Julie had lost the road. She was trying to follow the flow of the water, but it barely seemed to move here. She hoped she was going the right direction. She knew Willet was downstream, and an hour ago she was able to follow the flow easily, but now the water seemed to have decided that it would wait around here for a while. The mud kept trying to pull the boots off her feet, and every step was a struggle.

There were giant spiders here too. They were black with bright red and yellow markings. These spiders were smaller than the ones she had battled before, but these ones seemed more ferocious somehow. They hovered above the wetlands on their silken webs stretched between the tall grass, and Julie hoped they weren’t going to jump on her.

When the trail had become swamp, she tried to cut her way through the brush with her sword and quickly realized that it wasn’t going to help. So she had pushed on, one heavy step after the next. She couldn’t see anything in any direction now, the plants all seemed to conspire against her.

Her hands still hurt from the wounds she’d earned pulling the litter. Clara had given her a balm for them, but the plants here were soaking wet, and pushing through them washed the balm away and irritated the wounds. It hadn’t helped the cuts digging the hole, it just added blisters on top of the cuts. She tried to take pride in having given her enemy Mervin a proper burial. Pride was well and good when your clothes were dry and you weren’t walking through a swamp.

She pushed through another patch of evil plants, and thought she could hear the sound of voices. Finally! She turned towards the sounds, and stepped into much deeper water. Suddenly she was up to her neck, and she could finally see through the cattails.

It looked like a boat, but it wasn’t like any she had ever imagined before. She couldn’t see any sails, or oars and it just sat unmoving on the water. Still, she thought, there must be people. Her pack was under water, and she hoped that the oilskin was keeping the majority of her things dry. She tried to push off the ground under the water, but just sank into it. She had always been a strong swimmer though, and she propelled herself through the brown water with her arms. It was difficult swimming in leather, and she was glad that she had decided to sell the chainmail. As she got closer to the boat, she saw that it was attached to other flat boats with ropes and gangplanks.

There was a ladder half submerged in the water, and she used it to pull herself onto the deck. Julie looked around and for a moment she forgot about all of her discomforts. There were planks and ropes running in every direction, boats of all shapes and sizes floated on the top of the muddy water, and she could even hear the sound of a smith working at an anvil. It was the biggest congregation of people that she had ever seen. It’s a city built on top of the river! In every direction she could see people, all of them blessedly dry, going about their lives with an air of indifference to the wonder that was their city, Willet.

She took a tentative step onto one of the gangplanks and crossed above the water to another much larger boat. There was a man standing behind a stall with fresh fish on the counter. Julie asked, “Excuse me, can you tell me where Fern’s Worth is?”

The man had a rough look about him, with a big unkempt beard and a deep tan that was really just a congregation of freckles. He wore no shirt, and heavy black gloves that went halfway up his arms, he said, “Oy lass, you going to buy a fish? Fresh caught today!”

Julie was considering asking the question again, thinking perhaps he had not heard her over the sounds of the river and the city, when a very large woman started yelling from across another gangplank, “His fish ain’t fresh! Come over here girl, I’ve got fish, crabs and eels!” The woman was waving at Julie from behind a mountain of sea creatures, some of them still moving.

Julie looked between the two, and asked again, “I just need directions,” she pitched her voice loud enough for both of them to hear her, “I’m trying to find the Fern’s Worth inn.”

The shirtless man looked down at his fish and then looked back up at Julie, “Five gold, and I’ll tell you what,” he declared, “even throw in a little ‘un for your troubles.”

Julie began reaching for her money pouch, feeling that paying the man would be the quickest way to end the discussion when the woman from across the way yelled at her again, “I’ll tell you for three! And I’ll throw in an eel, can’t beat that deal!”

Julie looked at the greasy looking man who was seething at this turn of events, and made her way carefully across the gangplank. The woman with the eels was true to her word, gave her directions and forced a still live eel into Julie’s hand. It was slimy and cold to the touch. Julie thanked the woman and set off in the direction she had told her to go. The eel was wriggling in her hands. She had not been able to convince the woman that she just wanted the directions. As Julie was crossing another, much larger bridge, a man with a tall hat and a moustache bumped into her. Startled, Julie dropped the eel.

The mustachioed man said, “Oh! Madame, I apologize,” and he dropped to his knees to recover the eel. He seemed to have it for a moment before it squirmed out of his hands, and flopped itself into the water below. “Oh dear. I beg your forgiveness.”

Julie looked at the man on his knees and said, “It’s fine, I um,” she considered explaining the whole situation and decided against it. The man stood up and began offering to reimburse her for the eel and Julie politely decline, feeling that it was as much her fault as his that she had dropped the eel. She politely extracted herself from the forced pleasantries and finished crossing the large bridge. Now she stood on what must have been a hub for the city. It was a gigantic circular platform with bridges running off in every direction. Each bridge had a sign with a number next to it, and Julie crossed onto the bridge numbered four.

At the end of bridge number four, Julie saw a very familiar face. Sevil was leaning against a green wall. Julie felt her face turn up into a smile involuntarily at the sight of his pale scarred face. He had an intricate meerschaum pipe in his mouth, and he was blowing smoke rings. When he saw her, he raised a hand. Julie hurried the rest of the way across the bridge, beaming at him.

Sevil gave her an appraising look and hissed, “I didn’t think that you were actually going to come,” he took a long pull from his pipe, the bowl glowing red, and through a cloud of smoke he said, “It seems I lost a bet.”

“Well,” Julie said sounding more aggressive than she meant to, “You’d better learn not to bet against me!”

Sevil looked her up and down. She was covered in so much mud and pond scum that her clothes seemed to be a seamless blob of grey green and brown. It was drying in some places and beginning to flake off. Her hair was matted to her head, and there was a terrible smell of the swamp surrounding her. He took one more long pull from his pipe, and tapped the ashes out against the bottom of his shiny black boot. Julie was beginning to feel self conscious and her anger was somewhat deflating while her shame grew.

“Wait here,” he said, and putting his pipe away he opened the door, “You can’t come inside looking like that. You just can’t.” Shaking his head he walked in. For the brief moment the door was open, Julie could hear Ravenhair’s offkey singing from the tavern room.

It seemed like eons were passing while she waited. People kept passing her with noses up in the air, and while no one said anything to her directly, more than once she heard ‘fell in’ and ‘tourist’ muttered. She was beginning to get angry again, and starting to think that Sevil had just left her out here alone to spite her when the man with the tall hat came walking up to her, with a live eel extended out in front of him like an olive branch.

Upon closer inspection Julie decided that he was actually a very good looking man, in spite of his terrible mustache. He was smiling at her and waved with the hand not holding the eel. Julie waved back at him, and in spite of all logic he walked right up to her and said, “I have acquired a replacement for the property that I inadvertently robbed you of, m’lady.” He spoke in a charming and old fashioned accent, and Julie found herself smiling.

Julie was awestruck, she stammered, “That’s, that’s very kind, so, so kind, and unnecessary. I never would have expected anything like that. I didn’t even know what I was going to do with the eel, and…” she trailed off, caught off guard by the odd movement of the man’s upper lip. It looked like he was trying to smile and failing at it. It did succeed at wiggling his mustache back and forth.

“I would never presume,” the man began in his quaint accent, “To impose upon you, but I myself, Tertius Feld, of the Southern Felds, happen to know a fine recipe for such a delicacy, and if I may be so bold as to offer, I could have this delicacy prepared for you to enjoy, and it would pair beautifully with a Arbois Traminer, which you might-”

He was cut off suddenly when Toby laid a heavy hand on the man’s shoulder from the doorway, “Sound delicious,” the giant of a man said in his deep bass voice, smiling at Julie.

Ravenhair was quick through the door behind him, looking Tertius up and down, and said “How’s it? Everything as it should be, eh Julie?”

Toby answered before Julie could get a word out, “Dinner. We’ve all been invited, it seems.” It was the longest string of words Julie had heard Toby put together.

Strangely enough it seemed like Sevil had made his way to the other side of the entire group without passing anyone. He was looking around tentatively. “We have to go. Now.”

Ravenhair wrapped her arms around Julie and Tertius Feld, and asked, “What might your name be, anyway? I like to know the names of my host." She was ushering everyone along, back towards bridge number four. Toby was hovering strangely close to Julie, like an oversized shadow and his hand was still Tertius Feld’s shoulder and he corrected the man’s balance as Ravenhair started walking with him in tow.

Surreptitiously under the cover of Toby’s mountainous bulk, Ravenhair slipped a somewhat crumpled piece of paper into Julie’s pocket. Tertius was busy introducing himself to the trio as politely as possible. Ravenhair interrupted his diatribe, “Mighty kind of you, Tert, lettin’ us join you tonight! Mighty kind of you and the safest thing you could possibly do.” At this Toby gave the man’s shoulder a very reassuring squeeze.

Julie whispered in Ravenhair’s ear, “I was really hoping that I could get cleaned up,” and louder for Tertius’s benefit she said, “I’m really excited to for this eel, I’ve never had eel before.”

Ravenhair gasped, “What d’you mean you’ve never had eel before! You told us before that that farm you grew up on was right there next to Lake Stone. Might fine eels to be had in Lake Stone!”

Julie jabbed the older woman in the ribs with her elbow, “I mean, I’ve never had it southern style before and-”

Sevil was leading the group across the bridge and stopped short. He dropped a coin purse on the bridge and made as if to dive for it before it fell over the side. When he was bending over for the purse, Julie saw a group of heavily armored men being led by a woman in the black and white uniform of a tax collector. When he stood up, he passed a hair’s width from Julie’s face, and she heard him whisper something that sounded like ‘morena’ as he rose.

Julie felt strange for a moment, and shook her head side to side to clear it. She noticed that she could see her bangs all of a sudden. She paused and started turning her head side to side, and was about to grab at her hair, when Ravenhair interrupted her with a little shake at her shoulder, “We really need to get you cleaned up, you’ve got a bath on that yacht, yeah?”

Tertius looked at Ravenhair wide-eyed and said “For you, madame, I have anything that you and yours might require.”