The procurers only bought boys with the divine marks: an oval skull with a shallow crown; fair, unblemished skin; hair of fine texture, if not light and curly at least with a propensity to be bettered in such a way; rounded eyes of perfect symmetry; irises cerulean or jade; jaw squared; limbs proportionate and prone to hardiness; spine straight on the vertical axis with healthy bends in the phases of the shoulders and the buttocks for a proper erect posture; waist narrow; hips aligned with no tendency for bowleggedness; full and angular haunches; and high arches of the feet. Though the boys derived from the peasantry, the procurers passed over any one with defects of the intellect or constitution. A kouros was blessed at birth by Aknon, who had been borne of the sun Qabbat. He had to be physically and mentally ideal. Aknon commanded that his chosen be taken into the priesthood’s care to learn how to fulfill their divine purpose.

The temple complex rose in stages up the flank of one of Qabbat’lee’s nine hills. The River Goran carved through the city valley below, a copper snake winding lazily through a vast mire of homes, bazaars, millworks and storehouses. They called it the Golden Crescent. Everything was built from sandstone and roofed in terracotta shingles, and by noon on most days, before the street sweepers passed through the next morning, the helter-skelter roads were burnished in ginger dust from the orichalcum factories. Those workhouses received daily barges from the quarries downriver in Banthun. Inside, they smelted mountain copper and gold and hammered it into the richest, most shimmering wares in the world.

They had a name for men from Etten’nawer, and men from Etten’nawer had a name for them: “Burghuls,” because the Qabbati were as plain and as sticky as a lumpy porridge.

Ja’bar could look at it in all the ways he had been taught, but still his work at Temple Aknon left him feeling worn out and stinking.