[b]Palace of Manyaa[/b]

The gates closed behind them. Clasping shut with the sound of thunder. Heavy mechanisms sealed the port way with a rattling bang as great chains lowered across the door's span a plank of wood that could be described only as the trunk of a tree in itself. The deep heavy wood sealing the portculis behind them.

Towering over them rose the great vaulted roof. Illuminated by great fires, the blood-red stone gave an eerie glow in the warm fire light and the silver bands of sunlight that race against the fire orange of the braziers below, jabbing the last remnants of shadows into shallow trenches and cracks in the ceiling. The entire hall felt like a voyage through the throat of a massive dragon. Where the teeth were there were great columns topped in sculptures of foliage and flowers, massive vines rolling down the trunks of stone where they were collected by dancing human women. Between the teeth stood at vigil the guards men of the house, their long spears held above them. The three points collected the fire light of the hall in the steel, turning the tips to that of captured fire.

And the guards men felt as distant and unliving as the statues of the women between them, though the women twisted and danced motionless across their meaty pillars. The high-pointed, feathered helmets of the satyr guards hid from view their faces. Though the mercenary could feel their eyes follow him.

Stepping out of the sun and into the cavernous nest of the Raja's power was a world away from the mercenary. Who had known only desert and sands. At most the opulent villas of nobility had opened their doors to him as he attended to fluctuating court service. But in the intense halls of this palace's very entrance they now felt like a peasant's cottage or a desert dweller's thatch hut.

Here was a place of awe. A projection of power and of pride.

“Welcome to the Palace of Marthsidapraj.” the prince said. “Or as some have called it: the Palace of Eastern Wonder, or the Palace of Inner Beauty.” Since entering he had assumed an almost liquid comfort. He had been pride filled when he met with the mercenary so many weeks ago. Carried himself with a higher poise. But it had not gone so far beyond mild aristocracy. The mild knowledgeable way he spoke was in sense atypical from the staunch and stuffy princes. But he had never stood so casually in the back of his chariot as they trotted around. He had never lifted his back and relaxed his shoulders, as if he was waiting to dodge a strike against him; disciplinary or out of personal fear. It had for the mercenary been assumed as normal. Not that he had a hunched back, but was a shorter creature.

But now he had risen more on his legs. Riding atop his horse behind him he could see from under the hem of his robes the fetlocks of his hooves, the wild untrimmed tangle of fur twisted and tied into decorative beads. The bare traces of chalk bedded into his fur. Even the tip of a braided tail loomed in the dancing shadows of his rope. He was a taller figure in his home.

He wasn't simply a prince. He was one of high rank. There were little above him who commanded him.

“Amin captured this palace from the nobles of the House of Marthsidapraj four centuries ago.” he continued proudly, carrying his head high. “This entrance here is the great hall. Or the Cavern of Many Envoys. The original structure – like this room – was built a century before our forefathers took the land in righteous conquest. The humans had an alliance with the Visha. If tentative and tenuous for the common man, but we have since believed the nobility and aristocrats were fed well by the Underground Masters. Provided artisans and resources for levee forces and food crops, such things were important the Vishput; it was like gold.

“For the work of hard surfs the self-titled Maharaj of the Marthsidapraj had constructed this glamorous house to project his power. Fashioning himself as almost Vishasthani.

“There was for he and his ilk no mission greater than defining their physical world to their own fetish and desire.” he lectured learnedily. He swept a hand to the great columns and vaulted ceiling, “See: the sharp finned spines that run across the ribs from pillar to peak. The floral carving on the columns themselves. The Visha may have shunned the sunlight, but they still pined and craved to still true natural beauty.

“There may have been gold,” he continued as they rode into a sunlit courtyard. Flowering bushes and short garden trees grew in organized plots around pools of water. Over head a ceiling of glass and iron let in soft sunlight. The air here was warm, and humid. “But the Visha it would seem coveted gold as being too sacred for the surface. So there are real flowers as much as stone ones.”

“It is impressive.” the Mercenary murmured in awe. His voice wavering on the edge of non-existence.

“I've been told there is others more so.” the prince replied dismissively, “I am made aware by my brothers that the underground cities contain palaces coated thick in gold. Ceilings so adorned with sheets of gold and gold carvings that all one has to do is light a torch, and the light of a single fire lights the room like morning. That there are halls of silver mirrors, so that everything in either direction is known to you. And more pillars of more intricate design that they might be thought of as being depictions of scenes frozen in any time of space.

“I have read of gardens in the underground, filled with glowing luminescent mushrooms. Gardens which still glow and make the world seem as if you are in an ethereal world. Cold light. But the light of ghosts and terrors all the same, as with everything underneath the sunlit world.” He stepped off of his chariot and walked around to its harness. With careful fingers he unlatched his horse. It trotted off into the garden on its own business.

“It will find its way to the stables.” he smiled, “But I'm afraid yours is unfamiliar.” he added, hailing to a retainer standing guard in the shade of a nearby columned cloister. Without hesitation he was trotting over, helping the mercenary off of his horse before the two trotted off after the prince's.

His feet felt weak as he hit the warm ground. For riding so long he needed to get bearings. Rubbing his legs he scanned the sunlit room, still in awe. “When I was being recruited by nobility, I had presumed a simple castle.” or another Villa.

“Well, we preside in an Emperor's palace.” the prince laughed, “But it does not make us Maharaj.” he noted.

“Then it must be expensive to maintain.” commented the mercenary as they walked side-by-side through the garden. There was a tranquility to it, one that was in far contrast to the streets across the bridge from the palace's gates. In here, there was only the sound of a few birds, presumably here pets. Where is on the streets men and women clamored together shoulder-to-shoulder alongside satyr and a few other expats from the world over. There was the constant sound of civilization, of talking, shouts, and market bartering. Of sitar and drums.

But in the city's defense, the prince had pointed out they were cutting through one of the market streets.

“It would be extravagant and beyond our abilities, even since the reign of Sithsravat.” the prince answered, “But even back then he did not reside in the palace alone with only his family. As then as we do today our retainers live as one with us and share the burden of the palace as we do. Manyaa may be a grand city, but it is not the islands of the Uwanid where we might have such a large sum of gold pass through our ports to utilize. Likewise, Boone Bhikkus reside in the palace's center, turning it into their own small sanctuary and monastery.

“The palace is nearly as large as a village, with as many living in it. We are all equally responsible for it and to allocate our resources. For the Bhikkus they use donations to maintain their sanctuary. For the retainers they agree to take a lower salary on the pretense their homes will be maintained and they are treated as equal nobles, they enjoy a high status and respect as legal nobility. They all have a family legacy here to as far back as our fore-father Sithsravat Amin.”

The two walked among the gardens, winding through the paths with a purpose towards a far corridor. “The palace really is much like a city within a city.” he aptly compared.

“I am still bewildered one such as yourself would know so much.” the mercenary complimented, “Every prince, or man who claims to be a prince in some way desires adventure. Or to woo women with their power.”

“And I am sure for every princely lord looking to take up the sword for something there is another who looks into the more subtle matters.” the satyr replied with a wide smile, “Make no mistake, I am not the first nor the last of my school and I do no feel I am an exception.”

“But how many know their homes so well?”

“Probably not many. You are born to a place and I take if that it is such a norm its history is relegated to boring normality. Perhaps even the relative in comparison between one's self and another. But they never think deep.

“Growing up as the fourth son of my father to his youngest concubine I was made aware early on I was not in any likely way possible of assuming any sort of lordship. I was a think sickly foal – child – growing up so it was never deemed I would survive on the field.

“Where I had time to read stories, my brother's had theirs in fighting.” he smiled as he talked. Warmly, recounting his own story as they stepped into the colonnade, “I was relegated to the priests and the advisers to learn. Weak and low in succession I would not be a warrior. But I would learn to manage where my brothers could now.”

They turned from the walkway hugging the edge of the garden and trudged down a long torch-lit hallway. The prince's hooves clicked softly against the marbled tile of the floor under him. As likewise the mercenary's boots thudded gently against its polished surface. The fire light shone from the floor, adding to the light and giving soft glows to the walls and the two figures as they passed doors and columns and windows into more gardens.

The hall itself was like a temple. High and pillared. A gallery a floor up forced the walls to widen, and again a floor higher, turning the hall into a succession of rising tiers draped with banners, guarded by statues, and lit by torches. Guards and palatial staff bustled about, keeping soft and quiet like moths. The mercenary watched as the bald servants glanced waywardly down at the new quest before they shuffled off, catching his gaze with a start.

“There is a fascinating place in this palace though,” he continued, “There's a room in an old chapel where the floor is stained a peculiar darker color. A deeper sort of red. As stories pertaining to that goes, during the reign of Rapala Amin there was a wedding in that room that was viciously attacked, nearly all the guests cut down and slaughtered. The blood was so thick by the time the day was over, the stone soaked it in like a sponge. And now you can see where the bodies feel. It's really rather somber.”

“It sounds like it.”

“The room is still used for weddings from time-to-time. Just more knowing than before, and with a certain reverence to death.”

“It certainly would.” the mercenary added, making small talk.

“Anyways, we usually gather here.” the prince said, making a corner in the hall, heading down a narrower passage, “We have our own lounge for planning these sorts of things, and it would be best to check there.”