City Under the Sand

II Steel

Aric listened to steel.

Everyone had some psionic ability, some affinity with the Way; some just developed it more than others. Aric believed that his ability was his connection to metals—he had always been able to hear what they had to say, and had been surprised to learn that others couldn’t.

As a result, he had chosen a difficult occupation for anyone on Athas, harder still for someone like him. Swordsmithing required the constant use of two of the rarest things around, metal and water. But his swords, when they were finished, were beautiful weapons, and fetched premium prices. The one he was finishing now was no different.

He was near the final stage. The metals had been combined—and this was when the song of the steel was loudest, the different combinations of materials calling out to him, telling him which amounts of what would work together to achieve the effect that he wanted—the blade hammered into shape, scraped and filed, heat-treated and quenched. Now he held it in his lap and worked it over with fine polishing stones, smoothing out any roughness, wiping away the faintest lines or cracks that he could only see by turning it this way and that in the bright Athasian sun.

This work required patience and concentration. He had to make sure he didn’t polish one spot more than another, which could throw off the balance he had worked so hard to achieve in the earlier stages. He had filed the edges and point to near-razor sharpness, testing them against knotty wood and carru hide and a scrap of fine silk he had managed to acquire, and it sliced through all three. He had tempered it in clay and water and heat until he could bend it almost back on itself and let it go, and it would resume its ideal shape, without curves or kinks.

So he didn’t want to ruin it now, with these final touches. This particular sword was a special order from a noble family, and they wanted it strong but lightweight, flexible but sturdy enough to stand up to the sorts of chips and nicks any sword took in battle, without breaking. Aric would deliver what they had asked. As he worked it in his hands, listening to the steel telling him which parts had been worked enough and which needed another touch here or there, he thought it was, perhaps, the best blade he had ever made.

“Falling in love with that thing?”

Aric looked up to see Ruhm, his goliath friend and assistant, watching him work. “What do you mean?”

“Looks like you want to kiss it,” Ruhm said. He was thick-necked and slope-shouldered, and he wore an almost perpetual frown. It was for the best. His smile, when he showed it, was an unnatural thing; a ghoulish, yellow-toothed grin that frightened small children and brave men alike. His voice was a low rumble, like the sound of rocks rolling along a river bottom. At almost twelve feet tall, he had to stoop to pass through the doors of Aric’s shop—most doors, for that matter—but his sheer brute strength often came in handy around the shop. Years of working with metals had deepened Aric’s chest, made his shoulders broad and his arms more muscular than those of all but the biggest full-blooded elves he had met. But there were still things he couldn’t lift, or could just barely manage, that didn’t even strain the goliath.

“It’s a good blade.” Aric rose, put his polishing stone on the workbench, and gripped the blade by its tang. He whipped it through the air a few times, enjoying the keen whistle it made. “And it’ll fetch a good price. Enough to keep us in ale and meat for a a long time.”

“I like meat.”

“As do I.” Aric took his seat again, nestling the blade against his apron and reaching for the stone. Almost time to switch to a finer one still. He liked Ruhm, he truly did, and he knew the goliath wasn’t stupid. But there were times the goliath’s mind seemed as weak as his muscles were strong, and though they had known each other for years and worked together most of that time, there were occasions on which he just didn’t know how to talk to his friend.

“Who’s it for?” Ruhm asked.

This was one of those moments. Aric knew they had discussed this very topic, more than once. He tried to keep impatience from sounding in his voice. “The House of Thrace,” he said, watching his hands instead of Ruhm. “The Shadow King himself gifted the metals to Tunsall of Thrace, the family patriarch. A reward for service to the court of Nibenay, or some such. Anyway, Tunsall came to us and ordered the sword. It’s a rapier, meant for Tunsall’s granddaughter Rieve.”

Ruhm barked a loud laugh. “There’s that look again. Guess it’s not the sword you love after all. Ha!”

Aric swore inwardly. Here he had been thinking Ruhm was having one of his “simple moments,” and instead the goliath was luring him into a verbal trap. “I’m not in love with her! I haven’t really even met her. I’ve only seen her once or twice.”

“What color hair she got?”

“It’s orange-red, like the inside of the forge when it’s just starting to cool.” He glanced up at Ruhm’s grinning face, framed by an unruly mop of thick brown hair, and knew he had just tightened the trap around himself. That ghastly smile! “Yes, she’s pretty! Are you happy?”

“Think she’d wed a half-elf?”

“I’m a quarter elf,” Aric reminded him. Unconsciously, his left hand reached up and brushed the top of his ear. “My mother was a half-elf, my father was human. So I’m only a quarter.” He was adamant on that point, even though he knew it didn’t matter to most. To humans, he was still too much elf, and to elves he might as well be human. Fitting into neither camp was another difficulty of his trade, because members of both races often refused to give him work or to buy his wares. It was only because he was the best smith in the city—perhaps on Athas, considering the derth of metal and those equipped to work it—that he made a living at all. “Anyway, I have no intention of trying to marry her. Even if I was interested, which I’m not, she’s a noble and I’m about as common as a commoner can get. And she’s betrothed. I know you’re just teasing me, Ruhm, but I wish you’d get a new game.”

“Sorry, boss.”

“And don’t call me that!”

“Touchy today?”

“Don’t you have something to do, Ruhm? Something useful, I mean?”

“Could shovel charcoal, I guess.”

“Perfect. Go shovel charcoal,” Aric said. “And take your time!”

The last part of the job was attaching the hilt. This one was slender, as befitted a rapier meant for a young lady. It was not ornate, but neither was it plain. The pommel was smooth, swelling at the end to help Rieve keep her grip on it, and threaded, so the blade’s tang fit right through the grip, and the pommel held it all together. The grip was wrapped in durable erdlu skin—the cost of that had been dear indeed, but built into the price Aric had quoted Tunsall of Thrace before taking the job—then wrapped in fine wire for a better grip. The guard was an intricate web made up of three rings that curved around one another, merging together at the rear where they nearly touched the pommel. The design kept the weapon light, as did the fuller, the groove cut from the blade’s center, extending two-thirds of the blade’s length, from the guard down.

When it was done—really and completely done—Aric admired it for a few minutes, wishing there was a way he could both keep it and deliver it to the House of Thrace and collect his fee. It truly is a beautiful piece, he thought. My finest by afar distance. He might spend the next entire season making nothing more sophisticated than iron hinges for doors, but at least he had crafted this. There wasn’t another smith in the whole Ivory Triangle who could do better.

He took it in his right hand and felt its weight. Narrow, for the breadth of his hand, but he had measured Rieve’s—and he would never give Ruhm the pleasure of knowing it, but that had made Aric’s heart quicken, no denying it—and he knew it would be just right for her. He swished the blade through the air, tracing the letters of his own name.

Instantly, he lowered the blade’s point and glanced around to make sure no one had seen that. Ruhm stood in the doorway, but no one else was in sight, and Ruhm already knew he could read and write a little. Literacy was frowned upon, among commoners anyway. More than frowned upon, in fact—it could get a commoner consigned to slavery, if a templar happened to find out. But Aric had done so much work for noble houses that he had managed to pick up those skills along the way.

“Good with that,” Ruhm said. His preferred weapon was a greatclub, hardly requiring grace or finesse. “Should make one for you sometime, no?”

“No,” Aric said. “I mean, yes, I know how to use it. But I’m no adventurer, Ruhm. The last time I used a sword of steel—well, let’s just say it wasn’t my best day.”

“What happened?”

“I haven’t told you this story? How I got this?” Aric touched the scar that bisected his arched left eyebrow, like a tiny pink worm parting the hair. He was sure he had told Ruhm, maybe a couple of times. But Ruhm might have forgotten, or he might just be toying with Aric again.

“Don’t remember it.”

“I made it myself, for myself. I wasn’t too good at swordsmithing yet, but it came out half decent just the same. I strapped it on and thought I was the handsomest devil in all Nibenay.

“I guess the sword was handsome enough, at that. I had been out that night, and on my way home four elves saw me. They thought, because of the sword, that I was wealthy. Or else they just wanted the sword, I was never sure which. In any case, they tried to rob me, holding their own swords and daggers on me.

“I drew my sword and went at them. I tell you, Ruhm, I was something to see. I wove a glittering web of steel. The longer the battle went on, the more it took me away, until I had become a fighting machine. I felt I was watching myself from a great height, yet I was in the middle of it, too. My mind had ceased to think about anything but where the next thrust might come from, the next jab, and how I could counter those with my own.”

Aric touched his brow again. “When I regained my senses, the four elves were dead, and my only wound was the one that left this scar. But a templar accused me of brawling—only the intervention of others on the street, who didn’t realize I was a quarter elf, kept me out of trouble. They swore the elves attacked first, trying to rob me. The templar picked up her skirt and swished away. When she was gone, I saw one of the witnesses notice my ears. The whispers started, and I got out of there as fast as I could.”

“Got lucky,” Ruhm said.

“That I did. You don’t want to call attention to yourself, not in Nibenay. That’s what I say. It’s just a bad idea. Bad enough I decided to earn my way in the world this way—working with metal, crafting objects for nobility, that’s a good way to get noticed. All I want is to stand behind the forge and polish my steel and let the rest of the world pass on by. So no more steel swords for me, thanks. I’m no fighter, I’m a craftsman, and that’s just fine with me.”

“Me, then,” Ruhm said.

“You what?”

“Make me a metal sword.”

Aric tried to picture it. “A longsword, big enough for you? Not just a bastard sword, but a big bastard sword? With a three-handed grip? Maybe it could be done if you had the coin. It’d weigh a ton, but I guess that wouldn’t be a problem for you.”

Ruhm’s face split into that wide grin once more, an expression that was at once endearing and not a little terrifying. “Could you?”

“Our forge isn’t big enough, nor our quenching tank. But with the right equipment and materials, I could do it.”

“One day?”

“One day, Ruhm. Not today, but one day. Now, get out of the doorway. I’ve a sword to deliver.”

Aric’s building was a temporary structure, small but all he could afford, made of wood from the Crescent Forest and clay bricks. As a temporary structure, it didn’t have to abide by the law applying to all permanent buildings, those of sandstone, laterite or granite, decreeing that the exteriors must be completely covered with carved images, mostly scenes from the Shadow King’s life. As a result, the shop was plain, dull. Just as he liked it. It didn’t call attention to itself.

But because it was cramped on the inside, and contained the forge, it was always hot. The smells of half-elf and goliath sweat had permeated every surface, so no matter how clean Aric might be when he walked in, the place still reeked. He had a tiny apartment at the back, just a room really with a space for a kitchen, a cistern, and a mat for sleeping.

He had been to the homes of nobility, many times, but that familiarity didn’t make the contrast between their residences and his own any less stark.

To even reach the estate of Tunsall of Thrace meant cutting through the winding, busy streets of Nibenay—made busier to the eye by all those carvings in the walls, creating the effect that every street was a single undulating surface, part of something alive—to the Cliff side neighborhood. Here, luxurious estates carved from the sheer cliffs rose up behind the city’s north end. Once there, Aric had to enter the Snake Tower. The turret’s outside was carved to resemble a writhing mass of tangled serpents. Its windows were shaped like scales, its opening like a snake’s fanged maw. Aric suppressed a shudder as he walked beneath those fangs and started up the stairs.

The House of Thrace was a well-known noble house in Nibenay, with a huge emporium facing onto Sage’s Square, and a spread of cultivated fields outside the city walls. While some of the city’s nobles had reputations more for their decadent behavior than for honesty or discretion, the House of Thrace did not fall into that category—the members of the family were considered beyond reproach in almost every way.

Each Cliff side estate was at a different level, each with its own skywalk extending from the tower to a front entrance. Aric had been to the Thrace estate once before, to measure Rieve for her sword, so he knew which tower exit to take. He was glad when he broke into open air again—the tower had been almost as hot as his shop, and scented with cloying incense. Presumably the aroma appealed to nobility, but Aric greatly preferred the sweat-stink of his own place.

The skywalk came to an end at a large bone gate. Standing before the gate was a goliath, wearing loose linen trousers of a bright yellow color, a leather cuirass, a yellow, red and black krama on his head, and sandals with straps that went up to his calves. On the center of the cuirass, on a circle of white, was the red silhouette of a jalath’gak, the monstrous wasp that the House of Thrace had adopted as its crest. A fist almost as big as Aric’s head was wrapped around the shaft of a gouge, a long-handled weapon with a grip at the base and another just beneath a sharp-pointed, double-bladed head.

The goliath looked at Aric with unbridled curiosity. Aric didn’t blame him—the guard was in the employ of a wealthy family, and here came an obvious commoner, a half-elf no less, carrying a long bundle wrapped in a threadbare, moth-eaten blanket. The goliath was past his prime, probably retired from the Nibenese army, but he would still be hard to take in a fight.

“I’m expected,” Aric said. Unconsciously, his right hand went to the medallion that hung around his neck, a metal coin with a hole punched through it suspended from a leather thong. He had worn it so long he almost forgot it was there, but when he was anxious he often caught himself toying with it. “Aric, to see Tunsall.”

“Just Aric?”

Aric had never known his human father. His mother had been doubly cast out from her clan—if the fact that she was half-elf hadn’t been crime enough, the fact that she had fraternized with a human male, and had a child with him, had done the trick. As a result, she refused to use any name other than Keyasune. Aric had never even been sure if she’d been given that name or adopted it on her own. At any rate, she had become indignant any time young Aric asked if he shouldn’t have a family name of some sort.

“Just Aric,” he said. “He knows me.”

The goliath raised one bushy eyebrow and regarded Aric with suspicion. But he called through the bone gate, and when someone came, he muttered a brief, unflattering description of Aric, focusing mostly on peaked eyebrows, oddly half-pointed ears, and long scraggly hair the color of burned butter. When whoever was on the far side bustled away, the guard turned back to Aric. He didn’t speak, just gave Aric a frown and eyed him as if he’d like to hurl him from the skywalk.

Aric waited, trying to maintain a casual air. Once he started to whistle tunelessly, but the goliath cleared his throat and Aric stopped. After several minutes, he heard footfalls beyond the bone gate, and then it opened with a rattle and squeal and Tunsall himself appeared.

“Aric, my boy,” he proclaimed, earning him a look of surprise from the guard. “Is it done?”

“It is, sir,” Aric said. He held the bundle up. “Would you like to—”

“Not here, boy, not yet.” That, Aric remembered, was what he liked least about Tunsall—his habit of calling anyone younger than forty years old “boy.” Aric had seen twenty summers; he was no boy. But Tunsall’s coins spent as well as anyone else’s, so he was willing to overlook that small fault. “Inside, inside now.” He turned around and disappeared through the gates again.

Still toting his bundle, Aric followed.

As was customary among the Nibenese nobility, Tunsall of Thrace wore little in the way of clothing, just a sash tied below the waist, the ends dropping to mid-thigh in front. He was an elderly man, fifty or more, and the years had not been kind. Though his eyes were bright, his eyebrows looked like two small, furry gray mammals had settled there and were twitching in their final death spasms. Decades of chewing betel nut had stained his uneven teeth blue. His chest was sunken, his limbs scrawny. He wore his gray hair long and straight in back, cut just above the brow in front. His neck looked like a thin, wrinkled tube with a ball of cheese jammed in it.

But the wealthiest and most powerful citizens of Nibenay didn’t have to wear clothes, and given the heat of the average Athasian day, to many people that was the best reason to aspire to wealth. Aric wore loose linens and a checked krama wrapped around his head, from which his own long hair descended.

Tunsall led him into an inner courtyard with a long table down the center of it. A small fountain, with real water, burbled against one of the walls. The air was cooler here, sheltered from the sun by virtue of having been dug right into the cliff’s face. Torches provided some light, and more streamed in over the walls, from outside. Tunsall smiled and patted the stone tabletop. “Here you go, boy, let’s see it!”

“Yes sir,” Aric said. He set the bundle down, slightly ashamed that his ragged blanket should be seen in such a luxurious setting. Chairs made of wooden frames with stretched animal hides surrounded the table, and a goblet that looked like brass stood at the far end, as if Tunsall had been sipping from it just moments ago.

He unrolled the blanket, revealing the sword. Seeing it shine, Aric’s heart swelled with pride, and he forgot about his shabby blanket and his old clothes. “Here it is.”

“Oh, my. Oh, my.” Tunsall paced around the table, regarding it from every angle but not touching it. “Oh, my.”

“Is there—” Something wrong, he would have finished, but Tunsall cut him off.

“It’s beautiful. Quite lovely. I knew you did good work, Aric. But I never anticipated … simply lovely.”

“Do you want to try it?”

“Oh, no. No, boy, it isn’t for me, after all, is it?” He clapped his hands twice, long fingers coming together along with the palms. Aric heard the rustle of someone he hadn’t even seen, who must have been standing just behind a doorway.

Moments later, Rieve walked into the courtyard. Torchlight caught in her red hair and winked at Aric, and he felt his cheeks warming. Her hair was braided, falling well past her shoulders. She wore a simple white dress, belted loosely at the waist, with straps that bared those shoulders.

She graced Aric with a smile that he expected to remember until his dying days. “That’s it?” she asked.

“That’s it, lady.”

She looked expectantly at her grandfather. “May I?”

“By all means.”

She gave a squeal of delight and snatched the sword from the table, then waved it about in such a clumsy fashion Aric was glad he wasn’t standing too near.

“With all the fuss over in Tyr, and even Raam,” Tunsall said. “I want her to be able to protect herself.”

“Of course,” Aric said.

“But there’s more to it than just owning a sharp sword, isn’t there?”

“It’s perfect!” Rieve cried. “Like it was made just for me! I mean, I know it was, but—”

“There is,” Aric affirmed.

Rieve stopped slashing at the air and approached Aric. She held the sword in her right hand, and with her left she took his right. Her hand felt impossibly soft in his hard, callused one. “Thank you, Aric,” she said. He felt like he could fall into her cinnamon eyes. “I love it.”

“It was a pleasure. I am proud of that one, I must say. It’s balanced just right, and that blade will hold its edge.”

“You are a true craftsman,” she said. She held his gaze with her own. Much as he wanted to watch the way her plump pink lips moved as she spoke, he couldn’t tear his eyes away from hers. A smell like fresh apricots surrounded her.

“I thank you.”

Finally, she released his hand. Aric hadn’t even had that much physical contact with her when he had measured her—hand, arm, and leg—to be sure the sword would be just right. His hand felt as if he had leaned it against the forge at white heat.

“It didn’t even take you terribly long,” she said. “Did you do nothing else but this?”

“Slept now and again,” Aric said. “Ate some meals. But I did no other work, not while I was engaged with that one.”

She carved the air a little more, and Aric took an involuntary step back.

“As I was saying,” Tunsall said. “Now that she has a fine blade, she needs instruction in its use, wouldn’t you say?”

“She … seems to have a natural affinity,” Aric said, hoping the patriarch wouldn’t notice his lie. “But instruction is always a good idea.”

“I’ve heard tales of your prowess with a sword, Aric.” Tunsall touched his own eyebrow, right where Aric’s scar was on his. “Impressive.”

“A fluke,” Aric said.

“Not at all. I wonder if you would mind giving her some lessons. I would pay you, of course, for your time.”

Aric could hardly believe his senses. “I … I am no combat instructor,” he said.

“Oh, that would be wonderful, Aric!” Rieve said. She bounced enthusiastically. Her skirt flounced almost to her smooth thighs. “To learn from you …”

“I suppose I do know a bit about the practice of swordsmanship,” Aric admitted. “Just from having worked with them for so long, you understand.”

“Then it’s settled,” Tunsall said.

“I’m sorry,” another voice said. Aric turned to see a tall woman, with thick auburn hair tightly coiled almost to her waist, enter the courtyard. “I am Solyara,” she told Aric. “Rieve’s mother.”

“Enchanted,” Aric said.

“I’m afraid that Rieve’s father has already engaged the services of an instructor for her.” Her voice was steady, with the even, confident tone of someone who rarely expected argument.

“Oh,” Aric said. “Well …”

“Who?” Rieve asked.

“Who else but your betrothed, Corlan?”

“Corlan?”

“Why not? He’s of our class, he’s had martial training, unlike young Aric here. And he’s known to be quite skilled with a sword. Anyway, your father has made the decision, so it’s settled.” She turned her flat gaze on Aric. “I’ve nothing against you, Aric, and neither does Myklan, Rieve’s father, who after all advised my father to hire you in the first place. We’re quite tolerant of all sorts of people, you’ll find. But he has made Corlan an offer, and we can’t go back on it now.”

“I understand,” Aric said. He couldn’t deny his disappointment, although he tried to disguise it. And in spite of Solyara’s self-proclaimed tolerance, he wondered how much it had to do not with his commoner class but with his half—quarter—elf nature. Elves, everybody knew, weren’t to be trusted, especially with the daughter of a noble human family.

“Did I hear my name?” Another unfamiliar voice, this one booming, but with a friendly sound to it. A burly young man about Aric’s age swept into the courtyard, square-jawed and clean-shaven, wearing a light tan sarami. His expression was fixed in what looked like a perpetual grin, blue eyes dancing in the torchlight.

“Corlan!” Rieve cried. She put down the sword and ran to him, throwing her arms around him. He squeezed her tightly, then released her.

“Who’s the stranger?” he asked. “I’m Corlan, of House Tien’sha.”

“I’m Aric. I crafted Rieve’s new sword.”

Corlan crossed to the table and examined it. “It’s a beauty,” he said. “You do good work.” He lifted it, took a fighting stance, and whisked it a couple of times through the air. Unlike Rieve, he knew what he was doing. “I stand corrected, Aric. You do excellent work. Perhaps you can make me one sometime.”

“Just say when.”

“I will, don’t worry.” He turned back to his fiancée. “And you, love? How do you like it?”

“I like it very much,” Rieve said. “I’ll like it even more after you teach me how to use it.”

“That will be my great pleasure,” Corlan said. “I only hope your lessons will be worthy of the instrument itself.”

Aric hated how completely Corlan had drawn Rieve’s attention away from him. But he had to admit that they made an attractive couple, and he couldn’t bring himself to dislike Corlan. He had been nothing but friendly, seeming not to even notice Aric’s racial background.

“Oh, I’m sure you can teach me wonderful things, Corlan,” Rieve said. “And I’ll have a wonderful tool to learn with, thanks to you, Aric.”

Aric was about to take his leave when the group was enlarged again. A young man, perhaps a year or two older than Rieve, stormed into the courtyard. His mood was dark, brow furrowed, hands tightly clenched into fists, and he walked with his muscles tightly coiled, as if at any moment he would strike out at whoever was nearest. He was dressed, if that was the word, much like Tunsall, with a loincloth his only covering. His footsteps were tentative, as if he had burned the soles of his feet here on a previous occasion and was afraid of doing it again.

“That wasn’t it!” he complained, loudly. “Not it at all! It never is, never was, never never!”

Rieve shot Aric a quick look of apology, then turned to the newcomer, her face instantly softening. “Pietrus, dear, now isn’t the time. We have guests.”

“Her brother,” Corlan whispered. “There’s something wrong with him. With his mind. Or he’s possessed, is what some say.”

“Time, time, time, time,” Pietrus echoed, stomping around in a tight square as he did. “Never time, never right, never never!”

Rieve reached her brother and put her hands on his arm. He seemed to melt a little at that, his tensed muscles relaxing a bit. But he glowered at Corlan and Aric, and Aric was afraid he might come over and attack. How would he defend himself against Rieve’s brother, in their own home?

It didn’t come to that, however. Rieve and Solyara flanked him, and then another woman entered the courtyard, this one closer to Tunsall’s age, with long silver hair bound in several places. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just turned around for a moment and he was gone.” She flashed a gracious smile toward Aric and Corlan. “I apologize for the interruption,” she said.

“That’s quite all right,” Corlan said. “It’s good to see you, Sheridia.”

“And you, Corlan. And you, young man,” she said to Aric. There was a calming air about her that seemed to flow across the courtyard in waves.

“I am Aric,” he said. “It’s an honor to visit your home.”

“Come any time,” she said. She moved with brisk efficiency to where Rieve and Solyara had, ever so subtly, pinned Pietrus in. His brow had not lost its wrinkles, and his eyes darted about, but he was more at ease than he had been, and he allowed Sheridia to lead him away. “Come with me, Pietrus,” she said. “Let’s have some cool water.”

“Thank you, Grandmother!” Rieve called after them.

When they had gone, Rieve turned to Aric. “I’m sorry you had to see that, Aric. He is my brother, and I love him, but as you can see, he is … disturbed, you might say. ”

“I’m sure that was not comfortable for you,” Solyara added.

“Think nothing of it,” Aric said. “He lives here, not me. He’s entitled to go where he will.”

“Thank you, boy,” Tunsall said. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m afraid we have rather a busy schedule today.” He had procured a small cloth bag from somewhere, and it jingled as he handed it to Aric. Its weight was comforting. “This should cover things.”

“Are you certain?” Aric asked. “It feels like too much.”

“You’ve done excellent work, my son. Take it.”

“My thanks, sir. My great thanks.”

After more goodbyes, and another clasping of hands, soft on rough, with Rieve, Aric found himself hurrying down the Snake Tower with a pleasant bulge in his pocket that hadn’t been there on the way up. He realized halfway down that he had forgotten the blanket he had carried the sword over in. He thought about going back for it, but decided not to. He had been dismissed, without equivocation—invited to return, but clearly they had other things to do at the moment. Anyway, they could burn the thing, for all he cared. He had enough coin now for another several blankets, and then some.

As he headed home through Nibenay’s chaotic streets, he thought about their home, so different from his quiet, often lonely place. The House of Thrace was crowded, bustling with activity and life. The family had its problems, clearly, but while Aric had heard gossip about most of the city’s noble houses over the years, most people spoke well of this one. He’d never heard any discussion of Rieve’s crazy brother, for instance, and that was the kind of thing people couldn’t resist sharing.

Alone, he walked through busy lanes, and he couldn’t help feeling a little sad, and a little envious, that his life was not like the one he had so briefly stepped into.

But he had a bag of coins and no immediate obligations. He thought he could find a way to put that envy and sorrow behind him. He would get busy on that, as soon as he had collected Ruhm.