Dark Sun: Prism Pentad 1 - The Verdent Passage

The great ziggurat towered above the squalor of the sun-baked city. Each level of the
terraced pyramid was finished in glazed brick of a different color: gleaming violet at the
base, then indigo, azure, green, yellow, fiery orange, and, finally, scarlet. In the
center of the huge structure, a pair of mighty bastions marked each of the seven levels.
The bastions flanked an enormous staircase, which ran straight from base to summit,
reaching for the flaxen moons that hovered over the monument's lofty crown and infused the
hazy predawn sky with an amber blush.

Thousands of slaves swarmed over the pyramid. Clad only in breechcloths, they toiled to
the rhythm of snapping whips, using a web of ropes and pulleys to hoist crates laden with
fired bricks up the sheer walls of each terrace.

At the base of the ziggurat stood a diminutive man wearing a long purple robe. Upon his
head was a golden diadem, the crown of the king of Tyr. A wispy fringe of gray hair hung
from the golden circlet, but his pate was
bald and scaly with age. Lines of anger and hate were deeply etched in his brow, a
thousand years of bitterness burned in his gaze, and a scowl hung upon his dry, cracked
lips. Pallid, wrinkled flesh dangled from his cheeks and jaw, and it looked as if the man
had been fast?ing for a hundred years. For all anyone knew, he had.

Next to the ancient ruler stood an apprehensive man dressed in the black cassock worn by
all the king's tem?plars. His auburn hair hung in a braided tail down the center of his
back. His features were gaunt, and his face was populated with a hawkish nose, a
thin-lipped frown, and beady eyes the color of liver. At five and a half feet, he loomed
over the aged king the way elves loomed over men. That fact made him nervous. Tithian of
Mericles, High Templar of the Games and sole heir to the Mericles name, would have enjoyed
towering over his peers. He was too shrewd to relish standing taller than the king.

Noting that he was casting a faint shadow over his ruler, Tithian stepped forward to
examine the violet-hued bricks of the ziggurat's lowest tier. They were em?bellished with
alabaster tiles. A carving on each tile portrayed the Dragon: a stooped beast that walked
up?right on a pair of massive legs, dragging an immense ser?pentine tail behind it. An
articulated husk of rough chitin covered the Dragon's back and tail. Its arms were two
stubs, but its hands were shaped like a man's, and each held a staff that helped support
its upper torso. A protect?ive collar of leaf-shaped scales covered its shoulders. From
this collar rose a long, powerful neck that ended in a flat head that held narrow,
slitlike eyes, no ears, and a huge mouth filled with jagged teeth.

“This workmanship is exquisite, King Kalak,” Tithian offered, not taking his eyes from the
white tiles. “The detail is amazing.”

Kalak reached up and placed his hand on Tithian's shoulder. With its gnarled fingers and
swollen joints, it looked more like a claw than a human appendage.

“Did I bring you here to examine artwork?” Without awaiting a reply, the king led Tithian
toward a crate of bricks that was being pulled to an upper level of the ziggurat.

Tithian grimaced. This was the first time he had ever seen the king outside the Golden
Tower, and he had no idea why he had been called to meet him at such an uncivilized hour.
From Kalak's acid tone, the high templar guessed that the meeting would be less than
pleasant.

When they reached the rising crate, Kalak grasped the rope that hung from its side. The
king's feet left the ground, and he began to float upward. Tithian stifled a scream as
Kalak's talonlike fingers dug into his shoulder. An instant later, the ground slipped from
beneath the templar's feet. He found himself dangling in the king's grip, staring down
upon the heads of the slaves who had been loading more crates at the base of the ziggurat.

The slaves were astonished by the sight of two men rising into the air like wisps of
smoke, and they paused to gape at the pair. Their overseers, subordinate templars dressed
in black cassocks similar to Tithian's, quickly returned them to work with a few
well-placed blows from bone-and-leather whips.

When Kalak and Tithian had risen just above the first terrace, they came face-to-face with
four hundred pounds of fur and muscle. The hulking baazrag paused in its difficult task of
hauling up the bricks. Creasing its sloping brow, it fixed its eyes on the men, then
cocked its high-crested head in confusion. As the beast's glance dropped to the empty
space beneath the king's feet, its cavernous nostrils flared in alarm and its muzzle fell
open, reveling four sharp, yellow canines. The baazrag stepped back and raised its arms in
a defensive display. The rope slipped from its hands.

Stepping onto the terrace, the king barely managed to release the rope and avoid following
the crate as it fell to the ground. The bricks crashed upon a human slave, crushing him.
The entire load was pulverized by the fall. Kalak stood at the terrace edge, scowling at
the rubble and squeezing Tithian's collarbone so hard that the templar expected it to snap
at any moment.

When the king finally lifted his gaze, his eyes were blazing with fury. He located a man
wearing the black cassock of a templar, then pointed at him. “You!”

The overseer spun around, blanching as he saw who had addressed him. “Yes, Mighty One?”

“This slave just dropped a full load of my bricks!” Kalak snapped, pointing at the
wretched baazrag he had surprised. “Whip him!”

The overseer cringed, for the same lack of wit that made baazrags good slaves could result
in a murderous rampage when they were beaten. Nevertheless, the man unfurled his whip to
obey, for defying the king would mean an immediate and agonizing death.

Before Tithian could see what became of the baazrag's punishment, Kalak ordered another of
his priests to throw him a line. Two slaves gingerly pulled the king and Tithian toward
another crate of bricks, which was being lifted to the next terrace. With his hand still
crushing Tithian's shoulder, the king grasped the rope attached to the crate, and the pair
began to rise again. They repeated the process several times, ascending the ziggurat level
by level. With each trip, the overseers shouted warnings to their counterparts above,
trying to prevent astonished slaves from losing any more bricks.

Most slaves were human, dwarven, or half-elven, but other, more exotic races dominated
several terraces. On one terrace labored an entire pack of belgoi, gaunt humanoids nearly
identical to menÑsave for their broadly webbed feet, clawed fingers, and the chinless,
toothless mouths with which they chattered.

On another level worked a hundred gith, a grotesque humanoid race that seemed half elf,
half reptile. They
were lanky
like desert elves, with long, slender legs. But the legs protruded from the body at right
angles like a lizard's. The gith were so hunched at the waist that they shambled in a
perpetual squat. Their bony heads were slender and arrow-shaped, with bulging, lidless
eyes that remained fixed on Tithian and Kalak as the two men floated past.

When Kalak and his templar reached the sixth stage of the ziggurat, the king stepped onto
the terrace and released Tithian's aching shoulder. They could not continue to rise along
the face of the wall, for the seventh, final echelon of the great pyramid was still
encased in wooden scaffolds. Over these frameworks swarmed dozens of jozhal, small
two-legged reptiles with skinny tails, long, flexible necks, and elongated snouts filled
with needlelike teeth. With their small, three-fingered hands, the jozhal were covering
the seventh tier with scarlet-glazed bricks. They labored at an amazing pace, running up
and down the rickety scaffolds as though they were walking on level ground.

Kalak stepped to the scaffolding and pointed a gnarled finger at the half-completed
terrace beyond. “Will my ziggurat be ready in three weeks?”

Tithian dutifully peered through the scaffolding as if to assess the work in progress, but
he was hardly the person to ask. Like most people, he had no idea why the king was
building the ziggurat. Kalak had not explained its purpose, and those who had inquired
about it too often were now dead. In fact Tithian understood less about construction than
he did about the ziggurat's purpose. For all he knew, the terrace could be three
days
from completion.

Though he was puzzled by the king's interest in his opinion, Tithian did not intend to
allow his lack of expertise to influence his answer. His reply would be dictated by two
things: what he thought the king wanted to hear, and what would serve him best politically.

Tithian thought he would be best served by a negative answer. The High Templar of the
King's Works, a woman named Dorjan, was his greatest rival. Kalak seemed upset with her,
so Tithian sensed an opportunity to add to her troubles.

“Well?”

The templar faced the king and was almost overcome with awe. He had not realized how far
they had risen, and from the ziggurat's lofty heights he could only wonder at everything
he could see.

At the base of the mighty pyramid lay the sandy floor of the gladiatorial arena. It looked
no larger than the courtyard of a minor noble's townhouse, and the great tiers of seats
flanking the field seemed no higher than the terraced walls of a garden. Even the Golden
Tower of Kalak's palace, which overlooked the opposite end of the arena, seemed an
insignificant spire from where Tithian stood.

Beyond the royal palace lay the Templar's Ward. In this part of the city stood the marble
palaces of the six high templars, the elegant mansions of their trusted assistants, and
the lavish chamberhouses of the subordinate priests.. Hundreds of guards patrolled the
streets of this district day and night, and a high wall capped with jagged shards of
obsidian isolated it from the rest of Tyr. On the far side of the ward stood the
fortifications of the city wall, a brick barricade so wide that a military road ran along
its crest, and so high that even the Dragon could not peer over it.

From the ziggurat Tithian could see even beyond the wall. There lay Kalak's fields, a
three-mile ring of blue burgrass, golden smokebrush, and ground holly, made fertile only
by the blood and toil of a legion of slaves. On the far side of these rich pastures lay
the orange expanse of the Tyr Valley, a vast sweep of dusty scrubland, speckled here and
there with gray-green thickets of bushy tamarisk and spindly catclaw trees.

Through the veil of dust that hung in the air, permanently tinting the Athasian sky in a
kaleidoscope of pastel hues, Tithian could even see the stark, ashen crags of the Ringing
Mountains. He had heard that on the far side of those impassable peaks there flourished a
jungle, but of course he dismissed such absurd tales. From what he knew, all of Athas
resembled the wastes of the Tyr Valley, although some regions were perhaps even more
desolate.

Kalak interrupted Tithian's reverie with a terse demand. “Tithian, what of my ziggurat?
Will Dorjan finish it in time?”

“It looks difficult, but not impossible,” Tithian replied, cautiously avoiding an open
attack on his rival. 'I'm discouraged that there is so much left to accomplish, but
perhaps Dorjan has a solid plan."

The king did not reply. Instead, he cast his glance toward a slender templar approaching
from the north. It was Dorjan. She was a beautiful woman, with an ivory complexion,
straight nose, and high cheekbones. Yet she was not alluring, for her stern personality
and cruel temper cast a sharp edge over her features. The high templar moved with a
decisive stride, her long, silky hair waving in the wind like a black banner. When she saw
Tithian her dark eyes grew as hard as the bricks of the ziggurat and the full red lips of
her wide mouth twisted into a confident sneer.

Behind Dorjan came a pair of subordinates, both burly men with rugged faces and square
jaws. Between them they dragged an emaciated slave with dun-colored hair and pallid skin.
The slave cradled two broken arms against his stomach. One eye was swollen shut; with the
other, he peered at the ground. The man wheezed laboriously through bloody lips, for his
nose had been smashed and was now spread across his cheeks like a black-and-purple mask.

“How are my games coming, Tithian?” Kalak inquired casually. His beady eyes were fixed on
the slave.

“If the ziggurat were completed today, we could hold the games tomorrow,” Tithian replied
proudly. “My beast-handlers have trapped a new creature you will find most surprising.”

The king raised an eyebrow. “Truly? That
would
be something.”

Tithian silently cursed himself. During the thousand years of his reign, Kalak had no
doubt seen more exotic beasts than the high templar could even imagine. It was foolish to
raise the king's expectations with immodest boasting.

Before Tithian could cover his blunder, Dorjan joined them. Pointedly ignoring her rival,
she faced Kalak and bowed. When the ancient king held out his shriveled hand, the templar
touched her lips to the withered palm.

“This is the one?” Kalak asked, withdrawing his hand and motioning at the slave.

Dorjan nodded, then reached into her pocket and withdrew a bone amulet covered with runes.
“He tried to seal this into the inner passage,” she said, offering it to the king. “The
runes are meantÑ”

“To create an invisible wall,” Kalak growled, snatching the amulet from her hand. He
thrust the bone under the battered slave's nose. “What did you hope to accomplish with
this trinket?”

The slave shrugged. “I don't know,” he mumbled in a weak voice. “She told me to seal it in
the main shaft.”

“Who told you?” Dorjan asked, smirking in Tithian's direction.

Before the slave answered, Tithian noticed the king's beady eyes lock on his face.

“I don't know her name,” the slave muttered, still not looking up. “A half-elf owned by
the High Templar of the GamesÑ”