Don Bassingthwaite - The Killing Song

“Her first time in Sharn,” he said to the coach driver, a woman with short, silvery hair, large eyes, and the kind of eternally youthful face that hinted at elf blood. He would have been hard-pressed to put an age to her.

The driver smiled. “I’ll give her the tour.”

And so the City of Towers skimmed past below, around, and above them. The passing of the rain had left the air cool and the sky clear. High up, the smells of the city streets mingled with the night breeze off the sea. Every shift in the wind that beat at Singe’s hair brought hints-and sometimes bursts-of odor. Smoke. Saltwater. Rotting vegetables. Baking bread. It all blended into a unique perfume. Singe could have closed his eyes and still known he was flying above Sharn.

None of the visible moons were full, but their crescents, fat and thin, made a pleasing sight, a scattered counterpoint to the thick gossamer band of the Ring of Siberys in the southern sky. Sharn was itself a reflection of the sky above as the lights of homes and streets shone against the darkness of the towers. All around their skycoach, other coaches flew, lit fore and aft by shimmering white lights. Here and there, tiny soarsleds crackled with energy as their lone riders piloted them through the night. Higher up, the open air was the domain of airships, some only a little larger than their skycoach, others massive, each supported and propelled by a wind or fire elemental bound into a ring around the ship’s belly. Those ships powered by a fire elemental shone like shooting stars; those powered by an air elemental had a paler glow, like errant moonbeams.

Far, far below the skycoach, night fell into the deep chasms that separated the plateaus on which the wards of the city had been built. The way was most clear over those dark voids and their driver could easily have followed that route. She didn’t. Instead, she plunged in among the towers themselves, dipping under bridges and darting around other traffic, all the while shouting out the sights. “The Korranath, the great temple of Kol Korran,” she called above the rush of the wind, and Ashi stared at an enormous dome of gold that flashed with the light as if a thousand gems were embedded in its surface. “Kundarak Tower!” and the peak of a tower topped with four life-size statues of dragons flicked past. “Skysedge Park!” and Ashi leaned out over the edge of the coach to stare in amazement at the meadows and ponds that rolled across the tops of three great towers.

The hunter sat back with her eyes wide above her scarf. “Ha’azit teith,” she said in awe. “How is all this possible, Singe? Even magic has limits, doesn’t it?”

Singe smiled. “You know about other planes of existence like Xoriat and Dal Quor,” he said, trying to keep concepts simple for her. “Xoriat is the Realm of Madness and Dal Quor is the Region of Dreams. There are other planes as well, worlds that are the pure expression of an element or concept. Sometimes they’re far away from Eberron, other times they’re closer. Sometimes the reality of one of those other planes bleeds through into Eberron, making a permanent connection. Wizards call those places manifest zones, and things are possible in them that wouldn’t be possible anywhere else. The Shadow Marches has many small manifest zones of Xoriat. It’s one reason the daelkyr and the cults of the Dragon Below are so powerful there.” He gestured around them. “Sharn is built within a manifest zone of Syrania, the Azure Sky. Magic related to flight works better here, sometimes with hardly any effort at all. That’s how towers can be built so tall and why lifts and skycoaches-” He rapped his knuckles against the hull of the coach. “-work at all.”

Ashi still looked as if she was struggling to understand his explanation. Singe tried to think of an even simpler way to describe the nature of Sharn to her, but the coach driver beat him to it. “Things don’t want to fall down here,” she said, and Ashi’s face cleared in comprehension.

They curved in a wide arc, passed over another dark chasm, and entered another ward. Their driver began naming sights again, and Ashi once more became entranced. “The Old Spire of Deniyas. Kavarrah Concert Hall. Looks like there’s a performance tonight-I think it might be Egen Marktaros, the Thrane exile. Dalannan Tower and Morgrave University.” The coach dipped sharply, diving between towers so closely packed it might as well have been flying through tunnels. They emerged into a district that smelled of alchemical experiments and shone with magical light in myriad hues.

“Everbright, the wizard’s district,” said the driver-then plunged into a real tunnel bored through the thick stones of one of the great towers and came back out into the night.

A wall of sparkling lights, a sweeping view of an entire arm of the city, rose above them in a spectacle so unexpected and breathtaking that even Singe found himself amazed. Their driver slowed the coach so that they seemed to be drifting into Sharn’s embrace like a leaf on the wind. The wall of light swelled before them, breaking slowly into individual lanterns in streets and windows. The coach eased up beside a landing, and the driver broke the spell by calling out, “Deathsgate district!” She grinned at Ashi. “How did you like the ride?”

Wordlessly, Ashi bent her head and touched her fingers to her shrouded lips, then to her forehead.

“That means she liked it,” said Singe. He paid the fare and added a generous tip. The driver grinned and helped them out of the coach, then sent the vessel skimming back off into the darkness. Singe looked at Ashi. “Are you going to blink?” he asked.

“I don’t think I can,” she told him.

They set off into Deathsgate. Located in the middle levels of the great towers, the district had a strangely contained feel to it. Although the ground was far below, the height of the towers above emphasized how far away they were from open sky-when they could see the sky at all. Most of the streets were more like very large passages, and the courtyards were massive enclosures with bridges leaping beneath shadowed roofs. There was no hint of the rain that had caught them earlier except for drips and leaks and one empty square where water poured in a cascade through cracks in the ceiling.

“Trickle down,” Singe explained to Ashi. “Most of the rain that falls on the upper city ends up in reservoirs, but what doesn’t has to go somewhere. They say that when it rains in Sharn, it takes two days for it to stop.”

In spite of the late hour, the neighborhoods of Deathsgate were livelier than any other they had passed through, rivaling the waterfront of Cliffside and certainly surpassing the restrained hush of Fan Adar in Overlook. The people stumbling in the streets and staggering from the doorways of taverns looked like they had more in common with the sailors of Cliffside as well. All manner of races-from humans, to dwarves, to shifters, halflings, and warforged-were represented. Most them went armed as well. Swords, spears, axes, and maces hung ready for use, and even those in the crowds who carried no obvious weapons walked with a confident and dangerous stride. Singe caught Ashi staring again and nudged her.

“Try not to do that,” he said quietly. “The more you look like someone new to Sharn, the more people will try to take advantage of you.”

“You’re scared they’ll start a fight?”

“I’m scared you might start a fight. Look around.” He nodded to the profusion of banners that decorated the buildings they passed, the strings of pennants that hung across the street, and the paint and posters that daubed bold colors onto dark stone walls. Like Overlook, Deathsgate had been decorated for the coming celebrations of Thronehold. Unlike Overlook, however, the crimson and gold of Breland were not the dominant colors. The black and red of Karrnath, the blue of Aundair, the silver of Thrane, and the green of lost Cyre were all represented in equal or even greater proportion. The colors and crests of a variety of regiments and companies, some Singe knew and others that he didn’t, added to the display.