Skies Read Free Page B

and poured a cup of the clear liquid Lhaurel had been reaching for. Lhaurel had thought it water, but it burned her throat as she’d tried to take a swallow and so she’d left it untouched throughout the remainder of the meal. During it all, Talha never stopped scribbling in her book.
    When Lhaurel finished, wiping her grease-covered fingers on her cloak out of habit, she leaned back in her chair, only then noticing the ring of wagons which encircled them and the numerous servants scurrying back and forth. The wagons, all three of them, rested in a shallow depression between hills. The ground was rocky, but devoid of ice and snow. In the distance, Lhaurel could still see the plume of smoke from the Sharani Desert and the two mountain ranges sitting on either side of the horizon.
    “Why are the women wearing shufari ?” Lhaurel asked, half-turning to glance back over at Talha.
    The Sister looked up, eyebrows lifted in surprise. “So shufari survived all that time but the essence of the culture did not? Interesting.”
    Talha started laughing. Lhaurel pulled her attention away from the passing servants to look over at the woman. Talha quickly suppressed her mirth enough to take some more notes in her book, but not quickly enough to stop a few tears from leaking down one cheek.
    “You know, you can be extremely frustrating sometimes,” Lhaurel said. “Can’t I get a straight answer from anyone ?”
    “Probably not, child,” Talha said, looking up, “but I will try. I believe your most recent question was about the shufari , yes?”
    Lhaurel nodded, not sure she understood or liked the sudden change of mood.
    “The priestesses, those dressed in white, wear the sashes to designate to which Sister and Progression they adhere. The ones wearing blue are yours, child.”
    “Mine?”
    “Yes, yours. Is that a straight enough answer for you?”
    Again, Lhaurel nodded. What else could she do?
    “Good,” Talha said with a small nod of her own. “Now I have a question of my own. How did you use the shufari ?”
    “Women wore them to show what rank their husbands had achieved within the clan,” Lhaurel answered slowly, looking around at the many women, including the one standing next to her still, wearing the blue shufari .
    “Hmm,” Talha said, again taking notes. “That’s not so far a perversion from the original that it would no longer make sense. Interesting to note the change in gender roles, however. Among us, the woman’s rank supersedes the male in the relationship.”
    Lhaurel cocked her head, both at the unfamiliar words and the implied meaning. “The women?” she asked.
    “Indeed, child. The women are those who hold the most power, at least in regard to rank and religion. Men are the politicians, but they’re really a far cry from intelligent, I’d say.”
    Lhaurel shook her head, which was spinning from all the new information and the differences in the culture into which she was being immersed from what she knew. Yet, at the same time it seemed almost familiar to her. The juxtaposition made her nauseous. It was either that or the food.
    “I’m guessing by your reaction that such was not the case in your incestuous familial groups,” Talha said.
    “Incestuous?” Lhaurel stumbled over the foreign word, mind starting to go numb around the edges. She felt oddly restless and suppressed a sudden urge to get up and start running. What she wouldn’t have given to have even a practice sword with which to work the forms.
    “Inbreeding,” Talha said, taking notes in her book. “Parents mating with offspring, or siblings even. It’s fairly common in small, isolated populations. Generally, this manifests in lots of specific traits being brought to the surface, so to speak—things normally seen only once or twice in a dozen generations will crop up in three times the numbers they would normally appear.” Talha looked up and frowned at the expression on Lhaurel’s face. “Sorry, child, was that too