Though their friendship had never really come to an end, they had drifted apart over the years. Tithian had risen higher and higher in the templar ranks, Agis had inherited his family’s estate, and their interests had grown increasingly opposed to each other. In the end, it had simply been easier to let their close fellowship drift to an end than to strain it by trying to ignore their conflicting concerns.
The templar sipped at the wine in his carafe. When he did not respond to Agis’s observation after several moments, the noble continued in a careful tone. “What is it that you need from me?”
Tithian’s face clouded with anger. For several moments he stared at Agis with a sneer upon his lips. Finally he hurled the carafe to the ground. It shattered into a dozen pieces on the hard-packed soil of the path.
“I speak in the king’s name!” the templar spat. “I have the power to take anything I wish from you!”
Glancing at the smashed carafe, Agis calmly raised an eyebrow. “Why is our friendship suddenly so important?”
Tithian ran his soft, bejeweled hands over his face. “With all that’s happening,” he said, “I just want you to know how I feel.”
As if embarrassed by the emotion, the high templar started back toward the house. Agis followed, silently wondering if he had been treating his boyhood friend unjustly.
A few moments later, Tithian stopped in the middle of the trail. With his eyes fixed on the faro alongside the path, he reached for the dagger beneath his cloak. Following the templar’s gaze, Agis saw a two-foot slug inching its way up one of the trunks. It was covered with half-a-dozen green scales that served as excellent camouflage, and it had a long snakelike neck that ended in a narrow head with a beak as sharp as a faro thorn.
Agis quickly caught his friend’s arm. “There’s no need to kill it.”
“But it’s a fruit varl!” Tithian objected.
“I can afford to lose a few pieces of fruit.” Because fato trees blossomed only once a decade, each piece of the sweet fruit was a delicacy worth almost as much as the tree itself.
Shaking his head, Tithian said, “With thinking like that, I don’t know how you pay the king’s taxes.”
“It’s because of such thinking that I can,” Agis explained. “All things are linked together in a chain of life. If you destroy one of the links, then the chain is broken.”
Tithian scoffed.
“You commented earlier on my orchard,” Agis said. “Would you like to know one of the reasons it grows so well?”
The templar raised an eyebrow.
Agis pointed to the scaly slug. “When the varl eats the fruit, it eats the seed. As the seed passes through its systerm, its stomach fluids eat away the black coating on the outside. Seeds without black coatings sprout twice as often as seeds with coatings.”
“How do you know all this?” Tithian asked.
“I spent a week following varls,” Agis replied, allowing an embarrassed grin to creep across his lips.
“Most ingenious,” the high templar replied. “You can rest assured that your secret will be safe with me.”
“Tell anyone you like. It won’t affect the price of faro needles,” Agis said. “Too many people would rather sell their fruit today than harvest their needles tomorrow.”
“That’s certainly true,” Tithian said. He smiled and returned his dagger to its sheath, then started toward the house again.
Agis followed.
“You didn’t get to where you are today without being as intelligent as you are ruthless, Tithian,” the noble said diplomatically. “So I’m sure you’ve already figured out exactly how you’re going to meet the king’s deadline for completing the ziggurat.”
Tithian nodded, lifting his head so he could glance toward Agis’s house. “Why yes, I have.”
“Still, since you’ve come as a friend, it doesn’t seem out of place to offer a friend’s advice,” Agis said.
Tithian paused on a small stone slab bridging an irrigation ditch, looking at Agis out of the corner of his eye. “And what would that be?”
“Treat your slaves as you would your own family,” Agis responded. “Feed them well and give them a warm place to sleep. Not only will they be stronger, they’ll work harder.”
“Out of gratitude?” Tithian smirked. He shook his head, then resumed walking. “If you believe that, then I’ve picked a fool for a friend.”
“Have you tried it?”
“Agis, for your own good, listen to me,” Tithian said, speaking over his shoulder without slowing. “No matter how well they’re treated, slaves hate their masters. Maybe they don’t let it show, and maybe they don’t even realize it themselves. But give them the opportunity and they’ll massacre us every time-no matter how tame they seem while we’re holding the lash.”
“If they’re murderers, it’s because their owners make them that way,” Agis objected.
“Yes,” Tithian replied, touching a finger to his forehead. “You’re beginning to understand.”
Agis bristled at the templar’s patronizing tone. “My slaves-”
“Would like to be rid of you as much as you’d like to be rid of Kalak. The difference is that you might be foolish enough to give your slaves a chance,” Tithian said. “You’ll have to be more careful during the next few weeks.”
“What do you mean by that?” Agis demanded. He was still talking to Tithian’s back and resenting it more with each step.
Tithian ran his hand over the top of his head and down his tail of braided hair. “Nothing threatening,” he said evasively. “Things are growing difficult in Tyr; you must be on the watch for treachery everywhere. Just this morning, I discovered that one of my own slaves is in the Veiled Alliance.”
“No!” Agis exclaimed, unable to stifle a chuckle. The thought of the Alliance operating right beneath a high templar’s nose was too much for him to bear in silence.
“Yes, it’s quite amusing, isn’t it?” Tithian’s voice was tinged with acid.
“I’m sorry,” Agis said, suddenly understanding Tithian’s comments regarding his slaves. “What did you do?”
“Nothing, yet,” Tithian replied, crossing the last ditch between the fields and Agis’s house. “I haven’t been able to go home to attend to the matter.”
Tithian stepped out of the faro into the house’s formal rear garden. The garden was a comfortable space designed to remind Agis of Durwadala’s oasis. In the center of the reserve sat a small pool of azure water, bordered by a sandy bank and a few yards of golden whip grass. It was shaded by the gauzy white boughs of a dozen chiffon trees.
Agis had designed the garden to serve as a sanctuary when he needed a tranquil place to retreat, but he felt anything but peaceful as he entered it now. He heard the subdued murmur of hundreds of hushed voices coming from the other side of the mansion.
“What’s that?” Agis demanded, stepping to Tithian’s side.
The high templar’s face remained impassive. “Perhaps it’s your happy slaves gathering to welcome you back.”
The mocking tone alarmed Agis. “What’s happening here?”
Without waiting for Tithian’s reply, the noble closed his eyes and focused his mind on his nexus, that space where the three energies of the Way-spiritual, mental, and physical-converged inside his body. He lifted his hand and visualized a rope of tingling fire running from the nexus through his torso and into his arm, opening a pathway for the mystic energies of his being.
Unlike magic, which drew energy from the land and converted it into a spell, the force Agis was about to rouse came from somewhere other than Athas-though no one knew exactly where. Some practitioners believed they summoned it from another dimension. Others claimed that living beings were infused with unimaginable amounts of energy, and that they were merely tapping into their own resources.
Agis believed he was creating the power. By its very nature, the Way was a cryptic and undefinable art, relying on confidence and faith instead of knowledge and logic. In contrast to the precise incantions and rigid laws of balance governing magic, which caused Agis and many others to think of it as more of a science than an art, the Way was fluid and malleable. With it, one could do almost anything-provided he could create and control the energies required without destroying himself. A practitioner could call upon the Way as often as he wished or summon as much of it as he needed, without fear of harming the land.