The Sa'-Zada Tales
9781465508829
pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
All his life Sa'-zada the Keeper had lived with animals. That was why he could talk to them, and they to him; that was why he knew that something must be done to keep his animal friends from fretting themselves to death during the dreadful heat that came like a disease over their part of the Greater City. In the Greater City itself the sun smote with a fierceness that was like the anger of evil gods. The air vibrated with palpitating white heat, and the shadows were as the blue flame of a forge. Men and women stole from ovened streets, wide-mouthed, to places where trees swayed and waters babbled feebly of a cooler rest; even the children were sent away that they might not die of fevered blood. But in the Animal City there was no escape. The Dwellers from distant deep jungles and tall forests had only blistering iron bars between them and the sirocco that swept from the brick walls of the Greater City. It was because of this that Sa'-zada said, I must make them talk of their other life, lest they die of this
