Tarsis, Year of the City 224

From Valgold, Prince of Vergerone, to Hanira of the Golden House, chosen voice of the guild of jewelsmiths.

Secret! This document is not to be shared outside the Golden House!

Greetings, Lady Hanira. Let me be the first to congratulate you on your accession to the ambassadorship to Ergoth. As a former emissary to the imperial court myself, I feel obligated to give you a foretaste of what awaits you in Daltigoth.

Since the founding of the Ergoth Empire by the savage warlord Ackal Ergot just two years after the founding of our own sovereign city, there has been continual conflict and competition between us. The Bay War, the Mountain War, the War of the Silver Skulls checked the southward expansion of Ergoth’s mounted hordes, but each time at enormous cost to the city’s treasury. The great drain on our coffers continues so long as we are forced to maintain a mercenary army in the field to deter Ergothian aggression.

Lately the crisis has been focused on Hylo. Large numbers of itinerant Ergothian merchants have infiltrated the kender kingdom, infringing on the natural monopoly of trade Tarsis enjoys there. The kender, lacking patriotic feeling, have done little to resist this peddler invasion. Ergothian traders supply considerable quantities of food, cattle, leather, textiles, and wine from the large farming estates of their western provinces.

Our merchants provide similar commodities. But as these must come by sea and from further away, our prices tend to be higher than the Ergothians’. Witless kender, not realizing they are selling their independence for the sake of cheaper cloth, increasingly choose Ergothian goods over ours. There is evidence the emperor’s agents have bribed Kharolian pirates to harass our ships as they round the continent on their way to Hylo. It is for this reason that every convoy from Tarsis must be escorted by armed galleys of the City Navy, an expense that only serves to increase further the cost of our trade goods.

Trading rights in Hylo will therefore be one of the foremost topics of your discussions in Daltigoth. As chosen chief of the guild of gold, silver, and jewel makers of Tarsis, you are accustomed to dealing with wealthy and powerful clients. This will serve you in good stead in dealing with the proud but violent Ergothian nobility.

Shortly after I returned from Daltigoth, it was announced that the king of Hylo, Lucklyn I, had openly declared his vassalage to the emperor. If true, this is a setback for us, but not a fatal one. Money and trade are more important than feudal loyalties, so if you can wrest concessions in Hylo from Ergoth, then the kender king can bend his knee to the emperor as deeply as he likes.

Great things are astir, Lady Hanira. The dormant war between the Ackal and Pakin dynasts has flared anew since the assassination of Emperor Pakin II, an Ackal in spite of his name. The Pakin Pretender has raised an army of unknown size in the north and threatens several minor provincial strongholds. Forces loyal to the Ackal heir are moving to destroy him. Do not become entangled in this brutal, confusing struggle! The intricacies of the Ackal-Pakin feud would confound the wisest sages in Tarsis.

For example, the murdered emperor, Pakin II, chose his regnal name in an attempt to reconcile both sides to his rule. Far from being reconciled, the Pakins’ response was to slay him with knives in his own council chamber. His brother (likewise an Ackal) took the throne as Pakin III, in honor of his slain sibling. Pakin III is no gentle conciliator. He will send his hordes to the ends of the world to track down the Pakin Pretender, and will not rest until the Pretender’s head decorates the palace roof in Daltigoth.

For all his ferocity, the current emperor is a just and honorable ruler. But his opponent is neither. The Pakin Pretender is by all accounts a vicious, treacherous man, and potentially a worse enemy than his Ackal rival. His troops are little more than bandits. They have sacked peaceful villages near the Hylo border, robbed caravans, and tortured Tarsan merchants to death.

Master Vyka, of the White Robe Council, tells me the Pretender does not blanch from practicing black magic. Among his closest advisers are known Black Robes, including one Spannuth Grane, believed to have been involved in the murder of Pakin II and under sentence of death in Ergoth for his various sorcerous crimes.

Assure the emperor of our best wishes in his struggle against the Pretender. At the same time, we are sending a fleet of fifty galleys to Hylo to impress the kender with the power of Tarsis! They are feeling pressed these days, not only by imperial power, but by the Pakin Pretender’s forces. Our High Admiral, Anovenax, has instructions to land the army of General Tylocost if need be, to convince the kender of the wisdom of retaining their ancient trading relationship with Tarsis. That relationship is worth thirty million gold crowns a year to us, or a quarter part of all revenues of the city. Our hegemony over Hylo must be preserved-without war, if possible, but preserved nonetheless!

May Shinare guide and protect you, lady. Remember you are going to a splendid but savage place, where men kill for honor and massacre for glory. As a woman, you may find the Ergothians’ notions of honor peculiar, but you are well-equipped to take advantage of their weakness for feminine glamour. I trust a woman of your experience, wit, and talent will accomplish far more in Daltigoth than I ever could. And if not-well, Lord Tylocost has fifty thousand mercenaries ready to take ship to Hylo.

All success to you, Lady Hanira! The hopes of your city go with you!

(sealed)

from the Griffin Palace

Again and again the blade rose, lingered for a moment in the clear spring air, then fell to earth with a thud. Each blow cleaved in two a clod of red-brown clay. Inside each broken clump dark soil gleamed, heavy with moisture from the snows of winter. Night still held enough chill to preserve crusts of ice in the deep shade of the woods, but here in the onion patch the newly turned ground had thawed and was soft.

Tol labored tirelessly, pulverizing the weed-woven dirt. His father had plowed the field at dawn. While his father returned the borrowed bullock to their neighbor Farak, Tol finished preparing the soil. He had to be done by midday, when his mother and sisters would come with dried onion bulbs, carefully stored through the winter in the root cellar beneath their hut. By sundown the field would be lined with little hillocks, each tiny mound holding a single bulb. If the hard yellow seedlings survived until summer (and fewer than half would), each onion would mother three or four others. With good rains and fair taxes, Tol’s family would harvest enough to feed themselves and have some left over to barter for things they did not grow-like apples, Tol’s favorite fruit.

Halfway through one swing, Tol heard a strange sound. For the first time he broke his rhythm, hoe held high over his head. The sound was a distant rumble that rose in volume, then fell, seeming to fade into the hills behind him.

Tol lowered the hoe. He turned his head slowly, trying to gauge the source of the strange noise. It seemed to begin beyond the two tall hills northeast of the onion patch. They often masked thunder, making it hard to judge the distance of an oncoming storm. A breeze lifted his long, loose hair and tossed it in his face. He combed the thick brown strands aside and squinted against the morning sun.