The robber baron of Giordana was not a merchant empire funneling silver and slaves through the hidden passages of the desert. It was not a rotten temple more interested in blood and honor than gold and prayer. Not even the memory of the Yellow King Hassa. The true tyrant was the Ash Fall Mountains that divided the lands of Giordana from Vassermark; the peaks of fire that shunted clouds to the north and deprived the southern coast of life.

The further west Lucius took his men, after ferreting them through a mine tunnel that led beyond the ring of Cynizia, the drier the land got. For what it denied in water however, it made up for in the titular ash.

The Vida River snaked through the desert, bringing water from the central plains and down to the southern sea, like a split of blood through burned skin. Rather than inflammation, it brought verdant life to the ash-enriched soil of the desert. When the Vassish arrived at it, the men flung themselves head first into the silty water. Discipline disintegrated as the forced march finally came to an end. The soldiers had hardly been given any rest, save for an hour at high noon to fill their stomachs, but it had earned them distance from the Cynizia.

They were not alone however.

Farmers watched from irrigated fields, clutching shovels and scythes while sending runners to the hamlets and beyond. The Vida River acted like a great road through the desert, connecting villages to towns. The towns in turn were connected to the dipole cities at port and headwater. Having emerged between the two, the Vassish had time to collect themselves before they could be attacked.

My pupil’s worries were to the south, to the port city, Puerto Vida. If reinforcements would come for the Cynizia, it would come in unmarked colors. A handful of demagogues and silver-tongued rogues would have been sent by ship to pave the way for him, and they had lingered long enough at the silver mine. Word could fly faster than any bird, but there was little he could do about it.

The owner of the farm they had intruded upon arrived around the time the Vassish were turning a fallow acre into a camp. The man spoke Vassish well enough, and kept his temper with the perimeter guards, so Lucius was able to pull him aside. The owner had brought a cart down the dirt road beside the river, and a pair of servants sat down light chairs for the two men. They both crossed their arms and frowned at one another.

The man was old enough to have grey in his hair, and a gold ring pierced his lip. The cloak about his shoulders was so thin it surely did nothing but deflect the light and billow in the breeze. There were no dirt stains on it, which was enough for Lucius to surmise the man was akin to nobility; that he hired others to work his land.

“You are depriving me of what is mine,” the man said.

“Are you asking for compensation?”

The man huffed and turned up his nose. “My name is Abdul Ibn Ekici.”

When the man provided no context, my pupil answered in turn, “I am Lucius von Solhart, commander of this army.”

Abdul snorted and scratched his chin. “This is not a name familiar to me. But you are Vassish, yes?”

Lucius nodded.

“A man by the name of Raymi passed through Puerto Vida a little more than one week ago. I sold him nearly my whole harvest. Entire carts full of grain which… came from the very dirt you now loiter upon.”

“Then we aren’t standing on anything valuable, are we?”

“Only in the desert is land free, Lucius von Solhart.”

Lucius stared back at him, reading the man’s expression as best he could. One of the servants went so far as to pour them cups of wine while the silence percolated. “So, have you come for compensation then?” he asked, and sipped the dry wine. He was, of course, not afraid of being poisoned.

Abdul sipped his wine as well. “If I said yes? You look like a man running for his life. Unless you stole something good…”

Lucius smirked. “Who says I didn’t?” Though he would never say that what he had truly stolen was the name. “I don’t want to keep my men on your land any longer than I need to, Ekici-imo. You must own river ships, if you bring your crop to Puerto Vida, yes?”

The man nodded. “I do, but they are even more valuable than my dirt.”

“And my men’s lives are more valuable than silver,” Lucius said, and that piqued the man’s interest. “If I can buy those ships to take my men south, then I won’t be on your dirt anymore either.”

“That won’t be cheap, and I am not in the business of giving letters of credit to foreigners,” Abdul said. This, in my opinion, showed considerable guts to say. Lucius could have just killed them all and taken the ships, but the man had the guts to gamble on Lucius’ self image.

A gamble which paid off.

Lucius tossed him a pebble of raw silver, filched from the extracted ore of the silver mine. The purity was suspect, and Lucius had of course taken the largest chunk of it his soldiers had found, but the idea of the payment wormed into Abdul mind all the same.

In his mind, the merchant weighed his two futures against one another and tried to divine the true volume of metal the Vassish had brought with them. The more he thought, the more images of swords danced in his mind. “On the morrow then,” he said with a smile. And so the deal was struck.

The army slept with one ear to the ground, but the Cynizia did not reach them. After they breakfasted, Abdul had them brought to a river landing where his twin barges had been brought. The weary men filed on, grateful to travel without effort, and gratefully spread awnings between them and the sun. Netting had to be spread across the ship nearly as soon as they shoved off, for the insects on the Vida River were more like locusts than not.

Before evening was reached, the river gates of Puerto Vida loomed overhead, with iron portcullis drawn down. The blue granite walls towered before them, like the rise of a wave. At the frothing crest were the march of guards, the bob of helms and the sway of spears.

Lucius had to push through crowds of his soldiers to get to the prow of the ship. With no regard for him, they mumbled things like, “I thought we already conquered this place.” Or, “Think we’ll get to actually pillage it this time?” and even, “Solhart made a mistake.”

The last one could not be tolerated.

He found Abdul disembarking at a shoddy wooden bridge that appeared to be more rot than wood. It looked to be the kind of place that even children would be embarrassed to fish from. Still, he had to leap from the ship to land between the lillies and weed. “Ekici-imo, what is the meaning of this?”

The merchant, the sale of his crops was but a fraction of his revenue, put up his hands. “Do I look like a mindreader to you?(1) I have to go to the gates myself to ask. Come along.”

The men approached not the main gate, but the pedestrian gate so narrow that no cart could possibly be drawn through it. They didn’t need to knock, the door was opened before they reached it and three men exited; an official and two guards. He was young, between Lucius’ age and Abdul’s, but dressed in clothes nearly as rich as the merchant. “I am Francisco, secretary to the steward of Puerto Vida. I greet you.” His voice lacked the depth of manhood; something that had been denied to the eunuch.

Abdul snarled. “You know who I am Francisco. Who gave you the spine to shut your doors to me? It was my father that sold you these walls!”

The passive eyes moved to Lucius, who answered, “Lucius von Solhart, here on authority of King Arandell, returning to Lord Raymi in the west.”

“Vassish…” the secretary mused on that. “The forces left behind by Raymi were extracted a week ago. You must not have been told. Bishop Jean di Jumeaux has come down the river and taken residence here for the time being.”

Lucius crossed his arms. “And that invalidates your treaties with Vassermark? Is that what you’re saying? Treaties signed by all leaders of your city and signed in blood?”

Francisco frowned without deigning to show even a hint of supplication. “Those oaths did not invalidate our ties to Jumeaux. It was your lord Raymi that agreed to withdraw his troops. So why have you brought fresh soldiers here?”

In Giordana, the older the oath, the more it binds like iron. “We are on our way to join Raymi in Rackvidd. How else would we return to Vassermark if not through your city?”

The secretary grinned and turned up his hands. “You may walk along the coast and continue your journey, but the gates of Puerto Vida are closed to you. No foreign army may be allowed within our walls in place of the lady bishop. We are at her service; not yours.” When Abdul bared his teeth, the secretary quickly added, “Ekici-imo, you and your workers are of course allowed inside.”

The merchant grabbed Francisco by the shirt and jerked him closer. “I’ve struck a contract with these men, to see them into the city, not just to its front door. You expect me to hand back my pay and grovel because you people want to play games with oaths?”

“Easy,” Lucius said, putting a hand to the merchant’s shoulder. “This can be rectified by speaking with the bishop herself. I’ll just tell the men to set up camp outside. Right about here should be fine. Surely your oath does not prevent a diplomat from entering?”

Francisco’s attitude waned as he looked at Lucius’ smile. “No, sir. It does not. I cannot promise you’ll be able to meet with her.”

“Well, I should hope that she does so quickly. It’ll be hard for people to use your gates with my men sitting in front of them, won’t it?”

Abdul burst out laughing as the secretary nodded. Some minutes later, Tyrion had taken charge of turning the road into a fortified camp. The locals had cultivated shade trees to either side of the cobblestone road, using the roots to solidify the ground and the leaves to block the heat. The Vassish happily chopped them down for fencing and fires.

Nearly with tears in his eyes, Francisco guided Lucius and Abdul in through the pedestrian gate, and to the walled city of Puerto Vida.

It is a common compulsion among men of half-learning to think of foreign places as drab and deprived of color. This is because they know so little of the place that they struggle to give it life within their minds. Puerto Vida sat at a trading crossroads between Vassermark, Giordana, and the various central kingdoms. Additionally, between the sheer distance as well as their walls, pirates did not trouble them over the years. With no need for constant repair, the city indulged in paint of all the most wondrous and saturated colors. They turned their walls red and blue, green and yellow. They hired artisans to cover walls with murals and they carved every exposed beam with memories or superstitious charms for good fortune.

It was as though they wanted to cover up that the raw noise of people living would devour any minstrel’s tune, and the trapped sewage of the city throttled the smell of bakers and chefs.

After marching through the desert on a diet little better than rice and water, the port city still struck my pupil like a longed for oasis. His mind went back to that night in Puerto Faro, to the thousand silver talons he should have had in his pocket. Francisco had given him instructions to find the bishop, but his stomach held the reins of his mind, and steered him to the main road of the city. Finding it wasn’t difficult, for the road acted like the city’s cardiac vein; drawing people to the marketplace to free them from their money.

There, a purse was tossed at his face. He caught it, feeling the heft of coins within.

“Hey, lover boy,” Leomund Tolzi said as he strode through the crowd of people. Our troupe of conspirators had beaten him to the city.

Most stigmata have no correlation at all to a person’s appearance. While you can spot someone with [Giganti] well enough, something like mindreading could never be surmised by appearance.