Troy Denning: Faces of Deception

"As you can see, it is a map to Langdarma," he said. "All I ask is a guide to help me find the Sisters of Serenity, or, failing that, the best instructions you can offer."

Rosalind studied the map, her eyes silently scanning the names of the mountains and valleys. After a few moments, she looked up and sadly shook her head.

"I am sorry. Someone has deceived you. I do not recognize any of the names on this map. The Sisters of Serenity are as much a myth as Langdarma itself."

"Begging your pardon, Most Radiant Majesty, but perhaps that is not so," interrupted Rishi. He turned to Atreus. "As I have said, I visited these Sisters only last year in the company of a-"

"Silence!" commanded the Royal Husband. "Were you not warned?"

The Royal Husband glanced at Rosalind. When she nodded, he signaled to two guards, who snatched up the Mar as quick as a snake and carried him to the windows beyond the queen's bed.

"Please, please-no!" Rishi flailed about madly, kicking and writhing like a cobra in the claws of a mongoose. "Have mercy, good sirs! Do you think I am a bird? I cannot fly!"

Without replying, the guards hefted Rishi through the window and stepped back. The Mar's loud scream quickly faded, then ceased altogether. Atreus found himself staring slack-jawed out the window, wondering at the harshness of the queen's punishment.

The Royal Husband grimaced at the sight of Atreus's gaping mouth. "There's a roof outside that slants down to the moat," he explained. "The Mar will be fine."

"Which is more than we shall be able to say for you, explorer, if you insist on this search," said Rosalind.

"Langdarma is real," Atreus replied. "I myself saw Sune's face in the Pool of Dreams, but it is clear you cannot help me. If you will return my map, I will trouble you no more."

He extended a hand, but Rosalind jerked the map away.

"I fear I cannot permit what you wish," she said. "What would King Korox say if I allowed any harm to come to a 'particular friend' of his?"

An angry knot formed in Atreus's stomach, but he forced himself to answer in an even voice. "As I have said, he will take no offense if you can't help me."

"But as I have said, I can help you." Rosalind nodded and her guards seized Atreus by the arms. She turned to the Royal Husband and passed him the map. "Dispose of that and have an honor guard take this 'explorer' back to the Doegan Shores. They are to place him on the next ship to the Sword Coast."

"A wise decision." The Royal Husband wadded Sune's map into a ball and pitched it out the window. "The last thing we need is this Atreus Eleint sneaking around the Yehimals. The Mar will think he is Ysdar himself!"

The avenue was cramped and crooked and crowded. The smell of spice-ginger and cinnamon and curry-masked the stench of the refuse spoiling in the gutters, and the din of jabbering voices filled the air with a constant drone as loud as it was maddening. High tenement buildings loomed along both sides of the street, their battered awnings and rickety second-story verandahs grazing the elephant's flanks as it ambled past. On many of the balconies stood hissing Mar, hurling small sticks at the poor beast and clapping their hands to drive its passenger from the city.

Atreus feigned indifference to their insults and kept his gaze fixed to the front. He was sitting in the crowded howdah on the elephant's back, with two Ffolk guards kneeling on the floor behind him. There were also a dozen riders struggling to clear the street ahead and another dozen riders bringing up the rear with Yago. Although the soldiers were dressed in the ceremonial livery of an honor guard, their surly bearing and wary watchfulness made plain that the only thing they were guarding against was Atreus's escape,

Atreus fought to hold his growing anger in check. As betrayed and insulted as he felt by Queen Rosalind's decision, he would gain nothing by venting his rage now. Better to wait a few clays, until his escorts' horses began to suffer in the hot muggy terrain of Doegan, then escape to another of the Five Kingdoms. Edenvale was not the only realm bordering the Yehimals and he had heard a person with money could buy anything in Konigheim.

A pair of teak window shutters slammed open beside the howdah, revealing the murky interior of a second-story apartment. Atreus glimpsed what looked like a curved yellow dagger whirling out of the darkness, then cried out and raised his arm. Something soft struck his wrist and fell to the floor. The two guards in the Howdah rose and turned toward the window, directing their fellows below into the building. Yago roared in alarm and began to bull his way past his escorts raising a great clamor of clanging armor and whinnying horses. Atreus looked down and found a banana lying at his feet. Scratched into the peel was a brief message: "Be ready"

He glanced into the window and saw a plump silhouette retreating into the darkness, then snatched the banana off the floor.

Atreus looked back to see Yago, separated from the elephant by four double ranks of riders, shoving a startled horse out of his way. "There's nothing to worry about," he shouted Atreus displayed the banana, then quickly peeled it and tossed the skin out of the howdah.

"It's only a banana, Yago. Go back to your place." Yago furrowed his heavy brow in puzzlement, then turned to scowl at the nearest rider. "You call that guardin?" He pointed a dagger-length finger at the banana in Atreus's hand. "That coulda been a knife!" "But it wasn't," Atreus said. "So let's not worry about it." He turned forward again and passed the banana to his elephant driver. "For Sunreet."

You are too kind, Sahib," the driver replied, eating the banana himself. "She thanks you very much."

The guards guffawed loudly and called their fellows off. The procession resumed its slow pace down the street. Atreus sat back and tried not to look obvious as he scanned the verandahs and windows ahead. He could not imagine who had sent the message. Even if Rishi Saubhari had weathered his plunge into the moat, he hardly seemed likely to have the means to overpower two dozen of the queen's horsemen. That left only an unknown Ffolk nobleman, no doubt eager to use Atreus's hideous face in some intrigue that had less to do with finding Langdarma than unseating a sickly queen.

The procession twined its way through the streets for another ten minutes until the remnants of a gatehouse and wall appeared fifty paces ahead. Built entirely of white marble, the "Pearl Curtain" had once enclosed the entire city, but the fortifications had been razed during the Bloodforge Wars and never rebuilt. Now the ruins served only to mark the official city limit. Beyond them, the tenement buildings grew smaller and less closely packed, finally giving way to crop fields, then grazing lands, and eventually a lush forest.

The forest would be an ideal place for an ambush, and Atreus was debating the wisdom of using the confusion to escape when a string of sharp cracks echoed through the street. Atreus dropped his gaze and saw bursts of light flashing around the hooves of the horses ahead. Several of the beasts whinnied and reared, bringing the whole procession to a sudden halt and dumping their riders into the clouds of smoke swirling about the street.

Sunreet raised her trunk and let out a shrill trumpet. The Mar in the street began to jabber in unintelligible hysteria. The two guards behind Atreus shouldered their way forward and kneeled in the front of the howdah. "Shou powder," observed one. "Expensive," said the other. "Too expensive for this." Atreus glanced to the side and found himself looking across a dilapidated balcony, to where a shadowy Mar stood waving at him from inside a dark doorway. Atreus made no move to leave the howdah, preferring his own plan of escape to becoming involved in some traitor's plot against Queen Rosalind.