>>9992305(14/end)
Open spaces gradually gave way to hamlets off the trails and thruways, once-named Fortunate Villages which were built according to the flow of these life-givers, where come wintertime, icy waterfalls would freeze while spilling over one of the gorges, making corbeled ledges which rivaled even the finest vaultings of Golestan Palace’s mirrored muqarnas. Come summertime, most of them melted into the sluggish underground canals, down to their thirsty countrymen in the provinces below. Tundra swans would arrive there a few months afterwards to ancestral ponds, undulating their ivory necks in rhythm to every swell of the sea; they arrived by the lovers’ wind’s passage, that turbulent gale which fluttered the leaves of the beeches and the oaks; sunlight fanned off their glossy flecks of sugar-producing beryl, until the latter fell dead on the cool forest floors, their wilted remains appropriated by moss carpets of emerald burnished by the dank soil below… bland rocks made pink by the declining light lay scattered all around which were home to fluffy tufts of tangerine mites and doilies of chartreuse yellow; saghanefar abounded on the ridges above, wooden two-story pavilions with twelve columns, sun-eating dragons gracing their supports crafted by lathe from upright elmwood. Their hamlets’ harvests were stored away on their lower levels, and large bowls of rainwater were prepared in their upper ones for thirsty peasants for Muharram, the country’s mourning-month; the land’s children sat eagerly together every sunset at that time, gave an audience to their forefathers’ tales of conquerors and demon-slayers, and made their plans after examples for the future’s latest phases.