Argument: Lathynarn returns, treasure in tow and attempts to enter the city – no luck, no luck.
One day, cold day, autumnday, we returned to the City, the Cage and the__ pity we’d been gone so long! we lost the summer but gained a new dawn with the sunrise and moonfall and a sprinkle of circus frost on the ground – but how pretty, how yes, how very, very pretty are the sparkles on the road on which we trod.
The ponies – laden – trotted behind our horses with more mules beyond them:
- the caravan of camels who brayed the name of the knight who led them – ha-hee-harn! ha-hee-harn!;What a sight we made as we approached the City Walls.
- one stowed bags of silver coins – the King’s head banging off the Queen’s fingered loins;
- one with spices - ginger, mace – a cinnamon trunk, a saffron taste;
- one with lapis lazuli – rings and necklaces and real carved birds with blue lapis wings and blue lapis eyes;
- the gold chest, the tabernacle, holding the truth, the money, the ruthless hunt for all and selfless giving of alms;
- the books of foreign learning, the Moorish astrolabes, the calculus and algorithms in pebble shifting problems;
- diamonds as big as the pits they were dug from;
- a cannon, a minstrel, one in charge of the other – one thinking the other was an unnecessary bother;
- a potted orange tree;
- a lemon tree jagging the ass that yanked it;
- and more, and more…
- some countless gems,
- some rich-hemmed robes of silk and threads and clowning clothes and bewigged heads, shrunken and shaking in the cool autumn breeze,
- dismembered noses, strung along on a line…
And what Walls! dutifully built to keep those enemies out, but we were no enemy – we had left once, yes, in theft and anger, but no danger in allowing us back in – yes, what a piece! what a surrounding! from cloud to grounding of grass, water and earth – engineering beyond all other cities of the world and all the cities of the worlds’ worth and treasures… no stately pleasures were absent from this home.
Why did we stop and spend time looking at the walls? there’s a gate to get through! and our silhouette against sky with matte painting of the City is tedious for more than 360 frames… there’s a Gate to get through and we tramped on with our loot and winnings practising the names we would be awarded by the King.
“Hey, Guard!
[… Lathy shouted, as we halted before the gates…]
Let us in there.
We are from the inside there.
We belong to inside
and want back home.
“We are
domestic beasts
domesticated by our birth
inside the city walls.
Now let us in!”
The City Walls – one Gate only – we stood before it and the Guard in his high position looked down at us and looked – just looked – the City Gate is lonely ‘til it realises there are two – one to go in, the other out; the Guard knew this, but kept it from us.
“Hey, Guard!
Let us in there.
We are from the inside there.
We belong to inside
and want back home.
“We are
domestic beasts
domesticated by our birth
inside the city walls.
Now let us in!”
Lathy repeated his line – a gambit, his opening and the Guard looked on, threw a stare at us, fluttered down and lifted a frown and spilt some words from his cauldron of a mouth:
“Inside…
inside… you’ll want
inside of here but can’t afford
the fee which you must pay
to open gates.”
A fee? a new thing… it once was, when we were here before, quite free… free and fee and fo-fi-fum – what kind of giant ruled the King’s City now?
“We have
plenty money
and other things – those other things –
[… he pointed back…]
to pay our way on through
that Gate of yours.”
But the Guard laughed, then looked, blank-looked and stared and never faltered on the path of looking – he cared not one bit for the treasures we brought back.
“Attack
with your money
all you like, little dwarfish man.
But we do not know what
nor who you are.
“Come back
when we have learned
your name and you have earned passage
to the inside from there,
from the outside.”
[The outside of a City is soulless, the inside holds its soul – but only when regarded vice-versa from the other and standard side… unstandard me would later learn.]
I’ll cut detail and state: for hours we argued and shouted and declared Lathynarn a knight, ennobled by the King at that game of chess those months ago.
But then, there was, some way above us – up high, in a tower, from a window, from the walls – listen closely and careful – handful of earful, let it all in – the sound of two hands clapping – slapping themselves off the other, just a sound and quiet – no noise and riot of a mob, just one, and enough, seeking the sky and the tear that dripped from Lathynarn's left and laziest eye.
“I know
[… he whispered to me, and far too late …]
a second way
to enter the City, bypass
the Gate and its Guard and find
the one who claps.
“Female
hands above us.
We know her, and I recognise
the tone of the clapping.
Let’s find her now.”
He ran to the left.
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