They appear in midair, visible out of a few thirtieth-floor apartments.
One starts to fall. The other catches her by the arm, flings out - wing-shapes of light - and slows her, spiraling down until they're at street level.
They appear in midair, visible out of a few thirtieth-floor apartments.
One starts to fall. The other catches her by the arm, flings out - wing-shapes of light - and slows her, spiraling down until they're at street level.
She flies. Takes a different route than last time.
Maurabel awaits questions from foreigners!
Foreigners want to know if she'd like to visit their countries and various historical and cultural monuments within, and if they can get her anything or get her world anything, and what her world is like, and what the interdimensional travel is like, and whether her country would like to ally with theirs, and whether she would like to try their food, and whether she would like citizenship and arbitrarily many children for her and her family.
She might travel more at some point. She is comfortable and not yet entertaining trade agreements on behalf of her world. Her world is low tech and undergoing a magical revolution and does not have castes. The colors between worlds are pretty crazy. She is not a representative of her country per se. She would probably like to try their food. She does not especially want kids right now and neither of her parents has even remarried since the divorce.
When she travels they hope she'll come here! Someone hints ominously that they hope Anitam will let her. They can trade her world so many things if it's low tech. They'll send their food. Tell them more about the colors between worlds?
Anitam had better not try to stop her.
Both shine and shadow magic can involve seeing light or its absence differently. Traveling by a combination of the two got indescribably strange.
More questions about her world and offers to give her things pour in. Someone asks if Penumbra would like any of the offered things either.
When a country goes to war, lots of people die. "Well," says Salie, "when I run the country we will never ever go to war."
Unfortunately, this is not as safe a rule as it seems. If everyone knows that Salie's country will never ever go to war, they might kill her citizens and intercept shipping and demand lots of money for no reason. The safest rule, if you want the country you run to never go to war, is to be very clear about which things you would go to war over, so no one is confused about what will happen if they do those things, and invest in defending yourself so no one wants to go to war with you. Another thing to do is to have lots of trade with everyone, so no one wants to risk their economy by starting a fight.
Another thing to do is to have agreements with your neighbors. If they are responsible and someone attacks them anyway, you will help them protect themselves. And if you are responsible and you are attacked anyway, they will help defend you.
Countries that do these things see more peace than countries which try to be threatening or countries that promise never to go to war. But no one has figured out yet how to be perfectly sure of never having a war (maybe you will be the one to figure it out!). For that reason, there are rules about how countries should conduct themselves in war, to make sure the wars are less awful and that they can quickly be ended and peace restored.
It is absolutely forbidden to attack people sent to negotiate things about the war. ("That sounds silly," says Salie. "People don't think it's inexcusable to kill a thousand people, but it's really evil to kill one if they are negotiating?") But this is because no one can negotiate if they have to fear for the safety of their negotiators, and that means wars will never end.
It is absolutely forbidden to press into service on your side of the war people who you have conquered during the fighting. This is because it makes wars unstable - whoever makes initial gains can put those gains to work for them and get even stronger and gain more and use that also. This makes people more likely to jump into wars in the first place, since if they don't move first they will probably lose.
It is absolutely forbidden to break explicit agreements made with the other side of a war.
It is forbidden to deliberately spread pollution or use pollution as a weapon in the course of war.
It is forbidden to target medics on the battlefield.
Discussion questions: what are the reasons for the last three rules presented? If you were to add a rule, what rule would you add?
"I don't know how to translate the concept, it doesn't seem like you have it - when lots of people live close together, like in a city, there can be horrible plagues that spread from person to person and kill nearly everyone. So after a long time living in close quarters people develop a very very strong sense of horror at certain things that are - reservoirs of contagion. All Amentans have this very strongly. If people know a place is polluted they'll be - disgusted - a while back someone polluted all the food, because they thought people would get over it if they had no choice. Instead, there was mass starvation - it was just that intolerable to try to force yourself to eat something you knew to be polluted."
"It's entirely psychological. Not food that will make you sick, just food handled in ways we associate with sickness - like, by a person who works in the sewage, but who has washed their hands."