Gamori

Part 4

Not for naught is Vindazag called the Rainbow Pearl of the World. The City of A Million Splendors lies on the southeast coast of Gwand, and is not only the capital of the mightiest empire in history, it is the most massive metropolis in history. After all, historically, the founder of Urvasa, the warrior-king Lokor the Builder, had it inscribed on a lot of stone monuments, and upon one stone tablet, that he swore to all the gods that he would make a statement that would reverberate throughout, well, history. He was a man of his word.

The city's awesomely epic walls look out onto an immense plain covered in a chromatic quilt of farmland bordered by perfumed jungle. Ships from across the face of Telaerys enter and leave Vindazag's supremely capacious harbor daily. Anything and everything is for sale in the markets, from jublub fruit to automata. Every proper city has public bathhouses, but the ones here are luxurious nearly to the point of obscenity; none more so than the colossal and many-pillared Baths of Varoono, named after Empress Varoono the Conqueror. The schools and academies are blazing beacons of enlightenment, especially the renowned Hwooks University, where Jwar Brellik taught, who discovered the alchemical process whereby water is turned to ice.

One could spend a lifetime in Vindazag and never drink it all in. The vast Imperial Palace Complex, said to contain a million rooms, with a myriad fountains, tessellated pools, and geometric pleasure parks, is a city unto itself. The Gardens of Paradise are overflowing with botanical bounty intermingled with waterfalls, tranquil ponds, shaded meandering paths, marble gazebos, and aviaries filled with birds, small pterosaurs, flutter-bys, and dragonflies more resplendent than any gem. There is the Mausoleum of Empress Moksado I, and the Great Ziggurat of King Yamik, the grandson of Lokor. There is the Geopolis: the temple-city of Kai, the Red Earth Mother, where many plants are cultivated upon terraced ziggurat-mountains, and sacred fungus grows in caverns carved in imitation of nature.

Here in the capital, the kaleidoscopic drug of Urvasan culture is in its purest, most potent form. Sweet music from the odeons drifts into saloons, teahouses and incense-filled lounges. Wakata races, some with chariots, are held daily at the Ornidrome. One can hardly move about without encountering religious processions, musicians, jugglers, harlequins, acrobats, sword dancers, magicians, fortune tellers, comedians, hucksters and vendors. The delectable local cuisine is mainly based on plants, which suited me well enough. Sindar also ate such fare with gusto, for he was greatly nostalgic for a taste of home. In our opinion, one of Portsgate's few deficiencies was its dearth of Urvasan restaurants, and we agreed to bring the matter up to First Speaker Vlumpt upon our return.

Every month there is a military parade, which we beheld, on the tree-lined Imperial Road. There were ranks of Gwandian infantry carrying pole-arms, talwars and repeating crossbows; of the famous all-female Snapdragon Guard wearing their feather-crested helmets, armed with pikes, their cavalry riding turquoise and toothy wakata; of Tarkeshi shock troops and of barbarian auxiliaries from Brekoond. Overhead flew formations of Zapaka Stormflyers upon their winged saurian mounts. But what impressed me most were the armored war ushkoo! Those howdah-carrying behemoths strode forth with a majestic power, and I pitied any soldiers whose commander ordered them stand fast against such living juggernauts. Backbiter had been watching the pageantry with us from his vantage point on the head of a nearby statue, but when the bellowing ushkoo came near he bolted and leapt into Jezrin's arms, shivering with fright and flattening his ears, shutting his catlike eyes tight.

It was during that parade, while enjoying iced jublub juice and eating glomglom balls ( which are not, as ignorant foreigners believe, the testicles of the never-seen "glomglom", but are a savory fried snack), that Jezrin told me something strange. In the Great Library of Thool she had seen a drawing made by a self-proclaimed oneiric explorer, likely a madman. He claimed to have travelled in his dreams to a place called Hellas, which is not on any map. There were warriors there called hoplites who wore armor very similar to the style worn by the Snapdragon Guard, and he duly made several sketches of his experience. I told her that it was probably just poppycock. She bopped me on the head and said, "You're poppycock."

One morning, while Sindar had gone off to visit his relatives, some of us went down an alleyway to a hole-in-the-wall bookseller. As I perused the shelves I noticed that not only were we the only customers, but that my companions were frantically scouring the shop for all occult writings. I knew enough Thoolian script to read the titles of two of the weighty tomes they were stacking into Thok's arms: "The Fire Nymph Prophecies", and "On the Special Characteristics of Nested Divine Polyhedra". I was bold enough to ask them about these books. Umbreen shot me a dangerous look. Jezrin declared, "These? These are treatises on baking and cooking. This one has a recipe for tangerine tarts that is to die for. Yes, die." Backbiter hissed at me from atop a bookshelf. I promptly exited the shop.

The Rainbow Pearl of the World is not flawless in its dazzling iridescence. The supernal architecture of the temples belie that some of the gods yet hunger for human sacrifice, and the Urvasi seek to sate that hunger, sending droves of unfortunates to meet those gods via various unpleasant means. Public executions have come back after centuries of compassionate reform. Criminal syndicates and murder cults rule the night in some districts. The many slave markets are never short of buyers. And then, of course, there are the arenas.

She invited me. How could I say no? At least once, I found myself standing up and cheering. Entertained I was, though at what cost beyond the modest admission fee I still do not know. Jezrin, unsurprisingly, reveled in the whole affair, punching the air, gleefully exhorting for blood and death, especially during the prisoner executions. The rest of the crowd behaved much the same. From what little I have read of wise King Lokor I, he would be appalled.

There is a multitude of temples and orphanages to care for and feed the poor of the city, but given such a huge, burgeoning population, they can't help them all. Sindar and I gave out many a coin and morsel, but Jezrin's open contempt, even hatred for the impoverished bordered on insanity. The first time she was beset by a group of destitute children, she pushed the closest of them away with her boot, and started wildly kicking at the rest, utter disgust contorting her visage. "Begone, vile guttersnipes!" she screamed. When she saw, to her dismay, that not only was I giving out money and sweets, but entire sacks were being put into small hands from Sindar's velvet-curtained palanquin, she yelled in rage, "What are you two doing?! Don't encourage the hideous little hobgoblins!"

Another time an emaciated elderly man wearing a tattered loincloth dared approach her. "Away from me, mendicant!" she said. "The only thing you'll receive from me is sweet release from a pathetic existence! You beggars are more numerous than bog fleas! If I were in charge, your parasitism would have been stamped out long ago!"

As I started to give the petrified oldster some food and sympathy, a throng of Twaiana worshippers passed close by, celebrating the Festival of Good Fortune. In their boisterous zeal they covered Jezrin in the fragrant vivid yellow powder which signifies abundance, equality and joy. If she saw the irony of it all, it only served to fuel her anger and general misanthropy, for she wished ill on them, and on their families, and on their descendants, saying that the plague-flies of Zhizhizh should blind them and that his maggots should eat of their flesh.

That I was in love with her was beyond denial, but I questioned why the gods saw fit to make this so.