In the distance far in front of us, down below, I can see a few slender lines of smoke. It comes from those small settlements that barely pass as vilges. I throw an awkward gnce to the north—Sol's light grows evermore obscure.
Most of our flight has passed and I can already see some of the supposedly striking shapes of the facade—a blurry part of a somewhat rectangur silhouette really, with no discernible details at this distance.
After about three-quarters of our journey, the face of the eastern cliff dominates the view. It—just like its western twin—is about two miles high and more vertical in the tall upper reaches while the bottom area is often slightly thicker and more rugged as the escarpment slopes downwards. The lengthy cliff has thousands of, mostly small, waterfalls gushing out of its face. The biggest and the lower ones often break upon the rock until the water flows into the eastern river-channel.
The rock is throwing up water by the voidloads. Although this is not so noticeable in all the pces due to the size and scope of the cliff. The sound waterfalls make is mildly annoying—irritable background noise chafing my left ear. I put my face fully against the oncoming wind, allowing its loud whispers to kill the annoying sound of the crashing water.
Some of the waterfalls are so high that the water slowly turns into mist, never reaching the far bottom. The mist forms into random patches of pure white clouds—slowly spreading, and swirling above the channel.
The eastern river-channel meanders and follows the uneven bottom of the cliff. This channel, created by the countless waterfalls, itself ends up becoming a huge cataract as it spills at the northern extreme of the Valley, into Alldora far below.
To my left and slightly below our height, a small barely visible rainbow hugs the palest reaches of a mist cloud before disappearing into nothingness. To my right, the distant western cliff is just an endless fat line. It appears smooth from this distance. The two of them confine the Valley.
The ndscape of the canyon floor is growing into uneven terrain of sharp-peaked hills, tors, and buttes, all possessing every imaginable shade of rust red and pale orange. Their scant ornamentations are occasional dark purple or bck shrubs, and gray wildflowers. However, I have seen scores of Violet-made trees and even a few natural ones in this area. The air here is less heavy than the one in the city. I resist the urge to look back again.
The snake's graceful white-with-red-trim wings make the occasional sound of a distant drumbeat. The scaly creature uses winds sparingly, making us smoothly glide for most of our journey so far. It bizarrely reminds me of the golden-colored water familiar in a fountain near my home. Sudden, long, crestfallen breath escapes me. Anyway, the cat-sized glimmering fish was an arrow-fast part of the water as it cut and slid through it with no effort at all. This flying snake is like that golden fish: completely in its element.
Aleera and I almost reached our destination. She pulls the reins, making us slowly descend as our six-winged friend begins its spiral nding.
In the distance below I see a few minor irrigation and drainage canals, fountains, and pools. The area seems opulent with water, but it's not very lush.
This region of the canyon floor makes the rest of the Valley seem fwlessly ft. Our slow descent is greeted with narrow and wide passages, hills, and columns of pure irregur rock; as if the rage of Alldora's immense waves got suddenly petrified to form the ndscape, and then: chiseled by Allmother herself, pummeled by rock rain, and finally painted red, with each stratum having a unique tint of silver gray, buff, soft green, golden yellow, and every shade of pink. Closer to ground level, thin yers of violet, swarthy turquoise, brown, dark gray, and hints of the wealthy deep blue of pis are stacked upon one another in an eternal embrace. I see wide open areas of nothing but stone, scattered gymnasiums, buttes, irregur towers of rock, circur fountains, and columnated streets winding through a mess of craggy hills. There is order in this chaos of a ndscape.
