Prologue

Baracus rumbles his previous position:

"Go to the city. Gold or glory await us, I care not which. The Pradeshi can decide."

He continues to stroke the gentle draft horse's mane.

"Yes!" Aditya squeaks, nodding emphatically, pleadingly. "To the city! You'll get your gold, I swear!"

Erden nods, "Seems like the city is a good choice to start," he says, "We'll make sure that our employer here gets us our money and then we'll decide from there."

Rydler walks up to Aditya, pinches his cheek, and smiles "You better hope so. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me thrice, you shall fool no further." he releases his pinch and lightly pats the merchant's face a couple times before climbing into the back of the cart.

Ybus has made a miniature replica of the chili shack that once blew up, using bits of timber for the walls and actual chilis for the merchandise. There is even a small piece of burlap hanging just enough to look like a book bag. Small bits of charcoal seems to represent the honorable party; one large misshapen piece might even signify Baracus.

With an expression of pride in his handiwork, Ybus pulls out a tinderbox and seems intent on replicating the dramatic conflagration, right there in the middle of the cart.

Urban is pleased to see the people traveling on the road alongside of them. He keeps the cart moving along, but lets the horse fall into pace with the other local caravans. When some kids drift by joining the performance and then staring up at the cart, Urban kids with them about not getting run over by the horse. He says that he is a Pradeshi war horse that might get jumpy and stomp them unless their dance is exactly perfect. When their eyes get wide with terror, he laughs and disarms the joke. He tosses the kids one coin a piece and then hands a big jar of peppers to the oldest. "Go give this to your mother. Tell her to use it in the cook tonight. Go on." He smiles when they run off, and then he laughs at the dance of Aditya.

Still smiling, Urban recounts to Erdan. "Ha! I used to visit old Samir. Did you ever know him? He was a Pradeshi hermit, way up on the big ridge past Aetolos Rise just south of Cadarnle."

"He had big elephant bones in that old hut. Paintings everywhere on skins outside," Urban continues, managing the reins on the slow roll of the cart ride. "I had climbed all the way up their one spring. I heard he had some teachings. It took me a day and a half to make the rise. Camped out under a rugged locust tree that was hanging off the side of that really steep bank on the west face."

"So he talked and told me about his scriptures. It was pretty good. His stuff about the nature of suffering as an innate part of man's identity was really good. But then, you know, he just I thought had a really weak take on the idea of the lack of separation between man and the creation. The elephant teachers say that you have to strive to return to your natural state, which is unified with the creation and all of the energies. I mean fire, wind, rain, the whole list of elements."

Urban shakes his head, giving an expression of being unconvinced. "I just think that you cannot deny that the elements are separate from man. There's something that goes beyond that. I mean, they are two different things, not the same thing that is just split apart somehow. But as you know, the Pradeshis don't read any of the Dorinites and they have never listened to any of Matheus' lectures from the Onetar Histories. So I guess it's not surprising then that you start thinking you can set yourself on fire and hear secrets." Urban rolls his eyes.

Urban shouts out to one of the Pradeshi kids running along beside the cart, telling him to go long for a pass. When the kid sprints out, Urban tosses a silver up in a long arch into the dexterous boy's hands.

"But still, Samir had some great wine up there. He hung vines out on Bone Flat. Plus he really loved good nails from the smith, so I would bring him a bucket of them to trade for those silks he used to weave. I kept going to see him about twice a year when I was in devotions. When Tavian Mark was going up there to kill him with those New Solstice acolytes, I bushwhacked them on the trail right there near Banded Gorge. They were just way out of line back then, so they had it coming."

Urban shakes his head and frowns briefly, as if reflecting on some tough truth, but then quickly turns back festive again, "HaHa! I bet old Samir is smoking sticky stinky weed right now. You can bet that he knows about this Dasai, and he never misses a festival, even up there on the ridge by himself!"

Baracus rested in shade at the back of the wagon. The smells of this land ever reminded him of the first time he heard of Pradesh. On his way down from the mountains of Qinglai, his path crossed with a Pradeshi travelling circus. His rustic upbringing and austere monastery life had not prepared him to endure the Pradeshi assault on his senses.

Everywhere he looked, there were bright colours of every shade in the rainbow - clothes, tents, even the animals were painted in a thousand colours. The spiced meat on spits swarmed the air with pungent aromas, and sitar and drum sounds came at him from every angle. His eyes could not rest anywhere without finding a spectacle - a ghost-haunted priest, a sword-swallowing beauty, a fire breathing acrobat. And everywhere, silver and gold coins changed hands. Merchants sold exotic spices that promised spiritual experiences, gamblers bought and sold debts with the clatter of dice, and others promised debauchery behind silk curtains that would make a devil blush.

Baracus took refuge in a dark tent full of smoke. It turned out to be a recruiting tent of sorts for a Pradeshi mercenary company, the Thousand Swords. An officer approached with an easy way about him, and told him that the turbaned men were the guardians of Pradesh, and that they were looking for warriors like Baracus. Baracus declined, his path leading elsewhere, but the officer presented him with a Xiphos - the titular weapon of the Thousand Swords - and told him that if he ever changed his mind, he could present the weapon in Pradesh and receive immediate employment.

Baracus kept the weapon. It made a good knife when he was hunting game or skinning animals. He even used it in a fight once and awhile, mostly for variety's sake. He pulled the xiphos free of its scabbard and regarded it in the Pradeshi sun.

"You are home, knife."