Note: I don't own any characters from the Elenium/Tamuli David and Leigh Eddings do.
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Chapter 1: 10 years after the events of the Tamuli
Murky, heavy clouds hung from an overcast sky over the Pandion chapter house in Demos. The obscured sun, however, left enough light for training and drills among the stark buildings that surrounded the practice fields.
"You're still positioning your feet wrong!"
Talen rolled his eyes skyward. Re-adjusting his position, he sighed and shifted his weight further to the right.
"Hmm…That's a little better" Berit growled.
"Remind me why I'm doing this again?" Talen asked.
"You never know when you may be disarmed and have access to a less than ideal weapon, which is why you need to have familiarity with all of them" Berit droned.
Talen cursed inwardly. Didn't the man ever learn the meaning of a rhetorical question?
"Besides, Khalad insisted." Berit continued.
Talen lowered the ax he was holding and stared at the grinning Pandion. "Khalad's idea?" That was typical, Khalad was the Pandion preceptor. The Pandion Knights may hold him in high regard, but at this moment he was Talen's least favorite person. It seemed like the preceptor, who also happened to be Talen's half brother, spent all his spare time thinking up new and inventive ways to ruin Talen's life. Hence, the ax lesson with Berit. Not that Talen minded Berit teaching him a couple of things, but Pandion ax adept took the training very seriously, and Talen felt a full three months of learning a weapon he would probably never use was a colossal waste of time. However, he held his tongue, Berit was an old friend, and was very good with his ax.
Talen reset his position being careful not to favor his left. Berit gave a slight nod and brought up his ax in an underhand swipe. Talen blocked and parried wielding his ax in the short, arched strokes that Berit had been teaching him. The ax master moved with the professional grace borne of several years study with the Cyrinic Knights. Berit obviously held back for Talen's sake, but kept a brisk enough pace to keep Talen at the steep end of the learning curve. Teacher and pupil dueled back and forth until Berit was finally satisfied.
"Adequate, but you still favor your left" Berit nodded his approval.
"Yeah, I'll work on it." Talen answered, absently tossing his ax back and forth between his left and right hands.
Berit winced "Didn't I ask you not to do that, Talen?" he asked
"Ah… sorry, Berit"
Berit placed two fingers against his suddenly aching temple. "Same time tomorrow?" he said looking across at his student.
"Yeah, I'm going in. The smell of this rust pile is making me dizzy."
"Armor, Talen, its called armor"
Talen took off toward the dorms of the chapter house and made his way to his own small room and pulled of his armor. Like all the quarters of the Pandions Knights, the tiny space was only large enough to accommodate a thin cot, an oak desk and lamp stand. Talen's room wasn't exactly the most tidy. He had stacks of pads with drawings of faces and places in addition to various odds and ends of differing value strewn about. Deciding to forgo the bathhouse he crossed the room to a basin filled with fresh water and studied his face in the small mirror hanging above it.
It had been ten years since he entered his novitiate, Talen was a score and six years now. He had filled out in the intervening years, and muscles bunched and flexed as he washed his sweaty face. His skin was slightly prickly beneath his fingers; but fortunately he didn't have the obnoxiously stubborn beard that his brothers did, so he didn't have to shave as often. Talen frowned at the dark circles underneath his eyes. He was not vain, but he did have four brothers who would climb all over each other like crabs in a barrel to tell their mothers that Talen was not getting enough rest.
Most people had only one mother to pester and smother them with care, but Talen had two, due to his father's indiscretions, and both Aslade and Elys were fiercely overprotective, especially concerning Talen, who was the youngest of the five boys. Talen sighed pulling back his wealth of hair. Unlike his brothers who all had their father Kurik's coarse black hair, Talen had his mother's light brown locks. Despite Talen's better judgment, his hair nearly reached his shoulders. All thanks to an impish little princess. Talen smiled to himself, he would figure out how Danae had won that little bet, he was sure that the courtier had been roaring drunk! Either way, a deal was a deal, and the young princess had insisted he honor the bet by growing his hair out. Talen had no idea why Danae would have any interest in the length of his hair, but then again women did things for obscure reasons.
Quickly changing into non-descript street clothes, Talen grabbed a long black robe and pulled it on. Satisfied that he was fully covered, he took his dagger and sheathed it down his boot. To be on the safe side, he grabbed another dagger from under his bed and slipped it in a holster on his belt and turned to leave for the hall. His hand pausing on the knob, Talen reached above his doorframe and grabbed an additional dagger, slipping it inside his left sleeve. Then he left for evening sermon.
As he walked down the hall, a light touch on his elbow caused Talen to turn. He paused to let Kyyis, another one of his older brothers, catch up with him. He was about a year and a half older than Talen and the brother he was closest to. Kyyis constantly pulled practical jokes on their older brothers and Talen always found a way to help, and more often than not, get in trouble. Kyyis had his father's coarse black hair and sported a neatly trimmed beard. Both young men had entered their novitiate at the same time and ended up becoming closer as they trained for knighthood.
"You look like you could pass for a raccoon, Talen." Kyyis said, noting the dark circles around Talen's eyes.
"You try training with an ax adept"
"Berit's training is not that tough." Kyyis scoffed.
"No, not really" Talen said resignedly, "It's just a lot of extra work on top of the usual drills."
"Ah well, you can catch up on sleep during Nuris' sermon. Kyyis shrugged.
"Nuris is giving the sermon again? That's the third time this week."
"Perhaps the Knights enjoy his invigorating sermons so much they requested that he return."
Talen snorted "The only invigorating thing about Nuris' sermon is the hour-long nap I'll take during it."
"Well… you aren't the only one that needs to catch up on some sleep…"Kyyis said yawning.
Both young men laughed as the made their way across the courtyard and practice fields to attend chapel.
"Seriously though, Talen you should take a night off, your men know how to take care of business without your supervision."
"I can't tonight, there's something going on that I can't put my finger on and I won't get any rest until I know what it is. Better to pick up what I can off the streets then lie awake all night and worry."
"You mean that business with those Arjuni mercenaries? Has there been any sign of them?" Kyyis asked.
"No, but they could come back."
Kyyis grimaced as he thought about another late night trailing after his brother.
"You don't have to come if you don't want too."
"Who else is going to keep an eye on you?"
It was a bright, warm morning outside the palace in the capital city of Cimmuria. The day marked a break from the stretch of rain showers that marked the start of the spring season. Water drops still clung to the newly budded birch trees surrounding the inner courtyard of the palace.
The balcony doors were throw open in the Prince Consort's study allowing the errant breeze to blow in hundreds of pale white petals shed by the shifting trees. Sparhawk idly leafed through the annual report from Elenia's district governors and waited as his daughter sat across from him staring out the window. Despite his age, Sparhawk was extremely well- preserved. His nose was still broken and his hair sported some extra grey, but the big Pandion was as fit and trim as he had been ten years ago. Sparhawk had his private suspicions concerning his improved vigor and those suspicions were sitting in a chair across from him quietly combing her dark hair.
From the semi-comatose expression she wore, Sparhawk concluded that his daughter was also probably somewhere else. He took some time to study her; she was ten and six years now, but still quite petite. Her long, dark brown hair fell to her waist as she absently drew her comb through it. Sparhawk could detect similarities between the Styric goddess Aphrael's adult form and the young woman who sat before him, but neither looked exactly alike, more like closely related. She wrinkled her nose and turned toward him.
"Where were you just now?" he asked.
"Well Father, I was right here. I am pretty sure you could see me, unless old age has started affecting your eyesight," she said tartly.
"Be nice," Sparhawk said crossing the room and kissing her lightly on the forehead.
Danae smiled absently and muttered and apology.
"So what were you doing?" he pressed.
She sighed "If you must know I was sitting in on one of the Thousand's gatherings"
"And?"
"I don't trust it; something about Shendar rubs me the wrong way"
"He's the over-priest, right?" Sparhawk said trying to recall the man.
"Priestess, actually, Shendar's a woman; and they haven't made her over-priestess yet" Danae said, a touch anger in her voice.
"Will there be trouble?" Sparhawk asked, noting her reaction.
"I can't really be sure, it's too early to predict, but there is something there."
"A hunch?" asked Sparhawk half-smiling. Danae laughed at the shared joke when both heard a knock at the door.
"Enter, friend" Sparhawk answered.
The guard at the door opened it and admitted Ensen, the nephew of Lenda, who had recently fallen ill. Ensen was filling Lenda's place in the Queen's privy counsel while the old earl recovered. His nephew hailed from the southern tip of Elenia but lived for the past several years in Cheryllos where he managed a large estate. Bowing floridly, he winked at Danae and turned to Sparhawk, who repressed an urge to smile. The only traits Ensen shared with his uncle were his keen intelligence and twinkling blue eyes. The young man was urbane, witty and quite popular with the ladies around the castle.
"G'day Prince Sparhawk, and princess, ye look as lovely as ever today, surely the moon hid her face when she b'held ye beauty!"
"Poetry, Ensen?" she said, wincing slightly. Ensen irritated Sparhawk's daughter to no end. She had tried to explain why to him, but Sparhawk had gotten lost when she started talking about sound waves and pitch frequencies. Ehlana had clarified when she noticed Danae's aversion to the new earl, confiding to Sparhawk that Danae loathed Ensen's accent. Sparhawk smiled, his wife was probably still drowsing, the counsel meeting had gone quite late into the night, and she required adequate rest to keep her wits sharp. Sparhawk's pale, lovely queen was no political amateur.
"Did ye read through the district reports yet, mate?" he asked Sparhawk, talking a seat next to the miserable looking Danae. Sparhawk looked back at the thick packet of reports he left on his desk.
"I leafed through it a bit" Sparhawk hedged, returning to the papers. "Why, did you notice something in there of concern?"
"Aye, that I did mate," he said; a slightly somber note in his usual jovial tone. Sparhawk nodded for him to go on.
"I dinnae want to bring it up during the meeting, but there's a right strange pattern in these reports. Now mate, I dinnae know if p'haps I've just been trying to pin down shadows. I wasn't here last year to analyze the trends and this could be quite usual…"
"But?" asked Sparhawk.
"It's the export shipping records for our wheat from last year's harvest." Ensen began. "I noticed a small amount in the Caliga district was being shipped directly to Sarsos." he said frowning.
"The people living in Sarsos need to eat, too Ensen." Danae pointed out.
"I understand princess, but Sarsos be an entire continent away. Surely they can find food closer to home, right love? Shipping wheat in from oversees dinnae make no sense, it's too expensive to sell or turn any profit with."
"You have a good point, Ensen." Sparhawk said gravely.
"That not be it mate, once I noticed the wheat in Caliga, I looked for unusual shipments from the rest of the districts…"
"And what did that turn up?" asked Danae, her interest piqued.
"Several other districts are shipping goods that Sarsos dinnae need. Small amounts, to be sure, but what would Sarsos need with lumber being right next to the forest?"
"How many districts are doing this?" Sparhawk asked.
"From what I counted mate, there be a dozen out a score of districts."
Sparhawk and Danae exchanged puzzled looks. "What do you make of this Ensen?" Sparhawk asked.
Ensen sighed "I'm not at all sure, mate. What I really need is the previous year's reports to compare it to. It may be nothing, some kinde fluke. I dinnae want to bring it directly to queen Ehlana until I was sure I knew what I was talking about."
Sparhawk looked at Ensen and his daughter. "Maybe we should try some logic," Sparhawk said standing as he began to pace up and down his study. Danae gave a barely perceptible sigh.
"Here's what we do know: several Elene districts are shipping out goods to Sarsos. However, Sarsos doesn't really need anything that is actually being shipped." He paused. "Possibly that means they are using the shipments to cover something else they are doing?"
"Smuggling?" Ensen suggested.
"We'll keep that in mind," said Sparhawk, "But that doesn't address why it's so widespread. Normally smuggling is concentrated"
"And, it's difficult to hide things in such small shipments," Danae pointed out.
"Also whoever is behind this wanted the shipments to seem ordinary, even trivial…" she continued.
"Aye, that they do, if it hadn't been for the Caliga wheat shipments, I may have missed the whole thing. Ye reports are a bit tedious, mate." Ensen said looking meaningfully at Sparhawk's large pile. Sparhawk looked guiltily down at the district reports; he would have to read them more thoroughly from now on.
"Should we take it to the queen then?" asked Ensen.
Sparhawk nodded. "The shipments may or may not be significant, but I will feel better about it when we get to the bottom of it."
