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 not 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 elf’s 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—”
City Under the Sand: A Dark Sun Novel (Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Sun) Page 7