Flayh was nonplussed. Skeptical expressions had replaced the cheers of a moment ago, and his normal sourness returned with a rush. He frowned at the gathering, then opened his mouth:
“I cannot comprehend the ”
“Don’t lie to us!” someone shouted.
“We won’t be silenced!”
“We want the truth!”
“Show us the pyramids!”
“Produce them!”
“We demand to see the objects!”
The cries rang out from every corner of the hall, each one clearly audible.
“I .. he began again, and someone else shouted:
“Don’t deny it! Brab mod Crober has already admitted they exist.”
That was true, and Brab blushed and hung his head. His face turned the burnt-orange color of a Hanni tunic.
“Very well!” Flayh snapped. “I will fetch the objects before our next session! But first I ”
“No!” Tahli-Damen roared, jumping to his feet once again. “You’ve hidden them from us long enough! Produce them now, or forfeit your credibility entirely!”
“Do you threaten me?” Flayh shouted, spittle flying from his contorting lips. Now it was Tahli-Damen’s turn to ignore Flayh, and the young man did so with a flair. The chorus of support he received immediately from the tables on the floor made it apparent that Flayh would have to yield. “~
Flayh realized his cause was hopeless. “Go fetch them,” he spat, and Pezi waddled for the door at top speed which was, of course, necessarily slow.
Flayh sank back into his seat to wait, steaming with frustration. As half a hundred excited conversations began, he cursed quietly. “I’ll have you peeled,” he growled through his teeth at the young adversary seated beside him.
Tahli-Damen faced stolidly forward. “No doubt you would if you were able.”
“Oh, I’m able, boy. And you’ll suffer as I prove it to you.”
“Threaten all you like, Lord Flayh. I only seek an equitable solution to the problem of our warring houses. I was taught in our own merchant’s conservatory that inter house wars were the deadliest of sins, because nothing is so harmful to business.”
“You lecture me, as well as threaten? My child, your education is only beginning! You obviously view yourself as a political corner, but I assure you, you’ve come to nothing but a dead end here!”
“We shall need to let the Council decide that.”
“Oh no. It’s already been decided. By me.”
“Perhaps you think too highly of yourself, Lord Flayh.** Tahli-Damen angled his eyes even further away from Flayh’s as he said it.
“And perhaps, my boy just perhaps you don’t regard me highly enough.”
Their verbal sparring ceased then, but the taut silence between them was as charged with meaning as any conversation. At last Pezi rushed back into the chamber, carrying two oddly shaped velvet bags with drawstrings of gilded rope. As he passed Admon Faye, the slaver had to fight the urge to trip him and barely resisted the temptation. Admon Faye was determined to appear respectable though after what he’d already witnessed, he wondered why he bothered.
Flayh glowered at his nephew as Pezi deposited the first of the pyramids before his uncle. The chubby trader un-sacked his own device and plopped himself onto his chair. Then he leaned forward and would have begun the process of clearing his mind to form the link, had Flayh not grabbed him by the ear and viciously twisted his head away from the surface of the object.
“Not yet, idiot! Wait until I instruct you to begin!” Flayh released his nephew and straightened to look into the upturned faces below him, suddenly grown silent once again.
“I do this under protest No!” he broke off, pointing at a younger merchant who had started to jeer. His angry scowl dismayed the lad, and the young man quailed and turned pale. Flayh paused for a moment and scanned the room for other sneers. They all disappeared, and he continued. “These objects have been a secret trust, and I am horrified that a member of the ruling Council would so frivolously reveal their existence ”
“Not frivolously,” Tahli-Damen murmured, and Flayh turned to stare at the man. Tahli-Damen maintained his composure, fixing his eyes on the table top.
“May I be granted the courtesy of finishing my statement?” Flayh demanded. Tahli-Damen didn’t reply, and Flayh turned back to the crowd and shouted: “These objects are precious implements which permit as has been pointed out conversation at great distances. They are re served for the three foremost merchants, the head of the dominant house in each land ”
“Then why has Pezi got one?” someone shouted, and Flayh was forced to wait again for the confusion to subside before he could go on.
“Pezi uses the pyramid entrusted to Tohn mod Neelis, the late lord of this castle!” His savage mood was very threatening, yet interruption came in spite of it.
“Is this a permanent arrangement?” someone questioned, and Klaph spoke up through a clamor of boos:
“Then we might expect some reassignment will take place?”
“Certainly,” Flayh snapped, “should any reassignment prove necessary!”
“I think it very likely that it should!” Klaph bristled. “Since you’ve left Lamath, my family has done a thorough job of reorganizing the regional markets! I feet that I am entitled to hold the Lamathian pyramid!”
“You haven’t even seen the device work yet!” Flayh snarled. “Are you entitled also to the dangers of its operation?”
The suggestion that the pyramids might be dangerous as well as useful caused Klaph difficulty in swallowing. Klaph was a conservative man, like most merchants. Caution drove him back into his seat Flayh surveyed his audience and found them a little less restive.
“Yes.” He smiled, “I thought that might bring a bit of hesitancy to some of you. Are you entirely certain you want this demonstration?”
“Don’t be put off by him!” Tahli-Damen challenged. “This is another ruse to keep us from exercising our rightful powers!”
“I’m getting tired of you,” Flayh breathed, for TafaH-Damen’s statement had once more swung the Council against him.
“And I’ve been tired of you since before I arrived,” the young merchant shot back. His obvious success with the Council had emboldened him to the point of cockiness. Flayh noted this, and marked it well.
At last Flayh nodded to Pezi and leaned toward his own pyramid, complaining, “I’m not sure if this will even work…”
“It’ll work,” Tahli-Damen said confidently.
As Flayh peered into the cloudy blue crystal before him, and the gathered host gasped at the sudden blue flame that sprang to life within both it and its twin, Flayh cursed himself for having allowed Jagd and this young merchant so totally to outmaneuver him. By the time the pyramids cleared, he’d already plotted his vengeance.
Once again, the bells rang throughout the castle. “I’m going to have that Kherda fried!” Ligne barked then she smiled at Rosha, and patted him on the hand. “I’m sorry, darling, I know I shouldn’t go on like that. But this incessant ringing is driving me insane!”
Rosha thought of the obvious insult, but resisted saying it Ligne had returned from her visit to the dungeon only a few moments before and found him without his hood. Instead of being angry, she seemed positively thrilled. He would say nothing to earn it back on.
He glanced up at the wall of the game room, where the servants’ bell hung, and watched as it noisily rocked up and down. Its pull rope swayed from side to side, untouched by any human hand. He had heard this clamorous ringing many times in the past, but this was his first view of the phenomenon. It chilled him. There were powers at work here strange and angry powers.