The Book of Transformations Read Online Free PDF Page B

explosions of gaudy colours. Heavy, almost monstrous insects droned in and out of the foliage, snapping back branches with their clumsy flight. Other creatures drilled holes through bark, filling their venous sacs with sap.
    The stone track was well-kept, tidied regularly by small teams of men and women. They cleared paths of vegetation with strange relics shaped like a crossbow, with minimal effort, and it was not at all obvious how the devices worked.
    Lan never understood why, on an island without money, anyone would want to do such jobs, yet they did. Surely you should be paid for having to do chores like this? They stopped their tasks to gather around and talk to her, and she had to strain to follow their accents. She forced a smile in her effort to cease being self-conscious. Their clothing was garish, and woven with little patches in the style of harlequins. Not one of them dressed identically, and both genders sported equally unique variants of style, and wore bright flowers in their hair – which made her frown since back on Jokull flowers were generally worn only by women.
    Cayce humoured them all for a moment, but then steered her onwards towards Villarbor. She waved her goodbyes over her shoulder.
    Further up the road she asked, ‘Are we in a hurry for a reason?’
    ‘They will spend all day talking to an outsider,’ Cayce replied. ‘We do not get many of your kind here – a layperson from the Empire, I mean.’
    ‘Why is that anyway?’ Lan asked.
    ‘It is just easier that way,’ Cayce said.
    ‘You said that last time, too.’
    ‘I probably did,’ was his non-committal response. ‘We are simply taught that outsiders have a tendency to corrupt – I wish our society to remain harmonious, is all.’
    ‘One more question,’ Lan said.
    ‘Just one?’
    She paused and chuckled. ‘I know, I’m sorry. It’s just exciting for people like me, that’s all.’
    ‘Your question?’
    ‘How come you were allowed off the island? Seems as if everyone else is curious about me – but does no one ever leave?’
    ‘Few people want to leave. They are free to do so, of course, but they hear of the many tragedies of the Archipelago, and want nothing whatsoever to do with it.’
    ‘And you . . . How come you travel?’
    ‘My experiences and feelings are not entirely like the others,’ he replied, and marched on before she could press him any further.
    *
    Fields rolled back in all directions. Various colours denoted what must have been dozens of different crops covering small plots of land, unlike the vast, intensive efforts on Jokull. Clusters of huts and thickly wooded copses were dotted everywhere, surrounded by strange climbing fruits.
    The sun was sliding from the sky, the heat still unbelievably prominent. Cayce said that the cultists managed the weather in Ysla. Whilst around the Archipelago winds and clouds heaped ice and snow, here there was little but clear skies and intoxicating warmth. It was no wonder the cultists kept this island to themselves.
    She had seen the process of manipulation and been mystified. Figures perched on a hill, tilting some device towards the sky and, on the next hill along, another working in tandem. Purple shafts of light had buried deep into any clouds that persisted, disintegrating them slowly or ploughing through into the heavens. Whatever they were doing, these acts were certainly keeping the weather favourable.
    Lan didn’t spot where the city actually began. As they approached the urban fringes of the settlement, they passed through smaller hub communities – and Cayce explained that this was the real principle behind Villarbor; not one centralized district but lots of them, all small interconnected zones. Between each stretched small grassland meadows, which were punctuated by mats of purple or white flowers, then secondary growth forest and coppiced trees – and then majestic woodland. Now and then they became something more formal, gardens that frothed over into