Mary Herbert: Clandestine Circle

Humming to herself, Lynn eyed her saddle, then decided against it. The day, newly begun, was rapidly losing any hint of the night’s cooler temperatures. She tossed a light blanket over Windcatcher’s withers instead and sprang to the bay’s broad back.

The mare danced in anticipation, but she was too well trained to bolt. At Lynn’s signal, she bounced out of the stable and into the traffic on the busy streets. The sergeant had said Lord Bight was somewhere in the fortifications on the eastern side of Sanction, the opposite side of the city from the harbor, so Lynn guided her horse toward Shipmaker’s Road, the main east-west thoroughfare that bisected Sanction, and nudged her into a comfortable jog trot. It was impossible to travel faster than that. Although it was early morning, the streets were full of carts, wagons, and pedestrians, and the shops were already bustling with people trying to do a day’s work before the heat became unbearable.

This summer in Sanction was the hottest in memory since the Chaos War over thirty years ago, and one of the driest. It had altered the routines of daily life in the city by making early risers out of everyone and virtually closing down the town by noon. Only dogs, kender, gully dwarves, and the City Guard could be found moving about outside in the middle of the afternoon. By evening, the intense heat relaxed its grip just enough to give some relief and bring the city back to life.

In the lower end of Sanction, where the taverns, inns, offices, and warehouses jostled for space along the waterfront, most of the people Linsha saw on the streets were connected with the city’s burgeoning sea trade: sailors, sail makers, carpenters, rope makers, caulkers, oar makers, and blacksmiths. There were minotaurs, dwarves, humans, and elves all working together to load and unload cargo, refit ships, repair sails, and build new businesses. Only the taverns were quiet at this time of day, until the heat drove everyone indoors or to the nearest shade and a cool drink.

As Windcatcher drew closer to the upper city and the massive walls of Sanction’s inner fortifications, the character of the streets changed from docks, taverns, and mercantile offices to new apartments, shops, and tall, narrow houses clustered along cobbled streets. Here were many of the service industries such as laundries, bakehouses, bathhouses, massage parlors, and herbal shops, all showing signs of prosperity and healthy business. Skilled artisans had many shops here, too, and painted their storefronts in bright colors to advertise their wares. Awnings shaded the wooden sidewalks, and scattered about were small gardens that added splashes of green to the timber and stone edifices.

Above it all reared the tall towers and stone battlements of Sanction’s fortified walls. Here, facing the harbor and the threat of seaborne invasion, was the main western gate, where Shipmaker’s Road left the lower city and plunged into the heart of Sanction. The gateway was a massive doorway wide enough for two loaded wagons to pass side by side, and it was flanked by two round guard towers. The City Guard had its headquarters here and flew their scarlet flags emblazoned with a flaming sword for all to see.

The wall was a fairly recent addition to Sanction’s defenses, built by the lord governor to protect the city from a long list of enemies. In the years before the Chaos War, Sanction had been under the control of the goddess, Queen Takhisis, and her Dark Knights. It had been an encampment for dragonarmies and a nest for piracy and slavery. All that changed, though, at the end of the war with the departure of the gods. The Dark Knights lost control of the city, and what was left of the slums and slave pens and temples was in danger of being buried under molten lava spewed out by the three volcanoes, the Lords of Doom. At some time, and no one could remember exactly when, a stranger named Hogan Bight had entered the city and proclaimed himself governor. Using a power beyond anyone’s understanding, he tamed the volcanoes and diverted the lava, ash, and smoke away from the city. He built a government where there was none, banished the slave trade, formed the powerful City Guard to keep the peace, and brought prosperity far beyond anything the inhabitants of Sanction had ever imagined.

One of Lord Bight’s first major accomplishments had been the fortification of the city through a network of earthworks, stone walls, high towers, and most impressive of all, moats of lava created from the flow of the three giant volcanoes that hemmed in the city to the north, east, and south. The moats began at Mount Thunderhorn, the eastern volcano, and flowed in a horseshoe pattern around the city to Sanction Bay, encompassing the city, the harbor, and most of the wide valley.

The defenses were impressive and, so far, successful. The Knights of Takhisis desperately wanted their city back, but moats of lava and the earthworks kept their land forces at bay to the north and east. The harbor defenses protected the port from pirates and the Dark Knights’ seaborne forces, and the great wall guarded the inner heart of the city. Unfortunately the fortifications were not enough to protect Sanction from all her enemies. There was something more at work in the city, something unseen and subtly powerful that kept even the great Dragon Lords at bay. Something that rested in the hands of the mysterious Hogan Bight.

It was because of Lord Bight, this unknown man and his growing influence, that Lynn, known to her family as Linsha, had come to Sanction, sent by the Grand Master Liam Ehrling to serve the Solamnic Knighthood as an undercover agent in Sanction’s Clandestine Circle. To her, and to others like her, fell the task of learning all they could of this strange man and the forces that influenced the development of Sanction from a dying slave port to a boomtown. Linsha did not really like the subterfuge and devious dealings of the assignment, but she was good at it and she had grown to genuinely like the people of Sanction in the time she had lived there.

As she saluted the guards at the West Gate and rode through, she felt her pulse quicken at the prospect of meeting Lord Bight. She had joined the City Guard almost a year ago with the hope of working her way closer to his inner circle, but so far she had only managed to see him from a distance on the parade grounds at the guard camp and during official visits to the city council.

The traffic became heavier on this section of the Shipmaker’s Road, and Linsha was forced to slow Windcatcher to a walk. This part of Sanction had once been an old slave market and slum until Lord Bight allowed a group of gnomes to experiment on some new construction techniques. Of course, the foul tenements burned to the ground, allowing Lord Bight to rebuild the entire area. The land was divided into orderly lots and streets and portioned out to new owners, guilds, and businesses. The sound of construction was everywhere as new houses, shops, guildhalls, and craftsman shops filled in the vacant lots. Near the center of the city, a huge area had been set aside for an open-air market called the Souk Bazaar, where farmers from Sanction Vale brought their produce, livestock, and goods, and merchants from as far away as Palanthas sold their wares in rows of stalls, booths, and carts.

When Linsha approached the bazaar, she took an appreciative sniff of the smells wafting from the vendors’ carts. Her stomach reminded her she hadn’t had breakfast yet, so she kneed Windcatcher close to an old man selling cheese turnovers and pasties.

“Morning, Calzon,” she greeted him.

The old man’s face cracked a black-toothed grin. “Lynn, you gorgeous thing. Get off that bag of worthless bones and give us a kiss!”

She chuckled. “Sorry. I want to keep my breakfast down. Just give me a turnover. One of your good ones. Not the ones you’ve shorted the cheese with extra flour.” She flipped him a coin.