Tea Merchants
20 March 2025
The Tea Merchant Series is a series of books set in the world of Ocean, where tea is the currency of life and sailors brave all to this valuable treasure, more important than gold. But all is not as it seems. Developing over six stories, the story centers on Javier al-Rasheed, a playboy who is caught into a web of politics and intrigue when he marries the daughter of the Dominar of the land of Cycus, Nazira, and must gamble his life, sanity, and his crew to carry out a scheme that will see them all masters of their world, or dead at the end of an executioner's axe. But all is not as it seems. What is the secret of the island of silence, why do the gods throw bolts of fire at the people of Ocean when they defy their will, and who is the dark stranger and his mysterious mistress who claim to hail from a distant shore?
Series Bibliography
- On Other Shores (5 September 2025) — On Other Shores
- The Deadly Veil (3 October 2025) — The Deadly Veil
- Greater Oceans than Thine (7 November 2025) — Greater Oceans than Thine
- Calm is the Lands of infinity (TBA) — Not yet published.
- Sailing the Summer Tide (TBA) — Not yet published.
- Bottle of the Jinns (TBA) — Not yet published.
On Other Shores
20 March 2025
Javier al-Rasheed is an orphan, a naval officer, a playboy, and a drunken cad. After secretly marrying Nazira, princess of the Dominion of Cycus, he is forced to adopt a new title: tea merchant.
With Nazira vying to become the next Dominar of Cycus, Javier must amass a fortune and accrue allies to her cause. Secrets hide on every island and the sailors aboard the Remarker must learn to work together while pretending to be unassuming tea merchants
On Other Shores -- (5 September 2025) Amazon 4 Horseman Publications
The Deadly Veil
20 March 2025
Princess Nazira, heir to the throne of the Dominion of Cycus, has sent her new husband away to seek fame and fortune on the endless sea. But like on the ocean, a storm can roll in with little warning. Her father, the king, has turned against her.
She must survive a year besieged by enemies, including a sinister assassin's guild, bloodthirsty relatives, jilted lovers, and sinister shadows whose motives are unknown. But even as she is forced to take part in a deadly procession that will end with her death, she is not without allies.
Can Nazira take back her throne, or will the veil she is forced to wear prove deadly?
The Deadly Veil -- (3 October 2025) Amazon 4 Horseman Publications
Greater Oceans than Thine
20 March 2025
Javier al-Rasheed, former playboy and current consort to the Dominar of Cycus, has elected to lead his beloved crew on a second voyage, only this time he has been commissioned by his wife's uncle to find an impossible tea in a lost land.
Despite facing implacable pirates, strange cultures, and the threat of missing land and sailing to their deaths on Ocean's vast seas, the misfit crew of the Remarker are up for the challenge. But the deadliest foe may be within their own hulls. Between lapses in memory, new crewmembers no one seems to know, and an evil force dogging their every step, the seemingly endless sea may be driving them mad.
Layout of the Remarker
20 March 2025
The Remarker is a five-year old four-mast merchant trader laid down in Kemeya (and island near Cycus and home to the powerful family from which Nazira, Abelard, and Nawaz came from) and sold to a pirate combine before at the start of the events chronicled in On Other Shores. She was built mostly from oak using pegged plank-and-rib construction from hardwood harvested on Cycus. The woods used included almahujni alhadidiu (ironwood or mahagony), zayt al'arz (red oil cedar) and khashab albaluwt alramadiu (spider oak). Some of her structure was replaced after strom damage with an unknown oine variety. Unlike longshore traders, which are made from cheaper spruce or gum trees, the Remarker's combination of wood variants serve to cancel out defects found in individual lumber variants. The one noted weakness of these designs os that fire can catch the upper decks, whose cedar is oily and burnable.
Also different from long shore traders, the Remarker is designed to carry a full topside crew, its own cargo hands, and a significant number of marines. Longshore traders rely on cargo hands from the ports they serve, are not able to rapidly reconfigure their sails, and rarely ship oars. They generally lack galley crew, and dispense with navigators and cockswains. Longshore traders carry bulk items between a small number of ports with a small profit margin and lack the sails to maske weigh against the wind. In fact their name, long shore traders, is a reference that they generally use the currents that run along islands along with those between close by lands to allow progress on their journeys.
Remarker is a different beast, which made her both an ideal pirate, and later, a powerful tea trader. She carries four masts, two drivers midship forward and aft the galley house whose sails are designed to catch the maximum wind possible (making her capable of sustained speeds of up to 17 kilometers per hour) and two steering masts whose sails allow close hauled tacking and considerable agility in handling. Using tolan navigation this combination of both lanteen and square sails allows teh ship to appear to sail upwind, which in reality is a manuever called "close hauling on the tack." Despite this, no ship on Ocean can successfully fight teh strongest currents and winds. Knowing where the currents and winds are in what season is key to getting to where you are going for a merchant. Captain's jealously guard their tolan-books, sometimes called rudders, which use statistics to estimate the best way to navigate a particular ship given the time of year they are trying to make a given port.
No ship, even a warship, would risk the wrath of the gods and god's fire by mounting permanent cannons to their deck. Instead they rely on a combination of firelocks, wooden stocked cartridge firing rifled weapons, and larger human-portable weapons called serpents (because of their striking power) or cone-rifles (named for their larger conical shells that contain flammable and combustable materials). They are always stored under deck unless they are needed and never brandished.
The great wealth of the tea trade allows ship's like the Remarker to carry crews of 100 - 120 souls. The skills of these crews mean that given wood and time, nearly any ship can be self-repaired if the giant keel and primary frame elements remain intact. Tea merchants also carry a doctor, a singer or chanter, a steward (who acts as a cook) a tea master, and water masters. The crews are crowded, so they usually divide into eight shifts to assure that the sleeping quarters, the galleys, and the space for resting is not overwhelmed. Despite this, sailors on a tea merchant are some of the best paid on Ocean, enjoying good food and enough rest to assure they are in top condition. Most tea merchants can have their pick of crew and even captains, but the best crew do not stay onboard a ship they are not made to feel appreciated on. This attitude of superiority sometimes causes long shore and team merchant crews to clash on dockside.
Nazira
2 April 2025
Naming: Naming: Nazira al-Youseffi muta Rasheed, sometimes Nazira al-Nabeel or insultingly, Nazira manard Kemaya. later Nazira I, Dominar of Cycus.
Kinship: Kinship: Daughter of Abelard XIV and Irula d' Canus Cragia. Mother of Jamil al-Youseffi d' Tariq (later styled Jamil d' Cycus). Sister of Amina d' Canus Cragia (later Amina 'amira d'Cycus min 'ayn Canus Cragia). Wife of Javier al-Rasheed.
Nazira was a functionary daughter of the Dominar of Cycus, her father Abelard XIV, until she was able to wrest the throne from him and install her own partisans into offices around the seat of power after the Watchers' Rebellion (Tamarud Muraqib). She is said to have accomplished this by marrying a wayward naval officer Javier al-Rasheed, by aligning herself with a number of traditional families during her procession under the veil (alsafar murtadiat alhijab), and by liberal use of loans granted under her property assurance of the Cycus 'dustari. She also formed key alliances with dissatisfied regimental commanders in the military who had grown worried over the increasingly erratic behavior of Abelard, and through sudden appearance of the Watchers of the Island of Silence.
Old Tongue
3 April 2025
The old form of the language from which both Cycun and Trade Commo (collectively Eurabanni) are derived. Trade common's is a simplified version of the Old Tongue that uses strict Subject-Verb-Object sentence structure and a concise spelling guide that includes six vowels and no extraneous punctuation. Old Tongue uses Subject-Object-Verb when addressing and Object-Subject-verb when being addressed. the Old Tongue is not actively spoken by any group, and is instead a language of scholarship.
Where the Old Tongue does enter into the Cycun language but not Trade Common is in the use of "phrases of emphasis" which do not have clear translations in the modern tongue but are corrupted phrases from Old Tongue whose indvidual word elements have lost their exact meaning and grammar standards, but are used as part of the language in meaningful phrase groups. In the books of the Tea Merchant series Eurabanni, no matter if it is Trade Common or Cycun dialect, is represented by English. Thus the Eurabanni phrase "taneya rah mi rom" is written "I walk alone." But a Cycun can say "yasir fi almasar alsaamit" which has no meaning word for word to a speaker of Trade Common but does have meaning to a Cycun who themselves may not know the precise translation of the term ("to walk in silence). The Eurabanni word for silence is
selkot, while the old tongue is alsaam, but in this case the Eurabanni word bah taneyayi (to take action alone) has been replaced with a phrase from a religious work that has a related but not precisely same meaning.
For that reason, phrases of Old Tongue uttered by speakers of Eurabanni are not translated in the books, and instead are presented in their current untranslated form, since many speakers will not know the exact meaning of the phrases they use, but instead are uttering what for them is a sort of local slang.
Selected Terms from the Old Tongue and Cycun Speech
- Al'umu alshams 'The Mother Sun.'
- aldam yahki alhikaya "The Blood Tells the Tale.'
- Aliathnay eashar wajhan The twelve sides, a reference to a mystical item or a gambling device with twelve sides.
- Alamiwat alahya' 'The dead.' Used in a preternatural sense, as in people who are dead but forced to serve in their after life.
- Alnaasih An 'elder relative,' often through marriage, who is respected to give advice. Married men and women will often call their mother or father in-laws this to indicate respected deference. Technically the term was used in the old tongue for a male relative, it lacks gender reference in most Halo dialects related the older language.
- Alturuq Alqadima Roughly the 'way we used to act.' Refers to the practice of serving tea to guests in a formal manner.
- Am Alshaeb 'Mother of the people.'
- Arba'a 'Aashar' First child. A legal reference for a child who by law must inherit title and wealth, not just the first born child.
- 'Atfal Alqadar "Child of destiny.' A Kemayan concept of children whose kith membership make them certain to hold ranking positions in the future.
- Bahaari (Al-Bahaari) An honorific that means "the sailor.'
- Chakroun-Denal The place of bones. A set of fields outside of Cycus where the bodies of executed people were left.
- Da' alsare 'The shakes.' Epilepsy.
- Ealam alshayatin Term for a world of magical adversaries. It is said in myth that these creatures hid amongst humans causing mischief and manipulating the powers of dwimmer. Derivative of the old tongue term 'shayatin,' or powerful (and evil) adversary.
- Ghalibia Adulthood. Sometimes the process of celebrating the move to adulthood.
- Jalib alhayaa A woman, literally old tongue for "bringer of life.'
- Jalib almawt 'bringer of death.'
- Jidat-bialtabaniy 'Adoptive Grandmother,' used in the sense of an older woman who adopts the child of her son.
- Juz' albatal Heroes' portion.
- Kadah 'Hard work.' It is often used by people who are not well educated in the old language to indicate a slave, since the saying 'kadah eabd alansan' is wrongly translated as the duty of a slave, rather than its more proper translation of the duty of one before heaven.
- Kalam Majnun 'Insane words.' Gibberish or nonsense.
- Kulu alsharaf 'All honor.' Part of a cheer made by soldiers or sailors to honor their units. For example, the crew of the Remarker might yell, "kulu alsharaf Remarker!'
- Makhluq Alshari A creature of the 'ealam alshayatin' or world of demens.
- Makuk A bobbin used to sew cloth by passing it through yarn weaves. In modern use, a stone that is pushed by a broom on a clay game alley in a game called makuk maknasa.
- Makuk Maknasa Game played with a broom and a stone 'shuttle' with a goal of placing the rock, which slides across a court made of clay, close to a scoring circle without leaving the scoring box.
- Manard Term that means "from the land of.' Rissock manard-Thule would be read as Rissock who comes from the land of Thule.
- Manfi One who trades their soul for power - especially power in the three physical traits. Often it indicates that a person who trades strength of mind, body, and spirit, for weakness in their soul.
- Qabr A soldier's grave. When used politely, the term in common speech is to be "laid in grass' or "shown the grass,' euphemisms for being buried after death. Qabr is a darker term, meaning to be thrown into a mass grave, often alive but mortally wounded, after a battle. When said by a warrior who may have actually done this, it is fighting words that indicate a horrible death
- Qadib Profanity, phallus.
- Qad tajiduk alnieam Traditonal blessing given before drinking tea. Archaic, and now relegated to stage plays.
- Qariban liakun eabdan Insult, a poor translation of the old tongue for 'a person that will be a slave.'
- Syid Honorific for 'master.' Debased from the old tongue 'sayid' or 'saeyid.'
- Tabib Healer or doctor.
- Tajawaz Sinin "To come of age.' A term from Old Tongue that means the person is no longer a child and can make many choices of their own.
- Wahash shaytaniun qadhir' 'Creature of darkness.' A creature that lives hidden among the right thinking, engaged in a war that the common people can neither understand nor win if they participate in it.
- Walsiyada Corruption of the term for heir to dominion.
- Wanat kadhalik Archiac response to a blessing at a meal or when drinking tea.
- Yakhtabi khalf almaedin "One who hides behind a metal shield.' Literally, a person who fights with a shield of metal, but in modern use, simply a coward. Associated with metal fear.
Javier al-Rasheed
2 April 2025
Kinship: Husband of Nazira I.
Javier al-Rasheed is an orphan, a naval officer, a playboy, and a drunken cad who caught the eye of Nazira, princess of the Dominion of Cycus, whom he secretly married. Despite all odds, he proved to be an able ship captain.