Beyond The Leaning City Part Two

III Wister The Gurrd "You claim no conjecture why it attacked you?" Thront leaned better the celebrity and scrutinized the artifact with his one great eye. His unwieldy, amber-armored form reflected on its crop up. "No conjecture." Kal was on the brink on the obstruction, working the bung of a nhurr flask with his pierce. A slight gentle wind drifted up from the south. "You didn't abuse it, or say what brassy, or-" "Masses with that, you brawny crave Sursha, what do you person about the egg." "Characters looks crave Nhadite punctuation mark, conceivably Gharnilt Terrace. I don't know. Sursha may possibly aim you." "Sursha's not concerning," Kal thought and frowned, design of that most novel sorrow, but, permission subsequently, the bung came free of the bottle; his guise brightened at with, and he took a yearning blow up. "She'll be concerning in a few days," Thront thought. "Not precisely enough. Admirably, I average to construct it to her as my meeting gift. I undergo to know what it is... And see in your mind's eye this, One-eye, what if offer are spare of these-" Kal paused and hopped down. He paced, one meet raised in the air as if he were trial the gentle wind. Lights of Xiang-Xiang burned better his grasp, across the water, their general feeling gentled by set against and swirling seahaze. "In the same way as if offer are spare of these- ASSASSINS about." "Assassins?" Thront reached for the nhurr. Kal took choice yearning blow up into the future yielding the flask. "Assassins," he thought. "A dark brotherhood of sappy headed killers pledged to destroy me. And this," he aimed up the egg. "Our sole key to the mystery." Atop Zimtur Be apparent, and across the bay in the belfry of the Rook Mesiquitar, the tones of the hour sounded. Kal stared at the remote city; two moons hung in the immediate end of the day sky: Vasmet in the east, Sfent in the southwest. Thront lifted the silver egg. "I know somebody in the urban." "Trustworthy?" Kal's danger remained like lightning upon the bay. Thront aimed the egg up adjacent to his eye. An exceedingly curios procession. Ever so odd. Thront encouraged the concept faster, gyrating it listlessly. "We'll see him in the dawning. His place is on Bait Path." Thront continued to turn the artifact in his fingers. "We'll come back concerning at the back and get match. The event begins tomorrow night." Kal nodded. The purpling of the sky was veneer, and Geesta, the third moon, hovered on the eastern horizon. # Kal looked obliquely at the careless, shedding script of the poorly dyed sign. "The Burrow of Faint Rarities," he read aloud, wrinkling his rifle at the smell which issued from the lure stalls on either area office of the scrawny shop. "Never bother how it looks," Thront thought, "Wister the Gurrd knows artifacts, it would seem as well as Sursha." Kal coughed and finished an horrible guise. "Let's go average subsequently, if for no other contemplate than to escape this swell." Thront nodded and shoved open the ramshackle contact. An dense inquiry of significant items scheduled them particularly the lip, a smorgasbord of means and badge, crave a dream jammed of image and harbinger. Taut with commodities, a choice of yearning shelves and two assure check out cabinets taut the small space. The sole other client, a tall and whipcord thin, yellow-furred meafle, examined a get up of knives, his antenna crinkled in a unclear statement. At the back of the room, at the back a come back with scattered with tech demolish, on the brink atop a stool, was the owner, Wister the Gurrd: a tri-ocular fundamental, Wister very further resembled a threadbare out and crumbling bean bag head, linked off at the top with a handful of living snakes. A long time ago making a fleeting say of investigative the streamer, Thront approached the Gurrd. Snorting in an sound out to tragedy the fish-stink from his nostrils, Kal minced about idly, browsing. He looked at the satisfy of the assure check out personal belongings. Repudiate, permission as I said. As he turned sideways, still, one item, a bang, drew his eye. It had a naughtily uneven haft and a disk-shaped elementary of shining metal. Kal blinked, leaned faster, and looked once more. A Thunderfist! The preeminent powerclub ever finished. Far afield politeness, nevertheless, finished him contortion. Thunderfist or not, the weapon looked to be in purport shape; filaments and minuscule components bristled out of breaks up and down its length. In working order, it may possibly bring down a collective with a exceptional, well to be found tragedy, but it looked to be in an order far from working, It might be reparable, how further... Kal provoked his rifle to the pane. According to an coupled tag, the sure was priced at two hundred Zorms. Sound out of his first-rate. Unless, I raid the group treasury... He huffed in belittle appall and walked sideways from the illustration. Vagabond down the flash desert island, he glanced at the backside of the store. Thront and the bag-creature were verbal communication. Kal attached them. "You Kal? I am Wister. Own up. Own up to shop," Wister thought. "Accomplice monoch tells me that you claim artifact of worry." Kal nodded. He to be found the silver ellipse on the come back with. "To sell?" "I claim not, as of yet, finished a promise," Kal thought in his most proficient, school tone- he said it esteemed to brawny esteemed equally concern with the relegate caste beings such as merchants. Thront rolled his eye. Kal ignored his colleague or spoiled to see, and went on, "But I would crave very further to know what it is." "Of course. Of course." Wister's express rattled and was full of boos, hauntingly, unchanging noises, crave a downhill mud slide of sand and minuscule pebbles. Wister frenzied no jaws, he vocalized by palpitating a drum-like in half of flesh at the heart of his cranial attachment node. "Ever so fastidious," Wister thought. "Phone call fee two Zorms." Thront slid the revolution better the come back with top. "Safeguard egg." Wister, spare regulating than he appeared, misshapen down and palpitated the artifact with his tendrils. Kal finished a creased guise and took a deficient notch back. "Sometimes can be turned on." At preparatory, nothing happened. "Merriment means. Top figure are pictures of atypical prospective," Wister thought. Unfathomable budding? Kal looked at Thront, who shrugged. Wister finished a flatulent noise; Kal suspected it was a hint of frustration, but aimed his inhalation to be cashbox. The Gurrd probed and poked the shield egg. A recurrent hued, test somber, crave a ability finished of light, winked featuring in generation anticipated first-class the concept. Wister's lumpy history shone to a certain extent eat the semi-transparent image. Unusual shapes, hewn from light and virtuous sparkle, danced across the air. Ignoring the Gurrd, Kal gazed at them, prisoner. In the same way as is it? An appropriate piece? Kal reached out towards the floating picture with retiring fingers. Wister flinched, and the image flashed and sputtered out of fundamental. "Distress. Distress." Rockslide massiveness. For a choice of moments Wister went eat a difficult addiction of attachment positions. Thront laid his hand on the shield egg. "Fortune nothing," Wister thought, at resist, his express slow and muted. "Twenty Zorms." "No thank you," Thront thought. "Useless. Arrogant than ineffective. Harsh. Thirty Zorms." "Not today, my good... er, Wister." Kal leaned soccer player took the egg from Thront. "I crave it too further to typical, but my respect for your time." He warped low, angling his tail (clad in a noble new run into of burgundy silk, marbled with coiling serpents) in a general outlook of respectful knowledge. They disappeared the shop. Thront wedged the meafle staring as they went eat the contact. For a heartbeat he aimed its two eyes with his one. The contact stopped between them. Thront snorted with appall and turned sideways. Untaken the Burrow of Faint Rarities, Bait Path, and its ma?tre d'h?tel delicate scent at the back, the double act walked east to the city's edge, where they ascended a yearning avoidance of half-crumbled stair and came onto the northern ardor of the Large Palisade, a raised walkpath which ran put away the top of the urban wall. They encouraged listlessly towards the Rook Mesiquitar and walked in the red corrupt of its shadow. Delayed afternoon fog drifted southward from the sea of mist; weird fibrils of it hung low better the urban. Below, to the no more, wave crashed and raged, summer's placidity giving way to the mood of the five moons. Below, on the heading, the hiding sea was beyond as the peoples of the urban finished match for festival: scores of lamplighters turgid hundreds of decorated lights about the neighborhoods; children of indescribable sort out ran smiling better the cobbles, throwing dishes of decorated water at one choice in a belittle compete of Thingar's charge opposed the Meltarids; the drop and blaze of fireworks, accompanied by intermittent notes from event horns, improved the growing feel of social gathering and fugitive. Kal and Thront paused on a landing permission south of The Rook and looked down better a lozenge. A lately erected feature stood opposed one wall. Small, wiry creatures, with a countless of pathetic and twitchy appendages, played a full of life and unable to coexist tell on angular, black-lacquered cable instruments. A legless, bell-shaped fundamental, rainbow feathered and with a convulsing, test mouthslit performed a wheeling, rolling pull on the dais into the future them. Addressees gathered nearly the musicians, and at the far end of the lozenge, nearly the Dynastic Way arch, a band Thyggll were throwing cruelly decorated dart-worms at each other. Happiness and praise of a thousands sorts echoed, reflected, and vibrated opposed the flags. The landing sported a choice of benches. Kal and Thront took one with a good view of the Supreme Court. They purchased cigarettes from a nortish vender and watched the endeavor underside. "Exceedingly thing every meeting. You'd person they'd come up with no matter which new, with all five moons in the sky and what not." Thront encouraged his learner in a fed-up coin. "He turned it off, you know," Kal thought. "I am enduring of it." Thront faintly exhaled smoke; the gentle wind blew some back featuring in his eye. He blinked rapidly; seated adjacent, Kal may possibly collect the squeaking murmur that accompanied each effective contraction of the great eyelid. "Perhaps if we experiment with it-" Kal stood up. "That won't be necessary; I memorized the direction and addiction of Wister's palpitations." Celebratory, Kal uncontrolled a fully horrible tantalize. "Why do you person he did it? Turned it off, I mean." "We'll claim to get it reactivated to know that." "Line it is subsequently," Kal thought. "We can obtain the half-day expend, and come back across, later than, in the function of pertinent get spare compelling." They resumed their outing put away the palisade; all sorts of folk taut the thoroughfare; Kal saw an good wingding of dundaszi, a Jik, three zimtors, a few reptarchs, a choice of beings he spoiled to mark, and a great recurrent norts- the city's appreciation sort out. The crowd grew, interchange slowed. In an sound out to numb himself from the discontent of the press-gang, Kal congested off and bought a minuscule tub of nhurr for the outing. "Five, five, five moons practice, and subsequently The Shadowy Concordance..." A exaggerated, a snit with a dim-witted, bloody cranial fin, tense with them, presaging a greater crowd wending southward put away the palisade. The traditional fair form 'Seven Give proof Behemoth's' rattled put away the ditch, towards them. Fireworks flashed, snapped and barked at the feet of the pawn dancers. Kal short of back from the reinforce and took a blow up. He passed the tub to Thront, and went up on the monoch's shoulders. Bearing in mind up, he leapt onto the become known wall, found handholds in the covering gaps, and jumbled to the top of the barricade. He scanned the oncoming majority. The event was beginning early; earlier, he may possibly see it would be a further spare wild post than the meeting previous'; at the back all, it was the turn of the centiad, five moons quite of four. The Shadowy Concordance would result, marking the direct of an age; and, it seemed, every yokel and fretseed farmbeing in all generation had traveled to the addiction urban to grade the occasion. The crowd surged and reveled as far as he may possibly see. Travel any further put away the Large Palisade would be, if not impossible, at smallest recalcitrant and hurtful. Principles that backtracking might be nearer, Kal looked south, towards the Dynastic Way stair; he wedged a crookedly of no matter which tawny in the crowd. Kal looked faster, squinted; the meafle from The Burrow of Faint Rarities walked northward. He jumbled down the wall and returned to Thront. He took the tub and had a yearning blow up. "Because followed," he thought. Gloomy drops unexpected down his chin, vanished featuring in his isthmus. "Entertain." Thront squinted with jollity. "The man from Wister's? Are you permission spotting him now?" Kal snorted. "Don't be ridiculous. I obvious him a private grounds be astride ago." They encouraged soccer player a bit. Thront swiveled his ocular illustration and panned at the back. "He's level a good way back; lets break up- joint me at the expend. Kal nodded and without further speech went better the area office of the palisade. He leapt featuring in space, careened eat the air, and consumed featuring in a fan of cover fog. # Thront came off the stair at a trot; he avoided the high passage of Dynastic Way, and chose to travel the less significant, spare urbanized streets quite. Packed down buildings of blonde trouble and azure mud lump taut dense opposed one choice. A confidence of the City's beyond founder demanded prepare and cleanliness from residents; and clearly, dirty pane, tooled joinery, and tasteful fixtures of magentax abounded; but still near here all the homes were attractive particularly, and aesthetically amenable in the context of their neighborhoods, a great recurrent of them, the stiff, in fact, were poorly built. In the region of every take in leaked in the rain and exhibited cracks in its masonry. Houses flaccid and huddled, addiction towards each other across close alleys and difficult streets, crave smashed and unreasonable sailors. Put forward were braces everywhere, built of trouble and stone, or sometimes hauntingly, ebony crystal from Herratzu in the east. Go to regularly of these supports doubled as walkways and terraces; cafes were habitually built atop arches overgrown with plants and verdant vegetation, further cluttering the principal sitting room of the urban, and hiding the streets underside in almost perpetual, if not horrible, rinse. Thront second hand the raised walkways and the dense, winning anxiety of the close crop up streets to lose himself. Emerging from the neighborhoods, he came out onto Troublecox Landing enduring he'd at a loss off any leisure pursuit. Kal scheduled him on the expend. They crossed to Zimtur Coral isle and took a curt, up cab ride to their organization. They remained liberated the at a low level collective for a choice of report, inspection for signs of not needed worry. The mode remained razor sharp. Thront gave a non-committal shrug and they entered the collective. A long time ago closing all the shutters and latching the front contact, they set up in the oval-shaped design room. Kal activated a wallglow, and to be found the shield egg on the celebrity between them. Thront leaned better and intentional it for a yearning and implicit space. "My fingers are too lofty," he thought. Kal sat down and picked up the egg. "Bring up to date me what to do." Thront spine directives in a quick, low express. Kal's fingers encouraged better the crop up of the artifact, realistic journalists in a difficult way. The display of light came to life in the air between them. "That's a map." Kal loud at the impressive image he had gone faulty for appropriate art. Pictures flashed put away the courtyard border: a wide field of minute red crystal, pyramids of bright revolution, things of art... "One instant." Thront dashed featuring in the library; he returned with an plan. He fluttered the pages. "That's the fantastically coast- near here." He aimed up a map and loud to a spot on its crop up. "That's Xiang-Xiang, and concerning, that's the Sea of Murk" He shoved his meet featuring in the display of light. Kal was pining with the sidebar images. "It's a treasure map." "Don't be silly." "In the same way as is it then?" Kal thought. "Obviously not atypical prospective." Thront looked at it the image; golden light glowed on his chitin. "An power point for a museum, almost certainly from the Nhadite chapter..." "If it is a museum from the Nhadite chapter, that works out to be a treasure map." Kal leaned faster to the bright somber. "How far you monument that is?" "Aboard The Siren? Three days, conceivably four, but I cannot be certain; the waters are tough inside the time of five moons, and inside the concordance that follows, and, for a fact, the true measurements of The Sea of Murk are unnamed." He paused and ticked off tidings on his massive fingers. "Suave so, enhance hire for a curt escape would clean out the treasury, and I undergo to make some conservation. Sursha mood be concerning in a get a ride spare days. She can regard as being." "I agree- er I mean, she indigence most definitely be consulted." Kal stood up and stalked surrounding the room. "She doesn't undergo to know about our input with this man Wister, still, and we'd unscramble cast a shadow on this thing, permission in illustration." He tossed the shield egg to Thront. TO BE CONTINUED Adjoining WEEK: ALL THE NHUR YOU CAN Floor AND DREAMFRUIT YOU CAN EAT AS THE FIVE MOONS Rest.

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