The Erevis Cale Trilogy 01 - Twilight Falling by Forgotten Realms

Author:Forgotten Realms [Forgotten Realms]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-01-08T16:34:57+00:00

Unlike Selgaunt, which had grown up at random around an earlier Chondathan settlement, Starmantle was a planned town. Straight, brick-paved streets and alleys radiated out at right angles from the large bazaar in the center of the city. Booths, tents of all colors, and tables laden with merchandise filled the bazaar. The smell of cooking fish, southern spices, mistleaf, and horse dung filled the air.

Founded centuries before as a commercial rival to Westgate and the Night Masks, Starmantle held its gates open to all races in the name of mercantilism. While it had never managed to match its rival city in size, it nevertheless attracted a diverse population. All manner of men and monsters filled the city's seething inns, eateries, festhalls, and markets. By day, lizardman tribesmen, half-ogre mercenaries, and bugbear woodsmen from the Gulthmere walked the streets beside human corsairs, merchants, and whores. By night, orcs, drow, and worse haunted the alleys and side streets. Cale marveled at the various creatures. In Selgaunt, half-ogres and bugbears would have been thought raiders and attacked on sight by the Scepters.

Starmantle had only a few streets as wide as Selgaunt's trade boulevards, but each of those was packed full by a seemingly endless train of merchants, porters, carts, wagons, crates, and barrels. A steady stream of merchandise moved day and night along the main trade arteries, flowing between the harbor, the city gates, and the bazaar. Despite the difference in size, in Starmantle as much as in Selgaunt, King Trade ruled the realm.

Still, Cale couldn't get over the feeling that the city was overcrowded with people and overstuffed with goods, as swollen and ready to burst as a waterlogged chest. Starmantle seemed to Cale nothing more than a miniature Westgate—a violent, dirty boil growing on the arse of the Dragonmere, with little to offer other than brisk trade. The fact that several towering temples dominated the skyline and looked down on the filth seemed more a joke than an aspiration.

They had arrived in the city a day and a half before, and Cale had yet to see any sign of an organized city watch. Instead, the inhabitants of Starmantle seemed to police themselves. Street violence was commonplace, but not wide-scale. Bystanders remained exactly that, and street brawls never escalated into riots. Cale had seen six knife fights since arriving—four of them had left one of the participants dead.

In that environment, Cale knew that the best way to avoid trouble was to appear capable of handling any that might come. Accordingly, Cale, Riven, and Jak wore their weapons and scowls openly.

Still, despite the lawlessness and violence, trade continued in earnest. Merchants managed to buy, sell, barter, and prosper. Cale figured anything could be bought or sold in Starmantle, from flesh to mistleaf. For his part, Cale wanted to purchase but one thing—the services of a guide who knew the Gulthmere and could take them to the Lightless Lake within—then get the Nine Hells out of that place.

To that end, he and Riven had made discreet inquiries after Magadon.

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