logic.

"Hull va Trochi was my friend. My first friend, really. I was always standoffish, too standoffish. When I was younger, I was too paranoid. And then, I was just too hesitant. I'd be involved in conversations, hear something, think of a response, and by the time I'd mustered the willpower to go through with it, the conversation would've already moved along. So I was just... silent, invariably silent. And after a while people forget you, when you don't talk enough, do enough. I was fading, and I couldn't say that I minded that all that much. I liked being alone, or I thought I did. I liked being safe and full and worry-free. Nothing else really remained. I just wanted to retire before I was twenty. Used to be homeless... not that the concept really translates out here, but I was an exile living in my own city. And it meant that I was willing to take anything and call it everything. Being fat and lazy and old... that was heaven, for me. The idea, at least. I imagine the reality would've been worse, but I never really wanted to think about that."

Another hesitation, and she tried to mark the rolling of the stars, like marbles on sackcloth. Couldn't do it. Only moved when she wasn't looking, or when she closed her eyes for far too long... slept, some would call it.

"Hull was my first friend. And... and I think, if things were different, we might've wound up somewhere else. First kiss, actually. Last, I'd imagine. I don't want to think about it, but... no, I loved him. Really loved him. And now... now I'm just me. That avenue's closed off. But I loved him, and I think he liked me back. Could've grown old together, bickering all the while. I suppose that's a problem, I want friends, but I want friends I can retire with, not just... ordinary ones. I don't want a brief friend, I want someone I can grow old with. Hull fit that. He fit that damn well. Not even remotely comparable fields of study, but we worked together nonetheless. And now he's just... gone. And I think a part of me is afraid that if I get back to the Court of Ivory, I'll just see all the places where he used to be, and all the places we shared, and it'll never feel like home again. I think I'm very afraid of that, even if it's... hard to articulate."

Kani hummed.

"You could wander."

"...I don't think I could. Well, I could, but it wouldn't go anywhere. I need a place to sit down. If I keep moving, I'll just... I don't know, but I won't be happy. I've already lost a few fingers, a few toes, gained an eye... I don't want to see what could happen next. I want to shut the world out and sit down forever, that's my paradise."

Ayat and Kani glanced at one another... and Ayat spoke in his low, careful voice.

"We believe that, too. There's no honour in dying, even for a good cause. No honour in leaving your family alone, in abandoning your duties, in failing. The only honour is in winning. The idea of sitting down forever... it appeals to me too. I like the idea of never doing anything ever again."

Carza glanced.

"But wouldn't it bore you? Wouldn't you wonder what could happen if you kept going, kept exploring, kept fighting? Wouldn't you think that, if your life were a story, you were ending it right when it was getting interesting?"

Ayat shrugged.

"No."

"...alright, go on."

"I sleep from sundown to sunrise. That's all night, and that happens after every day. If I was so worried about doing things, why would I sleep?"

A memory of a stone temple in the stinking forest.

"Some people don't."

"Some people are stupid, too. I ride most of the day, going from place to place to place. That takes me a long, long time. Should I start exhausting all my horses by riding as fast as possible, just so I can use my time more efficiently?"

Carza was silent.

"No. No point. Stupid. You just kill your horses and arrive early, good job. Take things slower. Easier that way. Nicer, that way."

He sighed.

"...I tried to go faster. Become someone. Wasn't fun. Was pointless, really."

Carza stared. Was he talking about... Kani laid a hand on his arm, and squeezed softly. He said nothing more. No idea why he was exiled, but... he seemed contrite about it. And he was leaving the steppe, he respected the authority of the exile if nothing else. She didn't press him on the topic. Sometimes, things were meant to stay unknown. Sometimes, people just... didn't feel inclined to share everything. She didn't know everything about the world - where it came from, where it was going, what the overall structure of the continents were - but she knew enough to live in it, and that was enough. Total knowledge wasn't always good. She'd never found out why Anthan had acted the way he did, what he'd been hiding about his service in the Great War. Honestly, the only person she knew everything about was probably Lirana... and even then, not perfect. Let Ayat keep his secrets, she didn't want to know them, and he wasn't obligated to share them.

"Better to find a home and stay in it. If everyone wandered around all the time, there'd be no homes, just... guests without hosts."

Carza nodded. Fair point. The three of them lingered in silence, the mood turned significantly more sombre. Maybe... he had a point. Carza vo Anka's story could end here, and she'd be happy with it. She didn't want to lose any more fingers, toes, gain any more limbs, lose any more friends... if she could stay in the Court of Ivory as she remembered it for the rest of her life, she'd reckon herself to be a happy person. She'd gone out, lost her expedition, and then built a new one around herself, one she intended to protect. She had work to complete, and that work wouldn't necessitate going around having more rollicking expeditions. She had the notes necessary to supply most of a lifetime of work. Long enough to be secure for the rest of her life, able to claim the positions she wanted editing dictionaries and essay collections, generally just helping more academia come into existence. Becoming an academic virus, more or less - no more innovation, just reproduction. Not so bad, as fates went. Nice and reliable. Good food, too. Plenty of drink. She'd lived the first part of her life hungry, cold, alone, and on the cusp of being snuffed out by some vulgar little accident. Now, she could be full, warm, accompanied, and vulnerable to a much smaller range of accidents.

Was it wrong if that was all she wanted?

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Was it right if she went around craving the return of scarcity and terror because it was more exciting or purposeful? Animals wouldn't complain about that, they'd just settle down for a pleasant nap and call it a day. Only a human would actively want the world to be harsher to give themselves a sense of purpose.

And Carza vo Anka had, in this moment, much more in common with a rat than a human.

Kani leant forwards on her elbows, tusks gleaming.

"What would you do, then? If you kept on going, I mean."

Carza shrugged.

"No idea. Just feels automatic. Feels like I've done this much, I'm used to it now, so why not keep on rolling. Find out more. Come back here, someday. Revisit everything, study properly... there are so many threads I could pull on if I wanted to, little contacts I could exploit, little adventures I could go on. Lots of things."

"But would it have any overarching purpose?"

"Hm?"

"Overarching purpose. I mean, you say you'd keep going because there's potential to it, but would you change as a person?"

"Physically, maybe. Already down five digits and up one eye."

"Would that satisfy you?"

"Founder, no."

"Well, there we go. You wouldn't change. You have your research, your notes, your work. You had a purpose when you came here, that purpose is fulfilled, now go back home and claim your reward."

"But don't... in your stories, do the heroes ever just go home, victorious, and sit down for the rest of their lives, or is there some sort of subversion, where they've changed so much that they don't want to go home, or home is no longer suitable for them, or... something?"

Kani blinked with cat-like slowness.

"No."

"Really?"

Ayat grunted.

"She's right. We don't. That sounds terrible, going off on a journey and never coming home."

He paused.

"I speak from experience. It's miserable."

Carza twitched awkwardly.

"...yes, I suppose so."

Were her pulp novels that... subversive? Kani sighed.

"What's your name?"

"Carza vo Anka."

"And is Carzo vo Anka the sort of person who would go back home, realise that home wasn't quite right for them, and then go off on a dangerous journey fraught with peril because it's just the done thing? Just because it feels wrong to end things when you're still young and clever and ambitious, and things are meant to end when you're old and crippled and there are no more problems to be solved?"

"Probably not."

"There you go. If that was the case, then you wouldn't be able to enjoy your retirement, you'd be too old and traumatised and bored by everything. Enjoy retirement while you're young, it's the best time for it. At least, from what you've told me about 'retirement'. Concept's still quite funny, must say."

Carza smiled blearily, the alcohol starting to slow her system down to a halt.

"I suppose you're right."

If Carza vo Anka was the sort of person to do that, then she wasn't Carza vo Anka at all. She was something wearing Carza vo Anka's skin, pottering around having silly adventures for the sake of having silly adventures. She'd been here for a while, a few months at least, and now... now she was done. Had done her tour of duty, and was heading back home. Life was already defined by its lacunae, by all the myriad time-wasting activities of daily life, so... why not embrace those? If they were so awful, why would life be so full of them? Why concern herself with the things that amounted to such little time overall, why not focus on the things which filled up the empty corners of her life? She'd always done that in the past, when her life had been composed of frantic struggles with nary a moment of peace to be found... and she'd become obsessed with making sure that her life was swallowed up by the silly pointless things she saw the people of ALD IOM doing every day. As an urchin, she'd never just... stared into space, pondering things. Always on the move, always something to do, past and future never existing, only the present and its myriad necessary actions. Nothing besides. But she'd seen people staring off into nowhere, eating slowly and carelessly in cafes, drinking with idle interest in pubs...

And she'd envied them their carelessness.

Envied them their state of living death which seemed so effortlessly blissful compared to her own life, picking and pecking and scuttling from place to place.

She'd done so much to achieve that state. Would she insult the urchin Carza had once been by giving up all her comfort for some fleeting sense of purpose or virtue? Pursuing those fleeting things hadn't distracted her before, wouldn't distract her now. But even so, she felt... oddly guilty. Like she was surrendering a long and difficult life of long and difficult events, full of strange occurrences and discoveries, a massive pile of peculiar acquaintances and friends. Becoming a well-travelled lady of sophistication and intrigue, dipping her heels into a dozen little plots and schemes wherever she went, and... Founder, that sounded miserable. When was that well-travelled lady meant to sit down and have some tea by the fire, being well-travelled meant owning no home, and that meant the world of furniture shopping was denied to her. As much as Carza had enjoyed hanging out with Kani and her family, the fact remained that Carza had been living without a proper desk for months now and she could barely stand typing on her legs any more.

She needed a desk! A samovar! A bed!

She was a creature of comforts, and by gum she was going to have those comforts regardless of what doubts presented themselves!

...

But was furniture enough to sacrifice continuation?

She looked at her friends. Would she be willing to drag them into danger over and over, risk them facing the same fate as Hull? Just so she could be well-travelled and interesting and could continue adventuring until her legs failed her?

...No.

Definitely not.

The only thing stopping her from stopping was a vague sense of propriety. That she ought to continue journeying.

And if she looked past that vague obligation, she found... that she really, really didn't want to.

She settled.

"Alright then. Just straight back to ALD IOM. Back to normal life. Scholarship, tea, all that good stuff... nothing else."

Kani sighed.

"Sounds lovely, Carza. I can think of no better way to spend the rest of my days than in a comfortable room in a fascinating foreign city."

Carza blinked.

"...are you-"

"I'm not being sarcastic, I know how that sounded, but I'm not sarcastic. I want to visit your home, and... then we'll see what happens, but honestly, the idea of visiting a foreign place and just... living for a while sounds wonderful to me. I'm not interested in diving in for a week and then moving on. Doesn't sound like long enough to appreciate a place."

"And you, Ayat? Happy with ending your wandering days?"

Ayat blinked.

"Yes."

"...oh, that's-"

"I thought I was clear. I'm done. I would like to spend the rest of my days being idle and lazy and pointless. And alive."

He paused.

"...though I will miss the idea of marriage."

Another pause.

"No offence, Carza."

Carza sat up.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I... you must understand, and I mean this with no offence, but I find you physically off-putting. I'm resigned to living alone in ALD IOM, and I don't particularly mind that, but-"

"Physically off-putting."

"Well, yes. Your skin isn't glass-like, you're very skinny, and you're very intense. Also, you're missing two fingers and have three eyes."

"You have four."

"A good even number. Three is just unnatural. And why would you have one in your neck?"

Carza growled.

"Ayat, I wasn't bringing you to ALD IOM to marry me, I was bringing you because you're exiled and I owe your family. And besides, I'm celibate. Everyone in the Court of Ivory is, at least, the scholars are. Go and flirt with the secretaries, they'd-"

Ayat coughed up some liquor.

"Oh, by everything that's lucky, no."

Carza felt insulted on Melqua's behalf.

"Why?"

"They're... like you."

"Human?"

"Human. Yes. Why would I find a human attractive, or want to mate with one? What would even be the point? There'd be no children, and... well, I might as well marry Little Friend."

Kani cradled him protectively, and Carza felt her blood start to boil. No idea why she was so worked up about this, she had no horse in this race, but... bah. Not giving him the last laugh.

"Are you comparing me and my species to cats."

"Yes."

She blinked.

"Elaborate."

"I think you will hit me if I do."

"I might. But elaborate anyway."

Kani grinned.

"Go on. Elaborate. I want to know your logic."

Ayat shifted uncomfortably.

"...well, you're both very different to us, physically. Smaller, too. You can't use scent-language. You live shorter lives. You have fewer arms. And... well, I... thought you were kept around because you were small and amusing. Like a cat."

Little Friend blinked at the two of them with immense smugness. Carza exploded.

"I am not similar to a cat, and-"

"No, you're a rat. But you wondered about the comparison, so-"

"Stop it! Look, you can't compare humans to animals, we're nothing alike, we're closer to you than we are to cats. Cats can't even talk! So-"

"But the point remains. They're very different to us. You're very different to us. So…"

"The two aren't equivalent!"

Kani's face became very flat all of a sudden.

"Carza, you sound like a yowling cat and you may alarm the horses."

"I thought I was meant to be a rat."

Kani stared silently.

Oh, damn it, she'd gone and admitted it. Fury rose up. Carza was going to kill everyone here and then the cat.

And she was happier than she'd been in weeks.

* * *

And as the hours passed, as they bickered pointlessly about pointless things with no consequences, she had a sudden and very peculiar revelation.

For a second, just a second, sometime deep in the mountain's night when the peaks swallowed the star and the scents of ancestors played around the rustling oceans of grass, she could see herself years and years and years from now.

Maybe not years, maybe this year. Maybe decades down the line. The first day of the rest of her life, or the last day of it all. But she could feel changes. Her body was weighted with some more scars, gained on the journey back up. Back in the Court of Ivory, her walls had strange things hung on them, little souvenirs, some familiar, some not. A nicer room than the one she lived in now, larger and with finer furniture scattered around carelessly. Not a speck of dust to be seen. And she knew, with absolute conviction, what else had happened in the world. Like she was looking down on the world and all its people with a perfect third eye, the one that the Founder was meant to possess, which let him see anyone, anything, and anywhere. Just for a second, a single perfect second, she had the vision of the Founder, and she saw every consequence spiralling away from her in fine golden strands, thin as spiderwebs, forming a pattern of endless complexity that she could nonetheless see perfectly, the nodes which bound and the points which connected.

She could imagine speaking to Hull's parents. Listening to them try and stay strong, weeping when she turned her back. Coming to her frequently, asking for stories and tales and help with finding some of his writing. Digging out old books of poetry that he enjoyed, and reading them together to remember what he'd been like. Making sure that no-one ever forgot who he'd been, not because he was some epoch-defining genius, but because he was Hull, and they weren't going to let him be forgotten. Carrying his spirit with her as she published her work and let it flow into the world. Speaking with Melqua. Seeing her squeak in fright as Kani and Ayat poked their heads in, before shivering, brushing herself down, and offering them both fruitcake and tea, the bastion of all things sane. Telling Melqua what she thought about her, how Melqua had been a guiding force from the moment she arrived in the Court, and remained one of the Court's brightest attractions for Carza. Something that had motivated her to come back home instead of languishing in the doldrums. A reason not to keep adventuring, a reason to stay here and be content.

She could even see other things, grander things, stranger things. Krodaw burning to ash, the colonial buildings razed to the ground and churned up by howling Sleepless, who set to snapping at each other the moment the ashes cooled and no-one presented themselves to be slaughtered. She saw people dying, huge numbers... and she saw people escaping. Some into the countryside, and some on trains to Mahar Jovan. Carza could even imagine, in her strange way, that a family would emerge from that ashen ruin, carrying in their hearts the memory of a lost daughter who'd patrolled with the colonial forces, whose name Carza had never learned. A local girl killed pointlessly by Kralat to somehow prove his arguments correct. And Carza imagined, or predicted, or saw with her own eyes, a girl a little younger than the local one, coming to ALD IOM with a bag of ink and pens, determination in her eyes, insistent on learning precisely what had happened to her sister in that stinking forest. Knowing that she'd been guarding a pair of strangers from ALD IOM, and resolving to find those strangers, to interrogate them. And Carza could see that girl entering a lecture hall and demanding something from her, answers of any kind. Could see the two of them talking for hours and hours.

Could see the girl staying and learning. Could see her with an eye tattooed on her forehead.

A governor slinking back home... or maybe dying to assassination... or maybe just dying on the way back. His wife moving on, and his daughter, a strange girl with an addiction to cocaine, falling in with a strange crowd of artists, stranger than any Carza had ever known. Rebelling against all forms of convention and status quo, trying to bring about a new, hyper-creative era through the liberation of the human consciousness. And the governor's daughter would stay with them for a while, Carza could see that much. But she wouldn't be happy, not at all. And one day, just maybe, she'd knock on the door to her mother's house in Mahar Jovan, slink inside and pretend nothing had changed at all since she left. Maybe one day she'd come up to ALD IOM to practice her art in a place where people sipped time instead of draining it, where she could be welcomed to a golden void which may as well be death, but could also be happiness - if there was any real difference between the two. But Carza liked to think she'd be content with something, be it mad creativity or quiet reflection or boring retirement to a life of domestic simplicity where she could act out her final rebellion - rebellion against her own younger self, with all her follies and torments and unpleasant nights.

Her father never featured in these visions. It didn't reflect well on her. But he was simply absent, and she wasn't sure if she minded that fact. He'd always been a step, never a destination. But... she was glad that he had his books, his typing pool, his work and a quiet contentment that his daughter had done well for herself, and didn't think of him too poorly. She didn't hate him, or even dislike him. Just... understood him. And while he'd been a poor father, hadn't been very attentive or affectionate... she was glad that he'd had her.

As poor as he was, he'd still made her exist, and she rather preferred that to the alternative.

Lirana's cousin would receive her money, would live out her days in greater comfort than she expected. Not an aristocrat, not at all. But she'd be more monied than before, and would perhaps find some form of contentment with the fact that her cousin was commemorated in the halls of a distant city's libraries. Egg and Cam would have their families contacted, if Carza could manage it (and the vision assured her she would), and she'd record them down as well. Anthan... Anthan, she doubted she'd ever learn more about. Never spoke to his old lovers, because most of them were either dead or kept themselves hidden in a passive way, never emerging into lives of importance or going to places where they were easy to find. Carza knew she'd never live that down, but in her own way, she thought Anthan wouldn't have objected to the idea. Hard to say why, but... he seemed to be a person who wouldn't want to be bothered after his death. Would be content with slumbering forever in the mountains, never bothered by any old debts or unpleasant memories.

And she could see Miss vo Larima entering her rooms now. The two had become... friends was a strong word. An accurate one, though. She was always busy, always flying from meeting to meeting, composing enormous files of numbers and graphs and figures... always working. But the two had shared time in the forest together, and Carza was happy to let her visit the Court of Ivory. Some days, Carza found her in the libraries, curled up around a book in her exquisite business suit, sleeping happily in a golden void where no-one wanted to pay attention to her. Peaceful and surrounded by beauty, by a place which was less... vigorous than the Court of Salt. A place she'd always wanted to dwell in, but hadn't the birthright to do so. And of course, at some stage Carza would learn her first name. And of course, she'd never use it. Miss vo Larima was Miss vo Larima, never to marry and never to retire, only to work and work and work and snatch little fragments of golden oblivion when she could.

Kani and Ayat. Celebrities, sure. But she never saw that part. All she saw was the two of them stumbling into her apartments, barely avoiding the too-low door frame, sitting in large chairs capable of supporting them. Ayat was older, and he was starting to build the density up for a proper ascension into the realms of the ancestors. Kani was quite content where she was... and both were content with this room, with the tea in front of them, the fruitcake freshly baked. Melqua was much older, and much more frail, but her mind was sharper than it had ever been, and Carza could clearly see her bringing in larger and larger cakes for the two nomads who'd been in need of a place to belong. Melqua, happy to take in lost children even as her eyesight failed and her back stooped. Happy to take them in and make sure they felt loved and doted on, even when they were the ones doing the doting more often than not. Could be wishful thinking, of course. Maybe the three of them would never hit it off, would always treat each other cautiously or politely... or maybe they'd be thick as thieves, a little family collected in the same way one collected dust or random pieces of cutlery. Perhaps a day would come when the ancestors themselves came tumbling down the mountains and wandered freely, maybe a day would come when trains were crowded with their enormous bodies, crushed up into seats, bound up in fine, ill-fitting suits, and they poked around like country bumpkins wondering how this strange wide world worked. Maybe the steppes would come to ALD IOM, and Tobok and Mrs Cauldron would see their children again, both parents made rich and happy and contented. Sitting down to dine... or maybe not. Not hers to say when things would end.

It was funny.

But she never thought of the ethnography. No vision of it, no plans, no table of contents, and no infinitely vast bibliography. Shame, she'd have enjoyed it if this future vision gave her a few pointers on some of the trickier chapters, she could already feel the stress they'd cause. But no. All she saw was her little group of people she cared for, or at least enjoyed the presence of. Gathered around a wide table, laid with all the accoutrements of tea. And Carza could sometimes see Hull there too... and maybe this was all just a strange vision which would have no bearing on the future, just a temporary hallucination which made her think kinder things of the world. Or maybe there was some truth, but who could say where it began and where it ended? Maybe there'd be a wide table with cake on it, and she'd no idea who might gather around it, if anyone. No idea what would happen to her third eye, maybe she burned it out, popped it out, or maybe it was sleeping still under a high, high collar, old-fashioned and easily mocked by people who had no idea what lurked under it. And maybe the tide of modernity would sweep over ALD IOM and drown it all, or maybe it would flow around, stemmed and corralled, ALD IOM remaining this perfect little alcove for her to sit down and die in, or find living death in.

Maybe she was imagining paradise, and the place where all good scholars went, and the next person through that door would be the Founder himself, with his needles of certainty, telling her that this was all a hallucination and she ought to focus on the cold of the mountains and the journey yet to come, with all its twists and turns and convolutions. Stop focusing on this place, focus on things which mattered. Maybe she'd lose everything again, and regain it once more. Or maybe she'd just come back and never change for the rest of her life. Maybe those cigarillos would finally catch up with her. Or maybe this was the future, and she was just seeing it strangely on account of it being so far away. Or maybe this was just the future she wanted, and a future she would strive to realise. Maybe it made no difference, because then was then and now was now, and the gulf betwixt the two was so vast it seemed insurmountable. Years to go until this vision might come true. Years and years made up of successive days... one of which was ending at this moment. And maybe she'd go on more journeys and find more companions, maybe she'd lose and gain and win and fail and all manner of things. Maybe she'd find out what the Scabrous really were, what that temple had been, would trace the underground rivers to their eternal source, would research every book and every angle and every possible thread which presented itself to her, infinities upon infinities...

And who knows.

Maybe she would.

Maybe she did.