City at the Top of the World Read online

  “Our Elders say that you do not dream as the Children of the Eye dream,” Aeryn looked down.

  “It is true. Our dreams are mighty and powerful. From our dreams we make our world. But our dreams grow stale, sehr, and see the world through the eyes of an old race. Too old. Your people are young. You see with fresh eyes. The world is wonder to you. There is magic in that wonder. We invite you and yours to join your magic with ours. We offer this as a gift of love to the wyhossa. Do we not give your people a wealth of gifts for your presence here? And are you not now a princess among gods? You are not our slaves, dear Aeryn, nor our equals. You, with your young eyes and minds, are our masters. I ask you again, with all my love for you, sehr, will you please join me in Shuul?”

  Drink the Shuul

  Refuse to drink the Shuul

  ***

  “Why are you so interested in the art of the peoples of Pa’el Noor and the land of Ort?” Aeryn inquired, rubbing her hand on the soft and wooly carpet.

  “My mother was a daughter of the Eye. She did not drink the Shuul. Those who came and dreamed as the wyhossa dream and not as we dream were the greatest dreamers of all. They breathed life into our dead culture. But there were too few of them here at the top of the world. They fared better in the southern cities, where the dreamers still work with their hands. You look surprised. Like your people, we are more than one tribe, more than one city. Polaris was our greatest triumph; is our greatest shame.”

  The tired monotone of Adona turned to anger at the end of his speech, an emotion (among many) Aeryn thought the Northmen incapable of expressing. But here one sat before her, vulnerable. Human. She did not know what to do or say to comfort him or assuage his quiet rage.

  “And my nephew Tyura married one, a Child of the Eye.” Adona laughed at Aeryn’s wide eyes and gaping mouth. “You disbelieve? As I have said, things in the other cities may not be as bad as here. At the top of the world, everyone else appears to be below you. Is it any wonder we have become so backwards?”

  The two shared a home for a few years, passing the time talking, telling stories, and reading books (for Aeryn was taught the script of the Northmen so she could read his many texts). Adona was world-weary, however, and his only sorrow upon dying was that he would be leaving a wyhossa alone in this awful place.

  Sometime after his passing, a messenger arrived with a letter from a city far to the south.

  The letter expressed formal sentiments of grief for the passing of a beloved uncle and gratitude to the wyhossa who had kept him company in his eccentricities. The letter’s author claimed to be arriving within the month to settle affairs. Reaching the end, Aeryn was so overcome with joy that she screamed and wept. The signature, written in the strange and flowering calligraphy of the North, read “Velina”.

  The End

  ***

  “You have been so kind to me, milady,” Aeryn bowed her head. “I have been afraid, ever since I was taken, like an animal that was being taken to slaughter.”

  “But that was not so.”

  “It was not so,” Aeryn admitted. “Forgive my manners, Lady Hilana, I will not spurn your generosity and will join you in your dreaming.”

  With that, Aeryn drank the content of her bottle. The bitter-sweet liqueur was much stronger than she had remembered. Aeryn’s eyelids were heavy and her head nodded. “I’m sorry, mistress, I am suddenly tired.”

  “Of course you are.” Hilana took Aeryn’s hand and led her from the dining hall. “You have had a long journey. Let us go to our beds.”

  Aeryn did not remember how she got into her bed, but between the blinking of her eyes, she went from the dining room to lying in her five cornered room. Aeryn dreamed of her home, dreamed seeing her mother and brother again, dreamed that she returned to Pa’el Noor with Hilana, dreamed that she showed her all of the places she had been while growing up along the routes of the herds and the boars, dreamed that Velina returned as well with a new husband, and dreamed that the world was as it should be. Sometimes Aeryn dreamed that she and Hilana shared meals together and told stories of their dream voyages to different lands. Aeryn dreamed that she was not a slave, not a plaything, not an addict until, at last, she dreamed no more.

  The End

  ***

  “You say I am no slave here. No prisoner. Is it true that I may leave?”

  Adona sighed. “Yes, you may. I will not ask you to drink the Shuul. I do not drink the Shuul. You are free here.”

  “But you said I may not leave the city.”

  “I said you may come and go as you please, so long as you remained in the city.” Adona took a kettle off a hearth and poured two small cups of tea. “If you leave the city, you may not come and go as you please. For many reasons. I cannot recommend leaving Polaris, and they will not take you back on the air ships. But if you are insistent, I will not stop you.”

  Adona handed Aeryn the cup. The familiar scent of sweet honey-bush made Aeryn ache for her home.

  “You may stay, or you may go,” Adona reiterated, sipping his tea.

  Leave

  Stay and talk with Adona

  ***

  “I’m not going without her!” Aeryn cried, grasping at Elinka as the jailors pulled them apart. She saw her pleas as futile but made them anyway. “I want to stay with her!”

  To Aeryn’s surprise, the pale man who was pulling her leash stopped, as did the man holding Elinka. The men looked at one another.

  “It has never been done before,” the man holding Elinka said. “The White Lady has wished it.”

  “But the Lords want their own wyhossa,” Aeryn’s captor replied.

  “And who do the Lords answer to but the Lady? The Lords get more than they deserve. There are plenty.”

  “We could ask.”

  “Yes, sehr, we can ask the Lady if she wants two-“

  “She will want two.”

  “-and if she does not someone else may have the brown

  wyhossa.”

  “Perhaps they will dream better together?”

  “Perhaps.”

  Aeryn and Elinka looked bewildered at each other and at each other’s captor. The man holding Aeryn’s leash handed her over to the man holding Elinka’s. “Dream well together,” he said, following the other captives who being led away.

  The fair man led Aeryn and Elinka from the hall of geode cells down a corridor hewn from solid citrine into a vaulted arcade whose pillars were carved from moonstone. The arcade stretched in all directions endlessly and into darkness. Round white stones that gleamed with a light from within lit their path when they approached and then faded behind them. Sometimes, the fair man would make right-angled turns at varying intervals, though Aeryn could not see any signs or markings that would have shown the man when and where to go.

  The arcade eventually gave way to a cavern, lit with glowing crystals and blue-white flames that illuminated a marvelous palace filling much of the chamber. The palace was fronted by a portico of natural limestone columns covered with beaten gold. Its roof was crenelated with silver stalagmites, and the steps to its entrance were blooming orichalcum mushrooms beneath which ran a river of onyx.

  A door of ice, clear as water, was opened by hands unseen at the top of the steps.

  “I go no further,” the slaver said, removing the leashes from the women’s collars. “The White Lady waits within.”

  Try to run away

  Go within

  ***

  Aeryn finished her tea with Adona in silence.

  “I would like to leave the city.”

  “Walk from the door of my house. Go straight. Make no turns. You will reach the gates of the city.”

  Adona spoke no more, did not watch Aeryn depart or even stand up. Among the treasures of Aeryn’s people, the Polaran sat in dour silence. Among the treasures of Adona’s people, Aeryn strode that she might escape them.

  The people of the city paid her no heed, for they paid no heed to anyone, but walked aimlessly and soporif
ic.

  At the gate of the city, Aeryn announced herself and her desire to leave. The guards at the gate obliged silently, pushing open the mile-high slab of jade upon which the history of all things was depicted in grotesque relief.

  Aeryn stepped into the broken hellscape of black and jagged stones beyond the portal. The wasteland at the top of the world sprawled before her. In a moment of hesitation, she turned to take one last glance at the city, but nothing was there.

  The End

  ***

  “I beg forgiveness, Hilana, and you have shown me much kindness since I have arrived in your custody, but I do not feel I belong yet. I do not wish to drink.”

  “I see.” Hilana’s disappointment was written all over her face, and Aeryn hated the sight of it.

  “Perhaps another time? When I am ready and have rested.

  Maybe after I’ve seen more of the city!” Aeryn sought to appease this woman who had taken her in and offered her every kindness of her culture, however bizarre, feeling oddly bad despite being involuntarily in this awful situation.

  Hilana drank her own vial of Shuul and stood up from the table. “You will pardon me, sehr, I am tired and will be going soon to bed. You are free to explore the city, and my home is at your disposal. Farewell, Aeryn, flower of the deserts. I shall dream of you and all you have told me.”

  Hilana withdrew and disappeared down one of the many egresses from dining hall. Aeryn was left momentarily paralyzed by her emancipation. With some effort, she found her way out of the massive quartz manor. She wandered the streets of Polaris, unmolested by its native inhabitants, and she saw much majesty and many horrors and many things that her mind could not fathom. Sometimes she would find Hilana’s palace again, and sometimes she would even find the five cornered room she had been given as her own. When she could find it, she would sleep there. When she could not, she would sleep in the streets of the city. Occasionally, Aeryn would see Hilana, and Hilana would smile at her, but she was never again invited to share a dinner with her or imbibe the mysterious liqueur of dreams. Among the languid dreamers of Polaris, Aeryn spent out her days dreamless and alone.

  The End

  ***

  Free of her leash, the first thought to cross Aeryn’s mind was escape. She grabbed Elinka’s hand and shouted “Run!” Elinka had no choice but to obey, for Aeryn had pulled her past the slaver and back into the arcade before she had a chance to say anything.

  But the arcade was large, and Aeryn had lost count of the steps and the turns which they had taken. The slaver could have seen them by the light of the stones, had they not run so far so quickly. Otherwise he might have found them. Otherwise he might have saved them from the endless expanses of arcade.

  They could neither find again the cavern with the palace nor any exit nor even any end to the arcade of moonstone pillars. Elinka was the first to die of thirst. Guilt-ridden, Aeryn stayed with her fallen companion, and death found her before the Northmen did.

  The End

  ***

  Aeryn and Elinka stepped forward and ascended the stairs slowly, fearful that they should slip and fall to be torn to shreds by the swiftly moving onyx flakes below.

  “Don’t look down, you’ll be fine,” Aeryn assured, firmly holding Elinka’s hand. “I won’t let you fall.”

  “Nor will I,” said a woman whose form appeared out of the light beyond the open door. She seemed to glide down a carpet of rubynus wearing flowing gossamer robes that were so white that she appeared to be nothing but a head moving toward them against the luminous platinum walls of the palace hall. Her eyes were painted violet and black, and, curled into a faint smile of welcome, her lips were as red as the carpet; mask-like, not a line could be seen on her face. Was this their queen, Aeryn wondered.

  The faint smile melted into a look of surprise and then became a bigger smile when both Aeryn and Elinka crossed the threshold of her castle. Aeryn shuddered. She did not know if it was the coolness emanating from doors of ice or this uncanny woman who stood before them that sent a chill from the base of her skull to her fingertips.

  “I am to have two fellow dreamers?” Aeryn could not tell if the woman spoke with genuine surprise; she could sense nothing genuine about this woman. “How wonderful that one of the Lords would forgo the honor of hosting a wyhossa that I might have the both of you! But the Lords do not know, do they? You are here with me because you wished to be together. Your desire brought you to me, and now I have the both of you!”

  Elinka bowed before the woman, and after a quick glance at her companion Aeryn did the same.

  “Oh, you need not do that!” the woman waved a hand, bidding them rise. “I do not mean to say I ‘have’ you in that you are owned, nor are you my slaves, certainly not. What I mean is we ‘have’ each other. Company! Companions! And having two friends to share your dreams with is much better than just one. Come, come!”

  As she turned, she revealed pulled-back blonde hair that nearly reached the floor; not a single strand was out of place. “Friends must know one another’s names. Follow.” Aeryn and Elinka walked a few paces behind the train of the woman’s gown, which seemed to not quite touch the carpet of gems; their feet both crunched loudly upon it while their host made no sound. “I am Ellyra, the White Lady of Polaris. But my title should mean nothing to you, for here we are equals and friends and we shall share all things!”

  “I am Aeryn of the Land of the Eye.”

  “My name is Elinka. I am from the banks of Orshi.”

  “Splendid!” Ellyra turned and kissed each woman on their cheek, bidding them to follow further. “We are nearly there!”

  The interior of the palace had no source of light that was discernable to Aeryn, but all surfaces – floors, walls, and ceiling – besides the path of rubies seemed to be either highly polished silver or platinum that gleamed so brightly that she was nearly blinded. Aeryn noticed that Elinka was forced to squint as well.

  They came to a wide red circular depression with fat pillows for sitting placed within it about a knee-high perfectly round glass table. Ellyra motioned for them to sit, and then clapped her hands. Servants in grey tunics wearing mirrored masks scurried about placing all manner of fruit and drinks upon the table.

  “Eat, eat! Your first meal in my city should be a memorable one. You shall be entertained, as well!”

  Aeryn’s hunger was greater than her sense of caution, and many of these fruits before her were rare delicacies in her home-land, as they often did not survive transport in the desert heat. Elinka too ate her fill of the rainbow assortment of sweet ambrosia. While the women dined together, more servants arrived; some were playing metal-stringed instruments, some like harps and others chambered, but none could be identified by appearance by Aeryn nor did any of them produce the timbres or melodies one would expect from similarly formed instruments.

  Male and female dancers entered wearing masks; some were mirrored and others had strange faces – grotesques –, but all were frightening to Aeryn who had never seen such things. They leapt in the air to the uneven beats of the music and moved their limbs in ways uncomfortable to watch. Others appeared and sang, singing songs in languages which Aeryn did not recognize, but they all were filled with a sense of longing and desperation.

  “Wasn’t that wonderful?” Ellyra asked her guests upon the abrupt cessation of the singing and dancing. The performers vanished back into the blinding lights of white hall.

  “It was frightful. And sad.” Elinka replied, visibly shaken and upset by the display. “It made me afraid.”

  Ellyra had expected no answer nor did she seem to acknowledge that Elinka had been so affected by performance; she was now receiving a large red pillow from a servant upon which rested three vials of blue beryl with ruby stoppers.

  “I know you have been here but a short time, but I am so eager to dream with you!” Ellyra held the pillow before them.

  “What do you mean ‘dream with us’, Lady Ellyra?” asked Aeryn, hesitantly picki
ng up one of the vials and eyeing it suspiciously.

  "Many things we have dreamed.” Ellyra suddenly seemed very old. Her mask-face was caste in some distant sorrow that the songs from a few moments before recalled, and her child-like speech became grave and deliberate. “So many, we can think of no things undreamed. In the dreaming we make, in the waking we take. But what can be taken when there are no new dreams to dream? It is you, gentle dreamers, who will help bring new dreams to us. But we must teach you to dream. You do not dream like us. Your dreams do not shape the world, yet your dreams shape you. And as you are shaped by your dreams, and your world is shaped by you, the world is shaped by your dreams, though not in the way we understand. Is what I'm saying making sense to you?"

  Aeryn nodded warily.

  “Good!” The smile returned to Ellyra’s face. “Now, let us drink together and journey to the Land of Shuul, where we might share in all things and all wonder!”

  Defy the White Lady

  Dream with the White Lady

  ***

  Aeryn decided to follow the jade corridor which led from the landing bay. The path took a decidedly downward slant and gently curved about to the right. Were it not for the slope, Aeryn thought, it would have seemed she walked in an endless circle which must have encompassed the entire city. Indeed, she looped around the base of the city-spire four whole times and was thoroughly exhausted when the bright-green tunnel opened up revealing a sprawling district of the city before her.