Twenty ✧ The Holy City of the Sun

                                    

                                          
When Jiro planted his feet on solid ground, it was as if he had found peace again. Five days in the water had caused him to miss the soil, and though he now wore boots, he relished the feel of the unmoving floor beneath him.
Jiro stood on the docks of Kata's water port. The harbor sat at the foot of a tepui, where the holy city of the sun rested atop.
Kata was the oldest and one of the largest settlements in Daracka, lying in the mainland of Kimara. It was one of the southern cities influenced by the cultures of the kingdoms across the Southern Sea.
From where Jiro stood, he could see the part of the mountain's facade where a massive structure made of metal hung from cliff to foot. It leaned on the face of the tepui, crawling upwards like a tower.
Jiro walked toward the structure, keeping his gaze on it. He entered a small trading market near the docks.
When he cleared a line of stalls, he came to the base of the tepui, where a metal crate, large enough to carry twenty people, waited. Its top was connected to chains that looped within the towering structure. It was a machine—a hoist.
Alongside the metal crate was a massive wheel with a mechanism of collected gears. Two full-grown nyxes growled within the ring.
Jiro had heard of hoists before. There was none in Aradack, but in other parts of Daracka where cities were built on top of tepuis, people who couldn't fly used hoists to travel up and down the table-top mountains. They were called sky ports.
Jiro took a long moment to take in the view, uncomprehending how it was possible to build such a structure. When he left Aradack, he had planned to travel straight to Kimracka to find the soldier for the Kahani, but seeing this now, he couldn't pass up the opportunity to experience something new. Fixing his salakot on his head, he moved to the crate where people gathered waiting.
"All aboard the hoist! Don't forget to pay!" a man by the wheel shouted. White lines crawled over the dark skin of his bare arms and on his cheeks—tattoos distinct for a Katan adult.
The people around Jiro started to enter the crate, and he approached the shouting man. "How much?" he asked.
The man with white striped tattoos looked at Jiro and squinted at his silver eyes. "Just a tee," he said.
Jiro hid his face under the wide brim of his hat and tossed the man a copper coin before turning and joining the rest of the passengers.
Those around him carried boxes, sacks, and items of baggage. He was the only one who brought nothing more but his rattan bag. They wore different attires, mostly tunics in dirty white, but some wore more colorful garments—vests, skirts, trousers, and bandanas. None, but Jiro wore a zarok fabric. But despite this, none of them had given him a second glance.
Jiro entered the crate, following the gathered people. The man who collected the fares whipped at the nyxes inside the wheel. The beasts growled and moved, turning the massive metal ring. As the gears groaned and the chains screeched, the hoist lifted, and they rose beyond the tops of the trees where the view of the waters of the strait spread wide on the horizon.
The hot and humid breeze enveloped Jiro, causing him to sweat on his back and under his armpits. The weather in the south was warmer than in Aradack, and in this summer heat, it was almost unbearable, something he had not expected.
When the crate neared the top, the spires of a white tower loomed in the sky. The walls of white houses emerged, and the face of the untinted white wood barrier that surrounded the city, following the curve of the edged cliffs, appeared. Jiro had never seen anything like it before. Everything was bright.