Thousand Steps - 2

Epsilon stood at the bow that evening and tried to guess how long it would be before they arrived at the foothills.
One day, he postulated silently, eying the already dominating purple
towers against the sky.
Possibly two. Certainly no more than three. They look so near. I can
see every craggy detail of them, it seems.
How wrong he was, only time would tell. Much time. Many days of it longer than he had estimated. On the eighth day that followed,
Lucky Lady drew in close to a high bluff wall, much
like that of Earth's Rim. It did not seem to span the world fr om pole to pole, but it was nonetheless an awesome geological monument. The mountains above seemed to bunch up at the very rim of the plateau, though they must yet lie many scores of miles away.
As they neared this easternmost shore of the Desert Ocean, Epsilon noted that the sheer face of the granite wall was well marred by the mouths of manmade caverns and deeply car ved facades. Sculptures of giants ther e were, beings of stone that stretched many sticks high, whose feet were buried in the sands of the sea. And impossibly vast frescos that were deeply embossed and cast in the form of all manner of mythical beast and magical monster. One portion of the bluff that jutted out into the sea had been completely altered by the touch of forgotten men, so it was now etched into the form of a gargantuan dome with marble pillars of living bedrock supporting the massive ceiling. It was just a cleverly fashioned facade, of course, and not a true building, but it was br eathtaking in its sheer, overwhelming... presence. This, Epsilon was told, was their disembarkation site.This, Epsilon was told, was Verdune, a lost city of the ancient dead. 'Verdune', he was
further informed, translated from the Sudanese into 'citadel of hated ghosts'. How pleasant, he thought, gazing upon the face of the cliff side from afar . It did not seem a fell place from this distance, he considered, but then distances, he had learned, were nothing if not deceiving on this side of the planet.Nearing Ver dune, Epsilon saw that the frescos and statues and facades and caverns and such all continued on and on to the south, farther than the eye could see, perhaps to the utmost

reaches of this deep and hidden inlet of the sandy sea. Certainly as far as the bluff wall extended,
which was closely defined at the northern end, but seemed to stretch forever down to the south.
On the final evening of their long journey from for gotten Oreset, some two and one half
months since first setting sail,
Lucky Lady
eased up to a high shore of sharply fashioned granite
steps, which ringed Verdune's central facade all around in an incomprehensibly immense
semicircle. Though there were thousands and thousands of them, and though they doubtlessly
penetr ated deep beneath the desert surface, each step was precisely like the one above and below
it, and each trailed off around the half circle in a perfectly level fashion. Verdune's many tiered
base was perhaps a five hundred sticks in diameter, or possibly more, and climbed one hundred to the entrance of the citadel high above. At the edge of the sea, the
Lady's crew could look straight
up along the sharp edges of the pr ecisely aligned stairway to the gaping stony gates of the
gargantuan facade at the summit.

to be continued...