At first it had been the unusual that seized his attention. From the food, to the architecture, to the people, his first impressions were all differences. He’d thought about those differences and what they meant on the long marches between new places. In class, his instructors had explained how the empire was one land. Like a child, Brandt thought that meant all places would be like the home he grew up in.
So at first he was bothered by the lack of uniformity throughout the empire. Different places both sparked his curiosity and offended his sensibility. The empire was enormous, and Anders I had conquered a wide variety of people to create his dream. The intervening two hundred years and more had knitted the land more tightly together, but differences still abounded.
In time, though, Brandt’s understanding expanded. It wasn’t the food one ate or the style of house one lived in that made one an imperial. It was a shared dream, an obedience to laws that were greater than them all. Anders I had a vision of an orderly, peaceful society, the society that Brandt grew up in. Once he understood what bound them together, he could much better appreciate the differences.
All of which made traveling in Falar a trying experience. In his mind, the Falari had been his enemies for most of his adult life. And now he traveled among them, respecting their ways a great deal. What did it say about him as an imperial that he got along so well with them?
Despite their similarities, there was no law here, no fundamental truth they agreed on. Falar was ruled by custom and agreements between war parties. One of the reasons they’d never win an invasion against the empire was because they resisted the coordination that defined the empire’s forces.
He also thought constantly about where the Falari stood. Regar never spoke about this, but the prince’s visit possibly meant more to the Falari than it did to the emperor. Ren and Leana both confirmed that the Falari were split on their ultimate direction as a people. Generally, it seemed that those who still wandered the mountains wished for war and for the maintenance of their most cherished traditions. Those like Weylen, who ruled over small towns, saw the path of peace as being the way forward.
Regar, it seemed, would be the weight that tipped the scale to one side or the other.
Ana, of course, derived no small amount of pleasure from Brandt’s discomfort and endless speculation. It wasn’t that she didn’t observe the same differences, but those observations barely bothered her.
His thoughts tended to wander far and wide, especially with the ample travel time in which to indulge the practice. Small events and details often served as metaphors for something much larger. The turning of the autumn leaves was for him a reminder of the circle of life, death, and rebirth. For Ana, they were gorgeous colors that came once a year.
Likewise, the differences in food, language, and culture were little more than useful details to her. They added zest to her world, but she saw no greater meaning in their existence. Brandt wondered endlessly about the Falari emphasis on combat, whether with a bow, sword, or on the boards they so treasured. Ana settled for finally having an answer to their historic enemy’s skill.
But even her attitude shifted when they came in sight of the Falari capital.
Faldun didn’t reveal itself until they were nearly upon it. It was nestled deep in a valley, but in a manner that Brandt had never seen.
In his experience, towns and villages that grew in valleys were typically located in the land between the peaks. Houses and shops might be built from the stone of the nearby mountains, but they stood on the fertile and level land between heights.
Faldun turned that concept on its head. Here the city was carved into the walls of the mountain. The buildings and the mountain blended as one vertical structure of impossible proportions. Brandt had thought Weylen’s village the most vertical he had ever seen, but this dwarfed Weylen’s village in every way. Buildings rose to absurd heights. Brandt couldn’t imagine living with such a view. Even from a distance, Brandt observed the narrow stairs that climbed in all directions.
Not a city, then, for those who struggled to move.
But again, Falar itself wasn’t very welcoming to such.
Still, as impressive and awe-inspiring as the city looked, Faldun was still smaller than Brandt expected. It raised a question Ren had refused to answer. Just how many Falari were there? From what they had seen, the numbers seemed lower than Brandt had expected.
Ren stood beside Brandt and gestured at the sight. “It is impressive, is it not?”
Brandt agreed. There was nothing like it in the empire. The effort needed to construct such a city boggled his mind.
It was, he was certain, impossible.
Yet the city rose before him, the lively ghost of an age long past.
They entered Faldun properly later that afternoon. Messengers had spent several days traveling between the approaching war parties and the capital, so their arrival was anything but a secret.
Regar received a royal welcome. They entered through the main gate and followed a narrow path to a large square overlooking the valley. As they walked, Brandt felt sorry for any who considered entering the city by force. Its construction made it one of the most deadly approaches Brandt had ever seen.
Several elders came to greet Regar in the square. Regar met with them, and Brandt’s attention wandered while formalities were exchanged. This was, after all, the first official royal visit in a generation.
Part of Brandt’s distraction was the lack of threats against Regar’s life. He’d worried on the road for a time, but now Regar travelled with hundreds of Falari warriors who pinned their hopes on him. It didn’t make Regar invincible, but attacking him had become much harder in the past
