The Fallen World

Algol - Part 3

     A moment later they came to the top of a hill, one of the fabled Seven Hills of Arnor (there were, in fact, only five hills, but the number seven has such a mystical power in the minds of men that two more completely fictitious hills had been invented somewhere along the line and the number had stuck), and the telepathic conversation came to a stop as they saw the city stretching all the way to the horizon around them.

     Seen from this perspective, the hideous changes the Shadowarmies had made to the city were barely noticeable and the young rak, who had more of the tourist in him than he would ever have admitted, stared in awe to see how much of the city’s original majesty and splendour still remained. Ignoring the buildings close by and looking only at the regions and districts close to the horizon, the bones, the shades and the ugly, sickening ‘decorations’ were far too small to be visible, and only the original architecture and layout of the city could be seen, getting smaller with distance until they were hidden by a haze that not even Malefactos’s rak vision could penetrate. Off to his right, the river Icea, over two miles wide at this point, snaked from north to south, its vast width reduced to a narrow, silvery ribbon by perspective, and Malefactos was able to see three of the fabled gossamer bridges that crossed it. Graceful and beautiful, their impossible architecture made possible only by strengthening spells cast by the immortal wizards.

     Beyond the river were three more of the hills on which the city had been built. Wide and low, the third behind the first two and so far away that it was only a ghost in the haze. Each one of those hills, Malefactos knew, covered an area as great as most ordinary cities, but here they were dwarfed by the sheer vastness of Arnor, a city that had spread out across the plains surrounding the five hills until it was larger than some countries.

     “I knew it was big,” the young rak said to himself, unaware that he was telepathing out loud. “I knew exactly how big it was, I could tell you exactly how many square miles it covers, but to actually see it...”

     “No doubt it doth appear impressive to thee,” replied Algol matter of factly, “but tis a mere anthill compared to some cities I have seen and helped to conquer on other worlds.”

     “What it must have been to have lived in those days,” continued Malefactos, ignoring the older rak. “No wonder they were never afraid of being conquered.”

     “Much good it did them,” said Algol, “but much good it did us. Had their greatness not been so high, their fall would not have been so great, and there would have been insufficient suffering to allow the Shadowlord a point of entry.” The older rak then turned to look in another direction, off to the north. “There lies our destination,” he said. “Behold.”

     The younger rak looked and saw the fifth hill. The largest and highest of the five hills and the one on which, two thousand years before, the fort of Ah-Noor had been built to defend the trading post and auction market that had stood on the banks of the river below. A few short years later the fort had grown into a small town, and a few hundred years after that it had become the heart of the largest human city the world had ever known, the capital of an Empire that spanned the known world. Now it was the heart of a different empire, one that might soon expand to cover the whole world, for ever.

     Right on top of the hill, looking impressively large even from this distance, was a single huge building surrounded by a large open area that, he knew, had once been parks and gardens covering the entire two and a half square miles of the plateau. Had Malefactos been alive (a live human rather than a live maggot, that is), he would have gasped in awe at the sight of the Imperial Palace; the seat of power of the Agglemonian Empire. The residence of over a hundred Emperors and the place from which virtually the entire human race had been governed for over a thousand years.