Ren had only wanted to ask the man if he could spare a bit of bread or a sip of amber; he’d had neither since he left the Priory. He thinks I’m below his courtesy, a lowly messenger not deserving of his time. The soldier had already turned his attention to a group of pilgrims.
No matter, thought Ren. Past the gate, he found a narrow ditch filled with muddy water that belonged to the men’s horses. It was dark and smelly, but Ren dunked his head into the muddy trough and drank all he could. He swallowed, sipped again, grinning. He drank his fill before a soldier noticed and he had to run away again.
He ran for a long time before stopping to look one last time at the wall, the great barrier that marked the edge of the kingdom of Sola.
He was outside the Dromus now. He was about to think himself free when he caught sight of riders in gray cloaks. This time, the men followed at a careful distance behind him, talking softly and greeting the carriage drivers and pilgrims who passed them.
What do you want? Ren thought as he faced his pursuers. You came for me in the underground city, why not come for me now? He lingered for a moment, then turned back to the trail. The great basin of Amen stood in front of him. To the east, across the basin, lay Harkana. The road that stretched between them, the Plague Road, would take him home, as the dry, beaten path was the only road connecting the two kingdoms. Perhaps that was why the gray-cloaks kept their distance. If Harkana lay at one end of the trail and Sola at the other and everything in between was desert, Ren was as good as trapped. There was nowhere else to go, no other path to take. They’ll kill me in my sleep. They’ll come when the road is not crowded, when no one will notice another dead desert rat.
The gray-cloaked men kept their distance, ignoring Ren for the time being, but never disappearing from his sight. Just as well. Two against one isn’t terribly good odds. It’s better to run, better to stay alive. He had forsaken Suten’s guards to take his chances on his own and he vowed not to regret it.
He hoped to reach Harkana before nightfall, but he was uncertain of the distance. He had seen maps, and had studied the history and geography of the empire, but it was one thing to look at illustrations of roads and another thing to walk upon them. I’m a stranger here. He studied the wide expanse of the desert. I’m a stranger everywhere except that awful cell in the Priory.
The sun was beginning to sink in the sky when, on the horizon, he spotted the first mud-brick buildings and black stones of a distant town, and rising above every house was a badgir, the angular wind scoops that cooled every Harkan home. They were smaller than he had imagined. Less grand. The city’s defensive walls were cracked and crumbling—sticks and logs poked from the muddy surfaces and black handprints dotted the sun-caked turrets. It looks like a wasp’s nest, he thought, having once seen the insect’s muddy tubes from the window of his cell. While the white walls of Solus had a solid, stately appearance, radiating strength and longevity, these walls were more suited to a beggar’s hovel. This is only a border town, he had to remind himself. This is not yet Harwen.
As he made his way toward the city, Ren spied the gray-cloaks. Fearing they would come at him before he reached the gates, he abandoned his slow march toward the city walls and dashed through the gate and into a yard. He looked for Harkan soldiers, for anyone who might help him, but the town was quiet, locked down for the night. The streets and buildings were dirty, the open sewers in the middle of the road choked with garbage, filled with human and animal waste, and the stench was immense. Graffiti covered the walls of the buildings, spelling out crude warnings and curses worse than the ones he and his fellow ransoms had scrawled in the Priory.
Ren slipped down a back alley and tried to look like one of the townspeople. For a moment, he regretted returning home without the Soleri entourage that would mark him as the king’s son, returned.
Down narrow streets and dark alleys he went, trying to keep the wall at his back so that he would not walk in circles, but the wall disappeared behind crumbling buildings, and before long Ren was lost.
He came upon a clearing, where a fountain splashed underneath a horned statue. Water! So much of it! The sound of it—the wet splash, the sound of water running—left him half-crazed, and stumbling forward nearly on his knees he cupped his hands below the cool stream, gathered as much as he could, and drank deeply. He splashed it on his face, letting it run over his chest and down his back.
Then pain—a man was slapping him hard on the ear.
Ren fell backward into the dust.
“The water belongs to the god,” his attacker barked.
Ren gazed up at the fountain. A word came to him from someplace deeper than memory—Vatuk, the horned god of ancient Harkana. The statue did not depict the first king, Ulfer Wat, wearing his ram’s horns as he had assumed, but one of the ancient gods, from the time before the Soleri.
The fountain was not a fountain at all, but an altar. As Ren stood and peered into its depths, he saw it had no pool, no bottom: the water fell without splashing, disappearing into endless dark depths below the city.
Ren had drunk from the god’s offering. I know nothing of my people. How will I ever rule here?
“Forgive me,” he said, making his best, most sincere apologies. “I am new here, and thirsty. I am afraid I saw nothing but my own relief.” And I had lost my wits at the sight of that water.
A curious grin grew across the stranger’s face when he heard Ren’s imperial accent. Ren tensed. Out of one kind of trouble and into another.
“I must go,” Ren said, but the man who struck him was already shaking his head, his lips curling into a dreadful grin.
“I’ve found the boy!” he cried out, and Ren saw that there were others, hidden in the shadows. They emerged with swords drawn, and with dismay Ren noticed that the men wore the gray homespun of herdsmen and crofters—the same cloaks worn by the men who had pursued him through the Hollows. His assassins. He cursed himself for his lack of foresight. They had found him.