Sanctuary

of Elir-Sana departed by a different exit.

The sitting room was lush, the scene of many a princely revel. Sahim escorted the high priestess to a large chair and insisted she sit. Faint with weariness, Sa’ida complied. The austere white silk of her ceremonial gown stood out starkly against the chair’s crimson, magenta, and gold wool brocade.

“Mighty Khan,” she began, then had to clear her throat to begin anew. She was desperately thirsty, but other things must come first. “Mighty One, I believe it was no mortal illness that afflicted your son.”

Sahim’s brows lowered in a fearsome glare. “Poison? A curse?”

“No, sire. The sickness was self-inflicted.” Sahim’s mouth opened, but Sa’ida continued without pause. “Some deed of Prince Shobbat’s provoked this bout of madness.”

His surprise abated, and he looked dubious. “Shobbat is no ascetic, that is certain, but I doubt he would commit a deed foul enough to drive himself mad!”

“Not a foul deed, an impious one.” The chair was deep and plush. Sa’ida forced herself to sit stiffly upright; the slightest relaxation of her vigilance, and she would lose her battle against the fatigue that encased her limbs like dense sand. The Khan had little use for gods Khurish or foreign, and he still looked unconvinced. She knew she must choose her words with great care.

“Prince Shobbat has looked upon things a mortal should not know,” she said slowly. “What those may have been”-she shrugged her shoulders-”I cannot say, Mighty Khan.”

Sahim waved these obscure matters aside, vowing to take up the matter with Shobbat when he was stronger. If his heir was dabbling in magic, Sahim soon would cure him of such foolish curiosity.

He returned to the issue of payment, begging the holy priestess to name her reward. His coffers were full of steel and gold, courtesy of his laddad tenants. Alone with his cronies Sahim liked to boast that he was the best-paid landlord in the world.

“We do not crave wealth in our temple, Great Khan. But there is a boon you can grant us.”

He grinned, opening his arms wide. “Tell me, beloved of the goddess.”

“Put an end to the violence against the elves.”

He blinked, taken aback. “How does the fate of the laddad concern you?”

She told him then of the Speaker’s interest in the Valley of the Blue Sands and of the Lioness’s mission to find out whether the fabled valley was habitable. When she finished, her voice was almost completely gone. She waited expectantly.

The Khan astonished her by bursting into laughter.

“The place where animals speak and stones grow like palm trees from the ground?” he sputtered, quoting the fables. “Excellent! Let them go there! It’s a fitting place for them!”

His loud merriment caused Sa’ida to wince with pain. A prodigious headache was building behind her eyes. Closing them, she murmured, “Grant me this favor, Mighty Khan. Guard the laddad while they tarry here. Dark forces gather around you, seeking to destroy them. Have no commerce with these.”

This time his laugh was sardonic. “The Knights you mean? Or the bull-men of the seas? Yes, all these ‘dark forces’ have sought me out. Each wishes to destroy the laddad for their own safety. I take their gifts if it pleases me.” His black eyes grew hard, and no longer was he the grateful father. Robed and crowned or not, it was the Khan of All the Khurs who stood looking down at the priestess now. “But I rule in Khur, not these others. Gilthas’s people can rely on my protection so long as it pleases me to guard them. Please concern yourself with your goddess, holy lady, and leave politics to me.”

Sa’ida got to her feet stiffly, bowed, and departed.

The Khan watched her go, then took the chair she’d just vacated. Sa’ida was a great asset to Khur, and he was not a man to squander assets, but her request troubled him. Beyond a certain grudging admiration for the Speaker’s tenacity, and an appreciation of elven style, Sahim cared little about the elves’ ultimate fate. He was no friend of Neraka, nor the minotaurs. He knew well that once the elves were removed, his neighbors’ appetites would quickly switch to Khur. For all its empty desert, Sahim’s land bordered many vital areas. A navy with access to its coast could dominate the Bay of Balifor. Hundreds of miles of desert made a formidable barrier against minotaurs trying to enter Neraka from the north, or against Knights thrusting south to the fertile lands of minotaur-held Silvanesti.

The Speaker of the Sun and Stars was a temporary asset, a fine cat’s-paw, distracting the troublesome Knights and holding the bull-men in check.

This Valley of the Blue Sands business worried him not at all. Yes, it would be easier to keep an eye on the elves if they were under the walls of Khuri-Khan, but if they chose to maroon themselves in a remote mountain valley, surrounded by the worst desert in the realm, then that would be perfectly acceptable. If the laddad waxed fat in the new location, so much the better. Fat sheep sheared thick wool, as the nomad saying went. Perhaps in time Sahim could make the Speaker of the Sun and Stars a true vassal of Khur. Hadn’t he done that (for the most part) with the nomads? Elves couldn’t be any more proud and arrogant than desert tribesmen. Then it would be Neraka and the minotaurs who must tread lightly! All would regard the name of Sahim-Khan with fear!

Thoughts of his nomadic subjects were like grains of sand in Sahim’s cup of fine wine. Worthless fanatics, all of them! They’d been slipping into the city in larger numbers, conferring with the wretch Minok, and going out to harass and murder the laddad in the name of their brutal god. Or perhaps in the name of the Dark Order.

A servant appeared in the doorway to Prince Shobbat’s bedchamber. He bore a tray laden with rosewater, fine linen, and sweet wine.

“Go away; I didn’t summon you,” Sahim said testily.

“No, Mighty Khan. Please forgive the intrusion. I was summoned to wait upon Prince Shobbat, but he isn’t in his room. I thought perhaps-” The servant looked hopefully around the sitting room, empty but for the Khan.

Sahim shoved the lackey aside and entered the bedchamber. The hour was late, just past midnight, and the only candles burning were a trio on a stand by the bed-the empty bed. Shobbat’s wrinkled, sweat-stained robe trailed off it onto the floor. The servant spoke truly: The prince was neither here nor in the water closet attached to his room.

The Khan perched his fists on his hips. He’d thought the boy would sleep for a week. Where in Kargath’s name had he gone off to now?

* * * * *

The large man’s shoulders nearly scraped the walls of the narrow alley. His four companions were hardly less imposing, yet despite their bulk, all five moved quietly, their soft leather boots silent on the timeworn pavement. At the intersection of two lanes, the leader stopped. He probed the corner of the wall in front of him, searching for three tell-tale notches scored in the brick. Finding them, he turned right and moved on. The others followed.

The lintel above the fifth door bore the same parallel notches. Leaving his four companions on watch in the alley, the leader entered without knocking and carefully closed the door behind himself. He turned back the hood of his cloak.

“I am here,” Lord Hengriff said, his bass voice rumbling in the small room.

The room brightened as the thin red line of a lamp wick was adjusted. The light showed Prince Shobbat sitting at a table, his bare dagger gleaming next to the lamp. The ruddy lamplight also revealed the results of his encounter with the Oracle of the Tree. The Prince’s face was the gray of wood ash. His eyebrows and beard were white, and white streaked the hair combed back from his forehead. His once soft features were drawn, and his eyes burned from deep, hollow sockets.

“I heard you were unwell, Highness,” Hengriff said.

“I have recovered.”

From what the Nerakan saw, this seemed a debatable conclusion. “This meeting is not wise.”

“But necessary.”

Shobbat’s hand strayed to the dagger, caressing the wire- wrapped grip, but his eyes remained fixed on the Knight’s face. “The time for talk is over. The time has come to act. My father must go.”

He expected some reaction-at the very least, a nod of satisfaction-but Hengriff only stood there, immobile as stone. Shobbat demanded, “Will Neraka support me once I’m on the throne?”