Chapter: Dreaming

A baran—one of the few uses of Quya that has been retained in the text of the Stone Dance—is a type of warship galley as shown in the first page of diagrams

The diagram below shows how I derived this class of ships from a comparison with ancient oared warships—specifically, triremes and quinqueremes. Among other things, this allowed me to deduce speed and handling characteristics

Barans are formed into squadrons attached to one of the three Cities of the Sea of which the greatest, Thuyakalrul, has perhaps a hundred

Each baran has three masts and can also be driven by oars—for which purpose a complement of more than 400 sartlar is permanently maintained in the lower holds. The masts can be ‘shipped’—that is, lowered—to allow the vessel to be manoeuvred into confined spaces

The purpose of the barans is to keep the sea lanes free from pirates, so that the merchants of the Cities of the Sea can obtain the rare and exotic merchandise that the Masters covet and consume

a detail from the Three Lands map showing the stretch of sea that the black ship must cross to bring Carnelian and his companions from the Hold to Thuyakalrul

When Aurum and his party left Osrakum to set off on their journey to find Suth across the Northern Sea, this was how the voting was expected to go in the election of a new God Emperor—Ykoriana’s faction is heading towards an outright win for her favoured candidate, Molochite—with a margin of more than 1000 votes. Even should Imago’s faction vote against her, she would win with a comfortable margin of 160. Note, however, that in spite of this, Aurum’s faction is dominant in the Clave—which is what allows him to have Suth elected He-who-goes-before