Sunset of Lantonne by Jim Galford Page A

long thought to be the final lesson in humility.
    “Sir?” asked a young woman behind him.
    “The only title I will accept is ‘ambassador’,” he answered, without looking away from the window. “As I have asked you before, Dalania, please call me by my name. The word ‘sir’ to your people is a title of respect or age, neither of which I have earned yet.”
    “The magisters would like to speak with you, sir,” the woman replied, as though she had not heard him. They had gone through this at least four times in the last day since Therec had arrived. For a servant, she was incredibly bold, while remaining overly demure. “If you will follow me, I will take you to them.”
    Nodding mostly to himself, Therec turned from the window and looked over the woman waiting for him in the doorway flanked by the dwarves, who had returned from escorting away the last servant. The woman was a fae-kin, a mortal distant relative of the nature spirits that inhabited many of the wilder places in the world. Though one could mistake her for a human at first glance, there was little doubt about her ancestry if one looked anywhere but her face.
    The woman was effectively nude, though covered in thick green vines that wrapped around her body like a partial dress. If one looked closely enough, there was even a greenish tint to her skin and hair, though that was fairly subtle. Even her long hair had a slightly green tint to it and Therec swore he could see small leaves here and there.
    When Dalania had first come to call him for the evening meal the night before, Therec had been offended and sent her away in anger. He had believed she was sent to him as a mockery of his people’s distaste for physical contact, given that she was just barely acceptably covered for these lands, let alone his more discrete people. Any Turessian who showed more skin in public than their face and possibly hands was considered prideful and disrespectful of their clan.
    It was hours later that Therec had learned that the masters of the tower normally sent Dalania to greet all new guests, under some belief that having an attractive mostly-naked woman show up at their door would be a pleasant experience. That, among other things, had been a bit of a surprise to Therec and he had sought out the girl to apologize profusely. She had seemed shocked by that, but had graciously accepted his apology.
    “Do you know the nature of this request?” Therec asked, moving to join the woman at the door.
    Unlike most of the people in these lands, she moved quickly to maintain a respectful distance from him, helping him to avoid touching her. That was something he found quite pleasant about the woman, which he could not say about most people here, who insisted on touching hands at every possible opportunity. Despite being a servant, she was far more enlightened than most.
    “No, sir,” she answered, avoiding eye contact as he passed her. “All they said was that you were needed in the Chamber of Light.”
    Therec gave her a questioning look, but she remained still at his side, offering nothing and not looking at him.
    “Explain.”
    Dalania answered as though reading from a book…it was obviously a response she had been obligated to memorize. That, or she was intentionally doing what she could as a servant to torment him. Either was possible.
    “The Chamber of Light is so named for the number of windows and the angle at which it catches the morning sunlight. It was built one hundred and seventy-two years ago by…”
    “Thank you, that is more than I needed to know about that,” Therec cut in, smiling at the woman as they began walking again, with her taking the lead. “Can you answer something else for me?”
    Though she kept walking, Dalania turned her head slightly to acknowledge him, despite keeping her eyes on the floor. “That is my duty, sir.”
    “Are you a slave?”
    Dalania stopped mid-stride and turned to fully face Therec. For the first time, she stared