Keith Decandido: Under the Crimson Sun

He leaned forward as well. “Yes-and plenty of silk to wear on those occasions, believe me. The linens, however, can make for more practical wear.”

“I can’t imagine that anyone of your status would have much use for anything practical.”

The words were a bit harsh, but in that voice, they were teasing.

“The problem with status is that it doesn’t actually give you much to do. It’s why I come to this place.” He stood upright. “I wish to do something. Travel, have adventures, or at least see more of our world.” And also get away from Tova, but he decided not to even mention to Karalith that he was married. “And that , my dear Karalith, requires linens.”

“I’m sure it does,” Karalith said, and that time she held the smile longer, though she did not show her teeth. It made the smile all the more seductive. “What manner of adventures were you thinking of-”

“Karalith!”

The half-elf’s face fell into a frown, annoying Vas to no end. He was actually enjoying himself. Turning around, he saw a thri-kreen skittering hurriedly toward the table. A female member of the insectlike race, she was clutching a rolled-up piece of parchment between her upper left pincers, while gesturing madly with her middle pincers. She had a pack with straps wrapped around her thorax.

“Oh, for pity’s sake, Tricht’tha, not again.”

The thri-kreen was standing upright on her rear two pincers, which thri-kreens generally did when they were among bipedal races. Among their own kind-or out in the open where there was more freedom of movement than in a crowded bazaar-they would often move on all six limbs, their bodies parallel to the ground. When he was a boy, Vas had thought thri-kreens to be other animals, but Cristophe had taught him otherwise in very short order. It was the old tutor’s opinion that they mainly walked upright when dealing with other races precisely because so many of those others made the same mistake Vas did in thinking them not to be intelligent.

Her voice clicked three or four times-a sign of the Chachik tongue that thri-kreens spoke, and one sufficiently unlike other forms of speech that it added to misconceptions like Vas had as a youth-before she said in Common: “You do not even know what I am going to discuss.”

Karalith put her hands on her hips. “Tricht’tha, you’re holding the map right there.”

Tricht’tha lowered herself to stand on her middle and back pincers. After a few clicks of Chachik, she said, “Very well, I am, in fact, here to discuss the map. It-”

Holding up a hand, Karalith said, “There’s no point, Tricht’tha. We’re not going to buy it. Even if I had a momentary lapse and decided to go ahead and take it from you, Mother and Father would have my hide for wasting their coin.”

“You cannot make decisions for yourself? You are of age, are you not?”

Vas looked at Karalith, hoping that the answer was affirmative, otherwise the flirting he’d been doing was going to get uncomfortable. That was the problem with half-breeds, you could never determine their ages …

To his relief, she said, “Of course I am, but it’s not a question of being able to make decisions, it’s being able to explain the stupid ones. And buying your map would be stupid.”

Again, the thri-kreen straightened. “Do you doubt my word, Karalith?”

“No.” Karalith was starting to sound frustrated, a feeling with which Vas could sympathize. This Tricht’tha woman was getting in the way of his purchase. “Look,” Karalith said after taking a breath, “I don’t doubt that the map is genuine. You’ve never steered us wrong before. In fact, that set of icons you found us made us all considerable profit.”

More Chachik for a bit, then: “Yet you do not trust me now?”

“It has nothing to do with trust.” Karalith gestured behind her, bracelets sliding against skin. “Look at us, Tricht’tha. There are six of us crammed into this carriage, trying to sell things to people. How’re we supposed to make use of a map like that?”

“Excuse me,” Cristophe said, and only then did Vas notice that he was staring at the parchment the thri-kreen was clutching.

Tricht’tha clicked in Chachik, to which Cristophe, unsurprisingly, responded in kind.

Then the thri-kreen handed the parchment to Cristophe.

“What is it?” Vas asked, moving to stand behind his former tutor.

“It is a map that leads to the treasury of Sebowkan the Elder.” Tricht’tha spoke almost reverently.

As Cristophe unrolled the parchment, Vas scratched his forehead. “Who the Elder?”

“He ruled a kingdom near the Ringing Mountains during the Green Age,” Cristophe said distractedly. “Massive treasure, he collected, as part of his bounty-but nobody ever found it.”

Vas looked down at Cristophe. “You know of this Sebowkan?”

Cristophe nodded. “I read one of his commentaries. It was in a private collection in Makla-belonged to an eccentric who liked to collect every piece of parchment he could get his hands on, never mind that he couldn’t read half of them. In fact, he paid me to recite some to him back in the day.”

Waving off yet another tiresome reminiscence, Vas asked, “And you say this Sebowkan collected treasure?” He yanked the map out of Cristophe’s hand. It showed the Ringing Mountains and the Great Alluvial Sand Wastes to the east of them, and led to a particular spot that wasn’t far from where Kled was now. “You’re saying this is a map to that treasure?”

“Of course it is.” Tricht’tha had been sounding outraged throughout the conversation, but for those four words, she kicked it up a bit, as if the very notion that they were discussing anything other than a treasure map was absurd.

“Which is why we can’t do anything with it,” Karalith said with a sigh. “Believe me, we’d love the treasure-and I’d love to go and dig for it, it sounds like tremendous fun-but we’d need digging equipment, shelters, receptacles for the sand, and people who actually know what they’re doing.”

Without even thinking, Vas asked, “Can’t you just hire people?”

This time, Karalith’s smile was more sardonic. “You make it sound so simple, Vizier Belrik. We make enough coin to survive in this world, to feed ourselves and our mounts, and to maintain our carriage-but just that. Even if we had the spare savings to mount an expedition to find this treasure, we could not spare the time . We’d lose our spaces in bazaars like this, not to mention-”

Vas held up a hand. “I understand, believe me.” He smiled. “Of course, I have no such impediments.”

Tricht’tha gazed upon Vas with her large red eyes as if seeing him for the first time. “Are you saying, sir, that you might be interested in purchasing this map?”

“I might,” Vas said quickly. He was hardly about to commit to anything, though the notion of hunting for treasure was a very appealing one. In fact, in his mind, he was already starting to plan the expedition. He knew some colleagues of Tova’s father who had done some digging, and he knew where he could get a good deal on the equipment. He’d have to borrow some of Torthal’s bodyguards, but that wouldn’t be a problem. Mentally thinking over his roster of slaves, he wasn’t sure how much use they’d be for something like this. Maybe he could hire some mercenaries?

Best of all, he could get away from Tova for months .

Realizing he was getting ahead of himself, he turned to the thri-kreen. “The first question I must ask, however, is why you’re selling the map? Why not take the treasure for yourself?”

Making several desultory clicking noises, Tricht’tha said, “For similar reasons to that of Karalith. I do not have the means to avail myself of the map’s bounty. And-” she hesitated, and clicked a few more times, “leave us say that it would not be healthy for me to be seen anywhere near Kled in this lifetime.”