Excerpts from a water-bearer's war diary

[Kiaring]

  These are excerpts from the diary of a water-bearer, one Acolyte Itziyal of the Sybilline Order. Many are written in shorthand, others seem wordy and measured - there are entire unintelligible passages, as if written in the dark or in tremendous haste. Road-ash covers the pages as if to temper them...

  There is a poor but careful attempt at binding - a ream, sewn with some sinew, bound in leather meant for something else -- and the whole entire thing has seen its days. To greet the ash, there is blood, mud, sand and grime of all sorts.

  So much of it reads like the half-remembered daydreams of a madwoman, the musings and ramblings of one so caught up in the terrible affair of daily life, that they have no time to process any of it before thought is committed to page....

[Kiaring]

1617 TAB

....and the man Muzaffar simply led us forward, and we could not turn back.
She died, and the Recluta and I carried her back to the Maqbara so that the Twindari might see her safe in her traverse of the Edutu....

[Kiaring]

18 TAB

....since we'd been there, with the Prince Zosmere's company... So we came upon a section of the ramparts which I could not recognize, and within we found broken vestige of Old Formoria's....

[Kiaring]

19 TAB

....that their only concern is the election in Ephia, and not the prosecution of this war. Many wounded, reminiscent of the....

[Kiaring]

23 TAB

....which reminded me of the dire action against the clans on either 1tabbah or 2tabbah, I misremember...

...we came upon a foul bestenched hovel of a temple. Within, twoscore sibilant we fought, though we claimed theirs in droves, none were wounded, by grace of the Wheel. We trod on, to find a larger hall and within, ambush, from it that must have been chieftain of this brood, decked in their foul magics and bearing the Stench to its hide... I clung to life, then, perhaps one or two flashes of the Well's blessing I could offer in that terrible fray, but when the action seemed to conclude, they kept coming and coming, an endless torrent of scaled....

[Kiaring]

24 TAB

...if Aurelio does not say it. Taking heart, we pressed on, to find ourselves vastly outmatched, 'twas but by force of sheer will that we managed, and direly. Made camp only when back to the safety of this delver's den which we found along the way, but even here there's no time to rest, darkness and webbing clings to all that surrounds us and it cannot be pried from their lips the relish of so many dinar, now that they've tasted it....

...because when Thrasamund says a thing, then something else might be meant, entirely? Difficult to say, difficult to judge... We struck camp again, and made for the safety of the Well... 'twas the entire ordeal one of pure, foul perfidy and malice the likes of which I had not seen until the beginning of my involvement in this terrible war, but that have now become part and parcel of life such as it is -- that being why...

[Kiaring]

24 TAB cont.

....exactly like that time with my sister, when I dismissed her out of hand only to find that guilt assailed me immediately thereafter for I was wrong in doing so; at least for something this terrible feeling has its purpose in being, so I must remember also that...

[Kiaring]

25 TAB

....a delectable thing. Maybe today I should find time to escape this all-encompassing malevolence and better spend it in the company of those I cherish....

[Kiaring]

26 TAB

....one war, all it took to break you, stupid, stupid girl. Itzy-bitzy, stupid spider. Idiotziyal. My brothers, my father - they never left this head of mine. I wish these memories would fade. My sisters, them I miss.

 It is no wonder then, that I got lost again... This must be the tenth time in a ranging - Aurelio led us, along with the Dane, Motoko, Cala, Laurentis and my sister... My mind was bent and filled with terrible things before we even set out. I showed Emilia the weaving I'd mastered, some pride there, at an accomplishment. No more of that useless grease, now I weave with a precision that slows time itself. Would that I could slow down this head of mine, I might make sense of these days which are now best forgotten. At least that chapter I've closed...
Tired.

 Weaving time to a standstill doesn't come easily. But I do surprise myself at how easy it is when I simply let go -- if I do not need to mind them and their safety, if all I needed to do was to stay hidden, to keep moving, then it comes with such ease... I am truly at home only in the dark and twisting corners of this broken world. I despair every day in that knowledge -- what does it mean -- who am I, that this comes so easily, and purity so difficultly?

  But a pure woman cannot be free, she bears always the burdens of her duty. I cannot flee; they are family, now, and family is everything. I must needs return home, and warn them that I have found safety.

 Tired. Desperate.

 Enough of this.

[Kiaring]

  The journal, it seems, concludes here. The entry marked Tabbah the 26th is written on the last page of the makeshift tome. No pages are added, upon which to write anew.