East Zabrial is a very demarcated city. The great, ancient merchant families and anybody lucky enough to scramble up its social ladder by their own efforts are almost exclusively clustered in the north. Here the grounds rises sharply up to a broad plateau. Impressive cliffs tumble down towards the ocean, a ghost of a breeze can be found even in the height of summer and the streets are (relatively) free of the smoke and smells which fill the rest of the city. Though the area is actually composed of four separate districts it is always treated as a single entity – usually called 'Clifftops' or just 'The North.'
To the north and west it runs as far as the point where the city gives way to desert; and its end to the east is marked by the sea. Only to the south is the boundary ambiguous. Some claim it is the East Reach Canal, which runs by the foot of the northern slopes. For others, only the crest of the hill is good enough. In truth, the slopes themselves are rather mixed, filled with genteel bedsits, ambitious climbers (in more than one sense) and the occasional civic building necessary to Clifftops but deemed so indecorous that it must be shoved out of sight.
There are three main approaches. Nelcatti Avenue and Xolton Road both run a straight line from the rest of the city. They are wide and imposing but fairly standard thoroughfares, generally very busy and, as they progress north, lined by trees and increasingly impressive houses. Yaleth Way comes in from the north-west. It was formerly the chief highway into the city from this direction but lost some of its importance when the roads were re-routed. Yaleth Way is still an impressive sight, particularly for lovers of ecclesiastical architecture. It hosts East Zabrial's largest inland temple to Narlan (made by combining three existing ones in 1102), several smaller Narlat churches, a small but beautiful Ellan temple and the city's only Torgun chapel.
Close to its termination point at Kendle Square, Yaleth Way is crossed by a great archway called the Yaxxi. Fifty feet tall but only several inches wide, the Yaxxi's plate, fluted stonework is thickly decorated with classic Zabric carvings, a mixture of words and images of religious origins. Most have been long eroded by the wind into illegibility, for the Yaxxi dates back to the 550's. Some people say it was originally part of East Zabrial's walls, others that it originally stood in isolation in the desert. It is agreed, though, that passing through it is supposed to mystically purify all but the most wicked. If the irredeemably evil try walking under it, the gateway is supposed to abruptly seal up. (Recorded instances to date equal zero, probably not because the evil have all avoided it.) A little further up, Yaleth was is also crossed by an elaborate sandstone and marble arch, topped by a great statue of Tars Tukas. Logically this is called the Tukas Arch. If the Yaxxi Arch is revered then the Tukas Arch is partly admired but mainly considered vulgar. Built in 998, it is seen as a vanity project from a time when power and senility were corrupting the great ruler.