The city of Treydolain was enormous and sprawling, one of the largest cities on the surface of Evinden, though nobody outside of the Lagonian valley was aware of this fact. The citizens of Hollanhead, on the coast to the south, went about their business convinced of their superiority in all things cultural, technological and societal. The old, united tribes of Safast, across the ocean, were proud of their history of art and pioneering sciences, believing themselves the spark of the world, even as their power had waned in the last century.
Then there was the valley, with the city of Treydolain at its centre, alone, unaware of and unconcerned by the outside world, a secret jewel nestled within its crown of mountains. Its people cared not for what lay beyond those steep obstacles, for the valley was all that one needed.
Lagonia was its own hidden kingdom, divorced from the corruptions of the lesser peoples beyond the mountains, and the temptations of inferior civilisations. Lagonia carved its own path, a part of Evinden but set entirely apart. The valley was an anomaly on the planet's surface, delivering a society in microcosm; a bubble world that lived by its own rules and was happier for it.
Treydolain shone as a beacon in the centre of the valley, showing the way to a bright future. That had always been its role, ever since the founders first set foot in the valley, climbed to the top of the mesas and planted their flags. The city was split into districts, each distinct yet blending into one another. Along the southern shore of the lake were the grand estates of the aristocrats, leading to the commercial district, which in turn shifted towards the docks where the fishermen brought in their hauls. Across the river the poor quarter sat in its walled-off ghetto, tidied neatly away such that everyone else could pretend it didn't exist. Yet another pocket universe, existing within the larger valley's imposed boundaries. Next to it was the somewhat euphemistic theatre district, delivering its curious mixture of art and debauchery, while following the river upstream towards the gorge revealed manufacturing and the shipbuilders - vessels for both air and water - before the mesas began to rise steeply out of the hills, bringing with them the diplomatic and military core of the city, where barracks, homes and guest houses were carved into the rock, spiralling up to the palace grounds at the very top.
Jed Garron worked on the shore by the lake, fixing nets and mending boats. The attention to detail appealed to Jed, keeping him focused and helping the day to drift by. In the summer months it was a good job, sitting out on the jetties as boats went about their business on the lake and people passed to and fro in the streets. The winter was harder, especially if the lake tried to freeze over, though that hadn't happened for years.
After a long day of working with his hands, Jed would take his pay from the fishing master, pocket two thirds of it and take the remainder to the Jolly Fish & Crown, the tavern on the lakefront that was a second home for most of the dockworkers and fishermen. It was very important to not spend it all, he'd decided, as one day he'd find himself a lovely girl who he'd want to look after. Each day as the sun dropped behind the distant mountains, he'd swing open the door to the tavern and enter into its lamp-lit, ramshackle interior - a single large room with a curving ceiling barely supported by splintering beams - and order himself a pint of the strongest ale they had on offer. He'd find a spot at the bar, lean back and feel the amber-brown liquid start to return warmth to his belly. Almost everyone in the place knew each other, and workers stuck together. There was an unwritten rule that none of the bosses went to the Jolly Fish.
"Saw a queer thing today," Jed said, to nobody in particular. A couple of other men turned to regard him curiously - they were called Neal and Shay, and were good fellows. Worked over at one of the rival fisheries, but none of that mattered in the Jolly Fish.
"What's that?" Shay asked, already slurring a touch.
Jed frowned and took a sip from his drink. "There I was," he continued, "minding my own business, hammering some new sides onto this rowboat, when I smelled this awful stench."
"Your own crotch?" Neal shouted, slamming his palm down on the bar.
"Not this time," Jed said, unphased. "I looked up and saw this awful-looking runt, sitting just over from where I was working."
"What, a dog?"
Jed shook his head. "No, it was a man. A boy, I think. It was hard to tell. He was sat on a bench looking like the saddest creature."
Neal laughed. "He'd probably smelled you as well."
"It was the boy that was the smell. Filthy, he was. Like he'd just crawled out of a pissing trough."
Across the room at a table sat Gatley, who worked deliveries all across the city, though mostly around this district. He had a wife, three sons and one daughter and worked all hours of every day to provide for them. It was back-breaking work and he wasn't looking forward to the stickily warm days of summer, now approaching, but even that wouldn't affect his disposition, which was always reliably jovial and generous.
"A sewer," he said, just loud enough to be heard above the general background noise of the tavern.
Shay waved at him from the bar. "What was that, Gatley?"
Gatley stood, picking up his glass and coming over to join them. "He came from a sewer," he said. "At least, if we're talking about the same lad."
"And how do you know that?"
"I pulled him out of one a couple of hours ago," Gatley said, taking a long drink.
"What were you doing down in the sewers?" Neal leaned in awkwardly close and giggled. "Get lost taking a shortcut?"
"I was on the street, you oaf," Gatley said, grinning and slapping Neal on the back. "Heard a funny noise, found this lad stuck beneath the grate. Got him out, but then the guards started sniffing around."
Jed looked thoughtful and took a sip. "Wearing nothing but rags, barefoot, and head to toe covered in filth? Hair cut back to his scalp?"
Gatley nodded. "Sounds like the same one."
"What was he doing down there?"
Shrugging, Gatley held his glass in front of his mouth then paused. "The way he reacted to the sun, anyone would think he'd been down there his whole life." He took another sip, finished the beer, and slid it across to the barmaid. He shook his head at her suggestion of another, then said his goodbyes and retreated to the exit, retrieving his hat on the way out.
Out on the street he could see the stars shimmering in the sky, while the city's lights glimmered in competition. He wondered where that poor lad had ended up, and whether he'd survive the night in the city.
A district away, Gallen Pent was removing his uniform and hanging it inside his locker. The barracks was quiet this time of night as the shift change had already taken place, the night crew fanning out across the city to patrol and keep people from hurting themselves. Pent had done his part already, walking the streets all day under the sun, working his way through his district. It was a matter of pride, knowing everything that went on in the alleyways and rivers and squares of the docks. Nothing happened without Pent knowing about it. Nothing happened without him allowing it.
"Hello, Gallen," came the voice of Dolan Mags, another officer who walked a similar beat. Pent had no time for Dolan Mags, thinking him to be a simpering, overly compassionate man-child who let his optimism interfere with his duty. He still thought he could bring about change in the district and the wider city, having not yet realised that their job was to stop people killing each other while keeping things exactly as they always had been. Society was only ever two meals away from violence, Pent's father had always said.
"Mags," Pent acknowledged. It had been a long day and the last thing he wanted was to engage someone like Mags in conversation.
"Going to have to myself a good bath tonight," Mags announced.
"That isn't a detail I needed to know."
"Saw this boy earlier. So dirty, just standing near him made me feel like I was being contaminated. Like I'd catch a disease or two off of him."
"Hygiene isn't a priority among the dockworkers." Pent's only aim was to leave the barracks and return home.
"Nah," Mags said, shaking his head and pulling off his tunic. "This kid was no docker. He was covered head to toe in muck. Stank like nothing else. Found him by a sewer grate which had been forced open, so I suppose that made sense of that."
That got Pent's attention. "The boy," he said, "where is he now?"
"Sent him on his way. Sooner he was out of my sight - and my nose - the better."
"So he'd prised open a grating, had been swimming about in excrement, and you caught him coming out?" Sewers were strictly off limits, accessible only with a royal permit which were only granted to vital engineers.
Mags shrugged and titled his head one way then the other. "I'm not sure, I got the sense that others had opened the grate to help him get out. There was a bit of a crowd when I arrived."
"Then how did he get in there?" Something didn't quite add up and it was making Pent nervous. "When was this?"
"Late afternoon. Perhaps four o'clock? Like I say, I sent him on his way."
"The people who opened the grate, did you arrest them for criminal damage?"
Another shrug from the other man. "They'd mostly already dispersed by the time I got there. I sealed it back up. Not much more to do than that."
Pent glared. "This boy, where did he go?"
"Headed off in the direction of the docks. I didn't follow him to check." Mags laughed as he pulled his boots off and stowed them in his locker. "You could probably still sniff him out and follow the scent if you wanted to track him down."
Not wanting to spend more time than was strictly necessary in Mags' company, Pent bid him goodnight and left the barracks. He paused next to a burning brazier and stared up into the night sky, considering his route. Home beckoned but he couldn't ignore what Mags had told him. With a weary sigh, he took a detour via an uptown drinking hole which attracted higher ranking officers. It was a place he visited despite not being of the correct rank but he knew the doorman and could usually talk his way in. It never hurt to show his face amongst men of such calibre. Pent regarded it as paving his way to the top; he'd belong there sooner or later.
"What do you have for me?" asked Pienya Martoc, King's Eye and bodyguard to Queen Anja. She took her job very seriously and once a week would always take a table at the back of The King's Bridge, nestled in the dark away from the lamps, and wait for information to present itself. Sometimes that would be from overhearing unfiltered banter between off-duty officers and guards, other times it would be brought directly to her, by fawning idiots like Gallen Pent. On other nights when she wasn't called upon to conduct official business at the queen's side, she would prowl the streets of Treydolain, absorbing its thoughts and screams. A city of its size was a living organism, driven by hundreds of thousands of people, all of whom mattered little individually but when combined formed a dangerous, temperamental force of undirected will. Pienya Martoc did not trust crowds and believed that gathering people together was a mistake; therefore Treydolain being the most populous settlement in the valley - in the whole of Evinden, as far as she was aware - was a disturbing reality that she had not failed to notice. She didn't trust the city but it was her responsibility to ensure it behaved itself.
"One of the boys down at the barracks mentioned something odd," Pent reported. Since he'd first encountered Martoc a few months prior he now always made a point of checking in with her, especially when he had something to share. Having a friend here would serve him well one day, he knew, and she seemed to like him. It helped that it gave him an opportunity to sit near her and take in the contours of her face and the curves of her body, dimly lit as it was in the alcove. He'd pushed for promotion three times already, always in the hope of being elevated to a palace guard, or even to patrol duty atop the mesas, in the hope of catching a glimpse of her more often.
He relayed what he knew of the boy from the sewers.
Pienya had little time for ambitious, untalented young men. She would tolerate them if they had information but otherwise felt nothing but disdain. This morsel had legs, though, and had her worried. The filthy boy who had emerged from the sewers triggered too many potential implications, as light on detail as Pent's story was, and wasn't something she could ignore. He clearly wanted to remain at her table and be part of the ensuing decisions but she put paid to that idea with a stern look and a dismissive offering of coin across the table. She knew that offering payment for the information would insult Pent. It worked, inevitably, and he pushed his chair back and departed, not forgetting to bitterly take his payment.
She waited for a while, not wanting to depart too rapidly and look alarmed by the conversation, then paid her tab and emerged into the Treydolain night. The lamp- and star-lit streets always felt more like her city than when it was flooded with sunlight. Fewer people clogged the streets, with those still venturing abroad doing so for more overtly nefarious purposes. The diplomatic nuances and restrictions of the day vanished as the moon began its patrol. It made her job easier.
The mesa on the southern side of the river loomed over this part of the city, blotting out the stars and replacing them with its own, lights blinking out from half-shuttered windows and the paths carved into the rock face. It was a short walk to its base, where the ground began to incline, first along a series of terraced parks and houses, then to steeper ground until she reached the sheer vertical cliff. Staircases wound their way up but she had no need to traipse up those, which would be a good half hour climb at a brisk pace, and instead presented herself at the lower guard station. They greeted her by name and opened the shaft, before locking it shut behind her once she'd entered the car.
She signalled her readiness to the guard, who nodded and pulled on a lever. The machine mounted into the floor next to the shaft whirred into action, steam venting intermittently, and she felt the familiar jerk of the cable pulling taut. Her legs wavered a little as the car was hoisted up the shaft, beginning its long ascent to the top.
Treydolain dropped away, the gardens and streets and alleyways merging into a maze of urban chaos. She could identify each of the districts from here, all the way out to the enormous lake, which reflected the moonlit sky with such precision that it felt as if all the city would tumble into it.
The cable pulled the car up and up, sliding past hewn rock, its ascent revealing occasional structures built into the side of the mesa itself, slender paths winding their way around its steep edges. There were places where the angle of the cliff eased off, resulting in clusters of houses connected by walkways and tunnels cut through the rock. As she neared the plateau at the top, the structures became more spaced out, built on less extreme surfaces and looking more like a hilltop village than the cliff-embedded, gravity-resistant holdouts below.
The car reached the summit and clanged to a stop. She threw open the metal gate, nodded to the guard stationed outside the shaft, and made her way along the south mesa. It was home to diplomats as well as the military centre of the kingdom - such as it was - and existed as its own miniature town within the wider city of Treydolain. Many who lived here never ventured down to the city in the gorge and on the lake, arriving and departing exclusively by airship from the aerial docks. Visitors from other parts of the Lagonian valley would only ever experience the carefully curated life on the mesas, with the city being little more than a sparkling backdrop far below.
She passed through the streets of the southern mesa, each of them carefully aligned and planned, unlike the often deranged layouts of the other districts. The mesas had supposedly been home to a fortress outpost and a religious monastery, before being repurposed as the seat of the monarchy once the technology had existed to properly settle upon them. Up in the cooler air above the city Pienya felt a calmness; that knowledge that she was in an exclusive place accessible only to the chosen few. She wasn't nobility and never would be, but she walked among them, protected them, and they relied upon her skills.
The bridge never ceased to be a wonder. Each year she thought it would become ordinary to her but it hadn't happened yet, even as she entered her tenth year in Queen Anja's employ. The stones used to construct the bridge were each twice the size of her head, and its design continued to puzzle historians and architects who were unable to conceive of how it could have been built several centuries ago. But, then, the history of Lagonia was a blurred and largely forgotten thing.
At this time of night the bridge was deserted, save for a lone figure standing at its midpoint, where it broadened out into a small circular viewing area. Fenris Silt did his best to walk out here every evening, once his duties were concluded, so that he could absorb the valley's character before sleep, letting it seep into his dreams. He would look out to the east, across the city and beyond the Lake, taking in fields and hills as far his eyes would see. Then he would cross to the opposite side and look up river, along the deep, winding gorge between the mesas, where little could be seen but sharp rock and sometimes moonlight shimmering in the water three hundred feet below. He knew he had fewer days ahead of him than had already passed and he wished to spend as many of them as possible in the open air, in the presence of the valley.
He saw Pienya's approach. She moved with such deliberate poise and purpose, as if she regarded the fate of the world as her responsibility. He remembered when she had first been brought to the palace, all those years ago, orphaned by a hunting accident and taken under the queen's protection. Though she had never wanted for shelter or food since that day, there remained the inescapable consequence of her birth: she was not of nobility, and thus had to earn her keep. She had chosen to serve in the King's Eyes, which had brought her within Fenris' orbit. Pienya was volatile and brusque but she was highly skilled and would most likely succeed him in not so many years. Too many of the other Eyes were closer to Fenris' senior age than he would like.
"News from our friends downstairs?" he asked as she approached. He didn't avert his gaze from the landscape.
"It could be nothing," Pienya said, leaning on the wall next to him. "I received a report of a young boy emerging from the sewers. Looked as if he'd been down there for some time."
"How young?"
"Uncertain. Seems nobody got a good look at him, or couldn't tell through the dirt."
Fenris ran a hand through his beard. "As you say, it could be nothing."
"If it isn't?"
"Quite." He stretched his back with a disgruntled sigh. "Where did this information come from?"
"The usual tavern circuit. Guard who spoke to another guard who saw it happen."
"What would we do without the drunkards and bartenders?" Fenris laughed. "The taverns truly are the veins and arteries of this city."
"What should we do?"
"Circulate a description of the boy," Fenris said, "as best you can. Track down where he went, find him, then we'll find out what he was doing in the sewers."
"I'll start by the docks," Pienya said. She was already on her way back across the bridge towards the southern mesa.
A boy from the sewers. Fenris tried not to let his imagination get the better of him but there was no overlooking the fact than an escapee could change the entire shape of the political and social landscape in Lagonia.
The young man would first have to survive a night in the city. That would not be an easy task.
Only earlier that day Roldan Stryke had failed to return on his airship and now a boy was said to have risen from the tunnels below the city. Fenris looked out over the valley and sensed a shifting on the wind.