Dark Sun: Prism Pentad 1 - The Verdent Passage (26 page)

The half-giant stepped a third of the way across in one stride. “Stop!” he cried.

Rikus charged, holding the bench like a battering ram. The half-giant grinned and lifted
his club.

From behind the mul, Neeva's dagger flashed overhead in a black streak. It hit the guard
in the brow, striking hilt-first. It bounced harmlessly away and landed on a lily pad with
a hollow thump. Nevertheless, the attack served its functionÑstunning the half-giant long
enough to keep him from swinging his club before Rikus drove the end of the bench into the
guard's chest.

A great crack sounded from the half-giant's sternum. A heavy groan escaped his lips. He
whirled his arms, and his club went crashing into the bower. With a tremendous bellow, the
guard fell backward, slamming into a pillar. The marble column broke into the three
pieces, and the half-giant landed among the sections, cursing and vowing vengeance.

As the guard started to sit up, the roof collapsed, dumping half a ton of rubble on his
head. His death cries were lost amid the thunderous clatter.

Rikus dropped the bench and turned around. He saw that the third half-giant had decided
against the bridge and was approaching the patio through the pond. Neeva already faced
him. Armed only with a dagger, she was moving forward to meet him at the edge of the
island.

To one side of the bridge, Anezka emerged from the water long enough to grab the dagger
that had fallen on the lily pad. Guessing that she intended to attack from under the
water, Rikus retrieved the second half-giant's club and stepped to his fighting partner's
side. When Neeva lifted her arm to throw her remaining dagger, Rikus laid a restraining
hand on her wrist. “Not yet.”

“Maybe I'll get lucky.”

The mul did not reply, but held onto her throwing arm, waiting for Anezka's attack. When
the half-giant lifted his club to swing at Neeva, Rikus finally released her.

“Thanks a lot!” the blond gladiator exclaimed, preparing to dodge instead of throwing her
dagger.

The half-giant paused in mid-stroke. He stared at his feet, then screamed in pain. The
guard plunged his hand into the water behind his ankle.

Guessing that Anezka had severed the tendons at the soldier's ankle, Rikus swung his club
at the half-giant's head. He made contact, but the shock jarred him to the soles of his
feet and his hands went numb from vibration It felt as though he had struck a marble
column instead of a skull.

The only effect on the half-giant was to draw his attention away from his feet. “Now,
Neeva!” Rikus yelled. “Throw your dagger!” The guard's massive fist shot out of the water
and hit Rikus in the face. The mul tumbled a dozen yards across the patio and smashed into
one of the posts supporting the bower.

As Rikus struggled to focus his eyes, Neeva threw her dagger. It struck blade first,
ripping a long slice in the guard's cheek. The half-giant roared and lifted his weapon to
strike. Neeva threw herself in Rikus's direction.

As the club smashed into the patio, the guard bellowed again, then reached into the water
and grabbed at his other heel. He took a panicked step toward the colonnade. He stumbled
and fell into the pond, spraying water and scattering lily pads everywhere. Rikus could
see the half-giant flailing and clutching at the pillars to keep himself from drowning.

A moment later, clenching her bloody dagger in her teeth, Anezka slipped out of the pond
and went to retrieve her clothes.

*****

The bellowing and roaring of the battle inside the colonnade had reached even the faro
fields surrounding the Asticles mansion. Agis and Sadira surmised that someone was
fighting in the courtyard, but they could determine little else.

They crouched at the edge of a dusty field, staring over the coppery field of rockstem
that separated the farm from the mansion grounds. The meadow was one of the most
ancient features of the Asticles mansion, for rockstem was a leafless, hard-skinned plant
that did not grow so much as accumulate in one place over the centuries, forming
fantastic, twisted shapes.

From across this tangled heath, the white marble colonnade looked like nothing more than a
wing of the mansion. The two half-giants and the templar standing outside it were
silhouettes the size of insects.

The two watchers were protected from view by both the rockstem and the faro trees, but
neither plant shielded them from the oppressive afternoon sun. Both Agis and Sadira were
dizzy from the heat, and their throats were so swollen with thirst that they sometimes
found themselves choking on their own tongues.

They had been prowling about in the faro fields since mid-morning, when they had returned
to Agis's estate from UnderTyr. After Ktandeo had died, a crimson knight had taken the old
sorcerer's body inside the temple. Sadira had thrown the bronze disk by which the templars
had been tracking them into the shrine, then she and Agis had crept away and hidden at the
edge of the dark courtyard.

Shortly afterward, the templar commander had ordered his men to storm the shrine. The
crimson knights had met them at the entrances, and Agis and Sadira had taken advantage of
the resulting battle to flee. They had retraced their path to the Drunken Giant. After
finding the wineshop wrecked and abandoned, they had returned to Agis's house to gather
supplies.

Fortunately, Sadira had insisted that they take the morning to reconnoiter, reasoning that
Tithian might well have ordered Agis's house watched. After several hours of waiting, it
had become apparent that the half-elf's caution was warranted. Four figures, two tall and
two short, had entered the colonnade. Agis had been able to identify the shuffling gait of
one of the short figures as that of his manservant Caro. A short time later, Caro had left
the colonnade and fetched five half-giants and a templar from main house. Three of the
half-giants had gone into the colonnade, and that was when the fighting had begun.

“The time has come to reclaim my home,” Agis said, staring at Caro, the templar, and the
two half-giants still waiting outside the colonnade. “I think we're looking at all that
remains of the group Tithian sent to watch my house.”

Sadira nodded. “If we stay out here much longer, my tongue will be too thick to cast
spells.”

Agis studied the scene for a few more moments, then asked, “Can you disable the two
half-giants?”

The half-elf started to shake her head, then looked at the cane in her hand and changed
her mind. “I can probably kill everybody, but we'd better get a little closer.”

Agis scowled at Ktandeo's cane. “Are you sure that's wise?” he asked. “We don't know muchÑ”

“I know enough,” the half-elf insisted. “Besides, it's dangerous to use normal magic so
close to your rockstem. Such slow-growing plants might not recover from the drain.”

Agis pursed his lips, but nodded. “Just leave Caro alone.”

“You can't believe he didn't betray us!” the half-elf objected.

“No, I can't even
hope
that any more,” Agis said. “I still don't want him killed.”

Sadira shrugged, then looked toward the colonnade. “If you want to save Caro, you'll have
to kill the templar standing next to him. The more distance there is between my targets
and Caro, the better”

Agis nodded, then unsheathed his dagger and held it in the palm of his hand. The noble
closed his eyes and focused his concentration on his energy nexus, opening a pathway from
his body through his arm and into the palm that held the dagger. Agis let out a short
breath, at the same time closing his fingers around the dagger. He pictured them melding
with the hilt and ceasing to exist as separate digits. The weapon became a part of his
body that he could control and direct as easily as he could his arms or his legs.

When Agis opened his eyes again, to him it appeared the dagger had taken the place of his
hand at the end of his wrist. He felt the leather hilt wrapped around the cold steel of
its tang in the same way he felt his skin covering his bones. “Ready?” he asked.

“As ready as I'll ever be,” Sadira replied. “Let's go.”

“We'll rely on their curiosity to get us closer,” he said, leading the way out of the faro.

They moved through the waist-high rockstem formations casually, Sadira walking several
paces to the noble's left and swinging her cane as if it were any normal walking stick. As
he approached, Agis could see that the templar, Caro, and the half-giants all faced the
colonnade, their backs turned toward him and Sadira. So tightly was their attention
focused on the small courtyard that they never noticed him and the sorceress.

When they had closed to within fifty yards, the templar motioned to the two half-giants as
if sending them into the colonnade.

“Attack now!” Agis said, anticipating it would be difficult enough to flush out the
templars and half-giants already inside the colonnade without allowing more to join them.

The noble whipped his arm toward the templar. The dagger separated from his wrist, leaving
a bare stump behind. As it streaked toward its target, Agis kept his arm pointed at the
man's head. To him, the cold steel still felt as though it were attached to his arm and he
was guiding the weapon's flight just as though he were using his hand to plunge it into
his victim's back.

The dagger slipped into the base of the templar's skull. In his wrist, Agis felt the
scrape of steel against bone. A warm liquid enveloped the blade as it entered the man's
brain.

Agis broke the connection. He had little interest in experiencing a man's death from the
viewpoint of a weapon.

The templar fell forward, dying before he hit the ground and probably not aware of it.
Caro, who had been talking to the man, stared at the body in confusion.

Sadira's attack was more spectacular. She pointed the cane at the two half-giants, then
spoke two words Ktandeo had once uttered when he used it: “Nok” and “Ghostfire.”

The obsidian orb flared a brilliant orange, then a thunderous boom rocked the field. A
stream of fiery light shot from the cane and enveloped the two half-giants. Agis did not
see what happened next, for in the same instant he felt a cold hand reach inside him and
draw away a portion of his life energy. It was a feeling similar to the one he had
experienced when Ktandeo used the cane, but many times stronger.

A tremendous shudder ran through the senator's body. His knees buckled, then he crashed
through a brittle rockstem formation and pitched face-first onto the ground. He rolled
onto his side and looked toward Sadira, but otherwise he felt too nauseous to move.

The sorceress had sunk to her knees and was holding Ktandeo's cane in both hands, staring
at it with a look of indignation and confused astonishment. A faint scarlet light
glimmered from the depths of the black pommel, squirming and crawling over the surface as
if it were alive. The scarlet gleam slowly faded, and Sadira's body swayed uncertainly.
When the red light disappeared entirely, she toppled forward into a coppery fan of
rockstem.

Agis forced himself to his knees and looked toward the mansion. Caro was staring at the
ground where the half-giants had been standing only a moment before. The noble took his
horrified expression as a sign that they would not have to worry about those two
half-giants, at least.

Finding the strength to crawl to the sorceress's side, Agis found her curled into a ball
and gasping for breath. Her skin was as pale as bone, her face was haggard, and the luster
was gone from her amber hair. Her eyes were focused on the old man's cane, which lay in
front of her.

The noble put a hand under her elbow. “Sadira? Can you hear me?”

The half-elf's gaze slowly shifted to Agis's face. She cried out in shock.

“What is it? Are you hurt?”

“I'm fine,” she gasped.

Agis helped her to her knees. She continued to stare at him. “Is something wrong?” he
asked.

Sadira shook her head and seemed to return to her senses. “No. Everything's fine,” she
said, brushing the hair around his temples. “You don't see any gray streak in
my
hair, do you?”

“No, of course not. Why?” Agis had no sooner asked the question than the answer occurred
to him. He looked at the black-pommeled cane in shock. “That thing turned my hair gray?”
he gasped.

“Just a few streaks, around the temples and the top of your head,” Sadira replied
defensively. “It makes you look distinguished.”

Agis heard heavy footsteps approaching. He looked up to see a large mul dressed only in a
breechcloth. Like all muls, this one had small, pointed ears, was completely bald, and
below the neck appeared to be nothing but bulging muscles. He was unusually handsome for a
man-dwarf, for his rugged features were generally well-proportioned and appealing. He had
a sturdy brow with dark, expressive eyes, a proud straight nose, and a powerful, firmly
set jaw.

Agis was about to ask Sadira if she knew the mul when the half-elf struggled to her feet.
“Rikus!” she said, opening her arms to hug him as he rushed to her.

As they kissed, the noble winced inwardly. Though Sadira had made no secret of her
feelings for the famous gladiator, Agis had not expected to meet him so soonÑ and he was
certainly not prepared to deal with the jealousy he was experiencing.

After Sadira finally removed her lips from the mul's, she asked, “What are you doing here?”

Rikus smiled at her, then, giving Agis a wary glance, leaned close to her ear and
whispered. Feeling as though he were intruding, Agis rose to his feet and looked away.

Behind the gladiator, two women also approached from the colonnade. One was a full human
almost as husky as the champion himself. She had pale, smooth skin and a fall, firm shape.
The other was the size of a child, with a head of wild hair and a wiry figure. Trapped
between the two women was Agis's manservant, Caro.

“We don't have to keep secrets from Agis,” Sadira said, taking the noble's arm and
standing between him and Rikus. “He knows all there is to know about me.”