another message written in Yetai’s secret ink. The courier also disappeared.
In the late afternoon, a few days after her husband’s bizarre banquet, Valaran ascended to a high palace corridor to look out on the city’s now-quiescent streets. She avoided her old sanctuary. The palace roof reminded her too strongly of Winath’s death. She contented herself with the view of the city’s southwest quarter offered by this high, long corridor, which connected the imperial suite to the Consorts’ Chambers. From here she could see much of the New City and the Canal District.
Six days had passed since her last communication with Helbin. During that time she’d brought the magic mirror to her own bedchamber, hiding it in plain sight on the high table that held her toiletries. There it seemed nothing more than an exotic Silvanesti trinket, and she could make multiple attempts during the day to contact the wizard, without arousing suspicion by too frequent trips to the library. She had no success; the mirror showed nothing but her own face.
Columns of smoke no longer obscured the city rooftops. The swell of angry voices, once as regular as the ocean tide, likewise was stilled.
Couriers brought war news. The bakali had crossed the Dalti River without boats by resorting to a remarkable tactic. Working night and day, they created a low, short wall of stones about twenty paces out from the eastern shore. They filled this backwater with all manner of rubbish-whole trees, rubble from human homesteads. The result was a huge floating weir of debris. It dammed the Dalti sufficiently to lower the water level behind the obstruction enough for the lizard-men to cross to the far shore. Once loose on the west bank, they swarmed through the rich farmlands northeast of Daltigoth, driving out everyone in their path. They tore down houses and barns, dragging the broken timbers and masonry along with them.
Halfway between the Dalti and North Thorn rivers the bakali host halted and began building an enormous fortified camp. The flat alluvial plain seemed an odd choice for a stronghold; it offered no heights on which to build. Undaunted, the lizard-men erected a huge earthen mound, bolstered by stolen timber and brick, and commenced digging a deep ditch around it. Other parties of bakali carved channels in the black soil back to the Dalti River. When they completed the channels, they could flood the low-lying land around the earthen mound, and create a wide, deep moat.
Faced with these developments, Ackal V scrapped his earlier plans and ordered all the empire’s remaining hordes to muster for battle. The Great Horde came together at the village of Verryne, on the east bank of the Thorn River, fifteen leagues from the capital. Only a few cavalry bands remained between Daltigoth and the bakali host, scouting and watching the enemy. This left the city open to attack, but the emperor wasn’t worried. The walls of Daltigoth were formidable, the city could be supplied indefinitely via the imperial canal.
Although the bakali seemed the greater danger, strange reports from the east disturbed Ackal V more. They gave Valaran a secret thrill of hope. Rumor had it new Ergothian forces were gathering on the plains north of Caergoth. The nomads had been smashed, and someone was driving the plainsmen back to their home range beyond the Thel Mountains. In her heart, Valaran knew who must be leading these Ergothians. So did Ackal V.
From her vantage point, Valaran watched as the disk of the sun touched the hills west of Daltigoth. Sunset had once been the signal for public houses and wine shops in the Canal District to spring to life. No more. Not with the Wolves’ and their brutal curfew.
Valaran visited a public house in the Canal District once, many years ago. For the first and only time in her life, she had ventured into the city of her birth and mixed with common folk in The Bargeman’s Rest. Tol had escorted her there. A fight had broken out, and the public house had burned, and Tol had kissed her for the first time. She could still remember that kiss: The awkward press of lips, the stubble of beard on his chin, the taste of…
Feminine laughter broke the spell of Valaran’s memories. The Consorts’ Circle was coming. The fashionably pale, uniformly foolish faces of Ackal’s other wives and the women of the court regarded the empress without interest. As custom demanded, each dropped a quick curtsey as she passed in a hiss of silk. None addressed Valaran, and soon she was alone again in the high corridor.
Word of Tylocost’s coup reached Tol, causing excitement among the landed hordes. A cache of treasure would be a welcome addition to their war chest, which, as Egrin wryly pointed out, previously had comprised whatever coins they happened to have on them.
Tol left Egrin and the bulk of the army to continue harrying the nomads from the country and rode swiftly to meet up with Tylocost. With him, he took Riders from Lord Trudo’s Oaken Shield Horde and Argonnel’s Iron Scythe Horde, some one thousand men on the swiftest horses. Trudo and Argonnel came as well.
Arriving at Tylocost’s camp, Tol was cheered even more to discover Kiya there.
Kiya took him by the shoulders and shook him. “Husband! Are you getting enough sleep?”
“Only in the saddle,” he joked.
After this characteristically brief reunion, Kiya led him to Tylocost.
The elf’s rough tally of the treasure cache-even with all the kender “borrowings”-was impressive. Unwilling to burden their ponies with too much heavy loot, the nomads had made the airless ravine the repository for nearly all the wealth stolen from the eastern provinces.
Tol went to pay his respects to the queen of Hylo. Casberry’s first words brought a smile to his face.
“Don’t forget your loyal allies, my lord, when it comes time to divide up all that lovely gold!”
They grinned at each other. The queen’s face was partially. obscured by a jewel-encrusted tiara made to sit upon a brow much larger than hers.
Kiya took Tol aside and told him how they had found Helbin. It was her considered opinion the Red Robe was spying for the emperor. Tol acknowledged this was possible. Unlike his high-minded, White Robe colleagues, Yoralyn and Oropash, Helbin had always struck Tol as an opportunist.
Kiya, Tol, and an escort of warriors then went to where Kiya had left the wizard. They arrived just in time to discover Zala standing before the wizard with her sword at his throat. She told them the Red Robe claimed to be on their side, to be working for the same patron as she.
“That remains to be seen,” Tol replied. “Master Helbin, you’ll be judged by how you behave, so no tricks.”
With great dignity, Helbin nodded once. Tol cut his tether and bade the wizard follow him. They returned to the campfire. Casberry was sitting in her sedan chair, which rested on the ground. Front and Back lay nearby, snoring softly.
In spite of Helbin’s tacit cooperation, Tol left the wizard’s wrists bound. Two guards stood behind him. Folding his beringed hands in his lap, Helbin settled himself on the ground across the campfire from Tol.
“Speak, wizard,” Tol said at last. “Why are you so far from your tower?”
Helbin met Tol’s eyes squarely. “I cannot talk freely before so many, my lord. There’s no telling to whom all these ears belong.”
“Hang him and be done with it,” Tylocost commented.
Judging by the expressions around the fire, most agreed with this suggestion. Either offended or frightened, Helbin remained silent.
“So you claim to work for Zala’s patron…” Tol said. Like the half-elf, he avoided using Valaran’s name openly. In truth, there were too many ears listening. “Can you prove this?”
The Red Robe thrust out his bearded chin. “My word is beyond question!”
“Not with me.”
Tol drew his steel saber and held it up, studying the striations of the forged edge, marked with age and faint traces of rust. It was a brilliantly crafted blade. In a conversational tone, he remarked, “The last wizard I had dealings with ending by losing his head. You knew him, I believe?”
Helbin blanched. Mandes the Mist-Maker, Tol’s mortal enemy, had been a Red Robe wizard, before the lure of darker magic turned him into a rogue. “My baggage contains documents from the person in question,” Helbin said tersely.
The wizard’s belongings were brought to Tol. As he opened the appropriate satchel, Helbin’s anxiety was plain.
Tol held up the empress’s charge, read it silently, and passed it around.
