“Of course it is.” Tricht’tha had been sounding outraged throughout the conversation, but for those four words, she kicked it up a bit, as if the very notion that they were discussing anything other than a treasure map was absurd.
“Which is why we can’t do anything with it,” Karalith said with a sigh. “Believe me, we’d love the treasure-and I’d love to go and dig for it, it sounds like tremendous fun-but we’d need digging equipment, shelters, receptacles for the sand, and people who actually know what they’re doing.”
Without even thinking, Vas asked, “Can’t you just hire people?”
This time, Karalith’s smile was more sardonic. “You make it sound so simple, Vizier Belrik. We make enough coin to survive in this world, to feed ourselves and our mounts, and to maintain our carriage-but just that. Even if we had the spare savings to mount an expedition to find this treasure, we could not spare the time. We’d lose our spaces in bazaars like this, not to mention-”
Vas held up a hand. “I understand, believe me.” He smiled. “Of course, I have no such impediments.”
Tricht’tha gazed upon Vas with her large red eyes as if seeing him for the first time. “Are you saying, sir, that you might be interested in purchasing this map?”
“I might,” Vas said quickly. He was hardly about to commit to anything, though the notion of hunting for treasure was a very appealing one. In fact, in his mind, he was already starting to plan the expedition. He knew some colleagues of Tova’s father who had done some digging, and he knew where he could get a good deal on the equipment. He’d have to borrow some of Torthal’s bodyguards, but that wouldn’t be a problem. Mentally thinking over his roster of slaves, he wasn’t sure how much use they’d be for something like this. Maybe he could hire some mercenaries?
Best of all, he could get away from Tova for months.
Realizing he was getting ahead of himself, he turned to the thri-kreen. “The first question I must ask, however, is why you’re selling the map? Why not take the treasure for yourself?”
Making several desultory clicking noises, Tricht’tha said, “For similar reasons to that of Karalith. I do not have the means to avail myself of the map’s bounty. And-” she hesitated, and clicked a few more times, “leave us say that it would not be healthy for me to be seen anywhere near Kled in this lifetime.”
Nodding, Vas regarded the map again. “I can give you ten gold for this.”
The thri-kreen let out a burst of clicks, with some spitting thrown in for good measure. Vas wouldn’t need Cristophe to translate that. “Sebowkan the Elder’s treasure,” she finally said in Common, “is reputed to be six thousand gold. That’s real gold, not ceramic that claims to be gold. At the very least, I deserve twenty percent of that.”
Vas had been afraid she’d ask for the full six thousand, at first. Or even more, since six thousand in metal gold was actually worth more than the equivalent in ceramic coins. “Twelve hundred gold? For a piece of parchment that I don’t even know is real?”
“Oh, it is real,” Cristophe said in as excited a voice as Vas had ever heard him use. “Or, rather, at the very least, it’s from the time period in question. You see, during the Green Age, most of the parchments that were created in the region near the Ringing Mountains had an impurity. If you look closely, you can see it.”
Cristophe was pointing a bony finger at the upper portion of the map. Peering at it, Vas saw that there was an odd marking in it that didn’t match up with the rest of the map. Holding the map up toward the sunlight, he saw that it was in the parchment itself.
Handing the map back to Cristophe, he said, “So that dates it to the right period?”
“Absolutely. And that treasure was never found. If nothing else, this is a valuable piece of history.”
Vas snorted. “Of what use is history, old man? It’s the treasure that interests me.” Looking at the thri-kreen, he said, “I’ll give you five hundred for it.”
“Eleven hundred is a very fair price, given the reward.” Now Tricht’tha had folded her upper and middle pincers together in a defiant gesture.
Karalith was staring at the thri-kreen in something like amazement. “Are you brain-baked, Tricht’tha? You’ve never even seen five hundred gold in your life. Take it and have done with it.”
Tricht’tha seemed to bridle at that. “I think that at the very least I should get a thousand gold.”
Vas had been hoping she’d go for something closer to seven-fifty. Raising any more than that would widen eyes all across Belrik Hakran stables. But even if he paid the thousand, and then another couple of hundred for everything he’d need, he’d come out ahead once the six-thousand-gold treasure was located.
In truth, just being able to get away from the chaos-both the larger chaos of Raam and the at-home lunacy of Tova-for several months was probably worth paying upwards of fifteen hundred gold.
“All right,” he finally said, “a thousand. Let’s arrange to meet back here at sunrise tomorrow.”
Again, the thri-kreen bristled. “Why the delay?”
Vas laughed, but it was Karalith who responded. “Honestly, Tricht’tha, do you think that a fine gentleman such as Vizier Belrik would carry around that much coin with him?”
“With all respect to the fine wares of the Serthlara Emporium,” Vas said with a quick bow toward Karalith, “there isn’t anything here, generally, that is worth a thousand gold.”
“Generally.” Tricht’tha emphasized the word heavily. She also all but yanked the map out of Cristophe’s surprised hands. “I will, of course, hold onto this until we meet tomorrow.”
“Of course.” Vas turned to Karalith. “And I’ll also take thirty feet of the linen.”
“Excellent.” Karalith favored him with her brightest smile-though again, no teeth.
“Also,” Vas added, “an invitation to dine with me after I purchase the map tomorrow morning.”
Karalith lowered her gaze slightly. “I have obligations, Vizier Belrik. While I am flattered, I doubt that my parents would be overjoyed at my shirking my responsibility to the emporium to indulge myself with you.”
Somehow, Vas managed not to comment on how much indulgence he wanted. In truth, he was hoping that she would agree to come with him on his treasure hunt. She had said that it might be great fun, so maybe-just maybe-he could convince her to take a leave of absence from her family business to aid him in his hunt. He might even give her a small percentage of the treasure, which she could give to Serthlara. A finder’s fee.
But that was for tomorrow. For tonight, he needed to convince the accountants that he needed a thousand gold ceramic coins.
It would be difficult, and a massive risk.
That was secondary, though, to the fact that it would be an adventure-exactly what he’d been hoping for.
He’d just have to endure a great deal of Tova’s yelling tonight.
CHAPTER TWO
The jerky tasted like ashes in Fehrd Anspah’s mouth. Gamely, he chewed on it anyway. He had little choice. The salt and protein were necessary for when they started walking again. The midday sun was beating down on their white canvas tent. It would be at least another hour before the sun came away from its zenith and the Great Alluvial Sand Wastes would be passable again. Only a fool traveled the Alluvial at midday, and Fehrd and his friends never considered themselves to be fools.
Of course, plenty of other people had different opinions.
“Hurry up,” Gan Storvis said. “I want to get moving.” He was fidgeting, constantly adjusting the silk patch that covered the hole where his left eye used to be. Had the tent more space, Fehrd suspected that Gan would have been pacing, but there was barely room for the three of them to sit in the thing, especially with the layers of wrapped linen that protected them from the elements bulking them all up.
Fehrd blinked. “Are you out of your mind? We can’t go out there for at least-”
“It’s not that bad.”
Throwing up his hands, Fehrd said
, “Fine, go ahead, burn to a crisp. I’m gonna stay here in the tent.”
Gan started gesticulating wildly with his jerky, to the point that Fehrd was sure that he’d throw it against the tent flap-which would be a waste of perfectly mediocre jerky, in Fehrd’s opinion. “We’ve already lost a day because of that sandstorm yesterday. At this rate, we’ll never make it to Raam in time to meet up with Feena and the others.”
With a sardonic smile, Fehrd said, “Well, if we had mounts, we might make better time.”
Pointing an accusatory finger, Gan said, “That was not my fault.”
“Really?” Fehrd chewed on the last of his jerky and then folded his arms over his barrel chest. “How is losing our crodlus in a card game not your fault, exactly?”
“I was cheated!”
Fehrd rolled his eyes. “Here we go again.” He looked over at the third member of their party. “Rol, you want to chime in on this?”
Rol Mandred looked up from his canteen and stared as if he’d never seen Fehrd or Gan before. “Hmm? I agree with both of you.”
“We don’t agree!” Gan cried.
Shrugging, Rol said, “Fine, then I don’t agree with either of you.”
Gan leaned forward. “Do you think we should head out now?”
“Are you out of your mind? It’s hot out there.”
Unable to help himself, Fehrd burst out laughing.
“Look,” Gan said, pointedly ignoring Fehrd’s outburst, “we’re only about two hours’ hike from the Great Road. I just want to get on that. The sand will be easier to walk through there, and we might come across some other travelers.”
Fehrd sighed. Gan’s points were well taken. They had been moving generally northward through the wastes, but not on any major thoroughfare. Today, though, was the day they would reach the Great Road. It would lead them to Dragon’s Bowl Road, which would take them northeast to Raam. The Great Road itself continued northward to Urik.
“I don’t want to risk missing Feena.”
That prompted another sigh from Fehrd. “Look, I know you miss your sister, but she’ll wait for us, won’t she?”
“Maybe. I don’t know for sure. And even if she does, I don’t want to hold her up because we moved too slowly.”
“Well, we would move a lot faster if we had crodlus.”
Gan threw up his hands. “I’m telling you, I was cheated. That wasn’t my fault.”
“Some facts, Gan.” Fehrd leaned forward and started enumerating points on his fingers. “Fact: you played a game of frolik in a gaming house that has a reputation for dishonesty. Fact: your opponent in the game was Hamno Sennit, who has a reputation for hustling frolik. Fact: you, bluntly, are dreadful at frolik. Fact: you chose to bet our crodlus when you had a hand that, in your words, ‘could not possibly lose’ which then proceeded to, well, lose. With these facts in play, tell me-how is this not your fault?”
“He couldn’t have had that priest card. He just couldn’t.”
Fehrd put his head in his hands. “Tell you what,” he finally said, “I’m willing to head out early if you’re willing to carry the pack.”
Now Gan did throw his jerky against the tent flap. “It’s your turn to carry the pack.”
“Yes,” Fehrd said slowly, “and I’m willing to give in to your desire to leave early if you’re willing to give in to my desire to not carry the pack.”
Since their crodlus were gone-including the pack mount-they had to carry their own supplies. Rol had contrived a way to pack up the rolled-up tent and supplies into a single backpack, which they took turns carrying. Fehrd was up next, and he had been dreading the notion.
Gan closed his eyes for several seconds. “Fine-but this was not my fault.”
“Yes it was.” Rol rose to his feet as he spoke. “Fehrd just explained to you why it’s your fault. Now, it’s fine, really, because honestly? I wanted to leave Altaruk. It’s a hellhole. A blot that would that would not be missed if it were wiped off the surface of Athas. And I think we were pretty much at the point where nobody was going to hire us anymore.”
“And that is your fault.” Gan pointed an accusatory finger at Rol.
Rol shrugged. “If the girl had simply said she was our employer’s daughter, there wouldn’t have been a problem.”
“Our employer told you that she was his daughter, and you went ahead and-”
“I thought he was talking about the other one.”
“Whom you also slept with.”
“Yes, but he didn’t know that. And besides-”
“Enough!” Fehrd got to his feet. “Can we please just pack up and get moving already?”
The three of them had been traveling for the better part of a month, so the procedure for folding up the tent and packing all their supplies into the pack that Gan would be carrying was fairly well streamlined.
So it was only fifteen minutes later that they were once again trudging through the desert. They walked at a steady pace, adjusting quickly to the shifting ground of the sand beneath them-which, mercifully, wasn’t all that shifting, as it wasn’t windy today-and drank water when needed.
They also didn’t talk, as a way of preserving their own water and ability to breathe, which came to Fehrd as something of a relief. Fehrd understood that Gan just wanted to see his sister, but his anxiousness had been growing ever more annoying over the past few days.
Besides, the arguments between Gan and Rol had gotten more shrill as time went on. Fehrd honestly wasn’t sure if Gan was angry at Rol for costing them bodyguard work or because the women were inevitably more interested in Rol than Gan. Gan even had an eye patch that women often swooned over, but the bloom usually came off the rose the minute he started talking.
Either way, their reputation for being effective as bodyguards but poor at interpersonal relationships had indeed spread throughout most of Altaruk. Such things rarely took too long, and they risked drawing the wrong kind of attention to themselves.
Ironically, Gan’s frolik game was supposed to facilitate getting supplies for the trip. Instead, they had to dip into the emergency fund, which was only enough to pay for food and water, that being a greater priority than new crodlus.
And not even good food. Just a great deal of jerky. The only other food they had was the crodlu chow that Rol had purchased before the frolik game. It was the good stuff too-near-poison to humans and elves, and it made dwarves nauseous, but crodlus couldn’t get enough of the gourmet vittles. It was intended to be a reward for mounts who were going to be riding hard through the desert.
Instead, they were being ridden by rich kids in Altaruk, and the three of them were stuck with bags full of crodlu chow, which Rol had insisted on not selling for whatever reason.
After so much jerky, the crodlu chow was actually starting to sound very appealing to Fehrd.
They walked a bit slower than usual, as the sun was particularly brutal. Rol took the lead, as he often did-he had the keenest eyes of the three of them. Since Gan was carrying the pack, he took up the rear, as his burden slowed him down. His lack of a left eye generally kept him from taking point in any case.
Sweat dripped into Fehrd’s eyes. He had to adjust his headwrap several times, and also had to constantly shift the staff scabbard on his back.
“You’re adjusting the scabbard again.” Gan’s voice was laced with amusement.
Fehrd didn’t even turn around to look at him. “I’m sweating. This is what happens when we walk outside too close to midday as you insisted. The sweat shifts the scabbard.”
“No, the fact that the scabbard was designed for a man half your size is why the scabbard shifts. I know you loved your father and all, Fehrd, but the man was tiny.”
“Yes,” Fehrd said through clenched teeth, “I’m aware of how small he was, having been raised by him and all. He left me the staff and scabbard when he died. The staff is from the leg of the first-”
“-the first anakore he killed,” Gan finished in a singsong voice. “We know. It’s
a great staff, Fehrd, really, it is, but you need a better scabbard for it.”
Finally Fehrd turned around. “Well, Gan, you know, I would really love to get a new scabbard. I’ll be happy to do that with all the coin you won at frolik.”
“Very funny.”
From the front, Rol said, “It is a little bit funny.”
A retort died on Fehrd’s dry lips. “Can we not have this argument until nightfall? I’ll be more than happy to tell you both what imbeciles you are when the sun isn’t trying to roast m-”
Fehrd cut himself off as he literally bumped into Rol. “Uhm, do you mind? The whole point of walking is to actually walk.”
Then Rol held up his left arm and Fehrd shut up instantly, his arm reaching for the end of his staff. Behind him, he could hear Gan drop the pack onto the sand.
Rol was half a head taller than Fehrd-who was fairly large himself-so he had to shift to the side to see what got Rol to stop.
Just over a rise in the sand, Fehrd could see a mass of people: four large carriages, a few crodlus and kanks, most of which were being used as pack animals rather than mounts, and a variety of styles of dress. Among other things, it meant they were finally in sight of the Great Road.
At first, it looked to be a simple caravan of people, of a type you often found once you hit the main passageways in the wastes. There was safety in numbers, after all.
At least, in theory-those people weren’t safe. For one thing, they were all out in the open in the heat of midday without moving, which was suicide. You didn’t expose yourself to high sun willingly unless you were accomplishing something, like making forward progress.
For another, the entire group was surrounded by a collection of crodlus whose carapaces had been dyed with distinctive black markings that were visible even at that distance.
Under the Crimson Sun (the abyssal plague) Page 3
