1
THE CITY
If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.
— C.S. LEWIS
All good journeys begin with a few good directions, and most exciting journeys include a lot of missing ones.
Fellow traveler, as we walk together into the pages ahead we will journey through a world that is like our world but not our world, a land that is everywhere and nowhere. We will meet individuals who are at once impossible, unusual, and yet oddly familiar. We may have known them by another name. We might not know them at all. But in all the familiarity and mystery of this story, we offer the age-old invitation . . .
“Come and see.”
It was a crisp fall night. I was eleven.
Like most evenings, I was sketching at the well-worn kitchen table, the fire already lit and my mother kneading dough for dinner. My father walked in, a blast of chilled air coming with him. He greeted my mother, then dropped his leather-wrapped tools on the table next to me. I looked up, startled.
“So, I heard an interesting story today,” he began, his eyebrows raised. My mind raced. What had I done? Was this good? Bad? My father was a good man, but when his gaze fixed on me, it usually meant trouble. Otherwise he seemed distant, his mind occupied with work.
“Yeah?” I managed to respond, twirling my pencil uneasily.
“Yeah,” he replied, his hand heavy on my thin shoulder. “I heard about the contest at school. For the chicken coop design you drew up. You won!” A wide smile broke across his face as he clapped me on the back. “Well done, Tal! I’m impressed.”
I grinned sheepishly, delighted by his words but unsure how to handle the attention. “Thanks,” I replied as my mother came over and hugged me, exclaiming her surprise.
“I had no idea those sketches you’re always working on would actually come to something,” he said, his voice a mixture of pride and surprise as he took his seat at the table. “Hey, they’re running a design contest for a new gazebo in the town square. I bet you could win that too.”
Yes, I can win that too. I told myself quietly that night as I lay in bed, replaying the pride I heard in his voice.
“I got high marks on my writing test today,” I told him two days later, trying to sound casual.
He just grunted, his eyes focused on the chisel he was sharpening. “How’s that gazebo design coming?”
“Oh, good.” I quietly put my exam paper away. “I was just about to work on it.”
I had never designed a gazebo before. I don’t think I had everseen one. I stood in the town square each day, trying to picture the new structure, imagining its lines and curves. I considered asking my dad for help, but . . . no. I wanted to show him I could do this.
I sat at the kitchen table and drew each evening.
Sketch after sketch lay crumpled up on the kitchen table, none of them quite right. What was I missing? I thought about going to bed, my eyes heavy and my mind exhausted, but I wanted to get this right. I got up to light another lantern.
It almost became a ritual. Lighting the lantern with shaking fingers to work long into the night. My gazebo design won me runner-up. Not the winner. Father told me to keep going . . . that I had something special. I could see the way his eyes sparkled when he said it. Over time, architecture became my passion. My obsession even.
Then Ricard showed up.
Ricard Beaumont. The premiere architect of Ican. He took me on as an apprentice after seeing some of my sketches. I’d never seen my father so proud. And I’d never been so nervous.
Ricard took me to Ican, our capital city. A place of opulence and importance. Miles away from home and worlds away from what I knew. The gleaming, golden buildings towered majestically, the bustling crowds immersing me in an energy and vibrancy I had never experienced. To my young mind it seemed endless, limitless, full of possibility.
I wanted to belong. To be one of the truly successful here i
