The darkness also hid two men. They crouched in the cover of a thick stand of brush and watched the meeting of the Knight and the centaurs in the rubble of the city a hundred yards away.
“There, that woman,” said one man, pointing downward. “She spotted me in the marketplace.”
“And followed you here,” the second man added. His voice was level and emotionless, but the first man shot him a nervous look.
“I got the information you wanted,” he said.
The second man nodded once. He was tall and lean and wore the long, voluminous robes of a plains tribesmen. A hood camouflaged his face in shadow and hid the cold expression on his features.
The two men watched from their hiding place without talking as the centaur patrol left the lady Knight and cantered into the hills. The noise of their hooves pounded close by the watchers then dwindled when the horsemen headed north toward the Scorpion Wadi. Moments later the last centaur carried the Knight back toward the city and the ruins were left deserted once more. The darkness closed in.
The robed man rose to his feet and stepped out of the shelter of the copse. “Tell me,” he ordered.
The other man followed. “Give me the rest of my fee.”
A bag of coins appeared in the tall man’s hand, but he held it back in his fist like a trap.
The spy gave him a surly look and casually stuck a hand in his belt near a hidden throwing knife. “There is a caravan from Morning Dew. It’s due in about four days. In time for the festival. The spring crops have been good this year, so the farmers are looking forward to some bartering. The Legion is not expecting reinforcements until autumn.”
“What about Elder Joachem? You met with him two days ago to get the date of the shipment of supplies and weapons.”
“Had to get rid of him,” the spy said with a sneer. “He was getting too greedy.”
“Sloppy,” snarled the robed man. “That is the third city dweller you have disposed of. I thought I hired a professional. I wanted no deaths to draw unnecessary attention.”
“Sloppy!” he hissed. “That old man got nosy. He wanted more coins, more answers. He thought I was part of a smuggling ring and—”
“There are more subtle ways of dealing with the curious,” said the tall man in a tone as cold as a glacier. His left hand shot out, snatched the spy’s shoulder, and with surprising speed and strength, wrenched the man around and locked his body against his. The spy had no time to retaliate. The man’s right hand slid under the spy’s jaw, grasped the side of his head in a grip like a vise, and snapped it sideways. A moment later the spy became so much carrion.
He carried the body into the thicket and dumped it under the heavy undergrowth. Perhaps the centaurs would find what was left after the desert scavengers feasted. Perhaps not. It would not matter before long. Settling his hood carefully about his face, he strode down the hill and moved purposefully toward the lights of the city.
“And there are less subtle ways of dealing with the stupid.”
2
Evening in Mirage
Linsha, naturally at ease on horseback, leaned her weight back, relaxed her legs, and eased her seat into the rhythm of the centaur’s pace. For the sake of good manners, she would not touch his human torso unless he gave his permission.
“Have you been out with the patrols for long?” she asked.
Leonidas shook his curly head. “This was my first night,” he said. “I just came here a few days ago to join my uncle Caphiathus.”
He had been in the Missing City only a few days? Linsha pondered. That explained a great deal of his nervousness. “At least this won’t be your last,” she said with a chuckle.
The centaur brightened, and his words came tumbling out. “Oh, yes. Thank you, Lady. Another uncle once had a crossbow bolt that missed his ribs and pinned the edge of his vest to a tree.”
“How fortunate for him,” Linsha murmured.
“Yes,” Leonidas said with a perfectly innocent face. “It was the other twelve bolts that put him off his feed.”
Linsha couldn’t help but laugh. She could not decide if this centaur was simply naive or if behind that awkward, coltish exterior was a sense of humor and thoughtfulness that went deeper than his uncle gave him credit for. She played with the idea of trying to read his aura. It was a mystic ability she had that enabled her to sense a person’s true nature, good or evil. It was one of the things she had learned during her brief time with Goldmoon at the Citadel of Light and the strongest of her few mystic talents. Lately though, her ability to use even this simple magic of the heart had faltered and failed, and more often than not she ended up with a strange tickle around her neck and a foolish look on her face. She decided to keep an eye on him instead, especially whenever he had a crossbow in his hands.
Leonidas’s smooth trot quickly carried them out of the deserted fringes of the ancient ruins and into the streets of the North District. Buildings rose up around them, flowering gardens filled corners and yards, and the pale glow of lamplight began to gleam in windows. The tall, elegant figures of elves walked by carrying golden lamps that shed light on the well-tended sidewalks. A noblewoman strode past, her long, silvery hair bound in complex braids. At first glance, everything seemed normal. It wasn’t until one looked carefully at the forms filling the streets that their translucency became apparent.
Strangest of all, to Linsha’s mind, was the silence. There were no voices, no footsteps other than their own, no sound of laughter or music or stamping of horses’ hooves, no rumble of wheels or the sound of water in the fountains. Here in this part of the city where the living had not come, there were only the phantoms and the endless wind that blew from the plains.
Linsha felt a faint shudder in Leonidas’s hide. She could hardly blame him for feeling skittish. The Missing City was one of the oddest places she had ever visited. Centuries ago, before the first Cataclysm, the city had been a thriving community by the name of Gal Tra’kalas built by the Silvanesti elves on the shore of the Courrain Ocean. Some time during that first world-shifting catastrophe, something happened to the fair elven city that changed its physical existence forever. The city itself was utterly destroyed, leaving only ruins. But strangely, over these ruins lay a spectral copy of the old city, inhabited by ghostly figures who appeared to live normal lives completely unaware of the other world around them.
Several griffin riders who flew over the ruins shortly after the Cataclysm reported “…the city is haunted by fiends, who took the form of our brothers and sisters. The city, too, is reborn in an unholy mockery of life, for though rubble litters the place, the likeness of every building and barn still is visible.”
The elves thereafter shunned Gal Tra’kalas. No Silvanesti came to confirm the presence of the ghostly city. No one, save maybe a few nomads, travelers, or brigands stepped foot on the broken ground of the dead city, and it remained empty for generations, shimmering like a mirage on the edge of old memories. It wasn’t until after the Second Cataclysm that a brass dragon and a group of civilized people rediscovered the city of the lost and made it their own.
With darkness gathering quickly around them, Leonidas slowed to a careful walk. The images of the city looked real enough to the casual glance, but they often hid the reality of the ruins beneath the ghostly surface. Heaps of rubble, collapsed cellars, jagged walls, and decrepit roads still lay underfoot to trap the unwary.
The centaur made a sudden swerve that caused Linsha to clamp her knees tighter around his ribs and grab for the swath of mane on his withers. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “There was a woman there.”
There was a woman, a willowy beauty who passed completely through the centaur, taking no notice of him. Her long, pale hair blew in a breeze neither Linsha nor Leonidas could feel.