Chapter Eight
Gom Weydan hung on the horizon like a solitary jewel against the bronze of the morning.
The Shimmering City.
The Drifting Domain.
If there was any place in the seven worlds that Arkady had always wanted to visit but had never had the opportunity to, it was Gom Weydan. The last time it had been around, they'd been on their way to see it, and the city's gates had closed earlier than expected and by the time they had arrived, it had moved on to another location, somewhere outside of the seven worlds.
He'd lived on hearing such fabulous and miraculous stories about the Shimmering City that he'd doubted most of them could be true, and that many had to have been exaggerated over repeated tellings, a small thing becoming a larger thing before it became the sort of unbelievable detail that could only be said about Gom Weydan, because the city itself wasn't around to be verified.
The rules of Gom Weydan's comings and goings were well-known, but still somewhat unreliable. The city would arrive sometime within a thirty-year cycle, but never in the place it had last been in. One day, the area where it would appear would begin to shimmer and the next day, Gom Weydan would be there.
The city would remain where it appeared for somewhere between three and eight months, and then one day, at around sunrise, it would begin shimmering again. That was what was known as Last Call Day within the city limits, which meant if you weren't out of the city by sundown, you would be transported with the rest of the city to its next location, somewhere outside of the seven worlds. And you wouldn't be back this way again for another thirty years.
Sometimes Gom Weydan would be floating in the sky. Other times it would appear against the side of a mountain. Last time, it had appeared as an island inside of Peart Bay, a particularly challenging area where the constant storms made coming and going far more difficult than it had been the time before. Reportedly the residents of Gom Weydan had harnessed the heavy lightning strikes generated by the storms into some sort of power source while they were there.
That was the thing about Gom Weydan that fascinated Arkady the most - each description of the city sounded more fantastical than the one before, and yet, they also sounded so impossible that he was certain no real place could live up to them.
And he was mere hours away from finding out.
"You're nervous, husband," Yasha said to him, her voice dripping with amusement. "I do not recall the last time I saw you nervous."
"It's The Shimmering City, my love," the dwarven mage replied. "I know you've been before, but I have not, and I am eager to see with my own eyes what sort of mythical delights it has on offer for us when we arrive."
"It was centuries ago that I saw Gom Weydan, husband, and I was but a young girl, not even a woman, so those memories are certainly tainted with the folly of youth, and very unreliable."
"We shall soon see for ourselves."
This time, it seemed that Gom Weydan had appeared high in the skies, floating above a rather barren and desolate patch of desert, with a hastily constructed drawbridge extending to the nearest cliffside, where merchant carts were lined up, both coming and going, everyone eager to do what they could to profit off the unusual delights of the Shimmering City.
As they approached by air, on the back of Quiesh, Arkady was surprised at how large Gom Weydan truly was. Despite the stories, he'd expected it to be a handful of blocks, little more, and yet instead those city walls encircled an area made up of
districts
, not mere structures. In this at the very least, the Shimmering City lived up to its reputation.
The walls that wrapped around the border of Gom Weydan were also exactly as described, mostly a deep blue crystal with veins of gold running through them that glowed with whatever magical energy fueled the city's existence. There were no shortage of mages, he expected, who had booked stay in many of Gom Weydan's hotels, in an effort to glean what they could about what powered the city, but Arkady suspected they would be no closer when the city moved on than they had been when it had arrived to discerning knowledge.
Gom Weydan was also known as the City of Secrets.
From above, they could also see the sky gondolas that traversed above the city's streets, strung up on faintly glowing golden cords, trollies zipping along paths of light, ferrying people and business from one building to another. Arkady was astonished to see it, having convinced himself that those stories must've been the imagination or exaggeration of some drunken fool several cups into his idyllic dreams and memories. The carriages were wood and steel, with loops of copper that wrapped around the path cords, with small propellers at the back that spun to push the vehicles along the lines when they needed to move. A logo was emblazoned on each of the long sides of the carriages, four letters, GWPT, each done in a neat and smart font.
The lightning pillars were also still affixed around the edges of the city, giant steel rods that jutted like spikes up into the air, even though it seemed unlikely that the desert air would provide them much in the way of energy. They looked well maintained, even if they were not currently serving their designed purpose.
Arkady noticed the skies above Gom Weydan were teeming with life, and there were even areas around the tallest spires of Gom Weydan that were marked as 'docking berths,' places where those who travelled by means such as Quiesh could let their steeds rest and relax while they did their business within the city walls. Griffons, phoenixes, dragons and drakes aplenty, flying creatures of every stripe and delight landing and resting. There were also a small number of airships drifting across the skies, a few of them moored against towers so their crews could go about their business.
