by BJ Hanlon
They’d been moving almost directly south, down the road that followed the Mirasa sea until at one point, it cut inland. Then the land slowly began to descend down again.
The smell of the salty air grew more intense and the breezes were cooler and felt nearly refreshing.
Edin said nothing. It was dark, lit by a dot of sunlight that had gotten even smaller in the last couple of days. It offered light, sometimes outlining things to the east or west, depending on time of day. Other times it was non-existent and anything beyond the grasp of their unending torches was invisible.
He’d always dreamed of cresting a great rise, one that was not too far from Calerrat and then seeing it there. A shining city on the hill.
But there’d be no shining city on the hill. At least not in his view. “Edin watch—”
There was something mushy beneath his boot and he felt a hand pushing him away. Edin tried to leap away too quickly. His gut twisted and he felt a crinkling feeling in his shoulder. Like paper that’d gotten wet then dried and then rolled into a ball to be squashed.
Edin grunted and stumbled, his foot hit a rock and he landed on his knees and scraped his free palm on the gravelly dirt road. He clenched his jaw and shut his eyes trying to endure the pain as his body stung for a while.
Then he felt hands on his shoulders. “I’m sorry,” Arianne whispered and the donkey neighed.
A moment later, Vistach said, “We’re here.”
From his knees, Edin looked up to see great pyres burning before a wall. A wall which he could not see the top of nor grasp the grandiosity of despite the distance.
He stared at that blank wall; it looked almost beige in the fire.
There were fields too, and smaller fires showing off cottages and homes. Orange glows came from their windows like devilish eyes peering at them from the Underworld.
He saw no movement in them. There were no eyes peering out and no sounds, but that didn’t mean people weren’t there.
Shivers ran his spine. He knew humans, guards were out there and they were watching.
Then he looked to the west and although he could not see it, he knew what was out there.
The Crystalline River. The Crys. The river that ran through this land, through his land.
“The Gate of Flanton the Elder,” said Arianne as she reached under his hips and began helping him stand. He reached his feet and dusted himself off. Though he still hurt, he could stand. He could move. They were finally here.
“Smell that? The fields have been partially flooded,” said Vistach, “and there are traps that have been laid.”
“For what?” Duria asked, her voice rising in timbre.
“Protection from the demons.”
“I’ve seen it before in Dunbilston,” said Melian.
“Do not tell people you came from there,” Vistach hissed. “You’re from the north, you left your village near Brisbi some months ago.”
Then they started again, walking down the dirt road toward the glowing city. Further out, he began to see other buildings. He knew of them only from the small pin pricks of fire inside or around them. They were spreading from a single point and heading out for miles
Growing closer, he saw the city was huge, there were fifty miles of walls between the eastern and western sides of the river. The city was above sea level by a yard at the lowest point, and two at the highest. It supposedly had been designed by an earth mage thousands of years ago.
There was a sloshing sound to the right and he saw something whip out from the corner of his eye and disappear in the darkness.
He took Arianne’s hand and though he felt the small stones still stuck in his palm, he squeezed. She squeezed back and they walked that way for the next two miles or more until they were within a quarter mile of the gates and he could finally see the top.
There were men atop the wall. A wall that was easily forty feet high and made of a smooth white stone.
Stone that looked ancient yet still gleamed. To the right, someone waved a torch that whisked in the wind. Then another responded and then a moment later there was a loud rumbling sound from in front. Chains rattled and there was a grinding noise that followed as a large portcullis, easily the height of three men rose into the archway. As they moved closer, he saw that the upper reaches of the walls pushed out a couple of feet and there was light shining through holes and rectangular archer slots.
He guessed neither had been used for actual combat in a thousand years. Probably more because when the mundane had taken the capitol, they’d done so from within. Or so the stories said.
Three men on horseback rode out of the gate and approached. Above the archers drew back their bowstrings and held them.
The party stopped as Vistach held up his hand and Duria pulled on the reins of the donkey. They stood silent and still as the riders approached. A breeze gently blew over them ruffling his hair and casting the smell of stagnant water toward him.
Edin closed his eyes and felt the air and the water around him. He felt the energies from everything living as well as the inanimate objects, like the rocks deep beneath their feet or the electricity in the air.
He felt it tickling his scalp and suddenly a hand gripped his. “Stop,” Arianne hissed and Edin looked over. “What are you crazy?”
Edin nodded as the men rode up before Vistach.
The leader leapt off his horse a few yards before them and started marching toward the big constable. There was a grimness to his face and Edin could see a scar across his jaw partially covered by a great white, or possibly gray, beard.
They stood before each other and spoke for a minute.
Edin watched but didn’t approach. He wouldn’t dare approach. He had to keep in the background and stay quiet. Now was not the time to rock the boat.
Then the man looked over at them and locked eyes with Edin. Edin swallowed and Arianne squeezed his hand.
The leader pointed directly at Edin and summoned him over with a finger. Edin stepped forward, releasing her grip and moving up and into the brighter firelight of the torch. An unending torch that no one seemed to care about just yet. Or maybe they just didn’t notice.
That’d be nice, Edin thought as he approached and felt the eyes and the arrows of at least fifty men on him. He limped slightly from his scraped knees and his gut and collar twanged.
Edin stood before the man who eyed him up and down. There was a moment when he thought there was recognition in his eyes.
“Name.” The guard captain said.
His mouth went dry and his mind blanked. Of all the things that happened, that could’ve happened, the guard at the gates asking his name was not one he’d expected.
Edin blinked for a moment and then Vistach said, “This is the son of our blacksmith, Jassir from my hometown.”
“Son of a smithy ehh?” he said and his eyes went to Edin’s hands. One in a sling, the other scraped from the road. “Never seen a smithy’s kid’s hands so soft. Those look more like the hands of a soldier.” He raised his eyes before yelling “Crito,” or something over his shoulder.
Vistach tensed and then the word came to him. But it wasn’t a word but a name. One he hoped never to hear again. Critolon, the father of Dexal.
Edin looked at Vistach who said nothing and then they waited. They waited for what seemed like an hour before the man appeared. He was ragged and dressed like he was a vagabond. His face was dirty and he sported dark circles under his dark glasses.
“Is this him?” the guard said.
Critolon reached up, gripped the frames of his spectacles, lifted them and lowered them and lifted them again peering through them from a distance that was a bit further than would be on his nose. Then he turned to the guard and nodded.
Edin growled and a moment later, the guard said. “Edin de Yaultan, come with me.”
The guard turned and walked back to his horse. Seemingly unconcerned. Then the other guards turned their horses around as Critolon scampered after them.
&
nbsp; They all went inside.
Arianne appeared next to him. She was quiet and stood just behind his shoulder and none of them moved. Then she pointed up. The archers on the wall had disappeared and he felt as if the number of eyes that had been on them had lessened significantly.
He turned to Vistach. “What do you think?”
“I do not know,” he said in a staccato like fashion.
The lead guard turned back and called out, “Please hurry it up, it is not safe out here at night.”
They began forward with short, hesitant steps and Vistach was looking all around in a way that would’ve made Grent proud. It took a moment and then Edin noticed that the guards were relaxed. Then following the rear was Dexal’s old man. He ran behind them like a dog.
Edin guessed he wasn’t as well thought of down here as he’d claimed. Or maybe he just fell on hard times after he and Vistach murdered Edin’s mother.
And after Edin killed Dexal.
Edin moved after Vistach down the road and through the doors beyond the portcullis.
Arianne hurried up and gripped his arm. “It could be a trap,” she said, her voice worried and her eyes searching the walls for a coming doom that could befall them shortly.
Edin nodded. Behind, he heard the cart and the snorting donkey as it pulled the others into the greatest city on the continent.
Their first few moments after stepping beneath the great iron spikes that made up the bottom of the portcullis were wrought with anxiety. Edin kept waiting to hear some sort of clang or snap. He assumed it’d be sudden and with only that warning, the gate would fall on them. Maybe it’d crush one of their party, maybe it’d miss, but they’d be trapped.
Edin couldn’t even rest his hand on Mirage with his collarbone hurting the way it was. He had the talent and the fact that he didn’t feel the suppression of a wan stone did give him a glimmer of hope.
Then there was the sound of the chains and the grinding again and he glanced back. The large gate was closing. Up above, on a pair of identical small ledges, he saw men twisting a giant wheel.
Then everyone was inside and there was no sly movement in the shadows and no one trying to block any retreat.
They continued down a great corridor, easily twenty feet long under the light of braziers and torches. Doors were shuttered to the left and the right, he saw grates on them and symbols. One of a stairs, the other of a lock and key.
Edin began to realize that all around them was the wall. It was twenty feet thick at the base with arteries of passages through it.
Then the tunnel ended in a large open area, a courtyard, he thought at first but then saw it was covered in stone. Perfectly fitted fieldstone with sprouts of grass or bits of gray groundcover pushing up.
All around were people. Men and women seated on blankets or on the hardstone surface with nothing covering them. Families were huddled in corners and next to buildings trying to take cover from the wind or rain or whatever would possibly come. Lights shined through closed slat windows on the tall buildings that surrounded the courtyard. They were ten- and fifteen-story buildings that seemed to defy gravity. It reminded him of the dwarven city but without the cave roof.
The guards then turned off to the side as soon as they’d exited the tunnel and went into a paddock with a stable and the smell of horse manure wafting out.
“You can leave your ass and the cart here,” said the head guard, “we go on foot now.”
No one complained. The donkey was the only thing of actual value and he was a bit of a jerk. Just like Gary. Maybe that was why they were called asses, Edin thought.
After they left the donkey, they moved on under the gaze of soldiers and commoners. Some casually glanced their way, others looked with more intensity.
Critolon ran off as soon as they made it out of the tunnel disappearing into the murky mass of men.
Soon, one man, grouchy and old with ragged and wild hair, turned over and looked at them from a few yards away and yelled, “Stop that blasted clacking rubbish.”
Someone next to him jabbed him with an elbow and a ‘hush.’
“It’s night, don’t yous be tellin’ me what I do!”
Other people around groaned. Some began yelling at the old man who began to get up. Or tried to, he was missing a leg from the knee down.
“I swear,” he shouted and then a soldier, maybe one from the paddock or from somewhere else, ran over and whispered something to him.
Edin was already out of hearing range.
They continued down the streets. He’d dreamed of grand avenues with great colored homes with flags or shutters of greens and purples and reds and blues. He’d seen those in Alestow and Carrow and Frestils and Delrot.
But here, there was no color. Nothing but grays and browns and faded whites that looked near yellow, all of it lit by the flames of the torches and braziers that burned about the dank town.
Everywhere they went, it was nearly impossible to move without stepping on someone but the head guard made a path with his horse that made it easier.
They followed for quite a long time and Edin noticed Vistach looking toward a building. It was three stories and there were balconies with small torches or candles on and lights in windows. He was staring at it longingly and then he picked up his pace and reached their leader. “Sir, do you mind?” Vistach asked. “My family?”
“They’re fine captain, you can see them in the morn.”
Vistach slowed then and hung back, his eyes looking up at the third level. At least his family had a place to stay and weren’t on the street. Probably because he held sway as a captain and classmate of Feracrucio’s.
They turned to the right down another street, just as wide as the last and just as crowded. The smell was ghastly and growing worse. More tall buildings overshadowed them and with the fire light all around lighting up the streets, and the guards in and around, Edin felt like he was in some massive jail.
Edin kept his eyes circling, though he did not feel as threatened as he’d thought earlier even though they knew who he was.
Then he saw the river ahead. Pitch black with few reflections of flames on it. Here it was wide and slow but it was the Crystalline. It was the highway that flowed past his home and with it took his heart.
Edin’s mouth went dry as he thought of it, thought of splashing with Berka or seated under the tree with Kes. He thought of learning with Horston or just watching the water with his mother.
He felt a tear water his eye. Edin hadn’t cried in a long time and he reached up to wipe it away. He was tough, he was strong now and no longer the child he’d been when he’d ran.
“It’s okay,” said Arianne seemingly knowing what he was thinking. Then he looked at her and saw that in her eyes, there too were tears. “We’re allowed to.”
“It flows within a hundred feet of my home… or where it once stood,” said Edin wiping his eyes again. He knew it was okay to lose it. For a moment at least, but not longer. He couldn’t afford to longer. “I’ll take you there sometime.”
Then they turned and Arianne’s hand dropped from his and she stopped. Edin, still in his own head for a moment took a bit to follow suit, but then he did and looked up at it.
At the huge castle that stood before them.
Edin could see everything on the well-lit castle. From the great white palace walls to the giant golden conical tower tops. The place was easily two or three hundred feet tall. Larger than any tower in Carrow and Alestow and even Delrot.
This was a palace for a king. For a god like Vestor.
Edin could barely even fathom how big it’d be on the inside even as he walked forward with Arianne who was now pulling him. It filled the entirety of his vision.
He barely noticed the people around him anymore, the hundreds, thousands of homeless were all around him and an unconscious part of him wondered why they were not inside. Why they were made to sleep in the streets.
But that thought was deep down and he acknowledged it and t
hen let it slip away like a worm through his fingers.
They reached the gate and he saw the castle was higher up on a hill overlooking the Crys to its right.
Across the wide river, there were other buildings, tall buildings and short ones and he could hear the hammering of smithies and the chopping of wood. There were large buildings up the river a ways. They looked like warehouses and inside, he could see light burning.
“Dry docks,” whispered Vistach. “They’re making ships to set sail.” His voice trailed off.
“They’re running from the dematians?” Asked Arianne.
“Not a bad idea.” Edin said under his breath.
“If they can. It is a secret right now—”
“One you’re not supposed to share,” said the head guard. He was off his horse now and stopped next to the open wooden gate that led into the outer courtyard of the castle.
Edin took a deep breath and followed everyone inside. He watched for attacks despite that feeling of safety.
Grent would be furious with me if I didn’t, Edin thought.
There were less people inside the walls, but still quite a few, and many were running around. Some with their arms full, others, with arms, weapons, at their shoulders or on their backs were whisking through the maze of people to and fro with urgent looks to them.
“I doubt my father would get an audience with the duke this quick,” hissed Melian. They were walking quicker now, trying to keep pace with the large strides of the guard and Vistach.
They turned down a path that wound around statues of men and women without clothes. They were giants and made of marble or granite and lit by rings of torches near their pedestals.
Arianne made no mention of the nudity here.
And Edin saw it was a garden they moved through. Like the one at the castle in Delrot. Hedges were waist-high, some had been trimmed into shapes. There was a hog, an enormous green rabbit, and a horse. Then he saw another horse, one with a horn on the head and knew it to be another mythological being: a unicorn.
There were fountains too, and it reminded him of the castle of Delrot and Edin turned to Arianne. “We do get audiences with the nobility rather quickly, do we not?”