Crystal Gorge

‘Don’t worry, Narasan,’ she said with a wicked little smile. ‘Your nose looks fine right where it is.’

Andar swallowed hard. This was a very, very strange woman, and she seemed to spend a lot of her time looking at Commander Narasan. ‘Better him than me, I guess,’ he muttered to himself.

2 (#ulink_f5081dc3-2df1-575b-87bc-2c24d60e10cc)

As the Victory sailed along the east coast of the Land of Dhrall, Andar spent more and more of his time looking at the trees. ‘Are you having some thoughts about going into the lumber business, Andar?’ his lean, dark-haired friend, Brigadier Danal, asked on their fourth day out from the harbor near Veltan’s house.

‘Not really,’ Andar replied in his deep, rumbling voice. ‘What I’m really looking for is color. Autumn isn’t too far off, And the leaves of certain trees change color when autumn rolls around. Red leaves mean winter uniforms, wouldn’t you say?’

‘I hate those winter uniforms,’ Danal replied. ‘That wool makes me itch all over.’

‘Itching’s better than freezing, isn’t it?’

The boundary between Veltan’s Domain and Aracia’s wasn’t really clear, but after three or four days at sea, Andar was fairly certain that they were now in Aracia’s part of the Land of Dhrall.

Aracia and her little girl, Lillabeth, came out on deck a few times, but they spent most of their time in the cabin near the bow of the Victory. Andar didn’t really miss Veltan’s older sister that much. Her superior attitude and shrill voice didn’t sit very well with him, so he tried to avoid her as much as possible.

As the Victory and the rest of the fleet continued sailing in a generally northeasterly direction, Andar saw several farming villages and even a few small cities along the coast. The cities seemed sort of unfinished to Andar, largely because they didn’t have walls like cities should. Of course the Land of Dhrall was generally peaceful, so walls weren’t really necessary, but still, that unfinished look made them appear incomplete, for some reason.

The wheat fields appeared to have no boundaries, and that was something else that seemed most unusual. Property owners back in the Trogite Empire always marked the edges of their land with fences, but so far as Andar was able to determine, ‘mine’ and ‘yours’ didn’t really mean all that much to the people here. It seemed most unnatural to Andar, but it might just be that ‘ours’ was the guiding principle here.

It was approaching autumn now, and the endless wheat-fields lay golden under the late-summer sun. The soil here must be quite a bit richer than the soil back in the empire, Andar concluded, since the wheat-stalks stood almost twice as high as was normal back home. ‘It looks to me like they won’t run out of food around here,’ he murmured.

‘That’s ridiculous, Narasan,’ Padan protested when they were all gathered in Narasan’s cabin for their daily meeting a few days later. ‘The city has to have a name.’

‘I don’t think she sees it as a city, Padan,’ Narasan disagreed. ‘She refers to it as “the temple”. There are some shops there, I understand, but we’re still talking about a land without money, so what we might call a “business” wouldn’t be exactly the same here. Anyway, Aracia’s temple is the only significant part of the town as far as she’s concerned. Maybe a few of you should nose around in the city outside the temple walls a bit after we get there. The word “temple” suggests a priesthood, and sometimes priests haven’t got a very firm grip on reality. Let’s find out what the real people think. We’ll also need to know if there’s anything at all resembling an army in this part of the Land of Dhrall. Omago built a fair military in Veltan’s Domain, and Longbow’s archers did their share of the work in Zelana’s. There might just be some sort of defensive force here, but I don’t think Aracia would even be aware of it. She’s too busy being important to pay very much attention to what’s going on around her.’

Andar was fairly sure that Narasan had been glossing over a goodly number of Aracia’s faults. Of course, if what they’d heard about the elder gods was anywhere close to being accurate, they were nearing the end of their cycle, and there was a distinct possibility that some ugly terms like ‘dotage,’ ‘senility,’ and ‘foolish’ might apply, despite the fact that, with the exception of Dahlaine’s grey hair and beard, they showed none of the usual signs of extreme age – on the outside, at least.

It was about mid-afternoon on the following day when the Victory led the fleet into what civilized people would call ‘the harbor’ of Aracia’s temple-town. There were a couple of crudely-constructed docks jutting out from the beach, but nothing at all resembling the piers of Castano. There were several small buildings above the tide-line, but the major structure in the town – if anyone could call it a town – was what was quite obviously the temple.

‘I don’t think letting the men go ashore here would be a very good idea,’ Narasan told them as they gathered again in the large cabin near the stern of the Victory. ‘We know very little about the people of this part of the Land of Dhrall, so let’s not take any chances. Let’s keep things sort of formal until we get to know the people here a little better.’

‘Should we leave our swords behind, Commander?’ Brigadier Danal asked a bit dubiously.

‘I don’t think so, no,’ Narasan replied. ‘We are soldiers, after all, and we have been hired to fight a war. Just the presence of our swords should let everybody in the temple know why we’re here and what we’re capable of doing. No jokes or laughing, Padan. I’m sure it’ll hurt your face just a bit, but force yourself to look grim and bleak. We want the high-ranking people – priests, most likely – to know just exactly what we are and why we’re here.’ He looked around at them. ‘Any questions?’ he asked with one raised eyebrow.

Nobody answered.

‘All right, then. Andar, would you be so good as to go advise “holy” Aracia that we’ve arrived and that we’re ready to go ashore whenever she wants us to?’

‘I’ll see to it, Commander,’ Andar replied a bit reluctantly. Then he went out onto the deck of the anchored Victory.

He tapped on the door of Aracia’s cabin. ‘We’ve arrived at your temple-town, ma’am,’ he called out. ‘Commander Narasan wants to know if you’d like us to escort you to your temple.’

‘I don’t think that would be a good idea,’ she replied through the door. ‘I’d better go on ahead and prepare my people to meet you. They aren’t used to seeing soldiers, so let’s not frighten them.’

‘Whatever you think best, Lady Aracia,’ Andar said in a neutral tone. Then he went back to Narasan’s cabin. ‘She’s not ready for us to go ashore yet,’ he reported. ‘She wants to prepare her people before we make our appearance.’

‘Or maybe clean house,’ Padan suggested. ‘You know – mop the floors, dust the furniture, wash the windows, order the servants to put on clean clothes – all those important things a lady absolutely must do to impress the visitors.’

‘That’s absurd, Padan,’ Danal scoffed.

‘I know,’ Padan conceded, ‘but unfortunately, it might just come very close to being the truth.’

It was almost noon on the following day when a rather awkward canoe approached the Victory. Unlike the canoes of Lady Zelana’s Domain, this one appeared to be a hollowed-out log with a dozen or so paddlers on each side. A grossly fat man wearing a black linen robe and an ornate miter was standing at the front – which didn’t seem to be a very good idea to Andar. Standing up in a canoe could be a very good way to get wet in a hurry.

‘Holy Aracia invites you to her temple, mighty warriors,’ the man announced in an almost oratorical manner. ‘Welcome are you in her Domain in this time of crisis, forasmuch as we, her servants, are ill-prepared to meet the unholy invaders which most certainly even now are preparing to assault this precious land with evil intent, and though we would all joyfully die in her defense, beloved Aracia has most wisely chosen a different course, and you, oh mighty warriors, have generously agreed to stand in our stead and to wreak destruction unimaginable upon our foes. Welcome then, one and all, to the holy Domain of Divine Aracia, and at her command I have come here to advise you that she eagerly awaits your coming that you may speak with her of diverse crucial matters in preparation for the coming conflict.’

Padan turned rather abruptly and hurried over to the other side of the Victory, and Andar heard his muffled laughter.

‘You may advise Holy Aracia that we shall come forthwith, revered sir,’ Narasan accepted the invitation with no hint of a smile.

‘Most kind are you, mighty warrior,’ the fat native replied, ‘and I shall most quickly return to Holy Aracia’s temple to advise her of your coming.’ He signaled the men holding paddles, and the hollowed-out log boat turned awkwardly around and went back toward the beach.

‘Not a sound!’ Commander Narasan hissed sharply. ‘I don’t want to hear so much as a giggle – at least not until that pompous fool gets out of earshot.’

‘Is it my imagination, or does it look to you like this town was built on some sort of mound?’ Brigadier Danal asked Andar as they started up from the beach.

‘It does seem to be a bit higher than the rest of this coast,’ Andar agreed. ‘It’s probably just a hill of some kind.’

‘You don’t see too many hills this close to a beach in flat country,’ Danal reminded his friend. ‘I hate to say this, but isn’t it possible that it’s man-made?’

Andar looked around, and his mind shuddered back from an ugly possibility. ‘Something like that would have taken centuries, Danal, and what purpose would it have served?’

‘A temple built on high ground would be a bit more impressive than one on flat, coastal ground, and impressing people is very important to Veltan’s older sister, I’ve noticed.’

‘I think you gentlemen may be overlooking something,’ Padan said then. ‘If Lady Aracia wants something to happen, it probably will happen. All she’d have had to do would have been to say, “Rise up”, and the ground would have been tickled to death to obey her.’

‘Maybe,’ Danal said a bit dubiously, ‘but if some of the things I’ve heard came even close to being the truth, fully half of the people in this part of the Land of Dhrall are priests, and taking on a project like building a mound that’s several miles across would have given them something to do in their spare time.’

‘Close up, gentlemen,’ Commander Narasan told them. ‘Let’s at least try to look military.’

So far as Andar could tell, the town that appeared to have grown up around Aracia’s temple was the closest thing to a city in the entire land of Dhrall. The buildings had white-plastered walls and red tile roofs, and the streets were paved.

The temple rose up from the top of the mound, of course, and there were tall spires – probably decorative – reaching high up into the air. It seemed grossly overdone to Andar, but he realized that Aracia needed something like this. There had been more than a few hints during the campaign in Veltan’s Domain that Aracia deeply resented her older brother’s status as the highest-ranking god in the Land of Dhrall, and her ostentatious temple here was little more than a form of self-aggrandizement. It was rather sad, but not really all that uncommon.

The steps leading up to the temple were wide, and the massive doors were sheathed with what appeared to be gold. That took ostentation out to the far end, Andar concluded.

The stout orator who’d spoken to them in the harbor was waiting at the door, and he unleashed his vocabulary again as he greeted them.

Andar chose not to listen.

It took them quite some time to reach the central room of the temple, which did not even remotely resemble a Trogite convenium, since the central feature was a throne rather than an altar. That was one advantage the Dhralls had that the Trogites did not. They knew what their gods looked like, since they were usually present in the immediate vicinity.

Andar was fairly sure that neither Zelana nor Veltan would have enjoyed all the adoration Aracia’s priesthood kept shoveling all over their goddess, but Aracia seemed to revel in the long, tiresome speeches.

Commander Narasan nudged Andar, and the two of them drifted on to the back of the ornate throne-room. ‘I’d say that they’re just getting warmed up,’ Narasan said quietly, ‘so this will probably take most of the day. Why don’t you and Danal go drift around this town and take a look at things? What we really need to know is whether this place is at all defensible. I’m having some serious doubts about that. Why would anybody in his – or her – right mind build a city and then neglect to build a wall?’