The Nomad (3 page)

“A weak man may have many other virtues,” said Valsavis. “If he is weak in body and spirit, he may yet be kind and gentle and devoted. But a strong woman will always be able to control him. It is the man whom she cannot control that she is drawn to, for he represents a challenge, and the stimulation of unpredictability.”

“And what sort of woman are you drawn to?” Veela asked.

“One who is capable of gaining mastery over the one thing most women never do learn to control,” he said.

“And that is?”

“Herself,” Valsavis said.

“You are an interesting man, Valsavis. There is more to you than meets the eye,” she said.

“There is more to everyone than meets the eye,” he replied. “The trick is learning how to look. Now then, tell me what Nibenay wants of me.”

“I do not know,” she said.

“Yes, you do,” he said. “Tell me.”

Veela relented. “There is an elfling…” she began.

“An elfling?” Valsavis raised his eyebrows.

“Part elf, part halfling,” she replied. “He goes by the name Sorak, and he is called the Nomad…”

Valsavis listened intently as she spoke, telling him all that she had told the king, and what the king had said in response. When she was finished, Valsavis sat in silence for a moment, digesting what he had heard, then suddenly, he got up.

“We shall leave at once,” he said.

“What…
now?
But it will be dark soon!”

“The kank drawing your carriage does not need the light of day to see,” he said. “And your driver will be thankful not to have to spend the night waiting on the trail.”

“How did you know I came with a carriage and a driver?” she asked.

“I think it most unlikely you would have come all this way on foot,” he said. “And a senior templar of the Shadow King would never drive her own carriage.”

She grimaced. “Of course,” she said. “But you said the king could wait another day, and you gave no thought to the comfort of my driver earlier.”

“Nor do I now. I merely said he would be thankful.”

“Then why the sudden desire to leave now?” she asked.

“Because the elfling interests me,” he said. “And it has been a long time since I have had a worthy challenge.”

“Perhaps,” she said. “But it has also been a long time since you have had any challenge at all. And you are not as young as you once were.”

Valsavis moved, and suddenly two daggers thunked into the bench to either side of her, so close they pinned her robe to the wood. He had thrown them with such speed, one with each hand, that she had not even had time to react. She stared down at the daggers flanking her and cleared her throat slightly. “On the other hand, there is something to be said for the experience of age.”

The door to the dragon king’s chamber swung open with an ominous creaking sound, and as Valsavis stepped through, he said, “Your hinges need oiling.”

The Shadow King turned toward him slowly, regarding him with a steady gaze. Valsavis returned it unflinchingly. He had aged, thought Nibenay, but he looked as fit as ever, and he still moved with the lithe tread of a cat. He also still possessed the same annoying insolence. Even the Shadow King’s own templars trembled before Nibenay and found it difficult to meet his gaze. Not so Valsavis. There was an irritating absence of deference in his manner, and a complete absence of fear.

“I sent for you—” the dragon king said, then paused, breathing heavily, as he felt a rush of incandescent agony sweep through him. The pain was particularly bad this morning. “Come closer.”

Valsavis approached him without hesitation, stepping into the shaft of sunlight coming through the tower window.

“You have grown much older, Valsavis.”

“And you have grown much uglier, my lord.”

The Shadow King hissed with anger, and his tail twitched. “Do not try my patience, Valsavis! I know that you do not fear death. But there are worse fates that can befall a man.”

“And I am confident you know them all, my lord,” Valsavis replied casually, leaving the Shadow King to wonder if he had intended any double meaning. “Veela said you needed me.”

“I do not need,” the Shadow King replied with irritation. “But there is a matter I desire to have resolved. It concerns a wanderer from the Ringing Mountains.”

“Sorak the elfling, yes—and his villichi whore,” Valsavis said. “I know of them.” Before coming to the palace, he had first stopped at several taverns frequented by known informers and with the knowledge he already had from Veela, it was not difficult to piece together most of the story and separate the probable from the improbable. “Apparently, they came through Tyr, across the barrens and the Barrier Mountains, to cause some trouble for a suitor of one of your brood. I gather it was fatal for the suitor, and the girl in question has gone over to the Veiled Alliance.”

“Your sources are accurate, as ever,” said the Shadow King, “but it is not some slip of a rebellious daughter that concerns me now. It is the elven myth.”

“About his being some fated king of all the elves?” Valsavis asked with amusement. “It is said he bears the sword of ancient elven kings—Galdra, I believe it’s called. A wandering stranger and a fabled sword. What better fodder for a minstrel? He slays a few of your slow-witted giants and drunken bards make him the hero of the moment. Surely you do not give credence to such nonsense?”

“It is far from nonsense,” Nibenay replied. “Galdra exists, but it seems you have heard the bastardized version of the myth. The bearer of Galdra is not the King of Elves, according to the prophecy, but the
Crown
of Elves. So if the legend is true, then he is not a king, but a king-maker.”

“Shall I kill him for you, then?”

“No,” Nibenay replied firmly. “Not yet. First, find for me the king that this Nomad would make. The crown shall lead you to the king.”

Valsavis frowned. “Why should you be concerned about an elven king? The elves are tribal, they don’t even desire a king.”

“The Crown of Elves, according to the legend, will not merely empower an elven king, but a great mage, a ruler who shall bring all of Athas under his thrall,” said Nibenay.

“Another sorcerer-king?” Valsavis asked.

“Worse,” Nibenay replied with a sibilant hiss. “So find this king for me, and the crown shall be your prize, to dispose of as you will.”

Valsavis raised his eyebrow at the thought that any coming ruler could be worse than a sorcerer-king, but he kept his peace. Instead, he addressed himself to more immediate concerns. “So I trail this elfling for you, find and kill the king that he would make, and for my trouble, you offer me nothing but the elfling and his woman, to dispose of as I wish? Who would ransom such a pair? Even on the slave markets, they would bring a paltry reward in return for all my effort.”

“You would bargain with
me?”
the dragon king said, lashing his tail back and forth angrily.

“No, my lord, I would never stoop to bargain. My fee for such a task would be ten thousand gold pieces.

“What?
You must be mad!” said Nibenay, more astonished than angered at his temerity.

“It is a price you could easily afford,” Valsavis said. “Such a sum means nothing to you, and a comfortable old age for me. With such an incentive, I would approach my task with zeal and vigor. Without it, I would face my old age and infirmity alone and destitute.” He shrugged. “I might as well refuse and be killed now than die so mean a death.”

In spite of himself, the dragon king chuckled. The mercenary’s arrogance amused him, and it had been a long time since he had felt amused. “Very well. You will have your ten thousand in gold. And I will even throw in one of my young wives to care for you in your dotage. Is that incentive enough for you?”

“Will I have my choice from among your harem?” Valsavis asked.

“As you please,” the dragon king replied. “They mean nothing to me anymore.”

“Very well, then. Consider it done,” Valsavis said, turning to leave.

“Wait,” said the Shadow King. “I have not yet dismissed you.”

“There is something more, my lord?”

“Take this,” said Nibenay, holding out a ring to him with his clawed fingers. It was made of gold and carved in the shape of a closed eye. “Through this, I shall monitor your progress. And if you should need my aid, you may reach me through this ring.”

Valsavis took the ring and put it on. “Will that be all, my lord?”

“Yes. You may go now.” The hulking mercenary turned to leave. “Do not fail me, Valsavis,” said the Shadow King.

Valsavis paused and glanced back over his shoulder. “I never fail, my lord.”

* * *

“Sorak, stop! Please! I must rest,” said Ryana.

“We shall stop to rest at dawn,” he said, walking on.

“I don’t have your elfling constitution,” she replied, wearily. “I’m merely human, and though I’m villichi, there is nevertheless a limit to my endurance.”

“Very well,” he said, relenting. “We shall stop. But only for a little while, then we must press on.”

She gratefully sank to her knees and unslung her waterskin to take a drink.

“Be sparing with that water,” he said when he saw her take several large swallows. “There is no way of telling when we may find more.”

She looked at him, puzzled. “Why should we fear running out of water,” she asked, “when we can scoop out a depression and employ a druid spell to bring it from the ground?”

“You must, indeed, be tired,” Sorak replied. “Have you forgotten the surface we are walking on? It is all salt. And salty water will not quench your thirst, it will merely make it worse.”

“Oh,” she said with a wry grimace. “Of course. How thoughtless of me.” With an air of regret, she slung the waterskin back over her shoulder. She looked out into the distance ahead of them, where the dark shapes of the Mekillot Mountains were silhouetted against the night sky. “They seem no closer than the day before,” she said.

“We should reach them in another three or four days, at most,” said Sorak. “That is, if we do not stop for frequent rests.”

She took a deep breath and expelled it in a long and weary sigh as she got back to her feet. “You have made your point,” she said. “I am ready to go on.”

“It should be dawn in another hour or so,” said Sorak, looking at the sky. “Then we will stop to sleep.”

“And roast,” she said as they started walking once again. “Even at night, this salt is still warm beneath my feet. I can feel it through my moccasins. It soaks up the day’s heat like a rock placed into a fire. I do not think that I shall ever again season my vegetables with salt!”

They were five days out on their journey across the Great Ivory Plain. They traveled only at night, for in the daytime, the searing darksun of Athas made the plain a furnace of unbearable heat. Its rays, reflecting off the salt crystals, were blinding. During the day, they rested, stretched out on the salt and covered by their cloaks. They had little to fearfrom the predatory creatures that roamed the wastes of the Athasian desert, for even the hardiest forms of desert life knew better than to venture out upon the Great Ivory Plain. Nothing grew here, nothing lived. For as far as they could see, from the Barrier Mountains to the north to the Mekillot Mountains to the south, and from the Estuary of the Forked Tongue to the West and the vast Sea of Silt to the East, there was nothing but a level plain of salt crystals, gleaming with a ghostly luminescence in the moonlight.

Perhaps, thought Sorak, he was pushing her too hard. Crossing the Great Ivory Plain was far from a simple task. For most ordinary humans, it could easily mean death, but Ryana was villichi, strong and well trained in the arts of survival. She was far from an ordinary human female. On the other hand, he was not human at all, and possessed the greater strength and powers of endurance of both his races. It was unfair to expect her to keep the pace he set. Still, it was a dangerous journey, and he was anxious to have the crossing over with. However, there were other dangers still awaiting them when they finally reached the mountains.

The marauders of Nibenay had their base camp somewhere near the mountains, and Sorak knew they had no cause to love him. He had foiled their plot to ambush a merchant caravan from Tyr, and had brought down one of their leaders. If they encountered the marauders, things would not go well for them.

In order to reach their destination, the village of Salt View, they had to cross the mountains—in itself no easy task. And once they reached the village, they would have other thorny problems to resolve. The Sage had sent them there to find a druid named the Silent One, who was to guide them to the city of Bodach, where they were to seek an ancient artifact known as the Breastplate of Argentum. However, they did not even know what this mysterious druid looked like. For that matter, they did not know what the Breastplate of Argentum looked like, either, and Bodach was the worst place in the world to search for anything.

Legend had it there was a great treasure to be found in Bodach, but few adventurers who went in search of it ever managed to return. Located at the tip of a peninsula extending into one of the great inland silt basins, Bodach was a city of the undead. Formerly a mighty domain of the ancients, its once-magnificent towers could be seen from a great distance, and it covered many square miles of the peninsula. Finding one relic in a large city that had fallen into ruin would be, in itself, a daunting task, but once the sun went down, thousands of undead crept from their lairs and prowled the ancient city streets. As a result, very few were tempted to seek out Bodach’s riches. The greatest treasure in the world was of no use to one who never lived to spend it.

Sorak cared nothing for treasure. What he sought, no amount of riches could buy, and that was the truth. Ever since he was a child, he had wanted to know who his parents were and what had become of them. Were they still alive? How did it come about that a halfling had mated with an elf? Had they met and somehow, against all odds, fallen in love? Or was it that his mother had been raped by an invader, making him a hated offspring, cast out because she had not wanted him? Perhaps it had not been her choice to cast him out. Had she loved him and tried to protect him, only to have his true nature discovered by the other members of her tribe, who had refused to accept him in their midst? That seemed to be the most likely possibility, since he had been about five or six years old when he was left out on the desert. In that case, what had become of his mother? Had she remained with her tribe, or was she, too, cast out? Or worse. He knew that he would never find true peace within himself until he had the answers to those questions, which had plagued him all his life.