Douglas Niles: Emperor of Ansalon

"No, no-nothing of the sort," disputed the merchant. "But, it's true, I have just the thing for you."

The pudgy merchant disappeared into his tiny back room and was gone for several minutes. Ariakas sus shy;pected that Habbar had a secret trapdoor connecting to underground treasuries, but he had never tried to find out. Habbar-Akuk had been a grateful employer to the man who had won safe passage for his merchant wagons all the way to Flotsam. The moneychanger had seen to it that the warrior benefitted from glowing recommenda shy;tions to some of the most influential warlords in Khur. Ariakas, in turn, had converted those recommendations into several successful campaigns, and this small for shy;tune. Thus, the two men had a relationship of mutual, if businesslike, respect.

At last Habbar-Akuk returned, and he looked at Aria shy;kas appraisingly, as if deciding whether or not the war shy;rior was worthy of the splendid deal he was about to offer.

"Well, what is it? Do you have something?"

"I have more than something," retorted the money shy;changer. "I have the perfect thing."

He extended a small locket toward Ariakas. The tiny box, connected to a platinum chain, was studded with bril shy;liant gemstones-rubies, diamonds, and emeralds. Even a cursory examination suggested to Ariakas that it was worth far more than the money he offered in exchange.

Turning it over in his hands, Ariakas flicked a switch, and the locket flipped open. The warrior caught his breath as he saw the perfectly etched image of a woman's face and shoulders. Despite the size of the picture, he sensed immediately that she was a person of excep shy;tional-even breathtaking-beauty.

This locket would buy him a small palace, he knew, or a grand house, or a pastureful of horses … or whatever he wanted. As he held the locket he noticed the gentle curve of its frame, which swept inward at the waist like a woman's voluptuous body. He found the image enticing, and as the seconds passed, a more vivid picture of the lady began to materialize in his mind.

She would be tall, of course-that much he could tell from the shape. He believed-he knew-that she had flashing black eyes that would hold a man spellbound with their cool appraisal. Her waist was tiny, her body beautiful beyond compare, beyond imagination. His heart tore at his chest when his mind conjured the image of that perfection.

"Who-who is she?" he finally brought himself to ask.

Habbar-Akuk shrugged. "A lady of Sanction, as a mat shy;ter of fact. Rich as a queen, I was told. Her beloved had that locket made before he died."

Oddly, the thought of the pictured woman's lover brought a surge of jealous rage to Ariakas, and it was with some satisfaction that he absorbed the news of the fellow's demise. "Sanction, you say?" The news was far from displeasing to him. "Do you wish to count the money?" He gestured to the saddlebags, holding his breath. Surely Habbar-Akuk would want more for such a rare treasure.

Surprisingly, the merchant shrugged. "It's right and proper, I know," was all he said.

Ariakas stared at the picture in the locket. That long neck drew his eyes with hypnotic power, and the clean sweep of her shoulders filled his imagination with allur shy;ing images of the body below.

"It's right," repeated Habbar-Akuk. He pulled the saddlebags onto the floor of the shop.

Ariakas nodded distantly, turning toward the door and its bead curtain. He still held the locket and stared at the picture, the jeweled treasure tightly clutched in his hand.

"Farewell, Lord Ariakas," murmured Habbar-Akuk before adding once more: "It is as it should be."

Ariakas passed through the door into the sun-dappled marketplace. Somehow, the frantic crowd seemed to have lost much of its intensity. The merchant's words rang in his memory, and he felt beyond a doubt that Habbar-Akuk had been correct.

It was right that Ariakas hold this locket, and right that he set out with it for Sanction.

Ariakas woke in the night, roused by some unknown disturbance, a subtle shift in the rhythms of the darkness. Dry moun shy;tain crags soared to the sky all around him, outlined only in starlight, and the stillness allowed him to hear the dis shy;tant rumble of surf against the shore. Close beside him, gray ash masked the dying remnant of his fire, a small collection of embers gleaming in crimson contrast to the dark night.

Sitting up, he shrugged off his bedroll. The certainty crystalized: something or someone had been through his camp. He felt equally certain that the encroacher was gone. The warrior took his own fresh awakening as sign that the intruder had intended him no harm.

Still, a sense of violation persisted, growing into a cold outrage as he touched the hilt of his sword, reassuring himself of its presence. The weapon was old, but sturdy and sharp-he felt a strong measure of relief feeling the weathered hand guard and grip.

Silently he rose to a crouch, allowing the fur blanket to tumble to the ground. Chill air tingled across his naked back as he stepped to his pack. A quick check showed that his rations of dried meat and hardtack remained untouched. In a sense the discovery disappointed him, for it meant that the visitor had not been merely a hun shy;gry animal.

Next he reached through the pack for his flask of lava-rum, finding it immediately. He moved the bottle as he continued his one-handed search, and then he froze. Carefully he raised the flask, hefting it gently to gauge its weight. His lips curled into an involuntary grimace- fully a third of the precious liquor was gone!

Setting the silver container to the side then, he plunged his hand into the depths of the pack. He felt his long dag shy;ger, secure in its doeskin sheath. Moving the weapon, he reached farther-and a sickening sense of worry rose in him. Frantically clawing around, he felt nothing but the hard ground through the leather bottom. The locket! It was gone-stolen from his pack while he slept!

His anxiety and rage immediately flamed into power shy;ful determination, like a banked fire welcoming the first breath of the bellows. Yet he forced himself to be calm as he looked at the stars. He had another hour until sunrise. There would be no finding the thief's trail without light, he knew. At the same time, when he began the pursuit, he wanted all of his endurance, all his speed and agility for the chase.

At issue was far more than the worth of a tiny, how shy;ever precious, object. More important was the fact that this thief had entered camp in the dark of night-had stood over his sleeping form! — and then had proceeded to rob him and disappear. To Ariakas, the insult weighed as heavily on his mind as the loss of treasure. He would regain his locket, and at the same time deal a proper measure of retribution to the thief.

With this purpose in mind, he pulled his fur across his goose-pimpled flesh, once again resting his head on the cloak-wrapped pillow of his boots. A single star had winked out behind the looming crest of the mountain before he was asleep.

On one side of the camp, the Khalkist Mountains plunged toward the surging shore of the Newsea. A series of steplike granite ledges climbed away from the angry surf, each mountainous shoulder strewn with a patchwork blanket of wiry grass, chiseled bedrock, and loose, sharp-cornered scree.

Now, in the pale blue light filtering through the layer of dawn clouds, Ariakas awakened with a sense of pur shy;pose. The pounding of the surf was a lonely accompani shy;ment to his solitude, penetrating coastal mists even though the Newsea itself lay partly concealed behind dissipating fog. Tendrils of that same fog cloaked the rugged heights, shrouding the summits in a gray over shy;cast and slipping through the valleys and gorges like the thief through his camp.