The duchy of Sumelo was the south-most duchy of the empire. It is composed of three counties and twelve baronies. The counties of Anor, Shaeah, and Doreanne are each occupied of a different necessary part of Sumelo's industrial economy. The county capital of Anor is the city of Anor, where long the Mahadrum have fought an endless war against the Dark Mists. North of that is Anor Mountain Range, stretching across the duchy's west end and into the lower corners of the Apollicos Duchy eastward. But the county of Anor ends at the Lesser Hills of Leed, where begins the counties of Shaeah and Doreanne, divided from each other by the Constantine Aqueduct that has been in disrepair since the beginning of the third age.
One could see the sections where the arches broke off and a small stream had formed from the broken channel in the past few centuries. It created a little waterfall from the high end of the aqueduct and the downward flow along the earth is now known as the Brook of Constantine.
It was small and flowed into a valley where a pond had formed of the same name.
The result of these formations was a fertile farming ground from which derived the county of Dorianne's tilling and harvesting up to the eastern border of the duchy.
Henceforthwith, the tides changed. Spring airs carried something and the green leaves danced. Wheat stalks waved about; pale gold in the wind. From one rising dale to the Anor peaks– at the gentle end of its slope, there lay a man of a still countenance alike to the slumber of death in the meadow.
The gentleman's attributes were foreign in all appearance to the pale Westmans. Layered black and white robes were threadbare at the hems and the man bore at his side a rod of bronze resting in the grass. Unadorned it was but for a cord of leather wrapped around its middle.
To many across the realm of Helios, the metal of bronze became emblematic of the old world, when the Aurians would forge artifacts, weapons, and castles of bronze. But between the Alchemy Renaissance and the rise of iron tools, few people carried bronze anymore except in art or to keep as antique.
A breeze met to the gentleman's face, brushing his hair. His lids twitched– eyes darted beneath. There lay with his recumbent form a notebook bound in calf leather. A veil of white cloth was stretched over like a canvas on its face.
From another gust of wind and passing cloud came the sunlight to glow his tanned skin golden and carried the cotton-white mists afar the blue sky. One viridian leaf travelled that wind. It settled itself in the space betwixt his eyes on the brow.
They opened.
Rising to a seated posture he gazed over the golden wheat that had named this land Helios: the empire of the sun. Of what he pondered is unclear, but he spent a twelfth of the sun's height examining the physical world before moving on. When his thoughts ended he took in hand the book and rod and walked down from the dale to the toy-sized houses and spirals of chimney smoke far forward the horizon.
His footsteps followed the dirt road between fertile fields. Locals passed him with glances—curious, speculative, but never suspicious. Helios was too vast an empire to be startled by strangers. Although foreign wanderers were still rare so far to the dangerous south.
A mercenary mayhap.
Farmers spoke along the road. A man more than a quarter yet less a half his years down the line of Az was addressed by one assumed to be his wife.
"Of the Gods'many wills, such a harvest this large… What fortune."
"Yes—and pray we finish reaping by the morrow or we'll miss the baron's grain tithe."
The farmer's haste was written in the wrinkles of his face. A sweat soaked into his thatched shirt and breath was heavy though stable. He had just spent himself in labor, this was merely the first of many works he had yet before him.
"Urgency?" Asked his wife, "with a harvest this big, we'll have surplus. How will we store it all?"
"There won't be a surplus." The farmer then raised his voice. "Afland! Take the ox down to drink—the sun's wearing him out."
There forward a few paces a boy carried the lead of an ox, turning his brown-haired head to his father and giving a curt, wordless nod. The foreigner walked on as the ox drank from the brook and he observed the beast and boy as a cataloger observed nature.
By the time their young son was out of earshot the farmer expressed himself in a lowered pitch.
"The baron raised the grain tax. A lot. We may be looking at a tight winter."
"What? But why?"
"No idea. Conrad from the barracks says the baron's paying taxes of his own."
"With our harvests this plentiful, and the Sunlight Plains surely overflowing—why so much grain?"
The farmer sighed. "Conrad says the emperor's planning another campaign. Recruitment will come at winter's end. With this and Anor… so much grain leaving the territory."
"That's… not how things were before."
"I know, Mary. I know."
The farmer and his wife parted the road from the foreigner off to a large house suitable for storing grain or animals. Yet the gentleman moved on a few paces towards the village which he initially spied at the horizon.
The year was 59 of emperor Jaeden Titanus V's reign, 1106 of the third age. This one the scholars dubbed the Age of Magic & Wisdom, contrasting spiritual tradition against the rising wizard towers built round the world.
There were two calendars which the empire employed, the Astrological Chart and the Ancient Calendar. One charted the stars and season to arrange a method of accurate timing during harvests. It was an important logistical achievement, Aurius managed to cross the Heartlands and into the Azuna Desert of Sahava on account of this system that supplied timely goods to armies on the other side of Jania.
But this system did not exist in the first and early second age. Festivals were based on the Ancient Calendar that charted the days between the fourteen kings of Aurum and arranged each period of the year based on them.
It began with the Birth of Providence, first king of Aurum who foresaw the doom of his own empire.
Then came the Birth of Valerius, whose birthday was twenty-six days after the birth of Providence in the annual calendar, hence the first month of the Ancient Calendar was twenty-six days long.
The Birth of Cyrus began sixteen days prior to the birthday of Valerius. Making it a sixteen day month.
The Birth of Calishum, who was called 'the Builder' in days of yore. His birthday lay fifty-eight days from his father Cyrus.
The Birth of Pashum marked the son of Calishum, whose birthday was thirteen days before his father's. Pashum was a scholar that recorded what he could of the days before time, and created the early metrics by which to measure grain and gold.
The Birth of Uriel was pivotal, eight days after Pashum. Uriel was not a bloodline heir, but a regent who took reluctantly to the throne after the deposition of Calishum's firstborn, Sargon. Uriel lived his life piously as a priest and had no heirs to continue his line. When the next king came of age, he gave up his seat willingly to recluse himself in the temple of Sòl.
The Birth of Kleophoros was a month of justice and longevity. Son of Sargon, Kleophoros was born in unfair secrecy and rose still to depose the Puppet King. He lived under the guidance of king Uriel until such time that he became old enough to succeed (and redeem) his father's failure. Kleophoros was born ninety-one days to Uriel's birthday.
The Birth of Laptesh was unexpected. For he was foreign to Aurum from an unknown land beyond the Quendi Ocean, west of Helios. He was mortal unlike the Aurians. But Laptesh was trusted by Kleophoros to rule in an age declining amid the sixth war with Effinitia. Laptesh's specific birthday was unknown. Instead it was his arrival in Aurum that marked his birthday to the Aurians, twenty-seven days after Kleophoros' birth.
The Birth of Elias continued the line of Kleophoros. Elias was a king who first faced the temptation of R̄ësha. The Dark Daemon came to him in the voice of a demigod and offered him the same powers He had given to the Beshír. Though much discussed in the Book of Gods, the Birth of Elias is called a month of purity and resistance to temptation. Elias' birthday is nineteen days from the Birth of Laptesh as recorded.
The Birth of Asurchadnezzer saw expansion of Aurum's colonies to the Rea Bluffs. Asurchadnezzer's birthday was fifteen days from the Birth of Elias.
The Birth of Amar-Az is the traditional month of bounty in Helios sacramental order. Amar-Az's birth was twenty-nine days before the Birth of Asurchadnezzar.
The Birth of Ioseref was the month of art. For he was a painter unrivaled in skill, whose canvases relived the old triumphs of Aurum. His birth was twenty-one days to the Birth of Amar-Az.
The Birth of Akkaan-Sòl is the month of triumph and chivalry. It was the time of the thirteenth king who at the ninth war against Effinitia ended with the slaying of many Mágëa-Kings and the rise of Yuvon the Gold, the godfather of chivalry. Akkaan-Sòl was born eighteen days to the Birth of Ioseref.
Last was the Birth of Raath, the month of ends, death, and the contemplation of evil. Raath was a man born to a legacy of greater men. So haunted was he by his forebearer's glory that he became ambitious and driven to seek greater heights. Just as each king prior had to the last. But Raath sought out Persephorot the Red, and doomed the demigods to devilry.
These fourteen months marked the calendar of the old times. It was inaccurate on occasion, but the spare months were often just tossed to the Birth of Raath when necessary. Later astrologers tracked the stars and calculated their trajectories in the night sky to make the Astrological Chart now used by merchants and commanders.
Presently was the end of the Birth of Uriel, and a foreigner arrived in the town of Faelenshire in the time when Kleophoros was to come. A man who spoke in tongues.