The existence of the city of Laepuria is first felt in the marketplaces of Alexandria and Suakin. Ask a silk merchant in either city of the origin of his goods, and he will tell you of the Saharan city of weavers, whose shallow pitched workshops lie buried beneath the dunes. Life, he will tell you, takes place beneath the surface of the sands, a mole-like existence of shifting tunnels and stale air. The dim light of the lamps brought by the caravans from the East forces the eye into a condition of painful acuity, and so gives the silk weaver powers of extraordinary clarity when making his wares. The quality of Laepurian silks, you are told, is unsurpassed.

And yet mention this name of Laepuria in passing to the jeweller, and you shall be told of a costal city of gleaming spires. The Laepurian bay holds some of the richest pearl beds in the world, its oysters putting forth jewels of absolute purity and symmetry. That city that has grown wealthy on these pearls reflects their quality. The buildings are all of a fine, translucent marble, sculpted into patterns that repeat ceaselessly from block to block, while the inhabitants wear clothes of an opalescent fabric, embroidered with patterns of dazzling self-similarity.

So it is with all the merchants that you speak to. To the smith, Laepuria lies within the crater of an extinct volcano, its shafts delving through the frozen arteries of magma down to the rich veins of ore below. To the spice merchant, Laepuria exists in the boughs of trees, cinnamon and nutmeg and clove, the narrow catwalks between the treehouses forming a layered network of bewildering complexity. Eventually you decide that Laepuria must be a mirage of the Northern Sahara, born not so much from the heat of the desert, but rather from the distances of caravan routes and the unknowable source of all silk. Where knowledge ends, myth begins.

Ask the scholar in his tower overlooking the harbour though, and he will tell you that every man is a city in himself, with his factions and districts, walls and gates. Unique, and whole. To the scholar, then, the shifting face of Laepuria does not emerge from any material settlement, but from the individual spirit and character of each craftsmen. The jeweller may craft his soul from pearls, while the silk weaver crouches and hides the secrets of his craft from the world. A mole shaped soul, moving in darkness.

What is Laepuria? No one knows, although many are certain. And so you remain in ignorance, even as you leave that region and let the half-dreamt memory of its palaces drift backwards on the amber air.

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