House servants were a different caste. Aliya's castle had eight of them. Martha was both her nanny and her servant, and apparently, she had served Lilian since she was born. Martha loved her like a daughter, and Aliya appreciated her for it. The three housemaids, Mary, Sara, and Ilona, bustled around cleaning all day, but the castle never seemed to get any cleaner. There were three manservants, Jean, Peter, and Alex, and three grooms who lived in the stables. One of them—Jacques—was a brother of Jean. The other two were Claus and Rene.

Then, there was the cook, Tara. She was the estate Comptroller's wife, and she made awful food. Her husband's name was Etor. It seemed like a small crew for such a big castle and estate. Aliya would reform how the estate was run once she got her bearings. For the time being, she stuck to her reading.

Kalerius, the geographer, hadn't thought to put a map in his book, but Aliya was able to deduce some important facts from the text. The mainland (of which there was only one because this particular world was flat) was made up of eight nations.

Ativerna was where Aliya now lived. She felt almost patriotic about it. Her nearest neighbors were Wellster and Ivernea. Avesterra was next to Ivernea, and Elvana shared borders with Wellster and Avesterra. There were no elves in Elvana, as far as she could tell. Darcom bordered on Avesterra and Elvana. Not far from the shores of Ativerna, was the island nation of Virma. Aliya thought the people of Virma sounded like Vikings from back home. The local climate was interesting. Virma bore the brunt of the cold, but even in Ativerna, they had a long, four-month winter and a short summer. Wellster and Ivernea had slightly better weather. Elvana and Avesterra were the warmest countries. Aliya wondered why. The weather left the soil poor.

At the far end of the large continent, was the Vari Desert, which was governed by the Vari Khanganat. The Vari people were nomads since nothing grew in the desert.

Kalerius had never visited the eighth nation, which was on the other side of a steep mountain range. He simply stated that Elvana was bordered to its west by high mountains. There were rumors, he wrote, of people living beyond the mountains, but most rumors were lies Kalerius would know. He also hinted that there might be a large island somewhere past the Vari Desert, but the details were sketchy. Aliya longed for some satellite images.

♦

Once she finished the book on geography, Aliya visited the library again and chose some religious literature. I need to know what these people believe. The huge book, bound in a red velvet cover and entitled, The Book of Radiance, turned out to be very much like the Bible. Aliya wondered at that for a while but then decided that people who don't want to believe that their fate is in their own hands come up with tales of a kind, heavenly father who hands out candy and spankings, depending on what you've done. That's no surprise. Nobody wants to admit to their own mistakes, so they say that they've been punished by God for their sins. The tales in the Book of Radiance reminded Aliya of the Old Testament, with an avenging God and his eternal antagonist. The god was called Aldonai, and his opponent was Maldonaya. Maldonaya happened to be female. Of course. Women are always the source of evil, right?

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