Blooms white block my vision as the ship starts to rise. We are lost in the shadow of Faeth, an eclipsing penumbra too large to understand from below. Then, we break through the surface of the cloud layer, and an island floating on a sea of white spreads out before me.

The sky around the massive island is all of one color, rolling mists of white vapor perfectly encapsulating the edges for miles, breaking apart into more disparate whisps as they reach further offshore. Sheer walls of unworked stone constitute the sides of the island, rising for a hundred feet or more out of the sea of white before they level at the top. Ringing the edge of Faeth is a wall of magical light, a green and opaque energy that begins less than a foot away from the edge, stretching all around the perimeter of the island.

"The port is on the south side," Corinth tells me, urging me to bring the ship around.

We travel for almost an hour with the wall of emerald light off the starboard side of the ship. There is something to the monocolor as I bring us around the floating island, a feeling as we roll across the sky above an ocean of shifting, white foam, and next to a seemingly endless wall of magical energy. It feels as if we almost stop moving, listing directionless. After some time, there is a change in the endless wall of energy. A protruding ring of glittering metal pushes out from the emerald light, an opening large enough to drive a castle through. Eighteen long rails of steel extend from the circular opening, sticking out from the wall for more than five hundred feet. As we near, I realize that they are docks, long, extending rails upon which are parked hundreds of ships from every make in the world, upon which walk more than a thousand people. We head toward one of the rails in particular, my golden vessel aligning with an open space on the rail, coming to a floating rest next to an empty slip on the long dock made of a material more solid than iron and more dull as well.

Two arms of metal reach out from the dock next to my ship like tweezers descending upon an insect. The two arms begin to morph, the metal rippling as they near the circular ring of the ship. Dovik, standing at the fore of the ship to watch the arms meet the ship, stumbles as the arms grab onto the edge of my ship's golden platform, locking it in place. After more than a week of travel, the ship stills; our arrival is finally complete.

"We will have to leave the ship here," Corinth tells me, stepping out onto the metallic dock in front of us. "Faeth doesn't allow for anyone to own the skies inside the city."

Dovik skips the gap between the ship and the dock, not trusting to walk on the arms holding the ship in the slip as Corinth did. I find myself scratching my fingerpads as I follow them, throwing glances back toward my golden vessel. I've never gotten around to naming the craft, never thought it important before. Stretching far down either side of the dock, other sky vehicles are moored. Some are shaped like dangerous creatures made of various materials. Some are so large that they would put an ocean-faring ship to shame with their scale, easily taking up more than a dozen spaces along the side of the dock. Only a few are in the same make as mine, floating discs of metal. None, gleam with the obvious expense as my literally golden ship does. Exiting, I command the dome of the ship to reappear, enclosing the vessel. Tits and honey, I just know someone is going to try to steal it.

Corinth appears unconcerned, striding down the dock without a care in the world. As we follow him, I look ahead, seeing the massive, oval opening in the side of the glistening wall with new eyes. Now, I can see it for what it is, the face of a goliath made of stone. The face is distorted, the eyes and nose too close together, a baleful glare rendered in marble that looks down at the tiny people scurrying about from beneath a great crown. The eighteen docks extend from its open mouth like metal tongues, a long beard of stone cascading down like a waterfall to disappear into the white murk beneath us. Seeing the giant stops me for a moment, but only a moment. Corinth approaches a woman wearing thick blue clothing and a furry hat to protect her ears from the cold. Her appearance pulls my attention away from the giant face we march toward the mouth of. She is dwarven, but of a kind I have never seen before.

"Istla vera?" she says, turning and spying Corinth as he waves toward her. She looks up from a rectangle of steel with lights playing across its surface, peering at my brother through gold-trimmed spectacles. The eyes that look through the spectacles are a featureless, pink voids, lacking any discernible pupils or irises. Her skin looks at first blush to be made of a hard and gray granite, almost like that of an earthspeaker, except that it reflects a metallic sheen where the sunlight catches the fringes. Strangest of all, she wears a wig of turquoise rolls that piles so high atop her head that it is nearly half her height. It has to be a wig; there is no way that is real.

"Vera?" Corinth replies with a nod. "Sena. Tesu vera alla a mansca tume sid avis." He gestures back over his shoulder toward my ship. "Ava sid avis." The two begin speaking animatedly from there.

"Dovik," I say, stepping up next to him.

"Yes?"

"I probably should have asked this some time before, but what language do they speak in Faeth?"

My friend smiles. "Why, Charlene, that would be Tallic."

"Do you speak any Tallic?"

"I'm afraid that I do not," he says. "But won't it be exciting to learn together?"

I grunt a response. Ahead, the dwarven woman nods at Corinth, looking down at the metal rectangle in her hand and pushing her fingers to some of the glowing symbols on its surface. The symbols change every time she touches them, moving in a complex pattern that thoroughly ruins any understanding I might glean. The piece of metal issues a sharp chirp, birthing a thick piece of paper from its top that the woman tears away and hands to Corinth. Corinth takes it, handing her back a coin made from an orange metal and two red ones of the same material.

He turns to me. "This is the docking ticket for the ship," he says, handing the paper to me. I take his word for it as I tuck the paper away. The symbols all over its surface are entirely alien to me. "You will have to come and get another in a week. Since you are going to be here for a while, I would look into long-term docking. It isn't cheap, but it will save you the trip every week."

I nod slowly at him. "Right."

"Don't worry," he tells me, turning to walk at the lead down the dock once again, offering the dwarven woman a nod as we pass, "you will pick up the language quickly."

I have serious doubts about that.

The walk to the gaping mouth at the end of the dock is longer than I thought at first glance. I see all manner of people moving between the various platforms stretching out from the open mouth. There is no cohesion to those moving back and forth across the metal. One moment, I think I see some order in the chaos as a group of elves work together to unload crates from a vessel made of ivory, and the next, I am looking at what appear to be men and women made of living flames, flames of every color of the rainbow other than the color of natural fire.

The closer we draw to the wall, the more of the strange dwarves I begin to notice moving about. Some of them wear the same outrageous hair pieces that the first one did, rolls of vibrant colors staked high atop their heads, but these seem to be in the minority. Most move between the docks, manning the ramps that connect the various platforms, the hair on their head the same color as their granitine skin. The variance of these people comes mostly in the eyes, in the fascinating confusion of whole color that ebbs and flows. Each of them is dressed in the same sturdy, blue material, each carrying a similar rectangular device to the one Corinth first spoke to, either in their hands or attached to a loop on their belt.

I wonder for a moment if I can get my hands on such a device. I have no idea what it does, but it seems important enough that they all have one. Beside me, Dovik is equally captivated by the atmosphere of constant movement around us. There is a working attitude to the people. These docks are a place of business where serious attitudes prevail.

As we make the final approach toward the opening in the wall, more and more of the dwarves walk around with apparent armaments. Different from the guards that I have known all my life, these rarely carry any blades, though there are a few present. Mostly, two different rods hang from the loops of their belts that are fascineted around the same tough material as the others. One of the rods appears like a simple club, a dark metal that I can tell is heavy from how it hangs, but the other is something different. The second of the two rods glows with magic in my eyes, an incredible mixture of different overlapping affixes that create a taste too complex for me to easily pick apart. What I can tell is that they are strong, dangerously so.

The three of us join a queue at the front of the docks, sandwiching ourselves between a group of dwarves of a kin I am more familiar with and an eclectic mix of insectoid people I have never seen before. Every time the line takes a step forward, it is as if the insectoid people stop another inch closer to me. After ten minutes, they are looming, the tallest among them at nine feet in height, casting a shadow over me as it speaks with one of the others in a sing-song language. Not for the first time, I miss having Galea around to help me identify everything I am looking at. I will take care of that soon. I must.

Again, Corinth engages the dwarves in conversation as we make it to the front of the queue. One of them walks up to him, waving a metallic wand in front of him before looking down at its metal rectangle. Then, he turns and shows the symbols to Corinth. After studying the symbols for a moment, Corinth nods, putting his thumb in a square at the bottom of the rectangle. A new piece of paper spurts from the top of the rectangle, is taken by the guard to an office nearby, before the dwarven man returns with a different paper that he hands to Corinth. My brother takes it, turning to me to show off the paper, as the same dwarf steps up to Dovik to start running his wand through the air in front of my friend.

"Entry permit," Corinth says, motioning at the piece of paper. "The first thing that you will come to understand about Faeth is that they love to organize and categorize. The bureaucracy here is more advanced than anything you have ever dealt with. It comes from their patron deity, Aminriale, I mentioned her to you before. For some reason, the goddess loves to count, so about everything that the Faethians do can be broken into classifications. Even their money, as they don't use the precious metal standard, is based on the colors of the rainbow for whatever reason. Red is the lowest, orange worth ten times more than that, and yellow ten times more than orange. It progresses on toward indigo, but you will likely never deal with amounts that high."

"It is…strange," I say. Ahead of us, the dwarven man is pointing at some symbols on his metal rectangle as he holds it up to Dovik. Dovik clearly doesn't understand the man's words, and his calm smile seems to be putting the dwarf off. The man grunts before walking away to the office.

"That is the world, Charlene." Corinth nods. "It is a strange place, but I wouldn't have it any other way."

From the office, a female dwarf wearing one of those strange, poofy wigs strolls out, accompanied by the man who just went inside. The man gesticulates to his metal rectangle, showing it to her. She stops in front of Dovik, looking him up and down with a hard gaze, before taking the rectangle. Then, she begins to read from the symbols, translating them into words Dovik and I can understand, though her speech is oddly stilted. As she continues to read, I begin to understand that she has a list of items, a list of items that includes the things Dovik keeps hidden in his spatial rings. The dwarven woman glares at me when I step next to Dovik to try and look at the apparent list on the rectangle. Her stare is enough to have me backing away before she returns to the task of reading the list to Dovik.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"How can they know what he has hidden in his rings?" I ask Corinth.

He smirks. "This is a land of literal enchantment. The people here devote themselves to understanding the underpinnings of magic itself. Being able to detect the items in a storage device is simple for them."

I ponder that a moment, far more apprehensive of getting to the front of the queue than I was just before. The female dwarf directs Dovik to put his thumb to the rectangle, which apparently indicates that he believes the list to be correct. After doing so, the woman retreats to the office, returning with a slip of paper almost identical to the entry permit that Corinth received. Then, the unstoppable inertia of the queue behind us propels me forward.

"Hold for a moment," the dwarven woman says as her companion steps forward and starts waving his wand in the air in front of my face. I pause, trying to think if there is anything inside my vault that could cause a problem with these strange people. There are many odd things that I have picked up, several weapons that I haven't parted with, and some materials that might become explosive under the right circumstances. As I am sorting through the list of them, the man steps back, showing the rectangle to the woman.

"Just a magical dagger, some gold coins, and a damaged eighth-generation providence interface," she mutters, turning a skeptical eye my way.

In my confusion, I almost give myself away. I stop myself from asking how that is possible, grasping almost immediately that their device was unable to detect the items in my vault. More, it seems unable to locate the equipment I have in the strange liminal space the throne has granted me. That is something I still need to investigate for myself. It takes me a moment to realize what the last item she mentions is. I don't exactly understand the words; I know them, but just not in that order. She must be talking about the Eye of Volaash, it is the only thing on me–or rather, in me–that I have ever heard being mentioned in the same breath as "providence."

"Yes," I confirm to her, doing my best to nod.

The woman looks me up and down for a long moment before turning the rectangle around to me, allowing me to put my thumb on the square at the bottom. Less than a minute later, I have an entry permit of my own, allowing me access to the city.

"Enjoy your time in Faeth," she says, ushering us forward before returning to the small office off to the side.

I linger for a moment, staring after her, until Corinth gets us moving ahead. Only as we come to the opening of the portal in the wall do I realize that I can't see inside. The shapes past the open mouth are indistinct, colors blurring together, like a film has been stretched over the world. It is a secondary barrier, one not nearly as opaque as the green shield wall that surrounds the floating island. Corinth steps forward, showing his entry permit to one of the two guards who stand in front of the portal. Dovik and I do the same. My brother stops, pressing his hand to the translucent magic in front of him, running his fingers across the surface.

"They've improved it since the last time that I was here," he says. He turns to us, nodding back toward the barrier. "Time for the two of you to see Faeth with your own eyes." With that, he steps forward, passing through the magical film with only a slight ripple to mark his passage. As we step through the wall of magical energy ourselves, I come to understand the ceremony of his words.

When I first saw Grim, my mind could not handle the scale of it. A city, a place where thousands of people lived together, worked together, and moved about in such a small area, was impossible to truly imagine without seeing it for myself. Then, when I came to Danfalla, I had a similar, if somewhat muted, revelation. So when I stepped through the portal and into the city of Faeth, I did not expect to have a similar experience. I, as it turns out, was dead wrong.

The lining of the emerald wall rolls away to either side of the platform I walk out onto, running off toward the horizon before slowly turning to encompass the east and west for as far as I can see. I stand high up, hundreds of feet above the natural floor of the city. Buildings shoot up from the ground far below, towering even past where I stand, explicitly impossible in their scale. A corridor that I come to understand as being the widest street I have seen in my life runs straight away from me, bordered on either side by looming structures of sparkling glass and green stone. Hundreds–no, thousands-of people move up and down just the single street that is more than eighty feet across, a constant din created by their stamping feet and murmuring voices.

The buildings, each one is a masterpiece as far as I can see. The tower, like mirrored spikes jutting up from a bed of poured stone, sunlight captured on their exteriors, never growing bright enough to blind. In between the myriad panes of glass runs a smooth stone the color of turquoise. In fact, almost every structure I can immediately see seems to be made of the material, though there are buildings made from different pastel-colored stone here and there. Down below at the level of the street, lights stand out, blinking with magic as signals to allow traffic to flow smoothly. Advertisements of similar magical color mark the entrances to most of the buildings, multiple signs in an unfamiliar script that I can only imagine as telling of what services might be found inside. The single street that I stare down, unable to see the end, is not unique. Rows and rows of such streets extend off to the sides of the first in an ever-reaching grid pattern, the buildings growing progressively smaller the further they travel from the obvious center street of the city, but the theme is not uniform. Spires rising even higher than those on the central corridor poke from the chaos throughout the city; they climb higher into the sky than even the dead tree in Danfalla had, the only similarity between them being the mirrored exteriors and the fact that most have some glittering light at their apex. The effect is like staring at a pond during the hottest day of summer, watching as the disturbed water glistens with the light, looking almost as if it is covered in jewels.

A hand falls on my shoulder, and I flinch, finding Corinth standing next to me. There is concern on his face, but only for a moment, before he looks out to the city stretching out infinitely before us. "It is something, isn't it?"

"It is," I agree. They are the only words that I can think to say.

It takes us more than ten minutes to descend from the top of the platform, taking a path of switch-backing stairways down to the base level of the city. A smell hits me as Corinth opens the door, a general stink that seems to meld with the heat of the city. It is unpleasant, a mixture of body odor and long-forgotten refuse, but there is something to it that speaks directly to the character of Faeth. People walk past us as we follow Corinth out onto the street. Most are the same stone-like dwarves that we encountered up on the dock, but there are people of all kinds moving about the bustling streets. Many I can't even guess at the origin of.

Corinth doesn't wait, doesn't care to try taking in the sights, and instead leads us into a descending tunnel. I follow, my eyes scanning everything, finding a few signs written in Castinian that advertise all sorts of services: fresh fruit, star reading, enchantment repair, and something called Loneliness Curing. Corinth speaks as he leads us, talking about the general makeup of the city, telling us about the governors, how the people elect their officials, and how Faeth has managed to accumulate such extravagant wealth over the centuries. The histories are interesting, but I don't feel like any of it sinks in. Everything is just too bright and new.

Down past the entrance to the tunnel, Corinth leads us toward a moving walkway that runs beneath the streets. People step onto the paths, allowing the walkways to carry them through the complex maze of paths beneath the city toward their destinations. Every now and again, a sign that looks more like a confused mess of different colored yarns stands out on the walls. My brother only needs a moment to look at each before directing us onward. Apparently, that is enough for him to know where to go.

It takes another hour of travelling the moving walkways beneath the city for us to finally find a ramp upward that lets out onto the street. The buildings here are far more subdued, the tallest only reaching eight or so stories high. Muttering to himself, Corinth leads us a few blocks down, finding a nondescript building set out. He pulls a slab of metal no bigger than his thumb from his pocket, and when he puts the piece to the door, it swings open.

He sighs. "I had wondered if the key would still work," he says, leading us into the building and up the stairs. We don't stop until we have reached the top, where Corinth's key unlocks another door. Finally, we arrive, stepping into a penthouse that takes up the entire top floor of the building. A huge open room dominates the center of the penthouse, where a glass ceiling allows natural light to filter down.

"You own this?" Dovik asks, looking around the central room after closing the door behind us.

"I do," Corinth confirms. "There are bedrooms down the hall; they should all be clear. There are a few washing rooms throughout, which should be easy to find, and there is also a kitchen toward the back, but there isn't likely to be any food in the place. You will have to find that for yourself, but luckily, food isn't difficult to come by here. Charlene, I want to show you something."

As Dovik takes his tour of the penthouse, Corinth leads me away. Two rights off the main room, Corinth opens the door to a chamber that seems to run the entirety of the eastern wall of the building. For how long the room is, the walls are covered with bookcases that mostly sit empty. A dead plant stands next to the window in the far corner, and burn marks decorate the blue tile floor.

"This," Corinth says, leading me in and gesturing around. "This was my laboratory when I studied at the academy."

I follow him in, my eyes flicking between the long window that shows a good view of the surrounding neighborhood. Shorter buildings with far fewer windows and more of that teal stone stretch away before the shape of the city is lost to the various high buildings that stand like trees in a forest, blocking sight of anything more than a few blocks away. People move down on the street, far fewer than were on the main road I saw immediately after entering Faeth, but still many. Outside, people lounge on the flat rooftops of the buildings, lying in chairs and using laundry lines as shade.

"How many?" I find myself asking.

Corinth stops in the middle of his sentence, turning to look out the window next to me. "Fourteen million," he says, his words almost reverent. "That was when I last lived here, almost five years ago now, five years by most people's standard anyway."

"Fourteen million," I repeat. The number sounds impossible. How could so many people even be alive on the planet, let alone live in a single city? There were more people here than in the kingdom of Gale. Hells, there might be more people in this single city than lived in the whole Empire put together.

My brother stands silently next to me, giving me time to look out at the city. I don't know how long I stay like that, just watching the people go about their daily lives down below. He is still here when I turn.

"You studied at the academy?" I ask him. "I thought you said you weren't an enchanter."

"Right. I studied at the College of Spellcraft. The academics in Faeth study magic in all of its forms, which brings me back to what I was going to say earlier." He gestures at the room once more. "While you are in the city, I insist that you use this place to live. There is a quick route that will lead you to the academy that I can write down for you; the trip only takes twenty minutes or so. You will need to visit a money changer to get the local currency; I'll give you the name of one I trust." He ventures over to a bookshelf, tapping one of the few remaining books in the room. "This is a translation guide for Castinian to Tallic. You should pick it up quickly, but you will learn it faster if you engage with the people of the city. Do not expect people to know Castinian. They will likely be very irritated if you do. It isn't a popular language here."

He taps his chin, looking about the room. "I'm going to go lie down. You can take the bedroom after I get up. If I can think of anything else to tell you about before I leave, I will. I still need to make an anchor point to this penthouse, which will take me some time, so if you think of any other questions you want answered, make certain to let me know."

"You make it sound like you are going to leave right away," I say, just managing to keep the worry out of my voice.

"No, not right away. I should sleep first." He looks at me, a smile spreading across his face. "I can at least leave you more prepared than I was when I first came here."

"It seems like no matter where I go, I am just following in your footsteps," I say, finding the statement truer than I meant it.

"Good," he says, stepping up and patting me on the shoulder. "My feet have carried me to some interesting places." He grows suddenly serious, the shift striking into me the importance of his next words. "You told me that you need to reach the third rank in just under two years, and to do that, you need to go to Tabbris. I hate that, Charlene, but I can admire the drive that I sense in your spirit. I don't have an anchor location near the gate to that particular Hell as of yet, but I can secure one. What I told you before, I still hold as true. If I return in a year and I can't deem you as strong enough to survive that place, I will not take you. Moreover, I will make certain that you can't go, not until the need is dire or you gain the strength to survive. I know you can work hard, but what you do in the next year will prove that dedication. So, dedicate yourself, expand your knowledge, and power while here. I know you can do it, but I also know that it won't be easy."

I search for an appropriate response, but in the end, can only settle upon nodding. Corinth's smile returns as he retreats from the laboratory. He leaves the door open on his way out, the sound of his footfalls disappearing down the hallway. Then, I am alone, left in the barren room with only myself to keep me company. A sigh escapes my lips as I turn to the window. I take one final moment, breathing in the last of my peace, before turning my mind to the task at hand. Raising my hands, the entirety of my enchantment table falls with a heavy thud to the floor in front of me, several glass apparatuses barely managing to stay upright as the weight of the table settles. I flex my hands, feeling the tendons in my fingers stretch in anticipation.

"Time to get to work."

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