Troy Denning: The Amber Enchantress

“That doesn’t sound like the woman who helped kill Kalak,” Sadira pressed. “If it is, tell us now and we’ll stop wasting our time.”

Neeva glared down at her old friends, biting her lip in frustration. “When you want something, is there anything you won’t do to get it?”

“Not when what I want is to protect Tyr,” Sadira answered. “But that has nothing to do with Agis’s question. Will you teach your child to live in tyranny or freedom?”

Neeva fell silent for a moment, then dropped her gaze to her swollen belly. “You know the answer,” she said, taking Caelum and Lyanius by their arms. “Excuse us for a while.”

Neeva and the two dwarves were barely gone before Rikus turned around. “I’ll stake the kanks out to graze,” he said.

“Can you be so certain they’ll let us see Er’Stali?” Agis asked.

The mul nodded. “Caelum can deny nothing to Neeva.”

“But what about Lyanius?” asked Sadira. “He’s the one she must win over.”

“He has a good heart. In the end, he’ll do the right thing-especially with his son arguing for it,” Rikus answered.

“His son?” Agis asked.

“Caelum,” Rikus explained. “He’s the only one whose judgement Lyanius trusts.”

With that, the mul started away, calling the kanks after him. Although two mounts followed immediately, the one that Sadira had been riding lagged behind. The beast proved so stubborn that Rikus was finally forced to take it by the antennae.

“I wish I had his confidence,” Agis said. The noble sat down, bracing his back against the sun-red bricks of Kled’s village wall.

“Let’s just hope that his faith is justified,” Sadira said.

She sat beside Agis, folding her heels under her thighs to use as a cushion. Although it would have pained most women to bend their legs so compactly, the position came to Sadira as naturally as settling into a chair. She was a half-human, half-elf with lithe, sinuous limbs and a supple frame typical of those born of such parentage. Her eyebrows were peaked and slender, hovering above pale eyes as clear and unclouded as blue tourmaline. She had a small, full-lipped mouth and long amber hair tumbling over her shoulders in waves.

After making herself comfortable, Sadira opened her waterskin and drank. Even in the shade of the village wall, the temperature was blistering, with a feeble wind that seemed incapable of stirring up even the slightest whiff of fresh air. To one side of the village, the heat rose in shimmering waves off high bluffs of orange-streaked sandstone. On the other side, a giant sand dune reflected the sun’s crimson light so brilliantly that it hurt to look in that direction.

A short while later, Rikus returned. Over his massive shoulders were slung the empty waterskins that had been tied to the kank harnesses. “No word from inside?”

“You might as well sit down,” said Agis.

The mul shook his head. “I’ll stand. It won’t be long now.”

Rikus was wrong. The sky faded from the brilliant white of midday to the flaxen hues of early afternoon, and still they heard nothing from Kled. Sadira fell into a lethargic torpor and could not keep her thoughts off the cool well-water that would be available inside the village. More than once she found herself cursing the stubborn dwarves, and even begin to daydream about casting a spell that would allow her to sneak inside. She quickly rejected this idea, however. Having warned Agis not to employ the Way to influence the dwarves, she did not doubt Rikus would also disapprove of using sorcery to steal a drink of water.

Finally, as Sadira’s mouth began to grow bitter with thirst, the gate opened. Neeva stepped out alone. “Welcome to Kled.” She held her arms toward Rikus, who had stubbornly remained standing before the gate.

The mul stared into Neeva’s eyes for a moment. “Neeva, I’ve missed you.”

“And I’ve missed you, Rikus,” she answered, speaking quietly.

The mul shrugged off his waterskins and moved forward, embracing her tightly. When Neeva hissed in pain, he stepped away in alarm.

“I’m sorry,” he said, staring at her stomach. “I didn’t mean to hurt you-or the child.”

Neeva laid a hand on his arm. “You didn’t,” she said, running her fingers over her sunburned belly. “It just stung when you rubbed against me,”

Sadira and Agis stepped to Rikus’s side.

“Why don’t you cover that thing up?” Sadira asked, pointing at the red flesh of Neeva’s abdomen.

“My husband wants me to leave it exposed.”

“Why?” Sadira demanded. “Does he enjoy torturing you?”

“The pain she bears is for our baby,” said Caelum, stepping from behind the gate. “If the child is to have the fire-eyes, the sun must kiss Neeva’s womb from dawn until dusk.”

“What, exactly, are fire-eyes?” Sadira asked.

Neeva pointed at Caelum’s red eyes. “A sign of the sun’s favor,” she said. “Caelum wants our child to be a sun-cleric, like him.”

“Let us hope you’re successful,” Agis said, speaking to Caelum. “Has your uhrnomus made a decision about our request?”

“My father believes it is wrong for a powerful city like Tyr to endanger a small village like Kled-”

“Tyr will extend its protection to your village,” Agis quickly offered.

“What good will that do?” scoffed Caelum. “Aren’t you here because Tyr can’t protect itself against the Dragon?”

“That’s true,” Agis admitted.

“And that’s why Caelum persuaded his father to grant your request,” Neeva said, smiling warmly. “If it is in our power to help, we cannot stand idly by while the Dragon savages Tyr. That would make us not only cowards, but partly responsible for the deaths themselves.”

Caelum nodded, then said, “You must promise that no one will know you spoke with Er’Stali.”

“Done,” Rikus said, retrieving their empty waterskins.

When Sadira and Agis also nodded, the dwarf motioned them past the gate. After explaining that Lyanius had returned to his duties, Caelum led the group into the village itself.

They moved quickly down a narrow avenue flanked on both sides by the red flagstone walls of dozens of round huts. The structures stood barely as high as Sadira’s chin, with no roofs to shade the busy inhabitants from the blazing sun. The sorceress could look down into the interior of each building and see that all were arranged in a similar fashion. Near the east wall was a round table with a trio of curved benches, while a set of stone beds stood near the west. Hanging close to the door of each family’s hut were a battle axe, a short sword, and a spiked buckler-all forged from gleaming steel and freshly polished.

Sadira was about to comment on the priceless weaponry when they reached the village plaza, a circle of open ground paved with crimson sandstone. In the center stood a windmill, its sails slowly spinning in the hot breeze. With each rotation, the mill pumped a few gallons of cool, clear water into a covered cistern.

Despite her thirst, Sadira hardly noticed the well. Her attention was fixed on the far side of the plaza, where dozens of dwarves were sorting and polishing a small mountain of tarnished steel armor.

“By the moons!” Sadira gasped. On Athas, metal was more precious than water, and the mound of armor represented an unimaginable treasure. “Where did all that come from?”

“From Kemalok of course,” Neeva said. She gestured at the mountain of sand north of the village.

From what Rikus had told her earlier, Sadira knew that her friend referred to the ancient city of kings that the dwarves were excavating beneath the dune. Although the mul had said that it was full of steel weapons and armor, the sorceress had not imagined it to be anything like this.