Sullivan, Michael J. - The First Empire 02 - Age of Swords by Sullivan Michael J

Author:Sullivan, Michael J
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2017-07-25T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Neith

Looking back on it, I am glad I was young. The young have no real understanding of peril.

—THE BOOK OF BRIN

The city of Neith had to be seen, and even then, Persephone couldn’t believe her eyes. If at some future time she were asked what it was like seeing the twin towers of the Esbol Berg gate, she imagined she would say they were huge—no, bigger than huge—bigger than the biggest thing anyone could imagine and then triple that. Even then, the enormity wouldn’t be enough. Caric, the port city that was so large it seemed to be more a home for giants than for dwarfs, was, in comparison, a tiny, humble fishing village. Neith was a home for gods, and not the man-sized Fhrey sort. This was a home for the gargantuan ones, the sun, the moon, the North, South, and West winds—but not the East Wind. The East Wind just wasn’t large enough.

The trip up the road to the gate took less than an hour, but uphill as it was, it felt longer. Not that Persephone was rushing, and no one else showed any signs of being in a hurry. For once, Arion walked at the front of the party. She moved no faster than before; everyone else just walked slower.

“You’ve done amazingly well at learning our language,” Persephone told the Miralyith after she jogged to catch up so they could walk together. “It took me years before I was capable of holding a real conversation in Fhrey, and here you’ve managed Rhunic in little more than a month.”

“Rhunic is not a…” She hesitated. “Not a difficult language. So much is similar. For example, lyn and land, and dahl and wall, and so many others are almost the same. Also helps that I spent more than a thousand years working with sounds.”

“A thousand?” Persephone said, then cringed. She was so stunned by the admission that the words slipped out. “I mean you don’t look…you don’t act…”

“Aren’t you sweet.” Arion smiled kindly. “I’m two thousand years and two hundred and twenty-five days to be exact.” She paused in thought. “No, twenty-four.”

Two thousand years!

“Is that old for a Fhrey?”

“It certainly isn’t young,” she said with a smile. “Some of us live into their third millennium, but not many.”

“You look so young.”

“It’s the hair,” Arion said, looking up as if she could see what wasn’t there. “If I grew any, it would be white.”

“Why don’t you grow some? Nyphron and the other Fhrey have hair.”

“Tangles and knots interfere with both the actuation of power and the manipulation of the Art. Even our clothes…what we call asicas…only drape. There are no ties or…” She looked perplexed. “What is the word for ‘button’?” she asked in Fhrey.

Persephone stared back at her. “What’s a button?”

Arion opened her mouth to speak then closed it. “It’s a device for holding material closed, very useful for non-Miralyith.” She smiled.

“Might want to introduce them to Roan,” Persephone said. “She recently invented the pocket, you know.”

“What’s a pocket?”

Persephone opened her mouth to explain then shook her head.

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