Chapter Eleven, Conversations

The Lifter was not the most hospitable environment for a conversation, not that it seemed to stop her new bodyguards. The four of them could probably have held a conversation from opposite sides of a battlefield. Ishylde couldn't be heard, but it was clear that she was trying to join in the conversation. Alicea felt somewhat out of place not even making an effort.

The lifter set down in a large town towards the edge of the mountains. The most reliable way to get anything into the high valleys was through a mechanical platform that moved from Lifberg at the peak, down to Landsen Port at the mountain's base. The lift, for which the town had been named, had been built by a couple of entrepreneurs within a couple of years of the planet's first colonization attempt. It had failed then, but after people started moving into the mountains the man to whom the lift had been sold had built a tavern and several warehouses onto it. He'd died soon afterwards, but his son now managed the company from an island further south. His sister and her family ran the day to day affairs of the platform. It made a weekly trip to whichever art of the mountain it wasn't on, and tuesdays they ran an open mic.

As the lifter couldn't hope to manage the assent back up the mountain they would be spending the week waiting for the lift to descend. Alicea spent her time talking with clan leaders who had made the trip to pledge their loyalty, and then in turn offering them strategic advice to ready their towns for the coming attacks and establishing channels of communication between neighboring villages. Her companions practiced their arts and made considerable, and in Johd's case rather to much, use of the platform's tavern.
Except for Tuesday, on which Alicea decided to take her day off. It had been a long time since anyone had let her sing and she thought she'd done rather well, but Ga-Vok pop didn't seem to click with the audience.

"You really should have known better, Mistress. These are people who moved here because they wanted to kill Ga-Vok after all."
"Thank you Ishylde," Alicea took the towel being offered. "I asked what I should sing and Mrs. Rivad said to sing what I knew. So I did."
Ishylde looked up from the piece of glass she was trying to extract from Alicea's boot. "Which begs the question, where'd you learn to sing that song anyways?"

Alicea looked away. She wasn't ashamed of her clan, or her father. Without them she'd never have been the person she was. Why was it then that she couldn't bring herself to admit to her past?
"Can you keep a secret?"
"I can keep anything that won't kill me or get me killed"
"It won't if you can keep it secret."
Ishylde eyed her suspicously. "How dangerous is this? You aren't some kind of spy are you? Are you with the guild?"
"The what? No. I was raised by a Ga-Vok shaman until I was sixteen. I left to find other Nielda and that's how I got to the monastery."
"I thought they ate children?"
"I'm told someone tried. I met his son a few years ago. Neither will be a problem."
"Judging by the song and the way you fought that frost wyrm, and then the way you trounced Hveglir; I'd say you weren't exactly a prisoner."
"I was a warrior, and my..caretaker was the clan shaman. He trained me how to fight, sing, dance, live, everything. I was as free as any of the clan's own blood."
"Hard to believe they're the same people who just gave the whole planet three months notice."
"They aren't. Two Ga-Vok are as different as two Nielda; they're not unlike the people of these valleys. My clan were the Howling Axes, they were exiled by the Alpha for losing a battle. The lake just down the hill from the monastery are the Sickle Ear, they lived in fear of the Alpha's servant Kron; who tried to destroy the monastery. The enemy isn't the Ga-Vok people, it's the Ga-Vok leaders. They're just being lead astray."
"You know, you could do a lot of good if you were talking to people with power. I'm just a hunter; I'm willing to follow you and help you do whatever your going to do. But if you could convince the emperor to see things your way you could end this war."
"He's like what, thirty? How much power does he really have?"
"A %^&@load more than anyone his age should be allowed to. I blame his father, filthy bird-keeper."
"The late emperor kept birds?"
"It's a euphemism. Suffice to say, there's a reason he didn't have kids till he was old."
"Tail-sniffer?"
"I don't know what that means, but probably."
"Did he keep an Empress?"
"He was married, and from what I hear the whole situation worked out perfectly for both of them. She never let dropped a loose hair and he never forgot to knock. Ross met her once, she used to see off the colonists. Kept well for a used dinghy I'm told."
"You've lost me. You promise not to tell anyone?"
"Mistress, I swore to obey you. We mountainfolk take our oaths very seriously. Wish I could say the same for those lazy island weekenders."

Bird keeper; the late-emperor sniffed tail: Alicea made another note on the political intrigues of the Empiere, she never knew when such things might come in handy.
It also explained why she'd never seen any of the Nielda keep falcons.