Last excerpt before the release date of September 15!

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The city folk had another story, but the way the nomads told it was like this:  The people here were once great.  They were patrons of the arts and music and made such machines that even the townies’ best smiths could never match them.  But they were also corrupt.  They squabbled among themselves and worshiped false gods.  Finally the Confederacy of Heaven itself came down to earth and revealed itself to the people, and as punishment for the ancients’ corruption they took away all the rain and invented gliders.  The punishment came with one condition: in one hundred years’ time, the people of Earth could send one representative to plead their case to the Confederacy.  Barnaby the Accursed was sent, and he failed, and that was one hundred years ago.  There would be no rain now forevermore.

But in their bitterer moments the nomads said even that story was wishful thinking.  Think of it, water falling from the sky, free for everyone!  A fairy tale for children.  No, rain was a myth.