‘I can’t believe that a pure Aphalis has ended up in the hands of the gate keepers.’ The priest’s voice was muffled by his mask, so it was hard to read anything from it. His demeanour, however, gave more away. Right from the start, he seemed somewhat aloof, distant from the ordinary inhabitants or even the soldiers. He did not look down on them, but one could get the impression that the investigator was observing everything from the sidelines, from the outside, as if he were looking at a painted panorama and trying to understand the artist’s vision. He did not wield the authority of a high-ranking figure or the power of his position to brush aside anything that might be an obstacle or a hindrance. Darius could not fathom his intentions.
He also learnt little about the priest himself, though it seemed the man had no qualms about talking about himself. The investigator paid little heed to the rather undiplomatic question of why he, of all people, had been asked to investigate the drug case. It turned out that Aphalis’s appearance in Bushtabhar had been linked to other similar incidents increasingly coming to light in the region. Interestingly, this had caused concern not only among the Atlantean generals responsible for North and West Africa, but also among the Shehed warlords and local potentates in the border regions and those situated in the Chad Basin. The problem seemed to be escalating, and neither side had any intention of allowing foreign military forces onto their territory, so they turned to the only institution, apart from the Hunters, that could operate freely within the territories of Atlantis and the Sheheds: the Temple of Arnas. The investigator, Tahir Keita, as he introduced himself, revealed that he had been sent by the Grand Hierarch Imduin himself, the leader of the followers of Arnas, the god of the deserts and, at the same time, the guardian deity of the Sheheds. This also meant that the temple took its role very seriously.
‘Three vials are worth several thousand Crystal Crowns each.’ The priest leaned over the
