Oasis of Klima is back!
A caravan of merchants of the Southern Trade Alliance has made the way to the Oasis of Klima again. The path was lost for a long time.
In the distance, below, perhaps five pasangs away, in the hot, concave, white salt bleakness, like a vast, white, shallow bowl, pasangs wide, there were compounds, low, white buildings of mud brick, plastered. There were many of them. They were hard to see in the distance, in the light, but I could make them out.
«Klima, »said Hamid.
Most salt at Klima is white, but certain of the mines deliver red salt, red from ferrous oxide in its composition, which is called the Red Salt of Kasra, after its port of embarkation, at the juncture of the Upper and Lower Fayeen.
“For twenty days had we marched. Some thought it a hundred. Many had lost count. More than two hundred and fifty men had been originally in the salt chain. I did not know how many now trekked with the march. The chain was now much heavier than it had been, for it, even with several sections removed, was carried by far fewer men. To be a salt slave, it is said, one must be strong. Only the strong, it is said, reach Klima.”
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