Dark Empress

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If, in her later years, Asima described to someone the town where she grew up, which of course she wouldn’t, she would have been spoiled for adjectives. M’Dahz was the last Imperial town before the Pelasian border and, as such, shared more of the characteristics of their swarthy mysterious people than of the great culture of the Empire. It was a border garrison, a mercantile port, trading post, and caravanserai.

It smelled of spice and of sweat; of work animals and of sweet meats; of the sea and of the desert. It was a meeting of every world and a clash of mouth and eye-watering noises, sights and aromas. It was a maze of narrow streets and alleys, the ramshackle adobe houses often kept from toppling outwards by the heavy wooden struts that were jammed from side to side above head height throughout most of the town. To ward off the worst heat of the day and the periodic cloying sandstorms from the south, the people hung rugs over the beams, turning the alleyways into stygian tunnels and creating a labyrinth.

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