Tales I heard of Gondor always made it seem like it'd be city after city with roads and people everywhere, to make the Mark and all other places seem like nowhere by comparison. Maybe that's just on account of Mundburg, because that city, what the locals call Minas Tirith, feels that way. Least the bits we got to see. We're not allowed to climb too much into it. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
For days afore we saw the city, Gondor, at least the outer frontiers, seemed near to empty, lot more so than the Mark. To start, as we crossed the little stream they call Mering, there were men of the Mark standing guard on one side, but the other, there's not a man or woman in sight. Nearest thing is a big archway of stone what got a statue of a man waving as in greeting atop it, but no sign of people. Days of riding and we saw hardly a single person, and camped by the road. It were the first time since we crossed the Redhorn Pass that it were like that, so it put me in mind of Eregion. There were probably folk in the forts up on the hills, but if so, not many, and they kept to themselves.
One time when we camped, and the land had leveled out a bit -- it still weren't the open plains of the Mark, but it had room to run -- I got Muffin and Rascal hitched up, took off Kestrel's saddlebags, and then we went for a breathless sprint. Were surprised to see as Adriellyn, seeing what I were up to and asking about it, joined us in doing the same. Twilight's a lighter horse than Kestrel so she was able to not just keep the pace, but take the lead. In a longer run, Kestrel would probably outpace her, but in a short one, or one with a lot of turns, he can't keep up. The four of us got back tired and in good spirits -- Adri might even have smiled some.
Next day the woods got thick and narrow with winding paths looked over by creepifying statues of round-headed men with round holes for eyes and round pot bellies, and just when I were thinking we'd need to find camp in the middle of that, all at once it opened into more fields and arches and bridges, with a tall city in the distance. We both thunk at first it might be Mundburg, so we pushed on, letting the horses run, to reach it by nightfall, but it turned out it were just a small town named Crithost what happened to have a tall tower on a hill. It made for our first place we got to pass much time with the folk of Gondor, what were welcoming enough, though they all seemed ready to bolt, like they'd just seen a shadow move and were afraid someone were about to jump up behind them. They said we was a day's ride from Mundburg and you could see it easy on a clear day, but it were grey and overcast so we couldn't.
Next morning we set out for it, and sure enough, once the clouds broke off the day we could see it looming high above like a wall of white stone, and it made me think we'd reach it by midday. But the land's tricky, and so's the city, since instead of sitting it stands up against the mountainside, stacked high. By midday we was only just starting to near the outer wall, and I don't mean of the city, I mean of the fields around the city. I'd just been thinking how hard it would be to put a wall around Marton, and this wall could have held Marton and most of the Westfold too, and it were made of stone thicker and more solid than anything I'd seen anywhere else. When they let us through there, the city towering over us like it wanted to wear the sun for a crown, we still had more than an hour to reach the city, not long afore night.
The inn we stayed in, the Old Guesthouse, were like a palace, and the whole Pony could probably fit in its front room. Next morning feeling very well fed, we set out to see the city, but were most disappointed to find we could only visit a little bit of it. The higher levels were forbidden for folk like us. Even so, what we saw were vast, and yet small. Everything's arranged in a narrow lane that twists and winds until it reaches an end where the city reaches the mountain. You feel always crowded and hemmed in, with many people and not much space, but at the same time, you walk and walk and walk and there's always more, so it feels vast and endless. With only visiting the lowest part, we saw markets and homes, crafting guilds and inns, storehouses and stables, even a fancy theater, though no one were singing in it when we came upon it. Spent the whole day just looking at the city, craning our necks to see up to the gleaming white stone high above us, where the locals told us the truly wondrous parts of Mundburg were. Pity we can't see those. But since we can't, we'll be leaving after one more night in the Old Guesthouse, making our way towards the Bay of Belfalas, which they say is part of the Sea. I wonder what the Sea will be like. Can't just be like a really big lake, but what else could it be?
