The barge floated up to a slot in a stone abutment. It slipped into place as if a part of it, like a puzzle piece. Dariel was jostled by the Ishtat, tugged into motion. He tripped on his ankle chains and would have fallen if the guards at his elbow had not held him upright. He tried to spit the bit out of his mouth, to push it with his tongue. He would have yelled for the guards to stop, just pause a moment and let him take in the world. Do him that kindness, at least. Glancing back, he noticed that Calrach and the other Numrek lingered on the barge, staring up at the walls looking stunned.

They were off the barge and trudging toward a gate in the wall. A contingent of others met them, but Dariel was not near enough to make them out in detail. Nor did he have much time to try.

Soon they were all in motion, walking through the gate and into the city. They marched down wide stone-paved thoroughfares, painted in different shades of green and blue. Stout buildings lined them. They were only two or three stories tall, but they were heavy looking, thick, with rounded contours and painted varying shades of red and orange and maroon. Here and there massive statues stood in the street, forms thirty or so feet in height, in postures of combat, rage, triumph. They were strangely familiar looking, although also totally bizarre. They mixed human and animal forms: a bear’s head on a man’s body; a standing lizard with two muscled, human arms; a bulbous-eyed frog thing that stood on two legs with its chest inflated; a horned, vaguely feminine form twisted into an acrobatic posture, bent over backward in a sensuous shape trapped in stone.

Dariel was not the only one staring at the statues. Many an Ishtat Inspectorate soldier stared gape mouthed at them. Only the leaguemen managed to seem unimpressed. They walked with their chins raised, faces calm, gestures as languorous as their pace allowed. Occasionally, they spoke to one another in voices meant to be overheard, meant to assure the group that they were in control.

“See this new place with open eyes,” Sire Neen advised. “Open eyes but not fearful ones. It takes bold men to act boldly—and to receive the rewards. We come as partners to the Auldek. They will be pleased.” Dariel, despite his hatred of the man, found himself hungry to believe him.

Beneath the statues, the streets were as clean swept as any place in the high palace of Acacia, tidier by far than those of other cities like Alecia. And this city—Dariel realized he did not even know its name—was alive with inhabitants engaged in all manner of work. For a time he only partially glimpsed them. There were those tall figures among them, but most were a more normal size, a mixed population like that in any trade-based city. He wanted to see faces, to make eye contact, and to see if he might convey a message to someone, anyone who might help him; but he was surrounded by the Ishtat soldiers and they moved too swiftly.