“Ah, yes.” Sahim sat back down. “The perpetrators are known to me, and are being rounded up for punishment even now.”
Most of the elven delegation silently fumed at seeing their Speaker forced to stand before the Khan like an ordinary supplicant. For his part, Gilthas adopted the bland mask he’d worn for so long during Marshal Medan’s occupation of Qualinost.
“Who are these people? Criminals?”
“They are now!” Sahim said, and laughed unpleasantly. “They’re fanatics, religious fanatics.”
“How have my people offended them?”
“Only by your existence, Great Speaker. Worshipers of Torghan love their country, but the presence of”-he almost said
The exchange between rulers, polite on its surface, went on, with the Speaker seeking assurances that no further attacks would be made on his people, while Sahim eluded any promises. Planchet used the time to study the inhabitants of the throne room, those he could see without turning his head. The most glaring absence was that of Sahim’s heir. Prince Shobbat had not been glimpsed in public for some time. It was rumored he was quite ill. The walls of the room were lined with a motley collection of Khurs, city folk and nomads. Nobles from Delphon and Kortal were identifiable by their distinctive fashions: flat-topped, conical hats on the Delphonians and the western- style attire worn by those from Kortal, a territory situated near the border with Neraka.
“Some of the miscreants have in fact confessed,” the Khan said, and Planchet’s attention snapped back to him. Given the sort of persuasion meted out in the Khan’s dungeon, his prisoners would confess to anything.
“To a man they insist the trouble began when elves paid for goods using debased coinage.”
The soft background chatter ceased throughout the hail. Sahim had just accused the elves of passing coins made of inferior mixtures of metal rather than pure steel, gold, silver, or copper. The Speaker’s slender brows drew together. Those who knew him well recognized the stirring of anger.
“I know nothing of this,” he said tersely.
Sahim leaned forward, his expression one of concern. “Traders in the Souks are shrewd, but many live on the knife-edge of ruin. A day’s wages lost in bad coinage can mean starvation for their families. I am told that word of the false coins reached the Sons of the Crimson Vulture, and they sought to make the offending elves pay in genuine metal.” He leaned back again, spreading his hands expansively. “Alas! They could not tell the guilty from the innocent, and waylaid all elves they found. But be assured, Great Speaker, the matter is resolved. The offenders will pay with their heads.”
He announced this with the same casual air another man might adopt when promising a simple favor. The Speaker’s entourage wore grim expressions. Sahim, while vowing to punish the rioters, plainly blamed the elves for the trouble and was daring the Speaker to contradict him.
A faint smile crossed Gilthas’s lips. “The Mighty Khan’s justice be done,” he said, inclining his head slightly. “Might I make an offer, in the interest of good relations between our peoples?” Grandly, the Khan waved for him to continue. “Let me repay those vendors who lost money, and the families of the men who face your judgment. This I will do out of my own treasury.”
The humans filling the edges of the hall shifted, murmuring among themselves. They had not expected this.
Sahim-Khan, on the other hand, could not stop the grin that split his face. He beamed, saying the Speaker’s generosity would not be wasted.
Polite robbery! thought Hytanthas. From his place with the honor guard, he seethed at the injustice of the gesture that the Speaker should pay for a riot not of the elves’ making. Sahim was stealing just as surely as if he held the Speaker at the point of a knife and demanded his purse! And Hytanthas had no doubt every steel piece of the so-called indemnity would end in the Khan’s pockets.
To distract himself from his anger, Hytanthas let his gaze wander. The honor guard was divided into two lines, each facing inward toward the Speaker. Hytanthas was on the Speaker’s right, looking toward the Khurs on Sahim’s right, those crowded along the north wall of the hall.
As he scanned the Khurs, he hoped to see the rag-draped man among them, but be did not. He did spot Lord Hengriff. Although draped in civilian dress, the Nerakan was unmistakable. Standing behind him were four more large humans. Like him they were clean-shaven and dressed in civilian finery. Hytanthas had no trouble recognizing them for what they were-the Knight’s personal bodyguard and most probably the same men who had tried to take Hytanthas and Planchet at the Temple of Elir-Sana last night.
Hamaramis suddenly barked an order. The honor guard made a quarter-turn, facing away from the throne. The Speaker bowed slightly as the Khan slipped away. His audience was over.
The elves went out with proud dignity, but every heart burned with shame, and every jaw was clenched tight. Only the Speaker appeared calm. He spoke a few words to his valet. Planchet’s angry color lessened. He nodded obediently, and drifted away from the Speaker’s side.
Outside, musicians, courtiers, and standard bearers began to form up again. Hytanthas took his place at the rear of the honor guard, but was pulled aside.
Planchet pushed a Khurish robe at him and hissed, “Shed your armor, and don this. You’re staying in the city.”
The captain knew why: to look for Faeterus. Unbuckling his breastplate under cover of his milling countrymen, he whispered, “What do I do if I find him?”
“Send word. We’ll take care of the rest.” Planchet added, “The word is ‘Eagle Eye.’ That will mean you’ve found the sorcerer.”
Hytanthas pulled the robe over his head. It smelled as though it had just come off its previous owner. With a sun hat pulled down over his ears and his chin down to hide his hairless cheeks, he slipped away from his comrades.
An investigation of the robe’s pockets yielded a purse containing twenty steel, a sizable sum. It ought to be enough to buy the information he needed.
One of the forward scouts came galloping back, his horse’s hooves clattering loudly on the stony soil. Kerian reined up, halting the column. Although the Qualinesti said nothing until he’d halted his mount before her, she could tell by his face that he’d been successful.
“I found the pass, General! The entrance to the valley!”
He confirmed the identifying landmarks Kerian had memorized from Gilthas’s map. The three peaks, snowcapped, were there, lined up abreast. No tracks went in or out of the pass.
Kerian was relieved. She didn’t imagine the nomads were done with them yet, but at least they hadn’t reached the pass first. The sand beast, too, haunted her thoughts. There was no telling when the creature might turn up again.
While the scout and his panting horse quenched their thirsts, she turned to another important task. It was time to apprise Gilthas of their progress. The sun was low in the late afternoon sky, but she didn’t want to wait until morning to dispatch a courier.
She chose a rugged Kagonesti named Redhawk to return to Khurinost with the reports she’d composed. The sealed letters went into a leather pouch, which the Kagonesti looped around his neck. She handed him one last missive, a flat parcel wrapped in oilskin and sealed with wax.
“This,” she said, “is for the Speaker personally. No one else. The other dispatches may be handed to Planchet or Hamaramis, but this goes into no hands but Gilthas Pathfinder’s.”
Redhawk swore to carry out the mission exactly. Laying a blue-tattooed hand on the pouch around his neck, he vowed, “This will not leave me so long as I live.” None knew better than she the seriousness of a Wilder pledge.
When Redhawk had diminished to a smudge of dust on the horizon, she turned her attention back to the Qualinesti scout.
“Lead us to the entrance into the pass. We’ll camp there for the night.”
With the Qualinesti in the lead, the column moved out.
