Read Online The City by Stella Gemmell - Free Book Online

hair and, in time, they painted their faces to look like their gods. The gods saw their arrogance and laughed, and the City was destroyed in a heartbeat. An earthquake brought down the towers and high palaces, and the people all died and their blood soaked into the land. Only one survived: a child, of course, an innocent girl.
    The City lay abandoned for a thousand years …
    Elija interrupted Rubin’s story. ‘What happened to the child?’ he asked.
    Rubin thought for a moment. ‘She wandered through the land for a long time. She was barefoot, and her only friends were the birdsand the animals. She slept with her head resting on the warm fur of a fox, and sparrows covered her with their feathers. At last she travelled to a high mountain range. Friendly eagles flew down and plucked her up and she was carried off over the mountains and never seen again.’
    Elija screwed up his face in disappointment and Rubin laughed. ‘Now, back to my tale.’
    ‘The City lay abandoned for a thousand years and grass grew over the mounds of the dead, and rats ran in the corridors. Then new invaders came marching in with shiny swords and shields. They revered the songs of the heroes of the past and they started building again. They built temples to their own gods. They even built temples to the old gods of the City. They were a reverent people, and in their day the City saw peace for the longest time in its history. Libraries were built, and theatres, and hospitals and schools. There were green parks in the City’s heart, with fountains and lawns. Then news of distant wars reached the City and the people started to leave. First its soldiers marched away, with their camp followers, then their families. The news from afar became very grave and the politicians and administrators were the next to go, quickly followed by the traders and merchants. Only the poor people and the elderly were left. They stayed on; they had no choice. They lost all contact with the rest of their world and, without trade, they had barely enough to survive on. For many generations their lives were wretched. The parks and meadows ran to wilderness. The stone buildings fell to ruin, and the people lived on the rats with which they shared their meagre homes. But the human heart is strong and the population grew, and slowly the City came alive again. Men took up tools and started scratching in the wilderness, sowing the thin soil with seed and praying for rain. Small herds of sheep and goats and pigs flourished on the green grass at the edge of the City, and a primitive trading community was reborn.
    ‘And at last these people too started to build. And on the ancient layers of buildings, flattened by earthquake, toppled by invaders, crumbled by time and neglect, soaked in the blood of millennia, the present City slowly began to rise.
    ‘It spread as never before, devouring the shabby settlements on its borders, eating up the rivers and hills and layering them first in timber, then in stone. There were no towers of gold, no carvings of rich woods, just stone upon stone and an implacable march tonorth, south and east. Factories and forges spat smoke into the air, and all the birds and animals fled. Except of course for the rats. Great walls were built around the City. Then, barely as the labourers were finished and the shiny bronze gates were closed, new, higher walls were erected further out. The circles of gates would open from time to time to let out armies of soldiers, sent to pacify and pillage outlying lands.
    ‘Seven great Families arose to rule the City, seven houses named Guillaume and Gaeta, Sarkoy …
    ‘I know this story!’ Elija interrupted Rubin again. ‘It’s the tale of the Immortal and his brothers.’
    ‘Then,’ Rubin replied, folding his arms and sitting back, ‘I can tell you no more. You know everything I can tell you about the history of the City.’
    There was silence for a moment, and Emly nudged Elija in the ribs, then her brother said