off the erg. Within the hour, nearly hypnotized by the heat and the low, flat countryside, Cheyne found himself at the majestic, golden Lion Gate bridge, the main entrance to Sumifa, capital city of Almaaz, oldest settlement in the west, the only part of the continent known to have escaped most of the flooding of the Great Thaw after the Wandering.
Architecturally, nothing much had changed in the years since Sumifa's population had moved from the basalt-and-limerock foundations that Cheyne and Javin were excavating to this huge, walled fortress town. Like the ruins at the dig, only on a far larger scale, the town was laid out in irregular concentric circles, each one with a gate of its own for better protection from attack. The gates were staggered inside the city, no two aligned, so that to walk into Sumifa was something like walking into a high, stout maze. In the records of the chaos that had followed the Artifice Wars, scribes wrote that these walls had preserved the city from siege by raiders and the fiery assaults of thirst-crazed military tribes wandering the dunes in search of their lost leaders. However, modern-day Sumifa made use of its fortifications in a way not evidenced at the old ruin. Between the poor and the merchant classes, and again between the merchants and the wealthy Fascini, stood the ten-foot-thick, twenty-foot-tall basalt walls, each a solid, grim reminder of the even more invincible, unseen divisions in the city.
The smell of roasting meats mixed with the strong odor of shirrir spice pulled at him, but Cheyne ignored his sudden, clawing hunger and passed over the sluggish Nantas and on through the outer part of town quickly and warily, keeping the totem firmly in his hand and his hand hidden in his robes.
Though the dig had opened a month before, this was Cheyne's first time in Sumifa alone. Always before, since Javin would not tear himself away from the site for a moment, Muni had accompanied Cheyne, and they had come for supplies or tools, or to bring a few small