Chapter 5 - Part IV

The activity within Center City had been even more viscous. Gregor and Onion were tempted to forcefully push their way through the thrall of the market, but they did not want to stand out to any casual observers turned eyes of the Lady Archne. Instead they allowed themselves to be pulled by the current of the throngs into the confusing maze that is Center City.

At its inception, the built up Center City was meant to remain as a no-man's land between the 13 districts. It was to be a place of light, occasional commerce, perhaps, but the Heilthian architects had designs that it could eventually become the site of a second High University, if the scholars would but approve. What they did not expect, however, is that the Eirdren would make use of the flat and accessible sandstone and brick laid land. Over the recent generations, Eirdred had become a prosperous place of commerce and her population could no longer be contained in the 13 districts. People, buildings and businesses spilled over the great gates surrounding Center City and like weeds sprung up in chaotic fashion. Aside from the wide cart-road connecting River Road to the South Short Highway, roads of Center City sprouted at easiest convenience of the buildings.

Onion adjusted her cowl, another strange fashion invention of the continent that was proving to be a boon to her now that she needed to hide her strange dark skin from the relatively pale populace of Eirdred. If she had gone unnoticed then it could only be attributed to the strength of the Spider. She felt as a fly, not its predator, in the web of this strange world.

Sun slowly trickled down the messy, multi-story buildings. The light fog of morning began to dissipate, replacing the chilling mist with a thickening blanket of humidity. Stalls and shops opened and prepared for a long day of streaming customers. Haggling and morning greetings cast in various accents and tongues were an ambient music to the scene.

It was all Onion could do to avoid responding to the beckons of the Nüish fishmongers even though their guttural accents marked them as northerners. Nonetheless, it was a pleasure to Onion's ears in such a way that all familiar things are pleasant to those who have been away from home for far too long.

This place could never be home, and it would never be. Home, decidedly, could only ever be described as The City that Sprung Up, Deezhul. Yet in the past three years she had spent in Sandor's capitol, Veradell, Onion had found some place in her heart for the southern province. It was as close to Deezhul as was possible on the continent and sweet little reminders of home were always comforting, even if they never quenched her longing. However, for all of their province's cultural similarities, the City of Eirdred held little in common with Veradell.

Like Eirdred, the capitol of Sandor was the commercial center of the province, but in the wide, sandy streets of Veradell, children flocked far from their mothers' attention, with dogs, monkies, ferrets, and whatever other hapless creature they managed to co-opt for the day in tow. Here in Eirdred, candy stalls were severely lacking and the streets were remarkably devoid of mirthful youth. Aside from an occasional gull, animals were rare to be seen.

Today, moreso than ever, the ambiance of the city was entirely strange to Onion's eyes and ears. With rural and urban lords and ladies gathered for the festivities in the Archne District, their entourages of servants, soldiers and spies had to be fed, housed and entertained. The merchants of Center City rose to the occasion.

Competing street flutists and the walking dancers that accompanied them vied for the attentions and coins of passersby, sometimes quite aggressively. Gregor preemptively pushed aside one young dancer whose hands were a little too close to Onion's pockets than he cared for. The boy grunted as he hit the ground, but he soon got up, unfazed, and looked around for a new, less guarded client.

The two moved onward, west, towards River Road, and as they did the crowds thickened around the entrance of the Archne District. The gates of the district were massive, built of oak, stone and steel. Iron chains with links the size of Onion's head held back doors of equal size, keeping the district open to all. Rusted over from generations of disuse and exposure to the elements, the chains lay dormant.

Closer in, the mood of the crowd had changed from the merriment of the market to outrage and discontent. Jeers and curses replaced the beckons of merchants.

"That's not true at all," Gregor heard a passerby argue with his companion. "Are you blind? It's there staring us all down. Those blood thirsty savages mean to start a war again, only this time Sandor won't be the only province to shed blood!"

"Don't be blind. If it were a fight those islanders wanted, don't you think the Scholar-Empress would have had the city flooded with Enforcers by now? Think about it, don't swallow this drivel. A fishmonger's whore of a daughter got herself caught with the lord but she didn't realize his lady wife wouldn't take that too kindly." his friend rebuked in response.

"Well I guess that's just one for the crows to argue on now anyway, but when those brown devils come on our shores and try to do more than just sell us 3 day old fish, I won't be hearing your apology. Likely you'll be just as dead as I."

Before Onion had a chance to notice the source of their argument on her own, Gregor spotted what hung at the eye of the storm. He pulled Onion away, trying to shield her eyes from the view of her own skull, bodiless and mangled, dangling by the ends of her short deep brown hair.

Too late though, Onion felt her stomach go weak as she contemplated her own mortality once again. The face of death is not glorious, even if the last moments it experienced were. Thoughts trailed further away from that place to that of Rejnev. He likely had no better a facial expression at the moment.

Gregor tugged at Onion's arm forcefully humming a tune he had known since childhood, under his breath, yet directed at Onion.

"On flooded rocks beneath the fish,
Was to serve as watery grave,
The farmer's prize gently purrs
A three quarters mile away.

Though for her labor, he tossed to die,
The smallest of her fold
Now sits the cat,
Returned again
To plan his strike untold."

Chapter 5 - Part III

Onion and Gregor had set out early from the Lilac, the oak wrought tea and sleephouse in Trik District. The Lilac, a two a story wooden building resting on a thick granite cobblestone foundation against the steep river-ward road, was not yet awake. Young women were just beginning to set up the floor cushions and open the sliding panel doors of the first floor where customers would relax, drink tea and smoke fruity and flowery essences from porcelain water pipes throughout the day.

In stark contrast to her existence since the massacre of her brethren, life, energy and purpose floated in the dawn fog as people made their way, completing their daily tasks. Dew from the previous night had made the dull gray cobblestones of the Trik District slick and shiny, but still no match for the hardy footwear of the Eirdren denizens. Even while they passed fishmonger carts and oak and stone build bakeries, the air retained a smell of being freshly cleaned.

The cobbles sloped steeply downward and meandered into a wide sandy main thoroughfare. At its end stood a massive oak and iron gateway that loomed several building sizes tall. The arched door panels were tied back with huge rusted iron locks that seemed to have not moved in centuries. As the two passed from Trik into Center City, Onion felt herself immersed in the oddities of asymmetrical multi-storied buildings and random alleyways that seemed to lead to nowhere. Unlike the stout stone edifices of the districts, Center City had the appearance of a child's toy blocks left unkempt upon the ground.

"Not long ago all this was sand, clay and reeds.", Gregor explained to his naive Nü friend. "This was a place where kings met and drank, bonded as brothers and devised each others' downfall; but that was very long ago."

"What changed to make place?" she wondered out loud.

"This is the power of the University on High.” He gestured at the road ways with no small hint of a deep seeded pride. “At the heart of the empire, power is not doled out to despots looking to better themselves. Its earned by those who push the limits of new and great wonders.

Not long after the conquest of the coast, Uera, the Architect Emperor, finished the first of his great works, his first mandate, the locks and dams of Falloth. Before the end of his reign, he began the second of his great works; turning these marshlands into a city."

"Why would they work so hard for their enemies? Were they not the conquering force? In the days of my father’s father, a clan that was defeated lost its meat, its weapons and its children. We do not work for the weak in the Outer Crest.”, Onion spoke as she deftly avoided tripping over a young boy and his fruit stall.

“The Eirdren are many things, Vren, but they are not weak.” Gregor scoffed, “But they are not the enemies of the Empire, they are a part of it. When any one part of the Empire is bettered, the whole Empire benefits from it. And when the people benefit, they give thanks to their rulers. It is the responsibility of the Empress to be worthy to her people. If she fails that, she loses the right to be called Empress, and instead become tyrant, or despot. The people will not suffer that long.”

“I would follow no leader who loves my enemy as he loves me.”

“Even if he protected you? Kept you free and your children well fed? If your enemy thrives while you prosper, are you hurt?”

“That is not possible. The spider does not eat without the death of the fly. They cannot prosper together.”

Gregor considered the Nü in a harsher light. Where he saw before a naïve and scared girl in a strange land, he recognized the teeth and claws of a cornered jaguar in a Benge-style fight arena. But even jaguars are naïve when they are young.

“Vren, consider the Red Trader.” He waved his palm eastward, towards the rising sun and the River Eir estuary. Beyond landfall lay a small island, an outcropping of granite in a sea of sandstone and clay where the City Enforcers were now stationed.

Even in the distance, Onion could see what he was pointing at. At the westside of the island stood massive cliffs, perhaps 3 or 4 stories high and upon it, the likeness of an ancient warrior had been carved. However, while the granite was mostly grey, the statue was a deep and smooth red.

"Before the rise of the Chosen, these lands were the place where the primordial ancestor of trade and commerce were incubated.”, Gregor began. “The 13 districts engaged in some bartering, but before Eirdred was unified under the signing of the Red, the marsh a no-man's land for the often warring kings and queens of the Ancient Eir.”

“The Red. This word has been mentioned before. This is the promises of your noble lords, correct?”

“The term is a treaty. Promises in written word. That is correct. It is the promises of the 13 districts to come together as one people. Before then, this land was home to 13 small kingdoms. The lord-kings had built up their shares of coveted, fertile delta out lands, but their lots were never enough. They never are.

When the river failed to crest high enough, or crested too high and flooded homes and fields, serf-born militias often rose under the leadership of their lord-king and plunder that which they could not harvest. Certainly, they would later record that their plunder was rigorous, that their cause was just under the god of the Eir, but it was little more than survival and desperation at work."

Gregor nodded his head at the red clay brick walls that encompassed Center City.

"The art of war was never the strong point of the Ancient Eir, but they raped and plundered each other for centuries, in spite of the walls. Here though, in what is now Center City, the old kings could meet outside of the battle field. Extortion, promises or threats could be issued, alliances and betrayals were formed in the red mud and sand. It was known in those days that anyone that drew blood would be cursed by Rel and men, and given to Rel's mighty army, what we call today, Rel's host.

"This changed with the Gerik Nogrem, called the Red Trader, our friend upon those cliffs. After a year of severe drought in the northern kingdoms, Nogrem, Irolok, Archne, Trik and Duredul, he called all 13 to the red clay shores of the old marshlands. The Red Trader offered to the southern six a simple bargain; that the six provide for the beleaguered northern five in that time of desperation with no payment other than the promise of similar aid in the future from the north.”

“Only a fool would agree.” Onion interjected, “The north could simply take from the south and refuse their requests for help in the future.”

"No doubt that was the very sentiments of the southern lord-kings at that time and in those days it was common for kings to talk and talk, and refuse each other at will. But though Nogrem was a fairly peaceful man for the era, he would not suffer no for an answer. He could not. His people depended on that aid.

He was an intimidating man and it is said that he used the power of his actions and words to extract the outcomes he desired. He desired a bloodlessly acquired agreement, but the southern lord-kings refused his pleas. Perhaps they doubted his strength or resolve to take what he needed by force. Or maybe the southern lords at the time simply didn’t care.

To prove his commitment to leaving the marshlands with the help his people and the peoples of the northern kingdoms required, Nogrem was forced to make a great sacrifice, a great show of force to instill fear into his enemies and to get what he wanted.

"He produced his young daughter, a girl of perhaps 5 or 6 winters, and he broke the compact of thousands of years by slashing her throat. Before her lifeless corpse could fall among the reeds, it is said he shouted ‘I offered you promises to trade, now I offer you blood to trade. You will trade with me or it will be your blood with which I trade!’

Nogrem intended to cower the southern lord-kings, but some remained rebellious. With the blood of his daughter, he bought the bent knees of Laefeg Tokal, Jegrek Vrok and Hrem Fegrer. Those of the kingdoms of Shik and Belegael fled but the Red Trader had positioned his men throughout the marsh much earlier in the day. Those two southern lord-kings paid their part of the bargain with their own blood. Of Jaek Tsitul, queen of the sixth kingdom, he received commitment to the bargain in deed, though it is said that later she bargained for her own red trade.

"Gerik Nogrem, mindful of the wrath of god and men, gathered up the remaining lord-kings and the heirs of the slain and developed a new pact, the Red, that never again would the river run the same color as the soil, and that the Eir would come together as one people. The legends say that he begged one year, that the God might hold back his army, to train his heir, and to begin the construction of the House of Red where the 13 would come together and govern as equals. He begged that year to strengthen the walls that would defend the Eir from outsiders, rather than each other, while the dismantling of the walls that kept them apart.

"On the same day of the following year, according to myth, Gerik opened his own throat, giving himself to the host of Rel in a promise that his blood would be the last. According to Tsitul historians, Jrael Tsitul, heir to his mother's people, had done what Rel, in his vengeance, would have demanded.

“But the Eirdren were never again 13 separate kingdoms. Gerik Nogrem loved his daughter, he loved his people. He fought his enemies, but in doing so, he brought them together, though he suffered from it. After the Red was signed, there were no more raids. When a district faced famine, the others were bound by law to help. I cannot see this as anything but a queer sort of love when the line between enemies and friends is being erased.”

“Such busy people with convoluted webs.” Onion observed. “It is hard to understand.”

Gregor shrugged helplessly and smirked. "It is our way I suppose."

As Onion's tired legs shuffled over the bridge causeways of Center City, neither blood nor the red clay of the marsh, nor the soul of the Red Trader touched her feet.