There was no water route all the way to Vod’Adia. The bullywugs took their passengers as far as they could and put them ashore at a landing in heavy woods with tall barren hills stretching away to the west. The group followed a rough trace road for what should have been the final three or four days of their journey, but halfway along the clouds rumbled and it started to rain without let up for almost a week. The trek through the hills became a perilous slog, bad enough that Tilda, Dugan, Claudja and Towsan roped themselves together on the steep trails. It took them eight days all told to traverse the route and they did not step up to the edge of the valley of Vod’Adia until noon of the Thirtieth and last day of Ninth Month. It was less then twenty-four hours before the hidden city filling the valley’s southern end was due to Open for the fifth time in four centuries.
Tilda and Dugan stood side by side at the valley‘s edge, gazing at the lugubrious turning of the gray veil.
“We better find the boys in a hurry,” Dugan said. “Unless you want to chase them into that.”
“Not so much,” Tilda said.
The Duchess spotted the pyramidal temple of Jobe within Camp Town and shook off the days of soaking misery to almost start running north around the valley’s rim until Towsan finally shouted for her to slow, as there was no way for the others to match her pace while carrying full packs. Claudja did slow down but Tilda could see from the flush on her face and the shine in her steely eyes that the Duchess was more than anxious to hurry on, now that she was this close to her goal.
Tilda was far less enthused about her own arrival above Vod’Adia.
The group made their way along the valley and then down through seven switchback roads in a massive work of black granite, finally reaching the streets of Camp Town with evening settling over the place. Towsan now set the pace with Claudja right behind him, as the streets were full of people beginning to realize that tomorrow would likely begin the decisive days of their lives. Some were quiet and pensive, but many more were drunk and boisterous.
They made their way toward the temple visible above rooftops in the northwestern quadrant of the Camp Town, moving across logs and boards, shutters and doors, all thrown down in the streets for they were an utter disaster after all the rain. Some intersections were wholly impassable. The many people on the streets were adventuring types ranging from cloaked halflings to fully-armored knights. They should have been a wonder to Tilda but she could not summon much interest to see them. She only studied everyone she passed for a man with bright green eyes, or for anyone wearing a bit of Codian Legion gear or carrying a fat, stabbing short sword on his hip.
The temple of Jobe was on a square block of its own, surrounded by a tall plank fence. Looking through the slats as she walked Tilda could see a compound of outbuildings around the great central temple, grassy yards and whitewashed walls. There were benches scattered around where some people sat at rest, and clean-cut men and women in handsome, light blue tunics moved purposefully about. It looked far nicer than the world outside the fence.
Towsan led the way to a gate midway along the north side of the fence, where a small footbridge crossed a ditch overflowing with muddy water. Two heavily armored men guarded the end with heavy war hammers held at parade rest. Tilda thought she should say something to Claudja before they went any further, but at the sight of the men the Duchess ran forward and narrowly avoided spilling herself into the mud as she slid to a halt in front of them. She managed to turn her slide and near sprawl into something approximating a curtsy.
The plate-armored acolytes had been eyeing a wild celebration in progress at an inn across the street, and were taken off guard for a moment before one offered the Builder’ blessing. The Duchess correctly returned their words as the others huffed up behind her.
“I need to speak to the head of this temple, forthwith,” Claudja said, and the young men looked uncertainly at the rather disheveled, dirty, and damp young woman before them. Towsan stepped up beside her and spoke stilted but serviceable Codian for the first time in Tilda’s hearing. His tone was unmistakably that of a noble born.
“I am Sir Gideon Towsan, Knight-Baron of Chengdea, Captain of the Hearth Order in service of the River Kingdom of Daul. This lady is in my charge, and forsooth needs must speak to the master of this Builder’s House.”
The acolytes straightened, and gave short bows.
“Of course, Sir. Please follow me.”
One stepped aside, and the other led Claudja and Towsan over the short bridge. Tilda and Dugan followed closely behind the nobles and were not called to halt.
The acolyte led the way to a sort of pavilion, a wooden floor raised a step off the ground with a canvas roof on a wooden frame. A table and chairs sat under the shelter, made of wood that looked recently hewn and still smelled of dried varnish. The acolyte lit a lamp on the table before speaking.
“If you will wait here, I shall see if Father Corallo is available. Feel free to ask anyone about should you require anything.”
The acolyte headed for the tall doorway of the pyramid from which a low sound of rhythmic chanting could be heard.
Towsan, Tilda, and Dugan set down their packs and the latter two fell into chairs. Towsan remained standing as was the Duchess, looking all around the compound at people under similar pavilions or else sitting out in front of outbuildings with wide windows under cloth canopies. The people were a variety of adventurers who must have come to some harm in Camp Town, as many had bandaged wounds and were only lightly armed and equipped, if at all.
“Some sort of hospital,” Claudja said to herself, but Dugan answered.
“The Jobians of the Empire have a vow of charity.”
The Duchess nodded. “They do as well in Chengdea.” She seemed to remember for the first time that Tilda and Dugan were still here, and looked at both of them.
“I am sorry. I am where you promised to deliver me, and you are owed the second half of your payment. Twenty-two gold worth of bank notes, correct?”
Claudja removed a long leather wallet from a deep pocket inside her rough coat. Tilda surprised herself by raising a hand, and even more with the words that came out of her mouth.
“Keep it, your Grace.”
Claudja blinked at her, then furrowed her brow. “Who are you, and what have you done with the Miilarkian girl?”
Tilda smiled for a moment, but shook her head. “Claudja, I did absolutely nothing to help you get here. What you have paid already is more than fair, and if anyone did any protecting on the way, it was you more than it was us.”
The Duchess looked at Tilda for a long time.
“I appreciated the company, Tilda. And the friendship.”
“So did I. You need not pay me for those, either.”
Claudja put the wallet back in her coat, then impulsively stepped around the table and wrapped her arms around Tilda. Tilda was surprised but hugged the Duchess warmly and patted her on the back. Though Claudja was slightly older than Tilda she was about the size of Tilda’s fourteen year old sister, Kiselda. Actually, Kissy had turned fifteen since Tilda had left Miilark months back without her big sister there for her birthday. The combination of a wave of homesickness and simple human contact brought a catch to Tilda’s throat and may have made her eyes well up had they not suddenly widened at the approach of another of Jobe’s faithful.
The acolyte who had gone inside the temple emerged and headed back for the gate, but another who came out with him turned and approached the pavilion. He was just about the most handsome man Tilda had ever seen in her life.
His light blue tunic stitched with Jobe’s Arch fit snuggly over a strong frame, and he stepped smartly in dark trousers and polished boots. He was blonde, his hair a trifle long, but cleanly shaven and with a complexion that would have been light but for days spent at work in the out-of-doors. His features were very good with a strong jaw and wide, deeply blue eyes. The cast of his features may normally have looked a bit proud, but that effect was presently spoiled by a pink tinge of newly-peeled sunburn on his nose which Tilda had to admit was adorable. She tapped Claudja briskly on the shoulder until the Duchess let her go and turned around.
The man bowed fluidly from the waist and arose with a brilliant white smile.
“I am Brother Kendall Heggenauer of Jobe, and it is my honor to serve as adjunct to our temple master, Father Corallo. Your lordship Sir Towsan, the Father will see you now.”
Towsan stepped forward, as did Claudja, and Tilda thought Brother Heggenauer’s smile turned up a bit more at one side as he turned to the striking young Duchess.
“My lady if it is not rude to ask, might I have your name to announce to the Father?”
It took Claudia a moment to speak, but when she did her voice was level.
“Claudja Perforce.”
Heggenauer started to bow again but stopped and looked up at Claudja, then to Towsan, then back.
“Claudja Perforce, of Chengdea?” he said. “The Duchess Claudja of Chengdea?”
Claudja looked genuinely surprised, and very pretty even in her rough garb.
“Your knowledge of a foreign court is most impressive, Brother Heggenauer.”
“I am from Exland,” Heggenauer said, though it was the first time Tilda had heard that statement made where it did not sound like bragging. “The courtly life is a peril of my tribe.”
Claudja tilted her head fetchingly. “Heggenauer. Would that be of the Konigsburg Heggenauers?”
Heggenauer’s brilliant smile became more so.
“ Touche, as you say in Daul, your Grace.”
The two of them grinned at each other like they were at a dinner party somewhere until Towsan cleared his throat. Brother Heggenauer excused himself and turned to lead the way to the temple.
“Brother,” Dugan said before the trio walked off, and Tilda had a moment of mortification that given Dugan’s feelings for the nobility, particularly its knightly members, he was about to say something awful.
“Is there a priest here who oversees those who avail themselves of the Builder’s charity? Maybe someone who could help us find a few fellows?”
Heggenauer looked over Dugan who with his beard, helmet, and cracked leather armor looked like the worst sort of thug. He glanced at Tilda as well and raised an eyebrow as he recognized the style of the half-cloak on her shoulders, which Tilda felt the urge to smooth even as she stood up a bit straighter.
“Sister Paveline,” Heggenauer said. “Though she is with a patient right now.”
“A patient?” Tilda asked, mostly because the opportunity was there.
“Bar fights,” Heggenauer said. “They are the most popular local sport hereabouts.”
Tilda and Claudja both laughed though it had not really been all that funny.
“I shall send her word you are here, if you would care to wait. It should not be long.”
Tilda nodded and Heggenauer led Towsan and Claudja away. The Duchess looked back over her shoulder a final time and she and Tilda raised their eyebrows and nodded at each other, which made both smile.
“The answer is no, by the way,” Dugan said once the others were gone.
“What’s that?”
“If you are wondering whether the Jobians of the Empire have a vow of celibacy.”
Tilda looked at Dugan sideways. “You should have made a pass at him, then.”
Dugan snorted. “I’ll get in line.”
Once Claudja and the others had disappeared into the temple, Tilda leaned against the table and crossed her arms. The sounds of the Camp Town’s streets roiled on beyond the fenced yard.
“It was a good idea to ask here, after John Deskata and the others,” she said. “They are Codians, and likely strapped for cash.”
Dugan put his feet up on the table and leaned back in his chair.
“Sounds like we’ve reached that bridge you want to burn.”
Tilda turned around to look at him.
“I studied every man we passed on the way here, and it struck me. I would not know John Deskata by sight, nor any of his men. And there is no way to know now if they are still outfitted as Legion men.”
“I’d be surprised if they were,” Dugan nodded.
Tilda took in and let out a slow breath.
“I still need your help.”
Dugan smirked. He had taken to wearing the string of beads that was his pass to enter Vod’Adia around his neck on the cord he had moved from his wrist, and he now patted the charm through his shirt.
“You have me for eight days, Tilda. Unless a party of adventurers makes me a better offer.”
Tilda looked at Dugan levelly and told him the decision she had made a few days ago.
“Once we have found them, I want you to leave, Dugan. Just go on your way and leave the rest to me.”
“You on your own?”
“That is all I need,” Tilda said, almost like she believed it.
Dugan ran a thumb over the beaded trinket through his shirt, regarding Tilda with an expression of deep thought. His shoulders shrugged before he nodded, and he said, “As you wish.”
Some ten minutes later Claudja and Towsan came out of the temple, following Brother Heggenauer who was now outfitted for Camp Town’s streets in plate armor and helmet, carrying a large mace and a shield bearing Jobe’s holy symbol. The Duchess waved to Tilda though she looked completely serious now, and determined, and the trio left by the compound’s southern gate.
It was another twenty minutes before Sister Paveline showed up.
*
As the last night before the Opening of Vod’Adia neared its second watch, the celebrations in the streets and inns became more desperately boisterous. Some men fought in taverns as though they wanted to receive crippling wounds. A brawl cleared out the ground floor of a place called the Dead Possum and kept a former Circle Wizard awake in a bunkroom above.
Phinneas Phoarty gave up on sleep and sat on the edge of his bunk, one of the six in this room, which adjoined another. Both had been paid for by the adventuring party which Phin had been a part of for some forty hours.
From the bunk Phin could see out of a window facing south which was really just an irregular square cut in a log wall daubed with mud, no shutters nor of course glass. When the breeze parted the canvas curtains Phin could dimly see across the valley to the towering wall of unnatural fog filling the southern end. The fog looked faintly orange as it reflected the light of the innumerable fires, lamps, and torches burning in Camp Town, giving it a hellish cast. Phin shivered at the thought that the place would be Open in only a few hours, and the dread in his stomach was only worsened by the fact that he had no idea when he would be going in himself. Though he would be going in.
The party of adventurers which Phin had joined was nearly as strange as that with which he had come to Camp Town. They had hired him in expectation of entering the Sable City and they had paid for his license which was then attached to their own; nine strings of beads and tiny totems with one blank length of finger bone, all attached by hooks to a short, carved baton. The leader of the band was named Horayachus. He was a tall, swarthy man with a scarred face who had yet to speak a word in Phin’s hearing. Horayachus had the license, and while the man called the “Sarge” had told Phin it was good for entry into Vod’Adia anytime after the Opening, there was plainly something else supposed to happen first, something for which everyone was waiting.
Phin had not been told what that was, nor much of anything really. He had spent his first days in Camp Town after Nesha-tari’s departure allowed him to think clearly loitering in inns that were operating as hiring halls, where adventurers not yet attached to a full party sized each other up and talked things through. Phin had billed himself as a freelance mage and obliquely implied he had Imperial training, but as the majority of parties in Camp Town were already arranged, his pickings were slim. Most of the groups Phin talked to seemed hopelessly inept and displayed only a tenuous appreciation for the dangers of the Sable City. The people who did seem to know what they were doing gave Phin but short shrift, and after two days he was starting to realize that being choosy was not a real option for him.
That was when the five legionnaires had approached him. Someone had told them Phin might be a Circle Wizard and at first he had thought they were going to arrest him, clap him in irons and ship him back to Souterm. That might not have been the worst fate possible. But the legionnaires had only wanted to know if Phin could read the incantation script of Tull, and in order for him to prove it their sergeant produced a large tome bound in dark leather that smelled faintly of smoke, with a broken metal latch. The Sarge flipped it open and Phin saw that it was a sort of work with which he was familiar; a commentary in Old Tullish on an even older document, with yellowed parchment sheets bound among the more recent pages. Phin did not recognize the language on the old sheets though they were scribbled in the Kantan alphabet, but he read aloud a few lines of the old Tullish. Something about a “second nodal space” and “transcendental migration.”
The Sarge flipped shut the heavy book, and Phin was hired. Phin accepted the offer as while he was sure this bunch of Legion men were deserters of some kind, he supposed that description now applied to him as well.
He met the rest of the party at the Dead Possum, though as there were five of them already Phin was not exactly sure who was going into Vod’Adia and who was not. As Phin understood it parties of ten were the maximum allowed by the Shugak. The five people at the inn were a daunting bunch, led by the taciturn Horayachus along with three likewise dark men and one woman, all equipped with full suits of black plate mail bordered in fiery red, and huge two-handed swords. None of them said much of anything to Phin, nor to the five legionnaires for that matter, and among themselves they spoke only Zantish. Phin recognized the language from having heard it between Nesha-tari and Zebulon, but he did not understand a word.
Horayachus and his minions stayed sequestered in the adjoining bunkroom most days, only emerging to fetch food. The legionnaires were out more often with only one or two of them keeping to the inn. Phin knew his fellow Codians by name by now, though not very much about them. Most were Beoan or Tullish, except for the Sarge who was from Gweiyer, and according to the marks on their tower shields all had come from the 34 ^ Foot.
The Sarge and Rickard were still in their bunks as the noise from downstairs started to build again in the Dead Possum’s bar. Both grumbled and swore as they turned over. Phin gazed past them out the window, wiping damp palms on his blanket and trying to calculate just how in the hells he had wound up here. He wondered vaguely how Zeb, Amatesu, and the others were doing.
Heavy footsteps pounded up the stairs from below and there was a now familiar jingle of legionnaire armor in the hall. Rickard and the Sarge were sitting on the edges of their bunks by the time their fellow man Ty pushed open the door and stuck his plume-helmeted head into the room.
“Sarge, you’ll never guess who just walked in downstairs.”
In the light from the hall the Sarge’s bearded face split into a grin. His beard was not Legionnaire regulation and neither was the enormous emerald ring he always wore, the gemstone matching his distinctive green eyes. He was a convivial sort of fellow but there was something ugly and dangerous about his smile at this moment.
He hammered on the adjoining wall with a fist, then he and Rickard rose and hurried into their own clothes and armor. The door between the bunkrooms opened and one of Horayachus’s grim minions filled the doorway.
“Tell your boss his girl is here,” the Sarge said, hopping as he pulled on a boot.
The minion had no eyebrows as his entire head was shaved clean. The skin where eyebrows would have been lifted, and he shut the door.
The Sarge and Rickard were strapping on breast plates. Ty stood in the doorway fingering the pommel of the heavy short sword on his hip and glancing back toward the stairs.
“What is going on?” Phin finally decided to ask.
“Nothing you need be concerned about, Wizard.” The Sarge belted his own sword around his waist. “Though it looks as if we may be getting into Vod’Adia on time after all.”
Ty chuckled and clashed a gauntleted hand against his tower shield. Soft chanting began in the next bunkroom, and red light played across the floorboards from the crack under the door.
*
Nesha-tari’s people had been given space in a Shugak barracks, but she spent her days and nights up in a watch tower out of which a stern blue glare had cleared the hobgoblin guards. By the last night before the Opening of Vod’Adia she was lying on her side and curled into a ball next to the trapdoor leading below, knees to her chest and eyes screwed shut. Every inhalation brought the stench of humanity into her nostrils and made her shudder as her stomach growled.
She heard the slap of bullywug feet approaching at a hop on the ground below, and recognized Kerek by his jingling adornments. Nesha-tari’s eyes snapped open like two blue lamps in the night. She scrambled to the edge of the tower to look down.
“You found him?” she hissed, but Kerek heard her plainly.
“He has finally activated a spell. A call unto his god. Your people are getting ready.”
Nesha-tari was ready. She put a hand on the railing and pounced over it, landing on the ground four stories below on her toes and fingertips.
*
Tilda and Dugan stood up as a middle-aged Jobian woman approached in a long blue dress and a leather apron. The Builder’s device was stitched on the apron and her hair was wrapped in cloth in the style of an Orstavian bushka. She was of a matronly demeanor, and smiled warmly.
“The Builder’s blessing be upon you. I am Sister Paveline. I am told you seek some folk who may have sought our aid?”
“Yes, Sister,” Dugan answered and Tilda allowed him to speak, figuring he was more familiar with Codian priests and their customs.
“It would have been as many as five men, but maybe less. All Codians, Beoan or Gwethellen, from their twenties to one balding fellow about forty. They may have seemed like Legion men in their manners, though they were probably not in uniform.”
Sister Paveline raised a brown eyebrow with a grey streak.
“Veterans?”
“Ah, no Ma’am. They are renegade.”
The priestess frowned sharply.
“Their leader would have had green eyes, Sister,” Tilda said. “Very striking.”
Sister Paveline looked surprised, but she shook her head.
“I am sorry, but the only men we have seen here who looked like legionnaires, were actual legionnaires. There was a green-eyed fellow and two others, but they were in full uniform. Nor did they seek our aid, nor succor.”
“Wait,” Dugan held up a hand. “The Empire has soldiers stationed here?”
“I did not think so, but these men were on a mission.” Paveline looked between Dugan and Tilda. “The two of you arrived here with the pair from Daul, yes?”
“Yes,” Tilda said. “Why?”
“Well, the Legion men were here specifically to greet anyone from Daul seeking refuge in the Empire. Given the cost and danger of traversing the Wilds we hardly expected anyone like that to show up here, and no one had. Until tonight.”
Tilda stared, and a bead of cold sweat trickled down her spine to the small of her back under her layered clothing and armor. Something was terribly, terribly wrong. She did not know quite what it was, but she was sure of it.
“Where did Claudja and Towsan go?” she asked.
“Those are your friends from Daul? I understand Brother Heggenauer was taking them to meet the legionnaires at their inn, south of here.”
“What inn?” Dugan asked calmly. Sister Paveline winced.
“It is called the Dead Possum. Five blocks down at an intersection with a willow tree in the center. You can’t miss it as the sign is very…graphic.”
Tilda was still for one second. Then she dropped her pack and saddlebags and was running flat out.