The path to the Upper City wasn't a staircase, but a flight. Leaving the two fear-paralyzed thieves behind, Gunder led Tom to a circular platform in the center of a small square. With the clink of a few coins into a slot, a cage of gilded metal and glass descended from the heavens, its gears turning with a soft, melodious hum—the very opposite of the chaotic grinding of the lower city.
The cage then rose. It gave a slight shudder as it detached from the suspended metal holding it. The sound of gears turning filled the air. Tom looked up, watching the dark steel chain pulling them upward.
The ascent was dizzying, a silent flight inside a cage of gilded metal and glass. The girl pressed her face against the transparent wall, the air leaving her lungs in a gasp of pure awe that fogged the panel for an instant.
"Gunder… we're so high," she whispered, her eyes wide, reflecting the Lower City as it became an intricate model of rust and life. The hive of rooftops and crowded streets, which had once been her entire world, now looked small, a distant anthill.
"It's just an elevator, Tom… Keep your composure," Gunder replied without looking at her, his calm voice serving as an anchor to the girl's excitement. His cat-like eyes, however, were not still; they swept across the panorama. He wouldn't admit it, but the landscape of the low sun in the background, the desert and the arid mountains surrounding the city, left him with a calm feeling in his chest.
She glanced down into the dizzying depths where the light barely reached and glimpsed the absolute darkness of the Abyss, a pit of forgotten misery that served as the foundation for it all. A shiver ran down her spine.
Then, passing through a sort of vertical tunnel, they broke through the layer of yellowish mist, and the light hit them with the force of a wave.
The capsule opened, and the air that greeted them was clean, fresh, and carried the subtle scent of unknown flowers. Tom took a step out and froze, her jaw slack, her breath caught in her throat. It was a world bathed in gold.
The energy here vibrated with a stunning intensity, a symphony of life, color, and ambition. Towers of polished steel and spirals of bronze scraped a perfect blue sky. Hanging gardens, bursting with flowers of impossible colors, cascaded from graceful structures.
"Look at that!" she exclaimed, running to the edge of the platform and pointing at a waterfall of crystal-clear water flowing through a channel of sculpted metal on a building's facade. "The water… it runs down the walls! How is that possible?"
"Human engineering has come a long way, huh…" Gunder said, a note of surprise in his voice. He walked over, placing a firm hand on her shoulder to guide her. "But focus. We're not here on a tour."
But it was hard to focus. Every detail was a marvel. The people filling the wide avenues were the very pulse of the city. Men and women in immaculate work attire, groups of friends laughing loudly, entire families out for a stroll. The scarlet-haired youth had never seen so many smiles in one place. She understood the nature of this place instinctively: it was a destination, a stage where everyone came to work, to shop, and to dream.
The walls of the buildings were alive, covered in holograms and luminous panels that danced with hypnotic images.
"What are these places?" the girl asked, stopping before a sign that read "The King's Whim," which showed a deck of golden cards magically shuffling in mid-air. "Is it some kind of mage's guild?"
"Something like that, I imagine," Gunder replied, his voice low and sharp, gently pulling her by the arm to keep her moving. "A guild that practices the kind of magic that makes coins disappear. Not something real mages do!"
"But… But… The King?" Tom protested, her voice nearly a whine as she was dragged along.
"Just hurry up, you stubborn brat!" Gunder grumbled, his irritation and lack of patience beginning to show.
She obeyed, but her curious gaze continued to sweep over everything. She looked up and saw, even higher, beyond the commercial metropolis, the tips of serene, silver spires that seemed to belong to another world: the City's Apex, a silent and unreachable Olympus. "I wonder what's up there."
Gunder glanced sideways toward the top of the city. His feline eyes narrowed, a look of disdain on his face. "The kind of people we don't get involved with," was his only reply.
As they walked, a sleek, silent vehicle made of dark metal and smoked glass glided to the edge of the avenue. The flow of pedestrians parted for it without a command, an instinctive gesture of respect. A door opened and a woman in a silver dress stepped out, the fabric seeming as if woven from moonlight. She didn't look at anyone, her face a mask of bored beauty as a liveried doorman welcomed her at the entrance of an opulent shop.
While Gunder maintained his pace, Tom's slowed for a fraction of a second, almost imperceptibly. Her eyes never left the woman, tracking the way the silver dress floated around her ankles with each step. The fabric seemed alive, drinking the golden city light and returning it in liquid fragments.
Unconsciously, the girl's hand brushed against the coarse seam of her own trousers, her fingers feeling the rough, functional texture of the fabric that hid her. It was just an instant, a lapse in her facade as a wonder-struck boy, a silent moment where her gaze held not surprise, but a deep, melancholic fascination. When the woman disappeared inside the opulent shop, Tom blinked, forcing her gaze forward and quickening her pace to catch up with Gunder, an inexplicable warmth on her face.
Their walk took them away from the commercial avenues. The melodious sound of fountains and crowds was gradually replaced by a heavy silence. They entered a vast and austere civic plaza, paved with slabs of obsidian so polished they reflected the sky like a dark mirror. And in the center of the plaza, like an anchor of darkness holding the golden city in place, stood the fortress.
The excitement that had been bubbling in Tom's chest vanished, replaced by an intimidating awe. The air here was colder. "That place… it doesn't look like part of the rest of the city," she murmured.
"That's because it isn't," Gunder said, stopping beside her, his gaze fixed on the structure. "The rest of the city is a constant farce. That thing is what came after its founding, after the Kingdom arrived. What we're looking for…"
The structure rose like a blade of obsidian, a monolith of bluish-black metal with sharp angles and smooth walls that seemed to absorb light and sound. Its architecture was brutal and efficient, a declaration of pure power, not beauty. Above a colossal gate of reinforced steel, a banner hung, motionless in the filtered air. It depicted a large gear, symbolizing the city. At its center was a crest with a shield, emblazoned with a downward-pointing sword flanked by two spears. The symbol of the Sentinels of the Order of the city of Chisanatora.
Two guards flanked the entrance, as still as statues. Their functional, matte-gray armor covered them from head to toe, their faces hidden by impersonal helms. The cold aura of discipline and danger that emanated from them betrayed their nature—they were soldiers, and their presence was an invisible wall, more imposing than the steel gate itself.
This place was the cold steel foundation upon which the city's golden dream was built.
Gunder took a step forward, and the girl followed, their footsteps echoing in the oppressive silence of the plaza.
"We're here," he said, his voice devoid of any emotion. "The Headquarters of the Sentinels of the Order."