her way outward, Nadalya eventually came to the table and casually and without notice found the box beneath, a cord tied to the hasp of the latch.
She tapped on the wine casks, as if measuring their fill, and at the same time, she repeatedly kicked the box below, the sound of one covering for the other. Then she took up the hasp-string and pulled the lid open, then stepped away toward Naimun and his circle of friends.
In moments, screams signaled that the enraged hornets had found their way out from under the cloth-covered table and were attacking anyone or anything that moved.
As men batted at the angry insects, women screamed and ran for the doors of the palace. Verrezza and Ariz got Arizak to his feet, and, with him hobbling, they headed for the palace as well.
Nadalya turned the ring ’round her finger until the gemstone was toward her palm, and she twisted aside the ruby and stepped to Nidakis and cried, “Oh, Nikki, there’s one on you,” and she slapped him on the back of his neck, then grabbed Naimun’s arm and headed for the palace, and was most pleased to see that Raith was before them and moving with the crowd.
T he next day, Nidakis developed a cough, which by the following day turned into an endless hacking along with nonstop diarrhea. On the third day, a fever came upon him, and he could not keep any food on his stomach—vomiting until he was empty, and then retching nought but greenish bile thereafter. Even water would not stay down, nor juices of any kind. By that evening he had fallen into a coma, swiftly followed by death. The healers were puzzled, including Velinmet, the best of the lot … until postmortem they examined his body, and embedded under the skin in the back of his neck they found …
A fter four days of repeated and frustrating attempts, Lone, who had stubbornly determined that nothing could or would defeat him, at last opened the gilded box. It took twenty-seven separate moves of sliding panels in just the right sequence to unlatch the thing, and inside he and Hâlott found a carefully wrapped bronze bust of a woman. Beautiful she was, with a long, elegant neck and high cheekbones and graceful lips and a narrow chin and a long, straight nose. She had a high forehead and shell-like ears, and she wore what seemed to be a crown of sorts, or perhaps a strange, tall hat. The hat itself was marked with an ankh, like the one Hâlott himself wore. But strangest of all was that her eyes were outlined in a similar manner to Hâlott’s own painted-on eyes of kohl.
Lone was disappointed, for this was no treasure he wanted—no gems, no gold, no silver, no coinage or jewelry of any sort—and he had expected riches worthy of the puzzle of the box. But Hâlott was devastated, and he howled at the sight of the bust and sank to his knees and buried his withered face into his bony hands and sobbed inconsolably, though no tears whatsoever ran down his desiccated cheeks.
Lone drew away from the living dead man, and muttered something about coming back for his fee, and then he was out the door, leaving the grief-stricken necromancer behind, who now and again whispered the name Meretaten between howls of anguish.
For the next several nights, the guards at the Gate of Triumph reported seeing that dreadful person Hâlott wandering through the graveyard just beyond their post. What he was doing there, none knew, though one reported that he seemed to be weeping.
R umors and whispers flew throughout Sanctuary, in the taverns and inns—the ’Unicorn, Yellow Lantern, Broken Mast, Six Ravens, and the many other establishments—over back fences, in alleys, down at the docks, and perhaps in the palace itself. No matter where, whenever men and women got together, inevitably their voices dropped and they whispered conspiratorially:
“That Nidakis, he’s not the first one of the court to have died in this manner.”
“A mysterious ailment, I hear.”
“Yar. Like the ones before: terrible
She tapped on the wine casks, as if measuring their fill, and at the same time, she repeatedly kicked the box below, the sound of one covering for the other. Then she took up the hasp-string and pulled the lid open, then stepped away toward Naimun and his circle of friends.
In moments, screams signaled that the enraged hornets had found their way out from under the cloth-covered table and were attacking anyone or anything that moved.
As men batted at the angry insects, women screamed and ran for the doors of the palace. Verrezza and Ariz got Arizak to his feet, and, with him hobbling, they headed for the palace as well.
Nadalya turned the ring ’round her finger until the gemstone was toward her palm, and she twisted aside the ruby and stepped to Nidakis and cried, “Oh, Nikki, there’s one on you,” and she slapped him on the back of his neck, then grabbed Naimun’s arm and headed for the palace, and was most pleased to see that Raith was before them and moving with the crowd.
T he next day, Nidakis developed a cough, which by the following day turned into an endless hacking along with nonstop diarrhea. On the third day, a fever came upon him, and he could not keep any food on his stomach—vomiting until he was empty, and then retching nought but greenish bile thereafter. Even water would not stay down, nor juices of any kind. By that evening he had fallen into a coma, swiftly followed by death. The healers were puzzled, including Velinmet, the best of the lot … until postmortem they examined his body, and embedded under the skin in the back of his neck they found …
A fter four days of repeated and frustrating attempts, Lone, who had stubbornly determined that nothing could or would defeat him, at last opened the gilded box. It took twenty-seven separate moves of sliding panels in just the right sequence to unlatch the thing, and inside he and Hâlott found a carefully wrapped bronze bust of a woman. Beautiful she was, with a long, elegant neck and high cheekbones and graceful lips and a narrow chin and a long, straight nose. She had a high forehead and shell-like ears, and she wore what seemed to be a crown of sorts, or perhaps a strange, tall hat. The hat itself was marked with an ankh, like the one Hâlott himself wore. But strangest of all was that her eyes were outlined in a similar manner to Hâlott’s own painted-on eyes of kohl.
Lone was disappointed, for this was no treasure he wanted—no gems, no gold, no silver, no coinage or jewelry of any sort—and he had expected riches worthy of the puzzle of the box. But Hâlott was devastated, and he howled at the sight of the bust and sank to his knees and buried his withered face into his bony hands and sobbed inconsolably, though no tears whatsoever ran down his desiccated cheeks.
Lone drew away from the living dead man, and muttered something about coming back for his fee, and then he was out the door, leaving the grief-stricken necromancer behind, who now and again whispered the name Meretaten between howls of anguish.
For the next several nights, the guards at the Gate of Triumph reported seeing that dreadful person Hâlott wandering through the graveyard just beyond their post. What he was doing there, none knew, though one reported that he seemed to be weeping.
R umors and whispers flew throughout Sanctuary, in the taverns and inns—the ’Unicorn, Yellow Lantern, Broken Mast, Six Ravens, and the many other establishments—over back fences, in alleys, down at the docks, and perhaps in the palace itself. No matter where, whenever men and women got together, inevitably their voices dropped and they whispered conspiratorially:
“That Nidakis, he’s not the first one of the court to have died in this manner.”
“A mysterious ailment, I hear.”
“Yar. Like the ones before: terrible
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