by Simon Hawke
“Stop!” she called out to the driver. As the carriage stopped, she got out and walked back several yards. Yes, there it was, almost impossible to see, it was so heavily overgrown. Merely a narrow footpath, scarcely more than a run left by an animal on its habitual daily trek. There was no possibility of proceeding any other way than on foot.
“Wait here till I return,” she told the driver, and started up the path. She used the power bestowed upon her by the Shadow King to clear the way as she walked up the slope. The underbrush that had overgrown the path withered and died before her as she went.
The path followed a serpentine course up the steep slope, bending to the left, then to the right, then to the left again through the trees and around rock out-croppings as it wound its way up to the summit of the hill. After a while, she passed the tree line and emerged between two boulders into a clear area near the summit, covered only by rocks and scrub brush, short mountain grass and wildflowers. She had reached the summit of the foothills, and the mountains beyond loomed above her. The path continued up the steep incline for a short distance and then gradually leveled off as it curved around some rocks.
As she passed the boulders, she glanced down and saw the lower slopes of the foothills, one of the very few places on Athas, aside from the forest ridge of the Ringing Mountains, where green and growing things could still be found. In the crescent-shaped valley below was the city of Nibenay, and in the distance to the southwest lay the city of Gulg. And all around, as far as the eye could see, was barren desert. Directly to the south, stretching out like a gleaming ocean of crystal, was the Great Ivory Plain, a vast, wide sea of salt. It was a spectacular view, and for a moment, she simply stood there, catching her breath and taking it all in. Then, in the distance, she heard the unmistakable sound of wood being chopped.
She continued on, entering the not-quite-level clearing at the top. Before her was a small cabin made entirely of rough-hewn logs. Behind it was a smaller building, a shed for storage, and some animal pens. The cabin was otherwise completely isolated. Some smoke curled up from the stone chimney.
As Veela came closer, following the path that led around to the front of the cabin, she could smell the pleasant aroma of burning pagafa wood. There was a small covered porch attached to the cabin, with some crudely built wood furniture, but no sign of the wood chopper. The chopping sounds had ceased. In front of the porch, she saw a large pagafa stump with an axe embedded in it, and beside the stump, a pile of freshly chopped firewood. She looked around. There was no sign of anyone. She was about to climb the four wooden steps to the porch when a deep, gravelly voice suddenly spoke behind her.
“I thought I smelled templar.” She whirled around. The man standing directly behind her, no more than four feet away, had suddenly appeared as if from out of nowhere, moving silent as a ghost. He was tall and massively built, with a full head of long gray hair that fell down past his shoulders.
He had a thick gray beard, and his face was lined with age and well seasoned by the weather. He had been a very handsome man, and was handsome still, for all his years and fearsome aspect. He had once had a well-shaped nose, but it had been broken several times. He still had all his teeth, and his eyes belied his age, sparkling with alertness. They were a startling shade of azure blue. An old scar made by a knife or sword came up out his beard, crossed his left cheekbone and disappeared beneath his hair.
He wore a sleeveless hide tunic fastened by a thick belt with several daggers at his waist, studded wristlets, and hide breeches tucked into high, laced moccasins. His shoulders were broad and powerful, and his chest was huge, rippling with muscle, tapering in a V-shape to his narrow waist. His forearms were scarred and corded with dense muscle, and his upper arms were thicker around than Veela’s thighs. His bearing was erect and loose, and he conveyed an impression of immense physical power.
“Greetings, Valsavis,” she said.
“Veela,” he said, in his rough voice. “It has been a long, long time. You have grown old.”
She smiled at his insolence. He always was direct. “And so have you,” she said. “Perhaps too old,” she added, lifting her chin to gaze challengingly into his eyes.
“For what?” he asked.
“For that which you had once done best.”
“If the Shadow King believed that, he would not have sent you,” said Valsavis simply, reaching for his axe. He picked up a piece of pagafa wood and placed it on the stump. He raised the axe and split it with one powerful blow.
Veela marveled at his insolence. He had turned his back upon a templar and gone back to work! “You have not changed,” she said. “You are still the same insufferable barbarian you always were.”
He continued splitting wood at a leisurely pace. “If that offends you, you know the way back,” he said.
She smiled despite herself. Most men would have trembled at being addressed by a templar of the Shadow King. This one spoke to her as if she were no more than a serving wench. She should have been offended, gravely so, and yet was not. It had always been that way with him. She had never quite understood why.
“His Majesty King Nibenay wishes to see you,” she said.
“I had deduced as much,” Valsavis said. “I did not think you came all this way merely for a social call.” He continued chopping wood.
“He wishes to see you at once,” Veela added emphatically.
Valsavis kept on splitting wood. “Is he in immanent danger of death?”
Veela looked surprised. “Why, no. Of course not. The Shadow King shall live forever.”
“Then what is another day?” Valsavis asked. Veela felt the color rising to her cheeks. “I may be tolerant of your insolence, Valsavis, for the fact that it amuses me, but the Shadow King has no such forgiving traits!”
Valsavis stuck his axe back in the stump and turned around slowly, stretching his bulging muscles. “Nibenay has not required my services in years,” he said. “And for all those years, I have remained forgotten by His Majesty the Shadow King. Now, suddenly, he is impatient for my presence. Clearly, he has need for a service only I am able to perform. I have waited years for him to find me useful once again. Now let him wait.”
Veela’s jaw dropped open with disbelief. “No one defies the Shadow King!” she said with shock. “No one!”
“Then let him strike me down,” Valsavis said. He made a dismissive motion with one hand before she could respond. “Oh, I know he could, and easily, with no more effort than it would take for him to blink one of his evil yellow eyes. But he shall not, because he needs me. And it must be a task of some importance, else he would not have sent you, rather than some lowly messenger, as he had done in years gone by. I was preparing supper. Will you share it with me?”
She gaped at him as he turned without awaiting a reply, picked up an armload of wood, ascended the porch steps, and went into the cabin. Not knowing what else to do, she followed him.
After a hearty supper of roasted kirre steaks, together with wild mountain rice seasoned with herbs, they sat down on wood benches by the fireplace to enjoy some hot, spiced tea brewed from a mixture of wild herbs. It was a blend Valsavis had concocted, and it was delicious.
“You may have missed your calling,” Veela said as she took another sip. “You could have been a master cook. Dinner was superb.”
“I master everything I attempt,” Valsavis said simply. “There is no point in doing anything by halfway measures.”
“So do it with a master’s skill, or do not do it at all?” she asked. “Is that why you have never had a woman?”
“I have had many women,” replied Valsavis.
“But no wife.”
“I have no use for a wife,” Valsavis said with a shrug. “I occasionally have use for a woman. I had wondered when you would finally ask me about that.”
Veela stared at him. “Finally?” she said.
“You often used to wonder about it many years ago,” Valsavis said, speaking as calmly as if he were discus
sing the weather. “I see you wonder still, though you no longer seem to entertain the notion of bedding me to find out for yourself.”
Veela’s eyebrows shot up with surprise. “I? Bed you? Why… you insufferable… arrogant…”
“You can deny it all you wish, but it is true, nevertheless,” Valsavis said. “You’ve asked the question with your body and your eyes more times than I could count. Do not forget, Veela, that I am a hunter, and a hunter always takes care to learn the nature of his prey. That is why I have always studied people. Just as a beast will reveal things about itself from the trail that it leaves, so do people reveal much more than they realize by the motions of their bodies, by attitude and gesture. As a young woman, you had entertained the fantasy on numerous occasions. Doubtless because the Shadow King is, at best, an inattentive and infrequent lover. His passions do not flow in the direction of the flesh. But yours… well, perhaps when you were young…” He shrugged.
Veela stared at him open-mouthed, and then, to her own surprise, she chuckled. “It is true,” she admitted. “I had often wondered what it would be like to be your lover. I never quite knew why. You always were, and still are, such an ugly brute.”
“It was precisely for that reason you felt attracted to me,” said Valsavis. “Women are strange creatures. They claim to be repelled by brutish men, and yet they are attracted to their power. And the stronger a woman is, the more she is drawn to men who are stronger still.”
“Why should a weak man interest a strong woman?” Veela asked.
“A weak man may have many other virtues,” said Valsavis. “If he is weak in body and spirit, he may yet be kind and gentle and devoted. But a strong woman will always be able to control him. It is the man whom she cannot control that she is drawn to, for he represents a challenge, and the stimulation of unpredictability.”
“And what sort of woman are you drawn to?” Veela asked.
“One who is capable of gaining mastery over the one thing most women never do learn to control,” he said.
“And that is?”
“Herself,” Valsavis said.
“You are an interesting man, Valsavis. There is more to you than meets the eye,” she said.
“There is more to everyone than meets the eye,” he replied. “The trick is learning how to look. Now then, tell me what Nibenay wants of me.”
“I do not know,” she said.
“Yes, you do,” he said. “Tell me.”
Veela relented. “There is an elfling…” she began.
“An elfling?” Valsavis raised his eyebrows.
“Part elf, part halfling,” she replied. “He goes by the name Sorak, and he is called the Nomad…”
Valsavis listened intently as she spoke, telling him all that she had told the king, and what the king had said in response. When she was finished, Valsavis sat in silence for a moment, digesting what he had heard, then suddenly, he got up.
“We shall leave at once,” he said.
“What… now? But it will be dark soon!”
“The kank drawing your carriage does not need the light of day to see,” he said. “And your driver will be thankful not to have to spend the night waiting on the trail.”
“How did you know I came with a carriage and a driver?” she asked.
“I think it most unlikely you would have come all this way on foot,” he said. “And a senior templar of the Shadow King would never drive her own carriage.”
She grimaced. “Of course,” she said. “But you said the king could wait another day, and you gave no thought to the comfort of my driver earlier.”
“Nor do I now. I merely said he would be thankful.”
“Then why the sudden desire to leave now?” she asked.
“Because the elfling interests me,” he said. “And it has been a long time since I have had a worthy challenge.”
“Perhaps,” she said. “But it has also been a long time since you have had any challenge at all. And you are not as young as you once were.”
Valsavis moved, and suddenly two daggers thunked into the bench to either side of her, so close they pinned her robe to the wood. He had thrown them with such speed, one with each hand, that she had not even had time to react. She stared down at the daggers flanking her and cleared her throat slightly. “On the other hand, there is something to be said for the experience of age.”
Chapter One
The door to the dragon king’s chamber swung open with an ominous creaking sound, and as Valsavis stepped through, he said, “Your hinges need oiling.”
The Shadow King turned toward him slowly, regarding him with a steady gaze. Valsavis returned it unflinchingly. He had aged, thought Nibenay, but he looked as fit as ever, and he still moved with the lithe tread of a cat. He also still possessed the same annoying insolence. Even the Shadow King’s own templars trembled before Nibenay and found it difficult to meet his gaze. Not so Valsavis. There was an irritating absence of deference in his manner, and a complete absence of fear.
“I sent for you—” the dragon king said, then paused, breathing heavily, as he felt a rush of incandescent agony sweep through him. The pain was particularly bad this morning. “Come closer.”
Valsavis approached him without hesitation, stepping into the shaft of sunlight coming through the tower window.
“You have grown much older, Valsavis.”
“And you have grown much uglier, my lord.”
The Shadow King hissed with anger, and his tail twitched. “Do not try my patience, Valsavis! I know that you do not fear death. But there are worse fates that can befall a man.”
“And I am confident you know them all, my lord,” Valsavis replied casually, leaving the Shadow King to wonder if he had intended any double meaning. “Veela said you needed me.”
“I do not need,” the Shadow King replied with irritation. “But there is a matter I desire to have resolved. It concerns a wanderer from the Ringing Mountains.”
“Sorak the elfling, yes—and his villichi whore,” Valsavis said. “I know of them.” Before coming to the palace, he had first stopped at several taverns frequented by known informers and with the knowledge he already had from Veela, it was not difficult to piece together most of the story and separate the probable from the improbable. “Apparently, they came through Tyr, across the barrens and the Barrier Mountains, to cause some trouble for a suitor of one of your brood. I gather it was fatal for the suitor, and the girl in question has gone over to the Veiled Alliance.”
“Your sources are accurate, as ever,” said the Shadow King, “but it is not some slip of a rebellious daughter that concerns me now. It is the elven myth.”
“About his being some fated king of all the elves?” Valsavis asked with amusement. “It is said he bears the sword of ancient elven kings—Galdra, I believe it’s called. A wandering stranger and a fabled sword. What better fodder for a minstrel? He slays a few of your slow-witted giants and drunken bards make him the hero of the moment. Surely you do not give credence to such nonsense?”
“It is far from nonsense,” Nibenay replied. “Galdra exists, but it seems you have heard the bastardized version of the myth. The bearer of Galdra is not the King of Elves, according to the prophecy, but the Crown of Elves. So if the legend is true, then he is not a king, but a king-maker.”
“Shall I kill him for you, then?”
“No,” Nibenay replied firmly. “Not yet. First, find for me the king that this Nomad would make. The crown shall lead you to the king.”
Valsavis frowned. “Why should you be concerned about an elven king? The elves are tribal, they don’t even desire a king.”
“The Crown of Elves, according to the legend, will not merely empower an elven king, but a great mage, a ruler who shall bring all of Athas under his thrall,” said Nibenay.
“Another sorcerer-king?” Valsavis asked.
“Worse,” Nibenay replied with a sibilant hiss. “So find this king for me, and the crown shall be your prize, to dispose of as y
ou will.”
Valsavis raised his eyebrow at the thought that any coming ruler could be worse than a sorcerer-king, but he kept his peace. Instead, he addressed himself to more immediate concerns. “So I trail this elfling for you, find and kill the king that he would make, and for my trouble, you offer me nothing but the elfling and his woman, to dispose of as I wish? Who would ransom such a pair? Even on the slave markets, they would bring a paltry reward in return for all my effort.”
“You would bargain with me?” the dragon king said, lashing his tail back and forth angrily.
“No, my lord, I would never stoop to bargain. My fee for such a task would be ten thousand gold pieces.
“What? You must be mad!” said Nibenay, more astonished than angered at his temerity.
“It is a price you could easily afford,” Valsavis said. “Such a sum means nothing to you, and a comfortable old age for me. With such an incentive, I would approach my task with zeal and vigor. Without it, I would face my old age and infirmity alone and destitute.” He shrugged. “I might as well refuse and be killed now than die so mean a death.”
In spite of himself, the dragon king chuckled. The mercenary’s arrogance amused him, and it had been a long time since he had felt amused. “Very well. You will have your ten thousand in gold. And I will even throw in one of my young wives to care for you in your dotage. Is that incentive enough for you?”
“Will I have my choice from among your harem?” Valsavis asked.
“As you please,” the dragon king replied. “They mean nothing to me anymore.”
“Very well, then. Consider it done,” Valsavis said, turning to leave.
“Wait,” said the Shadow King. “I have not yet dismissed you.”
“There is something more, my lord?”
“Take this,” said Nibenay, holding out a ring to him with his clawed fingers. It was made of gold and carved in the shape of a closed eye. “Through this, I shall monitor your progress. And if you should need my aid, you may reach me through this ring.”
Valsavis took the ring and put it on. “Will that be all, my lord?”
