The Rings & the Bridges

The capital is built as rings — alternating bands of land and water drawn about the central mount — joined ring to ring by tall stone bridges that arch high over the canals, so that the dirigibles and the masted craft may pass beneath them. The bridges are the pride of the wrights: long spans of dressed marble on slender piers, balustraded, set with statues, and lit at dusk by lantern along their whole length.

There are seven rings of water and seven of land, counting outward from the mount, each ring a world of its own: the outer rings broad and green with orchard, pasture and the seaward quarries; the middle rings close-built with the markets, the works and the halls; the inner rings quiet and fine, given over to the gardens, the galleries, and the approaches to the Helion. The bridges step the traveller inward ring by ring, and it is reckoned a full and pleasant day to walk from the sea-wall to the mount, crossing every span.

Brass tide-engines keep the rings fed and bright, their sluices opening and closing with the sea so the water of every ring runs clear; gondolas and oared barges ply the canals, and the ferry-poles call their crossings; along the avenues, horses and carriages move at the gentle pace the rings prefer, and the elevators of the ring-towers carry traveller and citizen up to the terraces and the bridge-heads. From a high bridge at evening — an airship overhead, the lanterns coming up ring by ring to the mount — the visitor sees at last the whole reason the island is built as it is.