Void by Garon Whited

Void by Garon Whited

Author:Garon Whited [Whited, Garon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy
Published: 2018-05-30T22:00:00+00:00


The canals running north along the eastern border of the Eastrange—I need to get someone to re-name the mountains. Just because the old kingdom stopped at them, they named them “Eastrange.” Looking westward at them, it’s a silly name.

Sorry. So, we headed up the central divider between the canals on our way to Plainsport, and on north even more to the tunnel through to Stadius.

Yes, we could have taken a gate. It would have been much quicker. But Bronze loves to run.

And so we did. Aside from a brief break for quasi-human biology—a daytime hazard—Bronze ran from Karvalen to the Stadius tunnel like an express bullet train. She loved it, every chiming hoofbeat of it. And, if I’m honest, so did I.

The tunnel was a bit more problematic. It was easily large enough, of course, since it had a single canal and a wagon-sized road on either side, but it didn’t have a Bronze-only lane. We slowed to something resembling suburban speeds while I cast a couple of light spells, mostly to warn people we were coming. Bronze stuck to the outside lane and was very careful not to step on anyone.

Stadius, much like Karvalen, is a mountain city. Which is to say it’s built out of mountain. However, where Karvalen is a city surrounding a peak, Stadius is almost the reverse. Start with a valley between three peaks. Squeeze the mountains a bit to make the valley more of a closed-in, extremely deep hole, roughly cone-shaped. Now hollow out the walls for places to live and work. Build terraces and steps into the surface. Level out the bottom of the hole to make a space for open-air arenas for the games. Up over the rim of the city, lay down a road to the west, for those who would venture to and from the more populated regions of the kingdom. Have tunnels into the mountains for those creatures of the Duchy of Vathula who savor violence. Oh, and add a tunnel with a center canal for convenient traffic to and from the city of Karvalen and the People of the Plains.

There. A city of stone, like a circular maw in the earth, with blood running red in the hungry gutters.

Well… metaphorically. Arriving in Stadius, I saw no gutters of blood. The streets, both aboveground and below, were clean and wide. The air was fresh, bearing only the usual odors of a city, most of which are best left to the imagination. Winter’s chill was everywhere, but broke belowground to a tolerable coolness. I saw no evidence of rampant bloodshed. Indeed, I noted a surprising level of civility and order among the population.

It says something when a frail old woman can sit behind a counter and sell meat to a heavily-armed orku three times her size and haggle over the price. I’m sure he got away with a good deal, possibly even a fair one, but the usual method of haggling for orku is to take whatever they want, with an option to kill the other person for fun or food.



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