Dark Sun: Prism Pentad 1 - The Verdent Passage (22 page)

The creature obediently scuttled across the stone floor. With a deep groan, the dwarf lent
his strength to assist with raising the heavy gate.

Without warning, the gaj leaped, shooting across the pen in a rust-colored streak. It
struck Yarig straight on, its barbed pincers snapping shut around the dwarf's neck before
he could scream.

Rikus released the rope. The heavy gate crashed down on the beast's shell, trapping it
halfway out of the pen. Its canelike legs scraped madly at the stones of the pathway.

Oblivious to his sore ribs, Rikus leaped toward the gaj's head. Blood poured from the barb
punctures in Yarig's throat.

“You lied!” Rikus yelled, smashing his fist into one of the gaj's eyes.

Lying is a
useful thing,
it replied, unimpressed by the blow.

Rikus struck again, aiming for a spot just behind the three stalks. The beast countered by
slapping the gladiator with a antennae, sending a bolt of searing agony down the mul's
side and paralyzing his left arm. He punched with his right hand.

The gaj slapped Rikus across the face. Images of gray, empty nothingness floated through
the mul's mind, and he felt himself stumbling. The beast clubbed him with its mandible,
knocking him halfway across the corridor.

Rikus glimpsed the gaj as it wrapped its stalks around Yarig's head. Painfully gasping for
breath, the mul returned to his feet.

He has no thoughts!
the gaj exclaimed, disappointed.
He's dead.

With a casual flip of its head, the beast tossed the dwarf's limp body aside. It turned
toward Rikus, then pumped its shell up and down in an attempt to dislodge itself from the
gate.

Gathering his strength, the mul rushed for the gaj. As it opened its pincers, Rikus leaped
into the air. He sailed over the huge mandibles and planted both feet in the center of the
beast's head. The flying kick dislodged the gaj and knocked it back into its pen. The mul
threw himself to the left, landing on his belly as the gate crashed down only inches
behind him.

Rikus crawled away and lay on his stomach. He could do nothing but force his throbbing
ribs to draw breath. The animals in their pens screeched madly, stirred into a frenzy by
the sound of fighting and the smell of blood.

At length, the mul saw torchlight farther down the pathway. Anezka rushed past, pausing to
drop a black bundle of cloth in front of Rikus. She kneeled beside Yarig's body and closed
the dwarf's lashless eyes, touching her brow to each one in some halfling sign of
affection that Rikus did not understand.

Neeva stepped to the mul's side, a torch in one hand. In the other she held a pair of
spears and an obsidian dagger. She wore a black templar's cassock similar to the one
Anezka had dropped.

“What happened?” she asked, laying the weapons aside and helping her partner to his feet.

Rikus pointed at the pen. “The gaj attacked Yarig,” he said. “It was lying about coming
with us.”

“A little trick it learned from Tithian,” Neeva observed. She touched her heart, then held
her hand out to Yarig in the gladiator's traditional gesture of farewell.

Rikus motioned at the equipment Neeva had brought. “What's this?”

“We met the feeders and a pair of templar escorts at the door,” she reported. “They didn't
last long.”

Rikus picked up a spear and went to the gaj's pen.
T
he beast crouched in the corner, it eyes and lethal stalks turned toward the gate.

“This is for Yarig,” the mul said, flinging the spear through an opening.

The shaft struck the gaj in the center of its antennae. It let out a high-pitched squeal
and pulled its head beneath its shell.

“Will that kill it?” Neeva asked, holding her torch over the cage so she could see inside.

“Not for a few hours, I hope,” Rikus answered.

You have not beaten me yet.

The squealing did not cease as the gaj sent its message, but the creature lifted its shell
and pointed the tip of its abdomen at Rikus and Neeva.

“Time to leave,” the mul said. He pulled his partner away from the pen just as the gaj
sprayed the corridor with fetid vapor.

Neeva helped Rikus don the black cassock she and Anezka had procured for him. It was a
snug fit, but the mul hoped it would get him as far as the gate. If someone came close
enough to notice how tight the robe was, Rikus felt confident he could handle any problems
that might arise.

When they were ready to leave, the mul picked up Yarig's body, certain that the dwarf
would not want to be buried in Tithian's slave pits. “Are you coming with us, Anezka?”

The halfling nodded.

The three gladiators started toward the entrance Anezka holding the spear, and Rikus and
Neeva each carrying obsidian daggers in their pockets. They left their customary weapons
in their cells. Trikals, staves, and warhammers would have drawn unwanted attention to the
trio.

When they stepped out of the shed, Rikus pulled the cassock's hood over his head. Though
it was still early, neither of the moons sat very high in sky, so the evening was
reasonably dark. In each of the towers, the mul saw the shadowy forms of a templar and two
guards.

The feeder's four-wheeled can sat to the side of the door. A putrid stench rose from the
various dead and almost dead animals lying in its wagon. “Let's get this unloaded,” Rikus
said. “We'd better feed the animals so they'll be quiet.”

They quickly did as the mul suggested, blindly throwing different sorts of meat into the
pens without regard for the beasts inside. A few minutes later, the cart was empty. Rikus
laid Yarig's body in the wagon, then traded his dagger for the spear that Anezka carried
and instructed her to lie down next to her fighting partner's corpse.

Rikus went to the front of the cart, where a single kank was lashed into the yoke. The
docile beast stood a little higher than the mul's waist. Its chitinous body was divided
into three sections: a pear-shaped head topped by two wiry antennae, an elongated thorax
supported by six thin legs, and a bulbous abdomen hanging from the rear of the thorax.

Though Rikus had never driven one of the creatures, he had ridden in kank-drawn wagons
enough to understand the basic principal. In his free hand, he picked up a long switch
lying on the front of the can, then tapped the kank between the antennae. To his surprise,
the beast took off at a trot.

“How much attention are you trying to draw to us?” Neeva demanded, jogging to keep up with
the cart.

“Slow down!”

“How?”

The blond gladiator snatched the switch from his hand and passed the end over the beast's
antennae several times. It immediately slowed to a more acceptable speed.

They plodded down the lane, then turned right on the broad road leading to the back gate.
Several tower guards paused to peer down at the wagon, but no one showed any sign of alarm.

At last, the gate itself loomed before them. It consisted of a large wooden door hinged
between a pair of small towers. This evening, each tower was manned by one guard, with a
single templar supervising them both.

Neeva steered the cart directly for the gate, not varying the kank's pace. The tower
guards and the templar watched the disguised gladiators approach without comment. A guard
turned a wheel inside his tower, and the gate slowly started to open.

The escapees passed into the dark shadows between the towers.

“Wait!” called the templar.

Neeva glanced at Rikus, and the mul nodded to indicate she should obey. The brawny woman
passed the switch over the kank's antennae until the cart stopped.

“Did I see bodies in there?” the templar demanded.

“Yes,” Rikus confirmed. “They insulted Tithian. We're taking them out for the raakles.”

“I'd better have a look,” the templar sighed, climbing down the ladder.

Neeva gave Rikus a questioning look. He shrugged, then peered over his shoulder at Anezka.
She was playing dead, with one hand tucked awkwardly beneath her back.

The templar reached the ground, then went to the side of the cart. He was a human with a
three-day growth of beard.

“What have we here?” the templar muttered, reaching over the wagon toward Yarig's neck.
When his fingers came back sticky with blood, he grumbled with disgust and held his hand
away from his body as if he didn't quite know what to do with it. “They're dead.”

“Of course,” Rikus answered. “I killed them myself.”

The Templar regarded the mul with a disgusted look, then motioned the cart through the
gate. Neeva hardly waited for it to open the rest of the way before she moved the little
cart out from between the towers.

A vast plain of rocky barrenness, purple-shrouded and as silent as death itself, lay
before them.

“Where do we go now, Rikus?” Neeva asked, urging the kank into a trot.

“The estate of Agis of Asticles,” the mul answered. “Wherever that is.”

UnderTyr

Ktandeo tapped the bench with his cane. “Sit.”

Sadira obeyed immediately, but Agis ignored the command and remained standing. The three
of them were gathered around the stone bench in the back the Drunken Giant wineshop. They
had drawn the shimmering curtain of lizard scales for privacy.

“At last, we meet formally,” Agis said, holding both hands palms up in a formal gesture of
greeting. “I am Agis of AstÑ”

“I know who you are,” Ktandeo said, pointing to the bench. “Now sit.”

Sadira pulled Agis down next to her, anxious to avoid angering her contact any further.
She and the noble had been trying to see Ktandeo since Agis's conversation with Tithian.
After two days of the pair making nuisances of themselves in the wineshop, the old man had
finally come.

As soon as the senator touched the stone, Ktandeo scowled at the sorceress. “I'm certain
you know what you've done.”

Sadira was not sure whether he was referring to her efforts to arrange a meeting with
Rikus or to bringing Agis to the rendezvous point, but she nodded anyway. To the Veiled
Alliance, both were grave offenses. “When you hear what Agis has to say, you'll be glad I
did.”

“You'd better hope that's so,” Ktandeo replied. “OtherwiseÑ”

Agis interrupted the old man's threat. “Something terrible is about to happen in Tyr, and
only you can stop it.” Before Ktandeo could reply, the red-bearded barman slipped past the
curtain with a carafe of thick red wine and three mugs. Agis reached into his purse and
withdrew several coins, but the old man laid his cane across the noble's wrist.

“I wouldn't drink what your coins buy,” the sorcerer said.

“You can drink what Agis offers you,” Sadira snapped, laying a hand on the senator's
firmly muscled knee. During the last two days, the sorceress and the noble had not spent
more than ten minutes apart, and she had come to know him well. “He's a better man than
his peers.”

“Is my hearing bad?” Ktandeo asked, sticking a thick finger into his ear as if to clean
it. “I could have sworn I just heard a woman who kills templars defending a slave holder's
reputation.”

Sadira's cheeks reddened. “The men I killed were petty, murderous scum, and they would
have been the same whether they were free or slave,” she said. “Agis is a good man, and
being born into a corrupt nobility doesn't change that.”

“Whether he's noble or slave is all the same to me,” said the barman, holding out his
hand. “His money is what matters.”

Agis dropped a few coins into the server's hand.

The barman examined the coins briefly, then returned a small bronze disk to Agis. “If you
think I'll take this instead of good Tyrian currency, you're mistaken. That's no coin I've
ever seen.”

Agis slipped the disk into his robe pocket with an air of chagrin, then retrieved two
proper coins to replace it. “I've no idea how it came to be in my purse. Please accept my
apologies.”

As the burly man left, Ktandeo raised an eyebrow in Sadira's direction. “Didn't you storm
out of here the other night because you love that gladiator?”

“What if I did?” Sadira demanded.

Ktandeo waved his cane in Agis's direction. “You're talking as though you care for this
one, too.”

“I might,” Sadira answered, giving Agis a warm smile. He returned her gesture by looking
slightly distressed. “What's wrong with that?”

Sadira understood why Agis and her contact seemed disturbed, but she did not share their
prudish attitudes. Nothing in her background had taught her to consider romance an
exclusive commitment. Tithian had used her mother as breeding stock, and Catalyna, the
woman who had taught her the art of seduction, had warned the young sorceress against
becoming attached to a single man.

“Perhaps we can discuss my visit with the high templar?” Agis suggested.

“That's what you came here for,” Ktandeo grumbled, eyeing Sadira coldly. “And it had
better be important.”

As Agis recounted his meeting with Tithian, Ktandeo grumbled about the liberties Sadira
had taken by recruiting the noble in the Alliance's name. He frowned at her when Agis
revealed that the high templar knew the Veiled Ones wanted to meet with Rikus. However,
when the senator described the pyramid and balls he had seen in Tithian's memory,
Ktandeo's mood changed from one of petulance to one of apprehensive distraction.

“Tithian knows too much about what you two have been doing,” Ktandeo said, his eyes
thoughtfully fixed on the pommel of his cane.

“There's no doubt Tithian has a spy close to one of us,” Agis said.

“It's your manservant, Agis. I'm sure of it,” Sadira added.

The noble disguised his reaction to the statement by lifting his mug and taking a swallow
of wine. This was one area where they were not in complete agreement. When Agis had gone
to meet Tithian two days ago, Caro had excused himself on the pretense of relieving his
bladder. He had not returned until just before Agis left the stadium. Even then, Sadira
had been suspicious of the dwarf's prolonged absence. When she had heard about the
interruption that ruined the assault on the high templar's mind, she had immediately
concluded that the dwarf was a spy and pulled Agis aside to warn him.