In Tower's Shadow

Chapter 1 (Arrival)

Today was not going to be a good day.

Sarah groaned and glared at the daylight peering cheerfully through the window. What god gave it the authority to awake her with its careless joyful indifference, especially at this hour? Daylights were only man-made contraptions. They never had to drag themselves out of bed and enter a strange world.

Well, she was awake now. It had done its job. She'd promised herself a week to recover from the crash, and now it was up. Sarah got out of bed and did her best to make herself presentable. She could obtain something to eat on the way. The shirt and trousers were fine, having finally dried out from the storm, but the coat was another story entirely. For one thing, it had never fit. That was what came from stealing rather than buying. In the second place, she had not been particularly kind to it over the years, and some further patches and modifications had lent a decidedly madcap air to it. To complete the image, the only hat she had (was it the custom to wear hats here?) was a three-corner affair with an old feather that stood up defiantly, daring her to place it in order. She let it be. This time. Before she left, she moved her left arm, the metal one, experimentally. It still had enough power for a bit longer. Still no rust, so that was good.She scuffed her shoes on the floor and clicked her tongue approvingly at the blue sparks she created.

Pulling the front door closed behind her, she collected herself and adopted an image of confidence. She was Sarah Travesse, for Astor's sake. She had crossed the globe and walked among the stars. She had been co-captain of the second most dangerous pirate ship known to the empire. She was here to take the city of Twil and to make it fear her name!

She was also alone, penniless, and haunted by a family curse.

Not that it really did any good to think about any of that at the moment. She couldn't be Sarah Travesse, given the circumstances. The best thing to do would be to grit her teeth and take it easy for a bit until she could reemerge. The gods seemed to like her, so maybe it wouldn't be too hard.

Adopting a semiconfident gait, she walked down the front steps of the flat. Twil was undoubtedly a beautiful city. Here, close to the harbor, wooden buildings crowded flagstone streets in an attempt to get a glimpse of the university complex at the center of the city, more or less politely yielding to others that had some stone in their blood. These, in turn, gave way to more pure-blooded structures until only marble knelt at the foot of the university and paid homage. Throughout, tall windows and pointed arches caught the morning light, like a garden still shaking off the dew. Over all of this wound the majestic labyrinth of the train system in its endless task of trying to get from here to there. The only other train she knew of was the Trimont-Scythe Railway, far above.

Now, to navigate the garden. Someone at customs had said something about a "chancery" a few streets over, where she could at least get the process started. Hopefully, she could find someone to give her directions.

Thump!

Sarah whirled, hand looking for the sword she'd lost in the shipwreck. There, on the ground in front of her, was a newspaper. She traced its trajectory and found the culprit: a young man was walking away from her, satchel stuffed with more. "Hey! Stand a moment!"

He turned at her voice and waited for her to catch up. "Can I help? If want subscription, I will require name and address."

"No, nothing like that. Do you know where I could find a chancery? I'm new here."

He pointed up the street behind her. "Down there. Look for Oilwood Road and turn left. Chancery will be on your right, I think."

"How far down Oilwood?"

He turned away from her and continued his route. "I don't know. Just continue until you see it. Now, if you'll excuse me."

Chancery. Ashen-sounding word. From what she could tell, the corresponding Stellar word was "scriptorium." That was another downside about trying to live here. In the empire proper, Stellar was the lingua omnia, but here on the frontier, everyone spoke Ashen, the language of knowledge. While her Stellar and Ebric were both very good, she couldn't understand a word of Ashen. To make matters worse, she'd discovered a few days ago that people in this particular gem of a city spoke a hodgepodge of Ashen and some random barbarian language. How was anyone supposed to learn how to talk here?