She gave him instructions on how to manufacture a shovel with a single word and then directed him to a spot about fifty paces up the south side of the slope. As he led his horse up the hill, he saw some very ancient limestone building blocks half buried in the soil. They'd obviously been sawed square when the house had been erected, but wind and weather had rounded them to the point that they were almost indistinguishable from native stone. "How long ago was the house abandoned?" he asked.

'About three thousand years ago. The man who built it started out in life as a plowman. Then he went up into Arum before anybody else went up there. He wasn't really looking for gold, but he found some.'

"Probably because he got there first. Why did he go to Arum if he didn't know there was gold there, though?"

'There'd been a slight misunderstanding about the ownership of a certain pig. His neighbors were a little excited about it, so he decided to go up into the mountains for a while to give them time to calm down. I'm sure you understand. This is the place, pet. Get down off the horse and start digging.'

He dismounted, lifted Emmy out of the hood of his cloak, and set her on his saddle. Then he took off his cloak and rolled up his sleeves. "How deep do I have to dig?" he asked.

'About four feet. Then you'll hit some flagstones, and you'll have to pry them up. There's a little cellar under the stones, and that's where the gold is.'

"Are you sure?"

'Quit wasting time and start digging, Althalus.'

"Yes, dear." He sighed and very reluctantly thrust his shovel into he dirt.

The drought had made the soil dry and sandy, so digging wasn't really Ls hard as he'd thought it would be.

'I wouldn't throw the dirt so far down the hill, pet, Emmy suggested after while. You'll have to shovel it all back in the hole when you've finished.'

"What for?"

'To keep somebody from finding the gold you'll have to leave behind.'

"I'm not going to leave any, Em."

'How do you plan to carry it?'

"You're sitting on him, love. He's a strong horse."

'Not that strong, he isn't.'

"How much is there here?"

'More than our horse can carry.'

"Really?" Althalus began to dig faster.

After about a half hour, he struck the flagstones Emmy had told him about. Then he widened out the hole he'd dug to give himself some more room. He leaned his shovel against the side of the hole, knelt on the stones, and began to probe between them with his bright steel dagger. "Exactly what am I looking for here, Em?" he asked. "These flagstones fit together so tight that I can't get my knife into the cracks."

'Keep looking, she instructed. The one you want to find fits a little more loosely.'

He kept poking until he found it. The dirt the patient centuries had blown in had sifted down into the cracks between the stones, and it took him a while to dig it out with his dagger point. Then he resheathed his dagger, took the shovel, and began to pry.

The stone lifted out rather easily, followed by a rush of stale-smelling air. There was an open space of some kind below the flagstones, but it was too dark down there to see anything. He pried up another stone to let in more light.

There were tightly piled stacks of dust-covered bricks in the cellar, and a hot surge of disappointment came over him. But why would anyone take so much trouble just to hide bricks? He reached down through the hole and brushed the dust away from one of the bricks.

He stared at it in absolute disbelief. The brick that had been concealed by centuries of dust was bright yellow.

"Dear God!" Althalus exclaimed, brushing away more dust.

'He's busy right now, Althalus. Could I take a message?'

"There must be tons of it down here!"

'Told you, she reminded him smugly.'

The gold had been cast into oblong blocks, each about the size of a man's hand and slightly thicker. They weighed about five pounds apiece. Althalus found that he was trembling violently as he lifted the blocks out of the hole and laid them on the flagstones.

'Don't get carried away, Althalus, Emmy suggested.'

"Twenty?" He said it with a great reluctance.

'I don't think the horse would want to carry any more.'

Althalus forced himself to stop at twenty of the gold blocks. Then he replaced the flagstone, shoveled all the dirt back into the hole, and uprooted a number of nearby bushes. He replanted the bushes in the freshly dug-up dirt to conceal his private gold mine.

Then he fashioned a couple of bags, put ten blocks of gold in each, tied them together, and hung them across his horse's back just behind his saddle. Then he remounted, whistling gaily.

'You're all bubbly this afternoon,' Emmy noted.

"I'm stinking rich, Em," he said exuberantly.

'I've been noticing that for several days now. You're long overdue for a bath.'

"That's not what I meant, little kitten."

'It should have been. You're strong enough to curdle milk.'

"I told you that hard work didn't agree with me, Em," he reminded her.

They crossed the River Osthos late that afternoon and made camp on the Treborean side. To keep the peace, Althalus bathed, washed his clothes, and even shaved off the past month's growth of beard. Emmy definitely approved of that. They rose early the following morning, and three days later they caught sight of the walls of the city of Osthos. "Impressive," Althalus observed.

'I'm sure they'll be glad you approve.' Emmy's whisper sounded inside his head. 'How did you plan to gain entry into the palace?'

"I'll come up with something. What's the word for 'stay away'?"

'"Bheudh." Actually "bheudh" means "to make someone aware of something," but your thought when you say the word should get your meaning across. Why do you ask?'

"I'll have to go about on foot to locate certain officials, and I'd rather not have some rascal steal my horse. He's very dear to me right now."

'I wonder why'

Althalus rode some distance away from the road, and with Emmy's instruction, he converted five of his gold blocks into coins marked with the realized picture of a stalk of wheat, which identified them as having come from Procaine. Then he rode into the city, where he stopped by a clothier's shop and bought himself some moderately elegant garments to disguise his rustic origins. Emmy chose not to comment when he emerged from the shop.

He remounted and made his way to the public buildings near the palace to listen and to ask questions.

"I wouldn't go anywhere near her, stranger," a silver-haired old statesman advised when Althalus asked him about the procedure for gaining an audience with Arya Andine.

"Oh?" Althalus said. "Why's that?"

"She was difficult before her father's death, but now she's graduated from difficult to impossible."

"Unfortunately, I have some business I have to discuss with her. I'd planned to talk with her father, the Aryo. I hadn't heard that he'd died. What happened to him?"

"I thought everybody knew. The Kanthons invaded us a month or so back, and they sent their mercenaries down here to lay siege to our city. Our noble Aryo led our army outside the walls to chase those howling barbarians off, and one of the scoundrels murdered him."

"My goodness!"

"The murderer was captured, naturally."

"Good. Did Arya Andine have him put to death?"

"No, he's still alive. Arya Andine's still considering various ways to send him off. I'm sure she'll come up with something suitably unpleasant- eventually. What line of business are you in, my friend?"

"I'm a labor contractor," Althalus replied.

The statesman gave him a quizzical look.

Althalus winked slyly at him. " 'Labor contractor' sounds so much nicer than 'slave trader,' wouldn't you say? I'd heard about the assault on your city, and I understand that your soldiers captured several of the attackers. I thought I might stop by and take them off your hands. The owners of the salt mines in Ansu are paying a lot of money for strong, healthy slaves right now. Captured soldiers bring a premium price in the salt mines, and I pay in good gold. Do you think Arya Andine might be interested?"

"The word 'gold' is very likely to get her attention," the courtier agreed. "She'll want to keep Eliar, the young fellow who killed her father, but she'd probably be willing to sell the others to you. What might your name be, my friend?"

"I'm called Althalus."

"A very ancient name."

"My family was sort of old-fashioned."

"Why don't we step over to the palace, Master Althalus?" the courtier suggested. "I'll introduce you to our impossible Arya."

The old gentleman led the way to the palace gate, and he and Althalus were immediately admitted. "The soldiers will look after your horse, Master Althalus," the silver-haired man said. "Oh, my name's Dhakan, by the way. I tend to forget that strangers don't know me."

"I'm pleased to make your acquaintance, Lord Dhakan," Althalus said, bowing politely.

Emmy, who'd been sitting rather primly on the saddle of their horse, dropped sinuously to the stones of the courtyard.

"Your pet, Master Althalus?" Dhakan asked.

"She tends to look at it the other way around, my Lord," Althalus replied. "Cats are sort of like that."

"I have a pet turtle myself," Dhakan said. "He doesn't move very fast, but then, neither do I."

Osthos was an ancient city, and the throne room was truly magnificent. It had a marble floor and stately columns. At the far end was a raised dais backed by crimson drapes, and there was an ornate throne on that dais. Imperious Andine, Arya of Osthos, sat upon that throne. She was quite obviously not paying the slightest bit of attention to the droning speech being presented by a stout man wearing a white mantle. The speech was a diplomatically gentle suggestion that the young Arya wasn't paying enough heed to affairs of state.

Andine was young-very young, in fact. Althalus judged her to be no more than fifteen years old. Everyone else in her throne room had white hair, the only exception being a similarly youthful kilted Arum, who was chained to a marble column at one side of the dais. That young fellow was receiving imperious Andine's undivided attention. She was looking directly at him with her huge, almost black eyes, and she was absently toying with a large laurel-leaf dagger.

'That's the Knife, pet,' Emmy silently exulted.

"Is that the murderer chained to that post?" Althalus whispered to Dhakan a bit incredulously.

"Sick, isn't it?" Dhakan replied. "Our glorious, but slightly warped, leader hasn't let him out of her sight since the day he was captured."

"Surely she has a dungeon."

"Oh, yes, indeed she does. The other prisoners are all there. For some strange reason, our little girl longs for the sight of the young ruffian. She never talks to him, but she never takes her eyes off him. She sits there playing with that knife and watching him."

"He looks just a bit nervous."

"Wouldn't you be?"

Then Emmy, her tail sinuously flowing back and forth, daintily crossed the marble floor and went up onto the dais.

'What are you doing?' Althalus sent a startled thought at her.

'Stay out of this, pet,' her voice came back. Then she raised herself up, putting her front paws on the marble throne, and meowed inquiringly at the young Arya.

Andine jerked her eyes off her captive and looked at the green-eyed cat at her knee. "What an adorable kitten!" she exclaimed. "Where did you come from, Puss?"

"My apologies, your Highness," Althalus said, stepping forward. "Emmy, you come back here."

Arya Andine gave him a puzzled look. "I don't believe I know you," she said. Her voice was rich and vibrant, the kind of voice that stirs a man's spirit.

"Permit me, your Highness," Dhakan said, stepping forward and bowing slightly. "This is Master Althalus, and he's come here to discuss a business matter."

Emmy gave another inquiring meow.

"Did you want to come up here into my lap, Puss?" Andine asked. She leaned forward and picked Emmy up. She held the cat out and looked into her face. "My," she said in her rich voice, "aren't you adorable?" Then she put the cat in her lap. "There," she said, "was that what you wanted?"

Emmy started to purr.

"Master Althalus here is a businessman, Arya Andine," Dhakan said. "He deals in captives, and since he heard about the recent attack on our city, he's stopped by to inquire about the possibility of buying those barbaric Arum prisoners from you. I recommend that you give him a hearing, your Highness."

"What on earth would you do with them, Master Althalus?" Andine asked curiously.

"I have a number of contacts in Ansu, your Highness," Althalus replied. "The owners of the salt mines there are always in the market for strong young men. A salt mine uses up workers at a ferocious rate."

"You're a slave trader, then?"

Althalus shrugged deprecatingly. "It's a living, your Highness. Slaves are a valuable commodity. I buy them in places where they're an inconvenience and take them to places where they can be put to work to pay for their keep. Everybody benefits, really. The one who sells them to me gets gold, and the one who buys them gets laborers."

"What do the slaves get?"

"They get fed, your Highness. A slave doesn't have to worry about where his next meal's coming from. He gets fed even when the crops fail or the fish aren't biting."