Troy Denning - The Verdant Passage

“Those are two very powerful positions,” Agis said. “I would think you’d be delighted.”

Tithian met Agis’s gaze with the first hint of fear that the handsome senator ever recalled seeing in his friend’s eyes. “I would be … if I didn’t have to finish the ziggurat in three weeks, in addition to finding the amulets the Veiled Alliance has hidden inside it!”

“Surely with the king’s magic at your disposal you’ll have no trouble completing the task.”

The high templar scowled. “Do you really think it’s that easy?” he snapped. “Cast a spell, find an amulet?”

Agis weathered the storm with a calm countenance, for he had known Tithian long enough to realize that the templar’s outbursts posed a danger only to those intimidated by them.

“Isn’t it?” the noble countered. “I thought that was why people resorted to magic.”

“It’s harder than it looks,” Tithian replied crossly. “Besides, I tried. The amulets are protected by psionic shields and counterspells. I have people trying to break the safeguards, but if they fail, the only way to find the amulets may be to tear the ziggurat down, brick by brick.”

“But you said the amulets were just annoyances?”

The high templar seemed about to speak, then let the topic drop.

Since he had no other suggestions to offer, Agis remained silent, trying to puzzle out why Tithian had picked this afternoon to come visiting. If his guest had been any other friend, the noble would have assumed that the visitor had simply come in search of a sympathetic ear. The high templar, however, was a solitary person who never shared his troubles or his joys with his friends. If Tithian was telling him all this, Agis suspected there was a reason.

“If you want me to do something about the amulets, you’ll really have to tell me a little more about them,” Agis said at last, deciding to press for all the information he could.

“You?” Tithian asked. “What can you do?”

“Isn’t that why you’re here?” Agis asked. “I assume you’ve come to discuss asking the Senate to support an initiative against the Veiled Alliance.”

The high templar laughed. “What makes you think Kalak cares about the Senate’s support?”

Tithian’s reply touched a sore nerve. The Senate of Lords was an assembly of noble advisors who were supposed to have the authority to override the king’s decrees. In reality the body was little more than a paper assembly, for senators who opposed the king invariably suffered prompt and mysterious deaths.

“Perhaps the king should start caring about the Senate’s support,” Agis said, speaking more openly in front of his old friend than he would have to any other templar. “He’s nearly taxed the nobles into ruin building his ziggurat, and he still hasn’t bothered to tell the Senate why he’s erecting it in the first place!”

The high templar looked away and waved his carafe toward the center of Agis’s estate. “May we go back to your house? I’m not accustomed to standing about in the sun.” Without waiting for an answer, he began walking with a slow, even pace.

Agis followed, continuing to press. “The caravan captains claim the Dragon is coming toward Tyr, and the king is ignoring our pleas to raise an army.”

“Don’t tell me you accept all that nonsense about the Dragon, Agis?”

The Dragon was the terror of all travelers, a horrid monster of the desert that routinely wiped out whole caravans. Until recently, Agis had believed it was no more than a myth, dismissing tales of the thing devouring whole armies and laying waste to entire cities as fanciful fabrications. He had changed his mind during the last month, however, when sober and trustworthy men had begun to report glimpses of it at ever-decreasing distances fromTyr.

Agis replied, “I think the king would be well advised to take the threat seriously. He should stop wasting his money and manpower on the ziggurat and start preparing for the defense of our estates and his city.”

“If he believed in the Dragon, I’m sure he would,” Tithian replied.

They crested the gentle hill that hid the reservoir from the rest of Agis’s estate. Below them stretched green acres of tall faro, the dwarf cactus-tree grown as a cash crop by many of Tyr’s nobles. The faro itself was almost as tall as a man and had a handful of scaly stems that rose to a tangled crown of needle-covered boughs. The fields were crisscrossed at regular intervals by a network of muddy irrigation ditches. In the center of the farm sat the ancestral Asticles mansion, its marble dome echoing the shape of the distant mountains that ringed the Tyr Valley.

“What’s your secret, my friend?” Tithian asked, pausing to run an appreciative eye over Agis’s lush fields. “It’s all that anyone else can do to produce a few hundred bushels of needles a year, but your farm is covered by an orchard.”

Agis smiled at the compliment. “There’s no secret to it,” he said. “I just took a lesson from a druid.”

“And what did you learn?” Tithian asked.

“Treat the land well and eat well. Abuse it and starve.” Agis pointed at the tawny plain of barren dust and sand lying beyond the borders of his estate. “If everyone followed that simple rule, the rest of the Tyr Valley would be as lush as my farm.”

“Perhaps you should come and explain this discovery of yours to Kalak,” Tithian replied, his cynical tone suggesting that he found what Agis told him difficult to believe. “I’m sure he’d be interested in such a marvel.”

“I doubt it,” the noble replied. “Kalak’s only interest in the valley is draining it of every last ounce of magic-giving life-force it can provide, regardless of what it does to the land.”

“Be careful who you say such things to, my friend,” Tithian said. “That comment borders on treason.”

Still carrying the ceramic carafe of wine, Tithian started down the narrow path that led toward the estate mansion. As he descended the slope, Agis was surprised by the total absence of slaves in his fields. It was true that he worked them mainly in the relatively cool hours of the morning and evening, but even in the heat of the afternoon there should have been a few men in the fields to watch the irrigation ditches and clear any blockages. He made a mental note to speak to Caro when he returned to the house, then turned his thoughts to what he might learn from Tithian.

“A week ago, Urik’s emissary threatened war if we don’t start shipping iron again,” Agis said, bringing up a point that he knew the templar could not dismiss lightly. “We can’t do it because Kalak has taken the slaves out of the mine to work on his ziggurat. How long does the king think he can continue to ignore the city’s problems?”

Tithian stopped and faced Agis. They were now surrounded by snarled faro boughs. “How did you find out about the emissary?” the templar asked, clearly shocked.

“If the high templars have spies in the Senate,” Agis responded evenly, “it stands to reason that the Senate has spies in the High Bureaus.”

The truth of the matter was that the Senate had been trying for years to recruit a spy in the king’s bureaucracy, which, whether they liked to admit it or not, was where the real political power lay in Tyr. Unfortunately, they had always failed. Agis was simply trying to confirm a rumor he had heard from a caravan merchant. If he happened to cause a little turmoil among the templars, that was fine.

“How did Kalak respond to Urik’s threat?” Agis asked.

To the noble’s surprise, Tithian sighed, then dropped his gaze. “He sent the envoy’s head back, carried by a merchant caravan.”

“What?” Agis shrieked.

Tithian nodded grimly.