A fiery sky heralded the morning as Cyntha’s horse click-clicked over the cobbled streets of Rockefeller Haven. The city was blanketed by the slow and tired silence that so often follows a night of drunken revels. The smell of stale beer hung faintly in the air, a last ethereal witness to the previous night’s carousals. Not so many hours ago, these streets were packed chockfull of people celebrating the Year of Plenty. She had not been here to celebrate with them. Rather, she had ridden through the night, keen on arriving this morning. No one would be watching.
Cyntha led her horse through ever narrower streets, stuffy with dust and heat. The day would be horribly hot. The building that she was looking for was somewhere in this district, she knew, but the labyrinth of red-bricked buildings stretching in every direction made it impossible to pinpoint where she was exactly. Having no better option than to continue along her chosen path she resolved to do just that. In the absence of people the city loomed larger than life.
She was startled by a sudden grinding above her head, immediately followed by a loud bang. Craning up her neck she identified the culprit. A window shutter had come unfastened and been crashed again the wall with such force that a veil of red grit showered down on her. Her eyes started stinging from the dust. Half-blinded, Cyntha pawed at her saddlebags to find a piece of clean cloth. Finally having found one, she wiped away at her eyes with the cloth, which turned a dirt brown in a matter of moments.
A cold shiver that belied the heat draped over Rockefeller Haven, even in these early morning hours, suddenly ran over her spine. Was someone watching her? Either side of the street remained as empty as it had been a moment ago. Was she imagining things?
There! A furtive shadow had blinked into sight at the end of the street, speedily rounding the corner.
“Go Merry, go!” Cyntha moved her horse into a gallop. This might be the lead that she’d been waiting for all this time. She was at the end of the street in a few heartbeats, leaving a storm of red dust in her wake. Up ahead she could just see a hooded figure turning right. A frantic chase ensued. Red-bricked buildings blurred past her as she sped by, urging Merry to go faster and faster. But push her horse as she might, never did she get close enough. She should have pursued by foot, she realised.
Merry neighed discontendedly as Cyntha forced her to a stop. What had seemed like a junction of streets, was actually a dead end. A brick wall ended in nothing to her left. To her right, a small courtyard. She’d lost him. Cyntha stepped down from her horse and walked into the courtyard. desert plants growing on either side of a cobbled path. No windows looked out on the courtyard, and there was one door in the far corner. In the middle of the courtyard, a single slab of stone protruded from the earth.
It was the same one from the sketch, no doubt about that.
As she unfastened the key from the chain around her neck, she was already certain it would fit. This had not been a chance encounter. She slid the blade of the key into the lock.
Something hard connected to the nape of her neck. She registered pain, then nothing. Her limp body crashed into the dust