Chapter Six: The Muster of Caltlikrath

Domarc and Zangua, what are your thoughts on splitting up?

Also, what did you guys do with the ice? Did you take it up to your room, or leave it on the table?

Mordred would have suggested bringing it to the room, but not into the Tiny Hut.

You've got a couple miles' walk back to Hazard, and then maybe a mile and half or so inside the city to reach the Trigon? So let's say if you start the spells before you get to the gate, you could reach the Trigon with a little time to spare. Are you leaving now or in the morning?

The ice begins to sweat when you take it up to the room, but it's slow to melt. Felor detects a subtle but definite magical dweomer within the ice.

By sunrise, the ice has melted.

The Randy Pike is already filling up with customers when the party heads downstairs. Domarc and Mordred head out for Hazard while the rest of the party takes their breakfast in the common room. This morning, most of the chatter centers around news from the south: after a long-simmering dispute over territory, the armies of Gurmar and Gaad have met in battle, with Gurmar badly routed. A man in a colorful red-and-green outfit loudly opines that the Overlord of Gaad ought to finish the job and "put an end to the sophists and diddlers" of Gurmar once and for all. At some pushback from travelers who insist that Gurmar's reputation is exaggerated by outsiders, the colorful man insists that vast tracts of arable land around the city are going to waste and that Bload as a whole would be better if Gurmar were razed to its foundations and forgotten. A woman sitting behind him throws a biscuit at his head; it bounces off and lands on the table. The colorful man laughs, picks it up, turns around and takes a bite, winking at her.

~meanwhile~

Domarc and Mordred walk back to the city, entering through a small pedestrian gate on the northeast curve of the city wall, lightly trafficked and lightly guarded.

They pass the barracks and neighborhoods densely filled with the humble but well-built homes of the moderately well-to-do. The city is relatively quiet today, the weather cool and overcast. The morning markets in the open squares are doing a brisk business, if not exactly bustling. Domarc, in disguise, takes the lead, while Mordred follows invisibly, ascending to good vantage points and scouting for threats as best he can.

Taking a shortcut through what passes for a seedy neighborhood on this side of the city, Domarc spies some graffiti that reads, "let Hazard have a KING again" above a sketch of a figure wearing a crown. That the crown has six points might be a coincidence, but it does not escape Domarc's notice.

Soon, they're making their way down the main avenue of an administrative district, passing scribes and soldiers and foreign visitors. The avenue ends at the eastern angle of the Trigon, and Domarc steps out into an open plaza of trees and statuary. There are crowds all around, gathered in clusters to hear public speeches or queued up to enter various ministries and courthouses.

To the north, Domarc sees the twin palaces of the city's rulers standing at opposite points of the Trigon. The palaces are large but not grandiose, beautifully made of white marble and each capped with a silver pyramidion, but not ostentatious. The Innocent's palace on the east side has creeping vines climbing its walls; the Hierophant's palace to the west is bare. A massive, arcaded convocation hall sits between the two buildings. Guards flank the entrances, citizens mill about, officials come and go.

Domarc passes a speaker standing beneath a statue of a small, scoliotic child standing with his foot upon the head of a prostrate warrior. About a dozen and a half people are listening to him speak about how the temple colleges no longer produce men pious and learned enough to properly assume the responsibility of the Hierophant's office. Not far away, another speaker stands beneath a puzzle tree, recounting the story of how the last king of Hazard incurred Ziu-Pater's wrath and why the partnership between the Innocent and Hierophant is far from obsolete. Only three or four people seem to be paying close attention to this speaker.

You two have made it to the Trigon incognito (as far as you know), but your spells won't last much longer.

At the outer gates of the Hierophant's palace, two guards desultorily cross their spears while a third waves Domarc on. "No visitors. Off with you."

Mordred hides nearby, in the back of a growing crowd surrounding a lively orator delivering a speech about the cycles of history and how the unrest in Dule, Gurmar, and now even Hazard itself shows that the wheel of time has turned and that the Werld now enters a new era.

~meanwhile~

Back at the Randy Pike, the common room continues to fill up with late breakfasters. A toothless old man sits himself down at the party's table. "You have the look of warriors!" he declares, patting Zangua's arm. "Doughty warriors. You have seen some remarkable battles in your time, I would estimate!"

The guard raises his eyebrows. "It's 'Gethro,' is it? You two are old friends? Off with you, cabbage-head."

Mordred watches from a short distance away. The orator is talking about how the city-states that have clung to their old ways are in rapid decline while those who have adopted modern ways and new gods have flourished.

~meanwhile~

"Doughty! Indeed!" the old man affirms. "I was a warrior too, once. In my days of vigor all the strong youth of my village were called to arms to prepare for the coming of Pink Jenk. Do they still sing songs of Pink Jenk? I saw him once. Now, I should not claim to have met him in combat directly, but--" He stops talking when the serving girl sets down a bowl of carrot cream soup in front of him, picking it up carefully with both hands and bringing it slowly up to his lips. He takes a long, loud, dribbling slurp of soup and sets the bowl back down, slowly and carefully, a slight tremor in his hands. When the bowl is safely back down on the table his eyes dart up to look at Felor. "You have a Jermal brow," he observes.

The orator Mordred is hanging out near starts to lose some of his audience as he segues from talking about how Orsen's prosperity may be directly traced to their construction of a shrine to Corellon, to postulating that Bload's future health as a nation will depend upon establishing colonies of elves and dwarves to act as custodians of the land. One woman brushes against Mordred as she turns to leave. She stops, glancing around quizzically, then shrugs and continues on her way.

Domarc observes the comings and goings at the palaces for a while. There is far more activity around the Innocent's palace, but neither has many people actually entering or leaving. At one point, a middle-aged man in purple and black clothing, attended by several retainers, leaves the Innocent's palace. Accompanying them is an official in white and gray robes, who stops to confer with them just outside the gate, then goes back inside.

Soon after that, a woman emerges from the crowd in front of the convocation hall. She's wearing black clothing and a short brown cape, and carries a heavy shoulder bag. She approaches the Hierophant's palace, and the guards step aside to let her through the gate. She proceeds across the yard to the palace steps.

Domarc and Mordred, your spells are about to wear off. Domarc sees an alley by the chancery that should be a discreet enough place to recast concealing spells.