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built that?"
"No," Kiril said.
The guard looked insulted, but finally grinned and shrugged his shoulders. "The Mediwevans
didn't?"
"I doubt it," Kiril said, laughing.
"The old scholars drove you out of the country then, hm?" He shifted subjects without bunking.
"In a manner of speaking."
The guards whispered to each other. The six men on horseback watched the intruders silently.
Kiril felt sweat forming on his back. "Listen," the leader said, "not many people come through
this way, and we wonder why you do. You have an excuse, but there's trouble in your country now.
So you'll be taken to the city ahead and our superiors will decide what should be done. Follow my
men, please." They crossed the plateau and took an old trail around an escarpment of weathered
granite rock.
Each escort wore a different insignia on the ribbon that secured his skullcap. One bore a
coiled snake surrounding a clutch of eggs; another a hawk with wings spread; and a third a rosette
of spiked red petals. Three of the horsemen left them at the top of the ridge and rode to the
west. The remaining ensigns talked among themselves as they paced, ignoring the intruders.
The Lucifan with the rosette pointed down the smoothly paved road and said, "Ubidharm." Coming
around a sandy hummock covered with thorny bushes, they had their first view of a Lucifan city.
It was small but impressive. The architecture was predominantly stone, which was to be
expected from the landscape. Walls three times as high as a man curved and snaked around the inner
city, which rose from numerous hills like a display of stone drinking cups and hourglasses. Bar-
Woten spotted an aqueduct plunging in a straight line from a snow-hatted peak. It was large enough
to satisfy this town, certainly, and several more like it. The water rushed over baffles in the
stone run and glistened with white foam.
Kiril had seen similar architecture years before as a child on his short journey to the
western border of Mundus Lucifa. But it had been scrubby and undisciplined compared to this. The
walls were painted in browns and earth greens with intricate mandaias, highlighted by hemispheres
of white marble as big as a man's head. Red sandstone crenels topped the walls, capped by balls of
gray granite expertly cut and polished. The city within was a complete contrast to the smoke-
stained buildings of Madreghb. Brilliant whitewashed masonry and plaster caught cloud-filtered,
greenish mountain light and stood out like snow against the black volcanic rock. The glare was
dazzling. Beyond the walls on all sides natural protrusions of stone hid Ubidharm from view of all
but the highest peaks.
Barthel looked it over with gaping delight. "Some cities in Khem were like this," he told
Kiril in a hushed voice. "Holy places where prophets lived."
The gates of Ubidharm were open, lightly guarded by a few men dressed like the escorts. They
passed through the outer village, a hundred-meter stretch of low mud and brick buildings dun-
colored, neat but unimpressive; then under the corbel arch of the gate. They stopped at a red
brick structure, which Kiril guessed was a custom house, or a guard station, or both.
They were signaled to dismount and go into the station.
The interior was square and clean with a polished slate floor and furniture made of rugged
wood and rattan. The officer of the guard -- without a skull-cap, but wearing a green sash around
his neck like a prelate -- looked them over noncommittally and spoke to the escorts. He took the
guard with the rosette into a separate room.
They returned a moment later, and the officer extended his right hand to Barthel, apparently
starting with the darkest and working down. "Welcome to the Land of Light," he said. He was tall
and black with a bristling moustache and a head shaved clean but for three closely braided stripes
running from nape to crown. "Who leads this party?" He looked at Barthel expectantly. The young
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man stammered and was about to point to Bar-Woten.
"No one," the Ibisian answered. "We travel as equals. We appreciate your welcome."
"I hear you are scholars of the Obelisks -- readers, I take it?"
Kiril decided a modified sort of truth was best. "I'm a reader," he said. "A scrittori,
actually. But we haven't come here to preach."
"No." The officer went to a heavy wooden cabinet with thin horizontal drawers and opened one.
He pulled out a short stack of forms and took a reed pen from a cup on the desk. Til have to know
your purpose in the Land of Light. Your names, where you are from -- Pashkesh, am I correct?" he
asked Barthel. The Khemite nodded. "And where you intend to go within the country. Few Mediwevans
cross this part of the border. None for at least five years. And some -- ah -- Ibisians have
escaped here recently. Thirty or forty in fact."
Bar-Woten nodded casually. "We heard of the final purge," he said. "Where a river runs to
ground, some drops must escape."
"A particularly foul and nasty river, too." The officer's eyes examined him closely. "What
were you in Mediweva, sir?"
"A balloonwright. I took my learning in Minora, outside Madreghb, and left with my companions
to avoid -- "he hemmed, "rigid thinking."
"We have sympathy for the Obeliskers," the officer said, scribing away at one of the forms.
"No understanding, perhaps, but sympathy. We do not fear preachers here. Usually they are the ones
with something to fear. The people of Ubidharm are mountainfolk; and insular, proud. Missionaries
who are obnoxious pass through rapidly if they pass at all. We must often apologize to their
homelands."
The forms were already translated, and it took them only a few minutes to fill in the required
information. The official paperwork was brief. When it was over a short oath was administered --
in dialect, then in translation -- and they were given cards.
"You will report to the gatehouse of each city or town you visit. There aren't many here --
but if you go west you will need identification. If you plan to cross the mountains and go north
you will probably have to register again -- I don't know. Northern Land of Light is very different
from the south. And I wouldn't recommend crossing now. It's rugged travel. We won't have you
followed, but we have a good semaphore system. Any trouble and we send out troops, not always with
pleasant results. We trust, though, you are honest men. Be discreet -- I repeat we are insular --
and please follow the basics of cleanliness. I'm sure the Pash-kesher will be able to inform you
what they arc." Barthel nodded vigorously.
They left the gatehouse and their horses were returned to them. Bar-Woten saw the saddlebags
had been searched. He had expected it -- the map was in his shirt pocket. Perhaps they wouldn't
have understood it -- or, being non-Obeliskers, perhaps there were no rulings on maps and they [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]