ashnistrike: (Default)
ashnistrike ([personal profile] ashnistrike) wrote2006-01-25 03:53 am

My Imaginary City

"I swallowed, forcing my ears to adjust to the difference in air pressure between the factory and Rith Sa-Jidath. Etrujki gazed around. I felt his mind, for once open to something larger than its usual petty focuses, and grinned myself. The port city was quite a sight.

Terraced foothills spread out around the valley. We were halfway up Mount Abelon. Homes carved into the hillside rose above us and fell below us. Between these older dwellings, less a part of the land, homes in the styles of a hundred worlds were strewn like children’s toys. Many were of the pink granite that our neighbors to the south quarried; others were of imported brick or marble. And in the valley itself, between the hills, fluttered the bright banners of the market. Closer up, I knew, one could see the shops and stalls that carried those banners, even more of a hodgepodge than the houses we now stood among. Carts rolled past us, a passenger gondola sailed downward along its guide-lines, and people strolled or sat casually at the edges of the terraces. Some were Willworkers, like myself and Bladestone. Some were aliens like Etrujki. All were dressed richly: others who, wherever they were from, had done well by our taking them into the Pattern."

I've always known that Rith Sa-Jidath was somewhere in the Path's alternate version of China. Now, thanks to a link from Making Light, I know exactly where it is.

Huh. The river would give it some on-world port capacity even after the interdimensional teleporters go kaput. That wasn't my original intention, but I don't think it's actually a problem.

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