Sanctuary ee-1

by Paul B. Thompson

  In the heat of pursuit, with Knights of Neraka or worse baying at her heels, she’d had to use the iron cure before. She loathed it. It was all they could do for the dying elf now, to spare him needless suffering, but she hated it nonetheless.

  Her free hand still resting on his face, she ended the elf’s torment. His gaze remained fixed on her, grew unfocused, then empty. Kerian closed his eyelids.

  “His name was Nafarallun,” said one of the elves holding him. “Born a Qualinesti.”

  The remaining leather pouches were pounded flat, unopened. Stone-faced, the nomads awaited the same fate.

  “Go home, men of the Leaping Spider clan,” the Lioness said tersely, looking down at them from horseback. “We have not come to harm you, but if you make war on us, we will show you no mercy.”

  The elves formed up and rode away. Soon, the marooned nomads were only dark smudges against the blond sand, then they were lost from sight.

  Around Khuri-Khan the desert was stony, with hills of sand piled up by contending winds from the mountains in the north and the sea in the east. The Khurish capital was set in a shallow depressions like a dry lakebed. All day the elves climbed out of this low-lying area. Stones became scarce, and the sand grew finer. There was no shade in sight anywhere. Each elf had donned eyeshades of the style worn by nomads, which looked very like bandages wrapping the head: stiff strips of hide held in place by thongs looped around the ears. The “bandage” had very thin horizontal openings, which admitted just enough light to see. Without the eyeshades, most of the elves would have gone blind in a day or two. Elves and horses were draped in white cloth, another nomad trick. The light color deflected the killing rays of the sun.

  The column paused every few miles for water. Horses drank first, riders second. A warrior could persevere even when thirsty, but a horse would balk unless watered.

  As the distance from Khuri-Khan increased, they found less and less evidence of intelligent life. They were too far east to encounter travelers on the caravan route to Alek-Khan and Kortal, and too far west to meet traders using the only paved road in Khur, the Khan’s Way, which led to Delphon. Here, at its harsh edge, it was easy to see why even the hardiest nomads shunned the High Plateau.

  The wind died. This spared them the stinging dust, but allowed the heat to grow. The entire column looked like a procession of phantoms, white-draped wraiths plodding slowly ahead through the calf-deep sand.

  Under her stifling shroud, the Lioness fought against the lethargy that had her nodding in the saddle. She slipped a hand into one of the smaller saddlebags draped across the pommel of her saddle. Within, next t’ the smooth coolness of Sa’ida’s enigmatic gift, she felt dry flakes. These were the leaves that had fallen on her during her last night in Khurinost. They had quickly dried in the desert air. She hadn’t mentioned the odd occurrence to anyone, not even Gilthas. What could she say? A bat flew over and dropped ash leaves on me? Her husband would think she’d been sampling the Khurish homebrew. Yet, she was sure that the fallen leaves meant something.

  Swaying in the saddle, the Lioness had plenty of time to consider what she knew about ash trees. The wood was hard and durable and made good tool handles, pike and lance shafts, and arrows. Eastern Silvanesti had a great many ash trees. So did the woodlands of Wayreth in Qualinesti. Had the leaves come from one of those places? Was the strange rain an omen, a sign that, one day, she was destined to return to one of the elven homelands?

  If circumstance permitted she would ask Favaronas about ash trees. Doubtless, the scholar knew all sorts of trivial lore about them. Perhaps she would find a clue in his knowledge.

  Thinking of the archivist, she twisted in the saddle and looked for him in the line of draped riders. One of Favaronas’s assistants had been killed by a stray nomad arrow during the set-to at the dune. The remaining two scholars were shorter than her warriors, and Favaronas especially was not an accomplished rider, making them easy to pick out. The archivist rode with knees stiff and feet pointed outward. From the bobbing motion of his head, she decided he was half asleep. Just as well. If she could afford the lapse in alertness, she’d doze, too. It would make the miles pass more swiftly.

  When the horizon ahead lost all relief and became a monotonous line, the elves knew they had reached the high desert at last. Although flat, it did present strange features. The shallow sand beneath their horses’ hooves was marked with swirls, squiggles, and converging lines, as if way markers had been drawn. These were the handiwork of the only living creatures sharing the landscape with the elves: serpents, sand crawlers, spiders, and lizards. The sky took on a silver color like polished iron, and mirages shimmered over the sand. To the elves at the rear of the column, the lead riders took on a fantastic aspect as the broiling air magnified them and their horses, making them look ten feet tall. The lead riders also seemed to be treading through water, their reflections perfect in the tantalizing, phantom lakes.

  The sun reached its zenith. Breathing was labor, not only forcing Kerian’s heavy chest to rise and fall, but having to take in the blistering air. She put a hand outside her white drapery. Even through her glove, it felt as though she’d plunged her hand into a campfire. Knotting her hand into a fist, she kept her arm aloft, signaling a halt.

  Water was sipped sparingly. Favaronas asked for extra for his assistant, and Kerian allowed the elf-a Qualinesti named Armentero-an extra swallow. Although younger than his master, Armentero did not look at all well, but he waved aside Favaronas’s concern with a few brusque words.

  Favaronas, face pink despite his sunshade, leaned close to Kerian and spoke. His mouth was too dry to manage more than a whisper. “The Speaker must be mad! Bring a hundred thousand elves through this inferno? And most on foot? Thousands would perish on the way!”

  She gave a noncommittal shrug and took her turn with the water gourd. In truth, she didn’t think Gilthas realized the enormity of the difficulties involved in shifting their people from Khuri-Khan to Inath-Wakenti, even if they found the valley of legend. Such a migration would make the journey to Khur across the Plains of Dust seem a pleasant parade. The Plains were larger than the Khurish desert, but the part the elves had crossed was not nearly so hot or dry as this. To reach the Vale of Silence, the Speaker could bypass some of the High Plateau by following the caravan trail northwest to Kortal, but that presented a different set of dangers. Kortal lay on the border with Neraka. Once the Dark Knights learned of Gilthas’s scheme to save the elven race, they would stop at nothing to thwart it.

  Kerian had agreed to undertake this expedition, but she believed that resettling the entire elven nation in the Vale of Silence was a preposterous idea. Favaronas was wrong. It wouldn’t be thousands, but tens of thousands who would perish on the journey. Half of their people would die, surely.

  “You disagree?” Favaronas said, seeing her shake her head.

  “What?”

  “I said, perhaps we could rest here awhile till the sun declines.”

  “Yes, we’ll rest here a few hours.”

  The order was passed down the column, and the warriors dismounted, moving slowly in the breath-stealing heat.

  Groups of warriors joined their sunshades together into a larger canopy, sheltering themselves and their horses. Beneath these, they cleared away the topmost, hottest layer of sand, spread canvas sheets on the ground, and took their ease. There was a little excitement when a nest of adders was uncovered, but the snakes were rapidly dispatched and everyone settled down. Soon, only the sentries were awake.

  Feeling drunk with heat and weariness, Kerian muttered, “I hope the blasted valley is there, after all this effort.”

  Favaronas lay facing her, his head resting on the bundle of manuscripts he’d brought along. Equally drowsy, he replied, “It’s there, General. The ancient chroniclers seldom lie.”

  She snorted. Seldom lying was not exactly the same as telling the truth.

  When they arose two hours later, they could not wake Favaronas’s assis
tant. Armentero was dead, his body rigid, skin blistering hot to the touch. Heat stroke, or “sun death” as the nomads called it. The inferno of the High Plateau had claimed its first elven victim.

  Chapter 5

  The sun was not yet up when Planchet entered the Speaker’s private chamber to wake him from a deep slumber. As he reached to rouse him, the loyal retainer noted how the hardships of ruling a people in exile had left their mark on the Speaker. He was a young elf, not yet touching middle years, but faint lines tracked the skin between his eyes and bracketed his mouth. His hair was lighter, due not only to the effects of the harsh Khurish sun, but to the silver-gray strands visible here and there. Despite this, in the dim light the sleeping ruler of the elven nations resembled a youth again, curled up in the bed linens, one arm outstretched over the emptiness where Kerianseray had been.

  Planchet whispered, “Sire, wake up! Captain Ambrodel has returned!”

  Gilthas opened one eye. “So soon?”

  His valet nodded and held up a clean gown. Gilthas rose and slipped his arms in, tying the sash with a single brisk jerk.

  Two days past, the evening of the day the Lioness had left Khurinost, Gilthas had sent Hytanthas Ambrodel into the nomad city disguised as a human. The captain’s task was to glean information about who was responsible for the attack outside the Temple of Elir-Sana. The Khurs were attributing the assault to a robbery gone wrong. The story told by Kerian and Hytanthas made that simplistic explanation unlikely. Gilthas had requested an audience with Sahim-Khan to make a formal appeal for an investigation, but he didn’t intend to leave the matter entirely in Khurish hands.

  As they left his quarters, Gilthas asked, “Did Hytanthas discover who was behind the attack?”

  “No, sire,” said Planchet, “but he says he has gleaned much information.”

  The Speaker’s audience chamber was full of its usual inhabitants-Lord Morillon and his Silvanesti, various court functionaries, and Hamaramis, commander of the Speaker’s private guard. They stood to one side, eyeing a disheveled Hytanthas Ambrodel. Planchet had ordered refreshment for him, and the young elf was making the most of it. He had a lamb chop in one hand and a slender silver urn of nectar in the other. He wore a thick, black wig cut in the style of a city-dwelling Khur, which concealed his upswept ears. His skin had been darkened with walnut juice. If Gilthas hadn’t known better, he would have taken the captain for a scruffy denizen of Khuri-Khan.

  Hastily lowering the urn from which he was drinking, Hytanthas bowed to the Speaker.

  Gilthas looked him up and down and wrinkled his nose. “You smell like a chamber pot!”

  Hytanthas ruefully agreed. “The places I’ve been were no garden, sire.”

  Although eager to know what the young elf might have learned, Gilthas first asked that the room be cleared of all but his closest advisors. As the courtiers departed, he seated himself on his throne and accepted a tiny cup of kefre from Planchet.

  At last Hytanthas was free to relate his story. He began with the hostels he’d visited, looking for nomads with the vulture tattoo. Desert dwellers came and went from Khuri-Khan all the time, alone or in small groups, to trade, to work, and to sample the comparative luxuries of settled life. Hytanthas had found no Torghanists in the nicer hostels, and so worked his way down the ladder to the lowest flophouses. The Khurish he’d learned was flavored with the accent of the capital, so he pretended to be a city dweller dodging the Khan’s justice. In the cellars and hovels where very poor travelers could rent a scrap of blanket for a few coppers, he let it be known he was available for rough work. This generated little response. He soon found out why.

  The supply of thugs was already dominated by nomads, who toiled for next to nothing. Among the Khurs, revenge was seen not as a crime, but as a matter of honor, and it was considered only natural that devotees of the god of vengeance would make themselves available to assist others, weaker or fainter of heart, in obtaining the revenge they required. For Torghanists, this was a sacred duty. Hytanthas’s attempts to find an assignment as an assassin offended them. When he continued his efforts, bragging on his skill with a blade, he was cornered by three hard-eyed nomads who warned him against trespassing in their domain. The three were devotees of Torghan.

  Hytanthas had heard rumors of a benefactor to the Temple of Torghan. Someone was making rich gifts to the god-someone who expressed a strong dislike of elves. This was not lost on the Torghanists. Harassment and assaults on elves in Khuri-Khan were on the rise.

  “So the attack on Kerianseray and yourself was part of a wider campaign of hatred?” Gilthas asked.

  “No, Great Speaker. According to a conversation I overheard in a Khurish tavern, this benefactor actually paid to have General Kerianseray murdered, and he-the Khurs used the male pronoun-he was unhappy the attempt had been bungled.”

  The identity of the benefactor remained a mystery to Hytanthas, but he had made another discovery he considered of such importance that he had prematurely aborted his mission and returned to Khurinost. The discovery concerned one of Sahim-Khan’s hired sorcerers.

  The Khan had a variety of mages willing to do his bidding. One in particular rumored to be a rogue wizard, was a secretive fellow about whom little was known.

  “The very few who’ve seen him in the streets say he’s rather nondescript. He wears ragged, heavy brown robes and walks with a limp. His name is Faeterus,” Hytanthas said. “I believe he is an elf.”

  This statement left the Speaker and his advisors speechless for several seconds. Lord Morillon recovered first.

  “What is the basis for this wild speculation?” he demanded.

  The haughty tone annoyed the captain. “It isn’t speculation. Well, not entirely.”

  Hytanthas admitted there were a great many stories about Faeterus. Gossip was rife about his antecedents, and the “experiments” he was said to conduct in his secret abode, and it was never said aloud that he was anything other than a human. However, one city-dweller, ancient by Khurish standards as he was more than eighty years old, had confided to Hytanthas his theory that the sorcerer was laddad.

  “According to this human, Faeterus has been in the city since before he himself was born.” Lord Morillon opened his mouth to protest, and Hytanthas rushed on. “The mind of this old human is still sharp and clear. The other Khurs are dismissive of him, but I found him extremely persuasive.”

  The name Faeterus was unknown to any in the room. Hamaramis noted it could be an assumed name, perhaps a corruption of the mage’s true identity. The closest Silvanesti equivalent would be Faetheralas, and in Qualinesti, Fanterus.

  “Could this sorcerer be the benefactor of the Torghanists?” asked the Speaker.

  Hytanthas did not know, but all agreed that an elf who had so turned his back on his Own kind that he could hire his services out to a tyrant like Sahim-Khan certainly was capable of anything.

  “Make inquiries,” the Speaker ordered. “Someone, somewhere, knows this Faeterus.”

  Planchet brought up the Nerakan emissary who had been seen skulking about the Khuri yl Nor. He asked Lord Morillon, who had been to the palace more often than anyone else, to describe the human in detail. As a lifelong courtier, the Silvanesti didn’t miss much in his own milieu.

  When Morillon finished, Planchet stood frowning, gnawing his lower lip in thought. Gilthas prompted him to speak.

  “There was a man, a Nerakan, a vassal of that wretch Redlance,” Planchet finally said. “He was dark, as you say, and had a very rough voice. It’s been years since I thought of him, but I believe his name may have been Hengriff.”

  During the fight for Qualinesti liberty, a special group of Nerakan Knights was formed to track down the Lioness. Their leader, Lord Liveskill, stood high in the councils of Morham Targonne, master of the order. Liveskill left the dirty work of hunting the Lioness to a hardened warrior named Vytrad Redlance, who led a band of ninety-nine Knights. Their paths crossed Kerianseray’s three times. The last time, Vytr
ad perished fighting her in single combat. Only a dozen or so Knights of this special band had survived, and they never returned to hunt the Lioness again. Given Targonne’s lack of patience with failure, the remnants of Liveskill’s band might easily have been dispatched on the least pleasant duties the Order could arrange-such as emissary to the desert wastes of Khur.

  Vytrad’s second-in-command at the time of his death was a brawny, bull-voiced fellow who chose to preserve his men rather than let them die trying to save the fanatical Red. lance. Fighting his way out of the trap that cost Vytrad his life, Hengriff single-handedly killed four of the Lioness’s best warriors. When he rode away with the survivors of Vytrad’s command, Kerian was only too willing to let them go.

  “So who is directing the Torghanists, Neraka or the renegade wizard?” Morillon wondered.

  The Speaker shrugged. “In either case, we can’t allow treachery to undermine our place here. Peace and goodwill are vital for our survival.”

  “Sahim-Khan is no friend of the sect of Torghan-worshipers, sire. If they challenge his authority, he will stamp them out most ruthlessly,” Morillon said.

  “Unless their efforts are part of some deeper intrigue between the Khan and the Knights,” Planchet said. “He may be using them against the Knights-or perhaps the Knights are using the Torghanists against the Khan.”

  Hytanthas shook his bead. “What murky times we live in.”

  “Every time is murky when you’re in the midst of it,” said Gilthas, smiling faintly. “In any event, the ‘benefactor’ of the Torghanists must be identified. So must the Khan’s rogue mage.”

  What they would do with this knowledge once they had it was something the Speaker preferred not to worry about just now. For the moment, they would concentrate on uncovering their enemies.