“You perform as Tunsall promised,” Nibenay said. “Since you have this expertise, I should like to make use of it.”
“In what way?” Aric could have kicked himself. He wasn’t certain of accepted court protocol, but he was pretty sure one didn’t question the Shadow King in that way.
“Presumptuous,” Siemhouk said.
“Indeed,” Djena added. She leaned toward Aric. “You speak as if he’s offering you a choice.”
“My apologies,” Aric said. “I … I am new to this sort of occasion.”
“That is abundantly evident,” Nibenay said. “And forgiven, this time.”
“Thank you, Sire.”
“And your question, presumptuous though it was, is a legitimate one, which I will dignify with a response. We have been told about a large trove of metals in a forgotten city called Akrankhot. Large enough, if it is as described, that it might be used to armor our army—already the most fearsome on all of Athas—making it more powerful still. What we don’t know is where precisely in this place the metal is, or if the metal described to us is all there is. For all we know, it might be the smaller of several stores. We need someone attuned to metals who can make sure we’re finding all that’s there.”
A strange sense of excitement ran through Aric, but it was mixed with deep foreboding. This sounded suspiciously like an adventure, and he distrusted the whole notion of adventure. He thought he knew enough to believe that adventures were nothing but stories told by people not brave enough to actually experience such events, because those who did so rarely survived them. “So you’re sending me on a journey?”
“You will accompany an expedition, yes. I can’t say that it will be without dangers. I trust that’s acceptable to you.”
Aric would never have made the claim that he knew the Shadow King. But he knew more about him than he had mere minutes before, and he was convinced that Nibenay was teasing. “Very acceptable,” he said graciously. Whatever perils the journey might hold he would have to face as they came—certainly any voyage on Athas was a dangerous one, or so he understood. That danger, he knew, didn’t affect his response to Nibenay, as he had no choice but to make the trip.
Anyway, he was intrigued by the whole thing. He had never traveled so much as a day’s walk from the gates of the city. Clearly, this journey would be longer than that. He would be accompanied, most likely, by soldiers from the Nibenese army, and probably others as well. Not the Shadow King himself, surely, but someone representing him. A templar, even one of the high consorts? Perhaps.
Aric had long harbored a half-formed belief—never shared with anyone—that Nibenay was looking out for him in some mysterious way. Throughout his life there had been otherwise inexplicable incidents, and Aric had seen a providential hand as the only possible explanation. Most recently, he had decided he needed to settle on a profession. Because of his long-standing affinity for metals, he had thought that working as a smith would be a natural course for him. But because metal was rare on Athas, smiths were also rare. Less common still were smiths who wanted to take on a half-elf as an apprentice.
Finally, Aric heard of a struggling blacksmith, injured in an accident, who might be willing to offer an apprenticeship, and he had arranged a meeting with the man to discuss it. When Aric arrived for the meeting, the blacksmith announced that he was retiring, and that if Aric wanted the shop, it was his. Although Aric had been hoping to study at the side of a master smith, he couldn’t turn down the opportunity to own the business.
As soon as he touched the metal the man had left behind, though, Aric knew that he had been pressured into retiring, and well compensated for placing the business into Aric’s hands. The metal wouldn’t tell him who had paid the smith off, though, and Aric often wondered who that had been. It was as if someone powerful had taken an interest in Aric’s life, and was working from behind a screen to make sure it progressed in a certain direction.
Did that unseen hand truly belong to the Shadow King? Unlikely, Aric knew. More likely, he was simply buffeted by the fates, as were all Athasians, and he had just been lucky a few times. He could certainly point to other occasions on which his fortune had run the other way.
“Then it’s settled,” Nibenay said.
“Apparently so.”
“One more thing,” the Shadow King said. “Although you had the good sense not to ask for it. If the expedition finds the metal and it’s as promised, then there will be a certain amount of financial reward. That much metal will help outfit our military, but there will be an excess amount, which can be sold off, the profits put to the benefit of the Nibenese treasury. If you should survive the journey and return with the metal, and your efforts were helpful in acquiring it, I will see to it that you receive the commission to outfit our guard. I trust this will be acceptable to you as well?”
“Not merely acceptable, Your Highness, but entirely unnecessary and unexpected.”
“Which is why it’s offered,” Nibenay replied. “Had I believed for an instant that you expected it, I would never have let you see the first bit of it.”
“You are most generous.”
“So I am often told.” Was that a smile on his face, back there in his shadowed corner? Aric couldn’t quite tell.
“It is settled, then,” the Shadow King said. “You will be notified as to the date of departure. It will be soon, however, not more than two or three days hence. So do not make any future plans. If you have someone you would like to accompany you, who could be helpful on such an expedition, by all means bring that person along.”
“My assistant Ruhm? He’s a goliath, very strong, and he knows his way around metals.”
“Delightful,” Nibenay said. From his reputation, Aric had a hard time imagining the Shadow King being delighted by anything. He had to admit, however, that during this conversation—imagine, he, a quarter-elf, a commoner, a smith, was having a conversation with a sorcerer-king! He could barely believe it even though he was part of it—Nibenay had been reasonable, even personable.
And if it had been him all these years, looking out for Aric.…
But that was impossible. Hardly worth wasting a second thinking about.
“You may take your leave,” Siemhouk said. “We will contact you when we need you again.”
“Thank you, Your Highness,” Aric said. He backed toward the door, wondering if that was the right protocol, if the soldiers would suddenly appear behind him, grasping his arms and hauling him to a dungeon for committing some offense of which he wasn’t even aware. “Thank you, high consorts, for your hospitality.”
None of them spoke, but the soldiers didn’t seize him. Someone else opened the door as he neared it, and then he was outside in a hallway of the temple. Templars and others hurried past him, paying him not an instant’s mind. He found his own way out, and home, his mind racing with every step.
I should like to have my sister templar Kadya lead the expedition,” Siemhouk said after the smith was gone. “If that would please you, Father.”
Kadya had known that Siemhouk would make the request. She didn’t know that she would be in the room at the time, or that it would be put so bluntly. Siemhouk, despite her youth, played the templar power games as well as any she had ever met, so she had expected a more subtle, strategic approach to be employed.
“Is that right?” Nibenay asked. Kadya couldn’t read his tenor.
“As High Consort of the House,” Kahalya put in, an angry edge in her voice, “and as this clearly concerns issues of the national treasury, I should have at least equal say in the expedition’s makeup.”
“Each of you will no doubt have some reason—all perfectly valid, I have no doubt—as to why you should be involved in this process,” the Shadow King said. He moved out of the shadows, not entirely but enough to let everyone see the weary look on his face, as if the argument had already raged for hours. For all Kadya knew, it had, only in private, each of the high consorts coming to him in their marriage bed to press her case. “The High Consort of War certainly has an interest,” he went on. “As does the High Consort of Trade.”