Chapter 2Housing is difficult in Chiirÿtët for a lonely man like me. The city is full of houses, wonderful gold domed palaces, manors in large shady gardens, and small huts on the outskirts of the town. All houses -like everything- is owned by the Blue Women. Everything belongs to the Women here. I didn’t dare to ask why this was so, maybe it has to do with heritage and such...To sleep in the house, you have to be nice to the woman-owner and do something for them, you have to work for a roof over your head. And if you don’t find a woman who trusts you, you can sleep on the streets. Luckily, I soon found a woman who needed someone to look after her children while she went to the Panorama. I was very curious what this Panorama was about, but I said nothing and guarded the children who slept all the time anyway. After the woman got home, I could sleep in a large, warm bed in the attic, under the filtered light of Lukarna. Yes I do feel lonely in this place. My knowledge of the language is not enough to communicate in everyday life. I am a quick learner, but the people here think I am stupid because I do not understand everything. It is all right for them to think I am stupid, I prefer that to being thrown out of the country - or worse. I learned the place where the market is - where I spent so many summers- on the border more or less, is called Diwán, and Chiirÿtët is the capital of Myrëns. There are more cities in this land, but not so many as in Daleth. The land is not as big as Daleth, too, and most of it is rough mountain anyway. Now I see this country, I am a bit disappointed. I cannot explain how, but it is not what I expected - I never expected to be in the Hidden Countries after all, and now I am here, and my life didn’t change radically. I never stop gazing and amazing, the place will never turn normal to me, but then, I get tired of gazing and when I am alone in my bedroom I wonder what I’m doing here. When I return to Daleth, my friends, my family, yes, maybe everyone will be gathering around me in one or other luxury salon and hear the stories I have to tell about the Dernian Landis. But right now, I will have to collect the material for those stories. I walked to the harbour in the late afternoon and sat there for a while. I watched over the bay and the sea beyond, still pretending not to see too much. They do have lenses here, so they must see a lot more than I do with my own eyes. And they have this amazing light tower. The light shines right over the edge of the world, I presume. And I sat there, looking to the edge of the world, and wondered what may lay beyond. The Blue Men wouldn’t know, they don’t sail the sea that far, they just go up and down the shore to the other harbours, trade a little, and then go back home. It is just like they do with Daleth, they know it is there, but they don’t bother visiting it without any reason more than curiosity. I am a curiosist, I want to go everywhere, I will never have peace in my mind, nor in my body. I will walk and travel out of curiosity, and sail the sea, and if I could, I would like to visit Lukarna as well. So I left the harbour and set off for a long stroll to tie down my curiosity for a while. Chiirÿtët is a big city. It takes a stonde to go from one edge to the other, and that is mainly because of the strange curved streets. It is hard to get some orientation, with all the roofs above one quickly looses any sense of direction. I walked from the harbour to the Palaces, and I walked through many different city parts. The harbour was very busy with traders, sailors, mongers of all kinds of goods, some prostitutes of unknown origins. The houses were small, but up to five stocks, and the streets were small, so it was like walking through a shady canyon. And I thought I saw eyes everywhere, as if it were a trap for a curiosist. The smell of rotting fish and the heavy smell of the salty waters was everywhere, but was overwhelmed by the stink of the city itself, under the golden domes the garbage was everywhere, at least in the harbour quarters. Then I entered the quarters of the traders, the moneyhavers, the shops and markets. It was almost like home, or rather the market on the border, Diwán. I wanted to trade but had nothing to sell, nor money to buy anything. In the narrow streets, which have roofs over them, the market stalls are row after row, and it is full of men and women. Children go everywhere, playing their games among the adults, screaming and laughing and playing with the goods for sale. Then I found a woman who had bought too much stuff. I helped her bring her things to her house, as she had asked me to do. It was a gentle woman, and she was very kind to me. She asked where I stayed and invited me over. She gave me a meal and three silver coins. Then I thanked her, and left. I wondered how much I could buy for the coins I was given. Was it much? Was it nothing? I pondered about this for a while, and doing so, I left that part of the city. I was on the side of a big square. It was empty in the middle, save for some trees. On the sides, arcades were built, so everyone could go to another side in the shade. Next to me, I saw the entrance of a Panorama. I saw someone enter, the entrance fee was only a small copper piece. Curiosity nearly killed me, so I went in too, to see what the Panorama of Dernian Landis would show me. After all, it is said the Panorama is a Dernian Landian invention, so I couldn’t wait to see what would happen inside. The Panorama was very disappointing in the first place. I entered the round room with about ten more people. The walls were all blue, like the sky. When the doors closed, the room was filled with smoke and steam, and a kind of mist. It cooled down quick enough for me to shudder in my summer clothes. Light shades changed almost unnoticed, and the music was like the howling of the wind. I couldn’t see a thing because of all the smoke. From behind me, or above me - the echoes made it difficult to tell any direction- a voice grew louder and told a story in the tongue of Myrëns. At first, it was so soft I couldn’t make out the words, but soon I started to understand words and sentences. This was the story told: Once upon a time, in a place far, far away from Airtha, a people lived in a planet shrouded in clouds. The sunlight was dimmed, the shades flowed into the night, and back, and the mist twisted its way through the cities. The damp air hung in the streets and muted the sounds of the city. The people surrounding me smiled, as if they could remember those happy times. Or maybe it was a dream they all had, a dream of a world to go back to, a dream only lived in the peace of their sleep maybe. The soft smell of flowers floated through the smoke, a sweet scent of an unknown perfume sent the mind elsewhere - to happier places and a happier day. Then, the world changed. Large holes came into the earth, as had pieces of the world just disappeared. Soon after, the first persons got missing, and it was assumed they had disappeared as well. Not one of them was ever found again. It was unknown what had made the holes, what had made the men, women and children disappear. It was said it was unsafe to go out at night, it was unsafe to go out alone, but people kept disappearing and terror swallowed the country like a strangler holding a throat. Now the audience held its breath. The colours grew dark, and the music got louder. The sound of thunder seemed to be coming closer. It was as if I felt one heart beating quite close to me, one heart filled with fear. The Door was discovered. This artifact of unearthly nature was discovered on the planet, and it was rather invisible in the clouds. It moved slowly, very slowly, but quick enough to get hold on a passer by. Any one coming close to the Door was sucked through the Portal, and disappeared. Some actually came back, but had turned mad in the few stondes they had left the cloudy world. But, as the sad story continued and the audience went silent, very silent, except for some sobbing, I learned about the fate of these blue people. The whole army -over two thousand men and women- was sucked into the Door, with the generals, the scientists, every curious follower. The whole army was sucked through and found itself back on a strange planet, were a sun shone so bright many men died immediately. After the final words, the Panorama went dark. We left the round room and went on the street. I wandered through the streets, and had many things to think about. The mill of my imagination turned heavily with all the thoughts, and nearly came to a halt when it got to much for me. How would I feel if I was stuck here and there was no way to get back to Daleth? I don’t know. I can manage living here, but I will never be at home. I walked to a wonderful park, covered by a fantastic roof of nearly clear glass, with a thin layer of gold on it. Plants grew wild in the humid air, their large leafs shading the narrow paths. I sat down on a bench and stared into an artificial pool and waterfall. I didn’t really notice the things around me, but sat and thought about my adventures so far, in relation to the big, but sad adventures of the Blue Folk... I am not sure if it was just a tale or real history. It could be history, a myth from ancient times, when the Blue Men came to Airtha. The thought is strange, to live with these people who don’t belong to this world, to live with people who can be killed by the very nature of this planet. Oh yes, I know. If only I had known, I wouldn’t be a murderer. How strange is the life of this race, how scarred are they, the whole of their lives? They hardly see a thing of this world, and they tried so hard to make the best of it. And they survived here, in Dernian Landis, with all their technics and things. Do they want to go back to where they came from? If they could, that is... But I don’t dare to ask that question to anyone. |