315

It’s a long way through the valley, and the path you follow is far from direct. It bends lazily from side to side as to keep level for wheeled travellers, going around the hills and bumps, always changing reacting to and accommodating the landscape, rather than the other way round. You can’t say whether this is a choice driven by caprice or necessity. There are places where it looks like someone couldn’t be bothered to just dig through a mild bump instead of gently circumventing it. But every few dozen metres there’s a clear and present obstacle that you just can’t really move to build a road, at least, not as a mildly wealthier-than-most farmer. The most obvious are these enormous jagged stones sticking out of the ground. At least as big as one of the farmhouses you walked by, they look fixed in the motion of bursting from the bowels of the earth to try and pierce the sky. You can just imagine, if some sorcerer snapped his fingers and broke whatever spell might be on them, they would resume that presumably interrupted motion, and tear the countryside to shreds.

The sun is shining brightly as you begin the final stage of your crossing, rising out of the valley along an even more wildly zigzagging path than the one leading down from the woodland plateau. On top of the stiff climb, there is no shelter of any kind, the ground all stone and rubble, reflecting the light from above everywhere you look.

Exhausted and wheezing from the heat, you arrive before the Citadel gate. It is wide open, sliding wooden doors chained and padlocked inside their stone sheaths. Because of the inward slope of the ground between them, the metal is ever straining to hold up their weight, and should the links fail, the two masses will surely slam together shut with a resounding bang, crushing anything or anyone caught in between. The portcullis, its teeth poking out of the ceiling above, almost looks unnecessary.

Two men in armour step forward to ask you your business in the city, before they can allow you entrance. They’re a lot less curmudgeon than you expected. One of them offers you a drink from his gourd, which you gladly accept. After inspecting your backpack and its contents, they tell you you’re cleared to go inside.

What would you do inside? As you recover from your ascent it occurs to you there’s not much – which is to say there’s nothing – of a townsperson in you at the moment, and you’ve no idea where to start. The guards haven’t bitten you yet; perhaps they have a little advice for newcomers.

To try striking a conversation and getting tips on starting life in the city, turn to 99. To instead enter and see what the streets spontaneously throw your way, turn to 235.