The Verdant Passage

THREE OLD FRIENDS

In a remote corner of his estate, Agis of Asticles sat at the edge of the muddy reservoir that provided water for all his parched lands. On the far side of the copper-colored pool, a dozen slaves marched in an endless circle, pushing four wooden crossbars that turned a creaking waterscrew and filled the small pond with bitter wellwater. Every fifty turns, two slaves were replaced by a pair who had been resting and drinking in the shade of a nearby pavilion.

Turning the screw was not particularly strenuous for twelve healthy slaves, but the scarlet rays of the sun cut through the afternoon haze like a shaft of flame. This part of the day was an insufferable inferno, a time when men collapsed simply from walking and when heavy exertion killed others. Nevertheless, the water had to keep flowing, so the slaves had to keep turning the screw.

Unlike the slaves, Agis did not have to pass the hottest part of the day beneath the sun’s crimson fury. Yet this was where the robust noble spent most afternoons, sitting cross-legged on the barren ground, his long black hair billowing on an occasional puff of wind. Usually, his brown eyes were fixed on the murky waters of his irrigation pond, staring out from beneath his dark brows with an eerie vacancy. Often the only sign that he was alive was the steady flaring of nostrils at the end of his patrician nose. His firm jaw never flinched, his strong and sinuous arms never twitched, and his solid torso did not fidget.

Like all serious students of the Way, Agis found that extremes of physical sensation, such as suffering the agony of full exposure to the midday sun, aided his meditations. It was only when he hovered on the edge of unbearable torment or unimaginable pleasure that his body, his mind, and his spirit became one, that he felt the immense power of a physical form and intellect so flawlessly joined that be could not tell where one ended and the other began. It was then he fully appreciated the great truth of being: that the energy and vitality of the body could not exist without the mind to give it form and reality and the spirit to give it all a higher meaning.

It was this simple principle that lay at the heart of all psionic power. The individual who truly understood it could tap the mystical energies that infused his own being and shape them however he wished, giving himself abilities that were as incredible as they were mysterious.

Unfortunately the Way did not yield its gifts easily. It demanded a high price of those who used it, both in devotion and knowledge. For a student of the Way, enlightenment came most often in times of physical extremes, such as during periods of complete exhaustion or terrible distress. Therefore, like most practitioners of the psionic arts, Agis spent several hours a day in considerable discomfort while he contemplated the unity of body, spirit, and mind. Usually, he chose to perform his meditations on the remote shore of his irrigation pond.

On this particular day, his mind’s eye was focused hundreds of miles and more than a decade away, on an oft-remembered place-an oasis that he had visited as a young man. In contrast to the muddy reservoir of his estate, the waters of the oasis pond sparkled blue and clear. It was surrounded by the billowing forms of damson-crowned chiffon trees and creaking canes of black-jointed whip grass. Hanging over the forest were the two golden moons of Athas, Ral and Guthay, secluded from the bloody splendor of the rising sun by a clear expanse of olive sky.

Though he was about to set off across two hundred miles of open desert, Agis was traveling light. Across his back was slung a single waterskin, in his hand he carried a wooden walking staff, and at his waist hung a steel sword with a leather-wrapped hilt. He had just learned from a passing caravan driver that his older sister, the heir to the Asticles family name, had been murdered in Tyr.

Let the spirits of the land guide thee, my love.

The speaker was Durwadala, the druid of the grove. She was not speaking, for she had sworn never to interrupt the music of the wind, but rather waving her four arms through an intricate pattern of gestures that served as a language between her and Agis. She stood nearly seven feet tall, with a tough dun-colored carapace that covered her entire body. Her face was narrow and chitinous, with black, multi-faceted eyes. A pair of small mandibles served as her jaws.

You have taught me well, my lady, Agis answered, moving his arms in a graceless imitation of Durwadala’s speech. Always, your words will be in my heart.

That is a strange place to keep words, Agis, she observed. Better to hold them in thy head, where they will do thee some good.

Agis stifled a laugh, for he knew the sound would upset Durwadala. I will keep them in both my heart and my head, he promised.

The druid studied Agis for several moments, then touched his face with one of her antennae. Walk with the wind, she said, stepping into the forest. Her carapace instantly changed color and pattern to match the black and gold stalks of cane grass. The trees will remember thee.

As Durwadala faded into the underbrush, Agis withdrew from his meditation. There was a serene but hollow feeling in the nexus of his being, that point where the mystic energies of the mind, body, and spirit all converged. The noble blinked his stinging eyes, slowly growing aware of his swollen tongue and the dry, bitter taste of thirst. As always, he felt dizzy and weak from the early effects of heat stroke.

“Caro?” Agis called, bringing the murky waters of his small reservoir back into focus. “I’m ready for my water.”

He turned to look over his shoulder, expecting to see his dwarven manservant standing nearby. Instead of the old servant’s wrinkled face, Agis found a lanky man dressed in the black cassock of a templar. His features were sharp and bony, and his long auburn hair was pulled into a braided tail. There were deep-etched lines in his furrowed brow, and he had thick, puffy lips that made him look as though he were in a constant sulk.

The templar stepped forward, offering Agis the water he had requested. “So, how goes it along the Way, old friend?”

“Tithian?” Agis exclaimed. He blinked twice and shook his head, fearing he had lost himself in meditation and was imagining things. When the high templar’s image remained solid, the noble stood and faced him.

“How did you find me here?” Agis demanded. He glanced over Tithian’s shoulder, expecting to see a handful of embarrassed guards or at least Caro’s flustered face.

Tithian grinned at Agis’s surprise. “Don’t blame your slaves,” he said. “I used my office to find you.”

Agis frowned. Not even Tithian should have been able to sneak up on him unannounced. He would speak to Caro about the lapse at the first chance. “How long have I kept you waiting?”

“Too long,” Tithian replied, squinting at the pale green haze in the sky. “You must be quite adept at traveling the Way. Your concentration is impressive.”

Agis took the water from Tithian’s hand. “One can’t master the mind without first mastering the body.”

The high templar rolled his eyes. “So I remember hearing, over and over again,” he said. “For me, the psionic arts are too much work.” He reached beneath his robe and withdrew a ceramic carafe of wine. “I took the liberty of having your servants supply me with refreshment,” Tithian said. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” Agis answered, studying his guest’s face for some hint as to his mission. Though he and Tithian had known each other since their youth, he was not accustomed to receiving the high templar without notice, especially not during his meditations. “Isn’t it rather hot to be wandering around the countryside, Tithian?”

Ignoring the question, Tithian drank directly from the carafe, then smacked his lips with satisfaction. “I saw the most impressive display of psionics this morning. The king discovered that Those Who Wear the Veil hid a number of amulets in his ziggurat.”

“The Veiled Alliance?” Agis asked. “Were the amulets magical?”

The high teinplar said crossly, “Yes, magical. I suppose they’re intended to slow down work on the ziggurat, though I didn’t see them that closely.”

“Or at least you wouldn’t tell me if you had.”

Tithian continued his story without confirming or denying Agis’s reply. “King Kalak was most angry with Dorjan over the matter.” The templar paused. “He incinerated her from the inside out.”

“That’s not how the Way should be used,” Agis protested.

Tithian smiled. “You tell that to Kalak. I won’t.”

“I’m just a senator,” Agis said, smiling and shaking his head. “It’ll have to be you. You’re the high templar.”

The joke seemed lost on Tithian, who grimaced and replied, “I’m the high templar, as you say. Now I’m not only the High Templar of the Games, but also of the king’s works.”

Agis frowned, confused by Tithian’s unhappiness over what the senator assumed would be regarded as good news. The templars served the king both as bureaucrats and priests. They performed all of Tyr’s civic tasks, such as collecting taxes, policing the streets, supervising public works, and commanding the city guard. They also coerced the populace into venerating Kalak as a deific sorcerer-king, by whose good graces the city was allowed to exist. In return for their worship, the king invested the templars with the ability to use a certain amount of his magic and paid them generous salaries, though they were free to supplement their income through bribery and extortion.

“Those are two very powerful positions,” Agis said. “I would think you’d be delighted.”

Tithian met Agis’s gaze with the first hint of fear that the handsome senator ever recalled seeing in his friend’s eyes. “I would be … if I didn’t have to finish the ziggurat in three weeks, in addition to finding the amulets the Veiled Alliance has hidden inside it!”

“Surely with the king’s magic at your disposal you’ll have no trouble completing the task.”

The high templar scowled. “Do you really think it’s that easy?” he snapped. “Cast a spell, find an amulet?”

Agis weathered the storm with a calm countenance, for he had known Tithian long enough to realize that the templar’s outbursts posed a danger only to those intimidated by them.

“Isn’t it?” the noble countered. “I thought that was why people resorted to magic.”

“It’s harder than it looks,” Tithian replied crossly. “Besides, I tried. The amulets are protected by psionic shields and counterspells. I have people trying to break the safeguards, but if they fail, the only way to find the amulets may be to tear the ziggurat down, brick by brick.”

“But you said the amulets were just annoyances?”

The high templar seemed about to speak, then let the topic drop.

Since he had no other suggestions to offer, Agis remained silent, trying to puzzle out why Tithian had picked this afternoon to come visiting. If his guest had been any other friend, the noble would have assumed that the visitor had simply come in search of a sympathetic ear. The high templar, however, was a solitary person who never shared his troubles or his joys with his friends. If Tithian was telling him all this, Agis suspected there was a reason.

“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.

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.

Once he felt the power he needed surge into his hand, Agis focused his thoughts on his sword. It was a magnificent weapon as ancient as Tyr itself, with a beautiful basket of etched brass upon the hilt and its long history etched on the face of its curved steel blade. He stretched his arm toward the sword and saw himself gripping the hilt. He remembered how it felt to hold the smooth, cord-wrapped hilt in his hand, and then he lifted the weapon out of its case.

“Very impressive,” Tithian said.

Agis opened his eyes again and saw, as he had expected, that the sword was now truly in his hand. Using the energy of the Way, he had simply reached across the intervening distance and picked it up.

Agis moved toward the templar, saying, “You didn’t come here as a friend.”

“Actually, I did,” Tithian said, not retreating. “I’m sure you’ll appreciate that … if you’ll just go to the front of the house.”

Agis frowned, still suspicious. “You lead the way,” he ordered, motioning toward the garden’s exit.

“Of course.” Tithian smiled.

The templar led the way around the west side of the house, past a marble colonnade where Agis often received special guests. As they neared the front of the mansion, Tithian went up a short flight of steps onto a veranda that enveloped the front of the house. When they stepped around the corner, Agis’s heart fell.

The anterior courtyard was filled with five hundred slaves, nearly his entire work force. They were being guarded by magical human-giant mixes called simply “half-giants.” Members of a brutish race, the guards stood as high as twelve feet, with heavy-boned features, sloped foreheads, and long, drooping jaws. They all had chunky, almost flabby builds, with sagging shoulders, round bellies, and enormous bowed legs. The half-giants before him now were dressed in hemp breeches and the purple tunics of the king’s legion.

Agis’s personal guard, a hundred men and dwarves wearing leather corselets, sat to one side of the courtyard with their hands on their heads. They were being guarded by a dozen of Tithian’s subordinate templars, who held their hands forward and high, making it clear that they were ready to deal with any resistance by casting the spells granted to them by the king.

Caro, Agis’s dwarven manservant, stood at the head of the slaves, his sagging chin resting on his sunken chest and his cloudy eyes focused on the ground. The ancient dwarf’s bald head and hairless face were cracked by age lines, and his black eyes were little more than narrow, dark slits peering out from beneath their baggy lids.

“I’m sorry, master,” he apologized in the thick mumble of a toothless old man. “I should have warned you, but I was napping.”

“It’s not your fault, Caro,” Agis said.

“It is,” the dwarf maintained. “If I’d have been awake, none of this would have happened.”

“Damn it, Caro, if I say it’s not your fault, it isn’t!” Agis snapped, losing patience with his stubborn manservant. “Is that clear?”

Caro scowled, staring at Agis for a moment, then finally looked at the ground and nodded.

Agis faced Tithian and demanded, “What’s happening here?”

The templar met the black-haired noble’s gaze evenly. “The king has need of more slaves to complete his ziggurat,” Tithian said, his voice assuming an officious and imperious tone. “The survivors will be returned to you after it is completed.”

Agis lifted his sword a few inches. “I should just kill you now and be over with it.”

Tithian looked hurt, but did not retreat. “Need I point out that you’re threatening a lawful representative of the Golden Tower? This is an act of open revolt, Senator.”

“You don’t have the authority to confiscate my slaves,” Agis said, reluctantly lowering his sword.

“The king issued a decree giving me that authority this morning,” Tithian replied.

“The Senate will veto that decree!”

“Not if it knows what’s good for it.” Tithian’s voice grew less formal. “If you try, Kalak will make sure that there aren’t enough senators in attendance to achieve a quorum.” The high templar started to leave, then paused. “I’ll leave the women and children to work your fields. That’s more than I’m allowing anyone else, old friend!”