When he had taken it all in, the sudden rush of sound began to overwhelm him. All he could hear in his chambers were the scouring winds and distant explosions of ships entering and exiting the planet’s atmosphere. Now, a thousand voices and the rush of small transports darting back and forth in roughly organised lines overhead greeted him like a blow to the temple.

“It’s…,” he grunted. “It’s something to behold.”

“Come, it’s a short walk to the landing bay and then we can get to somewhere a little more suited to your…” she left it at that and traipsed down the steps. Dorn and Lugre followed, the need to guard their ‘guest’ seemingly passed.

As much as Cydnar wanted to disappear into the crowd, alone, and unprepared for whatever the future would throw at him he had little choice but to follow. Though his senses flared, ever ready for danger, his heart sung to see the Adoria and his old friend.

“Why is everything so loud?” he shouted over the crowd as they snaked through the river of people.

“It is?” Lugre chuckled, a deep belly laugh that shook his jowls and jangled the tools on his belt. “I don’t notice it anymore.”

“Thirty years of hammers ringing in your ear tends to dull the senses!” Dorn replied, dodging his companion’s swinging fist nimbly.

“You’re at the heart of the city centre, Cydnar. When we get to the workshops you’ll see Denisha in another, quieter light.”

He rather hoped so. Anxiety drove his reflexes into overdrive, and he darted back and forth as though during battle to avoid colliding into somebody. The citizens cast him a furtive glance, but the sight of strangers was common here. The more he looked at the passers-by, the more he realised his attire and complexion were not so unusual as he might be had this been his own world. He spotted elves who had the Hummel skin tone and curved ears, but brawnier and with darker hair, and realised that living as one people had begun to break down the barriers of racial hatred he had known for so long.

“Cydnar!” Larisa cried.

He looked around, and saw the trio standing before a raised stairway that lead up to a circular platform atop which hummed an electrified dome. He realised he had stopped to stare.

“Keep up!”

He made short work of the staircase and watched with interest as the walkway took them inside the dome and into a small igloo shaped recess in the structure. There were no panels or concierges, just a hollow, echoing space. He looked around bewildered.
“If the lift made you have a funny turn I’d brace yourself…” Dorn patted Cydnar on the shoulder and held him steady.

“Errr…why?”

The moment he asked the chamber burst into bright lime light and they all disappeared, evaporating into the plasma conduits and fired upwards into the sky in a split second. They reformed on the deck of a small sailed schooner half a mile over the city, the wind rushing over them and the silence of the open skies swallowing their thoughts. Cydnar, as expected, dropped to his knees and wretched.