For as long as she could remember, Kieko had a dream of one day visiting, perhaps even of living in, the Great City of Adianna. The finest city of the last age and the only one to have survived the cataclysms that had brought that age of sorcery and miracles to a close. The other cities were now nothing more than monster haunted ruins. Though much reduced from its heyday, it had remained an outpost of culture, of learning and of magic, where even the common citizenry lived lives that kings and warlords of the surrounding lands could only dream of. 

Of course, like all such dreams, it was not one easily achieved. Few were allowed within its high, ivory colored walls. As a girl, Kieko had listened in rapt attention to the tales old Hieka had told of the times he’d sold consignments of wine to the city and he’d only been allowed in the lower parts of the city on a market day, when traders came from all across the lands, bringing the finest things they had, in the hopes of gaining a small crumb of the city’s legendary wealth. 

To live in the city was another matter entirely, a privilege reserved for its citizens alone, those fortunate enough to be born within its walls. While this privilege had been granted to outsiders in the past, those had been mighty heroes who had earned the right through great deeds. It was not something an ordinary peasant girl like Kieko could aspire to. However, there was another way in, one she could never have imagined, even in her wildest dreams…

“Keep moving!” The cruel voice of the slave driver barked, though fortunately this time he did not lash out at his charges with the cruel whip in his hand, merely cracking it threateningly over their heads. The last few days of the journey, he and the other slavers had become more sparing with their punishments, giving the welts and marks on the backs of their chattel a chance to fade a little, so they would look better once at market. 

It had now been about five weeks since a band of marauders, in service to one of the countless quarreling warlords plaguing the land, had descended without warning upon Kieko’s village. Lacking walls, weapons or anything really with which to defend themselves, the villagers put up no resistance, but that had not saved them from the rapacious raiders, who were only interested in extracting what wealth they could from their victims. In a poor village like hers, what wealth they had was mostly in the form of the villagers themselves. 

Kieko had been seized, along with her mother and sisters and many of the other village women, roped into one long slave coffle. Many of the village’s young men and boys were tied in another and both marched off into slavery. Their first destination was a large market town, where the raiders could dispose of their captives quickly, then get out raiding and round up some more. With the rest, Keiko had been stripped naked and put up on display in the town’s slave market, cringing in shame as dozens, hundreds of merchants and buyers examined her and the other abducted villagers. 

One particularly wealthy merchant went down the line, looking for a specific kind of ware to buy. His eyes fell on Kieko, followed shortly by his hands, which roamed across her young, healthy body, not with lust like some of the men perusing the female slaves for sale, but more akin to a livestock trader, sizing up the quality of a horse or ox before buying. 

When he was satisfied with the quality of the maiden, he haggled with her seller for a moment, then coins changed hands and like that, Kieko was sold. The terrified girl was detached from the others, dragged from her mother and sisters and added, along with some of the other village girls, who in better times had been considered beauties, to a new coffle, consisting of more beautiful young slave girls snatched from other towns and villages across the lands. Once the dealer had enough merchandise, he gave the order to his henchmen who, with whips and curses, got the girls moving, setting out on the next leg of their journey. 

For most of the long, difficult march, Kieko had no idea where she and the other girls were being taken. Their captors said little to them, except when barking orders to keep the line moving smoothly, mile after mile. All she’d been able to guess, from snatches of conversation overheard, was that their buyer thought he’d assembled a good selection of chattel this time, and he expected to turn a large profit when they reached their destination and the girls were sold. 

It wasn’t until they got close to their destination that Kieko realized where they were bound. Slowly, over the tops of the hills and trees, the young maid saw the white towers, fluttering with brightly colored silk pennants, then the golden gabled rooftops of the houses, peeking over the white crenelations of the city walls and she knew they had come to Adiaana, the city of her dreams. 

Had this been one of her dreams, of course, she wouldn’t have arrived as she did: naked, covered in the dirt and grime of the long road, an iron collar around her neck and iron chains joining her in coffle with dozens of other naked and shackled slave girls, but in a stately coach, like the many that overtook the slow moving coffle on the road, heading to the city, their finely dressed and richly ornamented passengers barely sparing a glance at the line of dejected female captives sharing the road with them.  

In the dream, they would have entered the city through the East facing Gates of Dawn, described so often in songs and poems, but Kieko supposed such a gate was too good for slaves like her and the other girls. They circled westward, to a much more humble trade gate. There, the coffle waited in line, at the side of the dirt road, between a herd of swine; the peasant boys guiding it unable to stop staring at the line of naked girls, and a small caravan of carts, stacked high with barrels of, judging from the smell, salted fish and other such sundries. 

Eventually, their turn to enter came. The slave drivers cracked their whips, rousing the slave girls to their sore feet once more. The coffle trudged forward, passing through a heavy, but largely unornamented stone gate, into a courtyard. There, a man in the silk robes of an official of the city briefly looked over the line of chained up girls before signing a scrip of paper which he passed to the dealer. At the far end, the inner gates creaked open to allow the coffle through, into the city itself. 

Despite her situation, Kieko couldn’t help but feel some small thrill in her breast as she shuffled through this second gate with the other slaves. She was here! After so many years of listening to stories, so many nights dreaming, she was actually in Adianna! True, she was arriving in the collar and chains of a slave, barely half a step above livestock, like the herd of squealing swine that had preceded them through the gates, but she was here in the City nonetheless. 

“And besides…” The maid told herself. “I’ve got nowhere to go but up!”