Dark Sun: Prism Pentad 3 - The Amber Enchantress (12 page)

The thing's face was all muzzle, his enormous smiling mouth filled top and bottom with needlelike teeth. His eyes were set on opposite sides of his head, so that they could look straight ahead or to opposite sides as he chose. Directly behind these giant orbs were a pair of eloquent ears, triangular in shape and currently turned to the sides in an expression of solace.

“I am the windsinger Magnus,” he said, speaking in a surprisingly gentle voice. He waved a cumbersome hand at the elven woman next to him. “This is Rhayn, daughter to Chief Faenaeyon.”

“Faenaeyon!”
Sadira croaked, searching for the tall elf whom she had first brought across.

Magnus's ears turned forward in curiosity. “I assumed you two had introduced yourselves,” he said.

“My father's name means something to you?” demanded Rhayn, studying Sadira's face more closely.

The sorceress shook her head. “I've heard the name before, but it was probably someone else.”

“Unlikely,” said Rhayn. “Elves are named for the first interesting thing they do after learning to run. In our tongue, Faenaeyon means 'faster than the lion.' How many children do you suppose survive to bear such a name?”

“Not many,” Sadira conceded. As she realized that she had probably just met the father who had abandoned her into slavery, the sorceress had a sinking feeling in her stomach.

“So, what have you heard about Faenaeyon?” Rhayn asked.

“Before sorcery was permitted in Tyr, he was known as someone who sold spell ingredients,” Sadira said, deciding it would be wiser to keep her secret.

“That would describe half the elves in the city,” Rhayn said.

When Sadira offered no further explanation, the elf gave Magnus a doubting look, then took a large waterskin off her lean shoulder and passed it to Sadira. From the vessel's lack of seams and bulbous shape, the sorceress guessed it had once been the stomach or bladder of some desert beast. She opened the neck and drank deeply of the rank water, hardly able to take her eyes off her father's face.

Sadira was surprised at the emotions she felt. To be sure, there was anger and hatred. A large part of her wanted to strike him down and, after revealing her identity, leave him in the scorching sun to die alone and maimed. Another part of her, less murderous but just as vindictive, wanted to tell him how she and her mother had suffered over the years, and, by blinding and deafening him, inflict some measure of agony in return for that they had endured.

The third aspect of Sadira's feelings confused her the most. Part of her didn't hate her father at all. Deep inside, she was amazed to see him standing before her. Until now, he had always been a distant abstraction, an enigma whose thoughtless cruelty had caused her a lifetime of pain. Now Sadira was merely curious about him. She wanted to know what kind of a man he was, and whether he had ever tried to find out what had happened to Barakah and his unborn child.

After several moments of allowing the tepid water from Rhayn's waterskin run to down her throat, Sadira finally removed the neck from her mouth. “My thanks,” she said, handing it back to the woman who, she realized, was her half-sister.

Magnus kneeled at the sorceress's side. “Allow me to see to these wounds before we resume the run.”

As the windsinger's thick fingers began fumbling at the bandages on the sorceress's arm, Faenaeyon opened her satchel and began to look through it.

Sadira was on her feet immediately, the palm of her good hand facing the ground and ready to draw the energy for a spell. “Close it!” she demanded.

Cringing, Rhayn stepped away from Sadira's side. “Don't try to stop him,” she warned, half-whispering. “It's not worth it.”

“Put my satchel down!” Sadira insisted, stepping toward her father.

The elf continued to paw through the sack, hardly looking up. “Why? Are you hiding something from me?”

“We had an agreement,” Sadira said. “I told you what would happen if you didn't honor it.”

Faenaeyon pulled her purse from the satchel. “I said my tribe would take you to Nibenay,” he sneered. “I didn't say how much I'd charge.”

He tossed Sadira's satchel at her feet, then turned away with her coin purse still in his hand. The sorceress started after her father, already drawing the power for the spell that would kill him.

Magnus wrapped a huge arm around Sadira's waist and lifted her off the ground, at the same time closing his fist around her hand. “Are you as mad as he is?”

Silver Spring Oasis

Faenaeyon strode into the lush field, using his bone sword to beat a swath through thickets of tart-smelling ashbrush. When he closed to within fifty paces of the mud-brick fort, he stopped. “Toramund!” he boomed. “What have you done to me?”

An armored elf leaned out of the gate tower. Though the distance was too great to see him well, Sadira could tell that he wore a leather helmet with a nose guard and broad cheek plates. In his hand, he held a curved sword with a blade of kank-shell.

“Take your Sun Runners and be gone, Faenaeyon,” he yelled back. “All ye'll get from the
Silver Spring
is a belly full of arrows.”

To give weight to Toramund's words, the elves standing along the walls flexed their bows, each pointing an arrow at Faenaeyon's chest. The Sun Runners, men and women alike, responded by nocking their own arrows. Sadira guessed that Toramund had about fifty elves on the walls, while her father had at least twice that number outside the fort.

Despite the looming threat of battle, Faenaeyon showed no sign of backing off. Instead, he ran a contemptuous gaze over the enemy warriors, as if challenging them to fire at him.

The sorceress turned to Magnus, who was mounted on a kank at her side. Since she had joined the Sun Runners, the windsinger had been her constant companion, healing her wounds and watching after her safety. “What's all this about?”

“Silver,” the windsinger answered, focusing his black orbs on the small fort. It had obviously just been erected, for none of the mud bricks showed any sign of erosion and the highest rows were still black with dampness. “The Silver Hands claim this spring as their own and demand a silver coin from anyone who wishes to water his beasts here.”

Sadira grimaced. It had been only a few days since she had helped the Sun Runners across the
Canyon
of
Guthay
, but already she could imagine how Faenaeyon would respond to such an outrageous price. “What happened the last time you were here?”

“There are more Sun Runners than Silver Hands,” Magnus answered, twitching his ears.

“So you watered without paying,” Sadira concluded.

“No,” answered Rhayn, giving the half-elf a sheepish grin. “We robbed them.”

Rhayn stood on the opposite side of Sadira's kank, near the leg that had been wounded by the halfling spear. The elf's skin glistened with sweat from the morning run, and a lanky infant dozed in a sling on her back. Although the child was Rhayn's, Sadira did not know who had fathered him
—
or his four older siblings. The elf woman treated more than a dozen men as a city woman might her husband, despite the fact that many of them made camp with meeker women who seemed half slave and half wife.

“Apparently the Silver Hands have decided to build a fort rather than suffer the indignity of another robbery,” said Magnus, his ears turned forward in a thoughtful manner. “Rather far-sighted, don't you think?”

Back in the ashbrush field, Faenaeyon stopped glaring at the enemy warriors and returned his attention to their chief. “Open your gates, Toramund,” he yelled. “My warriors and beasts thirst for your water, and my purses hunger for your coins.”

Faenaeyon grabbed the purse he had taken from Sadira, the lightest of the five on his belt, and shook it for emphasis. A few Sun Runners laughed at his boldness, but many others cast nervous glances at each other.

“Does he want to start a fight?” asked Sadira. “Why doesn't he strike a deal?”

“Elves are too smart for that,” Rhayn answered, looking at Sadira as though she were a child.

“Elven tribes know better than to trust each other,” Magnus explained more patiently. “It's the great downfall of our otherwise noble race.”

Sadira wanted to ask what was noble about an elf, but thought better of it and held her tongue.

After a short pause, Toramund responded to Faenaeyon's threat. “Take your rabble and be gone, before I lose patience!”

“Your goatyard won't save you,” Faenaeyon countered. “I have a sorceress who can change bricks to dust with fewer words than I have already spoken.”

“Rhayn?
That trollop daughter of yours couldn't conjure light from a burning torch,” Toramund scoffed.

Toramund reached into the depths of his tower and pulled forward a gray-haired man with a long beard. “Bademyr will make short work of Rhayn
—
and of your windsinger besides.”

Faenaeyon's laugh echoed off the fortress walls, rolling back toward his own warriors in cruel waves. “It is not my daughter that I speak of
—
though you shall soon apologize to her,” he cried. With a dramatic flare, he faced Sadira and said, “Destroy the fort, Lorelei.”

“No,” Sadira replied.

Her response brought a disbelieving murmur from the Sun Runners, and several warriors turned to stare with gaping mouths at the sorceress.

When Sadira made no move to cast a spell, Toramund mocked, “Your new sorceress must be powerful indeed, if you cannot control her. I'm 90 scared that I've made water in my boots. Perhaps you would like to drink that, Sun Runner?”

Faenaeyon paid the insult no attention. Instead, he glared at Sadira, his lips curled into an angry frown. He did not speak or move, but the mad light in his eyes made the message plain.

“Destroy the fort,” urged Rhayn, a tone of desperation in her voice, “It would be wise,” agreed Magnus. “Without their fort, the Silver Hands will surrender. Faenaeyon will rob them, but there'll be no bloodshed. On the other hand, if the matter comes to blows, the fighting won't end until one tribe is destroyed.”

“You can't trick me with your elven games,” Sadira hissed. Speaking loudly enough for Faenaeyon to hear, she added, “I won't use my magic to help you steal.”

“I hadn't thought a defiler would be so particular about her causes,” observed Magnus.

The comment stung Sadira as no threat could have. “I only did what was necessary to save my life,” she retorted.

“Then do it again,” urged Magnus, glancing at Faenaeyon's angry form. “One of the lives you save will be your own.”

“What do you care if one tribe of elves robs another?” Rhayn demanded. “You understand nothing! This is between the Sun Runners and the Silver Hands.”

“Then your chief has no business bringing me into it,” Sadira countered, her eyes locked on Faenaeyon's.

Magnus leaned his massive body close to Sadira. “What you say might be true if your were in Tyr, but you are not,” he whispered. “You are with the Sun Runners, and here Faenaeyon's word is the only custom or law
—
as rapacious as it may seem. If he says to destroy the fort, you must
—
or a hundred warriors will leap to kill you when he gives the order.”

The windsinger's harangue only hardened Sadira's resolve. “I won't help you,” she called, speaking directly to Faenaeyon.

Narrowing his eyes, the chief started toward her. The Silver Hands yelled jeers and insults, mocking the bravery of the Sun Runners and their chief's ability to lead his tribe. One of the warriors raised his bow to fire at Faenaeyon's back.

“Look out!” Sadira yelled, her words echoed by a half-dozen warriors.

The bowstring snapped as the chief started to turn around. Before he could react, the shaft sank deep into his hip. Faenaeyon stumbled and nearly fell, then caught himself. As his own warriors began to draw their bowstrings back, he raised a hand.

“Hold your shafts!” he commanded.

The Sun Runners obeyed, though they kept their arrows nocked. Nodding his approval at their discipline, Faenaeyon stood with his back to the Silver Hands, challenging them to fire again.

Sadira resisted the temptation to reach for her spell ingredients. Faenaeyon had started this trouble on his own, and she was determined not to be dragged into it.

Inside the stockade, Toramund looked down the wall and bellowed, “Who did that? I gave no order to attack!” Several Silver Hand warriors responded by knocking a young woman off the wall.

After standing with his back to the Silver Hands for several moments, Faenaeyon reached around and tore the arrow from his hip. He tossed the shaft aside with a casual flick of his wrist, then continued toward Sadira. Although he bled profusely and walked with a limp, the chief's angry face showed no sign of distress.

“Doesn't he suffer pain?” Sadira gasped, leaving her hand in her satchel.

“No,” said Rhayn, edging away from the sorceress. “He never feels anything except greed or anger. Right now, I fear it's anger.”

To the other side of Sadira, Magnus tapped his kank's antennae, also moving away. “If you wish to survive, don't make the mistake of thinking he can be reasoned with.”

Sadira began to doubt her wisdom in defying Faenaeyon. She could not believe he truly felt no pain. Yet, it was becoming clear he lacked the feelings that controlled the behavior of most men, such as fear and compassion. He saw the world only as a source of silver.

Faenaeyon stopped in front of Sadira, his sword still unsheathed. Though the sorceress remained mounted on her kank, her father stood so tall that he looked her straight in the eye.

“Destroy the fort,” he ordered, raising his sword just enough to menace her.

Sadira dropped her gaze to the weapon. “If you lift that against me, it'll be the coins in your purse that I destroy not the bricks of the fort.”

She put one hand into her satchel and grasped a cold cinder, then turned down the palm of the other and began drawing energy for a spell. “How much is my death worth to you? A hundred coins?”

Faenaeyon's eyes widened. He glanced at the shimmering stream of energy rising into Sadira's hand, then lowered his weapon. “I'll deal with you later,” he said. He turned back toward the fort and pointed his sword at the elves manning it. “Their deaths will be upon your head.”