The Doyeness and the Doctor of Gana

In the steppes in the north of Aqualaria, a little caravan bumped and jostled its way down a trail. In the front, a thin gray-haired lady and a stout man in his late thirties, with a fringe of black hair, were mounted on chestnut colored stallions. Behind them, two gray nags pulled a buckboard cart. Seated on a board in the front there was a bronzed man holding the reins of the horses. Behind a wooden slat there was a chest, a couple of canvas bags, and a tent. The driver heard a whistling sound, looked back, and slowed down. Checkers, gliding in from behind the cart, pulled up her wings and nicely landed amidst the cargo.

"Show off," chided the driver.

"It is not that hard. And it is better than getting shaken up with these boxes of nuts and nails and what-have-you."

"Ride up here!"

"Next time we take a break!"

At the front, the man said, "Doyeness, I remember that strand of trees. We must be close to the Inner Station."

"About two furlongs to go, Doctor. Are you about ready for a rest?"

"I could go on for a while. But I would like to take a break so that we can talk at length."

The Doyeness laughed, "You are so obsessive with your notes. But you are indeed wise. We will stop at the station, then."

The Inner Station was a wooden building of two stories built near a pond. The stationkeeper and her family bustled about, as the Doyeness dismounted and said, "No meals. Just give us some water and a table. We will eat dinner at Five League Station."

After dismounting and stretching their legs, the caravan assembled by a table in the shade of the building. The driver presented the stationkeeper with a small bag. The stationkeeper looked in and said, "Thank you very much." A ten-year old boy filled glasses with water, and stopped and stared at Checkers.

"Cana, stop daydreaming!" the stationmistress shouted.

The boy turned away, and trotted into the wooden building. The stationmistress said, "My apologies. My son did not get to see you when you came by the first time, and his curiosity got the better of his manners."

Checkers replied, "That is quite all right. He did not mean me any harm. I would be happy to say a few words to him."

The stationmistress replied, "You do not have to."

"You never know when I might pass this way again. I do not want him to get the idea that I am someone who is frightening."

"I will get him in here when he finishes chopping the wood. Do you need anything else?"

Nobody in the party did. The stationmistress went back into the building. A dark young woman was just on the other side of the door, holding a rag and taking special care to get every speck of dust off the area of the walls that happened to be in the best location for her to spy on the party seated at the table.

The Doctor nodded slightly toward the door, and then looked at Checkers and observed, "Apparently it is not just you that has attacted attention, my lady."

The Doyeness then replied in a deadpan, "Naturally it has to be the presence of Enricus, our driver. I do not see who else it could be."

The driver's face reddened, and he said nothing. The Doctor then replied, "I suppose that this is an unusual group, in unusual circumstances. The Doyeness of the College of Seers, a Doctor from the exotic land of Gana, a dragonslayer from the even more exotic land of the Dolomite League, and during the week of the wedding, we are tromping about the hinterland of northern Aqualaria to boot. I do not doubt that there are stories being told." The Doctor caught the young woman peeking out the door. He smiled and winked at her. The woman turned red, and ducked back inside the door. The voice of the stationmistress boomed, "Elise, why are you taking so long to clean up? The dinner crowd is going to start coming in soon and you are not half done!"

The doctor jotted a few notes down on a pampliset. The Doctor said, "Memory is a treacherous thing. I am finding that I am starting to lose little bits and pieces of it. It must have gone with my hair." The Doctor chuckled at the joke told at his own expense, and the others politely joined in.

The Doyeness said, "Mine is still good, although I know what you mean. I have had special training in the discipline, of course. If I can take poetic license, memory is like certain thick books with indices at the back. Those pages are exposed to the sun, the inks fade, and the indices become hard to read. But the source material is still there, but it starts coming to mind unexpectedly."

The Doctor said, "I had not quite thought of it that way, but you are right! Just this morning, you were showing me that tile from what you call the dominoes, and it reminded me of the time that I visited the temple of the Black Forest. You have never seen it, probably, unless you have visited the west of the Havnheim, but it uses larger tiles that happen to look much like your dominoes to line the walls of its nave. The golden pulpit is what is most remarkable, and the tilings are a detail that is easy to lose. I doubt that I could have recalled the detail about the dominoes without such a prompt, but once I had that prompt, I can give you any number of details about them. The reason that I keep as many notes as I do is so that I can recall facts that I might not otherwise remember, for use later."

Checkers asked, "But what do you use them for, Doctor? Are you a healer?"

"Not as such, although I do know something of medicine. I would call myself a philosopher. But my special knowledge needs a study of ethics, history, and law."

"So you are a judge?"

"I have been. But more broadly, I am called to find out the truth connected with certain mysterious events. Sometimes it is as simple as finding out where stolen gold or jewels has gone. At other times, my client is the high court of Gana itself, in certain state matters."

The Doyeness said, "You almost make it sound like you were sent to spy on us."

The Doctor replied, "I have been sent to observe and report, in my role as envoy. Naturally what I see will be used for the mutual benefit of both Aqualaria and Gana - goods that may be valuable in future trade, or knowledge of customs that may prevent inadvertant offense in the future, for example. Of course, that is not my only role. I am also a guest at a festival, and as such, I plan on enjoying myself the wedding - thoroughly."

The driver smiled broadly, the Doyeness squinted her eyes and unsuccessfully tried to surpress a smirk. Checkers simply asked another question, "So do you use magic?"

"As part of the discipline, I assume that magic does not exist. No offense, Doyeness."

She smiled, "None taken. Indeed, unless you are trained and have undergone the proper discipline, you are likely to go farther from the truth by trying magic than by avoiding it."

"I have always thought so! In any case, we have court mages. Now, Doyeness, speaking of magic, you told me that you decided to go north because the drawing of the dominoes required it. Your need to get out of Themyscira worked out quite well, as I had wanted to see the famed cowgirls of the Jaxinarta Plain, and Checkers wished to see the hill country. I have heard about the drawing, but I had some questions, if you do not mind."

The Doyeness said, in a friendly tone, "One question. And then we go."

The Doctor said, "What is the difference between drawing the long set and drawing the short set?"

The Doyeness replied, "You are observant! We use the drawing of the dominoes to get an idea of the flow of future events. Most drawings are of the short set, for great occasions like a birth or a wedding. Sixteen white dominoes, with characters on them are drawn from a pile. From that the future is foretold - at least, as best as can be interpreted. Drawings are actually common, and usually a junior seer would perform that act. Now, for someone like Astra, I, as the Doyeness of the College of Seers, will be the one drawing her set. It is usual, for an event as important as this, for me to spend some time in the wilderness not acting as a seer, in order to get as good an interpretation as possible.

"So you have answered half my question. What does the long set do?"

"The long set has not been drawn for one hundred and eighty years - since the coronation of the first of the Maia. It is this set on which the great fortunate of the Aqualarian nation rests. The prophecy was, while the House of the Maia reigns in Aqualaria, they will unify the land, and bring an era of peace and prosperity. Aqualaria will become a light to other nations, and force for good in this world. There is more detail than that, of course - two hundred and fifty six dominoes had to be drawn, and the interpretation took many days!

Checkers said, "With such a good fortune, I can see why nobody has drawn again in so long."

The Doyeness said, "Yes. But fortunes do not last forever. There will come a day, probably not in my lifetime, where circumstances will require us to draw the long set again. It seems to me that the slaying of Minestus and the upcoming marriage is the start of the last part of the prophecy, where Aqaularia starts to influence the world beyond the Ryngaerd. And, with Checkers here showing us that the world is much wider that he had believed, we should have plenty of time before the long set needs to be drawn again."

The Doctor said, "Thank you, Doyeness. Shall I be allowed to witness the drawing of the short set?"

The Doyeness replied, with a mock starchiness, "You have asked your one question, Doctor. Let us start the ride back, so that we can make the Five League Station tonight."

Checkers then went into the building, and found the boy with the stationkeeper. As she had asked, she said a few words to the boy. At his request she extending her wings to full length, and explained, yes, she really could fly. She told him a few more tidbits about her homeland, until the driver shouted that they were ready to go. Checkers went back outside, and the party then mounted the horses and the buckboard, and drove south to the Five League Station and Themyscira.

1. The next night, on the Fourth Watch at the Water Tower....
2. Later that night, at the Five League Station ....

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