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?”
“The Order always supports strong rulers friendly to its cause.
Shobbat’s fingers closed on the dagger grip, and he slammed the weapon on the table, making the little lamp jump. “Why all the mystery?” he shouted. “Can’t you just give me a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’?”
“Permit me to say, Highness, your timing is not the best. You have been out of circulation for some time, yes? And your father is very popular just now, thanks to his humiliation of the elves. How much money did he squeeze from Gilthas in the name of reparations?”
“Ten thousand steel.”
A tidy sum, thought Hengriff. Sahim’s little triumph over the Speaker would make him admired in the souks and taverns, even by those who knew him to be a bloody tyrant. He had executed eleven Torghanists captured during the rioting; even now, their heads gathered flies in the plaza before the Khuri yl Nor. Yet Hengriff knew the dead men were longtime criminals culled from the city dungeons. The real culprits had purchased their safety. Minok, high priest of Torghan, with the Khan’s death sentence still hanging over him, had given Hengriff gold to buy freedom for himself and his followers.
After considering the possible repercussions of allowing the Torghanists to remain in prison (and perhaps talk under torture), the Knight paid the bribes. First, though, he swapped Minok’s Khurish coins for Nerakan. He intended the released prisoners to associate their deliverance with the Order, and to spend that money in the souks. There was no better ambassador than money.
“—and slay him while he sleeps. What do you think?” Shobbat was saying.
“A very good plan,” Hengriff replied, realizing with some amusement that while he was lost in thought the prince must have been outlining his plot to murder his father. “When will you strike?”
“Soon. There may not be time to warn you in advance.” “I understand.”
Shobbat stood and tucked the dagger back into his sash—this one an unsettling mixture of cherry red and lime green stripes. Hengriff waited till he was done, then casually delivered the news he’d brought. “Your Highness, have you heard? The elves have found the Valley of the Blue Sands.”
The effect was all he’d hoped. Shobbat gave a violent start, even faltering backward.
“How did this happen?” he gasped.
“Gilthas sent his bitch, Kerianseray, to seek the place. They reached the valley three days ago.”
Shobbat sat back down with a thump. The Oracle’s prediction rang in his ears.
“How…”The prince cleared his throat twice. “How do you know this?”
“I have many eyes and ears in Khuri-Khan, even in the elves’ camp.” He folded massive arms across his chest. “Why is this valley important, Highness? What does Gilthas expect to find there?”
Shobbat barely heard Hengriff, his thoughts were racing so. The chain of events foretold by the Oracle had begun. His future, his very life, was in the balance. He strove to master his emotions. He’d already given away too much to the Dark Knight.
“Who can say? The valley is uninhabited,” he muttered. “It has some religious significance for the tribes who dwell nearby.”
Hengriff studied Shobbat in silence. The prince’s wan complexion was growing paler by the second, pale as the stain that had spread through his beard and hair. The man was a weakling, Hengriff thought. If he weren’t so close to the throne of Khur the Knight would have washed his hands of him long ago. He’d been laughably easy to buy. Even more than his greedy father, Shobbat loved money, not only for the power it represented but for the luxuries it could buy. The Order had toyed with the idea of installing him as puppet ruler of Khur, but his behavior had become increasingly erratic and evasive. The elves’ expedition to the Valley of the Blue Sands certainly disturbed the Prince deeply; it would probably disturb Hengriff’s superiors as well. But they had an exaggerated opinion of Gilthas’s shrewdness, and a positive mania about the Lioness. The latter Hengriff could understand much more than the former. Kerianseray had been a thorn in Knightly flesh for years.