King Pinch

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In a far southern land, ten thousand people gathered in the afternoon haze, a miasma that started at noon along the shores of the Lake of Steam. From there it swelled through the streets of Ankhapur and cloaked the city in a moist cloud until sweat and air became one. No breezes fluttered the white banners on the rooftops. Not even the collective breaths of all those gathered could swirl the clotted air. Cotton plastered to flesh like a second skin, so that clothes hung limply on people's bodies. Ten thousand people stood waiting in the clothes of the dead and the lifeless.

These ten thousand-the grandfathers, fathers, and sons of Ankhapur; the grandmothers, mothers, and daughters of the same-squeezed against the sides of the narrow streets, overflowed the balconies, and squatted in jumbles on stairs that coiled out of sight.

They lined a single winding avenue, choked the streets that led to it, even crammed their boats along the quay where the avenue passed. At the edges of this mass were the kebab vendors with their sizzling meats, the wine boys who siphoned draughts from the kegs strapped to their backs, the fruit sellers pushing overripe wares, the gamblers who cunningly lost in order to win, and the ladies who profited from any crowd.

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