Unexpected Arrivals

I believe I mentioned, perhaps a week or two ago, that my salamander was getting a bit fat. I may also have mentioned that I still didn't know whether my salamander was male or female, as it's nearly impossible to tell unless one is an expert.

Any doubts on the matter were settled this morning, however, when she laid her eggs.

This came as a complete surprise to me. I'm not particularly knowledgeable about the reproductive habits of salamanders, and I hadn't even known that mine was old enough to lay eggs. She's barely longer than my hand. She must have met someone while visiting the burning man in Twokk; as far as I know, that's the only extended period of time she's spent with other salamanders in the last few months. She meets them occasionally, but they usually just exchange polite puffs of smoke and go about their business.

I had absolutely no idea how to care for salamander eggs. Fortunately, I managed to keep from panicking. Instead, I asked random people on the streets - they were quite helpful, probably recognizing the signs of desperation - until I got directions to a salamander breeder in town. He keeps a shop in the basement of a pump house near the Grand Hat's palace.*

In a city where the rain never stops, there are a lot of pump houses. This one keeps water in the Grand Hat's fountains and out of the Grand Hat's gardens. It's a good place for a salamander hatchery; there's plenty of water close at hand when things catch on fire. I had to circle the building, nearly deafened by the thunder of the pumps, before I found a narrow staircase leading down under the street. There was a door of soot-stained metal at the bottom. It was open, so I walked in.

I felt as if I'd stepped into the Minotaur's labyrinth. Salamanders were scattered throughout the dark room behind the door; when I entered, a dozen lizard-shaped flames lifted their heads to stare at me. The man in the middle of the room turned around a moment later. He was built like an ox, and in fact rather resembled one, with wide-set eyes glowering under a broad, shaggy forehead. When I entered, he rose to his feet - hooves, rather, bigger than my head - and clomped over to me, glaring down from somewhere near the ceiling. The floor creaked under his weight, as did all the leather he was wearing. His horns would have scraped the ceiling if he hadn't been hunched over under a massive pair of shoulders. His beard and mane - it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began - were blackened and ragged. Small flames flickered in his hair. He frowned and let out a rumble that might have been a question, or possibly an earthquake.

Attempting to produce something like a smile, I held up the lantern full of eggs.

His expression changed, instantly, from monolithic hostility to wide-eyed delight. "And what is THIS?" he boomed, taking the lantern and peering into it. It nearly disappeared in his hand. "Look at all these beautiful eggs! Who is their mother? Is it you?" He reached a leathery finger as thick as my wrist into the lantern and gave my salamander a gentle rub under the chin. If she'd been a cat, she would have purred. "Of course it is! Such pretty eggs could only have come from such a pretty salamander! You must be very proud, you beautiful thing, and well you should be!"

He continued to make adoring noises over her for a minute or two, then looked up at me. "This is her first clutch of eggs?"

I wasn't quite sure of my voice, so I just nodded.

He grinned, showing several gold teeth. "Your first as well?"

I nodded again.

"Well, you were wise to come here. I am Karloff Hajrastarn, keeper of the finest salamanders in the two cities. Come. I shall tell you everything you need to know." He clomped back over to his chair, motioning for me to follow. The chair had the well-worn look of an old boot, as if it had been crushed into a comfortable shape by the weight of its owner, and the leather upholstery was mottled with singe marks. It creaked when he sat down. The fireplace in front of it held an enormous fire; it would have lit the whole room if Hajrastarn hadn't been sitting in front of it.

It took me a moment to realize that the logs in the fire were actually a pair of salamanders. They were the size of small alligators. One of them grinned and gave me a long, slow wink.

"You have kept the eggs in the fire." At the sound of Hajrastarn's voice, I looked away from the giants, suddenly relieved that my own salamander is a more manageable size. "Good. Do not let it go out; that is the most important thing. Salamanders are creatures of fire, and they must stay in it until they are grown, just as tadpoles must stay in water. This lantern will serve, though you will need a larger one when the hatchlings grow older. Have you been feeding the mother coal?"

I had. She's been much more insistent than usual about it lately; now I know why. I nodded, hoping that that was a good thing.

Apparently, it was. Hajrastarn nodded in approval. "Good. Keep doing so. She will need to build up her fire again after making so many little embers. She is from Cormilack, yes? They are strong salamanders there, and she has been well cared for. It will not take long. Now, when the eggs hatch…"

He spent the next few hours giving me instructions - enough for the next few years, I think, until the hatchlings are old enough to go out on their own. He would pause occasionally to feed his own salamanders (I counted at least fifty just in the one room) or to do various things related to their training.** Sometimes both of us would pause to just look at the eggs.

The eggs are quite beautiful. They're soft-shelled, like most reptile eggs, lying in a leathery heap at the bottom of the lantern. My salamander dug a little nest for them in the smoldering wood shavings. I can't tell what color the shells are through the flames; waves of quick orange light flicker over their surfaces, as if they were burning coals. Occasionally, I can catch a glimpse of the tiny embryos silhouetted inside.

I left the hatchery with ten pages of detailed notes, a bag of supplies,*** and considerably more confidence than I'd had this morning. Hajrastarn wedged himself up the steps of his shop - he had to climb them sideways - and waved as I left.

"Take good care of the little lady!" he bellowed, grinning. "And bring the hatchlings back to see me when they are old enough!"

I'll certainly do my best.



* This is a literal translation of the title of the ruler of Thrass Kaffa. It sounds much more impressive in Kafri - "Shishra Samakat" - but it means the same thing. The title could also be translated as "Biggest Super Hat," but that sounds even sillier.

** Several of his newer salamanders are at a rather overenthusiastic stage, which is why his hair was on fire when he answered the door.

*** My favorites are the little sticks of yellow incense. They're for nutritional purposes. Salamanders originally lived in active volcanoes (the first domesticated ones were caught laying eggs in brimstone deposits near the surface), and the embryos need certain volcanic gases to develop properly. I think the incense is mostly sulphur. It smells like fireworks.

Umbrella Crystals

Another caravan came through Thrass Kaffa today. They had heavy cargo and were moving very slowly. In wetter parts of the world, wagons this heavy would be driven by oxen or pushpigs; in the Golden Desert, they're pulled by tortoises. Tortoises, in fact, are the favorite slow animal in the Desert. They're slightly less stubborn than mules and far less vulnerable to heatstroke. They pull carts and carry people who don't need to get anywhere quickly. (Camels are faster, but a little too unpredictable for day-to-day use.) Nothing speeds them up, and nothing slows them down. A tortoise might take hours to get to town, but it will move just as quickly - or just as slowly, rather - whether it's carrying tiny children or pulling three tons of umbrella crystal in a cart.

That's exactly what these had. Behind the tortoises, sturdy wagons braced with steel rumbled along under the weight of at least thirty umbrella crystals. They were rolling mountains of honey-colored stone; even the smallest crystals were taller than I am. The smoothest ones distorted everything on the other side, squashing houses into narrow towers or inflating them to bloated yellow mansions. Children walked alongside the caravan and made hideous faces at each other through the stone. So did quite a few adults. Umbrella crystals are rare in the Golden Desert, and practically nonexistent everywhere else. They're some of the only stones in the world to be created by plants.

Umbrella palm trees get their name from their leaves, which are the same shape and just as watertight as an umbrella. The divert the water of the Desert's infrequent rainstorms directly onto the ends of a tree's outer roots - which are often nowhere near the trunk - and keep the base of the trunk dry. That's where the trees grow their crystals. The inner roots absorb sand and cement it together into massive stones, anchors against the relentless winds of the Golden Desert.

Nor surprisingly, the crystals have become incredibly valuable all across Hamjamser. They grow at the same speed as their trees, which - while still slow - is still much faster than any crystals that form by ordinary geology. Most of all, though, they're valued for their size. No gemstone on the planet can rival the size of even an average umbrella crystal. Queens and Emperors have had entire sets of dining room furniture - chairs, tables, dishes, even the knives and forks - carved out of a single crystal. The Sultana of Fasra Koum, according to legend, lived in a palace carved from a single stone. It's not hard to believe. The oldest crystals in the Desert, the ones that no one found or harvested before they grew too large to move, are at least large enough to make a respectable mansion. The wind and rain have eroded them into strange, fluid shapes. On some, they've eaten away at the hieroglyphs of long-dead civilizations. Archaeologists make pilgrimages to them with rock-climbing gear or lifter giraffes. They've found whole mythologies carved into a single stone.

Most of the time, though, the trees are cut down when their crystals are still small enough - just barely - to be moved. Most of them don't live that long anyway. Being the only tall things in many parts of the Golden Desert, umbrella palms are frequently struck by lightning. The branching twists of fused sand left by Desert lightning end up stuck to the bottoms of the crystals when that happens, as if the crystal had grown roots. Until only a few centuries ago, most scientists believed that the crystals grew by themselves, like giant stone turnips.

It doesn't matter much when they're harvested, though; the sale of even a relatively small crystal can keep a small village supplied with everything it needs for a whole year. The keepers of umbrella groves guard their locations as fiercely as compass makers guard their twigs. Stone farmers take their jobs quite seriously.

Healthy umbrella palms grow clear, egg-shaped crystals the color of honey; unhealthy ones (much more common in the harsh Desert weather) produce stones full of bubbles and the elegant black traceries of dead roots. In one particularly old and enormous crystal, a group of explorers found the skeleton of a dragon. It had been preserved like an insect in amber, the bones covered layer by slow layer over the course of decades. It's currently in the Museum of Antiquities in Karkafel, where I saw it on my last visit. The skeleton looks like it's sleeping.

I have yet to find a way into Karkafel on this visit. I've caught a few glimpses of it - vague, shimmering towers in the distance - but all the alleys I've tried have simply led me back into Thrass Kaffa. I'll try again tomorrow. I'd rather not have to find my way there through the catacombs again.

Thrass Kaffa

We felt Thrass Kaffa before we saw it. After days in the dry air of the Golden Desert, the breeze this morning carried tiny droplets of water, which collected on every surface in the caravan. People walked along with their mouths open, drinking the water that condensed on their tongues. We were soaked by the time we reached the city.

The city of Thrass Kaffa is built beneath the Neverending Waterfall. The Waterfall comes straight out of the sky; if there were ever any clouds, it could almost be an exceptionally precise rain shower. Most of it has spread into a fine mist of spray by the time it reaches the ground. The constant wind of the Golden Desert blows the spray over the entire town, so everything is constantly wet. Rainbows appear at random in the air. Somehow, a whole collection of jungle plants ended up here many years ago; they've thrived in the dripping heat, growing over and through the entire city. Thrass Kaffa is a tiny patch of rainforest in the middle of the Desert. It's like being back on the Greenhouse Cliff. The buildings are draped with vines; orchids and bromeliads sprout from sandstone gutters. The streets are full of sunlit mist and the dripping green explosions of tropical plants.

There used to be a lake in the middle of the city, but by now, the jungle and the surrounding farmland drink up all the water that reaches the ground. The fish have taken to the trees instead, since there's nearly as much water in the air as on the ground. You can see them occasionally, wriggling up and down the trunks. Groups of Kaffans gather occasionally to race them.

Surprisingly, the city's aquifrax has never complained about the disappearance of its lake; it only seems to care about the Waterfall. The water that reaches the ground is no longer important. The aquifrax refuses solid gifts, disdainful of anything coarse enough to be affected by gravity, but it happily accepts offerings of music and poetry. It's said to have exceptional taste. When walking through Thrass Kaffa, it's common to find writers and musicians with their heads raised, blinking, singing or reciting their work to the rain. Every so often, the rain gives them an answer.

No one knows where the Waterfall comes from. Several of the city's avians have flown as high as they could, trying to find its top, but they all ran out of strength before they ran out of water.

Of course, not many avians live in the Golden Desert; most avians capable of flight need to eat nearly half their weight every day, and food is not quite that plentiful here. There are far more avians in the comparatively lush Blue Desert. In Thrass Kaffa, there are actually a surprising number of amphibian people - nearly all of the ones in the Golden Desert, I believe. Men and women with glistening, speckled skin pass by with perpetually damp clothes and brightly colored lap-frogs, only a few streets away from the waterless dunes.

The city of Karkafel often connects to Thrass Kaffa, though you can only travel between the two through catacombs and obscure back alleys. The cities are only visible to each other in the occasional mirage. Thrass Kaffa is built around the Waterfall, Karkafel around its famous Library; the cities trade life for information, nature for culture. Farmers pick fruit in Thrass Kaffa and bring it to Karkafel to trade for music. Archivists from Karkafel sneak into Thrass Kaffa when they've had enough of dust and dry paper and need someplace green. It's an unusual relationship, but the people of the two cities seem happy with it.

About half of the caravan is staying here; the rest is moving on, taking the jazz birds off to who knows where. I'll miss traveling with their constant warbling improvisations. I have friends in Karkafel, though, and I want to at least stay long enough to try to find them before I leave.