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Authors: Lynn Abbey
Tags: SF
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pearly vellum.
Several more lay scrunched and scattered through the neglected garden. Two sheets remained
untouched.
"I'll need more vellum," Hamanu mused, "and more time."
Chapter Four
The heat of day had come again to Urik. Here and there, insect swarms raised raucous chorus.
All other creatures, if they had the wit and freedom, sought shelter from the sun's brutal strength.
Throughout Hamanu's domain, the din of commerce faded, and labor's pace slowed to a snore. Mindless
mirage sprites danced across the burning pavement of the city's deserted market squares, while
merchants of every variety dozed in the oppressive shade of their stalls.
Beyond the city walls, in the green fields and villages, workers set aside tools and napped beside
their beasts. Farther away, in the gaping complex of mountain pits that was the Urikite obsidian mines,
overseers drank cool, fruited tea beneath leather awnings and the wretched mass of slaves received a
few hours' rest and unrestricted access to the water barrels.
No great mercy there, the king reminded himself as he, like the distant slaves, sipped water from
a wooden ladle in the shadows of the peasant cloister, deep within his palace. While he'd lived, Borys,
the Dragon of Tyr, had levied a thousand lives each year from each champion to maintain the spells
around Rajaat's prison. The obsidian mines required even more lives—too many more lives—to keep
Urik secure.
Letting slaves rest each afternoon insured that they'd live to hack at the black veins for a few
more days. The life span of a mine slave was rarely more than two seventy-five-day quinths of the
three-hundred-seventy-five-day Athasian year. An obsidian sword didn't last much longer, chipping and
flaking into uselessness. Maintaining the balance between able-bodied slaves and the baskets of
sharp-edged ore Urik's defense required was one task Hamanu refused to delegate to his templars. It
was his age-old decree that gave the wretches their daily rest and the threat of his intervention that kept
the templar overseers obediently under their awning.
It certainly wasn't mercy.
Mercy was standing here, concealing his presence from Pavek, who'd fallen asleep in the shade
of one of the dead fruit-trees. Waking the scar-faced man would have been as easy as breathing out, but
Hamanu resisted the temptation that was, truly, no temptation at all. He could experience a mortal's
abject terror anytime; the sweet-dreaming sleep of an exhausted man was precious and tare.
As soon as he'd returned to the city yesterday afternoon, Enver had sent a messenger to the
palace, begging a full day's recovery before he resumed his duties. Faithful Pavek, however, had visited
his Urik house only long enough to bathe and change his travel-stained clothes. He appeared at the
palace gates as the sun was setting and passed a good part of the moonlit night reading the vellum sheets
still spread across the worktable.
Naked tree stumps and neatly tied bales of twigs and straw testified to Pavek's diligent labor—at
least until exhaustion had claimed him. He sprawled across the fresh-cleared dirt, legs crooked and one
arm tucked under his cheek, as careless as a child. Images, not unlike the heat mirages above the market
squares, shimmered above Pavek's gently moving ribs, though unlike a true mirage, which any mortal
could observe, only Hamanu could see the wispy substance of the templar's dreams.
They were a simple man's dreams: the shapes of Pavek's loved ones as they lived within him.
There was a woman at his dream's shimmering center; Hamanu's human lips curved into an appreciative
smile. She was blond and beautiful and, having met her one momentous night in Quraite, the Lion of Urik
knew his ugly templar didn't embellish her features. Hamanu didn't know her name; there weren't enough
mortal names to label all the faces in thirteen ages of memory. He recalled her by the texture of her spirit
and through the
Several more lay scrunched and scattered through the neglected garden. Two sheets remained
untouched.
"I'll need more vellum," Hamanu mused, "and more time."
Chapter Four
The heat of day had come again to Urik. Here and there, insect swarms raised raucous chorus.
All other creatures, if they had the wit and freedom, sought shelter from the sun's brutal strength.
Throughout Hamanu's domain, the din of commerce faded, and labor's pace slowed to a snore. Mindless
mirage sprites danced across the burning pavement of the city's deserted market squares, while
merchants of every variety dozed in the oppressive shade of their stalls.
Beyond the city walls, in the green fields and villages, workers set aside tools and napped beside
their beasts. Farther away, in the gaping complex of mountain pits that was the Urikite obsidian mines,
overseers drank cool, fruited tea beneath leather awnings and the wretched mass of slaves received a
few hours' rest and unrestricted access to the water barrels.
No great mercy there, the king reminded himself as he, like the distant slaves, sipped water from
a wooden ladle in the shadows of the peasant cloister, deep within his palace. While he'd lived, Borys,
the Dragon of Tyr, had levied a thousand lives each year from each champion to maintain the spells
around Rajaat's prison. The obsidian mines required even more lives—too many more lives—to keep
Urik secure.
Letting slaves rest each afternoon insured that they'd live to hack at the black veins for a few
more days. The life span of a mine slave was rarely more than two seventy-five-day quinths of the
three-hundred-seventy-five-day Athasian year. An obsidian sword didn't last much longer, chipping and
flaking into uselessness. Maintaining the balance between able-bodied slaves and the baskets of
sharp-edged ore Urik's defense required was one task Hamanu refused to delegate to his templars. It
was his age-old decree that gave the wretches their daily rest and the threat of his intervention that kept
the templar overseers obediently under their awning.
It certainly wasn't mercy.
Mercy was standing here, concealing his presence from Pavek, who'd fallen asleep in the shade
of one of the dead fruit-trees. Waking the scar-faced man would have been as easy as breathing out, but
Hamanu resisted the temptation that was, truly, no temptation at all. He could experience a mortal's
abject terror anytime; the sweet-dreaming sleep of an exhausted man was precious and tare.
As soon as he'd returned to the city yesterday afternoon, Enver had sent a messenger to the
palace, begging a full day's recovery before he resumed his duties. Faithful Pavek, however, had visited
his Urik house only long enough to bathe and change his travel-stained clothes. He appeared at the
palace gates as the sun was setting and passed a good part of the moonlit night reading the vellum sheets
still spread across the worktable.
Naked tree stumps and neatly tied bales of twigs and straw testified to Pavek's diligent labor—at
least until exhaustion had claimed him. He sprawled across the fresh-cleared dirt, legs crooked and one
arm tucked under his cheek, as careless as a child. Images, not unlike the heat mirages above the market
squares, shimmered above Pavek's gently moving ribs, though unlike a true mirage, which any mortal
could observe, only Hamanu could see the wispy substance of the templar's dreams.
They were a simple man's dreams: the shapes of Pavek's loved ones as they lived within him.
There was a woman at his dream's shimmering center; Hamanu's human lips curved into an appreciative
smile. She was blond and beautiful and, having met her one momentous night in Quraite, the Lion of Urik
knew his ugly templar didn't embellish her features. Hamanu didn't know her name; there weren't enough
mortal names to label all the faces in thirteen ages of memory. He recalled her by the texture of her spirit
and through the
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