* * *
The caravan reached the town on the far side of the cliffs two days later, just as promised. It was a small, typical-looking place, for an isolated Saddle Arabian settlement; a cluster of whitewashed wood and mud structures interspersed with the occasional rough stone building, and other more temporary lean-tos and tents.
There was a great deal of fanfare as they pulled to a halt, many of the locals instantly swarming the wagons, wanting to find what goods had suddenly become available in their remote home. Much like Spire, the town seemed to run on trade, albeit on a much smaller scale. There probably weren’t more than ten caravans travelling this route in a year, but the town relied on them for everything that couldn’t be obtained locally - that was, everything except water, rocks, sand and whatever hardy plants could be coaxed into life. However, the lifeblood of the town, literally, was the tiny spring that bled murky water from the rocks at the foot of the cliff beside the trail, and formed the oasis pool which the town had grown around.
Hearthfire took Cas and wandered away from the hubbub of arrival, intending a brief afternoon exploration of the town before turning in for the night. It was as spartan as she had anticipated, and there was really no hope of finding the expertise and materials that she needed here. Too bad, it would have been nice to know that she could simply wait here for another caravan to bring her back the other way, to the crash site, ready to raise her stricken plane and make her airworthy again.
In the end she found herself brooding somewhere just beyond the limits of the town, gazing out over the empty expanse as the sun set. She imagined Swift, slowly slipping beneath the desert sands. It would be a challenge in itself just to find her way back, an impossible task, for most ponies...
“Hello!”
The three usual suspects, minus Dima this time, emerged from the scattering of buildings on the outskirt of the town. Posy had something sugary and sweet smelling, couched in a cleverly folded leaf that she clutched in her mouth, and there were traces of stickiness around the mouths and hooves of Cloud Flower and Sandwhistler that suggested they’d already been sampling whatever it was.
“We got fruit. Do you want some?” Cloud Flower’s Equestrian had improved dramatically in a short time, or perhaps the vocabulary had been there all along, and it was simply his confidence that had been boosted by his studying and practice. Regardless, it was now Sandwhistler who was most frequently finding himself at sea in their conversations, a change which annoyed him no end. Hearthfire found herself envying the flexibility of youth - her own attempts to refresh her comprehension of Saddle Arabian had not been nearly as fruitful.
“Thanks. It smells amazing.” Posy placed the leaf-box down beside Hearthfire, and the four ponies set to eagerly. The candies were delicious, and very welcome after a long time spent living on pleasant but uninteresting ballast foods.
“Mmm... say, have you ponies tried real fruit? I mean, it’s probably not easy to grow, across most of the continent...”
Cloud Flower swallowed another sticky mouthful as he digested the question.
“Sometimes, on the coast, the boats come with fruit. Oranges, or limes, tough fruit that can survive the travelling. There are places here where fruit is grown, but it is usually done with magic. It is very rare.”
“Huh. I suppose that makes sense. Equestria is perfect for growing, there’s more kinds of fruit than you can probably imagine. The earth ponies can do amazing things back home. There aren’t that many earth ponies in Saddle Arabia, are there? Stands to reason sort of, you know, given their connection to the soil and plants and such. Not a lot of either of those, here.”
“Do you miss home? When you go on your journeys?”
“Sometimes. Mostly I don’t, no. I grew up there, but... my life isn’t there any more, maybe it never was. I’ve been wandering for a long time. Home is Cas, and Swift, and my saddlebags.”
“You don’t have a family waiting for you?”
“My mother still lives in Manehattan. I write to her, when I can, and I always visit for as long as I’m able whenever I’m in Equestria. We’re just not very similar. Don’t understand each other very well, I suppose. She doesn’t get why I have to go running off all over the place like an excited foal, as she puts it, and I can’t imagine settling down and running a business.”
She wasn’t sure how much of this Cloud Flower was really understanding, but he seemed interested enough, regardless.
“How about you? Have you always been travelling with caravans, like this?”
“Yes, as long as I can remember. Sandwhistler has a proper house. His mother owns a lot of ships, on the coast, and his father travels and brings back things for them to carry.”
“Father says, he and mother get along very well because they never see each other,” Sandwhistler laughed.
“What about your dad, Cloud Flower?”
“Not everypony has a father,” the pegasus shrugged. Hearthfire had a sense of skirting on the edge of something that he would rather not talk about, and chose to take the conversation in a different direction.
“So how long will we stay here?”
“It depends. Sometimes, two days, or a week. It depends what we need, and what the townsponies need. Here, probably not so long. Uh, I do not mean to bother you, but could we hear another story? Posy was being very insistent earlier, although I think she is too shy to ask on her own.”
“Sure, I don’t mind. You’d better go and get Dima, though, or somepony else who can translate. Let’s see...”
“I will go and find her,” Sandwhistler volunteered.
“Thanks. Mind you ask nicely, though. Now, what sort of story does Posy want?”
Cloud Flower rolled his eyes.
“If I ask, she will just say that she wants one with princesses and castles, like always. Tell any story you like, she might complain at first but she will enjoy it once she stops whining.”
“Hah, well, I did say that I have one story a bit like that. I suppose now is as good a time for it as any. It is a story about possibly the strangest place I have ever been to, and it does have kings and queens in it, at least.”
Dima showed up in short order. She was glowing with the excitement of fresh social interaction, fattening herself on the news and gossip about other caravans, and the goings on of the town, ready for the inevitable famine once the caravan moved on.
“Hello, Dima. You look like you’ve been having a good time.”
“It’s marvellous! There’s been all sorts of racy goings on since I came through here last... but I suppose I shouldn’t say too much in front of the kids, hmm? Oh, and there’s a merchant in town who has a stash of an excellent apple brandy, very hard to come by, very dear, but well worth the cost!”
“I trust you’re not too far gone for story time.”
“Pshaw! I can hold my liquor, Hearthfire. Now, where are we going tonight? Have a cup, by the way. Consider it payment for the tale.”
“Um... I think I’ll pass. Thanks.” There was an acidic, metal-dissolving smell coming from the earthenware mug that Dima was waving in her direction. “Tonight... well, what can I say? It is a strange, ethereal place, where thought is stronger than a sword, and the very fabric of everything is woven with magic...”
* * *
Stepping off the passenger ferry, the docks were more or less the docks of an ordinary city. The wharf led to warehouses, and taverns and inns and chandlers and everything else you would see at any city docks anywhere in the world. The one exception was the conspicuous lack of airship mooring spires dotting the skyline; this city did not allow machines to clutter its skies with the weighty dirt of commerce.
In fact, the city did not welcome commerce at all, but rather suffered it. Visitors were banned from leaving the docks area without special dispensation, a near-total quarantine designed to discourage the curious, and keep outsiders separated from the residents of the metropolis. Only specially qualified officials crossed the boundary to deal with outsiders, and all trade deals were made between outside traders and the city’s government.
The few academics who had visited the city, and been allowed access, could not even say for certain whether or not the city had a concept of currency; money changed hands on the docks, but inside the city proper, there was no sign of a coin as would be recognised in the rest of the world. Although, that was no guarantee that such a thing did not exist, as even when allowed inside, outsiders were never granted free movement, their every move documented and restricted on pain of immediate and permanent banishment.
Hearthfire, of course, knew all this, and was not simply here to admire the docks. No sooner than she had gotten settled in her cramped rented room and freed herself of her baggage burden, than she was cutting a line towards the towering, impenetrable walls of the inner city with Cas at her heels. As she passed from street to street, she noticed another oddity of the city - the cleanliness. She had not seen streets so utterly devoid of dirt... anywhere. It wasn’t simply an absence of litter, but the impression that if one were to run a rag across any surface, even the ground, it would come up sparkling clean.
A half mile from the waterfront, the docks ended in a literal black line across the ground. A two hundred meter no pony’s land divided the edge of the docks area from the city walls, and halfway between the two extremes, an incongruous silver arch stood. Hearthfire eyed it warily from just inside the dock line, unsure of whether she should proceed. There did not seem to be anything happening where she was, though, and she decided to chance it. She set first one hoof over the line, and then, when nothing horrible happened, followed it with another.
Beyond the line, the neatly ordered paving slabs of the dockside streets abruptly gave way to neatly raked grey sand. It was so uniformly, neatly lined that Hearthfire half expected that there would be no hoofprints when she looked back, but this turned out not to be the case. She wasn’t sure if she was happy about that outcome or not.
She did her best to approach the arch with confidence, giving off her best I’m-allowed-to-be-here vibe. Closer to, it was ten ponies high, and featureless, formed apparently from one single seamless piece. There was a long piece of paper pasted to the pillar, the neatly press-printed font too small to read from where she stood. As she came almost to the base of the pillar, it was clear that it was actually divided into many sections, in more scripts and languages than she had even heard of. Equestrian was somewhere a way below the top, between something that might have been whatever the far eastern griffons called their language, and a kind of hieroglyphic script that seemed to consist entirely of disturbing entities doing unspeakable things to each other.
Halt. All traffic beyond this point is expressly forbidden under the Eternal Laws of the City without appropriate documentation. If you do not wish to enter the City, please say, ‘one’, or return to the Outer City. If you have the appropriate documentation, please say ‘two’, and a representative will be with you shortly to confirm your credentials and escort you into the city. If you do not have the appropriate documentation, but would like to make an application for such, please say ‘three’, and the necessary entities will be with you shortly to provide judgement. For all other enquiries, please say, ‘four’.
She looked around, but there didn’t seem to be anyone else here.
“Uh... three?”