Rankan capital. Walegrin thought of the letters he had sent to his rich patron
in the Imperial hierarchy, and of the replies he had not received. In anger and
suspicion he tore at the dead man’s clothes until he found what he knew must be
there: a greasy scrap of parchment with his mentor’s familiar seal embossed upon
it. While his men slept he read the treachery into his memory.
Kilite’s treasury had financed his quest almost from the start. The ambitious
aristocrat had said that the Enlibrite steel, if it could be found, would assure
the Empire swift, unending victories-and swift, unending fortune for whomever
made the legend reality. Walegrin had dutifully informed the Imperial Advisor of
all his movements and of his success. He cursed and threw the scrap of parchment
into the fire. He’d told Kilite his exact route from Enlibar to Ranke.
He should have known the moment his first man died-or at least when he lost the
second. The hill tribes had been peaceful enough when they’d come up through the
mountains and they, themselves, could make no use of the raw ore. He counted the
dead man’s gold into his own pouch, calculating how far he and his men could
travel on it.
Things could have been worse. Kilite might have been able to bribe the
tribesmen, but it was still unlikely he could find the abandoned mine. Walegrin
had never entrusted that secret to paper. And Kilite had never known that
Walegrin’s final destination had not been the capital, but back in Sanctuary
itself. He’d never told Kilite the name of the ugly, little metal-master in the