2x01
The blinding white light blew itself out like a candle snuffed by wind.
Darkness replaced it. Arden could hear the gentlefolk catching their breath in the silence around her. She had a sense of a vast indoor space, and she could smell a difference in the air, something she could detect but not define, the way a farm smells different on the first warm day of spring compared to the last cold day of winter. Before her eyes even adjusted to the darkness, then, she knew by the smell: she was somewhere strange, somewhere foreign.
They really brought me along, she thought, astonished by that simple fact as well as by her first exposure to such advanced magic. Halfway across the world, just like that. I'm really here.
Dim light filtered into the building from the moon outside. They were in a warehouse, not unlike the one in Pol Henna, filled with shipping crates. The place was deserted.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the city of Lord's Edge, one of the crown jewels in the Sovereignty of Kettenek," said Kormick, uncharacteristically softly. "As you can see, a place of sweeping vistas, marvels at every turn, and a zeal for law enforcement that we of Dar Und only dream about. In our nightmares."
"Assuming this place is like our teleport center, it'll get really busy around dawn," said Tavi. "If we leave now, we can be outside the city gates by then."
Kormick shook his head. "The city gates will be locked until after sunrise. We'll have to wait."
"Anyway," said Twiggy, "shouldn't we take some time here and ask around about the oracle? Maybe someone knows where it is."
To Arden's amusement, Kormick looked as if he wanted to pat Twiggy's cheek affectionately, like an old grandfather. "You're a cute girl. 'Let us go forth into the city of fundamentalist Kettenek believers and announce that we're outsiders in search of an Alirrian holy site.' Heh."
"But – but she's right -- there should be Alirrians to talk to," said Savina. "Other religious groups are legal here now. It would be nice to visit the Givers."
"I cannot advise publicizing our secret mission among the city's persecuted but technically legal minorities. I do suggest finding another place to wile away the hours until dawn. Shall we -- ?" Kormick gestured toward the door.
"I will not allow Rose to leave until we know what awaits us outside," Mena declared. "Until we know exactly where we're going, she should remain here."
"Then how about you and I take the slave and go see what we can learn?"
"Agreed," said Mena. "Tavi– "
"—look after Rose," finished Tavi.
Arden pointedly turned to Savina. By now, she was confident that her mistress did not demand abject submission, but with new owners, observing the proprieties was always important until you knew how strict they were . . . and in Arden's experience, they had all been strict. "Blessed Daughter, is it your wish that I accompany them?"
Savina looked startled to be asked. "Of course, yes, whatever is best," she said.
Arden nodded once with careful humility, then stepped away to join Kormick and Mena. I'm really here, she thought again. Miles away from everything. My mistress doesn't give orders, and against my better judgment, I even like the alleged Justicar. By the gods, what we have here is a vacation. She found herself starting to smile at the absurdity and squelched it lest anyone see.
"Before you go," said Rose, "I've brought along a few items that might be useful." She opened the silver clasps of her bag and drew out three potions of healing, one potion of resistance to energy, two augmenting whetstones, and a pouch that rattled with the distinctive sound of money. "This is five hundred in gold and gems," she explained.
I could buy five of me with that, Arden mused. More, if I haggled.
"I'll carry the gold and gems," volunteered Kormick, reaching out his hand only to be greeted by six openly skeptical faces. "Okay, okay," he said. "The Blessed Daughter can carry the gold and gems."
Rose handed the money to Savina, who looked nervous but resolute. She packed the pouch away. The rest of the items were quickly distributed, and Kormick, Mena, and Arden prepared to leave.
"Just one more question," said Twiggy. "If it's so dangerous to be foreigners here, what are you going to do if someone tries to arrest you?"
"Not a problem." Kormick clapped Twiggy's shoulder in a gesture meant to be reassuring, causing her to stagger a little. "We'll knife him in the kidneys, hand the murder weapon to the slave, and run."
Arden stared. He is joking. He makes jokes like that. Usually I think he's funny.
Kormick met her eyes.
"No offense," he said.
"Please don't lose Arden," said Savina, not getting the joke, either. "The Honored Mother wouldn't be pleased if I – "
"I'd pay you back."
"Well, I guess that would help, but – "
"Young lady, as surely as Kettenek's laws and what-not stand firm in the manner of an oak tree or some similarly firm object, I promise I will only pin murders on the slave as a last resort."
I'm on vacation, Arden resolved. I'm not going to waste time worrying about what Alleged the Just could do to me.
But it wasn't really a vacation. And she knew it. As she followed Kormick and Mena out into the dark streets of Lord's Edge, Arden's heart was pounding.
###
The city streets surrounding the teleport center were nondescript. Their defining characteristic was their emptiness: no one was in sight, and the silence was eerie.
Mena and Kormick led the way, selecting a route mostly at random, consulting with quick gestures. Arden followed, a shadow in their wake. Despite her unease about the Justicar, she savored being alone with the two other adults in the group. She felt a kinship with them: she had a sense that they had all won their maturity through difficult trials. They knew that the world was harsh.
On a long, broad street, Kormick suddenly dropped back to walk beside Arden. "Slave," he said softly, conversationally. "Tell me about the time you escaped."
So much for kinship. "I'm sorry, Justicar?" she asked, reflexively pretending ignorance even though they both knew what he was talking about.
"That cuff on your wrist. It means you're a slave who tried to run."
"I didn't succeed, Justicar."
"Indeed, I'm not blind. But now, in their wisdom, the Givers have handed you a sword – and what other weapons are you hiding under that cloak? Tell me."
"A dagger and a sling, Justicar."
"I see. They gave you a small arsenal, plus survival equipment, and sent you out into a foreign land to serve someone who is explicitly the most naive girl they could find. What's to stop you from running again? And from stabbing us all to death first?"
Fair questions, Alleged. "I learned my lesson, Justicar."
"Thank you, I feel entirely reassured. Let us review the lesson that I will teach you if you ever -- "
"Kormick," interrupted Mena. "Leave Arden alone. There's someone up ahead."
A city guard was standing in their path, his arms crossed.
"It's after prayer time," he said, eying Mena's Sedellan armor. "Why are you out?"
Kormick stepped forward. "May Kettenek's various ordinances fall upon your head. We're travelers in your illustrious city, looking for a place to spend the night."
The guard was unimpressed with Kormick's Justicar robes. "Then get yourselves to the rats' quarter," he growled. He pointed east, down the hill. "Make haste."
He glared after them as they followed the direction of his finger. As they descended the hill, the structures became dilapidated, the signs of poverty greater. Finally, they reached a district where a few people still moved on the streets, and where one or two seedy buildings bore holy symbols other than Kettenek's. Kormick paused before a lighted inn bearing a sign: "The Inn of the Lord's Welcoming Embrace."
"Well," he said, "we know nothing of Kettenek's hugs in Dar Und."
Kettenek's hugs turned out to consist of a couple sullen customers, "stew" that was actually a cold gruel, and two facts that they essentially knew already: the Ketkath Mountains were very dangerous, and they might learn more at the Temples of Alirria or Ehkt in the heart of the foreign quarter.
Mena, Kormick, and Arden crept back through the dark streets. It was still dark as they arrived at the teleport center, but one or two birds had sung out tentatively along the way. Dawn was approaching, and getting caught in the warehouse meant getting sent home. Or worse, being detained in Lord’s Edge by the Sovereigns. They collected the rest of the group and left the warehouse with quiet haste. Kormick led the way back toward the foreign quarter.
As the reunited group progressed back downhill toward the foreign quarter, a soft line of light spread across the eastern horizon. The glowing band widened and began to be tinged with orange, and its bottom edge shifted and shone silver as the waters of the Halmae tilted toward dawn.
Twiggy gasped and stopped walking. "It's on the wrong side," she said. "I mean – the sun is rising over the sea." They all stopped and stared, having lived all their lives in lands where the sun set over the Halmae to the west. Arden felt the weight of the distance they'd come once again.
"Blessed Alirria," breathed Savina.
"We must keep moving," said Mena.
They did, keeping to the long shadows thrown from the sun’s shallow rising.
Just as the sun sent a blazing splinter over the horizon, they arrived at a big public square. One side was open except for a giant stone standing like a sentinel. The other three sides were bordered by buildings. The building on the right had a fountain in front of it. Across the square, a flame danced before the second building. And to the left, before the third building, a small whirlwind swirled perpetually. These were the temples of Alirria, Ehkt, and Sedellus. The square itself was filled with thirty or forty Alirrians at prayer, for dawn was Alirria's time.
Savina's face lit up. "Come, Arden," she said, and hurried to join her sisters. Arden followed, amused that the Blessed Daughter had just issued her first real order. Not unwillingly, she raised her face to the first rays of the sun as the Honored Mother, a heavyset man with graying hair and beard, held up his hands and spoke words of greeting to the new day.
"Alirria, Mother, Lady of Dawn,
Awake in us your power,
Restore in us your healing light,
Help each of us to flower.
Alirria, Sister, Lady of Spring – "
"No loitering!"
The harsh voice boomed out from the side of the square.
It belonged to the leader of a small band of armored men, their hands resting deceptively lightly on the swords and ornamental daggers at their belts.
