Sara is a drow queen and priestess, founder of an ancient refuge (the old casemate of Sara) that grew into the underground city of Zaira, where she sits on the throne with a whip in her hand. Her name is also a place on the surface routes of the empire’s north.
Origin
A drow “discarded from ancient worlds” needed to hide; from that need came “a kind of refuge place”, Sara’s “very ancient” casemate, which “has grown” to open “a giant level” within. Place and founder share the name. On the surface routes, Sara is among the “cities with men and women”, with Zenobia and Sofronia farther north.
Three images
- The sovereign with the whip, receiving the winners of the games at court.
- The hidden one “who was hidden in a casemate”, priestess and sorceress, “follower of beings I will not name, of the abyss”, in the words of her son Minaya.
- The woman who “came to see whether you were all right”, tending a wounded man and handing him “a strange writing in Ethiopian”.
The three seats
- Sara’s own.
- Her consort, “the undead of always”, a death knight called “the señor de la sota”, permanent husband beside the throne.
- A king for a day, given to the outsider who wins the games: “she has a king, for a day, and it’s you.”
Lineage
“She came from the black ones”, the Black Venetian families, and was adopted: “she represented the Donati.” Of the drow she says: “I have walked a lot with them, together we came here.” Zaira lies “in the depths” and she “still lives there”. She has also been seen beside the games ground and at gem negotiations in Zaira.
Open questions
- Sara/Zara for the queen, Sara/Zaira for the city: whether queen and city are one or distinct.
- How the surface Sara of the north relates to the casemate in the depths.
- Whether an eleven-year-old Sara with a fishing rod is connected.
- The consort’s identity, and what would need repairing in him.
- The games’ nature and location; the Ethiopian writing’s content and purpose; which ancient worlds discarded her.
- Her appearance is unrecorded.