Sınır Sapı

Sınır Sapı is the name of both a border district and the small walled town with an inner keep at its heart, in the campaign Zincirsiz ("Unchained"). It lies at the northern end of the province of Ak Şelale, on the border with the province to its north: most of the settlement is on the Ak Şelale side, while some of the district's lands belong to the other province. Legionaries, local guards and a number of elves are seen in its streets.¹²

Arrival under quarantine

Jonathan River came out of the passage that carried him away from the mountain of Azbo dizzy and sick, in the countryside of the district, together with Olaf. A nameless traveller asked how they had come there; the two learned where they were and thought of heading south. They were caught in the countryside, spent a night on the road and were brought into the town.³⁴⁵

The district had been closed for three months on a written order of the Southern Armies Command, carried out by the legion's major, Lucius Cardoor. After questioning, he released the pair inside the town but not out of the district, because of the sickness that had brought the quarantine.⁶⁷⁸

The town

The quarantine did not make the town a lawless prison. Its streets are lit and people go about them as usual, and its shops stay open; the ban on entering and leaving the district is one thing, freedom inside the town another.⁹¹⁰

Besides the main square there are two smaller squares around wells. Shops stand around the main square, houses line the road to the keep, and an old granary has been turned into the district's orphanage. The elves' military mission uses a closed inn as its temporary post; the main guard post belongs to the major. A secluded family tomb inside the town is separate from the common cemetery, which lies outside the walls.^1112131415

In the evening the crowd at the only open inn spilled out to tables set in the street, and the townsfolk, more used to seeing magic than most, did not turn cold at Jonathan's offer of help. Away from the centre, though, the next morning showed closed shops and boarded-up windows.¹⁶¹⁷¹⁸

Jonathan asked to see the town's records of names and residences, but Tim, the governor's son, would not open them without asking his father.¹⁹

Ektelyon's shop

The old elf Ektelyon keeps a three-storey shop with finely worked ornament against the town's eastern wall. A glowing written sign keeps reappearing in the air before it and its door opens by itself; inside are a U-shaped counter and shelves, and the upper floors hold rare books, maps, trinkets and paintings. The innkeeper says that Ektelyon also mends goods and things like the water pump.²⁰²¹²²

Jonathan offered his help there and showed what he could do by turning Blink into a mop; he later sorted thirty or forty newly arrived books into the shop's card system in an hour or two. It was to this shop that he came, closing the door behind him, to ask Ektelyon in private about the heart of the fey.^23222425

History and plenty

Through the paired notebook, Dunk wrote to Jonathan that the name Sınır Sapı appears in texts centuries old, that the district has known civilisation for nearly a thousand years, and that things have happened in and beneath its forest. From old notes of the chain-bearers he later told of an ancient struggle between forces beneath the earth and the spirits and wardens of the forest on the surface, some thousand to fifteen hundred years ago; a hooded man whom Jonathan met at night spoke of the same old struggle from his own knowledge.²⁶²⁷²⁸

Tim tells that his family was appointed to govern a town that had grown along the trade roads. By another account the settlement quickly grew large enough to need a governor, and its land could feed the growing people.²⁹³⁰

The dwarf Fundin says he has lived here since the town was founded, and in Ak Şelale before that. He points out that bananas, peaches, melons and strawberries all grow in the same soil, a plenty out of the ordinary. Ektelyon ties it to a fey that spread its spirit over the district before anyone settled there, and the governor told of Teresa's belief that the land's plenty is a gift of the forest spirits.^31323334

A wide barrier keeps anyone from teleporting into the district. Jonathan judged that such a barrier needs great power and a weighty reason.³⁵

Unrest

When Jonathan and Olaf came back after some days' walk from the forest, the gate guards, who work in shifts, could not say whether two elf soldiers sent out earlier had returned; the elf commander later told them there was still no word of them. On the way to the elves' post a witch hunter watched them openly from the head of the street, and as they left it Master Otto hailed them from his carriage.^36373839

After an explosion in the forest, the guards at the gate asked everyone coming in, country folk gathered into the town among them, where they had come from, and more guards walked the streets. Some said a devil had come down, others that the drow were coming.⁴⁰⁴¹

Spoiler: Later eventsGösterAçık ettiği: Zincirsiz #13 · Ne okuduğunuzu söyleyin

The governor later admitted to Jonathan that the story of a sickness was a cover, made up to draw help from outside. The violence and the losses were real all the same.⁴²

The end of the quarantine

Spoiler: What followedGösterAçık ettiği: Zincirsiz #18 · Ne okuduğunuzu söyleyin

The bodies of two elf soldiers and six townspeople, recovered from a water cave, were handed over in the town to the soldiers and the families. The people met Jonathan and Olaf with flowers, food and applause, grief mingled with relief that the waiting was over, and Jonathan told the crowd of the fight.^43444546

At the rulers' table it was announced that the quarantine was lifted and that human and elven military officers would govern until a new governor was appointed; the governor was said to have set out on a journey. At dawn the townsfolk saw the travellers off, and this time Tim went with them.^47484950

Sınır Sapı lies on the northern edge of Ak Şelale, on the side towards Dağdibi. Rather than turn towards the heart of Ak Şelale, Jonathan chose to fetch papers from Çekiçyurt and then go south.⁵¹⁵²