Horsetail

Commanders were distinguished by the number of horsetails carried before them. The sultan had seven, the grand vizier five, and the pashas three, two, or one.

They were psychic mediums that wore a horsetail hairstyle. They believed that their long hair acted as cosmic antennae to receive alien communication from beyond.

The woman was tall and rail-thin, bony across the shoulders and breast, with arms and legs of wire and gristle. A fighter, she wore the traditional haircut, shaved temples, roach of hair tugged back in a horsetail.