CITY UNDER THE SAND
Jeff Mariotte
©2010 Wizards of the Coast LLC
Cover art by Justin Sweet Map by Robert Lazzeretti
eISBN: 978-0-7869-5306-1
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS
Dark Sun
Converted by Dreamcity, 2011-02-08, version 1.0

All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

To Maryelizabeth, with love.
Great appreciation is due many people for their support, friendship, and assistance during this project. Some of those people—but by no means all—are Fleetwood, Howard and Katie, friends in the gaming community including Matt, Jess, Amy & Boyan, Weston Ochse, Dianne Larson, and the terrific crew at WOTC.

I
EMERGENCE
1
"Silt storm!"
At Avra's bellow, chaos ceased. For a long moment, the clatter and clack of weapons halted, as did the grunts and cries of the combatants, and even the rasp of sandaled feet scrabbling in sand.
All turned toward the southeast, toward the northern end of the Sea of Silt, which reached far into this almost forgotten country. The Road of Kings skirted the sea's shores as it wound toward Raam and Draj, south of their present location, but a running battle with raiders had driven the merchant party off course, well north of the road.
On a day like this, with a fierce wind raging out of the south, the lightweight silt could be carried for great distances. The two forts between here and the sea had no doubt been blasted, their inhabitants still picking it from teeth and eyes, dusting it off everything they possessed.
Avra realized the storm was worse than he had first thought. The massive cloud barreling toward them was a mixture of gray and yellow. Silt and sand together. Silt was lighter, a nuisance, but the sand would sting and scour more. The cloud towered high above the plain; behind it the burning sun of Athas was a flat, distant pink disc hovering just above the horizon. It looked almost harmless.
Even as the realization of the cloud's potential pierced Avra's brain, the sounds of battle resumed as combatants tried to take advantage of the momentary distraction. Paid mercenaries fought side by side with House Fay Ion's slaves to defend the House's caravan against marauding raiders: a mixed group of humans, elves, half-elves, goliaths and others. Should the raiders prevail, every member of the caravan would be slain. If the guards won, the caravan would return to the main trading route and continue on to Draj, to sell goods mainly from hard, durable agafari wood and to buy grains and hemp for sale back in Nibenay.
Avra had spotted the storm behind his foe, a raider with the lean, hardened look of a former Raamite soldier. The man had risked a quick glance over his own shoulder, but, curiosity satisfied, stabbed at Avra with a dragon paw. Avra brought his agafari-wood sword up in time to block the thrust, sending the bone blade jabbing harmlessly past his right leg, but the raider spun the dragon paw around and came at him with the blade at the short staffs other end. Yet another blade thrust out from a guard protecting the Raamite's hand at the shaft's midpoint; Avra had already suffered a cut from that one.
Before the Raamite could bring his weapon into position, Avra kicked the dragon paw's shaft with his right foot, knocking the blade wide. As Avra dropped his foot, his balance shifting forward, he thrust his sword into the other man's exposed midsection. The Raamite wore a chitin breastplate, but it only came to mid-abdomen. Avra's blade nicked it but stabbed deep. The Raamite let out a gasp, his dragon paw dropping to the sand. Blood bubbled from the raider's mouth and gushed from the wound as Avra withdrew his blade, and then the man pitched forward.
Avra dodged the falling body, shook droplets of blood from his sword, and scanned for his next opponent. Two raiders teamed up against his friend Curran, a dozen long paces away. Avra ran toward them.
And the cloud hit.
In an instant, Avra was blind and deaf.
The world vanished, obscured by the impenetrable, choking haze of sand and silt. It burned, tearing at his exposed flesh like flames intent on peeling the skin from his bones. He closed his eyes and mouth, but the wind pulled his lips apart enough to let the mixture coat his teeth. His eyes were rimed with the stuff, and he stumbled forward, not daring to open them lest he be permanently blinded. Even before his ears filled, he could hear nothing but the howl of the wind, the flutter and flap of his loose desert garb, and the grainy stammer of particles striking him.
Surrounded by enemies, he dared not relax his guard. But if he couldn't fight, neither could they. Or so he hoped.
In a smaller sandstorm or dust storm he might simply have crouched down, covered up, and waited it out. But this one showed no sign of ending soon, and he didn't dare crouch because such a tempest could shift an entire dune, or form a new one, in no time, and of the things Avra feared most in life, confinement was near the top of the list.
So he flailed with his wooden sword and stumbled on, desperate to remain upright in the punishing wind and biting sand.
And the storm raged on.
2
Avra only knew when night fell because of the cold, although the heavy coating of sand around him offered shelter. Finally, the following day, it ended. A last gust of wind, a final pelting of sand—redundant, at this point, he was so coated in it he might have been a sculpture from a Nibenese building, come to life—and then all was still. At once, Avra felt the full heat of the sun beat down upon him. Should have enjoyed the shade while I could, he thought with a bitter, sand-filled grin. In the Athasian deserts, only water was scarcer.
He dusted his fingertips against each other and wiped grit from his eyes, using his thumbs to get into the comers. He spat and spat even as it pained him to lose water so senselessly. He rubbed his teeth, dug specks from the insides of his cheeks, and spat some more. He turned his head perpendicular to the ground and smacked the other side, trying to dislodge sand from his ears. His scalp might never be free of it.
Only then did he think of the raiders, and the caravan he had been hired to protect. He blinked, shielded his eyes with one gritty palm, and turned in a slow circle.
He didn't know where he was. Or where anyone else was, for that matter. Caravan and raiders alike had vanished. More likely, he had—bumbling blindly through the storm for an afternoon and a night and much of the next day, in a desert where a person could lose his bearings ten minutes from camp.
He wasn't even sure which way he had traveled. He might be back to the Road of Kings, or beyond it, or farther north than he had ever been in his life. Before him were dunes, a few scrubby plants, and the baking Athasian sun.
At least I'm not buried alive, he thought. He laughed out loud at the very idea, so concrete a few minutes ago, but seemingly absurd in the present stillness.
Or was it? What if he had gone nowhere, but his comrades and enemies were even now buried underneath new layers of sand and silt? The idea raised hackles at the back of his neck, and a line of sweat trickled down between his shoulder blades. "Hello!" Avra called, then again, louder and more anxiously, "Hello, anyone!"
No answer came back to him, not even an echo. It was as if the desert sand sucked his voice from the air before it traveled ten paces. He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted once more.
This time, he heard an answering cry.
"I'm here!" a familiar voice shouted. "Avra, is that you?"
"Hagkun?" Avra called. Hagkun was a mul, the offspring of a dwarf mother and human father, he knew from Nibenay's gladiatorial pit. They had both hired on as mercenaries at the same time, after House Faylon had lost a good number of their combat-trained slaves in a previous raid. In Nibenay, freemen could compete in the pits, and Avra had never been good for much besides fighting, so he carved himself a fair career as a gladiator until this opportunity presented itself.
"Aye, it's me! Where are you?"
There wasn't a familiar landmark within sight, other than the sun. "I'm standing beneath the Reservoir Gate with a dozen naked templars!" Avra called. "What do you want me to say? I am where I am, and I imagine you're the same!"
A moment later he spied Hagkun cresting a low dune, dusting his shoulders with both hands. Clouds of silt rained down. Like all products of the unusual union of humans and dwarves, Hagkun was hairless, and his skin had a rich coppery sheen to it. Sun at his back, the mul cast a long shadow against the near face of the dune. "I'm right here," he said. "As are you." "But where's everyone else?" Avra asked. "The caravan ... where'd they all go?"
Hagkun shifted his massive shoulders. "Who can say?"
Another voice boomed across the sands from behind them. "Survived, did you? Luck, then, or you've paid someone off."
Avra spun around, his agafari-wood sword still clutched in his fist after all this time. But it was only Burek, and behind him Curran, both looking as if they had just dug out from sandy graves.
"I credit luck," Avra said. "Certainly no cleverness on my part was involved."
Shen'ti and Maron joined them next, but that was all they could find. There were no weapons or other gear scattered around, convincing them that they had left the caravan behind, and not that the ferocious wind had carried everyone else away.
All were warriors, either mercenaries or slaves, trained in the pits and entrusted with the security of the House Faylon caravan. Even without the six of them, more than a dozen other guards remained with the merchants—supposing the others hadn't died, or become lost themselves. If the raiders had also survived the storm, Avra didn't hold out much hope for his employers.
"Where are we?" Burek asked. He was a short man, with a long, thick black beard tied in three knots and a head as round and hairless as an erdlu egg.
Blank faces all around. Finally, Curran pointed at the sun. "Sun's there," he said. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "So Nibenay is there." He pointed in yet another direction. "Raam should be about there."
"And the caravan?"
"No idea." Curran turned his hawklike face to the south. "There, maybe? Or that direction, anyway. If we went north during the storm." "I'm sure I didn't move in a straight line," Hagkun said. "I went wherever the wind shoved me."
"As did I," Avra admitted.
"Then we have only the vaguest of ideas," Curran said.
"Exactly," Avra said. "But we can't stay here. We'll need water soon, and shelter for the night. Even under a blanket of sand last night, I nearly froze."
"Toward Nibenay, I say," Maron offered. "We've a better chance finding a target that size than any of those others."
Shen'ti pointed toward the rocky hills—covered with sand now, but still recognizable for what they were. "I say we climb those and have a look. We may be able to see the caravan from that height, or some other landmark from which we can set a course."
After a few minutes of discussion, the others agreed. They took stock of their belongings. Two of them had lost their weapons, except for small daggers. Only Shen'ti carried water, in a bladder slung over his back. Five were wounded, none seriously. They were strong men, fighters. Survivors. They would be fine.
They drank from Shen'ti's store and then hiked toward the Athasian sun.
At the crest of the hill, the others scanned the horizon for signs of the caravan. But Avra stared past a huge, tall dune where a city shimmered in the near distance.
A city where, by all rights, none should exist.
3
Sand was unevenly mounded to one side of the city, like a blanket shoved over to reveal some of what it had covered. Short towers and spires jutted up from the ground, but most of the city was low buildings, spreading back into the desert. "Ral's light," Burek muttered. "What is that?"
"It's a city," Avra said.
"I can see it's a city! But what city lies there?"
"That's on no map. It's something ancient," Hagkun offered. "Covered by dunes all these years. Probably exposed by the storm." "You're right," Shen'ti said. "Let's take a closer look. Perhaps we can find shelter for the night, even water."
"If there's water in there," Burek said, "it'll be so old and filthy I wouldn't touch it, no matter how thirsty I was."
"I'm with Burek," Maron said. "But I wouldn't mind taking a look, just the same. I wouldn't drink its water, but I'd help myself to its gold."
"You think there's gold in there?" Shen'ti asked.
"We won't find out standing here."
Burek grabbed Avra's upper arm. "I don't know about this ..."
Burek had always been a cautious sort, for a warrior. "It'll be fine," Avra said. "There are six of us, and we're armed. Even if there are beasts hiding in those ruins, we'll be safe."
Burek released him and glanced into the olive sky, deepening as the sun lowered toward the horizon. "On Athas, who is ever truly safe?"
Avra saw his point, and he kept his sword in his hand as they scrambled down the hill and trudged across a stretch of open desert toward the city. In the late afternoon sun, it was dull, rather than gleaming, as Nibenay would have. It was as if all the color and shine had been worn off by the ages and by its burial.
As they grew nearer, the first thing Avra noticed was that nothing grew on the dirt-choked city streets. The city had been buried so long that every plant had died, even the wiry tufts of grass and the spindly ocotillo wands that seemed capable of surviving in the most sun-blasted wastelands. The lack of plants gave the scene a strangely artificial feel, as if the city had never been intended for habitation.
But signs of habitation made themselves clear, soon enough.
The men were quiet as they passed what would have been an exterior wall, crumbled under the desert's weight, and started across a wide avenue just inside that first wall. Buildings rose before them, two or three stories tall. The air was still, carrying no particular fragrance save the dry smell of bare earth.
He had never seen a city so utterly silent. Streets intersected this wide avenue and ran into the city's depths, but nothing moved on them.
"I don't like it," Burek said. "What if it's haunted? Or cursed?"
"And what if there are vaults full of gold and precious jewels just down one of these streets?" Maron countered. "We won't know until we look."
"If we leave now we might yet find an oasis before nightfall," Burek said. "My throat is parched."
"I'm saving the rest of the water for when we really need it," Shen'ti said.
"That's what I mean. We need to find another source, before we're all fighting over what little you have."
"One hour," Hagkun suggested. "I say we take one hour, we explore. Then we look for an oasis."
"What say you, Burek?" Avra asked. "Fair enough?"
Burek rubbed his hairless crown with his palm, still coated in grit from the storm. "I still don't like it," he said. "But I'll go along with it."
"Good," Maron said. "Now, should we split up so we can cover more ground?"
"No!" Avra and Shen'ti said, almost as one.
"We stay together," Avra added. "It looks quiet, but we don't know what might dwell within these old buildings."
"I'd hate to meet anything that's lived under this sand for centuries," Curran said.
"I don't think there's anything here," Maron said. "I haven't heard a sound, nor seen the slightest movement."
"That's what I don't trust," Curran said.
"Stand behind me if need be," Hagkun offered. "Let's go."
They picked the nearest street and started down it. The buildings were close together, some leaning forward so far that they almost formed an archway overhead. Most were at least partially destroyed; rubble leaked into the roadway from open doorways. Oddly, many of the upper windows were sealed off with wood or masonry. Here and there a building had completely disintegrated, only floors or marks on the structures flanking them showing that anything had once stood. The soldiers looked into some they were all the same: empty, long since abandoned.
In the fifth one, they found bones.
"Human, do you think?" Curran asked.
Avra shouldered past the others and picked a skull from a pile of browned bones. It was rounded, with a slight forward thrust at the jaw and sharp canine teeth. "Looks human. More or less." With his left hand, he shook it at the others and spoke in a deep, threatening voice. "You've come for my treasure, haven't you? Dogs! I'll have your filthy hides!"
"Put it down, Avra," Shen'ti said. "Don't dishonor the dead."
"These dead have been buried so long, they're probably glad for a little attention," Avra replied. He put the skull back anyway—truth was handling the thing had been a little disturbing. He didn't know for sure how old these ruins were or what fate had befallen the city's residents, but judging from this bone-filled room, at least a dozen of them had met their end right here.
When he left the building behind and felt the warmth of Athas's afternoon sun on his shoulders once more, he couldn't hold back a shiver of relief.
After that, they started finding skeletons on a regular basis. Not just human ones, but those of other beasts as well. Some looked familiar, as if they had belonged to beetles or bears or kanks or various sorts of lizards, but none exactly resembled their modern counterparts.
He was starting to agree with Burek and Curran—that they ought not to be there, and would do well to be far away by the time the two moons rose.
And that was before they met the sand howlers.
4
They were crossing a narrow side street when the shadows down the block seemed to ripple. "What's that?" Shen'ti asked.
"A cloud across the sun?" Maron offered.
"There's no sun down there," Shen'ti said pointedly. He paused and drew his bone dagger from the sheath on his belt. "Something's moving."
He barely got the words out before the pack separated from the shadows and streaked across the cluttered roadway toward them. There were a dozen of them, the size of large dogs, their big oval heads crowded with eyes. Their fur was dark brown and black, and yellow tusks jutted up from slavering lower jaws. One of the creatures loosed a howl as they came.
"Sand howlers!" Hagkun shouted. "Don't look into their eyes, and fill your hands!"
Avra hadn't let go of his sword since the battle against the raiders. It might as well have grown into his right fist, which at this moment he wouldn't have minded. The soldiers took a step back, but then heard growls and running footfalls from the side street's other direction. The only paths open were straight ahead or back the way they had come—but there was no time for retreat, and little space with the six of them crowded into a cramped, rubble-strewn roadway.
The first howler met its end on the twin crescent blades of Hagkun's lotulis; the animal leapt, Hagkun dropped to a crouch and thrust the weapon at the thing's underside. Its own momentum forced it down onto the blades, its oversized head snapping and gnashing until it finally died. Avra swung his sword with a mighty grunt as one of the howlers charged him, and the blade crushed the beast's skull, dropping the beast at his feet. The animals had a sharp, musky scent that wasn't altogether unpleasant.
Behind him, a pair tore past Burek's defenses. Avra heard a piercing scream and the snarl of a canine with flesh in its grasp. He spun around to find Curran in his way, armed only with a dagger. Curran thrust it forward but a howler snapped with its huge maw, and one of those tusks jutted through Curran's arm. Curran went white and let out a howl of his own.
The scene became a confused blur of fur and fangs, blood and blades. Three more howlers fell quickly, but not before tearing out Maron's throat. The others bunched up and retreated—Curran taking shaky steps, blood gushing from his ravaged arm—holding off the advancing sand howlers. Shen'ti had snatched up Burek's trikal—a tusk grazing his arm as he reached for it—and its long shaft gave him greater advantage than his dagger had.
The creatures nipped at them, herding them back down the road but keeping a safe distance. Avra started to believe they might escape with their lives, although he doubted Curran's would last much longer, riot if he couldn't staunch the flow of blood from that arm.
But then Hagkun forgot his own warning and locked eyes with one of the howlers. Its eight eyes bored into his two, paralyzing him. "Hagkun!" Avra shouted, shaking the mul. "Keep moving!"
No use. Hagkun was a fleshy statue, yielding but immobile. Had they been able to carry him, they might have saved him yet. But they needed their hands free for weapons.
"Hagkun!" Avra screamed once more, right into the mul's ear. Hagkun, already lost, didn't answer.
Avra had barely taken a step back when two of the howlers lunged for his throat.
One of them sank its teeth into Hagkun's flesh, breaking the paralysis but too late for Hagkun to fight back, time only for the mul to writhe in agony as the beasts took him down. Avra struck at one, carving a deep gash in the top of its head, and then Shen'ti was pulling on him. "Now, Avra, while they're engaged!" he shouted.
Avra hated to leave his friend, but couldn't deny the sense in Shen'ti's desperate words. The big mul partially blocked the roadway, and the howlers feasting on him filled the space even more. Other howlers paced behind them, wanting either to get at the remaining humans or take a turn at the mul. Behind them, more were still tearing off bits of Maron and Burek.
The three remaining soldiers had a moment's grace period, in which they might yet escape. Only a fool wouldn't take it, and Avra was no fool. He grabbed Hagkun's lotulis, gripping it in his left hand and the agafari sword in his right, and ran.
Shen'ti led the way. Instead of going back to the wide avenue, and the desert beyond, between ragged breaths he huffed out his belief that the howlers would surely catch them on open ground, and their best bet was to hole up somewhere in the city until they were gone. Avra didn't argue—he didn't know which course of action made the most sense, only knew that getting out of the howlers' sight seemed like an excellent idea.
They had to help Curran from time to time, but a few minutes later they had taken refuge on the third floor of what must once have been a luxurious home. The rooms were big, with vaulting ceilings and fine tiles on the floor. Arched windows looked out over the buildings directly opposite toward the desert. The sun had continued to descend, and shadows stretched far across the sandy wasteland.
Shen'ti gazed out one of the windows. "Even if they follow," he said, "they can't jump this high. And if they try to come up the stairs we can pick them off one or two at a time."
"But how long can we take refuge here?" Avra asked. "You have a little water, but not enough to last long. We'll need to eat. Unless you propose we hunt down one of those howlers for food. I think I'd as soon eat my own foot." He glanced at Curran, face drawn and pale, cradling his ruined arm, and regretted his words.
"One night won't kill us," Shen'ti said from the window. The setting sun limned his lean face, lighting the eye facing into it with red fire. "Surely the howlers will have lost interest by morning." "And as long as nothing else catches our scent, we'll be safe? Is that your plan?"
"What else is there? This city's deserted."
"We thought that before we met the sand howlers, too."
"They probably came in after the dune shifted off it, same as us. Saw there was nothing in here worth eating, until they sniffed us out."
Avra thrust an arm toward him. "Give me some of that water, then."
Shen'ti shrugged off the bladder and handed it over. It wasn't as heavy as Avra had hoped. "Go easy," Shen'ti said.
Avra took a swig, swishing the stale water around in his mouth a few times before swallowing, as if he might fool himself that he'd had more than he did. Then he carried the bladder to Curran. "Water, Curran. Open up."
Curran looked at him with deep, haunted eyes. "N-no," he said. "Don't w-waste any on m-me."
"It's no waste. We just need to get through tonight, and—"
"And then c-cross the desert on foot ... searching for N-n-nibenay? I won't m-make it, man. Th-this is where I d-die."
"No more dying," Avra said. "Shen'ti, tell him."
But Shen'ti simply looked out the window, watching for howlers.
5
Curran was dead by morning.
The moons had been bright that night. When it was Avra's turn to stand watch, he looked out over the once-buried city, dual shadows shifting as the moons cut their paths across the sky. He tried to picture the streets clogged with activity, the aromas of cooking fires and exotic perfumes wafting on a breeze, but he couldn't. The place was dead, and might always have been so if not for the skeletons they had found.
When he slept, his dreams were dark and disturbed, full of faceless, nameless terrors. He could not remember details when he woke up, only the overwhelming sense of dread that had engulfed him, and that stayed with him into the day.
When sunlight struck his face in the morning, his eyes snapped open and he came to instant wakefulness. He looked over at Shen'ti, snoring softly where he leaned against the window, and then at Curran, arms out to his side, a pool of thick, dried blood around him.
"Shen'ti," Avra said quietly.
Shen'ti jerked his head up, snorted, and blinked at him. "Akrankhot," he mumbled.
"What?" Even as he asked, Avra realized he knew the word too, as if it had entered his mind through those confused dreams.
"It's the name of this city. Akrankhot."
"It's a damnable place, whatever it's called," Avra said. "I think you're right, though. That name is in my head, too." He shook his head as if to loosen something stuck there. "I don't know why, but it is." "Do you recall ever hearing anything about it?"
"Not a thing. As far as I know it hasn't been thought of once since the desert swallowed it." Avra tilted his head toward Curran. "He's dead."
"I see that. Never believed he would make it through the night." Shen'ti's words struck Avra as harsh, even though Avra had shared the sentiment.
"You think we can get out of here now? I don't believe there's any treasure to be had—certainly nothing worth the cost of our lives, in addition to the four already lost."
Shen'ti gazed out the window for a long moment. "I think per—"
Avra shushed him. He pointed toward the open doorway. "Someone's on the stairs."
"Howlers?" Shen'ti asked.
"I don't know." He had heard the scuff of a foot. Just the one, but unmistakable. In a city so quiet, every sound stood out. As the two soldiers listened, they heard another one.
"The window," Shen'ti said.
"We're three floors up."
Shen'ti was already stepping over the windowsill. "What if it's a pack of howlers? Or something worse?"
Avra didn't have to think it over. Whatever was out there might be sniffing them out, but without knowing for certain who was up here, or how many. When it, or they, found Curran, that might be distraction enough. Anyone looking at the window would have the same first reaction Avra had—only a fool would jump down three stories.
And it was true. But he and Shen'ti had never claimed not to be fools, in Avra's memory.
Shen'ti lowered himself until he was dangling from his fingertips, then dropped to the street below. He hit with a thump, falling backward onto some rubble, and let out a tight cry. Avra followed suit. When he landed, his left ankle twisted beneath him and he flopped forward against the rough stone wall of the building. Dropping this way meant leaving Hagkun's lotulis behind, but he still had his own sword.
"You hurt?" Shen'ti asked.
"I'll live," Avra said. "Let's get out of here!" He started running, favoring his hurt ankle. When he glanced back to make sure Shen'ti followed, he saw a shadow in the window they had just left. One of the sand howlers, its eyes glittering in the sunlight.
Several blocks later, they still had not reached the wide avenue that marked the city's boundary. The pain in Avra's ankle had reached an agonizing level, and it was already beginning to swell. "I can't run anymore," he said, leaning on a nearby wall for support. "Are they chasing us?"
"I don't know," Shen'ti said.
"I can't run anymore," Avra said. "I'm sorry, Shen'ti. Perhaps you should escape. I need to let my ankle rest."
"Neither of us will make it alone," Shen'ti said. "If rest we must, let's find another hiding place. A better one, this time, where they can't sniff us out."
Avra knew he couldn't run more than a few steps without collapsing. If he went slow, kept his weight off his left leg, he could get around, but barely. Healing might take days.
He kept his mouth shut, though. He had offered Shen'ti a way out. If the man chose not to take it, Avra couldn't force him.
"Through here!" Shen'ti shouted. He pushed on a wooden door, held closed only by the sheer weight of debris piled on the floor behind it. The stuff scraped back as Shen'ti forced the door open. Avra searched for any indication of what the building's function had once been, but the walls were empty. Akrankhot, he remembered. At least we know that much about it.
Shen'ti shoved the door closed. They waded through detritus, mostly plaster from the walls and collapsed ceiling, and through an arched doorway on the far side of the room.
Here they found another staircase, spiraling up and down. Not much light filtered through the closed door, although there might have been windows on an upper floor. Shen'ti started up.
"No more jumping!" Avra insisted. "Let's go down."
"But.... we'll be trapped down there, if anything follows us in."
"I'll be just as trapped above," Avra said. "I can't risk landing on this ankle again, so either way I'll have to fight."
Shen'ti shrugged. "Down it is, then." He started to descend, and Avra followed, pressing against the walls to help.
He had not known Shen'ti well, but the man had always struck him as opinionated, never shy about sharing his beliefs. If Shen'ti thought they should go up, he would have made that argument. Avra was glad not to be deserted, but there was something strange about how agreeable the man had become. Shen'ti would bear close watching.
The stairs wound down and down, into what seemed like the depths of Athas itself. They should have been pitch black after the first curves, but somehow the walls seemed to glow with just enough luminosity to keep the short, smooth stone steps visible. Avra kept expecting a landing, a subterranean floor—some sort of destination for this staircase. But instead of finding it, he kept limping, around and around. Shen'ti was moving faster, so far ahead that Avra could no longer hear the huff of his companion's breath, only the rasp of his feet on the steps. The air was blessedly cool, but held a sharp tang reminiscent of blood, giving him the unpleasant sensation that he was descending into some gigantic creature's veins.
Finally, after what seemed like the duration of a festival week, Shen'ti uttered a short, sharp cry. "Ha!"
"What?" Avra asked, trying to hurry down without pitching forward onto his face.
"Avra, it's ... come quick!"
"I'm coming!"
He went as fast as he dared, and the bottom seemed to arrive suddenly, bringing him up short and almost causing him to stumble. Even down here, leagues underground, that glow persisted, illuminating a massive subterranean cavern.
"Look, Avra!" Shen'ti said. His voice was hushed, and he waved a hand toward the contents of the cavern.
Everywhere, piled up on the floor, stacked on tall racks, even thrust into the walls themselves, was metal. Rods of metal as big around as Avra's wrist, balls the size of a man's skull, rectangular bars, and more, all of it gleaming in the soft light.
Avra rushed forward and picked up a bar. It seemed to weigh as much as a large child. "It's really steel," he said, his voice quaking with wonder. "I've never even dreamed of this much in one place."
"Do you know what kind it is?" Shen'ti asked him.
"No. I've held iron and once, gold. But this? I've no idea. It's a treasure trove, though." "Not as easily transported as gold or gerns."
"No. But this much of it—do you have any idea what the Shadow King would give for this? Or any other sorcerer-king, for that matter?" The cavern reached back into the darkness, beyond where Avra could see, although he believed if he walked that way the illuminated walls would continue to light his path. "An army could be outfitted with this, or an entire currency minted. Possibly both!"
Shen'ti stroked his chin. "You might be right, Avra."
"Perhaps we can salvage something from this damned trip after all," Avra said. "Certainly House Faylon won't be paying us for our trouble."
"But how ... we'd need an argosy to carry all this. A dozen of them."
"We'll take a couple of samples, ones we can carry easily. We'll show them to Nibenay, and let him pay us for the location of the city."
"Or torture it out of us, or simply reach into our minds and pluck it out like low-hanging fruit." "The road to riches never runs straight, Shen'ti. There's always some risk."
"Very well, then," Shen'ti said. He started collecting chunks of metal small enough to be carried.
"Not yet, man! We just got here! Whatever it was up there might still be lurking about. Anyway, my ankle won't stand up to climbing those stairs so soon. We'll rest here—surrounded by our new treasure—for an hour or two, then if it's clear we'll get out of this city for good."
Shen'ti dropped the metal he had gathered. Once again, Avra noted how agreeable he had become.
But surrounded by all this steel, he didn't care to complain.
6
The climb back up the winding staircase was indeed painful, especially laden as they were. But at the top, whatever had stalked them seemed to be gone, and nothing interfered with their escape from the city. By the time the two moons rose into the night sky, they were encamped at a small oasis, far from the city. The ache in Avra's ankle had started to fade, as if walking on it had been beneficial.
Both soldiers felt safer here than they had in the city, but they still planned to sleep in shifts, to keep watch for anything that might attack them. The water in the oasis was fresh, and Avra drank deep, slaking his thirst at last. But oases, he knew, tended to draw all sorts of visitors, including the kind who would not hesitate to kill them for a handful of ceramic coins.
Avra was sleeping soundly, dreaming about lying back on a soft divan with a nubile young lady pouring wine into his mouth, when a strange noise disturbed his slumber. He opened his eyes and saw Shen'ti walking in a tight circle, muttering to himself.
"It's in there," he said. "It's in there. I saw it in there. I saw it."
"What's in where?" Avra asked him. "Are you standing watch, or walking in your sleep?"
Shen'ti didn't react in any way, just kept walking. His hands opened wide, then closed into fists, then opened again. "It's in there. In there. It. Is. In. There."
"Shen'ti."
"Must go back," Shen'ti said. "It's in there. Must go."
"Shen'ti!" Avra called. He rose to his feet. His companion was bewitched or sleepwalking. Either way, he needed to be brought around, before he hurt himself.
But Shen'ti ignored him. Leaving his refilled water bladder, his trikal and everything else behind, he started walking back the way they had come. Back toward Akrankhot.
"Shen'ti, stop!" Avra cried. "Come back!"
Shen'ti didn't stop. Avra started after him. His ankle gave out under him and he pitched down into the sand.
Avra tried to scramble to his feet again, because Shen'ti was already disappearing into the darkness. But he had strayed too close to an elven rope cactus. A spiny red vine twisted around Avra's right ankle—his good one—and tightened there. Instantly, burning agony gripped Avra as the cactus drove its needles deep into his leg. At the same time, more of the tendril pushed up from beneath the sand and snaked up his leg.
Avra screamed. If the cactus responded at all, it was just to clamp down even harder on his leg.
He had never encountered an elven rope cactus, but he'd heard stories. Those needles were digging into his veins and sucking down his blood, draining him into the plant's inner parts, deep underground. What he didn't know was how long it would take to remove enough blood to kill him.
And he didn't know if he would be able to break free of it in time to catch Shen'ti.
He didn't dare grab the thing, because it would just ensnare his arm as well. He could cut it off, if he could just get to his sword. But he had left that where he was sleeping, hadn't thought he would need it simply to grab Shen'ti and shake him into wakefulness.
Gritting his teeth against the pain, Avra pushed off with his arms and tried handwalking to his left. He couldn't get any distance from the cactus, but he didn't expect it would care where he was as long as it had its grip on him. He made it a few "steps" and collapsed again, the pain too severe. He lay there panting for a few minutes, feeling himself being weakened by the second, and tried again.
In this way, slowly and painfully, he made his way back almost to where he had slept. He could see the dark wood of his sword, resting atop the few pieces of metal he had brought out of the city. He could almost reach it.
Almost. He strained his arm, fingers splayed out, but they fell just short. He tried to lurch forward, but the cactus held him fast.
The night seemed to be growing darker, as if the stars had slid behind a semi-opaque film. He didn't have much time left. Do something, he told himself. Anything, while you've an ounce of strength to do it with!
He stretched his arm out again. He couldn't reach the sword, but he could get his fingers on one of the slender metal rods he had carried from Akrankhot. If he could tip it, slide the sword to him ...
Moving slowly, cautiously, he wiggled the rod. He had to move it just right, try to raise the far end and lower the near so that the sword would shift the right way. He got the sword moving, little by little and then the elven rope hitched itself up higher, slithering around his waist, setting off an entire new wave of agony. Reflexively, Avra jerked the metal rod, and the sword went clattering off the far side of the pile. He would never get to it now.
It took several long moments for the realization that he did have a weapon to penetrate his pain-clouded mind. The rod. It was shorter than a sword, not much bigger around than one of his fingers.
But it was metal. With all the strength he could muster, he rose to a sitting position, ignoring the pain stitching across his midsection. He raised the rod high and brought it down fast, into the elven rope just beneath his foot. The angle didn't give him as much force as he would have liked, and the cactus clung tighter in protest, but he did it again a second and third time. On the fourth blow, the cactus seemed to relax a little. Avra yanked his leg and was granted more leeway than he'd had just seconds before. He adjusted his swing and struck again, pounding the cactus into the dirt.
Finally, the thing split in two. Blood—his blood, Avra knew—gushed from both severed ends as the tendril gripping him went limp. Avra plucked it from his body and threw it as far as he could, scrambling away from the plant in case it sent out more.
Free of it at last, he collapsed into the sand. He had lost so much blood, when he tried to raise his head, the stars above started spinning. He lowered it to the ground again, and slept.
7
Avra didn't know how long he slept. Surely not more than an hour. When he woke up, blood still seeped from his wounds. With considerable pain, he managed to stand up and retrieve his sword. Shen'ti hadn't returned. Avra wanted to find him before heading back toward Nibenay.
He thought he knew where to look.
Shen'ti's footprints in the sand confirmed his guess. His fellow soldier was on his way back to Akrankhot. For what purpose, Avra had no idea. He never wanted to see the place again, unless perhaps with a well-guarded caravan.
But Shen'ti had stuck by him, even when he might have left Avra to his fate and saved himself. He had thought there was something odd about Shen'ti's behavior all that day. He'd put it down to watching their friends die, to being cut off from their caravan and on their own in a strange and frightening place. If it was something else? Well, no use pondering questions that couldn't be answered. He would find out when he found out, or he would never know at all. Such was the way of things.
By the time Avra reached Akrankhot—relief flooding through him when he saw that it had not been submerged, during the night, beneath the desert that had held it close for so long—the sky was lightening at the approach of the sun. With it would come the punishing heat of the day. And he would be back at the city, far from the shade and refreshing water of the oasis, and that much farther from home.
Inside the city, Shen'ti's tracks were harder to follow than they had been in the desert sands. It hardly mattered. Avra believed he knew where
Shen'ti was going. He headed toward the building beneath which they had found the vast trove of steel. He had almost reached it when he saw Shen'ti coming out the door.
Something was wrong, though. More wrong than it had been. He had spent a lot of time with Shen'ti over the past couple of days, and he had never seen Shen'ti walking as he was, an ungainly half-stumble, half-lurch. And his head, held at a strange angle, bobbed loosely as he walked. "Shen'ti?" Avra said.
Shen'ti didn't acknowledge him, just kept walking. When he got closer, Avra saw the reason his head was bobbing—it had been half-severed. Avra could see Shen'ti's spine through the opening, and blood everywhere, but except for the spine and a narrow strip of flesh there wasn't much holding it on. Shen'ti's eyes stared blankly through Avra, and the soldier kept going, past him and toward the open desert.
Shen'ti was dead. Walking, but dead.
"Shen'ti? Shen'ti!" Avra cried. He wanted to stop the man, to shake him, to find out what had drawn him back here, and what animated him now.
But that was when the sand howlers came back....
II
STEEL
1
Aric listened to steel.
Everyone had some psionic ability, some affinity with the Way; some just developed it more than others. Aric believed that his ability was his connection to metals—he had always been able to hear what they had to say, and had been surprised to learn that others couldn't.
As a result, he had chosen a difficult occupation for anyone on Athas, harder still for someone like him. Swordsmithing required the constant use of two of the rarest things around, metal and water. But his swords, when they were finished, were beautiful weapons, and fetched premium prices. The one he was finishing now was no different.
He was near the final stage. The metals had been combined—and this was when the song of the steel was loudest, the different combinations of materials calling out to him, telling him which amounts of what would work together to achieve the effect that he wanted—the blade hammered into shape, scraped and filed, heat-treated and quenched. Now he held it in his lap and worked it over with fine polishing stones, smoothing out any roughness, wiping away the faintest lines or cracks that he could only see by turning it this way and that in the bright Athasian sun.
This work required patience and concentration. He had to make sure he didn't polish one spot more than another, which could throw off the balance he had worked so hard to achieve in the earlier stages. He had filed the edges and point to near-razor sharpness, testing them against knotty wood and carru hide and a scrap of fine silk he had managed to acquire, and it sliced through all three. He had tempered it in clay and water and heat until he could bend it almost back on itself and let it go, and it would resume its ideal shape, without curves or kinks.
So he didn't want to ruin it now, with these final touches. This particular sword was a special order from a noble family, and they wanted it strong but lightweight, flexible but sturdy enough to stand up to the sorts of chips and nicks any sword took in battle, without breaking. Aric would deliver what they had asked. As he worked it in his hands, listening to the steel telling him which parts had been worked enough and which needed another touch here or there, he thought it was, perhaps, the best blade he had ever made.
"Falling in love with that thing?"
Aric looked up to see Ruhm, his goliath friend and assistant, watching him work. "What do you mean?"
"Looks like you want to kiss it," Ruhm said. He was thick-necked and slope-shouldered, and he wore an almost perpetual frown. It was for the best. His smile, when he showed it, was an unnatural thing; a ghoulish, yellow-toothed grin that frightened small children and brave men alike. His voice was a low rumble, like the sound of rocks rolling along a river bottom. At almost twelve feet tall, he had to stoop to pass through the doors of Aric's shop—most doors, for that matter—but his sheer brute strength often came in handy around the shop. Years of working with metals had deepened Aric's chest, made his shoulders broad and his arms more muscular than those of all but the biggest full-blooded elves he had met. But there were still things he couldn't lift, or could just barely manage, that didn't even strain the goliath.
"It's a good blade." Aric rose, put his polishing stone on the workbench, and gripped the blade by its tang. He whipped it through the air a few times, enjoying the keen whistle it made. "And it'll fetch a good price. Enough to keep us in ale and meat for a a long time."
"I like meat."
"As do I." Aric took his seat again, nestling the blade against his apron and reaching for the stone. Almost time to switch to a finer one still. He liked Ruhm, he truly did, and he knew the goliath wasn't stupid. But there were times the goliath's mind seemed as weak as his muscles were strong, and though they had known each other for years and worked together most of that time, there were occasions on which he just didn't know how to talk to his friend.
"Who's it for?" Ruhm asked.
This was one of those moments. Aric knew they had discussed this very topic, more than once. He tried to keep impatience from sounding in his voice. "The House of Thrace," he said, watching his hands instead of Ruhm. "The Shadow King himself gifted the metals to Tunsall of Thrace, the family patriarch. A reward for service to the court of Nibenay, or some such. Anyway, Tunsall came to us and ordered the sword. It's a rapier, meant for Tunsall's granddaughter Rieve."
Ruhm barked a loud laugh. "There's that look again. Guess it's not the sword you love after all. Ha!"
Aric swore inwardly. Here he had been thinking Ruhm was having one of his "simple moments," and instead the goliath was luring him into a verbal trap.
"I'm not in love with her! I haven't really even met her. I've only seen her once or twice."
"What color hair she got?"
"It's orange-red, like the inside of the forge when it's just starting to cool." He glanced up at Ruhm's grinning face, framed by an unruly mop of thick brown hair, and knew he had just tightened the trap around himself. That ghastly smile! "Yes, she's pretty! Are you happy?"
"Think she'd wed a half-elf?"
"I'm a quarter elf," Aric reminded him. Unconsciously, his left hand reached up and brushed the top of his ear. "My mother was a half-elf, my father was human. So I'm only a quarter." He was adamant on that point, even though he knew it didn't matter to most. To humans, he was still too much elf, and to elves he might as well be human. Fitting into neither camp was another difficulty of his trade, because members of both races often refused to give him work or to buy his wares. It was only because he was the best smith in the city—perhaps on Athas, considering the derth of metal and those equipped to work it—that he made a living at all. "Anyway, I have no intention of trying to marry her. Even if I was interested, which I'm not, she's a noble and I'm about as common as a commoner can get. And she's betrothed. I know you're just teasing me, Ruhm, but I wish you'd get a new game."
"Sorry, boss."
"And don't call me that!"
"Touchy today?"
"Don't you have something to do, Ruhm? Something useful, I mean?"
"Could shovel charcoal, I guess."
"Perfect. Go shovel charcoal," Aric said. "And take your time!"
2
The last part of the job was attaching the hilt. This one was slender, as befitted a rapier meant for a young lady. It was not ornate, but neither was it plain. The pommel was smooth, swelling at the end to help Rieve keep her grip on it, and threaded, so the blade's tang fit right through the grip, and the pommel held it all together. The grip was wrapped in durable erdlu skin—the cost of that had been dear indeed, but built into the price Aric had quoted Tunsall of Thrace before taking the job—then wrapped in fine wire for a better grip. The guard was an intricate web made up of three rings that curved around one another, merging together at the rear where they nearly touched the pommel. The design kept the weapon light, as did the fuller, the groove cut from the blade's center, extending two-thirds of the blade's length, from the guard down.
When it was done—really and completely done—Aric admired it for a few minutes, wishing there was a way he could both keep it and deliver it to the House of Thrace and collect his fee. It truly is a beautiful piece, he thought. My finest by afar distance. He might spend the next entire season making nothing more sophisticated than iron hinges for doors, but at least he had crafted this. There wasn't another smith in the whole Ivory Triangle who could do better.
He took it in his right hand and felt its weight. Narrow, for the breadth of his hand, but he had measured Rieve's—and he would never give Ruhm the pleasure of knowing it, but that had made Aric's heart quicken, no denying it—and he knew it would be just right for her. He swished the blade through the air, tracing the letters of his own name.
Instantly, he lowered the blade's point and glanced around to make sure no one had seen that. Ruhm stood in the doorway, but no one else was in sight, and Ruhm already knew he could read and write a little. Literacy was frowned upon, among commoners anyway. More than frowned upon, in fact—it could get a commoner consigned to slavery, if a templar happened to find out. But Aric had done so much work for noble houses that he had managed to pick up those skills along the way.
"Good with that," Ruhm said. His preferred weapon was a greatclub, hardly requiring grace or finesse. "Should make one for you sometime, no?"
"No," Aric said. "I mean, yes, I know how to use it. But I'm no adventurer, Ruhm. The last time I used a sword of steel—well, let's just say it wasn't my best day."
"What happened?"
"I haven't told you this story? How I got this?" Aric touched the scar that bisected his arched left eyebrow, like a tiny pink worm parting the hair. He was sure he had told Ruhm, maybe a couple of times. But Ruhm might have forgotten, or he might just be toying with Aric again.
"Don't remember it."
"I made it myself, for myself. I wasn't too good at swordsmithing yet, but it came out half decent just the same. I strapped it on and thought I was the handsomest devil in all Nibenay.
"I guess the sword was handsome enough, at that. I had been out that night, and on my way home four elves saw me. They thought, because of the sword, that I was wealthy. Or else they just wanted the sword, I was never sure which. In any case, they tried to rob me, holding their own swords and daggers on me.
"I drew my sword and went at them. I tell you, Ruhm, I was something to see. I wove a glittering web of steel. The longer the battle went on, the more it took me away, until I had become a fighting machine. I felt I was watching myself from a great height, yet I was in the middle of it, too. My mind had ceased to think about anything but where the next thrust might come from, the next jab, and how I could counter those with my own."
Aric touched his brow again. "When I regained my senses, the four elves were dead, and my only wound was the one that left this scar. But a templar accused me of brawling—only the intervention of others on the street, who didn't realize I was a quarter elf, kept me out of trouble. They swore the elves attacked first, trying to rob me. The templar picked up her skirt and swished away. When she was gone, I saw one of the witnesses notice my ears. The whispers started, and I got out of there as fast as I could."
"Got lucky," Ruhm said.
"That I did. You don't want to call attention to yourself, not in Nibenay. That's what I say. It's just a bad idea. Bad enough I decided to earn my way in the world this way—working with metal, crafting objects for nobility, that's a good way to get noticed. All I want is to stand behind the forge and polish my steel and let the rest of the world pass on by. So no more steel swords for me, thanks. I'm no fighter, I'm a craftsman, and that's just fine with me."
"Me, then," Ruhm said.
"You what?"
"Make me a metal sword."
Aric tried to picture it. "A longsword, big enough for you? Not just a bastard sword, but a big bastard sword? With a three-handed grip? Maybe it could be done if you had the coin. It'd weigh a ton, but I guess that wouldn't be a problem for you."
Ruhm's face split into that wide grin once more, an expression that was at once endearing and not a little terrifying. "Could you?"
"Our forge isn't big enough, nor our quenching tank. But with the right equipment and materials, I could do it."
"One day?"
"One day, Ruhm. Not today, but one day. Now, get out of the doorway. I've a sword to deliver."
3
Aric's building was a temporary structure, small but all he could afford, made of wood from the Crescent Forest and clay bricks. As a temporary structure, it didn't have to abide by the law applying to all permanent buildings, those of sandstone, laterite or granite, decreeing that the exteriors must be completely covered with carved images, mostly scenes from the Shadow King's life. As a result, the shop was plain, dull. Just as he liked it. It didn't call attention to itself.
But because it was cramped on the inside, and contained the forge, it was always hot. The smells of half-elf and goliath sweat had permeated every surface, so no matter how clean Aric might be when he walked in, the place still reeked. He had a tiny apartment at the back, just a room really with a space for a kitchen, a cistern, and a mat for sleeping.
He had been to the homes of nobility, many times, but that familiarity didn't make the contrast between their residences and his own any less stark.
To even reach the estate of Tunsall of Thrace meant cutting through the winding, busy streets of Nibenay—made busier to the eye by all those carvings in the walls, creating the effect that every street was a single undulating surface, part of something alive—to the Cliff side neighborhood. Here, luxurious estates carved from the sheer cliffs rose up behind the city's north end. Once there, Aric had to enter the Snake Tower. The turret's outside was carved to resemble a writhing mass of tangled serpents. Its windows were shaped like scales, its opening like a snake's fanged maw. Aric suppressed a shudder as he walked beneath those fangs and started up the stairs.
The House of Thrace was a well-known noble house in Nibenay, with a huge emporium facing onto
Sage's Square, and a spread of cultivated fields outside the city walls. While some of the city's nobles had reputations more for their decadent behavior than for honesty or discretion, the House of Thrace did not fall into that category—the members of the family were considered beyond reproach in almost every way.
Each Cliff side estate was at a different level, each with its own skywalk extending from the tower to a front entrance. Aric had been to the Thrace estate once before, to measure Rieve for her sword, so he knew which tower exit to take. He was glad when he broke into open air again—the tower had been almost as hot as his shop, and scented with cloying incense. Presumably the aroma appealed to nobility, but Aric greatly preferred the sweat-stink of his own place.
The skywalk came to an end at a large bone gate. Standing before the gate was a goliath, wearing loose linen trousers of a bright yellow color, a leather cuirass, a yellow, red and black krama on his head, and sandals with straps that went up to his calves. On the center of the cuirass, on a circle of white, was the red silhouette of a jalath'gak, the monstrous wasp that the House of Thrace had adopted as its crest. A fist almost as big as Aric's head was wrapped around the shaft of a gouge, a long-handled weapon with a grip at the base and another just beneath a sharp-pointed, double-bladed head.
The goliath looked at Aric with unbridled curiosity. Aric didn't blame him—the guard was in the employ of a wealthy family, and here came an obvious commoner, a half-elf no less, carrying a long bundle wrapped in a threadbare, moth-eaten blanket. The goliath was past his prime, probably retired from the Nibenese army, but he would still be hard to take in a fight.
"I'm expected," Aric said. Unconsciously, his right hand went to the medallion that hung around his neck, a metal coin with a hole punched through it suspended from a leather thong. He had worn it so long he almost forgot it was there, but when he was anxious he often caught himself toying with it. "Aric, to see Tunsall."
"Just Aric?"
Aric had never known his human father. His mother had been doubly cast out from her clan—if the fact that she was half-elf hadn't been crime enough, the fact that she had fraternized with a human male, and had a child with him, had done the trick. As a result, she refused to use any name other than Keyasune. Aric had never even been sure if she'd been given that name or adopted it on her own. At any rate, she had become indignant any time young Aric asked if he shouldn't have a family name of some sort.
"Just Aric," he said. "He knows me."
The goliath raised one bushy eyebrow and regarded Aric with suspicion. But he called through the bone gate, and when someone came, he muttered a brief, unflattering description of Aric, focusing mostly on peaked eyebrows, oddly half-pointed ears, and long scraggly hair the color of burned butter. When whoever was on the far side bustled away, the guard turned back to Aric. He didn't speak, just gave Aric a frown and eyed him as if he'd like to hurl him from the skywalk.
Aric waited, trying to maintain a casual air. Once he started to whistle tunelessly, but the goliath cleared his throat and Aric stopped. After several minutes, he heard footfalls beyond the bone gate, and then it opened with a rattle and squeal and Tunsall himself appeared.
"Aric, my boy," he proclaimed, earning him a look of surprise from the guard. "Is it done?"
"It is, sir," Aric said. He held the bundle up. "Would you like to—"
"Not here, boy, not yet." That, Aric remembered, was what he liked least about Tunsall—his habit of calling anyone younger than forty years old "boy." Aric had seen twenty summers; he was no boy. But Tunsall's coins spent as well as anyone else's, so he was willing to overlook that small fault. "Inside, inside now." He turned around and disappeared through the gates again.
Still toting his bundle, Aric followed.
4
As was customary among the Nibenese nobility, Tunsall of Thrace wore little in the way of clothing, just a sash tied below the waist, the ends dropping to mid-thigh in front. He was an elderly man, fifty or more, and the years had not been kind. Though his eyes were bright, his eyebrows looked like two small, furry gray mammals had settled there and were twitching in their final death spasms. Decades of chewing betel nut had stained his uneven teeth blue. His chest was sunken, his limbs scrawny. He wore his gray hair long and straight in back, cut just above the brow in front. His neck looked like a thin, wrinkled tube with a ball of cheese jammed in it.
But the wealthiest and most powerful citizens of Nibenay didn't have to wear clothes, and given the heat of the average Athasian day, to many people that was the best reason to aspire to wealth. Aric wore loose linens and a checked krama wrapped around his head, from which his own long hair descended.
Tunsall led him into an inner courtyard with a long table down the center of it. A small fountain, with real water, burbled against one of the walls. The air was cooler here, sheltered from the sun by virtue of having been dug right into the cliffs face. Torches provided some light, and more streamed in over the walls, from outside. Tunsall smiled and patted the stone tabletop. "Here you go, boy, let's see it!"
"Yes sir," Aric said. He set the bundle down, slightly ashamed that his ragged blanket should be seen in such a luxurious setting. Chairs made of wooden frames with stretched animal hides surrounded the table, and a goblet that looked like brass stood at the far end, as if Tunsall had been sipping from it just moments ago.
He unrolled the blanket, revealing the sword. Seeing it shine, Aric's heart swelled with pride, and he forgot about his shabby blanket and his old clothes. "Here it is."
"Oh, my. Oh, my." Tunsall paced around the table, regarding it from every angle but not touching it. "Oh, my."
"Is there—" Something wrong, he would have finished, but Tunsall cut him off.
"It's beautiful. Quite lovely. I knew you did good work, Aric. But I never anticipated ... simply lovely."
"Do you want to try it?"
"Oh, no. No, boy, it isn't for me, after all, is it?" He clapped his hands twice, long fingers coming together along with the palms. Aric heard the rustle of someone he hadn't even seen, who must have been standing just behind a doorway.
Moments later, Rieve walked into the courtyard. Torchlight caught in her red hair and winked at Aric, and he felt his cheeks warming. Her hair was braided, falling well past her shoulders. She wore a simple white dress, belted loosely at the waist, with straps that bared those shoulders.
She graced Aric with a smile that he expected to remember until his dying days. "That's it?" she asked.
"That's it, lady."
She looked expectantly at her grandfather. "May I?"
"By all means."
She gave a squeal of delight and snatched the sword from the table, then waved it about in such a clumsy fashion Aric was glad he wasn't standing too near.
"With all the fuss over in Tyr, and even Raam," Tunsall said. "I want her to be able to protect herself."
"Of course," Aric said.
"But there's more to it than just owning a sharp sword, isn't there?" "It's perfect!" Rieve cried. "Like it was made just for me! I mean, I know it was, but—"
"There is," Aric affirmed.
Rieve stopped slashing at the air and approached Aric. She held the sword in her right hand, and with her left she took his right. Her hand felt impossibly soft in his hard, callused one. "Thank you, Aric," she said. He felt like he could fall into her cinnamon eyes. "I love it."
"It was a pleasure. I am proud of that one, I must say. It's balanced just right, and that blade will hold its edge."
"You are a true craftsman," she said. She held his gaze with her own. Much as he wanted to watch the way her plump pink lips moved as she spoke, he couldn't tear his eyes away from hers. A smell like fresh apricots surrounded her.
"I thank you."
Finally, she released his hand. Aric hadn't even had that much physical contact with her when he had measured her—hand, arm, and leg—to be sure the sword would be just right. His hand felt as if he had leaned it against the forge at white heat.
"It didn't even take you terribly long," she said. "Did you do nothing else but this?"
"Slept now and again," Aric said. "Ate some meals. But I did no other work, not while I was engaged with that one."
She carved the air a little more, and Aric took an involuntary step back.
"As I was saying," Tunsall said. "Now that she has a fine blade, she needs instruction in its use, wouldn't you say?"
"She ... seems to have a natural affinity," Aric said, hoping the patriarch wouldn't notice his lie. "But instruction is always a good idea."
"I've heard tales of your prowess with a sword, Aric." Tunsall touched his own eyebrow, right where Aric's scar was on his. "Impressive." "A fluke," Aric said.
"Not at all. I wonder if you would mind giving her some lessons. I would pay you, of course, for your time."
Aric could hardly believe his senses. "I ... I am no combat instructor," he said.
"Oh, that would be wonderful, Aric!" Rieve said. She bounced enthusiastically. Her skirt flounced almost to her smooth thighs. "To learn from you ..."
"I suppose I do know a bit about the practice of swordsmanship," Aric admitted. "Just from having worked with them for so long, you understand."
"Then it's settled," Tunsall said.
"I'm sorry," another voice said. Aric turned to see a tall woman, with thick auburn hair tightly coiled almost to her waist, enter the courtyard. "I am Solyara," she told Aric. "Rieve's mother."
"Enchanted," Aric said.
"I'm afraid that Rieve's father has already engaged the services of an instructor for her." Her voice was steady, with the even, confident tone of someone who rarely expected argument.
"Oh," Aric said. "Well ..."
"Who?" Rieve asked.
"Who else but your betrothed, Corlan?"
"Corlan?"
"Why not? He's of our class, he's had martial training, unlike young Aric here. And he's known to be quite skilled with a sword. Anyway, your father has made the decision, so it's settled." She turned her flat gaze on Aric. "I've nothing against you, Aric, and neither does Myklan, Rieve's father, who after all advised my father to hire you in the first place. We're quite tolerant of all sorts of people, you'll find. But he has made Corlan an offer, and we can't go back on it now."
"I understand," Aric said. He couldn't deny his disappointment, although he tried to disguise it. And in spite of Solyara's self-proclaimed tolerance, he wondered how much it had to do not with his commoner class but with his half—quarter—elf nature. Elves, everybody knew, weren't to be trusted, especially with the daughter of a noble human family.
"Did I hear my name?" Another unfamiliar voice, this one booming, but with a friendly sound to it. A burly young man about Aric's age swept into the courtyard, square-jawed and clean-shaven, wearing a light tan sarami. His expression was fixed in what looked like a perpetual grin, blue eyes dancing in the torchlight.
"Corlan!" Rieve cried. She put down the sword and ran to him, throwing her arms around him. He squeezed her tightly, then released her.
"Who's the stranger?" he asked. "I'm Corlan, of House Tien'sha."
"I'm Aric. I crafted Rieve's new sword."
Corlan crossed to the table and examined it. "It's a beauty," he said. "You do good work." He lifted it, took a fighting stance, and whisked it a couple of times through the air. Unlike Rieve, he knew what he was doing. "I stand corrected, Aric. You do excellent work. Perhaps you can make me one sometime."
"Just say when."
"I will, don't worry." He turned back to his fiancee. "And you, love? How do you like it?"
"I like it very much," Rieve said. "I'll like it even more after you teach me how to use it."
"That will be my great pleasure," Corlan said. "I only hope your lessons will be worthy of the instrument itself."
Aric hated how completely Corlan had drawn Rieve's attention away from him. But he had to admit that they made an attractive couple, and he couldn't bring himself to dislike Corlan. He had been nothing but friendly, seeming not to even notice Aric's racial background.
"Oh, I'm sure you can teach me wonderful things, Corlan," Rieve said. "And I'll have a wonderful tool to learn with, thanks to you, Aric."
Aric was about to take his leave when the group was enlarged again. A young man, perhaps a year or two older than Rieve, stormed into the courtyard. His mood was dark, brow furrowed, hands tightly clenched into fists, and he walked with his muscles tightly coiled, as if at any moment he would strike out at whoever was nearest. He was dressed, if that was the word, much like Tunsall, with a loincloth his only covering. His footsteps were tentative, as if he had burned the soles of his feet here on a previous occasion and was afraid of doing it again.
"That wasn't it!" he complained, loudly. "Not it at all! It never is, never was, never never!"
Rieve shot Aric a quick look of apology, then turned to the newcomer, her face instantly softening. "Pietrus, dear, now isn't the time. We have guests."
"Her brother," Corlan whispered. "There's something wrong with him. With his mind. Or he's possessed, is what some say."
"Time, time, time, time," Pietrus echoed, stomping around in a tight square as he did. "Never time, never right, never never!"
Rieve reached her brother and put her hands on his arm. He seemed to melt a little at that, his tensed muscles relaxing a bit. But he glowered at Corlan and Aric, and Aric was afraid he might come over and attack. How would he defend himself against Rieve's brother, in their own home?
It didn't come to that, however. Rieve and Solyara flanked him, and then another woman entered the courtyard, this one closer to Tunsall's age, with long silver hair bound in several places. "I'm sorry," she said. "I just turned around for a moment and he was gone." She flashed a gracious smile toward Aric and Corlan. "I apologize for the interruption," she said.
"That's quite all right," Corlan said. "It's good to see you, Sheridia."
"And you, Corlan. And you, young man," she said to Aric. There was a calming air about her that seemed to flow across the courtyard in waves.
"I am Aric," he said. "It's an honor to visit your home."
"Come any time," she said. She moved with brisk efficiency to where Rieve and Solyara had, ever so subtly, pinned Pietrus in. His brow had not lost its wrinkles, and his eyes darted about, but he was more at ease than he had been, and he allowed Sheridia to lead him away. "Come with me, Pietrus," she said. "Let's have some cool water."
"Thank you, Grandmother!" Rieve called after them.
When they had gone, Rieve turned to Aric. "I'm sorry you had to see that, Aric. He is my brother, and I love him, but as you can see, he is ... disturbed, you might say. "
"I'm sure that was not comfortable for you," Solyara added.
"Think nothing of it," Aric said. "He lives here, not me. He's entitled to go where he will."
"Thank you, boy," Tunsall said. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm afraid we have rather a busy schedule today." He had procured a small cloth bag from somewhere, and it jingled as he handed it to Aric. Its weight was comforting. "This should cover things."
"Are you certain?" Aric asked. "It feels like too much."
"You've done excellent work, my son. Take it."
"My thanks, sir. My great thanks."
After more goodbyes, and another clasping of hands, soft on rough, with Rieve, Aric found himself hurrying down the Snake Tower with a pleasant bulge in his pocket that hadn't been there on the way up. He realized halfway down that he had forgotten the blanket he had carried the sword over in. He thought about going back for it, but decided not to. He had been dismissed, without equivocation—invited to return, but clearly they had other things to do at the moment. Anyway, they could burn the thing, for all he cared. He had enough coin now for another several blankets, and then some.
As he headed home through Nibenay's chaotic streets, he thought about their home, so different from his quiet, often lonely place. The House of Thrace was crowded, bustling with activity and life. The family had its problems, clearly, but while Aric had heard gossip about most of the city's noble houses over the years, most people spoke well of this one. He'd never heard any discussion of Rieve's crazy brother, for instance, and that was the kind of thing people couldn't resist sharing.
Alone, he walked through busy lanes, and he couldn't help feeling a little sad, and a little envious, that his life was not like the one he had so briefly stepped into.
But he had a bag of coins and no immediate obligations. He thought he could find a way to put that envy and sorrow behind him. He would get busy on that, as soon as he had collected Ruhm.
III
THE HIGH CONSORTS' COUNCIL
1
As befitted his name, the Shadow King kept to the shadows, even when making a public appearance. To give him his due, Kadya decided, this appearance was only somewhat public, and the idea that Nibenay, king of the city-state that bore his name, would deign to make public appearances at all was a new one. For a thousand years, or so people said, he had stayed out of sight of his subjects, hidden away in the Naggaramakam, the Forbidden Dominion within Nibenay, where only the king's family, his templar wives, and their slaves were admitted. No free person had ever entered the Naggaramakam—none, at least, who had ever then left it again. And Nibenay had rarely ventured forth.
But Athas was changing, faster than Nibenay found comfortable. Events in Tyr, including the death of that city's sorcerer-king—at the hands of mortals, no less—had made those changes disturbingly apparent to all. Nibenay had realized he had to make changes of his own, in order to ensure that his own subjects didn't decide he needed to be assassinated as well.
His plan was to remake his image into someone who was accessible, attentive to the needs and concerns of the populace. At the same time, he meant to build up Nibenay's already powerful military to the point that anyone considering an attack from without would decide the effort was bound to be suicidal. He was, to be blunt, trying to put a more positive face on his rule ... without, in fact, showing his face much at all, while pretending to show it far more than he had in the past.
And the truth was, Kadya thought—although thinking this way frightened her, since it would be no large matter for Nibenay to dip into her mind and see it—he was not the most handsome creature ever to walk Athasian soil. He was striking, in his way. And power had a kind of aphrodisiac effect on many people, making them willing to overlook his physical defects. She included herself in that category. Kadya's parents had decided, shortly after her birth, that her life would be dedicated to the priesthood. At seven she was enrolled in a state school, run by templars, and by fourteen she was initiated into the priesthood. Shortly after her sixteenth birthday she was married to Nibenay. All of his other templars were also his wives.
Fortunately, since as time passed she found him less and less appealing, he did not summon her to the marriage chamber more than once or twice a year. She was allowed to have slave concubines of her own, to meet her needs, as his needs were met by his vast harem of templar wives.
But Kadya was a woman of ambition, and smarter than her parents had expected, or they'd have kept her back and given one of their other daughters to the cause. So she kept her thoughts to herself, gave herself to him willingly when she was so called, and in the best tradition of Nibenay's templars, schemed to improve her standing in the hierarchy. That scheming had brought her to this place, the High Consorts' Council, where those templars who had responsibility for the administrative temples of the government came together to hear pleas from the city's residents and to pass judgment on issues as needed.
Today, as he did a few times during any given month, Nibenay himself attended the council. The council chamber was a long rectangular room inside the Temple of the King's Law, with an arched roof, the low points of which seemed to droop to the floor as a series of columns. Torches flickered on each of the columns, but there was a corner, near the back of the room, where those torches had been extinguished. That's where her king stayed, letting the darkness conceal himself. The golden crown atop his head caught the light from more distant torches and refracted it into the shadowed corner.
The high consorts, the five templars representing the five governing temples, sat in chairs of equal size, arrayed in a half-circle facing the long end of the room. The beseechers sat or knelt on a floor of cool tiles before them, and most knew better than to address the Shadow King directly. The audience, made up of lesser templars like Kadya, sat on the floor around the room's walls or against its many columns.
"Can I be expected to run my business if his thuggish friends keep running drunkenly down the lane and knocking down my stall every night?" a merchant was complaining. Kadya realized her mind had drifted. One petty dispute after another wore on her. "There are nights I think it's a contest—see how many minutes after Rahede gets his stall set up one of them can slam into the posts and guylines and bring it all down again!"
"Your stall is in the Western District, yes?" High Consort Kahalya asked. The matter was no real concern of hers, as she was the templar overseeing the Temple of the House—unless she was looking for a way to increase this poor merchant's taxes, which was always a possibility.
"Yes, on the Lane of Seven Beggars," the merchant said. He had a plump face, a round belly, and sweat streamed from beneath the checked krama wrapped about his head.
High Consort Rejan spoke up. This problem really fell under her bailiwick, the Temple of Trade. Like the other high consorts, she was entirely naked. "Then you can hardly expect not to encounter a ... shall we say, a rugged element, can you?"
"I'm prepared for rugged, High Consort," Rahede said. "It's deliberately destructive I have a problem with. Short of killing my neighbor, I see no other way out of this. And if I killed him, I would miss the breads and rolls his bakery provides."
"You could move," Kahalya suggested. "Perhaps space could be found for your stall in the Palm Marketplace. Of course, a tax would have to be levied accordingly."
"Isn't there some way he can be reasoned with? Or threatened?" Rahede pleaded. "Or just told to keep his thug friends from visiting when they're drunk?"
Nibenay cleared his throat, back in his gloomy comer. "Merchant, it seems to me you have two choices available to you. No, three. One, you kill the baker. Perhaps we don't remember you threatening to do so in our very presence, and perhaps the
Temple of the King's Law doesn't choose to pursue justice for the dead."
High Consort Djena's chuckle was a singularly unpleasant sound. She was their host for this forum, as the templar in charge of the Temple of the King's Law, hers was position second only to the Shadow King himself. The temple controlled crime, punishment, the enforcement of laws, and all the dungeons and slave pits with which those who broke the laws might find themselves intimately familiar. But Nibenay had undercut his own system by installing a fierce young protege, the fifteen year old psionic prodigy Siemhouk, as high consort over the Temple of Thought, and Siemhouk answered to none but the Shadow King.
"Yes," Djena said after her chuckle had sent a shiver running through the poor, fat merchant. "Perhaps I would forget those things. If you'd care to find out how sievelike my memory is ..."
"Choice two," Nibenay picked up again. His voice gurgled like water trickling though pebbles. "You could move your stall elsewhere. Cliff side might be a better fit for you than the Western District. Palm
Court, even, if you could afford to lease a space in either place. As Kahalya points out, the taxes would be higher than where you are now, but with a corresponding improvement in security as well."
"Yes," Rahede said, forgetting the rule about addressing Nibenay directly. "Perhaps ..."
"Or choice three," the Shadow King interrupted, a sharper edge to his voice than before. "You could pack your—what is it, ceramic bowls, cups and jugs and get out of my city before the sun rises again. I'm certain there are others who deal in similar objects, so that none of my fair subjects would go wanting for a new bowl or mug."
"Make your decision," Djena suggested. "Make it now."
Rahede looked at the naked women before him, sitting straight in their high-backed chairs while he crouched uncomfortably on the floor. From Siemhouk, barely fifteen, to Djena of a certain age, they showed a variety of body types and facial expressions. None, Kadya noted, looked particularly sympathetic, but if he were to throw himself on the mercy of one she thought it would be the mul Bamandji, High Consort of War, who was so unconcerned with these sorts of squabbles that she hadn't said anything for the last hour. Kadya wasn't certain she was still awake, although her eyes were open and the beginnings of a smile played about her lips.
Siemhouk hadn't spoken, either, but the look on her face could not, under any circumstances, be confused for a sympathetic one. She looked like she might order the merchant put to death for boring her.
It had happened before.
"I ... perhaps I'll just talk to the baker again," Rahede said. "Try to work things out. And if we can't, then ... then I'll move. Someplace."
"That would be best," Rejan said. "I know that baker. If a worthy sacrifice were to be made at the Temple of Trade, I might even find time to have a word with him myself."
"That would ... I will make sure such a sacrifice is offered," Rahede said. He backed out of the room on hands and knees, thanking the high consorts profusely as he went. That was not only unnecessary, but a more confident approach probably would have better served his case. He couldn't know that, though. Kadya guessed he would either make a spectacular offering at the Temple of Trade, or morning would find him dead or enslaved.
"Will there be any more appeals today?" Djena asked. Hers was the position Kadya wanted. She had been placing herself before Nibenay more and more, allowing him to see that she was intelligent and capable. Her current position was under Siemhouk, helping to organize the city-state's schools and the special training for templars and other agents of the king.
"No more for today," Saulindas said. She was a young templar, muscular and high-breasted, wearing a bright blue sarong and leather sandals. She started to close the door to the Council chamber, but then stopped with a gasp.
"One more," a gravelly voice from outside declared. "The Shadow King will see me."
2
Every eye in the room was fixed on the doorway when he came through. He was covered in sand and dust and filth, as if he had just rolled to Nibenay all the way from Urik. His head flopped around his right shoulder as he limped into the chamber. Something had chewed on his legs during whatever journey he had made; bone showed through the holes there as well as the gap where his neck should have been. He had the look of a soldier about him, with a hard, worn muscularity, his limbs and torso crisscrossed with scars old and new—but he was obviously undead, and just as obviously had been so for some time.
"And who might you be?" Nibenay demanded.
"My name is Shen'ti," the dead man said. "Not that it matters. I was, of late, a mercenary in the employ of House Faylon. It was in this service that I made the discovery I've come all this way to reveal to you now."
"What discovery is that?" the Shadow King asked.
"A city, buried under the desert sand for years beyond measure. This city is called Akrankhot."
"I've never heard of it," Rejan uttered. Then, at a sharp glance from both Nibenay and Siemhouk, she covered her mouth with her fist and looked at the floor.
"This city," the mercenary repeated, "is called Akrankhot. It was, I believe, a place of considerable importance during Athas's past. It was uncovered by a violent storm, and my companions and I, separated by that storm from our caravan, happened upon it."
"And why do you think this would be of interest to me?" Nibenay wanted to know.
"Because beneath Akrankhot, your eminence, is a trove of metals that I believe to be greater than all the metals currently known to exist on all of Athas."
"You know this because?"
"I saw it."
"I mean, how much metal is known to exist on Athas."
If a dead man with his head mostly detached could be said to look sheepish, this one did. Kadya noted that Siemhouk was sitting forward in her chair, her eyes narrowed, hands gripping her dimpled kneecaps. Kadya recognized the look—the young princess was the Way to psionically probe the dead man's mind.
"Speculation, my lord, that's all."
"It's a big city, this Akrankhot?"
"Huge. Not the equal of Nibenay, of course, in beauty. But expansive."
Siemhouk leaned forward a little more. She was a beautiful girl with bright, alert blue eyes, straight and lush black hair, and a complexion much darker than most Nibenese. Her slim figure was just beginning to blossom with the curves of the woman she would become.
Whatever she was seeing in the mercenary, it fascinated her. Kadya would have to try to find out more, later on.
"The point is, you're saying, there's a lot of metal in this city."
"More than I could have dreamed," the mercenary said. "This is why I had to come, to tell you of our discovery, no matter the cost."
"It appears," Nibenay said with a grim, throaty chuckle, "that the cost was great indeed."
The dead man took a scroll from his belt. "I brought a map," he said.
Siemhouk jerked back in her chair as if she'd been slapped. Her eyes were wide, her full lips parted, and she was breathing heavily. "I'll take it," she said. She rose from the chair, Kadya believed to disguise her reaction to whatever she had found in the dead man's mind. Ordinarily Siemhouk would have made a visitor walk to her to place something in her hand, or directed one of her retinue—Kadya, perhaps—to fetch it for her. The fact that she went to the mercenary was almost as curious as her startled reaction had been.
When she had the scroll clutched in her hand, Siemhouk turned away from Shen'ti. He made a rasping noise, took a half step after her, and then collapsed onto the tiles. Siemhouk whirled around, then jumped away from his grasping, clawing hands. The mercenary rattled and kicked and seemed to shrink, and then Kadya realized he was shrinking, literally, his flesh tightening on his bones, drying out, decomposing right there before them. White showed through skin that turned to flakes, then powder, with a crinkling noise. A stink filled the chamber, reminding Kadya of the time she had gone into a small house in the Hill district where seven people had been murdered, their bodies undisturbed for most of a month.
Whatever magic had been keeping the man upright and mobile during the time since he had left Akrankhot on this mission had fled him when he delivered the map to Siemhouk. That time—weeks, perhaps—had caught up to him.
Templars were crying out, one or two weeping openly, and others laughing at the spectacle. Siemhouk turned her back on the dead man, carried the scroll to Nibenay and put it in his pudgy, thick-fingered hand. Then she sat down again, as if waiting for some other supplicant to come before the high consorts, while Shen'ti's body finished its rapid deterioration not five paces away.
What, Kadya wondered, did she see in his head? And what was it that made her pull out so abruptly?
Trying to pry loose information Siemhouk didn't want to share could be a difficult and dangerous task. But Kadya was afraid curiosity itself would kill her if she didn't at least make an attempt.
"If what our friend Shen'ti said is true—" Nibenay began.
Siemhouk cut him off. "It's true."
"—then it's imperative that we launch an expedition to this place, Akrankhot, immediately. We need to find that trove before anyone else does. That much metal could be employed in the construction of weaponry and armor that would make our already formidable army into the strongest our world has ever known. We would be unbeatable."
"I agree, Father," Siemhouk said. She rarely called him that—only when she's after something, Kadya thought. What is it this time?
Nibenay ignored his daughter. "And if he's right about the city's size, then whatever he saw might have only been a small part of what is really there."
"But how do we ascertain that, my liege?" Kahalya asked. "Tear up every building in the ruin? Dig up the very earth beneath them? It could take years to find it all."
"It could," Nibenay admitted. He considered the problem for several minutes, during which nobody spoke. "But if we could send someone on this expedition who could dowse the location of the metal, much like a water witch would find a well, then that person might be able to easily locate what it would take an army years to unearth."
"Do we know someone like that?"
"I know of someone," the Shadow King said. His yellow eyes had taken on a peculiar orange cast. "I do indeed ..."
3
After the Council session ended, Kadya accompanied Siemhouk and her sister templars back to the Temple of Thought. Crowds parted for them on the street, most looking away from the nude girl and the nearly naked women accompanying her, all of them recognizing the Shadow King's templar wives.
At the temple, Siemhouk didn't dismiss them, but instead took them into a private chamber where she performed the business of state. The floor was covered with silken pillows, some piled up in comers. The walls were draped with silks in bright colors, interlaced with golden threads. Candles in hanging, windowed holders were kept lit, imparting the room with soft light and the smell of burning spices.
Siemhouk flopped down on her usual mound of pillows. For just an instant, she looked like the young girl she was rather than the jaded, experienced woman she presented herself as. That impression was fleeting, though, and in a moment her youthful face was overtaken by a bored expression. She appeared older, but less alive.
"We need to take advantage of this," Siemhouk began.
Kadya had been thinking the same thing. Not for Siemhouk's sake, though, but for her own.
"Why?" The questioner was the young templar named Saulindas, barely three years older than Siemhouk. Kadya's responsibilities included overseeing the facilities of the various state schools, making sure the buildings were properly equipped, cleaned, and staffed. Saulindas reported to her, and so far the only thing Kadya had entrusted her with was managing the slaves who swept floors and dusted for cobwebs.
"Because that much metal, as my father said, could make a huge difference in our defenses," Siemhouk explained. "Such an expedition will be a complex undertaking, requiring careful planning and organization. Whoever is put in charge of this expedition—and brings back the metal—will have a say in how it's used. The wealth and power that metal represents will play to the advantage of that person."
"I see," Saulindas said, in a way that made clear that she didn't.
"And I intend to be that person," Siemhouk added.
"As you should be, High Consort," Kadya said. The Naggararnakam, and the city's various temples, were a continuous hotbed of intrigue, every seasoned templar vying for advantage over the others. The one Kadya had her eye on was Djena. Siemhouk didn't have to answer to the High Consort of the King's Law, but everyone else did. And Siemhouk had almost unlimited power because she had her father's ear, and his trust. But if Siemhouk and one of her chief allies controlled the Temples of the King's Law and of Thought, then Siemhouk's sway over Nibenese events would be almost total.
And Kadya, of course, would rio longer live in Siemhouk's shadow. She would have all the power and authority of a high consort—the templar who, according to Nibenay's plan, was meant to be the ultimate authority, and would be again if anything ever happened to Siemhouk.
Not that Kadya wanted to see that happen, of course.
But Siemhouk was right. This discovery, if it was as the dead man had described, could change the course of history.
Whoever controlled the metal, and brought it to Nibenay, would be a most important individual in the coming days and years and centuries of the Shadow King's rule.
Siemhouk graced Kadya with an entirely inauthentic smile. Kadya returned the empty gesture. Kadya was skilled at defending her own mind, and she would know if Siemhouk tried to get inside her. She would have time to blank it out, to think about her genuine love for her young sister-wife.
Until that happened, she intended to keep scheming.
IV
NIGHT TERRORS
1
The moons flowed across starry skies like twin sails cutting through a dark night sea. On a desert plain, windswept and barren, the tents of a trader's caravan flapped like those same sails might have, had there been a body of water anywhere in the Athasian Tablelands large and deep enough to merit the effort of launching a sailing fleet. Around the tents, fires burned, fueled with mekillot dung—conveniently in ready supply any time the huge beasts were used to haul the massive, heavily laden wagons that hauled goods from place to place.
This was a caravan of House Ligurto, a merchant trading family from Tyr, but with outposts in several cities and towns. The Ligurto family was a large one, with generations of sons and daughters, cousins and in-laws overseeing the family's interests around the region. Many of them had never spent more than a few nights at a time in any one spot.
Myrana had been born on the road seventeen years before, and had grown up in that life. The trading caravans never paused for long, but traveled from place to place, always bringing new goods to House Ligurto's emporiums in Tyr, Draj, Urik and smaller markets in several villages. To Myrana, the rhythms of life were change, the squeak of wheels, the plodding of beasts of burden. The clouds overhead changed, the stars spun every night, but life was an unbroken routine of travel, dealing, loading, unloading, more dealing. She was more familiar with the smell of mekillots and kanks than of city streets, and she could tell where on Athas she was by the composition of the soil beneath her feet. She counted among her acquaintances all the caravan's animals, as well as the birds, lizards, insects and other creatures encountered along the way. Unlike most of the so-called intelligent beings they met, these creatures were trying simply to survive, in harmony with a hard world. The intelligent ones were always trying to play some angle, to get the better of someone else in a deal, or simply to steal what they couldn't earn. Myrana had a deep distrust of most people outside her family, and the family encouraged that attitude.
Just now, she was sleeping in the tent she shared with a sister and three cousins about the same age. Myrana had raven hair and fair skin that she tried to protect from Athas's merciless sun. A mekillot incident when she was five had left her crippled, her left leg shorter than the right and bent slightly inward.
But when she dreamed, both legs were lean and strong, and she could race up and down dunes almost as if she was flying. Myrana had more vivid dreams than most, everybody said so, and people had learned not to ignore her when she woke up and said her dreams had warned her of something.
This night, her dreams turned frightening. She woke with a startled gasp, throwing aside the thin covering over her as if it were infested with biting insects.
"Myrana, what's wrong?" her sister Analiese asked. The younger girl's voice was thick with sleep, and she watched Myrana with hooded eyes. She was on her side, curled up, with one hand under her cheek.
"Bad dream, Liese," Myrana said. "Go back to sleep."
"The bad kind of bad dream?" Analiese wondered. Myrana knew what she meant—was it one of those dreams that might foretell danger or heartbreak?
"I don't know. I was sitting at an oasis, leaning against a tree. The water was cool and fresh and there were fish in it, and birds singing in the trees."
"Sounds nice."
"It was. But then I realized that the birds were not just singing, they were trying to tell me something. I could tell it was important, because birds wouldn't try so hard to speak Common if it wasn't. Trying to speak it was painful for them, and the harder they tried, the more it hurt them. Finally, they started to drop from the trees, dead, into the water, and that's when I woke up."
"Echh, that's awful," Analiese said, biting back a yawn.
"Just a dream," Myrana assured her. "Go back to sleep now."
"I'll try." Analiese closed her eyes, and within seconds her mouth was open, her breathing deep and steady.
"You too, Myrana," one of her cousins said. She thought it was Lauriand, but the three cousins were close in age and in the dark, they all sounded very much alike. Myrana didn't bother trying to sort it out, just pulled her covering back up and lay back, trying to put the image of plummeting birds out of her head.
2
Nibenay's elven market, in the city's southwestern corner, had a long-standing reputation as a place where absolutely anything could be acquired, so long as one had the coins to spend. That reputation was not undeserved, and had been nourished by the elf traders themselves.
The fact was that there were some things not even elves would deal in—but most of those could be had a few streets over, in the largely abandoned Hill District. There were plenty of other things one could buy from the elves that could also be found, sometimes at considerably lower prices, from the emporiums surrounding Sage's Square or the smaller merchant stalls of Palm's Cross or the Western
District. Occasionally, though, bargains could be found, often on stolen goods.
The elven market was open year-round, but was larger and busier when the bulk of the Sky Singers tribe was in the city. A recent murder of many Sky Singers elves had shaken the city—one or two murders a day was common, but sixteen at once was not. The market went on, however, elves from other tribes stepping in to take over the stalls and keep trading active.
The bazaar tended to be quiet in the heat of day, most crowded early in the morning and late in the day as the sun began to set. During the early evening, before it grew too cold, customers of every race could be observed haggling with elves, carting around merchandise they had just purchased, or sometimes discreetly pocketing those purchases they didn't want anyone to see. Stalls were packed close together, lit by oil lamps or flaming torches. Most of them were covered against the heat of day by canvas tarps lashed to poles, but some were no more than wooden boards supported by mud blocks, laden with merchandise. Wandering musicians strolled the area, singing and playing for a bit or two from appreciative listeners.
On this night, a man circled warily around the market's edges, wearing furred cloaks, his face lost in the shadows of his hood. He stayed back from the torchlight. A few elf merchants spotted him, but he didn't meet their gazes or respond to their shouted appeals. After he had passed by, he was swiftly forgotten. There was always another potential customer in view, someone who might be persuaded to part with a few bits for a dagger, a thieves' pick, a grappling hook or an exotic perfume from some distant land.
The man knew he had been seen a few times, but he made a point of keeping out of direct torchlight. He was not shopping, at least not in the traditional sense. He was watching the participants, not so much the merchants. Some elf transactions didn't take place in the market at all, but began as whispered conversations that took place on its edges and were consummated elsewhere.
These were the ones that most interested him.
He had tried riot to be so interested, of course. He had tried to tell himself it was no concern of his who consorted with whom. But as he sat inside his own home at night, with his loving family, a secret fire consumed him. He found his hands bunching into fists at inappropriate times, found images of bloodshed slipping into his head when he didn't want them. Pressure built up in him until thought he would explode.
This night, he made an excuse and went to the elven market. There he waited. Watched.
Hunted.
Finally, he saw what he sought.
A human man had made a couple of small purchases. A small bag of nuts, a leather belt. Things he could easily have purchased anywhere in the city. The watching man saw that the other man hardly looked at the merchandise as he moved from stall to stall; he studied the elves themselves, particularly the females. Every now and then he leaned over a table of goods and spoke a couple of quiet words to a merchant. Most times he was rebuffed, but once or twice an elfs gaze would flicker over to a corner of the market, the one nearest the city's Resevoir Gate.
The man strolled back that way, keeping his prey in his sights. The other man, the one being watched, wore a heavy cloak with a yellow-and-black krama on his head. He looked well to do, but not familiar. His belly was round, his legs short, giving his gait a waddling appearance. He had a thin mustache and a beard that grew in a straight line, from his lower lip down to mid-throat.
At that rear corner, a few elf females were gathered. Their clothing revealed more than it hid. The man in yellow approached one of them, her full breasts spilling out of a low-cut top, long legs barely contained by a skirt with slits up both sides. Her hair was long and light colored, glinting in the indirect light of the nearest lantern. She was a full elf, tall and powerfully muscled, and she loomed over the stout man in yellow. But after exchanging a few words, the man passed a silver coin to her, tand he two linked arms and walked away from the market and down a dark side street.
The man knew where they were going. That way there were brothels and fleshpots galore, as well as inns where rooms were rarely rented for more than an hour at a stretch, and a plethora of abandoned buildings—some occupied by squatters, thieves, and other unsavory types—but many of which stood empty day and night. The two could have their assignation in any one of those, sparing both human and elf the necessity of taking the other home.
Although he knew it meant taking his eyes off his subjects, the man raced one street over, to the west, and then walked at a brisk pace to the north. He meant to come in above the couple, to intercept them before they had a chance to find their preferred spot.
As he walked, his sandaled feet almost silent on the nighttime street, he fingered the scabbard at his waist, and he knew that the time had come to relieve the pressure building inside him before he did something he would regret....

V
SUMMONED
1
Ruhm emptied his flagon and banged it down onto the rough wooden surface of the table. He let out a long, loud belch, and the others gathered around broke into hysterical laughter.
"It almost sounded like you were trying to say something," Kenif said.
"He was!" replied Torus. "He was telling us everything he's ever learned!"
"I'll drink to that!" Glitch said, and he tipped his flagon back.
Kenif's laughter got even more fevered at that, to the point that he rested his head on his left arm, which was folded on the tabletop, and banged the wood with his fist. Other revelers at nearby tables looked over at them.
"Guys, can we keep it down a little?" Aric asked. He had been buying the ale, so he thought he was entitled to make such a request.
Gitch, whose laugh sounded like a series of ascending whoops, managed to control himself momentarily. "They're all here to have some fun," he said. "Just like we are. What's the problem if they think we're having more than them?"
Aric was sorry he had brought it up, but since he had he felt obliged to explain himself. "We don't know why some of them are here," he said. "I just hate to call unnecessary attention to ourselves. What if there's someone here just watching for some drunks to snatch and hand over to the templars as new slaves?"
It wasn't hard for someone Ruhm's size to catch a barmaid's eye, even in the crowded tavern, and he was accepting a new flagon of ale as he said, "Aric hates attention. Especially when he's got a full purse."
"Shh!" Aric had been parceling out ceramic bits, pieces of coin broken down into smaller denominations, little by little to keep the ale flowing—and meat, too, aprig chops grilled over open flame. The grill was outside on a patio, but smoke billowed in through the open door, scented with the juices of the meat that dripped down onto the wood. This blended with the odors of sweat and spilled ale to create a kind of fragrant fog that hung over the packed room.
The Barrel and Blade's walls were sandstone. At some point in the distant past, a customer had jammed a bone dagger into the wall, burying it almost to the hilt. Others had taken up the implied challenge, then more, until there were thousands, if not tens of thousands, of knives of all varieties protruding from the tavern's walls. Every now and then someone yanked one out to settle a fight, but the regulars knew that violated the spirit of the thing, and besides, hardly anyone on Athas went out without at least one knife somewhere on their person.
Otherwise, the place had little to recommend it. The tables were rough-hewn planks mounted on three posts, and most were neither stable nor even. When a few people crowded around one, sitting on rough, mismatched stools and stumps, they had to be careful about where their mugs of ale were placed on the table, else someone lifting one mug could jar the tabletop enough to send the others to the floor.
Aric glanced around at the clientele, a mixture of every race one typically saw in Nibenay: humans, muls, goliaths, dwarves, and more. Not many other half-elves or elves, though. The drinkers were merchants, thieves, craftspeople, all free citizens and most from the commoner classes. The Barrel and Blade was not a place noble folk went.
"That's right," Aric said after a moment. "I don't like it under any circumstances, but especially when I'm flush." He waved a hand at his companions, three humans and a goliath. "Ruhm here can't help attracting some notice, but you guys are all humans. You don't know what it's like to be a half-elf. Humans don't trust you, elves don't trust you, everyone thinks you're aligned with the other side and would as soon slit your throat as say hello. Templars look for any excuse to enslave you. Attention? You might as well arm me with a twig and toss me into the pit against Yeves the Undefeated."
"Surely the events in Tyr—" Torus began.
Aric cut him off with a scoffing noise. "Kalak's overthrow makes no difference in that regard. And I'm not just talking about here in Nibenay. Look, Athas is a dangerous world, we all know that. It's more dangerous for some of us than for others, that's all I'm saying. Always has been, always will be. The only smart thing to do is to keep your head down and hope danger walks on by."
"But if Tyr changes, and the other city-states follow," Torus said, "then maybe the world will become a safer place. Don't you think?" He lowered his voice. He was a cobbler's apprentice, and had been for so long that Aric wondered if he just wasn't good enough to strike out on his own, or if he lacked the ambition to do so. "I mean, if the power of the sorcerer-kings is limited, then free people will take more responsibility upon themselves, and free people have less reason to hate than those in perpetual bondage."
"That's what I'm saying," Aric answered. "You have to say that sort of thing in low tones, because you never know who's listening. And you're a human. Now take that fear and multiply it by a dozen, and you have the way a half-elf feels all the time. It's not safe for anyone to express that sort of opinion, but it's even less so for me. Look, none of us can change the world. If it changes on its own, if this thing with Kalak helps spur that change, that's great. But no individual or group of individuals is going to do it. On Athas, we're born into a certain place in the world, and that's where we stay."
Gitch finished chewing a bite of grilled aprig and wiped his lips with his fingers. "Do you really feel that way, Aric? How sad."
"I do, Gitch. And will, unless I witness something that changes my mind. Twenty years now I've been waiting. Nothing yet."
Gitch was a big man, almost elf-sized, although sitting next to Ruhm would make anyone look small. He worked at a livery stable, and always seemed coated in reddish dust. The smell of kanks and other creatures clung to him, as if contained in that same dust. "I hope to own the stable someday," he said. "That's a change of status."
"I own my own shop," Aric countered. And yes, I do need for my customers—the satisfied ones, at any rate—to tell others about my work. That's a risk I have to take in order to keep the business coming in. But if they can do it without mentioning my name, I like that best of all."
"Perhaps," Gitch said. "I'll drink to that, too." The others at the table went quiet, drinking their ale, or wine in Kenif's case, chewing their meat. Aric was sorry that he had spoiled the celebratory mood. He knew, and he suspected they all did, that no matter how much fun tonight, in the morning they would all get up and spend another day in service to those who were wealthier and more powerful than they.
On Athas, that was the best one could hope for. And it wasn't good to spend too much time dwelling on the worst.
2
Someone was pounding on the shop's front door. Aric sat up in bed and the room tilted crazily out from under him. He put his hands against the mattress to steady himself. His head ached, and when he thought it was safe to put his feet on the floor—that pounding continued—his vision swam.
"Coming!" he called. He gained his feet, started for the door. His left foot kicked Ruhm's outflung hand. "Sorry," he muttered. Ruhm just grunted and shifted, his eyes never so much as blinking open. Aric walked past him, through the door. The shop stayed so warm that he slept in the nude, and he wondered momentarily if he should cover up. But bending over to pick up clothing from the floor would certainly be dizzying, perhaps even make him fall down or get sick. He decided to see who was trying to knock his door off its hinges, then worry about getting dressed.
"I said I'm coming!"
"Hurry it along, then!" a deep voice replied.
Aric unlatched the door and swung it wide. A pair of goliaths stood on the other side, dressed in the colorful uniform of the Shadow Guard, Nibenay's elite palace guard. Tall hats with insect leglike appendages sticking out at the sides made the goliaths appear even bigger than they were.
"You are Aric, the smith?" one of them asked.
Aric swallowed. Suddenly he was very awake indeed, and conscious of his nudity. "Yes ..."
"He wants to see you."
"He who?" Even as he asked it, Aric was afraid he knew the answer. Anxiety gripped him, curling his toes against the hard floor.
"The Shadow King."
"Better put something on," the other soldier said.
"Wh-why does he want to see me?"
"We didn't ask," the first soldier said. "He sends us on missions, we don't ask questions. Now he calls for you. I were you, I would get dressed and come."
"Now?"
"Yes. Now."
"But ..." Aric didn't know what to ask first. He didn't want to see the Shadow King. He never had, although of course he had heard tales about him. He especially didn't want to be escorted into the Naggaramakam. Free citizens didn't come out of there alive. "I ... just a minute." He closed the door. The soldiers shifted position on the other side. He heard the shuffle of their feet, the creak of leather, the clinking of weapons.
Could he escape out the back? Not for long, he decided. He had some coins left, so if he got out of the city he could survive for a little while. But sooner or later, he would have to work again, and he knew only the one trade. If he made it to Tyr or Draj, could he open another shop of his own? No, better to dress and find out what the Shadow King wanted with him. Maybe he just wanted a sword. Tunsall of Thrace might have told him how happy Rieve was with hers. That was probably it.
"What's going on?" Ruhm asked him. He had managed to rouse himself, and sat on the floor where he had been sleeping.
Aric pulled on fresh clothing, started to wrap a krama around his head. "Nibenay wants to see me."
"Nibenay, Nibenay?"
"There's more than one? Of course. There are soldiers outside waiting to take me to him."
"What you done, Aric?"
"I don't know. Nothing. Perhaps someone heard us talking last night, reported me. I don't know." He messed up with the krama, and the whole thing collapsed when he tried to tuck the last bit of the long scarf. He had to start over, his hands shaking so much he could barely manage. Finally Ruhm stood and helped him.
"Probably nothing," he said.
"You think so?"
"Don't know," Ruhm admitted. "He never summoned me."
"These soldiers outside, they're goliaths. Perhaps you could speak with them."
"Because their bond with a goliath they never met will outweigh loyalty to their king?"
"Yeah, I guess that was foolish," Aric said. "I'm just ... I'm scared, Ruhm."
"You're done," Ruhm said, patting his shoulder.
"Thanks."
"About being scared? I would be too." "That's a big help."
Ruhm clasped Aric's hand tightly. "Don't think you done nothing wrong. You had, would come inside."
"You're probably right, Ruhm."
"So see you later on."
"Plan on it. And if I don't come back, the shop is yours."
Aric released his friend's hand and crossed through the shop again. The goliaths still waited by the door. "I'm ready," Aric told them.
"We go," the first one said. The other one was taciturn even by half-giant standards. Ruhm was one of the most talkative goliaths Aric had ever met, and he used words as sparingly as if they were gold.
The two huge soldiers flanked him as they started down Nibenay's morning streets at a brisk walk. People dodged out of their way, eyeing Aric as if he had already been sentenced to death or to a short, brutal life in the gladiatorial arena.
For all he knew, he had.
"Are we going to the palace?" he asked, thinking, Please, say no!
"No."
"Where, then?"
"Temple of the King's Law."
That was nearly as bad. People weren't necessarily put to death just for walking through the doors. But Djena, the High Consort of the King's Law, seemed always to be looking for new faces to occupy her dungeons, and new slaves to join her ranks.
He doubted they would answer, but he had to ask. "Am I ... am I in some kind of trouble?"
"Don't know," the soldier said. "Don't care."
Well, I care, Aric thought. I care a very great deal.
He looked about for a way to escape, giving thought once again to trying to flee these soldiers rather than face whatever awaited him at the temple.
But the streets were busy, and he the subject of many curious stares. If he tried to break away, he wouldn't get three steps before someone, trying to curry favor with the Shadow King, would block his flight. The soldiers might even react by killing him on the spot.
Better to take his chances with Nibenay, he decided. He was curious about what he might have done to attract the sorcerer-king's attention, if only to make sure—assuming he survived—that he never did it again.
So much, he thought as they approached the tall gray building, steps flanking it on every side leading to doors high enough for even the goliaths in their big hats to pass beneath easily, for remaining beneath anyone's notice.
3
"Why do I care about murders?" the Shadow King asked. He was back in the far corner of the room, where no lanterns or torches reached. Aric could barely see him, except for the faintest glimmer of light reflecting off his crown and his yellow eyes. But when the sorcerer-king moved, Aric was aware of a considerable presence.
A templar in a long skirt, her hair loose against her naked back, stood before the five high consorts. Although Nibenay had addressed her directly, she answered as if Djena had asked the question.
"As you are aware, High Consort, there have now been three similar crimes. A human man and an elf woman, often a prostitute—"
"Was the victim a prostitute, in this case?" Djena asked.
"We believe so. She had a single silver piece in her purse. The man had several, of similar vintage, in his."
"They both had silver on them? They were killed in the Hill District, or near it, and were not robbed by their killer or anyone else? I am surprised."
"Perhaps anyone who happened upon the bodies, before they were reported to us, was too disturbed by their condition to search them," the templar speculated.
If the condition of the bodies had been described in detail, it was before the soldiers had brought Aric into the chamber. He had managed to get one of them to explain that he was being taken before the Council of Templars, and that Nibenay himself would be in attendance. But Aric was not the first item of business.
"That may be," Djena said.
"Besides these killings," the more junior templar added, "we can't forget the murder of sixteen Sky Singers. That's still got the elf community roiled up."
"Elves," Nibenay said. The dismissive tone of the single word couldn't be ignored.
"Just the same, High Consort, people may not like elves but they like the goods elves can provide. Nibenay is known far and wide as a place where anything can be obtained. If the elves shut down their market, refuse to trade here, then that reputation will be in danger. We'll lose that prestige."
"Would the caravans stop coming to Nibenay?" the Shadow King asked. "Stop spending their coins here?"
"Some might, High Consort," the templar said, still not answering the king directly. The question made sense to Aric, and was probably the most pertinent fact yet raised about the murders. Nibenay's economic slide was widely known around the city-state, as if Tyr's upheaval had caused people elsewhere to stop spending as freely as they once had. "This is my fear," the templar went on, "and why I recommend posting guards around the elven market for a time."
"Do that," Nibenay said. "And keep this council apprised of any further developments."
"Thank you, sister templar," the High Consort of the King's Law said with a forward curl of her hand. "You may take your leave."
The templar bowed once and left the room. As she passed Aric and his escort, she gave him a curious glance. He offered a smile, which was not returned. Then she was gone, and Nibenay's gurgling voice boomed out. "Is the smith here yet?"
Aric didn't know how to respond. The templar had directed her words toward the High Consort of the Law. But she had been reporting about a crime, which would fall under that high consort's purview. If Aric did the same, would he draw attention from the wrong high consort? He had committed no crimes that he knew of.
But one of the soldiers nudged him, hard, so he knew he was expected to say something. He took a half step forward, propelled by the force of that nudge. "I am Aric, the smith," he said.
"Come forward, smith," the High Consort of Thought said. Siemhouk's voice was high, girlish.
He obeyed, walking as quickly as he could without falling down, his legs unsteady, knees locking.
"That's far enough," she said after a few moments. Aric stood before the five high consorts, arrayed in a half-circle about him, all seated in grand chairs.
"I have heard," Nibenay himself said, "from Tunsall of Thrace, that you, smith, have a powerful psionic connection to metals. Is this true? You may address me directly."
Yes or no? Aric wondered. Which answer wilt get me out of here fastest?
He decided the truth was his best bet, in case Nibenay was already convinced of it or was reading it in his mind at this moment. "It is true."
"You have no objection to being tested?"
"Tested?" What could he mean by that? "No, I guess not."
"Very well. Kahalya?"
The high consort seated on the far right rose from her ornately carved chair. Her nude body was taut and firm, with a slim waist, small breasts, and surprisingly long legs. She walked to Aric, and offered him a metal brooch. He took it from her. It was deep blue, with emerald green highlights, in the shape of a bird on the wing. Small gems adorned it. Aric thought it likely the most valuable object he had ever touched.
Aric never knew precisely what metal would say to him. Sometimes he handled metals that didn't speak at all, that were simply inert objects, as they were to most people. Other times he saw, in his mind's eye, vivid images of who had last handled the thing, or pictures of where the metal had been before, what it had been part of. But his most powerful connection came when he worked with the stuff, when it "told" him how to shape it, how to combine it with other metals to achieve strength, flexibility, sharpness, or some other attribute.
He closed his hand around the brooch, hoping his psionic ability wouldn't let him down before such a distinguished audience.
He needn't have worried.
Images flooded his mind, like water filling a basin. An elf, thin and bedraggled, hanging from a gallows, rope cinched tight around a distended neck, eyes bulging. A human woman, a member of the nobility, wearing fancy clothes; her hand clapped to her shoulder, fingers twitching as if feeling for something that wasn't there. Another human, an artisan, shaping the bird. Then Aric saw the bird itself, as the artisan had seen it, in full flight, wings pounding against the sky as it gained elevation.
Kahalya yet stood before him. He handed the brooch back to her, and she closed her small fist over it.
"A man saw a bird in flight, and was inspired to create this brooch," Aric said. "It fetched a high price, from a noblewoman. She wore it to.... I don't know, a party, some sort of event. It was stolen by an elf. When he was hanged as a thief, it was recovered."
"Close enough," another high consort said. Aric recognized Djena, High Consort of the King's Law. Kahalya returned to her seat as her sister templar spoke. "He was hanged because he tried to sell the brooch, but we had been alerted to its theft and we were looking for it. When we found out about him, we captured him. Apparently you've seen the result."
"You perform as Tunsall promised," Nibenay said. "Since you have this expertise, I should like to make use of it."
"In what way?" Aric could have kicked himself. He wasn't certain of accepted court protocol, but he was pretty sure one didn't question the Shadow King in that way.
"Presumptuous," Siemhouk said.
"Indeed," Djena added. She leaned toward Aric. "You speak as if he's offering you a choice."
"My apologies," Aric said. "I ... I am new to this sort of occasion."
"That is abundantly evident," Nibenay said. "And forgiven, this time."
"Thank you, Sire."
"And your question, presumptuous though it was, is a legitimate one, which I will dignify with a response. We have been told about a large trove of metals in a forgotten city called Akrankhot. Large enough, if it is as described, that it might be used to armor our army—already the most fearsome on all of Athas—making it more powerful still. What we don't know is where precisely in this place the metal is, or if the metal described to us is all there is. For all we know, it might be the smaller of several stores. We need someone attuned to metals who can make sure we're finding all that's there."
A strange sense of excitement ran through Aric, but it was mixed with deep foreboding. This sounded suspiciously like an adventure, and he distrusted the whole notion of adventure. He thought he knew enough to believe that adventures were nothing but stories told by people not brave enough to actually experience such events, because those who did so rarely survived them. "So you're sending me on a journey?"
"You will accompany an expedition, yes. I can't say that it will be without dangers. I trust that's acceptable to you."
Aric would never have made the claim that he knew the Shadow King. But he knew more about him than he had mere minutes before, and he was convinced that Nibenay was teasing. "Very acceptable," he said graciously. Whatever perils the journey might hold he would have to face as they came—certainly any voyage on Athas was a dangerous one, or so he understood. That danger, he knew, didn't affect his response to Nibenay, as he had no choice but to make the trip.
Anyway, he was intrigued by the whole thing. He had never traveled so much as a day's walk from the gates of the city. Clearly, this journey would be longer than that. He would be accompanied, most likely, by soldiers from the Nibenese army, and probably others as well. Not the Shadow King himself, surely, but someone representing him. A templar, even one of the high consorts? Perhaps.
Aric had long harbored a half-formed belief—never shared with anyone—that Nibenay was looking out for him in some mysterious way. Throughout his life there had been otherwise inexplicable incidents, and Aric had seen a providential hand as the only possible explanation. Most recently, he had decided he needed to settle on a profession. Because of his long-standing affinity for metals, he had thought that working as a smith would be a natural course for him. But because metal was rare on Athas, smiths were also rare. Less common still were smiths who wanted to take on a half-elf as an apprentice.
Finally, Aric heard of a struggling blacksmith, injured in an accident, who might be willing to offer an apprenticeship, and he had arranged a meeting with the man to discuss it. When Aric arrived for the meeting, the blacksmith announced that he was retiring, and that if Aric wanted the shop, it was his. Although Aric had been hoping to study at the side of a master smith, he couldn't turn down the opportunity to own the business.
As soon as he touched the metal the man had left behind, though, Aric knew that he had been pressured into retiring, and well compensated for placing the business into Aric's hands. The metal wouldn't tell him who had paid the smith off, though, and Aric often wondered who that had been. It was as if someone powerful had taken an interest in Aric's life, and was working from behind a screen to make sure it progressed in a certain direction.
Did that unseen hand truly belong to the Shadow King? Unlikely, Aric knew. More likely, he was simply buffeted by the fates, as were all Athasians, and he had just been lucky a few times. He could certainly point to other occasions on which his fortune had run the other way.
"Then it's settled," Nibenay said.
"Apparently so."
"One more thing," the Shadow King said. "Although you had the good sense not to ask for it. If the expedition finds the metal and it's as promised, then there will be a certain amount of financial reward. That much metal will help outfit our military, but there will be an excess amount, which can be sold off, the profits put to the benefit of the Nibenese treasury. If you should survive the journey and return with the metal, and your efforts were helpful in acquiring it, I will see to it that you receive the commission to outfit our guard. I trust this will be acceptable to you as well?"
"Not merely acceptable, Your Highness, but entirely unnecessary and unexpected."
"Which is why it's offered," Nibenay replied. "Had I believed for an instant that you expected it, I would never have let you see the first bit of it."
"You are most generous."
"So I am often told." Was that a smile on his face, back there in his shadowed corner? Aric couldn't quite tell.
"It is settled, then," the Shadow King said. "You will be notified as to the date of departure. It will be soon, however, not more than two or three days hence. So do not make any future plans. If you have someone you would like to accompany you, who could be helpful on such an expedition, by all means bring that person along."
"My assistant Ruhm? He's a goliath, very strong, and he knows his way around metals."
"Delightful," Nibenay said. From his reputation, Aric had a hard time imagining the Shadow King being delighted by anything. He had to admit, however, that during this conversation—imagine, he, a quarter-elf, a commoner, a smith, was having a conversation with a sorcerer-king! He could barely believe it even though he was part of it—Nibenay had been reasonable, even personable.
And if it had been him all these years, looking out for Aric....
But that was impossible. Hardly worth wasting a second thinking about.
"You may take your leave," Siemhouk said. "We will contact you when we need you again."
"Thank you, Your Highness," Aric said. He backed toward the door, wondering if that was the right protocol, if the soldiers would suddenly appear behind him, grasping his arms and hauling him to a dungeon for committing some offense of which he wasn't even aware. "Thank you, high consorts, for your hospitality."
None of them spoke, but the soldiers didn't seize him. Someone else opened the door as he neared it, and then he was outside in a hallway of the temple. Templars and others hurried past him, paying him not an instant's mind. He found his own way out, and home, his mind racing with every step.
4
I should like to have my sister templar Kadya lead the expedition," Siemhouk said after the smith was gone. "If that would please you, Father."
Kadya had known that Siemhouk would make the request. She didn't know that she would be in the room at the time, or that it would be put so bluntly. Siemhouk, despite her youth, played the templar power games as well as any she had ever met, so she had expected a more subtle, strategic approach to be employed.
"Is that right?" Nibenay asked. Kadya couldn't read his tenor.
"As High Consort of the House," Kahalya put in, an angry edge in her voice, "and as this clearly concerns issues of the national treasury, I should have at least equal say in the expedition's makeup."
"Each of you will no doubt have some reason—all perfectly valid, I have no doubt—as to why you should be involved in this process," the Shadow King said. He moved out of the shadows, not entirely but enough to let everyone see the weary look on his face, as if the argument had already raged for hours. For all Kadya knew, it had, only in private, each of the high consorts coming to him in their marriage bed to press her case. "The High Consort of War certainly has an interest," he went on. "As does the High Consort of Trade."
"But psionics are involved," Siemhouk said. "Which fall under my sphere of influence."
That was the weakest case she could have made, Kadya thought. Because they were taking one half-elf along, in order to make use of his psionic ability? Why not argue that there should be a High Consort of the Walking Dead, who should take charge because the person who had brought the news in the first place had been one of those?
Perhaps, though, she had underestimated Siemhouk's influence with her father. "Of course," he said. "And I feel inclined to grant your request. You others will feel slighted, no doubt, but when all have a claim on something, then not everybody can prevail. Kadya is a capable templar, and I have every faith that under her leadership the expedition will be a grand success."
Kadya was astonished. It had been so easy! Now she felt as if every gaze in the room burned in on her. She felt her cheeks color. She stood and went to the center of the room, dizzy, hoping her balance did not desert her. It wouldn't do to fall down. "Thank you, Sire," she said. "I shall endeavor to live up to your confidence, and more."
"See that you do," Nibenay said. His voice had turned suddenly cool. "And if you fail to acquire metal in amounts unheard of before, then might I suggest that you don't return at all? Your fate alone, naked and unarmed in the middle of the Sea of Silt would doubtless be more kind than the reception that would await you here in our glorious city."
Kadya didn't know how to respond to that. "I ... if the metal is there, I shall deliver it. And if it's not, then I'll never again darken the city's gates."
The Shadow King was silent. When that silence had dragged on for an awkward period of time, Djena clapped her hands together once. "Then we are adjourned," she declared.
Kadya walked slowly to the council chamber's doorway, lest her quaking legs reveal her terror at what had just transpired.
She had just let Siemhouk seal her fate, one way or another. Either she would return to the city celebrated, or she would die.
For most people, life's options were not so wildly divergent. Or so final.
But she was not most people, she was Kadya, a templar of Nibenay. And her fate, as of this moment, was almost entirely out of her control.
VI
PREPARING TO EMBARK
1
Because literacy was frowned upon by the Shadow King and his legions of templar wives—and by most sorcerer-kings, or that's what Aric had heard—punishable by enslavement, time in the city's dungeons, or worse, when Aric wanted to read he had to go to great lengths to find reading material. Sometimes books or scrolls could be had from the elven market, but even there, they were kept under the tables, and one had to know at which stalls to ask about them. They were expensive and had to be handled with discretion, tucked away under a cloak or in a satchel before anyone could spot the contraband.
Aric had no experience with adventuring, and he didn't know many who did. So to find out what to expect, he went to the elven market and made some discreet inquiries. From there he was directed to a merchant in the Hill District, which he typically thought of as a place one went to acquire lethal poisons, banned weapons, and other dangerous objects. He suspected that he was being set up for robbery or murder, so he wore his bone dagger close to his hand, visible to one and all, and he took Ruhm along.
Ruhm refused to enter the abandoned building in which Aric had been told reading material might be available—he did not read, and wanted nothing to do with those who did. Aric went in alone, nose tickling at the thick dust covering every surface. A gaunt man whose tattered, filthy clothing made him look as if he and the building were separate parts of the same whole stepped out from an interior doorway and smiled at him, revealing a mouth with more gaps than teeth. "You're here for what?" he asked.
Aric couldn't help glancing about to make sure they were unobserved, even though he knew Ruhm stood guard outside. "Something to read," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. He hoped his hands weren't visibly shaking. "Adventurer accounts, of the wastelands?"
"Adventurers, eh?" the man said. He scratched his voluminous beak of a nose. "I might have something like that." He ticked his head toward the doorway through which he had just emerged. "Come in."
He turned with smooth, practiced grace and flowed back through the door. Aric followed. A lantern hung on one of the walls of the windowless room, where the bedraggled man stood between tables and shelves of books, pamphlets, tabloids and scrolls. Aric had never seen so many words in one place in his life. Some were clearly handwritten but others were not—some of the works were present in multiple copies, each identical to the last in every way. "These are printed," he said, struck with awe.
"That's right. I know a man in Tyr with a press. Printed right under old Kalak's nose, in fact, and smuggled out with caravans. Now, of course, he can operate freely, and will until some other tyrant solidifies his position there. But for the moment.... it's a different world."
"But not here in Nibenay."
"Oh, not here," the man agreed. "Here the tyrant hangs on."
Aric didn't like that sort of talk. Nibenay had a reputation as a tyrant, it was true. And it was his law that could punish Aric simply for knowing how to read. But the Shadow King had been pleasant with him, had invited him to share in an adventure that could even elevate Aric's status in life, if all went well. He knew all the arguments—Nibenay maintained the barbaric practice of slavery, he ruled the city with a merciless hand, the rights of individuals were sacrificed to the whims of the state. And for the most part, he agreed with them. He just found it hard to reconcile them with his positive experience of the king himself, only the day before, and he didn't want to be party to any treasonous discussion.
"And the adventurer logs?" he asked, changing the subject.
The man swept to the far wall. "Here," he said, indicating a cabinet with a fluid gesture of his long-fingered hand. "What location interests you?
Balic? The Ringing Mountains? Perhaps the Hinterlands?"
"Surely no one has visited the Hinterlands and returned to write about it!"
The man touched the side of his nose, nodding his agreement. "It could well be that this one is miscategorized," he said. "It should, perhaps, be kept with stories and legends."
"I expect so."
"Still, you might be surprised. The yearning to adventure often seems to come with a desire to share the experience in writing."
"These must be exceptional people," Aric said. He could read passingly well, but writing was far more difficult for him. Although he would embark on a long journey, mere days hence, he did not expect to have the ability or inclination to write about what he saw. He would save his tales for the Blade and Barrel, or else to entertain customers while they waited for his services.
"Is there a particular place you want to read about?"
"Actually, I'm not certain what my destination is. Have you anything about a place called Akrankhot?"
The man's smile faded. It was only an illusion, surely, but it almost seemed like the flame in the lantern dimmed, giving the room a more somber aspect. "I've only ever seen one reference to it in writing," he said. "And that the journal of a man looking for it. The journal was acquired posthumously—do you know what that means? After his death. I knew a noble who was interested, and paid plenty of gold pieces for it. Not from me—I saw it once, held it in my hands, read a few passages, but never owned it."
"Pity," Aric said. "That might have been just what I'm looking for. I suppose anything about journeying through the wastelands would do, since I don't even know which direction we'll be traveling in."
The man flashed a smile, but it was more forced than his earlier ones. "I have a few like that. Not much. A diary or two, one printed account from about fifteen years ago. Perhaps an annotated map somewhere."
Much of what he was saying passed over Aric's head. "How about the printed account?" he asked. "Things couldn't have changed that much in fifteen years. I'm only trying to get a sense of the things we might encounter, and to see how others survived them."
"This is what you want, then." The man put his hands on a slender volume, bound in reddish sygra leather. "That'll be a cp."
"An entire piece?" Aric asked, stunned. He could get a decent pair of boots for a ceramic piece, had expected a book to be more like three or four bits.
The man started to put it back on the shelf. "If you don't want it ..."
Aric's purse was still heavy, however, from his sale to Tunsall. "No, I'll take it!"
"Very well." The man handed it over. It was heavier than Aric expected. He took out a ceramic piece and gave it to the man, who eyed it for a moment before it disappeared into his palm and then into a hidden pocket someplace. "Will there be anything else?"
2
The following day, Aric sat inside his shop, trying to read the book he had purchased. There were many words he didn't know, and letters he didn't recognize even though the thing was written in common.
Because he and Ruhm would both be gone on the expedition, he had hurried through the last bits of work he had promised, and had turned away more. This left him time to get through the book as best he could. As usual when Aric read, Ruhm removed himself from the scene, not wanting to be tarred with the "literate" brush if things went bad. He had once heard about a free commoner caught in the same room with a couple of books. Although the books didn't belong to him and he claimed not to be able to read them, the templar who had found him there argued that even if he could read, he would pretend not to, so therefore he was guilty of the crime of literacy. According to the story, he was still alive, working as a menial slave in the Naggaramakam.
So Aric sat on the floor beside his workbench, where passers-by couldn't see him from the doorway or the window, and struggled. He was so immersed in the effort that he didn't hear soft footsteps on the floor, didn't know he was observed until a sudden, startled "Oh!" alerted him.
"Who's there?" Aric demanded, closing the book and shoving it into a cubby in the workbench. "What?" He grabbed the bench's upper surface and hauled himself to his feet.
Rieve stood there, hands covering her mouth. A pink flush graced her fair cheeks. "I'm sorry, Aric," she said.
"You—you won't tell anyone, will you?" he pleaded. He was glad it had been her and not a templar, but he didn't know her well enough to trust her. "I didn't hear you."
"I wasn't certain you were even here. I saw the door open, so I came in, and then I thought I heard you breathing. She touched his arm, just a light, glancing brush. "You were so intent, it was cute. But I was surprised to see you there and couldn't keep my mouth shut."
Cute? As in attractive? he wondered. Or the way a baby animal or an infant is cute when it tries to do something obviously beyond its abilities?
"Well, you surprised me in return," he said. He fidgeted with his coin medallion.
"I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable, Aric. I know this is terribly bold of me, but I wanted to see you. I didn't just happen to pass by. I've been thinking about you."
"And I you." He doubted she had been thinking along the same lines he had. But he would never know unless she told him.
"Do you remember the other day, when my grandfather wanted you to teach me how to use my sword?"
"Of course."
"Corlan has been trying. He's quite skilled in it himself. But what he's not so good at is imparting that skill to someone else. He thinks I should just be able to watch him do something and immediately master it. Perhaps that's how he learned it, but it doesn't work that way for me. Then he grows impatient, and we argue."
"If you're to be wed, arguing seems bad," Aric said.
Rieve laughed. The pink had gone out of her cheeks, but her laughter brought it back. Aric envied the color, lying as easily upon her soft skin as sunlight on polished steel. She had always been lovely, but at that moment her beauty snatched his breath away. "My parents argue frequently," she said. "You'd be surprised at the screaming. I believe some married people elevate arguing from a passing interest to an obsession. But I don't like it. I have known Corlan since we were children, and been betrothed to him almost as long. He's a dear friend. None of that makes it easier to be snapped or shouted at."
Aric couldn't think of a diplomatic way to ask his next question. "Why tell me this?"
Instead of answering directly, she wandered about the shop, scrutinizing his tools, his small store of metal, even peeking through the doorway into his bedroom. "You have no woman?"
"There have been women," he admitted. "None who mattered much."
"I'm surprised, you're such a handsome fellow."
He noted that she hadn't used the word man, which some refused to apply to anyone who wasn't fully human. "Thank you."
She spun around to face him again, looking right into his eyes. "Would you teach me? Help me with the parts that Corlan can't? No one ever has to know. I just want to learn enough that I can convince Corlan he's actually teaching me something. I can pay you."
Aric considered this. It would mean spending time with Rieve, a certain amount of close physical contact. Both would be payment enough. "I don't need your coins—" he began.
She cut him off before he could finish. "When I happened upon you, before I startled you, it looked like you were having some difficulty reading. Your forehead was all wrinkled up like old clothes."
"I can read a bit," he admitted. "But that book—parts of it I can't make out at all."
"I could help you. You teach me the use of the sword, I teach you how to read better."
"That's most generous," he said. "And I would truly love to accept your offer. But I'm leaving the city shortly. A day, two, perhaps three, I don't know yet. The journey will be a long one, and I don't know when I'll return."
Her eyes brightened and she put a hand on his arm again. He liked it when she did that. "Where are you going?"
"I wish I knew. Nibenay has asked me to accompany an expedition he's sending to a lost city somewhere, to look for a trove of metals that might be there."
"The Shadow King himself asked you?"
"That's right." Aric couldn't help letting pride swell his chest a little. "He said your grandfather told him about me."
"I am impressed." She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial level. "He has been generous with some of the noble houses, including ours."
"He was pleasant enough with me, and generous as well," Aric said. "But since I'll be leaving, I can't promise to teach you."
"I understand." Her voice sounded bright, but her expression was crestfallen. "I wish you well on your voyage."
"Thank you, Rieve."
She leaned forward, raising herself up on her toes, steadying herself with both hands on his arms. He wouldn't have minded her staying in just that position for a very long time. Then she pressed her lips to her cheek. The kiss burned there, as if those lips had been made of fired steel. "For your courage," she said. "And for luck."
He didn't know what to say. He wanted to touch the spot she had kissed, but didn't want her to think he was trying to rub away the trace of her lips.
While he was still searching for some sort of meaningful response, she met his gaze, then turned and hurried from the shop without looking back.
He had driven her away. She had taken the liberty of kissing him, and he had stood there like an absolute fool, saying and doing nothing. And she had realized her mistake and raced out of his presence.
He couldn't blame her.
He stood looking at the empty doorway, knowing that the best thing that might ever have entered his life had just fled it again, because he had not known how to respond.
Suddenly, he couldn't wait to get out of Nibenay.
3
Ruhm went drinking with friends again that evening, but Aric couldn't bring himself to join them. Instead he walked around the city—his city, the only one he had ever known. The one he would soon leave behind. Perhaps he would return, perhaps not. Every traveler told tales of the dangers waiting in the wide world, and the book Aric had tried to read described a landscape full of perils and plagues.
Without the daytime sun blasting the city streets, they were more crowded than during the heat of afternoon. All around him were swindlers, thieves, thugs and killers; people did what they could to survive on Athas, and Aric knew that only a few lucky breaks had made the difference between him having a lawful career and joining Nibenay's nighttime parade of criminality.
Bundled against the cold, Aric threaded the city's narrow streets, alleyways and courtyards, passing between pedestrians and kanks and merchant stalls, couriers carrying messages or goods, bands of musicians and dancers, drunks weaving unsteadily between one tavern and the next. Everywhere the eye landed there was something to see: brightly colored clothing, members of every intelligent race known to Athas. Stone walls and cobblestone roadways were intricately carved to display the glorious history of the Shadow King, or else the family histories of those who built the individual structures. Sometimes buildings themselves were the sculptures—here a family home carved in the shape of a face, where one entered through a gaping mouth and looked out upstairs windows shaped like eyes—the "skin" carved still further, with scenes from that family's past—there an entire block built to represent a cloud ray, its surface carvings representing past defeats of those huge monsters.
Above the streets, people stretched lines and hung clothing to dry, on those occasions when they had enough water to wash. Higher still, the buildings seemed to meet overhead, sometimes with other walkways far above the streets. There was layer upon layer of life in Nibenay; spires, minarets and turrets everywhere blotted out the stars. Sometimes Aric thought one could live a dozen lifetimes and never see it all.
Music rang from many comers, people singing and playing for their own amusement, small bands and even orchestras and choirs gathered here and there in more organized performances. And Nibenay had its own smell, comprised of blood and sweat and urine, animal dung and ale, the smoke from cooking fires and the oil from lanterns. All of it combined into a single odor that told Aric at every step that he was home.
Since he might never again see the place, he wanted to visit some spots that had been important to him over the years. He would stay far away from the elven market—that place had few pleasant associations, mostly memories of bitterness and strife.
His mother, the half-elf Keyasune, had never left the city either, as far as he knew. She had, in fact, rarely left the area right around the elven market. Her parents had a stall there, selling bolts of fabric obtained from other cities, and her human mother, she said, made blankets and articles of clothing that they also sold. When they were killed, as was often the fate of elves and those who wed them, Keyasune took over the stall. It was there she had met Aric's father, a human.
"He came in one evening to buy some fine silk," she told Aric once. He was nine years old, and had been pestering her with questions about his father. She had taken him on a walk, away from the Hill District, out the South Gate and into the desert beyond the city walls. "One of his family's slaves was a fine seamstress, and his mother wanted silk to have some dresses made. I was alone in the stall, and your father saw my silks and had to have some. It was a wonderfully cool early evening, late in the season of Sun Descending. He tried to bargain the price down, but I held firm.
"While we bickered, though, we were also chatting. There was something about him—his face reminded me of the setting sun, and I smiled just to look at it. He seemed to like me as well. Even after he had paid me for the silk, he stayed and talked. Other merchants glared at us, of course—they are glad to see the coins of humans, but not so receptive to humans themselves.
"When I tried to sleep that night, I kept thinking about him. I later learned he was having the same problem, tossing about his bed thinking of me.
"The next evening, he came back. Same the evening after that. Soon, we were involved in a romance."
"Yuck," Aric said. He picked up a rock and hurled it at the city wall, but it fell short of its mark.
"I will spare you those details, Aric. The only reason I'm telling you this is so that you'll know that once, your father was important to me. He wasn't just some man I met, but someone I cared for deeply.
"He seemed to like me as well. But it was strange—he liked me, but he hated elves. Never had a good word to say about them. When he was with me, he seemed to loathe himself for being there. If I had been exactly the same person, but not a half-elf, I had no doubt that we'd be wed. But whenever we were together, it had to be in secret, where no one would see us. He stopped coming to the elven market altogether, instead sending me messages when he wanted to see me, and making me meet him elsewhere in the city.
"Then came the day that I had to tell him about you—that I was with child. I feared his reaction, but it was even more explosive than I expected. We had taken a room at an inn, so we could have privacy. But when I told him, he ranted and paced and threw things. Finally the innkeeper knocked on the door to see why so much noise was coming from the room, and your father took advantage of the distraction to storm away.
"I never saw him again."
"Did you go to his house?" Aric asked.
"He had never told me where he lived. I knew only his first name, but not what family he was from. He had to protect them, he said, from the stigma of having a son who loved a half-elf."
"What's a stigma, Mother?" Aric was young, but he understood that telling this story was hard for his mother, could see sadness playing about her lips and eyes, the lines it made in her forehead. He knew, also, that he had forced her to tell it—that asking about him so frequently, and more and more often in the market stall where other elves could overhear, had put her in a position where she had to give him the story. But just this once, she had insisted, and then they'd never speak of it again. He had agreed to her terms, although with a small boy's uncertain grasp of what "never" might mean.
"It's something that other people might judge someone for, without knowing the real story behind that fact. What it really meant was that he was ashamed of being with me and didn't want his family to know about it. And when he learned that he had fathered a child, he wanted nothing more to do with me—with us, really. It was as if he had thought it was all just a game, and it wasn't until that happened that he knew there could be consequences.
"Anyway, I never saw him again after he left the inn."
"Really?"
"That's right. I have no idea if he is alive or dead. Dead, I expect. He was a man of strange, dark moods, and I never expected him to have a long and happy life."
"How odd."
"In a way. And then again, not at all odd, but sadly all too common." She took a path that would lead them back toward the city, and Aric stayed close to her side. "Because he made clear that he wanted nothing to do with our lives, I never told you about him, Aric. And as I told you at the start, I'll never speak of him again, so don't bother asking. I've given you all the details you need. Your father was a man who loved and hated me at the same time, hated all I was, and it's for the best that you never knew him."
After that, whenever Aric wandered the city streets and byways, he wondered if his father had truly died, or had simply avoided the elves. He stared at every older man he saw, those of an age to have been his father, searching for some sort of resemblance to himself. But he never saw any, and the man never returned to make any claims upon him.
He had never felt altogether comfortable in the elven district. His mother had barely been tolerated there, and when she took up with a human man, that tolerance was stretched even thinner. Aric grew up on its outskirts, not part of human or elf society, hated by both. His mother continued to work her stall, and brought young Aric with her, but from an early age he understand the glares and curses and epithets hurled his way.
The first time he touched a metal coin, it came from a human. That had been during Aric's fourth year. A woman bought several bolts of cloth, planning to make dresses for several daughters, and paid with a metal coin. That was a rare enough event that Keyasune handed it to the boy, so he could see what it looked like. As soon as his tiny fingers touched it, he saw details, in his mind, of the life of the woman who had given it to his mother. He saw her moving with melancholic loneliness through a noble's estate, thinking about a husband who was rarely at home. Servants cared for two children, both quite young, and she looked in on them, an expression of delight animated her face, but sorrow showed through her eyes. Keyasune, struck by the detail her young son offered, asked a slave she knew who worked for the family, and the slave confirmed Aric's account.
After that, she tested her son often. He seemed able to do similar things with other metal objects, and in this way he developed his psionic connection to metals. He didn't know until years later that she had kept the coin, although it represented a great deal of money to her. He had worn it ever since, as his medallion—though when she had presented it to him in that way, she had reminded him that if he was ever in desperate enough straits, it could still be used as currency.
Then, in his tenth year, his mother died. The elves, who had never truly embraced him, banished him from the market. On his own, frightened and hungry and dressed in rags, young Aric tried to make his way in the city, begging or stealing to keep himself fed, refusing to part with his coin medallion.
Aric went to the chaotic intersection where Cutpurse Lane intersected with Red Mark Alley and Finder's Alley. The carvings on the walls there showed scenes of an ancient battle, with humanoid soldiers engaged in combat against creatures with reptilian features and long, forked tongues. One of the buildings had a niche cut out of it, at ground level, and for a time, that spot had been where Aric had curled up to sleep at night.
One night, he awoke there to find a bundle tucked up beside him, wrapped in cloth. When he opened it, he was astonished to find clothing in his size, meat and vegetables, and even a few coins. That was the first time he became aware of his mysterious benefactor, and since he knew of few people wealthy enough to give such treasures to a stranger, he decided it must have been a gift from Nibenay himself.
This expedition truly was a gift from Nibenay, although it remained to be seen whether gift was the right word. Assuming he survived it, though—and assuming there really was metal beneath the ruins of this city, because if they didn't find any, Aric had a feeling he'd be blamed for that failure—it could be the best thing that ever happened to him. He might amass enough wealth to join the nobility. If nothing else, he could enlarge his shop, hire some hands, get work from the kingdom crafting all that new armor and weapons. In any case, it appeared that poverty was in his past now, that from now on he wouldn't have to worry about how to take on every job that came his way because he could ill afford to turn down a single one.
No, he was certain that at journey's end, his life would be irreversibly changed. And he was ready for change. He enjoyed working with steel, crafting swords especially. But they were always for someone else. His life was fulfilling, he supposed, in a limited way. Life on Athas was more a matter of survival than fulfillment anyway. But he had a passing acquaintance, through his readings and even the occasional night at Sage's Square listening to the scholars ramble on, with the works of Athasian philosophers, and he had the sense that there should be more to life than that. There should be some sort of satisfaction with one's lot, and acceptance that one had done everything he could to live his life to the utmost.
So far, Aric had not done that. A half-elf ordinarily couldn't expect much more than basic survival, or so he had been told. But he wanted more from life than survival. Perhaps this was the curse of the literate, the knowledge that there was more to be had, and if this expedition gave him that, he would take it gladly.
4
Elsewhere in the city, the man was back at the fringes of the elven market. He had ventured into the market briefly, spent a few bits on spices, eyed some of the elf women, and then retreated into a dark alleyway from which he could watch the goings-on.
He had tried, once again, to resist the urge that compelled him here. But he could not do so. The memory of that last time, the slashing of his blade, the blood slicking its polished surface and spattering wetly on walls and road, the astonishment on the face of the elf as she watched the human with her dying, then realized the blade would bite her next ... these things were too powerful to deny. They held him in an iron grip, their images seemingly more real than his daily life. His family members spoke to him with words that sounded distant, their faces ghostly, while the dying breaths of those he had killed were immediate and alive.
He realized that each time he did it, the compulsion to return and do it again gripped him sooner. If this kept up, if he could not forestall his own appetites, he would be here every night. That would never do—he would be seen, recognized, remembered. Already there were more foot patrols in the area, soldiers in the market, forcing him farther back into the alley, where he could lose himself in shadows.
Maybe tonight he should go home, lie in the arms of his wife, put all this from his mind. He was torn, not wanting to turn away from the market, but wishing he wanted to. Then he saw a human man strike up a conversation with one of the elf women. She didn't look like a prostitute, but he couldn't always tell. Anyway, elves were notorious for loose morals—prostitute or not, most of them would do anything for a few coins.
The elf and her human struck away from the market, toward the seedier end of the Hill District. Just as the last pair had done. These had a similar look about them, too, the man obviously of a high enough station to pay well for an hour's pleasure, the elf fair-skinned, voluptuous, with hair so red that when he cut her, the blood would hardly show on it.
He hurried up the alley and saw them crossing the next street. He had to get ahead of them over the space of the next block, fast enough to make it around the corner. After that they would reach a busier area, one where women and men stood outside the buildings beckoning passersby inside to watch entertainment of the most depraved sort.
The man sprinted to the comer, then tore around it without looking first. A couple, both human, were dragging a cart laden with firewood, and the man crashed into them. The people released the two-handled cart when the man hit them, and the cart upended, tipped over by its own unbalanced load. Wood spilled into the street.
"Sorry!" the man said. He had to step over the firewood. The encounter slowed him down too much—his targets made it across the street, and within moments would be within view of the debauchery up ahead.
"Sorry?" the woman who had been pulling the cart said. "I'll show you sorry. There's a patrol just down the block. Let's see what they have to say about madmen running full tilt without watching."
"I was careless," the man argued, "not criminal. I've apologized." He yanked a coin from the purse hanging at his waist and tossed it onto the ground. "That should make up for my error."
The couple took their eyes off him as soon as the coin clinked against the ground. The man darted back around the comer, into the dark shelter of the alley. He was breathing heavily, his heart pounding.
That had been too close. He had let the targets get too far ahead of him, and he had taken foolish chances to catch up.
With one wistful look back at the market, he gave up and headed for his home, his family.
For tonight, he had to resist the impulse. He couldn't afford to be caught. That would be humiliating, and potentially suicidal.
The farther he got from the market, the more his heart slowed, and his step. The urge told him to go back, try once more. But he didn't; he still had the presence of mind to listen to reason, he told himself.
As long as he could do so, he wasn't utterly lost.
5
In her sleep, Myrana thrashed and kicked so much that Lauriand punched out at her in the darkness of their tent. "Ow!" Myrana cried. She sat up, rubbing her forearm. "That hurt!"
"Sorry, but you were pummeling me. Were you dreaming again?"
"People always dream," Myrana said.
Lauriand's younger sister Krisanthe groaned. "Not me," she said, "because I'm not asleep, and I'm not asleep because you two won't shut up!"
"Sorry, Kri," Myrana said. "Yes, Lau, I was dreaming. Go back to sleep, and I'll try to stop flailing about so."
"That sounds good to me," Lauriand said.
"Me as well!" Krisanthe flopped back down onto her pillows—life on the road was hard, but she was a girl who loved her pillows and she always slept with several.
Myrana put her head down on her single pillow, but her eyes wouldn't close. The dream had been so vivid, she didn't want to accidentally find herself back inside it. But as she tried to think about it, to analyze it, the memory dissipated, like trying to hold onto a fistful of sand held underwater.
All she was left with was a grain of meaning, and she could hardly wait for sunrise to share it.
She didn't have long to wait. Although inside the tent she wasn't able to tell, the night was almost over when her cousin hit her. Soon she heard the caravan's morning sounds, someone stoking the fires for cooking, someone else filling the trough the mekillots drank from, shouting at the beasts when they tried to breakfast on her, still another walking away from the camp to empty a bladder held throughout the night.
Myrana pushed aside her blanket and dressed quickly. She snatched up the staff that helped her walk and headed from the tent, looking for her brother.
Welton, in whom House Ligurto had entrusted the ultimate responsibility for this caravan, squatted beside the fire, holding a mug of tea. The sky was lightening, and soon enough the sun would roar over the horizon, bringing with it the punishing heat of the day, but for the moment the air was crisp and cold. Myrana limped to his side, her staff digging into the sand with every step.
"Good morning, sister," Welton said when he heard her.
"And to you." She put a hand on his shoulder and lowered herself carefully to crouch beside him.
"Tea?" he asked.
"I'll have some in a moment," she said. "I need to talk to you, Welton."
He looked at her for the first time. His hair was as black as hers, his eyes almost black as well, burning with fierce intensity. He was lean and muscular, and would have been commandingly tall if not for his hunched posture. Myrana had never understood why he kept his shoulders curled in, instead of standing straight and letting their breadth show. "Yes?"
"I need to leave the caravan."
"Why?"
"I have been having these dreams ..."
He regarded her over the rim of his mug. "You're not leaving because of some dreams."
"They're not regular dreams," she said. "Special ones."
"I know the kind you mean."
"Then you know it's best not to ignore them." "Usually."
"These are urgent, Welton."
"Telling you what? Just go? Walk away from your family, your responsibility?"
"It isn't that ... it's just, what if my true responsibility lies elsewhere? I think that's what the dreams are saying. They demand action."
Welton tried to treat every family member the same, but whether he realized it or not, Myrana saw that he sometimes babied her, as if her youthful injury made her less capable than others. She watched his gaze flicker toward her bad leg, and then back to her face. "Where do they want you to go?"
"I'm not sure. Into the desert. From there I'll just have to let them guide me."
"What if they don't, Myrana?"
"There isn't much in this life I can put my faith in, brother. You, our family, and my dreams, they're all I have. If I don't trust them ..." She left the statement unfinished. She didn't know how to finish it—it was rare for her dreams to steer her wrong, and when they were this persistent she knew there was meaning behind them. She didn't always know where they would lead, but if she remained open to their message she was generally rewarded. Sometimes the whole family was—her dreams had led them to a new, previously unknown oasis when one they had used for generations had become poisoned, and had warned of ambushes, and of suppliers trying to cheat them.
So if her dreams wanted to take her into the wilderness, without the family, who was she to ignore them?
"I don't like it. It's dangerous out there."
"Danger is everywhere, Welton. Two of us died not ten days ago, and they hadn't even left the caravan. None of us will live forever."
Welton took her hand. "I want you to, though." "I know, Welton. And I want the same for you. But we can only do what we can do."
His face tore into a wide grin. "I don't think I've ever heard truer words. Nonsensical ones, perhaps, but true."
"I will miss you terribly, brother. But I have to do this."
"I know what you're like when you get this way, Myrana, trust me. I won't try to stop you. But I won't let you go without protection."
"What sort of protection do you have in mind?"
He tapped his fingers against his mug for a moment, considering. "Two of our best," he said. "How about Sellis and Koyt?"
"Can you spare them?"
"I can't spare you. It's worth it to do without them if it means you'll do whatever it is your dreams want you to accomplish out there and then return to us quickly."
"Very well," she said. "Will you tell them, or shall I? I'd like to leave today."
"I'll tell them," Welton said. He rose to his feet, drawing her up with him, and wrapped his arms around her in a tight embrace. "You be careful out there. This family needs you."
"Not as much as it needs you," she said. "I'll take no unnecessary chances, and with Sellis and Koyt along, I should be as safe as if I were right here with you."
Having procured her brother's unwilling but necessary consent, she kissed his stubbled cheek and then roamed off to empty her own bladder, her staff chunking into the earth beside her as she walked unevenly up the slope of a low dune. She appreciated his concern for her, and his belief that the caravan needed her. She had spent most of her life believing she needed it, but the truth was for more than a year she had found herself hating the unceasing travel, the uncertainty of life and location, the fact that every beautiful view or delicious sip of water from an oasis or spring would be nothing but a memory in a day's time.
Myrana wanted nothing more from life than to find someplace she could stay, somewhere to become rooted. She'd been born into he nomadic life, but did that mean she could never try any other?
She didn't know if these dreams had anything to do with that goal—if at the end of whatever trail they sent her down, she would find her spot to stay in—but sticking with the caravan would only guarantee that she would never have it.
It wasn't Myrana's intention to desert her brother. She said she would try to return, and she meant it. But intentions were only that. Dreams or no dreams, no one knew what the day after tomorrow would bring.
Today, though, would be a busy one. She had to pack, had to say her goodbyes, and had to set off early enough to put some distance between herself and the caravan by nightfall. Sellis and Koyt were not family but they were loyal, and they would go where she led them, without complaint. They would die to keep her safe, if need be.
She honestly hoped it would not come to that. But since she didn't know her destination, or what would be expected of her once she found it, she knew it was a possibility. They might all die.
That and the heat of the sun were two of the surest constants on all of Athas—on any day, anyone might die.
She hurried back to her tent, anxious to tell her sister and cousins before they heard the news from someone else. They would fuss, but they would not dissuade her. Myrana had made up her mind, and once she did that, as even Welton would admit, changing her course was no simple task.
She couldn't help wondering where that course might take her this time.
VII
INTO THE WASTELANDS
1
They gathered at Sage's Square, one of the few spots in the city with room for them all, and left through the Mekillot Gate. An expedition of such size couldn't be kept a secret, and people had climbed the fifty-plus dense, blue-trunked agafari trees of Sage's Square for a better view. Others lined the wide stone thoroughfare running from there to the gate to watch them go. Some cheered the procession, others shouted taunts or insults, though none knew the expedition's purpose.
There were twelve argosies in the expedition, with four axles and many wheels, each of them pulled by a pair of mekillots. These armored wagons were largely empty at the journey's start; people would ride inside them, and they carried water and supplies for the trip, but primarily they were meant to carry the metal from Akrankhot back to Nibenay. As the journey progressed, food and water would be consumed, making space for the return cargo.
Fifty goliath soldiers of Nibenay accompanied the argosies, along with an assortment of slaves, many of them muls, to do the hard work of lifting and loading. For now, the templar Kadya walked at the head of the expedition, although Aric suspected she would be riding within minutes of passing through the gate. He and Ruhm had chosen to leave the city inside a wagon. Although the expedition itself was common knowledge, being too large to hide, its goal was not, and Kadya had instructed them not to talk about it, even with friends. They had decided that staying out of sight would make it easier to avoid anyone who might want to ask questions.
Even so, they could hear the shouts of onlookers, and as they approached the gate, they shifted their shoulders and tapped their feet to the musicians playing from balconies suspended above it. Aric watched out a side window, better to watch the half-giant soldiers try to maintain their military bearing while swaying and strutting to the hypnotic melodies of the gate's musicians.
The lumbering beasts, some thirty feet long, pulled the armored wagons at a steady, stately pace. People could have walked faster, but the strength of the animals would be needed to haul the steel back to the city. Aric tried to prepare himself for a long, uncomfortable journey.
Ruhm stayed in his seat, swaying gently with the rocking motion of the wagon. In front, beneath the seats occupied by the drivers, was space for storage. The main section had rows of sturdy wooden benches, with legroom between—although not much, considering most of the soldiers on the trip were half-giants. Because there were so many argosies and so few riders, some of them were filled stem to stern with supplies. "Will it be like this all the way?" Aric asked. He rocked back and forth, exaggerating the effect. "I think I'll get sick if it is."
"Oh, no," Ruhm assured him. "It'll be far bumpier out there, once we're off the cobbled roads of Nibenay and the caravan road beyond the gate." "You're joking!"
"You can walk any time," Ruhm reminded him. He had traveled more than Aric, to Raam and Draj and even Gulg once. "Just don't get too far ahead or stray into wilderness. Nibenay only sent one of you. What will the rest of us do, we can't find metal under the city?"
"I definitely will walk as much as I can," Aric said. "Better than being stuck in here." He sniffed the air. "It already smells bad in here, worse than my rooms in Nibenay."
"Worse when ten or fifteen soldiers in here trying to stay out of the sun. Stifling hot in these. Outside at least some hope of a breeze."
"This is going to be a long trip, isn't it?"
"Always are."
Aric kept shifting from his seat to the window to watch their progress. Once through the gate, they passed between four giant statues of Nibenay, collectively called the Omnipotent Receivers. Each was sculpted in a different style, and from Aric's recent experience meeting the Shadow King he knew the representations of him were more than a little idealized. Beyond those statues, the road sliced through the sparse farmlands of the sorcerer-king, then fields of sandgrass interrupted at irregular intervals by small tenant farms and clutches of adobe buildings.
Sure enough, within the first hour of travel, Aric had had enough of the stuffy air inside the argosy, which windows on the sides and the opening in front used by the mekillot drivers barely alleviated. He and Ruhm got out and walked alongside the wagons, enjoying the slight breezes and the changing scenery. Soldiers cursed and complained, slaves hiked on in stoic silence, occasionally breaking out into song but stopping when their overseers grumbled.
The caravan road they traveled would take them through the Blackspine Pass, between the Windbreak Mountains that shielded Nibenay from the worst of the northern winds, and the Blackspine Mountains. If they stayed on it, they would end up in Raam, but they had been told that they'd veer off the road long before that, and journey overland to Akrankhot.
Before the end of the first day, Aric could already see swaths of green coating the sides of the Blackspines. "They're so lush!" he told Ruhm.
"This end," Ruhm said. "Get rain here. Follow range to the east, there's less and less."
"I've never seen anything like it," Aric said. "It's beautiful."
"It is," Ruhm agreed. "You been sheltered. Good thing you go on this journey, learn about the world."
"I know a thing or two," Aric countered. Having been on his own since his tenth year, he didn't consider himself sheltered, but worldly wise. He had to admit, though, that his wisdom largely ended at Nibenay's massive stone walls.
"Two is pretty small number," Ruhm said. Aric couldn't argue with that, so he shut his mouth and kept walking.
2
Here's the way I heard it," the soldier said. His name was Damaric, and he was a slave, pressed into military service. Aric hadn't heard the details of his life, just the broad strokes. They were sitting around one of the expedition's many campfires, after a dinner of biscuits sweetened with tiny dabs of kank honey on the second night, and already he and Ruhm were starting to become acquainted with some of the other travelers. A night wind whipped into the fire pit, sending sparks heavenward to meet the stars glittering above. The argosies had been drawn into a circle, both stoves inside each one lit, and fires built inside the circle to keep night's cold at bay.
"Heard where?" another soldier challenged. This was a goliath whose name Aric but couldn't remember. "Some drunk in a tavern?"
"I can't say where I heard it," Damaric said. "Because I don't want to get anyone in trouble."
"Let him talk," Amoni said. She was a mul, also a slave, but not a soldier. She was along to perform manual labor. "I want to hear what we're doing here."
Damaric took a big swig from a bladder of wine. He was a tight, compact man with a powerful build, deep-chested, bull-necked and broad shouldered, but two full heads shorter than Aric. His brown hair was cropped short. He wore a thick mustache that obscured his upper lip, and he hadn't shaved since leaving Nibenay so stubble roughened his cheeks and chin. A thick, knotted scar wormed across his throat, a wound he had been lucky to survive, and perhaps as a result his voice always sounded hoarse and strained. "I heard—from someone who was there, mind you—that an undead man came into the Council chamber while Nibenay was there."
"Undead?" Aric asked.
"And smelling like it, they say," Damaric replied. "Anyway, he stormed in, interrupting the Council's session, and demanded to speak to the Shadow King. Since he was undead, no one saw the point of trying to execute him on the spot. Besides, his entrance made Nibenay curious. He bade the undead man—a mercenary, I'm told—tell his tale. This undead man told about the treasure he had discovered beneath Akrankhot, and then he keeled over, finally really dead."
"What's the treasure?" another slave asked. "I'd like to know what we're to break our backs hauling."
"Nobody knows."
Aric almost spoke up, then decided not to. He didn't know who was to be trusted, or if there was any reason that the expedition's goal should remain a secret now that they were so far from the city-state. But he had been told not to talk about it, and he decided to continue that policy, at least for a while longer.
"That's not what I heard," another human soldier said. He sat directly across the fire from Aric, and the flickering flames gave his face an odd, uneven cast. "I heard someone sent a guardian to Nibenay, interrupting him as he lay with one of his templar wives. He was furious enough to have the thing destroyed, but before he did, it told him about the city under the sand. And I heard that the treasure is jewels of every description, piled so high it would take a day to climb to the top."
"That's nonsense," Damaric said. "Who sent the guardian?"
"Nobody knows," the other soldier replied.
A guardian was a floating obsidian orb, the mind of a powerful psion from an age gone by, but removed from its body. Guardians were said to have no will of their own, but simply to follow the orders of their masters, which made Damaric's question a pertinent one—no guardian would have come before Nibenay unless someone had sent it.
"I was told that the word came by a number of messengers," Amoni offered. "A hermit found the city, and he told a passing traveler, who told another, and so on, until eventually word filtered back to Nibenay. Each time the story was told, of course, the treasure grew and grew. At the gates, this last traveler told the guards about an abandoned city in which every building was made of gold."
"I hope it's a small city," a goliath solder said. "Or we need more argosies."
"What about you, Aric?" Amoni asked him. Her hairless, copper skin gleamed in the firelight. She was fully as tall as Aric, big and strong, with long, muscular legs. But she had a ready smile, a gentle manner, and brown eyes that were surprisingly sympathetic. "Surely you heard a story too—it seems everybody has."
"I guess I wasn't listening, then," Aric said. "I don't know how word of Akrankhot made it to Nibenay's ears."
"What do you think we'll find there?"
Aric hesitated, not ready to give away what he knew.
Ruhm stepped in for him. "Sand."
"No doubt," Amoni said, and they all laughed.
It was only the second night, and laughter still came easily.
3
This was real darkness.
On the expedition's third night on the road, they could still see the lights of Nibenay on the horizon, a glowing smudge. Finding absolute darkness in the city was almost impossible, unless closed up in a box or a windowless interior room. At night, lamps and lanterns and fires burned everywhere. The vast emporiums flanking Sage's Square were open all night, and even in the densest thicket of the square's agafari trees, lights from those were visible. So bright were the lights of Athas that on some nights, the stars and moons could barely be seen from inside the city.
There was a transient beauty to the daytime desert that Aric had never expected to find there. The landscape was a muted palette of brown, ocher, umber and buff, cracked and crusted and warped like old leather, dried out from use. In midday, with the merciless sun shining overhead, it flattened out and sunlight stabbed the eye from every surface, so that you had to walk with eyes narrowed to keep from going blind. But toward evening, the hills in the distance—and there were always hills in the distance, out here—turned blue and brown and purple as the vast bowl of sky went gray-black at one edge, then to the dark green of moss on the inside of a well to the lighter green of new spring leaves, finally shattering into brilliant shards around the setting vermillion sun. And in the morning, other hills reached up as if trying to catch the first rays of light as the sun burst over the horizon. Aric came to love the mornings and the dusks, the temperature neither too hot or cold and the light changing the landscape minute by minute, so that no day was like the one before it.
Four nights out, with Nibenay finally gone, Aric wrapped himself up in heavy clothing and a leather cloak, carried the agafari-wood sword issued to him at the journey's start, and walked alone into the wilderness. He had no particular destination, he just wanted to see what he could see.
The moons were not yet risen, although green-tinged Ral would break the horizon before he made it back to camp. The expedition's fires glowed until he put some dunes between himself and them. He stopped when he realized he could no longer see anything more than outlines against the stars. An icy wind bit at his cheeks, sending sand skittering down the dune flanks.
Never before had Aric known the sensation of being outdoors with no light but the stars to show his way. Because they were the only thing to see, he tilted his head back and stared into the sky, turning his body to make the stars spin. When he stopped, he was dizzy. He bent forward, hands on his knees, until the feeling passed.
Which was when panic set in.
Had he turned himself completely around? With no visible landmarks, he wasn't sure which direction camp was. All he could hear was the wind, already hurting his ears. He shouted, but the wind whipped the words away so fast he could barely hear himself.
Someone could die out here in no time, cut off from shelter and warmth. The expedition carried much of its own firewood; there was precious little to be collected out here in the sandy wastes. How much time would it take to freeze to death? An hour? Less?
Stop, he told himself. Take a deep breath and think.
He took several. His thoughts were jumbled, piling up on each other in a way that he believed meant panic was returning. He knew that if he let it have its head, he would wind up running in one direction after another, wearing himself out. There was a chance of coming into sight of the caravan, especially if he climbed a high dune. But the chances were far better that he would wind up running in circles, never getting anywhere near his comrades, until he fell and couldn't get back up.
Footprints, Aric thought. The sand was soft enough here to leave deep prints when he walked. He could simply follow those back, if he could find them in the first place. He looked toward the horizon, saw the first glimmerings of Ral there. Guthay would not be far behind.
He dropped to hands and knees, looking for his tracks. Where he had stood and turned in a circle—that stupid circle!—there were plenty.
Beyond that, nothing. The wind had already erased them.
He couldn't just stay here. Soon Ruhm, who had objected to him going out in the first place, would go looking for him. Maybe with others. If they all got lost, it would be that much worse.
He decided to climb the nearest dune, to see if he could spot the sparks streaming up from the campfires.
He was on the steep side, but he leaned into it, planting his feet carefully, sidestepping for traction.
He was halfway up when the wind died momentarily and he thought he heard something break the silence. A shout from camp? No, something harsher, shorter. A chuff of breath, he thought, and close by.
He looked up to see how far from the top he was. Something blocked the stars for an instant, as if hunching at the rim, looking down. He barely registered it and then it was gone.
And that was the other reason he never should have done this. "Weather don't get you," Ruhm had said, "beasts will."
"I'll have a sword," Aric had countered. "And I won't be far from camp, just far enough to see what it's like out here at night."
"Don't want to know."
"That's easy for you, Ruhm. You've experienced these things. I've heard stories, read a few, but my knowledge all comes from somebody else. I want to see for myself."
"Crazy," Ruhm had said. "Stupid."
Aric hated it when Ruhm was right.
He leapt from the dune's face, landing on the harder ground below. Right where he had started from, before deciding to climb. He still had his sword, and he raised it in case whatever was up on that dune sprang at him. It wasn't steel, but it was sanded to a keen edge, and agafari wood was nearly as hard.
Now he was back in the same spot, unable to see the camp, and not sure in which direction it lay. Only one thing had changed—now he was being hunted.
Despite the extreme cold, sweat tickled Aric's ribs.
Could whatever was up there see well in the dark? He guessed it probably could, if this was its typical hunting ground. But was it even still there? Or had it circled around, climbing down the gentler slope, so that even now it crept up behind him?
He spun around, half-expecting to see yellow, feral eyes glowing in the blackness. But he saw nothing there, only dark emptiness. He felt only wind and terror.
It took almost a minute to realize that he could see better, however, than just a short while earlier. He didn't know if it was his eyes adapting to the darkness or the fact that Ral had climbed above the horizon, and now distant, golden Guthay was edging above it.
He decided to take a chance—to start in the direction that felt right, based on where the moons were rising—and hope for the best. Better than standing here waiting to be attacked.
With new determination, he took one step, then another. With each pace, he felt better, more sure of his decision. He kept the sword ready, scanned the way before him with every step, stopped occasionally to check behind and around. He was going the right way, and he started to breathe easier.
That certainty lasted until he had been walking for a while—longer than he had walked on the way out. Then it abandoned him all at once. He gave an anguished, wordless cry.
"Aric!" he heard in response.
"Ruhm?" Wind whisked his words from his lips.
"Aric!"
The voice seemed to come from off to his left. He adjusted his course and started toward it, calling out every few moments.
Finally, he saw torches, borne aloft by Ruhm, Amoni, and some others. He ran to them, rushing gratefully into the overlapping circles of light. "There—there's something out there."
"Course," Ruhm said.
"There are no doubt many somethings out there," Amoni said. "Ruhm said you wanted to see what it was like in the darkness."
Aric was shivering. The cold, he told himself, but not convincingly.
"I d-did."
"Like it?" Ruhm asked.
"Not a bit." That wasn't precisely true. At first, he had. He had liked the novelty of it, had liked the solitude, the sensation that he was alone in the world instead of hemmed in by a city full of greed and strife and anger. But that hadn't lasted long, and the parts he hadn't liked had taken over.
Ruhm clapped him on the shoulder with one big hand, and led him back toward camp. Because he was a goliath, stern and sullen much of the time, not given to excessive conversation, he didn't say "I told you so."
But Aric knew he was thinking it, just the same.
4
On the sixth day out from Nibenay, they left the trade road. Each day they had passed at least one caravan, bound for Nibenay or Raam, usually glad to see a large armed force. The Gith Horde, people said, had been leaving their ancestral homes in the Blackspine Mountains to raid travelers, and although fifty soldiers might not be much of a deterrent, it was better than nothing.
But after they struck out north from the road, they stopped seeing anyone. These wastelands weren't entirely deserted. The group saw the domed roofs of a wezer colony, and a couple of the giant insects even buzzed the expedition. Probably put off by its numbers, they apparently decided not to try to abduct any of its members and hurried back to their own colony. At one promising oasis, they saw a sand bride who took on the appearance of the most beautiful woman Aric had ever seen. On his own, he would certainly have gone to her, and would just as certainly have perished in her embrace. But the expedition had enough experienced hands along that they recognized the oasis for the trap it was.
After these dangers were spotted, along with numerous less-lethal creatures, word was spread to encourage everyone to ride inside the argosies rather than walking. As Ruhm had predicted, when the heavy wagons were hot and crowded, the smell grew worse and the unceasing rocking and swaying made Aric think his spine would splinter before journey's end.
For the first couple of days, he had been enjoying the novelty of the trip. That had not lasted long, however. Now he just wanted it to be over. He had been coerced into coming in the first place, and although no one had died yet, everyone swore it was only a matter of time.
The ninth day, Aric was outside the argosy for a short while, just wanting to breathe fresh air and stretch his legs. On earlier days there would have been plenty of company outside, but there was little now, and while he tried to watch the horizons for attacks of any kind, he kept stumbling over the dips and rises of the sand beneath his feet.
"Aric, isn't it?" a woman's voice asked.
He looked up and to his right. Kadya leaned out the window of the lead argosy.
"Yes."
"Have a care out there, Aric, we don't want anything happening to you."
"Thank you. I don't think we want anything happening to anyone, do we?"
"Of course not. But you especially."
He didn't ask why. Ruhm had said it early on—he was the only psionic they had with an ability that could help find hidden stores of metals. Without him the whole expedition might fail.
"I just needed some air," he said. "I'll get back inside soon."
"See that you do. And if you want to walk outside, take a couple soldiers with you. I can let them know they're to obey your commands."
A sensation of power welled up in Aric, but he pushed it back down. He knew he was important to the trip, but he didn't want that importance going to his head. That would only make it harder to live his half-elfs life once they got back to Nibenay, and would make his traveling companions resent him. On the road, as in the city, he believed his best hope for a peaceful life lay in keeping his profile low. "Thanks," he told her. "I'm sure I'll be fine."
5
Kadya was annoyed with Aric. Nibenay, her husband and king, had specifically instructed her to keep the young man out of harm's way. If he wouldn't take the simplest steps to protect himself, though, what could she do for him?
Well, quite a lot, actually. But she didn't want to waste any of her magic on him if she could help it. Arcane magic required the use of life forces to power it, and in this environment there wasn't much life force around, except that belonging to those in her own expedition. She had already had to use magic a couple of times. The first time had been to destroy a gold scorpion that had approached her personal maidservant, their first day off the caravan road.
That night at an oasis, another of the slaves in her retinue had been seized by some sort of road sickness, and started convulsing, pink froth showing at the edges of her mouth. Many thought the sickness was a result of Kadya's magic, as if the life force of the slave had been tapped for earlier spells.
Everybody knew templars used magic, of course. But knowing it and seeing it were two different things, and Kadya thought that for the good of the expedition, she was better off keeping it discreet.
Still, she tried to keep an eye on the half-elf. Letting him die before the metal was located would infuriate Siemhouk as well as Nibenay. Nibenay could kill her in an instant, but it was Siemhouk's vengeance she feared. She could make Kadya's life long and miserable. And she wouldn't hesitate to do so if Kadya crossed her in any way.
Which made crossing her a dangerous game.
But Kadya hadn't wanted to come on this trip just to serve her young mistress. To the extent that serving Siemhouk also worked toward her own goal, she was glad to do it. In the long run, what she wanted was to take Djena's spot—and from there, just perhaps, restore the position of Templar of the King's Law to the dominant position it was meant to have. That would require Siemhouk either dying or losing favor with her father, of course. But Kadya had seen his moods swing from one extreme to another, and his love for Siemhouk, even though she was his own kin, could change in time.
Kadya was sure Siemhouk had her own hidden objectives for this expedition. Such was life inside the Naggaramakam, a constant struggle for position, the never-ending play of strategies and counter-strategies.
So she planned to keep Aric safe, at least until the metal had been retrieved. But if he made it necessary, he might find himself riding the rest of the way, bound and gagged inside her private argosy. She had smiled and wished him well, when he declined her offer of assistance. She just hoped, for his sake, that he didn't mistake her protection for friendship.
Aric was simply another tool, like the shovels and picks and hammers brought along for the slaves to use once they got there. And once a tool's usefulness was at an end, it could be discarded without a second glance.
6
They had spotted the oasis hours before, from a cleft in the rocky ridge they were crossing. Myrana was trying to keep them on the path her dreams had set out for her, but the dream route occasionally lacked specifics, and each night she had to plumb those dreams for clues as to the next day's travels.
They had departed the caravan with only one soldier kank, as that had been all that Welton could spare. Although Myrana tried to argue the point, Sellis and Koyt would not ride the creature, insisting it was meant for Myrana alone. She had relented, secretly thankful. She wanted to be fair, but walking all day made her legs ache, and since she didn't know what they were headed toward, she wanted to save her strength.
On the fifth night of the journey, they had lost the kank.
Koyt had been standing watch while the others slept, Myrana hoping desperately for a dream that would chart the next day's course. Koyt sat near the fire, longbow across his lap. The kank, four feet tall and eight long, was asleep just outside the firelight. Koyt claimed later that he heard nothing until the first dagorran used its concussive blast attack on the kank. The kank lurched upright, letting out a squeal of pain that woke Myrana and Sellis. Koyt quickly nocked an arrow and scanned for a target. When he saw the dagorran charging the kank, he led it slightly and let fly.
The shaft darted into the dagorran's open maw, driving through so that the point jutted from between its bulging eyes. The crystals on its back, which people said powered their psionic abilities, dimmed from a dull glow to none at all as it dropped to the ground just inches shy of the kank.
But there had been more than one dagorran, and they attacked from several directions at once. The second hit the kank with another concussive blast. With what was left of its strength, the kank caught that one in its pincers. Koyt hit another with an arrow, and Sellis moved in, a sword in each hand, and dispatched the one the kank held.
One more dagorran's psionic attack, however, was all the kank could bear. The huge insect dropped to the dirt, twitched a few times, and then lay still. Sellis and Koyt slaughtered the other two dagorrans trying to move in to feed on Myrana's mount, but it was too late for the kank. No one slept well for the rest of that night, and by morning the dead kank's stench was so foul they couldn't wait to travel, even though Myrana's dreams had been interrupted so she didn't know for sure which way to go.
They had briefly debated returning to the caravan, but decided against it. The caravan had no doubt continued on its way, the opposite of the general northwesterly direction they had headed, so five days gone meant ten days' travel to catch them. For all they knew, their own destination was far closer.
But with three of them on foot, one of them half-crippled, their progress was quite a bit slower. By the time they sighted the oasis, the water bladders were growing perilously light. Regardless of where Myrana's dreams might have wanted them to go, they all agreed that detouring to the oasis was the best idea.
They approached it at late afternoon, after it had hovered there in the distance all day, taunting them with promises of shade and fresh water. When they were still almost a quarter of a league away, Sellis halted the group.
"Oases can harbor all sorts of dangers," he said.
"Sellis, I've been living in the desert my whole life. You think I don't know that?"
He folded his arms across his chest, his muscles bunched and round, forearms veined, tracked by scars. He was almost thirty, and was in many ways the most capable, experienced man she had ever known. His pale blue eyes missed nothing. He was quick to laugh, and when he did, head thrown back and mouth open, it was all she could do not to join right in. But when he was serious, those eyes narrowed and a deep gash appeared between them, as though a tiny hatchet had split his brow, and his usually smiling mouth turned into a thin, grim line. Jutting over his shoulders were the hilts of his twin swords, worn crossing each other on his back.
"I'm not saying it to educate you, Myrana. I'm only explaining why I'm going ahead alone."
"What, so you can drink first?"
"Myrana!" That was Koyt, shorter and leaner, but just as deadly with his bow as Sellis with his twin swords. His face was round, with liquid brown eyes, and she might have thought him soft if she didn't know him. He mopped sweat from his eyes. "You know that's not what he means."
"I was teasing, Koyt."
"Koyt will cover me from here," Sellis continued. "If it's clear, I'll wave you in."
"It had better be," Myrana said. "We need to stock up on water."
Sellis flashed her a quick grin, dimples carving his cheeks. "Now who's telling us what we already know?"
Without another word, he trudged toward the oasis. Koyt drew an arrow from the quiver he kept on his back, right between his shoulder blades, and fitted it onto his bowstring.
"Can you really hit something from this distance?" Myrana asked. She knew he was a skilled archer, but this seemed impossibly long.
"Let's hope Sellis doesn't have to find out."
The oasis appeared calm from this distance. A light but steady breeze ruffled the fronds of tall palms, so they flashed light and dark in the afternoon sun. Beneath them was thick shadow, and somewhere in that shadow, Myrana knew, was water.
So close. She slipped the bladder off her shoulder and took a drink.
"Easy," Koyt said, his voice calm but firm. "Save it."
"But there's bound to be plenty there."
"If we can get to it."
As she had said, Myrana had lived on the road, cutting across one desert or another, since the day of her birth. She was fully aware of the dangers an oasis could conceal. She just wanted this one to be different, to be safe, so they could drink their fill, get out of the sun, and make camp in a grove of trees that would offer shelter from the night winds.
Sellis walked right up to its edge and paused. He shaded his eyes with his hand, and Myrana guessed he was trying to peer into the shadows. Apparently satisfied, he stepped into the shade of the palms, and an instant later he was gone.
"Now what?" Myrana asked. "How can you shoot something you can't see?"
"Let's go a little closer," Koyt said. He kept his tone even, but she could tell he was worried, too. If he hadn't been he wouldn't have so quickly disobeyed Sellis's instructions.
They started forward. After they'd been walking for a couple of minutes, Sellis reappeared on the fringes of shadow and waved them in. "Looks fine to me!" he shouted.
Koyt offered a relieved sigh and slipped his arrow back into its quiver. He and Myrana picked up their pace, Myrana's staff digging into the earth with every step. It seemed forever, but then the cooling shade cut the day's heat and she could smell water, see its reflection casting shimmering light onto the undersides of the palms.
"Everything seems clear," Sellis said as they approached. "Drink up, and fill those skins."
"Can we camp here tonight?" Myrana asked.
Sellis eyed the horizon. "We still have almost an hour of daylight."
"But we're not even sure we're going the right way, Sellis. Let's stay here tonight, and I'll dream tomorrow's route."
Koyt had outpaced her and dropped to his knees beside the shimmering green pool, shoving knife-edged blades of grass out of his way. "I agree with her," he said. "Camp here, push on tomorrow."
He lowered his face toward the water, cupped his hands, and drank. Myrana had almost reached the stiff, broad-bladed grass. Sellis stood watching, a sword in each hand, as the water began to churn and roil before tentacles burst from beneath the surface.
"Water worm!" Sellis cried.
Myrana let out a shriek, dropped her staff and yanked the dagger she wore from its sheath on her belt.
Water rolled off the creature in sheets as it shot up from under the surface. The thing was a translucent green, invisible inside the water. As it rose into the air, it revealed a thick cylindrical body, like a massive snake, with squirming rose tentacles encircling it.
Koyt scrambled back from the pond's edge and snatched up his bow. A tentacle darted at Myrana and she dodged it, slashing at it with her dagger. Thick green blood spurted where she cut it, and a foul, rotten stench filled the air. Sellis hacked at it, too, slicing a tentacle and being drenched in awful blood for his trouble.
Koyt's bowstring twanged and an arrow flew into the creature's side.
Myrana's blade cut into a tentacle, but then another wrapped around her ankle. It released before she was able to swing at it, but where it had touched her, the flesh burned. She took a step backward, then another, and the leg the creature had caught—her right leg, the good one—almost gave out beneath her.
She remembered what she had heard about water worms, also called cistern fiends. Their tentacles contained a paralyzing poison, which they used to bring down their pretty. Once they were subdued, the fiend would suck out their bodily fluids, feeding the nutrients and eliminating the rest as pure water into the well or pond they inhabited.
"Don't let those tentacles touch you!" she called. She slashed at another one coming toward her.
The thing had twenty feet or so of its length out of the water by this point, thrashing around madly. Koyt sank two more arrows into it. Sellis lopped off another tentacle. Myrana dodged one, but her good leg was already partly paralyzed, and she slipped on the damp grass by the pond's edge. She went down on her knees, and a tentacle snaked around her waist. Even through her clothing she could feel the fiery sensation of its touch.
She raised her dagger to chop at it. Before she could, yet another arrow slammed into it. The cistern fiend jerked back, its tentacle pulling taut, and Myrana was hauled into the water.
She hit with a splash, but the surface was so roiled from the creature's writhing that it was barely noticeable. She pawed at the surface, but the tentacle circling her waist dragged her under. Another caught her right leg, just above the knee, and then one twined around her right wrist.
Myrana had managed to catch a breath on the way into the water, but not much of one. She felt her lungs would burst as the thing held her beneath the pond's surface. Her body was quickly going numb, her muscles refusing to obey her mental commands.
But in the water, her legs were both equally useful, the crooked as strong as the straight. She told herself not to panic—listening to herself was another story, especially as her lungs ached to draw breath—and she forced her bad leg to kick at the tentacle where it gripped the other. At the same time she moved the dagger—she hadn't the strength left to slash through the water—to the one holding her wrist, and she began sawing at that one. When its blood flowed beneath the surface, its heat warmed her skin.
She had to have air. The tentacle around her wrist released when she cut deeply, but the one gripping her waist kept tightening. Her mouth burst open and bubbles of air escaped, and she managed, only just, to clamp it shut again as it filled with water. She gave one more mighty kick with her bad leg, and the tentacle clutching her ankle gave way.
One remained. The fiend kept jerking and thrashing about, so she knew Sellis and Koyt still battled it on the surface. But she couldn't count on them to kill it in time to save her. She held the dagger out as far from her body as she could manage, and drove it right toward herself. The point stabbed into the tentacle. It tightened more in response, and the world started to go black. She pushed harder. Hot blood mixed with churning water. She kept pushing until she felt the tip of her blade emerge and poke into her own belly.
Only then did she draw the blade out. The tentacle let go, and Myrana pulled for the surface with every muscle that still functioned.
Koyt's strong arms were around her, tugging her from the water. Sellis stood hip deep in it, crisscrossing the air with both swords, cutting the fiend into bloody chunks that splashed into the water like thrown rocks. Koyt dragged her onto shore, several feet from the water's edge, laying her down on her back.
"Are you ...?" "I'm alive," she said. "That's as much as I can say."
"Good." He turned his attention back toward the fight, nocking and loosing another arrow before dropping the bow and pulling a dagger. He dashed into the water. Myrana wanted to raise her head to watch, but she couldn't. The thing's poison had spread through her, and her muscles were no longer her own to control.
It didn't last long. Scant minutes had passed before Koyt and Sellis both stood over her, soaked and bedraggled, coated in the dark green slime that was the fiend's life's blood.
"Myrana," Sellis said. "You're well?"
She tried to answer, but now not even her voice worked. She couldn't so much as blink.
"She spoke moments ago," Koyt said. "Before I joined you in the pond."
"Paralysis, then," Sellis guessed. "It will wear off, Myrana. The damned thing is dead now, so we'll make camp here tonight and you should be better by morning."
Koyt broke out in laughter. Sellis stared at him as if he had gone mad. "What?" he asked.
"That's what she wanted all along," Koyt said. "To camp here in the oasis, under the shade of the palms."
A smile creased Sellis's face, and that contagious laugh burst from him. "Ha! So she did. I had no idea of the measures she'd take to ensure that we did. Good job, Myrana." He went to one knee beside her, resting his hand comfortingly on her shoulder. "And good job fighting that thing—if not for you, we'd never have bested it."
Myrana wanted to smile, to thank him, and most of all, to laugh at how she had gotten her way. She had to settle for laughing on the inside.
7
The mood in camp was tense.
Aric had stopped counting days and nights—there were too many of them, and they ran together in his mind, long hot days of walking himself to exhaustion or riding inside a steaming, stinking, rattling, rocking argosy full of soldiers, and cold, uncomfortable nights during which he tossed in his sleep, dreamed frightening, fitful dreams.
And that was before people started to die.
The first was the night after he had gone off by himself and found himself lost in the desert. A soldier had wandered away from camp, to empty his bladder, he told one of his fellows. He had barely disappeared into the darkness beyond the firelight when everyone in camp heard a cry of sheer terror. A search party, hastily thrown together, carried torches into the darkness and found his bloody remains. Damaric was part of this party. He told Aric and Ruhm that they had located the soldier's head some twenty or thirty long paces from the body. They never did, Damaric swore, find his heart.
Since then, they had gone at a rate of one or two a night, with only occasional nights of peace. Some were never found, others not located until morning's light made searching the desert's vastness easier. Trails of blood often led to the bodies, or what was left of them.
Several times, Aric volunteered to accompany the search parties, but Kadya would have none of it. "Not you," she told him privately, standing in the shade of an argosy one morning. On the journey, she wore a leather leggings and a loose top, and she kept her brown hair piled up on her head. Behind her, the mekillots belched and fidgeted, ready to get going. "You are too valuable to this expedition. Stay in your wagon and take no foolish chances."
"But some of these people have become my friends," he protested.
"I don't care if they're your brothers and sisters," she said. The expression on her face was one of barely controlled rage. "You don't go out there. Nibenay wants me to keep you safe. I can't do it if you're away from the caravan."
"Very well," Aric said. He would get his chance, he decided—if the slaughter continued—sometime when she was otherwise occupied. He would just go out with one of the search parties, and deal with her anger when he returned.
Kadya, satisfied that she had won the argument, was walking away from Aric when this morning's party returned. They bore the remains of yet another goliath soldier in their arms. The day's travel would be delayed long enough to dig her a shallow grave.
One of the soldiers, a human, broke off from the other searchers and strode up to Kadya. He stopped before her with clenched fists resting against his hips, chin thrust toward her. "Templar," he began.
"There's been enough death. Let's return to Nibenay while there are enough of us left alive to make the journey."
"I'm sorry," Kadya said, barely restraining a laugh. "Did my husband put you in command of this expedition without telling me? How unusual."
"You know he did not," the soldier said. He stood his ground, but Aric detected a falter in his voice. "But we're losing people every night now. How long can this go on?"
"Until we've found Akrankhot and retrieved what Nibenay wants from there," Kadya said.
"It had better be small, lady, because there won't be many left to carry it."
Others had gathered to observe the confrontation. Even those who held their mutilated comrade stared with rapt attention. Nobody stood up to a templar in this way—not if he expected to survive the encounter.
At the same time, Aric was glad someone had found the courage. He suspected the same was true of most of the people making the journey. Kadya had used magic on several occasions already. Between that and the ongoing, almost nightly deaths, people were ready to rise up against her leadership. But they all knew it was suicide to try, and that had held them back.
"I don't know what you're so upset about, soldier. Yes, there have been some killings—people caught by sand cactus, that one who strayed too close to a hungry mekillot. Whose fault were those deaths? Surely not mine. You're soldiers, killing and being killed is what you do. So stop arguing and do it before I lose patience with you."
Aric felt a presence at his shoulder. Ruhm loomed over him, bending toward his ear. "Only reason she hasn't struck him down, she knows we'll need every sword arm we got."
"You might be right," Aric said. He wished he knew what to think of her. She showed precious little concern for the dead. But she had, for the most part, been decent to him. And her husband Nibenay had sent him on this trip, promising rewards. For all he knew, Nibenay really was the one who had watched over him for most of his life—he couldn't truly believe that, but he couldn't make himself completely discount it, either. Anything was possible, and who knew the secret heart of the Shadow King?
The two friends walked away from the ongoing confrontation. Aric didn't want to see what she might do to a soldier who dared argue with her in front of others. "She's been protective of me," he told Ruhm. "But it's true, if we keep losing people to whatever is stalking us—if that's indeed what's happening—we're all in more danger every day."
"Dune freak, I heard."
"Really?"
Ruhm shrugged. "Could be."
Aric tried to picture an anakore—a dune freak—erupting from underground in a burst of sand, all claws and fangs, grabbing someone and dragging him back down with it. Ferocious predators, they lived in colonies beneath the sand, and they could sense the vibrations of people moving about on the surface.
"There are so many dangers in the world, Ruhm. Ones I never even considered, living in the relative safety of Nibenay."
Ruhm didn't answer. The goliath might have talked himself out. But Aric still had something to say, something that had been wearing on him day and night, and this seemed his best opportunity. He looked away from Ruhm, out across the trackless waste surrounding them. "I don't think I'll make it back there alive. I've had this feeling, since before we left, that I was saying goodbye to the city for good."
"You'll make it," Ruhm said. "They need you."
"Until we've reached Akrankhot and found all the metal. If it's even there. After that—what good am I? Nibenay offered to share the wealth with me, so he might want me killed before the expedition gets home. Anyway, if Akrankhot is even real—and I'm starting to have doubts, it's taking so long to find it—who knows what sorts of creatures might be hiding in there? Something's killing good soldiers out here along the way, but when we're in there, confined in a city ..." Aric shuddered. "I hate to think what could happen."
Aric knew he sounded like a coward, but at the moment he didn't feel particularly brave. He had never claimed to be any kind of hero. People noticed heroes.
"You'll be good," Ruhm said simply. He clapped one of those huge hands on Aric's shoulder and gave it a crushing squeeze, then wandered off. Aric supposed it was meant to reassure him.
It didn't work.
8
After dinner, around the fire, everyone determinedly avoided the subject of the deaths, or the fate of the soldier who had stood up to Kadya. No one had seen him since the confrontation. Any number of things could have befallen him, but some claimed Kadya had turned him to sand and scattered him on the breeze. Aric and Ruhm sat with Damaric and Amoni, the mul, all of them huddled under furs against the night's bitter chill. Instead of talking about the killings or what tomorrow might bring, Amoni had delved into her past.
"I was bred to be a gladiator," she said. "And I was a good one, too."
"You're still here," Damaric said. Frost rimed his thick mustache. "That's something."
"Twenty-seven bouts. Not without a scratch, but without any life-threatening injuries. It was the twenty-eighth that was a bitch." She gave them a smile and took a healthy swig of the ale that Kadya had so thoughtfully arranged to be brought on the journey, and distributed in rationed measures. "The worst part is, I was up against a brohg warrior. Nothing I hadn't beat easily before."
"What happened, Amoni?" Aric asked.
"After several kills, I started to accumulate somewhat of a following," she said. Aric had noticed before that the mul tended to keep to herself—she was happy to share food, drink and conversation, but even then she sat off by herself even while others huddled for warmth. And she glanced about often, as if making sure no one was sneaking up on her. "People came just to see me, to cheer me on. It swells your head, hearing your name ringing from wall to wall. Fortunately, my fellow gladiators mostly liked me, except those I fought. Still, there were rivalries, petty feuds. Like in any group of people, I guess. There was a goliath I had been ... let's say, friendly with—a slave whose master fought him in the pit instead of working him or allowing him to be used in the military. I won't go into the whole thing, but there was another female gladiator who was envious of me, and another male who was after her, and things got ugly.
"At any rate, there I was, battling this brohg. Ugly bastard," she shuddered, "all those arms. You know how they love their spears. This one was using a triple attack, a spear in each of three hands and a rock in the fourth. I had suffered a few cuts, nothing terrible, and succeeded in wrenching two of the spears from its hands. I was about to run it through when that gladiator I mentioned, the male—a mul he was, too, of all things—struck. He had arranged for an accomplice, a powerful psionic, to sit in the front row, right there among my cheering fans. As I was about to deliver the killing blow, I glanced over at them, and that's when the accomplice struck. He used the Way to cloud my head. I was there, and suddenly I didn't know where I was, who I was, what I was doing.
"That's all the brohg needed. He threw the other spear away, picked me up in his four hands, bent one knee, and brought me down hard, smashing my back against his knee.
"I guess it was obvious to everyone that there had been some cheating going on, although not the brohg's doing. Anyway, because of my popularity—my fans would have torn the place down, or tried to, had the brohg been allowed to finish me off—the match was halted. My spine was broken in four places. I was out of the gladiatorial business, needless to say."
"That must have been painful," Aric said, aware how much his words understated what she had endured.
"Yes," she replied, wincing at the memory. She set her mug down on the dirt and arched her back, hands on her hips. "Pain like I hope you never have to imagine. I haven't been allowed back into the pit, but I was trained for game hunting in the Crescent Forest, and have brought down my share of wild beasts these past few years. And of course, what use am I if I can't fight? I'm lucky they conscripted me to do manual labor. So here I am."
"Sounds great," Damaric said. "Not the manual labor part. Or the back. But the freedom. For the most part, you've been able to do what you want, whether it's fighting or hunting."
"Have you always been a slave, Damaric?" Aric asked. Ruhm was sitting with his back against a boulder, sipping his ration of ale and keeping quiet. But he was taking it all in. When Ruhm was quiet, it was a safe bet he was listening intently. Or sleeping, but his mouth would have been open had that been the case.
"Born and raised," Damaric said. "My mother was carrying me when she and my father crossed into Nibenese territory. They were barbarians, you might say. Not citizens of any state, living off the land, stealing when they had to, working when they could. My father had been employed from time to time as a mercenary. But then they were caught on Nibenese land. My father mouthed off to some templar, and they were both consigned to slavery. My father didn't take to it. He was killed on his ninth or tenth escape attempt. But my mother was tired of fighting, and she had a baby on the way. So she submitted, and I was born a slave's child. Trained in military ways since I could walk, or so they tell me. Never known a day's freedom."
"You look like you've taken to it," Amoni said.
"I'm hale enough, if that's what you mean. But freedom? Some days it's like I can almost taste it. Then others, it's as far away as the clouds. When I heard about Tyr ..." He shook his head. "I'm not educated. I hear about things like Kalak's death, and the uprising in Tyr, and I don't have any historical basis to understand it. But it sounds like someone just rang a bell and set thousands of people free." He gave a low whistle. "What that must be like."
Amoni looked like she was going to say something. Instead, she shot a look over her left shoulder, snatched up her cahulaks, and sprang to her feet. The motion tipped over her mug, and precious ale soaked the ground.
"What is it?" Ruhm asked.
She stared intently into the darkness beyond the fire's glow. "Probably nothing," she said. "I'm just a nervous type, right?"
Aric combed through his memory of the seconds before Amoni rose. Damaric had been saying something. Had there been a sound from out in the wastes? The scrape of bare feet on sand?
The mekillots grumbled and snorted, making Aric nervous. A couple of other soldiers emerged from wagons. They stood close to Amoni, joining her in scanning the night. "You heard it too?" one asked.
"I heard something. So do the beasts."
The other soldier took a step away from the fire, toward the pitch-black desert.
It was his last step.
9
A chatkcha arced out of the night.
It caught the unsuspecting soldier at the top of his nose, cutting across both eyes. The man had started to move his head, hearing the whistling sound as it approached, but he didn't move it enough. The weapon made a slicing sound as it hit him, then kept going, spinning back to its thrower's hand.
Up and down the caravan, soldiers spilled from the argosies or lurched up from around the fires. Some were half-dressed, others fully armored with weapons at the ready. They all dashed to the caravan's east side, where the first attack had come from.
The next assault was a hail of stones, as big as a goliath's fist. A soldier near Ruhm went down with a gash in his scalp and blood pouring into his eyes. Cries of "Raiders!" rang out.
Aric drew his wooden sword. Ruhm, his greatclub gripped in both hands, looked for someone to use it on. Damaric spun a singing stick, his hands at its middle, its distinctive whistling tones providing a musical counterpoint to the shouts of warriors seeking an enemy.
"What kind of raiders?" Aric asked.
"Dead kind, soon," Ruhm replied.
"Face us!" Damaric called, impatient to start the fighting. "Don't hide in the dark like old women!"
As if in response, the attackers showed themselves.
Aric wished they hadn't.
"Halflings!" went the shouts of the soldiers. "It's halflings!"
Faces painted with what must have been the dried blood of the caravan's dead, the halflings charged out of the desert screeching incomprehensible words from voracious mouths. They carried every kind of weapon imaginable; ivory swords and obsidian-tipped spears, gouges and gythkas—some wielded the horns of of exotic animals, filed to dagger-sharp points. Most were naked, or nearly so, though a few wore pieces of chitin armor no doubt stolen from previous victims of their raids. Halflings, Aric had heard, bore no trace of humanity. They were savages with only bloodthirstiness and cruelty in their feral little hearts.
It seemed there were hundreds of them.
They swarmed into the Nibenese soldiers, cutting and stabbing as they came.
Damaric stepped to meet the onrush. His rod spun so fast it seemed to be a solid shield, the wider ends batting away halfling weapons and crushing skulls at the same time. Amoni gripped the handle of her cahulaks and swirled them about, four-bladed heads at the rope's ends slicing through flesh and sending halfling blood spraying into the air. Ruhm seemed pleased to have an enemy he could see, and he waded into their midst, his club flying this way and that in a killing flurry.
For a few moments, Aric thought none of the halflings would reach him. After all, Kadya said he was to be protected. Surely soldiers would surround him any moment, keeping him safe from the raiders.
But Ruhm, Amoni and Damaric were all engaged with multiple opponents, as were the few other soldiers nearby. The halflings kept coming, and when Aric saw the glint in the horrible yellow eyes of one staring right at him, he knew he had met his first foe.
The halfling bore a short spear with an obsidian tip. Ducking around the swarm trying to get at Ruhm, he came straight for Aric. Aric raised his sword. The halfling thrust his spear forward, and Aric parried the attack, wooden blade clacking against the spear's shaft. But Aric didn't recover from the parry fast enough to make an attack of his own, and the spear came at him again. Aric stepped back and to the side, bringing the blade around in a down-sweeping motion, left to right. It stopped the spear from stabbing him, but the stone tip sliced across his belly, opening a thin cut.
Sweat was running down Aric's face, stinging his eyes. He stabbed at the halfling, who beat the blade away. The spear streaked toward Aric again. He lurched backward and caught the shaft in his left hand. With a mighty heave he yanked the halfling toward him and brought his blade up for the killing thrust.
The halfling's eyes were full of hate, and his scent was rank. He snarled at Aric, then tugged back on the spear. The shaft dragged through Aric's fist and the obsidian head sliced his palm and fingers. Second blood, and still all that had spilled belonged to the half-elf, none to his savage foe.
He had to do something fast. His comrades battled half a dozen halflings at once, and here he was being sliced to ribbons by a single one. He remembered his battle against four elves, how he had woven a web of shining steel—
But that was the difference, wasn't it? With steel in his hands, he was a different person. This wooden sword had an edge to it, but it felt like he was fighting with a tree branch.
The halfling nicked his right arm with the spear's edge. Concentrate, foot! Aric told himself. Ragged gasps of breath tore at his throat.
Aric launched himself forward. The halfling threw his weight to his rear foot, but that didn't give him enough distance, and Aric landed too close for the spear to come into play. The half-elfs sword was almost useless at this range, too, but he held it low, point up, and grabbed the halfling's shoulder in his left hand. He pulled the halfling to him and pushed the blade at the same time. It met resistance, but cut through the halfling's flesh, glanced off bone, tore at his innards. An expression of dismay and then agony twisted the halfling's horrible face. His spear fell to the ground and the halfling went limp in Aric's hands.
Aric shoved him backward, drawing his sword out at the same time. More halflings converged on him, two of them, a female armed with a wrist razor, the other a male with a crude club. Bolstered by his victory, Aric engaged them both at once.
If the halflings had a strategy beyond overwhelming their foes through sheer numbers, none could see it. They had, it was true, picked off soldiers here and there over the last few days, putting the entire expeditionary force on edge. But that slow attrition was forgotten as the halflings surged toward the light, breaking on the Nibenese defenses like a muddy red wave.
The Nibenese goliaths stood more than twice as tall as the halflings, with correspondingly greater reach. Most of the soldiers were armored, and even those who were laborers instead of soldiers had access to shields, and armored wagons to hide behind when the halflings launched aerial bombardments of rocks and chatkchas.
All of which meant the battle was closer than it might have been, had Nibenay's army been less well trained, disciplined, and equipped, or the halflings less numerous. Aric dispatched his two newest foes with a lucky slash that split one open from his collarbone to the center of his chest, and a precise thrust that pierced the other's heart. But for every halfling who fell, it seemed two or three more took his place. When he found himself facing three at once, his newfound confidence faltered.
Ruhm bled from a score of wounds, although certainly some of the blood soaking his huge form had surely come from the halflings mounded around him. Amoni swung her cahulaks with ferocious abandon, lips parted and teeth clenched, and the dead and wounded before her formed a wall that other halflings had to climb to get to her. Damaric's singing stick had taken some punishing blows, but he seemed mostly unscathed so far. Other soldiers were dead and dying everywhere, some almost under Aric's feet. The combined stink of halfling bodies, viscera, blood and death was everywhere, inescapable.
Aric didn't know how long any of them could go on. He had powerful arms and shoulders, a blacksmith's strength, but there were so many halflings. Soon he would start to grow weary, and then what?
"Kadya," he heard someone say in a surprised tone. Others repeated her name. Aric parried three attacks and risked a hurried glance over his shoulder.
The templar had climbed on top of one of the argosies. Halflings hurled stones at her but she ignored them and they sailed harmlessly past. Her lips were moving, though no one in the thick of battle could hear what she said, and her hands made fitful gestures. A stiff wind blew up from behind her, ruffling her clothing and tearing her hair from the pin holding it up. Around her, the air itself seemed to waver. Then she thrust her hands forward, toward the halfling force, and that rippling air spread out from her, past the Nibenese but striking the halflings with almost physical force.
As the wave flowed past them, halflings dropped their weapons and staggered about, dazed. Blood flowed from noses, ears, and open mouths. Some fell down clutching their heads while others pawed at their own faces or chests. In the rear ranks, as far back as the firelight extended, halflings took off running, as if to escape whatever Kadya had loosed upon them.
The halflings facing Aric fell victim to it as well. One died instantly, her eyes rolling back in her head, body stiffening as she pitched forward. Another clapped his hands to his ears even as blood burbled up from his eyes and mouth. The third tried to turn and run, but his legs gave out beneath him and he fell atop his fellows, clawing at the air like a drowning man reaching for a rope.
Watching the devastation, Aric realized it didn't affect only the halflings. One of the wounded soldiers close by curled in on himself, gave an agonized scream, and died. Another, barely wounded as far as Aric could tell, dropped to his knees as though his legs no longer had the strength to support him. Even Aric felt weakened suddenly. He took several unsteady steps backward to get a wagon behind him before he fell.
Defiling magic. Kadya had drawn from all their life forces in order to send that surge of powerful magic into the halflings.
With the badly wounded soldiers dead and some of the others still reeling from their own templar's spell, the ones who had strength left went after the halflings, dispatching those they could get to without leaving the firelight. The halflings offered little resistance. Heads rolled, swords and spears spiked bodies. Soon the soldiers gathered at the wagons again, wiping blades on shirts or rags torn from the minimal clothing the halflings wore, and binding their wounds.
The boasting and the burying would come later. With the sound of the remaining halflings running off into the darkness, the Nibenese forces sat around dwindling fires or leaned against armored argosies. Conversation was sparse, most of it grumbles of complaint. "We could have beat them," someone ventured.
"We would have died trying, if she hadn't done that."
"But how many of our own did we lose in the doing?"
You yet live, as do I. It might have been different."
Damaric showed Aric a weary grin. "You did well." "I survived." Aric held up his left hand, which continued to bleed. "You came through fine, it seemed."
"As I said, I've been trained to fight since the time I could walk."
Aric moved closer to the soldier and lowered his voice. "I'm surprised that some complain openly about the templar."
"Warriors sometimes forget themselves in the flush of victory, Aric. However that victory is achieved. By morning they'll have thought better of it, and spend the rest of the day worrying that she heard them."
Ruhm joined them, dripping blood from his crown to his toes. "That was fun," he said.
"Fun?" Aric repeated.
"Sure." He squeezed Aric's shoulder. "You had fun too?"
"I'm not sure I'd put it that way."
Amoni joined them too, flicking bits of halfling flesh off the blades of her cahulaks. She had suffered a few wounds, and she winced when she turned at the waist, trying to stretch her back. But the four friends had lived through the battle, and Aric couldn't ignore the swelling of pride that spread from his breast.
Later that night, however, when he tried to sleep, he kept seeing the image of Nibenese soldiers, fighting death until Kadya's magic sucked the life force from them. Perhaps that had been necessary to defeat the raiding halflings.
Then again, perhaps not.
VIII
VALLEY OF FIRE
1
The cistern fiend's paralysis gripped Myrana for two days. The second day she was able to sit up on her own and eat but not walk. That night, it wore off, but she, Sellis, and Koyt didn't want to leave the relative protection of the oasis. Instead, they waited until morning, filled their bellies and their water skins with fresh water, and started off once more across the desert. She had hated having muscles that refused her every command, and the urgency of her dreams had not let up, but even so, it was hard to leave a place with shade, shelter and plenty of fresh, clear water.
The contrast, by mid-afternoon, was remarkable. The sun bore down with pitiless intensity. On foot all day, Myrana's leg and hip sent pain shooting through her entire body, making her grit her teeth and bite back groans. She wanted no pity from her companions, and most of all she didn't want them to feel—as men so often did, in her experience—that they needed to fix things, make them better. This situation couldn't be fixed, unless they came upon some wild kanks or erdlus to ride. She was thirsty, hot, and aching, and that was just the way things were.
Her dream-inspired route led them up a low rise. On the other side, the way was considerably steeper, a rock-strewn slope leading down into a wide, flat valley. The ups and downs were harder on her leg than flat stretches, so she looked forward to reaching that, but knew the descent would be difficult and painful.
Sellis pointed to the hillside on the valley's far edge, where a patch of green might have indicated a natural spring. "We'll make it there before we stop," he suggested. "And if it's safe we can make camp by that spring."
"Water for three nights in a row?" Koyt asked. "Fortune smiles upon us, eh Myrana?"
Myrana grunted a meaningless response. She liked the idea of another night beside water, but the far side of the valley was a long way off.
Sellis touched her arm. "Shall we go down?" he asked. "Or would you rather rest first?"
"I'm ready," she said. The statement wasn't entirely true, or altogether false. She would have loved to rest—perhaps for a week or two—but to accept his suggestion would be to show weakness. She wouldn't do it. She was the reason they were here, in danger every hour of every day because she refused to ignore her dreams. "Let's go."
She started down the slope first. Small rocks skidded out from beneath her feet. Every time she planted her left leg on the down slope, another twinge of pain traveled up her spine.
The men paused for a moment at the top of the slope. They didn't think she could hear them, over her own scrabbling sounds, but her ears were keener than they knew. "She's tough." Sellis said.
"Aye, tough as they come. That leg ..."
"You would never know that at this time yesterday she could hardly take a drink on her own."
"When we're falling down with exhaustion, she'll be leaving us behind. Shaming us."
"She's leaving us already," Sellis pointed out. "We should catch up. This loose slope could be treacherous, and if she should lose her balance ..."
"Bad leg or no, she looks steady. If we fall trying to keep up with her, I'll laugh."
"Laugh through the pain, you mean."
"Aye, for certain. It's a long way to the bottom."
Long way or not, they made it without incident. Hiking across the valley floor was indeed easier, and after the long, steep descent, she was ready for easy. The ground was firm and even, the rocks big enough to be seen and avoided but not so large that they required major detours to skirt. Between the rocks and scrubby brush, cactus, and occasional patches of tall, brownish grass, they could see about halfway across the valley.
They made steady progress. Here they wished again for kanks, as those huge insects could cover this sort of territory at a rapid pace. The sun pounded down upon them as it moved through the sky. On the hillside, cooling breezes had blown over them, but here in the valley no such relief presented itself. As they walked, even the shade seemed to dry up; at the valley's fringes, runoff from the hills, during whatever infrequent rains came, nourished the plant life, but toward the valley's center that tapered off until the plain became nothing but a hard, flaked crust of earth with rocks sitting on top.
A little more than three quarters of the way across, Sellis drew up short and pointed to what appeared to be a jumble of boulders off to the south. "I don't like that," he said.
"They're just rocks, no?" Myrana asked.
"I'm not so certain."
Koyt eyed the boulders, shielding his brow against the slanting sun. "There's a fire pit in front," he said. "Not burning now, but it's there."
Myrana narrowed her eyes and peered at it. Koyt was right. Beyond the pit, a slanted boulder leaned on two others, and a dark hole might have been an opening into a cleverly disguised home. "Do you think someone lives there?"
"A hermit, perhaps," Sellis said. "I would expect any living in this valley to be closer to that spring, but it's less than an hour away, perhaps well less."
"Should we hail him?" Myrana asked. Any member of a trading caravan had some experience with hermits, or good or for ill. Some of them sought out interaction with travelers passing through, while others guarded their solitude with fierce determination.
"If he's there—or she, I've encountered more than one female hermit—then he knows we're here."
"Many I've seen are mad," Myrana said. "And men are more likely than women to go mad, aren't they?"
"I don't know about that," Koyt said.
"Maybe it has to do with how that madness is exhibited," Sellis offered. "I've certainly run across some madwomen, too, but they seem to favor city life. It takes a special kind of insanity to make someone want to live alone like this, so far from everything."
"I don't like it," Myrana said. "Let's keep going."
They moved on, uneasy now. The nape of Myrana's neck tickled. Is someone watching us? she wondered. She, Sellis and Koyt marched forward, not talking, each lost in thoughts or worries.
"Kalipher warned you!" a voice screeched. The speaker stood atop a boulder just ahead of them and to the east, perhaps forty paces from the travelers. They stopped. Sellis whisked his swords from their scabbards and Koyt snatched his bow from his shoulder and an arrow from its quiver in one smooth motion.
"Warned us of what, old man?" Sellis demanded. "And who's Kalipher? We've never seen you before, nor heard that name."
"Kalipher stands before you, and Kalipher warned you to keep out of his valley!" The hermit wore a long, gray robe—although, Myrana noted, it might not always have been gray, as it appeared to have been patched from time to time but never washed—and a cap of the same color that fit snugly across his brow but hung down past his shoulder, its end resting on his chest. His thin arms were spread wide, as were his bare feet. He had a long beard that had, if anything, received even less care over the past decade than the robe. The distance was too great to see all the detail, but Myrana thought there were twigs snarled in its tangled mess, and perhaps insects and small rodents as well.
"You warned us of nothing," she replied. "And we had no idea this was your valley. Why would you need all this land?"
"Never you mind that, girl. Mayhap t'were not you, after all. Kalipher would have remembered a cripple.
But you are intruders, the lot of you, and Kalipher don't like intruders. Not one bit."
"We're only passing through," Koyt assured the hermit. "We'll be gone in no time."
"After you have made liberal use of his spring, Kalipher has no doubt!"
"We had thought to drink from it, but surely the three of us can't deplete such a rich spring."
"Lies gush from your mouth as blood from a split skull! You've no idea how rich it is, unless you have been here before!"
"We could see the band of greenery around it," Sellis said. "From yon hills. To me that indicates a healthy flow."
"We seek no trouble, Kalipher," Myrana said. The hermit appeared every bit as mad as she had feared. "We want only to cross the valley in peace, perhaps taste of the spring's fresh water, and leave you alone."
"Mayhap you seek no trouble, cripple, but trouble you've found!" He clapped his hands together, performed a gesture, shouted some words Myrana didn't understand. When he showed his palms again, a blast of intense heat blew toward the travelers.
A patch of sparse grass near Myrana's feet burst into flames. So did the edge of her sarami. She slapped out the fire, but Kalipher was already sending another blast their way.
Koyt loosed his arrow at the hermit. Before it had covered half the distance, the hermit flicked his fingers at it and the arrow caught fire. It sailed on for another instant as a burning arrow, then charred into ash, lost its momentum, and drifted harmlessly to the ground.
"Take cover!" Sellis said.
Her pains and weariness forgotten, Myrana darted for the shelter of the nearest large rock. Kalipher shot another bolt of heat her way. It missed, and there wasn't much around to burn, but a stray twig caught fire. Then she was behind the rock, breathing hard, wondering how to battle an opponent who couldn't be touched.
Koyt ducked behind a different rock, and Sellis sought shelter behind a fallen length of tree that had been there so long it had petrified. Koyt drew three arrows from his quiver, nocked the first, and fired it. In less than a heartbeat, he fired the second and then the third, the bowstring twanging so quickly that one sound still lingered on the air when the next drowned it out.
None of the three found their mark; Kalipher crisped them all mid-flight.
"Stones!" Myrana cried. "He can't burn stones!" She selected a good-sized one and hurled it at the hermit. It sailed true, but fell short. Sellis picked up a larger, flat stone and side-armed it as one might a discus. Kalipher tried to deter it with his fiery blast, but it hurtled through, striking him in the ribs. He lost his balance and toppled from the boulder.
While he was on the ground, Koyt fired another arrow. This one got closer before burning up.
"Save your shafts!" Sellis called. "We'll doubtless need more before we're home again!"
Myrana threw another stone, putting all her strength behind it. This one reached the hermit, but he batted it away, suffering, she hoped, a bruised hand in the doing. She ducked back behind her sheltering rock and cast about for another stone she could hurl that far. She needed another way. Casting stones would never hurt this wild hermit.
"No!" Kalipher shouted as a huge tangle of vines with dozens of closed white flowers rose in front of him. "Villainy most foul!" He blasted at the flowers, causing some of them to blacken, smoke curling up from them. But others swiveled toward him and opened their petals. Reflective sap coating those petals of the burnflower caught the sun's light and shone it in concentrated form at the hermit. His gray robe smoldered in numerous places, then exploded in flames. The last she saw of him, he was running toward the shelter of his little rock home, smacking at the fire and screaming curses.
"Where did that burnflower come from?" Sellis asked as she limped toward them.
Myrana shrugged. "Perhaps he was somehow using its heat to attack us," she speculated. "And caused it to manifest before him."
"Good an explanation as any I can think of," Sellis said. "Let's get away before he returns."
They started off once more, heading directly for the spring on the far wall. Before they had taken fifteen paces, Kalipher's furious voice sounded behind them. "You haven't seen the last of Kalipher!" he cried. "The next intruders in Kalipher's valley will taste Kalipher's true wrath, this Kalipher swears!"
"Let's make sure it's not us," Myrana said. "I'd as soon never see Kalipher again."
"I agree. There's nothing here we'd need anyway," Sellis said. He laughed—but he hurried his pace, just the same.
2
Siemhouk lounged on her pillows, chatting with three of her fellow—but lesser—templars, all as naked as she, when her brother came to the door. "Sister!" Dhojakt barked. "I would speak with you. Alone!"
Siemhouk lifted her eyebrows, and the templars took her meaning. They rose, bade hurried goodbyes, and departed, squeezing through the door to avoid any physical contact with the monstrous form that her father insisted was related to her. He shifted his cilops-like lower half, on its dozens of short, pointed legs, to let them pass.
He wanted something from her, otherwise he wouldn't have pretended at politeness.
"Come in, then," Siemhouk said, showing her impatience. The templars had been boring, their chatter inane, their machinations and the ambitions they served petty. But then, few in Nibenay were her intellectual equals. Dhojakt, perhaps. Still, she hated talking to him if it meant having to look at him. His centipede's legs twitched as he skittered into the room, hooked claws clicking on the floor. He was more human from the waist up, but that insectlike lower section protruding from his sarami was too unpleasant to look at. At least had the good grace to spend most of his time in the shadows.
"You needn't have snapped," she told Dhojakt as he settled his ridiculous form. "My friends would have gone if you had asked me with the respect I deserve."
"Were they offended?" Dhojakt asked. He scratched his muzzle with one hand, as human as hers, but that face—the flaring nostrils, the tiny ears flush with the bottom of his jaw, the bulging eyes, so like the single orb of a cilops but paired, and smaller—was decidedly not. "And is there some reason you believe I care?"
"I know you care not in the least," Siemhouk said. "And honestly? It's true, most of our father's wives are insipid creatures who can't formulate a thought more complex than to wonder if Father cares more for some other wife than he does them. But I'm human, after all." She emphasized the word, jabbing him with it like a dagger. "I need company from time to time."
"Not I," Dhojakt said. His high voice had an unpleasant rasp to it, like a hinge rarely used. "I need only my studies to keep me company."
Looking like you do, Siemhouk thought, then broke it off. It would be too easy for him to read her mind, and although she could block him just as easily, who knew what he might pick up in that initial probe?
"Is that what brings you here?" she asked. "Something you've learned?"
"I was in Father's private library," he said. She knew it well: corridor upon corridor lined with shelves, from the floor to a ceiling so high up it took tall ladders to reach the upper sections, and one had to carry a candle or lantern aloft because the light from the wall lamps didn't reach that high. If there was a larger collection of knowledge anywhere on Athas, she didn't know of it.
"And?"
"And I discovered some interesting information."
"About what?"
"About Akrankhot."
"That city that Kadya is looking for?"
"Don't feign ignorance, dear sister, it isn't becoming. I know that you campaigned to have Kadya lead the expedition to Akrankhot. I know that a dead man promised huge stores of metal could be found there, and I understand as well as you the strategic significance of that metal to Nibenay, as well as the benefit to whoever is responsible for fetching it back here."
"Little escapes you, my brother."
"Precious little indeed. But I believe I have learned something about Akrankhot that escaped you."
"Hardly surprising, since I know nothing of the city save what the undead mercenary told us." Siemhouk shifted her position on the silk pillows. She was growing bored again, and wanted her brother to get to the point. "Will you share what you've learned?"
"I suppose." Of course he would; that was the reason he had come here. Just telling her that he knew something wasn't nearly satisfaction enough for him.
Dhojakt shifted his many feet again, and picked up a pillow in the claws of a couple. As he spoke, he tore the pillow apart, scattering shreds here and there. "Eons ago, in a time that some scholars call the Gray Age, a war between gods and primordials had ended, but left Athas in a troubled way. Arcane magics had become prevalent, although not nearly to the extent that defiling magic later savaged the world."
"Defiling magic you're happy to use, when it suits you," she pointed out.
"I never said otherwise. At any rate, the primordials, in their battle against the gods, ripped the very fabric of the world. Who knows what they let in, during that time, from the Gray or the Astral Sea? And who knows what the primitive but powerful magics being employed here did to whatever dared enter? At any rate, according to these histories I found, one being that became troublesome in those days was a demon known as Tallik. Perhaps this demon was summoned by some fledgling sorcerer, who then proved unable to control it. There were others about, however, with power enough to intercede, and one of them, or several, imprisoned Tallik beneath what was, at the time, a major city."
"Let me guess," Siemhouk said. The story had entertained her, momentarily, but the ending was too easily grasped. And she had already glimpsed the demon's work, in the undead man who had journeyed all the way to Nibenay to tell the Shadow King about the discovery. "Under Akrankhot."
"That's right. So at your suggestion, a templar loyal to you is about to disturb the prison of a demon—one not powerful to stand against the primordials who slew gods, but quite possibly more than powerful enough to threaten all of Athas as we know it."
"Sounds exciting," Siemhouk said. "If it brings some color to our lives, then—"
Dhojakt interrupted his sister. "If it's excitement you want, I can tell Father. His reaction should offer quite a large respite from boredom."
Now Siemhouk was intrigued. She had to think fast, to strategize. Dhojakt wouldn't threaten to tell Father unless there was something in it for him—he had to think that Father would be pleased enough by this knowledge to reward him in some way. Why would it please Father? Because if the demon were to become a threat, better to know about it in advance, to be able to prepare for its coming? Or because the possibility existed that the demon, more than the metal, might become a weapon Nibenay could wield against his foes?
If he thought that freeing it from its prison was a dangerous idea, then might he not blame Siemhouk for pursuing the undead mercenary's story with such fervor? Better, perhaps, to wait until the city was found, and they knew if the demon yet lived, before taking steps either way.
"Why would you tell him?" she asked, the very picture of naive innocence.
"Because it's something he should know. But I don't have to. I know you have a reason for sending Kadya on the expedition. I even understand it. All I want is for you to share the rewards, be they gold or good feelings."
"And if I don't, you'll tell Father about this Tallik?"
"That's correct," Dhojakt said.
"Go ahead. Let me know what he says." She had made the calculation that, with permission granted, Dhojakt would never tell their father. He would think that she wasn't concerned about Nibenay finding out, so there was a better angle for him in keeping it quiet.
Dhojakt rubbed his shaved head with one of those oddly human hands. "I think I'll wait," he said. "Perhaps there's no need for Father to know just yet."
"I could tell him ..." Siemhouk offered.
"That surely will not be necessary," her brother said. "When the time is right, I'll let him know. Until then ... well, why trouble him? We don't even know if this Tallik is alive or dead. And if alive, if he yet possesses any power whatsoever. No, let's hold off, for now."
"As you wish, brother."
Dhojakt started to turn around, a process that took his ungainly body a considerable amount of space and time. "As always, dear sister, visiting with you has been a pleasure and an enlightenment."
"And the same to you, Dhojakt," Siemhouk said, inordinately pleased to see the last of him. "Do come back whenever you've a mind to."
3
Djena paced about the Council Chambers at the Temple of the King's Law, running her hands through her gray hair, aggravated beyond belief at some of her templar wives. Wives loyal to her sat in thronelike chairs similar to the ones high consorts used at Council meetings.
"Of course we have spies in the caravan!" she said, at a level barely below a scream. "I'm positive every high consort has spies in the caravan. What I haven't seen is any useful information."
"What is it you need to know?" Lijana asked. She was one of Djena's oldest allies, a woman who had become a wife just a couple of years after Djena and understood early on that Djena's route to power in the king's court could not be denied. She had been right—Djena had walked over the bodies of dozens of other wives to get where she was. Some of those bodies had been figurative, others quite literal. The High Consort of the King's Law was the most powerful person in the city-state, second only to their husband himself, and so that position became Djena's goal.
At the time, Siemhouk had not yet been born. No one could have known the king's daughter would overturn his rigidly organized hierarchy.
"I need to know what Kadya has in mind. I'm certain she's talking with Siemhouk. But Siemhouk is already more powerful than me, so what does she stand to gain? And what has she promised Kadya? My position?"
"She couldn't possibly," Pasumi said. Pasumi was young, beautiful, and Djena knew that to underestimate her ruthlessness would be a disastrous error. She had drawn Pasumi into her confidence because she recognized in the stunning new wife a kindred spirit, someone she wanted to keep a close eye on. Of all the templar wives brought into the family in the past five years, this was the one she most expected to make a play for her spot.
She never would have expected such a move from Kadya. From Siemhouk, though, anything was possible. If Siemhouk could replace her with Kadya, that would cement her control over the two most important temples, and therefore over most of the city-state. Her power would be almost on a level with Nibenay's.
That was what she feared, and why she wanted a better conduit into the communication between Siemhouk and Kadya.
"She might, Pasumi," Djena said. She stopped pacing, and shook out her hair. She must have looked a sight, like someone on the verge of a mental breakdown. She blew out a breath. "Don't put anything past Siemhouk. She is my sister, my husband's daughter, and I love her as I love life itself. But she is as ambitious a templar as has ever lived. I have achieved my goal, and attained a position from which I can help our land and its inhabitants. Someday I'll be asked to stand down in favor of someone with new ideas. But that time is not now, and that person should not be Kadya. If we can't find out what those two are saying to each other, though, then Kadya it may be. We need to know what Kadya reports to Siemhouk, and without waiting for Siemhouk herself to give us what are certainly very unfaithful adaptations of those reports."
"What would you have us do, sister?" Lijana asked.
"Each of you knows someone on that expedition, I'd wager," Djena said. "Make sure they're sparing no effort at intercepting any communication between our beloved sisters Siemhouk and Kadya. And make sure that your allies here in Nibenay with experience in the Way are trying to glean the contents of those conversations on this end. We must know the truth about what they find, what they would do with it, and when it will return to Nibenay, and we must know it as soon as Siemhouk herself does. If we can't, then I fear that all is lost."
Djena plopped down into her usual seat, satisfied for the moment with her diatribe. She had overstated the case. There would still be time to react to whatever the expedition brought back, even after its arrival. But it would be more difficult then, the results of that reaction less certain. Forewarning was the best defense she could hope for. She had needed to throw a scare into her allies, to make sure they and their loyalists weren't being lazy or duplicitous.
If Djena went down, they all did. That was the most important fact they had to bear in mind. Those who had tied themselves to Djena were all in trouble, if Siemhouk and Kadya were successful.
That couldn't be allowed to happen.
IX
CITY UNDER THE SAND
1
Aric and Ruhm rode inside an argosy, not because it was comfortable—the sun pounded on the armored roof and walls, and even with the open windows, Aric felt like they were riding inside his forge—but because Kadya had insisted, after the halfling attack, that he be kept as safe as possible. She pointed out that had he been inside an argosy in the first place, he would have been in little danger.
Aric tried to argue that he, in fact, killed some of the attackers. She countered that she'd had to drive off the halflings using magic, for which many no doubt resented her, and if it hadn't been for that magic then Aric—and everyone else—would quite possibly be dead already.
So he was stuck.
The caravan cut across open desert, and since leaving the road the jouncing, jostling ride had been more pronounced than ever. He had to hold onto the bench or put a hand against the argosy's wall to steady himself each time the wheels rolled over a rock or uneven patch of ground, or let his spine be painfully jarred. He and Ruhm and the others in the argosy, mostly slaves who chose to ride in order to save their strength for the difficult tasks ahead, weren't talking much. The constant chatter and joking that had marked the earlier part of the trip was gone, and a new mood had taken over. People were tense, mourning the dead but even more concerned that they not follow their comrades into the grave.
Aric sat near a window, so that he could stand occasionally, stretch his legs, and look outside. For the first several days he had reveled in the new and different scenery, but these last days on the trail had knocked that enthusiasm from him. Each new vista was just like the last. Sand, low hills, a few determined plants. The occasional birds flew past overhead, and every now and then they caught a glimpse of an animal, insects, lizards and snakes, sometimes larger beasts. Most of those would no doubt have gladly eaten Aric or any other member of the expedition, but didn't dare prey upon such a large group.
He would not have said that he missed Nibenay—chaotic, frenetic Nibenay, so often unfriendly to half-elves—but he did miss his little home, and his shop. The only piece of metal he had on this trip was his coin medallion, and he found himself handling it often, taking solace in its familiarity and in the enduring solidity of metal, worn down from his touch but still there after all these years.
A whisper yanked him from unhappy contemplation. "Hsst! Aric!"
Aric reached for the window's edge and pulled himself to his feet. The argosy rocked, a wheel rolling over a large stone, Aric guessed, and almost threw him back down, but he held fast. Damaric walked beside the window. "What news, Damaric?"
"Kadya says we're close!" "We are? How close?" He had rio idea what hazards the lost city might hold, but anything would be better than another day in this damnable wagon.
"I'm not sure. There are low, rocky hills ahead. According to the undead man's map, beyond those lies another short stretch of desert. Then Akrankhot!"
Ruhm had overheard, and now he stood as well, his back hunched over to get his head out the window. "Did you hear it from her?" he asked.
"Everybody's talking about it. She's up front with a glass, so she saw it first. She told someone, and that one told someone else, and so on."
"Are you sure it's true?" Aric asked. "You know how rumors spread."
"Aye," Damaric said. "Sure as I can be. The closer to the front of the caravan, the more people are talking about it. She would never tell a slave soldier anything, but people I trust confirmed it."
"That's great," Aric said. "I think I'm already a head shorter from the way this trip is crushing my spine."
He leaned out the window and peered ahead. The rocky hills were visible, two rows of them slanting toward each other at the end. As if they tasted the end of the long trek, the mekillots seemed to be pulling harder, hauling the wagons along faster than ever.
The excitement was palpable. Everyone knew they were approaching their goal. Shouts and curses buzzed through the air. The attitude of the travelers had changed, in the space of an hour, almost back to where it had been at the journey's start.
Aric wasn't immune to the change. For now, their goal was his goal. Find the metal, load it up, and get home.
After that, no one knew what would happen. But if all went well, he could end up the wealthiest half-elf he had ever known.
There were worse things to hope for.
He was still thinking about it when the creature attacked.
2
It happened while the entire caravan passed between the two rows of hills, which, Kadya assured them, would direct them straight toward the city's front gates.
Aric obeyed the templar's order and stayed in the wagon, although he would have preferred to be walking. Ruhm had got out to walk. Damaric took two steps for every one of Ruhm's, while for Amoni, who had also joined them, it was closer to one and a half.
They were closer to the set of hills on the argosy's right side—the window Aric was hanging out of—and he watched the rocky slopes, noting the different textures. The hills were rounded, studded with stones of various sizes, some of them nestled in patches of green.
And then one of the hills moved.
Not the entire hill, but a large section of it. It shifted, as if the ground itself had just awakened from a long nap. Then it separated from the hillside around it, its camouflage almost perfect. "Ruhm!" Aric shouted, pointing.
Ruhm and the others followed Aric's finger. People around other wagons had seen it too. "Earth drake!" someone cried. "It's an earth drake! Soldiers, to arms!"
The beast revealed its full size, peeling away from the rocky surface into which its scaly, pocked, bulbous hide had blended it. It must have been thirty feet long, or more. Its head was massive. When it let its jaw swing open to release a bloodcurdling roar, its mouth looked easily large enough to swallow humans whole. Aric had heard improbable tales of earth drakes eating entire mekillots. Seeing this one, however, he no longer had reason to doubt. A bony ridge protected the drake's brow and eyes, and behind those its head flared back in a fan shape, probably to make burrowing easier. Its limbs were gigantic, as big around as some of the old agafari trunks in Sage's Square.
Having revealed itself, the drake lost no time in attacking.
It lowered its head and glared at the caravan. But what looked at first like it was studying them intently proved to be something more, as a wave of pure energy struck the wagons and those on foot around them. Soldiers reeled against the argosies' armored walls. One wagon, unbalanced because one wheel was rolling over a large rock its drivers should have avoided, tipped over sideways with a crash. Those on the far side, pinned under its crushing weight, screeched in pain. Aric's wagon tipped but didn't fall; he was dashed against the far wall and barely managed to shield his head.
He made it back to the window in time to see soldiers, some of them with blood pouring from noses and mouths, trying to right themselves, and mekillot drivers frantically trying to keep their beasts on track.
But the earth drake was on the move, head down, charging on all four clawed feet. The caravan could not escape it—the drake had caused boulders and debris from the hillsides to float in the air before and behind the wagons, hemming it in—so the best they could do was to fight it.
And fighting an earth drake, stories said, was usually a losing proposition.
Aric turned toward the soldiers assigned to keep him in the wagon. They were anything but friendly at the best of times, and now they looked positively grim. "I've got to get out there and help!" he said.
"You don't leave this argosy," one of the soldiers said. "For any reason."
"But—"
"For any reason," repeated the other. "You looking for adventure?"
Aric cringed at the word. "No. But my friends are out there."
"Maybe fortune smiles on them today," the soldier said with a shrug. "Maybe not."
Aric wanted to rush past them, or to climb out the wide but shallow window. What could they do to him, after all? They wouldn't kill him to save him.
They could, he supposed, maim or cripple him. Kadya didn't need him whole in Akrankhot, after all, she just needed him alive.
From their posture, the tenseness of their jaws, and the way they kept casting quick, darting glances at the wagon's door, he suspected they were glad to stay inside, "protecting" him.
He returned to the window, from which he could watch the action. If there seemed to be something he could do to help, he would try squeezing through it.
Arrows from the bows of a dozen archers rained onto the drake, most bouncing harmlessly off its rocklike hide. Cast spears had somewhat better success. One lodged in its back, another hit the hard ridge over its brow, glancing off but opening a cut there.
Those minor wounds gave it no pause. Lowering its head, it smashed into one of the argosies. A terrible crashing sound came as it rent the armor. The wagon began to tip, bringing cries of terror from those inside. Then the wagon tumbled down on its side, and screams of fear became the sounds of death. A soldier trapped beneath the wagon's solid bulk, his torso, head and arms exposed, cried for aid and clawed at the ground, but a pool of blood soaking the earth around him so quickly that Aric knew the man's hips and legs must have been crushed, if not severed completely.
Almost as if in an act of mercy, one of the earth drake's rear feet came down on the poor man's head, ending his desperate flailing.
But the drake had no more sense of mercy than it did of fair play. It wanted only to kill, to smash, to consume. Soldiers attacked it with trikals, with alhulaks, with spears and swords. It took their blows without apparent effect; even when blood ran down its hide and splashed to the ground it showed no awareness of injury.
It rammed a soldier with that gigantic cranium, sending her flying a dozen feet into a boulder. The impact snapped her neck, but she lived, hands twitching and scrabbling at pebbles until a comrade took pity and ended her life with a quick sword stroke.
Another soldier, a goliath, stabbed the drake in the ribs, his sword sinking so deep that he couldn't yank it free. He tried for too long. When he finally gave up and released its hilt, the drake swung around, that awesome maw gaping open and engulfing the hapless half-giant. It snapped its mouth shut, and for a moment the goliath's left arm and leg dangled, but then those gargantuan teeth bit through muscle and tendon and the soldier's limbs dropped to the dirt, as forgotten by the drake as a few crumbs of bread to a person enjoying a fine meal.
Fifteen soldiers formed a line between the drake and the caravan, making ready to rush it all at once. Aric thought they had a chance—at least some of them might get through, and if they went for the eyes then perhaps they could pierce its brain. But it pawed twice at the ground, gave them a forbidding glare, and its psionic energy burst swept over them, forcing soldiers back against the wagons, toppling yet another of the weighty argosies.
Aric turned back to the two guards, huddled against the wagon's door as if it could somehow protect them from the fury outside. "I'm going out there," he said. "I've got to try to do something."
"What can any of us do?" one of the guards asked. He hadn't been near the window, had not seen the drake's devastation.
"Let him," the other guard said. "He might even be safer outside—at least there he can run."
The second guard shrugged and opened the door. "Go quick, then."
"I won't run," Aric said. He pushed between the guards and out the door. He had only the agafari-wood sword on him.
To attack the earth drake with it would be suicide.
But what other choice did he have? He hadn't seen his friends, didn't know if they were alive or dead. He couldn't just sit by while this monster tore through the whole caravan.
He rounded the argosy, sword in hand, on legs that threatened to buckle at every step.
The earth drake stood twenty feet away, snorting and clawing at the earth, readying its next charge. It raised its ugly head, caught someone in its sights. It was Amoni. She stood with legs spread wide, braced for attack, her cahulaks spinning before her.
She would die in a heartbeat.
"Hey!" Aric shouted. "I'm talking to you, you motherless son of a rockslide!" Shifting the sword to his left hand, he dropped to a crouch, picked up a stone bigger around than his fist, and hurled it at the beast. It bounced off the drake's skull, accomplishing what words alone had not.
The thing turned away from Amoni, its fierce red glare fixed on Aric.
He took the sword in his right hand again. If he could dodge it, run past as it thundered by him, jab at the eye, hang onto the sword and keep doing the same ...
It would never work.
He had to try.
3
The earth drake charged.
Aric made ready to move faster than he had in his life. He was a blacksmith, not a warrior, or even a sprinter, but elves were fleet of foot.
Still, the massive beast closed the distance fast.
Aric shifted his weight to his right leg, ready to spring out of its way.
Kadya's voice called out a phrase in a language Aric didn't know.
Ice rimed the earth drake's hide, all at once. Where its hot, moist breath blew out flared nostrils, icicles formed. It skidded to a stop, shivering, stamped its feet and flung its head in outrage.
Then even those actions slowed, as the coating of ice grew thicker on it. Aric could feel waves of cold coming from it, cutting the warmth of the day.
The drake tried to open its mouth. Its jaws creaked, then froze in place. Its tongue darted out from inside, met the cold air, and locked there, sticking rigidly half outside.
It shivered once more, a great shaking that rumbled the earth beneath Aric's feet.
Then it was still.
Amoni gave it a few seconds, then approached it with her cahulaks loose in her hand. She started to reach out for it with her free hand, but stopped short. "It's too cold to touch."
"Leave it," Aric said. "It's no threat now."
Kadya stepped up beside Aric. "Not at the moment, no. But when it thaws out? Earth drakes hate cities. This one might have been on its way to wreak havoc in Akrankhot when it decided we were a juicier target."
"You've beaten it," Aric said. With your defiling magic, he added mentally. He would have to see from what she had drawn the power for her spell. The fragile plants clinging desperately among the rocks? The dying soldiers and slaves in the toppled argosies? "Is it still alive?"
"Not for long," Amoni said. She took a step back, got the cahulaks spinning again, and then brought a four-bladed head down against the drake's skull.
Like a chunk of ice, the beast's head shattered under the blow. A piece of its snout skidded almost to Aric's feet, then stopped, thawing in the sunlight.
The floating boulders and debris blocking the caravan's progress had fallen when the drake died. "Let's get out of here," Kadya said. "What's left of us."
Aric eyed her with suspicion. She had defeated the drake, it was true. But she had led them into its trap. She seemed to spare not an instant's thought for those who had died. The ruined argosies would have to be dragged from their path, wounded mekillots put to death, dead soldiers buried and injured warriors tended to before they could leave.
She was a sorcerer, like her husband. Magic had ravaged Athas, turned it into the nearly dead husk of a planet that it was. Attitudes like hers—the belief that nothing was as important as satisfying whatever goal spurred her at the moment—had, Aric believed, been a big part of that.
He hadn't been sure what he thought of her, until this moment.
Now that he knew, he didn't like her a bit.
4
What Aric hadn't anticipated was the impatience with which the soldiers waited for the earth drake to thaw. He couldn't be sure, but it seemed as if they performed the other necessary tasks more slowly than they might have—even risking Kadya's wrath—because they wanted to tear the thing's body apart. Drake hide, it turned out, made good armor, lightweight compared to bone and chitin, and nearly as strong. He saw soldiers pulling its giant teeth and claws to use as weapons. Kadya herself took advantage of the opportunity to draw some of its blood into a phial.
Others, although they had missed out on the more useful parts, simply cut slices of the thing. "Is it good to eat?" Aric asked Amoni as they watched together. The other work had been completed; they waited only for the division of drake parts to be on the road. Kadya had made it clear that she was in a hurry.
"Terrible eating," Ruhm answered. He had come up behind them, without Aric even knowing he was there. "But good luck."
"So some believe," Amoni clarified. "Not all of us. Enough, though, to judge from the spectacle they're making."
Damaric approached them, showing off the claw he had acquired. "I don't know about luck," he said with a grin. He touched the claw's point. "But it'll make a fine dagger."
Amoni shot him a withering glare. Damaric nodded. "It's a bit ghoulish, but why waste it? The drake won't need it anymore."
Amoni twitched her head and drifted away from the wagons, and the other three followed. "When I was helping pull corpses from one of the argosies, people were angry, upset, and maybe speaking more freely than they should have been."
"What you hear?" Ruhm asked.
"Mutiny, almost. They know Kadya's magic has saved their hides, more than once. But still ... it's magic. Nobody likes magic, except those who use it."
"True," Aric said. "But what can anyone do about it?"
"Nobody'll do a thing," Damaric said. "She can freeze a charging earth drake in an instant."
"Lucky for Aric," Ruhm said.
"I know," Aric said. "If it had reached me ... don't know what would have happened."
"We'd be scraping you off the argosy," Damaric said.
"Yeah."
"I'm not saying anyone is planning to act," Amoni elaborated. "I'm only telling you what the mood is. She's got people worried."
"We'd do well to stay alert," Damaric said. "I obey my captain, and she obeys Kadya. If that changes ..."
Aric felt the full weight of Amoni's gaze pressing down on him. "I won't say anything," he said, catching her meaning. "I mean ... I guess I owe something to Nibenay, for choosing me for this expedition—although at the moment I'm not sure that's so much an honor as a possible death sentence. But I don't trust Kadya, and my loyalties, such as they are, are to the Shadow King, not to some templar along for the ride."
"It's only talk, anyway," Amoni said. "It doesn't mean anything."
"Soldiers will always grumble and moan," Damaric added.
Are they dropping the subject because of me? Aric wondered. He wanted to be trusted. But elves weren't trustworthy, everyone knew that. Tell an elf a secret and he'll be selling it five minutes later.
He had thought he was past that with Amoni and Damaric. He had believed they had struck up a true friendship, one that overlooked all their backgrounds—the fact that he was a half-elf, that Amoni was a mul, Damaric a slave with barbarian parents, Ruhm a goliath with the bad taste to work for a half-elf instead of as a soldier.
If not? If he'd been wrong?
He guessed he was on his own, then. Or he and Ruhm, as always.
Once they got to Akrankhot and his worth to the expedition was over, he would have to stay vigilant. There would be no one to depend on to keep him alive then, except himself.
5
By the time the caravan emerged from the hills into open desert, a ferocious wind had sprung up. Rather than providing relief from the day's heat, the wind aggravated it. It felt to Aric like those times he had to reach inside his forge—carefully, with tongs—his face near the fire to see what he was doing.
And the wind picked up desert sand, blowing it against them like fine scouring dust. Kadya had said the city should be visible when they cleared the hills, but it wasn't. The olive sky was barely visible through clouds of sand.
Aric and Ruhm walked, Aric's guards apparently having decided that since he had survived his encounter with the earth drake, he was on his own. Ruhm nodded toward the argosy they usually rode in. "Inside's better."
"You're right," Aric said. "I wanted to see this Akrankhot, but I can't see anything if I'm blind."
They returned to the argosy. Others had also wanted to get out of the stinging sand, so it was nearly full, but people shoved over and made space for them.
Tension inside was every bit as bad as out, the air as brittle as frozen drake. Nobody talked much. Aric heard no laughter, no games or teasing. They might have been a wagonload of murderers on their way to the gladiatorial pit.
He wished he didn't feel the same way.
The mekillots surged forward against wind and sand. The drivers shielding their faces with arms, straining to see the argosy in front of theirs, not caring about the route except to hope the one at the front of the train knew the way.
The wagon picked up speed. The bumping and bouncing grew progressively worse. Mekillots were never truly fast, but they could move slowly or they could move somewhat less slowly, and the drivers urged them to push the limits of that second pace.
"What's the rush?" a soldier demanded. "You can't even see where you're going!"
"Kadya's worried that the sands will cover up the city before we reach it!" one of the drivers shouted. In his left hand he worked a long whip, spurring the mekillots on. "I don't want to spend the rest of my life digging through sand!"
"Maybe not," Aric said. "But I don't want my life to end because we're racing ahead blindly."
"Racing?" Ruhm asked.
"All right. Hurrying, then."
Another bump knocked him into the air, and he came down with a painful thump.
With sand stealing in through the windows and the constant thrashing about, Aric wondered why they needed the argosy at all. They could have saved the weight and simply dragged everybody along behind the mekillots.
Finally, a cheerful cry sounded from the front wagon. The others spread out enough for their passengers to see through the forward windows. Sure enough, there, through the curtain of sand, was a ruined city, half submerged.
At last, they had reached Akrankhot.
6
The caravan stopped at what had once been the city's outer wall. In punishing wind and sand, everyone climbed from the argosies and faced the ruins of what must have been a great city. A wide avenue led between the remains of buildings of fabulous size and grandeur.
As opposed to the buildings Aric was accustomed to, the ornately carved facades of Nibenay, these were more plain, and elegant in that plainness. Stately columns fronted some, most at the top of wide staircases. Some columns had collapsed and lay in pieces at the base of the stairs, like felled trees in the Crescent Forest. Other buildings had roofs that had fallen in. A few were nothing but rubble. Everywhere, for what appeared to be several leagues, were the remnants of turrets and towers that once might have pierced the sky. The sun was sinking behind the city, but from this angle it looked as if it might be lowering into the very center of Akrankhot.
Everywhere, there was wood. Aric had never imagined that so much wood could be used in the construction of a city. This place must have been surrounded by forests once, with enough water around to feed all that life. He could barely conceive of it.
Looking at it, Aric could imagine what the street must have been like in the city's prime. Grand processions would have been held here, citizens flanking the walkways between the avenue and the fronts of the buildings, while the city's nobility and military paraded down the center. Akrankhot must have been a great center of civilization.
And now it was empty, its streets and avenues lifeless, its broken-walled buildings housing nothing but wind and sand. The shouts and cheers that must have echoed down canyons of stone and wood and mud had long been silenced. Perhaps the ghosts of the dead haunted these ramparts. Could a civilization able to build a city on such a scale ever truly die?
"Well, Kadya," someone said. "What's the plan?"
The templar checked the position of the sun. "Soon it'll be dark. We'll make camp, dine, sleep. In the morning, exploration will begin."
Her gaze, pointedly, fell on Aric as she spoke that last.
He knew what was expected of him, and he hoped he could fulfill those expectations. Standing here at the city's edge, he felt no pull from metals of any kind. He touched his coin medallion, taking comfort in its familiar smoothness, but even it had long since stopped speaking to him; the only essence contained within it after all these years was his own.
Since no one wanted to be the first into those buildings—not with night falling—the argosies were drawn into a circle before what remained of the city wall. Fires were built, mekillots fed and watered. It all resembled any night's camp since leaving Nibenay.
Except that on the other side of that low, crumbling wall was a vast, unknown city. And although it appeared empty, no one knew if that was truly the case.
With the setting of the sun, the sky darkened, and soon a chill settled over the land. Aric took furs and leathers from the argosy and settled before a fire. As usual, Ruhm, Amoni and Damaric joined him there. The tension of earlier seemed to have vanished, at least among the others. For his part, Aric felt guarded, as if having had his trustworthiness questioned, he could not completely trust them.
"What do you think?" Damaric asked when he settled in with a plate and a mug. "It's bigger than I expected."
"The city?" Amoni replied. "It's big, yes. It appears to have been prosperous, in its day."
"Aye," Damaric said. "Some big buildings there. And so close to the city wall. Inside, they may be larger still."
"I keep thinking of how it must have been," Aric said. "So many people. Were they happy? Did they live in freedom or bondage? Was joy part of their daily lives, or fear?"
"Always either or?" Ruhm asked. "Both at once, perhaps."
"Sure," Aric said. "Both at once. Like people everywhere, probably."
"Freedom and bondage?" Damaric asked. "How does that work?"
"There are degrees, I mean," Aric said. He knew his intent would he hard to explain to someone who had lived every day of his life a slave—and in truth, he had no idea how that must feel. "Take me, for example. I'm not saying I'm a slave in the same way you are. But I run my own business. I have debts and I have debtors. I have to keep working, day in and day out, to make sure I can pay my creditors, and at the same time I have to keep after those who owe me. If I hadn't been ordered by the Shadow King to accompany this expedition, I would be there still, and with those same concerns. It never ends."
"But tomorrow you could walk away from Nibenay, away from your debts," Damaric said.
"And so could you. You would be hunted down wherever you went, and so would I. Do you think those who lend don't have ways to track someone?"
"I suppose," Damaric admitted.
"I said it was different. But an obligation is a form of bondage, and the more of them one has the stricter that bondage becomes. I could, if I chose, stop working and spend my days in the Hill District, spending what remained of my coin on pleasures of the flesh. But I would be picked up as a vagrant, soon enough, and forced into slavery myself. So the lines can be blurred." "I never thought of it that way, Aric," Amoni said. "That's an interesting viewpoint."
"Don't forget most important obligation," Ruhm said.
"What's that?"
"Paying me!"
Aric laughed, his mood suddenly lightened.
He hoped for an easy day tomorrow, full of fascinating exploration and free of danger. But somehow he couldn't bring himself to believe that would be the case.
7
Damaric had drawn guard duty. He was allowed a couple hours to sleep, but he was restless, and had finally only fallen into a deep sleep shortly before he was awakened. His head felt thick, his eyes gummy. He might have been walking through a thick fog.
But he took up the station his captain ordered, where the argosies came nearest to Akrankhot's wall. The wind had finally died. In the still air, the only sounds were the crackling of the fires, snoring from the wagons and the occasional rustle as someone inside shifted positions.
After a few minutes in the cold air, Damaric was more awake. He walked to keep his blood moving, a few steps this way, a turn, a few back. On one occasion when he was facing toward the city, having given up on the idea that any kind of threat would arise during the night, and his primary hardship would be not falling asleep and freezing to death, he saw something move on one of the narrow roads that ran parallel to the grand avenue.
He stood still, watching. Both moons were high, casting light onto the roadway, but he saw no one. He couldn't begin to identify that flash of motion, but he was convinced he had seen something. He took a dozen steps that way, past the wall that here was nothing but a nub of stone jutting through sand. His skin crawled, the small hairs on his arms and neck standing up. In a dead city, anything alive was not to be trusted.
Anything alive and hiding was all the more suspicious.
Rather than continuing toward the city, he returned to the caravan, walking backward and checking his footing a couple of times but otherwise not taking his gaze off the city. He decided not to alert the others. Yet. If it had only been a shadow, a trick of the eye, there was no sense stirring things up, waking workers who would need their strength during the day to come.
But if there were something out there, he would see it when it showed itself again. Because he was wide awake now, and didn't plan to look away from that city under the sand until the sun was high in the sky.
X
DEATH IN THE DESERT
1
These last few nights, Myrana's dreams had changed. Instead of focusing on the route	she needed to take, she kept seeing images of a tall, muscular young man with long dirty blond hair. She had the basic route mapped in her mind, and they followed it as closely as possible.
She believed they were close to their destination. The appearance of the young man in the dreams caused her to think he was part of whatever this was all about, part of what they would find when they got where they were going.
On this particular morning, she awoke from those dreams with an odd, profound sense of loss, as if she had been close to the man, or at least close to answers about what this all meant, and they'd been snatched away at the last minute. Koyt tended to the fire, making a morning meal of a jankx he had killed the night before. The creature's pelt was barely large enough to use, but it had been cleaned and set aside, and the meat's aroma set Myrana's stomach growling. Myrana didn't see Sellis at first, but then he came around a dune, walking toward camp with a thoughtful expression. The sadness from the dream stayed with her, making her wonder if it was really all about the dream, or if she simply missed her family and friends.
"Morning, Myrana," Koyt said.
"That smells wonderful, Koyt."
"It'll be ready in a few minutes."
"Good," she said. "I'm famished, suddenly."
"I hope you're not too hungry," Sellis said. "We only saw the one jankx, remember, and they're small." "I won't eat your share, Sellis, don't worry." She waited until he reached camp and sat down. "Where were you?"
"I thought I heard something, just as the sun was coming up. But I don't see anything, or any tracks in the sand."
"What do you think it was?"
"Some animal, I suppose. Maybe another jankx. Something larger would be good, though."
Myrana dressed quickly and took a long drink from one of the water skins while she waited for breakfast. It was, as Koyt had promised, ready shortly, and they dug into their portions with enthusiasm. They were almost done when Koyt looked out across the sands. He froze for a moment, then set his jankx bones down and picked up his bow.
"What is it?" Sellis asked.
Koyt inclined his head toward the western horizon. A figure walked toward them, very tall, with a huge head. "We have a visitor."
"Desert giant?" Sellis asked.
"That's what it looks like," Myrana said. "But look at the way he's walking. Something's wrong with him."
The giant's gait was uneven, sometimes veering off course by as many as six or seven steps, then correcting, other times stumbling, catching himself on massive knuckles. Everything about him was gargantuan. He was powerfully muscled, as tall as five or six of Myrana. His facial features were exaggerated, with a pronounced ridge above his brow, a large, flat nose, ears like wings flapping at the sides of his head. He wore a breechcloth but was otherwise naked, his skin deeply tanned and leathery.
"You're right, he doesn't look normal," Sellis said. He drew both swords and held them across his lap.
"Is he hostile, do you think?" Myrana asked.
"We'll know soon enough, if he starts picking up boulders and hurling them at us."
Koyt fitted an arrow onto his bowstring. "I've heard of giants who aren't. But not many."
"Maybe he smelled your jankx," Sellis said with a grin.
"He'll be disappointed, then," Myrana said. "He can suck the marrow out of the bones, but I haven't left any meat for him."
The desert giant stumbled again, and as he regained his footing, he elevated off the ground, high enough that Myrana cold have passed beneath his feet. When he came down again, a few feet closer, it was in a cloud of sand.
"What was—"
"We've got trouble," Sellis said.
"What?"
"He flew."
"So it appeared." "Giants don't fly," Koyt observed.
"Not ordinarily. But creatures tainted by the pakubrazi often grow wings, and limited flying ability."
"Wings?" Myrana asked. She knew the huge insectlike pakubrazi could curse other creatures, causing terrible mutations in their bodies and corresponding changes to their minds. But she hadn't remembered all the details. She'd never encountered anyone with the taint, and although she had seen a few pakubrazi, they were usually dead.
"He hasn't shown us his back yet, so I can't be sure," Sellis said. "But flying is a powerful clue."
"If he's pakubrazi tainted," Koyt said, "then he's sure to be hostile, perhaps even crazed."
"Which might explain that awkward walk," Myrana offered.
"Aye." Koyt started to raise the bow. "Perhaps it's best to just strike first, in this case."
"But.... what if he doesn't mean to hurt us?"
"If he's pakubrazi tainted," Sellis argued, "he might not mean to now, but he could go berserk at any moment. Go ahead, Koyt."
Koyt got to his feet, drew the bowstring and arrow fletching back to his cheek, sighted down the arrow, and released. The arrow made a thwipping noise as it split the air.
The giant stumbled again, and the arrow struck him just beneath his left shoulder. He let out a ferocious roar and yanked it from his flesh. Streamers of blood trailed down his dark flesh.
Before he had seemed almost distractedly headed in their direction, drawn perhaps, as Sellis had half-jokingly suggested, by the smell of Koyt's cooking. But now he focused on them, his head tilted toward his left side, glare fixed. He broke into a sprint, huge feet thundering against the sands, coming faster than she'd imagined something so large could move. The jankx sat heavily on her uneasy stomach.
Myrana slipped her dagger from its sheath. Sellis had his swords in hand, and Koyt had another arrow nocked.
They were as ready as they could be.
Koyt fired. This arrow hit the giant mid-belly. He simply swept his clawed hand, snapping it off and leaving the head buried, then took flight again, hurtling right for them. His wings were sheer, almost transparent, like an insect's.
He hadn't bothered throwing rocks, which was how most giants preferred to fight—knowing if they could crush an enemy's skull from a distance, the battle was over before it began. But this one seemed determined to deliver his violence close up, by hand.
Koyt got one more arrow into him, which the giant tore out and tossed aside, before he came down in their midst. The earth shook at his landing. Myrana's feet almost went out from under her, but she caught herself on the fingers of her left hand, dropping her staff but hanging onto the dagger.
The giant's stink assaulted her first, ripe and foul. He swiped his tree trunk-sized arm toward them. Myrana dodged it, as did Sellis, but although Koyt tried to duck under it, the giant's elbow slammed into his skull. He dropped to the ground.
Sellis attacked, swinging his right-handed sword in an arc toward the giant's outstretched arm and thrusting the left-handed one into the giant's upper thigh at the same moment. The giant screamed so that Myrana thought her ears would surely burst. He then stamped down had enough to quake the ground under her once again, and hurled himself upon Sellis.
The impact sent up blinding clouds of sand. Myrana moved in as close as she dared to the giant's flailing limbs and stabbed him with her dagger, over and over, until his blood coating her hand and arm made the weapon almost too slick to grip.
She heard Sellis's groans and the heaving of his breath, but she couldn't see him. Koyt, dazed, shook his head and regained his feet, still unsteady. "He's got Sellis under him!" Myrana cried. "He's crushing him!"
Koyt got an arrow nocked. He drew back the string, almost fell down, righted himself and tried again. But the giant saw him, swatted like an annoying bug. That huge clawed hand hit Koyt across the chest. The arrow skidded harmlessly into the sand and Koyt reeled back, a deep cut gushing blood where he'd been hit.
Myrana looked for a critical spot that she could reach. If she jumped on the giant's back, maybe she could hit the base of his skull, or the side of his neck. She was about to try when one of Sellis's swords jutted up through the giant's back, just beneath an unnatural translucent wing. The giant roared again and pounded his fist into the sand, as if he could shift the pain there.
Sellis squeezed out from underneath the cursed creature. He was disheveled, bruised and bloody. The giant grabbed at him, but Sellis's blades flashed and two clawed fingers flicked into the air, blood spraying from their nubs. The giant screamed, drew his injured hand to his chest, and rose up on his knees.
Koyt still sat on the ground, one hand over his chest trying to staunch the bleeding. He discarded his bow and drew his short sword. "You've cut me, you big bastard," he said. "Now you pay." His voice was weak, and there was so much blood, Myrana didn't know how he would manage to gain his feet.
She darted in behind the giant, reached up, and drove her dagger into the base of his back, just above his knotted loincloth. The giant lurched to his feet and she hung on, lifted into the air, but with her dagger tearing down through flesh and muscle the whole time. He reached around for her, and Koyt made his move.
2
Koyt stepped forward, clutching the sword's grip in two hands, and swung with every ounce of strength he could muster. His blade arced left to right, at the same time the giant reached toward Myrana, his hand moving right to left. Koyt felt the combined force of both motions in his shoulders, almost knocking him off his feet. He hoped that meant he had struck bone, for the blade was buried deep in the giant's forearm, the blood flowing as freely as an undammed stream.
The giant howled and kicked out with his right foot. Koyt released the sword and dodged, but the side of that foot caught him and sent him tumbling. He drew his head up in time to see Myrana finally drop away from the giant's back and run a few paces away. The giant made to go after her but Sellis, who still had both his swords, charged him as soon as he turned toward Myrana. Sellis chopped and sliced. He was covered with the giant's blood already, and no doubt some of his own. But he was the bravest man Koyt had ever known, and even when the giant spun back toward him, Sellis kept up his barrage.
Koyt tried to get to his feet, wincing at the stabbing pain in his side. Some ribs broken, he was sure. Blood coated his face and his abdomen, from the claw slice across his chest and cuts to his head suffered when he fell. His sword was trapped in the giant's arm, probably wedged in bone, but the arm swung too fast for him to risk reaching for it.
The bow, then. It was his best weapon, anyway, the one he was most comfortable with by far. He had to move fast, before the giant overwhelmed Sellis. Biting back pain, he crawled on hands and knees to where he had abandoned it. He scooped it up, its familiar heft in his hand bringing him comfort, and reached for an arrow.
The quiver was empty.
One of the times he had fallen, the arrows must have spilled out.
He didn't have time to look. Sellis backed away, keeping his swords in motion. Blood flew through the air with every swipe. The giant reached for him, though, and if he got a hand on Sellis again, they were done. Myrana was as brave as anyone, but she was on the small side, and crippled besides. And Koyt was too badly injured to battle the giant on his own.
He had to do something, now, before the giant caught Sellis.
He slid a bone knife from a sheath on his belt. The giant's attention was fixed on Sellis, as if those flashing swords had hypnotized him. Koyt rushed up behind the giant, jammed the knife into the back of its ankle, and sliced across the tendon there.
The giant loosed another howl as that leg buckled. He drove his fist back, barely missing Koyt. Sellis dashed forward, slashing. Myrana had gathered stones and hurled them one by one at the giant's head, aiming for his eyes. The giant was weakening, his strength flowing from his body along with his blood. We're going to beat him—this Koyt knew, finally, as he braved another advance, meaning to strike at the leg that still supported their foe. We're going to win this!
He had almost reached the giant when those weird wings beat against the air, lifting the giant though his damaged leg would not. The giant's arm darted abruptly toward Koyt, fingers splayed, and another of those long, swordlike claws pierced Koyt's belly, driving deep. He fell back, dropping his bone knife and clapping his hands across his stomach.
3
Myrana's eyes froze the tableau before her: the giant, his damaged right leg hovering just above the sand, wings slapping the wind, his hand out toward Koyt, fresh blood dripping from his claw. Sellis, swords moving as if entirely independent of one another, blades completely red with blood, dicing giant flesh into the sand. And Koyt, struggling to hold his guts inside his body even as they slipped and slid around his fingers.
The moment seemed to last for a long time. She took in odd details, like the hairs on the giant's arms, each nearly as long as one of her own hairs, but thicker—quills, almost. The color of Koyt's guts, pink and gray, threads of crimson on them as they passed through the bloody gash. The look in Sellis's eyes, lost and haunted, desperation driving him on even though hope had faded.
Then it passed and things were once again a frantic whirlwind of motion and sound. She had a moment's chance and she jabbed her dagger into the giant's left leg several times, then darted away before he could reach her. His wings stopped flapping and he crashed to the ground, losing his balance and toppling forward. One arm swung toward Sellis but missed. Sellis took advantage of the moment, apparently casting aside all fear and diving at the giant's head. One sword drove into the giant's eye, the other slashing at his neck. Myrana moved in again, stabbing his broad, muscular back. She, like everyone else, was wet with the giant's hot, thick blood, its copper tang filling every sense.
She was still stabbing him when Sellis put a hand on her shoulder. "He's done," Sellis said. "You can stop now, Myrana."
She shook her head, wiped the back of her hand across her eyes. Sellis was right. The giant was still, his back an uneven landscape of gashes and cuts.
She had even shredded his wings; they lay broken and twisted on his back like paper wadded up and sliced.
Then she realized who she didn't see. "Koyt?"
Sellis shook his head. Tears sprang into Myrana's eyes, tracked down her cheeks. She looked around and found him lying on his back, eyes wide open, jaw slack, arms out to his sides. Blood was everywhere. "No!" she cried. "Koyt!"
Sellis held her, letting her weep against his strong, bloody chest. "He saved us," Sellis said. "Without him, we'd have all died."
"But ... but ... How do we go on without Koyt?"
"I don't know," Sellis replied. He held her closer, moving his hand on her back. "We just do. We just go on. Koyt did what he had to. Now it's our turn."
Myrana swallowed, gathering herself. Life on Athas was hard, death a constant companion. You had to move past it. Sellis was right. "Now it's our turn," she repeated. "We just go on."
XI
THE CALL OF STEEL
1
The streets of Akrankhot had not, Aric was certain, seen this much activity in a thousand years. Members of the expedition fanned out in small groups of anywhere from four to ten, searching street to street, building to building, for the metal believed to be hidden in the city. They shouted to one another constantly, people of each group checking in with the ones on the roads parallel to theirs. No one knew what terrors the city might hold, and if one group encountered something dangerous, the others wanted to be able to respond quickly.
Not every street was as prosperous as that first grand avenue they had seen, but overall, the city still seemed to have been a place of considerable wealth. Buildings had been tall, most constructed with a seeming simplicity that actually required a great deal of skill. And there were ornate touches, moldings and carved capitals atop fluted columns, friezes and murals, that gave the appearance of a population with an interest in artistic expression, and time to practice it.
It had only been a matter of weeks or months since the dunes burying the city had moved off it, but in that time, a wide variety of insect and reptilian life had moved in. Aric, Ruhm, Amoni and Damaric encountered an array of beetles, flies, ants, caterpillars, lizards and other small creatures as they explored the ruins. They also saw the beginnings of plant life, green shoots that had erupted from the earth as if welcoming the sun after such a long burial. These sights added to the impression of a city only recently deserted, rather than one left vacant even before the birth of the Shadow King, back in the mists of a forgotten age.
They covered three blocks of a narrow street, with buildings crowded so close together the sky seemed only a dull green ribbon overhead. Some doorways were open, other times they had to break through doors sealed shut by time and desert sands. Many of the homes looked as if people had walked out in the middle of their daily activities. They checked upstairs and down, to the extent allowed by the condition of the buildings, and outside one of them, Amoni made an observation. "We've seen that a lot of the staircases have fallen down," she said.
"Right," Damaric said. They were back in the middle of the street, and she pointed to the higher levels of a few of the buildings around them.
"And look at this. The windows on many of these upper floors have been sealed off with stone and mortar. Some of the doors, too. In many cases the towers, spires or what have you have been knocked down."
"You don't think that was from the pressure of the sands that buried the city for so long?" Aric asked.
"It's hard to tell," she admitted. Sand was everywhere. Farther in, the city was still buried, but even where the dunes had shifted off the city as a whole, it had left plenty behind. "But look here." She led them to where a turret had crashed down from a three-story building, and squatted down beside a few good-sized pieces. She lifted one, pushed it away. Sand slid off when she hoisted the chunk, but beneath it, the ground was relatively clear. "If the sand's weight had knocked this down, wouldn't it have landed on a thick layer of sand? I think these—at least some of them—were brought down before the dunes buried the city."
"Perhaps true," Ruhm said. "But what of it?"
"I don't know, Ruhm, I'm just speculating. It just seems odd to me—as if they had given up on the upstairs long before the city was abandoned. Even in the buildings we've been in, the staircases going up are inaccessible more often that those leading down. And sometimes the walls are still solid, so what would have brought the stairs down?"
"What do you think happened?" Aric asked.
"I haven't any idea."
"Perhaps," Damaric said, "the city's residents became afraid of something out there. Something that could climb, or fly, a dragon or some other beast from the sky. Perhaps they decided that going down was safer than going up. So they built down, collapsed any spires that might have attracted attention, blocked off their upper windows, knocked down their staircases so anything entering on those upper levels couldn't easily come down."
"And perhaps it got them anyway," Aric said. "Or drove them from their homes. There must be some reason a city so grand would have been abandoned."
"No water," Ruhm pointed out.
"That's true, if there were springs or a lake or anything in the area, it's long since dried up," Aric agreed.
"I'm not saying it's important now," Amoni said. "Whatever they feared is likely long gone as well. I just thought it was curious."
It was, and now that Amoni had pointed it out, Aric saw more and more evidence supporting her theory. Like her, he didn't know what it signified. But it did seem to point to a citizenry fearful of some threat, and that realization made him look at the ruins with a different eye.
After the fifth block, by prearrangement, everyone was to meet back at the main avenue running through the center of the city to report to Kadya what they had found. These reports were likely to be brief, unless some group had had more success than theirs.
They were two streets over from the avenue, within view of most of their comrades, when they heard the shrieks.
2
Dune reapers were possessed of a terrible patience that allowed them to wait in a single spot for days, or longer, secure in the knowledge that prey would sooner or later come into range. They would eat anything, including sand or stones, if need be, but they had a strong preference for freshly killed prey. They lived in subterranean colonies, where the dune reaper matron grew to enormous size while female warriors and male drones went out in search of sustenance. Sometimes dune reaper colonies moved, leaving behind their carefully crafted nests, for reasons little understood, although it may have had to do with changes in the availability of water or food.
These things Aric knew.
He had never before heard their haunting cries echo through the vast stone silences of an ancient city, or the skittering of their feet, the horrific clacking of their mandibles and the scythelike blades on their front limbs, or the weird chortles and chuffs they made when communicating with each other.
When he heard them now, Aric clutched at Ruhm's arm.
"Dune reapers," Damaric said. "A lot of them, it sounds like. Hurry!"
They broke into an anxious sprint, hoping to join their fellows before the reapers attacked. There were probably thirty soldiers around Kadya, and as many slaves, but other groups were also still on their way to the meeting point. One of these, seven in number, was on the last remaining street between Aric's party and the grand avenue.
That was where the reapers struck first.
A slave running full-tilt for the protection of the larger group risked a backward glance and stumbled over a piece of debris in the road. Before she could get to her knees, a reaper warrior was on her. It shoved one of those long, slender blades between her shoulder blades, thrusting so deep that it emerged from her breast, red with blood. She gave a gasping cry and slumped forward, sagging on the blade. The reaper shook her free, and then two of its drones descended upon the slave, grasping her corpse with claws and dragging her away.
Ruhm held out a big arm, and the other three stopped where they were, hoping the reapers had not noticed them. More warriors and drones came into view, chasing the Nibenese. Two of the soldiers turned to fight. The reapers cut them down easily while drones sped past and felled the others.
"We're cut off," Damaric whispered.
As if it had heard him, one of the warriors slowly turned its head in their direction. The warriors' builds were vaguely humanoid, in that they walked on two legs, and their heads sat atop their torsos and necks. But those torsos were lean and stringy, with ridges down their backs, short stumps of tails, and their heads long and bony, all snout and huge, toothy mouth and glowing red eyes. And the front limbs of the warriors ended in those blades, as if human beings had lashed longswords to their wrists in place of hands.
"Back away," Amoni said.
Drones hauled away the bodies of the just-killed soldiers and slaves. Others advanced, with somewhat more care, on the larger group of Nibenese. Aric had no doubt they were using the Way to communicate as still others turned their awful heads toward him and his friends. Mandibles quivered, drool glistened where it fringed mighty jaws and gnashing teeth.
Two warriors, and their handful of drones, started toward them.
"Run!" Damaric shouted.
They ran.
They tore back one street in the direction they had come from, rounded the comer so the reapers couldn't see them, and kept going. Their pounding feet drowned out any sounds the reapers might have made; that and the rush of blood in his ears seemed to Aric to have taken over all his senses. He could barely see where he was going, making out only choppy flashes of the street and buildings and his knees.
"Through here!" Ruhm called. He stopped in front of an alley entrance with a stone arch at the top. The narrow alley cut between two large buildings toward something—a courtyard, perhaps—at its end. Amoni went in first, her long legs covering ground almost as fast as Ruhm's. Damaric went next, then Aric. Ruhm brought up the rear. The alley was barely wider than Aric's shoulders. Ruhm had to turn sideways to squeeze through.
"They saw me," Ruhm said when he emerged into the courtyard.
"But only one of them can fit through at a time," Damaric said. "We can hold them off."
Aric took in the layout of the courtyard. Tall buildings hemmed it in on three sides, blocking the worst of the sun's rays, and a high wall ran across the back. It had survived the city's devastation in remarkably good shape—but for a thick layer of sand over everything, it might have been abandoned the day before. In the cool shade, Aric felt the sweat on his sides and shivered.
"They might be able to flank us," he said. "If they can climb that wall, or get into any of these buildings."
"I don't know if they're that clever," Damaric said.
"We may yet find out, right?" Amoni said. She and Ruhm took up positions at the alley's end. Amoni was ready to hack any approaching dune reapers to bloody bits, Ruhm to pound those bits into the ground with his greatclub.
A drone came into the alley first, clacking and chuffing. The drones were smaller than the warriors, and where the warriors had those impressive bladed arms, the drones had thin arms ending in vicious claws.
This one skittered toward them on clawed feet. When it reached the end of the alley, Amoni swung her cahulaks at it. It reacted quickly, raising claws to block the attack, but the flail's sharp blades slashed its arm. One claw, severed entirely, clattered to the ground. The drone let out a pained wail, which Ruhm silenced with a blow from his club.
Eight more drones tried the alley, only to be met by Aric's sword, or Damaric's singing stick, or Ruhm and Amoni working in concert.
After the last was slain, the moment's peace dragged out so long that Aric grew concerned. "There were warriors," he said. "Surely they haven't abandoned the hunt."
Damaric sniffed the air. "That sour-sweet smell?" he said quietly. "Smells like death, like rotting flesh? That's them."
"We've killed five of their drones," Amoni pointed out.
"Aye. But they don't smell as strong as the warriors. They're near."
Ruhm took in a great breath. "Yes," he agreed. "Close by."
All four of them heard the sound, a thump from inside one of the buildings facing onto the alley. "In there!" Damaric said.
Amoni had been inspecting the doorway of the house opposite, where some indecipherable runes had been burned into the wood. "This way!" she cried. "I think we can defend the doorway."
The other three darted past her, and she closed the door just as five warriors emerged into the courtyard, two through a door and three dropping down from windows. The door had a heavy iron bolt, and Aric silently shot it after Amoni was clear.
The house they had entered had low ceilings and small rooms. They had come into a kitchen, with a washbasin and a stove made of mud bricks still intact.
Having taken that in, Aric watched the reaper warriors through a hairline crack between the door and jamb. They milled about in the courtyard, appearing confused. They don't know which way we've gone, Aric thought. At the same time, his hand rested on the ancient iron bolt, and a strange certainty grew in him.
They only had moments before the warriors tried the door. But those moments, he was convinced, could count. He gestured the others through the kitchen doorway into the next room, empty but as cramped as the kitchen. A door was hung on iron hinges at the far side of the room, its heavy wood planks carved with strange runic symbols blackened with age. Aric grazed the iron hinges with his fingertips as he passed, and allowed a smile onto his lips. He felt like he hadn't smiled in days.
He closed this door behind them as well. "The staircase," he said. "Down. We've got to go down."
"So those things can wait up here for us?" Amoni asked. "No."
"We must," Aric said. "It's telling me to."
"What is?" "The metal in this place. It's calling to me. We need to go down, and fast."
3
Sure enough, around the comer was a staircase. The flight up had, as they had so often seen, been destroyed, but there were stairs leading down, in reasonable repair. "It's dark down there," Amoni said. "And we have no torches."
"All the more reason the dune reapers won't think we've gone that way," Aric argued. "Hurry."
"Metal speaks to him," Ruhm said. Amoni and Damaric had heard this, and they knew why Kadya had brought him on the journey, but they had not seen it in action.
"And now it's telling me we have to go down," Aric said. "I'll lead the way."
"Then whatever's down there will get you first," Amoni said. "I'm game."
With his agafari-wood sword in his right hand, Aric grasped his coin medallion with his left. It had no messages for him, but he felt a warming tingle. A comforting sensation, assuring him he was making the right moves. At last, he thought. Confidence spread through him with every step into the darkness.
When he reached a landing, he was lost in a pitch-black world. He tapped ahead with his foot, waved his sword ahead of him, but the staircase had ended. He touched the medallion again. "There's another way down," he said.
"Farther?" Amoni almost whined. Perhaps she didn't like the darkness. Aric wasn't fond of it himself.
He felt along the wall until he found another opening, with more stairs, leading down further.
Above, they heard the crash of dune reaper warriors breaking through the bolted door, then the thumping about as they searched for the escaped Nibenese. But he kept going, silently, into the blackness, the others right behind. Each of them kept a hand on the next, as the dark was impenetrable.
The stairs led down and down, eight steps, a small landing, a turn and then eight more. The deeper they went, the more convinced Aric became that they were going the right way. There was a vibration in his head, almost a song, growing stronger all the time.
Then he realized that he could see a little, although they were far underground. They crossed a landing and at the bottom of eight more steps was a faintly glowing corridor of stone, the walls themselves somehow luminous.
"Ahh!" Amoni said. It was the first vocalization any of them had made since hearing the reapers above them.
"I think we've left our foes behind," Aric said.
"And left Kadya and the others to deal with them alone," Damaric added.
"I've no love for her sort of magic," Amoni said. "But if anyone can defeat the dune reapers, it might well be her."
"While we've found what?" Ruhm asked. "Illuminated rocks?"
"Unless I'm wrong," Aric replied, "we've found what we were sent here for."
"The metal?" Damaric asked. "Where?"
"I don't know," Aric said. "But we're getting close."
They reached the bottom of the staircase. The corridor extended in both directions, faintly lit, as far as the eye could see. The walls, floor and ceiling were constructed of the same stone, the floor worn smooth as if from the passage of many, many feet over the centuries. More runes, like the ones on the door and others as well, were carved into the walls.
Littering the floor were bone fragments. Here and there, whole bones stood out, but most had been stepped on, crushed, broken by feet passing through here over the span of years.
"Ahh," Aric said. "It's some sort of battleground."
"Or abattoir," Damaric added.
"This must run beneath the entire breadth of the city," Amoni said.
"At least," Aric said.
"But which way do we go?"
Aric listened to the humming in his head. He pointed toward the right, which he believed was the east. "This way."
"You're sure about this?" Damaric said. "I'd hate to be lost down here."
"You have to trust me," Aric told him. "The steel calls to me."
The others agreed, Damaric perhaps less happily than the rest, and they started in the direction Aric had indicated. They passed occasional doorways, most of those paved over with the same sort of stone. A few were open, and side tunnels led off in various directions, but Aric felt no pull to follow those. They kept to the main tunnel.
After what felt like ages, they reached another doorway. Like so many they had passed, stone and mortar blocked it. But the vibration was so strong here, Aric was surprised the others couldn't hear it. His whole body tingled, all his fine hairs standing on end. "Behind here."
"It's sealed," Damaric pointed out.
"We need to unseal it."
"How?"
Ruhm pushed past the others, taking Aric's agafari-wood sword from him. "Like this," he said. He started jamming the hard wooden blade into the mortar, chipping it away little by little. The others joined in, using whatever slender implements they had, attacking the mortar rather than the solid stones. Soon, Ruhm had chipped away enough mortar from one of the upper stones that he was able to shove his fingers through and get a grip on the stone. "Back away," he said.
The others complied, and he pulled on the stone, putting all his considerable weight into it. Mortar crumbled beneath it, and then the stone gave way, breaking loose several around it at the same time. They all reached into this larger hole and tugged together.
Soon they could step through the doorway. On the other side they found a gargantuan cavern. The walls of the cavern must have been where the stone for the corridor came from, as they glowed with the same gentle luminosity.
They were on a level slightly more than halfway to the cavern's roof. A narrow stone staircase wound down, close beside a cave wall. Stalactites dripped from the ceiling, stalagmites at the bottom reaching up to join them. In some places they met, forming columns. All of it was suffused with that soft glow. On each step, a different rune had been etched.
All over the floor and on every rock shelf and outcropping were bones. Thousands must have been slaughtered here. Animals, monsters, people—there was no way to know what the bones had come from. They were everywhere.
And the steel ... the steel sang.
From this height, it was a shapeless, formless mass, sitting on the cavern floor. But Aric knew what it was. More metal than he had ever imagined in one place, mined and smelted and shaped.
"It's here," he said, his heart racing. "It's really here, just as Nibenay said it would be."
Damaric pointed down at the hulking shapes. "That's all metal?"
"It is."
"Incredible."
Aric started down the stairs, almost at a run. "I know!"
Excitement built in him with every step down, until he thought he would surely burst. The singing in his head was louder than ever, like a choir of a million voices.
Then, on the way down, he spotted an almost whole skeleton, lying on a shelf of rock just off the staircase. He couldn't make out what type of creature it had been—not quite human or elf, but something not too different, he believed. It was covered in cobwebs, and some of the brown bones had, over time, separated from the others. It, like everything else he had seen in this city, seemed impossibly ancient.
Jutting from the skeleton's bony ribs was a steel broadsword.
Aric put down his wooden sword and leaned off the staircase as far as he dared. The tips of his fingers could just brush the sword's hilt. But he couldn't close them, couldn't get a grip on it.
The sword wasn't new—it was as dusty and cobwebbed as everything else—but it looked intact. The workmanship, as far as he could see in the faint glow of the rooks, was spectacular. He longed to hold it in his hand.
Clutching his coin medallion in his left hand, he reached out again with his right and the sword hilt shifted, just enough to fall into his outstretched palm.
He closed his hand around the sword, and the singing in his head ceased so abruptly he wondered if he had gone deaf.
"Aric?"
It was Ruhm. Aric could hear—and besides, he reminded himself, it wasn't my ears hearing that anyway.
"I'm fine," Aric said.
"Good. Had me worried."
"But look." Aric drew the heavy sword from the skeleton, supporting his grip with his left hand to hold it steady. Its blade was long, gleaming in the rocks' glow, and appeared to be in very good condition: old, with nicks and scratches, but still sharp and sturdy. "A steel sword, as fine as any I've ..." His words trailed off, as the staircase seemed to turn inside out around him. The glow faded from the walls, and once again, Aric plunged into absolute blackness.
XII
GLIMPSES IN THE DARK
1
Aric saw an Athas that surely had never been: a lush, forested world, where a gentle breeze could set a million leaves quivering. Birds flew over the forests in great flocks, and animals left the shelter of huge trees to drink at the shores of rushing rivers. Wildflowers of every color carpeted the valleys and the wild meadows beyond vast cultivated fields. Glorious cities gleamed in vivid, golden sunlight.
But as he watched—a tiny part of him protesting, aware that he was not truly present in those scenes, but viewing them as if from the back of a high-flying Athasian roc—the peaceful world before him was riven by strife. He could not determine the source of the unrest, but in its wake forests burned and rivers dried up. People in those cities stared toward the skies in horror, and then the cities crumbled. Finally, as deserts spread across the beautiful, serene world he had glimpsed so briefly, that brilliant yellow sun dulled, then turned to the dark red color so much more familiar to him.
And as if suddenly transported into Akrankhot itself, he saw a powerful, sun-bronzed man wielding a broadsword—I'm holding that sword, he thought, before the idea flitted away like a dried blade of grass in a heavy wind—battling what seemed to be an army of foul, depraved creatures. He slayed many but killed himself in the process.
Aric felt the loss as personally as if the big man had been a close friend, and tears dampened his eyes even as the visions continued. In place of the mighty-thewed warrior, he saw the citizens of Akrankhot, trembling in fear of the powerful forces sweeping their planet, terror of a conflict between beings for greater than themselves. And there was something else, something dark and horrible, with too many limbs and tentacles and teeth, and on its twin tongues Aric could taste the blood of innocents, and—
"Ungh ..." Aric moaned and thrashed and blinked. Faces loomed around him, causing panic to well up in his chest. He tried to scrabble away, then saw that it was only Amoni and Ruhm, the closest things to friends he had.
He was in the cavern beneath Akrankhot, on the staircase landing, a heavy broadsword weighing upon his chest.
And something else was there, too; its psionic tendrils probing at Aric's mind.
2
Aric jerked into a sitting position. "Are you hurt, Aric?" Amoni asked. "You fell, and then you were ... dreaming, perhaps ..."
Aric closed his eyes, gripping the broadsword with both hands to draw as much strength from the steel as he could. He sensed all the other metal nearby, on the cavern floor—rods and posts and columns and bars of it, gold, lead, iron, steel, silver, copper, bronze—and he reached out with his psionic abilities and touched that, and for an instant the vision of a bygone time almost returned, but he fought it off. He needed to concentrate, to focus on summoning what energy he could from the steel and on blocking the unknown incursion into his mind. The cold, solid bulk of steel comforted him, made him strong.
He turned his attention inward, where it seemed he could see several slimy tentacles oozing through cracks in his mental defenses. He took each in turn, pinching it off until the tentacle itself retreated, then disposed of the segments in an infinitely deep pit he imagined.
Finally, the thing's efforts ended. Aric was himself again, weakened by the experience, soaked with sweat that chilled him in these subterranean depths. But himself, just the same.
"I'm fine," he said. "But ... that was strange."
"What happened?" Ruhm asked. "You were lost."
"Yes ... wait, where's Damaric?"
"He went on ahead," Amoni said.
"By himself?" "I hope so. I don't think there's anyone else down here."
"Do you ... feel anything strange? In your heads?"
"Nothing in mine," Ruhm said.
"I don't," Amoni said. "What are you talking about, Aric?"
Aric got to his feet. His head still swam, and the ground beneath him seemed unstable, shifting moment by moment. But an overpowering urge to get down the stairs filled him, to get to that metal. "Come on," he said. He hoisted the broadsword and started down the steps.
With every spiral of the staircase he grew stronger. The metal no longer sang to him the way it had, and the visions had already faded, like memories of some event that had happened to him years before.
The cavern's floor was uneven, but a path had been worn smooth between the bottom of the staircase and the great mass of metal. Before the metal, his hands resting against it, stood Damaric.
Aric reached the bottom first and ran toward the looming bulk. He heard Amoni and Ruhm close behind.
"Damaric!" Aric called.
The soldier didn't respond. Damaric just stood there, looking at the mound of piled steel. Aric shouted his name again, once again earning no response.
In the gentle glow of the rock walls, the steel gleamed, its varied tints and hues reflecting colored light back at the observer. As he neared it, Aric felt a strange sense of familiarity, as if seeing home after a long absence.
Damaric still hadn't turned. Aric put a hand on his shoulder. "Damaric?"
Now Damaric whirled about, his face a twisted mask of rage. He lashed out with a clenched fist. Aric, taken by surprise, raised no defense, and the fist caught him on the cheek. Aric crumpled to the cavern floor, dazed. The broadsword flew from his hands.
"Damaric!" Ruhm shouted. "Why—"
Damaric stepped past Aric and toward the goliath, spinning his singing stick in his hands. Its whirling, musical tones were loud in the quiet of the cave.
Aric pawed the ground for the dropped sword. Amoni shouted at Damaric, but Ruhm had already dropped into a defensive crouch, raising his greatclub to counter the singing stick. Damaric attacked once, the stick flashing faster than the eye could follow. Ruhm blocked with the club. The stick swept upward from below. Ruhm got his club in place just in time, and the stick clashed against it, bounced off, came back toward Ruhm's left. Ruhm tried to swing the club, but was a fraction of a second too slow, the club harder to wield than the slender stick, even with all his might. The singing stick hit Ruhm's shoulder, drawing blood and driving the goliath to one knee. He swung the club in a great arc toward Damaric, but the soldier stepped back and the club whistled harmlessly past.
Aric found the sword and regained his feet.
He had liked Damaric. Liking anyone came hard for a half-elf, trusting harder still. But he had seen the slave soldier as a friend, and he didn't want to hurt him.
Damaric, however, was clearly no longer himself. He was trying to kill Ruhm, and Ruhm truly was a friend. Aric held the sword in both hands, ready to strike. "Damaric," he said, giving the man one last chance.
Damaric turned, singing stick moving so fast it was nothing more than a blur.
And Amoni took advantage of that moment to charge in, her cahulaks swinging at the farthest extent of their rope. When the blades met Damaric's neck, his head was sheared off, landing somewhere off the smoothly worn path. Damaric's body sank to the ground, singing stick clattering and bouncing for almost a full minute before it stilled.
3
In the sudden silence, Ruhm stood up, holding his right hand over his injured shoulder.
"What got into him?" Amoni asked.
"Don't know," Ruhm said. "My thanks."
"I felt something too," Aric said. "It tried to get into my head. I blocked it, but I guess Damaric couldn't."
"I hated to kill him," Amoni said.
"You had no choice," Aric assured her. "He would have killed us all if he could have."
She looked at the soldier's fallen from. "All he wanted was to live free, if only for a day, before he died, right? I understand that desire completely."
"It wasn't him," Aric said. "Something else was in him, possessing him. Damaric would never have turned on us like that."
"What should we do with him?"
"He'll have to be brought out of here," Aric said. "But not now, not by us."
"Why not?" Ruhm asked.
"Because we need to tell Kadya about what we found," Aric replied. "This is what we're here for. The sooner we let her know where it is, the sooner it can be loaded onto the argosies and we can go home."
"Home has more appeal for some than for others," Amoni said, glancing once more at Damaric. "At least here, on this journey, I have tasted from time to time the flavor of freedom." She smiled. "Besides, I was brought along to help with the heavy labor, so once we tell Kadya, then my real work will begin." "Those dune reapers might be waiting," Ruhm said.
"If Kadya and the others haven't defeated them by now, then we'll all die here," Aric said. "I say it's time we find out."
4
On the surface again, it was immediately apparent that Kadya had defiled the land with her magic. The road was littered with the corpses of insects, and what few hardy plants had tried to grow there since the shifting dune exposed part of Akrankhot to the sun had turned to ash.
Amoni swore. "There are better ways," she said. "Kadya doesn't understand the forces she's playing with."
"Or does," Ruhm countered. "And doesn't care."
"In either case, I see no reapers," Aric said. "That's something, anyway."
"Something, I suppose."
On the way back to the main avenue, they came across the corpses of several dune reapers, blackened as if burned by terrible fires. Amoni frowned at them as they passed by. "I don't want to know how they died," she said. "It's too terrible."
"They would have killed us, given the chance."
"That's in their nature," Amoni said. "There's nothing they can do about it. They have to feed their queen. And it's in our nature to fight back, not to consent to being sacrificed. But we have minds that can overcome our instincts."
"You're not saying we should have just let them kill us."
"I'm not," Amoni said. "Just that if we're to be better than unthinking beasts, we have to take into account the cost of our decisions."
Aric let the matter drop. He didn't understand quite what Amoni was driving at. Most people hated defiling magic, as did he. But that hatred was a gut reaction—much, he supposed, the same as the instinct that drove dune reapers to hunt and to take their prey back to the nest to feed their bloated queen. Those few occasions he had seen defiling magic at work, he had been disturbed by the effect it had on living things around it—in the case of the halfling attack on the caravan, even sucking the remaining vestiges of life from wounded soldiers. He didn't know enough of preserving magic to know, except through stories, how different it could be.
Kadya had destroyed the reapers before they could kill every member of the caravan. That was a good thing. Rather than argue with Amoni about it, he scanned the streets they passed for the rest of the expedition.
They saw a couple of other groups and hailed them, so that by the time they located Kadya, waiting back at the wagons with a large detachment of guards, there were sixteen of them.
"Why are you here?" the templar demanded as they approached. A mul was fanning her, and the startling suddenness of her bark caused him to miss a stroke. She glared at him until he started again, then swung her attention back to the group before her. "I told you to keep searching until—"
"We found it, templar," Aric said. Ordinarily he would not have interrupted a templar, but on this occasion he expected that she would forgive him.
"You found it? The metal?"
"An enormous trove," he said. "As much as the Shadow King described, perhaps more. Every kind of metal I've ever heard of."
"How easily transported will it be?"
"It's been shaped," Aric said. "It's in bars, poles, rods, blocks, and so on. It will be a huge amount of work—it is far underground, accessed by long staircases. Bringing it up will be difficult. But once it's up, loading it into the argosies should be nothing."
"Excellent," she said. "Worry not about the difficulty of that job, Aric. You have done yours, and more quickly than I could have hoped."
"One thing, templar. There is.... something down there. Something tried to get inside my head, but I fought it. Damaric wasn't so lucky. It got to him. He attacked us, and Amoni had to kill him. So when the metal is being hauled to the surface, I recommend people work in pairs, at least, and probably larger groups, so that someone can always stay alert to danger."
"Another thing with which you should not concern yourself, Aric. I don't know what you experienced, but I assure you that we will take precautions against it."
Amoni and Ruhm had stood silently by while Aric made his report. Now he remembered what Amoni had said about her work only beginning. "And ... perhaps since Amoni saved our lives when Damaric turned against us, she can be relieved of hauling duty? She is only out of the gladiatorial pit because her back was broken, and—"
Kadya made a dismissive gesture with her left hand. "Your service is appreciated, Aric. I will make sure that Nibenay knows of your rapid fulfillment of your mission. But don't test my patience. The labors assigned to slaves are no one's affair but my own. I know you think Amoni is your friend. I have eyes, and I've seen the three of you—and Damaric—together often during our journey. But Amoni is a slave, a mul bred to fight and, failing the ability to continue in the pit, to work. She is no one's friend. You, Aric, and your goliath companion, should explore the ruins to see if there's more metal, and beyond that you are relieved of any further obligation. But the workers will work. You can rest for the moment, Amoni, while runners bring in the other search parties. But there's plenty of daylight remaining, and once everyone is gathered together, we're going to start going after that metal. Understood?"
"Yes, templar," Amoni said. She would not meet Aric's gaze.
"Aric, go," Kadya said. "Take Ruhm, get some water, get out of the sun. You've earned your rest."
Aric had been dismissed, and he knew it. He tried once more to catch Amoni's eye, but having failed that, he and Ruhm went to their argosy, intent on a meal and perhaps a nap while the day's hottest hours passed.
5
We have found it.
Found the metal?
Yes. It's just as the dead man described. Vast stores of it. We may actually have to send more argosies, as we lost some en route.
Kadya had not dared report the discovery to Siemhouk until she had seen it for herself. She didn't think Aric and his friends would lie, but that was not a risk an intelligent person would take. She'd had Amoni lead her and a few others to the trove, examined it under torchlight even though the glow from the oddly luminous walls would be sufficient for the work crews, then returned to her own argosy to contact the high consort.
That contact would have been nearly impossible, had it not been for Siemhouk's mastery of the Way. She did the heavy lifting, so the hardest part was reaching out and "tapping" Siemhouk, letting her know Kadya desired her attention. On most occasions, it had been Siemhouk who reached out first, and those were easy.
Whatever we need to do, we shall do. Let me know when yours are loaded, and if we need more they can be on the way while you're returning.
I will.
Who found it? That half-elf, Aric.
Then Father was right to send him, wasn't he? Father is always right.
Our husband is very wise.
Indeed.
I will be in contact when I have more news, Siemhouk.
The girl—the high consort—broke off the connection without replying. That was fine with Kadya. She saw Siemhouk as a path to power, not truly an ally, and certainly not a friend. The girl frightened her. Whenever she was in mental contact with Siemhouk, she was terribly aware of how easy it would be for the high consort to probe other parts of her mind, the places where her dreams and ambitions were stored. That, Kadya knew, would mean her death.
And Kadya wanted more time to investigate Akrankhot before they "spoke" again. Wandering around the city as much as she had done, she'd had the impression that it was something more than it seemed. There was power here. Hidden, tucked away someplace, but power just the same. She meant to find it.
All that metal, too, down in the cavern—that wasn't just a storehouse, not that far underground. It made no sense to put metal down there, only to have to haul it up again when it was needed. There was more to that, too.
She opened the door to her argosy, stood blinking in the bright sunlight for a moment. As always, after she had a conversation with Siemhouk, she was left with a dull headache throbbing behind her eyes. A couple of her goliath guards stood outside the wagon, and she indicated them with a finger. "Come with me," she said. "We're going into the city again."
"Just the three of us, Templar?" one asked. "Or shall I gather a party together?"
"Just us. We're safe enough."
She hoped that was true. She had destroyed the dune reapers, but there was precious little life left in Akrankhot to draw on. If faced with another major threat, her magic might not be strong enough to save them.
But she didn't want any others knowing what she was about, so that was a chance she would take.
She had noticed runes, on the floor of a large, elegant building on the main avenue. The building had struck her as an important one, a center of government or some such. Something had seemed odd about those runes, but it wasn't until later on that she had realized what. They had been inscribed on that floor, she believed, much later than the building's construction. Possibly even later than its abandonment. She wanted another look at them.
Another thought struck her before they left. "Wait here a moment," she told the guards. "Then we'll go." She went back inside the argosy, closed the door, and opened the lid of a trunk she always kept locked. From it she removed a few essential items: a particular scroll, a phial containing crumbs of rare earth and one of the Shadow King's blood, and a small circle of polished glass.
Runes written in some ancient, forgotten language would be hard to translate. She had an alternative plan—she would consult with whatever mystic sages knew about this place, and from them she could learn the truth about Akrankhot.
And about whatever was buried beneath it, along with all that metal.
With those items gathered into a cloth purse, she started for the door again. When she put her hand on it, she felt a sharp pain between her ears, where that headache had been building. Siemhouk, tapping me? She paused, opening herself to such a communication. But Siemhouk was not there. Nobody was.
Still, she was sure there had been something ... some unseen entity reaching into her mind.
She should find out who or what it was, block it, even destroy it.
Instead, she found that she welcomed it. Her headache vanished, and a feeling of power—of liberation, from some near-eternal bondage—filled her. She threw open the argosy's door and stepped out again into the light, sucking in a great lungful of fresh desert air.
"Let's go," she said. "There's much to do, and not much daylight left to do it in."
The guards fell in around her, and together the three of them walked back into Akrankhot. And this time, Kadya felt, she owned everything she surveyed.
6
The slaves worked day and night, hauling metal up the staircases—a second one had been discovered, at the cavern's far end—and loading it into the wagons. Soldiers, too, were pressed into service, causing Ruhm to joke that Damaric would have been glad he'd been killed, since he never would have wanted to perform such menial labor.
Aric and Ruhm, however, found themselves at loose ends. A couple of times Ruhm lent his muscles to the cause, for lack of anything better to do. Aric, however, didn't want to go back into that cavern if he didn't have to. Metal or no, the place made him uneasy.
On the second day after their discovery, he and Ruhm explored the city's farther reaches. They had walked more than an hour to get to this point. Here, the desert still covered vast swaths of Akrankhot, and sand surged down other streets as if it meant to reclaim those as well.
The roads were narrower and more tightly packed than the ones nearer the wall. Instead of being laid out on a strict grid, they curled and wound about one another, like those in Nibenay. Sometimes one was blocked, a building constructed across it, as if the builder had been oblivious to the fact that there had been a thoroughfare there first.
"This part of the city follows no plan at all," Aric complained, after they had, once again, followed a serpentine path only to find that it led nowhere of interest.
"Old part," Ruhm observed.
"Probably. These buildings look much older than the first ones we found." The architecture was even more unadorned than the elegantly simple lines of the structures lining the grand avenue. These had been thrown together out of wood, mud and straw. Most of them were two stories tall, but some were only one. Others had been added onto gradually, over what seemed to be a period of decades, if not centuries. Their exploration was made interesting by the things people had left behind, and which the sand had then preserved: cooking and dining utensils, furniture, even what seemed to be children's toys.
They spoke in low tones, their gazes roving constantly. The dune reapers hadn't been spotted since their first attack, but unless they had left the area, the queen would still be in the underground nest, possibly surrounded by drones and plotting another assault. And there could easily be other threats about. To fail to consider that possibility, anywhere on Athas, was suicidal.
They were just coming out of a house, apparently built in stages, one room at a time, with ladders and makeshift staircases connecting the different levels, when they heard the sound.
Even at this end of town, where space seemed to be at a premium, the upper levels of many houses had been made inaccessible. Aric had told Ruhm about the vision he saw in the cavern, and suggested that perhaps the great conflict sweeping across Athas had frightened Akrankhot's populace, causing them to concentrate on their downstairs and subterranean space and leaving the heights as a buffer against some potential threat from above. In this house the rooms had been so small and the ceiling so low that Ruhm had been able to see into the abandoned upstairs sections from the level below. "Nothing there," he had said. "Sand, dust."
"No furniture?" Aric asked. The downstairs had been crammed full of tables and chairs and benches and beds.
"Nothing."
"All right. Let's keep going."
In truth, he was beginning to lose interest in these explorations. The only thing spurring him on was the knowledge that there was nothing better to do back at camp, and always the possibility that he and Ruhm would be put to work if they went back there. At the rate they were going, the hauling and loading would take at least another two or three days before the argosies were full.
As they emerged from that house's doorway, its door long since crumbled to dust, they heard a distinct intake of breath, the kind of sound someone makes when they're caught off guard. Aric and Ruhm glanced at each other. Aric drew his new antique broadsword from the makeshift scabbard he had cobbled together. Ruhm, as always, had his club in hand.
Aric looked an unvoiced question at Ruhm. The half-giant shrugged. Ruhm had both been stepping out the door, Aric right behind him, and neither knew precisely where the sound had come from.
Aric breathed quietly, through his mouth. His muscles were coiled, prepared to react to any threat. Ruhm's posture was more casual but he was always ready for a fight. Aric almost hoped for one, because he wanted to see what he could do with this huge steel sword.
"It's you!" a female voice cried. Then the speaker emerged from around a curve in the road. A little younger than Aric, he guessed, she was lovely, with night-black hair and a fresh, open face. She walked with a limp and carried a staff. Beside her was a battle-scarred veteran holding two bone swords in a way that gave the impression he was good with both. Suddenly Aric didn't hope for a fight, after all.
"It's who?" Aric replied. "Who are you?"
"Myrana Ligurto," the young woman said. "Of House Ligurto?"
"Never heard of it," Aric said. "I have," Ruhm said.
"I am Sellis," the swordsman said. "Employed by House Ligurto to defend and protect the girl."
"My name is Aric." He nodded his head toward Ruhm. "And my companion is Ruhm. Both of Nibenay."
The young woman came forward, the end of her staff touching the ground with each step. "What did you mean by that?" Aric demanded, halting her progress. "You said, 'It's you.1 "
Sellis remained alert, every bit as tense as Aric was. But Myrana appeared relaxed, even comfortable in their presence. It was a wonder she wasn't dead yet, if this was her typical way of greeting strangers.
"It's just—I saw you, in dreams. As soon as I spotted you in that doorway, I recognized you."
"You saw me in dreams?"
"Yes. My dreams ... they're more than simple sleep stories. They mean something. Recently a series of them led us across the desert to this place. And for these past several nights, you've been part of them."
Aric wasn't sure how to take that. On the one hand, he was intrigued. She had dreamed about him—or more likely, dreamed about someone whom he resembled enough for her to think they were the same man. On the other, showing up in a stranger's dreams was a little disturbing, as if he couldn't keep track of himself after he went to sleep, and wandered about the world at will.
Plus, she hadn't said what kind of dreams these were, or what his role in them had been. Were they romantic? Was he a villain? She had given no indication.
"You came here because of dreams?" he asked. "From far away?"
"Far enough," Sellis answered. "Eleven days in the desert."
Aric was shocked. "Just the two of you?"
"We were three." Myrana looked at the road, and he could read sadness in her stance. "Now two."
"I see. Did you see anything else in these dreams? What made you decide to follow them?"
"Nothing specific," Myrana said. "Except you. You're half-elf—I didn't realize that until last night."
"I am." Dreams or no, anybody could reach that conclusion, looking at him.
"Your father was human, and your mother died when you were very young."
"That ... that's true."
"I know. As I said, my dreams are somewhat more meaningful than many people's."
"But what did you expect to find here?"
"That I never knew. Only that I would discover the purpose after I arrived." Her skin, darkened from exposure to Athas's sun, reddened slightly. "I thought that perhaps you were the only purpose. Meeting you. But I knew there must be more to it than that."
Aric decided to trust her. As long as he had Ruhm by his side, ready to act if that decision proved ill advised. He shoved the big sword into its scabbard. Sellis did the same with his. Ruhm couldn't put his club away, but he rested the heavy end on the ground.
"That's all?" Aric asked. "Now that you're here, do you have any other idea as to the purpose?"
Myrana brushed long, black hair off her cheek. "Last night, the drearn changed again," she said. "I know it's strange, telling you these things so soon after meeting you, but ... I feel I must. Do you understand?"
"Not really," Aric said. "I've never had such dreams. But I suppose I'd had strange things happen to me from time to time, and heard about more. So go ahead. Tell us, and we'll try to believe you."
"It was about this place," she began. "Does it have a name?"
"Akrankhot."
"Yes! I knew that, in the dream, and then forgot it upon waking. Akrankhot. There is something foul here. Something evil, and terribly powerful. It's buried beneath the city, and protected by a magical structure of some kind, like a huge cage."
Aric turned as cold as if day had suddenly become night. The pile of metal, that force he had felt, trying to get into his head. The way Damaric had attacked them.
Myrana's brow furrowed, and she limped right up to Aric and rested a hand gently against his cheek. "You've seen it," she said. "Haven't you?"
Aric swallowed and gestured toward Ruhm. "We found it."
She left her hand where it was a few moments longer. Aric wouldn't have minded if she had left it there all day, and into the night. Standing this close to her, he could smell her and gaze into her huge brown eyes, the color of distant mountains in the full light of morning sun. She was slender and muscular, with womanly curves that moved under her simple shift. He realized he was staring. As long as that hand stayed on his cheek, he was powerless to stop.
She removed it, as if she had seen the thoughts its presence stirred within him. She didn't look away, though. "Did you tell anyone else about it?" Myrana continued the conversation as if nothing had happened. Perhaps it hadn't. Probably for her, the touch had been just that, a touch, not signifying any stronger emotion. He tried to pay attention to what she was asking.
"Yes," Ruhm said, saving Aric having to answer.
"It's why we came here," Aric explained, finding his voice again. "We were sent by the the Shadow King himself to find the metal buried beneath Akrankhot. I was tasked specifically with locating it, because I have a ... a psionic connection to all sorts of metals."
"Interesting," Myrana said, in a way that made Aric think it wasn't really.
"Anyway, after we found it, we reported it to the templar in charge of the expedition. It's being loaded onto wagons now."
"In my dreams, I saw runes around the cage." She knelt and etched some in the sand. "Like these."
"Those were on the door," Aric said. "And on the stairs, leading down toward the steel. You're saying that it's the cage? That whatever is underneath is kept in check only by that?"
"So my dreams led me to believe."
"And the fact that it's being taken apart and moved? What does that mean, then?"
Myrana rose again, an effort that made her bite her lower lip. When she was upright, she rested some of her weight on her staff. "Then, I'm afraid, we're all doomed. Anyone within this city. After that, who knows? Whatever is imprisoned there is powerful indeed, and whether it can be stopped again, I have no idea. All I know is that it was imprisoned in the first place for a reason."
"We must warn Kadya," Aric said. "Perhaps it's not too late. They've moved a good amount of steel, but there's still some left. If it's still caged, then—"
"We can warn her," Myrana agreed. "I fear, though, that if much has been taken away, then we're probably too late. And when that evil force, or being, gets loose, it's going to be seeking vengeance. Let's make haste, while we yet live!"
7
When they reached the wagons, after a hurried run across the city, Kadya was overseeing the loading. The argosies had been taken into town, as close to the stairways as possible. A procession of slaves marched to and fro, each carrying either a chunk of metal or helping tote pieces too large for a single one to lift. At the argosies, they handed their burdens to other slaves who stacked it neatly inside. The mekillots had had an easy time of it coming to Akrankhot—on the return trip they would earn their feed, and then some.
Aric pointed to eight wagons with closed doors. "Those are already full," he said. "Which means they're nearly done, at least with this trip."
Myrana turned to the swordsman who had accompanied her. "If I hadn't been paralyzed by that cistern fiend, we might have arrived in time!" she said. "Those days we lost ... I fear we're too late."
"Perhaps not," Sellis said. "We'll just have to see."
"I'll talk to the templar," Aric volunteered. "She doesn't like me, but I have the king's approval so she might listen to me."
Kadya sat on a small mound of iron bars too long to fit into the argosies. They would have to be cut down, or strapped to the tops of the wagons. In the meantime they had been stacked nearby. Aric hurried to her side. He had a stitch in his side from the run. His face was flushed, and he had not entirely caught his breath. "Templar," he began. "We must stop removing metal from the cavern at once!"
"Whatever for?" Kadya asked. "Who are those strangers?"
"They're Myrana and Sellis, of House Ligurto. Myrana has dreams in which truths are revealed. She knew all about me before she met me. And she says there's something—she knows not what—inside that cavern. Imprisoned there, caged by the metal. Releasing it ... well, she says it's indescribably evil, and tremendously powerful. We can't know what the result of freeing it would be. But it won't be good."
He had managed to get his words out, but the stitch flared up, like a dagger between his ribs. He bent forward, bracing himself with a hand against the iron bars that Kadya sat on. Her left hand rested on the same bar that he touched.
And once again, images swam into his head, blotting out the world around him and replacing it with another. Once again, he saw what he had before, on the stairs leading down to the cavern, when he touched the ancient sword he still carried.
The creature he had glimpsed, all limbs and tentacles and teeth—a demon, Aric knew, although he couldn't say how—was carried, struggling the whole time, down an almost unending flight of stairs marked with runic symbols. Mystical bonds contained the demon's form, but not his fury. He was a horrible sight, with thick stubby horns above angry eyes that shone with a sickly yellow-green fury. His gray-green skin appeared mottled with lichen or mold and thick with oozing pustules, not a smooth patch anywhere. His fanged mouth snapped at everything, two long, narrow tongues lapping at the world, and tusks on either side of his long nose were crusted with dried blood. The bonds held his many limbs and tentacles fast, kept his claws from doing damage, prevented him from using his muscular, many-pronged tail, but more important still, they dampened the powers of his mind.
His name was Tallik.
An early Athasian sorcerer had summoned him here from—somewhere else, the words made no sense to Aric even in the context of the vision—but Tallik had proved too difficult for the sorcerer to control. Finally, that sorcerer—working with other, more powerful beings—had been able to capture and imprison the demon beneath Akrankhot, in a cage made of all the metal that could be gathered, because only massive amounts of enchanted metal could hold Tallik fast.
And there he had waited.
Waited for someone to come along, so that he could reach out, take over that one's mind, use that one to find others, any who could muster the necessary effort to dismantle Tallik's prison and let him loose.
Aric shook his head, trying to clear it of images from the past and pay attention to what was going on around him. His skin crawled from the briefest contact with Tallik. He wanted to scour himself with gritty sand, to scrub off any traces of the evil he had touched, the vicious nature of the demon coming through Kadya and into him. Tallik feasted on fear and hatred and death. Life and happiness were as repugnant to him as the demon was to Aric. But Kadya was saying something. Aric made himself listen.
"... will look into your concerns, of course, Aric. After all, we have you to thank for finding the metal in the first place. But I don't believe we have anything to fear. The young lady was probably confused. Not all dreams, after all, mean anything. Even for such a one as her."
"Good," Aric said, "that's good." But he hadn't removed his hand from the iron bar, and neither had she. Another thought flashed into his mind—not an image this time, just words ringing in his head with utter clarity. There was no mistaking their source.
It's past time to have some soldiers kill Aric and his friends—especially these new friends. He's served his purpose, and now he's just getting in the way.
The "voice" he heard in his head was Kadya's. But behind it was something else—something he recognized as the presence of Tallik.
The demon had already possessed the templar. He controlled her now. She was having his cage torn apart as quickly as she could, in order to completely free him.
And all of this due to Aric's own efforts. Could he ever be forgiven? Could he ever forgive himself? He should kill her right now. He almost reached for his sword, then stopped. He didn't know enough about this sort of thing, but he didn't believe that killing
Tallik's host would mean killing Tallik. It would likely just move into someone else.
Once more, he was faced with the reality that one person couldn't change anything on Athas; his action, or Kadya's death—neither would accomplish anything. Her soldiers would kill him on the spot, and the demon would survive.
Uneasily, he drew his hand away from the iron bars. "Th-thank you, Kadya. I—I'll go now."
He barely made it through those simple statements, and he turned away before she had dismissed him, hurrying back to Ruhm, Myrana and Sellis. Instead of speaking, he beckoned, and they hurried back into the city. Finding a secure place inside one of the large buildings on the grand avenue, he told them what he had seen.
"You have to put your trust in dreams, Myrana," he said at the conclusion. "I put mine in steel. If I touch steel, I can often learn things about whoever last handled it. And if I touch it while someone else is, I get a peek inside that person's mind. In Kadya's, there's a terrible darkness, and there's Tallik, the demon. I could hardly sense Kadya in there at all."
Myrana sat on the large room's tile floor, her back against a whitewashed wall that had only browned slightly over the years. "Then we are too late!" She buried her face in her hands. "And now she wants to kill you, because you know!"
"She wants to kill us all," Aric corrected. "Not just me. Even our friend Amoni, a mul slave who's helping to bring the metal up from below."
"Her soldiers will have to kill me first," Sellis said. "And they'll find that's no simple task. Come on, Myrana, we've done what we came here for. Let's get away from this forsaken city."
Myrana dropped her hands and stared at	Sellis in surprise. "Leave now? We didn't come just to give warning, Sellis. At least, that's not what I	believe. We came to help if we were able."
"But if it's too late to help—"
"We don't know that. If there's any way to stop this demon, this Tallik, we have to try."
"I don't think we can stop him, Myrana," Aric admitted. "Even if Kadya wasn't against us. I think he has too great a foothold for that. Too much of his cage has been destroyed, and none of us are sorcerer enough to put it back together."
"Then all is lost?"
"Not necessarily, although time is short. We need to leave here, race back to Nibenay, and warn the Shadow King."
"Him?" Ruhm asked. He snorted. "Probably already knows. That's why he sent us."
Aric couldn't allow himself to believe that. "When I saw him, spoke to him, I didn't have that impression, Ruhm. I think he sincerely wanted the steel, for its own sake. I'm not saying others in his court didn't know, but I don't think he did. I don't even think Kadya did, until we were here."
"What can he do?" Myrana asked. "If he is willing to help?"
"He's the most powerful sorcerer in the Ivory Triangle," Aric said, hoping it was true. "If it takes sorcery to re-imprison Tallik, he's the one who can do it."
"Do you know what kind of damage such sorcery would cause?" Sellis asked. "The whole of the Crescent Forest might be destroyed."
"But if the other choice is a demon as fearsome and powerful as Tallik seems to be, then that's no choice at all," Aric countered. "We lose a forest, but we save the world?"
"I doubt the choice is that stark," Sellis said.
"You haven't seen Tallik, or ... felt him. I think Myrana's right. He's unbridled evil, and as strong as any force I've ever heard of. If I'm wrong about Nibenay, if he refuses to help—or can't—then we ... I don't know. We find a Veiled Alliance chapter, and see if they can summon the necessary magics to defeat Tallik." "I'm with Aric," Myrana declared. "We strike out for Nibenay. Should we go now?"
"We need to let Amoni know," Aric said. "She's in as much danger as the rest of us. And her strength will help us survive the journey back to Nibenay. We'll get to Amoni, and then tonight, once it's dark—that's when we'll leave. We'll slip away from the soldiers standing guard, and they won't even know we're gone until morning."
"Assuming she doesn't send them to kill you before that," Sellis reminded him.
"Right," Aric agreed. "Assuming that. We have no other choice, though, so that's a chance we'll just have to take."
"The other choice is that we leave now."
"We can't leave Amoni to be killed. I'm sorry, Sellis. Go if you must. But for me, that's no choice at all."
XIII
NIGHT TRAVELS
1
The man had walked to the elven marketplace. For days and days, he had kept his distance. He had started to feel stronger, better able to control the impulses that had led him there so many other nights. For the first few evenings, after the time he had almost been seen, he had stayed at home, surrounded by family, and told himself that this was all he needed. All he wanted.
For several nights after that, he knew he had been wrong. He wanted what he wanted. It was wrong, he knew that too, but he couldn't help the wanting. All he could do was not act upon the desire. That demanded strength of him, only strength. He was a strong person. He could do it. He could want, and deny himself, at the same time.
Having arrived at that realization, he had been better. For the next days and nights, the elf women and their human companions had barely entered his mind. When he did think of them, it was only to dismiss the idea of acting again. The acts he had committed, that he still wanted to commit, simply weren't that important to him anymore. His family, that's what was important. And to have one was to resist the other. If he gave in, returned to the bazaar and watched once again for elves and humans to go together into the dark recesses of the Hill District, then he might lose his family. If he kept his family, it would only be by losing his once-unstoppable lust to kill.
For three days and nights, he had believed himself cured. But then, he had chanced to see an elf female on the street, beautiful, tall and rangy, dressed in attire that showed off her curves and her long legs and her wild, unkempt hair, and he had looked at that face, a face that spoke of pure animal sensuality, and he had known he was not cured at all. He was as lost as he had ever been.
Since then, he had come to the marketplace each evening, before the day's heat had entirely dissipated. This was when the elf females could show off what they had to offer, when night's bitter cold had not yet forced them to wrap themselves from head to toe. This was the time of day when the bazaar became a marketplace of flesh as well as of goods.
On this night, a dry, chill wind tore through the alleyways, beating the market's canopies like drums. The man watched as elf and half-elf women strutted and displayed, and males—human, elf, and other races as well—made their selections and went off with them.
His fingernails dug into his palms. His mouth was dry, his lips bruised from being chewed on. He wanted to act, to strike like a serpent of retribution. Of justice.
But he couldn't. He didn't dare. He had risked too much just coming back here. To fall back into that old pattern would invite disaster.
Back home, the other members of his family went about their evening's pursuits. That's where he belonged.
With one last look back at a particularly striking half-elf woman, he spun on his heel and stalked toward home.
2
The first night out, Aric thought the cold would surely kill him. In Nibenay, he had shelter at night. There were those early days, after his mother's death, when he had been on his own, but even then he'd always managed to find some nook or hole to escape night's full brunt. And since reaching adulthood, he'd had the shop, its forge heating it excessively by day but keeping the interior pleasant at night. On the long journey to Akrankhot, there had been campfires and the shelter of the argosies.
Out in the open desert, however, there was no shelter. The temperature started dropping as soon as the sun went down, and once the stored heat fled the desert sand and the nighttime winds howled, every step was agony. They had surreptitiously carried skins of water and their furs and leathers, the same things that had provided relative comfort on the road, from the argosy to a building near the edge of the city. Myrana and Sellis had their own things, carried with them since they had left their caravan. But even they had not tried to travel at night.
As soon as the sun went down, while the others gathered for the evening meal, Aric, Ruhm, and Amoni joined Myrana and Sellis and struck out into the desert. They didn't know when Kadya might notice they were gone—possibly not until morning. Before that happened, they needed to cover as much distance as they could. Kadya might send a search party after them. It would not be a large one, as she wouldn't want to spare the laborers. And since the assumption would be that a nighttime trek across the desert would surely kill them, the party would not look hard, or for long.
That was their hope, at any rate. Aric knew that Kadya's mind was capricious, that she might decide on nothing more than a whim that there was no goal more important than finding them and destroying them, or else imprisoning them and taking them back to face Nibenay's justice. For all he knew, her magic, or Tallik's, might allow her to seek them out from the comfort of her own fireside.
So he trudged on, even though he was sure his blood would freeze in his veins. The bits of flesh exposed to the air, around his eyes so he could see where he was going, had gone numb, but not before giving him the feeling of having daggers driven into his brain. The fur over his nose and mouth had frozen where his exhalations had dampened it. His extremities screamed with pain, his limbs protested every effort demanded of them.
Once during the night he saw streamers of light in the sky that illuminated people he had once known: his mother, customers from her stall in the marketplace, children he had played with, even Rieve and her grandfather. They were huge, spread across the sky from horizon to horizon, and he was walking toward them. It wasn't until Ruhm slapped him and shook him into consciousness that he realized he had been hallucinating.
He touched the scar in his eyebrow, but his hand and face were both numb, so he didn't feel it. "Why did you hit me?"
Ruhm pointed toward the others, off in the distance, silhouetted against starlight on the top of a low ridge. "We're over there. You were wandering off by yourself."
Aric pointed toward the sky, but the streamers were gone, and so were the people. "I was ... I was seeing things, I think. My mother was there. Rieve. Other people I've known. I was walking toward them."
"Walking toward the dead," Ruhm said.
"Rieve's not dead!" Aric protested.
"You would be if I hadn't noticed you weren't following behind."
Aric understood his point. He would have become hopelessly separated. They never would have found him in the dark, and by morning his trail might have been erased. If they spent time looking, they all might have been caught by Kadya's soldiers. "Thank you, Ruhm," he said. "It's ... it's just so cold out here. I don't know if I can go on."
"Must," Ruhm said simply. He led Aric to the rest. They huddled together for a few minutes, sharing body heat none of them had to spare, and then continued.
He didn't think he had ever been so happy to see the sun rise.
3
After sunrise, they risked sleeping for a couple of hours. Then they started out again. They killed a greater boneclaw that day, providing them sustenance, although they could not make use of its carapace and had to leave it behind.
Every time they reached a high point, they stopped and checked their back trail. If Kadya had sent pursuers, they were not yet in view. They didn't dare follow the path they'd taken to Akrankhot from Nibenay, because Kadya and her party would doubtless take that same route home.
Late in the day, they narrowly escaped notice by a monstrous sand worm, watching covertly as it slithered and burrowed and humped its way across the desert. Ruhm wanted to tackle it, but the others argued that they couldn't carry its meat, tasty though it might be, in addition to that of the boneclaw they already had. And a sandworm was a far deadlier foe than a boneclaw. Should the five of them engage it, every likelihood existed that some would perish in the trying.
So the days went. Walking, always walking, under a sun that pounded down without mercy. After that first night, no one even suggested continuing to hike in the darkness. Their route took them through vast, sand-filled valleys and over the rocky ridges intersecting them. The creatures of the desert were either predators or prey. They fought when they had to or when hunger spurred them on, and hid when necessary. The journey was neither glamorous nor the stuff of heroic ballads. It was long and arduous, but it had to be done.
Amoni, Aric noticed, seemed out of sorts. When they fought the boneclaw she was right there with them, even delivering the killing blow. But at other times, when making camp for the night or deciding on a route, she was quiet, doing what someone told her but taking no initiative. Once when Aric and Myrana were filling skins at a spring they had found, high up on a narrow shelf of rock, Amoni stood nearby watching but didn't offer to hold any of the skins even when they threatened to fall over the side. Finally, Aric said, "Amoni, could you grab these before they fall?"
"Of course," Amoni said. She picked them up, but seemed not to be aware that she could have simply done so, rather than waiting to be told.
That evening, he took her aside and mentioned it.
"You're right," she said. She looked away from him, at the streaks in the olive sky where the setting crimson sun painted it. "I am accustomed to doing what I'm told."
"But you're nobody's slave now. You're free."
"That's all I've ever really wanted."
"Only you have to act free. Aren't you pleased to be owned by no one but yourself?"
She picked up a pebble, turned it over in her fingers, gazing at it as if it held secrets only she could detect. "It frightens me."
"Why?"
"You've never been a slave, Aric. I can't expect you to understand. I've lived their life according to someone else's rules. It's terrifying to realize that suddenly the only rules are my own. I ... I am trying to accept my freedom. But at the same time, as long as you're all here with me, often it's easiest to just let old habits take over. I know you don't own me. And I'm not saying that you act as if you do. It's only me ... acting as if you do. Acting as if I need you to tell me where I should stand or sit, what I should look at or not look at, what I should think."
"They tell you what to think?"
"They try. That rarely works."
"Well, you're free now. Don't forget it, and don't let us spoil it for you."
The next morning, Aric rose at dawn, starving. It had been days since they'd killed any prey, and their food stores had depleted severely. They had tracked a lirr pack for hours the evening before, but when darkness came and they lost the trail, they'd had to give up. Aric sat up, shoved off the skins he slept beneath. Ruhm, Sellis and Myrana were in camp, Myrana sleeping still, but Amoni was gone. "Where is she?" he asked.
"Gone when I awoke," Ruhm said. "Hour, little less."
"Are there tracks?"
Ruhm pointed to some, shallow depressions already being filled by blowing sand. They led away from camp and into the distance, but not in the direction they had been traveling. Not toward Nibenay.
"Would she simply leave us behind?" Myrana asked, sitting and rubbing her eyes.
"I ... I don't know."
"She's a slave, right?" Sellis reminded them.
Aric remembered her lack of initiative. She was accustomed to taking orders, not to doing for herself. The entire time they had been on the trip, he didn't remember her ever coming up with an original idea. She was good at battle, good at self-preservation. She was strong and could carry great weights, in spite of her back injury. But when it came to making her own decisions, she had no experience. She had never had to do it. "She is. But she hoped to be free, and to live that way the rest of her life."
"Apparently she's free now," Sellis said.
"She was free the minute we walked away from Akrankhot!" Aric snapped. "At least as far as I was concerned."
"Perhaps she didn't feel free, then."
"Well, I wish her good fortune."
"I wish she hadn't abandoned us. We may yet have need of her."
"I wish it too," Myrana said. "I like her company."
"As do I," Aric said. He crossed his arms over his chest, but his momentary anger was made less dramatic by the loud rumbling of his stomach.
"Today we find game," Ruhm said.
"We had better," Aric agreed. They turned to the business of packing up their things.
But just as they were ready to depart, a figure appeared on the horizon, something with what appeared to be a massive head and shoulders on a body so slender it seemed it couldn't support all the weight there.
It took another ten minutes before they were able to recognize Amoni, longer still before they could make out what she carried across her shoulders. It was a gray-skinned lizard with a colorful tail and a bright membrane around its neck—a lirr that must have weighed at least two hundred pounds.
"There are more," Amoni said when she reached camp. "But I could only carry the one." She ducked her head and heaved it from her shoulders into the dirt.
"You went off by yourself?" Aric said.
"I knew they were out there. We were hungry."
"You saved our lives!" He went to Amoni and hugged her, hoping someone else would start cleaning and cooking the lirr while he did. Luckily, that thought had occurred to Sellis, and he was already busy. "I am so hungry."
"I know we're in a hurry," Myrana said. "But next time we're running low on food perhaps we should devote ourselves to finding more before we're out completely."
"There's so much here that perhaps we won't run out again," Aric said. He knew even as he spoke the words that they were overly optimistic.
"We'll run out," Sellis said. He glanced at Ruhm, but he didn't need to point out how much the goliath consumed on any given day.
"I suppose," Aric said. He could cover the distance to Nibenay faster alone—faster even than the trip out, with the mekillots pulling the wagons at their slow but steady pace. Although only half-elf, he had still inherited some of the elven ability to run fast and with great endurance. Ruhm, with his long legs, could keep up with him for a while, but Aric would outpace him over any distance. And Myrana slowed the group down considerably.
But alone and on foot, the likelihood that Aric would survive the trip lessened considerably. It was not, he supposed, impossible for a solo journeyer to travel from point to point on Athas. But it was risky, and all the more so for someone who had not, until recently, ever left his native city.
No, his best hope was in staying with the others, praying that their head start meant they would reach Nibenay before the demon-possessed templar did.
If they didn't, then they might never return to Nibenay at all. Aric had no way to know what Tallik, unbound and possessing a practitioner of defiling magic might do, but he imagined it would be violent and destructive. He had, in fact, wondered if the vision he had believed to be of the distant past had also showed the future. Although the Athas he knew was nowhere near as lush and serene as the one that had apparently once existed, it could still be unsettled, its institutions overthrown, whatever fragile peace existed shattered in an instant.
And from the sensations he had felt—when Tallik had tried to enter his own mind, and when he had touched Kadya's—he had no doubt that the demon's essence was the purest evil.
Evil, and a savage hunger, left to fester beneath Akrankhot for centuries.
4
It sounds as if you've been everywhere, Myrana."
They were lounging around a campfire. It was the night of Amoni's kill, and their bellies were full. The day's progress had been hampered by a wrab attack, three of the bloodsucking winged serpents hunting together, and although the comrades had defeated the creatures, most of them had suffered at least one bite. In the late afternoon they had spotted an oasis in the distance, and they had pushed on through the gathering dusk until they reached it and ascertained that it was safe to stop at. Filling themselves and their skins with fresh water, they made camp a short distance away. A fire, fed by downed branches and fronds from oasis trees, held off the night's cold.
Myrana and Aric sat close together, and she had been telling him of her travels with her family's trading caravan. "Not really," she said. "I have seen much of the Tablelands, it's true. But nothing beyond those, and there is much else to the world."
"I suppose. It's just that when you've never been anywhere, like me, even a few journeys seem like a lot."
"You'll find more adventure, Aric."
"Do you think so?"
"I sense a need in you. Perhaps one that's just been awakened, but a powerful one just the same. You have spent your life in one place, but now that you've tasted the outside world I don't think you'll stop exploring it."
"You might be right." That simple fact meant more to him than she could have known. He had his small circle of acquaintances in Nibenay, but most strangers he met were off-putting, distrustful	of half-elves. For someone to accept him so readily—and not just accept him but seemingly to understand him—was a rare occurrence indeed.
Rare, and wonderful.
He was about to say something else when a distant rumbling sound caught his attention. "What's that?"
"Sounds like a storm," Sellis said.
"A rainstorm?"
Sellis and Amoni were on their feet, peering into the darkness. "That's what it sounds like."
Aric sprang up and gripped Myrana's hand, helping her stand. Real rainstorms, like true friends, were so uncommon that he remembered every one he had experienced.
"Do you think it'll reach us?"
"It seems to be headed this way."
Aric still had Myrana's hand clutched in his. She squeezed. "Ready to get wet, Aric?"
"I can't wait."
He didn't have to wait long. The storm still sounded as if it was some distance away, but without warning, drenching water flooded down from above. The campfire guttered and went out. Aric and the others were instantly soaked, head to foot. For a few moments, the water was refreshing. Aric tilted his head toward the sky and opened his mouth, letting it run down his throat. But soon, with the sun having long since set and the night's chill settled in, the combination of the fire's absence and wet skin and clothing left him freezing.
At the same time, his body seemed to be rebelling from within, as if all the moisture inside him was trying to push out through his flesh. Already dimpled from the cold and wet, he saw his veins swell his skin, pores opening, liquid starting to seep out.
"It's not a storm!" Sellis cried. "It's a beast!"
"What manner of beast?" Aric yelled. He had to scream to be heard over the pounding downpour.
"A rain paraelemental beast!" Myrana shouted back.
The rain, or what had seemed at first like rain, passed on, but that only meant that the beast itself had reached them. It rose in the moonlight to a height of almost twenty feet, looking like a mobile, sentient waterfall, spray curling where it touched the ground.
But an ordinary waterfall didn't have a sinister purpose, or roam about the desert. A rain paraelemental sucked up whatever moisture it could find. It had to have been summoned by a worshipper, then escaped his control, been released, or destroyed its summoner. The beast skirted around them and went to the oasis, giving the traveler's a moment's respite. Aric was shivering uncontrollably. They all were, he saw. At least his skin was no longer oozing, for the moment.
"It'll be back," Sellis said. "As soon as it drains the oasis."
"How do we fight it?"
"I don't know that we can."
Ruhm grabbed up his club without waiting for the thing to come back. They had camped far enough from the oasis to allow other creatures who might want its water to approach it without having to go through them, but near enough to make use of its pool in the morning before they moved on. Ruhm ran toward it, and when he reached the traveling waterfall, he swung his huge weapon at it.
Aric, Amoni, Sellis and Myrana followed Ruhm, and Aric had almost reached him when the club struck the water. The water buckled under the blow, but then straightened again. A jet shot out, hitting Ruhm with enough force to knock him back a dozen feet and flatten him against the ground. Most men, Aric knew, would have been crushed. Only the goliath's great strength allowed him to survive it.
He didn't know that a half-elf would. But he had a big metal broadsword, and the beast had hurt his friend. He swung the sword in a wide, flat arc. It sliced through the water, and he thought he heard a change in the pitch of its liquid voice, as if he had caused it pain.
The creature turned a jet of water against him, as it had Ruhm. He reeled under its force, shoved back, collided with Myrana. As the pair fell, he managed to turn so that he landed on her face down, arms and legs spread out around her, shielding her from the worst of the water's impact and taking it on his back instead of his chest and face.
The beast might kill him, but if he could, he would keep it from killing Myrana too.
5
Aric heard his companions shouting and fighting, and then he heard another sound, one he didn't know. It sounded vaguely like a giant sheet of fabric being torn, or perhaps hundreds tearing at once. He couldn't even guess at what it was.
When it ended, the force of the water smashing against his back was gone. He raised his head from where it nestled next to Myrana's. "Are you hurt?"
She blinked, droplets clinging to her eyelashes, and offered him a tentative smile. "I won't be, if you get off me."
"Sorry," he said. He went to hands and knees, careful not to put any of them on her, and moved away, then rose unsteadily to his feet. He was bruised, felt as if he had been dragged behind runaway kanks for several leagues, but he didn't think anything was broken.
When he turned, the beast was gone. The oasis pool was almost dry, with only puddles remaining, and even the trees looked as if a fire had passed by, evaporating any moisture from them. Bits of green remained at the ends of their leaves, but in the soft moonlight that was barely visible.
"What happened to it?"
"I don't know," Amoni said. She was just now sitting up. "It knocked me down, same as it did you. With the water rushing into my face I couldn't see a thing."
"I guess you all weakened it enough," Sellis said. "When I struck, it dissipated almost at once."
"Lucky," Ruhm said. "All lucky to be alive."
"You're right, Ruhm," Aric said. "And thank you, Sellis. However you defeated it, we all owe you."
"No, Ruhm's correct, I got lucky too."
"We should s-s-see if we can g-get a fire lit again," Aric stammered. With the adrenalin and violent motion of the fight behind them, they were left wet and cold. In minutes, the water would freeze, and the beast would have killed them anyway.
"The fuel's s-soaked," Myrana pointed out. Her teeth, like Aric's, were starting to click together.
"Perhaps," Sellis said. "But if the b-beast sucked enough moisture from them, then p-perhaps ..."
He hurried to the far side of the oasis, away from where the beast had turned to fight them. In what seemed just moments, Aric saw the glow of embers, then flame lick the darkness. "C-come," he managed, grabbing Myrana's hand once more. The water had very nearly frozen. Less than a minute to go, he believed, and they would die where they stood, not falling until the next day's sun melted them.
But they worked their way into the fire's circle of heat. Sellis had it roaring in no time. No other creatures would dare approach the oasis tonight, not with a fire like that going, and even if they did they wouldn't find any water in the pool. Sitting as close as they dared, they let the fire dry them out and warm them, until finally, as morning approached, they slumbered.
6
They got a late start the next day. They hadn't had much sleep, and they had to wait until the sun dried out the rest of their belongings, left behind at their campsite when they had stormed the oasis to kill the rain paraelemental beast. Aric still didn't understand how Sellis had defeated it, he was only glad the warrior had done so.
Once their things were dry and they were hiking along once more, the sun had heated the air to the point that Aric almost missed his near-frozen state of the night before. When he said as much, Myrana chided him. "You're never satisfied, are you?"
"I just wish there weren't such extremes," he said. "Baking hot during the day, icicles at night. Why can't the world just be temperate for a change. Inside that cavern, when I saw a vision of Athas as it once was, there were vast forests and lush meadows full of grass and flowers. That world couldn't have been as forbidding as ours."
"That world is long gone," Amoni said. "If your vision was even true."
"It was true in other respects," Aric argued. He was thinking of the battle that had left all those bones under Akrankhot, and the sword he had found. And Tallik, of course. Tallik was real enough.
"Perhaps it can be restored to that state," Sellis said. "If we can turn our backs on magic long enough to stop destroying it."
"Not all magic is destructive," Myrana reminded him.
"That's what some say, it's true," Sellis admitted. "But I believe magic is magic—whether it's preserving or defiling, when people rely it there's always the temptation to take it too far. Better to stay away from all of it. Just take our chances with no magic, and see what happens."
Aric's hand went to his medallion, without his conscious participation. "What about the Way?"
"I don't think it's inherently destructive," Myrana said. They were marching up one of the low, rocky hills crossing their path, trying to carve a straight line toward Nibenay. "I don't have a problem with those who use the Way. As you said, Aric, I have seen a lot of the world. For the most part it's a harsh, wasted place, ravaged by forces none of us can comprehend. But there are glimpses of beauty to be had. Enough that I can't help believing that if it were left alone for some time, it could yet recover and become someplace livable. Like you saw in that vision."
"You might be right," Aric said. "It's sad that none of us will live to see that day."
"You don't know that!"
"I do. For the world to change so much, it would take centuries. We'll not live that long."
"I suppose riot."
Ahead of them, having already reached the top of the rise, Ruhm held out a single huge hand. "Shh!1 he said. He crouched down and waited for the others to join him. "Raiders," he said, pointing into the valley on the other side. A group of thirty-five to forty cut people across the valley, some on foot but most mounted on kanks or erdlus. This was no trading caravan—they had only three wagons—and they looked like they could move fast when they needed to. Even from here Aric could see that they were comprised of a variety of races: humans, elves, muls and others.
"Have they seen us?" Sellis asked.
"Don't think so," Ruhm said.
"We'll stay low a while," Sellis suggested. "Until they've moved on."
Aric couldn't argue with that. He sat. The others sat around him, Myrana close to his left side. There was no shade, and the sun pounded them with ruthless ferocity, and they were making no progress.
Aric, frustrated, hurled pebbles down the hillside into a scraggly brush.
"Is something bothering you, Aric?" Myrana asked.
"I just hate sitting here doing nothing when we should be moving fast. By now Kadya has doubtless got the argosies filled and the caravan on the march toward Nibenay."
She stroked the back of his arm. "I'm slowing us down. I'm sorry. If you want to go on ahead ... or you, Ruhm and Amoni, then Sellis and I can follow at my speed."
He was tempted to accept her offer. At the same time, however, he wanted nothing to do with it. He couldn't say why, not out loud. How could he tell her what it was like to grow up a half-elf, abandoned by a father he had never known and left too young by a mother who died? Unloved and seldom trusted, making his way in the world with few close friends. Since the moment she had put a hand on his cheek, he had felt that she accepted him. They had a bond, he thought, that had been at once as strong as any others he'd known.
He didn't want to leave her behind. Even alone, he didn't know if he could reach Nibenay in time—or, if he did, whether it would help stop Tallik from doing whatever it was he had in mind. Given that uncertainty, he had no interest in leaving Myrana behind, possibly never to see her again.
"No," he said finally. "No, we stay together, the five of us. We'll have a better chance of survival that way."
"Thank you, Aric." She gave his arm a squeeze, then released it. "I was hoping you felt that way. But I had to offer."
"Raiders gone," Ruhm said. Aric looked. The raiders were nearly out of sight behind the hills. The companions rose and started picking their way down the slope.
They were out in the middle of the sandy valley floor, where there was no cover larger than the occasional sparse cactus or scrubby tuft of grass when the raiders came back, heading straight for them.
XIV
AMBUSH
1
"They're coming!" Amoni shouted. She took a battle stance, cahulaks at the ready. Sellis drew both of his swords. Aric's broadsword filled his hand, and Ruhm prepared to use his club. Myrana had only a dagger, Aric noted, but she looked ready to use it.
Still, they were only five, against nearly forty. Aric would not have said that it couldn't be done. Sellis in particular cut a heroic figure, and he might have actually enjoyed the odds. Aric, although strong, was not yet an accomplished warrior, and it didn't look as if Myrana was either. Sellis, Amoni, and Ruhm would have to do the bulk of the fighting.
The raiders came on fast. Their insectlike kanks and flightless erdlus tore across the plain, sending up a plume of yellow dust. Aric raised his sword and prepared for battle.
Then Myrana surprised them all by sheathing her dagger. "Weapons down!" she said.
"They'll kill us!" Sellis cried.
"They'll kill us if we fight," Myrana said. "If we don't, at least we have a chance."
"Myrana, there's always a chance," Sellis argued.
"This is our best one," Myrana said. "Trust me."
The raiders came closer, so close Aric could see the honed edges of carrikals and spears, swords and gythkas, and the faces of those wielding them, set in masks of fury. He and his friends had never done anything to those raiders, but people seemed to need to embrace anger against those they would strike down. Anger burned in him, as well—somewhat more justifiably, he believed, since these raiders seemed intent on killing people whose only offense was walking across open desert.
He slowly lowered his sword, then pushed it back into the makeshift scabbard he had crafted. Myrana had a point—the raiders were too many to fight. Even if they won, they would certainly suffer some losses, and they hardly had enough to spare.
Amoni let her cahulaks dangle from her hand. Ruhm didn't release his club, but rested the end on the ground. Finally, when the raiders had almost reached them, Sellis scabbarded his pair of swords.
Puzzled looks replaced rage on the raiders' faces. "Are you cowards, to face us without weapons?" one asked. He was a full elf, lean, tall and broad-shouldered, his hair long and wild, and he arched an eyebrow at them in wonder. He and three other elves among the raiders were the only ones on foot, but in spite of the hard sprint he did not seem winded in the least. "Or wizards, perhaps, meaning to destroy us through magic rather than fair combat."
Myrana stepped to the group's front. Reasonable, Aric thought, as this approach had been her idea. "You speak of fair combat? Attacking five with forty or more?"
The elf chuckled. "Perhaps only five of us at a time would have engaged you. Under those terms, would you fight? Or do you surrender your lives and possessions now?" Other raiders joined in laughter at that, a few of them hurling curses and epithets at the five companions.
"We would surrender our possessions gladly, to spare our lives," Myrana told him. Not exactly answering the question the elf had asked, Aric noted. "But we have precious little to take. A handful of weapons, I suppose. The skins we use to keep ourselves warm at night. A little water, though not much, and less meat. We are but poor journeyers, a long way from anywhere. And as you can see, without mounts or wagons. What is it you would take from us?"
"I suppose we'll settle for your lives and what little you carry," the elf said. "Better than naught." "Is it?"
"You have something better to offer, girl?" Some of the other raiders dismounted, walking around their prey, eyeing their few belongings. "And are the rest of you mute? Or too stupid to speak?"
"I speak," Ruhm said. "I'd fight you in a second."
"I might have something to offer," Myrana said quickly, lest Ruhm embroil them all in an unwinnable battle. "We are but five lonely travelers, but I am a daughter of House Ligurto. Surely you've heard of it—once of the richest trading houses in the Tablelands."
"Oh, I've heard of House Ligurto," the elf said, his interest piqued.
"I'm away from them for now, but I've been on the road with them my whole life. I know their route and schedule as well as I know my own name."
"How does that help us?" "I said I'm a daughter of the house, I didn't say that I was a contented one. You spare us, and I'll direct you to a place where you can wait for the caravan. The riches you could acquire there would be far more than you can take from us."
The elf rubbed his chin. Black tattoos snaked up from under his faded red shift, climbing his neck and etching a false black beard on his smooth skin. "An ambush, eh?" He huddled with some of the other raiders.
"Myrana, this is a dangerous game you play," Sellis whispered.
"It's no game, it's our lives. I know what I'm doing."
"We can still take them," Sellis insisted. "Myrana, I—"
Myrana cut him off. "Do not forget that I'm a trader, from a long line of them. I'm doing what we do. I'm bargaining. Now hush."
Aric hoped she was right. Ever since that moment he had known Kadya meant to kill him, life seemed composed of one narrow escape after another. As if the burning sun and sands and the infinite cold of night weren't bad enough, they'd had to stave off one attack after another. He was starting to despair of ever seeing Nibenay again, much less saving it from the demon-possessed templar.
The raiders seemed to have reached a conclusion. They faced the travelers again, the elf at their center, flanked by three humans, a halfling, and a goliath, doubtless brought up from the ranks in case Ruhm tried anything. They were a hard-looking lot, showing the scars of many a struggle, their faces grim. Aric was glad they weren't fighting, but suspected that had only been postponed by Myrana's action. And possibly not for long.
"Very well," the elf said. "We'll take the girl at her word. For now. Girl, you'll lead us to this place, where we can set an ambush for your family's caravan."
"And you'll leave me and my friends alone and unharmed, until you get what you can from the caravan," Myrana insisted. "If even one of us is mistreated in any way, then you'll have to kill us all, because I will never breathe a word of that location."
The elf looked disappointed. Perhaps he'd hoped only to spare Myrana. "You'll have to give up your weapons, of course."
"And be utterly defenseless against whatever horrors the desert springs upon us? Nonsense. You already know we have no illusions that we could beat all of you in combat, else we would be fighting now, not talking. But we give up nothing—no water, no food, no weapons. Then, when you've attacked the caravan and stolen your fill, you let us go."
"Let you go? Ha!" the halfling said. Standing fully erect, she might barely reached the elfs waist. But she stood with back and shoulders hunched, a slender javelin in her hands, so she only seemed as tall as his thighs. She was thin, seemingly young, but as battle-worn as the others. She wore a vest and loincloth of some sort of pale, almost yellow skin, and sandals against the heat of the desert sands. Her brown hair was knotted once at the back of her head, and otherwise untamed—in that sense, it matched her attitude.
The elf shot her a glare. "Of course we'll let you go, once we have those riches," he assured them. Aric had seen five-year-old children who were more proficient liars.
"Very well," Myrana said. "Then we have a deal."
"A deal," the elf echoed. He turned to face the rest of the band. "Nobody's to lay a hand on these," he called. "To save their own miserable hides, they're helping us to ambush a wealthy caravan."
This news was met with some cheers but much grumbling, several members of the band seemingly more interested in murder today than riches tomorrow. But the elf and those he had consulted ran things, apparently, and general agreement was voiced by all.
Then they were off again, the travelers still on foot, herded along at a rapid trot by mounted raiders. Aric wasn't sure this was any improvement over a quick, bloody death in battle—keeping pace with the raiders seemed sure to kill them anyway.
2
As night fell, the raiders stopped and made camp. They built fires, over which they cooked erdlu eggs. The aroma made Aric's mouth water and his stomach growl. He still had a little of Amoni's lirr, dry and flavorless compared to the erdlu smell, and diminishing stores of water to wash it down. The raiders drank ale and wine, screamed with laughter at jokes they told one another, sang songs.
The raiders allowed them a fire, in the middle of camp where there were raiders on every side, preventing any escape. When it appeared that none of them were paying close attention to the captives, Aric tore off a chunk of lirr with his teeth. "I hope you know what you're doing, Myrana," he said as he chewed. "They've rio intention of letting us go alive, even after the ambush."
"I know that, Aric. Just as I know that if we'd tried to stand and fight, we'd all be food for the carrion-eaters tonight, and they would have what little we own." She drank from her water skin. "Besides, I would not betray my own house to such as these. The place I'll take them is well off House Ligurto's trading route."
"Then they'll kill us for certain!"
"They'll kill us either way," Sellis said. He had accepted Myrana's plan, but grudgingly.
"True enough. I know this won't keep us alive forever," Myrana admitted. "I just hope it works long enough to find a way to escape."
"Looks hard," Ruhm said.
"Impossible, or close to it," Amoni added.
"For now, yes. Over the next few days, perhaps they'll relax their guard," Myrana said. "Every day we live is one more chance for us. Dying today would have meant no chances. I'm sorry I didn't have time to discuss it with you before I spoke up, but I honestly just thought of it at that moment."
"And saved us all," Aric said. "Thank you, Myrana. Now that I understand what you had in mind, I think you made the right decision."
"Let's hope," Ruhm said gloomily.
"Apparently that's all we've got left to us," Sellis said. "Hope, and empty stomachs. Tomorrow, Myrana, you'll have to remind them that not mistreating us requires giving us food and water, else we're not likely to live long enough to reach the ambush spot."
"I'll work on it," Myrana promised.
Aric ate the last of his lirr, staring into the fire, turning every now and then to let it warm the side of him facing the night's cold.
3
She found a chance to bring it up the next day, on the trail. She was near the front of the procession, riding a borrowed erdlu. She had been loaned it so that she could keep up with the leaders of the long line of raiders, since she was supposed to be directing them to a spot only she knew. The elf from the day before, whose name was Ceadrin, jogged beside her. He had a certain roguish charm, and he had been true to his word, so far, keeping other raiders who might have been disinclined to honor his deal from laying hands on her or the others.
"Either my friends and I must be allowed to hunt our own game," she said, "or you'll have to feed us."
"Was that part of our bargain, girl? Somehow I disremember that."
"It's part and parcel. If you let us starve, that's mistreating us. The deal was no mistreatment."
Ceadrin regarded her—approvingly, she thought, although she wasn't the least bit interested in his opinion of her. His eyes had a light orange cast to them. "You drive a hard bargain."
"It's in my blood."
"And yet you're willing to betray that blood?"
"Family ties aren't always the strongest bonds," she said, hoping that was vague enough to get by. If she needed to, she could make up an argument, but she hoped it didn't come to that. "As you must know, since I see a scattering of other elves among your band, but not an entire tribe's worth."
Ceadrin shrugged. "You're right. I was of the Starspeeder clan, but there were ... difficulties, let's say. You wouldn't want to hear more than that." "I'm sure you're right."
"There are more of my clan, back at the fort. But not many, I grant you."
"What fort is that?"
He waved a hand behind him, encompassing the whole lot of raiders. "Oh, we're just one raiding party," he explained. We've a fort, once called Dunnat. There we've three times this number. Almost too many, really. Although we go raiding in smaller bands, it's still a lot to share with. And I've never been fond of sharing."
"Well, you'll be a hero when you return with the goods you've stolen from House Ligurto," Myrana told him. She allowed herself a slight grin, then pretended to try to hide it. "And I'll have achieved a small measure of vengeance, myself. It should work out well for us both."
"You—what's your name, girl? Myrana?"
"That's right." "You might just have the spirit of a raider. Perhaps when this is done ..."
"Then I'll want to be on my way with my friends. Aric, the half-elf, he's from Gulg, and longs to return there. The others and I vowed to accompany him that far, and I mean to keep that promise."
"Gulg?" the elf asked. "I'd never have guessed it."
"It's been a long voyage, Ceadrin. We've all made some changes, or had them forced upon us. There was a day you'd have looked at him and known exactly where he was from, but that was ages ago."
"And you, Myrana? Where's home to you?"
She indicated the desert before them. No harm in telling the truth on this score. "Anyplace there's a tent pitched and a blanket to go over me. And a bargain to be struck—the lot of a trader's life. All I know are the stars and moons and the shifting sands."
"Pity you're so determined to honor that vow," Ceadrin said. "There's much about you that makes you fit to join our group. I think I'd like that a great deal, in fact."
"Even though I'd be one more to share with?"
"Even though."
"Well, my word is not given lightly," she said. Never mind that she had been lying to Ceadrin since they'd met. It was a simple matter of survival. And he was lying to her, too, which made it easier. "But we'll see what the next days bring, won't we?"
"We will, at that," Ceadrin said. "I suppose we will indeed see."
4
That night, they had erdlu eggs and wine, along with the raiders. Their guard was no more lax than it had been the first night, but they seemed to be growing more accustomed to the captives, and in addition to including them in their meal, the raiders engaged them in conversation.
For two more days they journeyed with Myrana riding most of the time. Given her damaged leg, Aric was thankful for this, but the others had to hurry to keep up with the raiders.
Finally, they reached a spot that indeed seemed ideal for an ambush. Two tall ridges formed a wide canyon that converged at one end to a narrow pass through which perhaps six or seven mounted people could ride abreast. The hills on either were covered in large rocks and scrubby plants that would offer both cover and weapons. The gap wasn't tight enough to make travelers anxious, but it was so slim that raiders could flank them from both sides and easily cut them down from above.
"Why would your family's caravan pass through here?" Ceadrin asked Myrana when she showed them the place. "It's far from the main trading routes."
"Which is exactly why," Myrana said. "The main trading routes are where most of your kind would look for them. And they're where our competitors also travel—sometimes competing caravans are more dangerous than the most bloodthirsty raiders. You also won't find a faster route between Urik and Nibenay."
"Interesting," Ceadrin said. "When will they be here?"
Myrana looked to the sky, as if it could provide the answer she sought. "Two days, perhaps. Maybe three, depending on how hard the craftsmen of Urik are dealing. But when they come, they'll have plenty of rich obsidian in their wagons: weapons, carvings, jewelry, and raw stone. Plus, of course, whatever they acquired in Draj and Raam, and a certain amount of gold."
"That sounds fine," Ceadrin said.
"So let's kill 'em now!" the halfling female they'd met before said. "We're here, we know when the caravan comes."
"There'll be no killing," Ceadrin countered.
"No killing?" the halfling echoed, her disappointment clear. "But—"
Ceadrin raised a hand, to silence her and the other raiders who had already chimed in on her side. "No," he said. "We don't know what'll happen when the caravan arrives. This looks like a good place for a successful ambush. We'll be on both sides of them, with elevation on our side and boulders we can tumble down upon them. But it's possible that a hostage will come in handy, as well, and for that we'll need the girl."
"Kill the others, then! All they are now is more mouths to feed!"
Ceadrin looked as if he were giving the idea some consideration.
"Kill them, and I kill myself," Myrana warned. "Then there's no hostage. But let us live, and I know I can help in one other way."
"How?" the raiders' lone goliath asked.
"If I show myself, as they're reaching the narrowest part of the pass, they'll stop. Then you can make your attack, and even if they try to run, it'll be from a dead halt. You'll have a much easier time of it if I'm here. And cooperating."
"She makes sense," Ceadrin said. He turned toward Myrana and her friends and lowered his voice. "You always make sense, Myrana. It causes me to be suspicious of you. If I find that you've deceived us in any way, you'll wish you had died that first day. I'll let my friends kill yours, slowly, while you watch. And your own demise will be excruciatingly slow and painful. I promise you that." He grinned at her, his orange eyes boring into her. "And like you, I take my promises seriously."
5
Two days passed. The raiders and their captives waited in separate groups, high on the twin ridges overlooking the pass. Aric, Amoni and Myrana had been kept with Ceadrin's group, while Ruhm and Sellis had been made to climb the opposite slope with a group commanded by the halfling. Aric was still working out the hierarchy of the raiders, but he gathered it had much to do with an individual's ruthlessness and skill in battle. The halfling, for all her diminutive size, appeared tough, with no sense of fear or mercy.
Three raiders had taken the mounts and wagons to a point outside the hills to wait out of sight from the caravan regardless of which approach it took.
On the third morning, Aric woke up to find that most of the raiders had taken up their positions on the hillside. Myrana was nearby, sitting on the skins she slept under. Amoni stood close to her, staring into the southeast. They couldn't escape from here, but none of the raiders paid them any attention. Their gazes were fixed, instead, on something that might have been a cloud of dust in the far distance. "How long do you think we have, Myrana?" Aric asked. "Sooner or later, they'll figure out that the House Ligurto caravan isn't coming through here after all."
"They will," Myrana agreed. "What I didn't tell you is that this pass is indeed used for transit—just not by us." She nodded her head toward the smudge on the horizon. "I'm not sure who that is coming this way, but it's not House Ligurto."
"Someone's really going to be ambushed?" Amoni asked.
"So it would appear," Myrana said. "And we'd better be ready to take advantage of it, because I doubt we'll get another chance." "I wish we could tell Sellis and Ruhm."
"Sellis will figure it out. I don't know Ruhm well, but I expect he will, too."
"You're probably right," Aric agreed. "I just hope we decide to take advantage of it in the same way."
"Me too," Amoni said. "And I hope our captors don't figure out that's not a House Ligurto caravan until it's too late. Because they are going to be very, very angry when they do."
They watched the approaching party, more than just a plume of dust at this point, but not yet discernible. Aric's fingers rested lightly on the hilt of his sword, tapping against it. His left foot was twitching.
"Can you be still?" Myrana asked him.
"I'm anxious," he admitted. "Since we were captured, we've been living under the threat of imminent death, any time they tired of us. But now ... now death is more imminent than ever. Even I can tell that group isn't a caravan. They're moving too fast. Once the raiders figure that out, they've no reason to let us go on living."
"I have a feeling that once they figure that out, they're going to be a little busy," Myrana said. "Those are thri-kreen."
"You can see that far?"
"Far enough to make that out. Nothing else moves quite like thri-kreen."
She was right, Aric realized. He remembered seeing individual thri-kreen in Nibenay—not often, as their insectlike race was drawn to be part of their birth clutch, and failing that to join any other pack available—and their odd build, taller than all but the tallest elves, with powerful legs and four arms and sand-colored carapaces sweeping behind them like cloaks, gave their gaits a unique and noteworthy strangeness. Their heads seemed oddly unbalanced on slender necks, and their antennae were constantly in motion as well.
More notable still was the sight when two or more walked down the street together. While each thri-kreen individual looked awkward, each step an unlikely series of jerky motions, in combination they moved exactly the same. Whether there were two or six, the largest group Aric had observed for any length of time, their motions matched exactly, as if there were only one mind operating all six bodies, all six sets of arms and legs.
"I've never seen them in combat," he said. "But I know what you mean."
"That's them, all right," Amoni said. The sun was still climbing into the sky. Sunlight gleamed off Amoni's copper skin from the knees up, and below that her legs were shaded. "In combat it's not quite the same, because they're fierce fighters and they'll take any advantage."
Aric had an idea. He rose and stood next to Amoni. The raiders on the far hill were still completely in the shade, but he was, like Amoni, half lit by the sun. Soon enough the raiders would tell them to sit, because they would give away the ambush if they were seen.
So he slipped his sword a few inches out of its scabbard, facing into the sun and tilting it slightly. Sunlight winked from the steel blade. He directed that wink toward the southeast, toward the oncoming thri-kreen.
"What are you up to now?" Myrana asked.
"I'm letting them know someone's up here. Stand between me and the other slope, Myrana, so they don't see."
Myrana hurried to do as he bade her. In her position, Amoni was already partially blocking him. "Clever," she said.
"It's my turn, don't you think?"
"I don't know about that. But this is an excellent time for it."
The compliment made him beam almost as much as the sun flashing off his blade was.
He couldn't keep it up for long, he knew. If he wasn't careful one of the raiders on his side of the hill would see what he was doing, and then the three of them would likely be slain before the thri-kreen even made it this far. He had no way of knowing if the insectlike humanoids had spotted him, but he knew if he'd been in their place, looking toward where the canyon funneled down, he would have seen such a sign.
He let the blade sink back into its scabbard and sat down again. Still, his fingers played about the hilt, nervous as ever. He had done what he could do. Now it was just a matter of time.
6
"You there!" one of the raiders shouted. He was another halfling, this one a male and no bigger than the female. He looked younger still, but Aric knew it was hard to tell with that race—from any distance at all they all looked like children. This one had wisps of dark hair growing from his chin. "No one said you could stand."
"No one said we couldn't," Amoni replied.
"I'm saying it."
"Fine," Aric said. He sat down, and Myrana and Amoni joined him.
"I'm keeping my eye on you," the halfling warned them. "So don't think you'll be able to try anything, when we attack that caravan."
"It's no caravan," Ceadrin corrected. "I think it's thri-kreen. We'll let them pass, they've nothing we want. But keep an eye on the prisoners just the same—I'll be wanting a word with the crippled girl when this is done."
"Do your raider friends on the other side know you're letting them pass?" Myrana asked. Her jaw was thrust toward the elf, her eyes narrow slits. Aric knew she didn't appreciate being called a crippled girl—true as it might be, she got around fine, if more slowly than some, and didn't feel crippled in any serious ways.
"They will when I don't make the first move," Ceadrin said. "I still command this party."
The halfling shot him a look that Ceadrin didn't see because he was eyeing Myrana. Aric wondered if the little man thought he—or more likely the female halfling who seemed to be second in seniority—should be in charge of the band. Perhaps she had even challenged Ceadrin in the past. Some of her scars had seemed of recent vintage.
Ceadrin moved off down the hill to join others watching the approaching thri-kreen intently. He spoke quiet words to them, most likely telling them not to engage the group. The halfling watched the prisoners for a couple more minutes before his attention also wandered back toward the thri-kreen. By now they were clearly visible, racing up the valley floor on those powerful legs.
"Do you think they saw your signal?" Myrana whispered.
Aric shrugged. "We'll find out soon."
As the thri-kreen came closer, movement from the raiders ceased. They had taken their places behind boulders and bushes, as if prepared for ambush, but they didn't want to attract the attention of a group of thri-kreen numbering more than they had. They would wait and watch and hope.
Aric made his extremities stop jittering around. He rested his hand on the sword hilt, drawing comfort from its steel. Amoni seemed on edge as well, her muscles tense, ready for a fight. Only Myrana appeared relaxed, now that Ceadrin was gone.
As the sun rose high enough over the far hills to flood the canyon floor, the thri-kreen started to pass below them. Aric could make out individual faces, but to him the thirty or more imposing insect men all looked the same. Huge black multifaceted eyes glittered in the sunlight, antennae bobbed as they ran. The clicking of their mandibles was audible even far up on the hill. They wore no clothing to speak of, although some had harnesses or belts from which they suspended weapons and belongings. Every one of them carried weapons in their upper limbs, the middle set of arms being far the weakest of their six limbs. They were especially fond of gythkas and chatkchas. Many also carried shields of wood or shell.
Every raider's gaze was riveted on them. The halfling and another raider, a muscular, heavily tattooed human with only one eye and a nasty scar snaking down from his empty left socket to the comer of his mouth, sat behind the captives, so that even while watching the thri-kreen they could see if
Aric, Myrana, or Amoni tried anything. Aric wondered if he should make a move anyway. If they could take out those guards quietly, perhaps he, Amoni and Myrana could go up over the crest of the hill and come down on the other side, then capture some mounts.
And then what? Go back into either a battle or a troop of thri-kreen warriors for Ruhm and Sellis? Abandon them? Neither option was a good one. Myrana would have a hard time on the uphill sprint. If they were seen, the raiders need not call attention to themselves, at all. A few could chase them over the hill and catch them on the other side of the hill without the thri-kreen seeing anything.
No, there was nothing to do but hope and wait until an opportunity presented itself.
"They're going," the one-eyed human said softly. "Thank Ral and Guthay, they're passing us by."
At that moment, the thri-kreen attacked.
7
They broke formation without notice, many of the insect men sprang off their strong legs, some landing thirty or forty feet up the hillside.
As they charged, the raiders responded, knowing they hadn't gone unseen after all. They shoved over huge stones, fired arrows, hurled javelins. Most of the weapons clattered off thri-kreen shields. A hurtling boulder smashed into one, who gave a chittering wail as it died. Others simply leapt over the oncoming rocks and kept swarming up the hillside.
With howls and battle cries, the raiders left their hiding places and rushed to meet the thri-kreen. A crystalline chatkcha arced through the air and crushed one raider's skull. A thri-kreen engaged a half-elf raider, gythka to sword, the gythka's crescent blades at each end spinning around and the stabbing blade in the center keeping the raider at bay until the mantis man finally cut the half-elfs leg, then pierced his heart.
"Aric, look!" Myrana said, grabbing his upper leg. She pointed to the ridge across the canyon. Aric saw nothing, at first, then realized that was the point.
"They're staying hidden," he said. "The thri-kreen don't know there's anybody up there, and the raiders like it that way."
"They'd rather see their fellows slaughtered than take a chance on joining the fight," Amoni said. She spat into the dirt. "Cowards."
"The fight won't take long, then," Aric said. "With the raiders at full strength, we might have a chance. But with half, we'll be swiftly dispatched."
He stood suddenly and drew his sword. "What are you doing?" the halfling guard demanded.
"They'll be up here any moment," Aric said. "If you think we're not defending ourselves ..."
"Oh, let them come," the halfling said. "There'll be more than a bug or two slain before they get here."
Amoni and Myrana followed suit, rising and drawing weapons.
And across the way, a boulder sailed from the hillside, crashing to the canyon floor behind the startled thri-kreen who hadn't yet climbed the slope.
Surprised shouts followed in the boulder's wake.
Thri-kreen peeled off from the first wave of attack and started up the opposite hill. The battle was fully engaged, on both fronts. The raiders had the edge of height, but the ferocity of thri-kreen warriors couldn't be understated. Aric watched one grab a raider and plant its mandibles into her arm, injecting venom that froze her in place. The thri-kreen dispatched her with a quick stab from its gythka and turned to face its next opponent.
The time had come. Aric spun around without warning and buried his sword in the one-eyed man's chest. The raider's single eye bulged, his jaw dropped open, and blood burbled out. Aric withdrew the blade and more blood spurted from the wound.
The halfling started toward Aric. Amoni blocked his way, her cahulaks whipping through the air. One four-bladed head sliced through the halfling's arm, then the other sliced up his chest and chin.
Aric grabbed Myrana's arm and hoisted her to her feet. "Come on!" he urged. "Over the hill!"
"But.... Sellis and Ruhm!"
He hadn't yet figured out that part of it. Ruhm and Sellis were capable. Even now they had to be fighting their own way clear.
An elf raider bounded toward them with a bone axe in both hands. "Stop where you are! We're not done with you!"
"Yes, you are," Amoni said. She met the elfs advance. Aric took advantage of the moment to lead
Myrana up the slope. The soil was loose, sliding under his feet. They had to dig in, sidestepping up. It was hard for Myrana, so Aric took a step, braced, and hauled her up beside him, then moved on to the next.
Before they reached the crest, two more raiders raced to intercept their escape. One was a brutish human or part-human of a breed Aric didn't recognize, the other a stout, bronze-skinned man who looked to be from Draj.
Aric released Myrana's hand and slashed at the brute, who blocked the blow with a chitin shield and stabbed with the short spear he carried. Aric sidestepped the spear thrust. His foot came down awkwardly on the uneven ground and slid out from under him. The second man jabbed with a dragon paw. Swinging his heavy sword, Aric caught the dragon paw's jab, deflecting the weapon and continuing his blade's sweep toward the man's skull.
The man raised the dragon paw to parry the sword. Aric's heavy steel blade crashed through the paw's wooden shaft and bit into the man's head, carving a deep gash above his ear. The man cried out, hurled his weapon aside and clapped his hands to his head as he fell to his knees. Aric kicked him in the chest and he went down.
But the kick unbalanced Aric again. He caught himself on his hands, just as the other fellow drove his spear's keen obsidian tip at Aric again. Aric tried to dodge but his foot slid on the rocky slope, and the point scraped his ribs. Aric, still unbalanced, batted the spear away with one hand and shoved his sword point-down toward the ground to keep from falling. Only the sword's length kept him from tumbling down the slope.
The brute charged, spear outthrust for the killing blow. When Aric tried to turn to face the man, his weight on the ancient sword bowed and snapped it with a loud crack. Most of the blade's length skidded down the hill. Aric dropped to one knee, ducking under the thrusting spear and bringing the remains of his weapon, about four inches of blade, up at the same time. The brute's momentum carried him past Aric's shoulder, and those four inches of steel sank into his gut. Blood drenched Aric's hand and arm. The brute spun away from him, tearing the stub of a sword from Aric's grasp, and rolled down the slope.
Aric picked up the fallen spear. It was not a weapon he had any familiarity with, but he'd rather learn it fast than be without any.
Amoni had finished off her elf opponent, and with those enemies dispatched, the way to the hilltop was clear. Below, the thri-kreen had cut a swath through the raiders. A glance at the far ridge showed the same thing happening there, but Aric was moving too fast, he and Amoni helping Myrana up the steep, treacherous crest of the ridge, to see if he could spot Ruhm or Sellis.
Then they were over the top and working down the other side, panting from the hurried climb. On this side the sunlight seemed brighter and hotter, the sky a brighter olive, the sounds of battle dimmed.
They rushed as much as they could down the slope, balancing between trying to move quickly and not wanting to send cascades of rock and dirt down to announce their presence. Somewhere on this side, three more raiders waited with the mounts.
Once they neared the bottom, they smelled the animals, then saw their guards. They raiders had corralled the beasts in a makeshift pen. Using a natural cutaway in the hillside, they blocked the open side with branches and brush. One raider slept while the other two gambled with fragments of white bone. Aric, Myrana and Amoni cut across the slope toward them.
When they were almost directly above the guards, one of the erdlus sniffed the air and gave a warbling cry of alarm. The guards dropped their bits of bone and snatched up weapons. Aric and Amoni took a couple of running steps and launched themselves into the air.
Amoni crashed into one of the guards, bowling him over. Aric landed hard, a couple of feet before his man. He bent his knees upon landing and sprang up fast, thrusting with the unfamiliar spear.
His opponent, a battle-scarred veteran wearing vestiges of a Tyrian military uniform, moved away from the thrust and swung a fang-spiked morningstar at him. The heavy weapon whistled inches above Aric's head, as he ducked the blow and lost his footing. He sprawled on the ground, spear under his belly. The wound he'd suffered earlier sent darting pains though him, but he rolled over quickly and jabbed the spear's obsidian point into the veteran's ankle.
The man screamed. He put his weight on his good leg and tried to raise the morningstar again. He went off balance and stumbled to correct himself, giving Aric time to push to his feet and drive the spear into the veteran's chest. The veteran looked at him with a shocked expression, and slowly sank to the ground.
Aric snatched away the morningstar as the man fell, with Aric's new spear locked in his chest. The guard who had been sleeping was sitting up. Amoni, having slain her foe, spun her cahulaks on their rope, and the guard dodged right and left to avoid them. He lunged for a crossbow he had set aside before going to sleep. Aric hurled the morningstar. It struck the guard's hand, cutting him and bouncing away. The guard snatched back his hand, and one of Amoni's cahulaks' heads drove into his abdomen.
The mounts were stamping and squealing, but all three guards were dead. Aric helped Myrana down from the slope.
"Grab some erdlus!" he shouted. Amoni was standing in the midst of them but had not yet moved to secure any. "We need five of them."
"Five?" Amoni asked. "We are only three!"
"For Sellis and Ruhm?" Myrana speculated. "Yes. We have to go back for them."
"Why?" Amoni asked. "They're our friends."
"But they're—"
"What? Probably dead? They might be. But they might be alive, too. Until we find out ..."
"What of the demon? Warning Nibenay?"
"We need to see if they're alive." Aric said. "We can't just leave them."
Amoni didn't argue further. Despite the talk he'd had with her, she was still more comfortable taking orders than questioning them. Within a few moments, each was mounted on a sturdy bird, taller than Aric and slightly heavier. They'd tied ropes around the necks of two others, which Aric and Amoni held. Aric leaned over the guard he had killed, grabbing his spear's shaft and tugging it free.
Myrana led the way out of the makeshift corral. They left it open behind them and nudged the erdlus into a sprint. Aric glanced back to see kanks and erdlus emerging from the corral and wandering into the desert.
The erdlu's feathers tickled his legs and arms. He tilted forward, holding onto the thing's thick neck, a scent like almost-spoiled meat filling his nose. He directed the creature by applying pressure with his hands and knees, and after a few minutes he began to feel like he and the bird were in sync. The thing moved at a brisk but ungainly trot, swaying Aric from side to side with every long stride.
Once they were moving at full speed, Aric's beast passed Myrana's. He led them around the line of hills, to the canyon's narrow end. As they neared the pass they could again hear the sounds of battle. The big bird didn't want to enter the pass, but Aric kept up the pressure. They went into the canyon, cooled suddenly by deep shade.
To Aric's delight, the raiders had given up fighting and were trying to escape. Thri-kreen warriors gave chase. Many had fallen, on both sides, but more raiders than insect men.
Scanning the scene, he couldn't see Ruhm or Sellis. "Where are they?" Myrana shouted. "Sellis!"
"Quiet, Myrana!" came a hushed voice from behind a thick stand of brush. "You'll give us away!"
Sellis emerged, then Ruhm, looking as if he'd had to fold himself in quarters to hide behind the bushes. "We hid," Ruhm said.
"So I see," Aric replied. "Here, we brought you mounts."
"The thri-kreen went after the raiders," Sellis explained. "So we decided to make for the pass. When we saw you three go over the top, we guessed that's where you'd end up."
"If you made it," Ruhm added. Eternally optimistic.
"We made it," Myrana said. "But if you don't get on these birds we might not make it far."
Ruhm and Sellis climbed the rest of the way down the hill and took over the erdlus. Ruhm's staggered under his weight, then righted itself, as if considering the half-giant a challenge to which it would not concede defeat. They turned the birds around and rode back out of the pass and into open desert.
"We'll give a wide berth to these hills," Aric called. "Then make for Nibenay again, and pray this whole encounter hasn't delayed us overmuch."
Ruhm got a look at the obsidian-pointed spear Aric was still carrying. "Where's your sword?" he asked.
"It broke," Aric explained. "Last I saw it, I'd buried it to the hilt in one of the raiders, but there wasn't much left of the blade by then."
"Too bad," Ruhm said. He showed Aric his greatclub, which the erdlu no doubt would grow to resent if they rode for long. "Still have this. Wood's better."
"If that club was as old as my sword, it'd be nothing but wood chips by now," Aric said. "There's nothing wrong with steel, but any weapon a thousand years old is going to have some problems."
Ruhm smiled at his club and laid it across his lap. "Let you know," he said. "In about nine hundred and ninety-six years."
XV
FLIGHT
1
He finally gave in again.
He went back once more to the elven market, just as day inevitably gave way to night. The sun set, the wind rose, the cold began to settle in around the bazaar like an unwelcome guest who would stay too long. He intended just to watch, not to take any action.
And yet there was an elf woman there with long hair of the brightest copper, some of it piled on top of her head and held with jeweled pins, the rest cascading down her shoulders and back. In spite of the fur wrap she wore against the chill, the man could see that her body was lithe and strong. She stood at the end of the market where men met the elf women, in the glow of lanterns mounted on posts, and a human man leaned toward her, saying something. She smiled enticingly and responded, brushing his arm with her slender hand. After another couple minutes of back-and-forth, they walked away from the market, arm in arm.
The man couldn't take it.
Once more, he raced up streets running roughly parallel to the route he knew they would take. He fingered the handle of the sharp knife he carried—the knife he had promised himself he would not use in this way again. His heart raced, and the cold air he breathed seemed to sear his throat and lungs.
The road he was on curved around and intersected the one they had taken. He reached the corner before them and stopped, breathing hard, leaning against the building. He panted and peered around the comer, watching their approach. They strolled together like long-time lovers, even though they had just met. The street was empty, but for them.
Go home, he told himself. Leave them atone. You don't need to do this.
He had almost convinced himself of that when the human traced the elfs cheek with his fingers, then kissed it.
A red screen seemed to descend over the man's vision. He drew the knife. The thudding of his heart slowed and a strange calm enveloped him. He waited at the corner until they passed him.
Then he struck.
He drove the knife through the fur wrap and into the center of the elfs back. She cried out in pain. The man dragged the blade down several inches, releasing blood in a steady stream, and yanked it out. By then the human was spinning around to face him, pawing for a weapon under his cloak. The man's arm snaked out quickly, drawing the sharp blade across the human's throat. Again, blood splashed his hand and the street.
A moment later, human and elf were both down, their limbs entwined, the man standing over them, wiping blood from his knife blade with his fingers.
"Murder!" somebody screeched. "Murderer!"
The man looked up and saw a woman staring at him from an open window. Before he could react, there were more shouts, and the thunder of running feet.
He would have liked to stay longer, make a few more cuts. That elf face, as pretty as birdsong ... But he didn't dare. Instead he took flight, racing back down the curving road he had taken to the intersection. At the first corner, he turned, slowed long enough to sheath the knife, then sped back up to a sprint. Another comer, and another.
The voices continued, though, screaming into the night, calling out his route. The pounding of footsteps didn't let up. In the anxious cries he heard the news—not just an elf, but a human. Someone even mentioned the human's name. It was a name the man recognized, not someone he knew by sight but by reputation. Ta'ak Enselti. An important person in the city.
The man had been seen, but not recognized. He was certain of that. Had his name been spoken aloud, he'd have heard it.
By a roundabout route, he headed for home. He managed to stay ahead of his pursuers, far enough ahead, he believed, to risk going there. He had to go there. There was nowhere else, nowhere safe. If the mob ran him down they would tear him apart. No one complained too much about the deaths of a few elves, but when someone of Enselti's stature died, even the Nibenese authorities might get involved.
He didn't dare get caught, or let himself be seen.
He ran.
2
"He went in there!"
A woman had stepped from her home with a pail, intending to fill it from the nearest public cistern. Her infant son needed to be bathed, and she already had a fire going, tended by her oldest daughter, to warm the water. A shadowy form racing past her front door almost knocked the pail from her hands. "Hey!" she called after him. "Watch where you're going!"
The man—or so she believed it to be, although he was draped in so much clothing she couldn't be sure—just kept running. He appeared to be panicked by something. He reached the Serpent Tower, and she could hear his footsteps as he raced up its circular staircase. Then she heard other sounds, the drumming of hurried footfalls, and shouts, angry and alarmed.
She was still standing there when the man emerged from the tower. Here he slowed to a walk, adopting a patrician air. He went to a gate, where a guard met him with obvious respect and opened the way for him.
A moment later a crowd of people rounded a curve, running in the same direction the man had. A woman saw the woman with the pail, staring at the cliff side dwellings. "Which way did he go?" she asked. "He killed someone!"
"There," the woman said, pointing at the gate through which the person had passed. She had only recently moved to this place, after her son's birth, and she didn't know the wealthy people who lived in the cliff walls. "He went in there."
The people in the mob stopped, staring at the Serpent Tower, the estates dotting the cliffs face. "In there?" someone repeated.
"The House of Thrace!" another called.
"It's that boy," another one shouted. "That boy, what's his name? The crazy one!"
"Pietrus!"
"That's right, Pietrus!"
"I heard he killed three people!"
"Just two," another answered. "And one was an elf. But one was Ta'ak Enselti."
"Enselti? I've heard of him!"
"He's a landowner, a merchant. He's well known."
"I met Enselti once! He was so nice to me."
The woman with the pail really needed to get some water. Her daughter was inside with the fire and her baby. She wanted to get back. "Well, that's where he went," she said. "If you say that's the estate of the House of Thrace, then that's who it is. I don't know this Pietrus, but if he's crazy, then perhaps he's a killer."
"Come on!" someone called. "Let's get him! Let's get Pietrus of Thrace!"
3
Rjeve was working with her sword, performing exercises Corlan had taught her, when she heard the commotion outside. Shouts and hands slamming against the outer walls. She hung the sword up on the wooden rack her father had commissioned just for that purpose and went to see what all the noise was.
In the courtyard, she met her mother, father, and grandfather. "What's going on?" she asked.
"I just spoke to Bryldun," her mother said, naming one of the family's guards. Her cheeks wet were wet with fresh tears. "There are people outside, demanding that we send Pietrus out." She buried her face in her hands. "They say he killed someone! They claim he killed Ta'ak Enselti, and some elf woman Enselti was with."
"But he didn't! Of course he didn't." Rieve said. "Where is he?"
"In his room," her father said. "I just saw him there."
"Then what are they talking about?"
Father reached over, touched her mother's shoulder. His face was grim, his cheeks flushed with anger. "They're just mistaken, that's all. That's what mobs are like, Rieve. They get an idea, never mind if it's right or wrong, and they convince one another that it's true. Then they become certain that this thing, this idea, is what they saw. They believe it. Even if it's not true. By now, if Ta'ak really was killed, half those people out there probably believe they saw it happen."
Fear swelled Rieve's heart, like a bladder too full of wine. She could barely swallow around it. "But, if they report it to the city guard, to the High Consort of the King's Law, she'll have to take action, won't she?"
"It'll be fine, Rieve," her mother said. "We're in good standing with the Shadow King. We'll simply explain that Pietrus was home with us the whole time."
"No," Rieve's grandfather said. "The girl is right. High Consort Djena has long hated this family, hated me. She would love an excuse to break us up, to enslave us. Only my relationship with the Shadow King has kept her from moving against us thus far, but an event like this? True or false, this will give her just what she needs. It's not just this killing, there have been many over these past months, always human men in the company of elf consorts. They'll blame Pietrus for them all, soon enough." He stood solemnly in the center of the courtyard, regarding his family. "Pack what you can carry easily," he said. "I hate to say it, but we have to leave. Within the hour."
4
Rieve had seen the pain on her grandfather's face when he told them they would have to leave. He had spent his life in Nibenay, built his fortune here. But one didn't make a fortune without also making some enemies, and although her grandfather had tried to protect his family from it, she knew that it had often troubled him.
He would go to any lengths to shield them, and running—much as he would hate it—would not disturb him as much as staying here and letting Djena tear them apart.
She, however, was not ready to leave Nibenay.
While the others packed, she took a candle and left the house through the secret exit. Every one of these cliff-built estates had one, a second way out, bypassing the Serpent Tower. The exits weren't guarded, because no one knew where they were, and if they found one they wouldn't know where it led. With the candle's light, she followed a narrow, winding tunnel that gradually took her down and down.
At the tunnel's end was a heavy wooden door, barred from the inside. Rieve took down the bar and slipped through, pulling the door shut behind her. She came out in a dark cave. From here there was only one path, but it was a long one. Had anyone ventured so far into the cave, they would only have discovered doors through which they couldn't pass.
When she neared the cave's opening, she blew out the candle and set it aside. She emerged a good distance from the Serpent Tower, out of sight of any of the cave dwellings. No one was there to see her. If Pietrus had really killed someone, wouldn't he have returned the way she had left? she wondered. So that he wouldn't be observed?
But if a mob was chasing him, he might not have had a chance to. Any safety would have felt better than continuing to run, possibly being caught here in this unpopulated neck of the city. And Pietrus—well, he wasn't like other people.
She didn't want to believe her brother was a killer. She didn't understand the way he thought, though. He could demonstrate great cruelty, she had seen that. Emotional and physical cruelty, toward small animals, insects, birds. Her mother had told her that he was just trying to figure out the world in his own way, that he meant no harm. What if she'd been wrong?
From here, it was fifteen minutes to Corlan's home. She didn't want to disturb his family, so she spoke to one of the guards at his front gate, who knew her from previous visits. "I need to see Corlan," she said. "I'm sorry, I can't tell you why. And I know it's late. But it's very important."
The guard looked down at her, as if she were the crazy one. "You sure it can't wait until tomorrow?"
Rieve resisted the impulse to remind him of her social status, to point out that for him to question her like that was the ultimate in bad manners. "Please," she said. "Just fetch him for me. I'll wait here."
The guard looked this way and that, as if she might be trying to make him leave his post so an invading army could sneak in. He gave a shrill whistle, and another guard hurried over to the gate. "Fetch the young master," the first one said.
"Corlan?"
"Of course, Corlan!"
"Right," the second guard said. He dashed off into the interior of the Tien'sha estate. The first guard waited with her, not abandoning his post after all.
A few cold minutes passed, during which Rieve paced impatiently, aware of time slipping away, and then the gate opened again and Corlan came out with a look of concern on his face. "Rieve? What are you doing here?"
She took him by the hand and drew him away from the gate. "Over here," she said quietly. "I have to tell you something."
"What is it?"
When they were out of the guard's earshot, she stopped and put her mouth close to Corlan's ear. "I'm leaving Nibenay," she said. "The whole family is."
"What? Why?"
"It's ... it's the most ridiculous thing. Someone claims to have seen Pietrus murder somebody. Ta'ak Enselti, the Merchant. They say Pietrus killed him and some elf he was consorting with."
"Consorting with an elf? That's terrible!" Corlan said.
"I know. Like I said, it's mad. Pietrus would never harm a living soul."
"I ... are you so sure of that, Rieve?"
"What do you mean? You know Pietrus! He's the most gentle person."
"Sometimes he is," Corlan agreed. His face was crisscrossed with deep shadows, the ridges in his forehead and the planes of his drawn cheeks pronounced. "But you've seen him when he gets angry, Rieve. Those rages that beset him ... they frighten me. I don't know what he might be capable of. I don't think you do either. He's not right, you know that."
"Corlan, he's my brother!"
He pressed his hands against her back, trying to soothe her. "I know he is, Rieve. And I know you love him. But you can't let that love blind you to the possibility."
"There is no possibility!" She recoiled from his touch, and he, sensitive to her mood, drew his hands back. "He wouldn't hurt anyone!"
"I wish I could believe you, Rieve. It's just ... like I said, no one can know Pietrus's mind. If there were witnesses ..."
"There were, but they lie," Rieve insisted. "Or they're wrong. They've got something against my family, I don't know. But it wasn't him."
"Don't you hear yourself, my love? It's all their mistake, their treachery. You're not even considering the possibility."
"Because it's not possible."
"But it is."
Rieve whirled away from him. "No! No it's not, Corlan! And if you don't see that, then I must have been wrong about you all along. I must have been wrong about many things!" She broke into a run, heading back toward the cave. She had to get home before the family met to leave. She still had to pack.
She was surprised that no tears stung her eyes, but instead of sorrow she felt the hot burn of rage. Anger at Corlan, for doubting her brother. Anger at the city for putting her family in this position. Anger at whoever had really killed that man.
Behind her, she heard Corlan calling her name. He shouted it several times, then stopped. She thought she heard the gate guard say something, which might have been, "Let her go, son, she's not worth it." She didn't know what Corlan said in reply, if anything. By then she was gone, out of hearing, on her way back to her home.
Or to the place that had been her home, but would no longer be. Not after tonight.
After tonight, the House of Thrace would have to find its way in some other city-state, under some other sorcerer-king.
Nibenay was done, for them.
XVI
THE SMITHY ON THE SQUARE
1
In the distance, across a flat plain, a small village sparkled in the late afternoon sunshine. "Look!" Myrana called. "We're saved!"
"We hope," Aric corrected. "Until we know whose village that is, though, we can't be sure."
"Any village is better than none," Myrana said.
"True enough," Ruhm added. He touched his stomach. He didn't need to—Aric was as hungry as the rest of them. Since they'd escaped from the ambush site, they hadn't dared spend any time hunting or gathering food. They had ridden the erdlus until the birds almost fell over from exhaustion. Aric decided to give his a break, and ran alongside, until hunger weakened him so much that he could do so no longer.
They didn't know if they were pursued, and if so, by whom, so they set their sites on the village, and crossed the plain as fast as they were able.
Behind high stone-and-mortar village walls were tall trees, indicating that a spring or oasis lay within. As the five weary travelers approached, they saw villagers appear at those walls, standing on platforms no doubt, holding bows.
"They're alert," Sellis said. "How do we look like we're friendly?"
Myrana laughed. "Maybe inside there is a pond, and if there is, we can all take a look at our own reflections. If I look as bad as the rest of you, then I'm sure there's nothing we can do to appear friendly."
"We could not kill anybody," Aric suggested. "That would be a start." "If they don't hurt us ..." Ruhm said.
"We've no reason to hurt anyone," Amoni said. "Do we?"
"No reason," Myrana said. "Let's just ride up to the gate and let them know that."
A few minutes later, a large blond man with a light, curly beard, hailed them from the wall. "Ho!" he called. "What is your business here?"
"We're hungry," Aric replied. "We would like to purchase food. And someone might be chasing us. Raiders or thri-kreen, we're not sure which."
For a long, difficult moment, the man at the wall, and the men and women around him, stared blankly at their uninvited guests. Then the big man broke out in laughter, and the others joined in. "You've interesting lives, it appears! Have you currency to pay for that food, or do you expect us to extend credit to five bedraggled strangers?"
Aric still had some coins in his purse from selling the sword to Tunsall of Thrace. For the last several weeks he'd had nowhere to spend it. "We have currency," he said. "And we'd appreciate shelter."
"Protection from those raiders? Or thri-kreen?"
"Yes," Aric said. "We ... we sort of tricked them into battling each other. Whoever survived the fight might be angry."
The big man laughed again. "It seems I was mistaken. You're not just interesting. You're pure trouble."
Aric spread his hands. "I wish I could deny that."
"Enter," the man said. "Gate!"
The village gate, Aric noted, was made of iron, and in good repair. Two men swung it open, and the five travelers rode their stolen erdlus through. Inside were orderly rows of buildings, constructed of mud bricks or a similar stone and mortar construction to the outer wall. The big man jumped down from a platform that ran along behind the inside of the wall, about halfway up.
"Welcome to the village of Yarri," he said. He was a handsome fellow, with pale green eyes and a ready grin. "I am called Hotak Hedessi, once of Urik but no longer."
"We appreciate your hospitality, Hotak," Myrana said. "Are you the ..."
"I'm the village smith," Hotak said.
Aric's head snapped around. "You've a smithy here?"
"We do."
"I would like to see that."
"That can be arranged," Hotak offered. "But first ... these raiders. Did they say anything about Fort Dunnat?"
"Yes!" Myrana said. "They did,"
"Hmm ..." A shadow seemed to pass over the smith's face. "Then we'd better begin our preparations right away. That's a bad bunch. They leave us alone, for the most part, but if they're after you ..."
"Perhaps we ought not let them in," a burly, dark-haired older woman said, scowling at the newcomers. "Why antagonize raiders over these we don't even know?"
"Because they've coins to spend, Maja, and the raiders never give, only take."
"Aye, true enough. But—"
"But nothing. You're welcome, strangers. There's a small tavern right down that road, on the village square," Hotak said, pointing. "You'll find food and beds there. There's a livery nearby as well. I'll be busy here for a while."
"Thank you for your hospitality," Aric said. He hopped off the erdlu, revitalized by the unexpectedly gracious reception and the prospect of a real meal and an actual bed. "We'll go there, and we'll spend some coins in your village, with pleasure."
He led the bird and his companions down the road Hotak had indicated. A few people emerged from buildings along the way, greeting them with reserved politeness. Others spread the word that raiders might be coming, and people rushed to the walls to lend their support. There were probably a hundred permanent structures in the village, Aric calculated. It wasn't on any major trading routes, but with its contained oasis, it probably catered to travelers, which was why it had a tavern with rooms in the first place. He supposed it had some other industry as well: a quarry, a mine, or something. If it was like many villages he'd heard about, he would never be allowed to see that, and it might not even be spoken of in the presence of outsiders.
The tavern was a single-story building that sprawled out in three directions, with smaller buildings tacked on after the original had been erected. Beside it was the livery, which was more or less a single barn with a few outside stables for hardier beasts. Both were quiet, but when they took the erdlus into the barn, a stable boy showed up, struck a deal for the care of the creatures, and took them to be fed and watered.
Inside the tavern, an old married couple, he with a belly that looked like he was concealing several small animals under his shirt, she stooped over almost double, with but one tooth in her head and long, stringy white hair, agreed to feed them and offered them beds in a single room or several.
Aric was more than happy to eat. The meal was almost silent, since they'd all had plenty of each other's company but not enough, these last several days, to fill their stomachs. During it, his gaze kept drifting out the window to the smith's shop across the square. It was bigger than his, with ironwork out front and someone moving about inside, even though he knew Hotak was at the wall.
When they had finished eating, the old man showed them to two rooms, one Aric would share with Sellis and Ruhm, and one for Amoni and Myrana. The woman was preparing a hot bath, which would cost another two bits of his dwindling supply, but sounded well worth the price. Aric left the others to relax and walked across the square to the smithy.
The familiar smells struck him first, the tang of molten iron and the underlying aroma of the charcoal burned to heat the forge. These smells got into a smithy's walls, and into the clothing and skin of the smith. Smelling them made Aric homesick for Nibenay, though at the trip's start he'd been glad for the chance to see new sights and have new adventures.
The doorway of Hotak's shop was covered in a fine layer of black dust, as was the shop's single window. Aric tried to see through it, but all he could make out were vague shapes, and back in one comer, the red glow of the forge. Evening was coming on, but warmth radiated from the smithy and standing outside it was comfortable.
He didn't know how long they would remain in this village. Not long, he hoped, but if the raiders or the thri-kreen were tracking them here, he didn't want to go back out into the desert until they'd been dispatched.
And the fact that he had lost his steel sword bothered him. The weapon had been too old, and too heavy for him, but for all that it felt better in his hand than any agafari-wood sword Nibenay could provide. He wondered it Hotak would mind if he used the shop to craft his own sword, something custom-made just for him, as he had made so many for others over the years.
He was staring into the window, inhaling the pleasant smells and feeling the warmth, when suddenly a face appeared on the other side. It belonged to a man, short and heavily muscled, with a head completely bald but for a sprig of hair growing from the top, like a tuft of weeds in an otherwise bare field, and a few strands of sparse beard on his chin. His features were thick, with a low brow, a wide, flat nose, and full lips framing a wide mouth. A dwarf.
"What do you want?" the dwarf demanded, his voice gruff. "Shop's closed."
Aric stepped closer to the window, looking down as well as he could through the grime-coated glass. The dwarf held a shovel full of charcoal. "But you're working," he said. "Best get that in the fire, lest the forge cool."
The dwarfs eyes widened and something akin to a smile danced on his lips for an instant. "You know the smith's ways?"
"I am a smith," Aric said. "And I've met Hotak, who told me this is his shop."
The dwarf disappeared from the window. A moment later, Aric heard the sound of charcoal being shoveled into the fire, then the pumping of a big bellows. Aric stood there wondering if he should come back another time, when the door opened. "I'm Mazzax," the dwarf said. "Hotak's apprentice."
"I am Aric, of Nibenay. It's a pleasure to meet you, Mazzax. I've been too long from my own forge, and didn't realize until just now how I miss it."
"I couldn't be away from it for a day," Mazzax said. "Everything about it ... the heat, the sparks, the clang of the sledge against iron on the anvil. It's in my blood. But ... you can't come in. Shop's closed. When Hotak returns ..."
"That could be a while," Aric said. "He's at the wall." "I know. Preparing for attack. You're one of the strangers?"
"I am."
"If we're attacked because of you ... if anyone's hurt ... you'd best not stay long, that's all I'll say."
"I don't know that anyone followed our path here. If they did, well, it sounds as if the raiders from Fort Dunnat have been troubling your village too long anyway."
"True enough."
"Believe me, I'd as soon never see those raiders again. And I hope to stay in your village only a short while, then to leave it in peace, as I found it."
The dwarf was sizing him up. He seemed satisfied by what he saw. "And you are a smith."
"I am indeed."
"All right, then. I won't hate you. Not for now."
"That's good," Aric said.
"But you still must leave. Shop's closed!" Mazzax slammed the door, and Aric heard him shoot the bolt. Then he heard the rhythmic pumping of the bellows once again. So Hotak had a project going, even though he wasn't here to supervise it. Or the dwarf worked on one of his own. Otherwise he'd let the fire cool, and not bother feeding air into it.
He walked away from the shop, reluctantly, as it had given him the flavor of home. He let out a long yawn, stretching his arms at the same time. He would speak with Hotak. But perhaps in the morning, after a few hours sleep ...
2
The raiders came at first light, with the rising sun at their backs. Aric was deeply immersed in a dream. He was the master of a huge smithy, with a dozen forges and even more anvils. The place was crowded with journeymen, working at each forge and anvil, and apprentices doing nothing but working the bellows and stoking the fires. Ruhm was there, and Myrana and Rieve and even Damaric, the barbarian soldier-slave, all of them journeymen, and Aric paced around the shop checking their work, barking out orders. It was a strange dream, but somehow satisfying. When shouts from outside threatened to tear him from it, he tried to hang on.
Finally, Ruhm shook him. "They're here," Ruhm said.
"Who's here?" Aric rubbed his eyes. Gradually he understood the sounds coming through the window—sounds of a village under attack. "The thri-kreen?"
Sellis stood at the window, looking out. "I think it's raiders," he said.
"I thought sure the thri-kreen would finish them."
"Perhaps they did. But if others went out looking for their comrades, they'd still have been able to follow our tracks."
"We should help," Ruhm said.
"Aye," Sellis agreed.
Aric dressed quickly. He had no weapon but that short spear he had taken. If there were many raiders, he wanted something better than that. "I'll meet you at the wall," he said. He dashed from the tavern, and across the square.
The forge's heat still seeped through the walls and window of the blacksmith's shop. Aric pounded on the door. No one answered, so he went to the window. Through the filmed glass, he could see Mazzax moving about. "Mazzax!" he cried. "It's me, Aric! Open up!"
"Shop's closed."
"I know it's closed! Just open the door!"
Mazzax did as he asked, opening it a few inches and blocking the way with his squat, solid bulk. "What?"
"The raiders. They've attacked the village."
"And if they come here they'll find the shop closed."
His response confused Aric for a moment. Best not try to think like a dwarf, he decided. That will get me nowhere. "I need a weapon," Aric said. He showed the dwarf his spear, a simple wooden shaft with a chipped obsidian head. The dwarf eyed it with disdain. "I want to go fight at the wall, alongside
Hotak and the others. But I need a real weapon, not this paltry thing."
"Shop's closed."
"There must be something!"
"Wait here." The dwarf slammed the door, shot the bolt. Aric wondered if he'd be left waiting all day. A minute later, the bolt slid back and the door opened, and again Mazzax stood there. "Here," he said.
He handed Aric an iron rod, a half-inch in diameter and three feet long. "That's it?" Aric asked. "That's all you've got? I'm willing to pay—"
"Shop's closed." The door slammed again.
This time it wouldn't be re-opening, Aric knew.
He hefted the iron rod. For a moment, images filled his mind, of Hotak and Mazzax working side by side, of Mazzax obeying the big man's instructions, copying everything Hotak did, learning the craft from the bottom up. He forced those aside. No time for that now. Still, contact with the metal brought him comfort. It was heavy and it was strong.
It would, he decided, make a better weapon than this stupid spear.
Holding both, the spear in his left hand and the rod in his right, he ran toward the wall.
Most of the villagers had taken up positions on the platforms that ran the length of the village walls. Men and women alike fired bows and crossbows over the wall, ducking behind its protection when similar missiles flew at them. The attackers were screaming threats and warning of what they'd do if the villagers didn't surrender, and the villagers responded in kind. Several had already fallen, and others worked to move their bodies away from the foot of the wall and to patch the wounded.
Aric saw Ruhm, Amoni and Sellis up on the wall, and he climbed a ladder to join them. Raiders, dozens of them—more than had initially captured them—swarmed around the village on kanks, on erdlus, and on foot. Most carried shields and weapons, some even wore helms and armor of chitin or bone.
Sellis glanced at him. "What's that?"
"It's a piece of iron."
"What's it for?"
A raider leapt from a kank's back, grabbing onto the wall nearby and starting to haul himself up. Aric raised the rod and slammed it down on the man's head, cracking his helmet and knocking him from the wall. "That."
"Good enough."
An arrow clattered against the wall right beneath Aric. Aric ducked away from it, then rose again. The archer was far out of range for him, but others were approaching, including a couple of elves running toward the wall at full speed. When they reached it, they would launch themselves over it and land inside. Aric rested the rod on top of the wall and shifted the spear to his right hand. He waited another few heartbeats, until he could see the elves' eyes, their parted lips, drawing in air as they ran. One had a pink triangle of tongue showing at the corner of his mouth. Aric aimed at that and hurled his spear.
The obsidian point sank into the meaty area near the elfs shoulder. The elf slowed, cursed, and yanked it out. He threw it back over the wall, without taking aim, and kept running. Blood poured down his chest and arm.
That's why I don't like spears, Aric thought. He hoped his hadn't hit any villagers, but didn't dare take his eyes off the approaching elves to check.
The unwounded elf jumped first. His leap carried him to the top of the wall. He had a mace in his hand, and he swung it, trying to clear a path. But defenders stabbed him with swords and a pike, and he fell backward, landing on the ground below with a loud thump. The second elf sprang over his comrade's body and, in spite of his wound, landed on top of the wall with momentum to spare. His right foot barely touched the wall, and it flexed, giving him enough spring to keep going into the village. Aric swung his rod up. It struck the elf square in the face. The speed of the elfs forward motion combined with Aric's powerful swing was sufficient to flatten the elfs nose and crush his skull. He howled as his face collapsed. Blood spurted everywhere. The elf fell, inside the wall—the first raider to make it that far. But he would be no threat.
The raiders retreated, regrouped, and attacked again.
More villagers fell under this second assault. The raiders were less anxious to rush the walls this time, but fanned out around the village, pelting it with arrows and bolts. Every time a villager fell, another took his or her place.
There was, however, a limited number of villagers. Soon there wouldn't be enough to replace the dead and wounded. Aric and his companions had brought this on the village, and that certainty sat on Aric's shoulders like a horrible weight.
When the raiders again charged the wall, some carrying crude ladders, he and his friends fought with all the urgency of any villager. Again, they beat back the assault.
But in another place, at the back of the village the wall was breached.
Word spread quickly around the platforms. Raiders had made their way through, and were even now working toward the front, where they hoped to fling open the village's only gate. Some defenders had to leave the wall to stop them, but most had to stay at their posts to prevent more breaches.
Hotak jumped down from the platform and ran down the street his shop was on. Aric clapped Ruhm once on the back and did the same. If the raiders got behind the defenders on the wall, they'd bring them down quickly, and then there would be no one to keep the walls from being breached or the gates opened.
A party of raiders had reached the town square. Most villagers were at one wall or another, so defenders were sparse here, but Hotak and a few others blocked their way. Even Mazzax emerged from Hotak's shop, holding a maul with a blunt, heavy steel head.
When Aric joined them, a raider shouted, "You!"
It was Ceadrin, the elf. "I thought you were dead," Aric said.
"No thanks to you that I'm not. He's the reason we're here," Ceadrin told the villagers. "Turn over him and his friends and we'll leave you be."
"It's too late for that, elf," Hotak said. "You've slain too many of ours, and you've been a bother too many times. We'll end this today."
"Very well," Ceadrin said. "Though you won't like the ending." He turned to his fellow raiders. "Kill them all, then we'll burn this village to the ground."
The raiders rushed the villagers. Steel flashed and blood flew, and first one villager died, then another, and a third. Raiders fell too, but more came in from the breached wall. Aric used his iron rod like a sword and a club, striking with it, swinging it, jabbing. Hotak battled with a fine sword he had doubtless made himself. Mazzax wielded his maul with ferocity and determination.
It began to seem as if they would repel the raiders. Until one of them used sorcery.
3
Aric should have seen it coming.
The raiders were fighting the villagers with every weapon at their disposal. Then, as if at a prearranged signal, they drew back. The pretended to be merely catching their breath, and the villagers took advantage of the moment to do the same.
But one of the raiders was standing back from the others, partially obscured by a wagon parked in the road. He was, Aric realized, performing a spell. As that raider finished a series of wild gestures, Ceadrin tossed a small bundle of sticks toward the defenders. The sticks landed on the ground and the bundle broke apart.
The scattered sticks transformed into vipers, writhing toward the villagers, venom dripping from long, sharp fangs. Two of the villagers were bit right away. Hotak swung his sword into a serpent, cutting it in half, but the two halves each grew longer, the back half sporting a new, snapping head.
"This is magic most foul!" he cried.
The villagers defended themselves against the snakes, no longer paying the raiders any mind.
Hotak was right, foul magic indeed was at work. The handful of trees and the small patches of grass decorating the square were already drying out, turning black. Dying.
Mazzax bludgeoned one of the vipers with his maul. This one didn't come back to life or split into two. But while he was doing so, another one reached him, slithering up his stubby leg. He saw it and screamed. If he used the maul on it, he would cripple himself.
Aric rushed to the dwarfs side. His iron rod had no point, but many magical creatures, he'd heard, disliked iron. He thrust an end between the snake and Mazzax's leg, scooped the snake off him, and then ran forward and hurled the serpent back at the raiders. It landed at one's foot, sinking its fangs into her, and the woman wailed until the venom had paralyzed and killed her.
So they weren't safe from their own vipers. Aric swept up another on his rod and threw it, then one more. Raiders darted away from the snakes. Aric caught one more and, making sure to keep it from climbing up the rod toward him, ran right into their midst. No raider challenged him. Finally, he tossed it at one standing between him and the wagon, then he leapt into the wagon's bed, and off that, coming down behind the raider who had made the vipers in the first place.
That raider started to raise his hands, no doubt readying another spell. Aric swung his iron rod at shoulder height. It caught the raider at the jawline. Bone crunched and flesh tore, and when the raider fell to the dusty street, blood from a head nearly severed ran into the dirt.
"Now," Aric cried. "Cut them!"
The villagers with swords did as he said. This time, the vipers died instead of multiplying.
The last viper to die was the one that bit Hotak.
Hotak was chopping another in half, and didn't see the serpent eyeing his exposed calf. By the time Mazzax saw it and shouted a warning, it was too late—the snake had buried its fangs in Hotak's leg. The big man screamed once, then froze in place and collapsed.
Mazzax attacked the snake with his maul, not quitting until it was pulverized into the earth.
The raiders had been turning away, hoping to go around to some other road, but by running through them and leaping into the wagon, Aric had wound up behind those who still stood.
One of these was Ceadrin.
"Out of the way, half-elf," Ceadrin said. Hatred dripped from his voice, the kind of hatred Aric had grown up knowing from full elves.
"You'll go through me, or you'll die here, elf," Aric replied, trying to put the same sort of bitterness into that last word.
"Through you, then." Ceadrin had a long sword with a slight curve to the blade. He took three steps toward Aric and swung it. Aric deflected it with the rod. Ceadrin swung again and again, bringing the sharp blade toward him at every opportunity. Aric defended, but couldn't find a chance to attack. He was sure his iron rod was dulling Ceadrin's blade, which would be scant comfort if the blade struck him.
Sweat coated Aric's brow, stinging his eyes. He wiped his hands on his shirt, left first, then right, switching the rod as he did. Ceadrin swung again. His sword, with its pommel and guard, was far easier to hang onto. The rod wore blisters in Aric's hand, and his palm cramped from using it.
Aric worked his way back toward the wagon. He wasn't even sure why yet, just had a vague hope that it would provide cover or a chance to jump up, to change his elevation, give him some advantage.
Ceadrin kept up the attack, striking and striking and striking. With each swing parried, Aric felt the vibration all the way up to his shoulder. And still Ceadrin came.
Finally, the wagon was at Aric's back. He parried two more swings, but let his weariness show. That was no act; he was growing tired of all this. A gleam showed in Ceadrin's eye as he sensed his opponent's weakness. He brought his sword up and down in a slashing arc, straight toward Aric's head.
Instead of blocking it, Aric ducked.
Ceadrin's sword bit deeply into the wooden side of the wagon.
It only stuck for a fraction of a second, but that was time enough. Aric came out of his crouch, thrusting with the rod. It caught Ceadrin in the gut, and the elf bent over, air blowing out of him. Aric swung the rod again, first down, smashing it into Ceadrin's knee and hearing the satisfying sound of the joint popping, then up into Ceadrin's throat.
Finally, Ceadrin fell to the ground, and Aric lifted the rod high and drove it straight down, through his heart, pinning the elf to the road.
The few remaining raiders ran past Aric as fast as they could. The defenders followed, picking raiders off as they went. Only Mazzax stayed with Aric, who was breathing heavily, still leaning on the iron rod that pierced the elfs chest.
"He's dead," Mazzax said.
"He had damn well better be."
"Not him," Mazzax said. "Him. Hotak."
Aric released the rod and straightened up, although it pained him to do it. "I'm sorry. I never meant for that to happen."
"You tried. You slew those who slew him."
"I did, at that."
"And you saved me." "Likewise true."
"You have my thanks, stranger."
"Are we still strangers, Mazzax?"
A broad smile creased the dwarfs tanned face. "No," he said. "We're smiths!"
4
The raiders retreated.
The villagers, as Mazzax had warned, had lost much of their enthusiasm for having strangers in their midst. There were many dead to bury, and more wounded to tend.
They shot the visitors angry glares, and more than once Aric and the others heard muttered conversations that ceased abruptly when they came near. But no one told them to leave, and when they raised the idea themselves, villagers pointed out that their scouts saw signs of raiders still in the area.
Then Mazzax invited Aric into the shop.
"You're a smith," the dwarf said. "I'm only apprentice. A smithy needs a smith."
"I can't stay here, Mazzax," Aric explained. "I have to get home. Soon."
"You leave now, raiders will kill you."
"That is a distinct possibility."
"So stay. For a while. Work in the shop."
"Well ..." Aric said.
"Ha! See? You want to. It's in the blood."
That was, Aric thought, probably true of every smith. With as many times as they were cut, there was probably nearly as much metal as blood flowing in their veins. "I have been wanting to craft a sword."
"Good."
"For myself. A fine steel sword."
"Good," Mazzax said again.
"But I really can't stay here."
"We'll work night and day, make it fast."
"Just the two of us?"
"That's not enough?"
"If Ruhm helped us ..."
"The goliath?"
"Yes. He works in my shop, back home."
"Apprentice?"
"Journeyman."
"Lucky."
"I'm sure you'll be a journeyman one day, Mazzax." "Not if I stay here. No more master." "Well, someone else will come, perhaps."
"You came."
"Yes, but ..." Aric was reaching the conclusion that arguing with a dwarf was a pointless pursuit. With this dwarf, anyway.
And they couldn't leave yet. They had to get to Nibenay, but if they were slain by raiders on the way then their message would never get through. If they took a few days, let the raiders tire of waiting for them, the result might be better.
"Very well," Aric said. "I'll get Ruhm. We'll make a sword."
Mazzax clapped his thick hands together once. "Good!"
5
They began the following morning. Mazzax stoked the fire high while Ruhm gathered materials and tools. Aric worked through Hotak's stores of metal, pulling out each piece of promising size and holding it in his hands, letting it speak to him. He saw mines and smelters, and he saw bits of Hotak's life, as well as Mazzax's. The dwarf had been married for a time, and had a child. His wife and daughter were both killed by a gaj, and after taking his revenge on the creature, Mazzax had come to the village, where Hotak took him in and taught him a trade.
After a few hours, Aric had the combination of metals he wanted. He wanted strength and elasticity in his blade, and he wanted it to hold a keen edge.
He settled on a mixture of long bars of iron, bronze, and silver, stacked them together, and put them into the forge. While they heated, he looked for the materials he wanted for the furniture—the grip, the guard, and the pommel.
After some time, he looked into the forge. Hot, but not hot enough. "Bellows!" he called. "More coal!"
Mazzax scrambled. Ruhm pumped the bellows while Mazzax fetched charcoal. Aric worked on designing the hilt while the forge heated up. He checked again, withdrew the metal, sprinkled it with flux, a powdery substance Mazzax had collected from an ancient lake bed. Then he put it back in. "Hotter!"
Aric measured his own hand, made some calculations, checked again. The metal bars were the same color as the forge's interior. "Here we go!" he said. He and Ruhm drew the hot bars from the fire, folded them, and did it again. More times in and out of the fire, folding and welding. More time passed. Aric removed the bars, now seemingly a single piece, and worked them on the anvil, he and Ruhm each with a hammer, one striking and then the next in a steady cadence. This way they welded the metals together in the sequence that Aric wanted. They sprinkled on more flux, put it back in the fire, brought it out later and did it again, working from the other end.
When he was finally satisfied that the different metals were joined permanently, Aric and Ruhm used a hot cutter, striking the chisel end with a hammer to shave off the unwanted metal. They heated it again, then brought it out and pounded it flat. More heat, and they held it at an angle against the anvil while they gave it edges and a point. More heat, and quenching in clay.
Night had long since fallen by the time they had crafted a blade the shape and size Aric wanted, with a long tang at the end that would run through the grip to a threaded pommel. They left Mazzax in the shop, filing the edges.
In bed that night, Aric could still hear the ringing of the hammer in his head, still taste the metal filings in his teeth, feel the minute burns on his arms from the sparks.
But he thought he had a good start on his sword. It would, he knew, be the best he had ever made.
The steel told him that, and he always listened to steel.
XVII
THE WAY
1
Siemhouk had been relaxing in a cool tub, soaking in water sprinkled with flower petals, when Kadya tapped her.
Where are you? Siemhouk had asked. You should be here by now.
We are still days away, at least. Perhaps longer. Getting all the metal out of the cavern proved difficult, and there have been other ... issues, since then. We were attacked by beasts and lost an argosy, so had to redistribute its load among the others.
I have no interest in excuses, Kadya.
Of course not, rny sister. I am not excusing, merely explaining. We are en route again and making good time.
Then why are you in touch with me? What can't wait until you see me?
It's Aric.
The half-elf?
The same.
What about him?
He ran away. I've been searching for him, but haven't seen any sign. He may be headed for Nibenay. If he gets there, he'll be full of false stories, filling our husband's head with lies.
What kind of lies? Siemhouk was beginning to lose her trust in Kadya. If her sister templar accused someone of lying, Siemhouk suspected that person must be telling the truth.
There was more, too. Siemhouk had, when that undead mercenary visited, felt the presence of someone else, close by, guiding her. That presence had been powerful and comforting, persuading Siemhouk that she was doing the right thing. Since Kadya had begun extracting the metal from its underground vault in Akrankhot, though, that presence had grown dim, like a shadow paled by the sun's rays, and now it wasn't there at all. She found that she missed it.
Kadya's response was hesitant, reinforcing her certainty that her sister was lying. Stories about me, I'm sure. I don't know exactly what he'll say, but I know it won't be the truth.
You should have killed him.
I know. I meant to. Somehow he must have figured it out.
I'll set things right, Siemhouk told her. If he makes it back here, he will not have the reception he desires.
That's good, sister. I knew I could trust you to do the right thing.
Always, dear sister, Siemhouk said, then she broke their mental connection.
From the research Dhojakt had turned up, she knew the presence she had felt from the dead man was a vestige of Tallik, the demon imprisoned beneath Akrankhot. It had come to the city in the undead man's head, then moved into hers, which was no doubt far more welcoming and pleasant.
But since Kadya had dismantled the demon's prison, he had been gone from Siemhouk's mind. Tallik had found someone powerful, but closer, who he could possess more fully. Now he came toward Nibenay, in Kadya's body. Kadya had an agenda of her own of course, and always had, but that agenda would have been altered by Tallik's presence, his guidance.
Together, Tallik and Kadya would be a powerful enemy. Siemhouk had to play this carefully, to use them without antagonizing them. At least until she could wrest the demon away.
She believed she was in a good position, though. The metals Kadya brought back would be valuable in their own right, and because Siemhouk had sent a templar loyal to her, but of a lesser station, Siemhouk, not Kadya, would be credited with the riches. The Shadow King would be grateful to her. In the Shadow King's case, profound gratitude often came with increased power.
With that power, she was sure she could either bind Tallik to her, or bend Kadya and Tallik both to her will. Either way, she would wind up with so much influence that she would be the only logical choice to succeed her husband and father—should anything happen to him. And these were perilous times for sorcerer-kings, everybody knew that.
So perilous, in fact, that for his own good, she might just have to exercise her newfound influence to force him from his throne. If, of course, that was the only way to protect him ...
She chuckled, and splashed her bathwater. It was getting too cold. Time to get out, and let the water dry on her skin in the warmth of the day.
2
Dhojakt had been on his way to see his sister. He liked to visit with Siemhouk every day or two, because although he had his spies in her quarter, they couldn't always read her like he could. She was skilled at keeping secrets, at disguising her deepest thoughts. In person, however, Dhojakt was able to lightly probe, and although she thought she could control her expressions, her tone of voice, in reality they always betrayed her just enough.
Before he had reached her, this time, he sent a psionic probe to check on her mood, and he caught bits of a conversation she was holding with Kadya, the ambitious templar she had sent to Akrankhot in her stead. Because Siemhouk was distracted by the effort of maintaining that mental link, she didn't detect Dhojakt's presence, allowing him to listen in, to the discussion and to some of Siemhouk's thoughts surrounding it.
It was all most intriguing. Especially the part about deposing their father and taking the crown of the Shadow King's court for her own.
At that revelation, he withdrew from her mind. He didn't want her to know he had that information. He would keep away from her for a day or two, just to be sure she didn't realize he'd been around.
At any rate, it had suddenly become urgent that he paid a visit to their father. He found Nibenay in a shadowy comer of his residence.
"Dhojakt, my son," Nibenay said when he shambled into the chamber, his many legs clicking against the cool marble floor.
"Father, I'm glad to have found you."
"And I to see you. I've heard disturbing news." "What is it?"
"My friend and ally, Ta'ak Enselti, has been slain."
Dhojakt knew Enselti, a noble merchant with great landholdings surrounding the city, a supplier of much rice to the kingdom. "Slain? By who?"
"This is the hard part," Nibenay said. "By another acquaintance, the son of Myklan, of the House of Thrace, a simpleton by all accounts but still of noble blood."
"They had a rivalry?"
"Not that I'm aware of. I didn't know they had ever met. No business interests in common. The story Djena told me is that Ta'ak was taking an elf woman for his consort, and the simpleton, Pietrus is the boy's name, stabbed them both to death."
"An upsetting business, to be sure," Dhojakt said. In truth, he hadn't the least concern about humans or elves being killed. They were bothersome, for the most part, only worthwhile as long as they paid their taxes and didn't get in his way. "I've heard something upsetting as well."
"What is it, my son?"
"That half-elf you sent on the expedition to Akrankhot?"
"Yes, what was his name?"
"Aric, I believe."
"Right, Aric. What of him?"
"He has apparently had some misunderstanding with your wife Kadya. She intended to kill him, but he found out and ran away. Now he's on his way back here, with some sort of story. Kadya wanted Siemhouk to know, so that she could prepare you with the news that his story would be a lie."
Nibenay scratched his bulbous cheek. "Which can only mean ..."
"That it's the truth," Dhojakt finished.
"Or that it resembles truth."
"So when Aric returns, whatever he tells you about Kadya might be true. But Kadya—and Siemhouk, for reasons of her own—don't want you to believe it. Were I you, I would make sure that whenever Aric arrives in Nibenay, he is brought to you forthwith."
"Yes, I think you're right. Thank you for this, my son. This is good to know. I will think on it, and give your suggestion every consideration."
"The most I can ask. Thank you for your time, my sire." Dhojakt backed out of Nibenay's presence—not only the polite thing to do, but the safest, he had learned. Anyone who turned his back on the Shadow King was asking to be struck down where he stood.
Dhojakt had no illusions that mere blood relation made any difference at all in that regard.
3
"You all know, of course, that the potential for psionic power, an affinity for the Way, exists within each of us, within every being who tastes the breath of life on our world." Tenavry Ki'ot'shon, Corlan's instructor at the Academy of Fierce Purpose, paced when he lectured, most frequently with his hands clasped together. He wore a long silken robe, even on the hottest of days. He was one of the thinnest human beings Corlan had ever seen, with limbs like the branches of a sapling, and his face seemed to have been artificially widened by the long, wispy white hair that grew from nearly every surface: cheeks, chin, lower lip, eyebrows, and of course from the top of his head. He knotted that hair in several places, and he had given the class some explanation of what those knots meant. Corlan had long since forgotten it. Sometimes it was all he could do not to burst out laughing at the man's appearance, even though he knew Tenavry was a skilled and powerful psionic who really did impart much wisdom.
"You further know," Tenavry went on, "that to truly harness the power within—your power, the power that is your birthright, it is not enough to want to practice the Way. You must deserve the Way. To deserve it you must live the right kind of life; a life of service, a life of dedication, a life of commitment. Psionic abilities are available to all, but those who misuse those gifts often find that their abilities wane with time. Those who use the Way properly, in the process of living in accordance with the principles you're being taught here, are those who continue to develop and strengthen their gifts as time goes on."
Tenavry stopped pacing and unclasped his hands, lifting them toward the ceiling of the vaulted chamber. The students sat cross-legged on the stone floor, with small, sculpted creatures before them. Suddenly, hovering an inch above Tenavry's hands was a ball of golden light. Just as suddenly, that ball of light broke into a million shards. They scattered, and there where the ball had been was a creature not unlike the sculptures sitting in front of each student. Tenavry's had scalloped wings, a birdlike head, a set of tiny, muscular arms that could have been human but for their size, and rear legs with powerful haunches, like a beast that jumped long distances. It was covered in fur of a bright purple, spotted with yellow and red rosettes. It floated above his hands for a moment, then flew away from him, cutting lazy circles above the class.
"A psionicus is not, may I say, the ultimate expression of your psionic abilities," Tenavry said. "For many, it's little more than a plaything. But if you live right and truly follow the Way, it can be not only a companion but a source of information, a messenger, a friend and sometimes a lifesaver. It is an indication that you are on the right path, not that you have arrived at any destination." He folded his hands again, regarded his students, and harrumphed. He was good at that. Coming across as both condescending and demeaning at the same time was, in Corlan's experience, a rare skill at which Tenavry was a master. "For some of you, I'm sure that's the best one can hope."
For all their personal failings, Tenavry—and his fellow instructors at the academy—were brilliant and accomplished psionics, which made the tuition worthwhile. Or so thought Corlan, who struggled with his classes sometimes but genuinely wanted to learn.
The psionocus before Corlan, sculpted during previous sessions, was eleven inches long and stood eight inches high. He had given it a maned head, not unlike an aviarag, but with a more pronounced and pointed snout and a lower jaw that curved to meet the upper, as if his created beast might have wanted to carry smaller animals around inside its mouth. Its torso was smooth and sleek. Eight limbs extended from it, the upper two with humanlike hands, the others clawed. It stood on its bottom pairs of legs, and a long, sinuous prehensile tail stretched out behind it. Birdlike wings were folded along its back. He had chosen a bright color scheme for the thing, bright green for limbs and torso, crimson for the mane, cobalt blue for the face and the wings. Its tail was also green, but with a series of black and yellow stripes ringing it. The students had designed and sculpted their own individual psionoci, using clay and paint provided by the academy.
Today—if they were ready, or so insisted Tenavry—they would bring the beasts to life.
Tenavry walked among the students, examining their creations. "Good," he told one. "Not very aerodynamic, but it'll fly," he said to another. "Don't let that thing bite you," to a third. When he got to Corlan's, he picked it up, turned it around. "That'll be noticed wherever it goes," he said.
When he concluded his inspection, he returned to the front of the room. "Very well," he said. "Now the time has come. You created these beings with your own hands, so you have already established a mental link with them. You need to open your minds to your psionoci, find that link, and will life into them. Let's begin."
Corlan picked up his creature. He stared at it for a minute, then closed his eyes, trying to picture it in every detail. He searched his mind for that mental link. But concentrating proved difficult; his mind wanted to dance around from one thing to another to a third, without reason or warning. The psionocus of the girl next to him, who had been sculpted so unevenly it almost fell over every time she set it down. The breeze that had blown through Nibenay that morning, cooling and sweet-scented. An argument with his father, two nights before.
He opened his eyes again when he heard squeals of delight and the rapid flapping of many small wings. All around the room, psionoci had taken flight. Some crashed in midair, others swooped and soared with graceful ease.
Corlan's sat in his hand, immobile.
He knew what the problem was. Not the breeze, or the other students, or the fight with his father.
He couldn't concentrate, and he knew full well the reason why.
"I'm sorry." He rose, psionocus in hand, and made for the door, ducking beneath the swoop of someone else's small, animated beast. "I have to go."
"I knew you would," Tenavry said. "Remember, Corlan, wherever your path takes you, to deserve every gift you receive."
Good advice, Corlan supposed as he hurried out the door. He had no idea what it meant, but it sounded smart. Maybe if he had time someday, he would try to figure it out.
XVIII
MAGIC
1
Three days later, the sword was done.
Aric had polished it with stones of ever-decreasing grit, and finally with a stiff cloth. He had cut fuller grooves most of the way down the blade, decreasing its weight and making it stiffer, and making it easier to withdraw after stabbing someone. The blade was two inches wide, with edges as keen as any he'd ever honed, and it tapered to a sharp point. The cross-guard was straight across the blade, then curled down at the inner end. At the outer, it curled up and joined the hand guard, forming a protective basket around Aric's hand. The hilt was wrapped in soft leather, with fine wire twisted around it.
By this time, the steel had lost any traces of those who had handled it before. When Aric held it, his only psionic connection was to himself, a mental loop that allowed him to "communicate" with the sword. He knew where every inch of it was at every moment; however fast it sliced through the air, he was in absolute control. He had never before known a weapon so thoroughly, or had one so responsive to his will.
Myrana had bargained with a leather worker in the village and had a custom scabbard made, according to specifications Ruhm provided her, and when the sword was done so was its new home.
They had celebrated that night in the tavern—a celebration tempered with anxiety, because they knew they had to hurry back to Nibenay. Scouts had not reported any raider activity nearby for the last day, so they planned to leave in the morning.
In the morning, they packed up what little they owned. Aric hung the new scabbard from his belt and shoved the sword into it. Did wearing it truly make him taller, stronger, more handsome? Probably not. But harsh reality didn't change the way it made him feel.
At the livery, they ran into Mazzax. He was dressed for travel, with a knapsack over his shoulders, and he stood among seven agitated kanks. "I've sold your erdlus," he said.
"You did what?" Sellis asked.
"Sold 'em."
"Why? They weren't yours to sell."
"Kank's more comfortable for long trip. Plus they hold more." He indicated one of the kanks, with bundles strapped to its back. "Plenty food on that one, more than a bird'll tote."
"But Mazzax," Aric said, "Sellis is right, they were not yours in the first place. And we don't own kanks."
"Sure you do. Wasn't my money bought these."
The dwarf was a hard worker, and Aric appreciated his contributions to the sword he wore. But the dwarf was also as maddening as ever. Nothing he said made sense, or it did but only after you figured out all the parts he wasn't saying. He already knew those parts, so he assumed everyone else did too. "You bought these kanks with our money? Without asking us? We don't even need seven of them. What were you thinking?"
Mazzax pointed at each traveler, while he spoke their names. "Aric. Ruhm. Amoni. Myrana. Sellis. Mazzax."
"That's the five of us, and I suppose one to bear supplies, if we had any, but—"
"He's going with us," Myrana explained. "Or did you miss that part?"
"You're coming?" Aric asked.
"Course I'm coming."
"But ..." "Nothing here for me. Hotak's gone. I'm apprentice, not master, not even journeyman, so can't run smithy. What else keeps me here?"
"Friends?" Sellis asked. "Family?"
Aric already knew, from handling lots of iron that Mazzax had touched before, that he had no real friends in the village other than Hotak, and no family. "He's alone here."
"Aric is right. All alone."
"Then you might as well come," Myrana said.
The meaning of the supplies on the kank's back sank in. "You bought all that?" Aric asked.
"Aye, food and water and shelter for long journey."
"With our money?"
"Your money bought five kanks, no more."
"So you purchased two kanks and all those supplies?" "Aye."
"Well then, I guess you'd better come with us."
Aric thought Mazzax would be happy, but the dwarf simply shrugged. "I have been saying that." As if that had been clear all along.
"Right," Aric said. "It appears we're ready, then. Let's get out of here. On to Nibenay!"
"On to Nibenay!" Mazzax repeated.
"Oh, and Mazzax?"
"Hmm?"
"Thank you. For all this, and everything else."
The dwarf shrugged again, clambered onto a kank's back, and started to ride.
2
The village was barely out of sight behind them when they saw a smudge of dust in the distance ahead. When they got closer, they could see riders, a small group of them. They didn't look numerous enough to be a problem, so while they readied their weapons, they didn't hide or change course.
Aric didn't recognize the riders until they were almost right on top of them. Then familiar faces swam into view.
"Rieve!" he shouted as soon as he caught a glimpse of her coppery hair gleaming in the sun.
"Aric, is it really you?"
He jumped from the kank's back and sprinted toward her. "It's really me!" he cried. "You're not a desert mirage?"
Rieve pinched her own cheek, leaving a red mark there, like a kiss. "I don't think I'm a mirage."
The rest of the family rode with her. Aric recognized her mother, her grandparents, her brother Pietrus. Another man Aric hadn't seen before, but guessed he was Rieve's father. Half a dozen soldiers accompanied them, armed and tense—two of them had started forward when Aric ran to Rieve, but relaxed their guard when it was obvious she knew him.
Rieve climbed down from her mount and met Aric, embracing him in a hug that took his breath away. Not just because it was firm, though it was, but because he had forgotten her scent and the way her orange ringlets tickled his nose, and the way her body swelled under her clothing. The depths of her light brown eyes, the warmth of her smile.
His sword bumped her hip as he held her. "Is that new?" she asked.
"Yes, I've just made it for myself." They parted, took a step back, and he saw that she wore the sword he'd crafted for her. He drew his own—again, attracting the nervous interest of the soldiers—and showed it off. "How's yours?"
"I've been practicing with it. It's wonderful."
"What are you doing so far from Nibenay?"
Rieve took his hand. Her grip pleasantly warm, the skin so soft he could hardly believe it. "Pietrus has been accused of a terrible crime," she said. "He is innocent, of course. I know he's not like other people, but he isn't bad or vicious. He's the most innocent person I know. Anyway, we had to flee Nibenay before the authorities arrested us all—him for the crime, and us for harboring him. Grandfather was convinced we would all be enslaved."
"That's terrible!" Aric said. He hardly knew Pietrus, and from their single encounter he had been left with the impression that the young man was sometimes gripped by sudden, inexplicable furies. But he didn't know that Pietrus had ever actually hurt anybody, and at this moment, he would have believed Rieve if she had told him that the whole of Athas was under water, including where they stood. "Why would they—"
"We know not. Someone made an accusation, obviously false because Pietrus was home with us while this crime occurred. But there were so-called witnesses. There was amob. They stormed our gates and sacked our house. We were lucky to escape alive. Apparently there's been a rash of these killings, of human men and elf women, and now they're saying that Pietrus must have done them all. Djena has some grudge against grandfather, so he decided we were best served by fleeing while we could."
"I am so sorry, Rieve. If there were anything I could do ..."
"I'm sure there's not, Aric, but thank you."
"What of Corlan?"
"Corlan's still in the city," she said. Her tone had turned glacial, its meaning unmistakable. For an instant, Aric felt like singing. He tried to downplay his enthusiasm, and the knowledge that he still had to rush toward Nibenay, not away from it, made that sadly not hard to do.
"Where are you going?"
"I've no idea. Grandfather has some destination in mind, or so he claims. But he won't tell us. He says it's safer that way."
He might never see her again. The idea was almost too much to bear, especially since she was no longer betrothed to another. By the time he finished his business in Nibenay, she could be anywhere. "There have been raiders active ahead, so warn your family, and make sure those soldiers stay alert. But ... if I should want to find you ..."
She bit her lower lip and lowered her eyes. "I know, Aric." Then she smiled and dug into a pouch hanging from her belt. "Wait, I have it." She brought out a small, round pebble, almost as clear as glass. "Take this."
Aric took it. Everything was slightly distorted, but he could see all the way through it. "Why?"
"Put it in a shallow bowl of water," she told him. "It will show you an image of me, and tell you which direction to find me in. If I'm very far away, the image will be small, and it will grow bigger the nearer I am."
Aric closed his fist around it. He had never heard of such a thing, but he was glad it existed. "But ... you do magic?"
"Not myself," Rieve said. "But grandmother ... she does some preserving magic, when she needs to. It really is different from defiling, she has told me all about it. And if one has enough wealth—as we do—one can acquire all sorts of odd things. The clear stone is one of those. I had thought to leave it with Corlan, until he made clear that he wouldn't be using it."
"Well, I will. That I swear."
"I hope you do, Aric." She went up on her toes, pressed her hands against his chest, and planted a kiss on his lips. "I must go—my family's patience wears thin. Find me." "I will, Rieve."
"Soon as you can?"
"Soon as I can."
"Good." She broke away from him, ran back to her mount, and climbed on. The family and their soldiers were already moving by the time she was mounted, and she had to hurry to catch up.
"Who was that?" Myrana asked when Aric returned to his group.
"Rieve," Ruhm answered.
"Yes," Aric said. "Rieve, of the House of Thrace. I made her sword."
"And more," Myrana said, her words clipped, precise. Was she angry?
Well, of course she was. There had been a certain tension between Myrana and him since they had first met, an attraction that, for his part at least, had been immediate. No promises had been made, no declarations of love, but there had been something growing between them. The hand-tooled scabbard on his belt was only the most recent expression of it.
Then she had seen him completely lose his mind over some other woman, who was, to Myrana's eye, an utter stranger. Even now, aware of Myrana's discomfort, and knowing all he would see of Rieve was her swiftly departing back, it took all his will not to watch her go.
They set off again, following the Thrace party's tracks. Aric hadn't thought to ask her when they'd left, how far they had yet to travel. His belly would be full, for a change, but he still worried about beating Kadya to Nibenay.
3
Late that afternoon, a lone rider came toward them. Since this individual appeared even less threatening than the group of that morning, the companions again held fast to their route. When they got closer, Aric recognized Corlan, making speedy progress on an erdlu's back.
Corlan recognized Aric moments later, and they drew near each other. "Aric! I'm surprised to see you."
"And I you, Corlan. We're on our way home. Where are you bound?"
Corlan shook his head sadly. "Rieve and I had ... a misunderstanding. It's complicated, but she's left town. I should have gone with her, but I didn't, and ..."
Aric pointed the way, although doing it made his guts churn. "Follow our path," he said. "You're less than a day behind them."
"Really?"
"And you're traveling faster. You'll catch up today. Tomorrow at the latest."
"Thank you, Aric!"
"Ride fast, my friend, you'll find her."
"I'm grateful to you." Corlan started to continue on his way, then halted again. "Oh, and Aric? You said you're bound for Nibenay?"
"Yes."
"You might want to pick a new destination." "Why?"
"Because the Shadow King has declared you an enemy of the state. I nearly forgot—I heard about it just before I left."
"What? An enemy of the state, why?"
"There's some story going around. That you're a traitor, or something ... a member of the Veiled Alliance."
"Who's saying that? Has the expedition returned?"
"No, not yet. I assumed they'd sent a messenger ahead to warn Nibenay. Or ... you know, the sorcerer-king and his templars have their ways."
"I'm sure they do."
"There's a bounty on your head, Aric. You're to be captured or killed on sight. That's what I've heard. So you would do well to steer clear of Nibenay."
"But ..." "I'm only telling you what I heard before I left the city."
"I know," Aric said. "I'm not blaming you." He wished he could. Instead, he could only believe that Kadya was behind the lies. The story would make his task more difficult ... not that it had seemed easy to begin with.
"I should get after Rieve."
"Go," Aric said. "Thank you for the news, and the faith."
"I'm glad I saw you, to warn you."
"One more thing, Corlan. How long have you been riding, from Nibenay?"
"This is my fourth day," Corlan said. "Does that mean you still mean to go there?"
"I'm not sure I have any choice."
Corlan touched his own neck, gingerly. "Well, I hope you keep your head." He kicked the erdlu, and it raced off across the desert.
"What do we do now, Aric?" Amoni asked after Corlan was gone. "You can't go to Nibenay, right?"
"I don't know. I meant to speak directly to the Shadow King, to warn him about Kadya and the demon Tallik. But now ... that might not be possible."
"Then perhaps we should do as he suggested," Myrana said. "Give up on Nibenay and go someplace else. Someplace safe."
"We can't," Aric said. "The demon possessing Kadya is too dangerous. Together, they won't be satisfied with just Nibenay. If they're not stopped, there will be no safe place. If there were a way to stop them ourselves, then maybe ..."
He let the sentence trail off, conscious that the others were all watching him, waiting for him to come to some sort of conclusion.
He hadn't. "Let's keep riding," he said. "It's not that far now. Something will present itself, before we arrive."
"And if it doesn't?" Myrana asked. "It has to."
4
Sitting close to a fire that night, Aric had still reached no conclusions. But he had arrived at the beginning of an idea. After mulling it over for a while, he decided to give voice to it. "Magic," he said.
"What?" Ruhm asked.
"We can't defeat Kadya and Tallik ourselves. But if we could use magic ..."
"We need to reach the Veiled Alliance," Sellis said. "Do you Nibenese have any contacts in that organization?"
"I don't." "No," Ruhm said. "Not me," Amoni said.
"But ... Rieve might. Her grandmother, anyway."
"Rieve?" Ruhm echoed.
"She told me her grandmother practices preserving magic. She gave me a magical pebble I can use to locate her."
"She did?" Myrana said. Her tone hadn't changed much over the last several hours. Aric had tried talking to her a few times, and been rebuffed more or less politely.
"Yes."
"I don't like magic," Sellis said.
"Neither do I."
"There are times," Myrana ventured, "when it can be helpful."
"Do you really believe that?" Sellis asked.
"I know you don't trust it, Sellis. And that's why it's hard for me to admit this, but ... well, I've been using it to keep us safe ever since we left the House Ligurto caravan."
He waved her off with his hands, as if she were an annoying insect. "That's ... that's not possible."
"But it's true."
"How? If you had done magic, I would have known."
"Where do you think the burnflower came from, when that hermit was attacking us? How do you suppose I bested the cistern fiend? Or the rain paraelemental? I've used it several times."
He still didn't believe her; everything about his posture and voice dismissed her claims. "What kind of magic?"
"Magic when done right doesn't have to defile the land."
"I ... I don't know what to say, Myrana. It's like you've been lying to me this whole time." "I couldn't tell you," Myrana said. "Those of us who use magic are taught early on not to reveal it. I shouldn't be telling you now, but if we decide to act on Aric's plan, you need to know."
"Still ...
"He's right," Amoni said.
"Amoni?" Aric asked, aware that he gawped at her. "You too?"
"No," she said. "But I have known those who use magic without defiling the land." Her cheeks went red and she held her palms to the fire, then rubbed them together. "And I lied, just now. I do know of a contact for the Veiled Alliance in Nibenay, a vendor on the Palm Court."
"Magic is not bad, in and of itself," Myrana said. "Not as destructive as people claim. It's all in how it's used."
"And to what ends," Amoni added. "Magic can be used for good, in good ways. Healing ways."
Aric knew some believed that. But one couldn't stand anywhere on Athas's surface, during the scorching heat of day or the cruel cold of night, and not see the fruits of magic. So went the stories, anyway.
"I'll have to think about this more," Aric said. "I don't want to rush back, join forces with the Veiled Alliance, and have things go bad. This is too important for that."
"Think, then," Sellis said. "But do it quickly. We're running out of time, Aric."
"I know. Believe me."
"Good, then."
"Good," Mazzax said. He and Ruhm had kept quiet through the whole discussion. Aric already knew how Ruhm felt about magic—he liked to pretend it didn't exist. And Aric couldn't read the dwarf, who had been sitting there the whole time but acted as if had just joined the conversation at its very end.
Later, when everyone else was sleeping, he sat up on guard duty and kept turning over the day's revelations in his mind. He longed for a simple answer, but there were none to be had.
He had his own doubts about magic, and he wasn't sure it would defeat Tallik anyway. But he wasn't sure anything else would.
If only he could talk to Rieve again.
Thinking of her, he felt for the pebble in his purse, and took up a bladder of water and a shallow clay bowl. Beside the fire, he poured some water into the bowl, then dropped the pebble into it. He tried to clear other thoughts from his mind. "Show me Rieve," he said softly. "Where is Rieve?"
The pebble sat at the bottom of the bowl. Had he used too much water? Too shallow a bowl? She hadn't been specific about that. He had never tried to do magic, but for all he knew those sorts of things had to be very precise.
He stared at the pebble, bringing an image of Rieve to the forefront of his mind—not hard to do, since he had thought of almost nothing else all day. As he did, the pebble skittered across the bottom of the bowl. Aric peered through the water and saw that the pebble's surface had grown cloudy.
He plucked it from the water and held it close to his eye. At first he could see nothing, but as he turned it in his fingers, he moved it so the fire's light shone through from behind it. Then, as surely as if Rieve herself was inside it, he saw her. He almost dropped it, but managed to hang on.
Bringing it close to his eye again, with the fire behind it, he saw Rieve once more.
He didn't like what he saw.
Her hair was bedraggled. There was a large red mark on her face. Worse, blood trickled from her nose and mouth. Still worse, when he shifted the pebble's position, the angle changed and he could see a rope tied around her neck. Firelight danced on her face, but Aric couldn't tell if it was real, or caused by the fire glowing through the stone.
Rieve was in danger.
And in an instant, Aric's priorities had changed. He put the pebble back into the water, and again it moved at once to the far side of the bowl. To the northwest, the direction they had just come from.
That had to be its way of showing in which direction to look for Rieve.
They could do nothing until morning. Even if he woke the others, convinced them, traveling at night was too dangerous.
But when the sun rose, he would have some persuading to do.
5
Rieve had passed on Aric's warning about the raiders to the rest of her family and their guards.
In the end, it hadn't helped.
The first thing that happened was that Corlan caught up to them. They saw someone behind them, riding hard. Three of the guards dropped back, ready to deal with whatever threat pursued them. Fortunately, Rieve recognized him before anybody skewered him. His apology was so abject and heartfelt she had no choice but to forgive him. Once he was allowed to join the family, he apologized to Pietrus, and to the rest of them. Pietrus still wasn't sure what the purpose of the whole voyage was; to him it was just an adventure, and the others were content to let him think that.
Once the reunion was accomplished, they continued on toward whatever Grandfather's destination was. Perhaps the distraction of Corlan's appearance caused the soldiers to let down their guard. Or perhaps they never had a chance.
They rode through an area thick with dark, jagged boulders, piled one on the other as if from some cataclysmic event. From the cover of those rocks, arrows flew, each one finding its target. Four of the six soldiers fell at once. The other two filled their hands with steel, but when a force of raiders rode out from a hidden canyon, the battle was brief and bloody. Corlan tried to fight, and the raiders mistook him for a member of the family and refused to engage him. They simply rode circles around him, isolating him from the rest of the family, then held steel to Mother's throat and forced him to disarm.
When the bloodshed was over, a mul raider, copper-skinned and hairless, his naked torso plastered with tattoos, rode up to Rieve's grandparents. "This is your family?" he asked. He regarded the others with a sneer on his face. "They look soft." He took Grandfather's hand and turned it over, touching the man's palm. "Soft hands. Nobility."
"You can do anything you want to me," Grandfather said. "But let the women go."
"Why would we do that?"
"To prove that you're not completely heartless beasts!"
The mul laughed. "Oh, but we are."
Other raiders rode around the family, examining their belongings. There were no pack animals or wagons, everyone carried what little they had brought.
"They've got nothing," one reported.
"A noble family, traveling off the main roads, with only six guards and few possessions?" the mul asked. "Now you've got me curious. Where's your treasure?"
"We have rio treasure," Grandfather said. "As your man said, we have nothing. So you might as well leave us alone."
The mul sat back on his mount, gazing skyward, as if giving the idea serious consideration. "You know what I think? I think there are two possibilities here. We can hold you, and send a message back to wherever you come from—Nibenay, from the looks of you—instructing whoever controls your fortune that they need to send a large portion of it here to secure your safe release. On the other hand, you appear to be on the run from something—you packed quickly and left home with very few belongings. So I can hold you, and unless you arrange to have a ransom sent to me, I'll report your whereabouts to the Nibenese authorities. Either way, the result's the same for me. I have to feed you for a while, and then you pay me."
"That will never happen," Grandfather said.
"There is one more possibility, old man. I can start killing you one by one, beginning with little red there." He indicated Rieve. "And keep killing you until you agree to pay me. Once again, same result, but this time I have fewer to feed."
"You're a monster!" Rieve shouted. "We'd never give you a thing."
The mul calmly walked over to her, his eyes fixed on her as if trying to bore a hole through her. He reached up and slapped her across the face. The blow nearly knocked her off her kank, but she managed to hang on. She spat blood at the mul, who simply chuckled and wiped it off.
"Give me back my weapon," Corlan insisted, "and I'll make you regret you ever saw us!"
"On second thought," the mul said, "maybe I'll start with that one. He's trouble, he is."
"We've got to go home with something, Shen'ris," another raider said. "It's been a rough few days."
"Indeed it has," the mul said. "We've suffered major losses in battle," he explained. "And with no treasure to show for it. I think, though, that when we ride back to the fort with you, noble friends, we'll be greeted with enthusiasm."
"There ... there is a certain amount of wealth, back in Nibenay," Grandfather allowed. "Harm a single one of us, and you'll never see the first bit of it. But if we're treated well, with respect and dignity, then we might be able to work out some sort of accommodation."
"Tunsall, no!" Grandmother cried.
"We have no choice, Sheridia," Grandfather said. "These people will kill us all if we don't cooperate."
"Now you're making sense," Shen'ris said. He scratched his chest with a big, blunt-fingered hand. "Come, let's get away from these corpses. After we help ourselves to their weapons and armor, of course. We won't make the fort tonight, I'm afraid, but we'll be there tomorrow, and then we can see about getting that message composed to send back to Nibenay."
A few hours later, they were camped around a roaring fire. Each of the captives had a length of stout rope looped around their necks, and they were all connected in a line. Their hands had been tied, their weapons confiscated. Rieve couldn't sleep this way, so she sat up as well as she could, letting the fire ward off the night, and wishing there was something she could do.
So far, wishing had not brought tangible results.
XIX
THE FORT
1
Advance riders had reached Nibenay with news about the caravan's approach. So much metal filled the wagons that even the huge mekillots had a hard time hauling it, and several times the caravan had stopped to repair or replace wheels and axles.
Word spread quickly. Even though everyone knew the trove belonged to the sorcerer-king, who would use it for his own ends—outfitting the standing army of goliaths and slaves was the most common guess—there was still a general sense of excitement. No one, or so the rumors had it, had ever seen so much metal. Everybody wanted a glimpse, even though they would never own it.
Among Nibenay's templars, the mood was even more agitated. The excitement was high, but so was the tension, as sister templars tried to outmaneuver one another, seeking some advantage. Kadya's allies were smug, certain that their loyalty would be repaid. Others, especially those on the outs with Kadya or Siemhouk or both, struggled to find a way back into their good graces. Because Siemhouk was already so well placed, nobody expected a power shift so much as a settling of power, a further entrenchment of the existing structure.
And the Shadow King, for his part, waited with growing impatience for the caravan's arrival. He knew better than to trust Kadya or Siemhouk. Or Dhojakt. Or any other of his wives, for that matter. Not completely. When a man had hundreds of wives and almost limitless power, he was surrounded by intrigue, double-dealing, backstabbing—sometimes literally—and naked ambition, every day of his long, long life. Nibenay knew that, and was no longer surprised when those things presented themselves. He wished for smooth, agreeable relations among his many wives, but he did not expect them. Nor was his son any more trustworthy—when Dhojakt told him to welcome Aric with open arms, Nibenay immediately put a price on the smith's head.
He wanted the steel. He wanted Kadya to return so he could see how much truth there was, if any, to his son's warning. He was curious about what Siemhouk's reaction might be.
But during the long days and nights of waiting, he made plans. Whatever the future brought, he meant to be ready for it when it got here.
2
Sellis was a natural tracker, and following the trail the party from the House of Thrace had made was easy. Finding the bodies of the dead guards, stripped and left to rot in the son, had been worrying, but Aric already knew Rieve and her family were in trouble. It was clear what had happened—someone had captured them. Even without the visible trail, Aric would have known whom to blame.
Those raiders from Fort Dunnat.
They'd been humiliated, and many of their number killed, at Myrana's false ambush site. Seeking revenge for that, they'd been turned away from the village of Yarri, again sustaining heavy losses. Following that battle, they had lingered about the area for several days, doubtless looking for another way to avenge their losses.
Now, obviously having no knowledge of Rieve's connection to Aric, they had come across a party of nobles. Profit, not revenge, had dictated that they take those nobles captive—in addition to having their forces devastated in two separate battles, they had wasted time that might otherwise have been spent raiding caravans or other, less fortified villages.
Aric had to believe that Corlan had been taken as well, because Corlan's trail and the families came together, before the point at which they found the soldiers' bodies.
Where the trail led across rocky patches, or wind had scoured it so clean that not only Sellis could find it, Aric had to rely on his pebble and bowl of water. That led unfailingly to where the trail again became clear, and showed him that, although she remained a captive, she yet lived.
As long as she lived, Aric would rescue her.
If she died, he would kill every raider in the fort, or die trying.
The others were with him. In the first warm blush of morning, he had explained what the pebble had shown him the night before.
"What are we waiting for?" Myrana asked.
"It'll take us out of our way," Aric said. "Away from Nibenay. If Kadya reaches the city first—"
"We've had plenty of delays," Sellis said. "Do we know she's not already there?"
"She wasn't when Corlan left it, but that's the last we know."
"Then we might rush there for naught, while your friends suffer at the hands of those damnable raiders."
"That's true." "Even when we get to Nibenay," Amoni added, "we might not be able to do anything."
"Also true," Aric said.
"And you said this woman, your friend's grandmother, works preserving magic."
"That's what Rieve said."
"Well, we'll need sorcerers on our side, if we hope to best Kadya with magic, right?"
"Yes."
Myrana saw where Amoni was leading, and picked up the thread. "So we help them first. Then we all go to Nibenay together and deal with this templar and her demon friend."
"I don't know that they'll want to go back to Nibenay," Aric reminded them. "They were anxious to put distance between themselves and the city."
"If we rescue them, and we tell them what's at stake?" Sellis asked. "Surely they'll take the chance."
Not everyone's a hero, Aric was about to say. But the words tangled on his tongue. If he spoke them, he would be calling himself and his friends heroes, and he didn't think of them that way. He only thought they were trying to do what needed to be done—that they really didn't have a choice in the matter.
Then again, perhaps that's what all heroes thought.
At any rate, he didn't want to give the thought voice, for fear of sounding ridiculously self-important. "Let's go, then. After my friends, even if the trail leads to the raiders' fort itself."
3
It did.
The fort butted up against a rocky cliff, its walls built from the same dark rock, so they didn't see it until they were almost upon it. Guards had been posted up on the cliff, and more on towers abutting the walls. The companions halted when they realized they'd found it, themselves ducking behind some good-sized rocks so they wouldn't be seen.
"How we going to get in there?" Mazzax asked. "Knock on gates?"
"I think we'll have to be sneakier than that," Amoni said.
"Sneaky is good," Aric agreed. "But we don't even know where inside that fort they're holding Rieve and her family. There aren't nearly enough of us to simply invade the fort and find them."
"But we're us," Ruhm said.
"Yes, Ruhm, we are," Aric said. "We've been lucky so far. Maybe more than just lucky, maybe we're actually good at this sort of thing. But six against however many raiders are in there ... the odds aren't with us."
"Fewer now than there were before," Myrana pointed out.
"That'll work in our favor." Aric stole another glance at the fort, wishing he could see through its walls.
But he could! In a way, at least. "Hold on, perhaps we can get a view of the inside after all." He took pebble and bowl from his pouch, poured some water in, dropped the pebble into the water. By now it was routine. The pebble slid immediately across the bottom to a point nearest the fort. Aric waited until the pebble's surface had grown cloudy, then he took it from the water and held it toward the sun.
Rieve was inside a building. The mark on her face had faded, leaving only a faint bruise. The rope was no longer around her neck. But she was unhappy. Worry ridged her brow, tugged down the comers of her mouth. Aric wanted to tell her to have faith, that he was on his way, but she couldn't hear him, and even if she could, he didn't know that they would be able to successfully breach the fort's walls.
As he watched, she paced before a barred window. Aric brought the stone closer to his eye, looking for anything visible beyond the window. He saw a building with a patch of orange lichen on one wall, in a shape that reminded him of a dragon's wing. Past that he saw the cliff that loomed behind the fort.
"They're near the back," he said. "Close to the cliffs. Beside the building they're in is another one, with lichen on it forming a shape almost like a scalloped wing."
"You see all that in the rock?" Mazzax asked.
"Yes, it's clear as day."
"Some rock," Ruhm said.
"It is that." Aric dried it on his shirt and put it away, then drank the water from the bowl. No sense in wasting water. "Now all we need to do is figure out how to get into the back of the fort."
"I might have an idea about that," Sellis said. "It'll take some doing ..."
4
Sellis and Myrana walked toward the fort's front gate. They went slow, Myrana's bad leg apparently giving her a great deal of trouble. At least, that was the effect she was going for. The truth was, these last weeks had been hard on her, and her leg was in considerable pain much of the time, so it wasn't hard to fake.
The guards atop the cliff shouted an alarm. From that point on, the guards in the towers watched them. She couldn't imagine they were an interesting sight. Had she been alone, they might not even have bothered keeping an eye on her. But because she was with a man who was obviously a warrior, with twin swords jutting out above his shoulders, they didn't dare not watch.
When they were within hailing distance, one of the tower guards did just that. "You'd best turn around!" she called. "We've no interest in visitors here, nor patience for 'ern!"
"We have business," Sellis replied, and kept walking. Slowly. Keeping pace with Myrana, who struggled more with every step.
"What sort of business?" the guard demanded.
"The profitable sort," Sellis said.
The guard kept asking questions, and Sellis kept answering them with statements that only led to yet more questions. All the time, they grew nearer, and kept the attention of the tower guards and cliff guards riveted. Who are these people? they must have wondered. Where did they come from? And on foot? Are they mad?
Sellis continued to evade giving any direct answers until they stood directly outside the front gate. "We've come to buy your prisoners," he said then.
"We have no prisoners," a guard said.
"I think you do." Sellis took off a bag that had been slung to his back this whole time, and opened its top. The gold inside it fairly glowed in the sunlight.
Of course, the bag didn't exist, and neither did the gold. They were both magical illusions Sellis had created.
But the raiders didn't know that. Any who had become disenchanted with the spectacle of their approach were once more riveted to the scene.
"You have four men and three women, of a noble family," Sellis said. "You're holding them for ransom, presumably. We've come to pay that ransom."
"What's to keep us from killing you, taking your gold, and keeping the captives?"
"Us," Sellis said.
That answer earned a roar of laughter from the assembled raiders. "You?" one asked. "Against all of us?"
"You could try us," Myrana said. "Perhaps you'll have better luck than the last army we fought."
More laughter. The taunts continued, but no raiders ventured through the gate. Myrana and Sellis held their ground, trying to negotiate for the Thrace family's release with people who had no interest in negotiating.
Which, after all, was the whole idea.
The others, Aric, Ruhm, Amoni and Mazzax, had left their hiding place first, striking far to the west and then working their way back along the base of the cliffs. There, the guards on top of the bluff would have to lean out to see them. Tower guards might have spotted them, but by the time they were in view of the towers, everyone was watching the strange couple's slow procession toward the gate.
5
In this way, moving quietly, the four companions made it to the base of the wall, where it abutted the cliffs face. The hard part would be getting over the wall. Since they had no ladder or means of making one, they scaled the cliff, knowing they would be visible from the towers as they did. Myrana and Sellis kept the raiders occupied, though, and none so much as glanced their way. From his position on the cliff, Aric studied the buildings nearby until he spotted the one with the lichen patch he had seen in the pebble. Then he pointed out the building next to it, in the right place for the view through Rieve's window.
"That's the one we want," he said quietly. When they had all identified the right one, they dropped one by one over the wall and into the fortress.
Aric had barely touched down when he heard a voice shout, "That's him!"
One of the raiders who had been among those who first captured them was glaring at him and drawing a steel short sword. A new cut traced a line from the raider's left shoulder almost to his belly; earned in the battle against the thri-kreen or the villagers, Aric guessed, and he was anxious to taste vengeance for it. Another raider had been walking with him, carrying a pike. Both raiders ran toward Aric, shouting an alarm as they came.
This wouldn't be as easy as Aric had hoped.
At least his new sword would finally be tested.
He whipped it from its scabbard. The blade sung in the air as Aric slashed back and forth, enjoying the feel of it. The swordsman reached Aric first, running with his sword held out before him as if Aric would just stand there and let it pierce his chest.
Instead, Aric waited until the raider was in mid-stride, not quite balanced, and swung his blade into his, from the side. The blow staggered the man. Aric followed up with a lunging thrust, which the man only just parried. The raider took a couple of steps forward, more careful ones now, as Aric recovered from the lunge. The blades clashed together, lightly, each man feeling for the other's weaknesses. The raider was strong, but so was Aric. And Aric's blade was a full foot longer than the other man's.
The other raider tried to intervene with his pike, but Ruhm's club bashed the weapon away and then, on the return swing, crushed the raider's skull. He wouldn't be a problem anymore.
But more raiders were on the way, summoned by the shouts. Ruhm and Mazzax took up positions at the end of a building, ready to fight anyone who came from the front of the fort. Amoni went to the other end, in case raiders came that way.
The swordsman was better than he had seemed at first. Even with his short blade, he parried Aric's attacks and kept up his own. Two more raiders came up behind him, taking their turns thrusting at Aric and swinging an axe at him, and then Aric was holding off three. They grunted and cursed, and he ignored them as best he could. The raiders had only to delay them long enough, and they would be surrounded, with no hope of getting Rieve and her family out safely.
If not for that urgency weighing on him, Aric would have enjoyed the contest. He had to end it quickly, though, or lose his life here in a raiders' fort. He could hear his friends engaged with other opponents, so there would be no help from those quarters.
"Rieve," he shouted, since their presence had already been given away. "Rieve, it's Aric!"
So distracted, the first raider landed a blow against him. The short sword raked across his left thigh, drawing blood. Sudden, searing pain brought Aric back into the fight. He backstepped, brought his blade down against the other man's. He slashed at the raider's collarbone, but his move was blocked, and the two blades ground together, frozen in place for the moment, the other two closing in for the kill.
First blood drawn, and it was his own. Not exactly the progress he hoped for.
6
"When we're free," Rieve was saying as she paced a groove in the dirt floor, "I want to raise an army. I want to come back here and dismantle this place, stone by stone. People like this, these raiders, have no place in a decent world."
Corlan sat on the floor, his back against a corner, knees up with his arms resting on them. He lifted his head. "You might have forgotten where we are," he said. "I live on Athas, in the city-state of Nibenay, so I'm not sure what a decent world is."
"You know what I mean!" Rieve shot back. "We'll never have a decent world if people are allowed to behave like this."
Her grandmother patted Rieve's shoulder. The old woman's eyes were filled with that calm acceptance that never failed to lighten Rieve's mood. Her face was lined, her hair silver, but her back was straight, her jaw firm, and she remained a rock of solidity in Rieve's often turbulent life. "This is difficult for us all," she said. "Nobody likes to be victimized like this, to be held against our will."
"How do you stay so calm, then?" Rieve asked. "Why aren't you spitting mad?"
"I suppose I just try to take the longer view. The more spiritual view, in some ways. Things happen in life that are beyond our control. Many of them are good things, and others bad, or at least that's how we perceive them at the time. Sometimes, later on in life, our view changes, and we realize those things we thought were awful might not have been so bad after all. Perhaps they showed us new directions to grow in. Perhaps they slowed down the pace of life and allowed us to examine our inner selves in some new way."
"That makes some sense, I suppose. But this? How can this be anything but horrible? Waiting out the rest of our lives in some fortress prison until these thugs decide to kill us? That can't be good."
"I'm not saying it is, necessarily. Certainly it's bad from our immediate viewpoint. And it's possible, of course, that you'll do exactly what you say—get out of here, put together an army, and come back to wipe this place off the planet. That would be a good result from a bad situation, don't you see? The pain you're undergoing now would lead, eventually, to you doing something for the betterment of everyone."
Rieve hadn't thought of things that way, had given no consideration to the idea that anything good could grow from this experience. Of course, for that to happen, first she had to get free somehow. Then she had to be able to access the family fortune, or earn a new one of her own.
But even that, she realized, would be something she had never imagined doing, that she probably wouldn't have thought of, had it not been for the raiders. To amass a fortune big enough to hire an army, she would have to provide some service or goods that others wanted to buy. In doing so, she would be filling some need.
Grandmother was right. Good could grow from the worst situations, if one only looked at things the right way.
It didn't make her glad they had been taken captive, but it made her not hate the experience with quite the white fury she had just minutes ago. Maybe there was something she could learn, about herself, her family, Corlan, or the world. She vowed to keep her heart open to that possibility, to observe and take in events as they occurred, rather than waste all her energy resenting them.
She was about to thank Grandmother for the advice when she heard muffled cries outside. "Something's going on out there," Corlan said, springing up from his comer and rushing to the window. Rieve joined him there, gripping flaking, rusted iron bars and straining to hear. There were more shouts, then what sounded like fighting, the clang of steel against steel.
"Probably just a bunch of drunken raiders brawling," Father said.
"I don't know," Corlan said. "I don't hear any laughter, and very few curses. Mostly it sounds like serious combat."
Rieve kept listening, hoping for any clue.
And then she heard her name.
"It's Aric!" she said. "He's come for us!"
"How did he know where we were?" Father asked.
"I gave him a pebble that Grandmother gave me," Rieve said. "It was meant to be for Corlan, but ... well, you know." She didn't want to torment Corlan further about his first reaction to the news of their leaving, and why. He was sorry, he had ultimately made the right decision, and she was content to leave it at that. "It showed him where we are."
"And we doubtless left a clear trail," Mother added. "So many raiders, in addition to us, could hardly have done otherwise."
"We've got to let them know we're in here," Rieve said.
"We need to do more than that," Corlan said. "If we heard the fight, the raiders have heard it too. Aric and his friends will be overwhelmed."
"Then we need to help them," Grandfather said. "They came to help us, so we can do no less. Sheridia?"
Grandmother glanced at the thick wooden door, barred from the outside, that held them in the small, dirt-floored room. "There might be something I can do," she said.
"Whatever you can," Grandfather said. "And now would be a good time."
"I can help too," Corlan said. "When they captured us, they took all my belongings, but they all came to the fort with us. Which means that somewhere out there is my psionocus."
"You have a psionocus?" Father asked. "With you?"
"Well, close by someplace. I shouldn't have to be able to see it to activate it. I only have to be able to concentrate." "Can it really help us?" Rieve asked.
"It might. Just let me focus on it. And I have to deserve it. That's what Tenavry said. 'Deserve every gift.' "
He sat in the comer again, closing his eyes and clenching his fists. Rieve supposed he was conjuring up an image of the little beast he had told her about when he sculpted it.
"Focus fast," Grandmother said softly. She had turned to face the door, and she spoke words in a language Rieve didn't know, moving her hands in a strange pattern at the same time. After a few moments, she whispered, "Bang on the door."
Mother was nearest the door, so she thumped on it with her fists.
"Quiet in there!" a guard shouted. "Don't think that—"
Grandmother made a yanking motion with her hands, and there was a louder thump on the outside of the door. The first guard released a wail of terror, and a second one's voice yelled, "What have you done to him? Let him go!"
"We've done nothing!" Grandmother called. "Any problem he has is of his own making!"
"What's going on out there?" Father asked.
"I believe he's stuck to the door," Grandmother said. Her voice had never sounded sweeter.
Someone on the outside pounded on the door, writhing against it and screaming, "Get me off! Get me off!"
Then the bar fell from the door. Before it could be replaced, Rieve and her father rushed the door and it swung out. They bowled over one guard, and the other was still pressed flat against the wood, crying for help.
The guard on the ground tried to scramble to his feet. Grandmother spoke some more words and made another gesture, and a cloud of dust from the dirt road blew up into his face, filling his eyes and mouth. He started coughing and spitting, and, blinded by the dust, he fell back again. "Come on," Grandfather said. "We've got to find Aric and the others!"
"Wait!" Rieve ran back into the room that had been their prison. Corlan was still there, sitting in the corner, eyes squeezed shut, hands undulating slightly as if floating on some wafting breeze. "Corlan, let's go!" she shouted. "Corlan!"
Corlan didn't move.
7
The more he fought, the more Aric's sword fed him. At first he thought he was imagining it. But the longer he did battle, the better he felt. Stronger. Whenever his blade made impact with other steel, he felt a shock up to his shoulder, as he expected. After a while, he realized that those shocks were different from the ones he experienced when the blade struck wood or bone or stone. Those hurt, tiring him. But steel on steel—those gave him more energy, not less. They eased the ache the other ones caused.
Not only that, but regardless of what his sword touched, just the very act of holding it, of moving it through the air, seemed to strengthen and energize him. The steel was him, and he was the steel, and this was what he was made for.
Aric broke through the first raider's defense and ran him through, the sword slicing clean and not stopping until the cross guard slammed into the man's belly. Putting his left hand flat against the man's chest, Aric withdrew the sword. Thanks to the fuller groove he had cut in the blade, it came away easily, without the suction that sometimes occurred. The raider fell away, and Aric swung the blood-slicked blade up to block an axe blow.
From that point, things grew ever more chaotic. Aric caught the obsidian axe head on his hand guard, twisted and flicked his wrist, and wrenched it from the wielder's hand. He snapped the blade right to left and the razor-edge point sliced the raider's throat so neatly that the man didn't know he was hurt for several moments, until blood dribbled down his chest. Then he screeched and put his hands to his neck, and the wound opened up. Another raider sliced at Aric with wrist razors, three-bladed weapons attached to his arms. Aric held him off for a bit, finally slicing up into his right arm, severing it below the elbow. The raider cried out, tried to nestle his damaged arm, and stabbed himself in the biceps. Aric ended the man's misery with a swift thrust to the heart.
More raiders filled the space between alley and building. Aric lost himself in battle. Bleeding from a score of cuts, he fought like a whirlwind, his new sword flashing this way and that, blocking an attack and slicing flesh in the same motion. He battled dwarf and dray, mul and goliath, elf and man. Somewhere along the way he ceased having to think about what he was doing and simply acted, as if possessed of a wild nature born to the blade.
When he stopped to catch his breath, more than a dozen corpses surrounded him, bodies piled upon bodies.
Ruhm, Mazzax and Amoni had been busy too, but between them the count of their dead didn't equal Aric's. All were wounded, but none fatally, Aric was glad to see.
"Aric, you were incredible," Amoni said. She was winded, with red patches on her cheeks and forehead. "A trained gladiator and I only killed six." "Four for me," Mazzax put in.
"Five," Ruhm said, a little sourly. "The dwarf got one of mine."
"She wasn't dead yet when she came to me," Mazzax countered.
"I weakened her."
"It doesn't matter," Aric said. "We need to find Rieve and her family, before more raiders get here."
"How will we do that?" Amoni asked.
Aric put his left hand beside his mouth and took a deep breath. "Rieve! It's Aric! Where are you?"
Silence held, with only the distant sound of more raiders wending their way from elsewhere in the fort. Then Aric heard something else, a strange, sibilant fluttering. "Look!" Mazzax cried. He pointed into the air.
A bizarre, tiny creature flapped over their heads. Green and blue and red, with yellow and black stripes on a long, serpentine tail that gestured toward them almost like a curled finger, it turned in rapid circles, as if trying to attract their attention.
"Look at its tail!" Aric said. "I think it wants us to follow it!"
"Is it a trap?" Amoni asked.
"Only one way to find out!" The winged creature took off in a straight line, and Mazzax raced behind it. "If trap it be, then I'll add to my count!"
"Let's go!" Aric shouted. He thought it was on their side, and in any event, he didn't want to lose sight of the dwarf. He ran after them both, and Amoni and Ruhm fell in behind him.
He saw the Thrace family at the same time as the raiders did.
"Rieve!" he cried.
"Aric!"
Nine or ten raiders rushed toward them from a side road. The little creature hurtled toward them, and Corlan, who had acquired a bone sword somewhere, stared at it with a beaming smile on his face. "It worked!" Corlan shouted. "You're alive!"
A psionocus, then, Aric knew. A manufactured beast, brought to a sort of life as the servant of a powerful psion. He remembered being told that Corlan was a student at some psionic academy.
The raiders were closer to the Thrace family than Aric and his friends were. Corlan, the only one armed, looked away from his creation in time to notice them. Aric had already broken into a sprint, but Corlan met them first, his yellowish-brown weapon flicking out and cutting the fingers of a raider wielding a lotulis.
Corlan slew that foe and moved to the next, and Aric recalled that he had been selected to teach Rieve swordsmanship. No wonder—in addition to being psionic enough to animate a psionocus, he was good with a blade.
Aric joined the fight. Almost instantly, the wildness overtook him again. He was fully immersed in the battle, but at the same time a sense of calmness filled him, as if he knew he would win—or if he didn't, then it didn't really matter. As if the fight, not the result, was what counted.
A minute later, perhaps less, it was done. Aric was coated in blood, little of it his own. His blade had drank deep. Amoni, Ruhm and Mazzax had barely reached them when their enemies had fallen.
"Aric," Rieve said. Ignoring the gore coating him, she rushed into his arms, embracing him with a warm, tight fervor that almost made him forget Corlan watched. "You came for us."
"Of course," he said. "But we've got to go. There'll be more raiders coming."
"Which way?" Tunsall asked.
The psionocus fluttered its wings, beckoning again with that little tail, and then shot off the way they had come. "Follow that!" Aric said. "It'll show us the way out!"
Rieve slapped at her hip. "My sword! They took it ..."
"I'll make you another," Aric promised. "Come on!"
They all dashed off behind the tiny winged thing. Aric looked back once, noting that Rieve and Corlan ran hand in hand.
He was surprised to find that he wasn't more upset.
8
"We had better take our leave," Myrana whispered. Raiders were opening the gate. Their numbers had decreased considerably, as something had been drawing them away little by little—something she believed must have been Aric and the rest, fighting to free his friends.
"Do you think they're finished?"
"I don't know, but if we don't do it soon, we will be."
Sellis still had his swords, of course. And she her dagger.
But the raiders' mood had changed. She hoped that meant Aric's group was winning, and the raiders were angry over yet another defeat.
Hope was only hope, though, not certainty. Myrana's only certainty was that if those raiders got the gate open and attacked them, there would be a bloody battle—maybe a long, bloody battle, maybe short—which wouldn't end until she and Sellis were dead.
"Fine," Myrana said. "Ready to run?"
"I'm ready."
The raiders unlatched their wooden gate and scraped it open, bumping it against the ground as it swung unevenly on its hinges. Before they could throng out after Myrana and Sellis, he hurled the bag of gold coins over their heads. It landed in the road behind them, bursting at the seams, gold spilling everywhere.
"So it's the gold you want?" Sellis shouted. "Have it, then! It's yours!"
Raiders stared at the two strangers, but the pull of gold was stronger. With a loud outcry, they darted for the coins.
Myrana and Sellis ran.
And as each coin fell from the bag and hit the earth, it bounced into the air, turning into a golden bubble instead of a coin. Whenever someone touched one of the gold bubbles, or a bubble brushed against any other surface, it exploded. Within moments, raiders were squealing in pain, their hands blown off, a few of them dead. Their structures suffered too, as the explosions loosened timbers or knocked stones from walls. The dozens, then hundreds of smaller bursts combined into one massive explosion.
It shook the ground, even dozens of feet away. Myrana's legs were knocked out from under her, but Sellis caught her up and kept running. Another blast sounded, and gold sprayed into the air.
"That," he said, "is some serious magic!"
"It's about as dangerous as my magic gets," she said. "You can put me down."
He set her on her feet, and they kept running, back toward where they had tied the kanks, out of sight of the fort. "I don't like using magic to kill," she said. "Even to injure is bad. My magic is meant to preserve, to protect."
"You were protecting us!"
"That's the only reason I did that," she said. "Even so, most of those raiders will live. They might be temporarily blinded and deafened, and they'll think twice about giving chase. But I never meant to kill them that way.
"Look at Athas. Could it have always looked this way? Scorched by the sun, frozen at night, with little water and less shade? Could a population ever have grown under such conditions? Many believe it's magic did this, dark magic. Magic tied to death and destruction. It's not just in the spells themselves, but in the motives behind them. Magic meant to kill is just not something I choose to partake of."
"I understand," he said. They topped a low hill and the kanks were right where they'd left them. Aric and the rest had not yet returned. "I don't mean to make you keep explaining."
When she spoke again, any anger had left his voice. "It's fine, Sellis. I want you to understand, that's all. I can't fix everything bad that happens with magic, and I won't intentionally use it to kill. But it's a useful tool sometimes."
"You've been wonderful, Myrana. Here I thought I was protecting you, when all along it's been the other way. I'm not sure I deserve what your family pays me."
"When we finally get back to them, I'll tell them you said so."
"You won't have to, because I will."
They both started laughing, and sat down to wait, all tension between them evaporating like a puddle of water in the Athasian sun.
XX
CONFESSION
1
Aric and the others raced around the hill, into the little dell where they had left the kanks, and found Myrana and Sellis laughing uproariously. When Aric asked why, Myrana described the exploding gold coins, and the looks on the faces of the raiders as they reached for floating golden bubbles that blew up in their hands.
"But they weren't killed?" Aric asked when she was done.
"Some were injured," Sellis said. "Possibly others died." He touched the hilt of the sword sticking up over his left shoulder. "I don't mind killing when it's warranted, as you know."
"So they're mostly alive, hurt, and furious," Aric said. "We need to leave, now."
"There aren't enough kanks for everyone," Rieve's mother pointed out.
"We'll have to share. I don't need to ride," Aric said. He found himself wishing there were fewer humans and more elves in the party. He was faster than a kank carrying a double load, and full elves could run faster, and over longer distances, than he. There had been several among the raiders. They had killed many raiders, but there were certainly plenty more who would already be gearing up to give chase.
They piled onto kanks, Mazzax riding behind Ruhm, Corlan and Myrana together, Rieve and Pietrus on one. Rieve's grandparents rode together, with her parents on another, and Amoni and Sellis rode on the kank laden with supplies, taking turns getting off frequently to give the beast a break. Aric, as promised, ran alongside.
They didn't see pursuers until the next afternoon.
The whole way, they had watched over their shoulders, figuring the raiders would be right behind them. Nothing.
By late the second day, they had decided that the raiders had chosen to bury their dead and not worry about them anymore. Then they reached the top of a tall hill and looked back and saw a dust cloud in the distance, following their trail.
They pressed on, urging the kanks to greater speed. When night fell, they had to stop, build fires and rest. Aric didn't sleep well; even though he knew it was unlikely the raiders pressed on through the cold black Athasian night, he couldn't shake the sensation that they were closing in. Out in open desert, with vastly greater numbers, they would be almost impossible to defeat.
As the sun rose, they gathered in a fur-clad, chattering group to discuss their options. "Doubled-up on kanks," Aric said, "we won't be able to outrun those raiders for long."
"We're slowing you down," Rieve's mother said. Aric could only distinguish the members of the Thrace family by their relative heights, as they all wore thickly furred, hooded cloaks, and their faces were lost in shadow. "You didn't intend to overburden your mounts so much. Perhaps you should give up on us."
"You're the reason we went to that fort!" Myrana said. "And we need you." The night before, they had told Rieve and her family about Kadya and Tallik and the fact that they would need magical assistance to defeat the demon. The family discussed it, finally agreeing to return to Nibenay, just for long enough to help deal with the threat. Aric vowed to make every effort to keep them outside the city's walls and beyond the reach of the authorities.
"Myrana's right," Amoni said. "Without you, we might have already been back in Nibenay by now. Much closer, certainly. It's you, Sheridia, who we've the greatest need of. Among those Veiled Alliance members I know, your reputation is without peer."
"Perhaps you should just take Sheridia, then," Corlan suggested. "I can protect the others."
"You're very bold," Rieve said. "And you fought well yesterday at the fort. But the six of us alone wouldn't have a chance."
"We stay together," Aric said. "We should mount up and go, though. Already the sky lightens before the rising sun. We need every minute's advantage we can gain."
They doused their fires with sand, packed, and set off as soon as the sun cleared the horizon. After a few hours, they again caught a glimpse of their pursuers, closer than they'd been the day before. Myrana suggested that since they were already so far off their route, they make another detour.
They changed course abruptly, heading away from Nibenay instead of toward it. Myrana was correct, though—the trip to the raider's fort had taken them far afield, and although time was certainly growing short, dying before they reached Nibenay would help no one. Myrana hadn't explained exactly what she had in mind, but Sellis agreed with her plan, and that was good enough for Aric.
Around midday, they reached a broad, barren valley ringed by low mountains. Instead of cutting across the valley floor, Myrana and Sellis led them by what seemed a much slower route, circling it. When they reached the far side, they stopped to rest and to drink from a spring high up on the wall.
From there, looking across the valley, they could see the raiders on the valley's far rim. The raiders spied them as well, but chose to cross the valley.
"They'll catch us in no time, now!" Rieve's grandfather said. "We lost hours by going around."
"Just wait," Myrana said.
"Wait?" Corlan asked. "The sooner we go, the better!"
"Wait," Sellis echoed. "Watch. I think you'll enjoy this."
They waited and watched. When the party of raiders was halfway across the valley, someone emerged from an unseen shelter hidden among large rocks. From the valley's rim, he looked tiny. But even at that distance they could tell he was angry. Miniature arms flailed with rage, miniature feet stamped.
And then he began blasting away at the raiders.
"Who is that?" Mazzax asked finally.
"That's the hermit Kalipher," Sellis said.
"He hates intruders," Myrana added. "Last time we saw him, he swore he would kill any who entered his valley."
"So you don't mind using magic to kill," Aric said. "As long as it's not your magic."
"He would have killed anyway," Myrana said. "Or so he claimed, and I'd no reason to doubt him. I just thought it would be helpful if he killed the right people."
"Some may yet escape," Amoni said. "And we should take advantage of the opportunity to make some progress."
Aric loaded some freshly filled water bladders on the pack kank. "Nibenay awaits!"
"So it does," Tunsall said. "Or so we hope."
2
They pushed on as hard as they could during the day, but stopped before sunset in order to make camp and start fires before the cold set in. Everybody was more relaxed than the night before, when they had made camp after dark and they'd scrambled to get things ready. At any rate, everyone was exhausted from fighting and running, none more so than Aric, who had not been riding like the others.
Once camp was ready, he sat on the ground chewing on dried meat Mazzax had brought, watching the others settle in. There seemed an odd distance between Rieve and Corlan, a coolness that had not existed before. At the same time, Corlan and
Myrana spoke together several times, sometimes laughing. Aric wondered what had transpired, on the backs of those kanks for so long.
He'd never had a chance to really look at Rieve's father, who he hadn't met at the Thrace estate. The man had only spoken a dozen words since they had met; none of them, now that he thought of it, directed to Aric. They had been running so much, and the man had been so bundled up during the night and morning, that he hadn't even had a good view of him. Myklan of Thrace was a handsome enough fellow, he decided. His hair was black and thick, with a few strands of gray near the temples. His features were even and pleasant, as befitted the father of someone as lovely as Rieve. He was fit, a little thick around the middle, but not nearly so much as many nobles. The only thing remarkable about him was a bright red mark on his left cheek, like a sunburst. A birthmark, Aric guessed.
As he watched Myklan, he found himself staring at that birthmark. It reminded him of something. He sat with his back against a rough-edged rock, racking through his memory.
An hour later, after he had eaten dinner and was thinking about other things entirely he picked up a metal dagger Myklan had removed from his belt and it came to him like a lightening flash.
"His face always reminded me of the rising sun," Aric's mother had told him, describing his human father. He had never understood what she meant.
Until now. It was impossible to look at Myklan's face without thinking of Athas's red sun, bursting over the horizon. Could it be true? Could Rieve's father also be his own? Mother had thought he was dead, but she hadn't known that, had only assumed it when he'd stopped coming to see her.
"He never seemed to like elves," she'd also said. "He didn't even like himself, when he was with me. It was like he couldn't stay away, but then when he was there, he loathed himself for it. When I told him I was with child, he was mortified. I never saw him again."
Another thought was nagging at Aric, but he couldn't bring it to the surface. He left it alone, listened to a conversation Mazzax and Tunsall were having.
He almost didn't want to say anything. Rieve would hate it. Sheridia might refuse to help them against Kadya and Tallik. But he couldn't let it go. He tried to tell himself that it couldn't be true, that if he voiced his suspicions, Rieve might never speak to him again.
But that red mark glowed in the firelight like it was a sun, blazing away, taunting him.
He couldn't ignore it.
Whatever the risk, he had to say something.
"That mark on your face, sir. You've always had it?"
Myklan's hand drifted to the red spot. "All my life. I suppose I've forgotten about it. Except when someone reminds me."
Rieve stared at Aric as if he'd lost his mind. Perhaps he had. He avoided her gaze and pressed on. "I don't mean to be rude," he said. "When I noticed it, it reminded me of something. Something my mother told me, about my father."
"Aric," Rieve said, leaning toward him. "What are you going on about?"
"My father was a human, as I'm sure you know. Mother said that looking upon his face always reminded her of the rising sun. The same could be said of you."
"I suppose," Myklan said uneasily. "But ..."
"Her name was Keyasune."
"A lovely name," Myklan said. "I've never heard it before. I'm sure she was a fine woman."
"She was. Strong and courageous. She raised me alone, of course, because my father abandoned her the moment he learned she would bear him a child. The child of a human and a half-elf. She said he seemed drawn to her, but hated elves, and that being with her made him turn his hatred on himself." "Your father had a problem," Rieve said. "But it's nothing to do with mine, Aric, so stop."
"I'm sorry, Rieve," Aric said, meeting her gaze at last. He held up a hand toward her, as if he could calm her with it. "I need to say this."
"My daughter has a point, young man," Myklan said. "Any problems you had with your parents don't concern us now. We've problems of our own."
"So I've heard. Poor Pietrus, accused of murdering all those people."
"What?" Rieve said. She was about to explode with anger. Aric hoped she didn't attack him, because it was hard enough to get through this without also holding her off.
"But it wasn't Pietrus, was it?"
"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," Myklan said.
"I think you do, sir. I think you're not just Pietrus and Rieve's father, but mine as well."
"Aric, stop it!" Rieve cried. "That's an awful thing to say!"
Myklan took his feet, clenching his fists. "That's utter nonsense, and I won't hear it."
But Solyara rose as well, stepping between her husband and Aric. "Let him speak," she said. Her tone was resigned, her manner firm.
"You've always been drawn to elf women, haven't you?" Aric asked. "It was an urge you couldn't resist. You met one—Keyasune, my mother—and for a while you tried to pretend you could really be with one. But you were ashamed of that urge, ashamed of yourself for giving in to it, and when she told you that I was on the way, that was more than you could take. You hated elves, hated them and wanted them at the same time, and to learn you would be the father of someone—something—who was even partly elf ... that was worst of all. So you left her and never let her see you again. She spent her life believing you had died. I'm glad she did, because it would have been worse to know that you lived but were so ashamed you couldn't bear to be near her."
"Solyara, this is nonsense," Myklan said.
"I think we should all hear it," she replied. "He's right, you know. Myklan's head turns whenever he sees an attractive elf woman, even to this day. He has always been attracted to them. You try to pretend you're not, but there's no denying it, my husband."
"But, Solyara—"
"Don't," she said. "Please, Myklan, respect me. I knew about the one, all along. So did others among our friends; you weren't half as clever as you thought. Once, years later, I even went to the market. I'd found out who she was by then. I went, bought a scrap of something from her, I don't even remember what now. I do recall how excited she was to get an actual metal coin, as if it was something she'd never seen. I felt sorry for her—spending all that time with a wealthy nobleman, and yet so poor that a simple coin could thrill her so. It was more than I owed, but I let her keep it all. She showed it to her child, and—oh. Oh, no. Aric. I never knew about you—that her child was his."
Aric's hand had gone to his medallion, hanging around his neck for most of his life. Her coin, Solyara's. His father's wife's. He had a vague memory of the incident, though he'd been young, and no memory at all of what the woman in his vision had looked like. It could have been Solyara. In those days most human women looked the same to him. "This is that coin," he said. "She never spent it."
"Oh, Aric, I'm so sorry."
Myklan had stopped protesting, and Aric wanted to change the subject. He swallowed back a bitter taste. "I don't know how long it's been going on," he continued. "But the urge you felt, the urge you couldn't deny, has stayed with you. Worse, perhaps, since I was born. You might not have known me, but you knew of me, you knew somewhere in Nibenay you had a child, born of a half-elf. That must have driven you mad. Yet still you couldn't stop wanting elves, or hating yourself for wanting them."
"Aric," Corlan said. "I think Rieve is right, you're saying things you can't prove, things that once said there'll be no turning back from."
"I know, Corlan. And believe me, I wish I didn't have to. But now Pietrus has been accused of Myklan's crimes, and Myklan is letting his entire family suffer for what he's done."
"What?" Rieve asked. She jumped to her feet, turned way from the circle, toward the second fire. Her shoulders shook with sobs. Corlan tried to comfort her, but she writhed away from his touch, burying her face in her hands.
"Your desire for elf women turned into violence, didn't it? You couldn't be with them, and you couldn't stop wanting to. So there came a day when you killed a human man who dared take what you wanted so badly. And you killed her. Because she saw you? Or just because of who she was? It probably doesn't matter."
Myklan was shaking with rage. His face had gone white, except for that mark, and he was biting his lower lip so hard Aric expected him to draw blood. But he had stopped protesting.
"And that made you feel better, at least for a time. But then the urge came again. Was is stronger this time? You satisfied it in the same way. In time, perhaps, the urge changed. You no longer burned with desire for those elf women, but for the desire to kill them, and the men with them.
"Finally, you were seen, chased. But the people who chased you home couldn't believe that Myklan of Thrace, esteemed member of the nobility, could have done such things. No, it must have been Myklan's addled boy, Pietrus."
Pietrus was sitting across from Aric. His hands were over his ears, and he made a low-pitched, keening sound. Tears dribbled down his cheeks. Sheridia knelt by him, stroking his shoulders, but he didn't seem to know she was there. He was the one Aric felt worst about in all this, and he was sorry he had started it while Pietrus was present. There had been no choice, though. Having come to the realization, Aric had to say something.
"You were happy to let them think it. Happy to let your own family believe you had to flee Nibenay because Pietrus was accused. Perhaps you even let them think that maybe the mob was right, that Pietrus was guilty of those murders. Getting away from the city was the only solution, the only way to protect your son. But it wasn't Pietrus you were worried about, was it? You were worried that someone would realize it was you all along."
"You were out that night," Solyara remembered. "I didn't see you come home, and you told me you'd been there for more than an hour when the mob started screaming outside. But you were winded, your cheeks flushed with effort. You had just come home, hadn't you?"
Myklan didn't answer. He shook, and stared into the fire, and chewed his lip.
"If our guard Bryldun were here, instead of killed in the desert by those awful raiders, we could ask him," Solyara went on. "But he's not. Another death on your conscience, Myklan? How many is that?"
"All right!" Myklan sank to his knees, folded over, pounded the earth with his fists. "Yes, yes, yes!" He loosed a great, anguished wail. "Yes, all of it, it's true!"
"Father!" Rieve cried through her own sobs. "No, Father! I won't believe it!"
"I've known for a long time that there was something wrong," Solyara said. "That he hated elves, but couldn't stop looking at them. That there was a fire burning somewhere deep inside him that I could never see, never extinguish. I didn't know the extent of it, but I should have found out, I suppose. I was afraid to push too much, afraid of what I might find."
Myklan drew himself back to a seated position. His eyes were rimmed with red, and sand coated his face where tears had dampened it. "Yes," he said, more composed now. "I'm sorry, Solyara. My Rieve, my Pietrus, I am so sorry. But it's all true."
He pointed a quivering finger at Aric. "You ... yes, I am your father. But it is not true that I abandoned you, although I admit, to my shame, that I did your mother."
"How can that be?" Aric asked.
"You must have known, all these years, that you've had a secret benefactor. Someone looking out for your interests, interceding from time to time. Gifts, financial assistance. Your smithy ..."
"That was you all along?"
"None other."
"I thought ... never mind. I never dreamed it was my own father, doing those things."
"It's true, boy," Tunsall said, "that Myklan's the one who recommended I commission Rieve's sword from you. He spoke highly of your work."
"I had means," Myklan added. "I knew you were there, knew your mother was gone. You needed help, and I was able to help. I never hated you, Aric. Keyasune, yes, by the end, but mostly myself."
The rest of it, Aric had figured out on his own, just from seeing the mark on Myklan's face and knowing his history through the knife.
But this ... this came as a shock.
More than that. He felt sick. He felt like he had been stabbed in the gut.
He had told himself it was the Shadow King. If not him, then some wealthy stranger, who had taken an interest in him for reasons he could not fathom. There had never been any clue, any hint that it had been his own father doing those things.
He wondered, if he had known that, if he would have found a way to refuse those gifts. Without someone's interference—Myklan's, as it happened—he might be a blacksmith's apprentice. Instead, the shop's owner had handed it over to him, without hesitation. Paid off, Aric had learned. Now he knew who had paid him. Myklan wasn't particularly frightening—or wasn't, unless to human men in the company of elf women—but he had plenty of wealth to spread around.
He owed Myklan, it was that simple.
He hated the man. The idea that Myklan was his father, and had left his mother in her time of need, and had murdered people through some bizarre compulsion, made him want to pluck his own eyes out so he wouldn't have to see his closest friends staring at him. He didn't want to look at his father. Hot tears stung his own cheeks, and he turned away from the others and swiped a hand roughly over his eyes.
Myklan was a liar and a killer. Aric had killed, too—these last few days he had killed many, had lost himself in killing, come to think it was something he was good at. Was that inherited from his father?
But Myklan was a liar and killer who had taken an interest in his son, albeit from a distance. Who had gone out of his way to help Aric. Could he be entirely hateful? He told himself it was necessary.
That was a question Aric could not answer. Someday, perhaps. Not tonight. Not while he burned with rage.
"It's true, and Pietrus, I am sorry that you were blamed for my crimes. I never meant for that to happen. I tried to control myself—as Aric said, I tried to resist, but I just couldn't. There's something inside me, and it drives me to do these things, and if I could cut it out with a knife I would happily do so."
"You need to make amends," Solyara said. "You can't let them blame Pietrus for this. Or ruin everyone's life because of what you've done. Bad enough you've ruined your own."
"I ... I know," Myklan said. "I will. When we get back to the city. While Sheridia is helping them battle ... whatever it is. I'll go to Djena, I'll tell her ... I'll tell her everything. I swear it."
Aric took some comfort in that. Rieve and her family would be allowed to return to their home, their lives. There would be a scandal, of course. But if Myklan was willing to take the blame, then the others might get past it.
The conversation tapered off. No one, Aric included, wanted to press it anymore. People settled down under blankets, between the twin blazes that held off the night but could do nothing against the darkness in men's hearts. No one spoke to Aric, not even Ruhm. He was alone again, here in the company of those he'd considered friends. He had seen the truth and spoken it, that was his crime—that, perhaps, combined with being half-elf. Being the event that had, after all, driven Myklan to murder.
He wasn't surprised that no one came near him, no one accidentally brushed him as they settled under their furs. Before they reached Nibenay, if they did, the others would probably find some reason to leave the group, not to help him battle Kadya and Tallik, after all.
It would be Aric's fight in the end. One individual, trying to make a difference, despite the odds.
Quiet sobs erupted here and there during the night, and Aric doubted anyone would get much sleep. But, to his own surprise, he drifted off quickly, while Corlan stood guard.
3
Corlan's head drooped toward his chest. He was in danger of falling asleep before his turn on guard was over. The breakneck trip from Nibenay to catch Rieve, then captivity in the raiders' fort and the wild escape—these things had sapped the strength from him. Activating his psionocus had taken more energy than he had expected, as well. But someone had to stay awake.
He shook his head to clear it, then rose to his feet and walked around camp. Snoring, wriggling forms were barely visible beneath heavy layers of furs—an arm over here, a foot there sticking out, but for the most part his companions were well covered. The fires had diminished a little, and fuel in this part of the land was hard to come by, so he didn't stoke them quite yet. He would before it was time to wake Amoni for her shift—the fires couldn't be allowed to go out, or everyone would freeze, furs or no.
Walking around the outside rim of the fires' warmth, Corlan considered the night's drama. Myklan, a murderer? Hard to believe. The man had confessed, though. And in truth, he had never known Rieve's father that well. Solyara, yes, and Tunsall, and even Sheridia, who had often been busy at some pursuit or other that Corlan now knew probably involved her magic. Myklan kept to himself, though, when he wasn't out overseeing the family businesses. On those occasions when Corlan had spent time with him, it often seemed that his thoughts were elsewhere, far away. Now Corlan realized, with a shiver, that at any of those times he might have been thinking about his killings, or dwelling on the lust for elf women that was the source of his self-loathing.
One aspect of Myklan's confession, though, came as good news to Corlan. He had recognized a growing attraction between Rieve and the half-elf Aric, and that, on top of his unthinking response to
Rieve's troubles, had made him worry that he was losing her. But if she and Aric were half-siblings, then Rieve wouldn't act on that attraction, however strong it was.
His feet crunched on the desert sands as he walked in circles, determined to remain alert. He didn't know something else heard him, something that lived underground but could sense prey moving about on the surface.
Then it exploded out of the ground, sending up a flurry of sand. Corlan heard it and cried out. He grabbed for a bone sword he had liberated from a fallen raider at the fort.
Some of his companions awoke, lurching upright as the desert mastryial attacked.
The beast was as long as Corlan was tall, a giant scorpion almost invisible until firelight glanced off its dark brown carapace. Its huge pincers clacked together and its tail arched over its back, the stinger at the tip bobbing as it scuttled forward on six legs.
Corlan thrust at it with the bone sword, but it only glanced off the creature's hard chitin, which was widely prized for its excellent armor. He shouted again, a wordless sound, and swiped at it again, holding off the advance of those fearsome pincers.
The half-giant, Ruhm, charged forward wielding his greatclub. He gave a cry and swung the club down at the mastryial. The weapon smashed into the thing's left pincer with a great cracking sound, and the mastryial gave a squeal of pain. Its other pincer darted faster than Corlan's eye could follow, grabbing the club and wrenching it from the grasp of the mighty goliath. When the tail stabbed toward Ruhm, he had no choice but to leap backwards, out of its path, and the creature hurled the club far from the firelight. Ignoring the darkness, Ruhm dashed after it.
Amoni, Aric, and Myklan arrived at Corlan's side together, and a few steps behind came Sellis, his twin swords whistling in the dark, and Mazzax bearing his heavy-headed maul. Amoni's cahulaks spun on their rope, and Aric jabbed at the beast with a sword of gleaming steel. Amoni closed with the mastryial first, her weapon biting into its carapace. It skittered backward, stabbing at Amoni with its long, segmented tail.
Sellis sliced at that tail, but it whipped about so fast that his blades cut only air. Aric thrust his sword's point into one of the segments. The mastryial grabbed at his blade with one of its pincers. Having seen what it did with Ruhm's club, Aric tried to yank his sword away. The thing's grip was too firm, and it tugged Aric forward, off his feet.
The creature darted forward and back, its many legs carrying it in quick, jittery motions. Too many tried to fight it, and with Aric sprawled before it, Corlan bumped into Amoni and tripped over Aric's legs. He landed on Aric's back with a heavy thump, pinning Aric to the ground. The mastryial's stinger hovered over them.
Putting all his strength into the effort, Aric heaved his chest and shoulders off the ground, rolling Corlan off his back. Aric got a foot under him, but the stinger darted toward him.
And then someone landed on the mastryial's back, flinging arms around the tail, keeping the stinger from sinking into Aric.
It was Myklan. Amoni lunged forward, attacking the thing's free pincer with her cahulaks, cutting the tender flesh just beneath it. The mastryial dropped Aric's sword and tried to grab Amoni with the other pincer, but Sellis blocked that attempt. A few mighty swipes with his swords severed the other pincer. Aric scooped up his sword and stabbed the beast repeatedly, as the dwarf pounded on its carapace with his maul. Corlan jabbed his bone sword into the thing several times.
But that tail whipped up and over itself. It buried its stinger in Myklan's skull. The man screeched, his face twisted in agony. But only for a moment. As the venom took quick effect, he froze. The mastryial freed its tail from his grip and the man toppled over. The beast tried to back away. It was bleeding from a dozen wounds, though, many of them serious, and it only made a few steps before Aric raced past the slowing tail and drove his sword downward through the thing's head. The mastryial twitched its legs several times, then went still.
Myklan was half buried beneath it. Amoni, Mazzax, Sellis and Corlan lifted the beast while Aric pulled him out. Too late, however; Myklan was dead, his eyes open, face still contorted in pain and fear, mouth open as if to catch one last breath that he would never draw.
Ruhm wandered back into the firelight, half frozen, clutching his beloved club. At the same time, Rieve caught a glimpse of her father's still form. Corlan ran to intercept her, not wanting her to see the sight, but she twisted free of his grasp. "Father!" she cried. "Oh, Father!"
The rest of the family gathered around as Rieve fell to her knees, burying her face in Myklan's chest. Her back and shoulders spasmed with sobs. Pietrus joined her over the body, his own grief accompanied by anguished wails. Tears traced down Tunsall's face, but he stood still, mourning Myklan with quiet dignity. Sheridia and Solyara, mother and daughter, stood back a few paces and watched.
Corlan threw aside his bone sword and crouched beside Rieve, draping an arm over her back. He tried to whisper soothing words, but his tongue seemed tied in a knot and she couldn't have heard him anyway. He settled for just being there, hoping she knew that he was.
4
Aric wondered if Myklan had not confessed to the affair with Keyasune, and to the murders, would the women have been more disturbed by his death? None of it seemed to matter to Rieve, whose grief was abundant and loudly expressed, but the others were more reserved in theirs.
Aric tried to feel something, but he couldn't.
Myklan had saved his life. More than once, probably, over the years, but directly, indisputably, just now. For all he knew, though, Myklan's action this time had not been the selflessly heroic one it had seemed, but yet another evasion of responsibility. Myklan had agreed to accept the blame when they reached Nibenay. Had he meant it? Or had he never intended to see Nibenay again? He had, after all, hidden from Aric's mother, and even when he took some interest in Aric's life it was from a far remove, a safe distance. He had allowed himself to keep on killing, even when he must have known on some level that it was wrong. Was this just the final, self-preserving act of a small-minded man? Was a quick death preferable, in Myklan's mind, to the public humiliation and no doubt agonizing punishment that would have faced him at home?
Aric regretted Rieve's grief. He worried about Pietrus, who, without Myklan's confession to protect him, might still be held responsible for the murders, if the family still chose to accompany Aric and the others back to Nibenay. And he regretted not having a chance to see his father meet justice. But he couldn't manage more than the slightest twinge of sorrow over the man's death.
He walked away from the others, closer to the fire's warmth, and let the family mourn their dead. For Aric, having lost the father he had never known and hated for his absence, there would be no mourning at all.
XXI
NIBENAY
1
They were too late. From the top of a hill they could see the fertilized fields flanking the city walls, the Plain of Burning Water, and Nibenay itself, gleaming in late afternoon sun. But rolling through the Mekillot Gate were wagons laden with steel. They were spread well apart, but one was just passing beneath the musicians atop the gate, and others had already entered the city. The expedition had beat them home, and Kadya—Tallik as well, no doubt—with it.
Aric had been surprised that the others, those of the Thrace family, had kept to their original agreement. Even without Myklan, they would return to Nibenay with Aric, in hopes of warning the
Shadow King or, failing that, of finding a way to stop Kadya. That fact filled Aric with relief—if they hated him, they would still see through the struggle ahead.
The night of Myklan's death, no one had rested much. In the morning, after a brief discussion, they had pushed on, driving themselves and their kanks ever faster. The procession had been a grim one, with little laughter or spirited conversation, but in the end, although it made the days feel long, it probably made the trip shorter.
And here they were, and they were too late, and Aric felt like he had swallowed an erdlu egg, shell and all. It sat between his throat and his chest, aching.
All of it, the journey, the battles, rescuing Rieve and her family, and for what? Kadya would have entered the city in the first argosy, or mounted, even on foot—but at the head of the procession, so everyone could see her triumphant return. By now she was deep in the city.
"Now what?" Ruhm asked. The goliath had come up behind Aric, loomed over his shoulder, and Aric hadn't even noticed.
"I don't know."
"Kill the demon," Mazzax said. Aric looked around. Everyone had dismounted, and stood gathered together on the hilltop.
"Not so easily done," Aric said.
"Why not?"
"We don't even know where Kadya is now. Or who's protecting her. If she's with Nibenay, or with her sister templars ..."
"As long as the city stands," Myrana said, "we have a chance, don't we? Perhaps the demon bides its time."
"We've come this far," Sellis added. "And it was a hard slog. I'm for Nibenay, either to kill a demon or to have a drink and find a bed to sleep in tonight."
Pietrus shivered with terror. His mother cradled him in her arms. "We'll let nothing happen to you, Pietrus. We all heard your father confess to the crimes you were accused of, and any blame will be laid at his feet. You're safe now."
"He had better be," Rieve declared.
"Kill the demon!" Mazzax repeated.
"Yes," Aric said. "Let's kill the demon."
"Do we know how?" Ruhm asked.
"Haven't the faintest idea."
"Magic!" Mazzax pointed to Myrana and Sheridia. "Kill it with magic!"
"Good a plan as any," Aric said. "Let's see what we can do."
They started down the hill. As they descended, they saw smoke rise up from the city's center, tinted green and yellow and blue. "That's from the
Naggaramakam," Tunsall observed. "They're already celebrating."
"A celebration that'll go far into the night," his wife added. "They're lighting fires for warmth, and adding color to the smoke to display their joy."
"Then they must not know yet," Aric said. "About Tallik, I mean."
"Myrana's right," Rieve said. "The demon probably isn't acting right away. He's been confined beneath Akrankhot for a thousand years or so, right? And then freed by Kadya, and carried inside her? He probably wants to see how things are before he stirs things up. For all he knows, the entire city-state will be as welcoming as Kadya was. If it is, then he might not be bent on its destruction, but on preserving it to use as his new home."
"Whatever the demon's got in mind," Sellis said, "I doubt it's anything good."
"I'm certain of that," Aric agreed. He watched colored smoke drift into the still air above the city, and a thought came to him. "But if they're already celebrating, then Kadya must be inside the Naggaramakarn. She'll be the toast of the celebration, right? That's where we'll find her—and the Shadow King. Perhaps we can still do something."
"But ... nobody's ever been inside the Naggaramakarn," Corlan pointed out. "No free person. How do we get in? And even if we do, how do we get out again?"
"I don't know if we'll ever get out," Aric said. "But I haven't come this far to fail now. As for getting in?" He pointed at the last argosy, its mekillot struggling to haul the weight up the road toward the big gateway. "We'll use that."
"What?"
"Just come with me!" Aric broke into a run. Behind him, some tried to prod their exhausted kanks on faster, then gave up and dropped off them.
The final argosy was just near enough the gate to hear the musicians. As Aric raced toward it, he could see its drivers swaying, already caught in the music's irresistible spell. There wouldn't be many people inside, if any—the thing looked as if its wheels would give out at any moment, so it was burdened by the weight of a massive amount of metal.
Aric had easily outdistanced his companions, but he had to act fast, before he was seen, so he didn't wait for them. He jumped onto the argosy's side, landing with quiet, sure-footed grace, and climbed to the top. He could hear the music, too, and had to fight not to give in to it and start dancing. He let the music fill him just enough to add a sinuous fluidity to his motions as he crept toward the front.
Ruhm's footfalls pounded closer, in counterpoint to the music wafting from the gate. "What's that?" one of the drivers asked.
Aric reached the argosy's front just in time to see another poke his head out and spot Ruhm. "It's a goliath," he said. "Running at us."
"Well, kill him!" the first one said.
Aric drew his sword, and before the second could tuck his head back into the argosy's depths, he crouched low and swung it. It sheared through the man's neck, and the head flew out, bounced, and vanished beneath the big wagon.
"What—?" the driver cried.
Aric heard him fumbling with the panel that he could close, to keep those inside safe from Athas's winds and cold. The reins went slack as he worked it. Aric climbed down, and Ruhm reached the wagon at the same time, jumping up onto the tongue. The driver managed to slam the panel shut but not to latch it, and Ruhm's massive fist opened it again. Aric slid through the gap, sword in hand. He ran the driver through while the man was still drawing his own.
"Sorry," Aric said as he pulled his sword free and the man died. "It's nothing personal, but we need this thing." He stuck his head out the window. "Go around back!" he told Ruhm. "Open the doors so we can get rid of some steel!"
Ruhm dropped off the wagon without comment. Moments later, Aric heard him pawing at the doors, then they opened and light flooded the inside. As he had expected, there were no other guards, just a mass of metal, stacked as high as the single mekillot could manage to pull.
"We need some speed!" Aric shouted.
Ruhm climbed up and started hauling out chunks of steel, throwing them into their tracks. The others were beginning to reach the wagon, and one by one they climbed in, tossing out the pieces they could lift.
Then they were getting close enough to the gate to worry Aric. This would be the hard part. "Everyone inside, now!" he called. "Get those doors closed!"
His companions did as he said. Behind them, Aric knew, was a trail of metal pieces and a man's head. But the mekillot had managed a little more speed, as the load lightened. Anyone standing on top of the Mekillot Gate could look back and see that they had shed cargo, but only the musicians were there, and they were focused on their playing. The guards at the gate danced without enthusiasm or expression, probably tired by now of watching the argosies roll past. Aric summoned Corlan to stand beside him at the reins, and the guards waved them in with hardly a glance.
"We're in," Corlan said as the gates clanged shut behind them. "Now what?"
Aric had no answer. He had only worked out how to get inside the city walls. From there, he had no plans.
2
"Sage's Square!" Tunsall said from the darkness of the argosy's interior.
"What?"
"All the argosies will be at Sage's Square. Nibenay will want the people to see them. They may even be stopped and opened up so the people can see all the metal they've brought back. They'll be well guarded, of course, but they'll be in a public place for at least a day or two."
Tunsall was right. There were still smatterings of onlookers lining the road toward Sage's Square, although no doubt there had been many more at the front of the expedition.
"We'll go to the Square," he said. "But then what?"
"Then on to the Naggaramakam," Sheridia said. "That's where Kadya is."
That made sense, but Aric knew the doing of it would be more complicated. He guided the mekillot, Corlan still beside him so anyone looking inside would see two people, as there had been, and they made their way into Sage's Square. There amid the thick grove of agafari trees, the other argosies had been parked, some with their backs open, and throngs of people gazed past the guards at the treasure within.
Instead of following suit, Aric guided his mekillot around the square's outer rim. At the entrance to the road leading toward the Naggaramakam—this road considerably narrower than the first, and roundabout, as no roads led directly to the Shadow King's private estate—two city guards blocked the way.
"Why have you not pulled over?" one asked.
"We were told that the Shadow King wants to see one load for himself," Corlan answered. They had briefly discussed this possibility, and Aric was glad they had. "You don't expect him to come to where all those people are, do you?"
"I suppose not."
"Then get out of our way, imbecile!" Corlan shouted at the man with the imperious air of one used to being obeyed. Aric had never known that sensation, and likely never would.
Corlan was convincing enough, and the two guards stepped away, letting them pass. The mekillot followed Aric's urging, and soon the big armored wagon made its way down a road barely wide enough to let it pass without scraping the ornately sculpted buildings on either side.
"This might work," Myrana said after they had passed the guards.
"What happens inside Naggaramakarn?" Ruhm asked.
The dwarfs voice bounced off the argosy's walls. "We kill the demon!"
"That might not be so simple," Tunsall said. "She'll be surrounded by other templars, and slave guards. We'll be strangers, barging in—if we can get in—and attacking one of their own."
"We need some way to make Tallik show himself," Myrana said.
"There might be a way to do that," Sheridia said.
"How?" Myrana asked.
"Everyone in Nibenay has heard rumors about the Shadow King's palace," Sheridia explained. "It's built in the shape of his head. His many wives are carved into it, forming his hair."
"How does that help?" Myrana asked.
"It's said that those sculptures are more than just carvings in stone," Sheridia said. "That there's some essence of each wife contained in the figure. If one can destroy the figure, that forces the templar wife to reveal her true self. Naturally, it has never happened, that I know of. And I'm certain the palace is a nest of secrets many layers deep. I'm only telling it because I've heard it spoken, more than once, and from people with far vaster stores of knowledge than mine."
"It sounds worth a try," Aric said from the front.
"If we can figure out which of those many figures represents Kadya," Solyara said. "And find a way to destroy it."
"We'll have a chance soon enough!" Corlan called. The argosy was just rounding a bend. "We're at the gates!"
The Naggaramakarn was surrounded by walls towering fifty feet high. Beyond those walls, when one was far enough back, the tops of huge agafari trees, in the Shadow King's private garden, could be seen. The sun had almost sunk below the horizon; in the shadow of those walls it was already dusk.
As the wagon drew up to the massive wooden gates, Aric pondered the impossibility of the task ahead of them. They had to venture into the inner city, the Forbidden Dominion, which no one had ever done and lived to tell about. Once there they had to identify which of hundreds of sculptures, on a tall palace, stood for a particular templar wife. They had to destroy that, revealing the demon inside—they hoped. And then they had to destroy the demon, and hope that because they had shown it for what it was, the other templars, and the Shadow King himself, would let them leave again.
He had been surprised when the family Thrace had agreed to come to Nibenay, after Myklan's death. If they survived the next few minutes, that surprise would be dwarfed by the astonishment he would feel.
A trio of goliath soldiers stood before the gate into the Naggaramakam. "Turn away!" one shouted. "There is no admittance here!"
"But the Shadow King has asked to have a wagonload of steel brought before him for his inspection," Aric argued. "We've been ordered here by the templar Kadya!"
The soldiers traded glances, uncertain but made anxious by the mention of Kadya's name. "We've heard no such orders," one of them said.
"Open the gates, and let us pass!" Aric insisted. "Just because you're not trusted with this information doesn't mean we don't have a mission to fulfill!"
"No one comes through these gates," the soldier said. "Except templars and slaves—"
"What do you think we are?" Aric asked.
"No slave known to me."
"And you know every slave who ever set foot in the Naggaramakam?"
"No ..."
"Open the gate. When we find Kadya we'll ask her if she'd like to discuss this with you in person!"
The guard swallowed, but made a gesture toward whatever unseen operator controlled the gates.
Chains rattled and the wooden barricades began to part. As soon as they did, Aric prodded the mekillot ahead, in case the soldiers changed their minds.
As the argosy surged forward, one of the goliath soldiers peered inside the front window. Corlan's clothing was torn and filthy from the trip, but still obviously of expensive make. And inside, crowded in the shadows but still visible, were the rest. "Stop!" the soldier cried. "It's a trick! Close the gate!"
It took a few moments for the gate's direction to reverse, with an agitated clanking and grinding of the chain. The soldiers swarmed around the argosy, more joining the first three. Aric urged the huge lizard on, and although the closing gates rasped against the wagon's sides, it passed between them.
Soldiers grabbed the argosy. "Stop, you!" one shouted.
Big hands reached in toward Aric, and he drew his sword with his right hand, holding the reins in his left. He sliced the goliath's arm. The soldier yanked it away. "Sound the alarm!" he cried.
The back of the wagon banged open, spilling Sellis, Myrana, and Amoni onto the road. Neither had weapons in their hands, and after a moment, Aric saw why—those hands were engaged in the peculiar gesturing common to spellcasters. One of the soldiers was beginning to shout something, and his cry was cut off as if a hand had clamped over his mouth. The others went mute at the same time, arms pinned to their sides like they were wrapped in invisible rope.
"Go!" Amoni cried, jumping back into the argosy. "That'll last a few minutes, but not long."
Sellis and Myrana clambered aboard after her, shutting the door again, and Aric drove the wagon into the depths of the forbidden city.
Instantly, shadows enveloped them. The sunset was gone, lost in a gloom created by the thick foliage overhead and the gargantuan walls surrounding it all. Inside, the road became a vast plaza, multilayered, with benches and sections of garden and private nooks where one might go to meditate. It looked like it would be a pleasant place to spend time during the day, shaded and with the choice of being alone or visiting with others. It was empty now, though, whether because of the imminent fall of night or because everyone was gathered elsewhere, Aric knew not. All he knew was that they had not yet found the fires sending colored smoke into the sky ... and that before them sat the strangest building he had ever seen.
"The palace," Corlan said, his voice more a breath than a whisper.
Aric had only ever had a glimpse of Nibenay, since the sorcerer-king had stayed in the shadows the one time they met. But if the building across the plaza, still largely hidden by thick agafari trunks, was meant to resemble him, then it was as he had looked a long, long time ago, or else it was a work of great imagination.
The massive figure's chin met the ground at plaza level. Its mouth gapped open, a door, Aric realized, with steps leading up to it. The teeth were even and straight. Above that flared the figure's nose, then its inset eyes, and a smooth, tall brow. Then the hair, cascading back the brow and all down the sides each lock the figure of a woman. Thousands of them.
And why not? Nibenay had lived a thousand years or more, it was said. He had well more than a hundred wives now, perhaps as many as two hundred. They were human, and although their association with Nibenay might confer longer lives, they would still die at some point. Over those thousand years, he could easily have had several thousand wives, each immortalized in stone upon the walls of his palace.
The stone Nibenay appeared to be a passingly handsome man. The real Nibenay, Aric knew, was anything but.
As if sensing an end to the long journey, the mekillot picked up speed across the plaza. When it seemed as if they might go straight to the huge palace's chin, directed there by the banks and levels of the plaza, a side route presented itself, leading around the palace. Aric steered the mekillot that way.
Toward the rear of the palace, shifting multicolored shadows offered evidence that they neared the fires. Night's cold wasn't far off, but within the warmth of those fires, Aric was convinced, the chill would be kept at bay.
And that's where they would find Kadya, and Tallik, and an end to all this. He reined in the mekillot, who heaved to a stop with a grateful sigh.
"From here we go on foot," Aric said. "The argosy is too large, and we'll be trapped in it."
"Trapped, or safe," Mazzax said.
"You're the one who wanted to kill the demon."
"Kill the demon!" The dwarfs single-minded fixation was, Aric knew, not uncommon among his kind.
He just hoped they could succeed at doing what Mazzax wanted.
3
Sounds of celebration, of hundreds of female voices, of song and laughter and the crackling of huge fires, met them before they turned the corner. Behind the castle was another broad plaza, this one with fewer plantings, just a handful of tall agafari trees scattered about. Eight huge bonfires burned, their heat bouncing off the palace walls and the exterior walls of the compound, warming the air to a comfortable level. Behind the palace, the wall was nothing but sculpted women shaped into flowing hair.
Templars filled the area between the fires, girls and women of every age from their teens onward. Most were naked, or nearly so. The mood was jubilant. Kadya sat on a dais at the near end of the space, accompanied by the consorts. They faced toward the crowd. A larger chair, almost a throne, stood beside Kadya in the center, Aric couldn't see its occupant from here.
Getting to Kadya would not be difficult, but doing so unnoticed, when nearly every eye in the place was pointed their way, would be virtually impossible.
"Well?" he whispered.
"Kill her!" Mazzax said.
"No," Sheridia said. "If killing Kadya would kill Tallik, perhaps it would be worth a try. But if we want the templars to know about the demon, it needs to be forced out of her."
"The sculpture," Aric said.
"Yes. But which one, I have no idea."
"Let's find out. Ruhm, give me a boost."
Ruhm handed Sellis his war club and took Aric's waist in his hands. His idea of a boost was to hurl
Aric up onto the dais. Aric landed hard, his sword drawn, and a gasp of surprise silenced the plaza.
Aric held his sword's tip at Kadya's throat. He managed to keep his hand from shaking, though barely. His friends had stood by him, against all odds; he owed them his best effort, if it took his last breath.
"You," Kadya said. "Everyone has been warned about you."
"I'm no killer," Aric said. He spoke loudly, so the crowd could hear.
"You've never killed?" another voice said. It came from the throne. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Siemhouk, Nibenay's daughter, sitting there with a wry grin on her face.
"I didn't say that. But whatever lies Kadya has told, that I'm a traitor or a member of the Veiled Alliance, they're not true. I ran because I knew she meant to kill me, that's all. Because of what I found out about her."
"We brought the bodies of your fellow Nibenese back to the city with the expedition, Aric," Kadya said. "Perhaps you'd like to see the evidence of your handiwork."
"I didn't kill them. You can't prove I did."
"At any rate," Siemhouk said, "you're interrupting our celebration. Have you a good reason, or should we strike you and your friends down where you stand?"
"A very good reason indeed. Kadya is possessed by a demon named Tallik—a demon with a long-standing hatred for the world. If he's allowed to gain any power by being here, among all of you, then however many members of her own expedition Kadya killed will be as nothing compared to how many Tallik will kill."
Kadya chuckled. "And you spoke of proof? What proof have you of that ridiculous charge?"
"I don't know how to expose a demon," Aric admitted. "But there's a tale that says destroying the sculpture of a templar will reveal her secrets, so that might be a place to start." He waved at the sculpted wall. "And if you're hiding nothing, you've nothing to fear. Which one of those is you?"
"Utter nonsense," Kadya said, pointing. "I'm that one—third from the left, seventh row from the top. Go ahead, destroy part of our husband's palace. It'll do you no good, but I'll be curious to see how he decides to punish you."
"Sheridia," Aric said, anxiety tightening his voice. "Do you have a way to destroy that sculpture?"
"Wait," Siemhouk said. "Kadya, why lie to them? You know yours is the eleventh from the left, nine rows from the bottom. It's a better than passing resemblance, too, if you look closely."
"My sister," Kadya said. "I believe you're mistaken—"
"I'm not." Siemhouk's voice was firm. "That's you."
"Why would you ...?"
"We all have our reasons for doing what we do, haven't we? You for leading the expedition, and for returning, and trying to hide the demon you carry. I, perhaps, for wanting to free that demon from within you."
Aric held the sword near Kadya's throat, ready to strike if need be. "Sheridia ..."
"Eleventh from the right, nine rows up," Sheridia said. "Amoni, Sellis, Myrana, you're ready?"
"Ready."
Aric didn't dare rip his gaze from Kadya. Behind him, he heard the rustle of motion, and then the stone sculpture that Siemhouk claimed represented Kadya began to glow with a yellow inner fire. After a few moments of that, it burst apart, stone flying everywhere. Several templars cried out when bits of rubble struck them, but nobody seemed badly hurt.
Before Aric's blade, though, Kadya began to change. Her flesh undulated, shifting color, changing texture. It peeled away in long strips, revealing another layer beneath, this one mottled and gray-green and sickly. Her chin grew long, her jaw jutting, the bones of her brow reshaping themselves, bulging out. Stubs of horn pushed through her flesh above eyes that turned yellow-green, and tusks flanked her nose. Tentacles burst from paper-thin flesh.
To the shock of nearly every templar in the plaza, Tallik revealed himself.
Aric had seen the demon before, in visions, so although he was appalled and surprised, he knew more or less what to expect. Siemhouk, too, appeared not to be taken off guard.
"You're Tallik," she said.
"I am," the demon said. His voice was rough, gravelly and sibilant at once, as if leaking out through a rocky passage. He shook off shreds of Kadya's skin, like they were some web he had walked through.
"You've lost your host."
"Don't need her," Tallik said.
"You'll need a host of some kind, though."
"For a while, I did. No more. The energy here, the strength ... it fills me."
"It's not for you to have," Siemhouk said. "It's spoken for. But if you'll swear fealty to me, the one who freed you—"
The demon laughed, showing two tongues. He extended arms and tentacles out toward the templars, then slowly curled them in. He might have been drawing the very life force off the onlookers. As his hands and arms curled toward his sides, and his tentacles rolled up, he began to grow. He was already taller than Kadya had ever been, and broader. But with everyone watching, he gained inches, gained pounds. Before he was done, he towered over Siemhouk and even Aric.
"I like it," he said, chuckling again. "The power here, it feeds me."
"It's not for you," Siemhouk said again. This time she sounded nervous, and Aric realized they were really in trouble. She had acted like she could control this thing that she had helped unleash. If she couldn't, then they all might be doomed.
"Whatever I desire is mine," Tallik said. His voice boomed, echoing off the massive walls surrounding them. He laughed, and his laugh shook the trunks of the agafari trees. "I desire power, so I take it. I desire vengeance, against the world that turned on me, that summoned me here and then imprisoned me, and I will have it."
Aric held out his sword, but its point was closer to the demon's waist than his throat.
"Kill the demon!" Mazzax shouted from nearby.
Good idea, Aric thought. If only I could.
4
The demon extended his hands again, and his tentacles. If he sucked more power from the assembled templars, Aric didn't want to know how big he would get, how strong.
So far, this plan had not worked as he'd hoped. Any moment, Tallik might start killing, destroying, seeking his vengeance.
With little to lose, Aric stepped forward and sank his blade in the demon's body.
The sword burned. Aric could barely hang on to the grip, it grew so hot. The demon tilted his head down to look at Aric as if he were an insect, some sort of biting pest he could swat away.
Aric drew the sword out, and saw Tallik flinch. He thrust it in again, through the demon's waist. Pulled it out before it was too hot to touch.
"I-I'll start with you, then," Tallik said. He curled up a tentacle and unrolled it quickly, aimed at Aric. When it hit it would knock Aric from the dais, possibly kill him.
Aric sliced through it, and the tentacle's tip fell wetly to the dais floor. The rest of it curled away again, regrowing the severed part as it did.
"You don't like steel," Aric said. "You were imprisoned beneath tons of steel for all those years, and there's a reason why. You can't stand it."
The demon raised clawed hands and brought them toward Aric.
"Aric!" Sheridia cried, from the ground behind the dais, Myrana by her side. "We're with you!"
He didn't know what she meant, but suddenly, his blade glowed, much as the sculpture of Kadya had. Not with the same result in mind, Aric hoped.
He struck at Tallik's hand. His blade sliced flesh and the demon jerked his hand away.
Heartened, Aric dropped into a defensive position. As long as the demon attacked him physically, he could defend himself. Sooner or later, though, Tallik would launch a magical attack. At that time ...
He didn't want to think about that.
Stab him.
He heard the voice, Siemhouk's voice. But he heard it in his mind, not through his ears. He had already tried stabbing. It hurt the demon, although possibly no more than it hurt Aric. Steel bothered Tallik, but could it kill him?
Stab him, Aric!
Siemhouk's voice sounded in his head with more urgency than before. She knew more about this kind of thing than he did. He drew his sword back and Tallik swatted him with the back of his hand.
The blow knocked Aric flying off the dais, into the crowd of templars. He crashed into some and fell to the ground amid a tangle of limbs and bodies. He lay there for several long moments, stunned by the impact of the demon's huge hand. His sword had been flung from his hand.
Aric shook his head. Blood sprayed from his nose and lips. He touched his jaw, which was tender, and wondered if it had been broken. He held his medallion in his fist, letting the steel give him strength, and he reached toward the sword. It skidded across the stones into his open hand.
The templars didn't attack him, but they backed away, clearing a space and eyeing him as if he might suddenly go berserk. The real danger, though, was Tallik, up on the dais. He was reaching out to the templars again, drawing their power into himself, growing ever larger. Templars seemed to shrink as Tallik stole their life force. Faces wrinkled, flesh puckered, shoulders stooped. Those who had been young moments before suddenly looked like old women.
Ruhm, Amoni and Sellis clambered onto the dais to stop him, but Tallik batted them away easily.
Then Tallik left the dais, charging into the midst of the templars. He lashed out with fists and tentacles. He squeezed a templar until her ribcage cracked and caved in, tore the head off another, swept a third's legs out from under her and stomped on her skull when she fell. Templars blasted him with spells, but he simply drank in the magic aimed at him and grew more powerful still.
That won't work, Aric. Siemhouk's voice in his head again. She remained on the dais, watching the carnage with a gaping mouth. Only steel can stop him. You must stab him again.
Aric tried to work through the panicking swarm, heading toward Tallik even as templars tried to flee in his direction. He didn't think Siemhouk's idea would do anything but get him killed. He didn't have any better ideas, though. And if Tallik could so easily get the best of hundreds of templars, then he couldn't be allowed to move through Nibenay and the rest of the world.
My daughter is right, Aric. This Aric recognized as the liquid voice of the Shadow King himself. Stab the demon with your new sword.
Aric wondered for an instant how Nibenay knew his sword was new.
A templar ran into him, blind with terror, pushed off his chest and raced around him. Others bumped him as they rushed past. Blood pooled on the flagstones, bodies were everywhere, and Tallik continued his slaughter.
Then Aric understood. The voices sounding his head, Siemhouk and Nibenay—they weren't just speaking to him, they were inside him, seeing everything. The journey, the discovery of the trove of steel, the knowledge that the demon was imprisoned beneath it, the escape. They knew about Kadya accepting the demon into her—wanting it there.
And as if that understanding turned a key, he realized that he saw flashes from their minds as well. They had both known that Kadya carried a demon inside her. Siemhouk had known it all along, had sent Kadya specifically to ensure that the demon would be brought back to Nibenay, where she believed she could control it. Nibenay had found out later, and decided to let his daughter's plan play out, thinking he could make use of the demon when Siemhouk failed.
Now, however, both were frightened. The demon's power grew with every passing moment, as it sapped the magical energies of Nibenay's templar wives. Already Tallik was beyond their control—the only question remaining was whether or not it could be destroyed.
Aric was their best hope—and not much of a hope, at that. But he was someone they were happy to sacrifice.
And his hand was full of steel.
Another templar crashed into him, light as a bird. She fled, and then it was Aric and Tallik, facing each other across stones washed with crimson.
"You again?" Tallik asked. His voice was loud enough to rattle the branches at the tops of the agafari trees, and his breath carried the stink of a thousand cesspools. "I thought you had learned."
"I'm slow," Aric said.
"I let you live before. No longer."
"Do your worst." Fleeing was out of the question now, so Aric decided pretending to bravery was his best option. Not that he could frighten Tallik. But if he could make Tallik believe he wasn't afraid, perhaps that would give him some small advantage.
He needed whatever advantage he could gain. The demon towered over him, as big as a giant now, if not bigger.
Tallik's tentacles lashed out toward him, all at once. Aric struck back, steel flashing in the colored firelight, slicing through tentacles. They flopped to the bloody stones and writhed there. Tallik yanked them back, grew them again. He sent them once more.
Once more, Aric fought back.
The wildness was beginning to grip him again, the feel of steel in his fist feeding him. He moved faster than he knew he could, cutting and slicing, not thinking about his weapon but letting it have its head. The moment seemed at once to happen instantly, and drawn out, slowed down—he seemed to see the blade whip almost to the ground, chopping off tentacles as if they were no more substantial than dried out stalks of grass, then swinging up again, carving through more, sweeping to the left to block the ones coming from that way, then down and right again. At the same time it was all faster than his eyes could follow, the blade a silvery blur.
Then a tentacle caught him on the cheek with the force of a hammer blow, and at the same time another wrapped around his waist. That one burned like coiled fire. If not for the burn, Aric believed the blow to his face might have knocked him senseless.
If riot for the burn, and the wild fever imparted to him by the steel.
Now, Aric, Nibenay's voice said.
Now, Aric, said Siemhouk.
Another tentacle lashed him in the face. Blood flew, and Aric's eyes started to close. And another blow landed. Another. Claws tore at his flesh, opening gaping wounds. Blood splashed into the pools below.
Aric pushed through unconsciousness, refusing to give in. He embraced the fire at his waist, pulling him ever closer to Tallik, because hanging onto that was the only thing keeping him awake.
He was barely aware of his feet leaving the ground. Tallik lifted him, raising him up, two tentacles wrapped around him now, waist and thigh.
That massive jaw opened, and the tentacles carried Aric toward the mouth, and Aric knew then that the demon meant to bite him, perhaps to eat him whole.
Aric could barely speak, but with a thick tongue and battered lips, he said, "I've no magic in me, demon, I'd just give you indigestion."
He held his coin medallion in his left fist.
And he plunged his sword deep into Tallik's upper chest.
Once again, it burned.
Aric hung on despite the agony.
Yes, Aric, Siemhouk said.
Yes, Aric, said her father.
Tallik tried to wrench him away with tentacles, to push him away with hands almost big enough to cover Aric completely. But Aric kept his grip on the sword, and the steel clung to Tallik, and it took several moments to realize, through eyes swollen almost to slits, that the blade was glowing red, its glow visible even beneath the demon's skin.
Aric's head flopped onto his shoulder and he blinked, nearly unconscious from the pain, but he could see Siemhouk on the dais, standing straight, arms thrust out before her, and a red glow emanating from her flowing toward Aric's sword. Another struck the sword from elsewhere, like a beam of scarlet light. Nibenay, Aric guessed, from wherever he was hiding. Then more of them, beams striking the blade, running along it, down its edges and its fuller groove and into Tallik's breast, and he knew these came from templars, gathering once more around the demon. He caught another glimpse of Siemhouk, and flanking her now were Sheridia and Sellis and Amoni, their hands resting on Siemhouk's shoulders and hips, feeding him their magical energies.
And Tallik screamed.
The scream hit the branches of the agafari trees like a terrible wind, tearing leaves from limbs, raining them onto those gathered below. It deafened Aric; he felt hot blood running down his jawline, and for an instant his eyes shut and he was gone, away from this plaza in the Naggaramakarn and back in the chamber beneath Akrankhot, beneath all the steel there, imprisoned for a millennium, and inside the Shadow King's palace, in darkened corridors choked with incense and tuneless chants, in the elf market, in Nibenay's streets, alone and frightened, and he almost let go of the sword's handle.
Then he was back in that place, in that moment. He strengthened his grip on the sword, its blade nothing but red light now, and shoved it in deeper, to the hilt. Tallik screamed again, his face contorting. Aric felt the wind, smelled his ghastly breath, but heard nothing. Tallik's knees buckled. He dropped to his knees, trying to cast Aric away but unable to. He was smaller, Aric realized, he had stolen the templars' strength and grown but now he was shrinking again. Aric twisted the blade in the demon's breast.
Tallik's tentacles relaxed, flopped limp at his sides, then his arms did the same, and he released Aric. Aric hung onto the sword, refusing to fall, to let go, unwilling to give Tallik the chance to pull it from his chest. But now the red light showed in Tallik's eyes, glowing from his open mouth, from his nostrils and ears, and he shrunk more, teetered, and sank backward, rump meeting heels. He kept going, head swaying back, back paralleling the wet paving stones. Aric hung on.
The demon slumped to the ground, Aric on top of him, gripping his hilt. They held that position for what seemed a full minute before he heard Siemhouk's voice again. That's enough, she said. He is defeated.
"Enough?" Aric echoed, or thought he did. The world was utterly silent, except for the sounds in his mind.
Enough.
Aric found his feet. Through the slits he had for eyes he saw Tallik, still at last, shrunken back to the size he had been when he had first emerged from Kadya, arms and tentacles splayed out around him like a stomped spider's limbs.
He drew his sword from the demon's chest, nothing but steel now, the red glow faded.
Enough? he thought.
Summoning what strength remained to him, he struck quickly, lopping off the demon's head. It rolled to one side, and Aric kicked it away from the body lest it reattach itself somehow.
That was unnecessary, Nibenay's voice said.
I didn't want to chance someone reviving him again, Aric thought.
Me, perhaps?
Aric spat a tooth into the gore coating the paving stones. Perhaps.
Nibenay didn't respond. Siemhouk had gone silent, too. On wobbly legs, Aric made his way back toward his friends. They caught him before he fell, and they led him, half-carrying him, out of the plaza, out of the Naggaramakam, past the argosy they had stolen and abandoned, past the guards, who as far as Aric could tell might still have been mute.
No one raised a hand to stop them.
XXII
AFTERWARDS
The Inn of Nine Feathers was quiet when he arrived, but it was early yet, mid-afternoon, the hottest part of the day. Even the birds were still, sitting in cages suspended from the tavern's ceiling. Most were sitaks, their plumage deep crimson and pale blue, or burgundy and taupe, with ivory crests, but there were other types Aric couldn't name, feathered in every color from carmine to chartreuse to indigo.
A barkeep stood behind a bar with cages lining the wall behind him and birds carved in relief in the wood of the bar front. The birds in those cages squawked when he yanked feathers from their tails. He put the tailfeathers into a mortar, added clear liquors depending on what drink had been ordered, and worked them together until he could pour the vibrant, liquefied contents into mugs. A barmaid served the mugs and took orders for more.
Aric watched it all through eyes that had not entirely healed over the past three days. He could hear again, and had been relieved to find the deafness was only temporary. He sat at the tavern's biggest table, and had another dragged over to add more room. Soon enough, Ruhm showed up, then Sellis and Amoni, followed after a few minutes by Rieve. "How's Pietrus?" Aric asked when she sat down.
"He's all right," Rieve explained. "He's not comfortable yet venturing into the city. Still, it's strange how fast people forget. They destroyed our house, killed some servants. That was apparently enough justice, but it will take him a while before he thinks he's forgiven."
"Not too long, I hope," Aric said.
"As do we," Rieve agreed.
Myrana entered next, a wide smile lighting her face. She sat and slapped the tabletop. "It's just so good to see you all again!"
"It's only been a couple of days," Sellis said.
"Long enough. After what we've been through, it feels like forever."
Finally, Corlan and Mazzax joined the party. Aric was surprised to see them together, and he laughed, then winced at the sharp pain in his ribs when he did. He wasn't alone in his misery: Amoni had a broken arm, and Sellis was covered in bruises in shades of blue, purple, yellow and black. Only Ruhm had challenged Tallik and emerged relatively intact, with nothing worse than a swollen cheek to show for it.
They had survived, that was the important thing. Gone up against the greatest threat any of them had ever encountered and walked away. And Aric couldn't deny that, though he'd been terrified at the time, thinking about it afterward all he remembered was that it had been, in some strange way, fun.
They chatted casually while the barmaid delivered everyone's drinks. Once everybody had a mug before them, Aric banged his on the table. "A toast!" he said.
"A toast," others echoed.
"To all of you, boon companions to the end!"
"And to you, Aric, slayer of demons!" Mazzax added.
They drank, banged their empties down, and the barmaid came over to fetch more. The birds launched into a series of loud squawks as tailfeathers were plucked.
"I wish we knew he was truly slain," Aric said.
"You cut his head off!" Myrana said.
"But he lived before, in Siemhouk's head and inside Kadya. Do we know there's not some aspect of him, carried in one of the templars?" Aric lowered his voice. "In Nibenay himself?"
"We can't know that," Amoni said. "But it's unlikely—there was a lot of magical energy channeled through your blade, Aric. Even without beheading him, I'm sure he was killed."
"I hope so." Aric peered across the table at Rieve, copper hair sparkling in candlelight. So beautiful, and yet unattainable, his half-sister. "When will you and Corlan be wed?" he asked.
"We won't," Rieve replied. A glance at Corlan showed only the slightest trace of disappointment, a twitching of the lips, a lowering of eyelids. "Not that I don't love Corlan—and all of you—but I've been thinking a lot, and talking to Grandmother. I'll be joining the Order of the Serene Bliss, becoming an ascetic, and working on developing my spiritual nature."
"It's the right decision for you," Corlan said. "As I told you before."
"Corlan's been just wonderful about it," Rieve said. "I meant to tell you sooner, Aric, but ..."
"But I didn't want to see anybody for those few days. You wouldn't have wanted to see me. I was a mess."
"You're still a mess!" Mazzax said.
"I know." Aric's face remained puffy and bruised. Sellis's flesh was colorful, but Aric's had more hues than all the birds in the cages around them. Pain lanced from his ribs when he breathed too deeply or laughed or rolled over in his sleep. The gouges from Tallik's claws were scabbed over, but the scorch marks where his tentacles had wrapped around Aric were still black and sore. "I wish you the best, Rieve. I'm sure it'll be a wonderful experience for you." He had thought himself used to the idea that he couldn't be with her, since the night of Myklan's confession, but it still stung.
Corlan reached toward Myrana, who sat beside him, and took her hand. "The truth is, Myrana and I have ... well, we've comforted one another," he said. "Out in the desert, we were drawn toward each other, and since being here in Nibenay that feeling has deepened." "I don't know if it's love," Myrana said. "But it's close enough for now."
Aric was astonished by this revelation. He had seen Corlan and Myrana, lost in conversation, at times, but hadn't known anything like this was in the offing. This stung as well. He had been attracted to Myrana from the moment they met.
"You'd best take good care of her, Corlan," Mazzax said. "I once thought taking care of Hotak's shop was the most important thing, but now ... now I think it's Myrana, taking care of Myrana. She's special, that one, and I want no harm to befall her."
"Believe me, I wouldn't harm her," Corlan said.
"Not and take two breaths afterward," Mazzax countered.
"Good luck with that," Aric said, to general laughter. "All three of you!"
"Will you be staying in Nibenay?" Rieve asked them.
"All I've ever wanted is to settle someplace," Myrana said. "I'm so tired of wandering." "And everything I have is here," Corlan said. "The academy, my family ... I think we'll stay."
"Good," Rieve said. "We can visit, once in a while."
"Anyone else leaving?" Ruhm asked.
"I am," Amoni offered. "I thought perhaps Tyr. Maybe I'll join the Veiled Alliance there. Keep enjoying freedom—now I've had a taste, I find I like it. Maybe I can help free others."
"I could go with you, Amoni," Sellis said. "If Myrana has no more need of me."
"I've been in touch with the family, Sellis," she said. "You'll be paid, and well, for your service. I like to think I won't need a bodyguard any longer. I'm not sure you ever did."
"It's Nibenay," Aric said. "One never knows."
"She'll have me, demonslayer," Mazzax reminded them. "What more could she need?" "That's right, Mazzax," Myrana said. "I'll have you." She seemed to take the dwarfs single-minded interest in good spirits. He could choose some other interest later on, Aric knew, and then again, he could trail her around until his last day—you just couldn't tell, with dwarves.
"I'm staying," Ruhm said. "Nibenay's awful, but it's home."
"Staying, and keeping the shop," Aric said. "Mazzax, he might need a hand now and again."
"If the lady wills it, demonslayer."
"I'm sure I can spare you sometimes, Mazzax."
"Very well, then."
"But if Ruhm gets the shop," Amoni asked, "then what of you, Aric?"
"I don't know that the city has suffered from my absence," Aric said. "And with Ruhm and Mazzax working together, there'll still be a smith of uncommon skills. So ..."
He didn't finish the sentence, because he didn't know what the end of it was. His journey had been hard, dangerous, but he'd caught a taste for travel—like Amoni's, for freedom, he supposed. He had nothing in particular to hold him in Nibenay, and plenty of reasons to leave, like the memories spawned by so many street corners and buildings and neighborhoods. He could always return; he had the closest thing to a family now that he had ever known. The knowledge that they would always take him back gave him the courage to leave them behind.
The barmaid put a mug before him and he drank deep, thankful for the excuse not to speak. He had no idea where he would go. Athas was a big world, full of perils but also splashes of great beauty, and there might be a place in it for a half-elf with an affinity for steel.
He would have to find where that place was.
Searching for it?
Now, that would be an adventure.

JEFF MARIOTTE is the award-winning author of more than forty novels, including the Age of Conan: Marauders trilogy, horror trilogy Missing White Girl, River Runs Red, and Cold Black Hearts, (all as Jeffrey J. Mariotte), The Slab, the Witch Season teen horror quartet, and others, as well as dozens of comic books, notably Desperadoes and Zombie Cop. He's a co-owner of specialty bookstore Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego, and lives in southeastern Arizona on the Flying M Ranch. For more about him, please visit www.jeffmariotte.com.

THE ABYSSAL PLAGUE
From the darkness of a ruined universe comes the source of a new evil ...
Follow the story from its very beginning with The Gates of Madness, a five-part novella prequel by James Wyatt
Part one is included in FORGOTTEN REALMS®
The Ghost King by R.A. Salvatore.
Part two is included in DUNGEONS & DRAGONS®
The Mark of Nerath by Bill Slavicsek
Part three is included in DARK SUN®
City Under the Sand by Jeff Mariotte
Part four is included in FORGOTTEN REALMS
Whisper of Venom by Richard Lee Beyers November 2010
Part five is included in EBERRON® Lady Ruin by Tim Waggoner December 2010

Bear witness to the worlds-spanning DUNGEONS & DRAGONS event beginning in March 2011 with DUNGEONS & DRAGONS
The Temple of Yellow Skulls by Don Bassingthwaite

James Wyatt
Gate of Madness
SIGIL
The joy of the Chained God was a wild thing, fierce and manic, straining against the bounds of his prison. The merest hint of freedom, a whiff of possibility, filled him with savage delight. He could almost taste the annihilation of the world.
Through his mortal servant, he felt the power of the Living Gate. Even such a small piece of the crystal made the space between worlds thinner. In his servant's hands, the fragment would open a window to his prison.
But the Chained God would not be able to escape through a window of that size. Even though his power filled the desolate universe that was his prison, he could only send a fraction of his might and majesty burrowing between worlds if the Living Gate opened the way. And the Progenitor would be the vehicle for that shard.
Like a wind that whips the sea's waves into foam, he swept over the surface of the Progenitor, sending ripples and shivers through the liquid crystal. With a thought, he lifted a portion of its substance into a sphere that hovered in the void. Red and silver lightning sparked and crackled around it as the Chained God exerted his will, infusing it with a tiny portion of himself.
"We will soon be free." The voice was his, and it was the whisper of the Progenitor. "Free to consume and destroy." It was all around and it was distilled in the hovering orb. "Free to drown the world in blood."
*****
The ruins of Bael Turath had already proven dangerous—just a few hours earlier, Miri and Demas had come across a group of treasure hunters engaged in a fierce battle with a bone devil and its minions. Miri shook her head at the memory—the adventurers had fled while she and Demas fought the devils. Even the one Demas had saved from certain death had run off without a word of thanks.
Footsteps crunched on gravel somewhere close by in the ruins. Miri held up a hand to signal a stop.
"Someone's coming," she whispered.
"Yes," Demas said. "Ioun has sent us aid."
She turned and arched an eyebrow at him. His pale face was serene and confident—as always.
"A champion of Pelor and two companions," Demas said. "They will help us find the Staff of Opening, if it's not too late."
"Ioun told you this?" Miri asked.
"Of course."
Miri smiled. Demas was so enlightened in some ways, and so naive in others. He accepted Ioun's gifts of prophecy without question, and apparently without even recognizing how unusual they were. "Shall I hail them, then?"
"Yes. His name is Brendis."
*****
Nowhere stopped in his tracks and gaped at the young woman who'd just emerged from the ruins, smiling, waving, and calling out to his paladin friend. He slowly turned and looked at Brendis. The paladin looked bewildered.
"You know this woman, Brendis?" Nowhere asked.
"Never seen her before in my life." His eyes narrowed as he stared at the woman.
"She could be a devil," Sherinna whispered. "Reading our minds to learn your name, ready to beguile and manipulate us all."
"I don't think she's a devil," Brendis muttered, absently touching the sun symbol of Pelor he wore at his chest.
Nowhere scoffed and found a position behind a crumbling wall where the woman—devil or half-elf or whatever she was—couldn't see him. If she couldn't see him, she probably couldn't touch his mind, he figured, and he preferred to be out of sight when a fight broke out anyway.
He heard the woman walking closer, and another set of footsteps behind her.
"That's far enough," Brendis called. "Who are you?"
"My name is Miri," the woman said.
"And I am Demascus, the Sword of the Gods." His voice was loud and pure, as much the blast of a trumpet as it was the speech of a man.
"Demascus ..." Brendis said.
Nowhere peered around the comer of the wall to see the paladin, whose brow was furrowed. His hand rested idly on the sunburst symbol of Pelor he wore around his neck, and he seemed deep in thought.
Finally Brendis looked up. "Have we met before?" he asked Demascus.
"We have not, but I am known to my confidants as Demas. The urging you are experiencing is the voice of Pelor. Heed it."
Nowhere still couldn't see the newcomers, but he watched Brendis bow his head, as if trying to hear a distant voice.
Sherinna stepped up beside the paladin. "We are in a city haunted by devils," she said. "What assurance can you give that you are not beguiling fiends who read our thoughts and sap our wills?"
Nowhere slid his dagger from his belt in perfect silence and stared at the razor-sharp edge.
"I can give no such assurance," the man said. "Devils are creatures of deception. There is no truth I can utter that a devil could not feign. You must trust your paladin's heart if he can listen to the voice of truth whispering in his breast."
Sherinna looked to Brendis, but the paladin's eyes were closed, his hand clenched around his holy symbol.
Nowhere padded to the other end of the wall and peered around the comer, trying to get a good look at the man who called himself the "Sword of the Gods."
Demas's skin was an unearthly pale, except where it was marked with jagged tattoos of scarlet. He was tall and regal in his bearing, and as Nowhere watched he took a few graceful steps closer to Brendis and Sherinna. He carried a smooth golden staff, but a heavy greatsword hung sheathed on his back.
"What does Pelor tell you, Brendis?" Demas asked.
Brendis opened his eyes, but his brow remained furrowed and his speech was hesitant. "That you are indeed the Sword of the Gods," he said. "That we share a common purpose in these ruins." He shook his head. "And that you are chasing your doom."
For the first time, Demas looked ruffled, and he shot a glance at Miri. "Speak no more of that," he said. "Ioun has shown me the path I follow."
Brendis regarded Demas for a moment more, then extended his hand. "I'm glad to find you in this godsforsaken place, friend."
Demas clasped the paladin's hand. "Not godsforsaken, paladin. You and I carry their presence with us, even here."
"My companions," Brendis said, nodding toward the eladrin. "Sherinna and ... Where is he?"
"Behind that wall." Demas turned and his gaze fell on Nowhere. There wasn't an instant of searching in his gaze—he'd known exactly where the tiefling was before he even turned.
Nowhere stepped out from his hiding place, stunned. "How long did you know I was there?"
"Nothing hides from the searching gaze of Ioun, my friend."
Miri, at least, seemed surprised at Nowhere's sudden appearance. She started when he emerged from his hiding place, and her brow furrowed as she took in his horns, his jagged jawline, the reddish cast of his skin, and the long tail that snaked behind him. He scowled back at her, then turned it on Demas.
"Few call me friend until they've proven it," he said. "The divine whispers that only you two can hear mean nothing to me."
Miri wheeled on Sherinna. "You accuse us of being devils while keeping company with him? A devil walking in mortal flesh?"
Sherinna shrugged. "I neither know nor care what's in his heart. He has proven himself reliable and trustworthy. I ask only for similar proof from you."
Nowhere ignored the twinge in his chest that her words provoked. "I won't stab you in the back unless you give me a reason to."
"A reason or an excuse?" Miri asked.
Nowhere took a step toward the half-elf, clutching his dagger tightly. "That depends on how long you continue being an arrogant, self-righteous—"
"That's enough, Nowhere." Brendis interposed himself between him and Miri, putting a hand on the tiefling's chest.
Nowhere batted his hand aside and turned away. "We have more important things to do," he said. "If the gods want these two to help, let them help. But while we stand here arguing, those cultists are getting closer to opening the Living Gate."
"Cultists?" Miri asked.
"The ungrateful wretches we helped earlier, no doubt," Demas said.
Nowhere wheeled back to the newcomers. "You helped them?"
"We helped a group of treasure-hunters who were fighting a pack of devils. We didn't know.... We still don't know that they were the cultists you're looking for."
"Even with the aid of Ioun's searching gaze?" Nowhere said.
"The important thing now is to find them," Brendis said, giving Nowhere a stern look.
Demas nodded. "And keep them from claiming the Staff of Opening." The self-proclaimed Sword of the Gods closed his eyes and turned away.
Nowhere slid his dagger into its sheath to make sure he didn't slide it into Demas's sanctimonious back. Miri and Brendis both had their eyes fixed on Demas as if they expected a divine pronouncement. Sherinna met Nowhere's glance and rolled her eyes, smiling.
"Follow me," Demas said, starting to walk back the way he'd come. Nowhere smiled despite himself as he fell into position.
*****
Albric lifted the staff reverently from its cradle on the wall. He slid his dagger from its sheath and used it to cut the strings that suspended the reddish crystal in place at the head of the staff. Cradling it in his hands, he discarded the smooth length of yew, letting it clatter to the floor of the ancient alcove. His three acolytes started with surprise at the sudden racket, but he ignored them, gazing at the crystal.
He studied its complex facets and his broken reflection that stared back at him as his heart hammered in his chest. He held a fragment of the Living Gate, shattered at the dawn of time. More importantly, he held the key to freeing the Elder Elemental Eye, and the surge of joy in his chest was at least partly the fierce joy of his god, about to taste his first breath of freedom in countless ages.
"Now what?" Fargrim rumbled, wrenching Albric's attention from the crystal.
Albric rose from his crouch to tower over the frowning dwarf, but Fargrim met his eyes without flinching. Albric toyed with the idea of cutting the dwarfs throat right there—a quick slash of his dagger, faster than Fargrim could even see—but the ritual demanded more hands, not fewer. He fought down the violent impulse.
"Now," Albric said, "we open a path to the City of Doors, where we'll find a way to our destination."
Fargrim crossed his arms, his scowl deepening. "Why not just open a portal directly to our destination?"
The urge to violence welled in Albric's gut again, and this time he gave in to it. The Eye spoke through his urges, after all, and who was he to deny the will of the Eye? His dagger flashed out and cut across the dwarfs throat. The scowl disappeared from Fargrim's face as his eyes and mouth opened. He choked and tried to cough, spraying blood onto Albric and the crystal. Albric turned away in disgust, using the hem of his cloak to wipe the blood from the shard of the Living Gate.
He glared at Gharik and Haver, who were watching the dwarf die with undisguised horror on their faces. "Opening a portal to the howling wastes of Pandemonium is very difficult, especially in the absence of some object tied to the place. Opening a portal to the City of Doors is almost trivially simple—that's why they call it the City of Doors. Any other questions?"
Gharik's hand absently rubbed his own throat. He didn't look at Albric, but Haver did, madness in his eyes.
"Victory to the Elder Elemental Eye!" Haver blurted.
"Victory and freedom," Albric said. An echo of the Eye's wild joy surged through his chest again, but it was tinged with a sense of urgency. "Now, the portal! Enemies approach."
His two acolytes snapped into alertness, weapons in hand and feet ready to move. They took up positions on either side of the breach in the wall that Albric's magic had opened in the midst of his waking dream. Albric turned to the wall where the staff had stood, closed his eyes in concentration, and drew in a deep breath. When he opened his eyes again, in place of the wall he saw the weave of space, closely knit into an infinite and immutable tapestry.
He lifted the fragment of the Living Gate and traced it in a large circle, scraping it over the stone wall. Where it passed it cut the threads of the tapestry, and he felt the shifting currents of air in the room as the space changed. The great circle complete, he began tracing more intricate symbols within it, and other threads were drawn in to the weave, strands of a different weave from a distant space.
Almost finished, he heard Gharik's growl of warning but didn't let it break his concentration. He formed the last symbols in the circle, blinked several times, and looked upon the streets of Sigil, the City of Doors.
"They're coming," Haver said.
"And we're leaving." Albric stepped through the portal without a glance back at his acolytes. They would follow, or they would die—it didn't matter to him.
*****
Miri stayed close to Demas, trying to ensure that nothing surprised him as he led them through the ruins, following Ioun's inspiration. Brendis walked beside her in silence, a frown creasing his face. Each time she glanced aside at him, his eyes were fixed on Demas. What had his god told him about Demas?
Ioun was the god of prophecy, but clearly Pelor had shown his paladin something of Demas's future, something terrible.
She could tell that Demas knew it as well, and he was shielding her from it. The way he'd silenced Brendis had made that clear. That stung. Did he not trust her with the knowledge? Did he think she couldn't handle it?
"In here," Demas announced, coming to a stop in front of a crumbling building. "There are four of ..." His brow furrowed for an instant. "No. There are three of them. But we must make haste."
"How does he do that?" Brendis asked Miri as Demas turned back to the building.
"Do what?"
"It's like Ioun is right beside him, carrying on a conversation only he can hear. Like all her wisdom and knowledge is right at hand for him. It's amazing."
Miri smiled. "Yes, it is."
The tiefling stepped between Miri and Brendis to follow Demas into the building. "Didn't he say something about haste?" he said, a wry smile on his brick-red face.
Brendis scowled and stepped through the open doorway behind Nowhere. Miri followed with a glance back at the wizard Sherinna, who glided along as though their little procession were a parade in her honor. Sherinna didn't meet her gaze, and Miri suddenly felt very alone. She hurried to catch up with Demas before he reached the cultists.
Nowhere let her slip past him, and she reached Brendis's side at the top of a short flight of stairs.
"Hold!" Demas's voice echoed up from below, and a flash of brilliant light dazzled her eyes.
As one, Miri and Brendis hurtled down the stairs. Demas stood before a hole in the masonry wall, his staff lifted high, a nimbus of divine power surrounding him like a storm. Brendis pushed past him, and Miri saw him run through what looked like a circular hole in the opposite wall. On the other side of that hole, rather than more crumbling walls and dim chambers, she could see the bustling streets of an unfamiliar city. She looked at Demas.
"After them!" he urged. His free hand was outstretched toward the portal. "I can't keep it open for long!"
Nowhere ran past them and followed Brendis through the portal, which Miri noticed was growing smaller as the city on the other side seemed to recede. Sherinna paused at Demas's side.
"I can help," the eladrin said, reaching her own hand toward the portal.
"The far end is moving," Demas said. "Help me stabilize it."
"What can I do?" Miri said.
"Go through, child. Find the others."
"What about you?"
"We'll be right behind you," Sherinna said. "Hurry!"
Miri ran to the portal and stepped into a crowded street. She couldn't see Brendis or Nowhere or the fleeing cultists. As she spun to look behind her, she saw only more city streets winding off into the distance.
"Demas!" she shouted. People of every race, garbed in clothes and armor of every possible description, hurried past her in all directions, few even sparing her a glance.
"Demas! Sherinna!" she called again. She didn't see them, and no one answered her call. Brendis and the tiefling must have been long gone. She was in the middle of the largest city she'd ever seen, and as far as she could tell, she was completely alone.
Haver kept looking over his shoulder as he followed Albric through the twisting streets of the City of Doors as if he expected the warriors who had chased them through the portal to appear at any moment. He accompanied his hurried steps with a constant stream of gloomy mumbling.
Albric frowned. The madness of the Elder Elemental Eye was a precious gift, leading to insight and inspiration, but some minds could not handle it. He suspected that Haver would soon degenerate into raving—but not, he hoped, before fulfilling his role in the ritual. After that, Haver's sanity would cease to matter.
Escaping their pursuers had been easy enough. The portal had begun to close as soon as Albric stepped through. Gharik and Haver followed quickly and appeared nearby, warning of the adventurers hot on their heels. But by the time the first warrior came through, the end of the portal had already begun to slide away, depositing him a dozen yards down the street, easily avoided. The others, if they made it through at all, would have emerged even farther away.
Even so, the fact of their pursuit was troubling. It appeared that other forces were moving against the Eye, seeking to prevent what Albric was trying to accomplish and keep the Eye imprisoned. A jolt of fury surged through his chest at the thought. They would not stop him. The Eye would destroy them all, even the gods who had first cast him into his prison.
Albric stopped and leaned against a wall for a moment, closing his eyes and seeking insight from his master. His knees buckled as his mind drifted into dream, the Eye revealing in an instant what he needed to know. Gharik caught his arm and helped him find his feet.
"The Elder Elemental Eye has three faithful followers here," he said. "They await us in the Hive."
"Only three?" Gharik said. "That leaves us two short for the ritual."
"The Eye will provide more hands for his labor. Do not question, or we will be three short."
Gharik released his arm and trailed behind as Albric led the way to the labyrinth of wretched tenements called the Hive. Like a sewer of the universe, the Hive was a collection of the dregs of countless societies, the most miserable of every world and plane. Half dreaming, Albric drifted through its maze of alleys—even its thoroughfares couldn't be called streets—following the inspiration of the Eye. He smiled as three figures detached themselves from the filth piled against a crumbling wall and took up positions before and behind them.
Gharik shook his shoulder. "Albric," he said, "we're being robbed."
The three figures—an elf woman, a dragonborn man, and a one-eyed human man—shared a chuckle. "That's right, Albric," the one-eyed man said. "Somebody not paying attention?"
Albric laughed with them, then produced the golden symbol of the Elder Eye from within the folds of his robe. The elf saw it and gasped. "You are the ones not paying attention," Albric said. "The Elder Elemental Eye commands your obedience!"
Behind him, the one-eyed man started to protest. "Look here, I don't know who told you—"
Albric spun to face the man and raised his arms. Dark lightning pulsed around the golden symbol like an extension of his heartbeat, and his voice filled with booming menace. "The Eye commands you! Heed his voice or die where you stand!"
The dragonborn fell to his knees without a word, and Albric heard the elf behind him do the same. The one-eyed man hesitated, and Albric started drawing in power for the invocation that would strike the faithless one down. But the man sank to his knees as well, an ecstatic smile twisting his face, his single eye wide with awe.
Albric smiled. Here was one who saw. The others followed blindly, but this man was a dreamer like himself.
"What is your name?" he asked the man.
The voice that came from the one-eyed man's mouth was different. It rang out as deep as thunder in a vast chasm, and the whispers of the mad and the damned echoed in the empty air. "I am the Elder Elemental Eye," he said. "I am the Chained God."
Now Albric fell to his knees, staring in awe at the apparition of his god.
"My name is Tharizdun."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James Wyatt is the Creative Manager for D&D R&D at Wizards of the Coast. He was one of the lead designers for 4th Edition D&D and the primary author of the 4th Edition Dungeon Master's Guide. He also contributed to the EBERRON Campaign Setting, and is the author of several DUNGEONS & DRAGONS novels set in the world of Eberron.
THE GATES OF MADNESS
Continues in
WHISPER of VENOM
November 2010