My first impression was that nothing about the city looked particularly magical. The walls appeared to be made of large blocks, no differently than any of a hundred city walls from medieval times I’d seen pictures or illustrations of. There were men walking along a rampart at the top of the walls carrying spears, dressed in padded cloth outfits with a red tabard cinched over their torso. A pair of similarly-dressed soldiers stood at the gates watching people enter, though they didn’t appear to be making any serious effort to stop or inspect anyone. I got a good look at their bright red tabards when we approached —which all appeared to be the same—and saw that they had a stylized dragon stitched into them with gold thread.

Ferrith led us to some kind of stable just outside the city gates. “Okay,” he said. “This is as far as you go.”

“I thought you were taking me to a healer,” I protested.

“Not you,” Ferrith said, sounding annoyed. “You.” He pointed to Grog, the ogre carrying me. “It shouldn’t surprise you to learn that dangerous monsters like ogres are not allowed inside the city gates. These two idiots have to stay here while we’re in the city.”

“With the horses—er, stags?” I asked.

“They’ll be fine,” Ferrith insisted. “Nobody’s going to steal them. They’re no good to anyone else since they only listen to me. You should count yourself lucky you can pass for a rissian, or I’d probably have to leave you out here too. The last time I summoned an intelligent ogre he was this tall”—Ferrith held a hand high up over his head—“and it was a nightmare to get him inside the gates.”

I looked down at my own pale, pink skin. Ferrith and the other rissians I had seen so far were all a washed out gray color. They also seemed to be quite a bit taller than your average human, which made most of them considerably taller than me. I wasn’t sure how that counted as “passing for a rissian”. If I saw a bright pink midget walking down the street back home I’d probably stare. “You sure?” I asked. “Nobody’s going to ask any questions?”

“Because you’re short?” Ferrith asked. “No. Most people will probably just assume you’re a scrawny teenager that doesn’t go outside very often.” He pointed to his ogres and commanded them to sit and wait, then turned back to me. “Ready to go? You don’t mind going barefoot for a while, do you?”

“It doesn’t seem like I have a choice,” I said.

“Good. Try to get your feet nice and dirty. It’ll help if you show up to the church looking as disheveled and pathetic as possible.” Ferrith threw the massive canvas bag over his shoulders. I was kind of impressed by how easily he handled all the weight.

The eyes of the guards on duty definitely lingered on us more than most passers-by, but they didn’t say anything as we crossed the threshold into the town. Only when we got inside did I finally get a good look at the place.

It wasn’t a town. It was a city; even by Earth standards. I was shocked by how industrious the place was—especially coming from the nearly dead outlying farmland. The first things we passed were a pair of towers on either side of the front gates. They were like tiny fortresses of their own, each bustling with more guards. Though only two were bothering to watch the gate it seemed they could summon dozens more allies with just a whistle. The road we took into the city continued as a wide street of hard-packed dirt, two story buildings lining either side. The road cut through the city, leading all the way up to a stout hill where a second, higher gate surrounded a proper castle. The castle had low, thick walls that looked like they could withstand a meteor impact. It wasn’t some fanciful structure with merely the trappings of a castle, but an actual fortress. Midway from the gate to the castle I could see that there was some kind of wide building with a shiny bronze dome sticking out from the center which was much more crowded with rissians than anywhere else. Ferrith slowed to a walking pace to account for the traffic. On either side of us we passed shop fronts selling everything from food, to clothes, to household decorations. Buildings filled in all the space between the city’s walls nearly without interruption, the only break being the river our road had followed. That river snaked under the walls through a grate and continued around the right side of the hill the castle rested on, dividing a third of the city away from the rest.

“There has to be a million people living here!” I exclaimed once I’d had a look around.

Ferrith snorted. “Not even close. You don’t normally see cities that big until you get down to Dileth. I’d guess the population of Haemir at no more than 82,944.”

“Right, sure,” I agreed. “Dileth.” Just one more word I didn’t know the meaning of. “It’s still a lot of people for such a small area.” By my estimate, the city didn’t seem more than a mile across at the widest point. “Why do so few people live outside the walls?”

“Do you really have to ask after the pack of pursuer beasts that attacked us yesterday? There’s safety in numbers. Rissians like to cluster up in large cities. That’s just the way it’s always been. Most people don’t leave the walls unless they need to for work.”

“I guess that makes sense,” I agreed. If I’d had to face the kinds of monsters back home that I’d encountered in my first days on Earris I would probably never leave my house either. We continued down the main road, the chattering of speech around me sounding vaguely Germanic, but utterly incomprehensible. Unlike Ferrith, most people here didn’t walk around wearing armor; in fact Ferrith’s armor even appeared to be of higher quality than the guards standing watch at the front gate. Instead, the mostly homespun outfits looked like they belonged at a renaissance faire, which made me feel out-of-place in my sweats and plain t-shirt. I was getting a lot of strange looks, but once people noticed I wasn’t even wearing any shoes their looks changed from curiosity to pity. I did my best to ignore them.

We continued forward a ways, but just as we reached the edge of the open square that seemed to be the heart of the city, Ferrith skirted us around the edge and out along a busy path to the right. “What’s that building?” I asked, pointing at the circular building with the large bronze dome on the top of it. It had a series of large doors with people coming and going through them.

Ferrith looked up to see which way I was pointing. “That’s the Porter’s Guildhouse,” he explained. “More people come and go through there than through the King’s Road these days.” The traffic coming from the Porter Guildhouse was significant: whole crowds of people, all different shades of gray, from ghastly white to nearly black. I didn’t spot any variation in hair color, aside from the occasional streak of blue, yellow, or green, though those cases appeared not to be natural colors. Ferrith poked me in the shoulder. “Stop gawking.” He pointed toward a branching road that turned to the right. “We’re going that way,” he said. “Across the bridge.”

Ahead I could see a single spire rising above the surrounding buildings. It was easily the tallest structure on that side of the bridge. “Is that the church?” I asked, pointing to the steeple.

“The Church of Marketh,” Ferrith clarified, nodding. “That’s where I’m going to drop you off.”

“Drop me… off? You’re not coming with me?”

“You don’t want me to,” Ferrith said. “I’ve got too many Brands for them to let me in, and besides that I’m a… known quantity. Better for you if they don’t know we know each other.”

“Are they going to turn me away if they do?”

“Probably not, but they might give you more grief about it than you’ll want to deal with today. All you have to do is walk in the front door with that confused look on your face and they’ll take care of you. Just make sure to mention you’re dying of… what was that disease you said you have?”

“Cancer,” I supplied.

“Cancer,” Ferrith continued, nodding along. “Sure. I’ve never heard of it, but they’re the experts on illnesses. It wouldn’t hurt to rub some dirt on your face to help sell that ‘lost orphan’ look you have going on.”

“Why does it feel like you’re trying to manipulate these priests?” I asked.

“Because I am,” Ferrith replied without a hint of shame. “What? You want to pay full price to get healed? I thought you didn’t have any money.”