As did everything about the city. Sabira was too far away from any of the portholes to get a good look at the dwarven capital, but she remembered the sight well and imagined she could reconstruct it in exact detail from memory alone. Unlike the human cities where she spent the bulk of her time, nothing here would have changed—the same clans ran the same businesses out of the same buildings that they’d used for generations. Even if an establishment had changed hands in the relatively short amount of time that she’d been gone—short to a dwarf, anyway—the name on the placard would remain the same, because one of the virtues dwarves valued most was constancy. Thus, the little weapons shop on the Street of Songs was still Frin’s Fine Arms, even though Frin Soranath had died sixty years ago, leaving no heirs, and the business had been operated by the Mroranons ever since. And the bakery two blocks over on Delver’s Way still served the same eponymous sugar and sourfruit cakes that had made it famous across Khorvaire for half a century; while the bakers might change, the recipes never did.
Just then, the old man leaned across her chest, craning his neck as if to get one last look at the great black bulwark before the airship docked with the tower just outside the city gates.
The only problem with that, of course, was that if Sabira couldn’t see from where she sat, there was no way the oldster next to her—who was even farther from the porthole than she was—could, either.
Sabira grabbed the back of the man’s collar with one hand while pulling her Marshal’s brooch out from beneath her shirt with the other. Then she pulled him close, so the Deneith chimera filled his vision.
“Is this what you’re looking for, old man?” she asked, pitching her voice low and dangerous. On the other side of her, the warforged noticed, and tried to discreetly inch away, much to the vocal dismay of the passengers caught between him and the hull.
“Eh, what? I say now, unhand me, you young cluck!” the man demanded, his words breathy and high-pitched, and for a moment Sabira felt a pang for treating him so harshly. Then she felt him shift, just slightly, looking for all of Eberron as if he were simply trying to lessen the pressure on the back of his neck. But she noticed the change in the weight of her boot immediately.
Yanking his head back, she reached down and caught his wrist just as the second pouch she’d hidden in her boot was disappearing into his shirt.
“Well, now, how did that get there?” the old man asked, feigning surprise. Then he glared up at her, his voice rising in protest. “What are you, some sort of marauding wizard, riding the skies in search of harmless old men to harass?”
Sabira actually laughed at that.
“Not quite. Though I am going to perform a bit of magic. I’m going to make you disappear into a cell for a very long time.” She smiled at him, feigning concern to match his false astonishment. “Or didn’t you know that interfering with a Sentinel Marshal on official business is punishable by a jail term in Sentinel Tower commensurate with the seriousness of the mission you impeded? And I have to tell you—my business? Very serious.”
“Problem, Marshal?”
It was a Defender Sabira didn’t know, finally summoned by both the complaint of the people still being squished up against the hull and the dwindling flow of traffic up the companionway, where he’d been stationed. House Lyrandar sometimes hired members of the Defender’s Guild to watch over the steerage cabins whenever their ships were forced to act as passenger transports, to prevent theft and violence.
“Not really. Just a pickpocket—not a very good one, I might add—choosing the wrong target.”
The Defender, an attractive man with brown hair and eyes almost as gray as her own, cocked his head to the side.
“Hardly seems worth the paperwork.”
Well, he was right about that. Much as she’d like to see her threat through, she had no idea exactly when Aggar’s trial was slated to begin, and she needed to get to Ferrous House. The building, which resembled nothing so much as a giant lockbox, was located just below the entrance to the Mroranon estate and housed the meeting chambers of the Iron Council. It was going to take her a half bell of fast walking just to get there; she really didn’t have time to mess with the pickpocket, who hadn’t actually succeeded in doing anything more than annoying her.
“No. But he might have had other targets before me. I’d detain him and search him, just to be sure. Wouldn’t want any passengers complaining to the Lyrandars.”
The Defender waved the warforged and the other passengers by before answering.
“True,” he said as she handed the old man off to him. The would-be thief whined a bit when the Deneith man got a handful of hair along with his collar, prompting the Defender to tighten his grip. The pickpocket was wise enough to keep his indignation to himself after that.
“Galifar’s Peace, Defender,” Sabira said, nodding to the man as she went to move past him and exit the cart. It was a traditional salutation among Defenders and the Sentinel Marshals most of them aspired to become; it referenced the opening phrases of their respective oaths: “I swear to uphold and defend the Code of Galifar, with heart, mind, soul, and steel, until Galifar is once more reunited, and at peace.”
The Defender didn’t immediately respond; he’d caught a glimpse of her urgrosh when she stood.
“You’re Lyet, aren’t you?”
Sabira paused, taking a moment to examine his features more carefully. She was sure she didn’t know him, but it wasn’t really a surprise to find he knew her. Most Defenders working this close to the Holds did, one way or another.
“I am,” she confirmed, on her guard. She hoped he wasn’t one of those distant cousins of Ned’s—Tilde’s friends—who thought she should have been excoriated from the House when he died rather than being rewarded with the badge of the Marshals.
“I’m Tobin d’Sark. My sister and I trained with Jayce and Elix for a year back in ’93, before she made Marshal. They both spoke very highly of you. It’s an honor.” He held out his free hand to her.
She took it, glad there was no one else around. She’d never been comfortable with the accolades heaped on her after she returned from the Maw with Aggar. She may have fulfilled her duty there, but she’d failed a friend, and being congratulated for her actions only made her feel the loss that much more deeply.
“With training like that, you’ll have a brooch of your own in no time,” she said, not unkindly, but Tobin shook his head.
“No. My parents have already lost one child to the Marshals. I’m happy here.”
d’Sark. Of course. His sister must have been Tabeth, the Marshal Elix mentioned they’d lost in the Blade Desert during their ill-fated rescue of the Lyrandar heir. For a moment, looking at Tobin’s curly hair and sculpted features, Sabira imagined what his sister must have looked like and felt an entirely unexpected stab of jealousy.
“Nothing wrong with that,” Sabira replied, nodding in understanding. “We all serve; we all bring honor to the House.” She curled her hand into a fist and brought it up to her chest, twice in quick succession.
Tobin repeated the gesture with his free hand.
“Galifar’s Peace, Marshal.”
It wasn’t until she was exiting the docking tower that she realized that the money pouch on her belt was missing.
Twelve bloody moons! The old man had had a partner; going after the pouch in her boot had been a ruse to distract her while the other thief—probably the warforged, who was long gone by now—divested her of the larger pouch.