Excerpt: The Great Places

In the sunlight, the giant globe in the observatory looks as if it's made of gold. There is a lot of sunlight in the observatory. The room is at the very top of the citadel, in the center of Diezhur. With the windows all around, we can see the bright blue bay to the east of the city, and to the west, the beginning of the wilds.

Master Yashi stands in front of the globe, pointing to the roads connecting the Five Golden Cities. Diezhur, Qrian, Li, Ghalta, Aeo—we're all connected in a pentagon of perfect sides and angles. That is why we excel. I'm not sure I believe him.

As Master Yashi goes on, my attention starts to waver. First my eyes turn away from the Five Golden Cities marked on the globe to the north and west. The Great Forest is there, somewhere, hidden in a shroud of mist. I've read all my history. The journals of the great explorers say that one could easily lose themselves in the forest and never get out again, such a great, mystical place it is. And there are many others.

The journal of Jutzia is one of my favorites. Jutzia wrote that in the north, he found the source of all our rivers here in the south, and up, far at the top of Jhiro, the rivers flowed uphill instead of down! I can scarcely imagine such a thing. And there are the glaciers in the far northern oceans that shine like mirrors, so you can see your own reflection. And Helio, one of Jutzia's men, spoke of a golden canyon, with cliffs extending so high in the air, you can nearly touch the sky. I wish I could touch the sky.

I start to turn away from the globe all together now, facing instead the northwest windows, where so many places lie in wait. Yet we don't go there. No one has, not for ages. We of the Five Golden Cities stay in our pentagon, making our cities great and our riches many and our knowledge vast. We are very knowledgeable. We study geography and history and language and mathematics and astrology and so, so many other things. Father says that with all we know today, I will have the best education of any boy in the world.

I am glad of this, but sometimes, late at night, I wonder if we've made too much of ourselves and not enough of the world. I want to taste it. Sai—my very best friend in all the world, even if he does live on the streets and even if he's not a citizen of Diezhur—once told me that when he lived in Rubavn, the very southernmost part of Jhiro, he thought he knew the ocean. Standing in the water all day, spearing fish to eat as they rushed from the mouth of the wide river, he lived and breathed ocean. But when he left Rubavn and spent two months on the ocean in a rowboat, when he finally tasted the ocean and the hard bite of salt in his throat and on his skin and in his hair, then he really knew the ocean.

I don't think I want to spend two months in a rowboat, but I want to know the world. I want to really know it. I've spent my whole life reading about it until I could recite it, but I don't know what it's really like. No one does. We stay in our pentagon of cities and learn but don't dare to live.

I don't blame my father for staying in Diezhur. He's done many good things for our people. He is a very wise man. He had this giant globe installed in the observatory, and is famous for writing two whole pages in the Book of Knowledge, where most kings before him have only written one sentence or two. Someday, I wish to be a great and wise king like my father. But before I do—

“Prince Cier, are you even listening to me?” Master Yashi interrupts my thoughts with his loud voice.

I turn back to the old, bespectacled man and smile. “Of course I was listening, Master Yashi. I always listen to my lessons, don't I?”

He makes a grunting sound and waggles his eyebrows at me. “You always know your lessons, young master Cier, though whether you always listen to them or not is a different matter.”

“But how else would I know them, if I didn't listen?”

“I'm sure there are a number of ways, your highness,” Yashi says, before glancing up at the sky. Through the glass dome, the sun is shining brightly. It has reached the west side of the citadel now, and my feet itch to be done with lessons, to race down into the city and find Sai. I think I may have something important to tell him. Yashi sighs. “Recite the first paragraph of the Book of Knowledge, and you may go.”

I smile. This is easy. “The world is made up of earth, ocean, and sky. With our feet we learn of the solidity of earth. With our entirety we learn of the strength of the ocean to carry our weight. But the sky we must search for with our eyes. The sky is what we reach for, because it is the one thing we do not already have. This is called desire.”

“Very good, your highness,” Master Yashi says, but I'm already half way to the door and can barely hear him over the noise of my own footsteps.