Demon Lord of Karanda

left the entourage which usually accompanied the Emperor far behind. There were way-stations along the highway -not unlike the Tolnedran hostels dotting the roads in the west -and the imperial guard rather brusquely ejected other guests at these roadside stops to make way for the Emperor and his party.
    As they pressed onward, day after day, Garion began slowly to comprehend the true significance of the word "boundless" as it was applied to Mallorea. The plains of Algaria, which had always before seemed incredibly vast, shrank into insignificance. The snowy peaks of the Dalasian mountains, lying to the south of the road they traveled, raked their white talons at the sky. Garion drew in on himself, feeling smaller and smaller the deeper they rode into this vast domain.
    Peculiarly, Ce'Nedra seemed to be suffering a similar shrinkage, and she quite obviously did not like it very much. Her comments became increasingly waspish; her observations more acid. She found the loose-fitting garments of the peasantry uncouth. She found fault with the construction of the gangplows that opened whole acres at a time behind patiently plodding herds of oxen. She didn't like the food. Even the water -as clear as crystal, and as cold and sweet as might have sprung from any crevice in the Tolnedran mountains -offended her taste.
    Silk, his eyes alight with mischief, rode at her side on the sunny midmorning of the last day of their journey from Mal Gemila. "Beware, your Majesty," he warned her slyly as they neared the crest of a hillside sheathed in pale spring grass so verdant that it almost looked like a filmy green mist. "The first sight of Mal Zeth has sometimes struck the unwary traveler blind. To be safe, why don't you cover one eye with your hand? That way you can preserve at least partial sight."
    Her face grew frosty, and she drew herself to her full height in her saddle -a move that might have come off better had she been only slightly taller -and said to him in her most imperious tone, "We are not amused, Prince Kheldar, and we do not expect to find a barbarian city at the far end of the world a rival to the splendors of Tol Honeth, the only truly imperial city in the-"
    And then she stopped -as they all did.
    The valley beyond the crest stretched not for miles, but for leagues, and it was filled to overflowing with the city of Mal Zeth. The streets were as straight as tautly stretched strings, and the buildings gleamed -not with marble, for there was not marble enough in all the world to sheath the buildings of this enormous city -but rather with an intensely gleaming, thick white mortar that seemed somehow to shoot light at the eye. It was stupendous.
    "It's not much," Zakath said in an exaggeratedly deprecating tone. " Just a friendly little place we like to call home." He looked at Ce'Nedra's stiff, pale little face with an artful expression. "We really should press on, your Majesty," he told her. "It's a half-day's ride to the imperial palace from here."

PART TWO - MAL ZETH

CHAPTER SIX
    The gates of Mal Zeth, like those of Tol Honeth, were of bronze, broad and burnished. The city lying within those gates, however, was significantly different from the capital of the Tolnedran Empire. There was a peculiar sameness about the structures, and they were built so tightly against each other that the broad avenues of the city were lined on either side by solid, mortar-covered walls, pierced only by deeply inset, arched doorways with narrow white stairways leading up to the flat rooftops. Here and there, the mortar had crumbled away, revealing the fact that the buildings beneath that coating were constructed of squared-off timbers. Durnik, who believed that all buildings should be made of stone, noted that fact with a look of disapproval.
    As they moved deeper into the city, Garion noticed the almost total lack of windows. "I don't want to seem critical," he said to Zakath, "but isn't your city just a little monotonous?"
    Zakath looked at him curiously.
    "All the houses are the same, and there aren't very many windows."
    "Oh," Zakath smiled, "that's one of the drawbacks of leaving architecture up to the military. They're great believers in uniformity, and windows have no place in military fortifications. Each house has its own little garden, though, and the windows face that. In the summertime, the people spend most of their time in the gardens -or on the rooftops."
    "Is the whole city like this?" Durnik asked, looking at the