City Under the Sand

by Jeff Mariotte

  “You perform as Tunsall promised,” Nibenay said. “Since you have this expertise, I should like to make use of it.”

  “In what way?” Aric could have kicked himself. He wasn’t certain of accepted court protocol, but he was pretty sure one didn’t question the Shadow King in that way.

  “Presumptuous,” Siemhouk said.

  “Indeed,” Djena added. She leaned toward Aric. “You speak as if he’s offering you a choice.”

  “My apologies,” Aric said. “I … I am new to this sort of occasion.”

  “That is abundantly evident,” Nibenay said. “And forgiven, this time.”

  “Thank you, Sire.”

  “And your question, presumptuous though it was, is a legitimate one, which I will dignify with a response. We have been told about a large trove of metals in a forgotten city called Akrankhot. Large enough, if it is as described, that it might be used to armor our army—already the most fearsome on all of Athas—making it more powerful still. What we don’t know is where precisely in this place the metal is, or if the metal described to us is all there is. For all we know, it might be the smaller of several stores. We need someone attuned to metals who can make sure we’re finding all that’s there.”

  A strange sense of excitement ran through Aric, but it was mixed with deep foreboding. This sounded suspiciously like an adventure, and he distrusted the whole notion of adventure. He thought he knew enough to believe that adventures were nothing but stories told by people not brave enough to actually experience such events, because those who did so rarely survived them. “So you’re sending me on a journey?”

  “You will accompany an expedition, yes. I can’t say that it will be without dangers. I trust that’s acceptable to you.”

  Aric would never have made the claim that he knew the Shadow King. But he knew more about him than he had mere minutes before, and he was convinced that Nibenay was teasing. “Very acceptable,” he said graciously. Whatever perils the journey might hold he would have to face as they came—certainly any voyage on Athas was a dangerous one, or so he understood. That danger, he knew, didn’t affect his response to Nibenay, as he had no choice but to make the trip.

  Anyway, he was intrigued by the whole thing. He had never traveled so much as a day’s walk from the gates of the city. Clearly, this journey would be longer than that. He would be accompanied, most likely, by soldiers from the Nibenese army, and probably others as well. Not the Shadow King himself, surely, but someone representing him. A templar, even one of the high consorts? Perhaps.

  Aric had long harbored a half-formed belief—never shared with anyone—that Nibenay was looking out for him in some mysterious way. Throughout his life there had been otherwise inexplicable incidents, and Aric had seen a providential hand as the only possible explanation. Most recently, he had decided he needed to settle on a profession. Because of his long-standing affinity for metals, he had thought that working as a smith would be a natural course for him. But because metal was rare on Athas, smiths were also rare. Less common still were smiths who wanted to take on a half-elf as an apprentice.

  Finally, Aric heard of a struggling blacksmith, injured in an accident, who might be willing to offer an apprenticeship, and he had arranged a meeting with the man to discuss it. When Aric arrived for the meeting, the blacksmith announced that he was retiring, and that if Aric wanted the shop, it was his. Although Aric had been hoping to study at the side of a master smith, he couldn’t turn down the opportunity to own the business.

  As soon as he touched the metal the man had left behind, though, Aric knew that he had been pressured into retiring, and well compensated for placing the business into Aric’s hands. The metal wouldn’t tell him who had paid the smith off, though, and Aric often wondered who that had been. It was as if someone powerful had taken an interest in Aric’s life, and was working from behind a screen to make sure it progressed in a certain direction.

  Did that unseen hand truly belong to the Shadow King? Unlikely, Aric knew. More likely, he was simply buffeted by the fates, as were all Athasians, and he had just been lucky a few times. He could certainly point to other occasions on which his fortune had run the other way.

  “Then it’s settled,” Nibenay said.

  “Apparently so.”

  “One more thing,” the Shadow King said. “Although you had the good sense not to ask for it. If the expedition finds the metal and it’s as promised, then there will be a certain amount of financial reward. That much metal will help outfit our military, but there will be an excess amount, which can be sold off, the profits put to the benefit of the Nibenese treasury. If you should survive the journey and return with the metal, and your efforts were helpful in acquiring it, I will see to it that you receive the commission to outfit our guard. I trust this will be acceptable to you as well?”

  “Not merely acceptable, Your Highness, but entirely unnecessary and unexpected.”

  “Which is why it’s offered,” Nibenay replied. “Had I believed for an instant that you expected it, I would never have let you see the first bit of it.”

  “You are most generous.”

  “So I am often told.” Was that a smile on his face, back there in his shadowed corner? Aric couldn’t quite tell.

  “It is settled, then,” the Shadow King said. “You will be notified as to the date of departure. It will be soon, however, not more than two or three days hence. So do not make any future plans. If you have someone you would like to accompany you, who could be helpful on such an expedition, by all means bring that person along.”

  “My assistant Ruhm? He’s a goliath, very strong, and he knows his way around metals.”

  “Delightful,” Nibenay said. From his reputation, Aric had a hard time imagining the Shadow King being delighted by anything. He had to admit, however, that during this conversation—imagine, he, a quarter-elf, a commoner, a smith, was having a conversation with a sorcerer-king! He could barely believe it even though he was part of it—Nibenay had been reasonable, even personable.

  And if it had been him all these years, looking out for Aric.…

  But that was impossible. Hardly worth wasting a second thinking about.

  “You may take your leave,” Siemhouk said. “We will contact you when we need you again.”

  “Thank you, Your Highness,” Aric said. He backed toward the door, wondering if that was the right protocol, if the soldiers would suddenly appear behind him, grasping his arms and hauling him to a dungeon for committing some offense of which he wasn’t even aware. “Thank you, high consorts, for your hospitality.”

  None of them spoke, but the soldiers didn’t seize him. Someone else opened the door as he neared it, and then he was outside in a hallway of the temple. Templars and others hurried past him, paying him not an instant’s mind. He found his own way out, and home, his mind racing with every step.

  4

  I should like to have my sister templar Kadya lead the expedition,” Siemhouk said after the smith was gone. “If that would please you, Father.”

  Kadya had known that Siemhouk would make the request. She didn’t know that she would be in the room at the time, or that it would be put so bluntly. Siemhouk, despite her youth, played the templar power games as well as any she had ever met, so she had expected a more subtle, strategic approach to be employed.

  “Is that right?” Nibenay asked. Kadya couldn’t read his tenor.

  “As High Consort of the House,” Kahalya put in, an angry edge in her voice, “and as this clearly concerns issues of the national treasury, I should have at least equal say in the expedition’s makeup.”

  “Each of you will no doubt have some reason—all perfectly valid, I have no doubt—as to why you should be involved in this process,” the Shadow King said. He moved out of the shadows, not entirely but enough to let everyone see the weary look on his face, as if the argument had already raged for hours. For all Kadya knew, it had, only in private, each of the high consorts coming to him in their m
arriage bed to press her case. “The High Consort of War certainly has an interest,” he went on. “As does the High Consort of Trade.”

  “But psionics are involved,” Siemhouk said. “Which fall under my sphere of influence.”

  That was the weakest case she could have made, Kadya thought. Because they were taking one half-elf along, in order to make use of his psionic ability? Why not argue that there should be a High Consort of the Walking Dead, who should take charge because the person who had brought the news in the first place had been one of those?

  Perhaps, though, she had underestimated Siemhouk’s influence with her father. “Of course,” he said. “And I feel inclined to grant your request. You others will feel slighted, no doubt, but when all have a claim on something, then not everybody can prevail. Kadya is a capable templar, and I have every faith that under her leadership the expedition will be a grand success.”

  Kadya was astonished. It had been so easy! Now she felt as if every gaze in the room burned in on her. She felt her cheeks color. She stood and went to the center of the room, dizzy, hoping her balance did not desert her. It wouldn’t do to fall down. “Thank you, Sire,” she said. “I shall endeavor to live up to your confidence, and more.”

  “See that you do,” Nibenay said. His voice had turned suddenly cool. “And if you fail to acquire metal in amounts unheard of before, then might I suggest that you don’t return at all? Your fate alone, naked and unarmed in the middle of the Sea of Silt would doubtless be more kind than the reception that would await you here in our glorious city.”

  Kadya didn’t know how to respond to that. “I … if the metal is there, I shall deliver it. And if it’s not, then I’ll never again darken the city’s gates.”

  The Shadow King was silent. When that silence had dragged on for an awkward period of time, Djena clapped her hands together once. “Then we are adjourned,” she declared.

  Kadya walked slowly to the council chamber’s doorway, lest her quaking legs reveal her terror at what had just transpired.

  She had just let Siemhouk seal her fate, one way or another. Either she would return to the city celebrated, or she would die.

  For most people, life’s options were not so wildly divergent. Or so final.

  But she was not most people, she was Kadya, a templar of Nibenay. And her fate, as of this moment, was almost entirely out of her control.

  VI

  PREPARING TO EMBARK

  1

  Because literacy was frowned upon by the Shadow King and his legions of templar wives—and by most sorcerer-kings, or that’s what Aric had heard—punishable by enslavement, time in the city’s dungeons, or worse, when Aric wanted to read he had to go to great lengths to find reading material. Sometimes books or scrolls could be had from the elven market, but even there, they were kept under the tables, and one had to know at which stalls to ask about them. They were expensive and had to be handled with discretion, tucked away under a cloak or in a satchel before anyone could spot the contraband.

  Aric had no experience with adventuring, and he didn’t know many who did. So to find out what to expect, he went to the elven market and made some discreet inquiries. From there he was directed to a merchant in the Hill District, which he typically thought of as a place one went to acquire lethal poisons, banned weapons, and other dangerous objects. He suspected that he was being set up for robbery or murder, so he wore his bone dagger close to his hand, visible to one and all, and he took Ruhm along.

  Ruhm refused to enter the abandoned building in which Aric had been told reading material might be available—he did not read, and wanted nothing to do with those who did. Aric went in alone, nose tickling at the thick dust covering every surface. A gaunt man whose tattered, filthy clothing made him look as if he and the building were separate parts of the same whole stepped out from an interior doorway and smiled at him, revealing a mouth with more gaps than teeth. “You’re here for what?” he asked.

  Aric couldn’t help glancing about to make sure they were unobserved, even though he knew Ruhm stood guard outside. “Something to read,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. He hoped his hands weren’t visibly shaking. “Adventurer accounts, of the wastelands?”

  “Adventurers, eh?” the man said. He scratched his voluminous beak of a nose. “I might have something like that.” He ticked his head toward the doorway through which he had just emerged. “Come in.”

  He turned with smooth, practiced grace and flowed back through the door. Aric followed. A lantern hung on one of the walls of the windowless room, where the bedraggled man stood between tables and shelves of books, pamphlets, tabloids and scrolls. Aric had never seen so many words in one place in his life. Some were clearly handwritten but others were not—some of the works were present in multiple copies, each identical to the last in every way. “These are printed,” he said, struck with awe.

  “That’s right. I know a man in Tyr with a press. Printed right under old Kalak’s nose, in fact, and smuggled out with caravans. Now, of course, he can operate freely, and will until some other tyrant solidifies his position there. But for the moment.… it’s a different world.”

  “But not here in Nibenay.”

  “Oh, not here,” the man agreed. “Here the tyrant hangs on.”

  Aric didn’t like that sort of talk. Nibenay had a reputation as a tyrant, it was true. And it was his law that could punish Aric simply for knowing how to read. But the Shadow King had been pleasant with him, had invited him to share in an adventure that could even elevate Aric’s status in life, if all went well. He knew all the arguments—Nibenay maintained the barbaric practice of slavery, he ruled the city with a merciless hand, the rights of individuals were sacrificed to the whims of the state. And for the most part, he agreed with them. He just found it hard to reconcile them with his positive experience of the king himself, only the day before, and he didn’t want to be party to any treasonous discussion.

  “And the adventurer logs?” he asked, changing the subject.

  The man swept to the far wall. “Here,” he said, indicating a cabinet with a fluid gesture of his long-fingered hand. “What location interests you? Balic? The Ringing Mountains? Perhaps the Hinterlands?”

  “Surely no one has visited the Hinterlands and returned to write about it!”

  The man touched the side of his nose, nodding his agreement. “It could well be that this one is miscategorized,” he said. “It should, perhaps, be kept with stories and legends.”

  “I expect so.”

  “Still, you might be surprised. The yearning to adventure often seems to come with a desire to share the experience in writing.”

  “These must be exceptional people,” Aric said. He could read passingly well, but writing was far more difficult for him. Although he would embark on a long journey, mere days hence, he did not expect to have the ability or inclination to write about what he saw. He would save his tales for the Blade and Barrel, or else to entertain customers while they waited for his services.

  “Is there a particular place you want to read about?”

  “Actually, I’m not certain what my destination is. Have you anything about a place called Akrankhot?”

  The man’s smile faded. It was only an illusion, surely, but it almost seemed like the flame in the lantern dimmed, giving the room a more somber aspect. “I’ve only ever seen one reference to it in writing,” he said. “And that the journal of a man looking for it. The journal was acquired posthumously—do you know what that means? After his death. I knew a noble who was interested, and paid plenty of gold pieces for it. Not from me—I saw it once, held it in my hands, read a few passages, but never owned it.”

  “Pity,” Aric said. “That might have been just what I’m looking for. I suppose anything about journeying through the wastelands would do, since I don’t even know which direction we’ll be traveling in.”

  The man flashed a smile, but it was more forced than his earlier ones. “I have a few like that. No
t much. A diary or two, one printed account from about fifteen years ago. Perhaps an annotated map somewhere.”

  Much of what he was saying passed over Aric’s head. “How about the printed account?” he asked. “Things couldn’t have changed that much in fifteen years. I’m only trying to get a sense of the things we might encounter, and to see how others survived them.”

  “This is what you want, then.” The man put his hands on a slender volume, bound in reddish sygra leather. “That’ll be a cp.”

  “An entire piece?” Aric asked, stunned. He could get a decent pair of boots for a ceramic piece, had expected a book to be more like three or four bits.

  The man started to put it back on the shelf. “If you don’t want it …”

  Aric’s purse was still heavy, however, from his sale to Tunsall. “No, I’ll take it!”

  “Very well.” The man handed it over. It was heavier than Aric expected. He took out a ceramic piece and gave it to the man, who eyed it for a moment before it disappeared into his palm and then into a hidden pocket someplace. “Will there be anything else?”

  2

  The following day, Aric sat inside his shop, trying to read the book he had purchased. There were many words he didn’t know, and letters he didn’t recognize even though the thing was written in common.

  Because he and Ruhm would both be gone on the expedition, he had hurried through the last bits of work he had promised, and had turned away more. This left him time to get through the book as best he could. As usual when Aric read, Ruhm removed himself from the scene, not wanting to be tarred with the “literate” brush if things went bad. He had once heard about a free commoner caught in the same room with a couple of books. Although the books didn’t belong to him and he claimed not to be able to read them, the templar who had found him there argued that even if he could read, he would pretend not to, so therefore he was guilty of the crime of literacy. According to the story, he was still alive, working as a menial slave in the Naggaramakam.