DREAMTIME IN ADJAPHON
by John Gregory BetancourtDreamtime came quickly in the last days of Adjaphon, for then we did not know the end approached, and we were drunk from our power and our success. Abroad, our armies marched again, this year in war against the Heron King to the far East, and the priests of our god-patron, Tokos-Dien, predicted nothing but success.
If the days seemed golden, perhaps they truly were. The wealth from a dozen newly conquered lands flowed through Adjaphon’s gates, and the thousand eyes of Tokos-Dien painted on the roof of every building looked down and seemed to bless us all.
I was the son of a cobbler. Jad, my mother called me, but my father called me Jadred, which was a man’s name, for I was thirteen that summer and could have joined the Emperor’s army had I
