“Then get more,” ordered the guard.
The little man hopped all about, seeming unsure and very concerned. He reached for the second purse, but the guard pulled it back and scowled at him. A bit more shuffling and hopping, and the little man gave a shriek and ran off.
“You think they will attack?” the other guard asked, and it was obvious from his tone that he wasn’t feeling very concerned about the possibility.
The group of six wagons had pulled into Dallabad that morning, seeking reprieve from the blistering sun. The drivers were twenty strong, and not one of them seemed overly threatening, and not one of them even looked remotely like any wizard. Any attack that group made against Dallabad’s fortress would likely bring only a few moments of enjoyment to the soldiers now serving Ahdahnia Soulez.
“I think that our little friend has already forgotten his purse,” the first soldier replied. “Or at least, he has forgotten the truth of how he lost it.”
The second merely laughed. Not much had changed at the oasis since the downfall of Kohrin Soulez. They were still the same pirating band of toll collectors. Of course the guard would tell Ahdahnia of the wagon leader’s desire to meet with her—that was how Ahdahnia collected her information, after all. As for his extortion of some of the stupid little wretch’s funds, that would fade away into meaninglessness very quickly.
Yes, little had really changed.
“So it is true that Kohrin is dead,” remarked Lipke, the coordinator of the scouting party, the leader of the “trading caravan.”
He glanced out the slit in his tent door to see the gleaming tower, the source of great unease throughout Calimshan. While it was no great event that Kohrin Soulez had at last been killed, nor that his daughter had apparently taken over Dallabad Oasis, rumors tying this event to another not-so-minor power shift among a prominent guild in Calimport had put the many warlords of the region on guard.
“It is also true that his daughter has apparently taken his place,” Trulbul replied, pulling the padding from the back collar of his shirt, the “hump” that gave him the slobbering, stooped-over appearance. “Curse her name for turning on her father.”
“Unless she had no choice in the matter,” offered Rolmanet, the third of the inner circle. “Artemis Entreri has been seen in Calimport with Charon’s Claw. Perhaps Ahdahnia sold it to him, as some rumors say. Perhaps she bartered it for the magic that would construct that tower, as say others. Or perhaps the foul assassin took it from the body of Kohrin Soulez.”
“It has to be Basadoni,” Lipke reasoned. “I know Ahdahnia, and she would not have so viciously turned against her father, not over the sale of a sword. There is no shortage of gold in Dallabad.”
“But why would the Basadoni Guild leave her in command of Dallabad?” asked Trulbul. “Or more particularly, how would they leave her in command, if she holds any loyalty to her father? Those guards were not Basadoni soldiers,” he added. “I am sure of it. Their skin shows the weathering of the open desert, as with all the Dallabad militia, and not the grime of Calimport’s streets. Kohrin Soulez treated his guild well—even the least of his soldiers and attendants always had gold for the gambling tents when we passed through here. Would so many so quickly abandon their loyalties to the man?”
The three looked at each other for a moment and burst into laughter. Loyalty had never been the strong suit of any of Calimshan’s guilds and gangs.
“Your point is well taken,” Trulbul admitted, “yet it still does not seem right to me. Somehow there is more to this than a simple coup.”
“I do not believe that either of us disagrees with you,” Lipke replied. “Artemis Entreri carries Kohrin’s mighty sword, yet if it is a simple matter that Ahdahnia Soulez decided that the time had come to secure Dallabad Oasis for herself, would she so quickly part with such a powerful defensive item? Is this not the time when she will likely be most open to reprisals?”
“Unless she hired Entreri to kill her father, with payment to be Charon’s Claw,” Rolmanet reasoned. He was nodding as he improvised the words, thinking that he had stumbled onto something very plausible, something that would explain much.
“If that is so, then this is the most expensive assassination Calimshan has known in centuries,” Lipke remarked.
“But if not that, then what?” a frustrated Rolmanet asked.
“Basadoni,” Trulbul said definitively. “It has to be Basadoni. They extended their grasp within the city, and now they have struck out again, hoping it to be away from prying eyes. We must confirm this.”
The others were nodding, reluctantly it seemed.
Jarlaxle, Kimmuriel, and Rai-guy sat in comfortable chairs in the second level of the crystalline tower. An enchanted mirror, a collaboration between the magic of Rai-guy and Crenshinibon, conveyed the entire conversation between the three scouts, as it had followed the supposedly stupid little hunched man from the moment he had handed his purses over to the guard outside the fortress.
“This is not acceptable,” Rai-guy dared to remark, turning to face Jarlaxle. “We are grasping too far and too fast, inviting prying eyes.”
Kimmuriel sent his thoughts to his wizardly friend. Not here. Not within the tower replica of Crenshinibon. Even as he sent the message, he felt the energies of the shard tugging at him, prying around the outside of his mental defenses. With Yharaskrik’s warnings echoing in his mind, and surely not wanting to alert Crenshinibon to the truth of his nature at that time, Kimmuriel abruptly ceased all psionic activity.
“What do you plan to do with them?” Rai-guy asked more calmly. He glanced at Kimmuriel, relaying to his friend that he had gotten the message and would heed the wise thoughts well.
“Destroy them,” Kimmuriel reasoned.
“Incorporate them,” Jarlaxle corrected. “There are a score in their party, and they are obviously connected to other guilds. What fine spies they will become.”
“Too dangerous,” Rai-guy remarked.
“Those who submit to the will of Crenshinibon will serve us,” Jarlaxle replied with utmost calm. “Those who do not will be executed.”
Rai-guy didn’t seem convinced. He started to reply, but Kimmuriel put his hand on his friend’s forearm and motioned for him to let it go.
“You will deal with them?” Kimmuriel asked Jarlaxle. “Or would you prefer that we send in soldiers to capture them and drag them before the Crystal Shard for judgment?”
“The artifact can reach their minds from the tower,” Jarlaxle replied. “Those who submit will willingly slay those who do not.”
“And if those who do not are the greater?” Rai-guy had to ask, but again, Kimmuriel motioned for him to be quiet, and this time, the psionicist rose and bade the wizard to follow him away.
“With the changes in Dallabad’s hierarchy and the tower so evident, we will have to remain fully on our guard for some time to come,” Kimmuriel did say to Jarlaxle.
The mercenary leader nodded. “Crenshinibon is ever wary,” he explained.
Kimmuriel smiled in reply, but in truth, Jarlaxle’s assurances were only making him more nervous, were only confirming to him that Yharaskrik’s information concerning the devastating Crystal Shard was, apparently, quite accurate.
The two left their leader alone then with his newest partner, the sentient artifact.
Rolmanet and Trulbul blinked repeatedly as they exited their tent into the stinging daylight. All about them, the other members of their band worked methodically, if less than enthusiastically, brushing the horses and camels and filling the waterskins for the remaining journey to Calimport.
Others should have been out scouting the perimeter of the oasis and doing guard counts on Dallabad fortress, but Rolmanet soon realized that all seventeen of the remaining force was about. He also noticed that many kept glancing his way, wearing curious expressions.
One man in particular caught Rolmanet’s eye. “Did he not already fill those skins?” Rolmanet quietly asked his companion.
&n
bsp; “And should he not be at the east wall, counting sentries?” As he finished, he turned to Trulbul, and his last words faded away as he considered his companion, the man standing quietly, staring up at the crystalline tower with a wistful look in his dark eyes.
“Trulbul?” Rolmanet asked, starting toward the man but, sensing that something was amiss, changing his mind and stepping away instead.
An expression of complete serenity came over Trulbul’s face. “Can you not hear it?” he asked, glancing over to regard Rolmanet. “The music …”
“Music?” Rolmanet glanced at the man curiously, and snapped his gaze back to regard the tower and listened carefully.
“Beautiful music,” Trulbul said rather loudly, and several others nearby nodded their agreement.
Rolmanet fought hard to steady his breathing and at least appear calm. He did hear the music then, a subtle note conveying a message of peace and prosperity, promising gain and power and … demanding. Demanding fealty.
“I am staying at Dallabad,” Lipke announced suddenly, coming out of the tent. “There is more opportunity here than with Pasha Broucalle.”
Rolmanet’s eyes widened in spite of himself, and he had to fight very hard to keep from glancing all around in alarm or from simply running away. He was gasping now as it all came clear to him: a wizard’s spell, he believed, charming enemies into friends.
“Beautiful music,” another man off to the side agreed.
“Do you hear it?” Trulbul asked Rolmanet.
Rolmanet fought very hard to steady himself, to paint a serene expression upon his face, before turning back to stare at his friend.
“No, he does not,” Lipke said from afar before Rolmanet had even completed the turn. “He does not see the opportunity before us. He will betray us!”
“It is a spell!” Rolmanet cried loudly, drawing his curved sword. “A wizard’s enchantment to ensnare us in his grip. Fight back! Deny it, my friends!”
Lipke was at him, slashing hard with his sword, a blow that skilled Rolmanet deftly parried. Before he could counter, Trulbul was there beside Lipke, following the first man’s slash with a deadly thrust at Rolmanet’s heart.
“Can you not understand?” Rolmanet cried frantically, and only luck allowed him to deflect that second attack.
He glanced about as he retreated steadily, seeking allies and taking care for more enemies. He noted another fight over by the water, where several men had fallen over another, knocking him to the ground and kicking and beating him mercilessly. All the while, they screamed at the man that he could not hear the music, that he would betray them in this, their hour of greatest glory.
Another man, obviously resisting the tempting call, rushed away to the side, and the group took up the chase, leaving the beaten man facedown in the water.
A third fight erupted on the other side.
Rolmanet turned to his two opponents, the two men who had been his best friends for several years now. “It is a lie, a trick!” he insisted. “Can you not understand?”
Lipke came at him hard with a cunning low thrust, followed by an upward slash, a twisting hand-over maneuver, and yet another upward slash that forced Rolmanet to lean backward, barely keeping his balance. On came Lipke, another straight-ahead charge and thrust, with Rolmanet quite vulnerable.
Trulbul’s blade slashed across, intercepting Lipke’s killing blow.
“Wait!” Trulbul cried to the astonished man. “Rolmanet speaks the truth! Look more deeply at the promise, I beg!”
Lipke was fully into the coercion of the Crystal Shard. He did pause, only long enough to allow Trulbul to believe that he was indeed reflecting on the seeming inconsistency here. As Trulbul nodded, grinned, and lowered his blade, Lipke hit him with a slashing cut that opened wide his throat.
He turned back to see Rolmanet in full flight, running to the horses tethered beside the water.
“Stop him! Stop him!” Lipke cried, giving chase. Several others came in as well, trying to cut off any escape routes as Rolmanet scrambled onto his horse and turned the beast around, hooves churning the sand. The man was a fine rider, and he picked his path carefully, and they could not hope to stop him.
He thundered out of Dallabad, not even pausing to try to help the other resister, who had been cut off, forced to turn, and would soon be caught and overwhelmed. No, Rolmanet’s path was straight and fast, a dead gallop down the sandy road toward distant Calimport.
Jarlaxle’s thoughts, and those of Crenshinibon, angled the magical mirror to follow the retreat of the lone escapee.
The mercenary leader could feel the power building within the crystalline tower. It was a quiet humming noise as the structure gathered in the sunlight, focusing it more directly through a series of prisms and mirrors to the very tip of the pointed tower. He understood what Crenshinibon meant to do, of course. Given the implications of allowing someone to escape, it seemed a logical course.
Do not kill him, Jarlaxle instructed anyway, and he wasn’t sure why he issued the command. There is little he can tell his superiors that they do not already know. The spies have no idea of the truth behind Dallabad’s overthrow, and will only assume that a wizard… He felt the energy continuing to build, with no conversation, argument or otherwise, coming back at him from the artifact.
Jarlaxle looked into the mirror at the fleeing, terrified man. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that he was right, that there was no real reason to kill this one. In fact, allowing him to return to his masters with news of such a complete failure might actually serve Bregan D’aerthe. Likely these were no minor spies sent on such an important mission as this, and the manner in which the band was purely overwhelmed would impress—perhaps enough so that the other pashas would come to Dallabad openly to seek truce and parlay.
Jarlaxle filtered all of that through his thoughts to the Crystal Shard, reiterating his command to halt, for the good of the band, and secretly, because he simply didn’t want to kill a man if he did not have to.
He felt the energy building, building, now straining release. “Enough!” he said aloud. “Do not!”
“What is it, my leader?” came Rai-guy’s voice, the wizard and his sidekick psionicist rushing back into the room.
They entered to see Jarlaxle standing, obviously angry, staring at the mirror.
Then how that mirror brightened! There was a flash as striking, and as painful to sensitive drow eyes, as the sun itself. A searing beam of pure heat energy shot out of the tower’s tip, shooting down across the sands to catch the rider and his horse, enveloping them in a white-yellow shroud.
It was over in an instant, leaving the charred bones of Rolmanet and his horse lying on the empty desert sands.
Jarlaxle closed his eyes and clenched his teeth, suppressing his urge to scream out.
“Impressive display,” Kimmuriel said.
“Fifteen have come over to us, and it would seem the other five are dead,” Rai-guy remarked. “The victory is complete.”
Jarlaxle wasn’t so sure of that, but he composed himself and turned a calm look upon his lieutenants. “Crenshinibon will discern those who are most easily and completely dominated,” he informed the wary pair. “They will be sent back to their guild—or guilds, if this was a collaboration—with a proper explanation for the defeat.
The others will be interrogated—and they will willingly submit to all of our questions—so that we might learn everything about this enemy that came prying into our affairs.”
Rai-guy and Kimmuriel exchanged a glance that Jarlaxle did not miss, a clear indication that they had seen him distressed when they had entered. What they might discern from that, the mercenary leader did not know, but he wasn’t overly pleased at that moment.
“Entreri is back in Calimport?” he asked.
“At House Basadoni,” Kimmuriel answered.
“As we should all be,” Jarlaxle decided. “We will ask our questions of our newest arrivals and give them over to Ahdahnia. Leav
e Berg’inyon and a small contingent behind to watch over the operation here.”
The two glanced at each other again but offered no other response. They bowed and left the room.
Jarlaxle stared into the mirror at the blackened bones of the man and horse.
It had to be done, came the whisper of Crenshinibon into his mind. His escape would have brought more curious eyes, better prepared. We are not yet ready for that.
Jarlaxle recognized the lie for what it was. Crenshinibon feared no prying, curious eyes, feared no army at all. The Crystal Shard, in its purest of arrogance, believed that it would simply convert the majority of any attacking force, turning them back on any who did not submit to its will. How many could it control? Jarlaxle wondered. Hundreds? Thousands? Millions?
Images of domination, not merely of the streets of Calimport, not merely of the city itself, but of the entire realm, flittered through his thoughts as Crenshinibon “heard” the silent questions and tried to answer.
Jarlaxle shifted his eye patch and focused on it, lessening the connection with the artifact, and tightened his willpower to try to keep his thoughts as much to himself as possible. No, he knew, Crenshinibon had not killed the fleeing man for fear of any retribution. Nor had it struck out with such overwhelming fury against that lone rider because it did not agree with the merits of Jarlaxle’s arguments against doing so.
No, the Crystal Shard had killed the man precisely because Jarlaxle had ordered it not to do so, because the mercenary leader had crossed over the line of the concept of partner and had tried to assume control.
That Crenshinibon would not allow.
If the artifact could so easily disallow such a thing, could it also step back over the line the other way?
The rather disturbing notion did not bring much solace to Jarlaxle, who had spent the majority of his life serving as no man’s, nor Matron Mother’s, slave.
“We have new allies under our domination, and thus we are stronger,” Rai-guy remarked sarcastically when he was alone with Kimmuriel and Berg’inyon.