LITMIR.BIZ

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People die because of fools like you!”

      “Stop it, Vordius!” Sorgius interrupted the guardsman’s outburst. “Now inform me, my dear, how do you know his name? Did he go right out and tell it to you?”

      “No, it wasn’t like that,” she said cautiously. “He gave me another name first, and I didn’t even bother remembering it, because it was obvious he was lying. But later, when he took me downstairs to show Sorgius to me, a strange man came up to my client and wouldn’t stop talking to him. It seemed like he was an old friend or even a relative. He kept asking my client to drink with him, but the man put him off, saying he didn’t have time. Not now. The other man said ‘How about tomorrow?’ and my client said ‘No, I’ll be racing to Lumdyrbag tomorrow.’ So the other man sighed and asked him to caress the mouths of his relatives.”

      “What?”

      “She’s right, Sorgius, that’s how the Sotrays talk. But you can’t make me believe they were speaking Herandian. Or do you understand Sotray?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at the girl.

      “I don’t speak Sotray,” Fenia said with annoyance, “but it’s very close to Iristenian, especially the simple words, and I learned Iristenian on the docks when I was a child.”

      “That could be,” Sorgius sighed. “Where does that leave us? A Sotray named Abdarhyz from Lumdyrbag. It’s enough to tie your tongue in knots! He’s obviously just a middleman, and anyway, he’s off racing his horse across the sands of the Great Expanse. You couldn’t catch him now, even if you had the world’s biggest net!”

      “Don’t be so hasty, Sorgius. In case you didn’t know, Lumdyrbag isn’t a province. It’s a town. And the people who live there are more or less settled.”

      “A town in the wasteland?”

      “It isn’t exactly in the wasteland. To be precise, it’s located between the wasteland and the Zabotay mountains.” Vordius was enjoying himself. “There used to be a king there named Drazgarb who did a good deal of trading with the Iristenians. He tried to unite all the Sotrays under one throne, like our Empire, but it didn’t work out and he got himself killed. By his own men. Or that’s the official story. But he did manage to build a town or something along those lines. It isn’t a big place, but at least we have an address to start with.” He scratched his head. “Although to be honest, I don’t know what to do about it. Or what we are going to find there. The Expanse is a long way off…”

      “Exactly. Right now, we’re the ones who need finding,” Sorgius sighed. “Now get up and row before the current carries us all the way to Ulin.

      “But which way? It’s pitch black out here, and I bet all the cutthroats from the port are waiting for us on the bank. We’re Asp’s personal enemies.”

      Sorgius laughed. “Didn’t you used to call them a bunch of rabble from the port?” He shook his head. “Just row in place for now. If we see a boat with lights, we’ll try to follow it. Once we get back to the city, we’ll find a place to jump off. But there’s one thing. What are we going to do with Fenia? They’ll chop her into tiny pieces if they find her!”

      “She’s not my problem,” Vordius shot back. “I have a fiancée.”

      “I can’t take her home,” Sorgius objected. “My father told me not to bring any more women home. After that one time…”

      Something in the bow rustled and they heard Fenia’s voice. “Don’t bother. I already owe you my life. I’ll spend the night in some lice-infested hostel for the homeless, and in the morning I’ll strike out for one of the provinces.”

      “How could I forget about the inn!” Sorgius exclaimed. “Have no fear, we will put you up in style. You’ll be fed and have a clean bed to sleep in.”

      “Sorgius!” The guardsman sounded shocked in the dark. “You don’t mean…”

      “I do! It’s all settled! Don’t bother arguing. Look!” he cried, “there’s a light just above the water. Stop talking and get behind it. I’m sure it’s a Capotian merchant. Don’t worry, Fenia. Your fate is in good hands!”

      Chapter 2. All about Her

      The man behind the table read the scroll closely, and the careless way he held it contrasted strangely with the deep attention in his eyes, which looked as if they were prying what he needed to know out of the very parchment. His chair was of light-colored Torgendam oak, but it had been made so long ago that it had turned dark red-brown. The rest of the furnishings in the room – rugs, paintings, a massive bronze lamp, bookshelves, a marble bust of Norius the Founder, and even the quill pens on the desk – had at least three things in common. First, all of them bore the visible mark of history, because they were very old, some of them even ancient. Second, they were extremely expensive, and not only because they were antiques. And third (which only an expert in antiques would have noticed), they had all belonged to different people in the long-gone past. To be precise, they all once belonged to the greatest emperors of Herandia, who had led the country for the last four hundred years. But the room’s inhabitant would not have liked a loud statement like that. He was vain enough to want to enjoy his treasures in the peace and privacy of his own study.

      On the day in question, the lover of costly antiques had made an exception. This exception half-reclined on a sofa made of ekva wood, which only grows in one place on the island of Rbun, which is a two-day sail off the coast of Unguru. Some said that a sofa very much like it had been presented to Emperor Nazalio by an ambassador from the high priest of Mustobrim, who had hoped to prevail upon the Emperor to allow priests of the one invisible god to preach their faith in Herandia. The request had been denied, and now the sofa was occupied by a woman of somewhat less than noble blood. Perhaps it was this knowledge of her humble origins, which had caused her much suffering in secret, that caused her to compensate by means of the most extravagant clothes. Enormous gold earrings with turquoise stones matching the color of her loose dress of the finest Ulinian silk – all in the style worn in the times of the continent’s first kings – contrasted oddly with a lavish necklace of sparkling diamonds, emeralds and topazes, each the size of a fingernail. The effect was antiquated and even a little tasteless, but altogether, the woman radiated a strange, unapproachable magic.

      “You’re early,” the man said in a monotone without looking up from the scroll.

      “I know,” the woman said in a distracted voice. “But you’re still happy to see me, aren’t you?” The question did not sound like a question.

      The man sighed heavily and set aside the scroll with the look of a man who knows that he won’t get much done today.

      “You’re certainly dressed up!” he observed skeptically, casting a glance at his companion’s new image.

      “I have to wear it all sometime,” she shrugged. “I always dreamed of wearing heavy earrings like these so that my earlobes would stretch to my shoulders like those gorgeous Unguru women's!” At this, she laughed.

      “Very well!” the man smiled generously. He scratched his shoulder and began to massage his deltoid muscle. This was made easier by the simple sleeveless tunic of linen he wore.

      “I hate it when you do that,” the woman said, making a face. “It’s unhealthy narcissism, if not worse.”

      The man’s face took on a business-like expression. “Tell me, how are our affairs?”

      “Did you see the report from the inspectors?” she replied with a question of her own.

      “What’s the point?” the man yawned. “Sometimes I think we pay them just to distract attention from our real agents.”

      “Perhaps, but you always manage to find something important. If not for the present, then for the future.”

      The man leaned his head to the right and gestured with his left hand as if he was rolling a piece of bread into a ball.

      “They met,”

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