Death Mark
Page 1
Loren stood in a shadowy hall, waiting for his turn to die. A muted roar sounded, a murmur in the stones, and sent the gladiator’s stomach leaping and sweat beading on his tanned, scarred skin. Loren had fought in the arena many times, and Nibenay’s people seemed unmoved. The fight before him was different, for the people shouted for him. If he won, he would be free.
He was not alone in the small, bare chamber set aside for arena gladiators. Two hunched slaves stood on either side of the double doors, awaiting the order to pull them open. Skulls, scalps, and other trophies hung from the wood, good luck charms most gladiators touched on their way out to the pit.
Loren’s partner leaned against the far wall. Aeris was short, slight, and seemed out of place in the arena. He wore ill-fitted, studded leather armor, a cap one size too big, and he was examining a large glove bristling with spikes. He looked up to Loren and said something, but the noise from outside drowned out his words.
Loren could feel the old fear worming through his guts. He had survived some two dozen matches in Nibenay without being maimed or killed, an accomplishment in its own right. Each time he waited to fight, he felt the same dread chewing inside him, a flutter in his stomach, and slight dizziness. They were fears. They fled before any actual work had to be done.
Any other match and Loren could tell himself he had a good chance at winning. The arena masters hated it when prized gladiators went free and made it their task to kill anyone who got too close. Nibenay was no different from any other city-state in the Seven Cities. The gladiator’s life was short and brutish and almost always ended bleeding out on crimson sands to the crowd’s roars.
novels set in athas,
the world of dark sun®
City under the Sand
JEFF MARIOTTE
Under the Crimson Sun
KEITH R. A. DECANDIDO
Death Mark: The Dread of this Desolation
ROBERT J. SCHWALB
Dungeons & Dragons®
Dark Sun®
DEATH MARK
©2011 Wizards of the Coast LLC
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Cover art by: Justin Sweet
Map by: Robert Lazzaretti
eISBN: 978-0-7869-5940-2
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v3.1
For Stacee Smith,
Without you, this would not have been possible.
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Map
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Aftermath
About the Author
beneath a crimson sun lie wastelands of majestic desolation and cities of cruel splendor, where sandal-clad heroes battle ancient sorcery and terrible monsters. This is Athas, the world of the Dark Sun, a dying planet of savagery and desolation. Sand, rock, sun, burning heat—these are the only properties that Athas possesses in abundance. Every living creature in the world works constantly to obtain food and safeguard water. Hunters might go days without finding suitable prey, and herders must drive their flocks from place to place to find good grazing. Water is scarce in the known regions of Athas, and those who control life-giving wells or springs jealously guard access to such riches.
City dwellers enjoy more security than do nomads or villagers living in the deserts, but it takes legions of workers—most of them slaves—toiling in the fields to support a city’s population. Great and terrible sorcerer-kings rule the city-states, each a long-lived tyrant who crushes dissent. Rapacious nobles, corrupt templars, ruthless merchants, and legions of brutal soldiers profit from or support the sorcerer-kings’ reigns, while the common folk groan under unjust laws and harsh taxation. Slaves survive only as long as they can earn one more day’s worth of food and water with their backbreaking toil. For most people, life is a choice between struggling to survive in the wasted wilderness and trading freedom for the relative safety of the oppressive city-states.
This is Athas, a world of cruelty and tyranny, a place of savage beauty and barbaric splendor—a world of heroes.
Whoever controls the mines controls the world,” said Thaxos Vordon. “It is as simple as that.”
The whip-thin, gray-haired man leaned forward in his chair, his palms pressed on his knees. He swept his gaze across the gathering of lords and ladies who reclined on couches, where they sipped wine, smoked pipes, and, for the most part, pretended he wasn’t there. About twenty nobles with twice as many retainers sat around the hall. Those of higher standing claimed the padded couches ideal for passing the hours in a stupor, while the servants, who just a few months back would have been slaves, navigated their betters, pouring wine into wide bowls and offering fruits, confections, and other delicacies heaped on wooden platters.
The room itself was just large enough to hold the assembled crowd. The high ceiling, somewhat obscured by the smoke, held a mosaic displaying benevolent nobles attending slaves in all the labors they were expected to perform, from toiling in the fields to pleasing their masters and mistresses in the bedchamber. Even the columns demonstrated the nobles’ authority, each boasting intricate bas-reliefs showing humans, dwarves, and other races at work.
From the nobles, there was no answer to Vordon’s pronouncement, no response beyond muttering and laughter. Vordon studied his audience. He found a mass of painted faces and garish costumes, sneering expressions and glares. He found no welcome and no interest in those gathered and sensed their annoyance at his intrusion.
Yet Vordon remained. He sat, still and watching, waiting for a response,
some word, some sign of acknowledgment before he pressed on with his business.
“Dune trader, you did not come all this way to state the obvious,” said a noblewoman clothed in a clingy dress stained dark by her sweat from her fleshy body. “You will find everyone here is well acquainted with Tyr’s situation. We know our beloved city-state struggles.”
Vordon allowed himself a small smile at the attempted insult. Dune traders were common merchants, travelers, and peddlers far below his station. His riches were no guarantor of respect or honor from the lot before him, though. Even the mightiest merchant princes were expected to show deference to the nobility, and their derision brooked few doubts in Vordon’s mind about their opinions of him.
“Is that so, Lady Gorgol?” he said. “All evidence suggests otherwise, I am afraid. If you understood matters as you claim, why is it our city-state’s fortunes have fallen so low? Why do the mines still stand closed even now after the late King Kalak closed them?”
Another noble, a gaunt man in red robes, far too heavy for the room’s closeness and warmth, said, “You know as well as we, King Tithian has refused to open them, despite the promises he made to gain his crown. I, and others here as well, have spoken with him at great length about reopening the mines, yet he resists.”
“And his reason?” asked Vordon.
“He may not say it aloud, but a shortage of cheap labor seems likely,” sneered another noble from behind a feathered mask.
“Yes. Labor. Slaves. How the world has changed now that slaves are free, yes?” said Vordon.
“This new freedom,” said Lady Gorgol, “will destroy us all. How are we to attend our crops without slaves to work the fields? Without them, the people will starve.”
“You are correct. But without iron from the mines and flesh on the auction block, Tyr has nothing to trade. And without trade, I cannot see how Tyr will ever escape its doom,” said Vordon, emphasizing the last.
Vordon pressed on, “We live in a new age, my lords and ladies, a time unlike any other in Tyr’s history. The old king Kalak was a cruel and tyrannical master, but he was one who understood the workings of the world, even if his understanding became clouded in the end. His death changed everything. Power shifted to the chattel who now pull the strings of the puppet we put on Kalak’s throne in the Golden Tower.”
“Treason!” piped a fastidious little man named Lord Ruel, slight with pinched features. Rumors about what he had done to his slaves sullied his reputation, and whether true or not, the damage had put him in a precarious political situation.
“Is it treason to lament the changes sweeping through our city?” asked Vordon. “Is it treason to hope for a return to a time when slaves pulled iron from our mines, worked our fields, and served us all? For the time when coin flowed into our coffers?”
Vordon abandoned his seat. More whispers. More stares.
“I have no doubts about what our upjumped-templar king would think of these words. Treason indeed. I think, however, I have heard enough from his kind. No more games, lords and ladies. Do not waste my time or yours with feeble protestations of loyalty to the crown. I know your hearts. We might differ in station, but we are the same when it comes to our new king, Tithian.”
Vordon gestured for a servant to refill his bowl with wine. He set it on a side table, leaving the vintage unsampled. He turned toward a cough.
“Have you forgotten?” said a handsome woman in a long, thin gown. “King Kalak closed the mines, ordered our slaves seized, and then bled the city dry. For what? To construct an edifice to himself. The Ziggurat. Kalak’s Folly. That grotesque testament to the old king’s madness will mar our city for ages until someone has the stones to tear it down.”
“Of course, you are correct, Lady Eremy,” said Vordon. He nodded. “King Kalak was not without his flaws, but we still do not know why he did what he did. Perhaps the Ziggurat was to protect the city from some as yet unrealized threat. Perhaps he had it built to contain some dangerous relic? Who knows for certain? He was struck down before he could reveal its purpose. Yes, the cost was high—maybe too high—but condemning him without the facts is, well, foolish.”
“He was mad. The Ziggurat fed the sorcerer-king’s vanity,” answered another voice from a man Vordon could not see.
“It is no matter. Kalak is dead and we, merchants and nobles, are no better off now than we were before,” said Vordon. “You asked me why I came here this night, why a mere merchant believes he has the right to address such an esteemed body. Well, I come to you as a patriot. I may have foresworn my loyalties to king and crown when I donned the merchant’s mantle, but Tyr is my home as much as yours, and there is nothing I want more than to restore this city to its rightful place as the leader of the Seven Cities. So long as Tithian sits on the throne, Tyr will stumble and flail like a diseased man until someone else comes to deliver the killing blow.”
“So it’s to be rebellion, then? An uprising?” asked a shadowed figure leaning against a column.
“If it comes to that, yes,” said Vordon.
“You cannot be serious!” shouted Lord Ruel. “You heard the rumors about Urik. We already appear weak, and a civil war will be an invitation for King Hamanu’s legions to invade.”
“He’s right,” interjected another. “Whether we like Tithian or not, he is our best hope to protect what little we have left. We should stand with our king, combine our armies, and defend the city.”
“We could. And if we could unite the various factions behind Tithian, perhaps we might even win. However, once we send King Hamanu’s dogs running home, what’s to stop another sorcerer-king from finishing what Urik began? How many wars can we fight, impoverished, without slaves, without iron? Also, I have heard Tithian’s templars are weak, stripped of their magic when Kalak died.”
A woman opened her mouth to speak, but another, called the Scorpion behind raised hands, interrupted, “A pretty speech. Some of us might agree with the substance, if not the particulars, of what you have said. You’ve still not told us what it is you want.”
Vordon spread his arms and bowed. “My deepest apologies, lady. To the point, then. Regardless of who sits on the throne, Tyr will never be strong until the mines reopen. And without slaves to work them, the mines will never produce what they did. What I want is to abolish the ridiculous ban against slavery. So long as Tithian answers to the ‘people,’ there is no hope of returning the city to what it was or guiding it forward to what it could be.
“We must remove the king and replace him with one friendlier to our ambitions. We must also act now. Otherwise, we might as well throw open the gates to King Hamanu when he comes calling. But even then Hamanu will not reward us for handing him the city, and I expect my head to line the walls along with all of yours. Urik is just beyond the horizon, and the desert lies between us. Hamanu’s armies could be here in weeks. And then the Lion King will conquer Tyr. But doing so would expose him too much for him to hold it. No. Urik will plunder the city, enslave its people, and raze it to the ground. If someone amenable to Hamanu took the throne, however, someone who gave Urik the iron and slaves needed to mine it, perhaps everyone here would benefit. We can name a reasonable price, and Hamanu will come out ahead for it. Taking the city, holding the city, will cost him far, far more.”
“What do you gain from this, dune trader?” asked Lady Gorgol. “How does risking your own neck plotting against King Tithian profit you? We are not fools to think your sudden patriotism does not mask some ulterior motive.”
Vordon chuckled. “Quite right. Quite right. King Kalak devastated my house when he closed the iron mines, and what was a terrible situation worsened with the present ban against slavery. My fortunes are failing under the present regime, and moving to a different city would put my family at too great a disadvantage. My rivals would destroy me just as Hamanu will destroy Tyr. So, to cite a cliché, I have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
“I will remove Tithian from the throne and install a kin
g who understands he rules by your consent alone. A change from what we have known these long centuries. Tyr will become strong again. You will reclaim your power, your influence, and all the property taken from you when the king freed the slaves will be restored.”
“And the price?” asked the Scorpion.
Vordon clasped his hands. “Iron. House Vordon gets exclusive rights to trade any ore extracted from the mines once production resumes.”
Arguments broke out all across the room, and the noise drowned out Vordon’s efforts to quiet them. As they bickered, Vordon scanned the shadows, picking out servants who stood apart from the rest, almost lurking in the shadows. He raised his hand and showed his palm. A shadow nodded. No one else noticed.
The Scorpion rose from the couch where she had been sitting. She raised her hands to silence her fellows. She was striking, slender with long black hair and an olive complexion. “Thaxos Vordon, I am not certain what arrangement you had with King Kalak to think we would hand over Tyr’s greatest resource to someone who’s not even a citizen of the city. Even if we somehow agreed to this, everything turns on replacing King Tithian. With what army will you overthrow the king? Furthermore, who would replace him? Produce a name.”
“Ah. The new king? Yes. I would be the king. I can think of no one better to guide Tyr into the future than myself,” said Vordon with a bow.
Quiet settled over the room. They offered incredulous stares and slack jaws. A few titters then became open mockery.
“You can’t be serious,” said Lord Ruel. “A merchant king?”
“These are serious matters, are they not?” asked Vordon. “Why not a merchant? The templars have proven themselves useless, and yet we must now endure an insufferable one on the throne. The nobles are too divided to rally behind their own. And no one would put a commoner on the throne. A merchant is above the city’s politics. Commerce is the merchant’s true concern, and commerce is what Tyr needs to survive the troubled days ahead. Under my rule, Tyr would regain its prominence in the Seven Cities and enter a new era of power and prosperity. So yes. Me.”