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such there be and to lure more criminals and wild men to its shore from the Emirate of Cordova, from
North Africa, even from Asia, so they too can kill and steal in our land to their hearts' content."
"The answer is simple," Da'ud said. Tjiimpuu looked at him in surprise. So did Allister Park. If the
answer were simple, he wouldn't have been here, halfway up the Andes (Antiis, they spelled it here).
Then the ambassador went on, "If your people acknowledge the truth of Islam, the frontier will no longer
be held against pagans, and strife will cease of its own accord."
"I find my faith as true as you find yours or the one-time Bishop Scoglund here finds his," Tjiimpuu said.
Park had the feeling this was an old argument, and sensibly kept his mouth shut about his own occasional
doubts.
"But it is false, a trick of Shaitan to drag you and all your stubborn pagan people down to hell," Da'ud
said.
"Aka."Tjiimpuu pronounced the word as Eric Dunedin had, but he did so deliberately. "Patjakamak is
the one real god. He set the sun aflame in the sky as a token of his might, and sent the Sons of the Sun
down to earth to light our way. One day the whole world will see the truth of this."
The ache that started pounding inside Park's head had nothing to do with the altitude.
"Gentlemen, please!" he said. "I've come here to try to keep the peace, not to see you fight in the hall."
"Can there be true peace with pagans?" Da'ud demanded. "They are far worse than Christians."
"Thank you so much," Park snapped. The Moor, he thought angrily, was too fanatical even to notice
when he was insulting someone.
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Tjiimpuu, though, was every bit as unyielding. "One day we will rid Skrelleland of you hairy, sun-denying
bandits. Would that we were strong enough to do it now, instead of having to chaffer with you like potato
merchants."
"Potatoes, is it? One fine day we will roast potatoes in the embers of Kuuskoo." Da'ud ibn Tariq whirled
around and stormed off. His exit would have been more impressive had he not bumped into the envoy
from Araukanja, the Skrelling land south of Tawantiinsuuju, and knocked a mug of corn beer(aka in the
other sense of the word) out of said envoy's hand. Dripping and furious, Da'ud stomped out into the chilly
night.
* * *
Even in summer, even within thirteen degrees of the equator, early morning in Tawantiinsuuju was cold.
Allister Park pulled his llama-wool cloak tighter as he walked through the town's quiet streets.
The exercise made his heart race. He knew a cup of coca-leaf tea would be waiting for him at the
foreign ministry. He looked forward to it. Here it was not only legal but, he was finding, necessary.
A goodwain chuffed by, its steam engine all but silent. Its staked bed, much like those of the pickup
trucks he had known back in New York, was piled high with ears of corn. Probably taken from a
tamboo astorehouse to feed some hungry village, Park supposed. A third of everything the locals
produced went intotamboos ; Tawantiinsuuju was more socialistic than the Soviet Union ever dreamed
of being.
The goodwain disappeared around a corner. The few men and women on the streets went about their
business without looking at Allister Park. In New York in New Belfast in this world such an obvious
stranger would have attracted staring crowds. Not here.
The town was as alien as the people. It had its own traditions, and cared nothing for the ones Park was
used to. Many buildings looked as old as time: huge, square, made from irregular blocks of stone, some
of them taller than he was. Only the fresh thatch of their roofs said they had not stood unchanged forever.
Even the newer structures, those with more than one story and tile roofs, were from a similar mold, and
one that owed nothing to any architecture sprung from Europe. Vinland's close neighbors among the
Skrelling nations, Dakotia especially, had borrowed heavily from the technically more sophisticated
newcomers. But Tawantiinsuuju had a thriving civilization of its own by the time European ideas trickled
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