“Well?” Avallach stood and faced his seer. “What did you see?”

Annubi’s eyes flicked toward the door. “They were scared. Most of what they said was lies. Lies and foolishness. You were right to challenge them, but I think it will make them more stubborn. The Learned do not easily admit ignorance.”

“Frightened? Why would they be frightened? Unless they know more than they are telling.”

“It is just the reverse: they know less than their words imply. They simply do not know what to make of the starfall and so cover up this lack by inventing pleasant-sounding lies.” Annubi snorted. “They talk of precedents and sacred texts knowing full well that signs of this magnitude are exceedingly rare.”

“It is strange. Why would they do it? Why not err on the side of caution?”

Annubi answered in a voice full of scorn. “And allow everyone to see how little wisdom they actually possess? No, rather than disenchant the people or their powerful patron, they will utter nonsense and make it sweet so that men will swallow it.”

Avallach shook his head wonderingly. “It makes no sense.”

“They have lost the power of their craft,” explained An-nubi, exasperation shrilling his voice. “They cannot admit this to anyone, not even to themselves. They have forgotten, if they ever knew, that their purpose is to serve, not to rule.”

“And so, lacking the vision, they talk louder so as to drown out dissenting voices.” Avallach paused and added, “Setting that aside for the moment, what about the sign? Do you still think it ominous?”

“Most ominous, to be sure. I have no doubt-none whatsoever, “

“What of the Lia Fail? Will it help?”

“Oh, yes. When the time comes. But it is small and its use is limited, as you know. Still, it will help with more immediate events as they can be discerned.”

“Then I will trust it, and you, Annubi. And now, since there is no more to be done about this for the moment, I suggest we find our beds and go to sleep.”

Two young pages tumbled into the room just then with iron snuffers in their hands. They saw the two men, bowed hurriedly, and backed out the door. “No, enter,” called Avallach. “We are finished. Save the lamps for another night.”

The two kings and their combined retinues journeyed east from Seithenin’s palace toward Poseidonis. The days were bright and warm and the travel enjoyable, for the roads were wide and well-paved and the company convivial. The towns along the route were alerted well in advance of the kings’ arrival, and all turned out in force to welcome the noble travelers and wave them on their way.

The first night they camped just off the road in a field of new clover. The next night they camped near a town that feasted them with specially prepared food and drink for which the townspeople were famous among the Corani. The two nights following were spent in a fragrant cedar forest; the fifth night they camped on the estate of one of Seithenin’s noblemen, who provided a horse race for their amusement.

They journeyed on, passing through fields and forests, over smooth hills and broad, fertile plains across which herds of wild horses and oxen ran. And then, on the afternoon of the twelfth day, they reached the king’s causeway which led to the capital city. The carriages and chariots rolled through wooded hills and crossed swirling streams on bridges that thundered with the sound of the horses’ hooves. And as the sun tinted the lower heavens with its fiery gold, the long procession crested the rim of the valley and paused to look down into the broad basin which cradled the city of the High King.

Poseidonis was a large city-a city within a city, for the palace of the High,King was a city in itself-laid out in a perfect circle a thousand stadia in diameter, corresponding to the sacred sun disk. The circle was pierced by a canal that ran from the Temple of the Sun to the sea, a canal wide enough for two triremes to pass one another and straight as a spearshaft along its dressed stone length.

Three more canals, each a circle-one within the other, separated by rings of land, or zones-intersected the straight canal. These inner sections together formed the palace of the High King. The royal apartments were housed in the enormous temple which covered the disk-shaped island of the innermost zone. The canals were perfect concentric rings joined by huge bridges, which were approached by ramps and steeply arched to allow cargo-laden boats to pass beneath.

The entire city was surrounded by an immense outer wall of white stone from which at measured intervals rose spire-topped turrets. Beneath each turret was a brazen gate-each gate cast from a different metal: bronze, iron, copper, silver, gold, orichalcum. Through the gates passed the busy commerce of the city-traders from all Nine Kingdoms and the world beyond. Except for these gates, and the long canal which joined the harbor, the white stone curtain was seamless and unbreached.

And rising in the distance like a snow-capped pyramid stood Mount Atlas, cold and aloof, wrapped in robes of mist and cloud, towering over all, its peak thrusting at the sun-washed sky dome. The holy mountain of the gods loomed over the city, reminding all who lived under its shadow that, like the mountain itself, the gods were above all, supreme, remote, indifferent-silent yet ever present.

Charis took all this in as the coaches and chariots paused before beginning the descent into the basin. Although she had often heard the wonders of the capital extolled, she had never imagined it to be this grand, this imposing. She stared at the glimmering scene before her, and then the carriage rocked forward and they were descending to the city.

Trumpeters in the high turrets of the outer wall saw the royal procession approaching and heralded the kings’ arrival with a brilliant fanfare that reverberated throughout the city. Riders dressed in the livery of the High King raced ahead through the crowded streets to clear the way. The carriages approached the gate, then rolled onto the Avenue of Porticos, so called for the homes of the wealthy merchants of the district whose houses lined the street-each house featuring a long, raised, multicolumned porch which shaded the front of the enormous edifice.

The carriages swept along the avenue, passing through gates, between high walls, and along crowded markets ringing with the sounds of trade. Charis glimpsed black oxen, and sand-colored camels laden with exotic goods, and once saw a painted elephant chained to a pillar beside a stall. The air was heavy with the scent of spices and incense; it rang with the cries of beasts and men-camels braying, dogs barking, children screeching, and merchants hawking their wares. Everywhere Charis looked she saw the reddish gleam of expensive orichalcum shimmering in the sun. It was as if the city were wrought entirely of the god’s own metal, so that it blazed with Bel’s glory, as a jewel blazes from every facet. The royal entourage crawled through the bawling, busy district and at last came to the place where the avenue intersected the Processional Way, a wide and well-paved avenue leading directly to the High King’s temple palace.

Once on the Processional Way, they quickly arrived at the first high-arched bridge crossing the first canal. The bridge was lined with the banners of the Nine Kingdoms, and at each banner stood a soldier bearing an oblong shield and a lance of silver.

The procession clattered over the bridge and entered the first of the inner zones. Here the royal craftsmen lived in tall, narrow houses of white-glazed brick, their quarters above their workshops. There were smiths and weavers and potters, woodwrights, masons, glaziers, tanners, chandlers, shoe and harness makers, lute and lyre makers, fullers, spinners, rug makers, wagonwrights, carvers, founders, tinkers, coopers, toolmakers, brickmakers, glassmakers, stonecutters, dyers, and enamelers.