I'm posting with a "request" this time, rather than just showing a snippet. If you read, I'd like to know: Does this make sense? I've fiddled and fiddled with this paragraph, trying not to be too descriptive while still drawing a clear picture for the reader. It is the "clear" I'm worried about.
In the distance, two earthstars lit the massive, freestanding gate that separated the jungles of Paoqei from the capital. The gate stood upon a sheer cliff which ringed Open City and its harbor, making a wall unnecessary. Wider by several lengths than the paved, rammed-earth road leading up to it, the gate sufficed for keeping offislanders in the caldera where they belonged. The capital might be open to traders and seafarers from afar but the island was not.
Comments
So the gate separates the city from the jungle exterior of the caldera, but how do traders and seafarers get in to the city without going through the jungle, which is off limits to them? Is there sea access?
Here is what I'm imagining:
So maybe where I've got essentially a tunnel into the caldera is actually a curve in the landscape? So, viewed from above, instead of being a circle with a smaller circle (the caldera) in its center, the island is like a letter C, only with the tips of the C very close together? And the space in between there is the caldera?
Miq's Gate
Second, how that road climbs the side of a caldera whose sides are steep enough to warrant the descriptor "cliffs" (which, by definition, fall off sharply from an edge). That's one heck of a feat of engineering, and I'm having a very hard time visualizing it.
Points of curiosity, which would lead me to read on despite confusion: why such a road would be necessary going *out* of the city and into the jungle, and why those lights would be called "earthstars." >:-)
I don't quite think I'm visualizing the island, though, and how it connects/is associated with a mainland. You mention offislanders. Can they get to the island from a mainland? Or only by sea?
If the city is totally ringed by cliffs, I'm also not understanding where the harbor is located.
I like the idea of a city in a caldera. That detail makes me want to know more about the location, the culture, the history.