“Come on, Aigneis, not much further!” Absalom called.
I huffed. This mountain seemed to get taller the longer we kept climbing. Absalom told me there was something he wanted to show me, “but it isn’t even halfway up,” he had said. Now, looking down, I kind of doubted it. “Just hold on, I’m kind of tired!”
“Well you would get to rest well if you got to where I am,” he said. I looked up, and all I could see of him was his face, about eight feet above my head, grinning mischievously. It must level out up there.
With a burst of strength, I leaped forward and made the distance three and a half feet less, then continued to crawl up as I had been doing. I was sweating bullets. The shirt he had lent me and my braided hair whipped about me in the wind.
Absalom’s hand reached down inches from my fingertips. I got a higher foothold and grabbed his hand. With seemingly no effort, he lifted me clear up to the ground he was on. His hand was warm and sturdy, wrapped around my small one. We smiled at each other a while, the side effect of a five-month, steady courtship.
“Come on,” he said, moving forward. It was then that I noticed the colossal city.
“A . . . Absalom?”
“Yes?”
“What’s that?”
“It’s what I wanted to show you. It’s Gamma, the ruin city.”
“Oh.”
We went in, and Absalom walked along through the streets. “You see, they built the city far up so that no one would be able to attack, but they eventually had to come down because a lot of kids were showing off and fell off the cliff.”
It was incredible. There were around fifty clay, white buildings, and they were all built in neat rows. The structures were of different sizes; there was a large building that looked like an ancient theater, another large building that was once a castle, a large open area that could have been a marketplace, and there was a wall with grand writing upon it, and of course the many, many houses.
Absalom took me through it all, explaining the ancient culture of the lost city that was unknown to all but scholars and scribes. In the theater only the best men performers acted. The bazaar was where everything was bought and traded. The houses were square and small, and each family had eight to eighteen children. Absalom saved the great wall for last.
“This wall was my great, great grandfather’s creation. He was the king back then. He made this saying really popular in his age, and so he decided to have it etched in stone,” said Absalom. As we neared the wall, I saw that Absalom was right; the wall looked different than the surrounding, abandoned quarters. The wall was made of marble, and it wasn’t eroding at all as were the clay accommodations. But instead of eroding, there was niter growing in the carved letters. I read the words aloud as we approached the rock.
“ The great King Evan III doth proclaim:
What you’ve experienced,
Is who you are.
With what you’ve done,
You shall go far .”
“Aigneis,” Absalom said, turning to me, blushing, “I think that saying was just made for you.” That got me blushing, too.
“Thanks,” I said. What else could I say to that?
Absalom took both of my hands in his and bent down slowly, and our lips met.
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