This time his laugh was sardonic. “The Knights you mean? Or the bull-men of the seas? Yes, all these ‘dark forces’ have sought me out. Each wishes to destroy the
Sa’ida got to her feet stiffly, bowed, and departed.
The Khan watched her go, then took the chair she’d just vacated. Sa’ida was a great asset to Khur, and he was not a man to squander assets, but her request troubled him. Beyond a certain grudging admiration for the Speaker’s tenacity, and an appreciation of elven style, Sahim cared little about the elves’ ultimate fate. He was no friend of Neraka, nor the minotaurs. He knew well that once the elves were removed, his neighbors’ appetites would quickly switch to Khur. For all its empty desert, Sahim’s land bordered many vital areas. A navy with access to its coast could dominate the Bay of Balifor. Hundreds of miles of desert made a formidable barrier against minotaurs trying to enter Neraka from the north, or against Knights thrusting south to the fertile lands of minotaur-held Silvanesti.
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
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
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.”
