City Under the Sand

by Jeff Mariotte

  The raiders retreated.

  The villagers, as Mazzax had warned, had lost much of their enthusiasm for having strangers in their midst. There were many dead to bury, and more wounded to tend.

  They shot the visitors angry glares, and more than once Aric and the others heard muttered conversations that ceased abruptly when they came near. But no one told them to leave, and when they raised the idea themselves, villagers pointed out that their scouts saw signs of raiders still in the area.

  Then Mazzax invited Aric into the shop.

  “You’re a smith,” the dwarf said. “I’m only apprentice. A smithy needs a smith.”

  “I can’t stay here, Mazzax,” Aric explained. “I have to get home. Soon.”

  “You leave now, raiders will kill you.”

  “That is a distinct possibility.”

  “So stay. For a while. Work in the shop.”

  “Well …” Aric said.

  “Ha! See? You want to. It’s in the blood.”

  That was, Aric thought, probably true of every smith. With as many times as they were cut, there was probably nearly as much metal as blood flowing in their veins. “I have been wanting to craft a sword.”

  “Good.”

  “For myself. A fine steel sword.”

  “Good,” Mazzax said again.

  “But I really can’t stay here.”

  “We’ll work night and day, make it fast.”

  “Just the two of us?”

  “That’s not enough?”

  “If Ruhm helped us …”

  “The goliath?”

  “Yes. He works in my shop, back home.”

  “Apprentice?”

  “Journeyman.”

  “Lucky.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be a journeyman one day, Mazzax.”

  “Not if I stay here. No more master.”

  “Well, someone else will come, perhaps.”

  “You came.”

  “Yes, but …” Aric was reaching the conclusion that arguing with a dwarf was a pointless pursuit. With this dwarf, anyway.

  And they couldn’t leave yet. They had to get to Nibenay, but if they were slain by raiders on the way then their message would never get through. If they took a few days, let the raiders tire of waiting for them, the result might be better.

  “Very well,” Aric said. “I’ll get Ruhm. We’ll make a sword.”

  Mazzax clapped his thick hands together once. “Good!”

  5

  They began the following morning. Mazzax stoked the fire high while Ruhm gathered materials and tools. Aric worked through Hotak’s stores of metal, pulling out each piece of promising size and holding it in his hands, letting it speak to him. He saw mines and smelters, and he saw bits of Hotak’s life, as well as Mazzax’s. The dwarf had been married for a time, and had a child. His wife and daughter were both killed by a gaj, and after taking his revenge on the creature, Mazzax had come to the village, where Hotak took him in and taught him a trade.

  After a few hours, Aric had the combination of metals he wanted. He wanted strength and elasticity in his blade, and he wanted it to hold a keen edge. He settled on a mixture of long bars of iron, bronze, and silver, stacked them together, and put them into the forge. While they heated, he looked for the materials he wanted for the furniture—the grip, the guard, and the pommel.

  After some time, he looked into the forge. Hot, but not hot enough. “Bellows!” he called. “More coal!”

  Mazzax scrambled. Ruhm pumped the bellows while Mazzax fetched charcoal. Aric worked on designing the hilt while the forge heated up. He checked again, withdrew the metal, sprinkled it with flux, a powdery substance Mazzax had collected from an ancient lake bed. Then he put it back in. “Hotter!”

  Aric measured his own hand, made some calculations, checked again. The metal bars were the same color as the forge’s interior. “Here we go!” he said. He and Ruhm drew the hot bars from the fire, folded them, and did it again. More times in and out of the fire, folding and welding. More time passed. Aric removed the bars, now seemingly a single piece, and worked them on the anvil, he and Ruhm each with a hammer, one striking and then the next in a steady cadence. This way they welded the metals together in the sequence that Aric wanted. They sprinkled on more flux, put it back in the fire, brought it out later and did it again, working from the other end.

  When he was finally satisfied that the different metals were joined permanently, Aric and Ruhm used a hot cutter, striking the chisel end with a hammer to shave off the unwanted metal. They heated it again, then brought it out and pounded it flat. More heat, and they held it at an angle against the anvil while they gave it edges and a point. More heat, and quenching in clay.

  Night had long since fallen by the time they had crafted a blade the shape and size Aric wanted, with a long tang at the end that would run through the grip to a threaded pommel. They left Mazzax in the shop, filing the edges.

  In bed that night, Aric could still hear the ringing of the hammer in his head, still taste the metal filings in his teeth, feel the minute burns on his arms from the sparks.

  But he thought he had a good start on his sword. It would, he knew, be the best he had ever made.

  The steel told him that, and he always listened to steel.

  XVII

  THE WAY

  1

  Siemhouk had been relaxing in a cool tub, soaking in water sprinkled with flower petals, when Kadya tapped her.

  Where are you? Siemhouk had asked. You should be here by now.

  We are still days away, at least. Perhaps longer. Getting all the metal out of the cavern proved difficult, and there have been other … issues, since then. We were attacked by beasts and lost an argosy, so had to redistribute its load among the others.

  I have no interest in excuses, Kadya.

  Of course not, my sister. I am not excusing, merely explaining. We are en route again and making good time.

  Then why are you in touch with me? What can’t wait until you see me?

  It’s Aric.

  The half-elf?

  The same.

  What about him?

  He ran away. I’ve been searching for him, but haven’t seen any sign. He may be headed for Nibenay. If he gets there, he’ll be full of false stories, filling our husband’s head with lies.

  What kind of lies? Siemhouk was beginning to lose her trust in Kadya. If her sister templar accused someone of lying, Siemhouk suspected that person must be telling the truth.

  There was more, too. Siemhouk had, when that undead mercenary visited, felt the presence of someone else, close by, guiding her. That presence had been powerful and comforting, persuading Siemhouk that she was doing the right thing. Since Kadya had begun extracting the metal from its underground vault in Akrankhot, though, that presence had grown dim, like a shadow paled by the sun’s rays, and now it wasn’t there at all. She found that she missed it.

  Kadya’s response was hesitant, reinforcing her certainty that her sister was lying. Stories about me, I’m sure. I don’t know exactly what he’ll say, but I know it won’t be the truth.

  You should have killed him.

  I know. I meant to. Somehow he must have figured it out.

  I’ll set things right, Siemhouk told her. If he makes it back here, he will not have the reception he desires.

  That’s good, sister. I knew I could trust you to do the right thing.

  Always, dear sister, Siemhouk said, then she broke their mental connection.

  From the research Dhojakt had turned up, she knew the presence she had felt from the dead man was a vestige of Tallik, the demon imprisoned beneath Akrankhot. It had come to the city in the undead man’s head, then moved into hers, which was no doubt far more welcoming and pleasant.

  But since Kadya had dismantled the demon’s prison, he had been gone from Siemhouk’s mind. Tallik had found someone powerful, but closer, who he could possess more fully. Now he came toward Nibenay, in Kadya’s body. Kadya had an agenda
of her own of course, and always had, but that agenda would have been altered by Tallik’s presence, his guidance.

  Together, Tallik and Kadya would be a powerful enemy. Siemhouk had to play this carefully, to use them without antagonizing them. At least until she could wrest the demon away.

  She believed she was in a good position, though. The metals Kadya brought back would be valuable in their own right, and because Siemhouk had sent a templar loyal to her, but of a lesser station, Siemhouk, not Kadya, would be credited with the riches. The Shadow King would be grateful to her. In the Shadow King’s case, profound gratitude often came with increased power.

  With that power, she was sure she could either bind Tallik to her, or bend Kadya and Tallik both to her will. Either way, she would wind up with so much influence that she would be the only logical choice to succeed her husband and father—should anything happen to him. And these were perilous times for sorcerer-kings, everybody knew that.

  So perilous, in fact, that for his own good, she might just have to exercise her newfound influence to force him from his throne. If, of course, that was the only way to protect him …

  She chuckled, and splashed her bathwater. It was getting too cold. Time to get out, and let the water dry on her skin in the warmth of the day.

  2

  Dhojakt had been on his way to see his sister. He liked to visit with Siemhouk every day or two, because although he had his spies in her quarter, they couldn’t always read her like he could. She was skilled at keeping secrets, at disguising her deepest thoughts. In person, however, Dhojakt was able to lightly probe, and although she thought she could control her expressions, her tone of voice, in reality they always betrayed her just enough.

  Before he had reached her, this time, he sent a psionic probe to check on her mood, and he caught bits of a conversation she was holding with Kadya, the ambitious templar she had sent to Akrankhot in her stead. Because Siemhouk was distracted by the effort of maintaining that mental link, she didn’t detect Dhojakt’s presence, allowing him to listen in, to the discussion and to some of Siemhouk’s thoughts surrounding it.

  It was all most intriguing. Especially the part about deposing their father and taking the crown of the Shadow King’s court for her own.

  At that revelation, he withdrew from her mind. He didn’t want her to know he had that information. He would keep away from her for a day or two, just to be sure she didn’t realize he’d been around.

  At any rate, it had suddenly become urgent that he paid a visit to their father. He found Nibenay in a shadowy corner of his residence.

  “Dhojakt, my son,” Nibenay said when he shambled into the chamber, his many legs clicking against the cool marble floor.

  “Father, I’m glad to have found you.”

  “And I to see you. I’ve heard disturbing news.”

  “What is it?”

  “My friend and ally, Ta’ak Enselti, has been slain.”

  Dhojakt knew Enselti, a noble merchant with great landholdings surrounding the city, a supplier of much rice to the kingdom. “Slain? By who?”

  “This is the hard part,” Nibenay said. “By another acquaintance, the son of Myklan, of the House of Thrace, a simpleton by all accounts but still of noble blood.”

  “They had a rivalry?”

  “Not that I’m aware of. I didn’t know they had ever met. No business interests in common. The story Djena told me is that Ta’ak was taking an elf woman for his consort, and the simpleton, Pietrus is the boy’s name, stabbed them both to death.”

  “An upsetting business, to be sure,” Dhojakt said. In truth, he hadn’t the least concern about humans or elves being killed. They were bothersome, for the most part, only worthwhile as long as they paid their taxes and didn’t get in his way. “I’ve heard something upsetting as well.”

  “What is it, my son?”

  “That half-elf you sent on the expedition to Akrankhot?”

  “Yes, what was his name?”

  “Aric, I believe.”

  “Right, Aric. What of him?”

  “He has apparently had some misunderstanding with your wife Kadya. She intended to kill him, but he found out and ran away. Now he’s on his way back here, with some sort of story. Kadya wanted Siemhouk to know, so that she could prepare you with the news that his story would be a lie.”

  Nibenay scratched his bulbous cheek. “Which can only mean …”

  “That it’s the truth,” Dhojakt finished.

  “Or that it resembles truth.”

  “So when Aric returns, whatever he tells you about Kadya might be true. But Kadya—and Siemhouk, for reasons of her own—don’t want you to believe it. Were I you, I would make sure that whenever Aric arrives in Nibenay, he is brought to you forthwith.”

  “Yes, I think you’re right. Thank you for this, my son. This is good to know. I will think on it, and give your suggestion every consideration.”

  “The most I can ask. Thank you for your time, my sire.” Dhojakt backed out of Nibenay’s presence—not only the polite thing to do, but the safest, he had learned. Anyone who turned his back on the Shadow King was asking to be struck down where he stood.

  Dhojakt had no illusions that mere blood relation made any difference at all in that regard.

  3

  You all know, of course, that the potential for psionic power, an affinity for the Way, exists within each of us, within every being who tastes the breath of life on our world.” Tenavry Ki’ot’shon, Corlan’s instructor at the Academy of Fierce Purpose, paced when he lectured, most frequently with his hands clasped together. He wore a long silken robe, even on the hottest of days. He was one of the thinnest human beings Corlan had ever seen, with limbs like the branches of a sapling, and his face seemed to have been artificially widened by the long, wispy white hair that grew from nearly every surface: cheeks, chin, lower lip, eyebrows, and of course from the top of his head. He knotted that hair in several places, and he had given the class some explanation of what those knots meant. Corlan had long since forgotten it. Sometimes it was all he could do not to burst out laughing at the man’s appearance, even though he knew Tenavry was a skilled and powerful psionic who really did impart much wisdom.

  “You further know,” Tenavry went on, “that to truly harness the power within—your power, the power that is your birthright, it is not enough to want to practice the Way. You must deserve the Way. To deserve it you must live the right kind of life; a life of service, a life of dedication, a life of commitment. Psionic abilities are available to all, but those who misuse those gifts often find that their abilities wane with time. Those who use the Way properly, in the process of living in accordance with the principles you’re being taught here, are those who continue to develop and strengthen their gifts as time goes on.”

  Tenavry stopped pacing and unclasped his hands, lifting them toward the ceiling of the vaulted chamber. The students sat cross-legged on the stone floor, with small, sculpted creatures before them. Suddenly, hovering an inch above Tenavry’s hands was a ball of golden light. Just as suddenly, that ball of light broke into a million shards. They scattered, and there where the ball had been was a creature not unlike the sculptures sitting in front of each student. Tenavry’s had scalloped wings, a birdlike head, a set of tiny, muscular arms that could have been human but for their size, and rear legs with powerful haunches, like a beast that jumped long distances. It was covered in fur of a bright purple, spotted with yellow and red rosettes. It floated above his hands for a moment, then flew away from him, cutting lazy circles above the class.

  “A psionicus is not, may I say, the ultimate expression of your psionic abilities,” Tenavry said. “For many, it’s little more than a plaything. But if you live right and truly follow the Way, it can be not only a companion but a source of information, a messenger, a friend and sometimes a lifesaver. It is an indication that you are on the right path, not that you have arrived at any destination.” He folded his hands again, regarded his students,
and harrumphed. He was good at that. Coming across as both condescending and demeaning at the same time was, in Corlan’s experience, a rare skill at which Tenavry was a master. “For some of you, I’m sure that’s the best one can hope.”

  For all their personal failings, Tenavry—and his fellow instructors at the academy—were brilliant and accomplished psionics, which made the tuition worthwhile. Or so thought Corlan, who struggled with his classes sometimes but genuinely wanted to learn.

  The psionocus before Corlan, sculpted during previous sessions, was eleven inches long and stood eight inches high. He had given it a maned head, not unlike an aviarag, but with a more pronounced and pointed snout and a lower jaw that curved to meet the upper, as if his created beast might have wanted to carry smaller animals around inside its mouth. Its torso was smooth and sleek. Eight limbs extended from it, the upper two with humanlike hands, the others clawed. It stood on its bottom pairs of legs, and a long, sinuous prehensile tail stretched out behind it. Birdlike wings were folded along its back. He had chosen a bright color scheme for the thing, bright green for limbs and torso, crimson for the mane, cobalt blue for the face and the wings. Its tail was also green, but with a series of black and yellow stripes ringing it. The students had designed and sculpted their own individual psionoci, using clay and paint provided by the academy.

  Today—if they were ready, or so insisted Tenavry—they would bring the beasts to life.

  Tenavry walked among the students, examining their creations. “Good,” he told one. “Not very aerodynamic, but it’ll fly,” he said to another. “Don’t let that thing bite you,” to a third. When he got to Corlan’s, he picked it up, turned it around. “That’ll be noticed wherever it goes,” he said.

  When he concluded his inspection, he returned to the front of the room. “Very well,” he said. “Now the time has come. You created these beings with your own hands, so you have already established a mental link with them. You need to open your minds to your psionoci, find that link, and will life into them. Let’s begin.”