Paul Thompson - Sanctuary

His advisors chafed at the delay. Even the Lioness, proud though she was of her army, felt he was wasting precious time with this display. But not until the last blistered scout had entered the tent city did Gilthas depart. He turned and walked into the dust cloud raised by the passing riders. Kerian spoke again of the need to capture nomads, to obtain proof that their attacks were sponsored by Neraka. This rekindled the argument among Gilthas’s entourage.

“The situation is most delicate,” Morillon insisted. “We have the Khan’s permission to be here, but if we go about abusing his subjects, we could lose our last safe haven!”

“You’re the one who’s delicate!” The Lioness coughed against the spreading plume of grit. “Look what happened yesterday—my captain and I set upon in broad daylight! You call this place safe?”

“A few firebrands. Regrettable, certainly, but—”

Kerian whirled on him. “Regrettable! Zealots lust for our blood and you call it regrettable!”

“Calm yourselves” the Speaker said. He did not raise his voice, but it was a command nonetheless. “The best path lies somewhere between the two extremes. We must take care to keep Sahim-Khan friendly, or at least neutral, toward us, but we cannot allow our people to be sniped at and murdered piecemeal.” He halted at the edge of the hodgepodge of tents, adding, “We need alternatives, to this place and to the Khan’s sufferance.”

His glance at his wife was significant, reminding her of her upcoming mission, to conduct the archivist Favaronas and a small party of scholars to the Valley of the Blue Sands. Kerian was not altogether unhappy with the task. She still felt it nothing more than a kender’s errand, pointless and time-wasting, but at least she would be out doing something. Court life wore on her nerves; added to this now were the convoluted intrigues Gilthas found necessary to deal with the human khan. Better to broil in the desert wastes than languish in Khurinost, strangled by protocol and hamstrung by tortuous diplomacy. The journey at least would provide an opportunity for information gathering.

As the royal party moved through the narrow lanes, they passed tents with their flaps pinned back to admit any slight breezes. The wire-grass ceiling that covered the passage kept the sun’s broiling light at bay, yet the very closeness of the area served to stifle breath. Despite this discomfort, Gilthas’s steps slowed, awed anew by the ingenuity of his people.

Tents here had been turned over to workshops, where artisans used age-old skills to fashion metal and stone into objects not only useful but beautiful. Lacking large furnaces and forges, the elves were forced to buy raw materials in the city’s souks. Ingots of crude brass were hammered thin as parchment, to be formed into everything from graceful urns to tiny, delicate earrings. In one shop, bales of silver wire were tightly wound into the bracelets and torques of which Khurs were so fond. One emaciated elf, seated with legs splayed wide on a coarse jute rug, polished a basket of semiprecious stones with a grinding wheel. It was the lapidary’s ingenuity that caught the Speaker’s attention. His tent’s dim interior was brightened by sunlight, brought in by angled mirrors, and his wheel was attached to a small palm frond fan; as the elf toiled, the wheel’s energy also served to cool his brow.

When the Speaker halted, he and his party interrupted the light that fell upon the lapidary’s busy hands. The thin elf looked up, and when he saw his visitor, his lined face went slack in shock. He would’ve hurried to his feet, but the Speaker’s raised hand and gentle voice kept him seated. Gilthas moved closer, reaching into the basket of stones and lifting a particularly beautiful amethyst. The deep purple gem was an inch square, and faceted with undeniable skill, despite the crude tools the lapidary was forced to use.

He made to return the stone to the basket. The lapidary begged him to keep it. Gilthas would’ve declined, not wishing to decrease the fellow’s income, but Kerian whispered, “Take it, Gil. You’ll disappoint him otherwise.”

The old elf’s eyes shone with pride as his Speaker thanked him most kindly for the gift. Gilthas’s own eyes were suspiciously bright as he took his leave. Whenever he despaired of the task he faced, he would think of this poor, kind lapidary. What king dared fail such a people as these?

From outside the lapidary’s rude shelter, Lord Morillon’s prosaic voice ended the poignant interlude. “Before we came, the Khurs did not know how to facet a gem. Now, square-cut stones are popular in all the souks,” he said.

“Well, that makes the journey here worthwhile,” was Kerian’s acid reply.

Gilthas said nothing. Fingers clenched around the amethyst gem, he moved on.

The winding route took him past scores of tents. Some were scarcely larger than the bedroll of their single occupant; others encompassed corridors, and antechambers laid out in considerable complexity. Everyone was hard at work. There was no place for sloth in Khurinost. Every scrap of food and clothing, every mouthful of water, must be purchased from wily traders.

Again, where one elf—Gilthas this time—saw triumph over adversity and courage in the face of privation, another saw only heartbreak. The Lioness could hardly bear this slow progression through the tent city. The pain that welled within her heart as she looked upon her people’s plight was almost unendurable. Increasingly, she had been dealing with these strong emotions by growing angry. And of late, much of her anger was directed not only at her husband for not doing enough or at the invaders that had driven her people to these straits, but at herself at her failure to best the bull-men and to convince her husband to support another foray against them.

“What about the documents I brought back from the city?” she asked.

Her whisper was harsh, louder than Gilthas would’ve liked. With a lowering of his eyes, he directed her to speak more discreetly.

“Favaronas has had them all day. We dine with him tonight to hear what he has made of them.”

Gilthas saw that Lord Morillon, who did not know the reason behind the Lioness’s visit to the Temple of Elir-Sana, was watching them closely. The noble had tried to pry the truth of that errand from Gilthas earlier, but without success. It wasn’t that Gilthas didn’t trust Morillon. He simply knew that in matters such as this, where lives hung in the balance, the fewer who knew his plans, the better.

The sun was low, nearly touching the western dunes, by the time the group arrived at the royal tent complex in the center of camp. The fiery sphere had changed from white-hot to blood-red, tinting the sky the color of polished copper. A rare breeze rolled in from the sea. It swept away the cloud of sand that had been raised by the returning army, as well as the perpetual fog of smoke which hung over Khurinost. Gilthas paused to inhale the refreshing sea air.

“If that wind would blow this time every day, I could happily stay here.” Alarm showed on every face, and Gilthas couldn’t help but smile. “Don’t worry: we all know how rarely that wind rises.”

The councilors chuckled at their Speaker’s humor. The Lioness did not. politely, she asked leave to depart, citing her need to go to her warriors. Gilthas assented, telling her he looked forward to their dinner together this evening.

Soon, the Lioness was back among her exhausted soldiers. They lived communally in large tents, clustered around the big stonewalled corrals that dotted the elven camp. Kerian busied herself choosing the five hundred who would make the journey north with her. She took hardy scouts and skillful riders rather than the best fighters. She told them little about the mission, the need for circumspection as strongly ingrained in her as in her husband. It wasn’t only fear of Khurish treachery that prompted the Lioness’s caution. Word of what Gilthas hoped to find could easily cause a stampede of desperate elves determined to escape Khurinost for the supposed haven of the fabled valley of mist and fog.