Inspector Singis listened to the Red Guard's report. She kept her long brown curls tightly knotted in the back for these meetings, as the Yghr soldiers were accustomed to short hair matted down against their scalp, and she did not want to stand out. Yghr women would typically wear caps or shawls to cover their heads, but then again Yghr women were not allowed to hold any profession, let alone one as the Chief Inspector of all the Smote.

She also wasn’t technically a Yghr, and merely brought into the service of the Smote. Orphaned in the Smote, she was adopted as a child into a prominent Kiennese family where the father was a diplomat. From there she schooled with boys, and worked her way up as a constable. With her adopted father and the Herald’s help, her grasp of politics made her one of the most productive investigators of the Smote.

Still, she knew she was still seen as an outsider, and also breaking longstanding gender laws, so she did not want to rub it into the Yghrs’ faces. So as she sat in her office, she tightened her yellow silk scarf around her neck and took notes as the guard continued his report. She jotted down probably two words from every statement that was made, as she was sure the report had embellished the event. In any case, it was a truly horrible tragedy with the Magister’s son being murdered in his own wedding. Over forty guests killed. Over two hundred slaves slaughtered in revenge.

The Red Guard of Isimil had enlisted the Black Guard of Gamesh in their search of the slaves that escaped. The murderous slaves, after all, were boxers from both Isimil and Gamesh. Together the two military forces had scoured the area south of Isimil down to the Old War Road, and then westward to cover ground between the city and the sea. No one had seen the fugitives, especially one that was reportedly nearly seven feet tall.

Singis had been pursuing runaway slaves her entire life, and she understood the Barbarians, as the Yghrs called them, better than most. She knew they could be violent people, but always saw themselves as prey. She was not surprised the Red and Black Guards could not find any traces of the large Barbarian the reports called the Jester, and also the other three slaves that orchestrated the rebellion. They were looking for slaves on the run, so they were watching the roads. They needed to look for slaves who had been plotting an escape for a long time, slaves who were living a lie until the right moment, slaves who were used to hiding in plain sight.

She told the Red Guard to call off the search to the west, to search north as it was just as likely for desperate barbarians to hide in the inhabitable northern deserts. They were a prideful bunch, after all, and would choose a slow death if it meant independence. She also told the representatives of the Black Guard to focus on aiding Isimil in rebuilding. As terrible as it was for what had happened at the Magister Tsetsurg's son and their wedding guests, no one thought anything of the slaughter of all the slaves. Every man, woman and child.

Slavery was outlawed in the four kingdoms, but alas the Yghrs of the northern deserts belonged to none of them, and so they chose not to abide by common law. Since no one would miss any migrants from the west, it became easy for the slavers to target them. When the slavers labeled them as Barbarians, the morality of kidnapping children was easier to deal with. It no longer became enslavement when it was called culturization.

Singis knew she could not change the attitude of the Yghrs toward slavery. While she did get the tribes to agree to the illegality of slaving, the agreement was only on paper. The actual commerce involved in buying and owning slaves could not be changed. All she did was allow the powerful houses a way to keep their hands clean by rewording the rules.

The guard handed the report to Singis, who signed it, closed the folder, and tucked it away into a satchel. She handed a letter to the guard to be delivered to the Magister that she would be leaving Isimil immediately to follow up on several leads that may take her to the western end of the Old War Road, probably all the way to the Queensgate.

When the guards left her office, she put the satchel over her shoulder. She told the attendants of her office that she was as headed west, but her intentions was not out west. She left her office and headed east instead, toward the Aredunian border city of Banningtown.

A slave on the run would try to move faster than the guards in pursuit. A slave that was used to hiding in plain sight would move away from where his pursuers would think to look for him. While his pursuers scanned the distant horizon, he would hide underneath their noses.

It took Singis a full day's carriage ride to reach Banningtown, the northern most town in the Republic of Aredun. She had taken this road more times than she could remember. Banningtown was Aredun's center for trade and travel. Merchants set up shop to trade wares or to replenish supplies, spies gathered to get the latest news or to spread rumors, and pilgrims stopped from their long destination to take a break or to find a different purpose and settled down. It would be here where she would find her lead.

Singis went to her usual tavern for supper, the Fatted Poult. She arrived late in the evening, close to closing. She dusted her coat before entering, then sat at a corner table facing away from the door. She ordered what she always ordered, roasted turkey stew with squash and grilled tomatoes. She always ordered whatever wine was passing through Banningtown that week. Apparently this week was ice wine from Kienne. Not her favorite but she wasn't in the mood to break tradition. She really did enjoy Banningtown. It was close enough to the Smote where she could make a hasty return if needed, and it was busy enough where she could disappear in the crowd.

The owner of the tavern placed the bowl of steaming stew in front of her, laden with turkey, noodles, carrots, onions and celery. He broke off a piece of crusty poppy bread from a basket and placed it on top of the soup, then poured glasses of ice wine for the both of them and sat down.

"You have not visited in quite some time, Inspector," the owner said, swirling the gold-tinted wine in his glass. "I had begun to think you had favored a different establishment."

"Work has not brought me here lately," she said, loosening the knot of her yellow scarf but keeping it on her neck.

"You're a day away, Singis," the owner said. "You don't need work to send you."

"You're right," she said. She touched glasses with him and took a drink. The sweetness of the ice wine shocked her senses. She set the glass down, leaned forward and kissed the owner.

"I've missed you Singis."

"And I you, Batisse."

Batisse smiled. "I got you something. I was hoping to give it to you last month, but you never came." He placed a package wrapped in silver paper before her.

Singis chuckled. "What is this for?"

"You may forget but I don't. It was your thirtieth birthday last month."

"It was just a day they picked for me," she said, unwrapping the package. "Some orphans don't get a birthday." Batisse had given her a pen.

"I know you travel quite a bit, and write a lot in your journals, so I got a pen carved from wood from a place even you've never been. That pen is carved from a tree from Gaia's Eyes."

"This is very sweet of you," she smiled. The pen was mad of black wood, it’s grain swirling the length of the pen. "But given this city is the trade capital of the world, this pen must have been exceedingly easy to get."

"I didn't say I traveled to Gaia's Eyes myself to get it!" Batisse laughed. "I hope you put it to good use, whether the merchant lied to me or not, it is still a good pen. Come, I know you are here for work so let's get to it. This must be about that horrible business at Isimil."

"Four fugitives, slaves that were forced to fight in the pits. One of them is a beast of a man, nearly seven feet tall. It would have been too conspicuous to simply hide in the city. If he came here, he would have found work as a laborer, or a ranch hand, or a smith. Anything but fighting."

"Banningtown is a city of smiths," Batisse said. "All horses get their shoes from us. Knights get their swords and shields from here. It will not be hard to find a giant wielding a hammer. If he is here I'm surprised the local Yghrs haven't declared that Kharanthar himself descended to earth. Will you be staying long?"

"I may," she replied. She tasted the stew.

"You've really taken a great interest, haven't you?" Batisse asked.

She squinted at him. "I always get the turkey stew."

He laughed. "No, the Arkromenyons. You despise the slave trade, as do all south of the Old War Road. But you have a real infatuation with their race."

"I've always been a student of history, you know this," she said. "Yghrs are nomadic and hold the concept of history in such low regard. I've always been fascinated about the Fall of Arkromenyon. Many of my cases have been to track down slavers of western children. Through these cases I've come to pity their people. My great interest is in what lessons we might learn from their history."

"We all know the stories about the ancient cities," Batisse said. "Of how they had great towers that actually touched the clouds, and great knowledge that could not even fit all the books of the world. Only they couldn't stop growing. They became thirsty for great power as well, and that was their undoing. That lesson is the legacy they leave for us, I suppose."

Singis stared into her bowl and picked at a bone protruding from a turkey wing. "I have been deeper in the Sea of Ruin than most. I've visited fallen cities of stone and iron. Most can’t imagine what I’ve seen. I stumbled upon a pylon once, made of a type of steel. I carried a piece of it here, to Banningtown to the metallurgist Odal. Odal said he had never seen anything like it. He melted it down and analyzed it and said it was an alloy that was foreign to him.

“Odal shared it with an alchemist. The old alchemist's reaction was even more curious. He said there were legends discussed within his circles of an ancient dense element called Wolfstone. Wolfstone, the old man said, exists only in veins of a crystalline ore that when isolated, would create steel hard enough to cut into all other steel. When combined with other elements, the steel would remain hard but inherit the properties of the other elements. The old man was certain the pylon had traces of Wolfstone.

“He spent months recreating it but it kept breaking. It was brittle as stale bread. If the Arkromenyons truly had Wolfstone, whatever traces of it that existed in the metals had probably been melted down and diluted with modern steel, and the secrets likely long gone. I often wonder what other ancient knowledge died with the empire."

"I'm glad my stew inspires you to share your curiosities with me," Batisse smiled again, finishing his wine.

"I'm getting that feeling again, like I'm being watched," Singis said. "I feel the more layers of the story that I unravel, the closer the eyes of the Brotherhood of Silver and Glass are upon me. But the truth, Batisse, stays locked in a corner of the world I cannot sniff out. And if I did find that lock, I wouldn't know where to find the key."

"I don’t like questioning you," Batisse said, "but again you bring up this Brotherhood of Silver and Glass. Singis, you have no proof the Brotherhood even exists. A mysterious organization that controls the clans? If that were true the clans would be more united, I would think.”

“I’m not chasing fairy tale ghosts or hunting for demons. There is a word I have learned in my forays into the west,” she lowered her voice. “An ancient word, that juts out like a glass shard from the fog that reminds you your life is not a dream. While you tell me all this cannot be true, that ancient word tells me otherwise. Asimipotiris.”

“And it's meaning?”

“It is the name of the mysterious organization you are certain does not exist. The word is real. And so must the Brotherhood.”

Batisse held her hand. “Sometimes the demons we hunt are the ones we created all along.”

“Thank you for the stew,” she said, withdrawing her hand.

Batisse sighed. "I'm going to be closing down for the night. Take your time finishing supper, you’re the last one here so you can tell anyone entering that we’re closed. I will be visiting the gambling parlors tonight and I'll try to be subtle in getting the information you need. Talk to Remy if you need anything. He just came back into town from Kienne. I’m sure he’ll enjoy seeing you. You can stay in the loft if you'd like."

Batisse put on his white coat and gave Singis another kiss before leaving the tavern.

“Asimipotiris,” Singis said her herself as she finished her stew alone.