The Queen of Penesthelia and Firman the Brave 5
In the Uttermost East
Firman the Brave rode out of Penesthelia into the east on his steed with the squirrel on his shoulder, and the child behind him on the saddle, and the dog running by the horse’s side, and they rode across the land of the men of war. And there were towns that stood and towns that had been burned, and there were drones and planes in the sky and machines of war and trucks on the earth, and everywhere men and women looked in the fallow fields and worried the Famine would come again.
He rode out of the lands of war into the plains of grass and trees and elephants and lions, and here there was little war and fewer men, so Firman the Brave rode faster with less care. And then he rode out of the plains into the lands of sand, where the hills were made of shining golden grains, and the winds blew, and the sands moved, and there was little that lived there at first save the desert foxes and the serpents and the little mice; then there was nothing at all. And so he rode many days and found little water until they were near perishing.
But they came across the dead lands to lands that were not quite dead, and there were the old plants that had owned the world before men came down from the sky. There was water, and then they came to a place where there was a town that had no part in the war, and he said to the ephor of that town, “Speak to me about what you know. I must go to the uttermost valley in the uttermost east, and at the feet of the mountains with no other side, I must find the deepest cañon. In the cañon, I will find a cave, and in the cave, there is a stone, and beneath the stone, there is a little man all of gold, and him I will bring back to the Queen of Penesthelia. And this is the third of the seven tasks she has set me to.”
The ephor of the town shook his head and said, “For us, this is the uttermost east, and there is no side, for to cross the Upper Plateau you will find you cannot breathe. But were you to cross, you would find another land like to this one, which the men of war rule, and in it is a great sea like the one in the west, but it is dead and salt and a man may almost walk upon it, and beyond that is a city they call Clytemnestra, and beyond that is a valley and beyond that is a cañon, and in the cañon, there might be a cave, and for aught I know a stone and little man all of gold as well. But first you must cross the Upper Plateau.”
“I do not fear the Upper Plateau,” said Firman the Brave, “for the men of Ortrera go on it, for it goes by our country as well, and everywhere around the world. But I need air for my horse and my dog and the squirrel and the child and myself.”
The ephor gave them respirators for air, and they took a path east into the upper country and had thirty adventures which I will not recount here, for you would not believe them. But when they crossed it, they lived, and no one had ever crossed the Upper Plateau from the west side of Iphigenia to the East before. And they came to a town by the sea and sailed across a sea so salt it was like in color to milk, and passed through Clytemnestra by night so the men of war did not see them. And they came to a valley and a cañon, and there they found a cave and a stone, but it was too heavy for a man to lift, and too heavy for a horse to drag, and too heavy for all of them to move together, and so there it rested. They knew not what to do, for they felt that beneath the stone in the cave in the cañon, they would find the little man all of gold, desired by the Queen of Penesthelia.