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“They say curiosity killed the kirre.”
Kieran glanced down at his kirreskin breeches. “Yes, well, I plan to keep my own skin intact. It’s possible that someone may want me for a trophy for some reason. I have made my share of enemies. But they will find this cat difficult to skin.” He clapped Sorak on the shoulder. “Especially with a good fighter at my back.”
“Ah, so now it becomes clear,” said Sorak. “I am an insurance policy.”
“Paid for by the House of Thamri,” Kieran said.
“But with the money they are paying me, I can easily afford to add a bonus. You keep your eyes and ears open, my friend, and watch my back, will make it worth your while.”
“Well, now you have me curious,” said Sorak.
Kieran smiled. “I told you that we think alike.”
Chapter Seven
It was almost midnight, and outside the mansion headquarters of the House of Ankhor, most of the town slept. There were a few gaming and pleasure houses that stayed open all night, mostly catering to mercenaries and travelers passing through on their way to one of the seven city-states of the Tablelands. But for the most part, the residents of Altaruk went to bed early and rose early. The desert nights were cold at this time of the year, and there were few people on the streets. The night seemed quiet and peaceful.
Ankhor stood out on the open, moonlit veranda outside his private quarters on the fourth floor, in the west wing of the mansion. As he gazed over the town, it struck him once again just how much it had grown the last few years. Without turning, he spoke to the dark-robed guest standing behind him, in the shadows.
“You know, as a boy, I hated growing up here,” he said. “I dreamt of running away to one of the large cities, such as Tyr or Nibenay or Balic. Back then, Altaruk w
as little more than a fortress outpost in the middle of nowhere, at the tip of the estuary, a tiny, rough-hewn settlement sheltered by the mountains.
“But it was a choke point for caravans,” Ankhor continued. “South from Urik, southeast from Tyr, toward Balic, Gulg, Nibenay, from Raam and Draj—all these caravans had to pass this outpost.”
“It has grown quickly,” said the dark-robed figure in a deep and throaty voice hoarse with age.
“And is growing still,” said Ankhor, looking out over the town. “It went from being a miserable outpost fried by the sun and buffeted by windstorms to being a thriving village.
“My father—Lord Ankhor the Elder—saw the opportunities in Altaruk. His gaming house in Tyr bought him a merchant empire here—the House of Ankhor. He accomplished with grit and luck what young aristocrats did with blue blood. Aristocrats like the Jhamris.”
“And so began the famous rivalry,” the dark-robed figure said.
“Yes,” said Ankhor, turning to face his guest. “It grew as Altaruk grew, a rivalry between a commoner and an aristocrat. And that rivalry drove all other merchant houses in Altaruk into penury. My father had won himself a peerage, but the Jhamris never allowed him to forget his humble beginnings.
“By the time I was born, Lord Jhamri had also sired a son. They had competed even in that, striving to bear the first heir. But fate mocked them, for both Father and Jhamri repeatedly fathered daughters. The Elder Jhamri had eight, by three different wives, and I have seven older sisters. My father’s first wife gave him four daughters and died in childbirth with the last, and my mother gave him two more daughters before finally giving birth to me. I was given my father’s name as a sign of pride in the achievement, but by then, Jhamri’s third wife had already given birth to a son, a year earlier. And the two us were raised from childhood to loathe each other.”
Ankhor turned to look out over the town once more, with a proprietary air. “Both founders are old and frail now, unable even to get around without assistance, but the old hatred still burns between them. It is all my father ever talks about. The old rivalry.”
“You seem fond of it, too.”
“Yes,” said Ankhor, “we heirs both have taken over the management of our respective houses. But while the elder Jhamri was a shrewd and calculating trader, young Jhamri is merely arrogant and smug, confident in his superior wealth and position. He has never regarded the House of Ankhor as a serious threat.
“In part, that is because I have publicly played the part of the dissipated sensualist,” Ankhor said, turning back to face his guest. “I am seen in gaming and pleasure houses, drinking excessively and spending lots of money. I sport with women of low class while young Jhamri has married well, taking to wife the daughter of Viscount Tomblador, cementing a firm alliance with that house. And while Jhamri immediately set about getting his young wife pregnant, to insure an heir, I have remained single and childless, apparently more interested in spending my father’s wealth than building on it.
“So young Lord Jhamri regards me with condescension and contempt, thinking me weak and indolent. The alliance we have signed, with the House of Jhamri as the senior trading partner, has only furthered Jhamri’s opinion. And that is exactly what I want him to think.”
“To lull him into a false sense of security,” the robed figure said, nodding.
“Precisely,” said Ankhor, leaning back against the parapet. “I am still young, and there will be plenty of time to think about finding a suitable wife and starting a family… after I’ve destroyed my rival. And I shall settle for nothing less than that, total destruction. First, I’ll topple his house and humiliate him, make him crawl to me on hands and knees.”
“And then?”
“Then I will kill him.” Ankhor said it plainly, simply, as if he were merely making an observation about the weather. Then he smiled, disarmingly. “When we were children, my loving sisters used to say our father was raising me as a serpent, feeding me on hatred and spite. They said it to tease me, but I always had a fondness for that metaphor. Serpents are sly and deadly. Serpents strike quickly and without warning. Serpents are survivors. I shall add the figure of a serpent to our standard after Jhamri is destroyed, to commemorate the event.
“So… are you satisfied as to my sincerity?”
The dark-robed figure stepped forward into the moonlight. The hood of the robe was thrown back, revealing a gaunt, fine-featured face, deeply lined with age, and the clean-shaven skull of a templar. Around her head was a thin, hammered gold chap-let bearing the royal crest of Nibenay, the Shadow King.
