The Towers of the Sunset - L. E. Modesitt [58]
“Is this rather late to be going to Fairhaven?” he asks.
“Works better this way,” explains the farmer. “Things get picked over in the morning, and the vegetables sort of wilt. Don’t know why, but some stuff doesn’t long stay fresh there. Does in our cellar, but not there. Too much magic, I’d guess. Anyway, our customers know we come in late, and their servants are there waiting for us. Don’t have to fight the crowds, don’t waste the whole day.”
Creslin nods. So there is something in Fairhaven that wilts the vegetables sooner than elsewhere. Curious, but why vegetables? Or just some vegetables?
He rises to his knees on the swaying floorboards and glances ahead toward a pair of buildings.
“Those are the old gates,” says the driver, following Creslin’s gaze. “From back when the wizards ruled just the valley.”
Creslin looks at the gates, at the green trees and bushes beyond them, and at the whitened granite of the gate house and the pavement and curbs. His stomach twists. “Think I’ll get off here.”
“Square’s a good two or three kays farther.”
Creslin straightens up and shoulders his pack. “I need to . . .” He finally just shrugs, unable to explain why he needs to walk into the town from the old gates.
“We could take you all the way to the square, young fellow,” the farmer offers. “Long walk from here.” He holds the long leather reins to the swaybacked horse loosely, waiting for his passenger to reconsider.
“Thank you, but I need some time . . .” the silver-haired young man says, knowing that he must stop and reflect, try to think out what he hopes to attain in Fairhaven, the White City, before he descends into the center of all that is Candar and will be Candar for generations, if not for millennia, to come.
“If that’s what you have to do, we’ll not be telling you otherwise.”
“Thank you.” Creslin repeats, then grasps the sideboard and leaps from the wagon, landing lightly. The stone is hard, and he staggers.
“You sure?” asks the bronzed farmer, flicking the reins.
“I’m certain,” confirms Creslin. “But thank you, anyway. I need some time to think.”
“Geee . . . ah.” The farmer flicks the reins again. “Don’t think too much. It isn’t what you think that counts. It’s what you do.”
Creaakk. The wagon pulls away, heading east down the wide, divided boulevard that the east-west highway has become as it enters the White City.
White is the city, as white as the noonday sun on the sands of the Vindrus Desert, as white as the light from a wizard’s wand. White and clean, with off-gray granite paving stones that glisten white in the sun, and merely shine in the shade.
From just outside the west-gate towers, Creslin looks across the valley, amazed at the confluence of white and green. Tall trees with masses of thick green leaves thrust themselves above the intertwining lines of white stone walls and boulevards. Yet for all the grace and curved lines, the great avenues—the east-west highway and the north-south road—quarter the city like two white stone swords.
Slowly he moves past the empty old buildings, across an invisible line inside which almost all the buildings appear white. Even under the roiling gray clouds that promise rain, the streets of white stone seem to glitter with an inner light.
Creslin takes a step along the boulevard, where a central strip of grass and bushes, curbed in limestone, separate two roads. Despite the mist of spring, he sees no flowers, no colors except for the green of shrubs and grass and the white of the curbstones and pavement. He studies the roads for a time before realizing that all of the horses and carts headed into the city are using the right-hand road, while those leaving the city use the left-hand road. Those who walk use the outer edges of the roads.
Toward the center of the shallow valley, the whiteness becomes more pronounced, the greenery less. None of the buildings exceed three stories.
Creslin takes a deep breath, then casts his senses to the wind . . . and reels in his tracks, withdrawing into himself at the swirling patterns of whitish-red that seem to fill the entire