ice. Building with ice was not unknown in Kroaxia, but the scale and ingenuity
of the Carthogian architecture made everything that Thirg had seen previously
appear crude by comparison. Such advanced art was made possible, he learned, by
the discovery of new methods for actually synthesizing artificial lifting and
cutting devices from metals and other materials, which could mimic many of the
functions of natural, living machines. Such discoveries also accounted for the
extraordinary proficiency of the Carthogian army. The strange tubes that the
soldiers carried on their backs, for example, were actually weapons that used
explosive gases to hurl a projectile capable of shattering a slab of ice a
finger’s-breadth thick at over a hundred paces.
Thirg was astounded. To exercise his intellect he had often speculated on the
possibility of creating artificial machines, but he had never expected to see
anything actually come of it. He remembered a friend who long ago had
entertained preposterous notions of creating a device to harness vaporized
methane for turning wheels. The friend had vanished abruptly after escaping
arrest on sorcery and heresy charges issued by the High Council of Pergassos,
and Thirg had almost forgotten their interminable arguments. On impulse he asked
the Carthogians if they knew of his friend’s whereabouts. The friend was alive
and well, he was told, and in fact lived not far away on the outskirts of
Menassim. He was trying to improve a device he had constructed which used
vaporized methane to turn wheels.
The news of Dornvald’s arrival had gone ahead, and a messenger met the party to
advise that Kleippur would receive them at his official residence, which turned
out to be an elegant but not over-ostentatious ice-block building inside a
walled courtyard, situated not far from the former royal palace, which now
served as government offices. On arrival the riders were conducted to guests’
quarters and invited to bathe and change into clean clothes, after which,
refreshed and considerably more presentable, Thirg was taken to the warm,
brightly furnished and cheerfully decorated Council Chamber on the ground floor,
overlooking the courtyard across a wide terrace. Inside, Kleippur, flanked by
two aides, was sitting at the far end of the large table that took up most of
the room; Dornvald, Geynor, and Fenyig were also present, now wearing the
uniforms of officers of the Carthogian army, and another figure was sitting with
its back to the door. By the wall on one side of the room, one of Lofbayel’s
maps was fastened to an easel, and more were stacked on the table in front of
it.
Then Lofbayel himself turned in his seat, grinned delightedly at the amazement
on Thirg’s face, and stood up to pump his hand vigorously. “Welcome to
Carthogia, Thirg! I’m pleased to see you here safely. Have no doubts—you will
find your true home here. I guarantee it.”
“You h-here?” Thirg stammered. “What of Kersenia and the family? Are they—”
“All here at Menassim, and well. Indeed, we would have you as our guest again if
it pleases you.”
“But how? I thought you were watched constantly.”
“Another escapade of Dornvald’s, of which you will no doubt hear in good time.
But come forward and meet Kleippur, and let us obstruct the more important
business no longer.”
Kleippur, who was younger than Thirg had imagined, and wore a tunic of gleaming
plate gold with a short cloak of royal blue ceramic links, began by welcoming
Thirg to Carthogia a second time. It had been a somewhat irregular way of
extending an invitation, he said, but he hoped Thirg would understand the
occasional necessity for such measures. Though not of exceptionally tall or
heavy build, Kleippur carried himself with an unhurried dignity that Thirg found
impressive, and commanded an authority that stemmed more from an instinctive
respect displayed by his followers than from any overt exhibition of rank or
assertion of status. He spoke with a soldier’s directness and singleness of
purpose, yet with an air of detachment and a disinclination to passion that
marked him as a thinker. He introduced his two colleagues as Lyokanor, a senior
officer from a part of the Carthogian army that Kleippur described as
“Intelligence,” and Pellimiades, a director of military constructions and