The Ambassador’s Mission

The prone man rose and, without looking up or saying anything, moved back through the doorway into the building. Dannyl and Lorkin followed. They entered a corridor. The interior walls were the same as the exterior, though perhaps a little smoother. Looking closely, Lorkin saw that there were fingermarks in the surface. The walls had been coated with some kind of paste. He wondered if there was a solid stone or brick core to the walls, or if they had been made entirely of some sort of clay, built up in successive layers.

Reaching the end of the corridor, the slave stepped aside and threw himself on the floor. Dannyl and Lorkin entered a large room, the white walls decorated with hangings and carvings. A man was sitting on one of three low stools, and now he rose and smiled at them.

“Welcome. I am Ashaki Tariko. You must be Ambassador Dannyl and Lord Lorkin.”

“We are,” Dannyl replied. “It is an honour to meet you and we thank you for inviting us to stay in your home.”

The man was a head shorter than Dannyl, but his broad stature gave the impression of strength. His skin was the typical Sachakan brown – lighter than a Lonmar’s but darker than an Elyne’s honey-brown. From the wrinkles about his mouth and eyes Lorkin guessed he was between forty and fifty years old. He wore a short jacket covered in colourful stitchwork over some sort of plain garment, and a pair of trousers in the same cloth as the jacket, but not as elaborately decorated.

“Come sit with me,” Ashaki Tariko invited, gesturing to the stools. “I set watchers on the road to alert me when you were near, so I could have a meal prepared ready for your arrival.” He turned to the prone slave. “Alert the kitchen that our guests are here,” he ordered.

The man leapt to his feet and hurried away. As Lorkin followed Dannyl to the stools, he caught a flash of something metallic at Tariko’s waist and looked closer. An elaborately decorated knife sheath and handle hung from his belt. It was quite beautiful, set with jewels and inlaid with gold.

Then Lorkin felt a chill run down his spine.

It’s a black magician’s knife. Ashaki Tariko is a black magician. For a moment he felt a rush of fear that was strangely exhilarating, but it faded as quickly and left behind a disappointing cynicism. Yeah, and so’s your mother, he found himself thinking, and he suddenly knew that living in a land of black magicians wasn’t going to be as thrilling and novel as he’d thought it would be.

His thoughts were interrupted by a stream of men and women, dressed simply in cloth wrapped about their torso and bound with a length of rope about their waist. They bore either a platter laden with food, or pitchers and goblets. Exotic smells assaulted his nose and he felt his stomach rumble in response. Each slave approached Ashaki Tariko, burden held out before them and head bowed, then knelt before him. The first held the utensils with which the host and guests would eat: a plate and a knife with a forked tip. Then goblets were offered and filled with wine. Finally there were successive dishes, the master of the house selecting first, then Dannyl, then Lorkin. Tariko dismissed each slave with a quiet, “Go.”

The master of the house first, Lorkin recited silently. Magicians before non-magicians, Ashaki before landless free men, age before youth, men before women. Only if a woman was a magician and head of her family would she be served before men. And women often eat separately from men anyway. I wonder if Ashaki Tariko has a wife.

The food was richly spiced, some so hot he had to stop and cool his mouth with a mouthful of wine every few bites. He resisted as long as possible, both in the hope he would grow used to the heat sooner, and because he did not want to end up insensible from drink – especially not on his first night as a guest of a Sachakan black magician.

While Dannyl and their host discussed the journey across the wastes, the weather, the food and the wine, Lorkin watched the slaves. The last of them to offer their burdens had waited the longest, but their arms were steady. It was strange to have these silent people in the room, all but ignored as Tariko and Dannyl talked.

These people are Tariko’s possessions, he reminded himself. They are put to work and bred like livestock. He tried to imagine what that would be like, and shuddered. Only when the last of the food had been offered and the last slave dismissed was Lorkin able to pay attention to the conversation.

“How does it affect you, living this close to the wasteland?” Dannyl asked.

Tariko shrugged. “If the wind comes from that direction it sucks the moisture out of everything. It can ruin a crop if it blows too long. Afterwards there will be a fine sanddust coating everything, inside and outside.” He looked up, beyond the walls toward the wasteland. “The wastes grow a little larger each year. One day, maybe in a thousand years, the sands will meet those in the north, and all Sachaka will be desert.”