“Fish! What’s it bloody look like to you?” Captain Ayaz, the captain of the Sandskipper, said. He spat as he spoke, throwing his hands between the dock official and the measly pile of seaweed they had hauled out of the sea that morning. There were some fish in there, technically, but nothing more than bait fish he should have been ashamed to show.

The morning sun had barely warmed the water, though many other fishermen were already returning to toss their wares to the market like coal to a fire. The docks of Rackvidd has a peculiar smell of half-decayed fish guts to them at all times, and the sailors just trampled through it without a thought.

The official frowned. He had a trimmed moustache he kept waxed into a perpetual frown. He was Vassish too, so in a way it looked like he had painted his face up and was supposed to be in a Giordanan circus rather than checking customs and collecting tax. “Not quite enough fish to make a living on though, is it? I doubt you could even get a flagon of wine.”

“Is it a crime in Rackvidd to be bad at throwing nets? If so, you’d have to lock up half these salt bladders!”

The official shook his head. “There’s no hull in this ship, is there?” He peered around, looking for somewhere an illicit parcel might be hidden. Very little was forbidden from being brought into Rackvidd, but there was a list. A few drugs from foreign countries made the cut, intentionally transporting parasites, and of course; weapons. Rackvidd, being an occupied city, took the threat of revolt quite seriously and if a citizen wanted to own their own sword, the governor would have them on a list for it.

“Hold, you’re asking if there’s a hold, you northern idiot! Hulls are the walls, and of course I’ve got that. I’d be sunk without them. Who put you in charge? Eh? Let me guess, a piece of paper from someone who’s never been here and has never met you!”

His eyes rolled. “Oh for Saphira’s(1) sake. Pay your talon and get away, would you? Who are these two anyways?” he asked, and gestured at Aisha and the first mate. Then, he produced a ledger, licked his grimy finger to flip to the right page, and went to write it down.

Ayaz turned to the two of them. “That’s my son, Hamza” he said when he pointed at the first mate. “And this is my niece, Emra, come to use the libraries they say you’ve got here.”

“Libraries?” the man asked, pausing in his scribbling.

Ayaz shrugged. “The water goddess is about her mysteries and sciences, isn’t she? I was told that teaching is in her commandments.”

The official stroked his moustache out of habit, the waxed thing certainly didn’t need it. “She is the goddess of wisdom, yes; a good deal more useful than death.”

Hamza spoke under his breath, “She’s also the goddess of contracts and keeping your word.” He had intended it to be only loud enough for Aisha to hear, but the sneer on the man said otherwise.

“Have you put us down or what?” Ayaz demanded.

The official snapped his ledger shut. “Your talon.” A coin went spinning through the air, and the man snatched it. After a moment to inspect the size, he nodded and put it into his purse. After, he let them off and moved to the next ship, which may well have been smugglers.

“Thank you,” Aisha said, putting her hand to Ayaz’s arm as much to steady herself as she disembarked as to convey her feelings. Unfortunately for her, the wooden dock was queasy and poorly constructed. It moved nearly as much as a ship under her feet.

“Aye, Emra,” he said with a wink. “We’ll be here… gathering intelligence as it were. Figure we can slip off when the time is right. Or when you show up and say the time is now.”

“If things get hairy, think of yourselves first,” Aisha said.

The man scoffed. “I couldn't dream of doing that to ya, and you know that.”

She pressed her lips tight, hung her head, and left the two sailors at the docks. She headed into the heart of Rackvidd; the gateway to the southern sea. Unfortunately for her, she missed the grand sight of the rising sun hitting the great bulwark along the east of the city. If one is at just the right angle, the hidden mosaic of a dragon comes out in the stonework of the wall to dance and threaten any approaching fleet. The stones, having been quarried from adjacent mountains, are only of the slightest hue different, and the pattern can hardly be seen after tea time.

She was instead confronted by the thriving throngs of merchants and workers, by the handover of food and goods as voluminous as the riptide back to the ships to send them out across the world. Plenty of visitors deemed those roads as unfit for a woman, but that of course is willful blindness to the women filling the streets. Housewives and kitchen scullions were the most plentiful purchasers, be it of textiles or imported foodstuffs; but, there were maids and spoiled merchant wives too. Those drew grifters to them like flies to shit, and necessitated at least one strong guard by their side, which of course only contributed more to the suffocating press of bodies.

All this applied to the merchant streets, where stalls could be put up, blankets put down, and where the lust for silver was strongest. This of course was surrounded by cutthroat alleys like so many cracks from a fissure. Aisha knew better than to push through that tide. Even if she made it to the temples, or to the palace proper, she’d do so missing more than just her purse.

There was another road, arguably with worse company. Just two years prior, the Vassish had completed a military asset. By torch and axe, they had demolished every building in the way of a highway from palace to docks, and another from palace to the main gate. The stones had been cut and set, like bands of white bolted across the chaotic city, but one fringed by black ash still.

Due to it being a military road, it had a military patrol. The blue-cloaked men of Felix von Raymi took their turns marching up and down those paths, thumping their spears and spitting tobacco into the gutter. They weren’t the only ones on the road, some of the locals used it to traverse the city. To Aisha, she could only assume they were locals, for they had the pale faces of Vassish themselves, despite not being soldiers. A great mass of common folk from the north went about their lives with but a few exchanges of nods with the peacekeepers.

It only took a block for her to be stopped. Two thick and scarred men boxed her in and looked her over. One had taken a blow to the head and developed a lazy eye that stared only at the inside of his helm, while the other man seemed to have war paint tattooed across his face in the manner of Skaldish barbarians. The tattooed man took charge of speaking, and said, “Alright, you’ll have to move along. This is a respectable part of town. No place for vagrants and tramps, woman or not.”

Aisha drew herself up to look down her nose at them as she crossed her arms. “I have business at the palace. Is this not the best way to get there? Would you force me to go down among that rabble?”

That gave them a laugh, and the guard said, “Slim chance of that. If you’re going to lie, you should at least choose something believable.”

The one with the lazy eye grinned. “Well, they do say the more audacious the lie, the more likely you are to dupe someone with it. Don’tcha know?”

“Oh, who says that? You’re making it up as much as she is!”

Aisha cut in. “Bards say that. Bards and poets like myself. I’m a temple trained singer. Now, I must be going. Time is of the essence, and I lost enough of it on that creeping raft he called a boat. Get out of my way.”

The tattooed man sneered and scratched his chin. “Lord Raymi is in no need of maids nor scullions. You go to the palace, dirty as you are, you’ll get laughed at. Now come on, get out of here!”

Aisha’s facade of haughtiness transitioned to anger. “I am not a maid! I am not looking for work! I have business there you fucking idiot. Now are you going to let me pass or am I going to have to scream that two Vassish invaders are taking advantage of me? Then we’ll see what happens, won’t we?”

Both guards made a show of looking around. Some bystanders watched, but none of the three of them could spot a single Giordanan. He had just turned back to her with an exaggerated shrug, when a distant bell began banging out a rhythm. It seemed vaguely musical, but the message within the code was clear enough to the guards. Their heads shot up like dogs hearing a whistle. “Fleet on the horizon.”

The guard with the lazy eye shoved the other forward. “I’ll report back, you report forward. Go!” Aisha forgotten entirely, the guards scattered down the road, one back to the palace and other to the guardhouse nearest the docks.

She kept her head down and picked up her pace. The more that people heard the alarm, the quicker people seemed to move. Some poured out of doors and windows, squinting in the direction of the noise, while others clutched their goods to their chest and went running home to bolt their doors shut. She heard cries of “Pirates!” and “Aillesterran dogs!”, “Foreign, money-grubbing carp!”, “They think they can run us out of here!”, and “This is our city! We’ll damn well keep it!”

The words clumped together inside her, forming a knot that grew tighter with every person who assumed it was some run of the mill raid. She knew who it was, and that she had been the one to bring them there; the Cynizia.

Unfortunately for her, the steps of the palace were as inhospitable to her presence as the road had been. The political heart of Rackvidd looked like a great brick had been sat in the middle, with pinched windows no bigger than arrow slits, and all the decorations shoved up to the roof. Statues of people and gargoyles loomed out from every ledge, backed by fanciful shingles of colored clay and at times brass. The architects had taken an artistic approach to protecting the walls, and surrounded it with interconnected stone walls no higher than a man’s waist, with strips of grass between. There were enough steps and slopes to make it easy to walk over the squat fortifications, but impossible to roll a battering ram up to. Sadly, technology would soon make the inconvenience worthless.

Armor clad soldiers were marshaling into ranks amid the blaring of horns. Some other division of them circled the perimeter, but the differentiation was lost on Aisha. All she understood was half a dozen of them swarmed on her the moment she set foot in the courtyard. One of them barked at her, “This is no time for visiting the palace. Begone with you!”

“I need to speak with Felix von Raymi!” she protested, and over their iron shoulders she saw the main gates of the palace swing open and a great procession emerged to join the army.

The guard sneered. “Can’t you hear the alarms? Now ain’t the time, wench. Come back tomorrow, if we ain’t at war.”

She tried to press forward, and was shoved back. “It’s about the war you thickskulled idiot!”

Lord Raymi’s voice boomed across the courtyard, far beyond the capacity of human lungs. “Men! Today you’re earning your pay. Marshall to the walls! We’re going to put that battery to the test!”

Some three hundred soldiers stamped their spears, and shouted back, “Aye, Sir!”

The guards shoved her off to the side, to the stoop of some merchant’s house across from the palace. The soldiers began to march south to the port, but this was not enough to stop Aisha. When the chance came, when he was close enough, she shouted, “Lord Raymi, I have news from Solhart!”

His head snapped over and the moment he saw her red hair, he tugged on the reins of his horse to trot over. He had given some quick commands to his underlings, and came to peer at Aisha.

The guard who had been holding her back bent to one knee. “My apologies m’lord. She showed up just now. We’re moving her along.”

Lord Raymi held up his hand to silence the man. “I know you; you’re the Canta boy’s sister. My condolences for your loss.”

“My brother isn’t dead. He made it back, and now he has an army coming here!”

Lord Raymi took a moment to think, and ordered, “Bring her with me, and tie her hands.”

1. Name updated from Aquaria