Read Online In the Earth Abides the Flame by Russell Kirkpatrick - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Russell Kirkpatrick
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towering walls clean, risking life and limb on precarious scaffolding as they wiped (and in some cases chipped) the soil and soot of the city away from the elaborate sculptures that adorned them, or clung to the roof while scraping and scrubbing the slate.
The huge building was visible from practically every quarter of the city, intended by its architects to dominate Instruere, yet not in an aggressive fashion; instead it stood to remind the citizens of their commonality, of their part in the government of their new land. Indeed, in the golden age before the Bhrudwan invasion it was possible for the head of each family to meet in the vast Outer Chamber of the Hall of Meeting, which would seat five thousand in comfort. However, there had been no gatherings of the people for over a thousand years, and now it brooded over the city like the memory of a tyrant, its twin towers rising two hundred feet above them.
The Company was not summoned to the Council until late that afternoon. The appellants seen in the morning had taken an unusually long time to be dealt with. At least, this was the excuse offered by Furoman, the ostentatious personal secretary to the Appellant Division of the Council of Faltha. Privately Kurr wondered at this, especially since there was a two-hour gap between the exit of the last (and obviously disappointed) appellant and their call to pass through the Iron Door and approach the Council Chamber. At last, having been reduced to a state of extreme nervousness, they saw Furoman march importantly along the wide hallway, stop and motion for the Company to follow. They made their way past the line of appellants still waiting along the left side of the corridor, under the huge carvings and wide pillars Kurr had grown to hate. They could all feel the resentment in the eyes of the appellants: yet another group with money or influence bypassing the system. Around a sweeping bend the corridor went, then they were face to face with the Iron Door.
Tall as a ship, made from iron won from the Remparer Mountains hundreds of miles away, the Iron Door was of immense symbolic importance to the modern Instruians. It divided rulers from subjects, it enforced the hierarchies so important to a city of this magnitude, and in the process became a focus for the discontent and resentment that small people felt for the big people with the power to influence affairs. In the minds of the Instruian underclass the big people worked behind the Iron door; there the inscrutable decisions were made, and there the intolerable laws were passed. As Leith approached the width and height of the door, he felt its power as a strong repulsion, as though it did not want him to pass. He saw no discernible way through. But just as Furoman drew close enough to touch it, the mighty door rose slowly up into the ceiling amidst the shrieking of gears and clanking of chains. The Company walked under it. Leith glanced up: the door was at least ten feet thick.
Behind the Iron Door a great, high-ceilinged hall opened out before them, the famous Outer Chamber of the Hall of Meeting. The grandest and most expensive structure in Instruere, the intricately decorated walls of the Outer Chamber stretched away from the Company into the hazy distance, seeming to the apprehensive travellers like nothing so much as a huge ribbed gullet, swallowing them into the bloated stomach of the Council. Wide marble floors, inlaid with patterned tiles depicting scenes from the Vale of the First Men, led the eye to fluted columns and cream stone walls - the stone having been transported over five hundred miles from grim quarries at the northern extremity of the Remparer Mountains - and a high-vaulted roof. Up to this roof the eye was drawn, as indeed had been the plan of the great architects, a roof seemingly supported by two rows of statues depicting some great conflict.
Furoman followed their eyes, noted the expressions on their faces, and was satisfied: this place never failed
The huge building was visible from practically every quarter of the city, intended by its architects to dominate Instruere, yet not in an aggressive fashion; instead it stood to remind the citizens of their commonality, of their part in the government of their new land. Indeed, in the golden age before the Bhrudwan invasion it was possible for the head of each family to meet in the vast Outer Chamber of the Hall of Meeting, which would seat five thousand in comfort. However, there had been no gatherings of the people for over a thousand years, and now it brooded over the city like the memory of a tyrant, its twin towers rising two hundred feet above them.
The Company was not summoned to the Council until late that afternoon. The appellants seen in the morning had taken an unusually long time to be dealt with. At least, this was the excuse offered by Furoman, the ostentatious personal secretary to the Appellant Division of the Council of Faltha. Privately Kurr wondered at this, especially since there was a two-hour gap between the exit of the last (and obviously disappointed) appellant and their call to pass through the Iron Door and approach the Council Chamber. At last, having been reduced to a state of extreme nervousness, they saw Furoman march importantly along the wide hallway, stop and motion for the Company to follow. They made their way past the line of appellants still waiting along the left side of the corridor, under the huge carvings and wide pillars Kurr had grown to hate. They could all feel the resentment in the eyes of the appellants: yet another group with money or influence bypassing the system. Around a sweeping bend the corridor went, then they were face to face with the Iron Door.
Tall as a ship, made from iron won from the Remparer Mountains hundreds of miles away, the Iron Door was of immense symbolic importance to the modern Instruians. It divided rulers from subjects, it enforced the hierarchies so important to a city of this magnitude, and in the process became a focus for the discontent and resentment that small people felt for the big people with the power to influence affairs. In the minds of the Instruian underclass the big people worked behind the Iron door; there the inscrutable decisions were made, and there the intolerable laws were passed. As Leith approached the width and height of the door, he felt its power as a strong repulsion, as though it did not want him to pass. He saw no discernible way through. But just as Furoman drew close enough to touch it, the mighty door rose slowly up into the ceiling amidst the shrieking of gears and clanking of chains. The Company walked under it. Leith glanced up: the door was at least ten feet thick.
Behind the Iron Door a great, high-ceilinged hall opened out before them, the famous Outer Chamber of the Hall of Meeting. The grandest and most expensive structure in Instruere, the intricately decorated walls of the Outer Chamber stretched away from the Company into the hazy distance, seeming to the apprehensive travellers like nothing so much as a huge ribbed gullet, swallowing them into the bloated stomach of the Council. Wide marble floors, inlaid with patterned tiles depicting scenes from the Vale of the First Men, led the eye to fluted columns and cream stone walls - the stone having been transported over five hundred miles from grim quarries at the northern extremity of the Remparer Mountains - and a high-vaulted roof. Up to this roof the eye was drawn, as indeed had been the plan of the great architects, a roof seemingly supported by two rows of statues depicting some great conflict.
Furoman followed their eyes, noted the expressions on their faces, and was satisfied: this place never failed
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