In rumor of late, it seemed every far land was boiling with conflicts.

Almost out to the edge of imagination, a fanatic styling himself Indala al-Sul Halaladin had overrun much of the Holy Lands, the region known as the Wells of Ihrian.

Al-Sul Halaladin served the Kaif of Qasr al-Zed, a man something like a western Patriarch. With much more temporal power. He headed the al-Zhun Path of al-Prama, the Faith. Al-Prama made no distinction between religious and mundane leadership. Every ruler was responsible for both the secular and spiritual welfare of his people.

A few Praman rulers took that charge seriously.

The Kaif of Qasr al-Zed was determined to remove all westerners from the Holy Lands. His successes of a decade ago so disturbed the now-dead Usurper Patriarch Clemency HI that the false Patriarch called for a new crusade to recover the holy places and strengthen up the small kingdoms and city states created by crusaders in ages past.

J

All this and much more Brother Candle explained to St. Jeules the first evening of his stay. Most of it they had heard already, in garbled form. News traversed the rural world slowly but it did travel. Those who were Viscesment Episcopals were intimately familiar with the wickedness of the Brothen Usurper Patriarch Clemency HI and his successor, Sublime V. Bishop Serifs of nearby Antieux, sent out by Clemency HI to wean the peoples of the eastern Connec from their allegiance to Immaculate II, and confirmed in his mission by Sublime V, was hated with immense vigor by Maysaleans, all subspecies of Episcopals, Devedians, Dainshaus, and the Connec's remaining handful of Pramans, of every station and faction. Because the Bishop seemed to have decided that his main mission was to deprive anyone who defied him of any hint of wealth. Wealth that, somehow, always found its way into his personal control.