Through Darkest Zymurgia!

Nearly a month later, on the 22nd of Sobriquet, we crested a pass and had our first glimpse of the Holy City in the Barren Plain. The sun was orange that day, and its light shining through the late afternoon haze and the dust of our passage cast a brown glow over the plain below us. Though "plain" seemed a singularly poor name for such a broken, lumpy, barren surface as we saw before us. It stretched off to the southeast, mile after mile of low hills, gullies, and broken ground, with no vegetation. Far off in the distance, one mound rose head and shoulders above the rest. The road ran before us into the midst of the chaos, after which I could not trace its further progress.

"Very nice," I said to Mukden, who was riding beside me. "Where is the city?"

"We are here; the city lies before you."

Cutting off an angry retort, I took a closer look. What I had taken as desolate barren hills in the haze and the poor light were in fact hundreds--thousands, rather--of buildings. Though softened and rounded by distance, I knew, as if I had touched them, that every building in that awful city was made of brown bricks.

"Then that larger structure, there..." I gestured hesitantly.

"It is the Temple of Basenis, my friend."

I was struck dumb. Never had I seen, never had I conceived of a city of such immensity. Later, having taken the opportunity to survey the limits of the Barren Plain, I determined that Basenis Basor covered no less than four hundred square miles. Four hundred square miles of built and paved land, with never a tree, never a weed, never an open spot save the plaza surrounding the Temple of Basenis in the center of the city.

It had been a busy month. Once given Asha and Mukden's word, the Masters of Bandeku lost no time. Runners were sent to the villages to the south, to counter Nabili's lies and prepare for our arrival; other runners were sent east and west to the villages in those regions. The Bandekuns did not intend to march on the Holy City with a few dozen men; they intended a general rising. If the curse of Basenis could be removed from their lives, the Keepers would not be allowed to interfere. The combined forces would sweep them away, and the wizards would be allowed to work their magic in peace. Philpott became rather concerned at the prospect of violence, as did I.

"They are going to slaughter the Keepers?" he burst out as Mukden explained the plan to us. "Leon, Thomas, we must not condone this. We must head North at once!"

This discussion took place several days after we had arrived in Bandeku; during that time we had not been allowed to leave the hostel for any reason. We were well-fed, and every care was taken, but we were denied all freedom of movement. In Tomar we had been welcomed as guests, and therefore the Tomarens had felt compelled to treat us warmly; the Masters of Bandeku had no such compunctions. We had not been welcomed into the city; we had not been presented to the Masters; and indeed I did not speak directly to them, then or ever. The Bandekuns were willing to use us for their own ends, but were unwilling to be too close should Basenis elect to take his much-delayed vengeance upon us. Thus, we were held at arms' length from the time we entered the hostel until--but I get ahead of myself. Of our party, only Asha and Mukden were privy to the planning meetings and strategy sessions; the rest of us languished in captivity, waiting impatiently for the next modicum of news.

"Go north!" Hodgins snorted. "Do you really think we would make it out of town?"

"Nevertheless," began Philpott, heatedly, "it is our duty as Anglishmen--"

"Be at peace, Thed," interrupted Asha. "There will be no slaughter. The Keepers are few; our force will be many. There will be no need for battle." And with that Philpott had to be content.

"For myself, I am much more concerned with what we shall do when we arrive in the Holy City," I declared with nasty look at Asha and Mukden. I was still angry with the pair of them for promising our aid to the Bandekuns, for the reader will recall that we had only promised to "take a look." The accused hung their heads slightly.

"It was necessary," said Asha. "We could not return to Tomar in disgrace."

"It wouldn't be so infernally distressing, my good woman, if we had the least idea of how to do it!" I fear my disgust and anger showed on my face, for she recoiled; but then Carbuncle spoke up cheerfully enough.

"Be at peace, Leon," he said. "Don't torment our friends unnecessarily."

I rounded on him with wild surmise.

"You've figured it out?"

"I have a solution in mind, yes. It's terribly inelegant, not at all the sort of work I would wish to be remembered for, but I believe it will serve." To do him credit, Carbuncle didn't appear the slightest bit smug or self-satisfied.

We waited.

"Well?" I said.

"Yes," said Philpott, "What is it, Thomas?" We all looked at him in expectation. I felt butterflies of relief roaming the insides of my abdomen.

"I'd rather not say, until I've seen the beastie itself. There may be some factor I'm neglecting to consider."

"Thomas!" I glared at him in mute appeal.

"Sorry, old fellow. And anyway, if I told you our Bandekun hosts might find out, and then they might decide they no longer need us. I won't give over my chance at the only phantasm in the whole bloody land just to satisfy your curiousity." And with that I had to be content, though it galled me. Nevertheless, I was comforted to know that Carbuncle had a plan. It was clear that we must offend either the Foreign Office in Angland by meddling with Zymurgian politics, or our Zymurgian hosts by failing to do so; in the event the Zymurgians were much closer.

Over the next several days we had little to do but sit at the upstairs windows of the hostel and watch troops of Zymurgians arrive from the neighboring towns. Mukden and Asha were with us for most of that time; now that the plans had been made, it was clear that Bandeku was in charge, and had little use for the Masters of Tomar. They were called upon only when the Bandekuns had questions to ask us, for they would not talk to us directly.

We left Bandeku on the 7th of Sobriquet. It was a comical sight; several hundred Zymurgians marched south, followed after an interval by our little troop, all mounted on our donkeys, followed after another interval by several hundred more Zymurgians. This was the pattern all of the way to the Holy City. They would not let us ride in front, though it was a nuisance to keep reining in the donkeys, for fear of losing us; they would not let us ride in the rear, for fear of us leaving; even on the road they did not wish to be too close to us. And so we journeyed along, an army ahead of us, an army behind us, and ourselves in the middle. I will say this, they gave us the best accommodations at night, for we camped at the waystations as we had on the way to Bandeku, while the armies bivouaced by the side of the road.

We passed through two more towns on our way south, Lisera and Basenilat; at each we were bustled into the hostel, bag and baggage, and left to stew for a day or so as the Bandekuns wrangled with the local masters. Our wants were attended to, scrupulously; our wishes were just as scrupulously ignored. In the morning would come the rap on the hostel door, and off we would go again, so much human cargo. After each stop the columns of troops stretched farther before us and behind; by the time we reached the Barren Plain on the 22nd, we were travelling with not less than three-thousand Zymurgians. As it was thought that there were not more than five or six hundred Keepers, Asha's projection of a bloodless takeover seemed ever more likely.

The city did not occupy the entire plain; there was a narrow band a few hundred yards in width between the base of the hills and the first buildings. We rode the last stretch of dirt road in silence, awe struck; as we crossed the invisible line separating city from plain we felt paving beneath the hooves of our donkeys, and I bent over to see. The road was quite overlain with dust and grime, but beneath I could see the regular pattern of bricks.

Basenis Basor being the size it was, there was clearly no question of marching on the Temple of Basenis before morning. Messengers went down the line of troops assigning us nearby buildings to camp in. Yes, to camp in. I have called Basenis Basor a city; but it was a city of ghosts. It was no thriving metropolis; the largest part of it was deserted, dirty, and unkempt. The brick structures had weathered as little as the temple near Tomar, but all was overlain with a thick layer of dust. I felt a chill as I considered the vanished millions who must have once lived, worked, and played in this place.

The building to which we were assigned was some slight distance into the city, perhaps a quarter of a mile or so from the main boulevard. It was pleasant enough, under the dust; it was a low building of only one story, with a pilastered facade and a balustraded deck on the roof. Due to the dust inside, we left the interior to the donkeys and took the roof for ourselves, pitching camp just as we had so often in the open country. Rain water was available from a cistern, which was fortunate as all of the exits were guarded. The Bandekun masters, still firmly in control, were taking no chances with the foreign wizards.

There had been little to say around the camp fire in the preceding days; we had all gotten dull and tired from constant travel. How that was changed our first evening in the Holy City! None of us had gazed upon its majestic expanse unmoved, and conversation flourished. I speculated on the vanished peoples who had once thronged the city, and conjectured what it must have been like in rapturous detail.

"I'm sorry, Leon," interjected Philpott. "I fear you must be mistaken."

"I beg your pardon?" I said, politely enough.

"I don't believe this house has ever been lived in. I don't believe it was intended to be lived in. There is no kitchen, to begin with."

"He's right, Leon," said Carbuncle. "I'd expect to see an oven of some kind, or at least a fireplace."

"Perhaps they built a fire in the center of the floor," I said.

"There's no sign of it; I'd expect to see soot on the ceiling at the very least."

"Well, perhaps it was a shop of some kind, or a meeting place."

Philpott wagged his head a trifle. "I suppose it could be, Leon. But where is the furniture? If anyone had lived here, or kept a business here, I'd expect to see some sign of it. When a population shrinks, the survivors don't tend to take all of their ancestors' things with them; where would they put them?"

At this point Mukden came up to the fire; he had been discussing some small matter with the Bandekun masters. We put the question to him.

"Thed is right," he said. "No one has ever lived here. The Keepers are given bricks by Great Basenis; they believe they must build with them. Once upon a time bricks were brought to Tomar and other places, and temples built, but the Keepers do not like to leave the Holy City. Even at their greatest extent, the Keepers have always lived in the quarters surrouding the Temple. Some few of these houses have been used as camps by travelers to Basenis Basor, as we are doing; most have been undisturbed since the day the Keepers finished constructing them."

"How fast is the city expanding?" asked Carbuncle.

"It reached its present size long ago. Basenis brings forth many fewer bricks now than in past times; the Keepers use them to expand and enlarge the temple and the buildings near it. Some of them have walls many feet thick by now."

So I was reluctantly compelled to abandon my vision of a city of ghosts, for it was less lively even than that. A necropolis is at least filled with the once-living; Basenis Basor was a city of the never-born. I shuddered despite the warmth of the fire, watching the firelight flicker on the facades of the buildings around us, buildings alive for the first time with human touch, and human voice, and human warmth.