They saw a couple of other groups and hailed them, so that by the time they located Kadya, waiting back at the wagons with a large detachment of guards, there were sixteen of them.
“Why are you here?” the templar demanded as they approached. A mul was fanning her, and the startling suddenness of her bark caused him to miss a stroke. She glared at him until he started again, then swung her attention back to the group before her. “I told you to keep searching until—”
“We found it, templar,” Aric said. Ordinarily he would not have interrupted a templar, but on this occasion he expected that she would forgive him.
“You found it? The metal?”
“An enormous trove,” he said. “As much as the Shadow King described, perhaps more. Every kind of metal I’ve ever heard of.”
“How easily transported will it be?”
“It’s been shaped,” Aric said. “It’s in bars, poles, rods, blocks, and so on. It will be a huge amount of work—it is far underground, accessed by long staircases. Bringing it up will be difficult. But once it’s up, loading it into the argosies should be nothing.”
“Excellent,” she said. “Worry not about the difficulty of that job, Aric. You have done yours, and more quickly than I could have hoped.”
“One thing, templar. There is.… something down there. Something tried to get inside my head, but I fought it. Damaric wasn’t so lucky. It got to him. He attacked us, and Amoni had to kill him. So when the metal is being hauled to the surface, I recommend people work in pairs, at least, and probably larger groups, so that someone can always stay alert to danger.”
“Another thing with which you should not concern yourself, Aric. I don’t know what you experienced, but I assure you that we will take precautions against it.”
Amoni and Ruhm had stood silently by while Aric made his report. Now he remembered what Amoni had said about her work only beginning. “And … perhaps since Amoni saved our lives when Damaric turned against us, she can be relieved of hauling duty? She is only out of the gladiatorial pit because her back was broken, and—”
Kadya made a dismissive gesture with her left hand. “Your service is appreciated, Aric. I will make sure that Nibenay knows of your rapid fulfillment of your mission. But don’t test my patience. The labors assigned to slaves are no one’s affair but my own. I know you think Amoni is your friend. I have eyes, and I’ve seen the three of you—and Damaric—together often during our journey. But Amoni is a slave, a mul bred to fight and, failing the ability to continue in the pit, to work. She is no one’s friend. You, Aric, and your goliath companion, should explore the ruins to see if there’s more metal, and beyond that you are relieved of any further obligation. But the workers will work. You can rest for the moment, Amoni, while runners bring in the other search parties. But there’s plenty of daylight remaining, and once everyone is gathered together, we’re going to start going after that metal. Understood?”
“Yes, templar,” Amoni said. She would not meet Aric’s gaze.
“Aric, go,” Kadya said. “Take Ruhm, get some water, get out of the sun. You’ve earned your rest.”
Aric had been dismissed, and he knew it. He tried once more to catch Amoni’s eye, but having failed that, he and Ruhm went to their argosy, intent on a meal and perhaps a nap while the day’s hottest hours passed.
We have found it
Found the metal?
Yes. It’s just as the dead man described. Vast stores of it. We may actually have to send more argosies, as we lost some en route.
Kadya had not dared report the discovery to Siemhouk until she had seen it for herself. She didn’t think Aric and his friends would lie, but that was not a risk an intelligent person would take. She’d had Amoni lead her and a few others to the trove, examined it under torchlight even though the glow from the oddly luminous walls would be sufficient for the work crews, then returned to her own argosy to contact the high consort.
That contact would have been nearly impossible, had it not been for Siemhouk’s mastery of the Way. She did the heavy lifting, so the hardest part was reaching out and “tapping” Siemhouk, letting her know Kadya desired her attention. On most occasions, it had been Siemhouk who reached out first, and those were easy.
Whatever we need to do, we shall do. Let me know when yours are loaded, and if we need more they can be on the way while you’re returning.
I will.
Who found it? That half-elf, Aric.
Then Father was right to send him, wasn’t he? Father is always right.
Our husband is very wise.
Indeed.
I will be in contact when I have more news, Siemhouk.
The girl—the high consort—broke off the connection without replying. That was fine with Kadya. She saw Siemhouk as a path to power, not truly an ally, and certainly not a friend. The girl frightened her. Whenever she was in mental contact with Siemhouk, she was terribly aware of how easy it would be for the high consort to probe other parts of her mind, the places where her dreams and ambitions were stored. That, Kadya knew, would mean her death.
And Kadya wanted more time to investigate Akrankhot before they “spoke” again. Wandering around the city as much as she had done, she’d had the impression that it was something more than it seemed. There was power here. Hidden, tucked away someplace, but power just the same. She meant to find it.
All that metal, too, down in the cavern—that wasn’t just a storehouse, not that far underground. It made no sense to put metal down there, only to have to haul it up again when it was needed. There was more to that, too.
She opened the door to her argosy, stood blinking in the bright sunlight for a moment. As always, after she had a conversation with Siemhouk, she was left with a dull headache throbbing behind her eyes. A couple of her goliath guards stood outside the wagon, and she indicated them with a finger. “Come with me,” she said. “We’re going into the city again.”
“Just the three of us, Templar?” one asked. “Or shall I gather a party together?”
“Just us. We’re safe enough.”
She hoped that was true. She had destroyed the dune reapers, but there was precious little life left in Akrankhot to draw on. If faced with another major threat, her magic might not be strong enough to save them.
But she didn’t want any others knowing what she was about, so that was a chance she would take.
She had noticed runes, on the floor of a large, elegant building on the main avenue. The building had struck her as an important one, a center of government or some such. Something had seemed odd about those runes, but it wasn’t until later on that she had realized what. They had been inscribed on that floor, she believed, much later than the building’s construction. Possibly even later than its abandonment. She wanted another look at them.
Another thought struck her before they left. “Wait here a moment,” she told the guards. “Then we’ll go.” She went back inside the argosy, closed the door, and opened the lid of a trunk she always kept locked. From it she removed a few essential items: a particular scroll, a phial containing crumbs of rare earth and one of the Shadow King’s blood, and a small circle of polished glass.
Runes written in some ancient, forgotten language would be hard to translate. She had an alternative plan—she would consult with whatever mystic sages knew about this place, and from them she could learn the truth about Akrankhot.