Keith Decandido - Under the Crimson Sun

Tricht’tha had her own excuse, of course-thri-kreens’ sense of neatness differed widely from that of most other people.

But when the bazaar ended in three days, they were going to waste hours cleaning up the carriage in order to secure everything for travel.

Finally, after tossing aside several piles of clothing-which made the mess worse, a bit of hypocrisy that Karalith chose to ignore-she finally liberated the strongbox. Shira and Karalith had the only keys to the box. For years, Shira had insisted on having the only key, but these days, Shira and Torthal usually only worked for about half the day at the table. When they were gone, Karalith and Komir were in charge, and one of them had to have access to the strongbox.

There were moments when Karalith was worried about what would happen when her parents finally died. It was going to happen sooner or later-particularly Shira. Elves lived longer, but Torthal was also still proportionally as old for an elf as Shira was for a human. Even though he had fifty years on her, they were in many ways the same age.

The strongbox was probably more valuable than its contents. Made from iron and oak, materials that were virtually impossible to find anymore, the ornately designed box was large enough to hold all of their coins. And if the emporium ever was in trouble, they could always sell the box …

Inside the box were several compartments, and Karalith counted out two hundred in gold-stamped coins to put in the small corner compartment for coins owed, with the remaining three hundred going into the center compartment for the emporium’s own profits.

Karalith smiled as she saw how much was in that center compartment. After what they did to Belrik, it was possible that they wouldn’t be able to come back to Raam for at least another couple of years. Prior to running the game on him, she would have considered that an acceptable loss, especially given the declining state of Raam these days, but this season they were actually doing decently here, for once.

But she was willing to live with it-and so were the rest of them. Lyd was a friend, and you didn’t do what Belrik did to the Serthlara Emporium’s friends. Not without retribution, anyway.

“All put away?”

Karalith turned around to see her twin brother Komir. Like her, Komir had the slight points to his ears that indicated their mixed heritage, but that was the only similarity. He had the ordinary sunken cheekbones and thin shoulders of a human, and the wide eyes of an elf. The best indicator, though, that he was Torthal Serthlara’s son was the same as Karalith’s: the sea green eyes.

Another non-elf trait was that Komir had shaved his head. The sweat got to him, he said, and he found it easier to survive under Athas’s crimson sun without any hair in the way. It was a pity, as his hair was thick, lustrous, and shining-but Karalith knew the value of practicality. And the round, bald head gave her brother a rugged look that sometimes aided in the game.

“Yes,” she said in response to her brother’s query. “I set aside the two hundred for Gash, and Tricht’tha and Feena are taking the five hundred to Lyd now.”

“Excellent. Lyd doesn’t deserve to have that sandscraper blacklisting her.”

Karalith nodded. Lyd hadn’t even been able to get a table at this season’s bazaar because Belrik had soiled her reputation. Nobody in Raam would buy her wares anymore, all because he misunderstood the description of her burlap, confusing it with her raw silk supply.

“That five hundred,” Komir continued, “should be enough to get her to some other city where Belrik’s good name won’t sully hers.”

Grinning, Karalith said, “I don’t think Belrik’s name will be all that good after he digs around the wastes for months looking for a treasure that isn’t there.”

“You don’t feel sorry for the little bastard, do you, Lith?”

Karalith glared at her brother. “I’m not even going to dignify that with a response, Ko. You said it best-he’s a sandscraper. I wouldn’t let him clean my sandals.”

Komir snorted. “He wouldn’t know how. Still, I hope that Feena’s brother doesn’t take too long to get here. I’d just as soon be away from Raam as fast as possible.”

“Agreed.” She wrapped one arm around her brother’s shoulder. “So let us go sell as much as possible so we won’t ever have to come back …”

Rol really, really had to pee.

There were a lot of reasons he was sorry that Fehrd was dead, but right now the one foremost in his mind-and in his bladder-was the fact that, with only two of them, the overnight shifts on guard duty were longer. This had happened on other occasions where only two of them worked a job, or one of them was injured and couldn’t pull guard duty. In fact, it happened every time: the final hour of Rol’s shift involved a lot of jumping up and down waiting for Fehrd or Gan to relieve him so he could relieve himself.

The night had been fairly quiet. The caravan had torches that were placed at the perimeter to keep some of the nocturnal creatures away. It didn’t always work if they were hungry enough, but generally they stuck with prey that wouldn’t require them to blind themselves in order to capture it.

Rol tried to distract himself by thinking about Tirana. At least, he was pretty sure that was her name. He had always had trouble remembering women’s names. Gan had expressed opinions as to what that meant, but Rol mostly ignored them. Ignoring Gan was the only way to properly tolerate being in his presence half the time.

Tirana was the daughter of the slave trader, whose charm was in inverse proportion to that of her father. Generally, people assumed slavers to be utter bastards with no redeeming social value, but in Rol’s experience, they were generally quite calm and sensible. They were businessmen, mostly, and treated their slaves precisely the way they would any other merchandise. Often that meant they were well cared for.

However, Tirana’s father, Calbit, fell into the utter-bastard stereotype. In fact, he was the first one Rol had met who did. He had-according to his daughter-a collection of fighters from all over who he’d purchased on behalf of his partner back in Urik.

Rol had always been grateful that he’d managed to avoid having to fight in the arenas. Gladiatorial fights were the most popular sport going, and Rol had seen a few from the cheap seats in arenas all over Athas. Mostly he came away from them thanking powers greater than him that he wasn’t down on the combat stage. He preferred to fight for fun or for profit. Doing it by force just took all the fun out of it.

He contemplated whether or not it was worth tempting Calbit’s wrath by waking his daughter and having some fun with her before going to sleep. Of greater concern was tempting Tirana’s wrath, as annoying her would not lead to the result he was hoping for.

At least, not that night.

Then again, he didn’t have much longer to go. They’d reach the Dragon’s Bowl fork some time the next day, and then the slavers would continue on the Great Road to Urik while the rest of them veered off to Raam. So it might well have been his only chance, if he thought about it.

Not that he was truly thinking straight, as he hopped back and forth on the shifting sands.

The best part was that she’d come to him, initially. She expressed sorrow over Fehrd’s death, for which Rol thanked her and then quickly changed the subject. Death, he felt, never really suited the mood of a conversation with a woman. So every time she tried to bring Fehrd up, he changed the subject to something that was more conducive to his endgame.

“Finally,” he bellowed when he saw Gan approach his position on the perimeter of the caravan, the torchlight combining with his eye patch to cast odd blacks onto his face. “What took you so long? My back teeth are floating.”