The hills were not a mile high and many miles away. They were only a low undulating ridge, perhaps two hundred feet high at most. A few stunted trees, no more than saplings, poked out above the bushes and long grass along the crest. Between Blade and the ridge lay a grassy depression no more than a mile wide.

Blade rose to his feet and brushed grass and dirt off his bare skin. He reached down and broke off one of the saplings, then stripped it of leaves and branches. It was hardly thicker or heavier than a walking stick and wouldn't be much of a weapon against any human or large animal. But he could at least jab it into the ground ahead of him, testing his way. It also made him feel better, which was even more important. The right frame of mind was always a good part of the job of survival.

Blade looked toward the ridge again. It certainly looked like the highest point anywhere close at hand. In the other three directions gently rolling grassland stretched away endlessly to a distant horizon. The grass grew thickly, in tangled masses. It was dark green, with pale yellowish brown stripes and spots on it that made it look diseased. Blade turned back toward the ridge and strode down toward the valley, the sapling over his shoulder like a rifle.

He moved forward with long, steady strides, occasionally prodding at the ground ahead of him with the sapling. Tangles of grass jerked at his ankles and an occasional thistlelike plant jabbed thorns into his calves. But these slowed him only slightly. The hope of seeing something more than miles and miles of grass from the top of the ridge pushed him on.

Beyond the ridge, the ground dropped away again, then swept out across more miles of grassland. But the horizon was no longer a featureless line where green plain met washed-out blue sky.

On it rose a city. It sprawled across nearly half the horizon, a mass of graceful white towers mixed with lower buildings, bridges, walls, amphitheaters-every sort of architectural shape.