It was a reassuringly familiar experience. The light exploded into the hazy morning, spearing through shadows and gloom, covering miles in seconds, all across the width of the Tirfing to the walls of a giant city—one much bigger than Arborlon. The light vaulted the city walls and arrowed down wide boulevards, angling off into smaller streets and narrow alleyways, all the while burrowing deeper and deeper into the city’s core.
Finally, the light reached a black tower that soared above the buildings around it, intimidating in both size and appearance. Stark walls of blackened stone were buttressed with parapets and iron railings and gargoyles looking down on those bold enough to pass beneath, their expressions hungry, as if searching for victims.
The light entered the building and wormed its way to a bedchamber where Arling Elessedil lay sleeping in white sheets and warm blankets, to all appearances safe and secure.
Then the light flashed once and died away.
Aphen and Cymrian stared at each other. “She looks to be all right,” Aphen ventured, “but where is she?”
“She’s in Arishaig.” Cymrian shook his head doubtfully. “I think maybe Edinja has her tucked away in that tower. You’re right; she doesn’t appear to have been harmed. But that doesn’t mean she’s safe.”
“Do you think something might happen to her before we reach her?”
“I think no Elf is particularly safe in that city. Especially a young girl in the hands of Edinja Orle.”
Aphen didn’t care to speculate further. “Then let’s go find her.”
They packed and saddled their horses and set out once more. They rode all day, and two more days beyond that, in the direction the magic had indicated, keeping a steady pace save for when they stopped to rest and water the horses and eat and drink something themselves. Aphen was driven by a fresh sense of urgency. Knowing Arling was being cared for helped assuage her worries, but still she felt a desperate need to reach her sister before anything happened to change all that. If she was in the hands of Edinja Orle and the Federation, nothing could be taken for granted.
It was the night of the fourth day since the crash when the walls of Arishaig finally appeared in front of them, the rough stone surfaces lit by hundreds of torches burning down from the ramparts and up from the outer edges of the moat that surrounded the city. A roadway wound through rugged terrain and past freestanding watchtowers and lines of burning torches that directed travelers up to the city gates—a clear indication of which way those coming into the city were supposed to go.
Cymrian reined in his weary mount and peered ahead. “The gates are open. They’ll let travelers come inside, even at night, because they’re not at war.”
Aphen settled back in her saddle. “What do we do once we’re inside?”
Cymrian shrugged. “Find a tavern, have a few glasses of ale, and make a plan.”
He spurred ahead, and Aphen couldn’t tell if he was joking or serious. They rode onto the approach road and past the guard towers. No one challenged them, even though both could pick out the tower guards keeping watch over the countryside. They weren’t stopped until they reached the city walls, where the portcullis was lowered even though the big iron gates stood open.
A pair of sentries walked up to them. “Names and the nature of your business,” one said in a bored voice, barely looking at them as he readied a record log.
“Deris and Rodah Merring,” Cymrian answered at once, not even glancing at Aphen. He had pulled his recently acquired cloak tight around his shoulders to hide his bloodied clothes. “My wife comes to help her sister give birth to her first child. We’ll visit with her family for several days and then go home after the baby comes.”
The sentry glanced at Aphen and then looked down again, writing. “Your wife’s family’s surname?”
“Caliphan.” Cymrian looked at the other sentry. “Quiet tonight, is it?”
The man shrugged. “Tonight and every night.”
“Quiet on the road, too.”
The man ignored him.
The first sentry had finished writing and nodded to the second, who called to someone inside the towers bracketing the entry to raise the portcullis.
When the opening was clear, Cymrian clucked and his horse moved through. Aphen dutifully followed. “Your wife, is it?” she said quietly, once they were out of hearing.
Cymrian looked flustered. “They’re less likely to be suspicious of a married couple. No reason to give them any cause to ask more questions than they need to.”
They rode into the city proper, traversing streets of all sizes and configurations, most lined by a mix of businesses and residences set side by side. There were people about, even though it was after dark, the city buzzing with the steady drone of voices punctuated by bursts of laughter and occasional shouts. There were carriages and other single riders, but most walked at the edges of the roadways along narrow paths. The torches that shone from the building entries and lighted rooms beyond were smokeless. Everything looked clean and new and sterile. Aphen searched for trees and found only a few.
“I don’t like this place,” she said at one point.
Cymrian nodded. “They see things differently here. Not in the Elven way.”
Eventually they reached a different section of the city, one less pristine—rougher and with everything jammed together. Cymrian took them to a stabling service where they quartered the horses. Shouldering their packs and blankets and tightening their cloaks anew about their tattered clothes, they set out on foot into a district thick with taverns, gambling halls, and pleasure houses.
“What are we doing here?” she asked him after they had walked for some distance.
“Looking for someone.”
“An Elf?”
“A Rover who works for Elves.”
The crowds were growing thicker and more rowdy, with prospective patrons pushing and shoving one another, trying to get into the establishments that offered whatever entertainment they were seeking that night. Their talk was raucous and their laughter wild, and Aphen found herself in such close quarters she didn’t even want to breathe the air.
They stopped finally before a heavy wooden door with a small sign that read LOCKSMITH in florid black, the writing shadowed by a red stripe. Cymrian knocked once, very loudly, paused, then knocked twice more softly.
No one answered.
Cymrian repeated the knock sequence, but still no one appeared. “He must be out working,” the Elven Hunter announced, stepping away from the door and looking up at the front of the building to the darkened windows above. “Probably until very late.”
“Who is it we’re looking for?” she asked him.
“His name is Rushlin.” He looked around expectantly. “We’ll have to find somewhere to spend the night.”
“Can’t we just do this ourselves?”
“Go after Arling? No, we can’t.”
She glared at him. “I don’t like the idea of waiting. Anything could happen to her while we’re sitting around.”
“I realize that. But both locks and wards likely protect the place where she’s being held. We need someone who either knows or can find out what we’re up against.”
She took a deep breath. “Rushlin?”
He nodded. “It’s what he does. We’ll come back in the morning and put him to work. He’ll know better than you or I what’s needed to reach Arling and bring her out safely. Come along.”
Taking her arm in the way a husband might his wife’s, he maneuvered them back out into the crowds milling about the streets, but in a more forceful and direct manner so that others were quick to step aside.
“What are you doing?” she snapped, trying to free herself.