The horse's hooves rang on the flagstones of the street, arrayed in alternating shapes of four-sided stones and the occasional six-sided stone, the whole thing making a pattern that extended well over fifty feet before repeating, and even then he noticed that the pattern repeated itself perfectly and completely, without deviation or alteration except where a flagstone had been broken or cracked, marring the work of the road. In its own way, it was actually quite beautiful, like a work of art beneath one's feet that spread out in a spiderweb across the city.

It was one of the first times that he had looked at the damn road, to be honest.

Most of the time, his eyes were on other things than the empty roads at night. Between his duties in Rhilshen and his duties at the Estate of Taiva, things had managed to spiral quickly up and out of control. Things changed, things needed seeing to, orders had to be given out to people who knew the way of their work just as well as he did. Dulmor, his ubiquitous manservant of a Seneschal at Taiva, can and has handled the affairs of the estate aptly in an extended absence from him, and yet when he is there he defers every annoying little triviality to Ayreg's feet.

The horse shoes rang on the paving stones, and his attention turned there again. So busy occupied in Rhilshen, of the political maneuverings of the Provinces, of the affairs of the Legion, of preparing them in both training edicts as well as dispatches to quell the rebellion in Shayltan... so busy with the things ahead of him, that he had not noticed the smaller things in life. The devil was in the details, he had once heard, and only now that he had started being informed of the going-ons he missed while he was so preoccupied, did he begin to believe it. Alysia had been poisoned, and he knew nothing of it? There were many other things, of course, of Balls and what-not, but that alone should have shaken the very foundations of Rhilshen. Surely he could have felt an aftershock of that ripple through his boots!

The night was quiet and still, the last trailing edges of winter gripping at him. Most decent people were out of the elements now, warm and snug in front of a fire with a good pipe and a hot cup of mulled wine or a mug of the inn or tavern's best ale, or a cup of their own make of brandy dandling a grand child on their knee. But then, only one or two people throughout history had accused Jodiah Ayreg of being a decent person, and they usually went on to eat their words.

A gust of breeze, made of daggers, cut through his cloak and chilled him to the bone, almost enough to gel his blood, but Ayreg ignored it.

Just like the breeze, if you ignore anything long enough, it will go away.

Abruptly, Jodiah Ayreg had a realization.

...Where was Suliss'urn? he thought.

The gray pulled at his reins, wanting to run. The horse had a fire in his eye that spoke of a racer, and the thing might very well just be suited for the gallop more than the canter, but Ayreg had a distance to travel before the night was gone. He wanted to see his journey over; what he did not want to see was a dead horse, collapsed from exhaustion.

He watched the Red Dragon from afar, never venturing even anywhere near it. What he had wanted to see would have been visible to his eyes even if none there could hear Bloodlance's horseshoes echoing on the cobblestones paving the street out front. She had never been one for going inside, though he did look at a distance through the windows - the dark figures moving about on the interior could have been anyone, but none seemed perched upon table or chair. He was aiming for his target like a drawn arrow, though his target was nowhere to be seen outside, either. Not upon the railing, not perched to peer through windows, not slinking about under the edge of the awning alongside the front porch, not skulking about in the shadows with only the gleam of yellow wolf's eyes and a bolt of long white braid to give her away from the rest of the darkness around her.

He drew rein, and heeled the gray to a pace.

Ayreg traveled north out of the city by the nearest gate, passing through the large stonework walls that would have been laughable to any kind of weapon used by any of the newcomers to Rhy'Din - weapons not unlike those that the Shooters used back in Rhilshen. Once, the tall walls and the hoardings atop them could have held back an invader for weeks, if not months, and the river that bisected the city and traveled to open water on either end would have allowed an infinite amount of supplies to stream into the city of Rhy'Din itself, but the advanced artifice - this... technology that made him so uneasy had made the walls all but obsolete.

He journeyed about two miles north, then a bit west, before turning off the well-packed road and traveling into the wilderness. The going was slower here of course, with branches in the dark tugging at his cloak as it flowed behind him, and he still only had one eye besides, yet he made his way. If anything, it slowed the horse down a bit - if not by much.

The trip had been made once, though he had been given exacting instructions on how to make it. Exacting after a fashion, at least. In all honesty, he had found it the first time entirely by accident, though it was a happy chance that led him there. Jodiah was reasonably sure he would be able to find it again in short order.

It took two hours before he stumbled upon the rocky outcropping entirely by accident again, and when he tied Bloodlance to a nearby tree his legs ached from the cold and from the saddle, but he made his way forward. A pool of light cast around him from an upheld lantern, lighting his way in a flickering puddle of yellows and oranges. The cave itself was barren, cold, lifeless; the deepest recesses empty and void of life. An aging table, the wood cracking and rotting, stood on rickety legs with the remnants of a candle that had once been much larger than the pathetic little wimpy thing it was now. Dirty blankets were strewn along the floor next to the wall, some of them ripped to pieces by what might have been a bear, but there was no sign of life anywhere to be had.

Nobody had been in this cave for some time.

Leaving the cavern, he unhobbled Bloodlance and mounted, placing the doused lantern into the saddlebag again. The night embraced him as he journeyed away from this secluded little elbow of nowhere.

Jodiah Ayreg had other places to venture to tonight on his quest for that which has become lost to him. His face was grim, all hard angles and edged planes, and his eye was steady on the path before him.

Bloodlance pulled at the bit, wanting to run.

He grit his teeth, against the cold, against the night, against his quest.

Where was Suliss'urn?