The Rise and Fall of a Dragonking - By Lynn Abbey Page 0,10
passions: lifelong love. “My husband’s heart is weak, O Mighty King, and his senses are not so sharp as they once were. Nibenay is not his home, O Mighty King. He doesn’t wish to die there without having seen the sun set against the yellow walls or the Lion’s fountain one last time.”
“So he sends you to tell me that Nibenay arms my enemies? That the House of Werlithaen supplies the caravan? And for this mote of good news he expects me to leave Urik’s gates ajar so he might return?”
“Yes, O Mighty King. My husband knows the precise location of the deserted oasis; it was not charted on any of his maps—until now.”
“The master merchant of Werlithaen thinks that because he did not know the location of an oasis, then I would not know it either.”
“Yes, O Mighty King,” Eden repeated. Chorlas of Werlithaen had raised her well. She was afraid of him; that was only wise, but fear was not her master. She continued, “It lies outside Urik’s purview; outside Nibenay’s, as well. It is an oasis of death under Giustenal.”
Wish for a surprise and get an unpleasant one. Once again Hamanu ran his fingertip over the writing. Five days, she’d said, since she had presented herself to his templars. Ten days, perhaps, since the words beneath his sensitive fingertip had been written. And how many days had passed between Chorlas’s leaving the agafari staves for Giustenal’s howling army and Chorlas’s writing a message to his dear wife? Three, at best, if an old man had overcome elven prejudice, got himself a swift riding kank, then rode the bug into the ground.
Hamanu had his own spies, and those who rode kanks were ever in need of new bugs. He would hear about the staves, the oasis, and Giustenal’s ambitions, but he hadn’t heard it yet. He touched her mind, a gentle feather’s touch that aroused neither her defenses nor her fears. She hadn’t eaten in three days, not for poverty, but because her husband had returned to Urik. Chorlas was hiding in the slave quarters of their comfortable home. Between beats of Eden’s heart, Hamanu found her Urik home and Chorlas within it. The elf was old and honest, for an elven merchant. His heart was weak, and he did truly wish to die within the massive yellow walls.
“What is your trade, Eden of House Werlithaen? Do you wish to die in Urik, like your husband?”
“O Mighty King, I do not care where I die,” she said evenly. “But while I live, I wish to see my city’s enemies ground beneath the heel of my king.”
Hamanu laughed—what else could any man do, face-to-face with a bloodthirsty woman? He took amber resin from a small box and held it in his hand until it was pliable. “I shall count it treason, then, if my templars do not report seeing you and your emeritus husband beside the Lion Fountain before sunset.” He marked the resin with his sea ring, then hardened it again with icy breath.
Her face was pleasing and far from plain when she smiled.
* * *
The ever-efficient Enver had completed his tasks in Joiner’s Square and returned to the palace before Eden departed, still smiling. Perhaps he passed her on his way to the roof with the usual herd of slaves in his wake, armed, this time, with buckets and bristle brushes. Hamanu didn’t ask, didn’t pry, anymore than Enver asked about the Soleuse corpse.
Enver was, however, adamantly uninterested in becoming the Soleuse lord.
“Omniscience,” the dwarf said from a bow so deep his forehead touched his knees. “Have I or my heirs displeased you so much?”
“Of course not, dear Enver.” It was not a question that merited an answer, except that there was no way Enver could have seen his king’s grimace. “But after what?—almost three ages between you and your father, is it not? Perhaps you’re ready for a change.”
“Your welfare is my family’s life, Omniscience. More than life, it is our eternal honor.”
“I can remove any lingering focus—”
Enver straightened suddenly, with such a look of outrage on his face that Hamanu was obliged to sit back a hair’s breadth in his chair.
“I’d sooner die.”
“Later, then, dear Enver. In the meantime, who was in charge downstairs this morning? That fool—” Hamanu flicked a forefinger at the wet spot where Renady had died and the slaves were now scrubbing furiously—“stood before me wearing a charm, dear Enver, a charlatan’s lizard-skin charm which no one had confiscated. And later,