Chương 394: 11.3

Radomil looked around the streets of what was once the heart of the old Cantor empire. A city by the same name, which he was coming to grasp, was far too great a thing to go by that name. Everywhere he looked were the bones of buildings grander and greater than any he had ever seen. Foundations rising up and looming over neighborhoods like foothills of mountains. Wide valleys of streets carved to flatten the spaces. And then like a moss of red bricks and pale plaster the later city had overgrown these ruins.

It was like a city made for giants that had toppled and rotted and then been built over by the structures of mere men and women. Many of the wide streets had been narrowed by encroaching buildings. The flat canyons of the buildings the only places which mere mortal buildings could easily find space. Prouder, more aspirational constructions hung on or in the vast walls and arches of the massive constructions. Paths and stairs built up to looming cliffs.

Wooden dock works and entire ships passed overhead along the solid bridges of stone that carried water. But those arches were just as often broken as they were still intact. The city's ruins having surrounded them for days of travel to its heart, eerie looming walls and collapsed arches with none of this bustling crowding growth. Farmland and villages that filled what he had only recently come to appreciate were once avenues and open plazas. Streets buried in soil to allow the growing of things.

Or left as barren flat wastes of stone work broken by small woods or a few rugged fields of wild grass. One town they had passed was built around a fountain so extravagant and vast it dwarfed every inhabited structure around. Water flowing loose into an improvised series of creeks and filling ponds that were all far too wide and shallow.

Old Cantor's ruin dominated the Sun Blessed land for miles in every direction, yet for all its vast edifices most of it was sparsely populated villages nestled on the streets and hollow buildings. Radomil had seen in his time now far more cities then he had ever imagined. Light's End, Kaeketeh, even Terminapolis?! All of them could have nestled easily into the outskirts that Old cantor had once claimed with its solid stone streets and structures.

But yet despite that almost all of them were empty, He had seen alleys wider than rivers! Broken 'aquaducts' that had broken at their foundations and spilled waterfalls into lakes that drowned a space the size of Light's End in water and marsh. If he was still practicing his old trade Radomil would have found the environs of Old Cantor a fine place to wait for marks. But even there the trade seemed sparse.

The proper and inhabited core of Old Cantor was an impressive city, almost certainly an equal to Terminapolis in bustle and people, but compared to the vastness of the ruins around it? Even the grandest buildings erected here were hovels and swinesheds compared to the buildings rising up around them. And at the center of the inhabited portion of Old Cantor was the holding of their client.

The Pantheon, a domed structure with columns easily each more than twelve feet across if not more, seventeen of them making the supports for the nearly intact structure. For even here the greatest temple in all the known world, the ruin of Old Cantor and its fall could be seen. The dome, wide enough to cover all of Kaeketeh's mid town, was cracked down its middle. A deep chasm twisted across the structure, at a distance looking like a mere fracture, a black bolt of lightning weaving across the dome.

But as they passed between two of the pillars Radomil could see the open sky between the cracks. If his guess was right then it would take three men to reach across that space so high above. And yet for all the terrible damage such a break represented? The dome remained hanging over them. Suspended like a man made vault! The ceiling was a shining display of the heavens and all its stars. Like night had been brought to day as they walked into it.

The shadows and something else Radomil could not guess at making the curving stone above him that rich dark blue of a night's sky, its stars the fierce and shining colors of the gods he was familiar with. His mother's star only lost to him for it happened to occupy the great rent in that faux-heaven overhead where pale Cantor stone glowed around a searing bolt of blue sky.

The sun's radiance cut into the solemn darkness of the Pantheon like gold curtains, glittering off a winding garden with a little brook beneath them. And onward they walked, their wagons and feet somehow muffled in that space, leaving the deep quiet of a false night unbroken even as he spotted numerous other baggage trains and little crowds of robed priests, herds of animals and finely dressed folk that must have been nobles wandering the expanse of flat stone beneath the dome.

And then they were past the great dome of the Pantheon and entering the far more modest hallway of the adjoining rooms. Again Radomil noticed how feebly the white plaster of the recent constructions attempted to blend with the solid stone of Old Cantor. Radomil could practically smell the riches that had been spent meticulously painting scenes of divinity and miracles into that plaster. What the people in the sun blessed lands called 'frescos'. Yet in the literal shadow of Old Cantor's works?

The painted walls and the hall beyond should have been impressive! It was a greater space more opulently decorated than anywhere in Ouenetoia Radomil had been. But against the vastness of the dome their party had just passed under? It felt cramped and small. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

And the man who met them as representative for the Pantheon's bounty was much like the room, extravagantly decorated, but all of it put upon a man far less impressive for it. He was old, skin speckled with dark spots and wrinkles hanging off his face, but there was a feverish light to his eyes all the same. He stood straight in the back despite the age that surely was weighing upon him.

He had the stance of a man who knew the danger of a road walked alone, and a sharpness to his eyes that Radomil matched with his own. It made the hairs on his neck stand up. Some of the merchants were keen in the way that worried travelers could be. But this man wrapped in gold embroidery, deepest tyrian purple and richest burgundy hanging off his body is such volumes it made him resemble a tent? He was looking at them like a mark, sizing them up much like Radomil himself might.

"Welcome to my weary partners in victory, to the Pantheon of Cantor! I've already received word by our good customers among the priesthood already of your success. So a thousand times welcome, good men of my Enterprise! I am Peter Bulchava and today I am going to make you and yours rich as kings! But for those of you with the will, there is far, far more than silver or gold to be had here!" Those eyes did not blaze, there was no sorcerous light in them, but they drew the eye anyway.

Radomil glanced around the room, spotted the bronze mirrors backing the candles on the wall behind them. Well... That couldn't be comfortable shining light into his face like that no matter how good it might make his impression.

"The Pantheon's treasury and my own are deep indeed, but far more valuable than all their coin are the services that the imminent diviners in the world can offer, now then before we meet with the esteemed priesthood and the rest of their grand project, I'd see the proof of our labors with my own eyes!" Radomil gave Leandro a glance, but received a subtle shift in return. Then he thumbed to John and Bruiser to come forward with the overbuilt handcart that they had transferred the eggs during the journey.

It was astounding really just how much silver could be shrunk and lightened with the right goods. If he'd known half what he did now as a boy? Well he probably wouldn't have ever gotten into banditry in the first place. Burglaring noble estates for their secret treasures was apparently by far more lucrative! The man who apparently was the name sake of the whole enterprise flexed his fingers like crawling spiders as they brought the cart forward.

Shifting from one foot to another either like a child or a knife fighter. Radomil nodded to Leandro, who produced the partner to the key also held up and together they moved between the ancient stranger wrapped in opulence to undo the locks and latches on the heavy weight of the strong box. It had cost no small sum, but it probably had helped discourage the more sticky fingered people outside of his crew. One or two eggs in a sack was one thing, but a great heavy thing of metal big enough to hold a man?

That was another matter. He knew he wouldn't have wanted to haul the thing. Then each of them worked on their own locks, three each, the cost there had been most of the silver spent on the strong box. But compared to the loss if even one of the eggs was stolen? Worth it. Up the heavy metal lid came, Radomil's arms doing more work then Leandro's and only then did they step to the side. Revealing the four eggs within.

There was no consistency in color, one was a dull brass in hue, another a tan not out of the question for a chicken's egg, the third was mottled with speckles like a forest bird, the last was a dull almost black slate. But they had tested every one of them, with picks, swords and hammers. One and all these were true wyrm eggs. The smile that broke over Peter Bulchava's wrinkle creased face made him look more like some kind of troll or other night creature from stories.

It reminded Radomil of the cave folk's writhing pigs. The man took out a short dagger, hardly suitable as any kind of weapon in a fight, but Radomil had seen its' like in Magarska, Leandro had one too. With the overlong hilt clasped in papery skinned hands the man clenched the hilt of the specialty tool tightly. Then drove its point down against each egg in turn. The hollow sound of metal forced into unyielding and unbreakable surfaces grated with each stab. But all the same the man's smile somehow grew even wider.

"Excelent! Excellent!" he looked up at Radomil and Leandro, at the rest of his crew.

"You can arrange your promised payment with my clerks and the priesthood through that door, but I implore all of you to stay in the Pentheon's quarters as my guests. In spite of all the riches and boons available to you from the Priesthood and their patron gods." Men came from the passage behind him, robed figures each gently grasping a king's bounty in Wyrmegg in their hands. It made Radomil's fingers itch but these were the 'customers' they were supposed to take the treasure in exchange for his pay.

"I have an offer of an even more lucrative sort to those interested in furthering my Enterprise. Your part of the endeavor was the most successful out of all the efforts made this year." Peter Bulchava stepped back to his place where the light of the candles shone on his eyes just so. But Leandro had to break the man's expected rhythm with a gentle inquiry.

"Pardon me, trademaster Bulchava... But the cart and lockbox won't fit through the smaller door-" Which earned a grunt of annoyance and a spark of brow twisting fury on the man's brow, before he stilled himself and gained a grasp of his smile.

"Ah no trouble at all, leave them both here, I'll make sure you are compensated for it. Now off with you, I have less successful members of my enterprise to receive today." And with that Radomil, his crew and Leandro were soundly dismissed. Naturally, Bruiser offered a hushed mutter as they passed into the adjoining room." We get our pay and we flee, no good can come of staying here." Radomil was in full agreement.