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crisscrossing through the sky.
Vessels dotted the water all the way to the port ahead. Then a shimmer from
the corner of Magiere's vision drew her attention. It came from the north.
At first, she couldn't be certain it was more than a glint on the water. It
sparked like polished metal, but the light wavered, as if what reflected the
sun fluttered in the wind or rolled on the ocean. It was a vessel, riding
smoothly, perhaps even a bit high, as it skimmed across the top of the water.
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The shimmer came from its sails, iridescent as white satin. Magiere squinted
and shaded her eyes.
Long and sleek, the bow reached out to a point like a spear. The hullgleamed
sun-tinted green one moment and rich golden tan the next, and its lip appeared
delicately curved like a holly leaf's edge.
Leesil pointed to it and called to a nearby sailor on deck. "What's that over
there?"
A young, sandy-haired man paused from coiling his rope to glance across the
bay. "Elven," he answered shortly, "from the far north, on the east side of
the cape."
"Never heard of them having ships."
"Never heard& ?" The sailor looked at the half-elf as if he were a half-wit.
"Too bad we can't get a closer look," Leesil added.
At that, the sailor took one step toward Leesil and Magiere.
"I'd sooner sail a dingy into a winter squall!" He tossed the rope aside and
walked quickly away.
Magiere didn't understand the sailor's caution, but she wouldn't forget it
either. The elven people were so reclusive that she'd seen only a handful in
her lifetime. If Loni back in Miiska was unusual for his kind, having settled
away from his homeland, she wondered what these all-but-hidden people were
truly like.
"How is it you know so little about your own people?" Magiere asked, still
reluctant to exchange words with him.
"They're notmy people," Leesil corrected. "They're my mother's, and I know
nothing more of them than what I'd seen in her& and thatwas long ago."
He finished more quietly than he began. Magiere left the subject alone, at
least for now.
"Oh, please, please let us dock directly." Leesil looked longingly toward the
shore, his words nearly a prayer. "I don't even want to ride a skiff in from
anchor after all this."
"Enough whining," Magiere retorted.
The land at the bay's back was a massive, rising slope that extended all
along the shore. At its center was Bela, the king's capital city. More than
three centuries past, before Belaski was so named or known as a country, Bela
had been a small walled keep settled at the slope's crest. Over time it grew,
until now it was a visible behemoth of white granite.
Villages closest to the castle spread into a town, and a defense wall had
been erected around all. But the town, eager to become a city, wouldn't be
contained. The population grew, new structures sprang up, the castle expanding
as well, and the capital sprawled ever farther along and down the slope. A
second fortification was erected around Bela, as it came to be called. Mixed
buildings hid this wall's base from sight like unkempt, wild foliage against a
stone cottage. Given more years, the city still wouldn't be confined.
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Now, a third ring wall with regularly spaced towers existed, which reached
almost down to the shore and the expansive docks that supported moorage for
scores of ships.
"I don't remember it being this big," Leesil muttered.
"Because we always came from the flat, land side," Magiere added, "and never
ventured far into it."
Magiere felt even more uneasy. Foolishly, she'd not considered Bela's size, a
further argument against accepting the city council's manipulative offer. In
Miiska, out of necessity rather than choice, they'd hunted three Noble Dead
who'd already exposed their presence. Bela was at least twenty times the size
of the little coastal town. Within its three ring walls, they must now find
one undead if an undead it was with no clue but a girl's corpse.
As the schooner drew near the docks, the slope filled Magiere's view and the
outer ring wall obscured the inner city from sight. Buildings of mixed size,
make, and color were mashed together so closely she made out only a few
vertical roads running outward like wheel spokes from the city's center. Each
such passed through the third wall via a towering, fortified gatehouse with
raised iron portcullis. Trails of smoke like a thinned gray forest in the air
curled upward from chimneys all about the city. Warehouses lined the shore,
and the air was suddenly tainted with a myriad of scents from fish to oiled
wood, salt water to people and livestock.
A noxious breeze blew across the deck, and Magiere wrinkled her nose. Down
the right coast at the city's edge was a building the size of two or three
warehouses. On its bayside, massive wooden sluices dribbled water into the
bay, while on the structure's side towering wheels turned, carrying seawater
up and into wide troughs running into the building.
"Salt mill," Leesil choked out. "They're harvesting salt from the sea."
The smell clearly affected him the most, and his face turned pale and sallow
before Magiere's eyes.
There were people everywhere. Uncomfortable numbers of them. Dockworkers and
sailors clambered over the piers' upper and lower levels, moving cargo to and
from vessels,handling mooring and rigging, and shouting to each other over the
general din.
"This is impossible," Magiere said under her breath. Her gaze panned across
the sprawling city. "How are we to find anything in all of this?"
"One step at a time," Leesil replied.
As they drew near a lower dock, the schooner's crew was in the rigging,
taking in the last of the sails. Several sailors tossed out lines to men
waiting to moor the ship, and the schooner settled to a stop. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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