“My first voyage was with a Voyager called Jeriglia, long dead now, a good man with a poor heart and a body not made for journeying. He took us to the northern tip of Long Marrakash. Many scoffed at his choice of voyage, but he insisted that so many wished to go far afield that what lay close had still not been fully explored. And he was right. We went through the mountains north of Long Marrakash, where we found settlements of people who had fled the city decades before and never returned. We traded with them, though they were suspicious, and their food was good, though their wine was inferior. Their women, though . . .” Konrad closed his eyes, and by the light of the campfire his heavily scarred face looked suddenly serene. Nomi coveted such a look of delight. “Their women were beautiful. Both men and women farmed the slopes, but it was the women who truly connected with the land. The men worried about mountain wolves coming down and stealing their livestock, but the woman went into the mountains to feed the wolves and keep them away from the farms. The men concerned themselves that the goodness had gone from the ground, and the women planted each spring, moving fields across the slopes and giving the ground time to find life again.”

“More of their beauty, Konrad!” Ramin said, obviously having heard the story before.

“Beauty, cousin? I need a better word. Language can't reach them, but perhaps art could. If only I could paint, or charcoal with shred seed. If only I could re-create their image from this fire's smoke, this twilight's generous palette.”

“Get on with it!” Beko called, and Nomi felt an instant of annoyance at him for breaking the spell.

“Beautiful women,” Konrad said, looking down at his feet again. “The raiders did not appreciate beauty because of the salt of the sea, the wind, the rains and snowstorms, the flying fish with their razor beaks . . . all raiders had their beauty stripped and scarred by the time they reached adulthood. So when they discovered beauty, they sought to tear it away. They would go at it with knives, or files made from urchins dried in the sun. Take out an eye, and a face is made imperfect. Take off a nose, and there's only ruin. But they went further than that. Physically, they could wreak havoc on us Mancoserians, but with each raid they left more of our men without their balls, and more of our women damaged inside. We fought hard and well, but the raiders were not seethe-gators. At least the ’gators come at you one-on-one, their intentions merely to kill and eat. The raiders were more brutal. They killed on every raid. And sometimes they ate too, tearing flesh away with their bare teeth. There are Mancoserians, now very old, who still remember the day a raider took a chunk of flesh from their breast, leg or face.