The Chaos Balance

XCII

Lephi stood on the balcony, facing the harbor, his light silvered robes billowing in the gentle breeze rising off the blue of the water to the south, the scent of leydar and orange mixing in the salt air.

The late-afternoon sun cast the long shadow of the palace almost as far as the stone wharfs that had sparkled spotless white for all the centuries Cyad had stood, for all the generations of lords of Cyador. Each of the score of wharfs extended more than five hundred cubits out into the deep harbor waters; each was twice that from its neighbor. Beyond the wharves the harbor’s greenish blue darkened into the far deeper blue of the Great Western Ocean.

The Protector of the Steps to Paradise took in the white clouds rising over the ocean to the south, with their promise of rain, and then the wharfs again, where the seemingly endless expanse of white stone dwarfed the dozen small coasters seemingly tied at random.

“Cyad will again be as mighty as…even more mighty than before…” he murmured. “No barbarians, no forests, no love of luxury…no…”

Although the shadow of the palace covered the Great Avenue, all the way down to the wharfs, the white paving stones and curbs glistened with a whiteness that leapt out of the shadow, out of the dark green of trees and grass. Indeed, Lephi knew, without looking, that every avenue in Cyad was white, spotless and shimmering in late afternoon, in twilight, even through the nights under the glittering lamps of the avenues. And every avenue was safe, clean, pure.

His eyes dropped closer to the palace, toward the hexagonal white market square to the southwest of his balcony. He frowned at the single blue awning among the green and white canvases.

“Blue? Blue…it will go, like the barbarians.”

Lephi nodded, his eyes returning to the wharfs, and to the shipworks beyond where the superstructure of the first fireship in generations rose above the waves.

“Cyad…forever.”

The Protector of the Steps to Paradise smiled.