by Troy Denning
"Is Faenaeyon's life worth so little to you?" demanded Sadira.
"My chief's life is as dear to me as my own" replied the elf. "But so was Gaefal's—and I won't let his death go unpunished."
"Then find out who killed your brother and avenge yourself," Sadira snapped. "But if you value Faenaeyon's life, you'll keep your promise to me."
The chief scowled and stepped toward the sorceress "Are you threatening me?"
Sadira shook her head. "No. But I would expect that repayment for saving a chief's life is the one debt his tribe would honor."
Faenaeyon studied Sadira for several moments, then said, "First, we must escape the city. Then we'll decide what to do about the Pristine Tower and Gaefal's death." He chuckled at the sorceress, then laid a hand on her shoulder. "Whatever I decide, don't think that I will forget what you did. I admire your bravery and cunning."
Sadira shrugged off the chief's hand. Before she could tell Faenaeyon she cared more about reaching the tower than what he thought of her, Magnus interrupted.
"She inherited her courage and quick wit from her father," said the windsinger. "Isn't that so, Sadira?"
Faenaeyon narrowed one pearl-colored eye and looked Sadira over from head-to-toe. "I thought your name was Lorelei?"
The sorceress shook her head. "No. It's Sadira—Sadira of Tyr."
"Barakah's daughter?" The words were as much an exclamation as they were a question.
"I'm surprised you remember her name," the sorceress answered.
Faenaeyon's thin lips twisted into a wistful smile. "My famous daughter," he said, reaching out to stroke her henna-dyed locks. "I should have known it from the start. You have your mother's beauty."
"I wouldn't know," Sadira spat, slapping his hand away. "My memories are of a haggard, broken-hearted crone abandoned to slavery by the only man she ever loved."
Faenaeyon's mouth fell open and he seemed genuinely perplexed. "What else should I have done?" he asked. "Take her from Tyr and her own people?"
"Of course!" Sadira answered.
Now the elf looked thoroughly confused. "And then what? Keep her as a daeg?"
He spoke the last word in a derogatory tone. A daeg was a spouse—either male or female—stolen from another tribe. Daegs lived in a state of serfdom until the chief decided they had forgotten their loyalties to their old tribe. It could be many years before a daeg was accepted as a full member of the new tribe, and sometimes they never were.
"That would have been better than what happened," Sadira spat.
"You know nothing," Faenaeyon scoffed. "Barakah was not an elf. The Sun Runners would never have accepted her as anything but a daeg, and our chief would have given you to the lirrs the instant you were born."
Overcome by anger, Sadira shoved her father as hard as she could. The big elf barely budged. Scowling angrily, he grabbed her by the arm.
"Let me go!" Sadira hissed, reaching for her satchel.
"Quiet," Faenaeyon replied, pushing her toward Magus. With his free hand, he pulled the dagger from the sheath on Huyar's hip.
Sadira heard the clack of two weapons striking each other, then turned and saw her father parry the slash of an obsidian barong. No one wielded the heavy chopping knife; it simply danced through the air on its own. Faenaeyon made a grab for the handle, then narrowly saved his hand by dodging away as the blade flashed at his wrist.
Suddenly ignoring the weapon, the chief rushed down the alley. At the end of the dark lane stood a boyish silhouette, his fingers pointed at the floating barong. The youth waved his hand in Sadira's direction, and the heavy knife streaked toward her head.
The sorceress dropped to the street. As she rolled over the grimy stones, her injured leg erupted into fiery agony. She cried out, then came to rest against a pair of massive feet with ivory toe-claws. The barong descended toward her neck, but Magnus's arm flashed out and smashed the black blade against the stone wall.
Sighing in relief, Sadira looked down the alley and saw Faenaeyon raising his dagger to strike at Raka. "Don't kill him!" she screamed.
The elf's blade stopped in midair and he grabbed the boy. "But he tried to murder you."
"It doesn't matter," Sadira answered, rising to her feet. "That's our guide. Bring him here."
Faenaeyon raised his peaked eyebrows as if she were mad, but did as asked. He used one hand to keep Raka's arms pinned, and held the other ready to cut the boy's throat. When they reached Sadira, the young sorcerer glared at her with undisguised loathing. His face was covered with scrapes and lumps from being trapped under the falling arch, but otherwise he seemed to have emerged unscathed.
"You promised to help us escape the city," Sadira said, returning Raka's angry stare with a look of forbearance. "Why did you try to kill me instead?"
"You betrayed me," the youth snapped. "My master has barred me from the Alliance."
"What for?" Sadira asked, shocked.
"I cannot believe you must ask," Raka replied, shaking his head angrily. "I vouched for you, and you're a defiler. We saw you casting spells yesterday."
Sadira's stomach felt as though the youth had punched her. She bit her lip and looked away. "I don't expect you to approve of my methods," she said. "But it was the only way I could stop Dhojakt. I had no choice "
"You could have died honorably," Raka sneered.
"To what end?" Sadira demanded, now growing as angry as the boy. "So the Dragon can keep terrorizing Athas?"
"That would be better than helping him to destroy it," Raka replied.
He jerked free of Faenaeyon's grasp, then grabbed Sadira by the arm and pulled her to the end of the alley. "That grove was as old as Nibenay itself," he said, pointing at the shriveled trunks of the agafari trees. "The sorcerer-king himself proclaimed it a refuge, and no defiler ever dared touch it—until Sadira of Tyr came."
"I'm sorry your trees died," Sadira said bitterly. "But stopping the Dragon is more important—or doesn't the murder of thousands of people mean anything to you?" "Of course," Raka answered, his attitude softening. "But so do those lives."
Sadira shook her head. "Call me a defiler if you like, but if I must choose between people and plants, I'll take the people every time."
"I'm not talking about the trees," Raka said. He gestured at a dozen slaves struggling to throw a heavy bole on the nearest fire. "The king kept a hundred slaves to tend this grove," he said. "Once they finish clearing it, the guards will make them join their charges on the pyres."
The sorceress felt a terrible weight in her chest. "You can't blame me for that," she said. "I couldn't have known."
"You should have," Raka countered. "Someone dies whenever you defile the land. Maybe not right away, but when they're hungry for faro that used to grow there, or when they need meat and leather from lizards that grazed there once."
"That's enough," Faenaeyon said, roughly pulling Raka back into the alley. He raised a hand to cuff the youth. "Stop preaching and—"
"Don't hurt him," Sadira said, grabbing her father's arm. "He's right."
Taking her comment as a signal to continue, Raka said, "What's worse, you're killing the future. If the land will grow no food, not only does the man die, so do his children—and all the children that would have lived there for the next thousand years."
The young sorcerer had just finished his lecture when Rhayn approached from the other end of the tunnel. "Good," called the elf. "The guide's here."
Noting that her sister did not have her mount, Sadira asked, "What about my kank? I can't go very far like this."
"It wasn't there. I'll tell you why later," said Rhayn. "But right now, we'd better go—there's a press gang coming this way."
"A press gang?" gasped Faenaeyon. "I've never seen that in Nibenay."
"The sorcerer-king's son has never been wounded before," said Raka. "He has sent his templars out to gather sacrifices to make Dhojakt well."
Magnus frowned. "No healing magic I know demands a living sacrifice."
; "Sorcerer-kings have their own kinds of magic," Sadira said, turning to Raka. "Will you help us leave the city?" When the youth shook his head, Huyar grabbed him by the throat. "You'll show us or die!"
"Then I'll die," gasped the youth. He glanced at Sadira. "I won't aid a defiler."
Sadira tried to pull Huyar's arms away. "Let him go," she said. "You won't save us by killing him."
Instead of releasing the youth, Huyar pressed his thumbs into the boy's gullet. A terrible gurgling sound came from Raka's throat as he struggled to free himself.
The sorceress turned to her father. "This will accomplish nothing," she said.
Faenaeyon considered her plea for a moment then nodded to Huyar. "Let him go," he said. "I think I know a way out of the city anyway."
The warrior reluctantly took his hands from the boy's throat, then pushed him away. "Go, and be happy Sadira of Tyr is a forgiving fool," he said.
From the far end of the alley came the shuffle of dozens of stumbling feet, accompanied by the cracking of whips and the harsh commands of Nibenese templars. When the youth grasped his bruised throat and started in the opposite direction, Faenaeyon caught him by the shoulder.
"Not into Sage's Square," said the chief, pointing Raka toward the press gang. "You can repay me by serving as a decoy."
"That's not why I saved him," Sadira objected, taking Raka's arm. "He'll come with us. If it comes to a fight, we'll all be better off."
The youth pulled free of the sorceress. "I'd rather take my chances with the templars than fight at a defiler's side." With that, he reached into his purse for a spell component then ran down the alley screaming, "Death to Dhojakt!"
"Raka!" Sadira cried. "No!"
She started to follow, but Faenaeyon caught her arm and held her back. "This way, daughter," he said, carrying her into Sage's Square.
They had barely entered the smoky plaza when an olive-colored light flashed from the alley, accompanied by a sonorous hiss of air. For a moment, Raka's triumphant voice echoed through the lane, but it was abruptly cut off by the sizzle of a lightning bolt.
Ahead of Faenaeyon, a trio of huge silhouettes came rushing toward the clamor. In one hand, each of the half giants carried a curved sword, and in the other a trident with barbed tongs. The dark circles of their eyes were fixed on Faenaeyon and his group of elves.
"If I put you down, you won't do anything foolish, will you?" whispered the chief.
"I'll be fine," Sadira answered, her voice unusually timid. Raka's last words weighed heavily on her mind, and she found herself wondering if she really could justify all the vile things she had done in the name of fighting the Dragon.
The half-giants stopped in front of Faenaeyon. "What's that noise?" demanded the leader, regarding the elf suspiciously.
"Alliance ambush," Faenaeyon answered, casting a nervous glance in the direction of the alley. "It looks like they're coming this way—probably to attack you."
"Why d'you say that?"
Faenaeyon looked in the direction of the alley again. "Haven't you heard? Sadira of Tyr's in the city," he said. "If you ask me, she's come to free the slaves, like she did in her own city."
The comment set Sadira's heart to pounding madly, but the half-giants remained oblivious to her discomfort. Instead, they studied each other with worried expressions, then the leader waved the group onward. "You keep quiet about that sorceress," he warned. "No one's supposed to know she's here."
The chief shrugged. "If that's what you want, but you hear of nothing else in the Market," he said. "Which way to the Snake Tower from here?"
The half-giant pointed toward the hazy mouth of another alley, then took his two companions and cautiously crept toward the lane where Raka had just perished. Faenaeyon led the group across the plaza, half-carrying the sorceress to prevent her limp from being too noticeable.
As they passed through the covered lane, the chief finally released Sadira's arm.
"You were a little brazen back there, weren't you?" the sorceress asked.
It was Rhayn who answered. "It's the best way," she said. "Otherwise, they think you're trying to hide something."
"We are—remember?" Sadira replied, her limp forcing her to struggle in order to keep up with the others. "And what happened to my kank? Did the liveryman have it killed?"
"I think you have it backwards," answered Rhayn. "According to his slaves, when the old man opened the gate to have someone look it over, the drone grabbed him and left. His assistants followed the thing to the palace gates, where your beast performed some tricks for the guards, After that, both the kank and the man were taken inside. Neither one's been seen since."
"Tithian!" Sadira hissed.
"What does you king have to do with this?" asked Faenaeyon.
"According to Dhojakt, Tithian's the one who told him I was in Nibenay," Sadira answered.
Magnus shook his head in bewilderment. "How?"
"Through the kank," Sadira replied. "Tithian's become a fair mindbender. I think he's been using the Way to spy on me through my mount. That's the only way he could have known I'm in Nibenay, or that I was going to the Pristine Tower."
"I thought Tithian was supposed to be a good king," said Faenaeyon. "Why would he betray you?"
"You were a better father than Tithian's been a king," Sadira retorted. "As for his betrayal, apparently he doesn't want me going to the Pristine Tower. Neither does Dhojakt."
"So perhaps you should rethink your plans," suggested Faenaeyon, ignoring the sorceress's backhanded slight. "If the son of a sorcerer-king doesn't—"
"I'm going," Sadira interrupted. "If they're so determined to keep me away, there must be good reason, don't know what it is yet, but I've got to hurry. It won't be long before the Dragon reaches Tyr, and I want to be waiting for him."
"Then, by all means, let us hurry," Faenaeyon said, somewhat sarcastically.
The chief led the way out of the alley and into a broader street that ran along the back side of the merchant emporiums. He always moved more or less toward the mountainous bluff on the north side of the city, stopping occasionally to ask his way. Sometimes, the nervous pedestrian would refuse to answer, scurrying past with a protective hand on his purse. More often, the passerby appeared relieved that the elves had only stopped for directions and not to accost him.
The walk was hard on Sadira's injured leg. Even had she been healthy, it would have been a struggle to keep pace with the elves' long legs. Now, with them in a hurry and every step a struggle for the sorceress, it was all but impossible. Within a half hour, she had to ask them to slow down.
"Perhaps we should hide in the city for a day or two," Magnus suggested. "I can't do anything more for your leg until tomorrow, and without a kank you won't make it more than a few miles into the desert."
Sadira shook her head. "No, we must leave today. From what Raka said, the sorcerer-king's busy healing his son. When that's done, he may turn his attention to me."
"In that case, perhaps we should leave Sadira here," Huyar suggested, looking to his father. "We wouldn't want to endanger the tribe on her behalf."
I decide when the tribe is in peril, and on whose behalf we should endanger it," Faenaeyon said, frowning at his son. "If necessary, you'll carry Sadira on your back."
"Thank you," the sorceress said. "It's nice to know you can be a man of honor"
Faenaeyon smiled insincerely. "Thank you."
"But before we leave the city, there's one thing I need to get," she added.
Her father's smile vanished. "No," he said, starting off again.
"It won't be much trouble," Sadira insisted, "and I'll need it when I reach the Pristine Tower."
Faenaeyon stopped and gave her a Puzzled look. "What is it?"
"Obsidian balls," she answered "For the shadows."
By the way the color drained from her father's face, the sorceress knew he had seen the shadows when he visited the tower. After a moment, Faenaeyon regained his composure, then asked, "Do you have
any coins?"
"Of course not," Sadira answered. "You took all—"
"I have no coins, either," the elf answered. "And now is not the time to steal them. If you need obsidian, we'll trade for it on the trail, or take it from a caravan."
Before she could object, Faenaeyon motioned to Magnus and Rhayn. "See that she keeps up," he said, resuming his pace.
It was not touch longer before they came to a small plaza. Across the square rose the sheer-sided bluff that bordered Nibenay's north side. Carved into the rocky face of this crag were a dozen different palaces, each at a different height above the ground. Above the mansions, a low stone wall crowned the cliff, forming the defensive fortifications that protected this part of the city.
Before the cliff, separated from it by a short distance rose a high tower. It had been fashioned in the form of a tangle of coiled snakes, with hundreds of scale-shaped windows glistening along its exterior walls. At the base of the turret, the entrance was shaped in the form of a serpent's gaping mouth.
A meandering skywalk, also carved in the shape of a Serpent's head, ran from the tower to each cliffside palace. The highest walkway ran from the floor to the city wall, behind which Sadira could barely make out the tiny forms of a half-dozen sentries scattered over a distance of many yards.
Faenaeyon led his small group to the base of the tower. As they reached the mouth of the stone serpent, a pair of mul guards stepped out to block their path. The two men were armed with curved swords of obsidian, and wore tabards bearing the crest of a black scorpion. Although neither appeared much older than Rikus, their bodies had grown soft. To Sadira, their appearance suggested that they were the pampered gladiators of a noblemen, and had been retired from combat for use as household guards.
The sorceress's father tried to walk directly between the two men, not bothering to acknowledge them. The tallest mul placed a hand on the elf's chest and shoved him back down the ramp.
"Where are you going?" the guard asked.
Faenaeyon glared at the mul. "I've business with Lord Ghandara," he said. "Not that it's any of your concern."
The two mills lowered their swords, but did not step aside. "No one told us to expect you," said the second one.