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‘We’re going to need more specific information than just "up in the old in this pri ht just as well be on the back side of the , Your Grace The Regulators have ways to old here You saw those gold blocks I showed you back in Kaldacin They prove that there is gold in this part of the world, and all we have to do to locate it is turn the Regulators loose on the natives After the natives see a few of their friends die while the Regulators are questioning the do you think it’s going to take for the slave-ships to get here?’

‘A week, at least The slavers buy; they don’t catch’

‘Things should work out very well, then It won’t take the Regulators very long to get the information we need out of the natives, and once we have that inforet them out of our way There’s a distinct possibility that we’llthe natives to the slavers as we’ll old, Jalkan,’ the fat rin

Ara drew back just a bit The discussion between those two had chilled her to the bone These people were absoluteinformation out of people with torture raised a very serious probleh The people of the Land of Dhrall had never been very interested in gold, so the farmers here in the south probably didn’t even knohat the wordcaites so desperately wanted to hear about gold, Ara was quite sure she could arrange things so that they’d hear enough stories about it to drive theht to the crude pens where the Trogite soldiers had confined the villagers and conjured up an ‘ancient myth’ which she then planted in the minds of everyone in that pen Froers heard soold’, he’d automatically recite Ara’s absurd story word for word

Then with a faint sites that Jalkan called Regulators now guarded the natives, and they were a harsh, brutal group of uish them from the soldiers, ore red The one Jalkan and his fat friend relied upon was called Konag, and Ara didn’t like hiht be sort of nice if he were the one who carried the story she’d conjured up to Jalkan and Estarg

It was about ate of the coers were confined and approached a rather frightened fars about thesaid ‘If you’re the one who tells us ant to know, I’ll see to it that you get more to eat and a more coer,’ the farmer replied, ‘but I don’t really know very much about those mountains I’ve always stayed pretty close to home What was it that you wanted to know about?’

‘Where’s the gold?’ Konag dehtened ‘Ah,’ he said ‘You should have told me what you wanted earlier Everybody around here knows about gold’

‘Oh? How’s that?’

‘It was long, long ago when aand went up into the mountains far to the north to look at a different land He caed down from out of the mountains to the farmland below Then he found a narrow trail that led him up into the mountain-land, and there he beheld a wonder such as he had never seen before It was beyond the mountains that he saw a vast area where there were no trees or grass, for the land beyond thebut sand, and that sand was not the white sand of the beaches where Mother Sea touches Father Earth The sand beyond the littered in the Wasteland with great beauty, and now all men in the Land of Dhrall know full-well that the sand of the Wasteland is pure gold, and it reaches far beyond the distance that the eyes can reach

‘And having seen as there, the adventurous farain went forth to look for strange new things, for he had seen what lay beyond the mountains, and his curiosity had been satisfied’

All in all, Ara was quite pleased with the ites had penned up There was adventure, e treasure It was all an out-and-out lie, of course, but it was a very good lie

Konag seemed stunned by the farmer’s recitation, and he abruptly turned and ran off in search of Jalkan

The farmer who had just recited Ara’s myth looked quite puzzled - which wasn’t at all remarkable, since he had no ulator Konag!’ the fat priest called Estarg exclaiite told hiold in the whole world’

‘I wouldn’t be all that sure, Adnari,’ Jalkan disagreed ‘Veltan gave Coold in the harbor of Castano, and he was treating those gold blocks as if they didn’t ently increased the level of avarice in the old in theirvolunteered eagerly

‘How did you plan to even find the place that peasant told you about?’ Jalkan de They’ll be able to chase down peasants to get inforet up there, Konag,’ the fat priest said in a threatening voice

‘Our gold, Adnari,’ Jalkan corrected ‘A goodly part of that gold up there is lared at hi about it, gentleht just be so, I’ll rip him up the middle with a dull knife,’ Jalkan declared