Guardian of the Night

7

For the second time in two days, Bilain left the comforting environs of The Sprawl to the richer areas south of the rivers and she did not like it. After the fires, it felt like a betrayal to her people. They needed the reassurance that the Watch still remained as their protectors. The others could walk the streets, rousting drunks and breaking up fights, keeping the peace, but she knew it was her face that the folks of The Sprawl looked to. For now.

Instead of travelling across one bridge, passing through the preening, self-important denizens of the Municipal Ward, she turned, instead, to the Old City, taking the option to cross two rivers, passing over the bridges to emerge at the Docks, walking the length of the quays, tasting the smell of fish in the air, to enter the Traders' Ward from there.

As she crossed the Docks, her mind returned to Yiladry and his meetings with the other Senators, here in sight of the tall ships, with the bustle of the Docks masking their conversations. She had no doubt that none of the dockworkers would reveal anything of what they saw or heard, if they had anything to reveal at all. The Docks Watch would prove as useless, keeping to themselves, looking down upon Bilain and her position as something less than them through the fact of where she held sway. Rivalries abounded in more than the Senate in Adrasusk.

Regardless, if she needed to know what passed between Yiladry and his colleagues, she would need to ask them herself and she had yet to receive replies to her requests for audiences. She had expected that and, with the badge given her by Asnarrus, she would have her answers. For now, she had other matters on her mind. The shadow figure was the mystery here, not the political assassinations that were, it had to be said, not the norm for this city.

Each time she stepped from one Ward to another, it felt as though she crossed invisible barriers. Only the High Ward had walls surrounding it, and the edge of the city itself, though new settlements had crept beyond the city walls in places to the south and east of the city. Here, between the Docks and the Traders' Ward, there were no such physical barriers, only a sense of entering somewhere quite different.

And it was different. The streets thinned, though not to the width, or lack of it, in The Sprawl, and here shops, warehouses and other businesses took greater precedence over housing than anywhere else in the city. Whatever anyone wished to buy, they could find here. Whatever service they required, they could find willing hands and minds, for the right amount of coin, in the Traders' Ward. And everyone here traded in something. Even the street urchins had wares to sell.

Bilain had not come to the Traders' Ward to buy anything, though her head turned at several stalls and shops that held clothing, or weaponry, or food. She could scarce afford these prices, not and have the ability to feed herself and her family, despite Asnarrus telling her she needed more refined clothing before meeting with Senator Yiladry's widow. The lady would have to take Bilain as she came.

The Mages' Compound sat in a space all of its own, surrounded on all sides by streets, with three, tall towers reaching up to the skies, a wall surrounding the entire place and holding only one gate. Large enough for a single horse rider to pass through, but for little else larger, the gate remained closed at all times unless the Mages allowed people in or out. A large, detailed, heavy iron knocker sat upon the door and Bilain lifted it and dropped it twice, sending a thundering sound reverberating within.

No-one came. This was not unexpected, however. Mages tended to disappear into their own thoughts, or were held in practice of their arts, or simply, through arrogance, refused to answer petitioners unless they were too bored to do anything else. She slammed the knocker upon the door twice more, waiting again. By the third time, she had lost patience and maintained a continuous knocking that she hoped annoyed someone enough to open the gates.