Gjadhim: Key to the City

The traveler, upon approaching Gjadhim, is struck with the sight of the sun glinting off the city’s countless golden domes and minarets.  Tall dark-bearded guards stand by the gates, each wearing a pointed bronze cap and holding a polished pike.  In the marketplace, women in flowing patterned veils sweep from stall to stall as slaves stagger behind them piled with packages.

“Greetings stranger,” the salesmen call from every side.  “Would you care to purchase a Syonese dagger, this one used to kill the Prince of Monaco?  And also there is this very special cobra skin wallet.  Any money you put in becomes double!”  Any such purchase, however, gets the traveler an indistinct lump of pottery.  If one is lucky the pottery may even resemble the advertised item, for Gjadhim is far too poor to hold such treasures, or even reasonable fakes of such treasures.

It is not uncommon for a stranger in Gjadhim to be beckoned into an alleyway, there to receive whispered instructions from a black-masked man with a scimitar in his belt.  Usually it involves the delivery of a cryptic message to the patron of a bar on the other side of the city, or the transportation of an oddly shaped rock to a woman hiding inside a barrel.  The traveler is usually cautioned as to the danger of the errand, and the many foes he will face.  In one sense this is inevitably true, for while running the errand it is not uncommon to have bandits lunge from the shadows, though they are always easily overcome, sometimes merely with a fierce look.  Completion of the errand usually earns one a magical or fabled object of some sort, also fashioned out of the crude pottery seen in the marketplace.

Entertainment is easily had in Gjadhim.  Excellent sword fights are to be seen anytime day or night in Aragorn Alley.  The more adventurous types may also join in for a small fee, and lessons are offered by many swordsmen at reasonable rates.  Every tavern has dancers in the evening, and the traditional dance of the Gjadhim, the Mahavati Thjopati (translates roughly as “Dance of the Golden Serpent”) is not to be missed.

The wise traveler does not, however, stay long in Gjadhim, for the city’s illusion is frail, and unravels more and more with every passing day.  After a few days, you will see that the ululating songs that fill the markets come from no live throat, but are piped into speakers disguised as hitching posts.  After a week you may notice the Gjadhimi through the windows of their homes, wearing not the colorful patterns seen on the streets, but plain discount store clothing.  At some point, while dining on the savory and curry-laden fare of the city, you may notice, as the kitchen door swings to, the chef sitting down for a moment to eat a cheeseburger.   And if you are there long enough, you will catch two of the city’s residents by surprise, and will hear a few words of English pass between them before they switch seamlessly to their own lyrical tongue.

How the city’s own traditional culture may compare with that which it presents to the foreigner may only be guessed, for Gjadhim’s culture no longer exists as a way of life for its people, but merely as an item of commerce.

[-a nod to Calvino…]