The road did indeed turn to the south, as he had suspected, sweeping out across a broad topped ridge after which it swung back and descended in another curve toward the east. Upon reaching the relatively level, wooded plain near the sea, it then went nearly straight toward the city by the bay several miles up the coast. They passed through deep forest, in places more thick than in others, but there were also occasional open meadows. Streams were plentiful and most flowed clear as they looped slowly and gently toward the coast, with marshes extending into the forests along their banks.
By midmorning, they could see the towers and ramparts of the city rising above the trees, and they began to pass scattered ruins of ancient farms, small villages, and every so often there would be an indication of overgrown roadways leading off into the wilderness. Then, they were into the outskirts of the city, and whereas the ancient thoroughfare upon which they traveled remained relatively intact and clear of the encroachment of the surrounding forest, the side streets leading off from it, into the town, were so badly overgrown in places that the horses would have found negotiating them a difficult task.
As they went further into the city, however, where the buildings were taller, and of more impressive construction, the wilderness began to falter until finally, they looked both ways along unrestricted streets and avenues fronted on either side by what had once been magnificent homes and places of business. Most were damaged, and though much of the damage appeared to be caused by the ravages of time, in other places the injury to block and stone appeared to be more deliberate, as if the reason for its occurrence had been the result of something sinister.
Eventually, they found a wide avenue leading south, toward the sea, and Aram turned onto it. Looking around, he thought of what Sera had told him on the mountain – that humanity had once built civilizations far and wide across the face of the world. Now, viewing the ravaged remains of one such civilization, he realized once again the true extent of the horrific devastation that Manon had wrought upon the peoples of the world. This once fine city, along whose broad avenues they rode in utter silence, and that contained buildings which rose to ever more impressive heights as they entered its interior regions, must have been home to thousands upon thousands of inhabitants and a center of thriving commerce. Now it was the haunt of ghosts and small animals.
They came to a wide and broad square – it appeared to have once been a park – and Aram slowed Thaniel with a word. This open area, now overgrown with tangled brush, was several acres in size, but it was the state of the buildings that surrounded it that drew Aram’s attention. They were all severely damaged, and even after all this time, showed signs of having been burned. Aram’s own experience with war had always occurred on open ground; nonetheless, he recognized its presence here. In this central place, the citizens of this city, long ago, had made their last stand against an enemy, and lost.
Sitting in heavy silence, surrounded by ancient devastation, he felt his heart sink again.
“Let’s find the dockside,” he told Thaniel, and once more the sound of the horses’ hooves rang through the empty streets. Beyond the damaged park, they entered what must have been a district devoted to commerce, and shortly after, came to the quayside. Aram had been impressed by the docks that lined the River Broad in Stell, but even in the days of that city’s glory, its waterside constructions would not have compared to these.
Stretching for four or five miles along the harbor, between the city and the water, the quayside was still sound and its surfaces smooth, wrought of superbly worked stone, with slips that jutted out into the harbor for the benefit of securing the great vessels that had once traded here. Looking out across the water, he studied the barrier that protected the harbor. He could see now what had been suspected, but not clearly evident when viewed from the hills to the west – that this barrier securing the harbor from the ravages of the sea and its tempests was also manmade, and also of stone. Though apparently untended for thousands of years, it still held the turbulent waters of the ocean at bay and in check.
He looked up, shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand, and scanned the blue horizon for signs of the ship they’d seen earlier, but could not resolve it. The company drew up alongside him and Thaniel, gazing about wide-eyed. Findaen looked over at Aram.
“How can all this be here, and no people?” He asked in an incredulous voice.
Aram nodded in sad agreement. “I was told once that Manon held a particular animus toward the people of Seneca, because they allied so strongly with Joktan and resisted him. Kelven thought that Manon’s army might have slaughtered them all – which was, after all, the grim lord’s intent. From the look of things, he succeeded, or very nearly so.” Turning to gaze back at the city, he shook his head in wonder. “If any survived, they weren’t enough to return and rebuild this city, even after ten thousand years.” He sighed. “Maybe, after all, they are all gone.”
“Then where was that ship going?” Asked Wamlak.
Aram shrugged. “Privateers from Durck, perhaps, going somewhere further east – maybe to get Mallet’s banyas. I don’t know what is to the east of Farlong, if anything.” He looked around again. “But there’s nothing here.”
It was now midday, so after another wistful look along the magnificent docks, Aram led the company back to the ruined park, where they dismounted, and let the horses graze while they ate lunch.
Chewing on leftover rabbit, Mallet glanced around and shivered, though the day was warm, and the sun was hot. “It’s a bit spooky, you know, being here among all this, knowing that people lived here, and now they’re all gone.”
Wamlak looked up at him, and his dark eyes twinkled. “You don’t believe in ghosts, do you, Mallet?”
“Of course not,” Mallet huffed. “I just meant that it makes me feel a bit strange.”
Ka’en stood up, with her arms clasped across her breast, and looked down the tangent of a side street, where the facades of once beautiful structures loomed above abandoned, debris-strewn pavement. “I think it’s sad,” she said. “Such a pretty place, such fine houses, and no one to care for them. No children at play in the gardens, no husbands returning after working somewhere, no women in the marketplaces.” She looked back at Aram. “Manon did this?”
Aram nodded. “His lashers did it, before climbing Kelven’s mountain.”
“They should all die for what they did here,” She stated fiercely.
“They did die,” Aram answered. “All of them. Kelven destroyed them in his disembodiment.”
She shook her head, tears starting at her eyes. “But not before they did this.”
He didn’t know how to answer that.
Ruben looked over at him. “How far away is Kelven’s mountain, my lord?”
“That way, a bit east of north,” Aram twisted around and pointed back across the city. “Five or six hundred miles, I think – maybe seven.”
“It must have taken them a while to come all that way, and do all this.” Edwar’s eyes were wide as he made this statement.
“I’m sure of it,” Aram agreed. “But one thing a god has is time – Manon didn’t care how long it took, just that it was done.”
“You know what I think?” Wamlak, normally calm and understated, was punctuating each word with a quail bone, thrusting it into the air before him as he gazed around at the empty city. His tone was filled with anger. “Manon is evil, and nothing else.”
“Yes,” Aram said simply, “he is.”
Mallet gazed at him with narrowed eyes. “You’re going to kill him, aren’t you, Lord Aram?’
Aram met Ka’en’s eyes for a long moment before answering. “I’m going to try,” he replied quietly.
“No,” Mallet’s voice fairly boomed with ferocious certainty, “you’ll succeed. You’ll destroy him – I know it.”
After this outburst, they finished their meal in silence, and then Findaen looked at Aram. “What do we do now?”
Aram glanced up at the sun and then fou
nd Ruben. “How far to that next city, do you think?”
Ruben looked over at Wamlak. “Thirty miles, more or less, I think.” He continued to watch Wamlak who, after a moment, nodded in tacit agreement.
“Then we go there,” Aram said, “and see what we will see. It will probably be more of the same, but we have a week or so before we need to look toward home.” He pursed his lips in regret. “I’m beginning to think that we’ve wasted our time, and have come a long way for nothing.”
None of his companions responded to this statement.
They went back out the wide avenue and found the ancient road once more, where they turned east. The forest thickened, though there were still scattered patches of meadow which, on closer inspection, turned out to be more of the marshlands that often bordered the rivers and streams that drained from the feet of the mountains in the northwest.
There were more ruins as well, all of stone, most with mature ancient trees growing up through them. However, though the secondary conduits that ran off to either side often disappeared into the undergrowth, becoming completely choked off, the main road, the ancient construct of Joktan and his engineers, remained generally clear of impediment. Overshadowed by the spreading limbs of giant trees, it nonetheless evidently was founded deep into the soil, too deep for the forest giants to get beneath and uproot.
Within an hour, they entered once again into the outskirts of another sizeable city that like its neighbor to the west had succumbed to time and the overspreading forest. Eventually, they found a main avenue leading into the city and toward the sea that despite being ravaged by the invading woodlands was clear enough to allow them to negotiate a sort of meandering passage south.
Once again, there were signs of ancient, deliberate damage to buildings, though the central park of this town did not appear to have been the scene of a defensive struggle. The buildings surrounding it were largely intact, and the massive trees that grew in the square looked as if they might be old enough to have witnessed the city’s fate all those centuries ago.
The avenue opened up as they went southward and soon they saw the blue horizon of the ocean between the buildings ahead. Rather than docks, they came out onto a promenade about thirty feet wide with a railing on the seaward side. Straight out from this promenade, across sheltered, calm waters, there was a stone barrier, similar to its counterpart farther west, that barred the sea from disturbing the harbor. Bringing Thaniel to a halt, Aram looked to his right. In that direction, the stone walkway continued on for a half mile or more to a point where it appeared that steps descended to the beach beyond.
Looking left, beyond where the promenade ended at another stretch of open beach, he saw wide curving docks fronting a separate cluster of two- and three-storied buildings.
Then he froze in astonishment.
Upon that intervening beach, by a small boat, two men stood gazing at them open-mouthed. Without further hesitation, Aram urged Thaniel toward them.
As the company approached, the horses’ hooves ringing on ancient stone, one of the men turned and dove into the deeper waters of the harbor and began swimming toward the distant stone sea-wall. The other backed up, stumbled into the prow of his small boat, and fell backward, sitting nearly up to his neck in the water, where he stayed, watching their approach with widened eyes.
Too late, Aram realized that these men, like most others in the world, had never seen horses, or even knew of the existence of such creatures. Coming to the end of the promenade, where there were steps that led down onto the sand, Aram spoke to Thaniel, and the big horse slid to a halt.
Aram dismounted. After a moment, when the man sitting in the harbor had not fled; he moved toward the steps. Motioning for the others to remain behind, he raised his hands, palm outward, and slowly descended onto the open sand.
“I apologize for our sudden appearance,” he told the man,” but we are strangers in this land, and you’re the first people we’ve seen.”
After a moment the man, who was short and round-faced with yellow hair – and reminded Aram in a vague way of Decius – closed his mouth, stood up, and began wringing the water from his oversized shirt. After turning to glance after his companion, who still swam on, making for the barrier wall, the yellow-haired man looked back at Aram.
“Then you must come from the west,” he said.
“We do,” Aram affirmed, “from Lamont, and lands further west.”
The man’s eyes widened. “You crossed the wilderness of death?”
“We did. It was a long and difficult journey.” Aram glanced out at the fleeing man. “Do you need to call him back? We mean you no harm.”
“Faronar will be fine – he’s a great swimmer.” After once again glancing out toward his companion, the man turned to gaze beyond Aram at Thaniel and the others. “What are those beasts? I’ve never seen anything like them.”
“They are horses.”
The man got to his feet, and cautiously waded out of the water, his eyes flicking quickly back and forth between Aram and his companions. “Horses, you say? I’ve never heard of them.”
It was Aram’s turn to be astonished. “You’ve never heard of horses?”
“No, but then we don’t have much to do with the western world. Ships come once in a while to trade with merchants at Silla, but I’ve never heard anyone tell of beasts that men can ride.”
“Yes, we saw one,” Aram answered. “A ship, I mean. My name is Aram, by the way.”
The man nodded, still standing at the edge of the water, and glanced out toward the horizon. “It went past this morning – it will be going east to Silla. I am called Syrus.”
“Silla – is that a city in Seneca?”
The man spread his arms wide. “All of this is Seneca.” He pointed at the ruins behind Aram. “This was once called Curilla.”
Aram turned and looked at the city behind him. “Why are there no people living here?”
Syrus gazed at him in surprise, and then seemed to remember that he spoke to a stranger from distant lands. He shrugged. “It is forbidden to live among stone. It’s why we were punished.”
Finding these statements incomprehensible, being apparently rooted in some sort of local mysticism, Aram asked a more pertinent question. “Are there many people in Seneca?”
“Yes.”
“Where are they?”
Syrus pointed eastward. “Beyond the Pillars, among the wood.” He looked around thoughtfully. “Silla is as big now as this city once was – maybe larger.”
“Is that where your Prince dwells?”
“No. Silla is on the sea – it is a new city, built against the wishes of the elders.” He stated this last with a hint of rebellious satisfaction. “And there is no prince – there is only the Eldest. Pindar dwells to the north, in Mulbar.”
“Pindar – he is your ‘Eldest’?” When the man nodded, Aram continued. “Will you take me to him?”
Syrus laughed harshly, even as he shook his head. “He will not see the likes of me. You will have to talk to Matibar, in Candar, the first town east of the Pillars.”
“Will you take me to this Matibar, then?” Asked Aram.
Syrus laughed again, though his eyes went wide. “And let him know that I’ve been west, among the stone? – no, I will not.”
“I need to see this – Matibar,” Aram insisted.
Syrus shrugged. “Then go see him. Go east until you reach the Pillars of Repentance, and when the road ceases to be stone and becomes earth, you will come shortly to Candar.” He raised his hand with two fingers extended. “Two things, though. One, approach carefully. Matibar is a stern man and one of the Great Captains. Surprise him and he may shoot first, and seek to make your acquaintance afterward.”
Aram smiled. “I will approach Candar carefully – and the second thing?”
Syrus grimaced. “I beg of you – don’t tell him that you saw me here among the stone. As I said, he is a stern man.”
Aram looked around at the calm waters
of the bay and out to where Syrus’ companion was just now pulling himself, dripping, up onto the harbor’s retaining wall. “What are you doing here?”
“The fishing’s excellent,” Syrus pointed, “especially out there, just inside the jetty. No one else comes here but Faronar and me. We were mending our nets when you came roaring up on those – those horse beasts.”
“I’m sorry we startled you, Syrus. It was not intended.”
At Aram’s sincere tone, Syrus grinned and looked out across the water. “Well, sir, I better row out and gather him up, and tell him we won’t die today.” He looked again at Aram, almost pleading. “Not a word to Matibar?”
“Not a word, I promise.”
Leaving Syrus to push his boat away and head out across the bay, Aram went back to others, informing them of what he’d discovered. After he finished, Findaen looked at the retreating form of the fisherman curiously. “Why won’t they live in stone houses, I wonder?”
Aram shook his head. “He said that was the reason for their ‘punishment’ – that they ‘lived among stone’. I cannot imagine the underlying philosophy for making such a statement.”
Aram mounted up, and turning Thaniel, headed back inland. “Anyway, he said to go to where the pavement ends, and just beyond, we’ll find a town called Candar and a man in authority named Matibar.”
A mile or so east of the outskirts of the ruined city, the ground began to rise, but because of the thick forest, they couldn’t see whether they climbed into low hills or were ascending a long ridge, though Aram had the distinct feeling that it was the latter. After a while the ground became level again, and the pavement grew wider, extending several feet further out to either side, rendering the road a rather more substantial thoroughfare, despite the encroachment of the trees. And then the forest fell away.
They came out onto a broad paved surface. The forest had not invaded very far into this broad space; evidently the rock was laid deep, for despite the appearance of weathering that suggested extreme age, almost the entirety of the area was untouched by greenery. Rising immediately to either side of the road, there were two immense pillars of beautifully wrought stone that soared upward, ending far above their heads in twin sharp points, reminiscent of the tips of arrow shafts. The company stopped, staring upward in astonishment.
Kelven's Riddle Book Three Page 44