After a day and a half of walking, I spotted a camp of people who apeared to be some kind of nomads. Their clothing was of a different cut than that of the folk I had encountered thusfar.
I was not at this time as used to the outdoor life as I would become in later years and I found myself yearning for human contact and hot food. Upright and with my hands in full view I walked into the little encampment and called out greetings in the Bromfkidoran language.
It had completely slipped my mind how strange my appearance was to these people, but as it was, I was quickly reminded. Had a man from Mars stepped into that circle of tents and wagons, I do believe the reaction would have been more subdued. Men and women lept to their feet and dropped their tasks. Children clung to their mothers and stared in wonder.
After an uncomfortable pause a man approached me holding up both his hands to show he bore no weapons and spoke.
"Are you a man?" he asked in a slightly apologetic voice.
"Of course I'm a man," I replied, "but I am not a man of Bromfkidor."
"How can it be that you are not of the World?" he said "A Kozar may not be fooled by such obvious lies. Yes, you are a man, but you are some game of nature, an omen perhaps."
This was the first mention I had experienced of anything supernatural during my sojourn in the south. Even the religions of Bromfkidor seem to be curiously free of references to omens, prophecy and miracles. These, I suspected, were a people apart. I felt that it would be in my best interest to make friends with these nomads.
"It is true that I was born beyond the Outer Waste, across a huge stretch of water in a country called California which is itself as big as half of Bromfkidor. My skin is brown rather than gray because I am descended from people who came from a land which is most likely to big for you to imagine called Africa. There were others with me, most of whom looked different from either me or you, they have white skins and they come from different countries some small, some large."
I fear that my explanation served to confuse rather than clarify who I was. The Kozar headman finally spoke.
"Whoever you are, you are dirty and half starved. Come and sit at our table and entertain us with more of your mad tales."
Thus was it that I became a guest of the nomads of Bromfkidor. The headman was named Halord Bishindi and was in charge by virtue of patriarchy. Over half of the little band were his direct descendants.
I saw no reason to keep my situation a secret, so I told them exactly how I had come to be among them. Almost rude was their response to the idea that Bromfkidor would even recognize any other government, the only way to be seperate from Stomo Nomchitka do Bromfkidoro, is to not recognize it! This statement drew huge peals of laughter from those assembled.
It turned out that the Kozars are thought to be racially inferior to the dominant ethnic groups of the land.
"In my land, we also suffer from racial bigotry even though we have seen that it can lead to disaster, sometimes in unexpected ways."
"I has certainly been an inconvienience to us." said Halord, sardonically.
"In the lands that I come from it has created our world." I said."Just before I was born, my country was part of another nation called the United States of America. That land had just fought a huge and bloody civil war over whether or not my people could be held in slavery in certain parts of the country. The anti slavery faction won and my people were now free citizens, but many of the white people who still controlled the government, the money and just about everything else, wanted to make sure that we didn't gain any power. Since the government was in the control of the anti-slavery party, it started a nation wide program called 'reconstruction'. The idea was to muster blacks into the greater part of society, but it was done a little awkwardly, and some of the whites just got more and more angry at the way things were going."
"The greatest general of the conflict had become the leader of the entire nation, we call him a 'president', and as a symbol he had chosen as his vice president a black man, like me. His name was Hiram T. Johnson, and he was the founder of my country not because he was loved but because he was hated.
"The General was not a very good administrator and was blamed for a huge error in the national banking system. The scandal was so very great that he was compelled to resign his office. In the United States, it is the law when a president cannot complete his term of office, the vice president takes over his job. In this case the vice president was one of the hated black people.
"Even those who supported the idea of a black vice president had never thought that he would ever become the leader of the whole country, and chaos tore through the whole fabric of government. The new president couldn't perform his duties without interference from all sides, all because of the color of his skin."
"In the meanwhile, the part of the nation that would become my country was in turmoil because of a criminal governor bleeding the populace of all they had. This land was a frontier built by men and women who were pioneers and bold individuals. To them the solution was simple, they hung the governor."
"So now they had an ineffective national government and no state government so they decided they had had enough and started their own country. In the city of San Francisco lived a man who had said that he was Emperor of America. He said this because he was not quite in his right mind, but unlike the governor, the people liked him. As the state government descended into chaos, the people of that city looked to him as the highest authority and they endorsed his claim to power. He had been issuing money, supporting charity and making proclamations, all of which were generally accecpted by the populace. The endorsement was taken up by influential people throughout the state and before long our land was transformed. His name was Joshua Norton and he declared California separate from the United States, whose government was in such a shambles that they could do nothing about it."
"Hiram Johnson, like the General before him was hounded out of office and the U.S. regained its equilibrium but the damage was done. Johnson was held up as a traitor for allowing the secession of California and had to flee the country. The Californians welcomed him with open arms and his experience in government finally led him to become our Prime Minister. All of this because of hate over race."
The Kozars were greatly entertained by my story and spent the rest of the evening jocularly plotting to make a Kozar king of Bromfkidor.
After sleeping, I asked Halord Bishindi what the best way might be of reaching Tippilina. He informed me that that was in fact their destination and that I was welcome to join them for the journey, that is on the condition that I continue to tell them tall tales over supper.
The beauty of the land along the Molad was unsurpassed by anything I had ever seen save one which continually surfaced in my mind, that was the face of Ola Sharomna. I told myself that this woman was a political radical with whom I had nothing in common, and yet my heart told me otherwise. Here was born the most wonderous complication of my life, for there could be no doubt that I was in love with this Bromfkidoran beauty. I despaired of ever seeing her again for my duty led me ceaselessly toward the capital city while she was in the country pulling together her government in exile. To all appearences, our separation seemed permanent.
In this land at this time of year time's passage is not marked by intervals of light and darkness, but only by a procession of the low hanging sun through the points of the compass. This would be a good time for me to make note that the denizens of this land do not use the same cardinal points as are used in the rest of the world. The maps of this miniature world are made to orient by the position of the great mountain they call Bontor Sharmodna, which means "Ruling Mountain of the Land", but I will translate it simply as North Mountain. From its position all other points are derived, one opposite we can call South, those at right angles we will refer to as East and West. In this pocket-sized world this system works fairly well but it would of course quickly break down if extended to the rest of the globe.
The Bromfkidorans are aware of the spherical nature of the Earth but in the past they thought it much smaller than it is with the north pole somewhere in the outer waste. Because light impinges upon their land at such an acute angle they have come to the conclusion that the entire solar system is in fact quite a bit smaller than we know it to be. The sun only a few hundred miles away and quite small. One is led to believe that these folk would have been able to infer the existence of the outside world as their scientific knowledge improved even if we had not discovered them when we did. All it was wanting for them to do was to correctly measure one astronomical distance for their entire world view to come tumbling down like an arch having lost its keystone.
My journey afforded me much time for such musings as this, for my hosts were averse to conversation while on the road, prefferring to save their talk for the dinner hour. I occupied my time with observations of the new world around me which provided me with no end of fascinating diversion as the great shaggy-feathered dray animals drove our caravan onward. Over my head with increasing frequency I saw skyships of a hundred diferent types and styles. This mob of air traffic could only mean that we had but little ground to cover before we would reach the center of the republic.
When first I saw the city, I was surprised that it did not lie directly on the river but rather on a mountain top nearby, "High Darmal", was the name I was told.
Upon that Mountain top was a city like that from an opium dream. Very tall buildings of graceful proportions though alien mode, flanked avenues that were made wide enough to allow the passage of even the greatest dreadnoughts of the sky in royal review. High peaks and summits of the vast stony mountain were bridged by steel arches even the most enraptured engineer would not dare to propose. High spindly spires served half a thousand arriving and departing skyships with their elevators swiftly riding up and down to the rhythm of this land's brisk commerce. Before even passing through the gates of this latter day Xanadu I could see in my mind's eye the splendidly dressed lords and ladies of the land promenading in its parks and courtyards, I could see its gay and free spirited children gambol and play in its fields and gardens. In my imagination, I smelled a thousand odors both good and bad which were the perfume of a great metropolis. Upon seeing it from afar, no force known could conceal my eagerness to cross the threshold of this city's gates! Here was truly the center of a world, this was Tippilina!