Coren Vishod lay on the small cot in the dark and damp cell below the Imperial Palace. He was shaking, but not as badly as he had the last few days. It had been a long time since he had had a drink, and his body was suffering after spending so many years pickling itself inside. He was feeling sorry for himself.

His mind wandered back over the last few weeks. How had he ended up in this sorry situation, he asked himself. But of course, he knew. He had brought it on himself. He knew his trade was inherently dangerous. He accepted the risks. But he was regretting his policy of not asking questions. Coren had no trouble breaking the law. He had been doing it for years. But treason…. He had been a loyal servant to the royal family of Mareth’totam. And while he had no love of the Imperial family, he had no reason to wish them ill.

As he shook uncontrollably, he cursed his descent into a bottle. He half laughed, half sobbed at the irony that it was a bottle that had brought him to his present conditions. His indiscriminate use of one bottle had led to his unthinking use of a second. And it was that that had brought him here. That, and that cursed desert man.

Coren swore that if he ever found his way to freedom, he would seek revenge on the desert man who had hired him. Him and all his kind. He pictured the man’s features in his mind’s eye. The hooked nose. The braids. The strange, piercing green eyes, so uncommon among his people.

Coren reflected on those eyes. They haunted his dreams. Something about them was wrong. As he sat there, eyes squeezed shut, he realized that much about the man seemed wrong. True, he had been long out of the game, but some skills from his days as an agent for Prince Dhakale never seemed to leave him. And one of those was spotting small details about people. The ability to detect small inconsistencies was necessary to a long life spying on others. It could tell you if your disguise had been penetrated, or if someone else was attempting to spy on you. And now that he turned a clear head to the man who had hired him, he realized that much about the man read wrong.
For one thing, his skin color. It was dark, true, but not the same red of a deep desert tan. And the beads in his hair didn’t seem to be braided quite right. And of course, there were those eyes. But the thing that struck Coren now was the way the man had moved. He had an easy-going, rolling gait, not the kind of walk a man developed trekking across the open sands. No, it was more like the gate of someone who spent a great deal of time asea.

Coren sat bolt upright on the cot. He desperately needed to talk to his lawyer. Perhaps this information could secure his freedom.

He jumped out from between the tangled blankets and started pounding on the door. “Jailer! Jailer! Come quick! I need to speak to my lawyer! I need to speak to Kilthanis D’Endray!”