Arc 3: Chapter 15: Yselda’s Manse
The carriage cut a winding path through the streets of Garihelm, moving at an alarming pace. Emma and I spoke little during the ride, both of us lost in our own thoughts. I caught sight of changing neighborhoods through the small window, shifting from the modestly wealthy craftsman’s district we’d left into something more austere, more lavish, with tall manor homes and wide avenues lined in gardens and trees.
Above, the storm rolled over the sky in lethargic sullenness. Lightning lashed the sky out across the bay, but only rumbled threateningly high up in the clouds above the city. Slow, steady rain drummed against the stone heights of the capital to run in rumbling falls down the high walls connecting the cities complex of bastion towers.
Garihelm had been built for such weather, and I saw much of the rain collecting in gutters and channels artfully constructed into the very masonry of the city, where it would be taken down to the canals below. Winged angels with upraised bowels, clever depressions in the faces of gothic towers, regal faces made to weep from the runoff emerging from their eyes… a thousand myriad other features performed this function.
Perhaps the Weeping City might have been a better name for the place, I thought.
“Dreary place,” Emma noted, as though reading my thoughts. “Venturmoor had its share of storms, but it’s so loud here.”
“They say Gariban Forger, the lord who first settled here, chose this spot for his city because the weather made any attempt to lay siege by sea folly.” I paused as we passed a gathering in the street — a man in voluminous scarlet robes ranted before a large crowd, his voice an eerie, hollow echo through the rain. Tearing my eyes from the sight and focusing on Emma I added, “The bay is a graveyard for ships.”
“Charming,” Emma muttered.
The carriage stopped not long after that, and Gregori opened the doors for us, even helping Emma out like he would for a proper lady. She let him, wearing a bemused expression on her face the whole time.
Looking around, I saw we were in an upper class neighborhood, with white houses of marble or pale stone. Tall, thin trees shaded both sides of the wide street. Fountains and statues were abundant, and the sky seemed more open here, no higher streets or fortifications looming over us.
Gregori gestured toward one of the gates separating a manor from the street. “This way, sir.”
My natural suspicion surged, and I stopped before the servant led us further on. “Are you taking us to meet Lord Yuri?”