Role

Chapter 7

On one occasion, the two of them had begun travelling south along the road
that led to Hamsah Mu'tazz. Scanning ahead, Sulye noticed two of the
Sultan's guards heading north towards them along the road. The guardsmen
were engaged in some sort of argument, so they did not notice the pair of
youths. In a bout of sudden poor judgment (and she was prone to these)
Sulye decided it would be humorous to play a joke on the approaching
guards. Quickly, she clambered up an embankment at the side of the road,
dragging a protesting Magdan behind her.

When the two guards neared the place where they had hidden, Sulye called
out in her best raspy, gravelly lich impersonation, "Halt you fools, in
the name of the Empire!" She had, of course, never seen a lich, and
especially not the one who currently held the Imperial Throne, but she had
been raised on stories of Ahtieli as a sort of bogeyman and in the stories
she had a raspy, gravelly voice. Apparently the guards had never heard
Ahtieli either, since they immediately stopped whatever argument they were
having and hastily tried to come to some state of attention.

Sulye, of course, found this highly comical. After giving the guards a
few seconds to stare around fearfully, wondering at the origin of the
voice, she could no longer contain herself and let out with a stream of
laughter. Magdan was furious. The guards, realizing they had been
tricked, were more furious. The larger of them demanded that the two
pranksters come down onto the road. Sulye, for her part, turned and was
ready to dash down the leeward side of the embankment, away from the road,
and off into the surrounding fields. Before she could do so, though, she
noticed that Magdan had climbed over the lip of the embankment and was
headed down towards the guards.

Reluctant to abandon her friend, and completely ignorant to the depth of
the guards' anger, Sulye scampered down after Magdan. Magdan, upon
reaching the guards, began a profuse apology. Realizing he wasn't the one
who spoke, both men promptly ignored him and turned their gaze on Sulye.
Once she reached the group, the larger man lashed out and struck her
across the face, muttering something about little fela should be seen and
not heard. This took Magdan completely by surprise. To his credit, he
immediately stopped talking and instead interposed himself between Sulye
and the two guards. This was a mistake.