‘How? There’s a huge boulder in the way, under the water. It will take weeks to move it. Perhaps months.’

‘There’s a quicker way. But we’ll need to enlist the help of Lord Aristocles.’

‘The first consul? Dion . . . You know your father wouldn’t approve of you making an unsanctioned visit. And what can Aristocles do?’

‘Phalesia needs the trade as much as we do. He might enlist the help of an eldran. They’re on good terms. A serpent could move that boulder.’

Cob pondered for a moment as the city on their right came to dominate Dion’s vision.

Unlike Phalesia there was no raised bastion over the wide bay, instead the top of the sandy beach climbed to grass and the occasional stretch of rock. The city of Xanthos spread wings around the grass, back from the beach. A narrow inlet like a scar in the middle of the harbor divided the city into two halves, the larger left side filled with workshops, tanneries, markets, and a multitude of single-storied houses with roofs of baked clay tiles. The bulk of the citizenry lived in this residential quarter, while the smaller half was home to the Royal Palace and the lofty Temple of Balal, the war god, in addition to half a dozen smaller temples.

A wooden bridge spanned the sandy-bottomed ravine dividing the city, which was filled with water only at the highest tides. Xanthos was a narrow city, built around the curve of the shore like a thin crescent moon. The agora in the residential quarter was far smaller than the square in Phalesia.

But the difference was more than made up for in the size of the Royal Palace.

Three levels high, the palace was tall and grand, with walls of white stone and crimson pennants flying high above. The three tiers were built one on top of the other in order of decreasing size, giving the middle and upper levels broad open terraces filled with gardens.

The architecture of Xanthos was sturdy rather than fanciful, with stout walls around the palace and an even stronger wall guarding the city’s landward side. Rather than the columned temples and multitudinous statues of Phalesia, the people of Xanthos lived in a city that spoke of their nature as miners, farmers, and, above all, warriors.

The largest structure in Phalesia was the lyceum. In Xanthos it was the Temple of Balal, where the soldiers of an army three times the size of Phalesia’s worshipped daily. Made of fitted white marble stones with broad steps leading to a wide entrance as high as three men, there was no way to mistake the god it was devoted to, for just outside the temple of the war god was a colossal bronze statue of an armored hoplite warrior wearing a crested helmet, standing at the ready with shield and spear.