The Rise and Fall of a Dragonking - By Lynn Abbey Page 0,1

from the pouch before passing it to the templar beside him.

“The lion watch over you, then, and your lord,” the first templar said as he retreated.

“And over you, O Mighty One,” the slave replied, as much a curse as a blessing.

* * *

The sedan chair and its escort stopped short of the Elven Market. Without hesitation, the party turned and disappeared into an alley whose existence couldn’t have been discerned with the light of a score of pitch-soaked torches, much less the four they carried. Some distance into the cramped darkness, they stopped again. The half-elf rapped once on a hollow, drumlike door, and a rectangle of ruddy lantern light suddenly surrounded them. The muls carried the sedan chair across the threshold. The escort extinguished their torches and closed the door behind them.

Inside the vestibule, a person emerged from the chair. With his face obscured by an unadorned mask and his body swaddled in a drab cloak, it was easier to say what race Lord Ursos wasn’t—not dwarf or mul, not halfling, nor full-grown elf—than what race he might be.

The ragged, menial slave who’d opened the door had run away when he saw the escorted sedan chair. He returned with another slave, of higher status, who was clad in pale, translucent linen that left no doubt about her sex. With a soft voice, she showed the escort where to leave the sedan chair, and then directed them down a corridor, to a door that provided discreet entrance to a boisterous tavern. When the escort was gone, the vestibule was once again silent—a silence so sudden and absolute one might suspect magic in the air. Without breaking that silence, the slave led the masked Lord Ursos down a narrow stairway to a curtained doorway. She bowed low before the curtain and swept her arm gracefully toward it, but made no move to pass between the rippling lengths of silk.

Lord Ursos strode past her, removing the drab cloak with one hand and the mask with the other as he swept through the silk into the upper gallery of an underground amphitheater. He was a lean, sinewy human, with the sunken features of a man who’d indulged his every passion, yet survived. With the casual contempt of an aristocrat, the lord held out his drab outer garments for a slave at the top of the amphitheater stairs. The slave hesitated, his arms half-extended.

“My lord,” he whispered anxiously. “Who are—?” The slave caught himself; slaves did not ask such questions. “Do you—?” And caught himself again, in evident despair. No one, not even an elegant lord, entered this place without an invitation.

Lord Ursos understood. Smiling indulgently, he gestured with a dancer’s swift grace. When he was finished, he held a delicate, star-shaped ceramic token between the tips of his thumb and forefinger.

“Ah—” The slave returned a smile as the token dropped into his hand. He relaxed audibly, visibly. “Your place is prepared, my lord. If my lord will simply follow me—?”

A place was indeed prepared, a place in the front row, along the rail, overlooking a circular pit floored with dark sand that sparkled in the light of wall-mounted torches. Another slave, who’d followed them down the amphitheater’s steep, stair-cut ramp, offered the lord a shallow bowl filled with a thick, glistening fluid. The lord refused with another dancerlike gesture, and the bowl-bearer hurried away.

“My lord,” the first slave began, his eyes lowered and his hands trembling. “Is there—? Would you prefer… a pipe, perhaps, or another beverage, a different beverage?”

“Nothing.”

The lord’s voice was deeper than the slave had expected; he retreated, stumbling, and barely regained his balance.

A certain type of man might come to this place for its entertainments, having paid handsomely in gold for the privilege. All the other men in the amphitheater—there were a score of guests, with several races represented, but no women among them—clutched bowls between their hands and metal sipping straws likewise gripped between their teeth. Their faces were slack, their eyes wide and fixed. A man who disdained the sipping bowl or the dream-pipe was a rare guest, a disturbing guest.

The second slave could not meet this guest’s eyes again.

“Leave me,” the lord commanded, and, gratefully, the slave escaped, his sandals slapping with unseemly vigor on the stairs.

The lord settled on the upholstered bench to which his token entitled him and waited patiently as another handful of guests arrived and were escorted to their appropriate places. Then, while the latecomers sucked and sipped, a door opened in