"Hurry, let a house be built.
Hurry, let a palace be erected!
Hurry, let a house be built.
Hurry, let a palace be erected
In the midst of the heights of Zaphon!
A thousand acres the house is to comprise,
A myriad hectares, the palace!"
- The Epic of Baal

Chapter I

Yushamin looked back at his people, weary and tired from their long journey. Almost half a season passed since the Yan nation attacked their home, forcing his people - the Uthra, to flee to the west in search of sanctuary. Yushamin had many worries, after all, he did not know whether his people would be able to find a new land that they could take for themselves, or whether they would be forced to forever continue to flee, as people in eternal exile. To make matters even worse, it was highly likely that the nations of the west were just as vicious as the Yan, which will lead to them being pursued by both sides, as a nation without a future, as people destined to die.

And they could not fight back. Most of those who followed him had the gray wings that indicated a moderate amount of mystic power or even the black wings of the powerless. Their golden skin had lost its sheen, and the light in their eyes and hair had dimmed. While they were still physically impressive - with men standing at four cubits five fingers and females at three cubits twenty fingers, making even the shortest of them tower over the Yan, malnutrition rendered most of the difference irrelevant. If it came to battle, the Yan, with their superior equipment, would surely defeat his people - so fleeing away was the only option, regardless of how much it hurt his pride to flee while the other nobles fought.

And Yushamin was definitely a noble, despite his unknown parentage. In a species that bred selectively for generations in order to produce the white feathers that indicated great mystic power, Yushamin's wings, which glowed in incandescent light, made him the closest thing the Uthra had to royalty. No one knew where Yushamin came from, as he was found as a baby thirty-three years ago, the snow around him melting from his body heat, heat that only grew the longer he lived, and now ensured he could never sit on wooden furniture lest he charred it. All attempts to ascertain the source of his power failed, though they determined him to be something other than a mortal, and most probably not one of the demigods either.

The nine surviving noble houses of the Uthra fought each other in an attempt to receive custody over him, which eventually resulted in the decision to elevate the house of orphans, Agû, which formerly only consisted of lowborns. Each noble house got to pick who would fill some of the positions concerned with Yushamin's rearing, with the intent of influencing him to pick his eventual bride from their house and breed the power into their bloodline. But the attack of the Yan had ruined those plans, and Yushamin was sent to lead the commoners to safety together with his lover, a noblewoman named Ptahil, and his teacher, the elderly Abatur, while the rest of the nobles delayed the attacking armies with a desperate last stand.

Aside from him, Abatur and Ptahil were the only white-winged Uthra among the refugees. From the noble houses of Išdu and Ţēmu respectively, the two joined him in his journey and helped him lead their people during their flight. Ptahil joined him willingly in order to ensure there would be a new generation of nobles to lead the Uthra, but Abatur was forced to join the flight against his will. Nearing the age of one hundred and seventy, the old male lived more than twice the average lifespan of the uthra, and was incredibly old even for the long lived nobility of the Uthra. And yet, Abatur desired to protect their lands, and had to be bound for much of the journey lest he escape.

---

Before the Yan invaded, the Uthra lived in a small kingdom on the top of a mountain, and minded their own business without a care for the world beneath. Their land was frozen and poor in vegetation, a far cry from the fertile fields beneath, but the magic of the Uthra was uniquely suited for their barren homeland. Their power was able to grace the land with the warmth of the sun, and though it required close care, since a few hours of neglect could ruin a season's worth of crops, it permitted them to farm in a place where no other could, and maintain their haven away from the eyes of the world, unburdened by the troubles of those who walked below the clouds.

But everything changed when the Yan nation attacked. The Uthra survived until now because their kingdom was hidden, and few desired to travel up the steep mountain that seemed as if it could not support life. And yet the Yan did so, and so they became, though not by their own design, the first outsiders to witness the Uthra in more than three decades. And the Yan, ever hungry for conquest, did not intend to leave the Uthra alone. To save their race, the highborn of the nine noble houses decided to face the Yan by themselves in a battle that they knew they'll lose, in order to buy time for Yushamin, Abatur and Ptahil to lead the lowborn into safety, and prepare for revenge.

But getting off the mountain was only the start of their journey, for it was surrounded by Yan forces. Yushamin managed to sear enough of them for the refugees to escape through, but the Yan gave chase, and only the light of the rising sun that blinded their fearsome archers allowed the Uthra to escape safely. But the army gave chase, and the weary Uthra had to continue fleeing both during the day and the night, forgoing sleep, in order to stay ahead of the Yan. By the time that the Uthra finally managed to get far enough that the army could no longer be seen on the horizon, they were thoroughly lost, far beyond any place known to the scholars that were among them.

Most of the early lands they passed through were quite mild, ranging from flat plains to hills and valleys. From time to time a small lake or patch of woods was seen, but for the most part, no special obstacles were in the way. That fact did not please Yushamin at all. In open terrain, the Yan's riders could follow them with ease, and their archers could shoot at them from afar. But the further they went into the southwest, the more they encountered forests and swamps that allowed them to evade their pursuers with greater ease, until they reached a point where Yushamin felt it was safe enough to assume that their pursuers had lost them, though he did not know that for sure.

Not long ago, the Uthra reached a jungle. It was perhaps the place most different from their homeland: it was hot and humid where the mountain was frozen and dry, supported many plants, from shrubs to trees, where the mountain was barren, and the ground was soft where the mountain was covered in hard rock. It served as a fine hiding place from the Yan and could probably support the Uthra well, but it was far from the environment in which they felt comfortable. The land was too full with the scents of growth and rot, the air too full of the noises of predators and prey, the waters too full with the evidence of love and war, for the Uthra to feel at ease.

---

In order to decide on their next move, Yushamin gathered a council to ask the will of the ten houses of the Uthra. House Agû of the orphans was represented by Yushamin himself, and Ţēmu of the artists and Išdu of the scholars were represented by the white-winged Ptahil and Abatur, respectively. From the houses that had no white-winged members remaining, Kitimtu of the diplomats was represented by Ariel, Ţābu of the priests by Selaphiel and Šukuttu of the healers by Raphael. Finally, the houses of Dannu of the warriors, Dūru of the guardians, Rabâtu of the merchants and Namzu of the laborers were represented by Azrael, Zagagel, Muriel and Sarathiel respectively. Together, the ten of them were to decide on the Uthra's next steps.

He gave the council three options: either they will continue on the same way, stay where they were currently, or change the direction in which they went. Though according to tradition he only needed to consult with Abatur and Ptahil, as they were the only white-winged Uthra beside him in their group, he hoped that nominating a representative for each house, as they would have had had they had white-winged members, would help the members of the different houses feel more at ease with the eventual choice. In order to do that, he gathered the palest winged members in each house in order to ask them for their opinions, which in turn led to the current (rather annoying, if one were to ask Yushamin) situation.

The ten representatives could not manage to reach a unified decision on what path to take. Abatur, who was still angry at being unable to join the nobles' last stand, as well as Azrael and Zagagel whose houses were known for their aggressiveness, wanted to stay in the current location. Sarathiel, who represented the largest house, as well as Ariel and Muriel, who came from the houses most prone to wandering, wanted to change direction in favor of a more hospitable route, while Ptahil, who had deep trust in Yushamin, as well as Salaphiel and Raphael who had trust in the heavens, wanted to continue traveling in their current direction out of the belief it was fate that led them to pick their current route.

Thus, once again the decision fell to Yushamin, and to make matters worse, now he will have to take into account how his support for the opinion of one house or another would be perceived. Would he support continuing on the same route as he planned to earlier and risk appearing unwilling to change course even when it was harmful? Would he choose a more hospitable path and risk alienating both of his advisors? Or will he choose to stay where they are and bow to the desires of those who were clearly spoiling for a fight? Yushamin started to regret ever asking the council in the first place - after all, what did it help him if he had to make the final choice anyway?

Eventually, Yushamin settled on continuing in the same path - after all, if they were unable to reach a decision, did it not make the most sense to continue on as they did before? What's more, staying in place would clearly be risky, and they had no assurance that a different path would lead to a better place. Thus, the most logical course of action would be to continue creating as much distance between them and the Yan as they could. Yushamin announced his decision to the gathered council, and commanded them to prepare their people for the continuation of their journey. He could only hope that his choice was the correct one, because at this rate they might fall off the edge of the world.

---

And that worry, originally thought of in jest, grew more and more serious as the days passed by. There was something weird ahead of them - not evil per se, but something that made his magic react in a way it never did before. As the wind above a large fire, so did Yushamin's power shimmer and ripple within him, dancing in the presence of... whatever it was. He assumed a great source of magic, but lacking any prior experience, he could not know for sure. Yushamin decided to consult with Abatur about the feeling, seeing as Ptahil would surely say it was destiny, and that given the sage's old age, he was the one most likely to have encountered such a thing before.

Abatur's advice was to send a scout to go forward and see what it could have been. Yushamin was a bit leery of that idea, seeing as the scout could not pinpoint the thing for sure seeing as Yushamin was the only one who could sense it. He was also quite displeased with the fact that it required them to sit and wait, potentially allowing the Yan to close distance to them. But seeing as he had no better advice, Yushamin decided to do as his teacher asked, and sent a scout - a young black-winged member of house Dannu - to go forward and report back to him on anything suspicious. At the very least, this will allow the people some rest Yushamin thought.

After a few days passed and the scout did not return, Yushamin started to suspect the black-winged man was dead. After a week passed, Yushamin started to consider sending a search party, debating the wisdom of doing so against the possibility that it would only cause more people to die. At the end, he resolved to send a group, reasoning that if something was strong enough to kill several Uthra, it might be able to kill even more, meaning that not sending a search party might result in all of the refugees dying. And it was only then that the scout had returned, short of breath and bearing a tale that Yushamin would not have believed if not for the way that his magic acted.

The scout had told Yushamin that he had traveled inside the jungle for six days before determining that he had either missed the thing that Yushamin wanted him to find, or went entirely in the wrong direction. He resolved to walk for one more day before giving up and returning back to the rest of the refugees and admitting his failure. But it was near the dusk of that day that he had reached a clearing. In the middle, there was a strange object he had never seen before. Carved like a thin but tall arch made from gold, adorned with gilded flowers but overtaken by living vines. Yet the arch led to a dark place, of which the scout could see only the floor.

Excited about the prospect of finally finding their safe haven, Yushamin called on the people to rise and prepare themselves for the journey once again, and promised them that a safe destination was finally found. He knew he would have to deal with the consequence of that promise later, for it was debatable if the houses would agree to his command to enter the strange arch. But he believed it would be best to let them make that choice when they saw the arch itself - to force them to make their choice about their salvation when their promised land laid only, quite literally, a step away from them - after all, it would be much easier to reject the idea when it was intangible to them.

---

The group progressed more slowly than the lone scout, since they had to wait for those who walked slowly, such as the children and the elderly. As a result, it was nearly three weeks before they reached the arch. The reaction of the Uthra themselves toward the arch varied greatly based on their house. The priests of house Ţābu reacted the most positively by a significant margin, most likely viewing it as divine guidance, just as they did with every other thing. Meanwhile, the scholars of house Išdu looked uncharacteristically hesitant, which was at odds with the thirst of knowledge they were known for. (Though Yushamin assumed it might be due to greater awareness of the risks entailed, a possibility that did not forebode well)

The house of Šukuttu seemed hopeful, yet wary - which was to be expected given the house of healers' practice of hoping for the best, but expecting the worst. House Ţēmu reacted timidly at first, but quickly became eager once Ptahil reminded the house of artists about the possibilities hidden in the unknown. The opposite reaction could be seen by the house of Dūru, renowned for the protectors and guardians it raised. Dūru knew no fear, and yet they despised the uncertain, leading them to pose themselves between the others of the portal. The house of Dannu, true to their reputation as Dūru's twins, readied themselves beside their siblings, posed to attack any enemy even as the guardians of house Dūru shielded the civilians.

The houses of Kitimtu, Namzu and Rabâtu (or the three sane houses, as Yushamin liked to call them, though he usually counted house Išdu among their numbers), seemed to be the most undecided. House Namzu's reaction did not surprise him, as the laborers earned their nickname partially due to being the largest and most diverse of houses, but both the diplomats of Kitimtu and the traders of Rabâtu thrived on meeting new people and seeing new lands. The orphans of house Agû looked resolved, fully trusting Yushamin as the one who brought what was once the house of the exiles and the kinless to power. Every member of Agû belonged to their house because no other will take them, and trusted none but each other.

Thus, when Yushamin gathered the council, he chose to focus on Ariel, the representative of house Kitimtu, Sarathiel, the representative of house Namzu and Muriel, the representative of house Rabâtu. He already had four votes in favor, as he voted for Agû, and the houses of Ţēmu, Ţābu and Šukuttu supported stepping through the arch as well, which meant Ptahil, Salaphiel and Raphael would vote in favor as well. But he already knew Abatur, Azrael and Zagagel would vote against, as the houses of Išdu, Dannu and Dūru did not trust the portal. He only needed two of the undecided houses to receive a majority, but he desired to have all three of the houses, so that he would not have to step in himself.

The time to vote came, and Yushamin started to count the votes: "Dūru Zagagel bar Tamiel?" "Against". "Namzu Sarathiel bar Adriel?" "For". "Ţābu Salaphiel beth Sabriel?" "For". "Šukuttu Raphael beth Jegudiel?" "For". "Ţēmu Ptahil beth Leliel?" "For". Thus concluded the votes certain to be in favor. "Rabâtu Muriel bar Sachiel?" This vote will determine whether he will have the full victory he wanted or not . "Against". So it seems I will have to pin my hopes on Ariel. "Dannu Azrael bar Azazel?" "Against". "Kitimtu Ariel beth Sariel?" "Against". So, it seems I have lost after all. "Išdu Abatur bar Radueriel?" "For"

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Chapter II

When the time to start moving the refugees through the arch finally came, Yushamin could barely contain his... He couldn't find the word for it. Not anticipation, but a word that deeper, that was anticipation, yes, but also longing and fate and the alignment of one's self with the music of the spheres... Ptahil touched his wings and he came back to reality with a shudder, realizing that he was lost in thought. "Should we head the way, My lord Yushamin?" His temper flared at the insult, but he calmed himself. Relax, the arch is disorienting you. "No", he said, "we must ensure everyone is safe first". And I need time in order to compose myself he added mentally.

It took a long time to let all the people pass through the arch. While it was a little more than three reeds wide, enough even for the long-winged Yushamin to pass through it with his wings spread wide, they had a great number of refugees. Out of the three hundred and thirty thousand citizens in their realm, only sixty-six thousand remained to protect their land from the Yan. Add that to the fifty-two thousand and eight hundred that died during their escape, and still two hundred and eleven thousand and two hundred refugees remained. To let all of them pass... It would take more than a seventh of the day. Yushamin found a nice rock to sit on and prepared to take a rest.

By the time the last refugee passed through and it was Yushamin's turn to cross himself, the sun had already set and the rock he sat on was cracked from the heat. Yushamin approached the arch and looked through. The other end was dark, and only dimly illuminated by the people on the other side. He stepped through, and was immediately disappointed. He expected to feel... something. He didn't know what exactly, a tingle? A burn? But instead, it felt like he just took a normal step, and not as if he entered some sorcerous place. On the bright side, his wings illuminated the place far more than any other did, and allowed him to see details about the room he was in.

The place was grand, that was without doubt. With floor made of a smooth white stone, inlaid with gold and gems, and with ceiling so high he could not see it. He could also see that it was long out of use, as all but the parts closest to the arch covered in a thick layer of dust. The arch itself was also different on this end, thick where the other side was thin, and made out of a black, slightly transparent, rock where the other was made from gold. The arch was also not free standing, but rather connected to a wall in the same manner as a door. Yushamin put his hand to the wall in order to orient himself, and started walking.

It soon became clear just how large the room was: it took nearly nine rods from the gate to the corner of the room, then nearly fourteen and a half to the next corner. Now I understand how all of our people managed to fit here thought Yushamin, this room alone can probably fit twenty thousand people inside it. Moving across the room had also allowed him to see what else was contained inside it. The answer was not much. Beside some supporting pillars - far too few for the size of the room - the room held little ornaments, and those it did
usually doubled as furniture, mainly chairs and the occasional washbasin, leaving the materials to speak for themselves.

---

Eventually, Yushamin found the door of the room. Like the arch through which they came, it was a massive thing, more than four cubits in width and forged out of what seemed like iron, etched with tales Yushamin could not recognize. He tried to push them open, but the doors refused to budge. He tried searching for a handle, but he found none. Charging them did not work either. Finally, he tried to blast them open with his magic, and his radiance flowed into the etching, lighting them with a pallid glow. A moment later, the doors smoothly glided and opened before him, as if by the hand of some unseen servant. Nervous but excited, Yushamin looked to see what laid beyond the large door.

It was a long corridor, with a metal floor - probably silver based on the color he thought to himself, though the shine was a bit wrong. Inside the floor were veins of some transparent gem, filled with swirling iridescent mists. Curiously, the corridor was devoid of people, despite the fact the room earlier could not contain all of the Uthra. Then again, someone would have told me if they managed to open the door before he thought to himself. But where are the rest of my people? He resolved to find later, but he had no way to know now, nor a direction to walk in but forward. And above all, he had that strange feeling again…

As he got closer to the side of the corridor, Yushamin saw the veins merged into a wide belt of the mysterious crystal, as if they were streams that merged into a river. He knelt and infused the belt with his power, hoping to use it to light the path ahead of him. The result was much greater than he expected - whereas he believed the magic will flow through the crystal, it instead filled it, causing it to shine with the brilliance of a small sun and flowed through the veins, lighting up a large stretch of many rods in length. What's more, the temperature went up noticeably, and a strange hum of power filled the air, as if he woke something up.

Yushamin used the opportunity to survey the area around him. The most prominent feature was the size of the place - the ceiling was more than nineteen feet tall, more than triple the height of the Kycenaen - and twice as wide. There was also a complementary crystal belt to the one he found on the other side of the room, which was also lit up with his power. Before him the corridor stretched so long it melted into darkness, and when he looked behind him, he saw his people followed him - though the room remained filled despite the fact many entered the corridor. Slowly, the light started to fade from the crystals, and the corridor was plunged into darkness, forcing Yushamin to power them once more.

And so they progressed, walking and lighting the corridor. The others helped Yushamin with their power, but the crystals seemed to react to him the most. Even so, by allowing all but the darkest-winged members to create lights bigger than Yushamin naturally could, the crystal proved itself to be a frighteningly powerful material, leaving Yushamin to wonder who could have been able to use it for floor. That being said, it seemed there was something more to the building as well - as he continued to supply power, the strange force was attracted to him, wrapping around him like a blanket in a cold night - first tentatively, but then eagerly. Yushamin started to wonder if it was possible that the building itself was a living creature.

---

Yushamin and his followers continued down the corridor for quite a while. From before them, there was no end in sight. And from behind them, the line of people stretched all the way back. Yushamin started to wonder whether the reason no Uthra before him needed to go out to the corridor in order to have enough space was that the room was enchanted. But then again, the whole place was weird in its dimensions. To include a room this large at the beginning without anything substantial in it, and then to create such a long corridor that leads from it without any doors in the middle... Whatever building he was in, it was gargantuan in size - too large to have been built by mortals.

But eventually, they reached the end of the corridors, reaching another room. Now that he knew how to light the large place, he could finally appreciate the majestic scale of the construction. Standing forty cubits in height and four hundreds in width and length, the room could probably house a small village inside itself - and a very ornate village at that. Unlike the one they first came to, this room was highly decorated - with gold and lapis, sculptures and tapestries. There was even a small lake made of stone inside it, and in its middle, water sprouted up from a strange sculpture, as if it rained upward. Overall, the feeling was very surreal, but Yushamin knew that it could serve as a protected living space.

But the questions kept piling inside of Yushamin's head. Regardless of how rich and powerful - or large, for that matter - the building's creators were, it made no sense that the rooms were filled with nothing. It was one thing to create a place that contained immeasurable wealth, quite another to do it and put nothing inside of it. It was as if the whole place was made for the Uthra to come and settle inside of it - which could of course not be. Rather, Yushamin felt as if it might be a trap - some fell illusion meant to capture them for inscrutable purposes. But illusion or not, this place would make for a good home - we just need to defeat the trap's creators.

And in order to find them, Yushamin had to reach the trap's end. Thus, he left the room and continued forth. The next corridor was, quite literally, a work of art. Its walls were painted with scenes from the war of the gods, and the floor depicted what seemed to be lost tales from the time before the deluge. This helped Yushamin put a rough boundary on when the place was created, but also piqued his curiosity - when the world burnt and drowned, who was it that took the time to create this place? Was it a fortress during the war? And if so, for what side? And who, for Kirinna's sake, maintained the building from then and until the Uthra came to this place.

They passed through many rooms and corridors, each more wondrous than the last. From rooms that were built out of a single slab of stone, through rooms that had crystals growing from the floor like mushrooms and up to one that had inside it a small forest of woods sculpted from gold and silver. The corridors varied as well, from stairways where every stair let out a note of music while stepped on, to shining white hallways that split like spider webs, leading to myriad other places. It was one of those that led Yushamin to where he stood currently: a door of unimaginable size, made out of what seemed like gold and covered in runes that shone with power as they slowly swung open.

---

The thing that laid beyond the doors was... Darkness. Surely a room, yes, but one so big its end could not be seen from where they stood, even with the light of the crystals. But whatever it was, the room felt big - the air was too fresh for the end of the room to be just beyond their sight, and the curvature of the wall suggested it was truly gargantuan in size - perhaps even more than a cable long. A place of this scale Yushamin thought to himself We might be able to build a whole city here. A dark city that receives no sunlight, yes - but a city nonetheless. But before that, Yushamin had to investigate the place.

A few moments later, after he walked further in, Yushamin began to laugh. It turned out he was not the only one to have thought of making a city in the darkness, no - the place was filled with stone structures, as if by a sick god's prank. If I go inside, will I find even smaller buildings? How far does that go? he laughed to himself. Sure, he planned to do a similar thing himself, but there was a vast difference between putting tents in order to grant people privacy, and building a room inside a building to make room for buildings that have rooms - the very words exposed the ridiculousness of the situation! Oh, the wonders that this world holds!

And speaking of wonders, the buildings were a miracle unto themselves. Even old and forgotten (though all rooms but the first seemed to lack the dust and cobwebs he would have expected of such a place), it was clearly a place that included treasures beyond comparison. Old rugs and tapestries that were likely worth more than Yushamin could comprehend, windows sealed with some strange crystal - reminiscent of glass, but too clear to be made by mortal hands - everything clearly radiated wealth and knowledge in a way that was probably not seen since antediluvian times. What's more, the place clearly had magic imbued into it - though Yushamin haad to use his own power to fuel them, many objects responded to him as if they were sentient.

At his command, doors opened and closed without the need for a mortal hand. With a simple flourish, tabuns and cauldrons heated themselves - though to his sorrow, the place seemed unable to produce food. The sole problem was the power needed to fuel each of these enchantments: though most managed to light the area, and the paler-winged managed to make doors open and water run with their powers, beside him, only Ptahil and Abatur managed to gather enough power to use any of the greater spells, and even then, it taxed them greatly. However, if only he could manage to find a way to power all of those from afar... He would be able to reign over his people as the gods did over mortals.

And as he continued to wander the place, he grew more and more convinced that such a way existed: the details did not add up any other way. The implements were too connected, the scale so grand, so power required so great... There had to be some central method to control it. And likely, the rest of the building. This place could host the seat of power - from his tour, it seemed to be able to comfortably house around one to one and a half thousand people - but he would need to employ the rest of the building too in order to find the rest of the building. The most ideal thing would be to find a door out - if such a thing even existed.

---

Eventually, Yushamin realized he could not just wander around aimlessly and hope to discover everything - the place was too vast, too expansive - more like a natural cave system made by the gods than a building built by mortal hands. In order to find what he needed - the way out, the way to control this place, the other secrets that hid in the confusing array of rooms and corridors - he would need to act in a more efficient way. Rather than attempting to see everything himself, he should send out scouts to explore the place and report back to him, so that he could, in effect, examine multiple directions at once, while he would sit in the dark city and issue commands from a central position.

And so, Yushamin picked out forty nine scouts: seven scouts for each of the seven corridors that connected to the city. The scouts were all picked from among his most loyal Uthra, known as The Silent. While they were all black-winged, and could not compete with those of the Uthra that possessed stronger magic, The Silent were all personally trained by Abatur, one of the greatest martial artists among the Uthra. Selected from among the ranks of house Agû, they had no attachment to anyone aside from Yushamin himself. His original plan for them was to serve as his spies and assassins, but now they would be able to fill a greater role, and become a vanguard for the Uthra as a whole.

After sending the scouts out, Yushamin looked for a place to stay in while he waited for the results. After a bit of searching, a messenger sent by Abatur told him that he found a proper building. When Yushamin came to see, he was suitably impressed. Trust the old man to find a comfortable place to stay in, even in a city made out of stone and metal Yushamin thought amusedly. Abatur had coated stone benches with several layers of luxurious rugs, creating a soft sofa. Yushamin made another one for himself and Ptahil, then invited the gray-winged Uthra that represented the rest of the houses to come as well, so that they could hear the reports together and formulate an action plan.

Unlike their previous meetings, the mood at this council was much merrier. The safety of the Uthra was -for the most part - secured, and the tasks that remained included mostly ensuring a food supply and familiarizing themselves with the details of their new home. From time to time, one of the scouts returned and informed them of finding another room. Over time, they found more and more dark cities, though the one they were in currently seemed to be the largest one. In the meantime, they started discussing how to govern their new realm, now that there were no white-winged members for seven out of the ten houses. But that was cut short when a messenger arrived with the news they waited for so long.

"Most radiant high lord Agû bar Kirinna, most gracious lords Išdu bar Raduriel and Ţēmu beth Leliel, Masters". The scout paused for a moment to catch his breath. "We have made a grand discovery! We found a palace, made of crystal and precious metals, and it leads to the outside! It appears that we are inside a mountain, one so high it lies above the clouds! And the skies, oh, the skies! They shine in a thousand colors, as if the very heavens are dancing in celebration of our arrival!" The scout continued to babble, his speech growing more and more incoherent, until at last he fell to the floor, unconscious. "Well, it seems like we have a palace to visit!" said Yushamin.

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Chapter III

Yushamin gathered those that he wished would be at his side during the exploration and commanded a few of his trusted people to guide the rest in the meantime, and prepare them for settling the place. While he did not want them to allocate the buildings for certain families just yet, he wanted them to assess the different rooms and buildings in order to determine which categories of families could best fit where. After that, he began to head toward the path the scout had described, and to see the palace for himself. It was highly likely that the palace would become his house, given that he was already the unofficial leader of the Uthra, and was likely to become the official one very soon.

Now that he knew they led to somewhere special, Yushamin could see that the corridors that led to the palace were different from the normal corridors. They were larger, more ornate, and most importantly, they hummed with power. When he asked the rest whether they noticed that, all of them all replied to the negative, but Yushamin found that even when he closed his eyes, he could walk with ease, determining the locations of the walls, stairs, and even people simply by the way they disrupted the sound. This further strengthened in him the assumption that the palace also held the means to control the magic of the place, thus offering a solution to both of his needs, not merely a way outside.

But soon, he discovered he had greater things to think about. The magic no longer hummed, rather, it sang to him, sang of the past and present and futures that could and could not be, and shone with radiance and with color and details that could not be real and yet existed, and smelled of air singed by lightning and of seas burnt by the heaven. And it tasted like the warmth of the sum and the glow of cruel and ancient stars and wrapped around him and embraced him like the threads of fate and the pillars of the firmament and he was all and nothing and everything in between and he faced kirinna in all of her terrible glory.

He felt with all his senses the relentless, alien, terror that was the goddess and his place in it, which was everywhere and therefore nowhere, and that it meant the total dissolution of his individuality into the boundless being. He felt all that andnhe said "I AM", daring existence to defy him, to tell him he does not exist. And he became aware of his surroundings once again, same, as if not a single moment passed, and yet so undeniably different. His companions' breaths, once a noise so insignificant he did not notice them, were now a beautiful harmony. The specks of dust in the air, once moving at random, now danced to that tune. The world arranged itself into an intricate pattern.

After a while, they reached the end of their journey, the polished stone of the corridor melted into a set of stairs, made of silver so clear it reflected the light like a pond of still water. As they stepped up the stairs, the light from Yushamin's wings was reflected again and again from every surface, making any area not blocked from the light's path so bright it was painful to look at, while the movements of the rest caused their figures to block the light in everchanging patterns, filling the place with kaleidoscopic shapes. Eventually, they reached the end of the stairs, and stood face to face with the gold-and-crystal doors of the palace. Taking a deep breath, Yushamin filled it with his power.

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Yushamin opened the door, and was confronted with the sight of a whole palace made out of materials so precious they were usually used only on jewelry. The floors and walls were made out of gold and the mystic crystal the place used for light, the pillars orichalc and adamant-stone. The fabrics of the beautiful carpets were sun-threads and shadow-weave, and the sculptures looked to be formed out of spellbound liquid. All was illuminated by the glow of the skies, piercing through the semi-transparent roof. Patterns of light danced on the floor, made by distant stars. As they walked the palace, the doors moved open the moment they came close, without even the need for Yushamin's power to fill them, as if guiding them somewhere.

And as they moved, he felt the magic shifting. The magic, and... something else. He did not know what exactly was that something else, only that it was something much deeper, much more... primordial. How could he explain it in mortal terms? It was as if the magic was flame and that force heat, as if the magic was a candle and the force light. He was so focused on the strange sensation that he almost did not notice what happened around him - in fact, he was only alerted because the rest moved as far from him as they could. The air around him rippled, his companions' breaths were fast and their faces flushed. He emitted heat - a lot of heat.

And that distraction cost him - it cost him dearly. The sensation overwhelmed him - it was embracing and binding and whispering and burning and stinging and sighing and dancing and flowing and he was lost and trapped and afraid and happy and calm and his very soul yearned to give up and he tried to escape it but nothing worked. His brief glimpse of real world only managed to tell him that time seemed to be frozen and then the truth came back and exposed that which lay beyond the curtain and let him see behind the unreality that hurt him and bound him inside a flesh coil and denied him his birthright and he wanted it all to stop.

In a desperate attempt to regain control, Yushamin sank deep into the heart-stilling techniques that all Uthras were taught in their childhood. He had never needed them before, as he could draw his power instinctively, without the careful focus most young Uthra needed in order to avoid their power running out of control. But now, he used it to seal off his senses, one by one, until he could no longer sense the presence of that frightening force. Then, he cast his power wide, like a net, letting it capture and locate the light around him, granting him sight-that-was-not-sight. It seemed Ptahil said something to him, but he could not discern it - he barely managed to sense the movements of her mouth with his power.

Yushamin took a moment to examine the room around him again, using his power. While he could not sense most things that could not be seen, his ability to track the flow of light through the crystals and the way they were reflected by metals allowed him to have some additional insight. In addition to giving him information about the source and substance of these materials, it allowed him to better predict the way the light from directions would pass, an ability that was often useful in temples and other spiritual buildings. In this one for example, the reflective surfaces were oriented so that all light would end up hitting the mystic crystal. The light then flowed through the crystal, like water in a river.

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Eventually, they reached the throne room. It was one of the largest places Yushamin had ever been in. It was roughly cylindrical, with a diameter of seventeen rods and average height of one hundred and twenty eight rods. Galleries were built at the sides of the room, one for every rod of height. Aside from that, the room was quite simple - for a very specific definition of simple. It was made out of a single material - the mystic crystal that could magnify magic cast on it. In fact, it seemed to be made of a single, gargantuan, crystal, since Yushamin could not detect any inner points where the light broke inside the crystal, a feature that occurs when two crystals are attached to each other.

And in the end of the room stood a throne. It was a tall thing - even Yushamin, already larger than almost anyone who was not descended from Storm, would have to struggle to sit on it - and it seemed to be the center of the light. Convinced that this was the center used to control the power in the complex, Yushamin stepped forward and ascended the twelve steps to the dais and pulled himself on the throne with his hands - and then it happened. He was bombarded with information, his awareness expanding to include not only what lied around him, but also the palace and the underground complex and the mountain, and its present and past and future and things he could not even name.

And he could hear the whispers from beyond the veil and see that which lay outside the is/is not and feel the threads of fate turning into chains that bound him. And the firmament came crashing down on him, bathing him in the essence of the empyrean and his veins were filled with the burn of the celestial radiance and his soul sought to escape the trap of his mortal form and return to what it was before and dance in the heavens and devour that which was imperfect and impure and mortal. And he felt the beating heart of Kirinna and the veins of crystal, siphoning her might like a divine leech in order to feed him.

Yushamin struggled to limit himself, to close his consciousness to his senses like he did before. He sank even deeper into the heart-stilling technique, isolating himself completely from the outside world. And then he sent out his magic in waves, to expose himself ever so carefully to reality, even if only enough for him to tell the others what was wrong. But it was there, waiting. Yushamin sank into the blinding light, and he knew no more. Meanwhile, the rest of the Uthra saw Yushamin settling into his throne, finding a comfortable position. The longer he sat on the throne, the brighter he - and the throne - got, and the hotter the room became, until finally it became as hot as the blistering desert.

Abatur looked at the figure lounging in the throne. It looked so similar to Yushamin, the differences only visible to him because he already looked for signs of interference by a higher power - but it was definitely not his student - at least, not his mind that controlled the body. But the power practically radiated from this being - the mere scraps that managed to escape the body bright enough to make looking at him painful, and the room hot enough to make Abatur feel like he was sitting too close to the fire. Abatur could not dare to defy this being, not before he learned the full extent of its power, how hard it would be to hide his actions from the shining monstrosity.

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Soon, the throne began glowing as bright as a star. From there, the light spread through the crystal, making the room as bright as if it was a day. Then a cool wind started to flow in the room, granting a bit of relief from the merciless heat that Yushamin emitted. And when the high lord himself lifted his hand, a figure appeared before him, vaguely humanoid but made out of golden glow. Yushamin spoke to that figure, in a tongue that Abatur never heard before - a language that made the ground beneath them shake and took the breath out of Abatur's body. All the while, the light continued spreading, moving through crystal channels seen and unseen, first through the palace and then the corridors.

As the power coursed through the corridors, it brought with it change. The light allowed those that were in them to see the full magnificence of the construction, warm winds brought relief to those who felt the bite of the mountain's chill and freshened the air in the space, which has not been exposed to the outside since time immemorial. In a few places, where the corridors and rooms were decorated, even stranger things happened. From patterns in the stone changing themselves according to a pattern to statues moving on their own accord, many of the details the Uthra paid little notice to now turned out to be things both wondrous and fascinating. And after flowing through the corridors, the power reached the dark cities.

It was in the dark cities that the light had the greatest impact. Doors and windows opened, taboons and cauldrons heated themselves, and water began to flow in the baths and washbasins. In the largest of the dark cities, a gigantic sphere affixed to the ceiling started to shine with blinding radiance, giving the appearance of a second sun deep in the earth. The people first shielded their eyes from the glare, then looked up in wonder, aware that something big happened, even if they did not know what exactly it was. Similarly, in the smaller dark cities, other false stars shone, such as the moons and stars, or the sun at dawn and dusk. And yet the light still continued to flow ever forward.

Eventually, the power reached the lowest rooms, shining its radiance on them. The first room the Uthra came to, the bridge to the outer world, was engulfed with fire - the light burned away the dust and dirt, revealing the room once again clean as it was in the past. The power then started to work on the chips and cracks, restoring the place to its former glory. Eventually, the power began to subside, as it did in the rest of the city - remaining only where it was needed, in the sun above the dark city and in the corridors where people walked, opening the doors (and closing them) based on need. But deep in the dark beneath the city, something woke from a long sleep.

Unknown to the Uthra, there was a system of tunnels beneath the giant subterranean city which they made their new home. And sometimes, the tunnels connected to the corridors and rooms - not often - the magic tended to correct flaws in the structure, but when it did, creatures of the beneath could enter. Those creatures were not much of a threat to the outside world, their pallid skin and translucent flesh were burnt by the sun's hostile glare - but in the corridors, hidden safely deep beneath the earth? There they could roam freely, hunt and feast as they desired. And beneath even them, a greater predator lurked. One that had no interest in the city - but could change its mind if it noticed prey up above.

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Up in the throne room, Abatur waited for the being that inhabited Yushamin's body to act. The creature's first actions would determine whether the ruse would be exposed, giving Abatur additional allies, or be maintained, leaving him on his own. He was wrenched back from those thoughts when the creature started talking. "My head hurts". Abatur was flabbergasted, this was not how he expected things to begin. "Turns out controlling a whole city is not a very pleasant experience., and being burnt alive by magic does not make things any better". Abatur was filled with joy - could it be that it truly was his disciple? But then he cautioned himself: No! The creature wants me to drop my guard!.

The creature continued: "Ptahil, my beloved Ptahil. It seems that, at least for the foreseeable future, I will be bound to this throne. As such, I bid you: be my voice, be my hand. Go where I can not, and act in my name. See our people and see our land, speak to our people, and speak to any who find us in our new sanctuary". Yushamin screamed, his body burning with light, the room turning as hot as a furnace - and then the calm returned. "please, do it for me, do it for the promise I will not be able to keep". Ptahil cried, and then kneeled, with tears still streaming from her eyes. "It will be as you command".

He then turned to Abatur. "Išdu-Mar. I will need your help. I do not know how long I can function, nor how much attention I can grant while I struggle to retain control of myself. I need you to aid Ptahil, and help her rule. She can not always be here, as she would have to move across our territory in my name. I need you to stay here and serve as regent for when neither I nor her can act. Would you do this for me?" Abatur had no option beside agreeing, so he kneeled and said "You can trust me, Most radiant high lord Agû bar Kirinna". The creature - or perhaps it truly was Yushamin - smiled at him before moving on.

"And to my people, there is much work that is still to be done. You will need to explore the city, for it stretches above the mountain as well as below. You will have to divide its houses and streets among yourselves. There are lands beyond the mountain to explore, and resources to secure. Restoring the upper city is also a task that needs to be done, as my magic protects only the lower city. Obey Ptahil and Išdu-Mar as if they were myself. Aid them to the best of your ability, so that they may focus on their roles with ease. Make the people heed their words, and let no one question their authority". "And now, leave. I must rest".

As they left, Abatur went to Ptahil, intending to share his observations with her. "Ţēmu-Rabbat, I do not know whether you noticed, but it was not Yushamin-Rabban that talked. I know it is hard to believe, but he is possessed by some creature". Ptahil laughed "Possessed? No, he is not possessed. It is more correct to say he is free at last. I have noticed what you said, but I have seen it before - in our most intimate moments. It is the Yushamin that you know that is false. Not this one". Abatur did not know how to respond to that, was all that I knew about my student a lie? "Still, promise me that you will be careful." he said at last.

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Chapter IV

The upper city was of truly gargantuan proportions. It covered a whole mountain, or perhaps it would be more correct to say that it was a whole mountain. It did not look like a city was built and eventually grew large enough to cover a mountain, no - the floor was without the curves one would expect if that was the case. Rather, it was flat, but the difference in height between one ringed street to another was so steep they had to be connected by a set of stairs, making wheeled transportation in the city impossible. The buildings themselves contributed to the scene as well, built like spires and towers rather than normal housings, granting the place the appearance of a stone forest.

In terms of dimensions, the diameter of the city was around around six cables, which on a flat terrain would have meant one part of sixty of the day would be needed to cross it on foot. But the city was the furthest thing possible from flat. It had forty five large peaks, arranged in circles. The innermost one with only one peak, twelve cables tall. The second one with two peaks, each of them a little more than a cable lower than the first peak. The third with three peaks, each a little more than a cable lower than the peaks of the second ring. And so on and so on until the outermost ring which had nine peaks, each only three cables tall.

On top of each of these peaks lied a building which connected to the lower city. All were gigantic in size, though none could compare to the palace in the city's center, which had a diameter of sixty six rods and height of one hundred and twenty eight rods. Unlike most buildings in the city, which were built as towers with several floors, those who connected to the underground had only one, and were shaped like a cone whose sides were curved inward. Around each of the larger peaks were smaller ones, arranged in rings as a miniature of the whole - forty five peaks in nine rings for the innermost one, thirty six peaks in eight rings for the ones around it, and so on.

Each of these smaller peaks was slightly different from the others, usually in a variation on the theme of the larger peak it belonged to. From wide and lavish peaks near the center, through a peak with water and strange greenery in the third ring, to what could only be described as a slum in one of the peaks of the outermost ring. This has, in effect, turned each of the four hundred and ninety five peaks into a neighborhood of its own, albeit a small one - containing only about two dozen buildings on average. However, the area varied a lot between peaks - so much that single buildings on some of the largest peaks were bigger than the entirety of some of the smaller peaks

Nearly as impressive as the city itself was the scenery. Outside the city was a ring of twelve smaller mountains, though those were natural. It seemed to be a part of a plateau, and a high one at that, given that the city and its surrounding were all far above the clouds, leaving the sky clear. To the north and to the south, one had a view so far it reached the sea, though to the east and west the field of view was blocked by other, yet smaller mountain ridges. The most impressive quality however, was the snow. The tallest part had none, for it was above the cloud, which inverted the usual place of snow on mountains - in the bottom rather than top.

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To aid him in exploring the city, Abatur chose a group that mostly included members of Išdu, Ţābu and Namzu. His own house, Išdu of the scholars, possessed the most knowledge on how to best utilize the city. Namzu of the laborers was chosen for a similar reason: where Išdu covered the theory and the grand scheme of things, Namzu had practice and would be the one most affected. Ţābu of the priests was chosen because their familiarity with magic and the antediluvian times was unparallelled, even if their grasp on sanity... left something to be desired. With their assistance, he hoped they would manage to find a way to make the city livable, even without access to the power of the gods.

First, there was the need to consider that counterintuitively, the city provided the best area to grow crops. The region seemed to be freezing, which meant the warmth of the city - for a very very generous definition of warmth - was probably due to the same magic that maintained the lower city. Therefore, there would be a need to dedicate areas for gardening inside the city. The upper city seemed like a natural match: the sun would be unobstructed year-round, and the vertical buildings would be perfect for the vines that made the majority of the Uthra's agriculture. Water would be a problem, yes, but that would be true for the lower city as well - being above the clouds tended to have this effect.

The people would need to live on the outside as well, for several reasons. First, there was the fact that the Uthra, as descendants of Day, would need the sun in order to function properly. Living underground would only see them wither. Second, the lower city was better connected than the upper one, making it the natural heart of the settlement. This would be good for the market and other such places where people had to meet - such as most jobs that could not be performed in one's own home. Third, the flow of goods made more sense this way - heavy and large raw goods would be transferred to a lower place, while light and small finished products would be transported to a higher place.

Of course, there had to be exceptions to the rule. Some establishments required specific features to be found in the buildings - and those did not appear just because someone wished them to. And because the demands of a mortal city were quite different from those of an immortal one, those buildings that did possess said features could not always be utilized. This meant for example, that places that could serve as city halls were hard to come by - not many places were large enough to host a crowd. Another case was that of smithys, which would have to utilize the cooking implements of the lower cities' houses, while residential buildings had to resort to more traditional methods, and use fuel for their food and heating.

The identity of the buildings that would be chosen for public administration was for the most part quite easy to decide - those that connected between the upper city and the lower city, and chiefest of them the crystal palace that stood in the center of the city. Those were a natural match for the places where people should come and go - courts and audience halls. But some posed a harder choice - treasuries for example, were not a thing one wanted within easy reach of any orphan that came near, nor was it a good idea to leave jails where one would be kept until judgment close to large streams of people that an escaped criminal could blend in with and flee in order to escape.

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Back in the throne room, Yushamin began exploring his newfound power, contracting and releasing the thousands of new muscles he had gained. Muscles not of flesh, but of magic and light. He experimented with the feel of them, learned their shape and function - which for light and which for heat, which for repairing the stone tunnels that now made most of his body, and which to operate the myriad structures within them - doors and taboons and bathes. These actions surely inconvenienced the mortals that used them, but in his mind, tired from fighting to maintain himself in the face of direct connection to the stream of magic, Yushamin found it harder and harder to keep caring about these beings when he was so clearly different.

But he could not fall to sleep, not yet. To sleep before truly mastering the currents of magic... That would be to lose himself to that magic, to have the divine pattern that was his soul unravel, the spell that is life return to the primordial sea of power that was Kirinna. And would it be so bad? a small, treacherous voice within him asked. To return to your true state, unbound by the cage of flesh that taint your perfection, to swim on the tides of magic and fate as you were meant to be? Yushamin let out a long-suffering sigh - this made it two new voices in his head within a single day - truly, a new record

Yushamin closed his eyes of flesh and opened the ones inside. It was not truly necessary to close his eyes - he could see very well with both at the same time - but it was disorienting. Not as disorienting as his sight that curved and wrapped around, letting him see everything in the tunnels - including himself watching. His goal, however, was not merely to see - it was to learn to control the sight. Like watching the dance of motes of dust in the air was easier than tracking the movement of a single mote, so seeing all that happened in his mountain-body was easier than focusing on a single thing that happened in it - but noticing these details was the important part, wasn't it?

Yushamin was dimly aware of mortals entering his throne room. He spoke to them - not that he could remember about what. It was a routine action, undertaken by his body while his mind did more important things, like... actually, Yushamin was not sure what those more important things were. He wanted to sleep, and doing anything more than keeping himself awake was a struggle. One time, he caught his consciousness almost spreading beyond the bounds of the mountains before catching himself. It was just so hard to keep himself contained, to maintain a firm structure for his mind, when his body no longer had a definite form - only areas of greater and lower presence. If only he could leave that chair…

At last, in a desperate attempt to contain himself, Yushamin centered his mind around Ptahil. His beloved has been an anchor for him for a long time now, and was the one who knew the most about his true nature aside from himself - which was not much knowledge, to his eternal sorrow, given that he himself did not know much about himself. Ptahil responded to her presence - the color of her had gotten warmer, the light softer, and Yushamin coiled himself around it. He could vaguely hear words - Ptahil's thoughts he realized - but the form of them was too alien to him, too connected to the world of earth and blood, for him to be able to comprehend anything beyond a vague reassurance.

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Ptahil led a small force of Ţēmu, Kitimtu and Rabâtu to examine the city. While they lacked the historical and architectural knowledge the team led by Abatur would have, her team possessed what was in her eyes much more important: knowledge of how people acted. Yes, they might be mistaken about a building's original purpose, but they knew what purpose people would want it to serve, what they would expect it to serve. And so they set on to plan the layout of the city, or rather, plan the layout of the people in order to fit the city. Though of course, not everyone would be able to live in the city itself, which also had to be taken into account.

First thing to consider was how to govern the city. The area of the mountain was around two hundred and forty estates, or triple that number if one counted the underground tunnels as well. This was enough to house around one hundred and fifty thousand people, even if one were to consider that few people would wish to dwell below the ground. That being said, a single city government did not have the ability to govern so many people - not with the amount of bureaucracy that Uthraic cities had. Rather, each of the forty five great peaks should operate as its own city, containing around two thousand and five hundred to three thousand citizens, and those would be further divided by their house.

That decision however, posed one major problem: the quality of the buildings and of the streets became noticeably higher the closer one got to the center, which meant that the Uthra granted houses closer to the middle would live in better conditions. Ptahil's natural urge was to grant the more central peaks to the paler winged Uthra, but that would be an unwise move: the pale winged Uthra relied on others to serve them, and creating a community with only pale winged Uthra would force at least some of them into positions of servitude. Thus, Ptahil had to find a different method to divide housings among the Uthra - and preferably, one that will live as few people as possible with hard feelings about the process.

Eventually, one of the Rabâtu that came with her gave Ptahil the idea she decided to use. The merchant offered to use an auction in order to determine who lived where. Ptahil refined the suggestion, deciding that instead of a single payment, an oath would be taken. The people would be divided into thirteen groups. The first would consist of the three white winged Uthra, while the other twelve would have Uthra sorted based on the color of their wings and varied in size so that each of the twelve groups is a little more than two and a half times bigger than the one before it. The upper group would then make bids for receiving the leadership of the various greater and lesser peaks.

Other members of their group would then bid on serving them, and the rulers would pick among them as three will do on the rulers, so that each ruler would have two or three below them. Then the same for those remaining them and again until a third found ones to serve. The rest would then be sent to found new cities, and the bidding move to the next group, who would bid to serve the lowest of the higher group, and so forth until a third of them found ones to serve, and then moving to the next group, and so forth and so forth until a third of the people found a place for themselves and the rest move to found new cities.

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One of the most awe-inspiring features of the city was its walls. standing at twelve cubits thick and a staggering one hundred and forty four cubits tall, the walls exhibited none of the usual inequalities in height or form that such gargantuan buildings usually did. No - they were shaped in a perfect ring, and made out of some white stone that resembled marble. There were no visible cracks in the stone - as if the whole structure was made out of a single slab of rock. In all honesty, that might have actually been the case, considering how the whole place was seemingly divine in nature. Still, it would make the place much more secure, though the walls would be harder to repair than was ideal.

The walls had seven gates, all of them identical: they were six cubits thick and thirty six cubits tall, and golden in color. They did not seem to be made of actual gold, however - they were crystalline in nature, somewhat akin to Pyrite, though they were not as brittle. They were also somewhat transparent - or translucent, if one wished to be precise. Though it was hard to see because of the granularity of the crystals, the way they were hewn, and the uneven break demanded by the pyramidal structure of the crystals, created an elaborate image. Scenes from history appeared on the doors - some that the Uthra recognized and some that they didn't - and perhaps even a few that had yet to happen as well.

The walls followed a strict pattern: sections that were exactly one thousand, seven hundred and twenty eight cubits long, not a finger more or less. A gate exactly in the middle of each section, flanked by positions for guards, and a tower between every two sections. Each of the towers was a magnificent construction in its own right. Measuring twenty four cubits thick and five hundred and seventy six cubits tall, the seven towers stuck from the city's walls like the spikes of a radiate crown. The similarity seemed unlikely to be accidental, seeing as the towers' vast height - more than one and a half times a longbow's range - was significantly more than what could be deemed a useful height for archers to shoot from.

Inside the towers were staircases that led to the walkways that stretched on the walls. Those walkways, circling the entire city, offered defenders a prime position for discovering and neutralizing attackers from afar. Coupled with the great height of the city's mountain and the watchtowers the three intended to place on the ring of mountains that surrounded the city, the city would be notified long before any hostile force came near. Not only that, but the walls themselves will make it nearly impossible to siege the city unless one had a siege tower - which will be hard to bring to a small island like the one the Uthra's new home resided in, turning the city into the most secure place on the face of Kirinna.

But soon, the Uthra will need to take their first steps outside the bounds of the city and brave the wilderness of the island. It will not be easy - without the relative comfort of the magic shield that made the city liveable, the settlers would have to deal with the bitter cold, the strong winds, and the lack of air that makes living in these heights so hard. The scouts will have to chart a map of routes where it is possible to breath before the three could even start sending out large groups of Uthra, and even then, a significant amount of them was likely to freeze to death before new cities could be founded and the land tamed by the people.

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Chapter V

In the following days, Uthra were sent from the city to explore the island they now lived on. To do so, they had to go through the ring of mountains that surrounded the city. While none of these mountains were taller than the one they currently lived on, even the valley until they reached the mountains was deadly. It was so high that they had trouble breathing, not to mention the freezing cold. In fact, to go any significant distance, one had to first chart the locations of what the scholars of Išdu dubbed "veins of life": paths where a combination of magical devices, low altitude, and protection from the elements created areas where one could survive for a period longer than a few hours.

One fact that made the journey somewhat easier was that, unlike the mountains the Uthra were used to, this region lacked snow, since it stood above the clouds. That removed the risk of an avalanche or being buried in the snow - but it also meant the place was drier than a desert, forcing the explorers to bring waterskins with them. Instead of snow, the ground was made of stone, and occasionally cobbletones - or even sand, in places where the strong gales ground the stone into dust. But eventually, after a long enough journey, they reached locations that were low enough to be beneath the clouds. The shortest path found took merely an hour and a half of travel, and thus the exploration started in earnest.

Though they went above the cloud line, the explorers did not yet encounter any significant amount of vegetation, though a few of the outcropping rocks that were too steep for snow to accumulate on featured some sort of dull blue moss. Due to the sparsity of vegetation, the explorers could not find any animals either - raising the question of how the Uthra would produce a sufficient amount of food for themselves in the long term. But since the island was small, and the city seemed to be positioned in the middle of it, it was safe to assume that food could be secured through fishing, especially since the temperatures were low enough that the food could be preserved easily enough by letting ice encase it.

But it seemed that it would not be necessary to travel so far. It took merely four and and a half hours from the city to get to a region with shrubs and a bit of wildlife (though finding a path that enabled them to do it so fast took three weeks). Even then, vegetation was scarce, and the few animals that were found in it were small and lean. But if a region could support life, that meant the Uthra could tend to crop and livestock there - especially since their gift of light and heat was well suited to help creatures thrive in elevations that were usually too high for them. If they worked hard, the Uthra could make the place bloom.

One night, while an exploring group took shelter inside an old ruin that had a bit of protective magic left in it, the Uthra saw another large life form for the first time - though large[/] might be a bit of an understatement. It was a bird, though unlike any bird they have seen in the past. With a length of nine cubits, the bird was even larger than the elephants of the lowlands. And with a wingspan of nearly fourteen rods, it seemed like something out of ancient myth. To make things even worse, each of the thing's claws was a cubit long - nearly as long as an adult Uthra's forearm. Luckily, the bird either didn't notice them or was uninterested in eating them.

---

Nearly a day's worth of travel from the capital, the Uthra finally found what they were looking for. The area, while still quite mountainous, was low enough in altitude that it was covered by a forest. The forest was dominated by two species of trees. The first of them was a type of massive cedar that reached a cord and a half in height and had a trunk that was half a rod thick. The trunk of the trees forked into several massive, erect branches. The smaller branches were fan-like in shape and grew quite densely. The bark of the tree was white in color and smooth, somewhat resembling marble, and the scaly leaves were silvery blue in color, lending the tree a frozen appearance.

The second, to the Uthra's great surprise, was a cypress. This errant variant of the usually heat-loving species was half a cord tall and had a two cubits thick trunk. The tree had a conic crown with level branches and variably loosely hanging branchlets. The blood-red leaves were spirally arranged but twisted at the base to lie in two horizontal ranks. The bark of the tree was deep black in color, and shone in a way that made the tree seem like it was polished. Around those trees grew highly tapered cypress knees, which some sort of local bird used to spike its food on, which combined with the tree's already macbare coloration, gave the cypress a ghastly appearance, like something out of the underworld.

The largest prey animal in the forest was some kind of giant elk. These beasts were massive, with males standing around six cubits and nine cubits long, while females stood around four cubits tall and eight cubits long. It had thick white fur and a prominent silvery mane that covered most of its head, neck, shoulders, and chest. The male elks' dendritic antlers were an impressive eight cubits long from tip to tip and branched trichotomously at three points throughout the tines, while the female elks' dendritic antlers were merely two cubits long from tip to tip and branched dichotomously at two points throughout the tines. Its head was short and thick, and its withers had a large hump, lending the creature a brutish appearance.

Several areas in the forest were infused with magic denser and more vibrant than anywhere else the Uthra saw except for the city. Some areas were shrouded in darkness of varying sorts, from lakes that seemed to contain shadows instead of waters to forest clearings in a state of perpetual night where illusions plagued the Uthra. Other places were so hot that not only was there no snow in them, but the water evaporated as well. Still other areas had storms localized above them or great overgrowth and flowering that seemed to betray the land's limited resources. Around each of these regions, strange creatures that resembled regular animals but were filled with the same strange magic that infused the regions in which these creatures lived.

That is not to say the natural creatures that inhabited the forest could not be dangerous. The most dangerous of them was the local wolf breed. Standing more than three cubits at the shoulder and nearly four cubits long, the beasts were only the third largest predator in the region, but the great numbers in which they hunted made them a true menace. Their heads were around half a cubit long and somewhat resembled that of a feline, and their jaws had two tusks jutting forward, which they used to impale prey before crushing it with their powerful jaws. Their legs were short and thick, making them unsuited to chasing prey, so they often acted as ambush predators, hiding from potential prey on tree branches.

---

To the northwest of the plateau the city resided in - now dubbed [i]Škinta, meaning the dwelling place - resided another plateau. This plateau was somewhat lower, but was much larger than Škinta. The biggest difference between them, however, ran below the ground (at least most of the time). The whole region was crisscrossed by what seemed to be rivers of molten metal, as well as streams of water so hot it sometimes erupted in a blast of steam. While the currents themselves were dangerous, the heat and moisture they supplied allowed life to thrive in the freezing region - though the Uthra supposed even that bounty may not be considered much by the standards of those used to the fertility of the lowlands.

The plateau hosted several species that seemed fitting for domestication. Most prominent of them was a massive breed of cattle. Standing about four cubits tall at the shoulders - as tall as a fully-grown Uthra - and six cubits long. They had a bulky frame, a large hump on their withers, and no tails. Their legs were thin and exceedingly thick - resembling the legs of a mammoth more than those of their cattle kin, though their one-toed hooves were more reminiscent of those of a horse. They had thick, oily coats of shaggy hair around their bodies, so long it reached the ground. To the Uthra's pleasant surprise, they discovered that much like the fur of the wolverine, the coat of those creatures was resistant to frost.

Perhaps it should not have been surprising, considering the fertility of the region, that the Uthra were not the first mortal race to visit it. But when the Uthra came upon the ruins of an old village, the sight of crumbling stone ruins, too crude to be the work of a divine being like the city (or the work of the Uthra, if they were honest about their skills) still caught their attention. The notion that they may have to fight the original inhabitants of this land over territory did not pass through their minds before - and now each of them was rapidly calculating in their heads whether they even have the strength to withstand another war, let alone win it.

But the people themselves were nowhere to be found. No new homes, no remains of tools - not even graves. All that remained of them was the ruins. The Uthra, of course, did not let that deter them. People were sent in order to populate the plateau, now named Tibil, meaning Flat, in reference to the departure from the Uthra's usual practice of dwelling on mountains. While many were unsatisfied by this breach of custom, Abatur held that it would be necessary for them to do so, as Škinta was too cold and too dry to produce food in large quantities. The produce from the land will be coupled with hunted beasts and foraged fruits, as well as fishes, to form the Uthra's diet.

Within a few days, they had wooden frameworks for the houses. In a few weeks, they built a floor of dolomite, wooden doors, and walls of reinforced adobe bricks. By the time a month had passed, blocks of limestone were attached to the adobe bricks from both sides using concrete and the doors were reinforced with iron. The roof was the final part, made of dolomite with gypsum thatching. They decorated the houses with whatever materials they found, mostly marble for statues and silver for plating furniture, though there was enough gold and precious stones to set in strategic areas. Instead of fireplaces which would require expensive wood, the heated rivers were redirected to areas with bronze platings that spread the heat to the houses.

---

From Tibil the Uthra descended downwards, to the shores of the island both shores were quite freezing, though the northern was visibly worse, with a thin layer of ice covering various parts of it. The southern shore was rich in fish: seasnails and eelpouts, sculpins and skates. All of them could serve as a good meal for the Uthra. The northern shore was not as rich in fish, but had many small islands tracing all the way from the island the Uthra were currently on to the horizon. The Uthra set on building a shipyard, so that they could send explorers in both directions to see who they had for neighbors. No longer will they be caught unaware - the Uthra will join their mortal kin.

From time to time, the Uthra could see a small boat on the horizon of the northern sea. Usually no more than a far away speck, from time to time a few details could be seen. The boats seemed to be of rudimentary construction, little more than rafts. However, they came in several different styles, and each of them seemed to have a different shape of operator, though they were all too far away to figure out the exact species. They also seemed to be going to and from the smaller islands. The Uthra wanted to signal them, but had no method that would work over such a vast distance, so they resolved to solve that issue later - after they discovered their own home's secrets.

One day, a strange monster was washed ashore. It looked like a giant fish, measuring nearly a rod in length, and was snow-white in color. The thing that betrayed the creature's unnatural descent was its eerie teeth. It had two tusks like a mammoth, though they were straight instead of curved and had a spiralic form, like the fabled unicorn. Luckily for the Uthra, the creature died soon after it was washed to the shore. While the Uthra initially feared getting close in case it was a trap, they eventually cut the monster into pieces and ate it. The monster's flesh turned out to be quite good, and the Uthra considered starting to plan monster-hunting excursions in order to add monster meat to their cuisine.

The monster was not the only strange creature they encountered on the shores. For example, a giant creature that resembled a giant, morbidly obese, otter with fins instead of legs, punched-in face, and tusks. The tusks grew downward from the creature's mouth, like oversized fangs. The males were more than twice the length of females, standing over a rod long on average instead of a little less than half, and weighed nearly ten times more, at around one thousand and two hundred talents for males versus one hundred and thirty for females. They were also much more ill tempered and dangerous, making hunting them for food a risky venture - though a profitable one, as a single bull could feed several families for a long period.

As the time passed, the Uthra's control of the island started to become more and more visible. The mountains and plateaus were settled, the lowlands, while more sparsely populated, started to grow crops, and shipyards and docks began to take form all across the island. One dock, in particular, attracted a lot of attention. Carved into the rock of the northern shore the dock was closed to any but those who worked on it. The few whispers that did make it out claimed that the dock held place for only one ship, but a ship that was two cords long - so massive it could host an entire village - a veritable naval fortress that would be immune to attacks from all but the strongest siege weapons.

---

It was only when the Uthra visited the last plateau on the island that they found another sentient creature, though sadly not a mortal one. Shaped like ailur women but with limbs covered in iridescent scales and long, taloned fingers and toes, this vicious breed of Sea angels took a liking to Uthraic flesh. They lured travelers to their pools with songs that impaired the listener's judgment, then drowned them before devouring them with their long, sharp teeth that were capable of snapping bones. The Uthra learned what areas to avoid, though a few learned how to capture the creatures in order to sell them as exotic pets to the richest among the Uthra, or even to flay them and use their scales for decoration.

Aside from the angels, the plateau proved to be quite calm compared to the other two. It had neither Škinta vicious gales and petrifying cold nor Tibil's streams of liquid metal and steam blasts that could char an unwary traveler in but a moment. So it was with no little amount of sarcasm that the plateau was nicknamed Abaddon - the forsaken place. The plateau's official name however, was Šiul - the lower place - since it was the lowest of the three plateaus of the island. Together with Škinta and Tibil, Šiul was one of the three "worlds" of the Ayar plateau that covered the vast majority of the island, named after the material that supposedly bridged between the different worlds.

Considering the circumstances, Šiul was almost ideal for the Uthra. It was not too cold to survive, even if only because the Uthra were adapted to freezing temperatures. It was mountainous enough for the Uthra to feel comfortable in, but not so high that they had trouble breathing. In addition, unlike the other plateaus, its ground was mostly one of soil rather than stone. As a result, many of the higher ranked Uthra that failed to secure a position in the city itself decided to settle in Šiul rather than stay at the lowlands themselves to govern the lower ranks. Thus, a comfortable order was found, as the people managed to settle down, and the Uthra found relief for the first time since the invasion.

In the months that followed, the Uthra met their neighbors to the north. The massive Ögürajaz, the degenerate race of Kycenaen that herded mammoth like cattle. The brutal Bašböri a breed of wolven Zagatti that ate raw meat and practiced cannibalism. The mad Jɨnot, Azhurrim that survived the cold only due to the fires they sent everywhere they went. Ačańɨɣ a macabre strain of Myronans that retained their calm all the way to adulthood and unnerved man and beast alike. The Ečükü, an Ailur society that served the snow goddess Venryn. And the decadent Amrɨljek, Lyrani nomads that made torture into an art form and found release in the death of their victims.

Of course, the other species existed in the pole as well, with the exception of humans. The wool of the local Gowrei, the Jigitteke, made for fine coats. The clumsy Sačjel, a subspecies of Jorum that resembled penguins just as much as they did owls. The translucent balɨqjer were primitive Tesh that lived inside the scalding rivers and geysers. The pole's Dhengr, the baldɨztaš, resembled their southern kin the most, though they learned how to use ice nearly as well as the Uthra did stone. And finally, the diminutive Töliŋir, smaller than even the rest of the Pykke, lived within underground tunnels near molten metal streams and proved to be popular merchandise among the Uthra.