[Round 4] Common Ground
OK! Sorry about the delay -- I was partaking in the art of the devil (revising <__>) -- let's see if we can't have a damn good shot at this!
(IC)
A cat tensed as a dark figure drew near, but relaxed before it reached him. Anything that made so much noise as it moved, it reckoned, with evolutionary stunted beyond being any kind of threat.
William ducked from doorway to doorway, collar pulled over his face and hat low over his eyes. People actually stopped to watch him as he ducked from doorway to doorway, dodged behind carts and froze surreptitiously in shadows.
Johann followed along behind. Noone paid him any attention. At first he'd seen his apprentice as failing in the art of urban movement, he didn't seem to think acting inconspicuous counted unless people saw you doing it. But anyway, it was exceptionally useful for diverting attention away from Johann himself.
Al-Kalir was a matchstick city. It formed the border of the Saracen and Oriental empires, a merge of cultures: Peoples and climates.
It was the last great act of peace -- the 'Let's be buddies, yeah?' kind -- not the 'Apologize to unspecified-istan right now or you're in detention for the next week!' kind, which means so much less. Two great nations firming the decision of not entering a massive, unwinable bloodbath with a noble handshake in the form of merging architecture, traditions and citizens in one city placed in the merchant valley they used to pass between the two respective capitals.
As William turns off down a main road, Johann carries on into the original city. Al-Kalir was built in a year, out of local timber. It wasn't built and expanded as it was needed, but rather built and then expected to fill. Which happened, for a time -- a place of music and dance and wonder.
There's something very primal about art -- wherever your put humans, it comes forth. Whether in cave paintings, ice carvings, music or the great standing turnips of the Shimhao monks: it seems something core to the human spirit.
And yes, this still lives on -- the city expanded out for miles into the plains of Kimar as any city would, but left standing was the strictly structured, ordered and perfectly assembled streets of the graceful, city of peace.
~/-\~
As the noise of the city fades, a strange still settles upon Johann. He has heard that strange things live in this part of the city: Old things, obsolete and afraid to move on. The buildings seem like a strange, ancient site a hundred times their age -- Johann was used to shantytowns, but this was all ordered, in rows -- with gentle curves and stark, standing wooden pillars.
He splashes as he enters the city, cobbled streets sloping down to a lake formed by the breaking of a the aquiduct: The walls and pillars rising strangely at right angles from the still surface of the water, silent and stark and lifeless -- casing shadows that somehow skewed Johann's perception of the place, confusing his eyes.
Hitching up his coat, Johann wades slowly through the water, the slow ripples he casts before him seem to extend for miles as he walks down vast stretches of mirrorlike water; a street -- a boulevard, a courtyard. All silent, noiseless -- motionless. It had the same peace as a graveyard, reverent sincerity. Coming into an open plaza, the sun beats down from over an ornate archway -- glaring off the musky layer of tangible glass. Johann rises up some steps, his sodden trousers clinging to him -- and looks to the building before him.
There were lilies floating on the doorstep. Godsdamn lilies -- and yet the copper doorknocker was not only oiled, but polished and -- above all -- attached to a functioning door.
There should be a thrill, perhaps -- a wickedly guilty pang. But as Johann slips inside for the third time in three days, he feels nothing but guilt.
Last edited by awkin; 05-11-2008 at 11:38 AM.