"Brass dragon eggs, these were?" Ariakas wondered. After a few moments in the room, the stench had less shy;ened to an unpleasant, if pervasive, aura.
"Yes. But their origin, we think, has little to do with this grotesque mutation."
"Has something happened to these eggs-something unique?" asked the warrior.
In answer, Wryllish Parkane nodded and smiled. "Per shy;haps it would be more… comfortable, were we to speak outside?" he suggested, raising his eyebrows in ques shy;tion.
Ariakas readily agreed, and they stepped back through the doorway into the deep cavern passage. Even with the door shut the warrior imagined that potent stench cling shy;ing to his clothes, hair, skin.
"Have you ever heard of the Zhakar?" inquired the cleric, surprising Ariakas with the apparently irrelevant question.
'The name means little to me," the warrior admitted. "In Khuri-Khan it was rumored to be a kingdom in the Khalkists-mountain savages who ruthlessly kill any intruders. No one knows where it is, though speculation puts it on the border of Bloten." Ariakas shrugged, remembering another fact. "I traveled well to the north of its supposed locations when I came to Sanction. There are enough tales of folk who've disappeared there to give the legends some credence."
"You were wise," remarked the priest. "Zhakar is a real place, and deadly to those who intrude. Only in one detail do your eastern legends miss the truth."
Ariakas remained silent, waiting for the explanation.
"Zhakar, you see, is a nation of dwarves," Wryllish Par-kane explained. "They are the only remnant of the mighty kingdom of Thoradin, which was destroyed by the Cataclysm."
"Okay, so it's a bunch of savage dwarves," Ariakas retorted. "What does it have to do with these eggs?"
"Oh, there is more you need to know," cautioned the priest. "After the Cataclysm, Zhakar was afflicted by a horrible plague, borne by the mold that grew in the vast food warrens underneath the city. Many of the dwarves died; those who lived became terribly afflicted with dis shy;figuring disease. Their skin rots away, their hair turns to mold and crumbles…. It's not a pretty thing to see."
"I imagine not," Ariakas murmured.
"In any event, some of these dwarves have come to Sanction to live and to trade. They offer high-quality steel and gems in exchange for all kinds of things. They also practice thievery, with varying degrees of skill, and are generally an unpleasant lot to be around. They go about robed to conceal their repugnant appearance."
"I remember them-fully cloaked, shorter than a mountain or hill dwarf, but still stocky. They looked very sturdy."
"Those are the Zhakar," agreed Wryllish Parkane. "Now, some months ago, a Zhakar thief was caught in our temple. Guards pursued him into the catacombs, and found him hiding in this very room. At that time, the room contained nothing more than a hundred of so brass dragon eggs. He was caught, and we interrogated him. Unfortunately, we were able to learn little more than the name of his lord. Finally, justice was done to him. Barely a week afterward, however, two apprentices discovered that one of the eggs in there had begun to … well, do what they're all doing, now."
"Two apprentices? I thought you said only one other person besides us knows about this."
"Yes." The priest looked a little distressed. "The secret was judged too important… the apprentices have gone to an early meeting with the Dark Queen."
"I see." Ariakas was impressed to learn that this priest was capable of ruthless action when necessary. "Now, tell me why you've shown all this to me."
"Well, it's because of the Zhakar, you see," Wryllish explained. "We believe that some aspect of the mold plague has caused the corruption of these eggs. We scrubbed them clean, but apparently it was too late to remove the corruption. Naturally, we want to learn more about it. Who knows? It might even prove to be a useful discovery."
Privately, Ariakas didn't know what good a bunch of blind, cannibalistic lizards were going to be to anybody, but he didn't interrupt the priest's explanation.
"It's possible-quite conceivable, actually-that the Zhakar would be willing to trade some of the fungus if it proves to be useful. But as it stands right now, we know little about them. They have resisted all attempts of our clerical agents to meet with them."
"You want me to affect a meeting," guessed Ariakas.
"You seem like a very logical choice," the cleric hur shy;riedly encouraged. "You're so much more, well, worldly than those of us who spend our time in the temple. If you could meet with Tale Splintersteel and make the arrangements, you would do the mistress a great service — a very great service!"
"Who is Tale Splintersteel?"
"He's the richest Zhakar in Sanction. He seems to be an unofficial chieftain for them, and he arranges all the large commercial deals. He's a prosperous merchant lord in his own right, one of the wealthiest people in Sanc shy;tion. He's also the lord of the Zhakar thief we caught- the one who reputedly sent the cutpurse on his mission."
"Do you know where this Zhakar, Splintersteel, is?" Ariakas inquired.
"He lives in the slum, somewhere-no one knows exactly where. However, he frequents a tavern owned by another Zhakar, near the West Bridge. The place is called the Fungus Mug, and chances are good that you will be able to find him there."
"Very well," said Ariakas. "I'll seek him there tomor shy;row."
Without further exchange, they departed the Sancti shy;fied Catacombs, Ariakas walking in silent reflection. He bade farewell to the high priest and emerged from the darkened cavern of the temple to stroll reflectively down the mountainside, under the glowing crimson clouds of Sanction at night.
He reached his house very close to dawn, and when he slept his dreams were filled with squirming lizard crea shy;tures, spawn of the metal dragon eggs. Yet the images of the grotesque creatures, he was surprised to find, gave him not horror, but hope.
Chapter 12
After sleeping for most of the day, Ariakas awakened to a steaming bath followed by a massage from his valet, Kandart. The man was a middle-aged Nerakan mute, completely attentive. Deciding that he enjoyed the life of nobility, the warrior followed his relaxation with a meal of tender roast lamb, and by the time he had briefly honed his white sword, it was time to set out once again into the streets of Sanction.
Ariakas had some difficultly finding the Fungus Mug; the bar occupied a street of seedy taverns in a district composed exclusively, so far as he could tell, of seedy taverns. His only clue was the West Bridge, and after an hour of fruitless searching he concluded that 'around the West Bridge' could serve as a direction to something like a thousand saloons and taverns.
And none of these thousand was a place called the Fungus Mug. He tried asking passersby and received replies varying from completely uninformative to down shy;right hostile. He began the second hour of his search along a dingy row of alleyways that ran perpendicular to the busy Bridge Road. Pedestrians hurried through these alleys, keeping their heads low and their ears alert. Here, too, flopped the destitute, the drunken, the losers at gambling … and anyone else temporarily bereft of lodg shy;ing and funds. Sometimes these pathetic wretches begged for alms-pleas that Ariakas inevitably ignored, or responded to with a kick of his heavy boot. Occasion shy;ally one would wait until he'd passed, and then slip toward the warrior's back. Ariakas whirled several times, half-drawing his huge sword; always the culprit scurried away.
In the third alleyway, he felt a glimmer of optimism. Several stocky characters trumped along in front of him, and though they were heavily cloaked, they looked like dwarves. Then, too, there was a scent on the air here that actually suggested mold and mildew, like a cellar that was flooded and left closed. In time, he saw the small sign, chiseled stone set in a wooden frame. Beneath a carved image of a stout drinking glass Ariakas made out the words: "The Fungus Mug." The stonecarver had added a curious detail to the mug: it seemed to be puff shy;ing out gentle clouds of steam, as if the contents were very hot.