Emmaline felt clean for the first time since she had been dragged into Emir Omar’s bed chamber a year ago. Some dirt didn’t come off no matter how many rose scented baths you took. Idly she wondered if the Emir’s blood had been what made her feel clean again, realising such thoughts might verge on heretical she closed her eyes and allowed the hot water to relax her muscles and her mind. She was the only woman in the bath house and she had two servants to herself. The conservatively garbed women washed her hair and scrubbed her body with practiced care, whispering softly to each other in Arabic that she pretended not to understand. As her lecherous old master had told her, allowing people to underestimate you never failed to pay off. The conversation largely revolved around her golden hair and the petty jealousy the bath maids held for those who could afford to use their services so she tuned them out. She was so relaxed she might have fallen asleep when Amal suddenly stuck his head through the tarp that partitioned the bath, catching a full view of her naked body in the calm hot water. She had just enough time to gasp and attempt to cover herself with her hands before he told her to meet him outside and then vanished, followed by heavy footfalls and angry shouts. 

“The rogue!” one of the dancing girls exclaimed, seeming outraged.

“A handsome rogue though,” the other responded with a titter. Emmaline rose from the bath, allowing the hot water to stream over her generous form for a moment before sticking her head out between the two pieces of tarp, careful to keep herself concealed. She caught the familiar whiff of blood on the air. Retracting her head she snatched up a towel and quickly began to dry herself off. The two attendants stepped to her and took over the job.

“Shall we brush your hair mistress?” the first one asked in halting Riekspiel in an abominable accent. Emmaline could only presume she had picked it up from passing sailors and Imperial merchants. She was about to refuse, when she realised that Amal obviously didn’t intend her to rush after him. Worse yet doing so might make her an accomplice in whatever mayhem he had just committed.

“Ja,” she ordered the serving girl, shaking her sodden hair away from her back and taking a seat on a carven three legged stool provided for the purpose. The girls began to brush her hair with a comb made of some kind of ivory and within a quarter hour it was shining with the full lustore of spun gold. The practice also gave her body time to dry in the hot desert air and by the time she had dressed in her sari she had almost forgotten about Amal’s sudden disappearance.

It was almost another half hour later when Amal returned to deliver his surprising offer. She had been on the verge of simply abandoning the thief, especially as a number of armed barefoot Arabyians had come in and out of the bath house, sailors judging by their calloused palms and rolling gates, and appeared to be growing increasingly agitated by something they found inside.

“I wish to travel to Copher,” she told him as they hurried away through a side alley. While she had intended to take a ship, it might well be a better choice to take the land route, though that meant weeks of travel across 

“If you wish to come with me, I won't object, you are the only person I know in this Sigmar blighted country.”

“What is in Copher?” Amal asked. Emmaline gave him a side long look. Copher was the closest major city, but it was also a seat of learning and sorcerous knowledge. She wanted to consult the scholars there about the strange map she had taken from the Emir.

“When I…” she glanced around as they hurried down a narrow street, there were too many people for her to speak openly so she changed her words.

“When I did what I did, I also stole an ancient map that was on display,” she explained, opting for the truth as the simplest and most expidient choices.

“I want to ask a historian in Copher about it.”

“A map to what?” Amal asked, his eyes narrowing speculatively.

“Well if I knew, I wouldn’t need to consult anyone would I,” she replied tartly.

“I need to pick up a few things before we leave town,” she told him. Amal looked nervously over his shoulder.

“So long as its quick…”

The Street of Wonder was located on the southern side of the city, only a few blocks from where the ancient city walls sectioned of the desert with is limestone ramparts. In mid afternoon it was a busy place filled with sound and confusion. Students of various philosophers stood at opposing street corners, shouting insults and arguments back and forth at each other. Brightly dressed merchants cried the virtues of wares from a dozen kingdoms, promised miracles, offered immortality and various other such persuasions. There were even peddlers selling relics of lost Khemri, or so they claimed, as far as Emmaline could tell there was nothing on display that might not have as easily been a fake produced this very week.  

There were more substantial shops also, some claiming to be the domains of wizards and seers. Emmaline could detect a spark of genuine magic in but a few and she angled quickly towards one located in a large white washed building. A sign hung out front depicting a stylized eye within a pyramid. The interior of the shop was dark and cool and smelled strongly of incense. Books lay piled in more or less random, many in languages Emmaline didn’t recognise. There were Khemrian papyri and even Cathayan writings all piled up without any rhyme nor reason she could detect. On the other side of the store stood a variety of oddly assorted items. Paws of some creature she didn't recognise, bundles of incense, and flasks and alchemical equipment. An exceedingly tall man hunched behind a counter in front of a wall filled with jars and bottles of unknown content. Amal glanced around suspiciously, Emmaline dearly hoped he was too smart to attempt to steal anything.

“Hexe,” the tall man said in an oddly serpentine voice, bowing from the waist to her.

“What can I do for you?” he asked in flawless Reikspiel. She reached into her pocket and drew out a handful of gold coins. The fellow smile grew broader.

A little while later Emmaline and Amal emerged from the store. In a leather backpack she now carried a large case filled with the basic tools of her trade. Alchemical equipment, ungents and ingredients, a small rod of magnetic gold, and a variety of ingredients that one rarely found in the wild. She had also purchased a tome on Charmon, as well as a lexicon for translating Khemri and the other ancient languages of the desert. It had cost most of her coin, but she hoped it would prove a worthy investment.

“Shall we be on our way?” she asked.