Banners

Some big-time fancy outsider, they say. Some big explorer-type. Even
talk of him being the Second Coming, some kind of hero of the people.
Here to take us away from our prison.

Or something daft like that. Personally, I think it's a load of old
cobblers.

For a start, how come one person can make it over the mountains when
entire legions of men haven't been able to for centuries? I guess
that's where the Second Coming comes from...that only somebody with
divine intervention on their side could pull off such a task. Well, I
don't know about you, but I think that's a whole bunch of idiocy in
itself. If there's going to be any divine intervention, then it's going
to be on a native Lagonian, on my word. Not some poxy foreigner.

Don't see what's so wrong with our situation as it is at any rate.
Yeah, so perhaps you could describe it like we're caged, but it's not
like our cage is unpleasant, right? We've got the whole of the Great
Valley to play with - what does it matter if we can't leave it? What's
the need? Who'd want to? And we've got this city, great and beautiful
Lagonia. Who would want anything more?

And yet here I am, hooking a banner over a peg on this rooftop. The
banner stretches away over the marketplace until its other end reaches
the statue, where it has been attached by Eggen. There's hundreds of
these bloody banners for us to hook up today, all over the city. About
twenty of the damned things in this square alone. All for one man. One
man who I'd much rather hadn't shown up at all.

We've all heard the stories about how it used to be, when the mountain
passes were open and the valley was a trade route, with all sorts of
foreign folk passing through, what with the cities to the north,
whatever they're called, and the sea to the south. Can't quite imagine
what the sea's like, mind you. Doesn't particularly bother me, though.
We're surrounded by green pastures and forests and huge craggy
white-peaked mountains. Who needs the sea?

Another peg done, I signal to Baitsy to shift me across to the next. He
carefully pushes the ladder and it rolls roughly over the paving. Been
doing this all day. All because they want this ceremony tonight, a
celebration of this new arrival. Well, there's a lot of people who'd
rather it didn't happen. All the people who live here who do such
brilliant things, and never get a moment's praise or a pat on the back.
Then this fellow arrives out of nowhere, claiming to be some kind of
adventurer-explorer, and everyone has to bow down before him.

Well, even if he does show the big boys some new route through the
mountains, I'm staying right here where I am, where I was born and
where I belong. I'm Lagonian, and nobody is going to take that away
from me.

Just another fifty-six banners to go. Damned foreigner.