Anna found her tent hard to leave. It was all soft green and lavender cloth, and vases of lilies, and a wonderful writing desk stocked with paper, pens, ink, and pencils of every lead softness. There were shelves of books on Levour, a Levour and Trade Common dictionary, a book of poems by the bard Tehvan, and an art history text. Continue reading “The Levour Exhibition, Chapter Three–The Fairgrounds, continued”

When the train arrived in the main Levour station, workmen removed the cars of materials and re-attached them to a different, smaller engine. With Anna and the workers packed onto the back, holding to the railings, the little train rolled down a special new track direct to the fairgrounds. It was near midmorning, but felt much earlier to Anna, whose hair was still slowly drying and curling madly in the damp drizzle that shrouded the city. Continue reading “The Levour Exhibition Chapter Three–The Fairgrounds”

“Well,” the grey-haired Queen of Shandor gasped. “That’s a great many stairs to climb to find somewhere quiet.”

Tam was inclined to agree, but the view was so striking that he didn’t say anything. The high tower of the castle of Shandor hadn’t been named too inventively, but that was, he expected, because no words could describe how it felt to stand nearly in the clouds looking down on half the country like a bird might. Continue reading “The Levour Exhibition Chapter Two–Tasks of Duty”

“So now they want to put us down in the third tier between the Dynasties and Sarvarthi?” Djaren asked, tapping the map with his pencil. He and Isakoa, teenaged king of the Tembelakan islands, were sharing tea with the ambassador at the little Shandorian embassy in Cambriol. The Shandorian ambassador to Arien had a guest, his counterpart who worked in Levour. That gentleman, Darcere, was a tall, thin man with hooded eyes and a bored demeanor that likely helped him in Levour. Continue reading “The Levour Exhibition, Chapter One–Plans–continued”