At first Tessia caught a glimpse of a strange flat area in the dip between two hills and wondered what it was. It looked like a second sky, but darker, and it lay where there should have been land.
Then the wagon rolled around the curve of a hill and a great expanse of blue appeared. She knew it must be the sea. What else could it be? Flat, yet constantly stirring as if alive. Rippled like the surface of a pond tickled by the wind, occasionally foaming like a river running fast. And there were objects on the water she had only seen in paintings. Tiny, tiny ships, and even smaller boats.
She hadn’t yet grown used to the sight when Imardin came into view.
It had been clear they were drawing close. The road had grown busier, populated with a constant flow of people and their carts, wagons and domestic beasts. It wound alongside the wide Tarali river towards a range of southern hills. She had been told the city sat at the foot of the first hill. She had also been told that it lay where the river flowed into the sea, allowing safe mooring for ships at its docks.
As the wagon continued past the hill, a blanket of stone and roof tile appeared and she stared in amazement.
“You look surprised, Tessia,” Jayan observed, smiling smugly.
“It’s bigger than I expected,” she admitted, quashing her annoyance.
“Imardin is a third the size of Arvice, Sachaka’s main city,” Dakon told her. “But Sachakans prefer sprawling single-storey mansions. Kyralians build two- to three-storey houses, closer together so they fit more in a smaller space.”
She turned to look at him. “Have you been to Arvice?”
He smiled and shook his head. “No, but the description came from a friend not given to exaggeration.”
Looking back at the city, Tessia tried to match landmarks with those she’d seen on maps and drawings. The road they were travelling on, which had been paved for some time now, crossed the city in a gentle curve, then continued along the coast.
Five wide streets ran parallel to the Main Road, each a measure further up the hill. From the docks another wide thoroughfare climbed upward, crossing all six roads, to the Royal Palace. This was King’s Parade, and where it met the Main Road there was a wide area called Market Square.
The tangle of buildings before her hid most of these features. She could see that some rooftops followed the line of the roads, but mainly they were a muddle of different shapes and sizes. Only the towers of the Royal Palace, at the high side of the city, were distinct. As the wagon reached the first structures along the road it became even more obvious that this was not the ordered, clean city that the maps had suggested.
These first dwellings were hovels clearly made from salvaged materials. They were half hidden behind droves of dirty, thin people in ragged, tattered clothes. A woman whose wide grin exposed a few remaining blackened teeth limped up to the wagon, holding up a basket of wrinkled fruit. She did not come too close, Tessia noticed. Others approached as the wagon passed, offering wares no fresher or more appealing. Looking beyond them, Tessia saw that arms were rising in appeal among an endless row of people huddling by the hovel walls, like a flowing salute to the passing wagon. Beggars, she realised, holding out hands or vessels for coin. Looking closer, she saw sores that should be cleaned and covered, signs of illness caused by bad diet. Growths that could be cut away easily enough by a skilled surgeon. She smelled refuse and excrement, infection and stale sweat.
She felt paralysed. Shocked. These people needed help. They needed an army of healers. She wanted to leap out of the wagon and do something, but with what? She had no bag of medicines and tools. No burner to sear a blade clean. No blade to sear clean. And where would she start?
A wave of depression swept through her, like a squall of ice-cold rain chilling her to the core. As she sank into her seat she felt eyes close by, watching her. Lord Dakon. She did not look up. She knew she’d see sympathy and right now she resented that.
The road widened abruptly and they entered an open space. To one side she could see ships and boats tied up to long wooden walkways that extended into the river. On the other a broad road ascended between large stone houses. This, she realised, must be Market Square.
“Should there be stalls here?” she asked.
“Only on market day – every fifth day,” Dakon replied.
The wagon turned and slowly moved with the flow of other vehicles making their way towards King’s Parade. Progress was slow. Occasionally a large and spectacular covered wagon would force its way through, gaudily dressed men using short whips to enforce demands that other travellers move aside. Tessia wondered why nobody protested against this casual brutality. The finely dressed couple and three children she glimpsed inside one such wagon didn’t seem aware of it. Lord Dakon said and did nothing, but she was relieved when he did not order Tanner to speed their way with his whip, either.
She also noticed that most traffic avoided the centre of the road. Even the fancier wagons only dared swing out into the middle if they could leave it again immediately. When two riders came cantering up the centre gap, wearing identical clothing, she guessed that they were servants of some sort headed for the palace. There must be a law against blocking the path of anyone using the road for royal business, and the penalty or punishment must be severe if even those within the fancier wagons were keen to avoid it.
“See these buildings to the left?” Dakon said, drawing her attention from the traffic to the large, pale-stoned walls nearby. “They were built by the Sachakans during their rule here. Though they embraced the Kyralian way of building multiple-storey homes, they imported the stone from quarries in the mountains of their land.”
“How?” she asked; then, as she realised the answer was obvious, she shook her head. “Slaves.”
“Yes.”
“Who lives there now?”
“Whoever was lucky enough to inherit or wealthy enough to buy them.”
“People
“They are well designed. Warm in the winter, cool in the summer. The best of them have bathing rooms with piped hot water.” He shrugged. “While we consider Sachakans barbaric for enslaving others, they consider us so for being unsophisticated and dirty.”
“At least we learned when exposed to their ways. We adopted their technologies, but they remained slavers,” Jayan said.
“They gave us back our independence,” Dakon pointed out. “Through negotiation, not war, which was a first for Sachaka. Did that willingness to talk rather than fight stem from our influence?”
Jayan looked thoughtful. “Perhaps.”
“What was Kyralia like before the Sachakans came?” Tessia asked.
“A lot of independently ruled leys that were in conflict with each other as often as they were at peace,” Dakon told her. “No one ruler controlled all, though the lord of the southern ley was by far the most powerful. Everyone came to Imardin to trade, and he grew rich on the wealth that came from controlling the centre of commerce.”
“Is King Errik descended from that lord?”
“No, the southern lord died in the invasion. Our king is descended from one of the men who negotiated our independence.”
“How did magicians live before the invasion?”
“There weren’t many, and most sold their services to ley lords. No more than seven are mentioned in the few records left from that time. There is no description of higher magic, either. Some people believe the Sachakans discovered higher magic, and that was why they conquered so many lands so quickly. But eventually they lost them again as the knowledge of higher magic spread in those lands and local magicians began to equal them in strength.”
The wagon turned into one of the side streets. Realising she had forgotten to count the streets, Tessia glanced
