War

It began to rain. The heavy drops pelted the wooden veranda in front of the school building. Raen shivered and pulled his jacket tighter around him. The warmth of spring had not yet prevailed. He averted his gaze from the window and looked back into the classroom, which had grown dark despite the burning oil lamps. The class was in cultural studies and on the wall was a large map of Hy and its immediate neighbors. At first, Raen hadn't known what to do with all the lines and curves and the names embedded in them, which were arranged without any apparent sense. But by now he knew them almost by heart and knew exactly where the mountains and the great rivers with the national borders were, where the sea was, where the capital Tena-lo-Ghan, where the Doban Pass led over the Junghal Mountains and of course also where the lost provinces were. He only knew the names of the neighboring countries. He found it all very interesting, but one question preoccupied him: why should he have to know