FIRST BOOK OF THE PIPER OF MIRCHAEK TRILOGY
When the walled city of the gods, Dansarun, opens its doors for trade, Xuijae's ruling clan sends its perfect representatives: the troublesome prince, Kai-Se, who wants nothing to do with palace life, and...
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When Urzake appeared on the horizon, there was no mistaking it. Kai-Se had spent the rest of the journey going away from Nakashio towards the border between old Shencai territory towards the original Dansarun territory and so far, he couldn't picture the Imperial City just from the description printed into the scrolls.
So when the silhouettes of sky-high bridges, towering pagodas, and tall, gray walls came crawling past the line where clouds met the mountains, Kai-Se's jaw dropped. He didn't bother hiding his awe and when they cleared the first ring of walls around the Imperial City and entered into the sprawling city of the gods inside.
Houses weren't just houses. They were mini-palaces each complete with their own walls shorter than the walls outside the city. Two to three-story pagodas flanked each and every direction Kai-Se turned his head towards. Every once in a while, a wide grassland would peel from the main, cobbled road leading north towards the next bend of tall walls. From his place inside the carriage, he spied dappled cattle grazing in peace on the bright green grass coating the whole expanse.
Insects with glass-like wings and long bodies flitted in and out of the blades, whizzing past the window with their flocks every now and then. The rush of water flowing from either a river or an irrigation system was loud in Kai-Se's ears but even when he craned his neck or squinted his eyes to look further, he couldn't see where the sound was coming from.
Nao-Zai watched the bumble from the seat opposite him with his naturally-crossed arms but even the soldier wasn't immune to the awe-inspiring landscapes Dansarun offered. The entourage cleared the grassland and came across the second ring of walls. Just how many walls did Urkaze alone have?
As soon as they went through the metal gates after they confirmed they were the envoys sent from Xuijae, the sound of water rushing was louder now. Kai-Se's eyes widened when the carriage jostled through an engineered bridge made from concrete with small replicas of pagoda roofs arcing over it in consistent distance from each other. Below the bridge was a huge lake that could have passed as a sea inside a landlocked area. Boats with horizontal, orange sails rolled with the waves every now and then, bringing crates upon crates of goods, textile, or other supplies into the opposite shore where the bridge eventually ended.
Further out into the horizon, the sound of the waterfall was definitely louder now. Kai-Se turned towards it to watch the water spill from a silhouette of a mountain stretching from the city and out into the wild towards the rocky parts of Qin Damyung up north of the continent and into the lake traversed by the bridge.
Once they cleared the bridge, more and more houses dotted the scene, accentuated by trees with orange and brown leaves as well as an occasional unobstructed view of the bright, blue sky. Fluffy and wispy clouds alike flitted through the air, blurring most of the sky bridges creeping closer from behind another set of tall walls.
After a few more hours of traveling, they reached the last set of walls that, according to the scroll Kai-Se was reading, marked the beginning of the Imperial City of the Gods. The rest outside were just the cities of the province of Urkaze.
