I’ve started keeping records of the exact dates and times I find myself witnessing a birth. If my assumptions are correct, I will only see the result of my research in roughly twenty years. I’ll have to confer with new students then, ask them where and when they were born and compare it with my notes. In twenty years, the world as we know it might undergo a drastic change.

As Samos gazed upon the floating city with wonder, he came to a sudden stop and his stomach lurched to the brink of throwing up. Resisting the acid taste in his mouth, he came back to himself. With a blink of the eye, he found himself standing on an identical looking stone circle as the one just left behind.

The circle was built on a small elevation in the landscape, about a mile away from the edge of the floating city. A narrow road constructed from the same type of stone led straight from the circle to the city. Other roads led out of the city into other directions, ending in the same type of elevations Samos stood upon.

The city itself was built upon a piece of land that seemed to have been ripped straight out from the earth. The gigantic taen rock below it shone brightly as massive lines of power sprouted from it reaching up towards the city. The buildings atop reached high, the towers built in between them even higher. They grew narrower as they climbed upwards, eventually ending in a small sphere shape atop a thin spire.

Dark spots floated in his field of vision, a sudden dizziness coming over him.

“You’ll get used to it,” a voice called out next to him, he thought he recognized Sador’s voice, “eventually.”

“What did I just do?” Samos asked, his voice shaking.

“Not my place to explain. You better move out of the way.” He pulled Samos away from the taen rock and the circle. After a minute, it began to glow and with a flash of blinding light, Yara appeared.

He moved to catch her as she stumbled forward and fell.

“What…” she whimpered. “Where am I?”

“Sevens if I know,” Samos answered, “but I have a feeling we’re finally safe.”

She opened her mouth to answer, but then gazed upon the city before her. Whatever it was she was going to say, it was cut short by a moment of sheer shock and surprise. When Faye and eventually Eder arrived as well, their reactions were pretty much the same.

Lastly, Tifara joined them with a final flash of light. She seemed content to find them all in healthy condition.

“Well,” she began with a grin. “Welcome to Dadendam.”

“Dadendam,” Yara whispered. “Isn’t that the name Teiran mentioned?”

That earned her a sharp look from Tifara. “So Teiran talked his mouth, eh? I’ll have to have a word with him when I see him again.”

“Doesn’t matter now,” Sador grunted. “They’re here now anyway.”

“That’s not what it’s about and you know that, Sador. It’s a matter of rules and secrecy.”

Sador only sighed and motioned for them to follow, leading down the small platform and down onto the narrow paved road towards the city. They walked in silence for a while, Samos and the others regarding the city in silence. Even though they were in the middle of the desert, the ground here was more rocky than sandy. There were a decent amount of houses built here, but none as grand as the buildings above.

Some of the people they passed, most of them wearing similar garbs hiding their faces, bowed to them in what seemed almost like reverence. Sador gave no response though, instead leading them straight ahead without as much as a glance sideways. Tifara on the other hand fell behind after a while, greeting some of them and stopping to talk for a short while in a language Samos did not understand.

The closer they came to the edge of the city above them, the closer together the buildings were built eventually taking on the shape of a large town. The familiar sounds Samos knew all too well began to surface. Market vendor promoting their wares, customers haggling for prices, people yelling for others to move…

They reached a small walled area of the town, guarded by men in similar garbs to Sador, swords at their hips. They moved out of the way and opened the gate as soon as they saw Sador heading towards them, bowing as they passed. Beyond the gate was only a small square with a large cage in its centre. A system of pulleys and long thick chains was attached to the roof of the cage and on the ground next to it. Looking up, Samos could see the chains going all the way up towards the city above them.

The six of them moved inside the cage. The open side was slammed shut and with a rattle and a jerk, they began to climb. Bit by bit, the cage moved upwards giving them an ever-expanding view over the buildings below them and the landscape beyond. The desert of the Calm Waste lay around the city, a neat circle of rocks and boulders keeping the sand away from the inner part where they had initially arrived.

Higher and higher they went, the buildings and the people below growing ever smaller to the point it resembled a mass of crawling ants.

“Are you sure this is safe?” Faye whimpered with a trembling voice, her eyes tightly closed.

Tifara snickered. “Girl, our people have been using the elivets for centuries without suffering a single accident. If you want to worry about something, worry about what the Conclave wants with the lot of you.”

“The Conclave?” Yara asked, her interest peaked. Clearly she was having no trouble with the height, seeing as she had stood at the edge of the cage, gazing upon the landscape below them.

“You’ll meet them soon enough,” Tifara answered. “They are the ten representatives chosen by the people to rule the city. They are also the ones who ordered us to travel north in the search of you four. If you have questions, save them for your meeting with them.”

“What do you mean, chosen by the people?” Yara continued her inquiry. “Don’t you have a king or ruler who chooses his advisors?”

“What good is the opinion of just one man, no matter how wise he would be? I never understood how outlanders like you can just accept that one person makes all the decisions. No, here in Dadendam we hold a voting every ten years. Every citizen of age casts his or her vote and in the end, the ten with the most votes are to rule over the city for the next decade.”

“And does it work?” Eder asked.

Sador grunted, but Tifara ignored him. “Well, let’s see. For the past two-thousand years the Conclave has managed to keep the existence of Dadendam a secret and not once have we been attacked.” She paused for a second. “I’d say it works just fine.”

“But why keep it a secret?” Yara continued the makeshift interrogation. She pointed at the enormous taen rock holding up the city as it nearly disappeared from view, the edge of the rock creeping closer. “A wonder like this should be known to everyone.”

“And then what?” Sador suddenly spoke, a hint of anger seeping through his voice. “The moment the world knows what they can find here, their greed will rule over reason and they would come. Or they would try at the very least. The Calm Waste is the best border we could have.”

Yara opened her mouth, but a look from Sador made her decide otherwise. Out of nowhere, their cage rattled not a foot away from a rocky wall, the sudden appearance of it making the four of them jump. They were reaching their destination, the giant rock the city was built on passing them by as they went up. All around the rocks, hundreds upon hundreds of birds were nesting, the sound of their screeching reaching a high point as the cage disturbed their rest.

Out of nowhere, the rock ended and the found themselves level with the city’s streets. The cage stopped with a final jerk and men awaiting them opened the side, allowing them to step out. Fences were turned toward the cage, providing them with a railing as they stepped out. Samos took a final look down over the railing and gulped. They had to be at least two thousand feet high. He finally stepped onto the street and back onto solid ground. The idea that just underneath his feet there was a gap that large back to the ground didn’t seem conceivable.

The buildings aligning the streets rose high as well as if to accentuate the height they found themselves on. Most had a white and brown tint to them, their windows shadowed by awnings in every colour imaginable. It provided the street with a welcoming atmosphere, complimented by the pleasant buzz of people talking, discussing and even a street performer telling tales on an elevated scaffold.

Above the roofs, Samos could see the towers he had first spotted when arriving at the city. Even from here, in between the large buildings, he could see their spherical tops balancing on lean spires.

They were approached by a young woman. At least, Samos thought she was a woman from what he could beneath those drapes. She bowed and addressed Tifara in the same language he had heard her spoke earlier back on the ground. Tifara’s answer had a grateful ring to it and she turned towards the four of them.

“The Conclave has gathered,” she told them with a comforting smile. “It would seem they are ready to meet the four of you.”

“What do they want…”

“Girl,” Sador sighed, cutting of Faye amidst her question, “for what is probably the hundredth time, we don’t know what they want.”

Faye blushed and held her tongue, Sador earning a glare from Eder which he ignored.

“Let’s go,” he continued. “We shouldn’t keep the Conclave waiting.”

He said something to the woman and she bowed before motioning them to follow. Walking through the streets, Samos was surprised at how similar the people here were to anywhere else in the world. Somehow, he had expected the people to live in a floating city to be … different. Yet they weren’t. He saw market vendors promoting their wares, craftsmen of all professions working in their shops, inns with music emerging from them, people having everyday conversations…

The only difference was that they were doing it about two thousand feet above the ground.

“Where does the food come from?” Eder asked suddenly to nobody in particular. “I mean, we’re in the middle of the desert and I didn’t see any farms below.”

“There are designated gardens up here in Dadendam,” Tifara answered, “kept in proper condition with seals so we can produce all year round. We transport what’s necessary to the towns below.”

“All year round?” Yara inquired. “How do you keep up the seals for that long?”

Tifara sighed as if she was explaining something to a five-year old. “You’ve seen the taen rock holding up the city, right? That’s not the only thing it does. The seals used to condition the farming grounds have been put into place centuries ago and binded off onto the rock, thus never dying out.”

Samos was reminded of Ralph’s daggers, the Fifth Sacratys. Even with the little taen those had held, they had been worth more than anyone could imagine. And here, they used taen for farming.

“How in Sevens do you keep this city a secret for two thousand years,” Faye whispered.

“Nothing as effective as having a desert the size of the Calm Waste as your border,” Tifara laughed. “Combine that with constant vigilance and the outmost caution concerning anyone leaving or entering the city and you have the necessary ingredients for a well-kept secret.”

“And what about us?” Samos asked. “Will we be allowed to leave again?”

Tifara shrugged. “I don’t know what the Conclave wants with you or what you are planning, but somehow I have the feel things are about to chance. For the better or for the worst I can’t say, but I will take it as it comes.”

A shiver made its way across Samos’ spine. Ralph had very much said the same in Sandos. Something is happening.

They rounded a corner onto another street, very much similar to the one they had just left. On the end of this one though, a huge building stood waiting for them. It was the size of at least ten houses both in width as in height. From its centre, the largest tower of them all rose high into the sky ending in the same spherical top.

“The Conclave,” Yara whispered. Samos did not need to see Tifara’s nod to know she was right.

Would they finally receive the answers they were looking for?