"I have no objection to telling you what I was sent here to do. After all, the Bedine have no claim to my allegiance beyond what price they offered to pay."

"What price was that?" Hesach snorted.

"A thousand pieces of gold," the merchant said.

The commander snorted in disbelief. "I wouldn't have thought they had anything like that."

Avarilous shrugged. "Raiding against caravans seems to have been successful this season. In any case, I haven't seen a copper from them yet. Perhaps the Zhentarim might find more use for my services. It would hardly be the first time I've dealt with those of the Black Network."

"Perhaps. Tell me precisely what you were sent to find, and I may consider it. Then again, I may simply agree to give you a quick death and let it go at that."

Avarilous stretched against his ropes and glanced casually around the interior of the tent. It was richly furnished with rugs and tapestries. Hesach lounged near one wall on a richly carved sedan covered in the skins of desert lions.

"The Bedine seem to feel you are looking for an artifact from the Buried Realms. They seem to think you may have found it."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

The commander gave a negligent gesture, and Avarilous’s head jerked back as if he'd been slapped. He shuddered.

"They believe you're trying to build a power base here. Are you?"

"Kindly remember that I'm asking the questions. It will go better for you if you do."

Hesach bit into a pomegranate and let the juice dribble down his chin in a pink stream.

Grinning at his prisoner, he said, The desert rats are more right than they know." He rose and plunged his hand into a silver-bound chest. "What do you think of that?"

In his palm rested a tiny amulet. It seemed, to Avarilous’s weary eyes, to twinkle and glitter, almost as if a star had been imprisoned within it.

He said cautiously, "It's obviously magical. What of it?"

"What of it? What of it?" The commander laughed. "You fat idiot, do you know what this is?"

"A magical amulet." Avarilous sounded bored.

"Ha! This amulet would allow me to control the very sands of the desert, to raise them in a storm, to level them in a sheet of sand that could sweep my enemies before it. It would make me master of the desert."

"It would" observed Avarilous, "but it won't. It's chipped and cracked. In that condition, I doubt you'd get more than a handful of copper pieces at any market in Calimport.

"True, fool, but where there's one, there must be more!" Commander Hesach tossed the amulet into the chest and sank back onto his couch. "For years, we Zhentarim have searched beneath these sands for the treasures of Netheril. Now, at last, I've found them!"

"You haven't found anything more than a cracked amulet yet," said Avarilous.

His body was relaxed against the ropes, but his eyes flickered back and forth across the tent as if seeking a means of escape.

"Not yet, but soon. Soon our diggers will break through into the hoard that rests below this place. I will control it. I will rise in power. Even Fzoul Chembryl himself will speak with me, will treat with me as an equal. In time, perhaps even I shall take his place at the head of our order."

His voice had risen in volume, and he was now shouting, flecks of spittle spraying from his juice-stained lips. In full cry, he caught himself and smiled nastily at his captive.

"But you. What shall I do with you?"

Raki is a liquor not for the faint of heart or stomach. Its taste is foul, even to those used to it, and in some parts of Faerun it is used as rat poison. But it does have the virtue of getting one drunk extremely quickly.

Garmansder and Drashka staggered out of the shadow of the tent against which they had been sitting and came into the afternoon sunshine, casting long shadows across the desert. The air was still warm, but a chill wind was beginning to blow, portending the bleak night to come.

Drashka flung an arm around Garmansder's shoulders.

"So. Wha'sh a fine fellow like you doing working for a… a shpy? Coo'nt you tell something was wrong with him? I mean…" He stopped, turned, and vomited copiously before resuming his speech as if nothing had happened. "I mean wha's he doing wandering around in the middle of the desert? Din't you ever ask?"

Garmansder swayed slightly. "He was paying good gold. A mercenary never asks. Not if he wants to keep being a mershenary." He laughed inanely. "I mean, if it comes to that, what're you doing working for the Zhents out here in the middle o' nowhere?"

Drashka looked around carefully and put a finger against his lips. "Shhh. It's… a… secret!" He nodded impressively. "Wanna know what it is?"

Garmansder shook his head. "Nah. Better not tell, if it's a secret and everything."

"Right. Right. All right, I'll won' tell you." He grabbed Garmansder's arm. "I'll show you."

The two men made their way across the camp to where the scaffolding loomed over the excavation. Activity around the site had ceased, and as the evening grew darker, a few torches flickered around the site, making the gloom seem even blacker. Here and there, campfires glowed. The Bedine had been herded by their Zhentarim overseers back to some unseen camp, but in the distance the two men could hear the unearthly wails of their singing. The sound floated over the desert and hung like crystal in the dark air.

Drashka made his way unsteadily to the edge of the excavation. A flimsy rail ran between the wooden uprights that held the scaffolding in place, and a few torches on long poles thrust into the sand illuminated the scene. The lieutenant staggered, and Garmansder grabbed his arm.

"Careful. You wanna fall?"

Drashka considered the question for a moment then shook his head. "You fall in there, you'd have a long time to think before you bit the bottom. Lissen!"

He groped for a loose stone and dropped it into the pit. Both men held their breaths until at last, far away, magnified by the walls of the shaft, they heard the distant thunk! of stone on stone.

Garmansder nodded, impressed. "So wassit all "bout?" He leaned against an upright and took another draught of raki.

Drashka gestured toward the pit. "We're lookin' for magic. Magic stuff from Netheril. You know. Stuff they lost when the cities fell down and th' empire crashed."

"So?" The mercenary held out the bottle to his companion. "Everbody knows that stuff was lost a long time ago. Why d'you think you can find it now?"

" 'Cause we already found part of it." Drashka swigged from the bottle and snickered. "We already found stuff, and we're gonna bring up more stuff. Magical stuff."

Garmansder snorted. "I'll believe it when I see it."

"Maybe you'd like to see it." Drashka straightened up and hurled the raki bottle into the pit. It smashed against the far side, and the fragments fell into the gulf.

"Hey!" cried the mercenary. "There was more in there!"

"That's all right." The guard's voice was strong, without a trace of slurred, drunken speech. "You can go after it."

He lunged forward with the speed of a striking snake. One hand thrust against the mercenary's shoulder, shoving him back into the blackness beyond the upright. Garmansder shouted, as one hand darted up to clutch at a dangling rope. He swung out and over the pit, then back, landing farther around the rim, some ten feet from where he'd started. A sword was already glittering in his hand when he landed.

Drashka stared then laughed. "I see I wasn't the only one pretending to drink that rot gut." He drew his own blade and stepped forward.

Garmansder retreated cautiously around the pit, his eyes on his opponent's sword. Drashka came on, slashing, his blade whistling through the night air. The guard thrust savagely, and the mercenary, barely avoiding being spitted, stumbled and struck against the rail. The wood shattered, and Garmansder, with a cry, fell sideways into the pit.