Troy Denning: The Amber Enchantress

“So people like Rikus and me are dispensable, but people like you aren’t?” Sadira demanded.

Agis frowned. “That’s not what I said.”

“But it’s what you meant,” Sadira spat. “How often have you said you need a child so the Asticles name won’t die?”

Rikus glowered at Agis. “You asked Sadira to bear a child?”

“That’s between Sadira and me,” Agis replied.

“Hardly!” Rikus roared. “I love her, too!”

“Not that it has anything to do with the present situation, but the time has come for her to chose between us,” the noble countered, not flinching in the face of Rikus’s anger. “We should all be getting on with our lives.”

“What makes you think Sadira will choose you?” the mul demanded.

Sadira awaited Agis’s answer with a growing sense of outrage, angered by his assumption that only Rikus stood between Agis and his wish that she bear him a child.

“Why should she choose you?” Rikus demanded again, this time in a menacing voice.

“Because you’re a mul,” the noble answered, anger and pity clashing on the patrician features of his face. “You can’t give her children.”

“Sadira’s life is full without children. She has Tyr to think of,” Rikus said, looking toward the half-elf. “Isn’t that right?”

Sadira did not answer. Instead, she tapped the inside of her kank’s antennae. As the beast rose to its feet, Rikus and Agis moved to her flanks.

“What are doing?” demanded Rikus.

“I’m not chattel, to be taken by the winner of some childish contest,” Sadira said.

“Of course not,” said Agis. “We didn’t mean to imply that you were. But the time is coming when we must settle our lives. It was well enough to put off painful decisions when we didn’t know if we would live to see tomorrow, but-”

“That has not changed,” Sadira interrupted angrily. “Or have you forgotten the Dragon?”

“The Dragon is something we’ll always have to live with,” said Rikus. “After wandering Athas for thousands of years, he’s not going to disappear just because Tyr has been liberated.”

“Not if we refuse to challenge him,” said Sadira. “I’m going to the Pristine Tower to learn how that can best be done.”

Rikus and Agis gave each other resigned looks.

“I’ll go with her,” Rikus said. “She’ll need a strong arm.”

“My arm is strong enough,” countered Agis, glaring at the mul. “And my skill with the Way will prove more useful than your fighting talents.”

“I’m going alone,” ’ Sadira declared, trying hard to speak in reasonable tone. Though she was upset at being argued over like contested property, the sorceress also realized that their best chance of helping Tyr lay in splitting up.

“It’s too dangerous!” Rikus objected.

“If you’re determined to do this thing, one of us should go with you-”

“No,” Sadira said, shaking her head. “In our own ways, we’re all right.” She looked from Rikus to Agis. “As Rikus says, Tyr should prepare for the worst-and only he is popular enough to ask the citizens for the sacrifices that may be necessary. At the same time, Agis, someone should take an inventory of what Tyr can do to defend itself. Only you are smart enough to make people say honestly what they can or can’t do.”

“And you?” asked Rikus.

“I’m the only expendable one,” Sadira said. “And our situation is desperate. We can’t afford to ignore the possibility that the Pristine Tower holds some secret that may be of use to us.”

With that, Sadira passed her hand over the kank’s antennae, urging the beast toward the approaching caravan. “I’ll return as soon as I can,” she called over her shoulder. “Let us hope my journey won’t be in vain.”

Clutching the handle of her steel dagger, Rhayn slipped around the corner and stopped to examine the path ahead. She had entered a crooked alleyway that ran between two rows of mud-brick tenements, weather-worn and on the brink of collapse. In any other city, the lane would have been packed with starving paupers and thirsty beggars, hiding from the scorching sun in the shadows of the tall buildings. In Tyr, however, no person need suffer such indignities unless he is too lazy to work, for there is plenty of food and water on the relief farms outside the city. Still, a handful of derelicts, most lingering at various points along the path from drunkenness to death, lay in the stifling closeness of the lane.

Rhayn started down the alley, which stank of stale wine, unwashed bodies, urine, and a dozen things even more vile. She kept her new dagger in plain sight, lest any of the derelicts be foolish enough to accost her. It was not common for an elf, even a woman, to be frightened in the worst quarters of a city. But it was one of the contradictions of Tyr that, as the fortunes of the poor improved, those who remained behind grew more desperate. Already, returning from lucrative forays into Shadow Square, two members of Rhayn’s tribe had been set upon by cutthroats. They had escaped with their lives only by dropping their booty and fleeing as fast as their long legs would carry them.

As Rhayn passed a bloated half-giant wearing a tunic emblazoned with the star of the last king, a man’s voice cried out behind her; “That’s the trollop!”

Rhayn looked back and cursed. Standing at the end of the lane was a thick-waisted wine vendor with a bandaged head and an empty dagger scabbard on his belt. Next to him were a pair of black-robed templars, each carrying one of the obsidian-bladed partizans that served as the emblem of the New King’s Guard.

“You have no doubt that she’s the one?” asked one of templars, a powerful-looking man with a tail of red hair.

Rhayn had no need to hear the wine merchant’s answer to know he would be sure. Even across the distance separating them, he would have no trouble identifying her as the woman with whom he had just shared two flasks of good port. Although short for an elf, she stood a head and half taller than most men of full human blood, with close-cropped hair and keenly pointed ears. Her build was typical of her race, lean and willowy, save that her figure was rounder and more inviting than that of most elven women. Beneath her arched brows, she had almond-shaped eyes as brilliant and deeply colored as sapphires, a regal nose, and a pouting mouth with thick, savory lips. The same striking beauty that had originally attracted the vendor to her would leave no doubt in his mind about her identity now.

Employing the favorite defense of her people, she turned and ran.

“You there, stop!” cried the second templar, a blonde-haired half-elf.

Rhayn paid him no attention, confident that her long legs would carry her safely away from the guardsmen. Normally, she wouldn’t have dared flee, for most templars could have called upon their king’s sorcery to stop her. It was common knowledge, however, that King Tithian of Tyr was a weak ruler with no magic to bestow upon his servants. That was one of the reasons her tribe had come to the city.

Rhayn reached the end of the alley before the merchant and his escorts had taken more than a dozen steps. She turned down a bustling avenue lined by two and three-story buildings. The first story of each building contained a small shop with a broad door and a pass-through counter opening onto the street. Out of each shop peered a sly elven merchant, peddling goods his tribe had no doubt stolen earlier from an honest caravan in the desert wastes.

“Stand aside or die!” Rhayn yelled, brandishing her new dagger at the mob of pedestrians.

As she pushed her way into the throng, a chorus of startled cries and angry shouts rang out as men and women of all races hurriedly stepped aside. Despite her threat, Rhayn stopped short of stabbing those who didn’t move quickly enough. While she doubted that the templars would conduct a thorough search of the quarter over the relatively minor matter of a stolen dagger, the elf suspected they would view a string of knife attacks in quite another light.