Anvil woke up to another day in the city of Kargoth. Unbeknownst to him, several strange incidents were going to disturb the city of Kargoth that day.
Somewhere around the Kargoth residential areas near the principal market square, someone was getting arrested in the full glare of the busy afternoon. Actually, it looked less like an arrest.
Anvil was already midway through unloading a heavy crate of iron fittings near the edge of Kargoth's principal square when the noise around the square suddenly dimmer as if something unexpected had happened. He didn't immediately notice the change in the noises around due to his fully dedication of mind in the strenuous task. But then...
Two similarly dressed men suddenly advanced through the market with that type of composed authority peculiar to men who require no permission. They way they walked could tell, that even the crowd yielded before instruction was given to give way, because their identity were immediately recognized. The city enforcers. They were members of the Enforcement Policy, the organized force responsible for restoring law and maintaining order within the entire vast city of Kargoth.
Anvil adjusted the crate upon his shoulder and stepped aside, noticing that the crowd around did the same. Anvil knew that one does not obstruct uniformed or peculiar men like these ones, unless one has forgotten their senses.
The city enforcers stopped their advancement and halted before a gentleman standing near a spice merchant's stall. There, a gentleman was... standing. He was a middle-aged man and was putting on respectable attires. He was precisely the sort of man who belonged exactly where he stood.
One of the two enforcers furtively addressed him in subdued tones that Anvil or anyone around could not discern. Responding to the enforcer, the gentleman blinked blankly, which made him appear less conscious. By the look on his face, he was not bewildered. He was strangely relieved, like he had been expecting the enforcers all these while.
"I understand," he replied in a subtly struggled tone after hesitating for a while. "Pray, let us not prolong the matter."
Anvil could see the slight relief on the man's face. Which made Anvil frown. Shouldn't he feel apprehensive instead? Why did he look almost relieved when the enforcers approached him?
The enforcers then went on to secure his wrists gently. Yes, gently. Strangely enough, they didn't secure his wrists with any chain or cuffs in sight. The enforcer simply held him formly with a tight grip.
'Really? Is this an arrest?' It was not really Anvil's problem anyway. He was just curious as a watcher.
As they started moving him, the gentleman staggered slightly. His complexion was becoming pale, turning nearly white. It felt like something was draining him dry from the inside. As they walked him off, he breathed out some quiet words that were barely audible.
Anvil who was close enough to hear some words, caught only the tail of it.
"…was never intended to align…"
"Sir?" an enforcer called out having heard him mutter something, but the merchant responded again in a subdued tone. He nodded faintly and said,
"Nothing of consequence."
Then the three of them vanished from the square. The square snapped back to its usual noise and chaos, like someone sprang back to life.
"A revenue thing, I bet," a vendor muttered close by, implying that the arrested merchant got caught over some unpaid fees.
"Contraband, more like," another piped up.
Shaking his head, the first vendor shot back, "Debt, no question. It is ever debt."
Anvil exhaled though. The law is the law. Anyone could get apprehended daily. However, this was not his problem. So he thought in his familiar language,
'That does not concern me.'
He, along with the rest of the labourers got to their destinations and unloaded the crates they had on them. But yet, his gaze still strayed toward the direction they had taken. He was not actually concerned about the man, but he was more concerned about the expression he saw on the man's face.
'Shouldn't he be bewildered, at least a little? He felt so…'
The thought unsettled Anvil more than the arrest itself.
'... relieved.'
Even with that odd arrest, the day wasn't done with its surprises by evening.
Anvil had chosen a narrower passage behind the textile warehouses to rest, hoping to spare a few minutes before closing hour. The alley he was standing in was a little confined.
But then, he heard some noises nearby, like two men were struggling with each other, and this made him slow down. He followed the subtle noise and saw two immaculate figures standing by a side entrance. Their coats were unnaturally clean against the city's dust. Enforcers again, and a third man caught between them.
The man, though, looked elderly… or maybe he only seemed that way, because his face still held a trace of youth. His head hung forward, heavy and loose. Like sleep — or something close to it — had befallen him.
'Is he drunk?'
One of the enforcers tightened his grip under the older man's arm.
"Gently," he murmured. "Pray, we must not occasion him injury."
The old man's shoes dragged against the stones as he struggled to keep pace with the enforcers. Anvil halted without thinking, which caused one of the gentlemen to glance up.
…and their eyes met.
Their gazes locked, firm and unblinking. The enforcer and Anvil.
The enforcer's gaze, though, felt as if he were searching Anvil for something unseen. Was he of some relevance?
Or worse… did the man somehow sense he did not belong to this world?
'I hope not!'
A sudden sharp chill ran through Anvil's spine. He did not know what might befall him if anyone—most especially an enforcer of the law—were to discover he was a transmigrator. He dared not imagine what scene would follow; it was for this very reason he had long resolved to avoid attention from anyone at all costs. At least, he believed that if anyone looked at him too closely, they might sense something… off.
Anvil lowered his eyes at once. He would not permit anyone to notice anything peculiar. And if he were noticed… what then?
Now feeling subtle fear, he slowly retreated two steps, as though he was recollecting some urgent errand left unattended. With that pretense, he turned away from the gentlemen and made his exit.
The gentlemen, however, continued escorting the older man toward a waiting carriage at the end of the alley, sparing Anvil no further glance. Their movements were a little hasty now. The waiting carriage though, was supposed to be an enforcer's cart, considering the enforcers' involvement. But strangely instead, it was made of plain wood. There was also no insignia of the Enforcement Policy on it.
The three entered the carriage and the carriage departed immediately.
Anvil lingered on his position longer than a while, all th while still fixing his gaze on the spot the strange cart had just departed. Such matters were not uncommon in industrious cities like Kargoth, but these arrests were somehow strange. Even without asking about, he knew this was not the proper arrest to be carried out. The enforcers' involvement should have meant that it was an official arrest but his instincts didn't sit right with the way he felt about the whole thing.
'There is something further at work here.'
He then adjusted his sleeves and turned back, without looking back.
---
Later that same day, a third issue arrived in bits and pieces, passed around in whispers and unfinished stories from people who always seemed to know everything going on around. The baker near Kargoth's eastern corner complained that the grain from Ironhold wasn't coming in like it used to.
"The road has grown unreliable," he grumbled, striking dough upon wood with agitation. "Tch. Even the carriages arrive lighter than their ledgers proclaim. What is going on?"
Anvil was there unloading a crate, so he only gave a noncommittal nod. Adding to the rumors, an elderly trinket seller had failed to appear for two consecutive mornings. Anvil knew her in passing, well enough to notice her absence.
"She's probably just left," one merchant said.
"Oh, you think so? There's a good chance she's a victim of whatever's going around. Best to keep your eyes open these days," another replied in a low, cautious voice.
Anvil looked towards the woman's spot. The slab of stone the old woman used to sit by was now empty. Also, two metalworkers, one of which he usually worked for, had also not reported for duty for a few days. These occurrences seemed too coincidental.
"Foul vapors," someone muttered. People wouldn't stop talking about it.
"Bad victuals," another insisted.
By the end of the week, five more people had fallen ill. Strangely, none of them claimed to feel sick. No cough, no fever. And yet, they were growing paler and thinner by the day.
While washing his face, one man even collapsed beside the communal trough, the broad, weathered stone basin where water flowed day and night, and where merchants paused to drink and children splashed their hands. It was the last place anyone expected someone to collapse. Anvil saw it happen this time, which bewildered him a lot. He had never witnessed anything like that before. The man's eyes suddenly flew open, too wide that the veins in his eyeballs were beginning to drip out blood as tears down his pale cheek.
"Moons…" he breathed shakily.
"They're drawing nearer…"
Without delay, several merchant women hurried to summon the nearby physicians. It was often said, and not without truth, that women were prone to be more anxious in matters of sudden misfortune.
"It's nothing too serious. It's just exhaustion of the constitution," one physician declared after feeling the man's pulse.
"I reckon it's contaminated water, most probable," another concluded, having been called after the first had taken his leave.
After several futile attempts to discern the cause of the illness, the man was carried away by his summoned friends.
And the day's labor resumed.
It always resumed.
Yet the road between Kargoth and Ironhold began to garner more of its own uneasy tales. Carriages kept returning late with some strange scenes following, like drivers appearing very pale, while some did not return at all.
One driver swore he had seen an elderly couple wandering a desolate stretch between the mountain settlements of the southern routes.
"They did not seem… proper," he muttered into his ale.
"You attend too closely to your goblet," one of his fellows repliee in an amused tone.
They, along with the rest of the drinkers team, laughed at the remark, and so the matter was dismissed right there. The matter was not as concerning to them as their bitter ale, anyway.
Anvil's ears caught their conversations without wishing to. He was not into idle speculation, since it earned him no wages to his pocket.
---
That evening, the moons rose early.
And this time, they seemed larger… or nearer.
It seemed absurd to him, of course. Celestial bodies do not shift their courses overnight. Yet here he stood, watching two moons whose positions seemed to alter within the span of a single evening.
'Vaelis,' he reflected, 'they say is the greater moon, pale and silvered. Myrr is the lesser, faintly tinged with blue. By some curious arrangement, their courses appear to move in tandem.'
Though he could not fully understanding their motions, he observed plainly enough that Myrr, the smaller moon, traveled more swiftly and faster than Vaelis, the larger one.
'What a strange world...'
He remained outside his lodging longer than necessary, gazing upward at the two moons and lost in thoughts. Then he shifted his gaze to his shadow which, of course, stood precisely as he did, perfectly aligned with him.
'Too perfectly aligned, even.' he smirked jokingly. He then shifted his body as it followed without hesitation. He exhaled tiredly.
'You are fatigued. You need more rest from work, Anvil.' He was getting rather familiar with the name now.
He left the window and stepped inside. As he crossed the room onto his bunk, the flame of the oil lamp behind him faltered, which made his shadow vanish for a breath into the flashing darkness, before the flame steadied again. The shadow eerily appeared weirdly for a second before snapping back again into place. He wasn't paying attention, anyway.
... Because he was already calculating how much Dosh must be gathered before he might hazard the journey to Ironhold.
'Ironhold lies to the south of Kargoth, and it is along that very road that these curious disturbances have been reported. I would do wisely not to hasten my steps toward it.'
Apart from the incident, Anvil considered the rising prices along the route. Danger and mystery now clung to the wide road, and the train operators were quick to seize any excuse to raise their fares.
Once more, among the merchants if Kargoth, coins exchanged hands. Smoke curled lazily from the chimneys of houses and workshops as passersby and carriages kept the road alive with their constant motion.
Far along the long, desolate stretch between Kargoth and Ironhold a road now feared by all Kargithe and Ironhold inhabitants, a strange carriage covered in thick black clothes all over, save for its creaky wheels, was seen creeping slowly along the desolate plain.
Then, without hesitation, the strange carriage veered toward a dark and secluded path between two cliffs, which had a dead ending at its dark end.