Izaeyaranth was a minor stop on the trade route. Just a little village in a stretch of mundane tundra. Although the summer 'warmth' made the walk bearable, and indeed the temperature recovered substantially as the group departed Sybanisk so that Denziu recovered from Ekis the warming amulet that zie had lent her, there was little to see here.
The trade caravan had little interest in the signature 'good' of Izaeyaranth, which was skilled labourers and architects who could be contracted to build swaivshon constructions.
It might've had a demand for food, Denziu mused. There was little sign of farming. The wilderness here looked wide and uninhabited, broken only by the road. Perhaps even the road did not break up the wilderness, for there were tunnels under the road at points, a familiar structure that Denziu had seen before near Tanoriz. For the wildlife? Those tunnels surely could not be for dragons.
There was little to do other than read along the way. Denziu experimented with it, snatching glances nervously at "The Mysterious Cities of Axorus" in between glances at Ekis and at the wagon in front of zirself. Zie could pull zir wagon with zir tail, a luxury for which zie felt guilty yet again, as the weightless thing was such an unearned gift from Praoziu.
"I'm not sure you should be doing that," said Ekis.
"I want to try," said Denziu.
Ekis hmmed and said, "If you want to read, you should try to get your cart lashed to someone else's at the next stopping point."
So Denziu closed the book and pulled normally again.
At their next stopping point, Denziu tied zir wagon to the cart in front of it, so that the weightless thing would be pulled along. "We could use more floating carts," observed Choave, sanguine about letting Denziu out of the work. "We could really extend our carrying capacity."
“So you admit that it’s not a luxury!” boasted Denziu.
“Yes, it’s very valuable. Just a very expensive thing to get into.”
Without a cart to pull, Denziu trailed behind the caravan, but now zie could read without messing up the progress of the caravanners by pulling in any strange or irregular way.
Axorus was a legendary mystic theome that would be on their route. Like Keltia-Aneya, it was a place to stay on the roads, because the unknown land god of Axorus was inclined to hand out "get lost and die" Fates to dragons who tried to explore. Unlike Keltia-Aneya, Axorus was profoundly, amazingly, impossibly urban. It was a theome of ghost cities where nobody lived. Alien city after alien city was visible from the roadways of Axorus, many of which were positioned to give amazing views, a few of which even flew over cityscapes.
Denziu had read these things as words in a Querent-Querent travelogue that spoke of the Tachanigh-Kelkaith theome-by-theome. Yet "The Mysterious Cities of Axorus" put pictures to the words, and had the fascinated author talk about their sightings in the city. The book was a reproduction of a reproduction, but whatever enterprising scribe had managed to sell a copy to to the North Sybanisk library had clearly been aware that copying the skylines would increase the value of the book considerably.
Unlike most mystic theomes, Axorus was stable. If dragons stuck to the roads, there was a set progression of cities, and a finite (albeit large) number of places that could be seen by taking this-or-that turn along the roads. So what were these cities? They were something vast and unreal. If they'd ever been populated, they weren't populated anymore.
The author included interviews with gnarlen who lived away from the roads in Axorus. The gnarlen were animate statues, halfway out of Fate by virtue of being technically necromantic constructs, yet they were beloved of the land gods and enchanted with a protective will. These stone protectors were a rare and sacred sight. There seemed to be a community of them in Axorus according to this author. There was a picture sketched of one of them, though Denziu suspected it had lost something in the process of being copied and recopied.
Only the gnarlen could form a community in Axorus. They relied upon their resistance to Fate in order to do so; the stonecarved gnarlen could establish communities in such inhospitable theomes. Denziu wondered if there were hidden sacred stone dragons exploring Keltia-Aneya, too.
Denziu spent hours and hours reading about Axorus, and had read half of the book by the time the caravanners stopped to put into the caravanserai at Izaeyaranth. Zie hardly looked up all the way there.
The caravanserai of Izaeyaranth was a domed structure like the one under Atney, with a great open plaza in the middle surrounded by wagon berths. At one end of the dome, the opening to the outside loomed with great gates twice a vashael's height to admit the largest wagons. At the other end of the dome, smaller gates (for no wagon was expected to traverse them) led to the rest of the village of Izaeyaranth. The caravanserai gates could lock at both ends.
What was 'the rest of the village of Izaeyaranth'? A much bigger dome that dwarfed the caravanserai.
The village was a fascinating place. Izaeyaranth-the-theome was a vast unclaimed wilderness, a tundra with little population. Izaeyaranth-the-village? It was all indoors. Whole buildings were built up inside of another, larger structure that unified all of it. There were multiple levels held up off the ground by a combination of stone architecture and shining metal buttresses; 3 in all, so that every address in Izaeyaranth consisted of a door number hyphenated to a level. These were posted up next to or above every door Denziu saw while exploring Izaeyaranth. This three level settlement showed off the monolithic nature of swaivshon architecture, and in a very different style from the tall spires seen in Atney.
Released to wander Izaeyaranth, most of the caravanners eventually coalesced in an 'open air' inn upon the third level of Izaeyaranth, with 1-3 declaring its address upon an open arch by the stairs to the third level. By 'open air' it was not here meant that the inn was exposed to the atmosphere of the tundra, but rather that it was built without walls between itself and the third level of Izaeyaranth. Every room within it was open to the domed roof overhead. The hammocks were arrayed in the open, clustered near a wall of Izaeyaranth itself. Likewise and next to them, a kitchen used an oven built into the very wall of the village, whose flue must have vented right out of Izaeyaranth entirely. As the point of a triangle between the two, there was a seating area and a counter for a vendorgon to tend the inn.
The third layer of Izaeyaranth had sports fields and other space-hungry environments amidst what looked like an open area for more housing should the village grow to need it. The fields were built up on some unusual surface, an artificial orange colour and oddly soft. Denziu reflected that it might be another of the mystery materials that only the swaivshon knew how to make. A wagon-load of that stuff might be worth a mint!
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As the caravanners ordered their meals (the menu special was a buckwheat porridge with onion and venison), they watched a group of swaivshon playing some game that had them striking a ball with their noses, tails, and occasionally shoulders. They had scoring nets a third the width of the playing field at each end, and the field itself was marked out with widely spaced flags to define a rectangle. It was good entertainment, not only for the players, but for the visitors at the unwalled inn.
Seeing the kitchen in operation was its own entertainment to the front of house. Working without walls, the whole of the customers could see that the kitchen was a keen place of activity. Denziu was taken by curiosity over the inn's kitchen, and lingered by the bar to seize the attention of the blue-furred vendorgon who'd sold them their meals. With one hand on the counter and the other raised to occasionally wave, Deniziu sought avidly for an open moment. Eventually the vendorgon came back and said, "Yes? Want another bowl?"
To this Denziu said, "Oh, I might, but moreover I'm curious about your kitchen! Does that flue go outside of Izaeyaranth entirely?"
"Every flue in Izaeyaranth goes outside!" said the vendorgon. "Otherwise we'd choke on fumes."
"But not all of the houses are arrayed on the edge of the structure!" said Denziu.
The vendorgon snorted and said, "Most of them are. For the rest, there's a ventilation tunnel between each level to get the fumes flowing right out. Right smoky place to crawl into, it is." He perked and said, "Now, about that extra bowl?"
Denziu nodded and said, "Alright, I'll order more. It's a good porridge that you're serving."
"Of course it is," said the vendorgon. "We've got great wilderness out here, and the herds give us more than some land gods would."
So Denziu got zir snout into a second bowl, and wondered about the ventilation levels of Izaeyaranth. Such complexity the swaivshon built with, but the result was very comfortable. How long had it taken to build? How long would the building last? Surely to be worthwhile, such a structure must last years beyond counting... and looking out across the third level of Izaeyaranth as zie ate zir porridge, zie saw empty lots for further houses still. Populations grew so slowly in Theoma, yet here the swaivshon had built with room to someday expand!
They were away from that warm place and once more out upon the chill 'summer' roads the next morning. Several groups set out at the same time, but without Choave’s vigour spell were soon left behind.
The next theome was Sanadir. It was just another tundra, with a few more hills and some stands of sturdy conifers. The road evaded the hills for the most part, and ran alongside the shining iceways that were an enchanted frictionless path for winter traffic, which was the traffic for a good swathe of the year, yet currently useless to them since Choave's was a summer caravan that wasn't using sledges. There was moderate traffic on the north-south roads and the iceway’s southern end was inactive.
The weather being fortuitously dry and clear, Denziu walked with a book again, leaving zir wagon tied to one of the others. Nobody seemed to mind, save possibly Ekis, who was bored pulling the other weightless wagon without Denziu next to her. Spending half a day on "The Mysterious Cities of Axorus" had proven to Denziu that zie could read without falling behind or accidentally running into the back of the caravan. Now zie was reading the other book: "Evermines of the Arrakra Vicinity".
Denziu skimmed the first chapter of it, which described evermines in concept as though the book might be picked up by someone unaware of the basics. Zie knew what an evermine was: a mine blessed by the land gods to regenerate over time, producing fresh ore in its depths so that the miners could work the same site indefinitely.
After the first chapter, zie paged through to where the table of contents listed important maps. Denziu thought at the next stopping point zie might copy out the maps and acquire the primary value of the text while still returning it to the library. Evermines were the backbone of Theoma’s metal economy. Knowing where they were provided a lot of information about where to find metal goods. Famous industrial theomes often contained an evermine or two to fuel them.
After that, zie started in on the content in earnest. It was a dry, awful book for studying, but Denziu was kept alert by the need to keep up with the caravan. The awareness in the edge of zir thought that the value of zir caravan share would vary based on the success of Choave's trading helped. Zir share had been reduced but not extinguished by the promissory note to Gruent's church in Sybanisk; zie was still holding 8 percent of the caravan.
Eventually, their endurance for the endless walk ended without having passed a convenient village or merchantgon stop, so they camped in the open in the middle of Sanadir. They pulled their wagons about in a circle and let the two flying wagons be within the circle (for they were precious enough to inspire avarice). Little of note happened that night. They ate bread and dried meat, and dried fruit that Lorma must have picked up at market in Izaeyaranth. They listened to Omrezen singing songs in praise of good hunting, as Omrezen alone seemed particularly inspired by this landscape.
The next day was not clear but spat rain, so Denziu left zir books in zir wagon and pulled in zir row upon the wagon train, and still zie ignored the terrain. Zie spoke to Ekis, and was still thinking of Adenth, so that zie mentioned that deep-under theome where Inrakaveach touched the living caves far below Tachamund.
Ekis surprised Denziu by wondering if they should haul stone from Adenth. Stone! "Surely the stone of Adenth is the same as the stone of the surface," Denziu said.
"Yes, but they are surrounded by an ocean of stone! They must have to get rid of endless amounts of stone every time they expand anything! I bet it’s practically free!" said Ekis.
“Shouldn’t Inrakaveach already be buying up the free stone from Adenth? They’ll know what it’s worth.”
"Maybe!” said Ekis. “Soooo if you don’t think we should haul back stone, what DO you think we should haul from the deep-under?”
"Denziu said, “I keep thinking about the good in the document that I read in the library at Xeladash. I want to try hauling up a cargo of necromantic lights from Adenth, too."
Ekis pulled in silence for a minute, perhaps nearer two, while thinking about that. Her trademark enthusiasm was dimmed as she said, "You will not be able to sell those quickly. It’ll be days at market. They aren’t even legal everywhere!"
"Do you know anything of them?" asked Denziu.
Ekis shook her head and said, "Only what I can infer from knowing that necromancy is never Fated to work! Can you imagine the headache you would inflict on a land god, being forever about to have a failed enchantment, when in fact the enchantment does not fail?"
"Isn't necromancy subtle?"
"I think the land gods are pushed to look away from it by the frustration of observing it," said Ekis. "Although I've truly no idea. All I'm really sure about is that necromancy messes up Fate."
They walked on in silence again for a while.
Denziu thought about the disagreement between them. Ekis had proposed doing something that sounded very dubiously profitable. Denziu had proposed something that would take an unknown length of extra time at market. "I think your proposal is a more 'regular' one," Denziu said.
"Oh?" said Ekis.
“You mentioned doing this for a few years. If we secure a stone hauling contract, we should be able to turn the wagons around very quickly, with regular profits on each trip.”
“Aha! You understand!” Ekis said happily. “You want to do the flashy novel thing, but you’re not thinking like a Tekagoli merchantgon! But maybe we can do both, too. We should definitely ask about necromantic lights when we get to Adenth!”
This discussion became the memorable thing of Denziu's second day on the road in Sanadir, which was only a hilly taiga in its northern half and not greatly of interest to Denziu, whose love of wilderness was lacking.
Although there was perhaps one other thing of note, which is that the roads were often full of other travellers along the way. Between Sanadir's quarry villages and Hydalath they were even passed by sledge traffic along the enchanted iceway, whose magic kept it a smooth icy surface despite the summer months. There were great blocks of stone from Sanadir’s quarries being passed north to Hydalath.