Sunday, March 17, 2013


If you are new to this blog I suggest you go back to the oldest post and work your way forward. On with the story:



Pelu awoke early, as was his custom, and made the bed he had slept in. When he walked out to the main room he saw Dima washing dishes. A pot of porridge was warming on the stove. Dima greeted him and explained that her mother had already left for her new housekeeping job and her father was at the shop he worked in. "It won't be long before I have to go out to the laundry" she explained. "You can stay here if you like, or you can go along with my brother Jacob for the day. If you stay with him you won't get lost." Just then, Jacob emerged from the small bedroom. "I'll show you around" he said. "Maybe we can even make some money on the side while we're at it." With that, he scooped porridge into a pair of bowls and handed one to Pelu.

After their simple breakfast Jacob led Pelu out into the city. "This is Brownburgh. If you remember that much you should be able to get back here if you get lost. Number ten. Same as the number of letters in Brownburgh. Makes it easier to remember. The neighborhoods in the city get richer as you get closer to the center. When you get right up to the center you find the palace, the temple and the Inventor’s Guild. Around them are the nobles, clergy and inventors. Further out you get the rich folks and then move out to the slums around the edges. Outside of the slums are the farms. People treat the farmers worse than the beggars around here. They smell like their animals but at least they work for what they have."

Through all this they were slowly working their way toward one of the main roads that penetrated to the heart of the city. Jacob continued to tell Pelu about the city as they turned onto the main road. "This is the Gold Road. The city has three main roads that go from the outer wall all the way to the center of the city. The gold road goes right up to the front gate of the palace. The White road goes to the temple and the Brown Road goes to the Inventor’s Guild. Each of the three main roads has a royal raceway in it. That's the middle part. Don't walk in that part unless you're crossing to the other side. You can get arrested for it. That's where the horseless carriage runs."

"Horseless carriage?" Pelu had never heard of such a thing. "Yeah. The Inventor’s Guild made it. It can take a full load of people from the center of the city to the wall faster than a horse can gallop. Only the most important people get to use it. The royal stables are at the outer wall so they can get a regular carriage from there if they need to go anywhere. People say they use water to make it go so fast. I don't know how they do it but the water from the aqueduct stops flowing whenever they use it."

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