The village of Locked. Dear Sister, Well, my adventure is beginning! After a long long journey through the Forest of Ex I find myself in the village of Locked and it is not at all what I imagined a village to be, I thought they would be a great deal smaller, much less frenetic, but I am to understand that this is an exceptionally active village, as it is here and nowhere else but here that a bridge spans the River Fly on the road between Ex and Jail. Almost everybody who travels out of Ex comes this way. I can see why. The only other route runs through the Falling Hills and I have heard it said that the Hills are unpleasantly cold, not at all the sort of weather you want blowing on you while you're perched exposed on top of a beastie. The weather in Locked is rather like that of home. I am spending the night in one of a cluster of small rooms. The other rooms are stuffed with travelling persons of all kinds. Across from my door, a messenger dressed in red is sitting in front of the open doorway cracking seeds between his teeth, "Cr'k, cre'k." A little farther along I can hear a singer rehearsing a song about fish, (He must come from Jail. I have heard that they are seaside folk.) possibly he is a dealer in songs. As I write, his voice is reaching the end of a phrase. Oh, he's stopped in the middle. He starts the whole verse over again. Something must have been wrong. "Fish must roost, (inaudible) must fly, among the (inaudible. cage?) of the rocks," sings he! Locked is full of these people. Between finishing the last paragraph and starting this one I ventured forth to find a meal and the streets are simply alive with people who clearly do not live here. They walk about wearing clothes and accents from all over the country, some of them marvelling at the crowd, others looking intent or bored. I don't know if I've seen a single local, aside from the keeper of my guesthouse and the woman who sold me a dried pod as long as my forearm, which is going to be my dinner. All of the buildings I've seen have been built to cater to travellers, in the form of rooms-for-the-night, or to serve them meals or as places to pen their beasties. They seem to regard windows as an inconvenience. I am lucky to have one. My lucky window looks down upon some manner of gambling arena where people are squatting in a circle playing pinch-cluck. Is it a collection of messengers? They appear not to know one another intimately, but there is a bond between them. I can see it in the way they touch one anothers' arms during the game. Look, a woman in a hat has won. One of the losers is singing her prize to her. I wonder if that is the same man I heard rehearsing earlier. I haven't heard his voice since I left to find dinner. Don't imagine that I have forgotten your request to, "Tell me about the bridge!" I took special care to cross it while I was out, just so that I could describe it to you. I believe that the village must have grown up around this unusual structure and spread outward from there. The houses at either end of the bridge are packed together closely as if the builders were trying to fit their buildings inside an imaginary boundry. Little did they know! The structure itself is an impressive object made of wood and stones, with a bottom curving above the river and a flat surface on top. The width is extraordinary to me. It is certainly wider than any Ex street I have ever seen. Booths line the crossing, vendors swarm and shout and beggars hold out their hands for scraps. It is havoc, but oh such fun! Yours with love, Fareshteh C.