“We’re here,” Feltram announces as the carriage decelerates, pushing us backward slightly. There’s a shudder, then it stops still.

Nthazes and I nod to each other. We heft up our chests of goods, already double-checked and locked tight. The caravaners and loaders wish us luck, then Feltram leads us out of the carriage.

We emerge into a press of hurrying dwarves of all walks of life—drivers, exhausted-looking loaders, helmeted guards with spears, merchants in fine cloaks of gold. There’s even a contingent of miners with rough hands and bent backs; picks are slung over their shoulders. Bright lights from above—not flaming torches, but white crystals—make everything hurt slightly to look at.

We’re shoved and jostled as Feltram rushes us through stone arches. The weight of our goods chests unbalances us. The thunder of boots on the tiles and yelled conversation is deafening; louder curses are thrown at us whenever we collide with someone. I nearly fall over several times, until Feltram leads us around a sharp turn.

We squeeze through a low arch, past which are rows of wireframe trolleys. Feltram pays the attendant six silver coins for two of them. Nthazes and I set our chests on them, though Nthazes keeps the precious one with the letter in it clutched tightly under his arm.

The physical press is beginning to overwhelm me. Only in battle have I seen so many dwarves crammed together, and those here are only slightly less combative. I glance at Nthazes, but he doesn’t seem bothered. Rather, he’s wide-eyed, glancing from dwarf to rushing dwarf with obvious fascination.

I try to ask Feltram what’s going on, where we’re headed, but he doesn’t seem to hear me. Then, we’re walking through an arch wrapped with strange green fungi of branching hands of very flat caps, and then before us is a low guardrail and past that the city of Allabrast.

A dizziness takes hold of me—we’re at least two hundred feet up from the road below. I step back a little. Nthazes leans forward and his white-blonde-bearded jaw drops.

“Look at all the lights!” he cries. “Incredible! How many live here, again?”

“A million, give or take,” says Feltram. “Most are in the outer districts though.”

The city of Allabrast, or at least this part, is built of dozens and dozens of stone pillars joining cavern floor to cavern roof. Bright golden light shines from thousands of windows in each. The spectacle is blinding. The pillars are densely packed; beyond each are more, so that no blank wall or far distant part of the city is visible.

Nthazes stands rapt, taking in the sight of the city and the sounds also. Walkways wind through the pillars, crowded and noisy with thousands of dwarves. More than half wear enruned armor and have a weapon or two at their side—mostly swords.

“So many runeknights!” he exclaims.

“Yes,” says Feltram. “Allabrast has a larger concentration of us than most places, especially here in the more central districts.”

“But what do they all do?”

“Forge, of course, and make the money needed for materials. Through business and adventure.”

“Adventure, here?”

“No. Out in more wild caves—even on the surface. There’s a direct tunnel to it here. The ones you see here are relaxing, back from their travels. A lot of interesting folk here in the Fireflea District.”

“Fireflea?” I ask. “Odd name.”

“Because the windows in the pillars look like firefleas clinging to the legs of rock-oxen.”

Nthazes frowns. “Doesn’t quite do the cavescape justice, I think.”

“Firefleas aren’t pests. They’re pulped to make an oil. It has some forging uses.”

“Can’t say I’ve ever heard of it,” I say.

“There’ll be a lot of things you’ve never heard of here, Zathar. This is the center of Runeking Ulrike’s domains. Everything flows toward here—especially money, I should warn you. Your gold won’t last very long. Prices are high.”

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“Why did you choose here then? Weren’t we going to the... Obsidian District? That’s what you said when I asked a long-hour ago.”

“Ah, but Talzak informed me that this Vanerak you're not too keen on has gained a station there.”

A shiver runs through me.

“Here’s as good as anywhere, though. A bit too snobby for my tastes, but, oh well. Can’t be helped. Only trouble is that I can’t really recommend you a good inn. You’ll have to find one on your own.”

I look across the myriad walkways and winding roads, and the staircases spiraling up the pillars also. I become a little dizzy.

“The cheaper ones tend to be up near the roof, since it’s more inconvenient.”

“I don’t think we want anywhere too cheap.”

“Oh, don’t worry. Nowhere’s dirt cheap here. And security is good.”

“I see,” Nthazes says. “Then I suppose it's time for us to head off.”

“I’m sorry I can’t lead you any further,” Feltram apologizes. “But I don’t know my way around here that well, and I need to explain this... situation to my guildmaster as soon as possible.”

“No need to apologize. You’ve done us an irrepayable favor already.”

“I’m glad to have been of help. I’ve often thought those here in Allabrast should pay more attention to what goes on in the outer realms. It’s a shame such a terrible tragedy had to occur. Us dwarves always ignore things until they’ve gone too far.”

“Yes,” I agree. “We do, don’t we?”

“Well, I’ll be off then.” He holds out his hand.

Nthazes shakes it. “Goodbye.”

“Good luck with your guildmaster,” I say, shaking his hand also.

He bows, we bow, and then he’s disappeared into the crowds inside the station. Nthazes and I stay on the balcony, our eyes roaming down and across and up at the winding roads, walkways, and stairs which we now have to navigate.

“Which direction first?” I ask.

“I was going to ask you that. You have more experience than me in cities.”

“Never one as big as this.”

“One bigger than the fort, though.”

“I suppose that’s true.”

I look upward. Hanging from the roof is a walkway enclosed in a steel cage, the bars of which are embedded into the rock. Runes glitter on the metal, but they look rather sparse to my eyes. Not cheap, but not expensive. The windows on the upper parts of the columns it wraps around do not look quite so polished as those below either.

Runes used on a mere walkway! The oddness of this strikes me suddenly. I saw nothing like that in Thanerzak’s realm. It seems rather dishonorable to me, but I don’t know what kind of strange traditions they have here.

“We’ll find a way to that walkway,” I say to Nthazes, pointing.

“Very well.”

“I just hope there’s a ramp for these trolleys.”

First, though, we have to find a way out the station. There’s signs carved into all the arches, but most of them are directions to different tracks. We spend a good hour tramping around, bumping into and getting cursed out by other dwarves, tripping over our own trolleys—they’re rather badly made to my eyes, with an annoying metal bar positioned just right to bang against my greaves if I step forward too far. No runeknight made these for sure, just some second-rate metalcrafter.

Eventually, more through luck than pathfinding, we come to an enormous arch of white marble, gilt with gold and carved with a relief showing rushing carriages. Past it is a wide road into open cavern air. We walk through and finally we're in the city proper. I look up and around, trying to figure out some way to get to the ceiling walkway that I spotted.

Caught up in the river of dwarves, it’s impossible to stop moving to get our bearings, so we escape to a walkway circling one of the great stone columns. We pause between two windows, and I shade my eyes and try to work out a path through the maze.

“I think if we head left then right...” I begin, pointing uncertainly from road to road. “Or maybe right, then up. Maybe if we go down there, we can go up there?”

“Why don’t we ask someone?” Nthazes suggests.

It’s not a bad idea. In fact, it’s a rather good idea. I wave to a passing runeknight, one who doesn’t look too high a degree.

“Excuse me,” I ask. “We’d like some directions.”

He slows and turns to us. His armor is of overlapping steel plates gilded with platinum and inlaid with runes of gold, though the runes are none too well written. At his hip is a short sword in a plain leather scabbard. He scratches his brown beard, which is oiled and perfumed.

“Where to?” he says.

“Up to that walkway,” I say, pointing. “Do you have any idea how?”

He looks at it, then shrugs. “Can’t say I’ve ever bothered to go up there. Just find a staircase and climb it. That’s how most people make their way upwards.”

His accent is strange: he seems to slur all his words slightly. I don’t know if this is the Allabrast accent, but I heard it a great deal in the station, so I assume so.

“Stairs will be troublesome for us,” Nthazes says. “Are there no ramps?”

“There’s lifts, over there, somewhere.” He points vaguely off in the rightwards direction. “They’ll cost you though. Besides, aren’t you meant to leave the trolleys in the station?”

“Are we?” Nthazes says nervously. “No one stopped us taking them out.”

The runeknight shrugs. “Well, who cares. They’re cheap and shoddy anyhow—quite frankly I don’t think commoners should be allowed to touch steel. Metalcrafters! Who the hell do they think they are, eh?”

He looks at us, as if expecting some word of agreement.

“Quite,” I say.

“Barely a step up from miners,” he says with disgust, then he glances along the path. “Anyway, must be going now. Good luck.”

He vanishes before we even have time to thank him. Nthazes frowns.

“They may be badly made, but they’re still useful.”

“I hope we don’t get in trouble for stealing them.”

“We can go back and return them after we’re at our inn.”

“Let’s just hope we manage to find one before our legs give out.”