“If you want me to do something about the amulets, you’ll really have to tell me a little more about them,” Agis said at last, deciding to press for all the information he could.
“You?” Tithian asked. “What can you do?”
“Isn’t that why you’re here?” Agis asked. “I assume you’ve come to discuss asking the Senate to support an initiative against the Veiled Alliance.”
The high templar laughed. “What makes you think Kalak cares about the Senate’s support?”
Tithian’s reply touched a sore nerve. The Senate of Lords was an assembly of noble advisors who were supposed to have the authority to override the king’s decrees. In reality the body was little more than a paper assembly, for senators who opposed the king invariably suffered prompt and mysterious deaths.
“Perhaps the king should start caring about the Senate’s support,” Agis said, speaking more openly in front of his old friend than he would have to any other templar. “He’s nearly taxed the nobles into ruin building his ziggurat, and he still hasn’t bothered to tell the Senate why he’s erecting it in the first place!”
The high templar looked away and waved his carafe toward the center of Agis’s estate. “May we go back to your house? I’m not accustomed to standing about in the sun.” Without waiting for an answer, he began walking with a slow, even pace.
Agis followed, continuing to press. “The caravan captains claim the Dragon is coming toward Tyr, and the king is ignoring our pleas to raise an army.”
“Don’t tell me you accept all that nonsense about the Dragon, Agis?”
The Dragon was the terror of all travelers, a horrid monster of the desert that routinely wiped out whole caravans. Until recently, Agis had believed it was no more than a myth, dismissing tales of the thing devouring whole armies and laying waste to entire cities as fanciful fabrications. He had changed his mind during the last month, however, when sober and trustworthy men had begun to report glimpses of it at ever-decreasing distances fromTyr.
Agis replied, “I think the king would be well advised to take the threat seriously. He should stop wasting his money and manpower on the ziggurat and start preparing for the defense of our estates and his city.”
“If he believed in the Dragon, I’m sure he would,” Tithian replied.
They crested the gentle hill that hid the reservoir from the rest of Agis’s estate. Below them stretched green acres of tall faro, the dwarf cactus-tree grown as a cash crop by many of Tyr’s nobles. The faro itself was almost as tall as a man and had a handful of scaly stems that rose to a tangled crown of needle-covered boughs. The fields were crisscrossed at regular intervals by a network of muddy irrigation ditches. In the center of the farm sat the ancestral Asticles mansion, its marble dome echoing the shape of the distant mountains that ringed the Tyr Valley.
“What’s your secret, my friend?” Tithian asked, pausing to run an appreciative eye over Agis’s lush fields. “It’s all that anyone else can do to produce a few hundred bushels of needles a year, but your farm is covered by an orchard.”
Agis smiled at the compliment. “There’s no secret to it,” he said. “I just took a lesson from a druid.”
“And what did you learn?” Tithian asked.
“Treat the land well and eat well. Abuse it and starve.” Agis pointed at the tawny plain of barren dust and sand lying beyond the borders of his estate. “If everyone followed that simple rule, the rest of the Tyr Valley would be as lush as my farm.”
“Perhaps you should come and explain this discovery of yours to Kalak,” Tithian replied, his cynical tone suggesting that he found what Agis told him difficult to believe. “I’m sure he’d be interested in such a marvel.”
“I doubt it,” the noble replied. “Kalak’s only interest in the valley is draining it of every last ounce of magic-giving life-force it can provide, regardless of what it does to the land.”
“Be careful who you say such things to, my friend,” Tithian said. “That comment borders on treason.”
Still carrying the ceramic carafe of wine, Tithian started down the narrow path that led toward the estate mansion. As he descended the slope, Agis was surprised by the total absence of slaves in his fields. It was true that he worked them mainly in the relatively cool hours of the morning and evening, but even in the heat of the afternoon there should have been a few men in the fields to watch the irrigation ditches and clear any blockages. He made a mental note to speak to Caro when he returned to the house, then turned his thoughts to what he might learn from Tithian.
“A week ago, Urik’s emissary threatened war if we don’t start shipping iron again,” Agis said, bringing up a point that he knew the templar could not dismiss lightly. “We can’t do it because Kalak has taken the slaves out of the mine to work on his ziggurat. How long does the king think he can continue to ignore the city’s problems?”
Tithian stopped and faced Agis. They were now surrounded by snarled faro boughs. “How did you find out about the emissary?” the templar asked, clearly shocked.
“If the high templars have spies in the Senate,” Agis responded evenly, “it stands to reason that the Senate has spies in the High Bureaus.”
The truth of the matter was that the Senate had been trying for years to recruit a spy in the king’s bureaucracy, which, whether they liked to admit it or not, was where the real political power lay in Tyr. Unfortunately, they had always failed. Agis was simply trying to confirm a rumor he had heard from a caravan merchant. If he happened to cause a little turmoil among the templars, that was fine.
“How did Kalak respond to Urik’s threat?” Agis asked.
To the noble’s surprise, Tithian sighed, then dropped his gaze. “He sent the envoy’s head back, carried by a merchant caravan.”
“What?” Agis shrieked.
Tithian nodded grimly.
“Is he trying to start a war?”
The high templar shrugged. “Who knows? All I can say is that he seemed very pleased with himself.”
Agis was almost as shocked by Tithian’s candor as he was by the news itself. Normally a high templar, especially this one, would be discreet about such things. “Why are you telling me this, Tithian?” the senator asked suspiciously. “What do you want from me?”
Tithian appeared hurt and did not answer immediately. Instead, he took a long drink from his carafe, then studied the contents for several seconds. At last, he looked up. “I suppose I deserve even your suspicion, Agis,” he said. “You must know that you’re the only man I have ever considered a friend.”
“That’s very flattering, Tithian,” Agis answered carefully, “but we’re hardly in the habit of sharing confidences. Forgive me if I seem skeptical.”
Tithian gave Agis a smile. “Believe me or not, it makes no difference. There has always been a certain bond of circumstance between you and me. More importantly, you’ve always treated me with consideration-even when others didn’t.”
“I don’t think the worst of anyone until I’ve seen it for myself,” Agis allowed cautiously. “Still, you must admit, this is the first time since we were boys that we’ve truly spoken of friendship.”
Because their family estates were near to each other, Agis and Tithian had grown up as friends. They had even attended schooling in the Way of the Unseen together, though Tithian had hardly been an enthusiastic student. Unfortunately, his indolence and rebelliousness had made him something of an outcast with the master and other students, but Agis’s friendship had not wavered.
Later, Tithian’s father had selected a younger brother to lead the Mericles family. Tithian was so furious that he had committed the ultimate class betrayal and joined the ranks of the templars. Agis’s friendship had not wavered even when the younger brother had died under mysterious circumstances and everyone had suspected Tithian-unjustly, the senator had believed-of committing the murder to recover control of his family estate.