As Adrian and Trilby continued their steady advance into the City of Wizards, the landscape through which they passed became even less like that of the normal world outside.  Within the domain they had now entered, a glow of extra magical potential, perceptible to their trained senses, touched and transformed almost everything.

As they approached the center of the City, the architecture around them grew ever more extraordinary too.  Hovels and monuments stood side by side.  Segments and quarterings of palaces, disconnected from their rightful places in the outside world, loomed over shanties.  Mausoleums carved with incomprehensible inscriptions bulked next to fishermen's huts, far from any water.

And that center was somewhat closer to the travelers than had at first appeared.  The bizarre urban skyline ahead of them, not really as tall as they had thought, was rapidly separating itself into distinct structures as they walked toward it.  And at the same time the individual structures grew more distinct, in both their normal and magical outlines.  In all this the two apprentice magicians found nothing overtly alarming.  But still, despite the study and preparation that had led them to expect such phenomena, the intrinsic strangeness of the place was awesome.  As the two adventurers advanced, looking around them alertly, each reminded the other at least once, in a low voice, that the most efficient way to accomplish their objective would be to obtain the desired paving tile and return to the compound of Trimbak Rao before midnight.

Their pace slowed somewhat as they found themselves, almost before they had expected it, moving right in among the taller buildings.  Here the descriptions given them by Trimbak Rao continued to prove accurate.  Their dog-leg road had turned into a broad paved street, not quite straight, wide in some places and narrow in others, crossed at short intervals by other thoroughfares, most of which were more distorted than itself.

Presently the explorers reached a distinctive intersection, marked by a triple fountain in the center.  To reach their goal from here, if what their Teacher had told them was correct, it would be necessary to walk about a kilometer on a circuitous route.  They could expect serious difficulties in ever reaching the park they were attempting to enter, Trimbak Rao had warned them, unless they approached it from the proper direction.

So far they had seen no living presence, human or otherwise, in the City besides themselves.  The buildings around them appeared to be completely uninhabited, by humanity at least, and yet they certainly were not silent.  At intervals there was music - of a kind.  It was so unlike anything that Adrian had ever heard before, that he was unable to find words to describe it.  He could tell from Trilby's expression that she was puzzled by it too.  These sounds issued from unseen sources among certain of the buildings as the visitors passed.  At other moments strange voices could be heard, some crying out as if in pain, some laughing, others singing or reciting gibberish.  Trimbak Rao had not warned his students about these voices, and the explorers exchanged glances.  But then, they had known that the City was in some sense inhabited, and there had been no reason for the Teacher to warn them of every harmless oddity they might encounter.  Small waves of magical disturbance came washing across the cityscape with the voices, but still Adrian thought that most of them at least sounded human.