Jamil and Uzzia were fascinated by the oracle. Avatak could see how they longed to turn the little ribbed wheels and make the little sun and moon rise and fall, to play with it just like every child who’d ever seen the thing.
On the third rest day, Jamil broke. ‘All right, I give in. What is that gadget, sage? What are you doing with it? And how much do you want for it?’
Pyxeas, irritated at being interrupted as ever, glanced up. ‘You could not afford the fees charged by the Wall mechanikoi.’
‘The who? That’s a Greek word.’
“True. And their workshop District is often called “the Greek quarter”. But few mechanikoi these days have more than a trace of Greek blood in them! The word is a reference to the deeper history of philosophy in Etxelur, for it was there that the sage Pythagoras fled with his followers some two thousand years ago, fleeing the reign of a tyrant in his native Samos. Pythagoras’ essential legacy, you see, is his insight that the universe is based on order; that the cosmic order can be expressed in numbers; and that those numbers can be grasped by the human mind. It all follows, it is said, from Pythagoras’ observations of the notes of a plucked lute string.’
Avatak was used to discursions like this, and had learned not to listen until the scholar got to the important stuff.
Uzzia, however, boldly laid a hand on the old man’s arm. ‘Pyxeas. We get the point. It took hundreds of generations of string-plucking before some bald-pated genius was able to make this thing. But what does it do?’
‘Why, it enables me to calculate where I am, as I cross the turning globe of the earth. And, in a sense, when I am.’ He eyed her, and Jamil. ‘You understand that the world is a sphere.’
‘Actually a somewhat flattened sphere, according to Hatti astronomers,’ Uzzia snapped back. ‘Who in turn have built on studies by the Babylonians and others going back millennia. Please don’t condescend, old man.’
‘Very well. Then you’ll understand that as we travel north and south, the apparent position of the pole star in the sky will change. It would be directly overhead if we were at the north pole, whereas if we travel south-’
‘Yes, yes.’
‘So if I measure the star’s position-’
‘Or you get me to do it,’ murmured Avatak.
‘What’s that? Then I can determine the north-south arc of my position on the world’s spherical surface. Now, knowing the date and that single number, the northern arc, I can use my oracle to predict for me’ — he spun wheels and pressed levers, making the face of the oracle sparkle and shift — ‘the length of the day at this place, and the greatest height achieved by the sun in the sky. I have the boy check these independently with his sightings and his hourglass. The numbers are never identical, but the differences teach us about flaws in our methodology, and indeed the small digressions of the earth from its spherical state, to which you have alluded.’
Jamil studied the oracle longingly. ‘Must be useful at sea, that. And in some deserts I’ve crossed. So you have your position north to south. But what about east-west?’
‘Ah,’ Pyxeas said, enthused. ‘Excellent question, considering it’s you asking it. The oracle also contains, encoded into its dials and gears, a knowledge of eclipses of the sun and moon, both past and future.’ He tapped the face. ‘The little ivory moon slides across the golden sun. . It’s really quite pretty to watch. And by matching the prediction with the reality of an eclipse, I can determine my distance from Northland, west to east. The procedure is a little tricky.’
Uzzia said, ‘Just tell me this one thing. You dream of saving the world. Is it through such means as this, the numbers of the sky?’
‘Yes! Yes, precisely. You see-’
But she held her forefinger to his lips. ‘Another time,’ she said gently. ‘For now, I understand enough. It is late. You two must finish your work, and come closer to the fire, and we will eat and sleep.’
Pyxeas seemed oddly charmed by her motherliness. ‘Another time, then,’ he agreed.
Heading ever east, following the vagaries of roads and passes, they moved out of the fertile plain into a land that was higher, dryer, much more forbidding. Avatak glimpsed mountains, streaked with ice.
They came to a small town fortified by a stout wall of mud-brick. Beyond, the land was more arid stilclass="underline" the town marked the edge of desert. To enter the town the travellers had to pass through a wide gate, horses, cart and all — even the mule. There was stabling for the animals inside, and Jamil immediately did some business, selling off his horses in order to buy — what? Avatak glimpsed a new sort of beast in the shadows of the stables, taller than a horse, stately, foul-smelling. Jamil did keep the mule. Avatak wasn’t sure if he was pleased or disappointed.
They spent a few nights here. The city was full of people of diverse hues, costumes and tongues. Jamil said this was a major meeting point for traders, who routinely travelled half the world for the sake of the profit to be made through the trade between Cathay and other eastern empires and the Continent and Northland to the west. Jamil said he’d half-expected the town to be quieter than usual, because of flood, drought, plague, banditry and the coldness of the year; such things were bad for trade. On the other hand there were more migrants than usual on the trail, coming both ways — people coming from the west in the hope of finding a better life in the east, only to meet people from the east heading west with much the same ambition. These were times of turbulence. Ominously, Pyxeas pointed to heavy shipments of weapons and armour.
Jamil was waiting on a number of other traders to get ready to leave. They would travel together as a caravan — not steam-driven, but a train of beasts and people laden with goods. Avatak had never known that the word for the Northlanders’ dazzling transport system was borrowed from a much older meaning.
The morning came when Jamil’s caravan was ready — and Avatak was introduced to his camel. The beast was extraordinary. It had two fleshy humps on a back covered with dirty brown hair, and a small head mounted on a long neck, and massive teeth, and an oddly disdainful expression. When it walked on its long legs it seemed to stagger, and at first, after climbing clumsily on its back, it was all Avatak could do to hang on. More laughter from his companions.
But after a few days he saw the beast’s advantages. It had broad hoofs that would not sink into the softest sand, and could travel for days without water. And all this with the weight of a man on its back. The stink, though — the stink was high! There were times when Avatak looked back at his mule, plodding through the sand, with almost nostalgic affection.
The caravan worked its way steadily west, a party of thirty people and twice as many camels, a few horses, one mule. The desert was flat, arid, featureless, but on the horizon mountains loomed, capped with ice, a grand setting.
Some days later they came upon their first desert town, at what Jamil called an oasis, a place entirely sustained by a single water spring. There were even trees here, their leaves bright and green against the background of the desert. Jamil had boasted of the melon you could buy that was a speciality of the region, which was sold dried out and cut into strips. But the weather was playing havoc here too; it had been a bad spring so far, too wet remarkably, and the melon crop was poor.