De-me-Halmur’s wide black eyes flickered. “A most interesting and entertaining story, de-Panltatol, but all such tales of demon cities are entertaining. I hope you are a better trader than you are a storyteller.” Polite laughter rose from the other members of the Zanur.
“Is that what you broke into our conference to tell us?” snapped another Zanural angrily. “If you can do no better than that, I promise you your age will not save you.”
“There is only one thing I can add to what I have told you,” the exhausted trader admitted. “For it I have ruined my mind and myself, so there is little for you to threaten me with. My triumph will be short-lived and I will not buy the seat on the Zanur that I longed for.” A few insulted murmurs arose among the Zanural, loudest from those whose fortunes were smallest.
“So I will leave my tale to you, together with that one other thing, and let you judge, Zanural of the city, if I might have been thought equal in wealth to sit among you.” He turned and blew on a small bone whistle that hung from a cord around his neck.
A dozen laborers entered in two columns of six. Between them they held ropes attached to a low dolly. Laughter gave way to curiosity and confusion among the members of the Zanur. The dolly had six axles and fat rubbery wheels made from the treated sap of the acer tree.
From his place at the head of the long council table de-me-Halmur saw the pile of fine gray Salp pelts piled high on the dolly. They were valuable but not exceptionally so. Certainly they weren’t heavy enough to require the use of a six-axle and twelve strong Mai to pull the load. He could see the way muscles strained against something massive but concealed. He stood slightly, unconscious of the movement, to have a better view.
The laborers halted and moved aside. With the aid of his servants Panltatol staggered to the dolly. Disdaining help, he reached out and shakily pulled the skins onto the floor. They’d been sewn together and came off as one.
There was something else on the dolly, as de-me-Halmur suspected, but the sight of it struck him speechless—a single metal bar reposed on the wooden platform. It was twisted and bent by some unknown force and was as thick as a large Mai’s body. But that observation passed quickly. The Zanural were interested in its composition far more than its shape.
It had not been polished and it displayed long gashes and much pitting, evidence of exposure to powerful chemicals or energies. Its color was familiar.
“I did not actually enter the place of the dead.” Panltatol’s voice was weakening. “I was near, very near, when weather so terrible it cannot be imagined except in dreams finally forced me to retreat. This relic I found on the banks of the Skar, where the river had carried it. This alone I was able to bring back with me. Zanural of Po Rabi, this is my legacy.”
Forgetting their dignity, abjuring protocol, they left their seats to examine the massive metal bar. Sensitive six-fingered hands caressed the smooth gray substance. The dull silvery sheen was a property of the metal itself.
It looked like sunit. It had the color of sunit. It felt like sunit. When three of the Zanural from northern Po Rabi tried to lift it and could not, they were positive it was sunit.
De-Changrit, who on the Zanur was second in power only to de-me-Halmur himself, removed a small ingot from the money belt that circled his waist. It was a serl, the largest denomination coined by any of the great city-states that lined the shores of the Groalamasan Ocean, newly minted in powerful Chienba. He placed it in one of the gouges cut in the flank of the bar and tried to calculate the worth of the twisted mass in his head. He was a superb businessman and his estimate was very near the mark.
“Several million,” he announced aloud. “At least.” Having already made their own calculations, several of his associates nodded by way of confirmation.
De-Panltatol abruptly sat down on the edge of the dolly, leaning back against the bar for support. He ran one hand gently across the cold metal, lovingly, as if it were a woman reclining in his hammock. There was not a Mai among the Zanur who did not feel the same love for that bar. It represented a great and compact fortune.
When the murmurs and excited conversations began to die down it was Changrit who asked the question uppermost in all minds. “Is there more?”
His tone was respectful now, no longer sarcastic or accusing. Thus vindicated, Panltatol seemed to draw strength from some unknown source. They were no longer laughing at him.
“Honored sirs, I do not know. I found only this one piece, washed up on a rocky and wild shore. But the rumors that drove me to the top of the world always spoke of more in the City of the Dead.”
Many signs were made by the Zanural, for they were as intensely superstitious as the common folk. Daily their lives were punctuated by the performance of rituals designed to ward off unfriendly deities and spirits, which all Mai knew ruled the affairs of each individual from birth to death. At the rear of the chamber a wide-eyed servant hastily dumped more incense in the ritual burner, in case the spirits in attendance that day were possessed of particularly large noses. The air of the chamber was immediately suffused with sweet fragrance.
“No actual City of the Dead exists,” one of the Zanural ventured hesitantly. “It is not a real place.”
De-me-Halmur used his hands eloquently. “No such solid piece of sunit as this exists, yet it sits there before us.”
“More,” Panltatol mumbled. “More in the City of the Dead.”
“How much more?” asked Changrit with becoming avariciousness.
“They say … the rumors say … that the city itself is built of sunit.” Dead silence greeted his declaration, appropriately. “I am sorry I did not go farther.” A thin smile appeared on his withered face. His right arm lay like brown cloth against the cold metal. “I am so tired, honored ones. I must rest a while.”
“Wait!” Changrit rushed forward. With his own arms he supported the oldster, a sign of the esteem in which Panltatol was suddenly held. “How do we find the City of the Dead? How could one retrace your travels?”
“Why, don’t you know?” Panltatol whispered. “There is no City of the Dead. The journey cannot be made. But I made it. I, Bril de-Panltatol, went where it is impossible to go. But you can’t follow, none of you.” He said it with vehemence as he unexpectedly sat up without aid. “You can’t follow because only an insane one could make such a journey. I am mad, you see, and you are not.” A sudden thought made him blink with confusion.
“Very tired.” He leaned back against Changrit again and closed his eyes. They would not open again.
Changrit gently lowered the thin body. “A true Mai. He sacrificed everything in hopes of improving his fortune. I honor him.”
“We all honor him,” de-me-Halmur said, “as we will honor his memory.”
“What of the sunit?” Lust was apparent in the voice of the Zanural who voiced the common thought. All eyes were on the bar.
“You know the law,” de-me-Halmur said sternly, if a trifle reluctantly. “I covet it as much as any of you, but it goes to his family and employees.” He made a protective sign in case certain spirits were listening. “The law is clear.”
Zanural de-Peyetmy was almost in tears. “Couldn’t we bend the law just a little?”
“I am sworn to uphold it, and I will do so. Those who would bend the law ultimately find themselves strangled by it.” Murmurs of assent sounded from around the table.
“Of course,” de-me-Halmur went on, “there is the matter of a death tax.” A few smiles appeared. “Also the fact that de-Panltatol undertook this journey without proper authorization, and we still must deal with the matter of his rude intrusion into the Zanur Chamber.” He studied the bar. “I would say that perhaps half should go into the city treasury.”
“That still leaves a nice fortune.” Changrit had retaken his seat on de-me-Halmur’s left. “No family could be disappointed to receive such an inheritance. Now that the law has been dealt with, how are we to deal with this remarkable story?”
“A great journey,” one of the other Zanural announced portentously. “One to be enshrined in memory and song. I myself will commission a song cycle to commemorate it.”
“A thoughtful gesture,” de-me-Halmur agreed, thankful for the Zanural’s support. His proposal meant that de-me-Halmur would not have to pay for the requisite memorial. Other Zanural cursed themselves for not thinking to make the clever political move.
“Now who shall volunteer to help equip a new expedition to journey to the top of the world in search of this rumored City of the Dead?”
Suddenly every member of the council sought to shrink in his seat. One, bolder than the rest, said sharply, “I would not venture more than a thousand legats Upriver for all the sunit on Tslamaina.”
“Nor would I,” de-me-Halmur agreed. “De-Panltatol was quite right. None of us is mad. The very idea of setting foot on the Guntali Plateau is a concept only a disturbed mind could conceive. To attempt to retrace his wild path would be impossible.” He gestured toward the bar and the body lying next to it. “We must be satisfied with this.”
