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giant flower than a tree?
Hoy, you re a shepherd for sure, mused Simna ibn Sind even as he responded to
his friend s timely floral observation. In the course of their long journeying
together, Ehomba had talked incessantly of cattle and sheep until on more than
one occasion the swordsman had been ready to scream. A shepherd and a what had
the southerner called it? an eromakasi, an itinerant eater of darkness. The
question that would not leave the swordsman s mind, however, was, What else
exactly, if anything, was
Etjole
Ehomba?
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Into the Thinking Kingdoms: Journeys of the Catechist, Book 2
XXII
When finally they crested the last of the Yesnaby Hills and found themselves
gazing, improbably and incredibly, down at the great port city of Hamacassar
itself, Simna could hardly believe it. To Hunkapa
Aub and Ahlitah it was no cause for especial celebration. Despite its
legendary status, to them the city was only another human blight upon the
land.
As for Ehomba, there was no falling to knees and giving thanks, or lifting of
hands and hosannaing of praises to the heavens. Contemplating the fertile
lowlands, the smoke that rose from ten thousand chimneys, and the great
shimmering slash of the river Eynharrowk against whose southern shore the city
sprawled in three directions, he commented simply, I thought it would be
bigger, and started down the last slope.
Their arrival occasioned considerably less panic than it had in landlocked
kingdoms like Bondressey and
Tethspraih. Reactions were more akin to the response their presence had
engendered in Lybondai. Like
Hamacassar, the bustling city on the north shore of the Aboqua Sea was a
cosmopolitan trading port whose citizens were used to seeing strange travelers
from far lands. At first sight, the only difference between the two was that
Hamacassar was much larger and situated on the bank of a river instead of the
sea itself.
Also absent were the cooling breezes that rendered Lybondai s climate so
salubrious. Like the Lacondas, the river plain on which Hamacassar had been
built was hot and humid. A similar system of canals and small tributaries
connected different parts of the widespread, low-lying metropolis, supplying
its citizens with transportation that was cheap and reliable. The design of
the homes and commercial buildings they began to pass with increasing
frequency was intriguing but unsurprising. As they made their way through the
city s somewhat undisciplined outskirts, they encountered nothing that was
startling or unrecognizable. Except for the monoliths.
Spaced half a mile apart, these impressive structures loomed over homes and
fields like petrified colossi.
Each took the form of an acute triangle that had been rounded off at the top.
Twenty feet or so wide at the base, they rapidly narrowed to their smooth
crests. Ehomba estimated them to be slightly over forty feet in height. Each
structure was penetrated by a hole that mimicked its general shape. Seven or
eight feet wide, the hole punched through the monolith not far below its apex.
The mysterious constructs marched across the landscape in a broad, sweeping
curve, extending as far to the east and west as the travelers could see. They
were not guarded, or fenced off from the public. Their smooth, slightly pitted
flanks made them impossible for curious children to climb. Nor were they sited
on similar plots of land. One rose from the bank of a wide, sluggish stream
while the next all but abutted a hay barn and the third flanked the farm road
down which the travelers were presently walking. In the absence of significant
hills or mountains, they dominated the flat terrain.
Leaving the road, the travelers took a moment to examine one up close. Beneath
their fingers the pitted
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Into the Thinking Kingdoms: Journeys of the Catechist, Book 2
metal was cool and pebbly to the touch.
I don t recognize the stuff. Simna dragged his nails along the lightly
polished surface. It s not iron or steel. The color suggests bronze, but
there s no green anywhere on it. Standing out in the weather like this you d
expect bronze to green fast.
It would depend on the mix in the alloy. Ehomba gently rapped the
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dun-colored surface with a closed fist. As near as he could tell it was solid,
not hollow. A lot of foundry work for no immediately discernible purpose, he
decided. If it is not an alloy it is no metal I know.
Nor I. Leaning back, Simna scrutinized the triangular-shaped hole that
pierced the upper portion of the construct.
Hunkapa Aub pushed with all his weight against the front of the structure. It
did not move, or even quiver. Whoever had placed it here had set it solidly
and immovably in the earth.
What for?
Ehomba considered. It could be for anything, Hunkapa. They might be religious
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