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41 " An incandescent city, a city of plumage. By day its loft balconies are haunted by tame songbirds, and at night by cavorting bats and furred owls. It is peopled with silent figures painted on the walls and ceilings, or hunting elusive game through tapestries, or standing at the end of a passage ... Solitary, a young gazelle comes skittering down a hall, its dark eyes wide, wearing a ruby collar. It noses its way behind a curtain to eat its meal of mashed barley served in a dish of rare blue porcelain ... Behind he gardens the ilk, the saddlebirds, squat: those massive folks the Telkans ride to war, riddled with parasites and stinking of death, whose wild cries ripen the fruit. "
― Sofia Samatar , A Stranger in Olondria
42 " Go up, said the dolphin, and pass into the central palace. There you shall find a great hall of stone, in the floor of which there is a small hole plugged with a stopper of vine leaves. Pull out this stopper and see what you shall find ... And she stayed in the water, balancing on her tail, and watched him. So many a hero has gone forth into grief. "