Lookshy
"When first I came to Lookshy, the city stole my breath. I had been to Celeren before, but the place we call a city in Marukan is only an echo of the towering wonders of the fortress to our north. The buildings in the center, the district called the Old City, remain from the First Age; spires of blue stone and fluted walls in layers of alabaster and gold. In the surrounding districts, built upon the ruins of glories past or wholly new to accomodate Lookshy's growth, soar the lesser splendors of more recent construction, designs in tribute to an architecture long lost. Between every district, a wall as sturdy as a yeddim and connecting the whole, flat stone to pave the ordered streets.
"Marvel though the construction may be, that is not what has me thinking fondly of my time there. Indeed, the whole of the place, taken in all at once, sets my heart to pound like a stallion fenced away from the mares come spring. Though I have built my life around my community, I prefer to see the open plains stretching out before the door to my house and not my neighbor's door. But the people of Lookshy have a strength that I wish the land of my heart could possess as well. They squabble as do other men; the indentured work for their freedom, helots scheme to gain their citizenship and citizens plot to bulwark their position against their peers. But the Lookshayans stand with one heart in a way the Marukani do not. Our range towns command our loyalty, and we hold council only to ease disputes or to see if we can find common cause in a larger world. But Lookshy is truly a nation, and her people, no matter what their district or their class, pledge themselves to her larger banner."
-- Storm of Amber, Zenith
