Salvage ~ V1: Nuts and Bolts (Steampunk/ Gaslamp Romantasy ~ FxM, MxM)

Chapter 9: Master Ilianus

The night sky began to lighten as the carriage neared Elisaen, the capital city of Caedra. Madame Brandra nudged Kazia and Neiphi awake.

"We are almost there, my loves," she said. "You won't want to miss this."

Driving through the night, there had been nothing to see from the windows but endless darkness and the infrequent lights from a village off the road.

They made rest stops in a few of these, where the people were all asleep, but the government buildings were always open to the Queen's Alchemists and they were accommodated by nightwatchmen. Beyond that, the only entertainment to be had was the occasional animal bleating or mooing its indignation out of the dark at the swiftly passing carriage.

Some time ago they had entered the hill country that lined the river valley where the city was situated.

Now as the hills became smaller they began to see houses dotted about, where small-plot farmers raised chickens and cows to supply the city daily with milk and eggs. Further lightening of the sky showed some of these houses to be quite grand, their parcels of land marked out in tall wrought-iron fences, with no farming activity to be seen.

Soon enough, the houses came closer together, lights blinking on within them now as their inhabitants roused for the morning, and streets began to branch away from the road they still traveled. The main road was now lit at intervals with tall, ornate gas lamps.

Here the road took a turn around the foot of a hill ahead, and when they came around the other side, the river valley and the heart of the city lay in full view below them.

Kazia and Neiphi both gasped as it appeared so suddenly, lit up as if all the stars in the sky had descended to rest in the river valley.

One's attention was immediately drawn to the castle, situated on a large island formed where the river parted and then rejoined, giving the impression of an eye in the center of the city.

The estate seemed a small city unto itself. In the center of the island stood the keep, the residence of the royal family, and this was surrounded by a seemingly random assortment of towers, houses and other buildings added in different eras and showing an architectural timeline of the castle's long history. All of the brick or stone buildings had been washed in lime, though, and all capped with the same gray slate roofing, lending an elegant uniformity to the otherwise mismatched complex.

This was all enclosed within a rectangle of long halls with watchtowers at intervals, which quartered the soldiers and also served as a defensive wall, and the entire island then was girdled with a strong stone rampart on which could be seen a series of metal structures. These were Artifacts that detected any magic crossing over their boundary, sending up an alarm if that happened.

The oldest parts of the castle had been built there six hundred years before and endured the passage of time with strength as the city grew up around it into the sprawling metropolis that it was now.

Streets had been carved up the hillsides on either side of the river, and houses there were packed together to accommodate the city's booming population.

Markets and business districts bustled along the riverbanks, already teeming with life in these early morning hours. There were uncountable merchant boats docked at the wharves, more boats out on the water, and above them, four graceful bridges spanned the river, and another two either side of the castle island. They were all lit with gas lamps that made comet-tails where the river reflected them like a mirror.

"Have you never seen a city before?" Kazia asked Neiphi, who was ooh- and ah-ing to the delight of Brandra and Amelys, and the irritation of Kelvaran.

Neiphi shook her head.