Prince of Time

Chapter Twenty-Three - Etheron

A city rose out of the mountain. To say it so bluntly destroyed the true impossibility of the spectacle. The city was vast, built into the mountainside, a part of the rock itself. Sloping walls encircled streets that were invisible to them and one great tower high above them.

 The walls seemed all to be of one rock, as if the mountain had been hollowed out in the shape of them. They couldn’t have been undermined, couldn’t have been exploded. It would take a genius to break this city.

“I’ve never seen anywhere so defensible,” Nicanor breathed. “It’s marvellous.”

“We read about Etheron in training,” Maple glanced at Pepper. “They used to call it the Kingdom of Exiles.”

There was uneasy murmuring from amongst the patrol and Haliwen flinched.

“We cannot be held accountable for the actions of our forefathers,” she said, coldly. “We were exiles once. Now, we are a kingdom of our own.”

“Great battle strategists and engineers,” Maple continued, oblivious. “Powerful men and women, the greatest opponents that ever fell before the Western kingdoms. We didn’t want to destroy them in case we needed them, so we sent them away into the mountains to build their own home.”

“And we built Etheron,” Haliwen snapped. “And all you Western kingdoms suddenly realised that you could not control the greatest strategists, engineers and war leaders of a generation all working together. So you abandoned us to our fate in the mountains, gave us the unwanted lands with the dark creatures and dangers.”

Pepper coughed. “Not us personally, you know.”

Haliwen sighed. “I suppose not. You’re Merdian. You are not from a land of conquerors like Harian.”

“Should we be offended?” Zeno asked, lightly.

“No,” Haliwen strode ahead of them, picking her way easily up the narrow stairs rough-hewn into the rock that seemed to be all that led to the city above them. “We too are a land of defenders.”

At last, they reached the gates which opened for Haliwen and her patrol. Maple marvelled at the steep drops on nearly all sides, on the seemingly-impenetrable gatehouse and the vast killing ground beyond.

“The best of a generation, remember?” Haliwen caught her expression. “This city is the combined genius of the greatest military minds who ever lived.”

“This is true,” Tobiah bowed his head, surprising everyone with that admission. “We have nothing like this.”

There was smugness to Haliwen’s walk as she led them through the gates and into the main streets of the city. They bustled with people, all in uniform grey and all armed. Man, woman or child, nobody was without a weapon.

 To the fighters amongst them, this seemed only natural. But Ane and Zeno looked mildly horrified at the sight of two seven-year-old boys lounging by a small fountain, short swords strapped to their waists.

“We live on a knife-edge,” Haliwen explained. “The unprepared are soon the dead.”

They walked through the streets, attracting glances but no stares. They were under the guard of the patrol and Maple guessed that this was a place where only information was shared, never rumour.

“He lives in the tower,” Haliwen explained. “He will see you, I expect. We haven’t had a Westerner visit in a long time.”

At the base of the tower, they met no guards. Maple gave Haliwen a look of confusion.

“This isn’t a normal city,” Haliwen sighed, as if annoyed by their obvious stupidity. “Not like yours. We’ve heard about them. Here, you can trust everyone. You’d be guarding the tower from the guards themselves, which makes no sense at all.”