The Verdant Passage

by Denning, Troy

  No sooner had the trainer finished his threat than Rikus felt an earthenware mug smash against his back. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Yarig grab his halfling partner, who was just reaching for a wooden bowl to throw. The dwarf shrugged, but made no apology for her.

  Rikus shook his head and faced Boaz again. Before he could say anything, he heard a wispy voice inside his head. He lies.

  “What?” Rikus demanded, grabbing his ears. He turned to Neeva. “Did you hear that?”

  When she ignored him, Yarig asked, “A voice inside your head?” The dwarf still had not released Anezka.

  Rikus nodded.

  “No, I didn’t hear it just now,” he answered. “But I have in the last few days.”

  Rikus furrowed his hairless brow and shook his head.

  “If—”

  Boaz laughed at the mul’s confusion. “It’s the gaj, you buffoon. It was talking to you.”

  “Talking to me?” Rikus gasped, half-disgusted and half-frightened. The gaj’s stinging tentacles and the way it had scorched his mind glowed fresh in his memory.

  Yes. I am learning to speak well, the gaj reported.

  Boaz looked toward the pen opposite Rikus’s. The beast inside had moved in front of its gate, and the tips of its pincers protruded between the iron bars. Rikus could barely see the gaj’s bulbous white head inside the murky pen.

  “We’ve learned a lot about the gaj over the last couple of days, haven’t we?” Boaz said. “It doesn’t eat bodies, it eats minds.” He took a step toward its pen.

  The beast scuttled back into the shadows. Boaz knows an elf called Radurak, the gaj said in Rikus’s mind. Radurak has your woman.

  Rikus turned to Yarig. “Did you hear that?”

  The dwarf shook his head. “It only talks to one person at a time,” he said.

  Boaz will tell Tithian where to find her.

  “How do you know?” Rikus asked.

  It’s in his thoughts, the gaj replied.

  In the corridor, Boaz picked up a loose stone and threw it into the gaj’s cage. “How come you don’t talk to me anymore?”

  Rikus was stunned. Should he believe the gaj, or was this some sort of trick on Boaz’s part to get him to reveal what he knew of Sadira? Rikus had heard of the Way, of course, and knew that it could be used to speak telepathically. What he had trouble accepting was that an overgrown bug like the gaj might be intelligent enough to use it. Still, he had no choice except to believe what he heard inside his head.

  Boaz drained the last of his milkwine, then threw the carafe at the gaj. “Stupid beast!” He started to stumble out of the animal shed.

  “Tell me, Boaz, do you think telling Tithian about Radurak will make the high templar forgive you?” Rikus called.

  Boaz stopped dead. “Where did you hear Radurak’s name?”

  Any doubts about what the gaj had told him vanished from Rikus’s mind. “I don’t think it’ll help you,” the mul continued, ignoring the trainer’s question. “Lord Tithian will still blame you for not noticing Sadira’s powers, and then for letting her escape.”

  Rikus heard Neeva shuffle in the dark corner to which she had retreated. He glanced at her and saw that, although she still glowered at him, she had dropped the cape from her shoulders and watched him closely. The mul breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t know what would happen next, but he was happy to see that she would back him up.

  Boaz returned and stood in front of Rikus’s pen, safely out of reach. “You had better hope my confinement is lifted,” the trainer said. Though he stank of fermented milk, the half-elf suddenly appeared almost sober. Rikus feared it would be difficult to lure him close enough to the gate to strike.

  “Life is growing tedious on this estate,” Boaz continued. “When I get bored, I get irritable. Things could go very hard on you and your friends if Tithian is not in a forgiving mood.”

  “Perhaps I should put in a good word for you with the high templar,” Rikus offered.

  Behind Boaz, the gaj, too, moved forward, pushing its pincers through the bars of its cage in an effort to snag the trainer. The mandibles were too short to reach the half-elf, but an idea occurred to Rikus that might make it possible to kill Boaz and save Sadira, without sacrificing his dream of freedom.

  The trainer sneered at Rikus’s offer of aid. “I doubt that I’ll let you live long enough to speak with Lord Tithian.”

  Gaj, if you want Boaz, here’s what to do, Rikus thought, hoping the beast could hear his thoughts as it had heard Boaz’s. He laid out a simple plan.

  He must be alive, came the reply. If he dies before my antennae touch his head, his mind will be spoiled for me.

  Yes, Rikus agreed. He grabbed the bars of his gate, then said to Boaz, “After I’m free, the first thing I’m going to do is track you into a dark street—”

  The mul did not have a chance to finish his threat. Behind the trainer, the gaj threw itself at its gate. A tremendous crash echoed through the animal shed as the beast’s carapace struck the iron bars, triggering an immediate chorus of alarmed squeals and roars from the other pens.

  As Rikus had hoped, the startled trainer leaped away from the gaj, straight into the mul’s waiting arms. Rikus grabbed Boaz by the collar, pulling the half-elf toward the gate. The astonished trainer started to cry for help, but Rikus slapped a massive hand over the man’s mouth.

  “Rikus!” gasped Neeva. “What are you doing?”

  “Repaying Sadira for saving my life,” the mul responded. “Get his keys and unlock our gate.”

  Don’t kill him! the gaj urged, settling back into its pen.

  “You’ll have him alive—more or less,” Rikus answered, squeezing Boaz’s mouth with all his strength. He felt a series of satisfying pops as the half-elf’s front teeth broke away at the roots.

  Boaz groaned in pain, then reached for the dirk at his belt. Rikus grabbed the trainer’s wrist with his free hand. “Wrong move,” he said, pulling the offending arm through the gate. He pressed the forearm against an iron bar until he heard a sharp crack. A muffled wail escaped Boaz’s covered lips.

  “You’ll get us killed,” Neeva said, stepping to Rikus’s side. She removed the key ring from Boaz’s belt.

  “Not if my plan works,” Rikus replied, giving his fighting partner a confident wink. “They’ll think the gaj did it.”

  “They’d better,” Neeva said, moving to the gate lock and fitting keys into it.

  Rikus looked at the dwarf, who still held onto Anezka, though it no longer appeared that she needed to be restrained. “Yarig, you’ll have to lift the gate for Neeva to crawl under.”

  “I don’t like it,” the dwarf said. “You shouldn’t have done something like this without asking us first.”

  Boaz tried to pull free. Without looking away from Yarig, Rikus slammed him back into the gate. “Don’t you think asking would have ruined the surprise?”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Yarig answered stubbornly. “This affects all of us. I don’t care if you are the champion. You can’t make decisions like this on your own.”

  Rikus rolled his eyes, then let go of Boaz’s broken wrist. “You’re right,” the mul said. “I’ll let him go.”

  Anezka shook her bead urgently.

  Neeva turned a key in the gate lock and a loud click echoed in the cell. “Make up your mind, Yarig,” she said.

  “We’ll push Boaz over to the gaj, lock ourselves back in, and toss the keys in front of its pen,” Rikus said, once more slamming the half-elf into the gate—this time only because he enjoyed doing so. “Everyone will think he was drunk, wandering around in here, and got too close to the cage.”

  Yarig released the halfling and slowly lifted the gate. Once he had raised it high enough for Neeva to crawl beneath, she went into the corridor and restrained Boaz from the outside while Rikus left the pen.

  In both directions, the long corridor was lined with steel gates similar to the one from beneath which the mul had just crawled. In a fe
w places, he could see claws or tentacles or vaguely humanlike hands protruding from between the bars, but otherwise every pen appeared identical.

  As Rikus stepped into the corrider, Neeva shoved Boaz toward a cage a short distance away. A powerful, acrid odor rose from the pen.

  “Rikus, maybe we should feed Boaz to a raakle instead of the gaj,” Neeva said.

  No, Rikus! the gaj whined. You promised!

  The trainer cringed, and his eyes glazed with horror. Rikus did not blame him for being frightened. Raakles were brilliantly colored birds the size of half-giants, but their mouths were short tubular beaks no larger around than a man’s fingers. They digested their prey by gripping it with their powerful, three-clawed feet, then spitting sticky acid over it. This fluid reduced bone and flesh alike to a pulpy ooze that the bird sucked up through its small mouth.

  Though he would have enjoyed hearing Boaz scream in the terrible agony of being digested alive, Rikus shook his head. “I gave my word,” he said. “Besides, being eaten by a raakle can’t compare to the pain the gaj will cause Boaz’s mind.”

  “If you say so.” Neeva shoved the trainer toward the gaj’s pen.

  Rikus laid a hand on his fighting partner’s shoulder and shook his head. “I’ll take him,” Rikus said. He substituted his hand for the one that Neeva had been using to hold Boaz’s bleeding mouth closed. “I want the pleasure of feeding him to the gaj myself.”

  The gaj thrust its mandibles as far into the corridor as they would go. Rikus stepped toward the pen.

  Boaz mumbled something at the mul. Though the trainer was doing his best to appear menacing and confident, fear and panic softened his sharp features.

  The gladiator moved the hand covering the half-elf’s mouth just far enough to hear what he had to say. “You’ll never get away with this,” Boaz hissed. “Tithian will know what happened, and Neeva will be the one who pays.”

  “You’re the only one who’s going to pay,” Rikus interrupted. The mul smashed a fist into the half-elf’s rib cage. Boaz cried out, then began to wheeze.

  Please, Rikus, the gaj asked. Give him to me now.

  Boaz tried to call for help, but with his broken ribs and teeth, only incoherent mumbles came from his mouth. Rikus smiled, then pushed the half-elf across the corridor. The gaj’s barbed mandibles closed on the trainer’s abdomen, and a pair of whiplike antennae lashed out of the pen, entwining themselves around its victim’s brow.

  Despite his injuries, Boaz found the strength to scream.

  SEVEN

  A BIDDING WAR

  THE INSTANT AGIS STEPPED INTO THE HASTILY ERECTED slaveyard, his eyes fell on a white-haired man standing amidst the crowd of nobles who had gathered there. Though the old fellow was only a few inches taller than the people around him, he stood out from the jabbering throng by virtue of his silent demeanor. Over his broad shoulders he wore an ivory-colored cape, and in his hand he carried an obsidian-pommeled cane that left no doubt in Agis’s mind that the man was the sorcerer who had returned his dagger to him in Shadow Square.

  “What’s he doing at a slave auction?” Agis murmured.

  “Buying slaves, I suspect,” Caro replied sarcastically. “Isn’t that what one does at these iniquitous affairs?”

  “You asked to come, Caro. If you don’t intend to be good company, perhaps I should send you home,” Agis replied.

  Along with fifty other lords and the sorcerer, Agis and Caro stood beneath the Elven Bridge, an ancient structure spanning the dusty bed of the Forgotten River. According to legend, the magnificent bridge had once crossed a broad, slow-moving estuary of glistening water. Now the edifice was no more than a useless relic, for all that remained below it was a short bend of dry gulch sealed at both ends by piles of rubble. The only signs of water in the riverbed were white crusts of calcium and lime left on the bridge piers two decades past—the last time it had rained in Tyr.

  Currently, an enterprising tribe of elves was using the area below the bridge as a slaveyard. They had created a small square by erecting four walls of dirty hemp and had invited a select group of nobles to attend a surreptitious auction. Judging by the bulging purses hanging from the nobles’ belts today, the elves’ trade promised to be a brisk one.

  Agis turned his attention to the old man. “Come along, Caro,” he said, starting across the square. “Let’s have a word with our friend.”

  In the days following the uprising in the square, there had been no indication that the templars knew about Agis’s participation in the affair. Neither had Jaseela been questioned. Agis might have banished the memory of his involvement in the whole matter, save that he found that he did not want to. In killing the half-giant, he had crossed some intangible line. Now, for better or worse, he was a rebel.

  With his aged manservant close behind, the noble worked his way through the crowd. Several acquaintances invited him to stop and gossip, but he risked seeming rude by giving them brisk replies and moving along.

  By the time he reached the sorcerer’s side, a pair of seven-foot elves had already stepped into the makeshift square. They politely cleared a space in which they could display the slaves.

  “We meet again,” Agis said, smiling at the sorcerer.

  The old man gave him a blank stare. “Do I know you?”

  Though Agis was certain the sorcerer recognized him, he decided to play along. “You were kind enough to give me directions to the Red Kank a few days ago.”

  The old man’s face remained sour and blank, but he said, “I see you survived your little expedition.”

  “Yes, thank you,” the noble replied, offering his hand. “I’m Agis of Asticles.”

  The sorcerer ignored the introduction and looked away. “Don’t give me reason to regret what I did for you.”

  “It surprises me to see you here,” Agis noted casually, ignoring the affront.

  “Nobles aren’t the only ones who need slaves,” the old man commented.

  “I didn’t think the Veiled Alliance condoned slavery.”

  The sorcerer raised an eyebrow. “You have mistaken me for someone else,” he said. Without waiting for a response, he muscled his way through the crowd and left Agis behind.

  For a moment, the noble considered pursuing the old man to brooch the subject of a coalition between himself and the Veiled Alliance. Unfortunately, he suspected that pursuing the subject in a public place would make the sorcerer even less inclined to listen. The noble decided that if the old man was attending a slave auction, there was a good reason. By watching carefully, he might learn something that would enable him to approach the Alliance under better circumstances.

  A pale elf with black hair stepped into the square. Instead of the typical desert burnoose that most elves favored, he wore a fine cloak of brushed fleece. The elf lifted his hands to quiet the crowd. “Gentlemen and gentlewomen, welcome. I am your host, Radurak, and it gives me great pleasure to present to you a collection of slaves brought all the way from Balic—”

  “Your tribe hasn’t been away from Tyr in six months,” cal led a noble.

  Radurak tipped his hat to the noble. “The Runners of Guthay have many warriors,” he said, grinning slyly. “A few of us have been to Balic more recently than you think.”

  Several nobles expressed open skepticism at the statement. Though what Radurak claimed may have been true, it would have been difficult to move a sizable number of slaves across such a vast distance with only a few warriors. It seemed more likely that the elves had stolen the slaves from legitimate traders. Had it not been for the old man’s presence and his own desperate need of slaves, Agis would have left at that moment. He did not like doing business with thieves.

  “I’m sure all of the commodities you offer come from legal slave stock,” called another noble.

  “Of course,” Radurak replied. “Unfortunately, the seals of ownership were taken by raiders, not fifty miles outside Tyr. You have my word that every one of the fine specimens I sell today is my tribe’s prop
erty.”

  This brought a round of laughter from the skeptical lords. Finally a voice called, “Let’s just get on with it! I want to have my slaves tucked safely inside my townhouse by nightfall.”

  Agis looked toward the speaker and saw that it was Dyan. He elected not to greet the portly noble, as he no longer felt a kinship with the cowards who had deserted him and Jaseela in the square.

  Radurak bowed. “By your request.”

  For the rest of the day, Radurak and his elves presented a motley assortment of paupers, sots, and cretins they had assembled for the auction. After the first hour, Agis had no doubt that the entire bunch had been gathered from the alleys of the Elven Market. At one point, the sorcerer lifted a hand to wipe the sweat from his brow and Agis glimpsed a fat purse hanging from the belt beneath his white tabard. He had, indeed, come to buy something, though Agis could not figure out what.

  As the afternoon wore on, the nobles began to grumble about the quality of the stock and complain bitterly that half the slaves would die before they reached the estates. Radurak took their protests in stride and continued to smile, as well he might. The slaves were drawing ten times their value. Some desperate nobles were even bidding on men so feeble they had to be carried into the yard.

  Finally, as dusk began to fall and the square was plunged into swarthy shadows, the elves brought no more slaves into the makeshift yard.

  “I’m afraid you have depleted my stock,” Radurak said.

  A disappointed murmur ran around the courtyard. As bad as the elf’s slaves were, they were all that had been available in Tyr since Tithian’s confiscations had begun.

  The pale elf smiled warmly, then raised his hands, “As a way of thanking you for your patronage, I have a special treat.”

  Radurak clapped his hands twice. Immediately a pair of elves escorted a lithe half-elf female into the yard. For the benefit of their human customers, the elves carried a pair of torches that cast an enchanting yellow light over the slave-girl. Agis could see that she was as beautiful as any noblewoman, with a willowy figure and elegant features. Her long amber hair spilled over her shoulders in silky waves, and her pale blue eyes were as clear as the finest gem. Had Agis been the sort of man to take concubines, she was the woman he would have wanted.