Dark of the Sun by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

hardly unusual,” said Ro-shei.
    “My point exactly,” Zangi-Ragozh said, and fell in beside Jong’s wagon as it took the lead.
     
    Text of a letter from Marakam on the east coast of Borneo, from the Burmese scholar Ymer ai Pagan to Captain Pao Sho-Feng of the merchant-ship Joyous Winds, delivered seven weeks after the Winter Solstice.
     
    To the most perspicacious Captain, Pao Sho-Feng of the Joyous Winds , a merchant-ship out of Yang-Chau, and much-traveled in the Southern Islands and other ports of the south, the scholar Ymer ai Pagan sends his most enthusiastic greetings and gives the Captain his assurances that what he says in this letter is complete and correct as far as he is able to make it so, with the promise that should he fail in any point of accuracy, he will answer for it with a beating. It is this facility that the scholar offers to Captain Pao.
    Your note informed this scholar that the Captain and his crew are lately arrived from the Southern Islands, and are bound for Madura on Java and Samudra on Sumatra, with intentions then to turn north in the Andaman Sea, and seek information on the waters hereabout, and reports on new conditions. To the most pressing development: the mountain in the middle of the Sunda Passage often spits rocks and noxious gases, and once in a while, there is a brief flow of lava from its summit cone, and the people of the islands pay little attention. But recently those have become troubled in ways they have not been in the past. The Sunda mountain, Krakatau, is smoking and trembling more constantly than is its habit, perturbing the waters and land around it, causing many of the people living near it to move away from the proximity of the mountain until such time as it quiets once more. If those who live near the mountain are willing to sacrifice their homes in order to be assured of safety, then it would be sensible for you, as a commercial seafarer, to keep away from those waters, at least until such time as the natives of the region return to their houses.
    You may confirm anything this scholar reports with others who have recently traversed the waters in question. Among the number of such voyagers, there are two ships recently arrived from Sunda Kalapa, neither of them merchant-ships, but filled with those who have decided to remain in the lea of Borneo until they are certain that all jeopardy from their mountain is over. Those persons have a far better understanding of the situation than this scholar can, for they know their islands and are cognizant of their behavior in a way that you or this scholar cannot be, lacking the familiarity of long residence.
    To assist in such an endeavor, this scholar offers his skills as a translator. As stated before, this scholar knows the language of Java and Sumatra, and his Chinese, as you see, is adequate to any task you may impose. In addition, this scholar can speak the main tongue of Saylan, and three of the dialects of India, so he may be useful with many other travelers and all manner of merchants. In addition, this scholar will be willing to keep records for you and to make copies of all discussions you have with those with whom you wish to speak, so that you may present this record to your employer upon your return to Yang-Chau. The charges for such services will not be beyond what is reasonable, and this scholar warrants his work will stand proof to all scrutiny. Submitted with profound respect to Captain Pao Sho-Feng,
     
    Ymer ai Pagan

3
     
    At Jun-Chau, at the edge of the foothills of the well-worn range of picturesque mountains, the travelers were warned of fighting to the immediate west; Zangi-Ragozh spent a day in the market-place, doing his best to ignore the blustery rain, asking as many questions as he could of merchants who had arrived in the city by various routes; he was glad now that he had taken the time that morning to put an extra layer of his native earth in the soles of his boots. In the evening he returned to