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 assistant. 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.
