Across a Sea of Stars by Michael E Gonzales

Author:Michael E Gonzales [Gonzales, Michael E]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fire Star Press
Published: 2018-01-29T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

Capek's Decision

Shortly after midday, they stopped and ate from the loaf of beteko og and sipped the elixir. Cris made note that more than half the bread was gone, and now there were three to feed.

The woods were slowly becoming more dense as they proceeded. Interestingly, there were a vast array of animal sounds now to be heard, and the air was fresh and scented with a smell that Cris could only describe as "green."

The landscape was interesting: low, moss-covered hills, many with landfalls that produced cliffs, which exposed the rich soil into which the forest grew. The trees became huge again, their trunks thick and their tops towering into the sky. Now and then, they passed the ruins of some stone edifices. Crumbled towers, toppled walls, and moss-covered ramparts, the forest was in the process of reclaiming all of it.

In the afternoon, the four travelers crested a hill and light could be seen ahead through the trees. After topping another hill, they stood on the forest's edge. There, only a few kilometers away, stood the great city of Emer Alda.

As they stood there taking it all in, Cris was quick to see that he was standing on the lip of a huge and ancient impact crater, nineteen to twenty kilometers in diameter. The city had been constructed on and around the raised central peak of this crater.

The forest had spilled down over the edge of the crater and now filled two-thirds of the crater floor. Off to their far left, a huge waterfall plummeted almost five hundred meters into the crater, where it formed a large lake, the water then vanished into the mouth of a mammoth cave.

The city itself looked to have been built in layers, like a wedding cake. Each layer was supported from below by massive columns that were, themselves, buildings. The city was three layers tall. Each layer had its own unique architecture, the bottom, being the oldest, seemed to consist of a vast number of low, flat-roofed buildings and occasional spires. The next possessed several domes as well as spires and towers. The top layer was adorned with glass towers and skyscrapers.

Radiating out from the city, like the spokes of a wheel, were four great causeways. Each was elevated several meters off the ground and consisted of a set of glass tubes that stretched from the city to a structure at the base of the crater wall. The top of each set of tubes was surmounted by a magnificent and ornate bridge. On this bridge, people could be seen walking, whereas the tubes seemed to carry some sort of conveyance.

Observing the path of the causeway nearest them, they determined the way down was to their right. They followed the lip of the crater for a few hundred meters and soon saw their destination ahead. A domed building about fifteen meters square lay before them right on the crater's rim. It looked to be made of marble, and was decorated with Greek-style columns.

From the

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.