As she and Nick got closer to the entrance to Phoenix, Judy couldn't help but wrinkle her nose at the smell coming off the waterfalls that flowed into the fissure. It was like an awful combination of a swamp and a privy, the sickly smell of decay mixed with that of much fresher waste. Trying to keep her disgust off her face, as Nick seemed to be doing despite his doubtlessly more sensitive nose, Judy tried turning her attention to the layout of Phoenix itself.
Phoenix, she saw, was entirely on a roughly triangular patch of ground; the unimaginable alchemy had cracked Quimichpatlan Barony open had created an enormous Y-shaped fissure that the settlement was nestled in. Although the Outer Wall had partially collapsed around Phoenix, what remained still provided it with a great deal of protection. Indeed, although Judy could see that the arms of the fissure extended into the scrub lands beyond the wall, it was still impassible; any invader would have had to cross the incredibly deep chasm. The part of the wall that Phoenix ended against looked to be completely intact, although with some obvious signs of repair, so if there was a way in or out of the settlement beyond the wide bridge they were walking on Judy didn't see it.
Nick, for his part, didn't seem to be bothered by walking on the bridge that connected the three arms of the fissure, but considering that the bridge had to be at least fifty feet wide Judy supposed that he couldn't see off the edge of it any more than she could. As they got closer, Judy could hear all the signs of a prosperous and bustling town, from the clip-clop of hooves against smooth stone streets and the associated creaking and groaning of carriages to the cries of peddlers selling their wares and the screeches of messenger hawks. After even so brief a trip with only Nick for company, it was a welcome return to the feeling that she had gotten when she had first set foot in Zootopia's city center. It was a feeling of being a part of something, of being a small but no less important part of what was possible when mammals worked together.
As they approached the pair of guards who stood on either side of the gateway to Phoenix, which was a drab affair of the same rough white stone blocks that looked to have been salvaged from the parts of the Outer Wall that had collapsed as all the buildings she could see, Judy couldn't help but appreciate seeing fellow members of the City Guard. The pair, a bear and an auroch, seemed more involved in a low conversation they were having with each other than in keeping an eye on mammals approaching, and both wore the rank insignia of a first corporal on their torcs. At seeing mammals wearing torcs again, Judy couldn't help but shoot a glance in Nick's direction, but at some point she hadn't noticed he had put his oddly plain and unadorned bronze torc back on as though it had never come off. Even his expression had shifted into a politely neutral mask, but neither guard seemed to pay them much attention, the auroch simply impatiently gesturing them on with his spear.
As she walked past, Judy caught a snippet of their conversation, not that it made any sense to her.
"—out here, though?" the bear whispered.
"That's what I heard," the auroch said, just as quietly, and though Judy felt a pang of curiosity she kept walking on.
Her assignment didn't officially end until she reported into the local barracks and presented Nick to the commander, but as she stepped past the gateway it occurred to her that she should have asked the guards where the barracks were. The wedge-shaped design of Phoenix seemed to be split by a number of angled streets between buildings that quickly turned and had the sight lines blocked by more buildings. Judy glanced around, trying to find the familiar design of a City Guard barracks, but she saw nothing, just a dizzying array of mammals making their way along the streets, alchemical torches burning brightly from lampposts to banish the coming night. She narrowly stepped out of the way of a horse-drawn carriage clattering past, both the horse pulling the carriage and the passenger calling out for her to watch her step, and nearly stumbled over a loose bit of pavement into a street vendor selling what appeared to be dried pieces of fish on sticks.
"If you keep spinning like that, your head'll come off," Nick said cheerfully, grabbing Judy by the elbow as he waved apologetically at the wolf selling the dubious-looking food, "You don't know where the City Guard barracks are, do you?"
"Well, no," Judy admitted, and Nick chuckled.
"Come on, then, I know the way," Nick said, and despite his heavy-looking pack he managed to make smoothly maneuvering between a passing porcupine couple look effortless.
Judy quickly caught up with him; he had set off for one of the many side streets with an obvious sense of purpose, and Judy didn't doubt that he knew exactly where he was going. "Is there anything you don't know?" Judy asked, only half-teasing, and Nick smiled enigmatically.
"Oh, not much," he said, rather immodestly, "Only the things worth knowing."
Their walk to the barracks took only a few minutes, and Judy tried to remember all of the twists and turns it took to get there from the main gate; it seemed almost as though Phoenix had been deliberately designed as a bewildering labyrinth, although all of the mammals they passed seemed to move with a similar sense of purpose as Nick. At last, though, they were standing in front of a building that Judy would have recognized anywhere; it seemed as though every barracks she had ever seen shared the same long, squat, and windowless design, the little details that were different all but insignificant. The Phoenix barracks seemed to be built of blocks a bit more rough-hewn than the guardhouse outside the gate through the Middle Wall, but otherwise it looked virtually identical.
Unlike that guardhouse, it did have neighboring buildings, all of which put the barracks to shame; on one side a rug-maker had put out brilliantly colored examples of their intricate work that stood out dramatically from the drab white stone, and on the other was a tavern from which Judy could hear the near-manic conversations and laughter of mammals having a good time.
The Phoenix City Guard barracks were just as austere inside as they were outside; although the floor plan was perfectly recognizable even to Judy's relatively inexperienced eye, there weren't any of the personalized touches most guard commanders allowed at the desks. There were no family portraits or sculptures or even banners for a favored ōllamaliztli or football team. There were files at each desk, but they were all so neatly organized that there didn't seem to be so much as a page out of place. Although the almost aggressively neat building was almost certainly explained by the preference of the commanding officer of the barracks, Judy realized that there was something rather odd about the barracks. There wasn't so much as a single officer, commissioned or not, that she could see.
Nick, who had come in a step behind Judy, frowned as he joined her in looking around. "It's never this empty," he said, and Judy nodded her agreement.
It was downright eerie to see a barracks completely abandoned, especially one that was so neat; it gave off no sign of having ever been inhabited, as though a freshly built barracks had been dropped from the sky and never used. Just as Judy was about to ask Nick if he had somehow guided them to a barracks that hadn't opened yet, she heard the click of hooves against the polished stone floor coming from what would be the commanding officer's private office if the floor plan was entirely as she imagined it to be. A few seconds later Judy saw Nick's ears twitch in the direction of the sound a moment before a sheep in the uniform of a lieutenant colonel.
"Enisgn... Tochtli, is it?" the barracks commander said, "Sign here. You can spend the next two night in the officer's quarters. There's a convoy heading back to the city center you'll leave with."
The sheep's voice was just as cold and unemotional as the barracks he commanded, and he thrust a clipboard with a sheet of paper on in towards Judy as he spoke, barely giving her the chance to salute. Each word was clipped and precise, as was his uniform. The quilted red fabric of his tunic showed sharp and seemingly geometrically perfect creases, and the insignia attached to either side of his torc caught the brilliant light of the alchemical torches in the room and were completely free of smudges or lint. His silver breastplate didn't show so much as a whorl from being polished, as though it had been made immediately before he put it on. Even the feathers at his wrist, which Judy knew from experience to be frustratingly difficult to keep in order, were aligned so precisely that they almost didn't seem real.
The ram himself was completely overshadowed by his uniform; his wool had been neatly sheared so short that his rosily pink skin was visible and his features were entirely unremarkable. He was of average height for a sheep, with a build that made it obvious he had not neglected his daily training, and the overall effect was that he almost looked like an illustration out of the City Guard's uniform regulations. "Lieutenant Colonel Cencerro, how nice to see you again!" Nick said, first spreading his paws out in welcome.
Cencerro—and although Judy had never met Lady Alba Cencerro she would be willing to bet the two mammals were related somehow—inclined his head a fraction of an inch in Nick's direction before turning his attention back to Judy, standing stiffly as he waited for her to fill out the form he had given her. The paperwork was straightforward and to the point; it was a simple acknowledgement that she had completed her assignment and Judy quickly finished signing it. As Cencerro took the clipboard back, Judy found the completion of her first official assignment as a member of the City Guard strangely anticlimatic. She certainly hadn't expected the barracks commander to congratulate her for completing so simple a task, but she had held out some kind of hope that he would at least acknowledge she had made it a quick trip.
Instead, he seemed to be completely done with her, not even giving her either a make-work job or especially hated task the way Judy had heard some barracks commanders did for visiting members of the City Guard. Certainly she didn't want to clean the street outside the barracks with nothing but a toothbrush or re-organize several years of old files, but considering how empty the Phoenix barracks were Judy found it bizarre Cencerro hadn't even mentioned assigning her to keep watch. "Sir," Judy said as Cencerro began to turn around to go the way he had come, "Is there something going on?"
She gestured around the empty office area. "I don't know if you saw it in my file, but I was at the top of—" Judy began, but Cencerro interrupted, his tone just as bland as before.
"Nothing that requires your attention, Ensign," the ram said, "The Phoenix City Guard has it under control."
"Has what under control?" Judy asked, and then hastily added, "Sir?"
Cencerro's mouth, which had previously been nothing more than a narrow slash across his face, thinned further. "Nothing that requires your attention, Ensign," he repeated, "You don't know this town. You would only waste time."
"Oh, I wouldn't mind guiding her around," Nick interjected cheerfully, "It's too late to bother setting up a booth in the market anyway."
Judy suspected that Nick was just as curious about what could possibly empty out the barracks as she was, and whether he was genuinely interested in helping or simply trying to curry favor she appreciated the offer. "It's not a matter for a civilian, Nicholas," Cencerro said rather stiffly as his eyes narrowed, "You should leave."
There was a long moment, in which the ram simply stared at the fox, and then Nick shrugged. "Always a pleasure, lieutenant colonel," he said, and it was a testament to Nick that he made the words sound almost genuine.
Nick shot a questioning look at Judy as he wordlessly asked her if she would be leaving with him, but Cencerro spoke before she could respond in any way. "Come to my office, Ensign," Cencerro said, which only made Judy more curious as to what was going on; it was very odd for him to first claim not to have anything for her to do and then want to speak with her alone.
Nick clapped his paws together. "Well, I hope the two of you have a good talk but I really ought to go," he said, as though Cencerro had not just bluntly told him to leave; the fox seemed to have a real talent for simply ignoring awkward situations as though they had gone the way he wanted them to.
He turned to leave, but he took his time walking out. "I'll have a booth in the market the next few days before I put my bid in," Nick murmured on his way past Judy, "It's in the biggest square in town, you can't miss it."
Judy nodded slightly to show she had heard him, and then, just like that, he was gone. The door clicked shut behind him with what struck Judy as a grim finality, and she had plenty of time to mull it over as she followed Cencerro back to his office. It had just as little personality as the rest of the building; were it not for the name—LT. COL. D. CENCERRO—carved into the wall beside the door and the neat stack of files on the modest desk, it would have looked as though it had never been used.
"I apologize, Ensign," Cencerro said as he took his chair and gestured for Judy to take the one opposite him, "But it's not a matter we can speak about in front of a fox."
For the first time since she had met the lieutenant colonel, Judy heard what sounded like genuine emotion in his voice; his distaste for Nick was obvious. "Especially one that's stolen the secrets of alchemy," Cencerro added, "Did he tell you why he's really here?"
"Sir?" Judy said, not entirely sure what the ram was getting at, but Cencerro smiled sourly and Judy was surprised at how much more animated he appeared without Nick present.
It seemed as though he didn't just hold distaste for Nick but genuinely loathed him, as though his stiffness had simply been his way of holding his emotions in check, his words not nearly as clipped as they had been. "He's not just here to bid on a public works project, I can tell you that," Cencerro said, "He's always skulking about here, has been for years. Completely untrustworthy, just like every fox. And now with what happened at the palace... If you have any idea what he's up to I want to know."
Judy's mind flew instantly to the book she had promised to buy for Nick, but it was absurd to think that he would have gone to such efforts when there surely had to be a dozen different ways he could get his paws on it if he really wanted to. Just because he was a fox and an alchemist didn't mean that he had some ulterior motive; if she, as a bunny, could become a soldier because she wanted to keep the city safe and help make it better, Judy saw no reason a fox couldn't want to become an alchemist for a noble reason. Not that he had ever said why or really even how he managed to master the notoriously difficult and secretive form of magic, but Judy had no small amount of faith in him. He was, so far as she could tell, a good fox, no matter what Cencerro thought. "Nothing he's mentioned, sir," Judy said at last, "But what happened at the palace?"
Judy was just as interested in getting Cencerro's attention away from Nick as to what could have possibly happened at the palace, and from the gloomy way the ram sighed she knew it couldn't be anything good. "I didn't want that fox spreading rumors, but you were right to ask why the barracks are so empty," he said, pulling a folded envelope from within one of the files on his desk.
Although Judy had never sent a letter by messenger hawk—she had never known anyone who it would be practical to send such a letter to—she had received exactly one such letter before and she recognized the envelope as being identical to the one her acceptance letter to the academy had arrived in. Or rather, nearly identical. While the envelope she had received had been sealed with red wax, the alchemical symbols etched into it burning white to show it hadn't been tampered with, the envelope Cencerro showed her had the remains of a purple wax seal. Although the alchemical symbols no longer glowed, the seal having already been broken, Judy recognized that the seal wasn't just the symbol of the City Guard; it had been sent from the desk of Captain General Bogo himself. "An assassin slipped into the palace and nearly killed the princess," Cencerro said, pulling the letter out of its envelope although he did not show it to her.
"Is she all right?" Judy asked once she could manage to articulate a thought, "How?"
The lieutenant colonel held up one hoof, forestalling her questions no matter how badly she wanted to demand answers. "She's fine, but there are some leads on how the assassin might have managed to slip in. Leads that trace back here, to Phoenix. I've got every soldier I can spare trying to run down some blood magicians, and now you show up."
"Sir, if there's anything I can do to help—" Judy began, but he cut her off.
"It's an interesting coincidence, wouldn't you say?" Cencerro mused, stroking at his chin with the hoof that wasn't holding the letter.
"Sir?" Judy asked, but she had a sinking feeling she already knew what Cencerro was thinking.
"An assassin using powerful quauhxicallis tries killing the princess, quauhxicallis that might have been made here in Phoenix. And the very same day the news gets to us, so does a fox alchemist."
"Sir, I don't think he would do that," Judy said, trying to pick her words as carefully as possible, "I don't think—"
"Ensign Tochtli," Cencerro interrupted, "You've known him for all of two days. Surely you realize criminals can lie, don't you?"
"I—" Judy began, but she couldn't finish the thought.
Had Nick spent their entire trip together tricking her? She didn't want to believe it; surely Cencerro was just grasping at straws, allowing his dislike for Nick to let him envision the fox as a part of an awful conspiracy. But there was no denying that Nick was an odd mammal, from being an alchemist despite also being a predator to his carefree attitude towards his torc. "You understand," Cencerro said, seeming to take her hesitation for agreement, "I have a special assignment for you for the next few days, Ensign. I want you to figure out what that fox is up to."
He looked at Judy expectantly, and all she could do was nod, hoping the conflict roiling in her mind wasn't visible on her face.
Author's Notes:
Up until this chapter, all of the members of the City Guard who have shown up have been officers, with this chapter marking the first appearance of enlisted soldiers. I figure it's one of the little things that distinguishes the main part of the city with a settlement at its literal edge; it's simply neither a prestigious assignment or one that makes the soldiers particularly noticeable to the higher ups. First corporal is a fairly low rank, but technically speaking as a commissioned officer, even at the lowest possible rank, Judy outranks all non-commissioned officers. However, it's a very foolish ensign who tries pulling rank on senior enlisted personnel.
An auroch is a now-extinct species of cattle that was the ancestor of modern domesticated cattle, which went extinct in the real-world sometime around the mid-17th century.
The game ōllamaliztli is a real Aztec sport, sometimes known now as the Aztec ballgame, is poorly understood in the modern era. There were likely several different but similar games, or the rules may have changed over time, but there are plenty of surviving ball courts that attest to its popularity. Football is, of course, association football, or soccer, which has a history that traces back centuries (or possibly even longer). Professional sports are a relatively modern concept for the games that are currently played, with most dating to the late 19th or early 20th century, but the concept of professional athletes is not. At the highest levels, ancient gladiators were very well paid and even endorsed products the way modern athletes do, and Aztec games seem to have had a ritualistic element to them that I think could have plausibly evolved into something like a modern sport league.
One of the major reasons that letters used to be sealed with wax was to show that they hadn't been tampered with. Generally, you have to break the seal to open it, which is a useful way of showing if someone's been reading your mail. I figured that it made sense, considering the near-ubiquitous appearance of alchemy in this story, that they would use similar anti-tampering methods to what was mentioned on the coins as an anti-counterfeiting measure back in chapter 5.
The two story lines in this story aren't exactly happening concurrently; the chapters from Bogo's perspective covered a significantly shorter amount of time, and this chapter demonstrates that the chapters didn't start in synch either. Hopefully the way I wrote it makes it clear enough, but as always I'm interested in hearing what people think if they're so inclined to leave a comment. Thanks for reading, and if you celebrate it I hope you have a very Merry Christmas!