The alley ran about fifty yards in the other direction before opening onto the harborside street, where the hulking figure of a half-giant blocked the exit. The brute towered almost as high as the roofs surrounding him, with a helmet of albino kank shell covering his head. For armor he wore a corselet of bleached leather, leaving his loins concealed by nothing more than a dingy gray skirt. He carried only one weapon, a bone club spiked with obsidian shards.
“Which way are we going?” Agis asked.
The sorcerer hesitated before answering. “I’m not really sure,” he said. “It’s been years since I’ve been off this roof.”
“Then how are we going to find our ship?” Agis demanded, watching the half-giant lumber down the alley.
“I’ve heard that it’s docked in front of the Red Mekillot.”
“Which is where?”
“Just down the street from the Blue Cloud, which is around the corner from the Gray King, which is two blocks past the-”
“Just go-but not toward the harborside street,” Agis said, releasing the jozhal’s arm. “There’s a guard coming from there.”
Nymos nodded, then climbed onto the rope. Agis hazarded a glance back toward the center of the roof. The clay stopper remained in place, but the sound of the templars hacking at it had grown less muffled. He summoned the spiritual strength to use the Way. As before on the quay, the energy came to him slowly, and the noble began to worry that his pursuers would clear the plug before he was ready to attack.
The half-giant’s voice drew Agis’s attention back to the alley. “In the king’s name, stop!”
The order boomed through the narrow lane like thunder, shaking the dust off the walls and causing a four-foot rubbish slug to slither out from beneath a pile of trash. The half-giant broke into a run, his massive legs spraying plumes of silvery dust into the air as he plowed through silt drifts.
Nymos’s feet touched the ground, and the jozhal turned away, sprinting down the alley as fast as a kank, waving his cane back and forth to detect unexpected obstacles. Had Agis not known better, he would have sworn the reptile could see.
“Stop!” the half-giant boomed, smashing his spiked club into the back wall of a tackle shop. The blow knocked a melon-sized hole in the clay bricks.
Agis glanced back at the center of the roof and saw a lump of clay fly up from the plug, then he jumped into the alley. He landed in a pile of silt, sinking to his waist and sending a billow of dust boiling across the lane. The noble waded out of the drift, his legs burning with the effort and his lungs choking on the cloud of loess. Once he was free, he did not turn to follow Nymos, but faced the sorcerer’s pursuer.
The half-giant shifted his dull eyes from the fleeing sorcerer to the Tyrian, then rushed forward with a renewed burst of speed. To Agis, he resembled nothing quite so much as a rampaging dust spirit. The massive guard was lost from the waist down in a roiling curtain of silt, with each step sending silvery columns of loess shooting up past his head.
Agis focused his attention on the dust still billowing around his own feet.
The half-giant stopped at Agis’s side and reached down toward the noble. “Got you now,” he growled, keeping his club ready in the other hand.
“No, I have you,” Agis replied, dodging the clumsy lunge.
He used the Way to inject his spiritual energy into the whirling cloud of dust at his feet, then dived away. The small whirlwind increased tenfold, swallowing the half-giant in gray whorls and filling the alley with the shrill whistle of a gale-force wind. The guard roared in anger as the storm swept him off his feet. He crashed into the back wall of the Furled Sail, spraying Agis with shards of brick and filling the air with more dust.
The noble sprinted down the alley after Nymos, coughing and choking. Behind him, the giant flailed about madly, smashing holes into walls and trying to dodge away from the suffocating whirlwind that had engulfed him. His efforts were in vain, for the maelstrom followed him wherever he went.
Agis glanced over his shoulder, worried that the templars would be coming after him. To his relief, he saw that their task would not be easy. His whirlwind had engulfed the entire tavern, rendering it as impossible for them to see him as it was for him to see the building.
The noble turned his attention to catching Nymos. As he had hoped, it was a simple matter to track the sorcerer. The morning was still young, and not many feet had trod the back alleys. Agis soon picked out the jozhal’s three-clawed footprints, then followed them through the maze of crumbling shanties that constituted the harbor district.
It quickly became apparent that Nymos had no clear idea of where he was going. The jozhal’s tracks often doubled back on themselves, or circled around three sides of a block before continuing down the same lane that he had been in originally. At times, the trail became so confused that Agis could not follow it, and he would give a coin to a dirt-smudged child or grimy-faced mother in return for telling him which way the reptile had gone. On several occasions, he even asked directions of someone who told him that Nymos had asked how to reach a particular inn or tavern.
Finally Agis emerged from the shanty warren at the edge of the harborside road. Across the street lay a long wharf, along which rested six sloops with towering masts and huge sails furled on their yardarms. Slaves were busily laboring at each ship, unloading building stone, timber, wool, and even a flock of erdlus-tall, flightless birds with sharp beaks and huge legs.
Near the end of the dock, a two-masted caravel hovered on the surface of the bay. Its square sails hung unfurled and flapping in the breeze, ready to be drawn tight. The figures of more than a dozen men crawled over the rigging, making the ship ready to sail. The helmsman was looking down the quay, as if awaiting some signal to set the craft in motion.
Nymos was nowhere in sight, his tracks lost in the hundreds of others crisscrossing the road.
“I’m given to know yer lookin’ for a ship,” said a gravelly voice at Agis’s side.
The noble turned to face the speaker and found himself looking into the savage eyes of a tarek female, as powerfully built as a mul and with arms so long the knuckles dragged in the dust. The tarek had a square, big-boned head, with a sloping forehead and a massive brow ridge. Sharp fangs filled her domed muzzle, while her flat nose ended in a pair of red, flaring nostrils. From the lobes of her barbed ears hung three copper hoops, a substantial exhibition of wealth for this part of the city-and one that suggested the woman was the match for any cutthroat who might take it into his head to steal the prized metal. She wore a filthy silken breechcloth with a broad belt around her waist, and her four breasts were covered by nothing but a leather harness holding several bone daggers.
“At the moment, I’m looking for a blind jozhal,” Agis replied cautiously.
The tarek nodded toward the caravel. “Nymos’s aboard,” she said, slipping a hand inside Agis’s cloak and reaching for his purse.
The noble clamped a hand around the tarek’s arm, but did not have the strength to prevent her from plucking the sack off his belt. “I don’t lack the skills to protect my wealth,” Agis warned.
“And I don’t lack the strength to take it,” sneered the tarek, pulling the purse out. “But that’s not what I’m about. Before I take ye on, I’ll have a look to make sure ye can afford me ship.”
She opened the sack and peered inside, then raised an approving eyebrow. “Kester’s my name.” She plucked fifteen silver coins from the bag, then handed it back to Agis. “This covers the first week.”