Three miles out from the outer gates of Nevespora the grand curve of the river Kayili's west bank corralled the Imperial highway eastward before forking into a canal built along Nevepora's westernmost holdings until it buttressed the levees southward before sprawling into the Nya Delta. The other branch continued to the east where the river opened into the harbor before emptying into the Mooring Sea.

The traffic now slowed as the city's hightower walls came into view. In front of Leresai, a small caravan of three coaches, a pair of oxen carts with wares stacked high under stretched canvas followed by four fatigued guards on horseback, pushed forward to enter the Donneamor bridge. The bridge spanned two hundred and forty yards across the Kayili.

Two whitestone towers flanked the bridge on each shore and a third pair set in the middle of the river supported by counter levering tresses held the bridge up with minimum suspension beneath.

Between each set of towers a narrow crosswalk held guards in rapt study of the composition of the travelers illuminated below in the early dusk by large, bronze braziers that capped the towers. The guards unfurled a banner on each side of the walkway identifying those who entered the city.

On the canvas a simple oxen cart with an eight above it showed there were fewer than eight armed guards in the party. Leresai could see the same banner now appearing unfurled on the next tower walkway. The practice would continue up the length of towers deep into the city until it reached the scribes at the public administration building in Center Market.

As Leresai passed under the tower walkway, she leaned her head back up to see the banner now being unfurled.

It displayed an emblem of a horseshoe under two silver feathers above the goddom lord's signet of a hand holding the sun like a pearl in a field of aquamarine blue.

Soon, the message of a royal courier's approach would reach the palace. They would have an escort greet her at the gate. If luck would have it, one would already be readied as was standard practice throughout the Imperium.

If not . . . to this thought Leresai noted the planets, the Twin Travelers, now framed just above the next walkway . . . time would be wasted.

Leresai breathed in slowly, meditating on her need to retain her patience, especially now with so many conspiring and so much going against her geas. More important to her than even Roethella's geas inscribed on her heart, her belovéd Breitess awaited her after the quest was completed. She had chosen this evening for her confrontation with Lord Carro for it fell upon her fortnightly visitation day.

No. No. No. The brother that pursues you.

Still in the heat of Rhoethella's silver at the time, she did not react at all to the desolate meaning of those words. She wished she could always be so unflinching as she was a few hours previously in the heat of the manna silver, but now her gut was wrenched in dread.

Brietess' brother Baratheil was among those who conspired in the palace. A nephew of the Duchess, he could come and go as he pleased; his education in law also afforded him official status. Why would he draw her near, so central to what she had to assume to be his royal station, just to strike at her? There must be more to his motives than a personal vendetta.

More towers flanked the Imperial highway for the next two miles until the highway ended at the city gates. Between the four sets of towers along this last stretch of the highway were hovels, mangers, fire pits rich in the aroma of meats sold on skewers, pot kettles filled with steaming vegetable stews. Street musicians walking around the crowded streets with lutes and hurdy-gurdies in their hands.

Closer to the city, the simple hovels were replaced with inns and the open-air mangers replaced with stables offering far more accommodation but for a price. From the balcony of an upscale inn, a voice called out to Leresai.

"What is this," she heard a man's voice boom. "Could it be? A genuine elven maiden!"

Leresai peered up with a half cast smile lopsided on her face. Three young men wearing the severe, jagged short beards common to university students and dressed in vestments indicative of familial wealth stood gawking down at her. The beards did little to hide the rosy cheeks and tender soft jawlines beneath their gaping mouths.

She gave them an idiomatic greeting in Haute Elven. Every word of which she exaggerated for accentuated effect. One spoke to the other two in an exasperated whisper said loudly enough for Leresai to hear.

"I don't believe she even speaks the Empress' Imperial. What a find!"

"I do, but little only," she protested in palate rolled syllabics of Elven equivalent; sounds strange to native Imperial ears not worldly of fey kind.

The first student who had spoken to her quieted his two companions. He towered over them. She noted the large ring signet he bore on his right hand, entwined dragons indicative of a broken infinity. He was the scion of a royal house. She pulled on the curb rein to halt her horse and hear him out.

"Dear elven beauty, lay your travel-wearied body down with us this evening. We promise you comfort that you won't receive anywhere else in Nevespora. A dinner of roasted goose, three courses of desserts, fruits, puddings and cakes glazed in butter and honey, a wine cup with no bottom, cured somniferum drawn smooth from a steaming copper hookah into the late evening. And best of all, three kind and gentle lovers to please your every desire."

Leresai laughed gaily and she let her skin flush pink. In Haute Elven she gave her answer.

"If you can understand these words, you beautifully depraved louts, I'll take you up on your offer once my service to the palace is fulfilled. I will come back here and I'll take you each in turn, fucking you with such raw menace you'll pray to your gods to give you the strength to endure T'nonnon'B. But your prayers will be futile and I'll be merciless.

"Once I'm done with each of you, I'll make you take me altogether. One cock jammed up dry fucking my shitter. One most fortunate cock soaked in the sweet musk of my pussy. And you sir, with your cock in my mouth, I will hold you in, slapping your head and shaft against my eager tongue, and I will finally let you nut as you are begging me with tears straining your eyes for my sucking lips to release you."

They only heard the lyrical music of Elven in the unassuming provincial accent of an elven spearmaiden. One companion yelped with his fist clenched and shaking. "The Sisters be damned. My house tutor offered to teach me the Haute Elven."

Leresai shook her head, and as she slowly turned her horse away, in Imperial said, "I must attend and towards them go to my duty."

The mingled syntax mimicking an Elven tense form.

A short distance later, she heard a trotting horse step to her own pace. From the shadows of a tower, a man dressed in the armor of a high ranked palace guard rode up beside her. Leresai jerked her head back to appraise the man, then she shrugged.

"I've never heard an elven maiden with words so well sauced," he commented in Haute Elven.

"The offer of goose was tempting." She answered.

The captain's quick laughter to this rejoinder put her at ease.

With a wave of her hand towards the balcony, she dismissed the three fraternity brothers.

"Three college boys not battle-honed. How was I supposed to take them seriously? 'Kind and gentle lovers.'" She winced as if disgusted by the thought. "Where are these facile mores coming from?"

"I'm Vingt Bierdé," he continued in the language as it was spoken throughout the elven nation of Voilétél, Veiled Winter. Evidently he relished the opportunity to speak the language, "Captain of the palace guard to the House Lyoneid. I'll be escorting you this evening."

As they neared the entry gate to the city, the Pendragon of the House Lyoneid, consisting of a serpent head in a chromatic display of platinum, silver, electrum, gold, and copper set against wings of cobalt, spread out above the entrance. Prosperity was the mythical beast's name.

He gave her an appraisive once-over.

"You are with the White Hawks. You must have seen much in the way of battle. The Bloody Seven?"

Leresai considered what she should say. The captain with his fluency in Haute Elven she did not count on as an eventuality when she prepared for the geas.

"I was wounded early on in an outpost near the old Sgoëthe tower," she answered.

"Aie," he nodded. "Foeren's Fjeld. I well remember it."

Leresai noticed the row of medals on the breast of his bronze adorned plate mail. Emblems marking three of the Bloody Seven battles, the dual death-heads embellishing the lyre of the bardic college, the Lyre Assembly; another pendant marked him as a shield brother to the Bronze Eagles. The elite warriors led by the Sunwelder's own brother, Prince D'tuout'N.

Her thoughts strained with doubt that she could succeed in her ruse; she continued on with her story as she had planned it.

"The frost giants nearly trampled us underfoot, good sir. We dug in our spears as they charged. Damn near severed my arms as they tackled into us. Broke both in several places and tore deep into my tendons.

"Our healers massaged them back in good form, but I'll never be able to weld a fully stout maidenspear again. As it is custom for a White Hawk no longer battle prime, I'm now posted in the courier services."

"Still most glorious," he commented, chin set up just above the death heads with their leering smiles.

She glanced back at the twin skulls, she felt a shiver which she suppressed. The Lyre Assembly possessed a reputation for chauvinism amongst her friends and peers in the acting troupe she often served as a player. Leresai gave the captain a curious glance with her chin twisted to the side of her shoulder. Bierdé nodded, acknowledging her puzzlement.

"To be close to the charge of frost giants, like the ascent of frozen Neverness upon the world, enveloping your very being in utter terror. It must have been enlivening."

His eyes became distant, lost in his own remembrance. It gave her some hope she could keep him distracted from her own facile tale if she could keep him rhapsodizing along their journey on his own battles and life venture.

Though her guise was well-crafted, her Haute Elven fluent and properly accented provincial for her station, the ruse wasn't designed to pass the scrutiny of a man who had lived amongst the elves.

Passing through the gate, in the city proper, the roadways were cobbled in smooth stone and granite filled, aligned with streets maintained for pedestrian traffic with lanterns well-paced down the length of the streets and changed by the city guards throughout the evening. Captain Bierdé veered her from the center road to one on the east which bore a more winding character.

"The main concourse leads directly to the Central Market district. However, between that district and the palace, the streets become a dense maze not suitable for our navigation. This way is longer, but it is scenic and easy to transverse"

Leresai checked the moon's own concourse with a quick glance to which Bierdé chuckled and waved her forward. She joined him and they resumed their pace.

"To whom are you here to deliver that package?"

"The package is for the coinsman of the House Lyoneid," she answered.

"In the Midvries, a coinsman is called a 'treasurer.'" He corrected her.

"Pardon. I've heard that term of usage in the Suüdlands on a few occasions."

He shrugged. "They are often slow on the uptake of modernity given the decline and fall of their own empire. Nevespora, even the name reflects that it was once their possession in bygone centuries. The usage of the word 'treasurer' merely reflects current ledger practices."

As they traveled the road East, the buildings became larger and further spread apart. Pedestrians and coaches traveled in groups going in the same direction as Bierdé and Leresai.

"Soon we will come upon Theater Row. You've surely heard of our city's reputation in the performance arts?"

"I'll be admonished if I were to return home without taking in any shows," she answered. "'T'nonnon'B,' they'll say, for that is my self-name 'how can you call yourself an elf when you remain so uncultured?'"

"You have never been to Nevespora," he inquired.

Leresai snorted to prevent laughter from spitting out.

Well, sir, I have a suite of chambers right there in that tower above the theater on our left.

"I've spent most of my service in the Royal Veiled Winter Couriers on the roads of the Suüdlands to the west and south of the river lands."

The captain leaned his head forward and nodded.

"Look on. You are fortunate, White Hawk. They are staging an outdoor promotion for tonight's show at the Sparrow."

In the front lawn of the distinctive playhouse with its tower built of dark olive limestone, a crowd gathered around two actors in costumes adorned in large matted leaves of a holly native only to the Northern Isles. Indigo tattoos curved along the contours of their skin.

"Speaking of the Suüd", Captain Bierdé continued, "these actors hail from the city of Barronne."

Leresai had seen the two actors before at the Sparrow. They were part of a traveling troupe that was the season's attraction.

The man was tall, dark-haired, hawk-nosed and wore a greased goatee on his chin. The woman was a young mulatto going by the stage name Honey.

The tone of which well described the lustrous sheen of her curled golden hair, the deep maroon of her eyes and the tan of her skin. She was of medium height, a full head shorter than Leresai. She possessed a voluptuous black widow spider's insignia of a figure, ample in her bosom and bottom, but tiny in her waist.

The male actor, Rohandas, held Honey in his arms. He delivered his lines, an oath to curse the Godless, as the Sgoëthe were known in ancient times, for all their succeeding generations. The lovers the actors played were the last of their tribe.

"They are not going to strip down and engage in coitus on the stage," Bierde explained. "In the Midvries we tend to be more modest in our social customs. However, we also tend to appreciate the literary qualities of a story. Even this rewrite is too polemical for our taste. But it is something different, and the actress is very beautiful."

With a giddy croak in her voice, Leresai nodded.

"Oh, I'm very much aware of the Suüdland plays. I've been to many." Leresai's tongue rolled on the words mischievously as she flushed her skin in the suggestive, heated pink that she played up for her T'nonnon'B guise.

"I gather you are," he responded with laughter.

"You well know the aesthetic qualities expected of my people, so I request you to keep it secret from my betters how I enjoy the Suüd romps like an Abysmal fire unsatiated in my belly."

He smiled at the frankness given with such a winsome delivery.

In front of a playhouse further up Theater Row, a troop of jesters threw dangerous appearing objects at one another. A shuffling tassel footed fool swung daggers into the painted white face of another jester.

The dagger shattered into glass-like fragments against his forehead. He wagged his oversized, swollen tongue. Finally, catching the last dagger, he slapped it's broadside against his tongue, and sucked on the broken blade with the hilt sticking out of his mouth like a binky. Blue foam stained his pale lips and poured down his chest.

"A metaphor for the plague, and it is intended to be funny," Leresai asked, her voice rising in strain on the words. Her accent barely retained.

Bierdé scowled. "So it would appear... quite in bad taste"

Leresai peered up at the lunar crescent. She imagined its secant formed from the moon and the twin towers at the end of the Theater Row. Four hours and another half she had for her task.

Brietess so still, your lips so blue.

Not until the dark cast of the new moon eclipsed all the sun's back glow as it did every fortnight would Leresai's beloved girl rise again.

"Fools play the fool. Never mind them, dear elf. I see you notice the two towers at the end of Theater Row. The one on the north side is a conventional water tower. Four men can fit the levers of the water pump wheel on each tower story. They draw the water up, and then circulate it through a multitude of shafts built into the sewers.

"The other tower of the same design on the south side opposite is filled with lye. Our sewers are cleaned daily. Less stench, less accumulation of filth, less chance of disease and plague."

Leresai furrowed her brow. "The perennial evil spirit of plague fears the lye?"

"The plague festers in filth, as it is indeed an evil spirit. Cleansed of filth, the demons cannot feed as the vitaechemist have proven beyond any doubt."

"That makes a certain sense", Leresai said, and with a hesitant, pregnant pause affecting sensitivity, "I don't mean to pry, Captain Bierdé, but the towers I see give you a great deal of comfort. Did you lose anyone to the plague?"

"A literal decimation", he answered. "A tenth of every man, woman and child of whom lived here was stricken down. I lost my father, but I was not living here at the time."

"The plague year was after the Bloody Seven," Leresai queried.

"Yes, I stayed on after the war. I was a married man, an emissary bound to a foreign post. "

She had noticed no wedding band outlined beneath his glove. She checked once more to see if it had been an oversight on her part.

"My Mer'Kendretta. She died by another means, not the plague," he commented. His voice shorn of emotion.

It did not escape her notice his late wife had an elven name. How could this man possibly be fooled by Leresai's own guise?

"I'm sorry, good sir."

"No. You have given me no offense. Life is temporal glory. I long accepted that. My Mer'Kendretta did not."

The college district would come upon them soon, but not before the road wound through a fair-sized park ensconced with a sparse density of manors, immaculately kept hedges, woods stripped of wildlings, and also possessing neatly arranged flower gardens. Ample opportunity for distractions from possible inquiry, she thought.

Even an elven courier should expect some informal interrogation when conducting affairs with the palace. It wasn't possible to avoid all scrutiny, but finding opportunities to minimize it was part of her tradecraft.

"Temporal glory," she tried the words rolling upon her tongue in syllabificated mimicry of human speech and then turned to him and asked, "you miss it, don't you, Captain?"

He grinned with low cast eyes to her query but he hesitated to answer.

She stared at the leering skulls once more, but this time with a coy leer instead of the queasy objection she let slip through before. "Would you tell me of the fight? Just so to entertain a maiden this eve?"

With a nod of his helmed head, he cleared his throat and he began.

"Do I miss being in the fight? I'm a poor excuse for the diplomatic corps that I do so love conflict. I recall an apothecary came to heal an ill lady of the House Lyoneid once.

"He overheard my men and I in bardic assembly reciting our deeds in metered form. He listened silently, and to be fair to him, politely for a long stretch, but then he became more and more and then most agitated until his arms shook and he pointed his finger at me.

"'Bloodlust' he did so accuse.

"The man stomped out of our barracks, clutching his robes to free up his nobbed knees. He cared not how silly he appeared so long as his flight away from the flounce tongued brutes was hastened."

Captain Bierdé paused. Leresai thought she may have to pry him further, but then he drew his chin down in a sad grin.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "It isn't bloodlust that fuels us. I once thought myself a simple man, a simple soldier with an uncomplicated need to prove his mettle in battle, but soon after I met Mer'Kendretta, and she made me understand.

"No, not bloodlust, but blood sacrament. As all that lives should duly know, blood seeps, blood flows, blood tides, blood is a tithe. Payment for everything sacred and everything worthy of eternal damnation or temporal exaltation."

Another pause, his hands slowly arced. "Perhaps, I grow too fluent, and too precious with facile words that rise too easily to justify myself to those who live in a world entirely removed from our battle-honed understanding."

As her mount trotted through a bed of brown pine needles, Leresai was pleased to find the captain in full recitation as he would in barracks, mead-hall, or auditorium.

As Bierdé spoke she thought of what awaited her once her geas was fulfilled. The smiling face of Brietess. Her dark sheened hair lay down in a tiara of winter violets. Leresai would escort her to the court fountain in the center of the winter garden where they would dance back-soled estampies and hand joined chassés for the night entire.

His suddenly raised voice jostled her out of memory and revelry.

"I asked, why do I feel this need," he continued. "I should be entirely self-satisfied, should I not? I asked you this, apothecary, a man of healing, or in turn, a man of poisons, a man whose words of condemnation still shadow me. What do you know of the Absolute?

"Have you ever driven a pike into the heart of a frost giant? Held the weapon steady as your clenched fists shook to keep the killing blow in place? Have you ever heard the beast roar in your face? It's eyes centered on you, this huge, monstrous brute while it's arms flayed helplessly, killing you it's only desire, and you grinning upward staring into its eyes.

"There you stand so enticingly out of its reach; it struggles to sink it's clawed hands into you until its life is near its end and it gives up all wanton hope to do so. Those eyes dilate; bloodstreams from the sides of its slacken tongue for it is choking on its own bile.

"Then it happens, dear sister. It is said there is a vibration in the very fabric of existence that if one's soul is so well aligned it will fill you with an omniscient understanding surpassing that of the greatest of the elder gods.

"T'nonnon'B, I tell you this - I held that pike in place. I could feel its heart thump, a shaking resonance through my bones. Then, when it stopped, it felt even more terrible still.

"Its heart contracted, it stuttered, and the vibrations reached into me, singed into the scalp of my hair, wrung as a searing ache in my teeth. Its heart exploded through the ribs of its chest. I held my stance. Blood showered over me. Bone splintered, and I had to shut my eyes tight as it's bursting innards pounded upon my helm.

"The smell of viscera overwhelmed my nostrils as its internal organs collapsed within its chest. The giant fell down hard on bent knees.

"I wiped my eyes and surveyed the widespread fjeld now drenched with the mincemeats of battle laid out as if for a buffet to be dined upon by gods old and cruel. The remaining combatants, elves and men, frost giants and goblin folk, all turned to me, all watched as I roared.

"All consumed in the terror of that moment. For in that solitary moment, I was no longer a mere man, but a dragon, an agencier of an all-pervading doom, risen to strike fear into this world.

"Even still, in the midst of the great and the grotesque, mine was merely temporal glory. For, in the next several minutes, I was fighting for my life and retreating from a horde who once shorn of shock fed from that very fear I had driven into them."

When he finished, she let the silence set the mood, confident that the last of the green hedges and scenic rows would provide the proper enchantment to keep him engaged in any subject but her purpose. Captain Bierdé's armor gleamed in the night lamps. His face cast half in the dark shadow of his helm. His jaw ponderous; his lips pensive.

She was reminded of the expedition in the Suüdlands lying beside Hosparr one night. She asked him why he did not employ guild mercenaries to guard his dig-site. His words came back to her now.

"All I could find on loan were members of the Lyre Assembly. Shithouse philosophers every one of them. I only need a killer without questions pounding upon his own damnable soul. No offense."