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Emmy started to purr.
‘Master Althalus here is a businessman, Arya Andine,’ Dhakan said. ‘He deals in captives, and since he heard about the recent attack on our city, he’s stopped by to inquire about the possibility of buying those barbaric Arum prisoners from you. I recommend that you give him a hearing, Your Highness.’
‘What on earth would you do with them, Master Althalus?’ Andine asked curiously.
‘I have a number of contacts in Ansu, Your Highness,’ Althalus replied. ‘The owners of the salt mines there are always in the market for strong young men. A salt mine uses up workers at a ferocious rate.’
‘You’re a slave trader, then?’
Althalus shrugged deprecatingly. ‘It’s a living, Your Highness. Slaves are a valuable commodity. I buy them in places where they’re an inconvenience and take them to places where they can be put to work to pay for their keep. Everybody benefits, really. The one who sells them to me gets gold, and the one who buys them gets laborers.’
‘What do the slaves get?’
‘They get fed, Your Highness. A slave doesn’t have to worry about where his next meal’s coming from. He gets fed even when the crops fail or the fish aren’t biting.’
‘Our philosophers tell us that slavery’s an evil.’
I don’t concern myself with philosophy, Your Highness. I take the world as I find it. I’m prepared to offer ten Perquaine gold wheats for every able-bodied young captive you’d care to sell.’
She stared at him in astonishment. ‘That’s a noble price, Master Althalus,’ she said in that throbbing voice.
‘I buy the best, Your Highness, so I pay the best. I don’t deal in children or old men or young women. I buy only young, strong, healthy men who can put in a good day’s work.’ He glanced over at the youthful Arum chained to the marble pillar. ‘With your permission, Your Highness,’ he said, bowing slightly. He walked over to the pillar where Eliar sat disconsolately on the marble floor in chains. ‘On your feet!’ Althalus barked.
‘Who says so?’ Eliar replied sullenly.
Althalus reached out, took Eliar by his hair and jerked him into a standing position. ‘When I tell you to do something, do it,’ he said. ‘Now open your mouth. I want to see your teeth.’
Eliar tightly clamped his mouth shut.
‘He’s a bit stubborn, Master Althalus,’ Andine said. ‘I’ve been trying ever so hard to cure him of that.’
‘It takes a certain amount of firmness to break a slave’s spirit, Your Highness,’ Althalus advised her. Then he took his dagger from his belt and pried Eliar’s teeth apart with it. ‘Good healthy teeth,’ he noted. ‘That’s a promising sign. Bad teeth usually mean that the slave’s got something wrong with him.’
Eliar made a lunge at Althalus, but his chains brought him up short.
‘He’s a little stupid,’ Althalus observed, but that can be cured. Boy,’ he said to the captive, ‘didn’t your sergeant ever explain to you that it’s foolish to attack an armed man with your bare hands? Particularly when you’re chained up?’
Eliar was straining at his chains, trying to pull himself free.
‘Good muscle tone there, too,’ Althalus said approvingly. ‘I’d pay a premium for this one, Your Highness.’
‘That one isn’t for sale,’ Andine replied rather intensely. Her voice had taken on a steely note, and her huge black eyes burned.
‘Everything’s for sale, Your Highness,’ Althalus replied with a cynical laugh.
‘Don’t push it just yet, Althalus,’ Emmy’s purring voice murmured in his mind. ‘I’m still working on her.’
‘Do you think you can bring her around?’
‘Probably. She’s young enough to be impulsive. Ask to see the other captives. You’ll probably have to buy them all to get Eliar.’
‘We can discuss this one later, Your Highness,’ Althalus said to the Arya. ‘Do you suppose I might be able to take a look at the others?’
‘Of course, Master Althalus,’ Andine replied. ‘Show him the way to the dungeon, Lord Dhakan.’
‘At once. Your Highness,’ the silvery-haired old gentleman replied. ‘This way, Master Althalus.’
The two of them left the throne room.
‘Your Arya’s a beautiful young woman, Lord Dhakan,’ Althalus observed.
‘That’s the only reason we tolerate her, Althalus. She’s pretty enough that we can overlook her flaws.’
‘She’ll settle down, Dhakan. Marry her off, that’s my advice. After she’s had a few babies, she’ll start to grow up.’
There were nine kilted young Arums in the dungeon, and some of them were still nursing wounds they’d received during the battle outside the walls of Osthos. Althalus made some show of inspecting them. ‘Not bad, on the whole,’ he said as he and Dhakan were returning to the throne room. ‘That one she’s got chained to the post is the key to the whole arrangement, though. He’s the best of the lot. If we can persuade her to include him, I’ll make her an offer. If she won’t agree, I think I’ll have to go elsewhere.’
‘I’ll speak with her, Althalus,’ Dhakan promised. ‘You might want to describe the conditions the slaves have to live in once they get to the mines of Ansu. Exaggeration wouldn’t hurt. Our little girl hungers and thirsts for revenge. Let’s persuade her that the life of a slave in a salt mine is far, far worse than anything she can think of to do to him here. That might just tip the scales. Be eloquent, Althalus. Linger on unspeakable horrors if you possibly can. Our dear Andine is top-full of passions, and passionate people make hasty decisions based on whims. I’ll help as much as I can. I want that young Eliar out of Osthos and out of Andine’s sight. If she refuses to sell him to you, I’ll have to come up with a way to kill him. I have to get rid of him.’
‘Trust me, Dhakan,’ Althalus said confidently. ‘When it comes to buying and selling, I’m the very best.’ Then he sent his thought out to Emmy. ‘Have you got her yet, Em?’ he asked.
‘I’m getting closer.’
‘See if you can stir some interest in the salt mines.’
‘What for?’
‘So I can tell her some horror stories.’
‘You’re going to lie to her, I take it?’
‘No, I’m going to tell her the truth. Unless things have changed, the salt mines of Ansu are worse than the deepest pits in Nekweros. Dhakan thinks that might turn the trick here. Nudge her hard, Em. If she doesn’t sell Eliar to us, Dhakan’s going to have him killed.’
When Althalus and Dhakan entered the throne room, they saw that Andine had laid the laurel-leaf dagger aside and that she was concentrating all her attention on Emmy. She was smiling, and her smile was almost like the sun coming up. Even when she’d been scowling at Eliar, she’d been beautiful, but when she smiled, her beauty made Althalus go weak in the knees.
Dhakan went up to the dais and spoke quietly with his young ruler at some length.
Andine shook her head vehemently several times. Then Dhakan beckoned to Althalus.
Althalus approached the throne. ‘Yes, my Lord?’ he asked Dhakan.
‘I think we should get down to cases here, Master Althalus,’ Dhakan declared. ‘What’s your offer?’
‘Nine Perquaine wheats apiece for the ones you’ve got down in the dungeon,’ Althalus replied.
‘You said ten!’ Andine’s voice suddenly soared. Sergeant Khalor’s description of that voice appeared to have been a slight understatement.
Althalus held up one finger. ‘The price is subject to amendment, Your Highness,’ he said. ‘If you’re willing to include Eliar, I’ll slide it up. I’ll pay you eighty-one gold wheats for the nine in the dungeon. If you’re willing to add Eliar, I’ll pay you a hundred for the lot.’
‘That’s a difference of nineteen pieces of gold. He isn’t worth that much!’ Her voice rose again.
‘He’s prime stock. Your Highness. When I reach Ansu, I’ll put him out front for the mine-owners to look at. They’ll buy the lot just to get him. I know good merchandise when I see it. I could sell cripples if I could wave Eliar in the buyer’s face.’
‘What’s it like down there in those salt mines?’ she asked. ‘How would you describe them?’
Althalus feigned a shudder. ‘I’d really rather not, Your Highness,’ he replied. ‘Over to the east, in Wekti, Plakand and Equero, criminals beg to be executed when they’re sentenced to be sold into the salt mines as a punishment for murder and the like. Being sent into those mines is far worse than a death sentence. If a slave’s unlucky, he’ll last for ten years down there. The lucky ones die in just a few months.’
‘Why don’t we talk about that?’ Andine almost purred.
Althalus described conditions in the salt mines at some length, exaggerating only slightly. He mentioned the prevalence of blindness, the frequent cave-ins – during which lucky slaves were crushed to death. He covered the darkness, the perpetual chill, the continuous choking dust, and dwelt at some length on the burly men with whips. ‘All in all,’ he concluded, ‘murderers and the like are very wise to prefer hanging to the mines.’
‘Then you’d say that being sent to the salt mines is a fate worse than death?’ Andine said, her lovely eyes all aglow.
‘Oh, yes,’ Althalus assured her, ‘much, much worse.’
‘I do believe we can strike a bargain here, Master Althalus,’ she decided. ‘A hundred gold wheats for the lot, you say?’
‘That was my offer, Your Highness.’
‘Done, then – if you’ll throw in your cat.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I want this lovely little cat. If you let me have her, we’ve struck a bargain.’
CHAPTER TEN
‘Do as she says, Althalus’, Emmy’s thought cut through his startled dismay.
‘I most certainly will not!’ he shot back.
‘You don’t really think she can keep me here, do you? Make her throw in the Knife, though.’
‘How am I going to manage that?’
‘I don’t care. Think something up. That’s what I’m paying you for, remember? Oh, one other thing. When you get the Knife from her, just tuck it under your belt and don’t look at it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Can’t you ever do as you’re told without asking all these questions? I don’t want you to look at the Knife until after we’re out of here. Just do it and don’t argue.’
He gave up. ‘Yes, dear,’ he said silently.
‘What’s the problem, Master Althalus?’ Andine asked, gently stroking the purring cat in her lap.
‘You took me by surprise, Your Highness,’ he replied. ‘I’m really very fond of my cat.’ He scratched his chin. ‘This puts the whole transaction on a different footing. The slaves are just merchandise; including Emmy changes things. I think I’ll need something in addition to the slaves before I’d be willing to part with her.’
‘Such as?’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ He pretended to think about it. ‘It really ought to be some personal possession of yours. I’m much too fond of my cat to include her in some crass commercial transaction. I’d have trouble living with myself if I just sold her outright.’
‘You’re a strange man, Master Althalus.’ Arya Andine looked at him with her luminous eyes. ‘What sort of possession of mine would satisfy your delicate sensibilities?’
‘It doesn’t have to be anything of great value, Your Highness. I didn’t pay anything for Emmy. I just picked her up along the side of the road a few years ago. She’s very good at worming her way into someone’s affections.’
‘Yes, I noticed that.’ Andine impulsively lifted Emmy up to hold her against her own face, ‘I just love this cat,’ she said in that throbbing voice of hers. ‘Choose, Master Althalus. Name your price.’
Althalus laughed. ‘You really shouldn’t say things like that, Your Highness,’ he advised her. ‘If I weren’t an honest businessman, I could take advantage of your sudden attachment to my cat.’
‘Name your price. I must have her.’
‘Oh, I don’t know – anything, I suppose. How about that Knife you’ve been toying with? You seem to have a certain attachment to it. That’s all that matters, really.’
‘Choose something else.’ Andine’s eyes grew troubled.
‘Ah – no, Your Highness, I don’t think so. My cat for your Knife. You won’t value her if you haven’t given up something that you cherish for her.’
‘You bargain very hard, Master Althalus,’ she accused.
Emmy reached out one soft paw and gently stroked the Arya’s alabaster cheek.
‘Oh, dear,’ Andine said, pressing Emmy against her face. ‘Take the Knife, Master Althalus. Take it. I don’t care. Take anything you want. I must have her.’ She seized up the laurel-leaf dagger and tossed it to the marble floor in front of the dais.
‘If it please Your Highness, I’ll see to the details,’ the silvery-haired Dhakan said smoothly. Quite obviously, Dhakan was the one who really ran things here in Osthos.
‘Thank you, Lord Dhakan,’ Andine said, rising to her feet with Emmy cradled possessively in her arms.
‘You be a good cat now, Em,’ Althalus said, bending to pick up the Knife. ‘Remember – no biting.’
‘Does she bite?’ Andine asked.
‘Sometimes,’ Althalus replied, tucking the Knife under his belt. ‘Not very hard, though. Usually it’s when she gets carried away while we’re playing. Snap her on the nose with your fingernail and she’ll quit. Oh, I should probably warn Your Highness: don’t be too surprised if she decides to give your face a bath. Her tongue’s a bit rough, but you get used to it after a while.’
‘What’s her favorite food?’
‘Fish, of course.’ Althalus bowed. ‘It’s been a pleasure doing business with Your Highness,’ he said.
The clinking of the long chain started to irritate Althalus before he and the ten young Arums even reached the main gate of Osthos. It was a continual reminder that he wasn’t alone any more, and he didn’t really like that.
Once they were outside the city, Althalus sent a searching thought back toward the palace. This was the farthest he’d been from Emmy in the last twenty-five centuries, and he didn’t like that either.
‘I’m busy right now, Althalus,’ her thought came back to him. ‘Don’t bother me. Go to that place where we made the coins and wait for me there.’
‘Do you have any idea of how long you’ll be?’
‘Sometime tonight. Keep Eliar, and turn the others loose.’
‘I just paid a lot of money for them, Em.’
‘Easy come, easy go. Point them toward Arum and send them home. Get them out from underfoot.’
The walls of Osthos were still in sight when Althalus turned his horse aside and rode across an open field to the small grove of oak trees where he and Emmy had converted the five bars of gold. As his horse plodded across the field, Althalus prudently manipulated his hearing and directed it back toward his slaves to hear what they were up to.
‘– only one man,’ he heard Eliar whisper. ‘As soon as we get away from the city, we’ll all jump on him at once and kill him. Pass it on to the others. Tell them to wait for my signal. Up until then, we’d all better act sort of meek. Once we’ve got him alone, we’ll get un-meek.’
Althalus smiled to himself. ‘I wonder why it took him so long’, he murmured to himself. ‘That notion should have come to him hours ago.’ Obviously, he was going to have to take some steps here to discourage certain loyalties.
They reached the grove of trees, and Althalus dismounted. ‘All right, gentlemen’, he said to his captives, ‘I want you to sit down and listen. You’re right on the verge of making some hasty decisions, and I think there’s something you should know first.’ He took the key to their chains and freed the young man at the end of the line. ‘Come out here in front of the others’, he told him. ‘You and I are going to demonstrate something for your friends.’
‘You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?’ the boy asked in a trembling voice.
‘After what I just paid for you? Don’t be silly.’ Althalus led the boy out to the center of the clearing. ‘Watch very closely,’ he instructed the others. Then he held his hand out, palm up, toward the shaking boy. ‘Dheu’, he said, raising his hand slowly upward.
The slave gave a startled cry as he rose up off the ground. He continued to rise, going higher and higher into the air as Althalus rather over-dramatically continued to lift his hand. After a few moments the boy appeared to be only a tiny speck high above them.
‘Now then,’ Althalus said to his gaping slaves, ‘what lesson have we just learned? What do you suppose would happen to our friend up there if I let go of him?’
‘He’d fall?’ Eliar asked in a choked voice.
‘Very good, Eliar. You’ve got a quick mind. And what’d happen to him when he came back down to earth?’
‘It’d probably kill him, wouldn’t it?’
‘It goes a long way past “probably”, Eliar. He’d splatter like a dropped melon. That’s our lesson for today, gentlemen. You don’t want to cross me. You want to go a long way to avoid crossing me. Does anybody need any further clarification?’
They all shook their heads violently.
‘Good. Since you all understand just exactly how things stand, I suppose we can bring your friend down again.’ Althalus said, ‘Dhreu,’ in the same way he’d said it to his shoe back in the House at the End of the World, slowly lowering his hand as he said it.
The boy descended to the ground and collapsed, blubbering incoherently.
‘Oh, stop that,’ Althalus told him. ‘I didn’t hurt you.’ Then he went down the chain, unlocking each slave’s iron collar, leaving only Eliar still chained up. Then he pointed north. ‘Arum’s off in that direction, gentlemen. Pick up your distracted friend there and go home. Oh, when you get back, tell Chief Albron that I’ve found the Knife I was looking for and that Eliar’s going to be coming with me. Albron and I can settle accounts on that somewhere on down the line.’
‘What’s that all about?’ Eliar demanded.
‘Your chief and I have a sort of agreement. You’ll be working for me for a while.’ Althalus glanced at the others. ‘I told you to go home’, he said. ‘Why haven’t you left yet?’
They were running the last time he saw them.
‘Aren’t you going to unchain me?’ Eliar asked.
‘Let’s hold off on that for a little while.’
‘If you’ve got an agreement with my chief, you don’t have to keep me chained up like this. I’ll honor his word.’
‘The chain makes it easier for you, Eliar. As long as you’re chained up, you won’t have to struggle with any difficult moral decisions. Do you want something to eat?’
‘No’, the boy answered sullenly. Eliar appeared to be very good at sullen. Aside from his pouty expression, he was a fairly handsome young man, tall and blond-haired. Despite his youth, he had fairly bulky shoulders, and his kilt revealed powerful legs. It was easy to see why the other young Arums in Sergeant Khalor’s detachment had accepted this young fellow as their leader.
Althalus looped the boy’s chain around an oak tree, locked it securely and then stretched out on the leafy ground. ‘You might as well catch a few winks,’he advised, ‘I expect we’ll have a long way to go and not much time, so we’ll be a little short on sleep in the not too distant future.’
‘Where are we going?’ Eliar asked as curiosity evidently won out over sullen.
‘I haven’t got the foggiest idea’, Althalus admitted. ‘I’m sure Emmy will tell us when she gets here, though.’
‘Your cat?’
‘Things aren’t always what they appear to be, Eliar. Go to sleep.’
‘Can I have some bread or something?’
‘I thought you said you weren’t hungry.’
‘I changed my mind. I really could eat something.’
Althalus called up a loaf of bread and tossed it to his captive.
‘How did you do that?’ Eliar exclaimed.
‘It’s just a little trick I picked up a few years back. It’s no great thing.’
‘That’s the first time I’ve ever seen anybody do it. You’re not exactly like other people, are you?’
‘Not very much, no. Eat your supper and go to sleep, Eliar.’ Then Althalus settled back and drifted off to sleep.
Emmy ghosted silently into the oak grove not long after midnight and found Althalus just waking up. ‘Aren’t we being a bit irresponsible, pet?’ she chided him.
‘About what?’
‘I sort of thought you’d be keeping an eye on Eliar.’
‘He’s not going anyplace, Em – not unless he plans to take that tree with him.’
‘Did you have any trouble persuading his friends to leave?’
‘No, not really. They were scheming a bit on our way here, but then I showed them that it wasn’t a good idea.’
‘Oh? How?’
‘I picked one at random and did the same thing to him that we did to Pekhal a few weeks ago. They got my point almost immediately. Then I unchained them and told them all to go home. They left in quite a hurry.’
‘Show-off.’
‘I know the way Arums think, Em. They’re intensely loyal, so I had to do something spectacular enough to dispel that loyalty. I didn’t think we’d want them lurking back in the bushes watching for a chance to ambush us. I managed to get my point across to them.’
‘Have you got the Knife?’
He patted the Knife-hilt protruding from his belt. ‘Right here,’ he replied.
‘Come out into the moonlight,’ she told him, leading the way out of the grove.
‘What are we doing?’
‘You’re going to read the Knife.’
‘I take my orders from you, Em, not from this antique.’
‘Just a precaution, Althalus. The Knife’ll make sure you don’t lose interest along the way.’
‘What’s the matter? Don’t you trust me?’
‘Trust you?’ Her laugh was sardonic.
‘That wasn’t very nice, Em.’
‘Just take the Knife out and read it, Althalus. Let’s get on with this.’
He drew the Knife out from under his belt and held it out in the moonlight. The inscription engraved on the blade was complex and very formal with interlocking lines that twined around each other. The writing was not the distinctly separated pictographs Althalus had seen in the Book, but seemed somehow to flow together. He had no difficulty picking out one single word, however, since it glowed with a pale light.
‘What does it say?’ Emmy asked intently.
‘Seek,’ he answered promptly.
There was a soft, musical sound that seemed to soar higher and higher, enclosing, enveloping, almost caressing him. It was so beautiful that it brought sudden tears to his eyes.
‘And now you are mine,’ Emmy gloated.
‘I already was, Em. Is the Knife really singing?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘What for?’
‘To let me know that you’ve been chosen. And, of course, that you’ll do exactly as I tell you to do.’ She gave him a sly look. ‘Sit, Althalus,’ she said.
He immediately sat down.
‘Stand up.’
He scrambled to his feet. ‘Stop this, Emmy!’ he said sharply.
‘Dance.’
He began hopping around. ‘I’m going to get you for this, Em!’ he threatened.
‘No, you won’t. You can stop dancing now. I just wanted to show you what the Knife can do. You’ll be able to do the same sort of thing with it – just in case Eliar or any of the others we’ll pick up later start getting out of hand.’
‘That could come in handy.’ He looked even more closely at the Knife-blade. ‘That one word is all I can make out. It jumps right out of the middle of those other squiggles.’
‘The other “squiggles” are intended for others.’
‘Why can’t I read them?’
‘Nobody can read it all, Althalus. Some of those words were intended for people who lived thousands of years ago, and others are there to be read by people who won’t even be born for several thousand more. Our current crisis isn’t the only one in the history of the world, you know.’
‘It’s enough to get my attention. Did it tell you where we go next?’
‘That’ll come after Eliar reads his instructions. Everything in its proper time and place.’
‘Anything you say, dear.’ He frowned slightly. ‘Let’s see if I’ve got this straight. Nobody except certain people can read the Knife, right?’
‘Exactly.’