The Amber Enchantress Page 4

  "Not if we refuse to challenge him," said Sadira. "I'm going to the Pristine Tower to learn how that can best be done."

  Rikus and Agis gave each other resigned looks.

  "I'll go with her," Rikus said. "She'll need a strong arm."

  "My arm is strong enough," countered Agis, glaring at the mul. "And my skill with the Way will prove more useful than your fighting talents."

  "I'm going alone," Sadira declared, trying hard to speak in a reasonable tone. Though she was upset at being argued over like contested property, the sorceress also realized that their best chance of helping Tyr lay in splitting up.

  "It's too dangerous!" Rikus objected.

  "If you're determined to do this thing, one of us should go with you—"

  "No," Sadira said, shaking her head. "In our own ways, we're all right." She looked from Rikus to Agis. "As Rikus says, Tyr should prepare for the worst—and only he is popular enough to ask the citizens for the sacrifices that may be necessary. At the same time, Agis, someone should take an inventory of what Tyr can do to defend itself. Only you are smart enough to make people say honestly what they can or can't do."

  "And you?" asked Rikus.

  "I'm the only expendable one," Sadira said. "And our situation is desperate. We can't afford to ignore the possibility that the Pristine Tower holds some secret that may be of use to us."

  With that, Sadira passed her hand over the kank's antennae, urging the beast toward the approaching caravan. "I'll return as soon as I can," she called over her shoulder. "Let us hope my journey won't be in vain."

  *****

  Clutching the handle of her steel dagger, Rhayn slipped around the corner and stopped to examine the path ahead. She had entered a crooked alleyway that ran between two rows of mud-brick tenements, weatherworn and on the brink of collapse. In any other city, the lane would have been packed with starving paupers and thirsty beggars, hiding from the scorching sun in the shadows of the tall buildings. In Tyr, however, no person needed to suffer such indignities unless he were too lazy to work, for there was plenty of food and water on the relief farms outside the city. Still, a handful of derelicts, most lingering at various points along the path from drunkenness to death, lay in the stifling closeness of the lane.

  Rhayn started down the alley, which stank of stale wine, unwashed bodies, urine, and a dozen things even more vile. She kept her new dagger in plain sight, lest any of the derelicts be foolish enough to accost her. It was not common for an elf, even a woman, to be frightened in the worst quarters of a city. But it was one of the contradictions of Tyr that, as the fortunes of the poor improved, those who remained behind grew more desperate. Already, returning from lucrative forays into Shadow Square

  , two members of Rhayn's tribe had been set upon by cutthroats. They had escaped with their lives only by dropping their booty and fleeing as fast as their long legs would carry them.

  As Rhayn passed a bloated half-giant wearing a tunic emblazoned with the star of the last king, a man's voice cried out behind her. "That's the trollop!"

  Rhayn looked back and cursed. Standing at the end of the lane was a thick-waisted wine vendor with a bandage" head and an empty dagger scabbard on his belt. Next to him were a pair of black-robed templars, each carrying one of the obsidian-bladed partizans that served as the emblem of the New King's Guard.

  "You have no doubt that she's the one?" asked one of the templars, a powerful-looking man with a tail of red hair Rhayn had no need to hear the wine merchant's answer to know he would be sure. Even across the distance separating them, he would have no trouble identifying her as the woman with whom he had just shared two flasks of good port. Although short for an elf, she stood a head and a half taller than most men of full human blood, with close-cropped hair and keenly pointed ears. Her build was typical of her race, lean and willowy, save that her figure was rounder and more inviting than that of most elven women. Beneath her arched brows, she had almond-shaped eyes as brilliant and deeply colored as sapphires, a regal nose, and a pouting mouth with thick savory lips. The same striking beauty that had originally attracted the vendor to her would leave no doubt in his mind about her identity now.

  Employing the favorite defense of her people, she turned and ran.

  "You there, stop!" cried the second templar, a blond-haired half-elf.

  Rhayn paid him no attention, confident that her long legs would carry her safely away from the guardsmen. Normally, she would not have dared to flee, for most templars could have called upon their king's sorcery to stop her. It was common knowledge, however, that King Tithian of Tyr was a weak ruler with no magic to bestow upon his servants. That was one of the reasons her tribe had come to the city.

  Rhayn reached the end of the alley before the merchant and his escorts had taken more than a dozen steps. She turned down a bustling avenue lined by two- and three-story buildings. The first story of each building contained a small shop with a broad door and a pass-through counter opening onto the street. Out of each shop peered a sly elven merchant, peddling goods his tribe had no doubt stolen earlier from an honest caravan in the desert wastes.

  "Stand aside or die!" Rhayn yelled, brandishing her new dagger at the mob of pedestrians.

  As she pushed her way into the throng, a chorus of startled cries and angry shouts rang out as men and women of all races hurriedly stepped aside. Despite her threat, Rhayn stopped short of stabbing those who didn't move quickly enough. While she doubted that the templars would conduct a thorough search of the quarter over the relatively minor matter of a stolen dagger, the elf suspected they would view a string of knife attacks in quite another light.

  Instead of using the dagger to clear the pedestrians out of her way, Rhayn sent them sprawling with a hardy shove or well-placed kick. Soon, a long trail of cursing people lay in the street behind her. When the elf peered over her shoulder, there was still no sign of the templars or the wine merchant.

  The avenue turned sharply to the left, obscuring the alley from which she had just run. Confident that her pursuers could not follow her through the swarming crowd in the street, Rhayn slowed to a walk. She pulled the tail of her low-cut tunic from its snakeskin belt, then slipped her dagger beneath the strap and dropped her smock back over it. The metal blade felt hot and dangerous against her taut stomach, stirring a tingle of excitement deep within her body. The dagger was the first steel weapon she had ever owned, and the feel of its smooth surface against her bare skin gave her a heady sense of power that sent an exultant smile creeping across her sultry lips.

  Rhayn came to a small shop where a black-haired elf was leaning over the counter, talking to a pair of human boys. In his hand, the elf held a half-dozen pebbles, each glowing in a different color of the rainbow.

  "The scarlet one is for love," he was saying. "If you leave it under your tongue for three full days—"

  "You'll choke on it when you fall asleep," said the oldest human, a square-jawed youth with doubtful eyes.

  "Not so," countered the elf, whom Rhayn recognized as Huyar, a long-brother of hers. "You'll never swallow one of these magical stones. But if you do as I say, you will steal the heart of any woman you desire."

  As Rhayn stepped into the shop, Huyar's pale brown eyes darted in her direction, lingering over her curves with a salacious glint. Once the two boys followed his gaze, the elf continued his pitch. "As a matter of fact, I used the scarlet rock to win the heart of this beauty here," he said, reaching out to embrace Rhayn. "Isn't that true?"

  Rhayn allowed Huyar's arms to encircle her, looking into his eyes dreamily. "It is, my dear."

  Rhayn was lying, of course. Whatever Huyar was to her, he was not her lover. They shared the same father, but that meant little to either one of them—save that tribal tradition forbade them from bearing children together. Among the Sun Runners, as among most elves, only children of the same mother considered themselves to be true siblings. Those who had only a father in common looked upon each other as rivals, competing vigorousl
y for affection and inheritance. Between Rhayn and Huyar, the strife was more fervent than normal, for their father happened to be the chief, Faenaeyon.

  Nevertheless, they were members of the same tribe and, as such, would always stand together against any outsider. If, in this instance, that meant letting Huyar grope her in order to sell some worthless stones to a pair of young culls, she would do it.

  As Huyar pulled Rhayn close, the tip of her new dagger pricked her in the lower abdomen. She did not cry out, but Huyar looked down with a raised brow. "What's that I feel?" he whispered.

  "Nothing to concern you," Rhayn answered, pretending to kiss his ear.

  "But perhaps it would be of interest to our father?"

  Rhayn had to resist the impulse to bite off the lobe of her long-brother's ear. She had hoped to sneak the dagger into her bed-satchel without anyone noticing. If Faenaeyon learned that she had returned with a prize, he would demand it as a gift. Despite what it might mean to her inheritance, Rhayn had no intention of giving it to him.

  "I must get out of sight," Rhayn whispered, disengaging herself from Huyar's arms.

  She gave the two boys a lingering smile, then stepped away from the counter. Immediately, the younger one asked, "What do you want for the stones?"

  Huyar, never very artful, was quick to move in for the kill. "How many coins are there in your purse?"

  At the back of the shop, Rhayn slipped through the curtain of snake scales that separated the bartering floor from the storage area. Her father sat in his usual place, upon an undersized leather chair with his feet propped on a keg of fermented kank-nectar. Even for an elf, Faenaeyon was a big man, with heavily muscled limbs and a huge barrel of a chest. He wore his silver hair drawn back in an unruly tail that left his sharp-tipped, dirt-crusted ears exposed to full view.

  At one time, he had probably been strikingly handsome, for his long, thin features were well-defined and of even proportion. Now, he appeared every bit as cruel and dangerous as he was. He kept his slender jaw tightly clenched at all times, and his narrow lips were forever twisted into a mistrustful sneer. His nostrils flared constantly, as if testing the air for the scent of enemies, and the flesh of his cheeks was pallid and dead-looking. Even his inert gray eyes, framed above by daggerlike brows and below by black circles of exhaustion, burned with a demented light that never failed to give Rhayn an uneasy feeling.

  "How did you fare?" Faenaeyon asked, not bothering to focus his vacant gaze on his daughter.

  Rhayn went to her father's side and kissed his check. He smelled of stale belches and sour broy. "Not as well as I would have liked," she answered, slipping a silver coin into his hand. "But here."

  For the first time since Rhayn had entered the dark room, her father's eyes moved, focusing on the glittering coin. He tossed it into the air to test its weight, then complained, "A daughter of mine should be able to do better than this."

  "Next time, Tada," she answered, using the elven term for any male whose blood ran in one's veins.

  The dagger blade beneath Rhayn's smock seemed to grow warmer, and she felt a trickle of blood running down her abdomen. Huyar's embrace had cut her with the tip of the weapon.

  Faenaeyon studied his daughter for a moment, then grunted and slipped the coin into the one of the purses hanging from his belt. Rhayn breathed a silent sigh of relief and moved toward the bone ladder at the back of the room. In a moment, she would be safely away from her father, in the large common room where the tribe was camped.

  As Rhayn stepped onto the first rung, Huyar cried out from the other side of the curtain. "What do you want here, templars?"

  Instantly, Faenaeyon was on his feet, in one hand clenching a bone sword and in the other an obsidian dagger.

  "In the name of Tithian the First, stand aside" ordered a man.

  "Wait here," countered Huyar. "You can discuss your business with our chief?"

  "I said stand aside!" repeated the templar.

  There was the sound of a scuffle, and Faenaeyon stepped toward the bartering floor. Rhayn motioned for her father to stay where he was, then dropped off the ladder.

  "What is it?" demanded the chief.

  "They want me," Rhayn said.

  He shoved her toward the bartering floor. "Don't let them come back here!" he said, motioning at the mounds of stolen goods filling the storeroom. "If they see this, it'll cost a fortune to bribe them off!"

  "Don't worry," Rhayn said.

  Her voice was tinged with shock and anger, but not at her father. After fleeing the alley, she had left the fat merchant and the templars so far behind that they could not have seen her enter the shop with their own eyes. Instead, one of the pedestrians outside had to have told them where she had gone. In any other city, such a thing would never have happened. The throngs would have feigned ignorance, as determined not to help a templar as they were anxious to keep their presence in the Elven Market secret. But, as Rhayn was still learning, Tyr was not like any other city. King Tithian was a popular ruler, and unfortunately the people here were eager to aid his officials. As Rhayn stepped from behind the curtain, the templars shoved Huyar with the shafts of their partizans and sent him reeling toward the storeroom.

  "Is there a problem?" Rhayn asked, catching her long-brother. As she steadied him, she saw that a small crowd had gathered in the street outside. The men and women were watching the confrontation with amusement, occasionally voicing encouragement to the wine merchant and his escorts.

  The fat man glared at Rhayn. "I want my dagger back!"

  "It's my dagger now," Rhayn said. Her voice was even, but she was furious inside. Her father had, no doubt, heard the merchant's demand. Now she would have to defy the chief in order to keep the weapon.

  Rhayn turned toward the templars and slowly lifted her tunic, revealing the steel blade and, not by accident, a long expanse of tightly muscled stomach. Giving the king's officers an inviting smile, she pulled the dagger from its hiding place and held it aloft. Whatever happened next, she wanted to make sure the half-elf and his partner had no excuse to search the rest of the shop.

  The wine merchant snatched at the weapon. Huyar grabbed his wrist in mid-flight and whipped the arm back against the elbow, at the same time kicking the man's feet out from beneath him. The fat vendor landed flat on his back, wheezing for breath and holding his sore arm.

  The templars leveled their partizans at Huyar. When the elven warrior made no further move to injure the vendor, they did not strike.

  "Rhayn said it's her dagger," said Huyar, his eyes fixed on the fat vendor's face.

  "Stealing don't make it so," gasped the merchant.

  "I didn't steal it. You promised it to me," said Rhayn, finally letting her tunic fall back over her stomach. "Or have you forgotten?" she added in a suggestive voice.

  The crowd outside chuckled and the merchant's face reddened, but he would not be embarrassed out of the weapon. "She didn't deliver!" he complained, looking at the two templars.

  "Deliver what?" demanded Rhayn's father, slipping from the back room. He kept one hand hidden on the other side of the curtain. "Are you calling my daughter a harlot?"

  The half-elf templar shifted his partizan toward the chief. Rhayn and Huyar glanced at each other with exaggerated agitation, supporting their father's bluff.

  The merchant's eyes darted to the hidden hand, but his double chin remained set in determination. "We had an arrangement," he said, glancing at the templars for support.

  "Our arrangement was that you'd give me your dagger, and now I have it," said Rhayn.

  "I doubt the wound on his head was part of your arrangement," said the half-elf. "You robbed him."

  The crowd outside murmured approval of the templar's determination, but Rhayn did not attribute any such nobility to him. To her, the man's actions suggested that he wanted a bribe, and she had no doubt that her father would gladly pay it—then steal it back later.

  "The fat oaf deserves his bandage," Rhayn said. "I had to smash
a flask over his head to keep his grubby hands off me." She gave the vendor a spiteful glare, then smiled at the half-elven templar. "Still, I can see why you are suspicious. What will it take to convince you of my innocence?"

  "All the purses of your tribe don't have enough gold to bribe one of King Tithian's templars—if that's what you're asking," said the red-haired man.

  Rhayn and Huyar glanced at each other with furrowed brows, unsure of how to proceed. In their experience, templars could always be bribed—usually for a modest price.

  It was Faenaeyon who came up with their next ploy. "Did I mention that I have another daughter?" the big elf asked. "You may have heard of her—Sadira of Tyr?"

  "If you say so," the half-elf answered, rolling his eyes. "And you might be my father as well. It still wouldn't matter."

  The templar shifted his partizan to Rhayn's chest, then motioned at the dagger in her hand. "Give that back to the wine vendor," he said. "You won't be needing it where you're going."

  A woman in the crowd yelled, "That's right! Let these elves know what happens when they rob the free citizens of Tyr!"

  "To the iron mines with her!" cried another.

  Rhayn looked to her father. "Maybe we could buy the dagger?" she suggested. If the templars couldn't be bribed, perhaps the wine vendor could.

  Faenaeyon only scowled at her in return. "What else have you been holding back?" he demanded, gesturing at the dagger. He glared at the templars for a moment, then looked back to Rhayn with a silvery light gleaming in his eyes. "You're trying to dupe me!" he yelled. "You're in this with them!"

  Rhayn scowled. She had heard her father make such accusations before, when he was well into his cups, but never at such a critical moment.

  "Think of what you're saying!" Huyar exclaimed. "No Sun Runner would side with an outsider!"

  "If she keeps the dagger from me, what else has she hidden?" hissed Faenaeyon. He raised his arm as though he were lifting something on the other side of the curtain.

  "Stop!" ordered the red-haired templar.

  "This is between me and my daughter" the chief growled, pulling his sword from behind the curtain.