by Troy Denning
The sorceress urged her mount past a dozen Nibenese citizens and entered another courtyard, also encircled by sculpture-covered towers. Many of the doorways were larger than normal, with kanks and riders moving into and out of them. Sadira rode halfway through the plaza to an anonymous-looking livery, then dismounted and led her beast toward the door. She was greeted by an elderly, bald-headed man dressed in a grimy sarami.
"You wish to lodge your mount?" he asked.
"How much?"
"Three days boarding for a king's bit," he answered, referring to the ceramic coins most cities used as common currency. "We will feed it every night and water it every five."
Sadira nodded. "I'll pay when I return and my kank is in good health."
The old man shook his head. "That's not the way in Nibenay," he said. "You pay in advance—every day if you like. If you don't return before your money runs out, I sell your mount."
Sadira fished her second coin out of her pocket. "You can give me change?"
"I can" the man replied.
He snatched the coin and led her inside. The lowest floor of the gloomy building was a workshop, filled with slaves laboring to repair howdahs, carts, and even a massive argosy wheel. Sadira caught only a glimpse of this room before her guide took a torch from a wall sconce and led her up a dark ramp spiralling through the interior of the unlit building. The over-sweet stench of kank offal was terrible, and Sadira had to pinch her nose closed to keep from gagging.
Soon they reached the first of the dark animal pens. As they passed each gate, a kank stuck its mandibles through the bone bars and clacked them at the newcomer. Sadira's beast returned the gestures, keeping up a constant clatter as they slowly climbed the steep ramp.
Dozens of pens later, they reached one with an open gate. The bone grid was held aloft by a rope running through a wooden pulley and tied off to a bone stake in the wall. The old man allowed Sadira's mount to pass by the vacant pen, then stopped. He forced the beast to back into the stall by standing in front of it and tapping its right-hand antenna.
As the kank's head went under the gate, it stopped and began waving its antennae in agitation.
"Go on, stupid beast," the old man said.
He raised his hand and stepped toward the kank. Sadira saw an angry glint in the beast's eyes. "Careful!" she cried, pulling the old man back just in time to avoid the kank's snapping mandibles.
The beast started forward, but Sadira quickly stepped to its side and grabbed an antenna. She yanked on the stalk and forced it back into the pen.
"When I let go, drop the gate," she said, looking over her shoulder. The liveryman, who was staring at her kank with his mouth hanging agape, made no move to obey. "Do as I say!"
The old man snapped out of his shock and untied the gate rope. "I've run this livery for thirty years, and never has a carrier drone snapped at me," he said, keeping a suspicious eye fixed on the beast. "What's wrong with yours?"
"I don't know," Sadira said. "It did something like this once before, not long after my journey began, but has never been so violent."
The sorceress released the antenna and leaped out of the pen, barely clearing the threshold before the gate came crashing down. The kank threw itself at the bars. When they showed no sign of breaking, it retreated to the back of its stall, then slammed into the gate again. It repeated the actions over and over as Sadira watched, perplexed.
"I've never seen anything like this," the old man said, shaking his head in bewilderment. "I'll have to hire an elf to look at it."
"What for?"
"It could be diseased," he said, leading the way back down the tunnel. "If so, I'll have to kill and burn the drone. Otherwise, the sickness could spread, and every kank in my stable could die."
Sadira was immediately suspicious of his motives. "My mount had better be here when I come back," she warned.
"Can't promise that," he answered, not bothering to look at her. "And I'm keeping your whole silver. You'll have to pay for the elf."
"No!" Sadira protested.
"It's your kank," the old man said. "It's only fair that you pay the cost of examining it."
"How do I know you won't pocket my coin, sell the kank, and claim the beast was diseased?" Sadira demanded, outraged.
The old man stopped and pointed up the ramp. "You don't, but listen to that." The echoes of Sadira's mount banging itself against its gate continued to fill the corridor. "I'll give you the coin back, but you've got to take the kank with it. Do you think any other livery master will charge less?"
"I suppose not," Sadira admitted, wondering where she would find the money to feed herself until she contacted the Veiled Alliance—or to buy another kank, if it came to that.
The old man started down the ramp again. "Don't worry," he said. "I won't destroy your beast unless I must, and I'll get the best price I can from the elf who looks at it." When they reached the ground floor, the old man turned toward his workshop.
Deciding to see how well her plan to rid herself of the Sun Runners was working, Sadira retraced her steps into the dark lane from which she had approached the livery. She stopped in the shelter of its depths, then looked toward the gate. Her father had just arrived at the head of his tribe, and was approaching the sharp-featured half-elf to whom Sadira had given the silver coin. Faenaeyon smiled warmly and said something to the man.
The guard also smiled and held out his hand.
The chief scowled, then shoved the half-elf so hard that he came tumbling into the square. The gateman's assistants screamed the alarm and thrust their spears at Faenaeyon. The elf casually slapped the weapons from their hands, then stepped past the two men into the courtyard.
"Lorelei!" he screamed, his angry eyes searching the gloomy portals that lined the small plaza.
Sadira saw a company of guards beginning to pour from the gate tower, then smiled to herself and turned to leave.
EIGHT
Prince of Nibenay
An inky murk filled the chamber, so thick and dark that it seemed to brush over the kank's carapace like smoke. In the pitch blackness, not even the ground—the one thing the beast's weak eyes always kept in focus— was visible. To stay attuned to the creature's surroundings, Tithian had to rely entirely upon the insect's other senses. For the king's vision-oriented mind, the task was an onerous one.
Still, Tithian could tell that the earthy scent of mildew clung to the insect's antennae, as did a muskier smell that terrified the drone. Clutched in the kank's powerful mandibles was the old liveryman to whom Sadira had entrusted her mount. He smelled of sweat and blood, and drew his breath in shallow gasps.
The clatter of two dozen sticklike legs rose from the far side of the room and approached, reverberating through the kank's drumlike ears with a chilling quiver. When they reached the liveryman trapped between the kank's pinchers, the legs stopped and fell silent. Then Tithian heard something else coming from the other side of the cavernous room. This creature moved much more quietly, its feet whispering across the floor as though barely touching the slimy stones.
When the second arrival reached the old man's side, a pair of bulbous eyes appeared in the darkness. The orbs were golden yellow, with pupils as black and glassy as obsidian. Tithian could tell little else about the creature, for the gleam of the eyeballs was too faint to illuminate any more of its face.
"Make the kank speak, old man," demanded a man's voice, as quiet and as smooth as the frigid breath of night.
"The drone doesn't speak aloud, Mighty King," gasped the liveryman, weak and pained from having his ribs constricted by the kank's mandibles. "It talks to me, and I repeat its words."
The color of the eyes changed to scarlet, but the king did not speak. Instead, a harsher, chattering voice sounded from where the clattering legs had stopped. "If you came here thinking to dupe my father with sophistry, your death will be slow and painful." The speaker remained concealed in the darkness.
The liveryman began to tremble. "Please, Great P
rince, I am only a prisoner," he said. "After it was lodged with me, the kank collapsed and acted like it was dead. When I opened its pen to dispose of it, the beast sprang past two of my assistants and seized me. I heard a man's voice in my mind, demanding that I show it the way to your palace. If you will allow me, I can prove that what I say is true."
The liveryman made his statement with brisk efficiency, for he had already repeated it to the gate guards, to their commander, and to a bare-breasted woman addressed as the Consort of the South Gate. In order to convince each of the officials to take his request for a royal audience to the next level, the liveryman had asked them to command the drone to do whatever they wished. Tithian had used his control over the beast's mind to make the kank respond appropriately.
Unfortunately, the last official, a naked matron calling herself the Most High Concubine of the Palace Chambers, had proven even more difficult. To win her over, Tithian had been forced to speak to her mentally, as he had to the liveryman. The exertion had left him exhausted, for it was no easy matter to use the Way over such vast distances.
When both the prince and his father remained silent, the liveryman looked back to the yellow eyes. "Command the beast to do anything you wish," he said. "You will see that it seems truly intelligent."
"There's a better way to see if you are lying," said the king's voice.
He slipped past the old man and moved closer to the kank's head, until the creature's antennae began to dance in the Nibenese ruler's musty breath. The king's eyes shined directly into those of the drone, and Tithian was almost blinded by the golden luminescence. The light shimmered and twinkled for several moments, forming a series of ephemeral shapes as the sorcerer-king used the Way to invade the kank's mind.
When the glow died away, Tithian found his attention focused on a mass of slime-covered flesh, shaped like a teardrop and banded with thick folds of skin. From one end of its body rose a tube-shaped torso, with a pair of corpulent arms ending in hooklike claws. The creature's head was the only thing even remotely human, with a heavy crown of gold sitting atop a fine-boned brow. He had a broad nose with flaring nostrils and bloated lips that did not quite conceal the curved fangs hanging from his upper jaw. His eyes were bulbous and yellow, identical to those that the liveryman had addressed as the sorcerer-king of Nibenay.
The thing moved forward on six bandy legs, scuttling across the rippled sands of the kank's mind with surprising speed. It stopped at the base of a dune and dropped to its haunches, where it seemed to be waiting until a thought passed near enough to ambush.
Deciding the time had come to show himself, Tithian pictured himself rising from the sands. The creature remained motionless, watching with no sign of fear or curiosity as the king emerged. First came his golden diadem, then his long tail of auburn hair, his hawk-nosed face, and finally his gaunt torso.
"Who are you?" asked the creature, his nostrils flaring in suspicion.
"The King of Tyr," Tithian answered, straining to keep his body from being drawn back beneath the sands. "And you are the King of Nibenay?"
The king-beast did not answer. Instead, he demanded, "You wish to speak with me, Usurper?"
Tithian's face hardened at the other's derogatory tone. "We must discuss a matter that concerns both our cities."
"I'll judge what concerns Nibenay," the sorcerer-king spat.
"Of course," Tithian allowed, "but I'm sure this matter will interest you. Have you heard of the Pristine Tower?"
The sorcerer-king's eyes darkened to fiery scarlet. He scuttled forward, his corpulent arms half-raised. "What do you know of the tower?"
Tithian sank a few inches into the sands. "Enough to realize the Dragon would not want someone to visit it."
"Anyone foolish enough to go there would never survive."
"This one might," Tithian corrected. "She's a powerful sorceress and is one of the people who killed Kalak."
"Sadira of Tyr," the creature hissed.
"You know her?" Tithian asked, surprised.
"I know of her," he answered. "Even if my spies did not inform me of what happens in Tyr, the caravan minstrels have made her name familiar to my slaves." The sorcerer-king frowned thoughtfully. "You must kill the sorceress at once."
Noting that the Nibenese ruler had not even asked why Sadira was going to the tower, Tithian asked, "What will she discover at the Pristine Tower?"
"In all likelihood, death—or something much worse," the king-beast answered. "But if she survives, she might find what she wants." He gave Tithian a distrustful look, then asked, "She is searching for a way to deny the Dragon his levy, is she not?"
"She is," Tithian answered.
"Then you must be certain she does not succeed," the other said. "If she challenges him, the Dragon will take his wrath out on all of Tyr. That will leave one less city to supply him with his levy, and he'll call upon the rest of us to make up the difference."
"Why does the Dragon need so many slaves?" Tithian pressed, determined to learn as much as he could from this conversation.
"That is not for me to say, or you to ask. Unless you wish your reign to be a short one, do not concern yourself with such questions," the Nibenese king warned. He pointed a corpulent arm at Tithian. "Just kill the sorceress at once."
Realizing he had learned all he would from his counterpart, Tithian said, "If Sadira were in Tyr, I would have done it already—but she is in Nibenay."
The eyes of the sorcerer-king narrowed. "My son will see that she never leaves the city," he said, his form shimmering as he brought the audience to an end. "But I will demand a dear price for this favor."
*****
Sadira had never before seen anything like the man-beast clattering into the square. He seemed to be part human and part cilops. From the knees down, he resembled a giant centipede, with a flat body divided into twelve segments. Each section was supported by a pair of slender legs ending in hooked claws. From the knees up, he was remotely human, with his torso swaddled in a silk sarami and a black skullcap covering his shaved head. He had tiny ears located at the base of his jaw, bulbous eyes resembling those of a cilops, and a muzzle with cavernous nostrils that flared every time he drew a breath.
Sadira ducked into the sweltering darkness of the nearest alley and hoped the cilops-man would pass. She had no particular reason to hide from him, but she thought it wisest to avoid officials of the sorcerer-king—which this person obviously was. In front of him walked two half-giants, their loins swaddled in silken breechcloths and their arms cradling great clubs of blue agafari wood. Behind him came a pair of bare-breasted Nibenese templars, each wearing necklaces of colored beads and a yellow skirt decorated with a wide bejeweled belt.
As the official passed in front of Sadira's hiding place, his black eyes turned in her direction and seemed to linger on the place where she stood. The sorceress held her breath and did not move. Not even an elf's eyes could penetrate the alley's dark shadows while he was standing in the light of day, but Sadira was less sure about the manbeast's other senses. Judging from his large muzzle and flaring nostrils, it certainly seemed possible that he could smell her—though her scent would only be one among a hundred odors coming from the squalid alley.
After what seemed an interminable length of time, the official continued on. Sadira breathed a sigh of relief and waited, not wanting to step from her hiding place until the procession was out of sight.
The sorceress had spent the night shivering in the city's crowded alleys with other vagrants, then had gone to the Elven Market at dawn. She had assumed that her best chance of contacting the Veiled Alliance lay in that disreputable quarter, for it was there that sorcerers came to purchase snake tongues, glowworms, powdered wychwood, and other ingredients vital to their magic. In Nibenay, as in most Athasian cities, the sorcerer-king jealously guarded the right to use magic, reserving the precious plant energy in his fields for himself and his agents. Therefore, magic components had to be smuggled into the city and sold secretly�
�just the sort of sneaky work at which elves excelled. Unfortunately, Sadira had not managed to spy out any sorcerers. Therefore, she had decided to try her luck in Sage's Square, where she had heard sorcerers sometimes came to hear wise men speak.
Once the manbeast and his escorts were out of sight, Sadira slipped from the alley and entered the refreshing coolness of Sage's Square. It was surrounded on all sides by the city's largest merchant emporiums, though the stately buildings were hardly visible through the grove of blue-barked agafari trees that dominated the plaza. More than fifty of the mighty hardwoods were scattered throughout the park, their gnarled roots sunken into circles of unpaved ground. Their trunks did not rise so much as flow into the air, marked as they were by deep creases and ribbonlike pleats that gave Sadira an impression of immeasurable age. A hundred feet above the ground, they spread their boughs out in great, sweeping fans, shading the entire square with a canopy of enormous turquoise leaves shaped like hearts.
Marveling at the beauty of the trees, Sadira worked her way through the grove until she came to a small crowd. The mob was gathered around two old men seated on the gnarled roots of one of the trees, neither wearing anything more than a breechcloth of plain hemp. Both were impossibly thin, with haggard faces and limbs that seemed nothing but leathery skin draped over bones as thin as canes.
"Only with an empty mind can you find your true self," said the first sage. Despite his great age, he appeared to be as limber as an elf, for he had folded his ankles beneath his buttocks at an angle that most humans would have found impossible. "Looking into a head filled with thoughts is like looking at your reflection in the waves of an oasis pond. You may see a face, but mistake it for one of the moons."
There was a short silence while the second sage formulated his reply. Finally, he said, "The heart is more important than the mind. If it is unstained, the mind will be pure; there is no need to empty it."