The Trials of Caste (12 page)

“What do you make of that?” Keryak whispered. 
“Was that Spider?”

Durik nodded, coming out of his thoughts.  “I got
a good look at him.”

The two friends sat in silence in the little
chamber they’d found, thinking of what they’d just seen, and what it meant. 
Finally, the pair realized there was only one thing to think.

“I guess Raoros Fang was right,” Keryak said. 
“Someone is trying to poison Lord Karthan.”

Durik just nodded and chewed on his lip as he
thought.

“Do you think Spider is the one who’s going to
poison Lord Karthan?” Keryak asked.

Durik shook his head.  “No, Raoros said it would
be one of Lord Karthan’s servants.  How do we find out which one?”

“Come on,” Keryak said, sitting up on his heels. 
“Let’s follow Spidey.  He may be a good climber, but he’s slow enough we can
tail him and see who he gives the bag of spores to.”

Durik’s face was a mask of determination as the
pair climbed out of the hole, harvested the mushrooms Spider had scraped for
spores as well as a few others, then hurried quietly after the errant former
yearling.

Trelkar wasn’t surprised to see Spider, but Krobo
certainly was.

“Spider, what are you doing here?” the old servant
caste gasped in surprise.

Looking about the crowded market cavern, Trelkar
suddenly turned and walked away as quickly as he could without looking
suspicious.

“I have something for you, Krobo,” Spider huffed
as he hobbled up to his mother’s future lifemate.  It was clear by the flushed
look on his face and by his pronounced limp that he’d walked quite a distance,
and at a hurried pace.  “Here,” he said unceremoniously as he pushed a small
leather bag into Krobo’s hand.

“What’s this?” Krobo asked as he began to open the
small leather bag.

Spider quickly put his hand over Krobo’s hand
before he could open it.  “Don’t!” he hissed vehemently then stopped himself.
“It is not safe in such quantity.  You don’t want to breathe it in.”

Krobo’s eyes narrowed.  “This is the sleeping
potion Trelkar promised?  Spider, what is this?  What have you brought me?”

Spider did his best to seem genuine as he lied. 
“It’s just what Trelkar said; a sleeping component.  It will do no one any harm
as long as it’s mixed well in the evening stew.”

Krobo looked at Spider with a piercing gaze, but
Spider didn’t bend.  Finally, the older kobold snorted and tightened the
strings on the bag before tying it onto his belt.  “I hope for your sake and
your mother’s sake that you’re not lying to me.  This better be as you say.”

At that moment, Krobo noticed someone coming
toward them and looked away.  Shaking his head, Spider turned and limped away,
past Keryak who seemed entirely too interested in the metal pot at the
blacksmith’s stand.  For all he prided himself in his skills of stealth and
awareness, Spider didn’t seem to notice the out-of-place yearling among the
market place of the Deep Guard, nor did he notice Durik, whose bronze scales
would have easily given him away, hiding in the shadows of a nearby exit.

Khazak Mail Fist stood warily observing all the
goings on in the modest, yet rather long marketplace of the Deep Guard.  He was
no stranger to danger, and at the moment he could feel several hostile glances
in his direction.  There, at the stall of a fungus seller, the elite warrior
whose shop it was stood with arms folded, glaring at Khazak, until Khazak
stared him down, then the elite warrior turned with a huff and got back to his
business.  But not far down the row of stalls another elite warrior couldn’t
seem to keep his eyes on the fish his servant caste had brought up from the
deep pools while he was gutting them and packing them in salt.  Khazak laughed
as the hostile elite warrior’s glare was interrupted when he accidentally cut
himself.

Coming up next to him, the elite warrior that led
Lord Karthan’s personal body guard whispered something in Khazak’s ear.  Khazak
nodded and the pair of them began walking through the market place, hands on
the hilts of their swords beneath heavy cloaks of dark wool.  Their target,
Trelkar the chief elite warrior of the Deep Guard, saw them coming from down
the side passage of the market and immediately began walking away from whoever
he was talking with.

Khazak Mail Fist pointed to the right and Lord
Karthan’s chief bodyguard took to the main passage, intent on intercepting
Trelkar.  Another of Lord Karthan’s bodyguards joined him from a stall where
he’d been browsing the wares.

Khazak took the side passage, his eyes warily
scanning the booths as he passed.  The faces of every elite warrior he passed
seemed hostile, though the servant caste and many of the warriors who worked
the booths or who were browsing the wares seemed mostly oblivious to his
presence or still deferent to him.

Suddenly, he came face to face with Krobo, one of
Lord Karthan’s servants.

“Sire!” Krobo stammered, obviously flustered as if
Khazak had caught him doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing.  “What
brings you down here?”

Khazak looked intently at his master’s servant. 
Was there a part of the growing conspiracy that his network had not yet
uncovered?  “Krobo, what are you doing here?” he asked flatly, the intent in
his voice unmistakable.

“Um, I, uh, I came to find some ingredients for
tonight’s stew,” he finally blurted out.

“Since when have you helped that old witch that
runs Lord Karthan’s kitchen?” Khazak asked, his eyes looking Krobo over
intently.

Behind Krobo a warrior motioned to Khazak from the
mouth of the passageway leading into the main thoroughfare of the marketplace. 
Khazak snorted his frustration.  “Krobo, report back to the Lord’s House. 
We’ll talk as soon as I get back,” he commanded, then immediately took off
walking at a fast pace after the warrior who had motioned for him.

Krobo took a deep breath then quickly walked to
the spice seller’s booth where Jezmya worked.  Pushing past a Deep Guard
warrior who was browsing the wares, he leaned in close to her.

“What was that all about?” she asked.

“No time to talk.  Here.”  He pushed a bag across
the counter.  “Take this for now.  I’ll come for it tonight before the third
gong sounds.  Whatever you do, don’t open it or touch what’s inside.”

“Is this…”

“Yes, it is,” Krobo said as he grabbed a bag identical
in appearance to the one he had passed to her from a small shelf.  Within
moments the small bag of powdered salt dangled on his belt and Krobo began
walking away quickly.

Back at the booth, a Deep Guard warrior stumbled
trying to avoid Krobo, falling into the pile of bags on the counter.  “Sorry,
here’s your bag,” he muttered as he recovered, passing Jezmya a small leather
bag.

In the main passage, Khazak and his warriors stood
together facing off with Trelkar.

“Trelkar,” Khazak growled as he walked up to the fiery-eyed
chief elite warrior.

“What seems to be the problem, chamberlain?”
Trelkar asked through clenched teeth.

Khazak looked him up and down.  Trelkar wore nothing
but the loin cloth and crossed shoulder belts common to the warriors of the
gen, a long knife dangling from his waist like most warriors wore.  After a
couple of moments, Khazak growled in frustration.  “Nothing, it would seem.”

“Have you lost something?” Trelkar asked, a smug
grin emerging on his face.

Khazak stared at Trelkar, a cold, furious stare.  Finally,
Trelkar looked away.  Khazak breathed deeply and calmed himself.  “We will see
if there’s anything to find some other time.”  With that, Khazak turned and walked
off.  He was soon joined by the four others who had accompanied him here.

“Sire,” the chief of Lord Karthan’s bodyguard said
apologetically.  “My source has proved right twice now.  I don’t know what
happened.  He was supposed to have the poison on him.”

“Well, he didn’t,” Khazak growled.  “And so we
cornered him without cause and had to back down.  Now he doesn’t have to
suspect, he clearly knows that we’re watching him, and he probably knows that
we have an informant in his inner circle.”

“I can’t imagine what he did with the bag, if he
had it.”

Khazak stopped and turned to face the small group
of warriors.  “I can,” he said, a sudden realization showing on his face. 
“Follow me,” he commanded.  “We need to catch up with Krobo before he gets too
far.”  With that, Khazak took off running, followed by the other warriors.

Durik and Keryak tried to look inconspicuous as
they hurried down the unlit passage that paralleled the main passage where the female
with the bag of poison spores had gone.  To not arouse suspicions, as soon as
they saw her take the main passage, they had ducked into this side passage, but
though it led to the same place it was longer with more twists, so they had to
run.

“Isn’t this the way to Trallik’s dwelling?” Keryak
asked between gasps.

Durik nodded.  He’d had to fetch Trallik, who was
a deep sleeper, more than once during the year of training.  “He is Deep Guard,
after all.”

Soon the tunnel met up with the main route between
the living quarters of the Deep Guard and the fungus farms that flourished in
the deeper reaches of their gen’s home caverns, where the geothermal heat
coming up from below and the water seeping down from the ponds on the surface combined
to make a rich place for growing shelf fungus. 

Without so much as a glance to the right, Durik
led the pair off to the left.  Not more than a hundred steps later they emerged
into a large unlit cavern filled with tents and shanties, many of which were
huddled up against the walls of the cavern, but still more huddled together in
clusters throughout the sandy floor of the large, sloping cavern.  Heat rose
from some of them, but in general the area seemed mostly empty.

“Over there,” Durik said, pointing to the large
opening that seemed set as a drain at the lower end of the cavern.  “That’s
where she’ll come out of.”

Keryak was bent over, breathing hard with his
hands on his knees.  “Where do you think she lives?” he asked.

Durik shook his head.  “Could be anywhere, but by
her dress I would guess in one of the tents in the lower part of the cavern. 
Probably not in one of the larger tents up in the higher end, unless she’s a
servant there.”

Keryak chewed on his lip for a moment as he stood
erect and looked about.  “How about we hide over there?” he said, pointing to a
set of stalls, a local market that sold the common necessities to the families
of the Deep Guard that lived here.  “There’s no light, so you won’t stand out. 
Come, we can blend in there.”

Durik nodded and the pair walked quickly toward
the sleepy little cluster of stalls, rousing a local vendor of fungus with
their inordinate interest in his stock.

Not long after, Jezmya emerged from the large
passageway with her head down.  Having traveled this route too many times, she
didn’t even look about as she immediately turned and walked along the row of
shanties, turning aside the cloth that served as her front door when she
arrived.