The Far West by Patricia C. Wrede

overcoats who I figured for marshals sent out with them from Washington to make sure they managed all right. All of the Cathayans were wearing loose, high-collared shirts with long, straight sleeves, and wide-legged pants. The men’s shirts were just barely long enough to sit on, but thewomen’s shirts came all the way down to their knees and were slit up the sides to mid-thigh. Elaborate embroidery edged every collar, cuff, and hem.
    The Cathayans looked around and began talking very fast in a language that seemed to be all vowels. The State Department man said something back, more hesitantly, and pointed in our direction, and the little group crossed the platform to meet us.
    Even though I’d never seen her before, I knew right off which one was Master Adept Farawase. She was an erect woman of middle height, with a flattish face, golden tan skin, and dark eyes that tipped up at the outer corner. Her long black hair was gathered into a single thick braid that fell to the backs of her knees, just below the embroidered hem of her tunic. Two chin-length locks had been left out of the braid in front, framing her face, and three dragon-scale ornaments, each about an inch long and made of gold, dangled along the length of the right-hand lock. Unless you looked close enough to spot the few strands of white in her hair, she didn’t look more than thirty, but I’d have known just from the confident way she moved that she was a lot older than that. The odd thing was, her magic didn’t feel like anything special. After all the fuss, I’d expected her to be as strong as Lan.
    She’d brought four men and a woman with her. One of the men was nearly as short as she was, with thick, wavy hair and skin that was almost as dark as Professor Ochiba’s. He wore a mustache; the rest of the men were clean-shaven. He moved like quicksilver, examining everything and making comments in Cathayan. The second man was medium tall,with the same straight, jet-black hair, golden skin, and slightly tilted eyes as the master adept. The third was round-faced and stocky, and seemed suspicious of everything. He was the one who kept answering the first man’s comments, and from his tone of voice, he was annoyed.
    The fourth man was tall and broad-shouldered, with a rectangular chiseled face, a hawk nose, and teeth as even as piano keys. His skin was a warm, light brown, and he had dark brown hair that fell thick and loose to his shoulders. Like the master adept, he had an inch-long dragon scale woven into the hair on the right side of his face, but he had only one, and his was made of silver instead of gold.
    The last member of the Cathayan group was a slender young woman with dark, wavy hair, black eyes, and a heart-shaped face. At first I thought she was as tall as Master Adept Farawase, but then I realized that under her wide-legged pants she was wearing high-button boots with the tallest heels I’d ever seen. As the group reached us, she said something to the adept, bowed, and then stepped forward.
    “Permit me to introduce us,” she said, bowing again. “I am Speaker Bizen Sayo; you would say Miss Bizen. I am honored to be translator for Master Adept Farawase Rin.”
    The State Department man stepped forward and bowed back. “We are honored in turn, Master Adept Farawase, Speaker Bizen.”
    Miss Bizen turned and went down the line of Cathayans, giving their names and positions and a string of titles for each of them. I got lost very quickly, so I made Lan get me a list from the Settlement Office later on. The only one I rememberedright off was the tall man wearing the silver dragon scale. Miss Bizen introduced him as Adept Alikaket, the master adept’s second in command.
    The State Department man was a lot better at names than I was, or else he’d memorized them all in advance. When Miss Bizen finished, he bowed to each of the Cathayans and welcomed them by name. Then he presented us, one at a time, starting with the territory governor.