Dark Sun: Chronicles of Athas, Book 03 - The Broken Blade by Simon Hawke

Author:Simon Hawke [Hawke, Simon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-7869-0137-1
Publisher: Fanversion Publishing
Published: 2017-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Seven

It was almost midnight, and outside the mansion headquarters of the House of Ankhor, most of the town slept. There were a few gaming and pleasure houses that stayed open all night, mostly catering to mercenaries and travelers passing through on their way to one of the seven city-states of the Tablelands. But for the most part, the residents of Altaruk went to bed early and rose early. The desert nights were cold at this time of the year, and there were few people on the streets. The night seemed quiet and peaceful.

Ankhor stood out on the open, moonlit veranda outside his private quarters on the fourth floor, in the west wing of the mansion. As he gazed over the town, it struck him once again just how much it had grown the last few years. Without turning, he spoke to the dark-robed guest standing behind him, in the shadows.

“You know, as a boy, I hated growing up here,” he said. “I dreamt of running away to one of the large cities, such as Tyr or Nibenay or Balic. Back then, Altaruk was little more than a fortress outpost in the middle of nowhere, at the tip of the estuary, a tiny, rough-hewn settlement sheltered by the mountains.

“But it was a choke point for caravans,” Ankhor continued. “South from Urik, southeast from Tyr, toward Balic, Gulg, Nibenay, from Raam and Draj—all these caravans had to pass this outpost.”

“It has grown quickly,” said the dark-robed figure in a deep and throaty voice hoarse with age.

“And is growing still,” said Ankhor, looking out over the town. “It went from being a miserable outpost fried by the sun and buffeted by windstorms to being a thriving village.

“My father—Lord Ankhor the Elder—saw the opportunities in Altaruk. His gaming house in Tyr bought him a merchant empire here—the House of Ankhor. He accomplished with grit and luck what young aristocrats did with blue blood. Aristocrats like the Jhamris.”

“And so began the famous rivalry,” the dark-robed figure said.

“Yes,” said Ankhor, turning to face his guest. “It grew as Altaruk grew, a rivalry between a commoner and an aristocrat. And that rivalry drove all other merchant houses in Altaruk into penury. My father had won himself a peerage, but the Jhamris never allowed him to forget his humble beginnings.

“By the time I was born, Lord Jhamri had also sired a son. They had competed even in that, striving to bear the first heir. But fate mocked them, for both Father and Jhamri repeatedly fathered daughters. The Elder Jhamri had eight, by three different wives, and I have seven older sisters. My father’s first wife gave him four daughters and died in childbirth with the last, and my mother gave him two more daughters before finally giving birth to me. I was given my father’s name as a sign of pride in the achievement, but by then, Jhamri’s third wife had already given birth to a son, a year earlier. And the two us were raised from childhood to loathe each other.

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