The night was thick as ink. Beneath the dim sky, the outline of Luoweida resembled a great beast crouched on the ground, silent and oppressive, laden with the exhaustion and deathly stillness left by disaster.
Nuoyaji stood before the city gate, looked up at the towering stone wall, and let out a slight sigh of relief.
The walls were still sturdy. The gray stone bricks gleamed cold and damp in the faint light of illumination crystals. Torches stood along the battlements every few dozen paces, their flames swaying in the night wind, stretching and shrinking the shadows of the patrolling soldiers.
As one of the most important mining cities in the empire's south, Luoweida had never relaxed its defenses-even just after the storm, the guards on its walls continued their regular patrols. The scrape of armor and the dull tread of leather boots on stone steps sounded especially clear in the quiet night.
"Hey! Who's there?!"
A soldier patrolling the wall spotted the lone, slight figure at the gate. His sharp shout pierced the night, followed immediately by the click of bows being readied. Nuoyaji stopped at once and raised both hands in a harmless gesture, calling up to the wall, "Don't be nervous! I'm a traveling magic apprentice from Dawn City, here to visit relatives!"
His voice trembled a little in the night wind, not from fear, but because he had spent much of the night walking, and his throat was dry enough to smoke. He held the illumination crystal at his side, its pale blue glow clearly revealing his face-young, pale, and exhausted. He wore an apprentice's robe with frayed edges and carried a chipped iron sword at his waist. He hardly looked like a threat.
Silence fell over the wall for a moment. A middle-aged soldier who seemed to be the captain leaned halfway over, looked Nuoyaji up and down, then turned to exchange a few quiet words with the soldier beside him before waving for the archers to lower their weapons.
"A magic apprentice? Traveling in the middle of the night-aren't you afraid of running into wolves?" The captain's tone softened, though he remained wary. "Where are you apprenticed? Do you have proof?"
Nuoyaji pulled a crumpled sheet of parchment from inside his robe. It was an apprentice's certificate issued by the Dawn City Magic Workshop, bearing the workshop's seal and his instructor's signature. He held the parchment high so the torchlight on the wall could illuminate the writing.
The captain could not make it out clearly, but the sight of the seal eased most of his doubts. The empire's regulation of magic apprentices might not have been particularly strict, but the person bold enough to forge a workshop seal had yet to be born.
"All right. Entry fee, two silver coins." The captain asked no more questions and jerked his chin toward the guard booth by the gate.
Nuoyaji cursed inwardly, but kept his expression unchanged as he took two silver coins from his pocket and handed them to the guard leaning halfway out of the booth. Everything had gone up in price after the storm. Even the entry fee was twice its usual amount.
The gate slowly opened a crack, just wide enough for one person to squeeze through sideways. Nuoyaji slipped inside. The crystal's blue light bobbed a few times in the shadows of the gateway, then soon disappeared into the darkness within the city.
The scene inside was even worse than he had imagined on the road.
Standing water rose above his ankles, reaching past his calves in the deepest places. Splintered wood, straw, and torn cloth floated on its murky surface, with the occasional bloated dead rat among them. Most houses on either side of the street were dark. Only a scattered few still held faint candlelight, like fireflies in the darkness that might go out at any moment.
Some houses had collapsed completely. Fragments of timber and rubble lay piled together, exposing snapped roof beams and crooked doorframes. Others still stood, but ugly cracks split their walls, and most of their roofs had been torn away. Cold wind poured inside, rattling the remaining window frames.
Nuoyaji trudged slowly through the standing water. Water squelched inside his boots, and every step felt as heavy as wading through a swamp.
He could hardly imagine what the cities truly close to the storm's center looked like now.
Luoweida had been lucky-at least its walls remained, at least most of its houses were still habitable, and at least someone was still patrolling. As for the towns struck head-on by the storm, perhaps not even ruins remained.
Nuoyaji suppressed the nameless irritation in his heart and forced himself to focus on what lay before him.
He needed somewhere to stay.
He could not stand in the water all night, much less make do among the ruins. His body would not hold up. He had much to do tomorrow and needed somewhere dry to lie down. Even a hard plank bed and a thin blanket would be better than soaking in water.
He headed east along the street, the crystal's blue light casting a small, pallid halo on the water. After walking for about a quarter of an hour, he spotted a house on a street corner with a light still burning. Dim yellow candlelight seeped through its torn window paper, wavering slightly in the night wind.
Nuoyaji hesitated, then went over.
The room was very bare.
It had an earthen floor and peeling plaster that exposed the mottled stone bricks beneath. A wooden bed with flaking paint stood against the wall. A boy of four or five lay on it, his cheeks flushed with fever, his breathing rapid and weak. A woman in her early thirties sat beside him, her dark brown hair somewhat disheveled, unconcealable exhaustion on her face as she gently patted his chest.
On the other side of the wooden bed, a little girl of about seven or eight lay curled up, her golden hair scattered untidily across the pillow. Her pale blue eyes were half-open. She was not sleepy, but she did not fuss.
Lina could not sleep.
Not because she was afraid, but because... someone was missing.
"Mom, why isn't Dad back yet?"
Lina's voice was soft, tinged with drowsiness and unease. She turned onto her side, her small hand clutching the corner of the blanket, and looked at her mother beside the bed with her pale blue eyes.
The woman's hand paused slightly.
She froze for a moment, a barely perceptible trace of panic flashing through her eyes. Then her gentle expression returned. She bent down, brushed her rough fingers lightly across her daughter's forehead, and tucked the stray strands of hair behind her ear.
"Dad is discussing some things with other people... Don't worry about it. Go to sleep, sweetheart."
Lina blinked, wanting to ask something else, but saw that her mother had already turned away and reached for the oil lamp at the head of the bed. Its weak flame danced by the woman's fingertips, as though it might be blown out the next second.
The woman wanted to extinguish the lamp, but feared her husband would not be able to see his way when he returned.
Just as she hesitated, Lina suddenly lifted her little head and looked toward the door with her pale blue eyes.
"Mom, I think someone's here."
The woman's hand abruptly stiffened. She quickly shielded the oil lamp behind her, her other hand instinctively reaching for the scissors beside the bed as she watched the doorway warily.
A figure stood in the shadows outside.
Slight and thin, dressed in a dark robe, holding a ball of pale blue light.
"Who's there?!"
The woman kept her voice low, her tone carrying wariness and a trace of suppressed fear. She shifted sideways to shield the two children, her fingers whitening slightly around the scissors.
The figure did not come closer, remaining outside the threshold. The illumination crystal's blue light revealed a young, somewhat tired face.
"Hello, ma'am." Nuoyaji spoke quietly and unhurriedly, with a deliberately softened gentleness. "There's no need to be nervous. I just wanted to ask if there's an inn nearby."
The woman looked him up and down.
A magic apprentice's robe, a battered cloth bag, a chipped iron sword, and boots covered in muddy water. He was not a bad man-at least, he did not look like one. Luoweida might have been in disorder, but it had not yet reached the point where bandits roamed freely, robbing everyone they saw.
She relaxed a little, though she did not lower the hand holding the scissors, and merely tipped her chin eastward.
"Head east, two streets over. There's a place called the Old Oak Inn. It should still be open."
Nuoyaji glanced in the direction she indicated, then turned back and nodded slightly. "All right. Thank you."
He said nothing more.
Lina lay on the bed, watching through the battered doorframe as the stranger's retreating figure vanished into the night.
"Mom, that man..."
"Go to sleep," the woman interrupted, a trace of unquestionable weariness in her voice. "We have to get up early tomorrow."
Lina obediently closed her eyes and said nothing more.
The oil lamp remained lit.
Its faint flame swayed in the night wind, illuminating the little patch of open ground before the door, as though waiting for someone who had yet to come home.
Nuoyaji walked along East Street, the crystal's blue light casting a small, pallid halo on the water.
He was still thinking about the family he had just encountered.
Who knew how many families like that were left in Luoweida after the storm?
Nuoyaji took a deep breath, pushed down those tangled thoughts, and forced himself to focus on the street ahead.
Just then, he caught an unusual figure out of the corner of his eye.
About thirty or forty paces ahead, someone darted out of an alley, moving quickly but making little noise in the water. The person wore a dark gray cloak with its hood pulled low, covering nearly half their face and leaving their features indistinct.
The person reached the street corner, then suddenly stopped and looked both ways, as though checking whether anyone was following.
Nuoyaji instinctively slowed his steps.
He instinctively dimmed the illumination crystal and slipped into the shadows by the street, narrowing his eyes as he watched the furtive figure.
After making sure it was safe, the person did not continue east, but turned into another, narrower alley and headed toward the northern part of the city.
Nuoyaji stood still, his mind racing.
Someone out in the dead of night, wearing a cloak with the hood pulled low and glancing back every few steps-no matter how he looked at it, they hardly seemed to be out on an ordinary errand.
It was not that he had nothing better to do, nor was it excessive curiosity.
Nuoyaji knew that in such troubled times, anything unusual could be a clue, and any clue could be a matter of life and death.
He hesitated for only two seconds before setting off toward the alley.
He tucked the illumination crystal completely inside his robe. In the darkness, the standing water masked his footsteps as he followed silently, like a fish slipping soundlessly through the water.