Chapter Nine

The Capital of the Nommen Empire

Marith

Marith rode at the front of the party over the past week she had found herself assuming the role of the leader. The incident at the village had changed her killing a human was something she had never had to do before and she hadn’t been sure she would be able too, but she found had channeled the rage she felt and had struck him down without a second thought. The brutality she had committed frightened her, and she wondered who she was becoming. It wasn’t just her anger at the man who had left Aura with the child but her husband leaving her and the children behind to go adventuring and dying and leaving them with nothing.

Marith shook off the dark thoughts plaguing her and rode on. They finally broke through the trees and crested a hill and caught sight of Nomm and Marith’s jaw dropped at the cite. The city of Fells had been impressive, and the first city she had ever seen but the capital of the Nommen Empire dwarfed it in its splendor. Towers floated over the city and ships sailed across the bay next to and through the air docking by the floating towers. Chains that had to be as thick as houses hung down to the ground keeping the towers from floating away. The gleaming gold domes of temples was a brilliant reflection of the warmth of the sun causing them to squint. Marith and they rode forward the city growing larger and larger as they approached.

“It's huge,” Aura whispered in awe as they approached closer and the towers grew in size showing just how truly massive they were. Bubbles floated up to the towers with people sitting in them and bubbles descended below the wall and out of sight as they transported people too and from the floating towers.

“Very impressive,” Carl said with a bit of grudging respect. “but impractical, we dwarves like to build things big too, but floating towers seem a bit unnecessary.”

“They were built to fight dragons During the Age of Chaos,” Herbalt explained. “The mages of today could never build such structures.”

The party joined the line that stretched for half a mile before the massive adamantine city gates as the imperial city watch searched carts and asked for identification. The party looked at each other realizing that they didn’t have any such identification. It came to their turn in line, and a human in an imperial leather coat with a stave-wand slung over his back.

“Papers,” the imperial guard said extending his hand.

“We are new to the Empire and don’t have any papers,” Marith said.

The imperial guard nodded and looked nonplused and waved another guard over. “Follow officer Kagan here, and he will escort you to the registration office. Make sure once you get your papers to keep them on you at all times. You can’t buy anything here without them, and you will be arrested if you don’t have them while within the city,”a guard said and waved them through.

The party followed the officer into a building and filled out some papers and a mage had them stand before a mirror which made a tiny identical painting that was added to their documents. They were given their papers and sent on their way. Herbalt led them to a tavern, and they stowed their packs and sat in the common room while Herbalt and Silla went out into the city to gather information.

The two of them returned a few hours later and sat down at their table in the far corner of the room where they could speak without being overheard. Herbalt sighed and leaned his staff against the table.

“I believe we have to change tactics,” Herbalt said.

“What has changed?” Sel’van asked leaning forward.

“My Order has detected that the Asternosis Tome is reentering our plane and then leaving again randomly,” Herbalt explained with a frown pouring a mug of ale and taking a deep drink.

“Isn’t that a good thing?” Marith asked. “If it's on our plane the portals won’t open up.”

“Yes, but every time it leaves the doors are getting weaker, the barriers need time to readjust and the Tome going in and out of our world is cracking the door ajar more and more,” Herbalt began. “Also, they have detected the book is moving. We no longer have the time to track the books, previous owners. Whoever has it now needs to be stopped, or chaos is going rain down on the land.”

“How do we track it then?” Marith asked.

“We have a ritual planned for tonight,” Herbalt said. “It should be able to give us a new trail to follow. In the meantime, I suggest we rest.”

Marith nodded and went upstairs to the room that she and Aura shared. She sat down on the bed and next to Aura. Aura held her belly which already had a slight bulge. Marith found the rapid growth of the child somewhat odd but decided not to comment.

“We have to go a meet with someone do you think you will be all right?” Marith asked.

“Yes,” Aura said with a forced smile. “I’m just not used to such big building she explained, and Marith nodded, Aura had been feeling claustrophobic as soon as they had entered the city.

“How are you feeling?” Marith asked.

“Yes, I just feel angry,” Aura admitted. “everyone back in Tor and Wraith…”

“Wraith?” Marith interrupted in confusion.

“The name of his father,” Aura explained gesturing to her womb.

“What did he look like?” Marith asked.

Aura sighed. “He was handsome, black hair dark black eyes with a strong facial structure with sharp cheekbones and a sharp chin, his nose was very sharp and hawk-like. He left me money and a sword when he left,” Aura said pulling a scimitar out of one of the bags she had brought with her.

Marith breathed in the fresh aroma of air after a rainstorm with a faint metallic odder. Recognizing the smell of magic Marith examined the sword and saw very faint runes etched into the blade along the edge.

“This sword has powerful magic worked into it,” Marith said, “You should keep it for your child. You never know when you will need to defend yourself.” Marith bade Aura farewell and left the room. She found a quiet corner and knelt to pray.

“Fesla, I pray that you would protect my children and guide the soul of my husband and reunite us one day. Give me the strength to do your will and continue on this quest,” Marith prayed. She remained to kneel for a few minutes and then rose and rejoined her party to go with them to the outpost of Herbalt’s wizard order.

Six hours later the party moved through the empty city streets. They approached a fountain, and Marith watched in confusion as Herbalt and Silla step into the basin. A bubble of water formed around them, and they began to rise into the air and float up to the tower above them. Marith stepped onto the fountain and heard tower bells ring far off in the distance sounding some alarm.

She floated up and looked down on the gnome designed buildings that shrank as they rose half a mile into the sky. The bubble landed on a stone platform and popped, and Marith stumbled a step and then joined the rest of her companions. They looked about the massive floating structure in wonder their breaths puffing out in clouds of steam in the cold. Marith crept over to the stone railing and looked down over the city, and her heart stopped, and her breath caught as she surveyed the sheer drop to the city below. She dimly saw a few buildings on fire and wondered what was going on.

“Come along Marith,” Herbalt said interrupting her awe induced trance.

The party entered a tower, and a wizard greeted them and bowed to Herbalt. The inside of the tower was covered in with dark wood panels stained with red lacquer and carved with runes. Doors opened along the wall, and a marble spiral staircase rose into the air the stones didn’t sit on each other but merrily jutted out of the wall and floating spiral pole of brass served as a handrail.

“Please follow me,” the wizard said to them and walked toward’ s the spiral staircase stepping to the side as a screaming wizard plummeted down.

Marith watched in horror as the wizard impacted with the stone and then vanished in a puff of smoke, and she heard distant screaming to see the same wizard his green robes streaming behind him as he screamed and plummeted again.

“Apologies for the disturbance, Mark was experimenting with teleportation and feather fall spells, and we haven’t been able to figure out how to undo the spell yet,” the wizard said waving them forward and walking up the stairs.

“Can’t you just dispel it?” Herbalt asked seeming delighted to engage in scholarly discussion.

“Many others agree with you the problem is that the timing has to be just right if we do it too late we could dispel the feather fall equation of his spell, and he could be at the zenith of the tower and splat down on the ground before we can save him,” the wizard said excitedly.

“When do you think you’ll be able to dispel it?” Marith asked.

The wizard paused for a moment and then shrugged, “Sometime next week I’d guess.”

“What about food and water?” Carl asked.

“Huh, I hadn’t thought of that,” the wizard admitted, “I suppose we could throw food and waterskins at him until he eventually catches one.”

The party followed the wizard into a room where six other sages waited in leather-backed chairs. They rose and bowed to one another and Herbalt joined the circle, and they all joined hands and began chanting. Other wizards moved about and started burning incense and placing gem stones, feathers, a sprinkling of earth left on small circles on a pattern chalked on the stone table. After an hour the wizards stopped and rolled out a blank piece of paper on the table. The wizards leaned over the counter as lines began to sketch themselves out and Marith leaned over as well as a map sketched itself out on the table.

“They are on the continent,” Herbalt said as the lines of the map began to condense as it zoomed in showing less and less.

Wizard’s made notes and looked down at the map. “They’re in the Empire see those mountains and river that is the Serkan Province,” another wizard said to the nods of other wizards.

“It's zooming in again there the Tome is in….” the wizard said and then looked up perplexed, “It’s in the city.”

“You mean this city?” Carl asked gripping his ax.

“Yes, it looks like it is in the Docks District,” one of the elder wizards said.

“I just heard there was a fire over there,” a younger wizard exclaimed.

"It seem convient that whoever it is is in the city at the same time we are here," Marith said

Carl shurgged huncaring, "Fate has willed it, who are we to question the gods?"

“Then we haven’t a moment to lose,” Sel’van said drawing his bow. “Do you have a faster mode of travel or will we need to take the bubbles down?”

“We can teleport you there,” a wizard nodded.

“With an actual teleportation spell, right?” Carl asked, “Not one of those spell that your working on that makes you fall over and over for a week?”

The wizard looked affronted. “I will have you know that my teleportation spells are the most reliable in the entire empire I have a ninety-eight percent success rate!”

“Yeah, it’s the two percent part that concerns me,” Carl muttered but stepped nearer the group as the wizard laid a hand on each of them.

The Party appeared outside a warehouse where the cities fire brigade was putting out the flames, and imperial guards and sheriffs were fighting with beings made of fire that stepped out of the fire. The creatures were the shapes of people, cats, dogs, horses, snakes, bats and every other being imaginable. Marith looked around and saw several charred corpses on the ground still smoking. The wizards who had teleported with them began summoning water to put out the fire. Marith grabbed a sheriff who was stumbling back from the fire his face burned with fire. Marith healed the burn and looked the sheriff in the face.

“What happened?” she compelled him giving him a shake when he looked at her blankly.

“We found a dead girl in an ally she had was stabbed in the throat with some blade, and there were strange markings on her neck,” he reported. “We were tracking a pair of suspicious individuals to this location. Three sheriffs’ entered the warehouse, and there was some screaming, and then the building was enveloped with fire.”

Marith nodded and released the sheriff who ran over to his superior officer to receive new orders. Marith turned to the building and waved her hand, and she pulled the splashed water from the wizard’s spells into an archway into the warehouse and led the way for her party her shield and war-hammer in hand. She entered the warehouse and found a hole broken in the earth and looked down into the gaping maw.

“Let us finish our quest,” Marith stated with steel in her voice.