Perilous Seas Read Online Free Page A

arguments
unanswerable. Only sorcery could ever put her on the throne of her ancestors,
the throne of Krasnegar. Only the wardens were permitted to use sorcery for
political ends, and the Four would be much more likely to approve her petition
if she had a competent husband at her side. Especially if he was a strong and
proven ruler already. Like Azak.
    A
match foretold by the Gods.
    The
only flaw in this plan was that she did not feel ready to accept Azak as a
husband, despite his obvious qualifications on all counts; despite the command
of a God. She could not imagine him surviving the boredom of a Krasnegarian
winter; and if the wardens refused to uphold her claim, she would then be faced
with the alternative of being sultana of Arakkaran. That would not be the same
thing at all.
    As
he vanished into the roaring melee of unloading camels, Inos returned to her
immediate task, which was helping Kade erect the tent. Kade was waiting
patiently, regarding her niece with faded old blue eyes-and a glimpse of those
eyes could sometimes startle even Inos now, so accustomed was she to seeing
only djinns around her.
    “First
Lionslayer seems remarkably relaxed,” Kade said. “Oh, I’m
sure it takes more than a few brigands to frighten Azak ... Now, which way is
the wind blowing?”
    But
as the two of them set to work with practiced skill, Kade’s comment began
to bubble in Inos’s mind like yeast in a beer vat. For weeks the women of
the caravan had talked uneasily of the dangers of the Gauntlet. Here at the
infamous Oasis of Tall Cranes, they were right in the middle of it, and most of
them were visibly jumpy. The lionslayers’ wives muttered discreetly about
their husbands’ ill temper, for the lionslayers were redeyed in more ways
than one, standing watch all night and riding camel all day.
    But
Azak had been smiling?
    Well,
why not? No matter how the rest of the party had fretted, Azak had remained
quite untroubled by the promised perils. Chuckling into his red bush of a
beard, he had pointed out that Sheik Elkarath had traversed the Gauntlet many
times unscathed. And of course Inos had known what he was hintingthat the old
sheik could never be endangered by mere mundane bandits.
    That
must be what Kade was thinking at the moment, also. It just wasn’t
something that could be said out loud, though. Kade had been unusually brash,
or strong-willed, to say even as much as she had.
    Inos
glanced around at the gaunt, rubbly hills and the sharp peaks of the Progistes,
dark against the setting sun like gigantic legionaries. There were no cranes in
sight, tall or short, but then there had been no dragons at the Oasis of Three
Dragons, either. The world had changed since place names were invented.
    She
scowled at the white cottages, the pampered trees, and even at the welcome
little lake. Some long-forgotten sorcerer had dammed an intermittent stream to
make this settlement possible. If the stories were true, he had thereby created
a longlived aristocracy of highwaymen and caused the deaths of untold innocent
travelers.
    But
not Elkarath.
    She
stared thoughtfully at her aunt, now busily hammering in a tent peg. Kade did
not normally discuss the sheik, even in such oblique hints. Nor did Azak, or
Inos herself. But she could recall a couple of times on the journey when the
conversation had come close to the subject of magic-and both times had been
late in the day, as now.
    Her
eyes went again to the forbidding barrier of mountains. Beyond them lay Thume,
the Accursed Place. No one ever went there.
    Did
they? And so . . .
    The
temptation was irresistible. What did she have to lose? She drew a deep breath,
ignoring the sudden thumping of her heart while cautiously glancing around to
confirm that there was no one within earshot. In these trailing Zarkian
costumes with their floppy hoods a woman never knew who might be creeping up on
her, but the nearest tent on the right was already standing and obviously
empty, its sides folded up to