The Stranger - Max Frei [221]
I shook my head.
“It means that the main occupation of the city’s inhabitants is arts and crafts of various kinds. From time immemorial Kettari has been known for its carpets. Even when I was a boy they were inimitable, though there used to be many more fantastic things in the World than there are now. No one makes such fine rugs anywhere else. Naturally, the Capital is eager to do trade with Kettari: they like luxury here.”
“That enormous carpet the color of dark amber lying in your drawing room is from there. Am I right?”
“Right you are. How did you guess?”
“Because . . . because on the edges there is an embroidered inscription ‘Kettari Honey.’” I burst out laughing. Juffin did, too, of course.
“A vampire in your mouth, son! Are you going to listen or not?”
“Yes, yes.” I poured myself some more kamra and assumed an expression of intense concentration.
“Several dozen years ago in Echo it became customary to travel to Kettari in large caravans. It was quite convenient, so no one was surprised by the new practice. Even early on, I noticed that a native of Kettari always accompanied every caravan. I figured that if my countrymen wanted to earn a little money, what right did I have to prevent them? Of course, at first not everyone who wanted to go shopping was willing to go in a large group and pay for the services of a guide. There were a few curious incidents: for example, some of the blockheads from the Capital couldn’t find the road to Kettari. They returned home distraught and spread around some nonsense about Kettari being destroyed. That was no surprise, since idiots abound everywhere, and a person will invent all kinds of justifications for his stupidity. But all these stories convinced our merchants that a small fee for the Master Caravan Leaders, as my countrymen like to call themselves, is the lesser of evils. No one wants to lose time, to suffer setbacks, and to become a laughing stock, do they?”
“You say that grownup people with all their wits about them couldn’t find the road to your Kettari?” I asked, amazed. “Are the roads in the Unified Kingdom really so bad?”
“Good question, Max. A lot of people were amazed about this. How was it possible to get lost? The County Shimara is not the most outlying province, and Kettari is hardly what you might call the sticks. The caravan leaders claimed that most of the towns around Kettari were destroyed during the Troubled Times. Since life in these population centers depended solely on the needs of provincial Residences of the Orders around which they were built, there was no sense in reviving them.
“They mentioned that the roads had been destroyed, as well. That already seemed a bit strange. I never heard of anyone destroying roads, even during the Troubled Times. Why should it have happened now? There was a curious incident involving one of the Magicians of the Order of the Secret Grass—a close relative of our own Melifaro, by the way. When he was leaving the Capital, he anticipated that he would be pursued, and he caused the road along which they were traveling to veer up skyward. It must have been a strange spectacle—you’re traveling along a road and suddenly you realize you’re moving up into the clouds! I even proposed to Magician Nuflin that he leave everything that way; but in those days he wasn’t very compliant. They brought the road back to earth almost immediately; and that happened not in County Shimara, but right here outside of Echo. So I was very skeptical about the stories of ruined roads.
“Then I started thinking: if the local inhabitants are saying it, they must know what they’re talking about. And what difference does it make to me anyway? In short, the guides all believed it, and they believe it to this day. And why not? Our merchants return from Kettari loaded down with carpets. They also complain about the terrible condition of the roads. Kettarian