Ziggurat
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Ziggurat
The Ziggurat has seven levels above ground. There are more below – rumoured to be another seven, balanced exactly – but I’m hoping we don’t have to learn about them. The lowest level, the ground level, is dedicated to storehouses, where supplies are brought from all through the city, from the kingdom, even rare goods traded from abroad. Stables and carriage houses, cold stores and granaries, all built from heavy grey stone.
The second level, which we can reach by ramp or stairs, ladder or basket-winch, those are the dwelling places of the staff, the people who keep it running. Above them, is where they do it, the kitchens and bathing rooms, the great cisterns and water tanks. These two levels in large red brick.
The fourth level is where the business is done. Scriptoria and Calcularia, the scribes and the counters, administrating the empire. In dull black stones, as is the fifth level above, guardrooms for the soldiers, vaults for the treasures.
The sixth level is gleaming white marble, kept that way by an army of cleaners. Yes, that’s why we’re wearing the tunics of the ziggurat servants and carrying these buckets and brushes. The priests who inhabit that level like to keep it pretty, to catch the sun and remind everyone who is in charge.
Because it’s not the Priest-Queen who’s giving orders, is it? Up in the top level, the golden stone that glows, ever so slightly if you look. The dawn’s coming, you can’t see it in daylight. No one’s seen her in an age. They’ve just seen the priests. Like that one there, waving us forward, to go in and begin the day’s work.
So the plan is, blend in, scrub some marble, take a look around. Every joint has a weakness, every system of security an insecurity. We’re smart, we’ll figure out a way through. A way up.
See what’s going on, up on the seventh level.
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