The Poisoned Lands by Roberts John Maddox

Author:Roberts, John Maddox [Roberts, John Maddox]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy
ISBN: 9780812506310
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 1992-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

TWELVE

To reach the palace they rode uphill, past Lady Yasha’s estate and around the slope to the opposite side. Beneath the hulking temple crowning the city, the palace complex sprawled messily, a clutter of large and small buildings surrounded by a twenty-foot wall. Sentries paced boredly atop the wall, uniformed as colorfully as if for a festival.

They followed their guide through an open archway into a paved courtyard. At the far end of the courtyard a road ascended to a vast building. The road was lined with towering trees that bore lush, spindle-shaped foliage. The trees were alive with exotic birds and arboreal mammals and at the base of each tree was a wide bowl full of food for the tree’s inhabitants. The road was flanked by a park full of tame animals. Among them, Ansa was astonished to see a creature resembling the man-of-the-trees, but human-sized. It looked dangerous to him, but it ambled on all fours, unmolested, its, thin, vestigial tail held erect.

At the palace, the servant took charge of their mounts and gestured for them to enter the high doors. Guards beside the door paid them no flicker of attention. This surprised Ansa. He expected to be challenged since he was armed. A sharp-face, bearded man met them just within the doorway. Even before he spoke Ansa knew it was Lord Klon. He thought that even without the mask the man looked much as he had wearing it.

“Welcome to the palace of His Majesty,” Klon said. “You are to consider yourselves his honored guests.” There was a throat-clearing sound from a blocky, uniformed man who stood by an open door.

“I am being reminded,” Klon said. “I am afraid that you must leave your weapons here in the guardroom. It is the custom, and there are no exceptions save for visiting royalty.”

This was not the time to protest that his father was a king, so Ansa handed over his sword and dagger. It felt strange to be without them, but he had expected this. Kings were notorious sticklers concerning who might be allowed to bear arms in their presence.

In any case, he reminded himself, he was no longer a simple, steppe warrior.

He was an important…what? He was reluctant to think of himself as a spy.

That seemed faintly dishonorable. Spies, he had always heard, were professional skulkers who sought out secrets and sold them to whoever would pay the most for them.

Whatever his new identity might be, he knew that being deprived of his weapons made him no less a warrior and mat his task called for an alert and observant mind. His father had always stressed that fighting skills were the least of a real man’s accomplishments, and weapons merely tools of necessity. As a boy, he had assumed that this was just more of his father’s foolishness.

Now it did not seem so unreasonable.

Klon began to lead them into the palace. “The, ah, personage to whom I now guide you for consultation is…”

Fyana laid a hand upon his arm.

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