Kwatsura stood at the ledge atop the mid section of East Edge looking eastward toward a white sand plain baking in the late afternoon sun. Islrinea followed him shortly behind, repelling on the common rope against the slick walls gripping the peak. She jumped down the final four feet alighting on the ledge directly left of her grunda and then spoke with a voice oscillating in volume between deep cycles of breathing:
We’ll repel a tenth of a trok down onto that buttress. Not meant for pedestrians, so we’ll just have to take care in crossing to the connecting high tower. Let’s skip climbing again up that one. Peak has only been surfaced, nothing notable there.
That’s fine by me.
Well, should we continue the trek then?
Not waiting for an answer, Isrlinea lowered her body again with feet pressed against the wall and repelled down onto the edge of the buttress. Kwatsura followed immediately after her.
The overpass only provided only enough room for two feet side by side with knees clasped together. Kwatsura looked down at the bustling metropolis, those below still flecks of dust and the Rsolans higher on the ambulatory hills now tiny white worms needling their way up and down the walkways, in and out mouths pouring into apartments, telldron stations, dinner dins and drinking spots; Kwatsura saw most of the forms moving down towards the east, likely a migration of laborers making their way to the two chronologists current destination. Construction was to be in full swing there in just two duns.
A factory in the north had begun operation since early afternoon and yellow wisps of vapor now floated by, makeshift clouds of emission veiling the city of shell through random intervals.
Kwatsura imagined himself of lesser balance and plummeting off the edge of the long buttress; to fly through a yellow cloud of soap vapor and then gutted through the invisible web of support cables strewn between the towers. He almost felt himself suspended in a melancholy purgatory lasting a half eternity along the narrow stretch of the thin passage floating over the city. Thirty more troks of the ninety. Soon. Neh. Dammit. Don’t think the the dun will land us at the western periphery as I’d hoped.
The visiting chronologist marveled over Isrlinea’s balancing skill and rapid, meticulously executed steps and she prodded forward, often taking the lead by nearly half a trok before Kwatsura would have to prod his tip-toeing pace to gain speed and gradually catch up with her form shrinking in the distance along the straight line of the buttress’s top, glowing now like a slick line of floss in the sun.
In just less than four hures they arrived at the end of the buttress and took a late supper there at the lift point which received its end.
Isrlinea spoke after washing the last bits of a supper of dried fruit with glass of licorice water:
Well, visitor. We have two choices at this point. We can head on in the twilight darkness and try to make it to the western terminal or just lodge here for the night. You decide. If we decide to go on, I can’t imagine not taking a telldron for at least half the way. Which means we’ll have to carry sufficient rocks to that point.
Kwastura continued chewing on the dried fruits and a bowl of toasted purple froslr seeds and then finished his champing with a swig of milk spirited with a mash of liquors, the distillations of pomace burning through the veins lining the inner membranes of his cheeks. He took a deep breath.
I suppose we can lodge. Guess I am a regular bookie, neh? Feck whot eh hike! Toired so much to not b’able e’en spake proper outside meh dialect, neh?
Hah, yes; charming. Good then, I’m not up for a journey through the dark anyhow. It will be better to chronicle tomorrow in broad daylight as well - we should reach the western periphery before mid afternoon, taking some sliding roofs along the way.
Good. So we going to lodge up here against the wall of the ingress or find some hrot down below.
They do have some makeshift hrots at the bottom of the mid section, but I suppose those are filling up rapidly as the laborers arrive. Might as well just sleep up here.
The two then sat for about an hure in silence, legs folded over the ledge of the lift point and looking town into the city shifting colors as the sunlight faded to darkness and orrumniae lamps began bursting into white flame thousands of feet below along the lines of supper lounges and drinking spots now opening for business. Rsola now looked like a mineral-rich rock wet from sea water and scintillating softly in the moonlight.
Kwatsura, I will just be forthright with you now. My intentions are very much now to make you a gropsa mine. Would you oblige? This will help me attain a Rsolan egress visa so I can do some chronicles in Fporta then Fgorn.
Oh sheit! Haha, course that would piss the sheit out of your grand uncle! He’ll think you some nasty slogging tamarin of the city!
I know. And that matters little too me. He has no power over the issuing of egress visas. Seriously, would you make me a tropsa? I can register the tighter grunda relation in Fgord which will allow us to exchange transmissions directly. I can even route some transmissions there to Kforretc using an opsa relation alias, neh?
Shore. Feck, ward getz out would make a small chronologist like mehself fecking legend. Eskrian man cracks open some Rsolan clam. Fecking headline on Kforretc.
The two laughed at this. They carried themselves back near the cauldron pipe ingress to rest against in the wall. The stared out through the ban of open night reveling the massive tower of East edge and the sky now revealing stars and constellations in the firmament, the primordial inkwell of the cosmos. Were it not for the tower obstructing the view, Kwatsura could have imagined them in a cave atop some distant, mountainous wilder. The spot was nearly silent, so many troks about the city’s heart.
She we consecrate it then?
Continent men never fail in such direct vulgarity. Already cut, so sure. But you have to promise to meet me in Urslan over the next few duns. I’ll know that’s you next stop and I’ll heading there before Fporta and need you help making acquaintances with another chronologist I’ll need to make grundas with for my studies.
Shore, naught a problem my lady.
Kwatsura pulled a stick and a small pouch of csoma from his coat pocket. Islrinea leaned now against him, her breasts pressed against his right side and head angled to his neck. She lifted her left hand to light the stick with a ring torch.
Thanks.
Kwatsura inhaled a puff and passed the stick to her. She drew a deep puff of blue red smoke and exhaled the fog, watching the lilliputian cloud flutter lazily to into turbulent eddies of air collecting between the floor and low flat ceiling of the lift point. He slid the アークover his left finger watching the thick lines glowing blue across the radius of his anterior forearm, under the mesh gray shirt (a visitor’s garb he had worn under his coat for the day) and up the side of his neck.
Transmitting rote? Isrlinea spoke in soft mumbles, now half asleep on Kwatsura’s shoulder.
Yes, hopefully a few bits on the East Edge climb.
They continued in silence for three decums as Kwatsura replayed the rote, drained the arc of power and then offed the device to being falling asleep in the thickening starlight. Islrenea was now in a deep slumber, arms clasped about his waist.
Feck, another long trek tomorrow.
