For those of you who didn’t know we have been moving house. A tedious business that also involved a lot of travel as our new house is 190km or 118 miles from our old address. Two and half hours by car.
Uplift (i.e. they loaded our stuff) was the 19th and delivery the 20th.

This is my new office: (When the weather is fine)

View from office to the left and the right and then the left

I wrote nothing last week due to all the travel etc.
Where we are at:
Kyron the rescuer is at the editor finally
I have started on the Kelad Onslaught which is the third New Federation book.
I am thinking that the next Ithria book will be one joint volume with both Taroniah and Kyron working together….. it depends on how much storyline there is.
The first Western Reaches book (The further adventures of Princess Gizel) should follow the Ithria book or books.

After that – tentatively – Taroniah at Home and Kyron the Conquerer.
and then we’ll see.

Peter

“That’s actually quite interesting,” Jason commented as he moved to one of the bushes. He pointed at some lichen on a rock nearby. “Is that the odd lichen as well?”

The local moved over to where Jason had pointed and peered at the lichen before nodding in affirmation.

“Yes, it is. It is spreading too. See, I’m sure that area there is new.”

His guide pointed at the part of the lichen-covered rock to the right-hand side of the patch and moved a little in that direction. While he was looking at the lichen, Jason stripped a couple of fresh, new-growth leaves off the plant that looked like marijuana and shoved them in his pocket before his guide looked up again.

He continued to play the part of the interested amateur for some time as they discussed the erosion of the area by the sea. They both agreed that although the plants had spread a little in recent times, it was probably because there had been no big storms coming from the right direction for a couple of years. It was pretty clear that the whole area was slowly eroding into the sea, even if it would take many years, possibly centuries, for that to happen. It was an interesting discussion, but eventually, the boatman realized it was getting late and insisted they return to the boat and head back to civilization before it got too dark.

Jason had to restrain himself over his desire to try out the leaves and made a valiant effort to be patient during the sail back to the small port and then the drive back to his hotel. He had to put off experimenting with the leaves until after the previously organized dinner at the hotel. He only just made the dinner on time because of the lengthy trip. The group of Symposium attendees that Jason was ostensibly with had arranged a special dinner with a couple of Archaeologists working on the Akrotiri site. Jason found the discussion around the table far more interesting than he had anticipated, and not just because he could understand the parts in Greek that they thought he couldn’t follow! Even so, by the time the meal and the after-dinner discussion were finished, he was chomping at the bit, wanting to get back to his room. Then he realized he couldn’t boil the leaves in his room because there was no stove with a hotplate. Damn! He looked at the small jug for boiling water to make coffee but decided not to try it. He went to bed very frustrated but refused to give up.

The next day he wandered around the small town and found a general store that sold some camping goods. They had a small camp stove setup, complete with a small gas bottle which he bought. They also had a small saucepan-type thing that was made with a handle that folded into the center of the saucepan so it would pack easier in a rucksack or such, and he headed back to his room with his purchases. He soon had the leaves boiling away and was just trying to decide how long to give it when the water changed color. It was clear the leaves had reached a point where some chemical had been released due to the boiling they were undergoing.  He turned off the gas and looked at his concoction. He poured some of the water into a glass and studied it. The color was a dull, transparent reddish-brown and smelled slightly of licorice. The leaves had largely broken up into small to tiny particles that were suspended in the water, while the still largely intact stem parts had sunk to the bottom of the small pot. He sat the glass on the small bench near where he’d set up the camp stove and studied the water for some time.

Coming back from Nea Kameni, they detoured around Palea Kameni towards Therasia. Knowing that the eruption largely carried east and southeast, he asked his guide if any of this island was untouched by the eruption. The fellow at first shook his head but then, glancing at Jason with narrowed eyes, suggested that the northwestern coast of Therasia was perhaps the least affected, but it would cost more to go that far out of his way. Of course! Jason thought to himself. Jason agreed to the increased cost after a little mild haggling, and eventually, the boat wandered out of the bay around the southern point of that island. A bit of open sea sailing followed before the man eventually turned the boat into a protected bay that didn’t look all that exciting.

The boat went around a large upthrust of rock with the low swell causing the small waves to break against the rock, but the upthrust also served to protect a somewhat hidden and sheltered cove where the wave swell was reduced to some extent. His guide grabbed a rope in the bow, waited for an upswell, and nimbly jumped ashore. The rope was quickly tied around a convenient piece of protruding rock, and Jason tried to emulate his guide’s smooth exit from the small boat. Having watched his guide closely, he waited for an upswell and then tried to hop ashore with the same ease the guide had shown. Well, at least he got ashore without getting wet! The guide waited until Jason had stood back up from the all-fours position Jason had finished up in before he pointed to an area further around the little bay.

“See there. That layer is the original island ground level before the eruption. You can tell by the type and color of the rock. There is another spot on the north coast where the sea has eroded the volcanic rock that covered almost everything after the big eruption as well.  I took a couple of English geologists up there and listened to their talk as they examined that area.” He clambered around an outcrop and then pointed at a sort of hollow. “See how there is a layer of eruption stone at the top with the original rock below. I think this was a cave channeled out by wind and waves. When the island erupted, the volcanic outflow was so heavy that the roof collapsed a fair way back, but perhaps not till well after the eruption, and then the fallen rock was eroded away over the three and half thousand years since.”

“Really?” Jason asked, suddenly a lot more interested as he grasped what the man was saying.

“Yes, Mr. Jason. You can see here at the back that there is a type of lichen growing that is like none found anywhere else on the island. And see these two types of bushes? They only grow here, and nowhere else on the island that I have seen. I brought a botanist here once, but he wasn’t impressed, saying the plants were obviously planted here in recent times as this one.” And he pointed at a weedy-looking thing. “It is like a type of thistle common in Greece, and the other is some branch of the hemp plant used to make marijuana, and he thought I was trying to hoax him. But truly, these two types of plants grow only here, and neither likes full sun, which is why they haven’t spread much, although that type of bush has expanded to that crevasse over there since the first time I was here.”

Sorry for not posting -in the process of moving and my normal routine is all over the place

That evening he used the hotel wi-fi to get on the net and study the plants of the area and particularly those peculiar to Santorini. He finally cut it off at about two in the morning when he couldn’t keep his eyes open any further. He hadn’t been able to reach any firm conclusions about the fauna on the island, possibly because he was so tired. As a result, he was late getting down to the conference room for the next morning’s presentations and struggled to stay awake in the early afternoon as the speakers droned on. Like most academic functions, some speakers were interesting and entertaining while others were as dry and boring as reading Titus Livius! He wondered which category his presentation had fallen into for those listening. Hopefully, more the former than the latter!

The next day was a lay day followed by one final day of presentations which included some really nice finds from the eastern end of the island. And then the conference was over. His first big international conference as a guest speaker! The next day a group of the attendees had signed on for the tourist trip to the islands and flew to Santorini, which expedition Jason joined, and he got a good look at the famous frescos. These were even more fascinating in the flesh, so to speak, and he enjoyed the tour of them as well as the small museum that housed various Minoan remains and artifacts that had been recovered from the site over the years. In many ways, the island was a lot like Pompei, with buried remains captured in situ only without the loss of life as it appeared the citizens had evacuated calmly well before the big eruption. Still, the remains were interesting and subject to a lot of studies.

He had specially requested that his trip be just to Santorini rather than spending several days touring the other islands as most of the others were going to do. So after arriving at the hotel and settling into his room, he went downstairs and asked at the desk about touring the island with a local rather than one of the tourist people the others were using on their short visit. He explained he was interested in getting an idea of what the ‘real’ Santorini was like. His newly acquired and, up until now, secret ability to communicate fluently in Greek seemed to go over well with the man behind the reception desk. The concierge put him in touch with some sort of relative who would be happy to show him around the island. The fellow even had a boat which meant they could visit the volcanic island growing in the middle of the caldera and some of the interesting rock formations around other parts of the island. It was all arranged in a few minutes and with a quick phone call.

The next morning he wandered through the business area and bought a cheap floppy hat and extra sunscreen at a convenience store as he made his way through the busy town. The skies were blue, and the water was an amazing shade of blue as well, probably from reflecting the sky, Jason thought as he headed for the business address of the man the concierge had hooked him up as a local guide. He managed to find the fellow without too much difficulty, his newfound facility with Greek making it a lot easier than it would have been otherwise! They discussed the various activities the fellow could offer and settled first on a motorized tour of some parts of the island nearby before taking to the water. The tour around the island was to be in the local’s rather beat-up Range Rover and was actually quite interesting. The fellow’s boat was docked at Vlichada on the south coast, and the boat appeared to be a relic from the War, probably the First World War by the looks of it! After a bit of fussing with the outboard motor that, fortunately, looked considerably younger than the boat, they had an interesting trip to the volcanic island and around the southern coast. The state of the boat was a worry, but it floated, and the outboard was at least modern, well, no more than twenty years old at least!

Taroniah at Bay
Barely two weeks after getting back from dealing with the Dragoth threat, Taroniah receives an unexpected visit from Princess Lorianne of Norburia. According to her, there is a God running riot in the southern Kingdoms of Ithria, and the Princess believes only Taroniah has the magical strength and capabilities to defeat it! Finding that she can’t say no to the Princess, she assembles her ships and heads south, leaving Korlah to run the businesses and look after her children, whom she has decided not to take with her. Facing a God is not something you want to do with children in tow, especially when it involves many weeks of wandering all over the countryside on horseback. When she finally gets a chance to face down the God, she finds that she may have bitten off more than she can chew!
Available at all Amazon sites.
US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FKSWDKFD
AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0FKSWDKFD