The Rise and Fall of a Dragon King Read Online Free PDF Page A

his decree, or they stayed outside it, under penalty of death.
    There was trade, of course; no city was entirely self-sufficient, though, with well-stocked
warehouses, Hamanu's Urik could withstand a siege of many years. The laws merely complicated and
compounded the risks all merchants knowingly took when they carried goods among the rival city-states,
and gave Hamanu the pretext—as if he needed one—to interfere.
    "Was your husband in Nibenay when he wrote this?" Hamanu asked mildly, maliciously. If she
lied, he'd know it instantly. If she told the truth, she'd be an accomplice in illegal trade, the punishment for
which—at a minimum— was the loss of an eye.
    "He was, O Mighty King. He sent this at great risk and bade me bring it here at once. And I
did—" she raised her head and, despite crashing waves of cold-blooded terror, met Hamanu's
smoldering stare with her own. "Five days ago, O Mighty King."
    So, she dared to be indignant with him. On a bad day, that was a death sentence; today, it
intrigued him. Hamanu ran a fingertip over Chorlas's words, reading the man who'd written them.
    "There was another message," he concluded.
    "Only that I was to come directly to you, O Mighty King, as I have already said."
    "Your husband has placed you in great danger, dear lady, or do you claim not to know that it is
against my laws to have discourse or trade with the Nibenese?"
    "O Mighty King, my husband is Urikite born and raised."
    Hamanu nodded. His edict isolating Urik from the anarchy spreading across Athas in the wake of
the Dragon's demise had sundered families, especially the great, far-flung merchant dynasties, and his was
not the only such edict: Tyr and Gulg and Nibenay itself had raised similar prohibitions;
    Giustenal had never been without them. But trade and risk were inseparable, as the woman
standing before him surely knew.
    "That changes nothing, dear lady. I have forbidden all commerce. You have imperiled your life at
your husband's bidding. Your life, dear lady, not his. And for what? What trade could justify the risk?"
Hamanu could imagine several, but Eden might surprise him, and notwithstanding the content of the
message she'd brought him, which was itself enough to merit reward, Hamanu cherished surprises.
    Anxiety froze Eden's tongue in her mouth; Hamanu despaired of any surprise, then she spoke:
    "O Mighty King, my husband and I, we judge it likely that the king of Nibenay is arming Urik's
enemies."
    "And?" Hamanu demanded. Her reasoning, though concurred with his own, wasn't the surprise
he'd hoped for.
    "So he sends you to tell me that Nibenay arms my enemies? That the House of Werlithaen
supplies the caravan? And for this mote of good news he expects me to leave Urik's gates ajar so he
might return?"
    "Yes, O Mighty King. My husband knows the precise location of the deserted oasis; it was not
charted on any of his maps—until now."
    "The master merchant of Werlithaen thinks that because he did not know the location of an oasis,
then / would not know it either."
    "Yes, O Mighty King," Eden repeated. Chorlas of Werlithaen had raised her well. She was afraid
of him; that was only wise, but fear was not her master. She continued, "It lies outside Urik's purview;
outside Nibenay's, as well. It is an oasis of death under Giustenal."
    Wish for a surprise and get an unpleasant one. Once again Hamanu ran his fingertip over the
writing. Five days, she'd said, since she had presented herself to his templars. Ten days, perhaps, since
the words beneath his sensitive fingertip had been written. And how many days had passed between
Chorlas's leaving the agafari staves for Giustenal's howling army and Chorlas's writing a message to his
dear wife? Three, at best, if an old man had overcome elven prejudice, got himself a swift riding kank,
then rode the bug into the ground.
    Hamanu had his own spies, and those who rode kanks were ever in need of new bugs. He would
hear about the staves,