At times, Tegra would sit in a cool sterile cubicle of the City Library, poring over an anatomical sketch of an animal, its inner truth revealed to her. And elsewhere, in his reclusive twilit chamber, before a tall oval window letting in filtered gray sunlight through its antique glass, Baelinte leaned his lion-maned head over a manuscript, lost to the present reality, his hands flying with his handwriting, the pen dancing over the clean vista of parchment.
No juice flows thicker in the twilight
Than honeyed lies.
They waft with musk through city gardens
And perch on ears like butterflies.
Baelinte had been born lame in his right foot, it being considerably shorter than the left, and twisted so as not to allow the sole to properly touch the ground. He walked leaning against a tall ornate cane that he had carved himself out of an expensive hardwood. If not for the lameness, he would have stood taller and haughtier than any man in his circle of friends, for he possessed an otherwise fine strong frame. Indeed, there was a manner of grace in his lame poised walk—slow, relaxed and measured, radiating hidden feral strength.
When Tegra walked, it seemed she clenched her whole being to her, frozen into a pillar of inhumanity and untempered steel. Tall and thin and aloof, she restrained all parts of herself but those that were extensions of reason and its cool clinical curiosity. Her hair, pale and wispy, and finer than autumn dandelion, she wore tightly bound in the back, so that it would not interfere with her movements. Her voice was never raised, but firm as iron, or firmer—for she had watched iron ores smelted, watched the physical process, and knew that iron could be soft and incandescent with passion, and run liquidly, in a way her voice could never flow.
How relative things were, how misleading the appearances. Baelinte’s outer passion had its roots in ice of the soul. Tegra’s external rime was the ice covering over a rapidly churning river of deep warm currents.
No need for contact, ever, between these two.
And yet, opposite things are lured to each other, inevitably and half-consciously, through initial conflict.
Having passed him by one morning in the Archives Library of the Lyceum, Tegra Daqua gave Baelinte Khirmoel what he thought was a superior look. (For again, their equally intense eyes, always searching for others like themselves, were unconsciously meant to be drawn together at that precise moment in time.)
There had been no actual intent on her part. No conscious will to pique. But the Khirmoel’s unhealthy sensitivity conjured illusions in his eyes, so that he saw what he wanted to see, and interpreted accordingly.
Her large pale-silver eyes. Washed out, introspective. Cobweb-fine tender lashes. Eyes looking at him and through him, as though he was not there.
And that night, Baelinte, wild-eyed and lion-maned, could get no sleep, boiling with outrage born of curiosity. And he wrote a eulogy that night, a song of high praise and hence, high destruction, to the Ice Maiden of Daqua, that was to render her the universal mockery-piece.
No ice cracks louder than the Maiden,
When sun’s warmth melts her frosty mouth.
Her lips would first dissolve to water
Before they curve or lower south.
No duck quacks louder than a Daqua,
When faced with passion’s paring knife.
With gamy wisdom of the ages
This waterfowl makes soup of life.
Only this time, Baelinte had underestimated his victim.
Tegra Daqua was read the latest product of the Khirmoel’s fancy in a company of like-minded scholars. No change came to her expression, but she allowed herself a sardonic smile.
“How is one to take this, gentle sirs?” came her faultless words. “This man’s mind is an example of psychological oddity. I must now research the subject and come up with a worthy analytical study of his imbalance. It will be widely publicized. I will call it ‘The Dissection of a Khirmoel.’”
The contest was thus on.
PART II
The City
CHAPTER 6
You are now hurtling inward, and it is time to lift another veil.
Are you ready? Good.
Then don’t be afraid, and sweep the second veil aside.
Underneath, you see a vista, a bird’s-eye panoramic view of wonder. And then, Tronaelend-Lis.
A City that is a dream, vague, inexplicable.
“You contain everything, and therefore, there’s no other place I need to be,” said one cheap lyric of a minor poet. And soon the poet himself, out of obscurity, had been elevated by the masses of this boiling City, until his words were read with amusement in the presence of the Regents, in high Dirvan itself, and his name was made synonymous with the City of Dreams.
This is an example of the power of circularity that was a property of Tronaelend-Lis. Here, things in themselves insignificant were pulled inward, in a bizarre centripetal spin, elevated momentarily and then shuffled aside, acquiring in the process a sense of belonging here even after they were discards. Seething, Tronaelend-Lis took hold of everything in its reach and made it part of itself.
Its seething was manifold, on all conceivable levels, from the gutter filth of the outmost Fringes on the South side, to the gilded sublimity of its core, in which lay Dirvan. As with all other things of paradox, there was a duality to Tronaelend-Lis, place of order and chaos.
They say that long ago, before there even had been the mysterious phenomenon described as Rainbow’s Fall, the first humans of the West Lands came as barbarians from the farthest east—where the sun rose, and where supposedly was the end of the world—and from the distant southern sea where they had been spawned as fish out of the blending of sun and color and sea. They came, strong-blooded and spirited as all newly-made things, and claimed the lands of the great worldwide forest. There were great men and women among them, true leaders, the same whose blood ran in the Kings and nobility of the present, and they were the ones who built the City.
But it was not a barbarian’s imagination that had conceived Tronaelend-Lis.
The City was, in its essence, order. Conceived as a great perfect wheel with eight spokes dividing it into eight wedges, with a round center, this basic plan remained up to the present.
But the details changed; in any given age, boundaries contained different things, and were under different laws of access. Indeed, they were the only constant—tall stone walls, thrown like radii from the center, with a number of special gates which joined the “wedges,” and were differently accessible, as the Kings or the Guilds pleased.
The central circular region which contained amid splendid gardens the Palace and Seat of the royal dynasties, and was the residence of the aristocratic elite, was called Dirvan. This term also applied to the royal Court itself, and to the way of life of the aristocracy. Dirvan was separated from the rest of the City and surrounded by a wide, perfectly circular canal, the Arata, which had also been present in the planning of the City, and remains to this day.
Like all things in Tronaelend-Lis, the Arata Canal had undergone constant change—overflowing, then nearly running dry, negligently polluted, and then dredged clean and refilled anew, periodically at the whim of the Kings. Bridges had spanned it, were torn down, were rebuilt, all depending on the Court’s relationship with the rest of the City. At present, a hundred or so bridges hung over the Arata’s murky silver waters.
Besides the Regents, representing the long-gone Kings’ power, Guilds ruled Tronaelend-Lis. There were as many Guilds as there were possible occupations for the citizens, and new ones were created every day, just as every day some weaker old ones were dissolved because of their dwindling means. All it took was a sufficient sum of money to be deposited in the Treasury, and the new Guild’s name, function, and rights were recorded in the Great Book of Guilds which lay in the Academic Quarter together with all the other Records, in the Archives of the Lyceum.
The Guilds had subdivided the City according to their needs, and no freeman had any say
where their jurisdiction was concerned. This, of course, was a source of endless nightmares to the non-Guild-affiliated. But they were so few in number that their nightmares did not matter.
Only the Regents’ judgment could overrule that of the Guilds, and only after a great hassle. But the Regents often held their eyes closed to Guild activity, especially in regard to the major Guilds. The Regency, many whispered with hidden glee, would not really withstand a state of full-blown hostility with such monolithic giants as the Light Guild, or the Artisan Guild. The Guilds ruled the City, and taking over certain sections of it, held on to their land with miserly claw-handed zeal.
Beyond Dirvan, beyond the outer shore of the Arata, there were the eight “wedges,” or Quarters, subdivided in the following manner.
The Northern Quarter, with the Northern Gate to the City, had been, since Rainbow’s Fall, in the hands of the Light Guild. The most powerful of the Guilds, little truth might be said of it, but much gossip and speculations.
No one really knew what the Light Guild did, except that, for exorbitant prices, it provided all willing with those mysterious orbs of monochrome color light. The Guild had somehow the ability to create the sorcerous color, and to contain it with human means. It was a fashionable measure of status to claim a knowledge of the Guild’s elusive mysteries.
The Light Quarter, also called the Inner City for reasons of its impenetrability—even more so than the Regents’ Palace—was thus the most closely guarded and least frequented place in the whole of Tronaelend-Lis.
Speaking of the wheel, let us go clockwise. The Northeast Quarter was the Sacred Quarter. It contained the grand Temples in all their metallic finery and dusky gray glimmer of jewels, with multitudes of domes, towers, turrets, and arches. Like a glamorous gray toy, it attracted the various pilgrims and believers, and thus was able to maintain itself. It was also the seat of the Priest Guild, and such lesser ones as the Templeworker Guild. Somehow, the Priesthood had managed to let its power slip before the might of the Inner City Light Guild and the Regency, and was but a third-place authority. Whatever gods there were they must have been exceedingly tolerant, to accept such neglect—although the priests would never admit it. This was another Quarter whose reputation rested on an excess of illusions.
Following the turning hand of the clock, the Sacred Quarter bordered somewhat ironically on the Eastern Quarter, belonging to the Military. But then, it was said, “It’s a sacred cause to make war, and a militant cause to worship.” Thus, no discrepancy here, in such a choice of neighborhood.
In the Military Quarter were the Army Barracks. Ironically, there was no Army.
Here, soldiers trained professionally, under the greater guidance of the Military Guild, and the lesser Warrior and Sword Guilds, plus a number of specialized others. The City had no standing Army, for there hadn’t been a war in ages. Thus, true military strength was contained in the hands of the abovementioned individual professionals. They were warriors, swordsmen, and other weapons masters, all Guild members, loyal only to their craft.
This lack of an Army—a frightening thought really, in case of an invasion. But then, there wasn’t to be any invasion. There hadn’t been for more than a hundred years. And no one cared. The military’s main worth lay in the local arguments it could be hired to settle.
At around five o’clock, the Military Quarter shared a border with the Academic Quarter. This was the Southeastern section of the City, and all its Gates were easily accessible, due to a sad modern lack of interest in scholarly things. Here stood the somber and noble Lyceum, with its Archives and Record Books, its esoteric scholars and sciences, all in the hands of the Scholar Guild. Willing students of whatever background had access to studies from the Masters of Learning. The price they had to pay, however, was not in currency, but a price of service. Not many chose to fulfill such a contract, and compared with the total population, students were few in number, and many had come from pauper background simply to live off the Lyceum.
From the earliest time, the Lyceum had been paid for by funds from the Royal Treasury, and in return it actually housed a part of it deep underground, in secret places known only to a Royal elite—so went the common gossip. Yet contrary to it (or maybe in fact because of it, in order to cloud the fact), the Academic Quarter was never particularly guarded. Some might surmise either that indeed part of the Treasury was cleverly hidden somewhere underneath the Lyceum, and the lack of guard was to throw off suspicions. Or else there really was nothing underneath the noble Lyceum grounds but more ground, and the Regents (and Kings before them) were playing a clever game.
Not taking any chances to let a good thing slip by, thieves and entrepreneurs throughout its history had dug under the Institution, to the comic frustration of Academicians who found, with annoying frequency, various holes and tunnels on the Lyceum grounds, which acquired a not-so-academic name for itself, the “Molehill.” The fact that no one had found anything even remotely resembling a treasure hoard (or at least, no one had made it known) did not stop them from coming.
Other old buildings of repute stood in the Academic Quarter, including the Museum and Library, both in classic marble, filled with the shuffling quiet of scribes who had their own Guild right here, daydreaming philosophers, and occasional owl-eyed dignitaries who were led around in that hazy limbo between the morning and afternoon repasts, and shown the distinguished “sights” of the City. These two buildings had been later additions, built by the caprice of some particularly scholar-minded patron King. An even more recent addition was the Healers’ House, sponsored by the Physician Guild—a newer independent Guild which arose in antithesis to the Priesthood’s claim to absolute and miraculous healing. The Physicians were those who chose to use the simple home and folk remedies, which were more often quite effective, unlike the Priests’ vague ministrations.
Thus, the Academic Quarter was quite a vibrant blending of various disciplines, all claiming the status of “science.” Unfortunately, most of the seething populace of Tronaelend-Lis had never even heard of the word, so it all mattered very little.
Going directly south, the Academic Quarter touched upon that horrible chaotic monstrosity called the Free Quarter. Officially it was claimed by no Guild, while unofficially it cringed under the iron rule of the infamous Bilhaar, or Assassin Guild, the Thief Guild, the Entrepreneur Guild, and countless “unofficial” others. The Free Quarter was the most accessible of the City regions—depending on whether one’s tastes ran towards inevitable personal involvement with the nether side of the law. It also housed the despicable Southern Fringes, the section of the City Fringes which held the Guildless, the pauper poor, the outlaws, and the malcontents, and was therefore a shame, an open sore upon the City’s otherwise presentable face. Not to mention the constant traffic from without the City, which chose to go through its toll-free Southern Gate, the busiest in the City, and had the Southern Fringes as their first glimpse of this glorious place.
But do not underestimate the Free Quarter. It was indeed free in all senses of the word, heeding no one’s authority, and therefore a place of endless opportunity. One could attempt anything here, if one agreed to the repercussions.
Slowly swinging back north along the face of the clock lay the Southwest Quarter, given over by royal decree to foreign relations. These days, foreign relations were mostly trade relations, which meant that the Merchant Guild had particular privileges here, not counting the great city-spanning Market area under its jurisdiction. The Foreign Quarter was also resplendent with handsome lavish villas, where foreign merchants and dignitaries were housed for their temporary stays (while those of the highest rank were placed in the Dirvan, in the Palace of the Regents). Here was the Servant Guild, having refined human service into a high art. The Foreign Quarter also fed the demand for glib interpreters who were needed for all purposes throughout Tronaelend-Lis.
Moving higher yet, directly west from the core of the Dirvan, was the radiant pulsing Red Quarter, overflowing wit
h the sensuality, the corporeal raw seething of life in pursuit of the ultimate pleasure. This was the exquisite home of the Erotene Guild, the elegantly beautiful men and women who knew the secrets of physical love, and gave it for a price to anyone.
Here, underneath the blazing crimson orbs were the most expensive courtesans, living in their own miniature replicas of the Royal Palace, amid soft music and the scents of musk and wild fruit, and the exotic gardens of their villas, weaving their beautiful illusions of the senses. In the many Pleasure Galleries, one could find anything to satisfy one’s sense of the erotic—anything, until gluttony set in, and nothing was enough. Then came the addiction stage, and one would return, begging for the erotene touch, which somehow was claimed to be unlike any other. . . . But then, isn’t it always thus, with the outward beckoning face of addiction? And the erotene were masters of inspiring it.
In this microcosm of pleasure, where all thought was laid aside in preference of physical sensation, were also other delights, other addictions besides the carnal. Rare substances that produced euphoria, a sensation of floating on metallic-hued clouds, a transcendental power over shadow, dispelling all weaknesses and re-molding sorrow onto something else, were found in the Domes of Sensation. Exotic foods and beverages were served in the gourmet Teahouses sprinkled like gems all throughout the Red Quarter, like bits of mother-of-pearl within one great baroque coral reef. And everything, everything within the walls was illuminated by orb-lights, ranging from the deeply vibrant nearly black crimson, to the palest diluted monochrome pink.