That decided the issue. He was a madman.
Advancing slowly, hands held high, he cried, “Look upon me and know the truth!”
“What truth?”
“I have come from the land of the dead-from the Valley of the Blue Sands. I, who was cursed and given the form of a beast by a vile foreign sorcerer, have been cured by the gods! Now I return to cleanse the land of Khur!”
His words fell upon fertile ground. The Weya-Lu, still grieving the loss of so many of their kin as well as their Weyadan, listened. They let the stranger come into their midst. Under the deep-desert burn, the features of the khan’s eldest son were apparent. Still, their allegiance was not so easily won.
“How long have you been in the desert?” one man asked.
Shobbat shrugged. “I don’t know. I awoke in the valley, naked as the day I was born. I set out each morning with the rising sun on my right shoulder, three mornings so far.”
The Weya-Lu exclaimed. He carried nothing with him; had he once had provisions? None at all, he said. Immediately, they pressed a waterskin on him. He drank, not with the desperate thirst that should have afflicted him, but slowly, his actions those of a true child of the desert, who is always careful not to waste a drop of precious water. The nomads were awed. Surely Those on High were watching over the prince. How else to explain his not simply surviving in the desert for three days, but being in such good health?
“May we escort you back to Khuri-Khan, Highness?” asked the eldest.
“In time.” Shobbat took another drink. “When I return to the city of the khan, I will wipe clean the stain of corruption there. My father treats with all manner of foreigners. He takes their coin, fawns over them, and protects them, all the while oppressing the righteous believers of his own nation, those who follow the Condor.”
The nomads nodded their approval of the epithet. Not even Torghan’s own children used his true name lightly.
Shobbat added, “I will not allow this to continue. Those on High have spared me to lead the righteous against a corrupt and unworthy ruler!”
The fire of righteousness blazed from Shobbat’s eyes. Each man felt it, breath-stealing as a dash of icy water in the face. One by one, swords were drawn and lifted high. The nomads likewise lifted their voices, shouting, “Hail the Desert-Blessed Prince! Hail the Son of the Avenger!”
The shouts continued for a longtime. Shobbat stood in the center of the ring of men, soaking up the acclaim as a tree soaks up spring water. These dozen Weya-Lu were his first converts. More would follow, many more, and the walls of Khuri-Khan would tremble.
Emissaries arrived before summer ended. They came from Solamnia and Ergoth, Sanction and Schallsea, and numerous other cities across the land. The soldiers among the delegations noted with practiced eyes the great wall being erected across the mouth of the valley. The design was typically elven: elegant and clean with soaring buttresses and high towers whose slender shapes belied their great underlying strength. Behind the outer wall, a second had been started, and beyond it lay the foundations of a third. The mountains ringing Inath-Wakenti were rich in granite. No effort was being spared to make the walls high and thick. It would be some time before the defenses were complete, but when they were, no army could hope to force the passage.
The visitors were conducted along a road of finely crushed blue granite to the budding city in the center of the valley. There they were received by the Speaker of the Sun and Stars in a palace complex being built atop the largest single slab of stone any of the visitors had ever seen. None knew the significance of the Tympanum, but all wondered at the broad crack bisecting it.
Before winter claimed the outer world, a special emissary arrived from Khuri-Khan. General Hakkam led a party of forty high lords from the court of Sahim-Khan. All were attired in the panoply of Khur, a splendid display, if barbarous to elf eyes. Clan totems were rendered in gold atop broad-brimmed helmets. Every shoulder, every elbow bristled with a shining steel spike, and each man’s hooded sun mantle was spotlessly white—the color of wealth in dusty Khur.
Although city-dwellers rather than superstitious nomads, the Khurish delegation still preferred not to enter the Valley of the Blue Sands. As a conciliatory gesture to his reluctant ally, Gilthas broke protocol by meeting them just inside the uncompleted valley wall. He arrived on foot, shaded from the late-autumn sun by a long canopy of flowers supported by a dozen young elves. Although large, the canopy weighed very little and rippled in the slight breeze. The canny Speaker also wore white. Even his aurochs-leather sandals were pale as mountain snow. The only touches of color were the square-cut amethysts decorating the ends of the cord tied around the waist of his robe.
