Loka considered the questions, eyes darting around the black corridor.  She kept looking over her shoulder, as though her own shadow might lay its hand on her and drag her back down into that terrible darkness.

"Bright." she said. "Loud.  Deep shadows."  She frowned slightly in another moment of thought "...Crowded.  The towers can go no higher.  People have begun to spill into the inner ring of the maze.  Living there.  Even the inside of the city is like a labyrinth itself, now.  And there are many, many people, from everywhere.  Some like you, even.  Montegardi, who did not leave when the princes claimed the city.  Sometimes I think the whole world is in there, somewhere."

She half-smiled, for just a moment, throwing small, sideways glances at Gregor.  "There is a flower, in the Amber Sea, that only grows from the bones of dead men," she said.  "I suppose Kopt is like that."

They slowed and stopped a moment, as she rubbed at her calves.

"...Many claim it is theirs of old, but I think nobody remembers who it truly belongs to, anymore.  Everyone, perhaps.  Or no one.  The roads that lead to it are littered with rusting swords.  You attack the brazen princes.  The brazen princes attack you.  There is always war.  Everyone wants the city.  Well,"  she straightened up and shrugged, thinly, "Let them take it, if they can.  From what I have seen, Kopt will flourish in the ashes."

They went on, the woman stealing one last glance over her shoulder.

"Of the Blue God..." she broke off a moment, half-sighing, half choking back some other emotion, "I do not know if I can make you understand.  The others did not ask of him, much.  When they did, my answers made them angry.  In time, I... gave them different ones."

She took hesitant little breaths as they walked, staring down at her feet, repeatedly going to speak and then silently cutting herself off.  Finally, she looked up, framing the question tentatively.

"...Tell me: What is the most beautiful thing you have ever seen?"