The Verdant Passage

by Denning, Troy

  “Still, since you’ve come as a friend, it doesn’t seem out of place to offer a friend’s advice,” Agis said.

  Tithian paused on a small stone slab bridging an irrigation ditch, looking at Agis out of the corner of his eye. “And what would that be?”

  “Treat your slaves as you would your own family,” Agis responded. “Feed them well and give them a warm place to sleep. Not only will they be stronger, they’ll work harder.”

  “Out of gratitude?” Tithian smirked. He shook his head, then resumed walking. “If you believe that, then I’ve picked a fool for a friend.”

  “Have you tried it?”

  “Agis, for your own good, listen to me,” Tithian said, speaking over his shoulder without slowing. “No matter how well they’re treated, slaves hate their masters. Maybe they don’t let it show, and maybe they don’t even realize it themselves. But give them the opportunity and they’ll massacre us every time—no matter how tame they seem while we’re holding the lash.”

  “If they’re murderers, it’s because their owners make them that way,” Agis objected.

  “Yes,” Tithian replied, touching a finger to his forehead. “You’re beginning to understand.”

  Agis bristled at the templar’s patronizing tone. “My slaves—”

  “Would like to be rid of you as much as you’d like to be rid of Kalak. The difference is that you might be foolish enough to give your slaves a chance,” Tithian said. “You’ll have to be more careful during the next few weeks.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Agis demanded. He was still talking to Tithian’s back and resenting it more with each step.

  Tithian ran his hand over the top of his head and down his tail of braided hair. “Nothing threatening,” he said evasively. “Things are growing difficult in Tyr; you must be on the watch for treachery everywhere. Just this morning, I discovered that one of my own slaves is in the Veiled Alliance.”

  “No!” Agis exclaimed, unable to stifle a chuckle. The thought of the Alliance operating right beneath a high templar’s nose was too much for him to bear in silence.

  “Yes, it’s quite amusing, isn’t it?” Tithian’s voice was tinged with acid.

  “I’m sorry,” Agis said, suddenly understanding Tithian’s comments regarding his slaves. “What did you do?”

  “Nothing, yet,” Tithian replied, crossing the last ditch between the fields and Agis’s house. “I haven’t been able to go home to attend to the matter.”

  Tithian stepped out of the faro into the house’s formal rear garden. The garden was a comfortable space designed to remind Agis of Durwadala’s oasis. In the center of the reserve sat a small pool of azure water, bordered by a sandy bank and a few yards of golden whip grass. It was shaded by the gauzy white boughs of a dozen chiffon trees.

  Agis had designed the garden to serve as a sanctuary when he needed a tranquil place to retreat, but he felt anything but peaceful as he entered it now. He heard the subdued murmur of hundreds of hushed voices coming from the other side of the mansion.

  “What’s that?” Agis demanded, stepping to Tithian’s side.

  The high templar’s face remained impassive. “Perhaps it’s your happy slaves gathering to welcome you back.”

  The mocking tone alarmed Agis. “What’s happening here?”

  Without waiting for Tithian’s reply, the noble closed his eyes and focused his mind on his nexus, that space where the three energies of the Way—spiritual, mental, and physical—converged inside his body. He lifted his hand and visualized a rope of tingling fire running from the nexus through his torso and into his arm, opening a pathway for the mystic energies of his being.

  Unlike magic, which drew energy from the land and converted it into a spell, the force Agis was about to rouse came from somewhere other than Athas—though no one knew exactly where. Some practitioners believed they summoned it from another dimension. Others claimed that living beings were infused with unimaginable amounts of energy, and that they were merely tapping into their own resources.

  Agis believed he was creating the power. By its very nature, the Way was a cryptic and undefinable art, relying on confidence and faith instead of knowledge and logic. In contrast to the precise incantions and rigid laws of balance governing magic, which caused Agis and many others to think of it as more of a science than an art, the Way was fluid and malleable. With it, one could do almost anything—provided he could create and control the energies required without destroying himself. A practitioner could call upon the Way as often as he wished or summon as much of it as he needed, without fear of harming the land.

  Once he felt the power he needed surge into his hand, Agis focused his thoughts on his sword. It was a magnificent weapon as ancient as Tyr itself, with a beautiful basket of etched brass upon the hilt and its long history etched on the face of its curved steel blade. He stretched his arm toward the sword and saw himself gripping the hilt. He remembered how it felt to hold the smooth, cord-wrapped hilt in his hand, and then he lifted the weapon out of its case.

  “Very impressive,” Tithian said.

  Agis opened his eyes again and saw, as he had expected, that the sword was now truly in his hand. Using the energy of the Way, he had simply reached across the intervening distance and picked it up.

  Agis moved toward the templar, saying, “You didn’t come here as a friend.”

  “Actually, I did,” Tithian said, not retreating. “I’m sure you’ll appreciate that … if you’ll just go to the front of the house.”

  Agis frowned, still suspicious. “You lead the way,” he ordered, motioning toward the garden’s exit.

  “Of course.” Tithian smiled.

  The templar led the way around the west side of the house, past a marble colonnade where Agis often received special guests. As they neared the front of the mansion, Tithian went up a short flight of steps onto a veranda that enveloped the front of the house. When they stepped around the corner, Agis’s heart fell.

  The anterior courtyard was filled with five hundred slaves, nearly his entire work force. They were being guarded by magical human-giant mixes called simply “half-giants.” Members of a brutish race, the guards stood as high as twelve feet, with heavy-boned features, sloped foreheads, and long, drooping jaws. They all had chunky, almost flabby builds, with sagging shoulders, round bellies, and enormous bowed legs. The half-giants before him now were dressed in hemp breeches and the purple tunics of the king’s legion.

  Agis’s personal guard, a hundred men and dwarves wearing leather corselets, sat to one side of the courtyard with their hands on their heads. They were being guarded by a dozen of Tithian’s subordinate templars, who held their hands forward and high, making it clear that they were ready to deal with any resistance by casting the spells granted to them by the king.

  Caro, Agis’s dwarven manservant, stood at the head of the slaves, his sagging chin resting on his sunken chest and his cloudy eyes focused on the ground. The ancient dwarf’s bald head and hairless face were cracked by age lines, and his black eyes were little more than narrow, dark slits peering out from beneath their baggy lids.

  “I’m sorry, master,” he apologized in the thick mumble of a toothless old man. “I should have warned you, but I was napping.”

  “It’s not your fault, Caro,” Agis said.

  “It is,” the dwarf maintained. “If I’d have been awake, none of this would have happened.”

  “Damn it, Caro, if I say it’s not your fault, it isn’t!” Agis snapped, losing patience with his stubborn manservant. “Is that clear?”

  Caro scowled, staring at Agis for a moment, then finally looked at the ground and nodded.

  Agis faced Tithian and demanded, “What’s happening here?”

  The templar met the black-haired noble’s gaze evenly. “The king has need of more slaves to complete his ziggurat,” Tithian said, his voice assuming an officious and imperious tone. “The survivors will be returned to you after it is completed.”

&nb
sp; Agis lifted his sword a few inches. “I should just kill you now and be over with it.”

  Tithian looked hurt, but did not retreat. “Need I point out that you’re threatening a lawful representative of the Golden Tower? This is an act of open revolt, Senator.”

  “You don’t have the authority to confiscate my slaves,” Agis said, reluctantly lowering his sword.

  “The king issued a decree giving me that authority this morning,” Tithian replied.

  “The Senate will veto that decree!”

  “Not if it knows what’s good for it.” Tithian’s voice grew less formal. “If you try, Kalak will make sure that there aren’t enough senators in attendance to achieve a quorum.” The high templar started to leave, then paused. “I’ll leave the women and children to work your fields. That’s more than I’m allowing anyone else, old friend!”

  FOUR

  THE CITY OF TYR

  AS SADIRA APPROACHED THE RUSTY, IRON-CLAD GATES of Tyr, she cast a wary glance at the templar standing behind the customary pair of half-giant guards. He wore the standard black cassock of the king’s bureaucracy, but even in the dim light of dusk she could see the glint of a metal pendant hanging from his neck. The jewelry suggested he was a man of considerable rank, for ordinary templars could hardly have afforded so much metal.

  Without slowing her pace toward the city, the sorceress searched the area immediately outside the gate, looking for anything that might explain the templar’s presence. From what she knew of Tyr, it was odd for a high-ranking official to assume the mundane duty of supervising guards at the gate.

  To one side of the road, thirty porters were unloading a wooden argosy, one of the mighty fortress wagons used by merchants to haul cargo across the vast deserts of Athas. The caravan wagon was too large to maneuver in the streets of Tyr, so it had to be unloaded outside the gate.

  The two mekillots that drew the argosy were still anchored in their harnesses. Nearly as long as the wagon itself, the lizards had huge, mound-shaped bodies covered by a thick shell that served both as armor and a source of shade. Sadira gave the mammoth beasts a wide berth, for they were famous for lashing out with their long tongues and making snacks of imprudent passersby.

  The other side of the road was clear of argosies and caravans of other sorts. There was a large patch of dusty ground where wagons would wait their turn at loading and unloading, but it was empty now. Beyond this barren patch, dozens of starving slaves were spreading offal from the city sewers over one of the king’s fields. As they used their bare hands to throw fistfuls of the foul-smelling sludge over the azure burgrass, or to pack it around the stems of the golden smokebrush that speckled the field, their black-robed overseers whipped them mercilessly with nine-stranded whips.

  When her furtive search of the gate area revealed no reason for the templar’s unusual presence, Sadira hitched up the huge bundle of sticks on her back and continued at her same slow pace. Though the templar made her nervous, she saw no choice except to trudge slowly forward and hope that his presence had nothing to do with her. Turning away now would have drawn too much attention and, besides, she was too exhausted and thirsty to spend the night in the desert.

  After her escape from the Break, Sadira had collected her spellbook and slipped away from Tithian’s compound by walking invisibly out the main gate. Her spell had lasted long enough for her to reach a cluster of rocks just beyond the edge of Tithian’s lands. Here, she had gathered the large bundle of sticks now slung over her back, put her spellbook in a drab shoulder satchel, and donned a tattered robe over her low-cut smock so that she would draw less attention to herself. She had then gone to the road and trudged to Tyr with the slow, measured pace of a loyal slave who had spent the morning scouring the countryside in search of wooden tool-handles for her master.

  The journey had been as uneventful as the other trips Sadira periodically undertook to visit her contact in the Veiled Alliance, save that the road had been emptier than usual because she had been traveling in the afternoon, the hottest time of day. Now, as she approached the eastern gate, the sun was already sinking behind the scorched peaks of the western horizon. Fiery filaments of magenta and burgundy were shooting across the sky, and evening was casting its purple shadow over the city’s sand-colored walls.

  In the center of Tyr, the setting sun cast a scarlet glow upon the imperious Golden Tower. The spire looked as though it were dripping with blood. Next to the palace loomed the massive ziggurat, its heart blackened by the shadows of evening. In the blazing light that outlined its extremities, Sadira could see thousands of tiny silhouettes swarming over the great structure, and she knew Kalak’s slaves were still at work.

  Counting herself lucky not to be among them, Sadira stooped a little farther beneath her load of sticks. She fixed her eyes on the dusty road and walked into the gloomy gateway, hoping that if she ignored the gate guards and their overseer, they would ignore her.

  A half-giant stepped into her path, and Sadira found herself staring at a pair of hairy, sandaled feet over half a yard long. For a moment, she remained motionless, studying the guard’s huge, black-nailed toes. At the same time, she reviewed in her mind the spells she knew, trying to guess which one would prove most useful in this situation.

  When the guard did not step aside, Sadira slowly lifted her gaze. Though not particularly muscular, each of the half-giant’s thighs were as thick as a tree trunk and probably heavier. Over his round belly, which was solid and powerful despite its shape, he wore a purple tunic emblazoned with Kalak’s golden star. He cradled a great club of polished bone across his stomach, at a height about even with the half-elf’s eyes.

  Sadira tilted her head back and looked upward, setting aside her load of sticks. The half-giant’s shoulders were as broad as she was tall. Atop his stout neck sat a huge head with a drooping jaw and baggy, sad-looking eyes.

  “Yes, Mountainous One?” she asked, giving him a charming smile.

  Instead of answering, the half-giant looked to the templar. Though Sadira’s pale blue eyes remained focused on the guard, her mind was on the bureaucrat standing to one side of the road. The man had a portly build and pale hair, with puffy cheeks and tight, pursed lips. His red-rimmed eyes were studying the half-elf with a casual, imperious attitude. The beguiling sorceress quickly judged him to be a lonely, bitter man, just the sort to fall prey to her charms.

  “Ask the girl who she belongs to,” the templar commanded with exaggerated arrogance. Though Sadira was clearly no girl, it was the habit in Tyr to address slaves as if they were children.

  Without waiting for the half-giant to repeat the question, Sadira turned her alluring smile on the templar. “I belong to Marut the tool-shaper,” she said in a silky voice.

  The sorceress allowed her eyes to run over the official, finishing by meeting his gaze. When the templar raised his brow at her interest, Sadira coyly looked away and pretended to be embarrassed. A faint blush spread across her high, smooth cheeks. “I have here handles for Marut’s axes,” she said.

  Sadira had no idea who Marut was, or even if such a person really existed. All she knew was that her contact in the Veiled Alliance had instructed her to reply in this manner when questioned. On the few occasions when the guards had interrogated her before, the answer had always secured her release.

  “Marut will be happy to loan his slave to the king.” The templar’s voice was cold and emotionless, but his eyes were studying the half-elf’s fine features and surveying the svelte figure beneath her tattered cloak with a covetous air. “Perhaps I shall even present you to him myself, girl.”

  Both half-giants chuckled lewdly, then the one behind the sorceress moved to grab her.

  Sadira eluded his grasp. “I beg you, handsome sir! I’m already late and my master will beat me!”

  The sorceress fell to her knees in front of the pudgy official. She surreptitiously opened her tattered robe so it would expose the revealing smock beneath, but was careful not to open it so far that th
e stolen dagger on her hip became visible. At the same time, she touched the palm of her free hand to the ground, summoning the power for the spell she hoped would save her. It rushed up her arm and gathered inside her swiftly, for there was an ample supply of energy this close to the king’s fields.

  Under her breath, she whispered the incantation that would shape her spell, at the same time disguising the mystical gestures by bowing her head and hunching her shoulders. It was risky to employ magic against templars, for it was always possible that they would recognize when a spell was being cast and interrupt it.

  A huge hand seized the half-elf’s shoulder. “Come here, slave, or you won’t even make it to the king’s pens.”

  As the guard lifted her off the ground, Sadira fixed her eyes on the templar’s. She released the spell by pursing her full lips as if blowing him a kiss.

  The man narrowed his beady eyes and frowned. He ran his plump hand over his face and shook his head, but when he looked back to Sadira, there was a warmth to his gaze that had not been there before. Her spell had worked. Now the templar would want to help her, as long as it posed no risk to him. All she had to do was find the right words to convince him that no harm would come to him if he did.

  With her feet dangling off the ground, Sadira pleaded, “Please, at least let me take these handles to Marut. I’m sure he’ll allow me to return to you.”

  The templar bit his lip indecisively, then shook his head stubbornly. “I don’t know this Marut. I have no reason to believe he’ll send you back.”

  “Marut is a trustworthy man, a loyal subject of the king,” Sadira countered, grimacing against the pain of the half-giant’s grip.

  The templar scowled at the guard holding the slender sorceress. “If you bruise the girl, I’ll have your head!”

  The half-giant nearly dropped her. The jaw of the other one, who was standing next to the templar, fell slack.

  As Sadira’s captor put her feet back on the cobblestones, the templar said, “Letting you go is out of the question. I’m to confiscate every slave that comes through this gate.”