The old man snapped out of his shock and untied the gate rope. “I’ve run this livery for thirty years, and never has a carrier drone snapped at me,” he said, keeping a suspicious eye fixed on the beast. “What’s wrong with yours?”
“I don’t know,” Sadira said. “It did something like this once before, not long after my journey began, but it has never been so violent.”
The sorceress released the antenna and leaped out of the pen, barely clearing the threshold before the gate came crashing down. The kank threw itself at the bars. When they showed no sign of breaking, it retreated to the back of its stall, then slammed into the gate again. It repeated the actions over and over as Sadira watched, perplexed.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” the old man said, shaking his head in bewilderment. “I’ll have to hire an elf to look at it.”
“What for?”
“It could be diseased,” he said, leading the way back down the tunnel. “If so, I’ll have to kill and burn the drone. Otherwise, the sickness could spread, and every kank in my stable could die.”
Sadira was immediately suspicious of his motives. “My mount had better be here when I come back,” she warned.
“Can’t promise that,” he answered, not bothering to look at her. “And I’m keeping your whole silver. You’ll have to pay for the elf.”
“No!” Sadira protested.
“It’s your kank,” the old man said. “It’s only fair that you pay the cost of examining it.”
“How do I know you won’t pocket my coin, sell the kank, and claim the beast was diseased?” Sadira demanded, outraged.
The old man stopped and pointed up the ramp. “You don’t, but listen to that.” The echoes of Sadira’s mount banging itself against its gate continued to fill the corridor. “I’ll give you the coin back, but you’ve got to take the kank with it. Do you think any other livery master will charge less?”
“I suppose not,” Sadira admitted, wondering where she would find the money to feed herself until she contacted the Veiled Alliance-or to buy another kank, if it came to that.
The old man started down the ramp again. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t destroy your beast unless I must, and I’ll get the best price I can from the elf who looks at it.” When they reached the ground floor, the old man turned toward his workshop.
Deciding to see how well her plan to rid herself of the Sun Runners was working, Sadira retraced her steps into the dark lane from which she had approached the livery. She stopped in the shelter of its depths, then looked toward the gate. Her father had just arrived at the head of his tribe, and was approaching the sharp-featured half-elf to whom Sadira had given the silver coin. Faenaeyon smiled warmly and said something to the man.
The guard also smiled and held out his hand.
The chief scowled, then shoved the half-elf so hard that he came tumbling into the square. The gateman’s assistants screamed the alarm and thrust their spears at Faenaeyon. The elf casually slapped the weapons from their hands, then stepped past the two men into the courtyard.
“Lorelei!” he screamed, his angry eyes searching the gloomy portals that lined the small plaza.
Sadira saw a company of guards beginning to pour from the gate tower, then smiled to herself and turned to leave.
EIGHT
PRINCE OF NIBENAY
An inky murk filled the chamber, so thick and dark that it seemed to brush over the kank’s carapace like smoke. In the pitch blackness, not even the ground-the one thing the beast’s weak eyes always kept in focus-was visible. To stay attuned to the creature’s surroundings, Tithian had to rely entirely upon the insect’s other senses. For the king’s vision-oriented mind, the task was an onerous one.
Still, Tithian could tell that the earthy scent of mildew clung to the insect’s antennae, as did a muskier smell that terrified the drone. Clutched in the kank’s powerful mandibles was the old liveryman to whom Sadira had entrusted her mount. He smelled of sweat and blood, and drew his breath in shallow gasps.
The clatter of two dozen sticklike legs rose from the far side of the room and approached, reverberating through the kank’s drumlike ears with a chilling quiver. When they reached the liveryman trapped between the kank’s pincers, the legs stopped and fell silent. Then Tithian heard something else coming from the other side of the cavernous room. This creature moved much more quietly, its feet whispering across the floor as though barely touching the slimy stones.
When the second arrival reached the old man’s side, a pair of bulbous eyes appeared in the darkness. The orbs were golden yellow, with pupils as black and glassy as obsidian. Tithian could tell little else about the creature, for the gleam of the eyeballs was too faint to illuminate any more of its face.
“Make the kank speak, old man,” demanded a man’s voice, as quiet and as smooth as the frigid breath of night.
“The drone doesn’t speak aloud, Mighty King,” gasped the liveryman, weak and pained from having his ribs constricted by the kank’s mandibles. “It talks to me, and I repeat its words.”
The color of the eyes changed to scarlet, but the king did not speak. Instead, a harsher, chattering voice sounded from where the clattering legs had stopped. “If you came here thinking to dupe my father with sophistry, your death will be slow and painful.” The speaker remained concealed in the darkness.
The liveryman began to tremble. “Please, Great Prince, I am only a prisoner,” he said. “After it was lodged with me, the kank collapsed and acted like it was dead. When I opened its pen to dispose of it, the beast sprang past two of my assistants and seized me. I heard a man’s voice in my mind, demanding that I show it the way to your palace. If you will allow me, I can prove that what I say is true.”
The liveryman made his statement with brisk efficiency, for he had already repeated it to the gate guards, to their commander, and to a bare-breasted woman addressed as the Consort of the South Gate. In order to convince each of the officials to take his request for a royal audience to the next level, the liveryman had asked them to command the drone to do whatever they wished. Tithian had used his control over the beast’s mind to make the kank respond appropriately.
Unfortunately, the last official, a naked matron calling herself the Most High Concubine of the Palace Chambers, had proven even more difficult. To win her over, Tithian had been forced to speak to her mentally, as he had to the liveryman. The exertion had left him exhausted, for it was no easy matter to use the Way over such vast distances.
When both the prince and his father remained silent, the liveryman looked back to the yellow eyes. “Command the beast to do anything you wish,” he said. “You will see that it seems truly intelligent.”
“There’s a better way to see if you are lying,” said the king’s voice.
He slipped past the old man and moved closer to the kank’s head, until the creature’s antennae began to dance in the Nibenese ruler’s musty breath. The king’s eyes shined directly into those of the drone, and Tithian was almost blinded by the golden luminescence. The light shimmered and twinkled for several moments, forming a series of ephemeral shapes as the sorcerer-king used the Way to invade the kank’s mind.
When the glow died away, Tithian found his attention focused on a mass of slime-covered flesh, shaped like a teardrop and banded with thick folds of skin. From one end of its body rose a tube-shaped torso, with a pair of corpulent arms ending in hooklike claws. The creature’s head was the only thing even remotely human, with a heavy crown of gold sitting atop a fine-boned brow. He had a broad nose with flaring nostrils and bloated lips that did not quite conceal the curved fangs hanging from his upper jaw. His eyes were bulbous and yellow, identical to those that the liveryman had addressed as the sorcerer-king of Nibenay.
The thing moved forward on six bandy legs, scuttling across the rippled sands of the kank’s mind with surprising speed. It stopped at the base of a dune and dropped to its haunches, where it seemed to be waiting until a thought passed near enough to ambush.