THE NEWS It is a day of mourning in GUNN LATTH as the funerary rites of the great Hero ROBARD THE THIRD, barbarian, deliverer of the GREAT BULL OF SORROW are performed. Amidst drinking and dancing, What remains of his bones, already charred, are committed to the fire. The naked mystic SENEKH pontificates with dubious relevance to the circumstances, and the aged scholar VOKK RINUAH, in the company his new apprentice BAUN, a plump orphan of an old but impoverished line, nods solemnly as the boy stifles a fit of coughs. At the moment before the crowd can begin to disperse, a finely appointed sedan chair arrives on the banks of muscular bearers. From behind its curtains emerges a vision, jade-eyed, sunset-dark, architecturally coiffed -- the lady SUNUL. She strides gracefully and with purpose toward the fire, casts a single rose into the flames, and without a word, returns to her seat and is borne away. Meanwhile, as one outlander departs, another arrives - an eminent dignitary of the WEST...