Under the Crimson Sun (the abyssal plague) Read online

  The morning continued in that disappointing regard, as Vas’s entourage made a slow circuit of the northern end of the bazaar.

  He was pleased to see that the damned textile merchant who tried to pass off burlap as raw silk last season wasn’t around. Vas had seen to that woman’s ruination in very short order. Nobody cheated him, and certainly not twice. He would have been less than amused if that woman-Lyd was her name, he remembered-found a way to get back in good graces with the bazaar’s administrators.

  He took a break for lunch, hoping that the south side of the bazaar would prove more intriguing than the north. He and Cristophe dined in companionable silence. In truth, Vas had little to say to the man once he was no longer Vas’s tutor. He only kept the dried-up old fool because he kept the merchants honest.

  Once the slaves cleaned up after lunch, Vas mounted the crodlu, nudged the carapace with his sandaled foot, and started to saunter forward. The mount didn’t have a name; the crodlus they bred were always sold to people who paid quite a bit in order to retain the privilege of naming the creature for themselves.

  It was rare for crodlus to respond to their names-they generally only acted when physically prompted by a kick to the side or a yank of the reins-so Vas was more than willing to provide that extra service for his customers.

  It was also rare for people to bring their mounts into the main passages of the bazaar. Said passages were scarcely wider than the crodlu was, and his presence on a mount disrupted the foot traffic.

  Not that he cared all that much. He was one of the Vizier caste, the highest born in Raam, and one of the few among that number who made his own trips to the bazaar. Partly it was out of boredom, partly it was due to not trusting the slaves to find the best merchandise at the most reasonable price, but mostly because he enjoyed himself.

  What was the good of being one of the higher castes if he couldn’t enjoy himself?

  Besides, even if he went on foot, he needed Cristophe and the slaves to remain on the kanks-which fit more efficiently in the passageways, admittedly-in order to carry what he bought. Most of the merchants would deliver, of course, but Vas didn’t even trust his own people to get things right, and he’d bought them himself. He for damn sure wasn’t trusting some stranger hired by a merchant to deliver the goods with any efficiency. Since most of the merchants spent the bulk of their energy trying make Vas spend more than he wished, Vas especially didn’t trust them to even deliver the right item. And often the delivery would be made after the bazaar ended by locals hired for the purpose, the merchants themselves long gone, so Vas had no recourse if mistakes were made.

  One of his favorite things was to watch the changing expressions on the faces of people when his bodyguards encouraged them to move out of the way of his sauntering crodlu. They often went from outrage at being harassed to fear at the sheer size of his bodyguards-Vas had no idea what their names were, but they’d been part of the Belrik family’s security detail since Vas was a teenager-to reluctant respect when they saw the quality of the bridle on the crodlu, not to mention the finery Vas himself was wearing. Like all those of his caste, he wore silk robes to denote his station, and whenever he went out in public, he made sure to wear the brightest of those robes. If he was traveling farther into the harsh lands outside Raam’s borders, he would naturally sacrifice finery for practicality, but while in the bazaar, he wanted to display himself.

  The ones who weren’t intimidated by the bodyguards were generally cowed by Vas’s obvious wealth and status. The power wielded by the bodyguards was direct, but the power implicit in Vas’s wealth was far more devastating.

  Besides, on Athas you were used to physical hardships. It came with being alive. But to be able to destroy someone with a gesture or a command? That was what truly brought fear to the hearts of Athasians.

  Vas loved it.

  He was not loving the bazaar, however. The south side proved no better than the north, with either the poor quality of merchandise or lies from the vendors that were easily torn through by Cristophe.

  Until he reached the end of the southern passage.

  It was the biggest of the tents that had been set up. Fully three tables of merchandise were spread out in front of it, arranged with each perpendicular to the other, but allowing the vendors-of which there were only two visible at that moment-access to all three from behind.

  All the other merchants had, at best, one table, and many had only the back of their carriage. That group, however, had an entire setup, and quite a diverse selection of material to sell.

  On one table was a collection of spices, another had textiles, and the third had an assortment of decorative items.

  Vas dismounted the crodlu and peered at the carriage behind the tables. It was an impressive vehicle, a two-crodlu puller that could hold all the items on the tables, as well as space for at least three or four bunks-maybe more, if they used hammocks.

  “Impressive setup,” he said to the older man, a stoop-shouldered elf. Next to him, an elderly human woman was talking to some dwarf peasant or other about a set of containers.

  “Oh, thank you very much.” He smiled, showing the usual perfect teeth of an elf. “I could say the same to you. It is a rare thing indeed to see a man of your standing grace the bazaar with his presence.”

  Vas frowned. “Do not attempt to flatter me.”

  The elf shrugged. “I’m not-I merely describe you. I assume that you do not trust underlings to purchase your wares for you, and furthermore that you will be taking anything you purchase back with you on those kanks that you have cluttering up the thoroughfare.”

  “And this concerns you?” Vas’s tone was more than a little arch.

  Holding up both hands, the elf said, “Oh, it’s none of my concern. I merely hope that your stopping at my humble stand means you might possibly wish to make a purchase. If you do not, then I will bid you adieu.” He took a small bow at that.

  “I like you,” Vas said. “You’re as insincere as every other miscreant in this bazaar, but I prefer your approach. More style.”

  The elf took another bow. “Thank you. I am Torthal Serthlara, and this is the Serthlara Traveling Emporium. My wife Shira, our family, and I travel about Athas in search of goods we may bring to other parts of Athas. For example, these spices are from several different regions.” He picked up a small bell jar that was labeled in a script Vas didn’t recognize. “This is a sleeping draft from one of the eastern elf tribes. The winds will howl that far out, you see-can keep you up all the night long. This spice-they call it feresh-will dissolve in any liquid, and can be very handy if you need some rest.”

  Vas was unimpressed. “My apothecary has many sleeping drafts already.”

  “Yes, but these are designed for elves. Forgive me, but your people have less of a constitution than mine.” He indicated the human woman, Shira, who was still talking with the dwarf. “My marriage has taught me that.”

  Just as Vas was about to tell Serthlara to back off and stop trying to push the sleeping draft, the elf did so unprompted. “If you have any questions about any of the merchandise, please don’t hesitate to ask.” He grinned. “If I don’t know the answer, I promise to make something up that will sound quite convincing.”

  Vas barked out an involuntary laugh. “Very well.”

  Before too long, it became clear that the spices were nothing special-most were, like the feresh, of elf origin, and Vas had never been impressed with their goods-but the textiles caught his eye. He saw several bolts of Tyr silk and some linens from Balic. Cristophe verified that they were genuine-not fakes like that Lyd woman tried to peddle to him the previous season.

  Looking up, Vas wanted to ask Serthlara about the textiles, but the merchant had joined his wife to continue talking to the dwarf.

  However, just then a very attractive woman walked toward him from the other side of the table. She had slight tapers to her ears, and the high cheekbones one would expect from an elf, but her eyes were too small, her sho
ulders too broad. Her eyes, though, were the same sea green as Serthlara’s. She wore two layers of linen that wrapped around her trim figure, but made sure to display her cleavage. Her arms, bronzed from the crimson sun, were decorated with a row of gold-colored bracelets-at least a dozen on each arm-but which did not clatter like the soft metal. Not that it could’ve been gold. If the people owned enough gold to decorate two arms, they wouldn’t need to live like that. Her thick brown hair was tied back and intertwined with silken strips that created an attractive latticework that also no doubt kept it out of her face.

  Speaking in a lilting, lovely voice that reminded Vas at once of his favorite concubine and of the gentle flowing of the water in the templar castle’s fountain, she asked, “May I help you, sir?”

  Her words brought Vas up short. He hadn’t realized it until the woman used the word, but Serthlara had never once used the honorific “sir.” Yet his tone had been far more respectful, closer to sincere than any of the other merchants, who dropped a “sir” in between every phrase.

  “I’m guessing,” he said, “that you’re the daughter of Serthlara and Shira?”

  She smiled. She had not inherited her father’s teeth, sadly, and the smile fell quickly in any case. “Yes-I’m Karalith.”

  Offering her hand in the same manner as the women of the Nawab and Vizier castes, Vas accepted it on instinct and kissed it at the middle knuckle, just the way Cristophe taught him. That also impressed-usually you didn’t see merchants who were even aware of the traditions of the nobility, much less practiced them. “I’m Vas Belrik.”

  Karalith slowly and gently pulled her hand back. It was, Vas had noticed, far more callused and rough than the hands he usually kissed, with uneven fingernails and scars of varying ages. “Welcome to the Serthlara Traveling Emporium, Vizier Belrik. You have a question about the merchandise?”

  “How much is the Balic linen?” he asked, surprised once again at her knowledge of Raam customs. The merchants in the bazaar could generally tell that he was from a higher caste, but usually only those who lived there knew to use the honorific-never mind knowing which one to use.

  Nodding her head, Karalith said, “Impressive. I think you’re the first Raami to recognize Balic merchandise on sight. Most of the peoples of your city-state are less-well, refined.”

  Vas was pleased that he could impress her as she did him, and for that reason, he was willing to forgive her use of “Raami,” a term used only by outsiders, and considered an insult by the locals.

  But before he could express that, Cristophe interjected: “So’s he. But I lived in Balic, so I trained him. Lived lotsa places, in fact. Why-”

  Interrupting Cristophe before he started going on at length about his travels-the second-most boring subject in the world to Vas, coming up only behind whatever Tova might be yelling about at a given moment-Vas added, “I was also cheated by a textile merchant last season, so I’ve made it my business to know the real thing when I see it. I don’t like being cheated, and I’m never cheated twice.” Softening his tone, he asked, “So how much?”

  “Two coppers a foot.”

  “How-wait, what?” He had been expecting an unreasonably high price and then expected to haggle-that was how things worked at the bazaar-but two coppers a foot was actually reasonable.

  Then Karalith added, “For the linen. But that Tyr silk you keep fondling is a silver a foot.”

  Vas smiled. “A Raam silver or a Tyr silver?” While ceramic coins had become commonplace, each city-state minted its own coins, and often there was a markup if one traded back and forth among different locales’ currencies.

  Karalith let out a light chuckle. “It matters not. We’re in Raam, so we expect Raam currency, but we’ll accept the coin of any city in Athas. The price, however, remains the same. We find our customers prefer the simplicity of keeping prices constant, and we’ve found that it evens out in the end.”

  “Very enlightened,” Vas said, not expecting that level of consideration to the customer from any merchant, though he was appreciating more and more how the Serthlara Emporium wasn’t just any merchant …

  She shook her head. “Don’t know why we call it a silver anyway. It’s just a ceramic coin with a mark on it that says it’s silver.”

  “Used to be lotsa silver,” Cristophe said. “Long time ago. The ceramic coins, they were just supposed to be a stopgap until they found more veins of the real thing. That never happened, of course. People are stupid-why I remember-”

  Again, Vas interrupted his former tutor. “Regardless of how one pays for it, I have no interest in purchasing any more silk. I have more than I know what to do with. Lovely to the touch, but horrendous to wear out of doors.”

  She leaned forward and ran a finger along one of the bolts. “I would think a man of your station would have plenty to do indoors.”

  He leaned forward as well. “Yes-and plenty of silk to wear on those occasions, believe me. The linens, however, can make for more practical wear.”

  “I can’t imagine that anyone of your status would have much use for anything practical.”

  The words were a bit harsh, but in that voice, they were teasing.

  “The problem with status is that it doesn’t actually give you much to do. It’s why I come to this place.” He stood upright. “I wish to do something. Travel, have adventures, or at least see more of our world.” And also get away from Tova, but he decided not to even mention to Karalith that he was married. “And that, my dear Karalith, requires linens.”

  “I’m sure it does,” Karalith said, and that time she held the smile longer, though she did not show her teeth. It made the smile all the more seductive. “What manner of adventures were you thinking of-”

  “Karalith!”

  The half-elf’s face fell into a frown, annoying Vas to no end. He was actually enjoying himself. Turning around, he saw a thri-kreen skittering hurriedly toward the table. A female member of the insectlike race, she was clutching a rolled-up piece of parchment between her upper left pincers, while gesturing madly with her middle pincers. She had a pack with straps wrapped around her thorax.

  “Oh, for pity’s sake, Tricht’tha, not again.”

  The thri-kreen was standing upright on her rear two pincers, which thri-kreens generally did when they were among bipedal races. Among their own kind-or out in the open where there was more freedom of movement than in a crowded bazaar-they would often move on all six limbs, their bodies parallel to the ground. When he was a boy, Vas had thought thri-kreens to be other animals, but Cristophe had taught him otherwise in very short order. It was the old tutor’s opinion that they mainly walked upright when dealing with other races precisely because so many of those others made the same mistake Vas did in thinking them not to be intelligent.

  Her voice clicked three or four times-a sign of the Chachik tongue that thri-kreens spoke, and one sufficiently unlike other forms of speech that it added to misconceptions like Vas had as a youth-before she said in Common: “You do not even know what I am going to discuss.”

  Karalith put her hands on her hips. “Tricht’tha, you’re holding the map right there.”

  Tricht’tha lowered herself to stand on her middle and back pincers. After a few clicks of Chachik, she said, “Very well, I am, in fact, here to discuss the map. It-”

  Holding up a hand, Karalith said, “There’s no point, Tricht’tha. We’re not going to buy it. Even if I had a momentary lapse and decided to go ahead and take it from you, Mother and Father would have my hide for wasting their coin.”

  “You cannot make decisions for yourself? You are of age, are you not?”

  Vas looked at Karalith, hoping that the answer was affirmative, otherwise the flirting he’d been doing was going to get uncomfortable. That was the problem with half-breeds, you could never determine their ages …

  To his relief, she said, “Of course I am, but it’s not a question of being able to make decisions, it’s being able to explain the stupid ones. And
buying your map would be stupid.”

  Again, the thri-kreen straightened. “Do you doubt my word, Karalith?”

  “No.” Karalith was starting to sound frustrated, a feeling with which Vas could sympathize. This Tricht’tha woman was getting in the way of his purchase. “Look,” Karalith said after taking a breath, “I don’t doubt that the map is genuine. You’ve never steered us wrong before. In fact, that set of icons you found us made us all considerable profit.”

  More Chachik for a bit, then: “Yet you do not trust me now?”

  “It has nothing to do with trust.” Karalith gestured behind her, bracelets sliding against skin. “Look at us, Tricht’tha. There are six of us crammed into this carriage, trying to sell things to people. How’re we supposed to make use of a map like that?”

  “Excuse me,” Cristophe said, and only then did Vas notice that he was staring at the parchment the thri-kreen was clutching.

  Tricht’tha clicked in Chachik, to which Cristophe, unsurprisingly, responded in kind.

  Then the thri-kreen handed the parchment to Cristophe.

  “What is it?” Vas asked, moving to stand behind his former tutor.

  “It is a map that leads to the treasury of Sebowkan the Elder.” Tricht’tha spoke almost reverently.

  As Cristophe unrolled the parchment, Vas scratched his forehead. “Who the Elder?”

  “He ruled a kingdom near the Ringing Mountains during the Green Age,” Cristophe said distractedly. “Massive treasure, he collected, as part of his bounty-but nobody ever found it.”

  Vas looked down at Cristophe. “You know of this Sebowkan?”

  Cristophe nodded. “I read one of his commentaries. It was in a private collection in Makla-belonged to an eccentric who liked to collect every piece of parchment he could get his hands on, never mind that he couldn’t read half of them. In fact, he paid me to recite some to him back in the day.”

  Waving off yet another tiresome reminiscence, Vas asked, “And you say this Sebowkan collected treasure?” He yanked the map out of Cristophe’s hand. It showed the Ringing Mountains and the Great Alluvial Sand Wastes to the east of them, and led to a particular spot that wasn’t far from where Kled was now. “You’re saying this is a map to that treasure?”