The town beyond the field matched the beauty of the sky.
Broad terraces surrounded a lake of flowered water, a central fountain casting a perpetual rain. Others set at the edges giving birth to a rainbowed mist. On the terraces, set like jewels on a string, houses merged with greenery and the gentle mask of trees. Spired, turreted, some with cathedral-like soaring arches, others a compact blend of curve and line having the strength and functional beauty of a clenched fist. A multitude of architectural styles married into a common harmony.
"Ath," said Tuvey. His hand lifted to rap the shell of the pet riding his shoulder. "You like it?"
"It's lovely!" Sardia clutched Dumarest's arm. "So clean! So neat! So much like a… a…"
A child's toy. Dumarest fitted the words to the incompleted sentence as he stood looking at the city. It was too neat, too precise. A normal, living city was never that. It held noise and bustle and a certain untidiness and always a little dirt. A place in which people moved and worked and had their being. This was more like a calculated design; one planned down to the last detail and all offensive or obtrusive intrusions carefully removed. A construct made by detached planners who cared more for the esthetic appearance than for the comfort of those who had to reside in it.
And yet even that was not wholly true.
"It's like a house," whispered Sardia. "One over which generations have labored so as to get it just right. Or a room furnished and decorated to the exact liking of its owner. It's perfect, Earl. Perfect!"
As a cut and faceted gem, a carving, a mosaic. A thing complete and set for all to admire. An artistic achievement as a single house could be, a single room. But no living city could ever be that.
"Listen," he said and then, as Sardia, obeying, frowned, he added, "no children. You can't hear any children."
There were green spaces and walks and little copses and shelters which childish imagination could turn into jungles and forests and eerie castles. Places which were ripe for mental conversion into haunts of mystery-and yet no shrill voices rose above the susurration of the fountains and nowhere on the terraces could children be seen.
Tuvey shrugged as Sardia questioned him as to their absence.
"Don't ask me. I land, I trade, I leave and what goes on behind city walls is none of my concern. You paid for passage and you got it. The journey is all your money bought."
A long journey, too long in the Rift where worlds were close and Dumarest suspected the man of deliberate detours so as to lengthen the time. To make sure he wasn't being followed? Traders such as the captain often hugged the secret of profitable ports to themselves.
He said dryly, "A correction, Captain. We bought a little more than passage."
"An introduction also, I haven't forgotten." Tuvey's fingers rasped over the carapace of his pet. "But that was for the woman. You, Earl, will find other guesting."
"Guesting?"
"You'll see." The captain gestured toward the city. "Here they come."
They were like fireflies, or, no, like clowns, but that was wrong also and Dumarest blinked to clear his mind and eyes of first impressions. Perspective had done it and the neat array of bizarre dwellings. Their owners were the same. Like the buildings, they verged on the edge of fantasy and yet nothing about them was other than decorative or functional. Clothing, oddly cut, oddly draped, still served a purpose. Colors, brilliantly applied, still held a form of logical usage. Lips tinted ochre were still lips clearly delineated. Hair rippling with shimmering hues was still hair clean and adorning rather than disguising the faces beneath.
"The stage," said Sardia blankly. "They look as if they're all taking part in a play of some kind. A fantasy such as Synthe's Transpadane. I danced in it when young. Earl, this is wonderful!"
For her, yes, because for her it was normal, the life she had once known and had perhaps known better than the later, wasting years. The world of make-believe of which she had been a part when everything was other than what it seemed and all was possible at the touch of imagination's wand. But his universe was of harsher fabric and in it the strange was also the potentially dangerous, and things which were not genuine were always worse than what they appeared.
"Sardia!"
He was too late, already she had gone, running to meet the brilliant cluster coming to greet the new arrivals.
At his side Tuvey said, "Let her go. Later I'll see she meets her artist." Then, oddly, he added, "I wonder what you'll fetch?"
Fetch? A question quickly answered as a dozen bright figures crowded around. One, dressed in dull green slashed with flaming scarlet, feathers on rump and ankles, a crest riding high on his skull, stamped close. With him came the tintinnabulation of tiny bells.
"Captain! Again you honor us. One thousand for the Captain!"
"And a half!" A woman, smooth flesh gleaming naked beneath the slashed vents in her gown, her hair silvered, her lips and nails colored to match, her eyes the color of minted gold, topped the bid.
"Two!" The third voice was deeper, older. "You had him the last time, Myrna."
"True." The silvered woman shrugged. "Then two for the other."
"Three!"
"Five!"
"And a half!"
"It's too much! And it's my turn. "Six!"
Dumarest frowned as he listened, seeing Tuvey smile, the person who had won him now standing close to his side. An older woman with a lined face deliberately accentuated so as to present the appearance of a crone. One belied by the firm curvature of her body.
"Is this a game, Captain?"
"No game, Earl, but no harm in it either. A local custom and it's best to play along. There are no taverns here and no hotels. To find accommodation you have to be a guest and this is the guesting. You stay with the one who wins you. Stay long enough and you could be passed on. Entertain well enough and you could gain the original bidder a profit."
A custom rooted in boredom but one which the residents took seriously. The voices rose higher, became sharper, the bids joined now with argument.
"Ten and I should have him. Always I have to wait."
"Eleven and stop crying, Verrania. Be nice to me and, maybe, I'll let you talk to him."
"Bitch!"
"Cow!"
"You filthy harlot! I'll teach you a lesson in good manners!"
A flurry quickly smoothed, the two women meeting to be parted with no more damage than a ripped garment. Dumarest looked up and away from the crowd, looking at title rim of a terrace, seeing a silent, watchful figure standing in the shadows of a flowering tree. One different from those who stood before him in both manner and dress. A woman with close-cropped hair of reddish gold, a square, determined face, a figure which even beneath the dark pants and blouse she wore he could tell was firm and muscular. A moment and then she was gone and a new voice rose amid the others.
"Fifteen! I bid fifteen."
"Ursula-"
"And I'll take it as a personal insult if any should bid against me." Her voice held the sweet venom of honeyed poison. "Myma? No, I thought not. Glissa? You, too, are wise. "Cheryl?" A moment as the silence lengthened, then, casually, she said, "Well, Earl Dumarest, it seems you are to be my guest."
There was a magic about her, an atmosphere of mystery and enchantment born in whispered tales heard when a boy in which creatures of grace would come to end all hardship and restore the comforts of forgotten eons. Promises and hopes now stirred to life by the strangeness of the city, the cerulean figure he followed along a path winding between scented bushes.
"My lady?"
Halting, she turned and looked down at him from where she stood high on the sloping path. Soft shadows deepened the blue of her lips and hair, turned the tint of her skin into misty smoke.