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“It is a significant expense, I agree, but we can easily afford it,” Ankhor said. “Besides, if I had hired a battalion of mercenaries, it would not have created the impression I intended.”
“But… I do not understand, my lord,” Lyanus said with a puzzled expression.
“The Merchant Code requires us to be nonpolitical,” said Ankhor, “but we are, of course, very much concerned with politics. One cannot transact business profitably otherwise. I wanted everyone to know that the House of Ankhor will spare no expense in hiring the very best to lead our guard in this turbulent time—a man whose reputation is established and beyond question. We share with the House of Jhamri the responsibilities of policing Altaruk; both houses are headquartered here, and I wanted everyone to know just how seriously we take that responsibility.”
“Lord Jhamri, in particular,” said Lyanus, catching on.
“Precisely,” Ankhor replied with a smile. “My father spent his entire life competing with the House of Jhamri, and it wore him out. They were always bigger, always wealthier, and they always regarded us as upstart newcomers. At social functions, they treated my father as a second-class citizen, as a peasant unfit to rub shoulders with them. Oh, they were unfailingly polite, but their condescending tolerance was a slap across the face. I have never forgiven them that, and I never shall.”
“But you recently signed a partnership with the House of Jhamri,” said Lyanus.
“Because trying to compete with them in the marketplace is pointless,” Ankhor said. “We could never match their resources. Whereas if we join them in partnership, we can take advantage of them. Jhamri thinks he has beaten us. He believes I am more pragmatic than my father, that in allying with his house, I have made a wise decision that ensures our survival and extends his own holdings, since the agreement places him in the preeminent position.
“Well, he is half right, at any rate. I am more pragmatic than my father. I realize that competing with the Jhamris is not the way to beat them. The way to beat them is to join them… and undermine them politically.”
“And Kieran is part of your plan?” Lyanus asked.
“Exactly,” Ankhor said. “I had my agents negotiate with Kieran on behalf of the House of Jhamri, in my new capacity as junior trading partner. His salary will come out of my pocket, of course, but he will wear the red of Jhamri, not the buff and blue of Ankhor.”
Lyanus frowned. “I fear you’ve lost me, my lord. You mean, you have, in essence, given this Kieran as a present to Lord Jhamri’s house? Where is the profit in this? And how can he lead our house guard if he wears the Jhamri colors?”
Ankhor smiled. “You have an excellent mind for detail, good Lyanus, but a poor one for intrigue. Lord Jhamri will see my employment of Kieran on his behalf as a gesture to ingratiate myself with him. It is just the sort of thing a man in my position would be expected to do.
“After years of competition, he has finally brought the House of Ankhor to its knees, and in my new position as his subsidiary trading partner, it would seem perfectly logical for me to curry favor with him as evidence of my good faith. After all, my father was his enemy, and as his supposedly weaker, more pragmatic son, whose primary interest is in enjoying a self-indulgent lifestyle, I will play up to his expectations by trying to prove myself his friend. He will, of course, have no idea how much I am paying Kieran, and it would be impolitic of him to ask. And a condition of my contract with Kieran is that he not reveal the amount of his salary.
“However,” Lord Ankhor continued, “at the proper time, I shall allow that information to leak out. Meanwhile, Kieran will command my house guard because Lord Jhamri will insist on it, especially now that I have tragically lost Captain Varos. The fool could not have gotten killed at a better time. Lord Jhamri already has a captain for his house guard, and it would not be practical to demote him in Kieran’s favor, especially when he has done nothing to deserve it.
“No, he will magnanimously offer Kieran to me, to command my own guard, but I will insist that Kieran wear the Jhamri red and act as the nominal co-commander with Jhamri’s own captain. A merely titular appointment, with no real authority behind it. The two units will continue to remain separate. At the same time, Jhamri will have the satisfaction of having all of Altaruk see the commander of the Ankhor House Guard wearing his colors, a clear sign to everyone of who is in control. He will think he has outmaneuvered me, and I will be seem to have placed myself at a considerable disadvantage for the sake of public safety.”
“Very shrewd, my lord,” Lyanus said. “If, indeed, it comes out as you predict.”
“Rest assured, it will,” said Ankhor. “These recent outbreaks of violence in Altaruk have steadily been growing worse, and everyone is greatly concerned. The Alliance has always maintained a strong presence here, because the defilers have never had much influence.
“However, defiler numbers have been growing, and the Alliance is stepping up efforts to eliminate them. Each faction tries to spy out the other, and Altaruk has become a hotbed of intrigue. If things keep up at this rate, we shall soon be caught squarely in a full-scale mage war. And that would be very bad for business.”
“And you have a plan to prevent this conflict?” asked Lyanus.
“Oh, I always have a plan, Lyanus. Kieran is only the first part of that plan. The public part, for there is also another, very private part. The first part is the fire I light under the House of Jhamri, and the second is the ice.”
“The ice, my lord?” Lyanus asked, puzzled.
“Yes, an ice that will freeze the very soul, Lyanus,” Ankhor said with a smile so warm and pleasant that it sent a chill through the old minister of accounts.
Lyanus had learned to watch his young master’s eyes when he smiled. This time, they were terrifying—dead and flat, devoid of emotion. In that moment, Lyanus wondered if Ankhor had a soul. “I… I do not understand, my lord.”
“All in good time, Lyanus,” Lord Ankhor replied as he turned back to the window to watch the merchant plaza burn. “All in good time.”
Chapter One
It was almost dawn on the Great Ivory Plain, and the twin moons cast a gho
stly light on the seemingly endless expanse of sparkling, hard-packed crystal. As the night wind shifted, blowing from the east, Sorak seemed to hear the tormented cries of the lost souls wandering the streets of Bodach, whose crumbling spires rose in the distance, barely visible in the bright, silvery moonlight.
Perhaps it was his imagination. Surely not even an elfling could hear across fifty miles of desert. And yet, tricks of the wind could sometimes carry sound far out in the trackless wastes of Athas, especially here where nothing grew, here on the shimmering crystal plain. As the desert breeze blew across the silt basins to the east, rustling through the palm fronds of the oasis, Sorak was almost certain he could hear the faint sounds of a tortured wailing, a chorus of ululating voices that chilled him to the bone. It was a sound he had hoped never to hear again.
Soon, the sun would rise and the living dead of Bodach would slink back to their hiding places in the ruins. The wind would cease to bear their fearsome wails across the desert, and the city of undead would fall silent as the sands swirled through its deserted streets and plazas. A deceptive stillness would once again descend upon the Great Ivory Plain as the dark sun baked its crystal surface with temperatures high enough to boil blood.
During the day, Bodach seemed merely an abandoned city on a narrow spit of land jutting into the great silt sea—the isolated, crumbling ruins of a once great civilization that had flourished upon Athas in an age when the world was green and the sea filled with water, not with brown and swirling silt. But at night, horror stalked Bodach, and those who fell victim to the city’s undead rose again to join their ranks, doomed by an age-old curse to spend eternity protecting the lost treasure of the ancients.
