12.1
The Capital was visible days before they arrived.
Jewel could scarcely believe that something so vast could even exist, nevermind a settlement!
It looked like a small mountain of red roofs and white stone heaving up in a cleft at the very center of the vault. The first day she saw it she had not even realized it was a structure made by mortal hands.
And that was before the descent began to fully drive home the sheer scale of it.
Her first glimpse was after they cleared the ridges past Aul’s Roost. The very edge of the massive depression which filled the entire sky vault. The descent began after that.
Ever since that afternoon all the lands of the vault was spread out below them. Sinking away ahead and curving around in sweeping hills and cliffs. By Jewel’s estimate the bottom of this land was twice over as deep in its valley as the highest pillar of the Ridgetail’s vault.
Her books said the locals called this land ‘The Valley of Man’.
And just from the look of it she was pretty sure it was significantly smaller across its greatest extent than the Ridgetails at even their narrowest span.
But what it lacked in breadth was more than made up for in that astounding depth. A dizzying pit sank forward into a curving near abyss. Rivers cutting deep into rolling hills, forest and farmland twisting into the earth along the many converging waters. All of which ran in wild paths into the very heart of it all before vanishing into what on the fourth day Jewel realized were wide overhangs above still lakes and raging rapids.
And on, under and around those ledges was a city that seemed larger than all of Rochford combined.
Burning Depths Ford, Capital of the Realm of Cantor Reborn crossed nine rivers before they slid into each of their own great overhangs or dived over with the shining mist of falls. The Capital palace rose up on what Jewel thought might in fact be a bridge for its very foundations!
Pale white and red colors glittered, making a pearl of the vast city.
Every morning on the road Jewel could see the Capital dressed in rainbow clouds.
And speaking of mornings!
Despite the dizzying depths of the Valley the sun warmed all the lands in golden radiance!
The dawns in the Valley of Man confused and disturbed Jewel every day. The valley barely had stubs of mountains for its pillars! And what peaks there were only rose at the walls of the vault. Without any central support the sky bowed low over the capital. Sinking like an improperly raised tent! When they first caught sight of the city of Burning Depths Ford Jewel could not even see the far side of the valley because the sky and sun was in the way!
It made the days disorienting and late afternoon travel a blinding affair. With the sun lingering dead ahead of their path in the clear sky well towards the evening.
It was five days into their descent before the sun stopped seeming to dive into the city itself every evening and the far side of the valley emerged into visibility. Finally revealing in pale blue hues the far side of the Valley of Man.
Jewel had marveled at the strangeness which no book had deemed pertinent to describe.
But bizarre as a sunken sky might be it kept the shadows of the Vault walls from choking the fields. Every hill rise, canyon and dip in the valley she saw each morning was warmed nearly the same by the sun no matter their height.
And further confounding to her the deeper into the valley they went, the better Jewel could see all of the Valley of Man around her. The dozens of routes from the Vault walls grow ever clearer. The roads and paths in every village, from the very lowest point of the Valley of Man where the Capital Palace stood you’d have a commanding view indeed!
Jewel suspected even from the streets of the capital she would be able to see every way an army could take to Burning Depths Ford as well as her own scouting from the air in the Ridgetails.
It made a fortress of the entire vault.
The heavens themselves offer cover of any given half of the valley from the other!
And only the city itself could see all sides!
Jewel and Paul had discussed it for the first few nights.
It made the evenings easier.
Against the lackluster if not actively hostile accommodations offered them.
None of their hosting lords or freemen owned inns had made a repeat of the fool Bishop at Aul’s Roost. But even among those few Jewel had met before or that Paul or Thurzó had corresponded with, the receptions were strained.
Some of that was just the sheer size required for Jewel to properly attend a Welcoming feast.
Polite apologies that they simply lacked the space to host her.
On more than four occasions there was in fact literally no room big enough for her to sleep indoors. More surprising was that there were two instances where their host didn't even have a hall big enough to host Jewel for a feast!
But even when such was the case there was none of the shock at her own eloquence she had come to expect in Viznove.
Some of the inns had been beside themselves in apology!
Proper arrangements were still made of course. Fizzbunches was eager to call up entire buildings, with feasting halls, tall ceilings, kitchens and sleeping chambers sized for a wyrm at the slightest prompting. He even performed the trick when they had to camp outdoors once. The Weird was as close to begging to spread his buildings around as Jewel thought the cat was capable.
Much to the consternation of some of their hosts and how it left disparaging suggestions on their own hospitality.
One time he had been halfway through dragging freshly cut foundations and black timbres into place when it turned out they did have room for Jewel. The look when Jewel had told him to put the new building away had been rather funny.
It was even more amusing though when Fizzbunches casually gifted the resulting structures to use however the resident lords, ladies (and in one case an innkeeper) wished. If the City Weird was not so insufferably smug about it every time Jewel would have more genuinely thanked him.
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But he was just so infuriatingly pleased with himself every single time he left another dark shingled roof and brick structure looming over a resident lord’s manor house.
Jewel had seen that look among farmer’s cats whenever they left rodents at a farmer’s door.
And the way he preened when he had the opportunity again?
However with each new manor visited the problem of insufficient space to house Jewel was less pronounced.
Every lord and lady’s house grew ever more opulent.
And she was suspicious but their manners seemed to even grow improved, although many smelled even more condescending of her they kept it from their faces or tone.
Although Jewel had discovered there were worse then such judgemental glares.
Just last night the local Baroness had hosted them in a feasting hall that made Kaeketeh seem reserved.
“Only the clearest glass in my windows! all the way from Beleniece you know!”
There had been shining copper everywhere!
“Fine stone! good marble quarried from right here in my own cliffs!”
The knives and plates were pure silver!
“Oh my, have you seen the prices the peddlers charge for that Wyrmspun Wool?”
Jewel and none of her party had offered to explain that it was called wyrmspun wool because she in fact had spun it. Apparently the idea did not even enter the Baroness’ head.
“I had the clay for the shingles dredged from the best shores of the river Strekov!”
The woman spoke like she had the wool she loved so much crammed into her ears for how little she could listen while speaking for hours on end. But she had at least shown interest and courtesy!
An overwhelming, vapid kind of empty courtesy. But it was the best they had gotten the entire trip.
Jewel had recognized her scent, and recalled some vague meaningless chatter from the wedding. But she left it to Paul to handle the social niceties, the majority of the wyrm’s attention consumed then by what would be coming tonight at the end of today’s journey.
The looming towers and vast sprawl of stone and brick buildings slowly rising and extending to either side of their path the closer they came to the Capital.
Descending terraces and passing tall tower forts.
On the surface it was nothing of concern.
A simple feast of hospitality.
But after that there would be bargaining in private.
Jewel had already experienced this from the side of the Liege.
Now she would be doing it as the Vassal. The County of Viznove and Jewel’s inheritance as Elizabeth’s heir on the side of Bathory came with obligations from the High King.
They came upon their road’s gate into the Capital of the Realm of Cantor Reborn just past noon. The warmth of the sun sapped some by how low the sky dipped to the city. The crisp mists of fresh water mists billowing overhead and lightly wetting Jewel’s scales in dew drops.
The roar of rushing water and gentler burble of brooks filling in beneath the now familiar (if magnified) noise of far too many men, women and children in close quarters.
At least Burning Depths Ford smelled better than Kaeketeh did even at a distance.
Unlike Kaeketeh there was no production or clearing a path in the traffic of carts and other travelers ahead of Jewel. Their journey so far came to a stop behind a wagon packed to bursting in heavy sacks of wheat seed.
The rough woven cloth bags piled high enough it was over Jewel’s comfortable sight lines!
And the commoners around her!
Jewel found the whole experience strangely refreshing. Everywhere she had ever traveled in Viznove or the Ridgetails commoners would at least startle at the sight of her. It had held for most of their descent into the Valley so far.
But here in a milling crowd slowly moving past the gates of the Capital?
The crowd on the street gave her party some space, but for the most part there was hardly a wary glance!
Curious considerations, but the interest remained simply that!
It almost made her want to flare her wings and announce her arrival for the strange lack of a reaction! Instead Jewel turned to Thurzó as the wagon ahead of them moved forward another thirty feet. Almost a full body length for the wyrm.
“My friend, Count Thurzó. I am confused, Is it the custom in the Valley of Man for the peasants to be more polite than the nobles?”
The count laughed and Paul for his part turned to look at Jewel with confusion.
Smithson was helping Gem with a water skin as they waited.
“No Countess Rochford, but I’ve spoken of High King Mathias’s menagerie of warbeasts before, yes?”
Jewel scowled at the reminder.
Supposedly such was what her fate would have been without Bathory’s intervention.
“You’ve mentioned it before. And I have heard of such.”
Thurzó nodded as they came to a rest again, the heavily burdened cart of grain ahead of them swaying on its wheels a bit disturbingly. Jewel craned her neck to the left and noted the team of four oxen pulling it.
“Well not to disparage your beauty, grace or mighty presence Lady Rochford. But the Menagerie is the pride of the High King and some of the more civil members of his collection are not even infrequent sights on the streets of the inner city.”
Jewel stared long enough at Thurzó after that statement there was time that muttering began to quietly build in complaint about the ‘star damned nobles blocking the way’. It was quiet enough no one else in her party likely heard, but she jolted forward to catch up to the open space ahead of them
“They allow beasts to roam the inner city? I had thought-”
Fizzbunches arrived on top of Jewel’s head just long enough to snort out his own commentary!
“Not all who call the High King’s Menagerie home are simple minded or unspeaking. And many are not held by such crude bondage as walls or stone. No chains of mortal made metal could hold a Sphinx.”
Before Jewel could shake the insufferable Wizard loose he had already slipped behind one of his corners to somewhere else.
But his words had turned Thurzó’s face stoney.
His words come out in a sharp hiss of a whisper.
“No one outside the king’s inner circle is supposed to know that!”
Jewel glared at where the cat was trying to sneak back from around another corner on the back of Paul’s saddle. Just ahead of Thurzó’s own horse.
“Well then the High King’s inner circle should do a better job at keeping such secrets in confidence.”
Jewel joined Thurzó in glaring at the smug cat as they waited for their turn to pass the gates of the city. The swaying tower of grain was swaying again as the line moved forward. Drawing another worried glance from Jewel. It was tied down tight but the way it still shifted was very distracting!