Tirremuir, capital-city of Chakobar. It wasn’t anywhere near as big as Mund – which had been, by Ibbalat’s reckoning, the size of a small country – nor was it as beautiful from a distance – but neither was it as repulsive up close. Most of the city had been constructed out of a red sandstone, though many of its houses and public buildings were painted white. It was nominally part of the Mundic Realm – its lord sat in the Arrealbord Palace, and its sea-faring forces were strictly for peace-keeping, not conquest – but it had a culture and traditions all of its own. The majority of the native people here had skin the hue of milky tea, close to Ibbalat’s own colouration, and for the most part they had an easy-going lifestyle that suited the young mage down to the ground.
Outside the walls of the inner city were bustling markets, vendors keen to ply their customers with all manner of mildly-intoxicating agents in order to better secure a deal – a set-up the mage was only too-keen to indulge, given his accustomed tolerance for altered states of consciousness. The inner city itself was a sprawl of low, dome-capped structures joined by covered walkways, to better protect the citizens from the sun’s maddening death-rays – so common were these shaded paths that, from above, the centre of the city resembled a single many-winged palace rather than a hundred separate buildings. (He should know – he’d spent more than one morning and evening looking down on the city in bird-form, admiring it while riding the ripples of the warm wind and the wane.) Keeping plants alive and flourishing in this place wasn’t just difficult – it was expensive, such that the only spots of greenery to be found were in those precincts where the merchants-guilds and mage-guilds held sway.
Not that the mage-guilds had been of much use when they’d been seeking a living weapon to use against Ord Ylon. There were a few archmages who’d gone public in Tirremuir, of course – its population might’ve been a few percent of Mund’s, but that made it ginormous by Ibbalat’s earlier estimation, and such a preponderance of people was bound to have some magic-masters amidst its crowds. But they could be counted on two hands, and were men and women of business and trade, crafting and learning, not fighters, not killers. Ibbalat had heard it from their own lips: many of Tirremuir’s archmages had visited Mund, seen the champions with their own eyes… and none of them wanted anything to do with such a life of endless, unremitting peril.
Ibbalat sat on his favourite crate as the sun rose, and when the time came he put aside his spellbook and started his now-familiar chant, beseeching the wind’s service. He watched as the maze of terracotta-coloured archways rose out of the morning mist, welcoming them into the wide cove that served as the harbour. A Tirremine longship, bristling with bolt throwers and catapults, had pulled alongside as they approached – after a brief shouting-match with Ulfathu it turned about, its captain eager to escort the ‘heroes’ into the docks. Bow to stern, their two ships navigated the channels of anchored merchant vessels.
The others came to the foredeck, Ana sitting almost opposite him wearing her distractingly form-fitting black fabrics. The mage did his best to keep his eyes off her.
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“Any sighting of Ord Ylon?” Phanar said to the Tirremine vessel from the rail.
“Six nights ago,” a young, helmeted man replied. “Returning to the mountains.”
“Where had he been?”
The soldier shrugged. “We don’t know, my lord.”
“Which direction was he flying?”
“Erm – south?”
Phanar looked back at the others grimly. “He could’ve been spying on us.”
“He would’ve attacked us in the crossing, surely,” Ibbalat retorted.
He noticed that Kani shook her head – she was standing unnaturally erect at the prow, stiff and stern as the Dremmedine’s figurehead. She even looked in the same direction – straight ahead, as if to gaze through the city in front of them, as if to gaze through time, peel away at their future.
She’s even less ready for this than me, he realised. Does she commune with her goddess, or is she paralysed with fear?
“Or he knows that we’ve got back-up now.” Phanar’s gaze moved to the crimson-cloaked, spider-faced champion leaning nonchalantly against the side of a ladder. Redgate’s arms were folded, his long sleeves trailing in the wind.
“You mean… he’s running scared?” Ibbalat didn’t mean for it to come out quite as sarcastically as it did; he turned to the champion, spread his hands in what he hoped was an ameliorating gesture. “I mean – not that Redgate isn’t plenty scary, of course – but –“
“Do not underestimate his cunning.” Kani’s softly-spoken words carried back to them; there was a distance to her voice that wasn’t spatial. “He will prepare for our arrival. It is not his own death he fears.”
“Do you soothsay, madam?” Redgate asked, speaking for the first time since he arrived on deck.
The cleric didn’t reply, still unmoving at the prow.
“Kani?” Phanar asked gently, moving closer, touching her elbow –
She didn’t stir at his touch.
“Last night I dreamed a dream… such a dream…”
“Prophecy?” Ana asked curiously. “I thought I had one of those once.”
“Perhaps. I don’t want to… say too much.” The young priestess turned at last to face the rest of them, and Ibbalat knew all at once that he’d been wrong earlier.
It wasn’t fear in her that was causing the tension he could see.
It was resolution. Determination. A focus that drew all her attention, leaving little aside for the conversation.
“Do we even know why he wanted Nil Sorog’s skull?” she asked in the same detached, unwavering voice.
Phanar frowned, looked across at Ibbalat.
“Well –” the mage floundered “– we never quite got that far, did we? She’s his ‘bride’, isn’t that enough? And that’s why we pulverised their bones, right? Just in case he went back for their remains, and we ended up getting some innocent dragon-skull-collector in a whole world of trouble…”
Deliberately dropping a few hundred tons of stone on top of the first dead dragon was one of the more haunting moments of his adventuring career.
“What do you think you know?” Ana asked her, taking a more direct approach.
Kani turned back to face the city once more.
“I think hers is not the only skull he has gathered.”
The cleric had no more to say on the matter, which pleased Ibbalat. She’d already said enough to distract him from his work, and he almost bumped the war-vessel in front when they docked.
Once they nailed down the gangplank Kanthyre was the first to disembark, and as she set foot on the slippery boards of the quay she rolled her shoulders and strapped her shield, emblazoned with the gold rose of Wythyldwyn, to her arm.
For the first time in his life, Ibbalat felt intimidated in her presence.
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