We made haste then, eating in the saddle for our midday meal and stopping as infrequently as possible. When the Vessel healed the galls of our headlong passage, Ivy joined her, repeating the words of the rite beneath her breath. We learned the human way of magic; practiced against Last and his elves. We heard the invisible rattle of skeletal vultures in our sleep.

We rode around bends, into valleys and up slopes. We slept in fields and in convent sheds or monastery barns, under trees and under stars. We were no longer men and women of separate means and ends, our motivations as disparate as our countenances. Our sweat, our frustration with magic, our nightmares united us. The forging of that union involved a great deal of friction and discomfort, but perhaps all lasting ones did. I could hope.

There came a day when I realized we’d been riding slowly upward for quite some time; the inclines were so gentle one didn’t notice them until they stopped. The Vessel reined in her horse and looked out, waiting for us to catch up to her, and when we did….

“God Almighty,” Chester whispered.

Below us spilled a plain beneath the flawless autumn sky, but shadows seemed to gather on it despite the lack of clouds to cast them. The bones buried under that grassy sward somehow pricked the senses like burrs… and the vastness of the field staggered. Had the battle engulfed it entire? My soul screamed that it had, that once in ages past elves had soaked this field with their blood and humans had died to it, only to be dragged again to their feet and sent back to the fight. The worldsense wanted to pull me under with those corpses and drench me in their horror, so powerfully that I yanked myself clear with a jerk hard enough to sear my eyes and give me a headache. Better that than to fall into that dark past, though I knew we would have to answer for it soon enough.

I lifted my eyes from the weight of that history and found more of it, and if the battlefield had been awe-inspiring it was nothing to the remains of Vigil. The city had been built on what looked like an enormous motte, jutting high above the plain and spreading lengthwise along its edge. The stone facing this motte had been carved with fanciful designs that could be discerned even from our vantage: dragons and sea serpents and warriors and sages, their bodies stretching up into the walls of the city, so large the curved, clawed hand of one of the dragons could circumscribe the entirety of the vast doors breaching the stonework. The remains of a road led up to those doors, but it was visible only near the embankment. The major roads seemed to follow a riverbed up into the city and out the other side.

I could imagine how it must have been in its glory: a city of shining towers, pennants aloft in the window, guarded by its enormous reliefs, with the sun on the river and all the bridges over it within the city itself.

“No wonder every academic on the earth wants to come to Vigil,” Guy said.

“It’s stunning!” Radburn said. “Is that a real river… running uphill?”

“Not anymore,” Eyre said. “As best we figure, the river was assisted, mechanically and magically. And it was artificial… dragons dug the channel and diverted the waters for the human and elven designers who requested their aid. Just like they helped build up that hill.”

“Elven and human designers,” Chester repeated.

“And dragons!” Radburn said, eyes wide. “Don’t be telling me now that there were once dragons!”

“And this everyone knows,” Guy drawled. His horse sidestepped under him as he eyed Eyre. “A city everyone in Troth knows about, but doesn’t know was designed by elves and dug out by dragons.”

“Vigil is ancient history,” Eyre said. “As you should well know, few people are truly interested in history. They want to know what they need to know to live their lives. Time spent learning things that cannot materially affect their welfare is a luxury.”

“History is not a luxury!” Chester exclaimed.

“It is when you’re spending all your living energy keeping yourself and your children fed,” Ivy murmured. She nodded. “Yes, I can see how no one would care how our ancestors erected Vigil’s stone walls. But I admit I am curious if the Church knew.” She glanced at the Vessel.

Rose said, “Vigil was not always named Vigil. Is that not correct, Professor? You know.”

“Of course.”

“Well, spit it out, one of you,” Radburn said, irritated.

Guy was squinting at the distant city. “No, I think I can take a guess.” He spoke as if quoting. “‘The royal capital was once in the central north of Troth, within sight of the Selvedge Mountains amid the lush forests where game was plentiful. Once imperialism drove the continent to war, the would-be emperor and his court moved south, in order to have better access to the fronts near the borders of Candor, Diligence, and Help-on-High.’“ He lifted his brows. “Yes?”

“Yes,” Eyre said.

“The royal capital?” Chester said, hushed. “From before the imperial wars. You suggest that once Troth’s capital teemed with three races?”

“As far as we know,” Eyre said. “That would be correct.” He lifted a hand. “But one knows how difficult it is to reconcile the records of history, particularly so far back.”

Radburn frowned. “But if Guy’s right, where are the ‘lush forests’?”

“The dead destroyed them,” Rose said. She pointed. “They came from the north, whelmed the city, and spilled onto the Imperial Sward.” Her fingers traced their path down to the valley of shadows and mourning. “And it was there that the elven king stopped their advance by petitioning the angel.”

“So there really were dragons once,” Ivy said. “And not like Morgan’s.”

“Morgan’s steed is a fine beast,” Eyre said. “But beast it is. True dragons out of history were enormous creatures. The eldest were as vast as their reliefs on the wall. And they were reasoning beings.”

“Did they have souls?” Kelu asked drolly.

A pause. Eyre started laughing. “Good genet, of a surety no one would dare to suggest otherwise to a creature with talons the length of a plowhorse.”

“The city looks closer than it is,” Rose said. “We’d best be on our way.”

And so we were. My expression must have betrayed my headache and my attendant anxieties, however, for Eyre guided his horse alongside the drake as we were riding down toward the valley. “Something troubling you?”

“How are we to find anything in a ruin that size?” I said. “I was expecting... well... ruins. As in, of a building or two. Not a city that dwarfs Evertrue.”

“The catacombs are extensive,” Eyre said. “But not all of them were devoted to people of our diminutive size.” At my glance, he smiled. “The dragons carved themselves a holt there. They were allies, after a fashion.”

“After a fashion,” I said, dubious.

“They thought very differently from humanity. But then, so did the elves then.” Eyre shook his head. “Don’t fear, my student. The catacombs where the books were kept are actually quite small. It is there we will find our cluster of scholars at work.”

“A university in miniature,” Chester murmured, having overheard.

“Home away from home,” Ivy offered.

But Eyre did not agree. Would it do any good to confront him on it? I doubted it, so I let it go, and wished I hadn’t.