and covered Kandala as well. Had it been a century later Miilarkian vessels would have carried the tales to every corner of the world in a flash. As it was, word only got there more slowly. But as the Norothian Calendar counted up to 1296, there was scarcely a place under the sun where someone was not thinking of the Sable City, and dreaming of what might still lie within.
The Shugak knew this as well as anyone. Though hobgoblins and bullywugs are nothing alike, they are lumped together along with gnolls and orcs as the so-called “Magdetchoi” races and they are viewed with disdain if not outright hatred by most humans. The Magdetchoi are believed to be capable of little more organizational complexity than is required to launch a bandit raid on settled lands, but during the decade of the 1290’s the Shugak Council gave the lie to that prejudice.
Word went out from the Wilds years before the Fourth Opening was due that no foreign armies would be permitted to enter the broken hills, tangled forests, and dense swamplands the hobs and wugs called home. Not this time around. However, for a modest fee independent operators of Men, Folk, or whatever would be licensed in parties of up to ten souls, then guided to Vod’Adia through the treacherous Wilds from either of two locations, the river ports of Galdeez in the Grand Duchy of Doon (which had thrown off Agintan rule in the last century), or Old Chengdea on the Daulic side. Licensing offices were shortly to be opened in both cities, manned by intermediaries paid by the Shugak.
A license could be purchased to enter Vod’Adia for a price determined by how soon after the Opening the party wanted in, and for what tax rate would be levied on anything they brought out. In addition, merchant licenses were to be made available. The last time the city had Opened the army camps had become trading centers where fabulous items were bartered, fortunes were gambled, and a good bottle of wine might fetch a sufficient price to buy a vineyard. The Shugak had learned from this, and in preparation for the Fourth Opening they had already constructed an empty village at the valley’s northern end, rude but sufficient, with inn and store space available for rent. The place was called Camp Town from the start.
Doon and Daul were to receive a piece of the profits in exchange for cooperation, and for not invading. Negotiations resulted in both countries also receiving a certain number of low-tax Royal Licenses to issue themselves, both for adventuring and for trade.
Outside of the Wilds most thought the Shugak’s plan was ridiculous and unworkable. The types of formidable men and women who might be inclined to try their fates within the Sable City were hardly of the kind to queue-up to do so, and to fork over money for the privilege. Apart from that, who were the Shugak to levy terms on human kingdoms? Yet when the offices in Galdeez and Chengdea were opened one year before the Opening, business was brisk from the start. Among those first securing licenses for themselves were Doonish and Daulish nobles, whose honor seemed not to have been offended. Over the course of the next year they were joined by many more people from up and down the Channel, then from the length and breadth of Noroth and Kandala, then from across the seas and oceans. There were Ayzant Dragon Cultists and Martan bowmen, Agintan duelists and Illygard infantry. Dwarves with war-hammers and Halflings with innocent grins and multiple pistols. Oswamban mystics, Karkan wizards. Ashinese samurai and monks from Cho Lung. Some came as ten-person bands who had adventured together for years, others arrived alone and bought only passage to Camp Town where they would band together with others like, or utterly unlike, themselves.
Contrary to popular belief, the great merchant Houses of Miilark did not snap up every merchant license. Though they did make a good try of it.
When the first sun of First Day, Tenth Month, 1296, shone on the valley of Vod’Adia, there was an entirely different sort of army assembled on the north end of the valley floor in the rickety buildings and muddy streets of Camp Town. Many of the high Shugak counselors were absent, for it had occurred to some that if the veil for some reason did not become permeable as was expected, there was going to be trouble.
But the fog did thin, the gates did Open, and for the next month entrances went off like intricate, gnome- fashioned clockwork. Once again fortunes were made and lives were lost, and as always, the fabulous success of the few outweighed the fate of the many who failed. Vod’Adia Closed on its mystical schedule, and Camp Town and the ancient valley in the wilderness emptied out for another century.
Until 1395 of the Norothian Calendar. This year.
*
Tilda stared at Dugan in the starlight. “Vod’Adia?” she repeated, and Dugan’s silhouette nodded once.
“Vod’Adia?” she said again. Her brain was stuck on the idea.
“I take it you’ve heard of the place?”
Tilda waved an arm north.
“It is all anyone is talking about in every tavern from here to the Cold Seas! Of course I know the stories… that was the brilliant plan? The reason Deskata and his men deserted the Legion? To go get killed in Blackstone?”
“There is a bit more to it than that,” Dugan said, taking a step forward and holding out a hand with a small bundle wrapped in a cloth napkin. “Here. This is the last of the food. Few bites of salt pork and cheese, no more.”
“I am not hungry,” Tilda said.
“You should eat something.”
Tilda did so, almost mechanically, still gaping at Dugan between the few bites of dry food. She could hardly keep the fact that she had just said goodbye to Captain Block of Miilark for the last time in her head, as it was bouncing around with dozens of questions.
“Don’t you have to buy a license to go into that place? An obscenely expensive license?”
Dugan snorted. “You remember I told you John and the boys stole some gems and jewelry off me?”
Tilda started. “How much were they worth?”
“Enough,” Dugan said. “I don’t have any family, and a legionnaire lives without a lot of expenses. The stuff they took amounts to all I have earned or acquired in my whole life.”
“You must have done pretty well.”
“I managed.”
Tilda slowly shook her head. Dugan was still here, and she doubted it was out of any concern for her personally. She had thought he was going to kill her just a few hours back, stab her where she lay before the locked door back into the Underway. Tilda had actually been more stunned by the fact that Dugan had run off without killing her than she had been by getting bashed off a wall, yet again. Dugan could not have gotten out of Orstaf through Trellane’s secret passages without Captain Block dealing with the Baron, but Block was gone. Irreparably. And it did not matter in Daul that Dugan was a renegade Codian legionnaire, here he could go where he would. Yet he had waited hours for Tilda to climb down the chasm, and back up again.
Tilda tightened her hands on Block’s kitbag, thinking of the money within.
“You think you will have to buy entrance into Vod’Adia yourself. To catch Deskata there.”
“That would be pointless,” he said. “If he and the boys get to Chengdea and buy a license, my money is gone. I don’t know what route they will take to that place, but that is where they have to go. I have to be there before they arrive. Cutting under the mountains should have saved me enough days to do so, if I travel fast from here on out.”
“Then why are you still standing here?”
“Because there are still five of them as far as I know, and they are not going to want to see me.” Dugan’s head bowed as he lowered his eyes to the ground. “Three against five was better odds, but two is a minimum. Especially if one of those is a Miilarkian Guilder.”
That raised the issue of which Tilda had been aware since realizing that Dugan believed the Guilders had come to kill John Deskata. If Block had decided how to deal with that problem when it inevitably came to a head, the Captain had never said a word to her. Dugan had been miscounting his odds from the start, and now Tilda was going to have to deal with it alone.
“Now,” Dugan said. “This all presupposes that you still mean to go after Deskata yourself. Without…him, to order you around.”
Tilda’s nostrils flared and her head jerked slightly.
“Do you think I would stop now, with the Captain lying dead in a hole? That I would dishonor him like that? He chose me to be here, and here I am, still.”
Dugan shrugged. “How the hell do I know how you people operate?”
