Total pages in book: 159
Estimated words: 149470 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 747(@200wpm)___ 598(@250wpm)___ 498(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 149470 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 747(@200wpm)___ 598(@250wpm)___ 498(@300wpm)
“This is only the bottom floor,” Sir told me. “The Baron’s building has a central location and it serves as a hub—a place where the tunnels and walkways that lead to all the other buildings in the city converge. You see, they’re all connected—all the buildings, I mean,” he explained. “That way the residents can keep out of the elements as much as possible.”
“But I thought they could regulate their body temperature to keep themselves warm,” I protested.
Sir nodded.
“They do. But though they do not feel the cold as you do, it can be bothersome trying to get through mounds of snow and ice which accumulates during their cold season—which lasts most of their year.”
“Huh…okay, that makes sense.” I looked around with more interest. The area we were standing in did seem more like a crowded subway station than the lobby of a grand hotel. Apparently people could park their ships or vehicles across from the building, like we had, and then enter here and use a connecting tunnel or walkway to take them to whatever building they needed to go to.
I had been hoping it would be warmer inside, but it was still extremely cold and I didn’t want to take off any of my layers. Still, we were out of the biting wind, which was a big improvement.
“Come along, little one—I believe that’s our lift at the other end there.”
Sir motioned to a shiny ice elevator that was rising slowly upwards at the far end of the lobby.
“Okay,” I said and we walked briskly through the crowds of pedestrians. All of them were Naggians and looked like the vampire merchant we had met at the spaceport—the one whose knife I had used to cut my leash. They all had long black hair and white skin. And I don’t mean light tan like a really pale human—I mean white—as white as snow or paper. It made their masses of hair look even blacker, like midnight clouds swirling around their faces.
The fashion seemed to be to leave their hair down and since they were all looking at their feet as they walked along, it was hard to see what their eyes looked like. But every once in a while I would catch someone looking at Sir and me and they never had very friendly expressions on their faces when they did. Some of them even bared their long, curving fangs at us. Clearly we were interlopers here—not wanted on their planet.
We got to the elevator and Sir pushed the button. But since it had already been on an upwards journey, it looked like it might take a while to come back down. To pass the time, I continued to people watch.
Around the edges of the central space there were merchants set up with little stalls filled with goods. Some of them were selling things to eat—I saw a stall that seemed to be selling little pies of all different colors—pink and blue and green and purple. It made me wonder what the fillings were and my mouth started to water.
The stall beside the little pie shop had big pots of some kind of steaming liquid that might have been the Naggian version of hot chocolate or coffee. People would stop and drop a coin in the jar and the merchant would hand them a cup full of the sweet-smelling stuff that they could sip as they went on their way.
Some of them, however, didn’t seem to have a coin on them. Instead, they would speak to the merchant briefly and he would pull out a glass jar that seemed to be half full of dark blue liquid. The prospective customer would press their index finger to a sharp little spike at the top of the jar and wait for a moment before pulling away. Then the shop keeper would give them a cup of the steaming stuff and they would go on about their business.
It took me a moment to realize that they were actually paying with their blood. I was thrown off by the color, but then I realized the Naggians must have blue blood. They were pricking their fingers and letting a few drops of blood fall into the jar to pay for their morning coffee!
It seemed really weird, but in a society where everyone had to drink blood to survive, I supposed it made sense. I looked over the other stalls, wanting to see if they had similar arrangements. Sure enough, every one of them seemed to have one of the glass blood collection jars, though from the amount they had collected, I gathered that the food displayed cost more than the steaming hot drink I was coveting.
Speaking of the food, there was another stall that was selling some kind of crispy strips of brown meat on a stick that looked a lot like bacon and smelled divine. I wondered if the feast we had been promised would include any of that—I certainly hoped so!