VIEWS OF THE EMERALD PALACE
The palace lay at the heart of convoluted circles of hills and forests. Hemmed in on all its sides,twas completely hidden from view until a visitor rounded the last bend in the Road to the central valley. Only then would the palace arise without warning before a rather startled and frightened gaze,much like a vision blossoming out of the empty air. E'en those who made the journey many times were still taken aback by the suddeness that the lush countryside of Folcuth broke open beyond the White Foal River and the Plains of Illitharis in a seemingly impossible twist of geography.
E'en so art Travellers--Ferenghi {foreigners} and native Folcuthi alike-- unable to repress a slight involuntary exhalation of surprise as they round the verdant curve of the final hill and the Palace Unseen--the Emerald Palace of T'Erestai-- manifests itself before the eyes.
'Tis a triumh of great formal complexity, its ten slender green minarets yearning skyward with such a soaring ethereal grace and grand architectural energy that it seems as if they art striving to liberate the fortress itself from all earthly ties with the valley floor.
As is the habit of many at this point, the Traveller pauses a moment to contemplate the palace, allowing the gaze to linger o'er the brilliance of its design, the finely detailed interlacing of many opalescent and green marbles, the symmetry of the patterned windows, recognizable only to one educated in the finer Folcuthae principles of arithmetic structure.
Well trained, the Traveller's horse continues decorously on its way while the Traveller loses themselves in further contemplation of the Emerald Palace. Presently the foregate looms ahead, its battlements embellished with stonework as deliberately delicate as hoarfrost. The Traveller draws up in the saddle and recalls awareness to the immediate surroundings. Having come too far now to entertain any second thoughts, the Traveller carries on briskly forward through a tall archway into the marble-paved entry court beyond.
Already present in the courtyard art two youths, their close-cropped hair and simple white tunics proclaiming the fact they art undergoing their period of subservience within the Tribe Ramoshi. These come forward as the Traveller dismounts, saluting respectfully by means of mute gesture as tis fitting to this place and their respective stations. The Traveller returns their silent greeting and delivers the horse into their care, knowing it twill be fed and watered without any further instruction. As the pair leads the animal away, the Traveller makes their way o'er to a lofty set of doors in the opposite side of the courtyard and presses their left hand lightly against one of the panels.
The doorkeeper inside tis immediately aware of the Traveller's presence and promptly opens the door, uttering as he doth do the formal pronouncement of welcome that palace etiquette demands. Responding in kind, the Traveller allows themselves to be ushered across the threshold into a spacious vaulted hallway, its floors paved in a mosaic pattern of swirling clouds in the style of Post-Foundation First Age period of the First Races. The Traveller waits until the doorkeeper hath closed the portal again ere inquiring after the whereabouts of the individual they hath come to see. Once the porter hath given the Traveller the directions they require, they part company with prescribed words of farewell.
A door at the far end of the hall gives access to a wide marble stairway. At its first turning the stair connects with a long gallery bare of any and all adornment. The Traveller's footfalls faintly echoing, they mount the steps and follow the gallery to the right through a succession of receding arches. The final archway leads out onto an open colonnade with a view overlooking an inner courtyard.
The floor of the courtyard ti spaved with milk white pebbles onto which art set a number of square slabs of translucent alabaster. Eachof these slabs supports a natural object so shaped by the chance interactions of the elements, as to hath attained artistic form. Several white-robed figures art visible from the entrance of the colonnade, some of them walking in the shade, others seated on white and green marble benches, but all art quite separate and none speaking with or e'en meeting the gaze of any other. Such tis the way of the Ramoshi of the Emerald Palace.
Another stairway and a corridor of tapestries depicting the constellations of the southern sky, bring the Traveller to the Tower of Tired Vanities. A spiral staircase set at precise intervals with alternating open archways and closed doors carry the Traveller up the interior of the tower to a circular chamber at the summit. The pale sunlight of late afternoon enters the chamber through a groined arch in the opposite wall.Silhouetted against the light tis a willowy figure, seated at a low marble desk in an attitude of contemplation.
~The Dining Halls~