Just that no one knows who built them or why. I can’t even figure out how anyone could have put them here.”
Mavin agreed. The arches might have been made of green stone, or metal, though they seemed more crystalline than metallic, giving an impression of translucence without actually letting any light through. Two man-heights broad at the base, they narrowed as they rose, dwindling to a knife’s edge straight above the road. Where the shadow of the arches lay upon the way, the horses hopped and skipped like zeller kids, sidling across the shadow as though it formed some mazy barrier which only they could see and only such frolicking progress could penetrate. Each transit of the shadow made Mavin think she heard twanging chords of music, rapidly blending, echoing briefly on her skin when they had come through, and—most interesting she thought—each passage of shadow seemed to take time totally out of keeping with the actual width of the shadow on the road.
“Remarkable,” breathed Windlow, trying to stay on his jigging horse. “I hear music. Quite remarkable.”
“Shadowpeople,” breathed Mertyn to Mavin. “Shadowpeople are supposed to have all kinds of musical magic, Mavin. Could the shadowpeople have built these?”
“Shadowpeople aren’t builders, are they? I thought they just sang in the wilderness and made music and ate a few travelers now and then.”
“I don’t think so. I don’t think they eat travelers, I mean. They trick people. Lead them over cliffs, or into bogs, but only if the people are doing something bad to them.”
“Children’s tales, brother boy.”
“Maybe. There’s some truth in children’s tales, though, or they wouldn’t go on being told. You’re right, though. No children’s tale I ever heard mentioned the shadowpeople building anything. Just the same, whenever the horse dances through one of those shadows, I think of shadowpeople.”
“Wise beyond your years, young one,” said Windlow, coming up from behind where he had stopped yet again to inspect one of the Monuments. “I, too, think of shadowpeople. As a Seer, I have learned thinking of some oddity is often prelude to other oddity following. It is tempting to wonder what actually does happen here in the season of storms.”
“I’d like to know where the road goes,” said Mavin.
“Why, it goes to Pfcrb Durim.”
“No, I mean the other end.”
“To Betand?”
“Betand is just a human city. If the Monuments were built on a road, then it must have been important where the road went. It couldn’t have gone to a human city, because the human city wasn’t there. So it must have gone somewhere else.” She fell silent, noting that Windlow had fixed her with a somehow calculating eye, as though she had surprised him. Before he could reply, however, a cry came from before them.
“Pfarb Durim!” A cloud of dust bustled toward them, full of hoof clatter. It was Boldery. “Pfarb Durim is just down the hill.”
They jigged through the last of the arches to see the city spread before them, its high walls bulking hugely in the center of a saucerlike depression resulting from some long ago subsidence of the cliffs edge. Around the rim of this saucer the road ran, making a wide circle to the east before turning north once more. To their left they could see a narrow road winding up from the valley, from Poffle, and from the circling road several broad avenues ran downward to the city which gulped them in through strangely shaped gates. These gates and the many doors made tall keyholes of black against the lighter stone. Vast iron braziers stood on the wall at each corner, twisted iron baskets hung before the gates, all stuffed full of grease-soaked wood which would be lit at nightfall to send a smoky pillar hovering over the place. The smell of burned fat reached them first, then the smell of the markets outside the gates, spices and fish, raw hides and incense, the stench of commerce carrying a
Mavin agreed. The arches might have been made of green stone, or metal, though they seemed more crystalline than metallic, giving an impression of translucence without actually letting any light through. Two man-heights broad at the base, they narrowed as they rose, dwindling to a knife’s edge straight above the road. Where the shadow of the arches lay upon the way, the horses hopped and skipped like zeller kids, sidling across the shadow as though it formed some mazy barrier which only they could see and only such frolicking progress could penetrate. Each transit of the shadow made Mavin think she heard twanging chords of music, rapidly blending, echoing briefly on her skin when they had come through, and—most interesting she thought—each passage of shadow seemed to take time totally out of keeping with the actual width of the shadow on the road.
“Remarkable,” breathed Windlow, trying to stay on his jigging horse. “I hear music. Quite remarkable.”
“Shadowpeople,” breathed Mertyn to Mavin. “Shadowpeople are supposed to have all kinds of musical magic, Mavin. Could the shadowpeople have built these?”
“Shadowpeople aren’t builders, are they? I thought they just sang in the wilderness and made music and ate a few travelers now and then.”
“I don’t think so. I don’t think they eat travelers, I mean. They trick people. Lead them over cliffs, or into bogs, but only if the people are doing something bad to them.”
“Children’s tales, brother boy.”
“Maybe. There’s some truth in children’s tales, though, or they wouldn’t go on being told. You’re right, though. No children’s tale I ever heard mentioned the shadowpeople building anything. Just the same, whenever the horse dances through one of those shadows, I think of shadowpeople.”
“Wise beyond your years, young one,” said Windlow, coming up from behind where he had stopped yet again to inspect one of the Monuments. “I, too, think of shadowpeople. As a Seer, I have learned thinking of some oddity is often prelude to other oddity following. It is tempting to wonder what actually does happen here in the season of storms.”
“I’d like to know where the road goes,” said Mavin.
“Why, it goes to Pfcrb Durim.”
“No, I mean the other end.”
“To Betand?”
“Betand is just a human city. If the Monuments were built on a road, then it must have been important where the road went. It couldn’t have gone to a human city, because the human city wasn’t there. So it must have gone somewhere else.” She fell silent, noting that Windlow had fixed her with a somehow calculating eye, as though she had surprised him. Before he could reply, however, a cry came from before them.
“Pfarb Durim!” A cloud of dust bustled toward them, full of hoof clatter. It was Boldery. “Pfarb Durim is just down the hill.”
They jigged through the last of the arches to see the city spread before them, its high walls bulking hugely in the center of a saucerlike depression resulting from some long ago subsidence of the cliffs edge. Around the rim of this saucer the road ran, making a wide circle to the east before turning north once more. To their left they could see a narrow road winding up from the valley, from Poffle, and from the circling road several broad avenues ran downward to the city which gulped them in through strangely shaped gates. These gates and the many doors made tall keyholes of black against the lighter stone. Vast iron braziers stood on the wall at each corner, twisted iron baskets hung before the gates, all stuffed full of grease-soaked wood which would be lit at nightfall to send a smoky pillar hovering over the place. The smell of burned fat reached them first, then the smell of the markets outside the gates, spices and fish, raw hides and incense, the stench of commerce carrying a
Similar Books
