Shade brought Ezril to Heldrag in two days. He’d been lucky enough to be set upon by bandits who had been too careless to spot the massive wolf sleeping a few trees away while he settled elsewhere for a piss. Four of them, all men with knives. He’d given them a beating and taken the one thing he needed and was in short supply of: coins.

In his haste to leave his brothers he had taken what he needed but hadn’t accounted for money. In truth, he’d thought this wouldn’t last long, a few days perhaps. He knew now that he’d been naïve.

He could’ve gone to any of the banks in the city and requested of them the little he had in their possession. They reshuffled their treasury every month, allowing those from other cities save at any point as well as collect without compromising a city’s overall revenue. All this was knowledge he’d learned from Salem; things he’d never thought would serve him.

Heldrag was unlike other cities of the realm. First, it was located far to the north on the part of the realm bordered by mountains. From what Raylin had once said, if one were to go beyond those mountains they were bound to reach the ice peaks of Nornavoth.

But today, Ezril settled for Heldrag. It was vaunted the most advanced city in the realm, and walking its streets, he understood why. The street lamps hung from metal poles at intervals on both sides of the smooth stone roads. These lights came on, bright and warm, on their own, when night fell. He learned on his first day that the lights were born of ignitable gases trapped within the lantern globes, and a counting system was installed in each decoratively twisted poles, so that when dusk rose, the gases were set alight. Apparently, almost every house had it.

The city had a business quarter and a residential area, and though the business quarters were a sight to behold, it came nowhere near the residential quarters in beauty when seen from afar.

Ezril had been in the city for three nights without any leads. It was noon and the scavengers, as they were so honorably called, were done with their duties of sweeping the roads before the indigenes took to it. Transportation wasn’t simply by feet or horse. The city had somehow thought to fashion miniature carriages which were driven by a single horse. Each carriage carried no more than two passengers and some of them came without rooftops.

He sat at a table in one of the bars bearing a name he could not presently recall. But this didn’t seem like a bar. Far from anything, it was too organized. A large hall, its walls covered in a bright light brown color. At its east end was were the drinks were kept, and like any other, the barkeep stood behind the counter which demarcated it from the rest of the room. Single seats were bolted down just in front of it, with the counter serving as their tables.

But that was where the similarities to the bars he was accustomed to ended.

The rest of the room was occupied with small, round, and beautifully crafted tables with three seats flanking its curves. Each table was cleaned and chairs arranged by a random employee each time a customer vacated it. The drinks were carried around by the servers in round trays of flattened steel exquisitely designed to draw attention with its glossy finish. Even more striking were the cups. Like the transparent glass that served as the wall between them and the streets, they held a transparency that allowed the drinker see its contents and were fashioned from glass not clay as was most common. Curved to an artistic finished, some possessed flowery carvings that bore an odd aesthetic appeal. They were far from the cups used in most of the bars he’d been to, made with the consideration that they weren’t intended to last long.

As men and women talked and drank in civilized fashion, Ezril admitted to himself that it was a place where fights would never break out.

The barkeep was talking to a young man a few chairs to his side while Ezril looked outside, appeasing himself with the beauty of the streets and the adjacent shop, where a man was skillfully trimming the beard of another who sat back comfortably on what could only be a reclining chair.

“I hear its happened in three cities now…” A man was saying to a woman whose hair was rolled up on both sides of her face and allowed to fall down her back.

“Yes,” she replied in an exaggerated melodious voice. “Apparently, the church has had it up to its neck with the Venin scoundrels, so its sent its priests to clean them up.” She raised a small ceramic cup to her lips and sipped its contents. These ones came with their own miniature trays fashioned from the same material and Ezril was certain whatever they held was not alcohol. The woman closed her eyes in ecstasy before taking the cup from her lips. “Although,” she continued, “they could have used a more civilized method of cleaning them up.”

The man wore no coat and his shirt had buttons running the length of it at the middle. When he spoke Ezril listened for his accent. Without surprise, his voice rang out as annoyingly as his companion’s.

“You know how they are in those dreadful cities,” he said, “savages, the lot of them.”

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“True, true.” The woman nodded. “I can only wonder why our king would think to make it the capital. Well, if it keeps those pesky priests all the way over there, I’m good with it.”

The man leaned forward, ““You know,” he whispered. “I heard the church only dispatched one priest to take care of it.”

The woman gasped. “Considering all his done, he must be a true monster.”

“Yes, yes. I heard he walked into one of the establishments and killed everyone, including the customers because they hadn’t gotten out on time. Then he torched the place with some still alive in it.”

“Such monstrosity.” The woman shook her head. “And these are men of Truth.”

“You shouldn’t be surprised, love. They are, after all, embodiments of his glorious wrath. Even if they aren’t glorious themselves.”

What followed was an ear piercing cackle Ezril was certain passed for laughter around here. He gripped his cup tighter and clenched his teeth. It was all he could do not to fling it at them.

Then something caught his eye beyond the glass and he rose halfway before being forced to rise with more grace by the force of the atmosphere.

“You haven’t paid, sir,” the barkeep reminded him.

The man’s voice was so polite that Ezril almost forgave him for wearing such a hideous white shirt with oversized sleeves that converged to a tight grip on his wrist and flapped anytime he moved, which was every time, as the man was always wiping the inside of one glass cup or the other. The torso of the oversized shirt was held snuggly to the man’s body by a tight fitting thin, glossy vest that gleamed at different angles based on how he moved.

Ezril found the attire repulsive as opposed to his simple grey cotton shirt, and black faded trousers. The only sign of his priesthood hung from his neck by a rope. The insignia was almost imperceptible against the grey background of the shirt.

Planting three copper coins on the counter, he left the bar which he decided was a disgrace to all bars in the realm. Maybe when he was done he’d come back and start a proper bar fight in it. Or take a page from the melodious man’s rumors and kill everyone in it, then burn the place down. He wasn’t sure which side he favored more.

Maybe he would know in a few days.

Outside the bar, he found the familiar face easily and followed it. The man turned a few corners and continued along the path. He followed him secretly, undeterred. In three days, he learned enough to know the business quarters had no defined slums as other cities did; even the capital. It also possessed no alleys sufficient enough to kill and dispose of a body.

The man turned another corner and Ezril followed.

The roads were also all connected in a very organized manner that told of rTalodous planning preceding its construction. Ezril wasn’t sure if to be amazed at the construction or annoyed at its hindrance to his present escapade.

The man walked of the side of the road now, crossing it without a care, and it took Ezril a moment to realize all the horses on one side of it had stopped moving while those on the other continued.

The man nodded a greeting to a man dressed from head to toe in blue fitted clothing and a blue cap with an outstretched palm facing the halted line of horses and carriages.

Ezril darted between the horses immediately the man fell out of sight, making his way to the other side, determined not to lose his quarry. Then the man turned off an alley and he followed, almost stepping into some random fellow as he hurriedly backed out of the corner and out of sight. His quarry was meeting with someone else, and the person had almost seen him. But he had seen the person.

He opened his mouth to assure himself of the impossibility of what he had seen but nothing came out, so he closed it, and instead, paid attention to the movements in the alley. It might not have been a place a person could be killed and disposed of, but it was a place where people could meet and only look like secret lovers.

But that was the least of his worries. Ellenel had said two of theirs were taken. But if that was true, then what was Grit doing meeting with Sister Alanna in an alley in some fancy city?

It was a while before they moved. When they did, Ezril followed thankful for their timing because one of the men in blue had begun watching him warily, and he had a feeling if he’d been there any longer he would have been approached.

He followed them through crowded streets and lonely alleys more cautiously than he ever remembered following anyone. Grit shoved Alanna every now and again, and from the little Ezril could gather, the aging man only shoved when she slowed or spoke of something akin to her freedom. One thing was certain, while the man’s wisps were held in a dark motionless stance, Alanna’s flickered and waned in an almost translucent disturbance.

They were not working together.

A man bumped into Ezril and he was forced to hurry out of the way as the demandingly dark skinned fellow bowed an apology and continued on his way. Ezril stood shocked, entranced by the man as he left. His distraction crossed the road and fell out of sight, buried behind the exodus of horses. Shaking himself from his trance, Ezril turned, sighted his quarry, and followed. Later he would worry about the man who bore no wisp.

They led him to a compound so large that the house in its middle seemed isolated from the rest of the quarter, even the buildings beside the compound seemed so far away from it. It reminded him of a lord’s manor, however, with a slightly smaller land space.

Grit pushed the nun through the open gates, nodding a greeting to the two men who stood guard, hurriedly they bowed in response. They each wore a sheathed sword of Alduins fashion on their hip; one on the right and the other on the left. Two men with opposing dominant arms. It made for a bad fight for a single opponent.

Hidden by the randomness of moving people, Ezril strolled leisurely as he studied the compound. Sadly, all he learned was that there were too many guards in the compound, and he could only spot two archers, or at least that’s what he hoped the hint of movements he saw in the building’s windows were.

Deciding to return under the guise of night, he turned and tracked his way back to the hotel where he slept at the outrageous price of four gold coins a night. This was where his Sunders, bow and quiver of arrows currently resided. Considered, the hotel was the cheapest of the eight he’d come across.