Chapter ten
“In Aphrasöe you will find only death!”Everything so far had gone with such amazing ease I should have been warned. Khokkak the Meddler should have been heeded. Trip the Thwarter should have been propitiated. We had spirited the emperor away from his would-be murderers. We had arrested the insidious work of the poison so that he still lived. We had tracked down the clues and found our way here to where the secret would be told. And now we were thwarted by this cunning, greedy, deceitful onker of a man.
He was after the gold, surely, and information, and he did not intend to let me leave alive, I fancied.
What could I say to move him in a spirit of conciliation?
If it was a mere matter of gold...
“If you require gold, then you must know it is yours for the asking. Vallia wi
