XXII
The view from the sun-swept ridge was breathtaking. Below, between the mountains and the sea, a lush plain dotted with small clumps of forest and the occasional gently rising hill ran from north to south as far as the eye could see. Homes and farms filled the land in between, forming neat patterns. Fronting a broad, sand-fringed bay was a denser concentration of streets and structures, of apartment blocks and businesses, warehouses and amphitheaters, schools and parks. Like the mandibles of a beetle, coralstone breakwaters enclosed the outer bay, creating shelter and a safe harbor for dozens of incoming and outgoing ships. Their sails spotted the water like the gulls that shadowed them.
Etjole Ehomba stood with one foot resting on a rock, leaning forward, his right arm resting on his thigh. From the semitropical plain and sea below, a warm, slightly moistened breeze rose upward into his face, making him blink and ruffling his braids. There were times these past many months, more times than he cared to remember, when he doubted whether he would ever stand in such a spot, inhaling such a view. Yet there it was, spread out below him, benignly welcoming his arrival.
Ehl-Larimar.
A voice, high-spirited and characteristically confident beyond reason, sounded next to him. “Hoy, long bruther—there it is.” As the swordsman contemplated the breathtaking panorama, a flock of opalescent macaws flew past below them, cawing a raucous welcome, their wings glistening in the subdued sunlight as if coated with powdered gems. “Goyvank knows until now I was never really sure it existed.”