Lucian Voss saw Caldris (Capital of Corathen) before he understood that he was looking at the city.
He stood on a low ridge three miles ahead of the caravan while the morning mist withdrew from the road. Farms covered the broad valley below. Beyond them, tiled roofs gathered around a river and spread east until distance turned them gray.
Lucian opened the regional map.
The next marked town should have been nine miles away.
There was no town on the road ahead. There were warehouses, mills, workers' houses, animal yards, signal towers, and a line of freight wagons so long that its far end disappeared behind a second ridge. The settlement continued past every border shown on the map because the map had been printed twelve years before and Caldris had continued growing.
One of the signal towers displayed a white crown above a black southern gate, the road emblem for Caldris.
The city had begun.
Lucian closed the map and moved down the ridge.
