"Am I just being silly?" Enfri asked. "I mean, really. Shan Alee? I'm getting ahead of myself and putting legendary names to things."

As conversationalists, megathons left much to be desired. The big reptile rarely looked up from his feast of grass and barley. When he did, it was to give the chattering sky woman a brief, bemused look.

Enfri took another bite of her peach, then washed it down with a long drink from her water skin. She sat on a fallen pillar underneath the peach tree. Her legs weren't long enough to reach the ground, so she kicked them idly beneath her. Between the shade, the babbling of the stream, and the scent of the plant life, it was as comfortable a spot for a picnic as there could be.

"Then again," she said through a full mouth, "who's to say it can't be Shan Alee? How many ancient cities beyond the sand dunes have roads like that one?"

The megathon grunted. It might have actually been a belch. The fool beast was packing away the barley fast enough that it was surely going to get an upset stomach.

"You're the one that lives here," Enfri said. "Can't you tell me one way or the other?"

That time, it was definitely a belch.

Enfri shook her head. "I wish Deebee would have told me. It might have been too painful for her to talk about. She hatched after it fell, but this was her homeland. That is, it should have been her homeland. Mine too, I suppose."

She scooted back further onto the pillar and hugged her knees to her chin. "I hate them. The Althandi. There are too many things I should've had that I don't because of them, this place, my father, my house, and even my horse. I was going to go dancing for the first time soon, too. It's like they delight in taking things from me."

The megathon snorted as he plodded towards the stream. His loud slurping made his disinterest towards Enfri plain.

"You're right," Enfri sighed. "Grandmother was Althandi. So's Haythe, Kiffa, and most everyone else from Sandharbor. I don't hate them. How could I? They're my... friends, I guess."

She could hardly blame the Smiths or the Cobblers for the fall of Shan Alee. If anything, she owed them a great deal. Sandharbor took in Yora and his mother, gave them a home, and made them a part of the community.

"I don't hate the Althandi," Enfri decided. "I hate Althandor. I hate the king." She wore a deep frown as she glared into the distance. "I hate assassins."

"Well, I certainly don't blame you."

Enfri was so startled that she dropped her peach. She whipped her head around to glare at the megathon, but the creature's head was still dunked into the stream. The giant lizard wasn't the source of the voice.

However, there was a patch of stone on the pillar that didn't quite match to the rest of it, a pebbly mound that might have been a broken edge exposed by the elements. Enfri reached out and put her hand on it.

Nope, just rock. A tiny weight then alighted on Enfri's shoulder. "Aha! I won this time. You never saw the snake curled up by the date palm. That was me."

"Deebee!" Enfri cried. She seized the dragon and held her so tightly that she squawked. "Where've you been? I was so worried when you didn't find me before I reached the spire."

"Winds and storms, girl," Deebee gasped as she struggled to extricate herself from Enfri's clutches. "When did you ever get so blustering strong?"

Enfri released her with some reluctance. "Sorry. You just gave me such a scare."

Deebee jumped down to Enfri's knee and preened her scales with a claw. "Unavoidable, I assure you. Believe me, if I could have gotten to you sooner, I would have, but there were a few things I had to take care of. Contingencies needed to be put in place, and I didn't want to risk leading Gain and those two pups to you."

"I hope you sent them running in the wrong direction."

Deebee had a prideful grin. "I made doubly certain of it. I flew south at a pace I knew they could match for as long as my apotheosis lasted. Then, just before it was gone completely, I shot north towards here. Gain was convinced I was misleading him again and continued on towards Altier Nashal. I trailed them for half a day to be sure they were completely fooled. Only then was I comfortable with coming back to you."

"You seem quite pleased with yourself," Enfri noted as she stroked Deebee's wings.

"I am," she declared. "At last, I've outwitted one of the blaggards."

Deebee then plied Enfri with questions. She wanted to know every detail of what had happened since they parted ways. When Enfri told her of spying on Jin's camp, Deebee nearly had a stroke. She was thoughtful when Enfri told about the abandoned villages, and remorseful when she described the final leg of the journey to the spire.

"It was dangerous," Deebee murmured. "I should have been with you."

"It went as it needed to," Enfri said to reassure her. "I made it, thanks to my new friend there."

Deebee gave the megathon an appraising look. In return, the beast stared back at her with obvious apprehension. He knew a predator when he smelled one.

"Oh?" Deebee asked. "Well then, I won't make him our lunch. I suppose I can eat a few dates instead, just this once."

"What are dates?"

Deebee poked her nose at the pile of red fruit Enfri had gathered from the strange tree. "These things are dates. Espallans like to bake them into pies with walnuts."

Enfri thought that sounded lovely. If safety and escaping Althandor weren't motivation enough, she had date and walnut pies to look forward to by reaching the Espallans.

"Deebee?" Enfri asked carefully. "This place... Is this really what I think it is?"

A date was being torn apart in Deebee's claws. The dragon tossed aside the pit before responding. "That depends on what you think it is."

"Don't be difficult. Is this really Shan Alee?"

Deebee stuffed half of the date into her mouth and chewed noisily. After swallowing, she let out a long sigh. "It was."

"It's huge," Enfri said in wonder. "I never would have imagined a city so big was possible. This is where the Dragon Emperor lived."

Deebee threw her head back and laughed. "Winds, girl. This wasn't the emperor's home. As cities go, it was rather on the small side."

"But, you just said..."

"It was part of Shan Alee, yes," Deebee explained, "but the Imperial City lies leagues and leagues from here. This spire was one of the Sentinels. You could think of them as watch towers. They stood guard over the boundaries of the nation."

Enfri scratched at the back of her head. "This is... a border town?"

Deebee peeled the date into strips with her claws as she nodded. "One of four sentinel cities that surrounded the Imperial City. This is Marwin, 'sapphire' in the Aeldenn Tones, and it guarded the northeast."

"So the Opalescent Road I found?"

"Would lead you to the front door of the Dragon Emperor's palace in the Imperial City. I imagine it still does, what parts of the road aren't buried beneath sand."

Enfri waited for Deebee to finish eating before hopping down from her perch on the fallen pillar. "No time like the present. Let's get moving."

Deebee blinked in surprise. "You should rest, Enfri. It's not even midday. It's not wise to set out for the Espallan holdfasts already."

"That's not what I mean," Enfri replied. "Deebee, this is Shan Alee. I want to see it."

"You mean to go snooping around?"

"I'd rather say we're exploring, but yes. Imagine what we could find. There probably isn't much left, but I'd like to get a glimpse into what the Aleesh were like. These were my people. I want to know who they were."

Deebee hastily stuffed her mouth with another date and jumped to Enfri's shoulder. "Far be it from me to discourage your academic curiosity."

Enfri refilled her water skins before setting out into the city. "I've already seen a lot that I don't understand. I'll need you to fill in the gaps."

"As much as I can," Deebee promised. "Remember though, everything I know is secondhand. The last time I was here, I kept to the spire."

"Why?" Enfri asked. "I'd think a scholarly silver like yourself would've poked her nose into every corner she could find."

Deebee draped herself around Enfri's neck. "I wanted to," she said sadly. "I suppose I was afraid. The elders taught me about Shan Alee, and I wanted to know more. When I ran away and came here, I don't know what I expected to find, but it wasn't this. I was still young and wasn't ready. In the end, I was too depressed about it to leave the spire often."

They walked down an avenue that had once been home to a line of forges. The buildings were cracked open like melons. The equipment within was scoured down to almost nothing by centuries of wind and sand.

"How long did you stay here before Varn found you?"

"Not long," Deebee said. "A month, perhaps. I looked around in the ruins nearest the spire and gave the remains I found a proper pyre."

"Remains?" Enfri asked in surprise.

Deebee nodded. "Oh yes. Althandor didn't leave anyone alive after Marwin was sacked, and bodies don't decay out in the desert. Even after two hundred years, the people who died here looked like they'd been dead no more than a few weeks."

"Mummification," Enfri said in understanding. "Grandmother wrote about it in her notebooks. Do you suppose many of them are still..."

"Lying around? I'm afraid so. I'd have needed another year to take care of them all. Scale lions and scavengers will have accounted for any bodies left out in the open, but prepare yourself for a nasty shock if you want to go digging into the ruins."

Enfri shuddered. She hadn't even considered the possibility of finding the bodies of Althandor's victims here. There hadn't been any in the abandoned villages, and six hundred years was a very long time.

Still, the city was beautiful. Even as it lay in ruins, Enfri wondered at the craftsmanship of the buildings. Though they were centuries old, many were still standing. There were terraced roofs everywhere, and Deebee informed Enfri that they would have been covered with tended gardens long ago.

She passed old, dry wells that were beneath tall statues of dragons or heroes, their features worn smooth. They found more crystal fountains at the intersections of the wider streets, stone gazebos or the remnants of pavilions on the narrower ones. Everywhere she looked, Enfri saw something new to take her breath away.

Manor houses and humble tenements. Workshops and trading posts. Guild houses and noble halls. Wizard towers and alchemist laboratories. Enfri saw more within the ruins than she had in all her life elsewhere.

Ahead, there was a squat, domed structure that was as large as a city block. It sprawled over a wide area just outside the mercantile district. Something about that place drew Enfri's eye. Whenever she turned away from it, she soon found herself looking back.

"What's that place?" Enfri asked. "It's rather drab compared to everywhere else, don't you think?"

"Stockyard?" Deebee guessed. "Hmm, probably not. I saw pens a mile back, so I doubt they kept livestock here, too. Want to go take a look?"

Enfri began to nod, but stopped herself. It was a ways away, and her curiosity about the mercantile district wasn't yet satisfied. There was something in particular she was looking for.

"Might we take a look in there?" Enfri asked as she pointed towards a rather ornate home. It was smaller than most others in this district, only a single story tall. Something about the place made her think of her own home near Sandharbor. It was laid out in a similar fashion, though many times larger. Most telling were the carvings of herbs over the facade. Enfri hoped to find what she wanted in there.

Deebee hummed. "I don't see why not. Looks to be in fairly good condition, too. I'd wager my hoard against a walnut that it was the home of an arcanist."

"How can you tell?" Enfri asked as she approached the entryway.

"No one thing on its own," Deebee said. "The stone seems too perfectly set to have been done by hand, and the carvings have fared better than most others. I'm positive this stonework is spellwrought."

Enfri grimaced. "I've not the slightest idea what that means, but I'll trust you."

The interior of the building was brightly lit by the late morning sun streaming in through the windows. The floor had a bare dusting of sand over the marble tile, and several bronze and clay pots still sat in the corners. Wooden furniture, dry and cracked from centuries of neglect, remained in the foyer. There was a table in the middle of the room that stood only a foot above the ground, and there was what looked like a fire pit in the center of it.

"What did they use that for?" Enfri asked while she pointed at the strange, short table.

"Eating, I expect," Deebee replied. "The Aleesh didn't use chairs for dining. They sat on cushions on the floor and prepared the food as they ate. Quite efficient, wouldn't you say?"

Enfri raised a skeptical eyebrow. It seemed a terribly uncomfortable way to eat a meal. Gathering around a fire in the middle of a desert? Then again, it might have been nice to do that during the chilly nights.

As she stepped further inside, Enfri noticed the lefthand wall. It was covered in tiny, broken pieces of tile. Each was painted, but the years had stolen the colors and they were now mere shadows of what they had once been.

"Aha," Deebee said excitedly. "A mosaic. See the human figure at the center? That's a traditional depiction of Inwe, the first Dragon Emperor. Shame that this isn't better preserved. That gold-ish blob behind him would be his bonded dragon, Darkoo."

"Darkoo?" Enfri asked incredulously.

"Rude. Don't make fun. His name means... Well, I can't recall, but it was something quite impressive."

Deebee hopped to the ground, and she scampered up to the mosaic to get a closer look. While she was humming and mumbling to herself about the various depictions it presented, Enfri looked around the opposite end of the room.

The pottery had desiccated bits of leaves at the bottom, which led Enfri to believe that they had once held flowers or herbs. She reached in and pulled one out. The leaf was a tiny thing, fragile as spider thread. It was a wonder that it was still in one piece.

"Alfalfa?" she murmured under her breath. "No, this is vex. They had a lot of it. Deebee, I think the person who lived here knew about vex sprouts restoring ether."

"Majestic!" Deebee shouted abruptly.

"Winds and storms, Deebee." Enfri clutched her chest. The sudden cry nearly made her jump out of her shift.

"Darkoo. His name means 'majestic'." Deebee clapped her claws together in triumph. "I knew that I knew what it meant."

Enfri shook her head and returned to her explorations. She walked down a hall that was lined with many more urns. These ones contained dry soil and dried out twigs. Enfri was able to identify the remains of several species of flora she was familiar with. Spark blossoms, rattlewood saplings, poppies, and wolfsbane to name a few. There were also some she had never seen before.

If I could find a notebook, Enfri thought. The person who lived here must have been a sky woman, or whatever the Aleesh had instead of sky women. This is definitely the home of a herbalist.

The home was humbler than others in the city, but it was more fine than any that existed in Sandharbor. Enfri wondered if herbalists were an honored profession in Shan Alee. She liked to think so. It gave her some satisfaction to believe that her people would have accepted her.

As she continued down the hall, Enfri became aware of an odd, musty scent. It reminded her of the smell of wooden shacks after a heavy rain, only not quite as strong. She followed the scent to a heavy door that had a pile of sand drifted against the base of it. Enfri put her shoulder to the door and forced it open.

Once inside, the smell was overpowering. It clung to her nostrils and throat like a mildewy cloak. Enfri nearly gagged as she took in the interior.

It was a bedroom, lavish and sumptuous. The four-poster bed had tattered silk draped over it. A dresser and vanity bore a silver mirror and was piled with jars, brushes, and jeweled combs. Enfri let out a long exhale as she looked on what appeared to be the chamber of a princess.

Enfri went immediately to a set of bookshelves on the far wall. Leather-bound tomes were set in orderly rows, their spines marked with characters that she couldn't read. She brushed her fingers gently against the first volume on the top shelf and pulled it down.

The edges of the pages crumbled once disturbed, and Enfri feared the whole book would turn to dust in her hands. Fortunately, the pages weren't made from parchment but from calfskin vellum. Ancient as they were, they held together as she carefully opened the book.

Inside were diagrams of various plants. The first page had a picture of a spark blossom bush in striking detail with a dozen notations in a well-ordered script. The next page had some manner of fern that was unfamiliar.

"I wish I could read this," Enfri said aloud. "Deebee might be able to, and Grandmother would be doing cartwheels if she could see these."

Enfri replaced the volume and pulled out another. This one was dedicated to various species of tree. Enfri found the entry for a peach tree. Though she couldn't read the script, she was able to deduce from the diagrams that powdering the fruit pit produced some manner of medication.

No, not a medication. This marking is the same that was on the diagram for spark blossoms. It's either addictive, dangerous, or both. I didn't know that.

Enfri reluctantly set the book back into its place on the shelf. She could have spent the rest of the day, possibly the rest of the week, looking through those tomes. She made a mental note to remember that this treasure trove of Aleesh herbalism existed. Perhaps one day soon she'd have the chance to return and gather them. Once they were translated, these might be a suitable replacement for Grandmother's notes that she'd been forced to leave behind.

Before leaving the bedroom to see what Deebee was getting up to, Enfri took one last look around. She'd yet to discern the source of that musty smell. It hadn't been the books.

She tentatively sniffed at the air, and followed the smell towards a second door. A closet? Maybe the entrance to another hallway or a washroom. Enfri grunted as she pulled on the door and forced it open.

This time, she did gag. The room was a privy, of all things. A bundle of rags was piled on the floor. Enfri bent down to get a better look, and when she realized what she was looking at, she let out a startled yelp.

Deebee came rushing into the bedroom a moment later. She had transformed herself into a silver wolf, and her hackles were raised as she prepared to face a threat.

"What is it, girl?" she shouted. "Get behind me! I'll... Flames, will you look at that."

Enfri took deep breaths through her mouth to settle herself. Her heart was still racing from the shock of finding a mummified, dead body on the floor of a privy. Even after being warned that this might happen, she hadn't been ready for it.

"Here, help me sit her up," Enfri commanded as she tried to wrestle with the mummy.

"You can't be serious," Deebee said as she took on her human form.

"I most certainly am. Don't be such a sissy. I need to get a good look."

Deebee was hesitant to agree, but with some gentle prodding, she eventually assisted Enfri with getting the mummy upright.

The mummy's brown skin was dry like paper, and her blonde hair was brittle. Flesh was pulled taut over her skull and had begun to expose her yellowed teeth. The eyes were closed and sunken, and her arms and legs were curled into a fetal position. Her clothes were unlike anything Enfri had ever seen. The silk was faded and browning with age, but they had once been scarlet and cerulean. She wore billowing trousers, and her shirt exposed her shoulders and stomach, as well as a shocking amount of cleavage. The Aleesh apparently weren't shy.

"Any particular reason you wanted to go manhandling the dead, Enfri?" Deebee asked. She changed back into her normal form.

"Young," Enfri said, ignoring the dragon. "No older than twenty. The discoloration of the teeth came after death. They're straight, though she had a slight overbite. Pierced ears and... nose? Goodness, her navel, too. Underdeveloped musculature, which is unsurprising when you consider that she was fairly well-off. Probably hadn't any children. Oh, look at this. Her fingernails were painted. How strange. And, what's this she's holding?"

Enfri pried the mummy's fingers away from a band of silvery metal. The ring was about a foot in diameter. The outer edge was beveled while the inside was flat. There was a tiny inscription on the outside in a script that looked familiar.

"Krayson," Deebee read. "This is an old Althandi script, a progenitor to modern writing. If I remember right, Krayson is the name of an old family in the magocracy that died out over a decade ago. Why would she have something with Althandi writing and an Althandi name?"

Enfri felt an angry frown on her lips. "Don't forget why she shut herself in her privy, Deebee. She was hiding."

Deebee nodded in grim understanding. "Poor thing. She must have taken that from her attacker. What is it, anyway? It's not a weapon. Part of a saddle or armor?"

"I don't see any wounds," Enfri observed. "She wasn't killed with a sword or spear. I can't be sure yet, but I don't think she has any broken bones."

"You're wondering if one of the first assassins did this," Deebee said. "No, I don't think so. At least, it wasn't osteomancy that killed her. That's always... messier, but it was likely magic of some kind."

"I think you're right. She died quickly. The life was snuffed right out of her in an instant."

By mutual agreement, Enfri and Deebee carried the mummy out of the building. They couldn't in good conscience leave her lying in such a state. She was set alight with dragon fire, her papery skin consumed by the flames in moments.

Enfri bowed her head and murmured a prayer for the dead. She asked the spirits to shepherd this forebear of sky women to the next world, so that she may rejoin her people in death.

"Join us, your fathers call," Enfri recited over the burning body, "a place we have made for you at our side. Join us, your mothers sing, your story shall be written in the stars. Make your home in the winds, the flames, the waves, and the stone. Prepare for the day when those you leave behind will join you."

Enfri had spoken those words many times over the years. During the golden flu epidemic, she had presided over more funerals than she cared to remember. She said those words over Grandmother's pyre, and she had spoken them over Mother's grave. Now, over the burning body of a woman whose name she didn't know, Enfri felt the words more keenly than ever before.

This woman was the same as her. A herbalist and a healer. She, too, had been hunted by the Althandi. The only real difference was that Enfri wasn't caught yet.

I won't be, she prayed to the departed. The Aleesh will survive. I promise you.

"Enfri," Deebee whispered, "we can go back, if you wish."

"No," Enfri replied. "There's one more thing I want to see."

Her eyes turned towards the large, domed building once more. Now that she had found an Aleesh herbalist, she didn't have anymore reason to delay investigating the massive structure. Funny, she almost felt as if it was beckoning to her.

"Let's look inside that. I get the feeling it was important."