Domes of Fire

1

It was early spring, and the rain still had the lingering chill of winter. A soft, silvery drizzle sifted down out of the night sky and wreathed around the blocky watchtowers of Cimmura, hissing in the torches on each side of the broad gate and making the stones of the road leading up to the gate shiny and black. A lone rider approached the city. He was wrapped in a heavy traveller’s cloak and rode a tall, shaggy roan horse with a long nose and flat, vicious eyes. The traveler was a big man, a bigness of large, heavy bone and ropy tendon rather than of flesh. His hair was coarse and black, and at some time his nose had been broken. He rode easily but with the peculiar alertness of the trained warrior.

The big’ roan shuddered, shaking the rain out of his shaggy coat as they approached the east gate of the city and stopped in the ruddy circle of torchlight just outside the wall. An unshaven gate guard in a rust-splotched breastplate and helmet and with a patched green cloak hanging negligently from one shoulder came out of the gate house to look inquiringly at the traveler. He was swaying slightly on his feet.

‘Just passing through, neighbour,’ the big man said in a quiet voice. He pushed back the hood of his cloak.

‘Oh,’ the guard said, ‘it’s you, Prince Sparhawk. I didn’t recognise you. Welcome home.’

‘Thank you,’ Sparhawk replied. He could smell the cheap wine on the man’s breath.

‘Would you like to have me send word to the palace that you’ve arrived, your Highness?’

‘No. Don’t bother them. I can unsaddle my own horse.’ Sparhawk privately disliked ceremonies—particularly late at night. He leaned over and handed the guard a small coin. ‘Go back inside, neighbour. You’ll catch cold if you stand out here in the rain.’ He nudged his horse and rode on through the gate.

The district near the city wall was poor, with shabby, run-down houses standing tightly packed beside each other, their second storeys projecting out over the wet littered streets. Sparhawk rode up a narrow, cobbled street with the slow clatter of the big roan’s steel-shod hooves echoing back from the buildings. The night breeze had come up, and the crude signs identifying this or that tightly-shuttered shop on the street-level floors swung creaking on rusty hooks.

A dog with nothing better to do came out of an alley to bark at them with brainless self-importance. Sparhawk’s horse turned his head slightly to give the wet cur a long, level stare that spoke eloquently of death. The empty-headed dog’s barking trailed off and he cringed back, his rat-like tail between his legs. The horse bore down on him purposefully. The dog whined, then yelped, turned and fled. Sparhawk’s horse snorted derisively.

‘That make you feel better, Faran?’ Sparhawk asked the roan.

Faran flicked his ears.

‘Shall we proceed then?’

A torch burned fitfully at an intersection, and a buxom young whore in a cheap dress stood, wet and bedraggled, in its ruddy, flaring light. Her dark hair was plastered to her head, the rouge on her cheeks was streaked and she had a resigned expression on her face.

‘What are you doing out here in the rain, Naween?’ Sparhawk asked her, reining in his horse.

‘I’ve been waiting for you, Sparhawk.’ Her tone was arch, and her dark eyes wicked.

‘Or for anyone else?’

‘Of course. I am a professional, Sparhawk, but I still owe you. Shouldn’t we settle up one of these days?’

He ignored that. ‘What are you doing working the streets?’

‘Shanda and I had a fight,’ she shrugged. ‘I decided to go into business for myself.’

‘You’re not vicious enough to be a street-girl, Naween.’ He dipped his fingers into the pouch at his side, fished out several coins and gave them to her. ‘Here,’ he instructed. ‘Get a room in an inn someplace and stay off the streets for a few days. I’ll talk with Platime, and we’ll see if we can make some arrangements for you .’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘You don’t have to do that, Sparhawk. I can take care of myself.’

‘Of course you can. That’s why you’re standing out here in the rain. Just do it, Naween. It’s too late and too wet for arguments.’

‘This is two I owe you, Sparhawk. Are you absolutely sure . . . ?’ She left it hanging.

‘Quite sure, little sister. I’m married now, remember?’

‘So?’

‘Never mind. Get in out of the weather.’ Sparhawk rode on, shaking his head. He liked Naween, but she was hopelessly incapable of taking care of herself.

He passed through a quiet square where all the shops and booths were shut down. There were few people abroad tonight, and few business opportunities. He let his mind drift back over the past month and a half. No one in Lamorkand had been willing to talk with him.

Archprelate Dolmant was a wise man, learned in doctrine and Church politics, but he was woefully ignorant of the way the common people thought. Sparhawk had patiently tried to explain to him that sending a Church Knight out to gather information was a waste of time, but Dolmant had insisted, and Sparhawk’s oath obliged him to obey. And so it was that he had wasted six weeks in the ugly cities of southern Lamorkand where no one had been willing to talk with him about anything more serious than the weather. To make matters even worse, Dolmant had quite obviously blamed the knight for his own blunder.

In a dark side-street where the water dripped monotonously onto the cobblestones from the eaves of the houses, he felt Faran’s muscles tense. ‘Sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘I wasn’t paying attention.’ Someone was watching him, and he could clearly sense the animosity which had alerted his horse. Faran was a war-horse, and he could probably sense antagonism in his veins.

Sparhawk muttered a quick spell in the Styric tongue, concealing the gestures which accompanied it beneath his cloak. He released the spell slowly to avoid alerting whoever was watching him.

The watcher was not an Elene. Sparhawk sensed that immediately. He probed further. Then he frowned. There were more than one, and they were not Styrics either. He pulled his thought back, passively waiting for some clue as to their identity. The realization came as a chilling shock. The watchers were not human. He shifted slightly in his saddle, sliding his hand toward his sword-hilt. Then the sense of the watchers was gone, and Faran shuddered with relief. He turned his ugly face to give his master a suspicious look.

‘Don’t ask me, Faran,’ Sparhawk told him. ‘I don’t know either.’ But that was not entirely true. The touch of the minds in the darkness had been vaguely familiar, and that familiarity had raised questions in Sparhawk’s mind, questions he did not want to face.

He paused at the palace gate long enough to firmly instruct the soldiers not to wake the whole house, and then he dismounted in the courtyard.

A young man stepped out into the rain-swept yard from the stable. ‘Why didn’t you send word that you were coming, Sparhawk?’ he asked very quietly.

‘Because I don’t particularly like parades and wild celebrations in the middle of the night,’ Sparhawk told his squire, throwing back the hood of his cloak. ‘What are you doing up so late? I promised your mothers I’d make sure you got your rest. You’re going to get me in trouble, Khalad.’

‘Are you trying to be funny?’ Khalad’s voice was gruff, abrasive. He took Faran’s reins. ‘Come inside, Sparhawk. You’ll rust if you stand out here in the rain.’

‘You’re as bad as your father was.’

‘It’s an old family trait.’ Khalad led the prince consort and his evil-tempered warhorse into the hay-smelling stable where a pair of lanterns gave off a golden light.

Khalad was a husky young man with coarse black hair and a short-trimmed black beard. He wore tight-fitting black leather breeches, boots and a sleeveless leather vest that left his arms and shoulders bare. A heavy dagger hung from his belt, and steel cuffs encircled his wrists. He looked and behaved so much like his father that Sparhawk felt again a brief, brief pang of loss. ‘I thought Talen would be coming back with you,’ Sparhawk’s squire said as he began unsaddling Faran.

‘He’s got a cold. His mother—and yours—decided that he shouldn’t go out in the weather, and I certainly wasn’t going to argue with them.’

‘Wise decision,’ Khalad said, absently slapping Faran on the nose as the big roan tried to bite him. ‘How are they?’

‘Your mothers? Fine. Aslade’s still trying to fatten Elys up, but she’s not having too much luck. How did you find out I was in town?’

‘One of Platime’s cut-throats saw you coming through the gate. He sent word.’

‘I suppose I should have known. You didn’t wake my wife, did you?’

‘Not with Mirtai standing watch outside her door, I didn’t. Give me that wet cloak, my Lord. I’ll hang it in the kitchen to dry.’ Sparhawk grunted and removed his sodden cloak. ‘The mail shirt too, Sparhawk,’ Khalad added, ‘before it rusts away entirely.’ Sparhawk nodded, unbelted his sword and began to struggle out of his chain-mail shirt.

‘How’s your training going?’

Khalad made an indelicate sound. ‘I haven’t learned anything I didn’t already know. My father was a much better instructor than the ones at the chapterhouse. This idea of yours isn’t going to work, Sparhawk. The other novices are all aristocrats, and when my brothers and I outstrip them on the practice field, they resent it. We make enemies every time we turn around.’ He lifted the saddle from Faran’s back and put it on the rail of a nearby stall. He briefly laid his hand on the big roan’s back, then bent, picked up a handful of straw and began to rub him down.

‘Wake some groom and have him do that,’ Sparhawk told him. ‘Is anybody still awake in the kitchen?’

‘The bakers are already up, I think.’

‘Have one of them throw something together for me to eat. It’s been a long time since lunch.’

‘All right. What took you so long in Chyrellos?’

‘I took a little side trip into Lamorkand. The civil war there’s getting out of hand, and the Archprelate wanted me to nose around a bit.’

‘You should have got word to your wife. She was just about to send Mirtai out to find you.’ Khalad grinned at him. ‘I think you’re going to get yelled at again, Sparhawk.’

‘There’s nothing new about that. Is Kalten here in the palace?’

Khalad nodded. ‘The food’s better here, and he isn’t expected to pray three times a day. Besides, I think he’s got his eye on one of the chambermaids.’

‘That wouldn’t surprise me very much. Is Stragen here too?’

‘No. Something came up, and he had to go back to Emsat.’

‘Get Kalten up then. Have him join us in the kitchen. I want to talk with him. I’ll be along in a bit. I’m going to the bathhouse first.’

‘The water won’t be warm. They let the fires go out at night.’

‘We’re soldiers of God, Khalad. We’re all supposed to be unspeakably brave.’

‘I’ll try to remember that, my Lord.’

The water in the bathhouse was definitely on the chilly side, so Sparhawk did not linger very long. He wrapped himself in a soft white robe and went into the dim corridors of the palace and to the brightly-lit kitchens where Khalad waited with the sleepy-looking Kalten.

‘Hail, Noble Prince Consort,’ Kalten said drily. Sir Kalten obviously didn’t care much for the idea of being roused in the middle of the night.

‘Hail, noble Boyhood Companion of the Noble Prince Consort,’ Sparhawk replied.

‘Now there’s a cumbersome title,’ Kalten said sourly. ‘What’s so important that it won’t wait until morning?’

Sparhawk sat down at one of the work tables, and a white-smocked baker brought him a plate of roast beef and a steaming loaf still hot from the oven.

‘Thanks, neighbour,’ Sparhawk said to him.

‘Where have you been, Sparhawk?’ Kalten demanded, sitting down across the table from his friend. Kalten had a wine flagon in one hand and a tin cup in the other.

‘Sarathi sent me to Lamorkand,’ Sparhawk replied, tearing a chunk of bread from the loaf.

‘Your wife’s been making life miserable for everyone in the palace, you know.’

‘It’s nice to know she cares.’

‘Not for any of the rest of us it isn’t. What did Dolmant need from Lamorkand?’

‘Information. He didn’t altogether believe some of the reports he’s been getting.’

‘What’s not to believe? The Lamorks are just engaging in their national pastime—civil war.’

‘There seems to be something a little different this time. Do you remember Count Gerrich?’

‘The one who had us besieged in Baron Alstrom’s castle? I never met him personally, but his name’s sort of familiar.’

‘He seems to be coming out on top in the squabbles in western Lamorkand, and most everybody up there believes that he’s got his eye on the throne.’

‘So?’ Kalten helped himself to part of Sparhawk’s loaf of bread. ‘Every baron in Lamorkand has his eyes on the throne. What’s got Dolmant so concerned about it this time?’

‘Gerrich’s been making alliances beyond the borders of Lamorkand. Some of those border barons in Pelosia are more or less independent of King Saros.’

‘Everybody in Pelosia’s independent of Saros. He isn’t much of a king. He spends too much time praying.’

‘That’s a strange position for a soldier of God,’ Khalad murmured.

‘You’ve got to keep these things in perspective, Khalad,’ Kalten told him. ‘Too much praying softens a man’s brains.’

‘Anyway,’ Sparhawk went on. ‘if Gerrich succeeds in dragging those Pelosian barons into his bid for King Friedahl’s throne, Friedahl’s going to have to declare war on Pelosia. The Church already has a war going on in Render, and Dolmant’s not very enthusiastic about a second front.’ He paused. ‘I ran across something else, though,’ he added. ‘I overheard a conversation I wasn’t supposed to. The name Drychtnath came up. Do you know anything about him?’

Kalten shrugged. ‘He was the national hero of the Lamorks some three or four thousand years ago. They say he was about twelve feet tall, ate an ox for breakfast every morning and drank a hogshead of mead every evening. The story has it that he could shatter rocks by scowling at them and reach up and stop the sun with one hand. The stories might be just a little bit exaggerated, though.’

‘Very funny. The group I overheard were all telling each other that he’s returned.’

‘That’d be a neat trick. I gather that his closest friend killed him. Stabbed him in the back and then ran a spear through his heart. You know how Lamorks are.’

‘That’s a strange name,’ Khalad noted. ‘What does it mean?’

‘Drychtnath?’ Kalten scratched his head. ‘“Dreadnought”, I think. Lamork mothers do that sort of thing to their children.’ He drained his cup and tipped his flagon over it. A few drops came out. ‘Are we going to be much longer at this?’ he asked. ‘if we’re going to sit up talking all night, I’ll get more wine. To be honest with you though, Sparhawk, I’d really rather go back to my nice warm bed.’

‘And your nice warm chambermaid?’ Khalad added.

‘She gets lonesome,’ Kalten shrugged. His face grew serious. ‘If the Lamorks are talking about Drychtnath again, it means that they’re starting to feel a little confined. Drychtnath wanted to rule the world, and any time the Lamorks start invoking his name, it’s a fair indication that they’re beginning to look beyond their borders for elbow room.’

Sparhawk pushed back his plate. ‘It’s too late at night to start worrying about it now. Go back to bed, Kalten. You too, Khalad. We can talk more about this tomorrow. I really ought to go pay a courtesy call on my wife.’ He stood up.

‘That’s all?’ Kalten said. ‘A courtesy call?’

‘There are many forms of courtesy, Kalten.’

The corridors in the palace were dimly illuminated by widely-spaced candles. Sparhawk went quietly past the throne-room to the royal apartments. As usual, Mirtai dozed in a chair beside the door. Sparhawk stopped and considered the Tamul giantess. When her face was in repose, she was heart-stoppingly beautiful. Her skin was golden in the candlelight, and her eyelashes were so long that they touched her cheeks. Her sword lay in her lap with her hand lightly enclosing its hilt.

‘Don’t try to sneak up on me, Sparhawk.’ She said it without opening her eyes.

‘How did you know it was me?’

‘I could smell you. All you Elenes seem to forget that you have noses.’

‘How could you possibly smell me? I just took a bath.’

‘Yes. I noticed that too. You should have taken the time to let the water heat up a little more.’

‘Sometimes you amaze me, do you know that?’

‘You’re easily amazed, Sparhawk.’ She opened her eyes. ‘Where have you been? Ehlana’s been nearly frantic.’

‘How is she?’

‘About the same. Aren’t you ever going to let her grow up? I’m getting very tired of being owned by a child.’ In Mirtai’s own eyes, she was a slave, the property of the Queen Ehlana. This in no way hindered her in ruling the royal family of Elenia with an iron fist, arbitrarily deciding what was good for them and what was not. She had brusquely dismissed all the queen’s attempts to emancipate her, pointing out that she was an Atan Tamul, and that her race was temperamentally unsuited for freedom. Sparhawk tended strongly to agree with her, since he was fairly certain that if she were left to follow her instincts, Mirtai could depopulate several fair-sized towns in short order.

She stood up, rising to her feet with exquisite grace. She was a good four inches taller than Sparhawk, and he felt again that odd sense of shrinking as he looked up at her. ‘What took you so long?’ she asked him.

‘I had to go to Lamorkand.’

‘Was that your idea? or somebody else’s?’

‘Dolmant sent me.’

‘Make sure Ehlana understands that right from the start. If she thinks you went there on your own, the fight will last for weeks, and all that wrangling gets on my nerves.’ She produced the key to the royal apartment and gave Sparhawk a blunt, direct look. ‘Be very attentive, Sparhawk. She’s missed you a great deal, and she needs some tangible evidence of your affection. And don’t forget to bolt the bedroom door. Your daughter might be just a little young to be learning about certain things.’ She unlocked the door.

‘Mirtai, do you really have to lock us all in every night?’

‘Yes, I do. I can’t get to sleep until I know that none of you is out wandering around the halls.’

Sparhawk sighed. ‘Oh, by the way,’ he added, ‘Kring was in Chyrellos. I imagine he’ll be along in a few days to propose marriage to you again.’

‘It’s about time,’ she smiled. ‘It’s been three months since his last proposal. I was beginning to think he didn’t love me any more.’

‘Are you ever going to accept him?’

‘We’ll see. Go wake up your wife, Sparhawk. I’ll let you out in the morning.’ She gently pushed him on through the doorway and locked the door behind him.

Sparhawk’s daughter, Princess Danae, was curled up in a large chair by the fire. Danae was six years old now. Her hair was very dark, and her skin as white as milk. Her dark eyes were large, and her mouth a small pink bow. She was quite the little lady, her manner serious and very grown-up. Her constant companion, nonetheless, was a battered and disreputable-looking stuffed toy animal named Rollo. Rollo had descended to Princess Danae from her mother. As usual, Princess Danae’s little feet had greenish grass-stains on them.

‘You’re late, Sparhawk,’ she said flatly to her father.

‘Danae,’ he said to her, ‘you know you’re not supposed to call me by name like that. If your mother hears you, she’s going to start asking questions.’

‘She’s asleep,’ Danae shrugged.

‘Are you really sure about that?’

She gave him a withering look. ‘Of course I am. I’m not going to make any mistakes. I’ve done this many, many times before, you know. Where have you been?’

‘I had to go to Lamorkand.’

‘Didn’t it occur to you to send word to mother? She’s been absolutely unbearable for the last few weeks.’

‘I know. Any number of people have already told me about it. I didn’t really think I’d be gone for so long. I’m glad you’re awake. Maybe you can help me with something.’

‘I’ll consider it—if you’re nice to me.’

‘Stop that. What do you know about Drychtnath?’

‘He was a barbarian, but he wasan Elene, after all, so it was probably only natural.’

‘Your prejudices are showing.’

‘Nobody’s perfect. Why this sudden interest in ancient history?’

‘There’s a wild story running through Lamorkand that Drychtnath’s returned. They’re all sitting around sharpening swords with exalted expressions on their faces. What’s the real significance of that?’

‘He was their king several thousand years ago. It was shortly after you Elenes discovered fire and came out of your caves.’

‘Be nice.’

‘Yes, father. Anyway, Drychtnath hammered all the Lamorks into something that sort of resembled unity and then set out to conquer the world. The Lamorks were very impressed with him. He worshipped the old Lamork Gods, though, and your Elene Church was a little uncomfortable with the notion of a pagan sitting on the throne of the whole world, so she had him murdered.’

‘The Church wouldn’t do that,’ he said flatly.

‘Did you want to listen to the story? or did you want to argue theology? After Drychtnath died, the Lamork priests disembowelled a few chickens and fondled their entrails in order to read the future. That’s really a disgusting practice, Sparhawk. It’s so messy.’ She shuddered.

‘Don’t blame me. I didn’t think it up.’

‘The “auguries”, as they called them, said that one day Drychtnath would return to take up where he’d left off and that he’d lead the Lamorks to world domination.’

‘You mean they actually believe that?’

‘They did once.’

‘There are some rumours up there of backsliding reversion to the worship of the old Pagan Gods.’

‘It’s the sort of thing you’d expect. When a Lamork starts thinking about Drychtnath, he automatically hauls the old Gods out of the closet. It’s so foolish. Aren’t there enough real Gods for them?’

‘The old Lamork Gods aren’t real, then?’

‘Of course not. Where’s your mind, Sparhawk?’

‘The Troll-Gods are real. What’s the difference?’

‘There’s all the difference in the world, father. Any child can see that.’

‘Why don’t I just take your word for it? And why don’t you go back to bed?’

‘Because you haven’t kissed me yet.’

‘Oh. Sorry. I had my mind on something else.’

‘Of course not.’

‘Then give me a kiss.’

He did that. As always she smelled of grass and trees. ‘Wash your feet,’ he told her.

‘Oh, bother,’ she said.

‘Do you want to spend a week explaining those grass-stains to your mother?’

‘That’s all I get?’ she protested. ‘One meager little kiss and bathing instructions?’

He laughed, picked her up and kissed her again—several times. Then he put her down. ‘Now scoot.’

She pouted a little and then sighed. She started back toward her bedroom, negligently carrying Rollo by one hind leg. ‘Don’t keep mother up all night,’ she said back over her shoulder, ‘and please try to be quiet. Why do you two always have to make so much noise?’ She looked impishly back over her shoulder. ‘Why are you blushing, father?’ she asked innocently. Then she laughed and went on into her own room and closed the door.

He could never be sure if his daughter really understood the implications of such remarks, although he was certain that one level at least of her strangely layered personality understood quite well. He made sure that her door was latched and then went into the bedroom he shared with his wife. He closed and bolted the door behind him.

The fire had burned down to embers, but there was still sufficient light for him to be able to see the young woman who was the focus of his entire life. Her wealth of pale blonde hair covered her pillow, and in sleep she looked very young and vulnerable. He stood at the foot of the bed looking at her. There were still traces of the little girl he had trained and moulded in her face.

He sighed. That train of thought always made him melancholy, because it brought home the fact that he was really too old for her. Ehlana should have a young husband—someone less battered, certainly someone handsome. He idly wondered where he had made the mistake that had so welded her affection to him that she had not even considered any other possible choice. It had probably been something minor—insignificant even. Who could ever know what kind of effect even the tiniest gesture might have on another?

‘I know you’re there, Sparhawk,’ she said without even opening her eyes. There was a slight edge to her voice.

‘I was admiring the view.’ A light tone might head off the incipient unpleasantness; though he didn’t really have much hope of that.

She opened her grey eyes. ‘Come over here,’ she commanded, holding her arms out to him.

‘I was ever your Majesty’s most obedient servant.’ He grinned at her, going to the side of the bed.

‘Oh, really?’ she replied, wrapping her arms about his neck and kissing him. He kissed her back, and that went on for quite some time.

‘Do you suppose we could save the scolding until tomorrow morning, love?’ he asked. ‘I’m a little tired tonight. Why don’t we do the kissing and making up now, and you can scold me later.’

‘And lose my edge? Don’t be silly. I’ve been saving up all sorts of things to say to you.’

‘I can imagine. Dolmant sent me to Lamorkand to look into something. It took me a little longer than I expected.’

‘That’s not fair, Sparhawk,’ she accused.

‘I didn’t follow that.’

‘You weren’t supposed to say that yet. You’re supposed to wait until after I’ve demanded an explanation before you give me one. Now you’ve gone and spoiled it.’

‘Can you ever forgive me?’ He assumed an expression of exaggerated contrition and kissed her on the neck. His wife, he had discovered, loved these little games.

She laughed. ‘I’ll think about it.’ She kissed him back. The women of his family were a very demonstrative little group, he decided. ‘All right then,’ she said. ‘You’ve gone and spoiled it anyway, so you might as well tell me what you were doing, and why you didn’t send word that you’d be delayed.’

‘Politics, love. You know Dolmant. Lamorkand is right on the verge of exploding. Sarathi wanted a professional assessment, but he didn’t want it generally known that I was going there at his instruction. He didn’t want any messages explaining things floating around.’

‘I think it’s time for me to have a little talk with our revered Archprelate,’ Ehlana said. ‘He seems to have a little trouble remembering just who I am.’

‘I don’t recommend it, Ehlana.’

‘I’m not going to start a fight with him, my love. I’m just going to point out to him that he’s ignoring the customary courtesies. He’s supposed to ask before he commandeers my husband. I’m getting just a little weary of his imperial Archprelacy, so I’m going to teach him some manners.’

‘Can I watch? That might just be a very interesting conversation.’

‘Sparhawk,’ she said, giving him a smouldering look, ‘if you want to avoid an official reprimand, you’re going to have to start taking some significant steps to soften my displeasure.’

‘I was just getting to that,’ he told her, enfolding her in a tighter embrace.

‘What took you so long?’ she breathed.

It was quite a bit later, and the displeasure of the Queen of Elenia seemed to be definitely softening. ‘What did you find out in Lamorkand, Sparhawk?’ she asked, stretching languorously. Politics were never really very far from the queen’s mind.

‘Western Lamorkand’s in turmoil right now. There’s a count up there—Gerrich, his name is. We ran across him when we were searching for Bhelliom. He was involved with Martel in one of those elaborate schemes devised to keep the Militant Orders out of Chyrellos during the election.’

‘That speaks volumes about this count’s character.’

‘Perhaps, but Martel was very good at manipulating people. He stirred up a small war between Gerrich and Patriarch Ortzel’s brother. Anyway, the campaign appears to have broadened the count’s horizons a bit. He’s begun to have some thoughts about the throne.’

‘Poor Freddie,’ Ehlana sighed. King Friedahl of Lamorkand was her distant cousin. ‘You couldn’t give me that throne of his. Why should the Church be concerned, though? Freddie’s got a large enough army to deal with one ambitious count.’

‘It’s not quite so simple, love. Gerrich has been concluding alliances with other nobles in western Lamorkand. He’s amassed an army nearly as big as the king’s, and he’s been talking with the Pelosian barons around Lake Venue.’

‘Those bandits,’ she said with a certain contempt. ‘Anybody can buy them.’

‘You’re well-versed in the politics of the region, Ehlana.’

‘I almost have to be, Sparhawk. Pelosia fronts my northeastern border. Does this current disturbance threaten us in any way?’

‘Not at the moment. Gerrich has his eyes turned eastward toward the capital.’

‘Maybe I should offer Freddie an alliance,’ she mused. ‘If general war breaks out in the region, I could snip off a nice piece of southwestern Pelosia.’

‘Are we developing territorial ambitions, your Majesty?’

‘Not tonight, Sparhawk,’ she replied. ‘I’ve got other things on my mind tonight.’ And she reached out to him again.

It was quite a bit later, almost dawn. Ehlana’s regular breathing told Sparhawk that she was asleep. He slipped from the bed and went to the window. His years of military training made it automatic for him to take a look at the weather just before daybreak.

The rain had abated, but the wind had picked up. It was early spring now, and there was little hope for decent weather for weeks. He was glad that he had reached home when he had, since the approaching day looked unpromising. He stared out at the torches flaring and tossing in the windy courtyard.

As they always did when the weather was bad, Sparhawk’s thoughts drifted back to the years he had spent in the sun-blasted city of Jiroch on the arid north coast of Render where the women, all veiled and robed in black, went to the well in the steely first light of day and where the woman named Lillias had consumed his nights with what she chose to call love. He did not, however, remember that night in Cippria when Martel’s assassins had quite nearly spilled out his life. He had settled that score with Martel in the Temple of Azash in Zemoch, so there was no real purpose in remembering the stockyard of Cippria nor the sound of the monastery bells which had called to him out of the darkness.

That momentary sense of being watched, the sense that had come over him in the narrow street while he had been on his way to the palace still nagged at him. Something he did not understand was going on, and he fervently wished that he could talk with Sephrenia about it.

2

‘Your Majesty,’ the Earl of Lenda protested, ‘you can’t address this kind of language to the Archprelate.’ Lenda was staring with chagrin at the piece of paper the queen had just handed him. ‘You’ve done everything but accuse him of being a thief and a scoundrel.’

‘Oh, did I leave those out?’ she asked. ‘How careless of me.’ They were meeting in the blue-carpeted council chamber as they usually did at this time of the morning.

‘Can’t you do something with her, Sparhawk?’ Lenda pleaded.

‘Oh, Lenda,’ Ehlana laughed, smiling at the frail old man, ‘that’s only a draft. I was a little irritated when I scribbled it down.’

‘A little?’

‘I know we can’t send the letter in its present form, my Lord. I just wanted you to know how I really felt about the matter before we rephrase it and couch it in diplomatic language. My whole point is that Dolmant’s beginning to overstep his bounds. He’s the Archprelate, not the emperor. The Church has too much authority over temporal affairs already, and, if someone doesn’t bring Dolmant up short, every monarch in Eosia will become little more than his vassal. I’m sorry gentlemen. I’m a true daughter of the Church, but I won’t kneel to Dolmant and receive my crown back from him in some contrived little ceremony that has no purpose other than my humiliation.’

Sparhawk was a bit surprised at his wife’s political maturity. The power structure on the Eosian Continent had always depended on a rather delicate balance between the authority of the Church and the power of the various kings. When that balance was disturbed, things went awry.

‘Her Majesty’s point may be welltaken, Lenda,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘The Eosian monarchies haven’t been very strong for the last generation or so. Aldreas was—’ He groped for a word.

‘Inept,’ his wife coolly characterised her own father.

‘I might not have gone quite that far,’ he murmured. ‘Wargun’s erratic, Saros is a religious hysteric, Obler’s old, and Friedahl reigns only at the sufferance of his barons. Dregos lets his relatives make all his decisions, King Brtsant of Cammorta is a voluptuary and I don’t even know the name of the current King of Render.’

‘Ogyrin,’ Kalten supplied, ‘not that it really matters.’

‘Anyway,’ Sparhawk continued, sinking lower in his chair and rubbing the side of his face thoughtfully, ‘during this same period of time, we’ve had a number of very able churchmen in the Hierocracy. The incapacity of Cluvonus sort of encouraged the patriarchs to strike out on their own. If you had a vacant throne someplace, you could do a lot worse than put Emban on it—or Ortzel—or Bergsten, and even Annias had a very high degree of political skill. When kings grow weak, the Church grows strong—too strong sometimes.’

‘Spit it out, Sparhawk,’ Platime growled. ‘Are you trying to say we should declare war on the Church?’

‘Not today, Platime. We might want to keep the idea in reserve, though. Right now I think it’s time to start sending some signals to Chyrellos, and our queen may be just the one to send them. After the way she stampeded the Hierocracy during Dolmant’s election, I think they’ll listen very carefully to just about anything she says. I don’t know that I’d soften her letter all that much, Lenda. Let’s see if we can get their attention.’

Lenda’s eyes were very bright. ‘This is the way the game’s supposed to be played, my friends,.’ he said enthusiastically.

‘You do realise that it’s altogether possible that Dolmant didn’t realise that he was stepping over the line,’ Kalten noted. ‘Maybe he sent Sparhawk to Lamorkand as the interim preceptor of the Pandion Order and completely overlooked the fact that he’s also the prince consort. Sarathi’s got a lot on his mind just now.’

‘If he’s that absent-minded, he’s got no business occupying the Archprelate’s throne,’ Ehlana asserted. Her eyes narrowed, always a dangerous sign. ‘Let’s make it very clear to him that he’s hurt my feelings. He’ll go out of his way to smooth things over, and maybe I can take advantage of that to retrieve that Duchy just north of Vardenaise. Lenda, is there any way we can keep people from bequeathing their estates to the Church?’

‘It’s a long-standing custom, your Majesty.’

‘I know, but the land originally comes from the crown. Shouldn’t we have some say in who inherits it? You’d think that if a nobleman dies without an heir, the estate would revert back to me, but every time there’s a childless noble in Elenia, the churchmen flock around him like vultures trying to talk him into giving them the land.’

‘Jerk some titles,’ Platime suggested. ‘Make it a law that if a man doesn’t have an heir, he doesn’t keep his estate.’

‘The aristocracy would go up in flames,’ Lenda gasped.

‘That’s what the army’s for,’ Platime shrugged, ‘to put out fires. I’ll tell you what, Ehlana, you pass the law, and I’ll arrange a few very public and very messy accidents for the ones who scream the loudest. Aristocrats aren’t very bright, but they’ll get the point—eventually.’

‘Do you think I could get away with that?’ Ehlana asked the Earl of Lenda.

‘Surely your Majesty’s not seriously considering it?’

‘I have to do something, Lenda. The Church is eating up my kingdom acre by acre, and once she takes possession of an estate, the land’s removed from the tax rolls forever.’ She paused. ‘This could just be a way to do what Sparhawk suggested—get the Church’s attention. Why don’t we draw up a draft of some outrageously repressive law and just “accidentally” let a copy fall into the hands of some middle-level clergyman. It’s probably safe to say that it’ll be in Dolmant’s hands before the ink’s dry.’

‘That’s really unscrupulous, my Queen,’ Lenda told her.

‘I’m so glad you approve, my Lord.’ She looked around. ‘Have we got anything else this morning, gentlemen?’

‘You’ve got some unauthorised bandits operating in the mountains near Cardos, Ehlana,’ Platime rumbled.

The gross, black-bearded man sat with his feet upon the table. There was a wine flagon and goblet at his elbow. His doublet was wrinkled and food-spotted, and his shaggy hair hung down over his forehead, almost covering his eyes. Platime was constitutionally incapable of using formal titles, but the queen chose to overlook that.

‘Unauthorised?’ Kalten sounded amused.

‘You know what I mean,’ Platime growled. ‘They don’t have permission from the thieves’ council to operate in that region, and they’re breaking all the rules. I’m not positive, but I think they’re some of the former henchmen of the Primate of Cimmura. You blundered there, Ehlana. You should have waited until you had them in custody before you declared them outlaws.’

‘Oh well,’ she shrugged. ‘Nobody’s perfect.’

Ehlana’s relationship with Platime was peculiar. She realised that he was unable to mouth the polite formulas of the nobility, and so she accepted a bluntness from him that would have offended her had it come from anyone else. For all his faults, Platime was turning into a gifted, almost brilliant counsellor, and Ehlana valued his advice greatly.

‘I’m not surprised to find out that Annias’ old cronies have turned to highway robbery in their hour of need. They were all bandits to begin with anyway. There have always been outlaws in those mountains, though, so I doubt that another band will make all that much difference.’

‘Ehlana,’ he sighed, ‘you’re the same as my very own baby sister, but sometimes you’re terribly ignorant. An authorised bandit knows the rules. He knows which travellers can be robbed or killed and which ones have to be left alone. Nobody gets too excited if some overstuffed merchant gets his throat cut and his purse lifted, but if a government official or a high-ranking nobleman turns up dead in those mountains, the authorities have to take steps to at least make it appear that they’re doing their jobs. That sort of official attention is very bad for business. Perfectly innocent criminals get rounded up and hanged. Highway robbery’s not an occupation for amateurs. And there’s another problem as well. These bandits are telling all the local peasantry that they’re not really robbers, but patriots rebelling against a cruel tyrant—that’s you, little sister. There’s always enough discontent among the peasants to make some of them sympathetic toward that sort of thing. You aristocrats haven’t any business getting involved in crime. You always try to mix politics in with it.’

‘But my dear Platime,’ she said winsomely, ‘I thought you knew. Politics is a crime.’

The fat man roared with laughter. ‘I love this girl,’ he told the others. ‘Don’t worry too much about it, Ehlana. I’ll try to get some men inside their band, and when Stragen gets back, we’ll put our heads together and work out some way to put those people out of business.’

‘I knew I could count on you,’ she said. She rose to her feet. ‘If that’s all we have, gentlemen, I have an appointment with my dressmaker.’ She looked around. ‘Coming, Sparhawk?’

‘In a moment,’ he replied. ‘I want to have a word with Platime.’

She nodded and moved toward the door.

‘What’s on your mind, Sparhawk?’ Platime asked.

‘I saw Naween last night when I rode into town. She’s working the streets.’

‘Naween? That’s ridiculous! Half the time she even forgets to take the money.’

‘That’s what I told her. She and Shanda had a falling out, and she was standing on a street corner near the east gate. I sent her to an inn to get her out of the weather. Can we make some kind of arrangement for her?’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Platime promised.

Ehlana had not yet left the room, and Sparhawk sometimes forgot how sharp her ears were. ‘Who’s this Naween?’ she asked from the doorway with a slight edge to her voice.

‘She’s a whore,’ Platime shrugged, ‘a special friend of Sparhawk’s. ‘

‘Platime.” Sparhawk gasPed.

‘Isn’t she?’

‘Well, I suppose so, but when you say it that way—’ Sparhawk groped for the right words.

‘Oh. I didn’t mean it that way, Ehlana. So far as I know, your husband’s completely faithful to you. Naween’s a whore. That’s her occupation, but it doesn’t have anything to do with her friendship—not that she didn’t make Sparhawk some offers, but she makes those offers to everybody. She’s a very generous girl.’

‘Please, Platime,” Sparhawk groaned, ‘don’t be on my side any more.’

‘Naween’s a good girl,’ Platime continued to explain to Ehlana. ‘She works hard, she takes good care of her customers and she pays her taxes.’

‘Taxes?’ Ehlana exclaimed. ‘Are you telling me that my government encourages that sort of thing? Legitimises it by taxing it?’

‘Have you been living on the moon, Ehlana? Of course she pays taxes. We all do. Lenda sees to that. Naween helped Sparhawk once while you were sick. He was looking for that Krager fellow, and she helped him. Like I said, she offered him other services as well, but he turned her down politely. She’s always been a bit disappointed in him about that.’

‘You and I are going to have a long talk about this, Sparhawk,’ Ehlana said ominously.

‘As your Majesty wishes,’ he sighed as she swept coolly from the room.

‘She doesn’t know very much about the real world, does she, Sparhawk?’

‘It’s her sheltered upbringing.’

‘I thought you were the one who brought her up.

‘That’s right.’

‘Then you’ve only got yourself to blame. I’ll have Naween stop by and explain it all to her.’

‘Are you out of your mind?’

Talen came in from Demos the next day, and he rode into the courtyard with Sir Berit. Sparhawk and Khalad met them at the stable door. The prince consort was making some effort to be inconspicuous until such time as the queen’s curiosity about Naween diminished. Talen’s nose was red, and his eyes looked puffy.

‘I thought you were going to stay at the farm until you got over that cold,’ Sparhawk said to him.

‘I couldn’t stand all that mothering,’ Talen said, slipping down from his saddle. ‘One mother is bad enough, but my brothers and I have two now. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look another bowl of chicken soup in the face again. Hello, Khalad.’

‘Talen,’ Sparhawk’s burly young squire grunted. He looked critically at his half-brother. ‘Your eyes look terrible.’

‘You ought to see them from in here.’

Talen was about fifteen now, and he was going through one of those stages. Sparhawk was fairly certain that the young thief had grown three inches in the past month and a half. A goodly amount of forearm and wrist stuck out of the sleeves of his doublet.

‘Do you think the cooks might have something to eat?’ the boy asked. As a result of his rapid growth, Talen ate almost constantly now.

‘I’ve got some papers for you to sign, Sparhawk,’ Berit said. ‘It’s nothing very urgent, but I thought I’d ride in with Talen.’ Berit wore a mail shirt, and he had a broadsword belted at his waist. His weapon of choice, however, was still the heavy war-axe slung to his saddle.

‘Are you going back to the chapterhouse?’ Khalad asked him.

‘Unless Sparhawk has something he wants me for here.’

‘I’ll ride along with you then. Sir Clart wants to give us more instruction with the lance this afternoon.’

‘Why don’t you just unhorse him a few times?’ Berit suggested. ‘Then he’ll leave you alone. You could do it, you know. You’re already better than he is.’

Khalad shrugged. ‘It’d hurt his feelings.’

‘Not to mention his ribs, shoulders and back,’ Berit laughed.

‘It’s a bit ostentatious to outperform your instructors,’ Khalad said. ‘The other novices are already a little sulky about the way my brothers and I have outstripped them. We’ve tried to explain, but they’re sensitive about the fact that we’re peasants. You know how that goes.’ He looked inquiringly at Sparhawk. ‘Are you going to need me for anything this afternoon, my Lord?’

‘No. Go ahead on out and dent Sir Clart’s armour a bit. He’s got an exaggerated notion of his own skill. Give him some instruction in the virtue of humility.’

‘I’m really hungry, Sparhawk,’ Talen complained.

‘All right. Let’s go to the kitchen.’ Sparhawk looked critically at his young friend. ‘Then I guess we’ll have to send for the tailor again,’ he added. ‘You’re growing like a weed.’

‘It’s not my idea.’

Khalad started to saddle his horse, and Sparhawk and Talen went into the palace in search of food. It was about an hour later when the two of them entered the royal apartment to find Ehlana, Mirtai and Danae sitting by the fire. Ehlana was leafing through some documents. Danae was playing with Rollo, and Mirtai was sharpening one of her daggers. ‘Well,’ Ehlana said, looking up from the documents, ‘if it isn’t my noble prince consort and my wandering page.’

Talen bowed. Then he sniffed loudly.

‘Use your handkerchief,’ Mirtai told him.

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘How are your mothers?’ Ehlana asked the young man. Everyone, perhaps unconsciously, used that phrasing when speaking to Talen and his half-brothers. In a very real sense, though, the usage reflected reality. Aslade and Elys mothered Kurik’s five sons excessively and impartially.

‘Meddlesome, my Queen,’ Talen replied. ‘It’s not really a good idea to get sick in that house. In the last week I think I’ve been dosed with every cold remedy known to man.’ A peculiar, squeaky noise came from somewhere in the general vicinity of the young man’s midsection.

‘Is that your stomach?’ Mirtai asked him. ‘Are you hungry again?’

‘No. I just ate. I probably won’t get hungry again for at least fifteen minutes.’ Talen put one hand to the front of his doublet. ‘The little beast was being so quiet I almost forgot it was there.’ He went over to Danae, who was tying the strings of a little bonnet under the chin of her stuffed toy. ‘I’ve brought a present for you, Princess,’ he said.

Her eyes brightened. She set Rollo aside and sat waiting expectantly.

‘But no kissing,’ he added. ‘Just a “thank you” will do. I’ve got a cold, and you don’t want to catch it.’

‘What did you bring me?’ she asked eagerly.

‘Oh, just a little something I found under a bush out on the road. It’s a little wet and muddy, but you can dry it out and brush it off, I suppose. It’s not much, but I thought you might like it—just a little.’ Talen was underplaying it for all he was worth.

‘Could I see it, please?’ she begged.

‘Oh, I suppose so.’ He reached inside his doublet, took out a rather bedraggled grey kitten and sat it on the floor in front of her. The kitten had mackerel stripes, a spiky tail, large ears and an intently curious look in its blue eyes. It took a tentative step toward its new mistress. Danae squealed with delight, picked up the kitten and hugged it to her cheek. ‘I love it!!’ she exclaimed.

‘There go the draperies,’ Mirtai said with resignation. ‘Kittens always want to climb the drapes.’

Talen skilfully fended off Sparhawk’s exuberant little daughter. ‘The cold, Danae,’ the boy warned. ‘I’ve got a cold, remember?’

Sparhawk was certain that his daughter would grow more skilled with the passage of time and that it wouldn’t be very long until Talen would no longer be able to evade her affection. The kitten had been no more than a gesture, Sparhawk was certain, some spur-of-the-moment impulse to which Talen had given no thought whatsoever. It rather effectively sealed the young man’s fate, however. A few days before, Sparhawk had idly wondered where he had made the mistake that had permanently attached his wife’s affection to him. He realised that this scruffy-looking kitten was Talen’s mistake—or at least one of them. Sparhawk mentally shrugged. Talen would make an adequate son-in-law—once Danae had trained him.

‘Is it all right, your Majesty?’ Talen was asking the queen. ‘For her to have the kitten, I mean?’

‘Isn’t it just a little late to be asking that question, Talen?’ Ehlana replied.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he said impudently. ‘I thought I’d timed it just about right.’

Ehlana looked at her daughter, who was snuggling the kitten against her face. All cats are born opportunists. The kitten patted the little girl’s cheek with one soft paw and then nuzzled. Kittens are expert nuzzlers.

‘How can I say no after you’ve already given it to her, Talen?’

‘It would be a little difficult, wouldn’t it, your Majesty?’ The boy sniffed loudly.

Mirtai rose to her feet, put her dagger away and crossed the room to Talen. She reached out her hand, and he flinched away. ‘Oh, stop that,’ she told him. She laid her hand on his forehead. ‘You’ve got a fever.’

‘I didn’t get it on purpose.’

‘We’d better get him to bed, Mirtai,’ Ehlana said, rising from her chair.

‘We should sweat him first,’ the giantess said. ‘I’ll take him to the bathhouse and steam him for a while.’ She took Talen’s arm, firmly.

‘You’re not going into the bathhouse with me!’ he protested, his face suddenly aflame.

‘Be quiet,’ she commanded. ‘Send word to the cooks, Ehlana. Have them stir up a mustard plaster and boil up some chicken soup. When I bring him back from the bathhouse, we’ll put the mustard plaster on his chest, pop him into bed and spoon soup into him.’

‘Are’ you going to just stand there and let them do this to me, Sparhawk?’ Talen appealed.

‘I’d like to help you, my friend,’ Sparhawk replied, ‘but I’ve got my own health to consider too, you know.’

‘I wish I was dead,’ Talen groaned as Mirtai pulled him from the room.

Stragen and Ulath arrived from Emsat a few days later and were immediately escorted to the royal apartment. ‘You’re getting fat, Sparhawk,’ Ulath said bluntly, removing his ogre-horned helmet.

‘I’ve put on a few pounds,’ Sparhawk conceded.

‘Soft living,’ Ulath grunted disapprovingly.

‘How’s Wargun?’ Ehlana asked the huge blond Thalesian.

‘His mind’s gone,’ Ulath replied sadly. ‘They’ve got him locked up in the west wing of the palace. He spends most of his time raving.’

Ehlana sighed. ‘I always rather liked him—when he was sober.’

‘I doubt that you’ll feel the same way about his son, your Majesty,’ Stragen told her dryly. Like Platime, Stragen was a thief, but he had much better manners.

‘I’ve never met him,’ Ehlana said.

‘You might consider adding that to your next prayer of thanksgiving, your Majesty. His name’s Avin—a short and insignificant name for a short and insignificant fellow. He doesn’t show very much promise.’

‘Is he really that bad?’ Ehlana asked Ulath.

‘Avin Wargunsson? Stragen’s being generous. Avin’s a little man who spends all his time trying to make sure that people don’t overlook him. When he found out that I was coming here, he called me to the palace and gave me a royal communication to bring to you. He spent two hours trying to impress me.’

‘Were you impressed?’

‘Not particularly, no.’ Ulath reached inside his surcoat and drew out a folded and sealed sheet of parchment.

‘What does it say?’ she asked.

‘I wouldn’t know. I don’t read other people’s mail. My guess is that it’s a serious discussion of the weather. Avin Wargunsson’s desperately afraid that people might forget about him, so every traveller who leaves Emsat is loaded down with royal greetings.’

‘How was the trip?’ Sparhawk asked them.

‘I can’t really say that I’d recommend sea travel at this time of year,’ Stragen replied. His icy blue eyes hardened. ‘I want to have a talk with Platime. Ulath and I were set upon by some brigands in the mountains between here and Cardos. Bandits are supposed to know better than that.’

‘They aren’t professionals,’ Sparhawk told him. ‘Platime knows about them, and he’s going to take steps. Were there any problems?’

‘Not for us,’ Ulath shrugged. ‘The amateurs out there didn’t have a very good day, though. We left five of them in a ditch, and then the rest all remembered an important engagement somewhere else.’ He went to the door and looked out into the hall. Then he closed the door and looked around, his eyes wary. ‘Are there any servants or people like that in any of your rooms here, Sparhawk?’ he asked.

‘Mirtai and our daughter is all.’

‘That’s all right. I think we can trust them. Komier sent me to let you know that Avin Wargunsson’s been in contact with Count Gerrich down in Lamorkand. Gerrich’s taking a run at King Friedahl’s throne, and Avin’s not quite bright. He doesn’t know enough to stay out of the internal squabbles in Lamorkand. Komier thinks there might just possibly be some sort of secret arrangement between them. Patriarch Bergsten’s taking the same message to Chyrellos.’

‘Count Gerrich’s going to start to irritate Dolmant if he doesn’t watch what he’s doing,’ Ehlana said. ‘He’s trying to make alliances every time he turns around, and he knows that’s a violation of the rules. Lamork civil wars aren’t supposed to involve other kingdoms.’

‘That’s an actual rule?’ Stragen asked her incredulously.

‘Of course. It’s been in place for a thousand years. If the Lamork barons were free to form alliances with nobles in other kingdoms, they’d plunge the continent into war every ten years. That used to happen until the Church stepped in and told them to stop.’

‘And you thought our society had peculiar rules,’ Stragen laughed to Platime.

‘This is entirely different, Milord Stragen,’ Ehlana told him in a lofty tone. ‘Our peculiarities are matters of state policy. Yours are simply good common sense. There’s a world of difference.’

‘So I gather.’

Sparhawk was looking at all three of them when it happened, so there was no doubt that when he felt that peculiar chill and caught that faint flicker of darkness at the very outer edge of his vision, they did as well.

‘Sparhawk!’ Ehlana cried in alarm.

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘I know. I saw it too.’

Stragen had half-drawn his rapier, his hand moving with cat-like speed. ‘What is it?’ he demanded, looking around the room.

‘An impossibility,’ Ehlana said flatly. The look she gave her husband was a little less certain, however. ‘Isn’t it, Sparhawk?’ her voice trembled slightly.

I certainly thought so,’ he replied.

‘This isn’t the time to be cryptic,’ Stragen said. Then they all relaxed as the chill and the shadow passed.

Ulath looked speculatively at Sparhawk. ‘Was that what I thought it was?’ he asked.

‘So it seems.’

‘Will someone please tell me what’s going on here?’ Stragen demanded.

‘Do you remember that cloud that followed us up in Pelosia?’ Ulath said.

‘Of course. But that was Azash, wasn’t it?’

‘No. We thought so, but Aphrael told us that we were wrong. That was after you came back here, so you probably didn’t hear about it. That shadow we just saw was the Troll-Gods. They’re inside the Bhelliom.’

‘Inside?’

‘They needed a place to hide after they’d lost a few arguments with the Younger Gods of Styricum.’ Stragen looked at Sparhawk. ‘I thought you told me that you’d thrown Bhelliom into the sea.’

‘We did.’

‘And the Troll-Gods can’t get out of it?’

‘That’s what we were led to believe.’

‘You should have found a deeper ocean.’

‘There aren’t any deeper ones.’

‘That’s too bad. It looks as if someone’s managed to fish it out.’

‘It’s logical, Sparhawk,’ Ulath said. ‘That box was lined with gold, and Aphrael told us that the gold would keep Bhelliom from getting out on its own. Since the Troll-Gods can’t get out of Bhelliom, they were down there too. Somebody’s found that box.’

‘I’ve heard that the people who dive for pearls can go down quite deep,’ Stragen said.

‘Not that deep,’ Sparhawk said. ‘Besides, there’s something wrong.’

‘Are you just now realising that?’ Stragen asked him.

‘That’s not what I mean. When we were up in Pelosia, you could all see that cloud.’

‘Oh, yes,’ Ulath said fervently.

‘But before that—when it was just a shadow—only Ehlana and I could see it, and that was because we were wearing the rings. This was definitely a shadow and not a cloud, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ Stragen admitted. ‘Then how is it that you and Ulath could see it too? Stragen spread his hands helplessly. ‘There’s something else too,’ Sparhawk added. ‘The night I came home from Lamorkand, I felt something in the street watching me—several somethings. They weren’t Elene or Styric, and I don’t think they were human. That shadow that just passed through here felt exactly the same.’

‘I wish there was some way we could talk with Sephrenia,’ Ulath muttered.

Sparhawk was fairly certain that there was a way, but he was not free to reveal it to any of them.

‘Do we tell anybody else about this?’ Stragen asked.

‘Let’s not start a panic until we find out some more about it,’ Sparhawk decided.

‘Right,’ Stragen agreed. ‘There’s always plenty of time for panic later—plenty of reason too, I think.’

The weather cleared over the next few days, and that fact alone lifted spirits in the palace. Sparhawk spent some time closeted with Platime and Stragen, and then the two thieves sent men into Lamorkand to investigate the situation there. ‘That’s what I should have done in the first place,’ Sparhawk said, ‘but Sarathi wouldn’t give me the chance. Our revered Archprelate has a few blind spots. He can’t seem to get it through his head that official investigators aren’t going to ever really get to the bottom of things.’

‘Typical aristocratic ineptitude,’ Stragen drawled. ‘It’s one of the things that makes life easier for people like Platime and me.’

Sparhawk didn’t argue with him about that. ‘Just tell your men to be careful,’ he cautioned them. ‘Lamorks tend to try to solve all their problems with daggers, and dead spion don’t bring home very much useful infornation.’

‘Astonishing insight there, old boy,’ Stragen said, his rich voice dripping with irony. ‘It’s absolutely amazing that Platime and I never thought of that.’

‘All right,’ Sparhawk admitted, ‘maybe I was being just a little obvious.’

‘We saw that too, didn’t we, Platime?’

Platime grunted. ‘Tell Ehlana that I’m going to be away from the palace for a few days, Sparhawk.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘None of your business. There’s something I want to take care of.’

‘All right, but keep in touch.’

‘You’re being obvious again, Sparhawk.’ The fat man scratched his paunch. ‘I’ll talk with Talen. He’ll know how to get in touch with me if the queen really needs me for something.’ He groaned as he hauled himself to his feet. ‘I’m going to have to lose some weight,’ he said half to himself. Then he waddled to the door with that peculiarly spraddle-legged gait of the grossly obese.

‘He’s in a charming humour today,’ Sparhawk noted.

‘He’s got a lot on his mind just now,’ Stragen shrugged.

‘How well-connected are you in the palace at Emsat, Stragen?’

‘I have some contacts there. What do you need?’

‘I’d like to put some stumbling blocks in the way of this accommodation between Avin and Count Gerrich. Gerrich’s beginning to get a little too much influence in northern Eosia. Maybe you ought to get word to Meland in Acie as well. Gerrich’s making alliances in Pelosia and Thalesia already. It doesn’t seem reasonable that he’d overlook Deira, and Deira’s a little chaotic right now. Ask Meland to keep his eyes open.’

‘This Gerrich’s really got you concerned, hasn’t he?’

‘There are some things going on in Lamorkand that I don’t understand, Stragen, and I don’t want Gerrich to get too far ahead of me while I’m trying to sort them out.’

‘That makes sense—I suppose.’

Khalad came to his feet with his eyes slightly unfocused and with a thin dribble of blood coming out of his nose.

‘You see? You over-extended again,’ Mirtai told him.

‘How did you do that?’ Sparhawk’s squire asked her.

‘I’ll show you. Kalten, come here,’

‘Not me,’ the blond Pandion refused, backing away.

‘Don’t be foolish. I’m not going to hurt you.’

‘Isn’t that what you told Khalad before you bounced him off the flagstones?’

‘You might as well do as I tell you, Kalten,’ she said. ‘You’ll wind up doing it in the end anyway, and it won’t be nearly as painful for you if you don’t argue with me. Take out your sword and stab me in the heart with it.’

‘I don’t want to hurt you, Mirtai.’

‘You? Hurt me?’ Her laugh was sardonic.

‘You don’t have to be insulting about it,’ he said in an injured tone, drawing his sword.

It had all begun when Mirtai had passed through the palace courtyard while Kalten was giving Khalad some instruction in swordsmanship. She had made a couple of highly unflattering comments. One thing had led to another, and the end result had been this impromptu training session, during which Kalten and Khalad learned humility, if nothing else.

‘Stab me through the heart, Kalten,’ Mirtai said again. In Kalten’s defence it should be noted in passing that he really did try. He made a great deal of noise when he came down on his back on the flagstones. ‘He made the same mistake you did,’ Mirtai pointed out to Khalad. ‘He straightened his arm too much. A straight arm is a locked arm. Always keep your elbow slightly bent.’

‘We’re trained to thrust from the shoulder, Mirtai,’ Khalad explained.

‘There are a lot of Elenes, I suppose,’ she shrugged. ‘It shouldn’t be all that hard to replace you. The thing that makes me curious is why you all feel that it’s necessary to stick your sword all the way through somebody. If you haven’t hit the heart with the first six inches of the blade, another yard or so of steel going through’ the same hole won’t make much difference, will it?’

‘Maybe it’s because it looks dramatic,’ Khalad said.

‘You kill people for show? That’s contemptible, and it’s the sort of thinking that fills graveyards. Always keep your blade free so that you’re ready for your next enemy. People fold up when you run swords through them, and then you have to kick the body off the blade before you can use it again.’

‘I’ll try to remember that.’

‘I hope so. I rather like you, and I hate burying friends.’ She bent, professionally peeled Kalten’s eyelid back and glanced at his glazed eyeball. ‘You’d better throw a bucket of water on our friend here,’ she suggested. ‘He hasn’t learned how to fall yet. We’ll go into that next time.’

‘Next time?’

‘Of course. If you’re going to learn how to do this, you’d better learn how to do it right.’ She gave Sparhawk a challenging look. ‘Would you like to try?’ she asked him.

‘Ah—no, Mirtai, not right now. Thanks all the same, though.’

She went on into the palace, looking just slightly pleased with herself.

‘You know, I don’t think I really want to be a knight after all, Sparhawk,’ Talen said from nearby. ‘It looks awfully painful.’

‘Where have you been? My wife’s got people out looking for you.’

‘Yes. I saw them blundering around out in the streets. I had to go visit Platime in the cellar.’

‘Oh?’

‘He picked up something he thought you ought to be aware of. You know those unauthorised bandits in the hills near Cardos?’

‘Not personally, no.’

‘Funny, Sparhawk. Very funny. Platime’s found out that somebody we know is sort of directing their activities.’

‘Oh? Who’s that?’

‘Can you believe that it’s Krager? You should have killed him when you had the chance, Sparhawk.’

3

The fog drifted in from the river not long after the sun went down that evening. The nights in Cimmura were always foggy in the spring when it wasn’t raining. Sparhawk, Stragen and Talen left the palace wearing plain clothing and heavy traveller’s cloaks and rode to the southeast quarter of town.

‘You don’t necessarily have to tell your wife I said this, Sparhawk,’ Stragen noted, looking around with distaste, ‘but her capital’s one of the least attractive cities in the world. You’ve got a truly miserable climate here.’

‘It’s not so bad in the summer-time,’ Sparhawk replied a little defensively.

‘I missed last summer,’ the blond thief said. ‘I took a short nap one afternoon and slept right through it. Where are we going?’

‘We want to see Platime.’

‘As I recall, his cellar’s near the west gate of the city. You’re taking us in the wrong direction.’

‘We have to go to a certain inn first.’ Sparhawk looked back over his shoulder. ‘Are we being followed, Talen?’ he asked.

‘Naturally.’

Sparhawk grunted. ‘That’s more or less what I expected.’

They rode on with the thick mist swirling around the legs of their horses and making the fronts of the nearby houses dim and hazy-looking. They reached the inn on Rose Street, and a surly-appearing porter admitted them to the inn yard and closed the gate behind them.

‘Anything you find out about this place isn’t for general dissemination,’ Sparhawk told Talen and Stragen as he dismounted. He handed Faran’s reins to the porter. ‘You know about this horse, don’t you, brother?’ he warned the man.

‘He’s a legend, Sparhawk,’ the porter replied. ‘The things you wanted are in the room at the top of the stairs.’

‘How’s the crowd in the tavern tonight?’

‘Loud, smelly and mostly drunk.’

‘There’s nothing new about that. What I meant, though, was how many of them are there?’

‘Fifteen or twenty. There are three of our men in there who know what to do.’

‘Good. Thank you, Sir Knight.’

‘You’re welcome, Sir Knight.’ Sparhawk led Talen and Stragen up the stairs.

‘This inn, I gather, isn’t altogether what it seems,’ Stragen observed.

‘The Pandions own it,’ Talen told him. ‘They come here when they don’t want to attract attention.’

‘There’s a little more to it than that,’ Sparhawk told him. He opened the door at the top of the stairs, and the three of them entered. Stragen looked at the workmen’s smocks hanging on pegs near the door. ‘We’re going to resort to subterfuge, I see.’

‘It’s fairly standard practice,’ Sparhawk shrugged. ‘Lets get changed. I’d sort of like to get back to the palace before my wife sends out search parties.’

The smocks were of blue canvas, worn and patched and with a few artfully-placed smudges on them. There were woollen leggings as well and thick-soled workmen’s boots. The caps were baggy affairs, designed more to keep off weather than they were for appearance.

‘You’re going to have to leave that here,’ Sparhawk said, pointing at Stragen’s rapier. ‘It’s a little obvious.’ The big Pandion tucked a heavy dagger under his belt.

‘You know that there are people watching the gate of the inn, don’t you, Sparhawk?’ Talen said.

‘I hope they enjoy their evening. We aren’t going out through the gate, though.’ Sparhawk led them back down to the inn yard, crossed to a narrow door in a side wall and opened it. The warm air that boiled out through the doorway smelled of stale beer and unwashed bodies. The three of them went inside and closed the door behind them. They seemed to be in a small storeroom. The straw on the floor was mouldy.

‘Where are we?’ Talen whispered.

‘In a tavern,’ Sparhawk replied softly. ‘There’s going to be a fight in just a few minutes. We’ll slip out into the main room during the confusion.’ He went to the curtained doorway leading out into the tavern and twitched the curtain several times. ‘All right,’ he whispered. ‘We’ll mingle with the crowd during the fight, and after a while, we’ll leave. Behave as if you’re slightly drunk, but don’t over-do it.’

‘I’m impressed,’ Stragen said.

‘I’m more than impressed,’ Talen added. ‘Not even Platime knows that there’s more than one way out of that inn.’

The fight began not long after that. It was noisy, involving a great deal of shouting and pushing and finally a few blows. Two totally uninvolved and evidently innocent by-standers were knocked senseless during the course of the altercation. Sparhawk and his friends smoothly insinuated themselves into the crowd, and after ten minutes or so, they reeled out through the door.

‘A little unprofessional,’ Stragen sniffed. ‘A staged fight shouldn’t involve the spectators that way.’

‘It should when the spectators might be looking for something other than a few tankards of ale,’ Sparhawk disagreed. ‘The two who fell asleep weren’t regular patrons in the tavern. They might have been completely innocent, but then again, they might not. This way, we don’t have to worry about them trailing along behind us.’

‘There’s more to being a Pandion Knight than I thought,’ Talen noted. ‘I may like it after all.’

They walked through the foggy streets towards the rundown quarter near the west gate, a maze of interconnecting lanes and unpaved alleys. They entered one of those alleys and went through it to a flight of muddy stone stairs leading down. A thick-bodied man lounged against the stone wall beside the stairs. ‘You’re late,’ he said to Talen in a flat voice.

‘We had to make sure we weren’t being followed,’ the boy’ shrugged.

‘Go on down,’ the man told them. ‘Platime’s waiting.’

The cellar hadn’t changed. It was still smoky and dim, and it was filled with a babble of coarse voices coming from the thieves, whores and cutthroats who lived there.

‘I don’t know how Platime can stand this place,’ Stragen shuddered.

Platime sat enthroned on a large chair on the other side of a smoky fire burning in an open pit. He heaved himself to his feet when he saw Sparhawk. ‘Where have you been?’ he bellowed in a thunderous voice.

‘Making sure that we weren’t followed,’ Sparhawk replied.

The fat man grunted. ‘He’s back here,’ he said; leading them toward the rear of the cellar. ‘He’s very interested in his health at the moment, so I’m keeping him more or less out of sight.’ He pushed his way into a small, closet-like chamber where a man sat on a stool nursing a tankard of watery beer. The man was a small, nervous-looking fellow with thinning hair and a cringing manner. ‘This is Polk,’ Platime said. ‘He’s a sneak-thief. I sent him to Cardos to have a look around and to see what he could find out about some people we’re interested in. Tell him what you found out, Polk.’

‘Well sir, good masters,’ the weedy man began, ‘it tuk me a goodly while to git close to them fellers, I’ll tell the world, but I made myself useful, an’ they finally sort of assepted me. They was all sorts of rigimarole I had to go thee—swearin’ oaths an’ gettin’ blindfolded the first couple times they tuk me to their camp an all, but after a while, they kinda let down then guard, an’ I come an’ went putty much as I pleased. Like Platime prob’ly tole you, we figgered a’t first they wuz gist a buncha amachooms what didn’t know nothin’ about the way things is supposed to be did. We sees that sorta thing all the time, don’t we, Platime? Them’s the kind as gits thenselves caught an’ hung.’

‘And good riddance to them,’ Platime growled.

‘Well sir,’ Polk continued, ‘like I say, me’n Platime we figgered as how them fellers in the mountings was gist a buncha them amachoors I tole you about—fellers what’d took up cuttin’ th’oats fer fun an’ profit, don’t y’know. As she turns out, howsomever, they was more’n that. Then leaders was six er seven noblemen as was real disappointed ‘bout the way the big plans of the Primate Annias fell on then faces, an’ they was powerful unhappy ‘bout what the queen had writ down on the warrants she put out fer ‘em—nobles not bein’ accustomed to bein’ called them sorta names.

‘Well sir, t’ short it up some, these here noblemen all run off into the mountings ‘bout one jump ahead of the hangman, an’ they go t’ robbin’ travellers t’ make ends meet an’ spent the resta then time thinkin’ up nasty names t’ call the queen.’

‘Get to the point, Polk,’ Platime told him wearily.

‘Yessir, I wuz gist about to. Well now, it went on like that fer a spell, an’ then this here Krager feller, he come into camp, an’ some of them there nobles, they knowed him. He tole ‘em as how he knowed some furriners as’d help ‘em out iffn they’d raise enough fuss here ‘in Elenia t’ keep the queen an’ her folks from gittin’ too curious ‘bout some stuff what’s goin’ on off in Lamorkand. This here Krager feller, he sez as how this stuff in Lamorkand might just could be a way fer ‘em all t’ change the way then forchunes bin goin’ since ol’ Annias got hisself kilt. Well, sir, them dukes an’ earls an’ such got real innerested at that point, an’ they tole us all t’ go talk t’ the local peasants an’ t’ start runnin’ down the tax-collectors an’ t’ say as how it ain’t natural fer no country t’ be run by no woman an’ the like. We wuz’supposed t’ stir up them peasants an’ t’ git ‘em t’ talkin’ among themselves ,’bout how the people oughtta all git together an’ thaw the queen out an’ the like, an’ then them nobles, they caught a few tax collectors an’ hung ‘em an’ give the money back t’ the folks it’d been stole from in the first place, an’ them peasants, they wuz all happy as pigs in mud ‘bout that.’

Polk scratched at his head. ‘Well sir, I guess I’ve said m’piece now. At’s the way she stands in the mountings now. This here Krager feller, he’s got some money with ‘im, an’ he’s mighty free with it, so them nobles what’s bin on short rations is gettin’ downright fond of ‘im.’

‘Polk,’ Sparhawk told him, ‘you’re a treasure.’ he gave the man several coins, and then he and his friends left the cubicle.

‘What are we going to do about it, Sparhawk?’ Platime asked.

‘We’re going to take steps,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘How many of these ‘liberators’ are there?’

‘A hundred or so.

‘I’ll need a couple dozen of your men who know the country.’

Platime nodded. ‘Are you going to bring in the army?’

‘I don’t think so. I think a troop of Pandions might make a more lasting impression on people who think they have grievances against our queen, don’t you?’

‘Isn’t that just a bit extreme?’ Stragen asked him.

‘I want to make a statement, Stragen. I want everybody in Elenia to know just how much I disapprove of people who start plotting against my wife. I don’t want to have to do it again, so I’m going to do it right the first time.’

‘He didn’t actually talk like that, did he, Sparhawk?’ Ehlana asked incredulously.

‘That’s fairly close,’ Sparhawk told her. ‘Stragen’s got a very good ear for dialect.’

‘It’s almost hypnotic, isn’t it?’ she marvelled, ‘and it goes on and on and on.’ She suddenly grinned impishly. ‘Write down ‘happy as pigs in mud’, Lenda. I may want to find a way to work that into some official communication.’

‘As you wish, your Majesty.’ Lenda’s tone was neutral, but Sparhawk knew that the old courtier disapproved.

‘What are we going to do about this?’ the queen asked.

‘Sparhawk said that he was going to take steps, your Majesty,’ Talen told her. ‘You might not want to know too many details.’

‘Sparhawk and I don’t keep secrets from each other, Talen.’

‘I’m not talking about secrets, your Majesty,’ the boy replied innocently. ‘I’m just talking about boring unimportant little things you shouldn’t really waste your time on.’ He made it sound very plausible, but Ehlana looked more than a little suspicious.

‘Don’t embarrass me, Sparhawk’ she warned.

‘Of course not,’ he replied blandly.

The campaign was brief. Since Polk knew the precise location of the camp of the dissidents, and Platime’s men knew all the other hiding places in the surrounding mountains, there was no real place for the bandits to run, and they were certainly no match for the thirty black-armoured Pandions Sparhawk, Kalten and Ulath led against them. The surviving nobles were held for the queen’s justice and the rest of the outlaws were turned over to the local sheriff for disposition.

‘Well, my Lord of Bolton,’ Sparhawk said to a earl crouched before him on a log, with a blood-stained bandage around his head and his hands bound behind him. ‘Things didn’t turn out so well, did they?’

‘Curse you, Sparhawk.’ Bolton’ spat, squinting up against the afternoon’s brightness. ‘How did you find out where we were?’

‘My dear Bolton,’ Sparhawk laughed, ‘you didn’t really think you could hide from my wife, did you? She takes a very personal interest in her kingdom. She knows every tree, every town and village and all of the peasants. It’s even rumoured that she knows most of the deer by their first names.’

‘Why didn’t you come after us earlier then?’ Bolton sneered.

‘The queen was busy. She finally found the time to make some decisions about you and your friends. I don’t imagine you’ll care much for these decisions, old boy. What I’m really interested in is any information you might have about Krager. He and I haven’t seen each other for quite some time, and I find myself yearning for his company again.’

Bolton’s eyes grew frightened. ‘You won’t get anything from me, Sparhawk,’ he blustered.

‘How much would you care to wager on that?’ Kalten asked him. ‘You’d save yourself a great deal of unpleasantness if you told Sparhawk what he wants to know, and Krager’s not so loveable that you’d really want to go through that in order to protect him.’

‘Just talk, Bolton,’ Sparhawk insisted implacably.

‘I—I can’t!’ Bolton’s sneering bravado crumbled. His face turned deathly pale, and he began to tremble violently. ‘Sparhawk. I beg of you. It means my life if I say anything.’

‘Your life isn’t worth very much right now anyway,’ Ulath told him bluntly. ‘One way or another, you are going to talk.’

‘For God’s sake, Sparhawk! You don’t know what you’re asking!’

‘I’m not asking, Bolton.’ Sparhawk’s face was bleak.

Then, without any warning or reason, a deathly chill suddenly enveloped the woods, and the midafternoon sun darkened. Sparhawk glanced upward. The sky was very blue, but the sun appeared wan and sickly. Bolton screamed. An inky cloud seemed to spring from the surrounding trees, coalescing around the shrieking prisoner. Sparhawk jumped back with a startled oath, his hand going to his sword-hilt.

Bolton’s voice had risen to a screech, and there were horrible sounds coming from the impenetrable darkness surrounding him—sounds of breaking bones and tearing flesh. The shrieking broke off quite suddenly, but the sounds continued for several eternal-seeming minutes. Then, as quickly as it had come, the cloud vanished. Sparhawk recoiled in revulsion. His prisoner had been torn to pieces.

‘Good God!’ Kalten gasPed. ‘What happened?’

‘We both know, Kalten,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘We’ve seen it before. Don’t try to question any of the other prisoners. I’m almost positive they won’t be allowed to answer.’

There were five of them, Sparhawk, Ehlana, Kalten, Ulath and Stragen. They had gathered in the royal apartments, and their mood was bleak.

‘Was it the same cloud?’ Stragen asked intently.

‘There were some differences,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘It was more in the way it felt rather than anything I could really pin down.’

‘Why would the Troll-Gods be so interested in protecting Krager?’ Ehlana asked, her face puzzled.

‘I don’t think it’s Krager they’re protecting,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘I think it has something to do with what’s going on in Lamorkand.’ He slammed his fist down on the arm of his chair. ‘I wish Sephrenia were here!’ he burst out with a sudden oath. ‘All we’re doing is groping in the dark.’

‘Would you be opposed to logic at this point?’ Stragen asked him.

‘I wouldn’t even be opposed to astrology just now,’ Sparhawk replied sourly.

‘All right.’ The blond Thalesian thief rose to his feet and began to pace up and down, his eyes thoughtful. First of all, we know that somehow the Troll-Gods have got out of that box.’

‘Actually, you haven’t really proved that, Stragen,’ Ulath disagreed. ‘Not logically, anyway.’

Stragen stopped pacing. ‘He’s right, you know,’ he admitted. ‘We’ve been basing that conclusion on a guess. All we can say with any logical certainty is that we’ve encountered something that looks and feels like a manifestation of the Troll-Gods. Would you accept that, Sir Ulath?’

‘I suppose I could go that far, Milord Stragen.’

‘I’m so happy. Do we know of anything else that does the same sort of things?’

‘No,’ Ulath replied, ‘but that’s not really relevant. We don’t know about everything. There could be dozens of things we don’t know about that take the form of shadows or clouds, tear people all to pieces and give humans a chilly feeling when they’re around.’

‘I’m not sure that logic is really getting us anywhere,’ Stragen conceded.

‘There’s nothing wrong with your logic, Stragen,’ Ehlana told him. ‘Your major premise is faulty, that’s all.’

‘You too, your Majesty?’ Kalten groaned. ‘I thought there was at least one other person in the room who relied on common sense rather than all this tedious logic.’

‘All right then, Sir Kalten,’ she said tartly, ‘what does your common sense tell you?’

‘Well, first off, it tells me that you’re all going at the problem backwards. The question we should be asking is what makes Krager so special that something supernatural would go out of its way to protect him? Does it really matter what the supernatural thing is at the moment?’

‘He might have something there, you know?’ Ulath said. ‘Krager’s a cockroach basically. His only real reason for existing is to be stepped on.’

‘I’m not so sure,’ Ehlana disagreed. ‘Krager worked for Martel, and Martel worked for Annias.’

‘Actually, dear, it was the other way around,’ Sparhawk corrected her.

She waved that distinction aside. ‘Bolton and the others were all allied to Annias, and Krager used to carry messages between Annias and Martel. Bolton and his cohorts would almost certainly have known Krager. Polk’s story more or less confirms that. That’s what made Krager important in the first place.’ She paused, frowning. ‘But what made him important after the renegades were all in custody?’

‘Backtracking,’ Ulath grunted.

‘I beg your pardon?’ The queen looked baffled.

‘This whatever-it-is didn’t want us to be able to trace Krager back to his present employer.’

‘Oh, that’s obvious, Ulath,’ Kalten snorted. ‘His employer is Count Gerrich. Polk told Sparhawk that there was somebody in Lamorkand who wanted to keep us so busy here in Elenia that we wouldn’t have time to take any steps to put down all the turmoil over there. That has to be Gerrich.’

‘You’re just guessing, Kalten,’ Ulath said. ‘You could very well be right, but it’s still just a guess.’

‘Do you see what I mean about logic?’ Kalten demanded of them. ‘What do you want, Ulath? A signed confession from Gerrich himself?’

‘Do you have one handy? All I’m saying is that we ought to keep an open mind. I don’t think we should close any doors yet, that’s all.’

There was a firm knock on the door, and it opened immediately afterward. Mirtai looked in. ‘Bevier and Tynian are here,’ she announced.

‘They’re supposed to be in Render,’ Sparhawk said. ‘What are they doing here?’

‘Why don’t you ask them?’ Mirtai suggested pointedly. ‘They’re right out here in the corridor.’

The two knights entered the room. Sir Bevier was a slim, olive-skinned Arcian, and Sir Tynian a blond, burly Deiran. Both were in full armour.

‘How are things in Render?’ Kalten asked them.

‘Hot, dry, dusty, hysterical,’ Tynian replied. ‘Render never changes. You know that.’

Bevier dropped to one knee before Ehlana. Despite the best efforts of his friends, the young Cyrinic Knight was still painfully formal. ‘Your Majesty,’ he murmured respectfully.

‘Oh, do stand up, my dear Bevier,’ she smiled at him. ‘We’re friends, so there’s no need for that. Besides, you creak like a rusty iron-works when you kneel.’

‘Overtrained, perhaps, your Majesty,’ he admitted.

‘What are you two doing back here?’ Sparhawk asked them.

‘Carrying dispatches,’ Tynian replied. ‘Darrellon’s running things down there, and he wants the other preceptors kept abreast of things. We’re also supposed to go on to Chyrellos and brief the Archprelate.’

‘How’s the campaign going?’ Kalten asked them.

‘Badly,’ Tynian shrugged.’The Rendorish rebels aren’t really organised, so there aren’t any armies for us to meet. They hide amongst the population and come out at night to set fires and assassinate priests. Then they run back into their holes. We take reprisals the next day—burn vilages, slaughter herds of sheep and the like. None of it really proves anything.’

‘Do they have any kind of a leader as yet?’Sparhawk asked.

‘They’re still discussing that,’ Bevier said dryly. ‘The discussions are quite spirited. We usually find several dead candidates in the alleys every morning.’

‘Sarathi blundered,’ Tynian said. Bevier gasped. ‘I’m not trying to offend your religious sensibilities, my young friend,’ Tynian said, but it’s the truth. Most of the clergymen he sent to Render were much more interested in punishment than in reconciliation. We had a chance for real peace in Render, and it fell apart because Dolmant didn’t send somebody down there to keep a leash on the missionaries.’ Tynian set his helmet on a table and unbuckled his sword-belt. ‘I even saw one silly ass in a cassock tearing the veils off women in the street. After the crowd seized him, he tried to order me to protect him. That’s the kind of priests the church has been sending to Render.’

‘What did you do?’ Stragen asked him.

‘For some reason I couldn’t quite hear what he was saying,’ Tynian replied. ‘All the noise the crowd was making, more than likely.’

‘What did they do to him?’ Kalten grinned.

‘They hanged him. Quite a neat job, actually.’

‘You didn’t even go to his defence?’ Bevier exclaimed.

‘Our instructions were very explicit, Bevier. We were told to protect the clergy against unprovoked attacks. That idiot violated the modesty of about a dozen Rendorish women. That crowd had plenty of provocation. The silly ass had it coming. If that crowd hadn’t hanged him, I probably would have. That’s what Darrellon wants us to suggest to Sarathi. He thinks the church should pull all those fanatic missionaries out of Render until things quiet down. Then he suggests that we send in a new batch—a slightly less fervent one.’ The Alcione Knight laid his sword down beside his helmet and lowered himself into a chair. ‘What’s been happening here?’ he asked.

‘Why don’t the rest of you fill them in?’ Sparhawk suggested. ‘There’s someone I want to talk with for a few minutes.’

He turned and quietly went back into the royal apartment. The person he wanted to talk with was not some court functionary, but rather his own daughter. He found her playing with her kitten. After some thought, her Royal little Highness had decided to name the small animal ‘Mmrr’, a sound which, when she uttered it, sounded so much like the kitten’s purr that Sparhawk usually couldn’t tell for sure which of them was making it. Princess Danae had many gifts.

‘We need to talk,’ Sparhawk told her, closing the door behind him as he entered.

‘What is it now, Sparhawk?’ she asked.

‘Tynian and Bevier just arrived.’

‘Yes. I know.’

‘Are you playing with things again? Are you deliberately gathering all our friends here?’

‘Of course I am, father.’

‘Would you mind telling me why?’

‘There’s something we’re going to need to do before long. I thought I’d save some time by getting everybody here in advance.’

‘You’d probably better tell me what it is that we have to do.’

‘I’m not supposed to do that.’

‘You never pay any attention to any of the other rules.’

‘This is different, father. We’re absolutely not supposed to talk about the future. If you think about it for a moment, I’m sure you’ll see why. Ouch!’ Mmrr had bitten her finger. Danae spoke sharply with the kitten a series of little growls, a meow or two and concluding with a forgiving purr. The kitten managed to look slightly ashamed of itself and proceeded to lick the injured finger.

‘Please don’t talk in cat, Danae,’ Sparhawk said in a pained tone. ‘If some chambermaid hears you, it’ll take us both a month to explain.’

‘Nobody’s going to hear me, Sparhawk. You’ve got something else on your mind, haven’t you?’

‘I want to talk with Sephrenia. There are some things I don’t understand, and I need her help with them.’

‘I’ll help you, father.’

He shook his head. ‘Your explanations of things always leave me with more questions than I had when we started. Can you get in touch with Sephrenia for me?’

She looked around. ‘It probably wouldn’t be a good idea here in the palace, father,’ she told him. ‘It involves something that might be hard to explain if someone overheard us.’

‘You’re going to be in two places at the same time again?’

‘Well—sort of.’ She picked up her kitten. ‘Why don’t you find some excuse to take me out for a ride tomorrow morning? We’ll go out of the city and I can take care of things there. Tell mother that you want to give me a riding lesson.’

‘You don’t have a pony, Danae.’

She gave him an angelic smile. ‘My goodness,’ she said, ‘that sort of means that you’re going to have to give me one, doesn’t it?’ He gave her a long, steady look. ‘You were going to give me a pony eventually anyway, weren’t you, father?’ She gave it a moment’s thought. ‘A white one, Sparhawk,’ she added. ‘I definitely want a white one.’ Then she snuggled her kitten against her cheek, and they both started to purr.

Sparhawk and his daughter rode out of Cimmura not long after breakfast the following morning. The weather was blustery, and Mirtai had objected rather vociferously until Princess Danae told her not to be so fussy. For some reason, the word ‘fussy’ absolutely enraged the Tamul giantess. She stormed away, swearing in her own language. It had taken Sparhawk hours to find a white pony for his daughter, and he was quite convinced after he had that it was the only white one in the whole town. When Danae greeted the stubby little creature like an old friend, he began to have a number of suspicions.

Over the past couple of years, he and his daughter had painfully hammered out a list of the things she wasn’t supposed to do. The process had begun rather abruptly in the palace garden one summer afternoon when he had come around a box hedge to find a small swarm of fairies pollinating flowers under Danae’s supervision. Although she had probably been right when she had asserted that fairies were really much better at it than bees, he had firmly put his foot down. After a bit of thought this time, however, he decided not to make an issue of his daughter’s obvious connivance in obtaining a specific pony. He needed her help right now, and she might point out with a certain amount of justification that to forbid one form of what they had come to call ‘tampering’ while encouraging another was inconsistent.

‘Is this going to involve anything spectacular?’ he asked her when they were several miles out of town.

‘How do you mean, spectacular?’

‘You don’t have to fly or anything, do you?’

‘It’s awkward that way, but I can if you’d like.’

‘No, that’s all right, Danae. What I’m getting at is would you be doing anything that would startle travellers if we went out into this meadow a ways and you did whatever it is there?’

‘They won’t see a thing, father,’ she assured him. ‘I’ll race you to that tree out there.’ She didn’t even make a pretence of nudging her pony’s flanks, and despite Faran’s best efforts, the pony beat him to the tree by a good twenty yards. The big roan warhorse glowered suspiciously at the short-legged pony when Sparhawk reined him in.

‘You cheated,’ Sparhawk accused his daughter.

‘Only a little.’ She slid down from her pony and sat cross-legged under the tree. She lifted her small face and sang in a trilling, flute-like voice. Her song broke off, and for several moments she sat blank-faced and absolutely immobile. She did not even appear to be breathing, and Sparhawk had the chilling feeling that he was absolutely alone, although she clearly sat not two yards away from him.

‘What is it, Sparhawk?’ Danae’s lips moved, but it was Sephrenia’s voice that asked the question, and when Danae opened her eyes, they had changed. Danae’s eyes were very dark, Sephrenia’s were deep blue, almost lavender.

‘I’ve missed you, little mother,’ he told her kneeling and kissing the palms of his daughter’s hands.

‘You called me from half-way round the world to tell me that? I’m touched, but . . .’

‘It’s something a little more, Sephrenia. We’ve been seeing that shadow again—the cloud too.’

‘That’s impossible.’

‘I sort of thought so myself, but we keep seeing them all the same. It’s different, though. It feels different for one thing, and this time it’s not just Ehlana and I who see it. Stragen and Ulath saw it too.’

‘You’d better tell me exactly what’s been happening, Sparhawk.’

He went into greater detail about the shadow and then briefly described the incident in the mountains near Cardos. ‘Whatever this thing is,’ he concluded, ‘it seems very intent on keeping us from finding out what’s going on in Lamorkand.’

‘Is there some kind of trouble there?’

‘Count Gerrich is raising a rebellion. He seems to think that the crown might fit him. He’s even going so far as to claim that Drychtnath’s returned. That’s ridiculous, isn’t it?’

Her eyes grew distant. ‘Is this shadow you’ve been seeing exactly the same as the one you and Ehlana saw before?’ she asked.

‘It feels different somehow.’

‘Do you get that same sense that it has more than one consciousness in it?’

‘That hasn’t changed. It’s a small group, but it’s a group all the same, and the cloud that tore the Earl of Bolton to pieces was definitely the same. Did the Troll-Gods manage to escape from Bhelliom somehow?’

‘Let me think my way through it for a moment, Sparhawk,’ she replied. She considered it for a time. In a curious way she was impressing her own appearance on Danae’s face. ‘I think we may have a problem, dear one,’ she said finally.

‘I noticed that myself, little mother.’

‘Stop trying to be clever, Sparhawk. Do you remember the Dawn-men who came out of that cloud up in Pelosia?’

Sparhawk shuddered. ‘I’ve been making a special point of trying to forget that.’

‘Don’t discount the possibility that the wild stories about Drychtnath may have some basis in fact. The Troll-Gods can reach back in time and bring creatures and people forward to where we are now. Drychtnath may very well indeed have returned.’

Sparhawk groaned. ‘Then the Troll-Gods have managed to escape, haven’t they?’

‘I didn’t say that, Sparhawk. Just because the TrollGods did this once doesn’t mean that they’re the only ones who know how. For all I know, Aphrael could do it herself.’ She paused. ‘You could have asked her these questions, you know.’

‘Possibly, but I don’t think I could have asked her this one, because I don’t think she’d know the answer. She doesn’t seem to be able to grasp the concept of limitations for some reason.’

‘You’ve noticed,’ she said dryly.

‘Be nice. She’s my daughter, after all.’

‘She was my sister first, so I have a certain amount of seniority in the matter. What is it that she wouldn’t be able to answer?’

‘Could a Styric magician—or any other magician—be behind all this? Could we be dealing with a human?’

‘No, Sparhawk, I don’t think so. In forty thousand years there have only been two Styric magicians who were able to reach back into time, and they could only do it imperfectly. For all practical purposes what we’re talking about is beyond human capability.’

‘That’s what I wanted to find out for sure. We’re dealing with Gods then?’

‘I’m afraid so, Sparhawk, almost certainly.’

4

Preceptor Sparhawk: It is our hope that this finds you and your family in good health. A matter of some delicacy has arisen, and we find that your presence is required here in Chyrellos. You are therefore commanded by the Church to proceed forthwith to the Basilica and to present yourself before our throne to receive our further instruction. We know that as a true son of the Church you will not delay. We shall expect your attendance upon us within the week. Dolmant, Archprelate.

Sparhawk lowered the letter and looked around at the others.

‘He gets right to the point, doesn’t he?’ Kalten observed. ‘Of course Dolmant never was one to beat around the bush.’

Queen Ehlana gave a howl of absolute fury and began beating her fists on the council table and stamping her feet on the floor.

‘You’ll hurt your hands,’ Sparhawk cautioned.

‘How dare he?’ she exploded. ‘How dare he?’

‘A bit abrupt,’ perhaps,’ Stragen noted cautiously.

‘You will ignore this churlish command, Sparhawk!’ Ehlana ordered.

‘I can’t do that.’

‘You are my husband and my subject! If Dolmant wants to see you, he’ll ask my permission. This is outrageous!’

‘The Archprelate does in fact have the authority to summon the preceptor of one of the Militant Orders to Chyrellos, your Majesty,’ the Earl of Lenda diffidently told the fuming queen.

‘You’re wearing too many hats, Sparhawk,’ Tynian told his friend. ‘You should resign from a few of these exalted positions you hold.’

‘It’s that devastating personality of his,’ Kalten said to Ulath, ‘and all those unspeakable gifts. People just wither and die in his absence.’

‘I forbid it!’ Ehlana said flatly.

‘I have to obey him, Ehlana,’ Sparhawk explained. ‘I’m a Church Knight.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Very well then,’ she decided, ‘since Dolmant’s feeling so authoritarian, we’ll all obey his stupid command. We’ll go to Chyrellos and set up shop in the Basilica. I’ll let him know that I expect him to provide me with adequate facilities and an administrative staff—at his expense. He and I are going to have this out once and for all.’

‘This promises to be one of the high points in the history of the Church,’ Stragen observed.

‘I’ll make that pompous ass wish he’d never been born,’ Ehlana declared ominously.

Nothing Sparhawk might say could in any way change his wife’s mind. If the truth were to be known, however, he did not really try all that hard, because he could see her point. Dolmant was being high-handed. He tended at times to run roughshod over the kings of Eosia and so the clash of wills between the Archprelate and the Queen of Elenia was probably inevitable. The unfortunate thing was that they were genuinely fond of each other, and neither of them was opposing the other out of any petty vanity or pride. Dolmant was asserting the authority of the Church, and Ehlana that of the Elenian throne. They had become institutions instead of people. It was Sparhawk’s misfortune to be caught in the middle. He was absolutely certain that the arrogant tone of the Archprelate’s letter had not come from his friend but from some half-drowsing scribe absent-mindedly scribbling formula phrases. What Dolmant had most probably said was something on the order of, ‘Send a letter to Sparhawk and tell him I’d like to see him.’ That was not, however, what had arrived in Cimmura. What had arrived had set Ehlana’s teeth on edge, and she went out of her way to make the impending visit to Chyrellos as inconvenient for the Archprelate as she possibly could.

Her first step was to depopulate the palace. Everybody had to join her entourage. The queen needed ladies-inwaiting. The ladies-in-waiting needed maids. They all needed grooms and footmen. Lenda and Platime, who were to remain in Cimmura to maintain the government, were left almost unassisted.

‘Looks almost like an army mobilising, doesn’t it?’ Kalten said gaily as they came down the palace stairs on the morning of their departure.

‘Let’s hope the Archprelate doesn’t misunderstand,’ Ulath murmured. ‘He wouldn’t really believe your wife was planning to lay siege to the Basilica, would he, Sparhawk?’

Once they left Cimmura, the gaily-dressed Elenian Court stretched out for miles under a blue spring sky. Had it not been for the steely glint in the queen’s eyes, this might have been no more than one of those ‘outings’ so loved by idle courtiers. Ehlana had ‘suggested’ that Sparhawk, as acting preceptor of the Pandion Order, should also be suitably accompanied. They had haggled about the number of Pandions he should take with him to Chyrellos. He had held out at first for Kalten, Berit and perhaps one or two others, while the queen had been more in favour of bringing along the entire order. They had finally agreed upon a score of black-armoured knights.

It was impossible to make any kind of time with so large an entourage. They seemed almost to creep across the face of Elenia, plodding easterly to Lenda and then southeasterly toward Demos and Chyrellos. The peasantry took the occasion of their passing as an excuse for a holiday, and the road was usually lined with crowds of country people who had come out to gawk.

‘It’s a good thing we don’t do this very often,’ Sparhawk observed to his wife not long after they had passed the city of Lenda.

‘I rather enjoy getting out, Sparhawk.’ The queen and princess Danae were riding in an ornate carriage drawn by six white horses.

‘I’m sure you do, but this is the planting season. The peasants should be in the fields. Too many of these royal excursions could cause a famine.’

‘You really don’t approve of what I’m doing, do you, Sparhawk?’

‘I understand why you’re doing it, Ehlana, and you’re probably right. Dolmant needs to be reminded that his authority isn’t absolute, but I think this particular approach is just a little frivolous.’

‘Of course it’s frivolous, Sparhawk,’ she admitted quite calmly. ‘That’s the whole point. In spite of all the evidence he’s had to the contrary, Dolmant still thinks I’m a silly little girl. I’m going to rub his nose in ‘silly’ for a while. Then, when he’s good and tired of it, I’ll take him aside and suggest that it would be much easier on him if he took me seriously. That should get his attention. Then we’ll be able to get down to business.’

‘Everything you do is politically motivated, isn’t it?’

‘Well not quite everything, Sparhawk.’

They stopped briefly in Demos, and Khalad and Talen took the royal couple, Kalten, Danae and Mirtai to visit their mothers. Aslade and Elys mothered everyone impartially. Sparhawk strongly suspected that this was one of the main reasons his wife quite often found excuses to travel to Demos. Her childhood had been bleak and motherless, and anytime she felt insecure or uncertain, some reason seemed to come up why her presence in Demos was absolutely necessary.

Aslade’s kitchen was warm, and its walls were hung with burnished copper pots. It was a homey sort of place that seemed to answer some deep need in the Queen of Elenia. The smells alone were enough to banish most of the cares of all who entered it. Elys, Talen’s mother, was a radiant blonde woman, and Aslade was a kind of monument to motherhood. They adored each other. Aslade had been Kurik’s wife, and Elys his mistress, but there appeared to be no jealousy between them. They were practical women, and they both realised that jealousy was a useless kind of thing that never made anyone feel good.

Sparhawk and Kalten were immediately banished from the kitchen, Khalad and Talen were sent to mend a fence, and the Queen of Elenia and her Tamul slave continued their intermittent education in the art of cooking while Aslade and Elys mothered Danae.

‘I can’t remember the last time I saw a queen kneading bread-dough,’ Kalten grinned as he and Sparhawk strolled around the familiar dooryard.

‘I think she’s making pie-crusts,’ Sparhawk corrected him.

‘Dough is dough, Sparhawk.’

‘Remind me never to ask you to bake me a pie.’

‘No danger there,’ Kalten laughed. ‘Mirtai looks very natural, though. She’s had lots of practice cutting things—and people—up. I just wish she wouldn’t use her own daggers. You can never really be sure where they’ve been.’

‘She always cleans them after she stabs somebody.’

‘It’s the idea of it, Sparhawk,’ Kalten shuddered. ‘The thought of it makes my blood run cold.’

‘Don’t think about it then.’

‘You’re going to be late, you know,’ Kalten reminded his friend. ‘Dolmant only gave you a week to get to Chyrellos. ‘

‘It couldn’t be helped.’

‘Do you want me to ride on ahead and let him know you’re coming?’

‘And spoil the surprise my wife has planned for him? Don’t be silly.’

They were no more than a league southeast of Demos the next morning when the attack came. A hundred men, peculiarly dressed with strange weapons, burst over the top of a low knoll bellowing war-cries. They thundered forward on foot for the most part, the ones on horseback appeared to be their leaders. The courtiers fled squealing in terror as Sparhawk barked commands to his Pandions. The twenty black-armoured knights formed up around the queen’s carriage and easily repelled the first assault. Men on foot are not really a match for mounted knights.

‘What’s that language?’ Kalten shouted.

‘Old Lamork, I think,’ Ulath replied. ‘It’s a lot like Old Thalesian.’

‘Sparhawk!’ Mirtai barked. ‘Don’t give them time to regroup!’ She pointed her blood-smeared sword at the attackers milling around at the top of the knoll.

‘She’s got a point,’ Tynian agreed.

Sparhawk quickly assessed the situation, deployed some of his knights to protect Ehlana and formed up the remainder of his force. ‘Charge!’ he roared.

It is the lance that makes the armoured knight so devastating against foot-troops. The man on foot has no defence against it, and he cannot even flee. A third of the attackers had fallen in the initial assault, and a score fell victim to the lances during Sparhawk’s charge. The knights then fell to work with swords and axes.

Bevier’s lochaber axe was particularly devastating, and he left wide tracks of the dead and dying through the tightly packed ranks of the now-confused attackers. It was Mirtai, however, who stunned them all with a shocking display of sheer ferocity. Her sword was lighter than the broadswords of the Church Knights, and she wielded it with almost the delicacy of Stragen’s rapier. She seldom thrust at an opponent’s body, but concentrated instead on his face and throat, and when necessary, his legs. Her thrusts were short and tightly controlled, and her slashes were aimed not at muscles, but rather at tendons. She crippled more than she killed, and the shrieks and groans of her victims raised a fearful din on that bloody field. The standard tactic of armoured knights when deployed against foot-troops was to charge with their lances first and then to use the weight of their horses to crush their unmounted opponents together so tightly that they became tangled with their comrades. Once they had been rendered more or less helpless, slaughtering them was easy work.

‘Ulath!’ Sparhawk shouted. ‘Tell them to throw down their weapons!’

‘I’ll try,’ Ulath shouted back. Then he roared something incomprehensible at the milling foot-troops. A mounted man wearing a grotesquely decorated helmet bellowed something in reply.

‘That one with the wings on his helmet is the leader, Sparhawk,’ Ulath said, pointing with his bloody axe.

‘What did he say?’ Kalten demanded.

‘He made some uncomplimentary remarks about my mother. Excuse me for a moment, gentlemen. I really ought to do something about that.’ He wheeled his horse and approached the man with the winged helmet, who was also armed with a war axe.

Sparhawk had never seen an axe-fight before, and he was somewhat surprised to note that there was far more finesse involved than he had imagined. Sheer strength accounted for much, of course, but sudden changes of the direction of swings implied a level of sophistication Sparhawk had not expected. Both men wore heavy round shields, and the defences they raised with them were more braced than might have been the case had they been attacking each other with swords.

Ulath stood up in his stirrups and raised his axe high over his head. The warrior in the winged helmet raised his shield to protect his head, but the huge Thalesian swung his arm back, rolled his shoulder and delivered an underhand blow instead, catching his opponent just under the ribs. The man who seemed to be the leader of the attackers doubled over sharply, clutching at his stomach, and then he fell from his saddle. A vast groan rolled through the ranks of the attackers still on their feet, and then, like a mist caught by a sudden breeze, they wavered and vanished.

‘Where did they go?’ Berit shouted, looking around with alarm. But no one could answer. Where there had been two score foot-troops before, there was now nothing, and a sudden silence fell over the field as the shrieking wounded also vanished. Only the dead remained, and even they were strangely altered. The bodies were peculiarly desiccated—dry, shrunken and withered. The blood which had covered their limbs was no longer bright red, but black, dry and crusty.

‘What kind of spell could do that, Sparhawk?’ Tynian demanded.

‘I have no idea,’ Sparhawk replied in some bafflement. ‘Someone’s playing, and I don’t think I like the game.’

‘Bronze!’ Bevier exclaimed from nearby. The young Cyrinic Knight had dismounted and was examining the armour of one of the shrivelled dead. ‘They’re wearing bronze armour, Sparhawk. Their weapons and helmets are steel, but this mail shirt’s made out of bronze.’

‘What’s going on here?’ Kalten demanded.

‘Berit,’ Sparhawk said, ‘ride back to the mother house at Demos. Gather up every brother who can still wear armour. I want them here before noon.’

‘Right,’ Berit replied crisply. He wheeled his horse and galloped back the way they had come.

Sparhawk looked around quickly. ‘Up there,’ he said, pointing at a steep hill on the other side of the road. ‘Let’s gather up this crowd and get them to the top of that hill. Put the courtiers and grooms and footmen to work. I want ditches up there, and I want to see a forest of sharpened stakes sprouting on the sides of that hill. I don’t know where those men in bronze armour went, but I want to be ready in case they come back.’

‘You can’t order me around like that!’ an overdressed courtier exclaimed to Khalad in an outraged tone of voice. ‘Don’t you know who I am?’

‘Of course I do,’ Sparhawk’s young squire replied in an ominous tone of voice. ‘You’re the man who’s going to pick up that shovel and start digging. Or if you prefer, you can be the man who’s crawling around on his hands and knees picking up his teeth.’ Khalad showed the courtier his fist. The courtier could hardly miss seeing it, since it was about an inch in front of his nose. ‘It’s almost like old times, isn’t it?’ Kalten laughed.

‘Khalad sounds exactly like Kurik.’ Sparhawk sighed.

‘Yes,’ he agreed soberly, ‘I think he’s going to work out just fine. Get the others, Kalten. We need to talk.’

They gathered beside Ehlana’s carriage. The queen was a bit pale, and she was holding her daughter in her arms.

‘All right,’ Sparhawk said. ‘Who were they?’

‘Lamorks, evidently,’ Ulath said. ‘I doubt that anybody else would be able to speak Old Lamork.’

‘But why would they be speaking in that language?’ Tynian asked. ‘Nobody’s spoken in Old Lamork for a thousand years.’

‘And nobody’s worn bronze armour for even longer,’ Bevier added.

‘Somebody’s using a spell I’ve never even heard of before,’ Sparhawk said. ‘What are we dealing with here?’

‘Isn’t that obvious!’ Stragen said. ‘Somebody’s reaching back into the past—the same way the Troll-Gods did in Pelosia. We’ve got a powerful magician of some kind out there who’s playing games.’

‘It fits,’ Ulath grunted. ‘They were speaking an antique language, they had antique weapons and equipment, they weren’t familiar with modern tactics, and somebody obviously used magic to send them back to wherever they came from—except for the dead ones.’

‘There’s something else too,’ Bevier added thoughtfully. ‘They were Lamorks, and part of the upheaval in Lamorkand right now revolves around the stories that Drychhtnath’s returned. This attack makes it appear that those stories aren’t just rumours and wild concoctions dreamed up late at night in some ale-house. Could Count Gerrich be getting some help from a Styric magician? If Drychnath himself has actually been brought into the present, nothing’s going to pacify the Lamorks. They go up in flames at just the mention of his name.’

‘That’s all very interesting, gentlemen,’ Ehlana told them, ‘but this wasn’t just a random attack. We’re a goodly distance from Lamorkand, so these antiques of yours went to a great deal of trouble to attack us specifically. The real question here is why?’

‘We’ll work on finding an answer for you, your Majesty,’ Tynian promised her.

Berit returned shortly before noon with three hundred armoured Pandions, and the rest of the journey to Chyrellos had some of the air of a military expedition.

Their arrival in the Holy City and their stately march through the streets to the Basilica was very much like a parade, and it caused quite a stir. The Archprelate himself came out onto a second-floor balcony to watch their arrival in the square before the Basilica. Even from this distance, Sparhawk could clearly see that Dolmant’s nostrils were white and his jaw was clenched. Ehlana’s expression was regal and coolly defiant.

Sparhawk lifted his daughter down from the carriage. ‘Don’t wander off,’ he murmured into her small ear. ‘There’s something I need to talk with you about.’

‘Later,’ she whispered back to him. ‘I’ll have to make peace between Dolmant and mother first.’

‘That’ll be a neat trick.’

‘Watch, Sparhawk—and learn.’

The Archprelate’s greeting was chilly just this side of frigid—and he made it abundantly clear that he was just dying to have a nice long chat with the Queen of Elenia. He sent for his first secretary, the Patriarch Emban, and rather airily dropped the problem of making arrangements for Ehlana’s entourage into the fat churchman’s lap. Emban scowled and waddled away muttering to himself.

Then Dolmant invited the queen and her prince consort into a private audience chamber. Mirtai stationed herself outside the door. ‘No hitting,’ she told Dolmant and Ehlana as they entered. The small audience chamber was draped and carpeted in blue, and there were a table and chairs in the centre.

‘Strange woman that one,’ Dolmant murmured looking back over his shoulder at Mirtai. He took his seat and looked at Ehlana with a firm expression. ‘Let’s get down to business. Would you like to explain this, Queen Ehlana?’

‘Of course, Archprelate Dolmant.’ She pushed his letter across the table to him. ‘Just as soon as you explain this.’ There was steel in her voice.

He picked up the letter and glanced at it. ‘It seems fairly straightforward. Which part of it didn’t you understand?’

Things went downhill from there rather rapidly. Ehlana and Dolmant were on the verge of severing all diplomatic ties when the Royal Princess Danae entered the room dragging the Royal Toy Rollo by one hind leg. She gravely crossed the room, climbed up into the Archprelate’s lap and kissed him. Sparhawk had received quite a few of the kind of kisses his daughter bestowed when she wanted something, and he was well-aware of just how devastatingly potent they were. Dolmant didn’t really have much of a chance after that.

‘I should have read through the letter before I had it dispatched, I suppose,’ he admitted grudgingly. ‘Scribes sometimes overstate things.’

‘Maybe I over-reacted,’ Ehlana conceded. ‘I had a great deal on my mind.’

Dolmant’s excuse had the tone of a peace-offering.

‘I was irritable on the day when your letter arrived,’ Ehlana countered.

Sparhawk leaned back. The tension in the room had noticeably relaxed. Dolmant had changed since his elevation to the Archprelacy. Always before, he had been a self-effacing man, so self-effacing in fact that his colleagues in the Hierocracy had not even considered him for the highest post in the Church until Ehlana had pointed out his many sterling qualities to them. The irony of that fact was not lost on Sparhawk. Now, however, Dolmant seemed to speak with two voices. The one was the familiar, almost colloquial voice of their old friend. The other was the voice of the Archprelate, authoritarian and severe. The institution of his office seemed to be gradually annexing their old friend. Sparhawk sighed. It was probably inevitable, but he regretted it all the same.

Ehlana and the Archprelate continued to apologise and offer excuses to each other. After a while they agreed to respect one another, and they concluded their conference by agreeing to pay closer attention to little courtesies in the future. Princess Danae, still seated in the Archprelate’s lap, winked at Sparhawk. There were quite a number of political and theological implications in what she had just done, but Sparhawk didn’t really want to think about those.

The reason for the peremptory summons which had nearly led to a private war between Ehlana and Dolmant had been the arrival of a high-ranking emissary from the Tamul Empire on the Daresian continent, that vast land-mass lying to the east of Zemoch. Formal diplomatic relations between the Elene Kingdoms of Eosia and the Tamul Empire of Daresia did not exist. The Church, however, routinely dispatched emissaries with ambassadorial rank to the imperial capital at Matherion, in some measure because the three western-most kingdoms of the empire were occupied by Elenes, and their religion differed only slightly from that of the Eosian Church. The emissary was a Tamul, a man of the same race as Mirtai, although she would have made at least two of him. His skin was the same golden bronze, his black hair touched with grey and his dark eyes were uptilted at the corners.

‘He’s very good,’ Dolmant quietly cautioned them as they sat in one of the audience chambers while Emban and the emissary exchanged pleasantries near the door. ‘In some ways he’s even better than Emban. Be just a little careful of what you say around him. Tamuls are quite sensitive to the nuances of language.’

Emban escorted the silk-robed emissary to the place where they all sat. ‘Your Majesty, I have the honour to present his Excellency, Ambassador Oscagne, representative of the imperial court at Matherion,’ the little fat man said, bowing to Ehlana.

‘I swoon in your Majesty’s divine presence,’ the ambassador proclaimed with a florid bow.

‘You don’t really, do you, your Excellency?’ she asked him with a little smile.

‘Well, not really, of course,’ he admitted with absolute aplomb. ‘I thought it might be polite to say it, though. Did it seem unduly extravagant? I am unversed in the usages of your culture.’

‘You’ll do just fine, your Excellency,’ she laughed.

‘I must say, however, with your Majesty’s permission, that you’re a devilishly attractive young lady. I’ve known a few queens in my time, and the customary compliments usually cost one a certain amount of wrestling with one’s conscience.’ Ambassador Oscagne spoke flawless Elenic.

‘May I present my husband, Prince Sparhawk?’ Ehlana suggested.

‘The legendary Sir Sparhawk? Most assuredly, dear lady. I’ve traveled half-round the world to make his acquaintance. Well met, Sir Sparhawk.’ Oscagne bowed.

‘Your Excellency,’ Sparhawk replied, also bowing.

Ehlana then introduced the others, and the ongoing discharge of diplomatic pleasantries continued for the better part of an hour. Oscagne and Mirtai spoke at some length in the Tamul tongue, a language which Sparhawk found quite musical.

‘Have we concluded all the necessary genuflections in courtesy’s direction?’ the ambassador asked at last. ‘Cultures vary, of course, but in Tamuli three-quarters of an hour is the customary amount of time one is expected to waste on polite trivialities.’

‘That seems about right to me too,’ Stragen grinned. ‘If we overdo our homage to courtesy, she becomes a bit conceited and expects more and more obeisance every time.’

‘Well said, Milord Stragen,’ Oscagne approved. ‘The reason for my visit is fairly simple, my friends. I’m in trouble.’ He looked around. ‘I pause for the customary gasps of surprise while you try to adjust your thinking to accept the notion that anyone could possibly find any fault in so witty and charming a fellow as I.’

‘I think I’m going to like him,’ Stragen murmured.

‘You would,’ Ulath grunted. The ambassador’s flowery speech was contagious.

‘I exaggerated slightly for effect,’ Oscagne admitted. ‘I’m not really in all that much trouble. It’s just that his Imperial Majesty has sent me to Chyrellos to appeal for aid, and I’m supposed to couch the request in such a way that it won’t humiliate him.’

Emban’s eyes were very, very bright. He was in his natural element here. ‘I think the way we’ll want to proceed here is to just lay the problem out on the table for our friends in bold flat terms,’ he suggested, ‘and then they can concentrate on the real issue of avoiding embarrassment to the imperial government. They’re all unspeakably clever. I’m sure that if they put their heads together, they’ll be able to come up with something.’

Dolmant sighed. ‘Was there no one else you could have selected for my job, Ehlana?’ he asked plaintively.

Oscagne gave the two of them a questioning look. ‘It’s a long story, your Excellency,’ Emban told him. ‘I’ll tell you all about it someday when neither of us has anything better to do. Tell them what it is in Tamuli that’s so serious that his Imperial Majesty had to send you here to look for help.’

‘Promise not to laugh?’ Oscagne said to Ehlana.

‘I’ll do my best to stifle my guffaws,’ she promised.

‘We’ve got a bit of civil unrest in Tamuli,’ Oscagne told them. They all waited. ‘That’s it,’ Oscagne confessed ruefully. ‘Of course I’m quoting the emperor verbatim—at his instruction. You’d almost have to know our emperor to understand. He’d sooner die than overstate anything. He once referred to a hurricane as a ‘little breeze’ and the loss of half his fleet as a minor inconvenience.’

‘Very well, your Excellency,’ Ehlana said. ‘Now we know how your emperor would characterize the problem. What words would you use to describe it?’

‘Well,’ Oscagne said, ‘since your Majesty is so kind as to ask, ‘catastrophic’ does sort of leap to mind. We might consider ‘insoluble’, ‘cataclysmic’, ‘overwhelming’ little things like that. I really think you should give some consideration to his Majesty’s request, my friends, because we have some fairly strong evidence that what’s happening on the Daresian continent may soon spread to Eosia as well, and if it does, it’s probably going to mean the end of civilisation as we know it. I’m not entirely positive how you Elenes feel about that sort of thing, but we Tamuls are more or less convinced that some effort ought to be made to fend it off. It sets such a bad precedent when you start letting the world come to an end every week or so. It seems to erode the confidence people have in their governments for some reason.’

5

Ambassador Oscagne leaned back in his chair. ‘Where to begin?’ he pondered. ‘When one looks at the incidents individually, they almost appear trivial. It’s the cumulative effect that’s brought the empire to the brink of collapse.’

‘We can understand that sort of thing, your Excellency,’ Emban assured him. ‘The Church has been on the brink of collapse for centuries now. Our Holy Mother reels from crisis to crisis like a drunken sailor.’

‘Emban,’ Dolmant chided gently.

‘Sorry,’ the fat little churchman apologised.

Oscagne was smiling. ‘Sometimes it seems that way though, doesn’t it, your Grace,’ he said to Emban. ‘I’d imagine that the government of the Church is not really all that much different from the government of the empire. Bureaucrats need crisis in order to survive. If there isn’t a crisis of some kind, someone might decide that a number of positions could be eliminated.’

‘I’ve noticed the same sort of thing myself,’ Emban agreed.

‘I assure you, however, that what we have in Tamuli is not some absurd little flap generated for the purposes of making someone’s position secure. I’m not exaggerating in the slightest when I say that the empire’s on the brink of collapse.’ His bronze face became thoughtful. ‘We are not one homogeneous people as you here in Eosia are,’ he began. ‘There are five races on the Daresian continent. We Tamuls live to the east, there are Elenes in the west, Styrics around Sarsos, the Valesians on their island and the Cynesgans in the centre. It’s probably not natural for so many different kinds of people to all be gathered under one roof. Our cultures are different, our religions are different, and each race is sublimely convinced that it’s the crown of the universe.’ He sighed. ‘We’d probably have been better off if we’d remained separate.’

‘But, at some time in the past someone grew ambitious?’ Tynian surmised.

‘Far from it, Sir Knight,’ Oscagne replied. ‘You could almost say that we Tamuls blundered into empire.’ He looked at Mirtai, who sat quietly with Danae in her lap. ‘And that’s the reason,’ he said, pointing at the giantess.

‘It wasn’t my fault, Oscagne,’ she protested.

‘I wasn’t blaming you personally, Atana,’ he smiled. ‘it’s your people.’

She smiled. ‘I haven’t heard that term since I was a child. No one’s ever called me ‘Atana’ before.’

‘What’s it mean?’ Talen asked her curiously.

‘Warrior,’ she shrugged.

‘Warrioress, actually,’ Oscagne corrected. He frowned. ‘I don’t want to be offensive, but your Elene tongue is limited in its ability to convey subtleties.’ He looked at Ehlana. ‘Has your Majesty noticed that your slave is not exactly like other women?’ he asked her.

‘She’s my friend,’ Ehlana objected,’not my slave.’

‘Don’t be ignorant, Ehlana,’ Mirtai told her crisply. ‘Of course I’m a slave. I’m supposed to be. Go on with your story, Oscagne. I’ll explain it to them later.’

‘Do you really think they’ll understand?’

‘No. But I’ll explain it anyway.’

‘And there, revered Archprelate,’ Oscagne said to Dolmant, ‘there lies the key to the empire. The Atans placed themselves in thrall to us some fifteen hundred years ago to prevent their homicidal instincts from obliterating their entire race. As a result, we Tamuls have the finest army in the world—even though we’re basically a non-violent people. We tended to win those incidental little arguments with other nations which crop up from time to time and are usually settled by negotiation. In our view, our neighbours are like children, hopelessly incapable of managing their own affairs. The empire came into being largely in the interests of good order.’ He looked around at the Church Knights. ‘Once again, I’m not trying to be offensive, but war is probably the stupidest of human .activities. There are much more efficient ways to persuade people to change their minds.’

‘Such as the threat to unleash the Atans?’ Emban suggested slyly.

‘That does work rather well, your Grace,’ Oscagne admitted. ‘The presence of the Atans has usually been enough in the past to keep political discussion from becoming too spirited. Atans make excellent policemen. He sighed. ‘You noted that slight qualification, I’m sure. I said, ‘in the past.’ Unfortunately, that doesn’t hold true any more. An empire comprised of disparate peoples must always expect these little outbreaks of nationalism and racial discord. It’s the nature of the insignificant to try to find some way to assert their own importance. It’s pathetic, but racism is generally the last refuge of the unimportant. These outbreaks of insignificance aren’t normally too widespread, but suddenly all of Tamuli is in the throes of an epidemic of them. Everyone’s sewing flags and singing national anthems and labouring over well-honed insults to be directed at ‘the yellow dogs’. That’s us, of course.’ He held out his hand and looked at it critically. ‘Our skins aren’t really yellow, you know. They’re more . . .’ He pondered it.

‘Beige?’ Stragen suggested.

‘That’s not too flattering either, Milord Stragen.’ Oscagne smiled. ‘Oh, well. Perhaps the emperor will appoint a special commission to define our skin tone once and for all.’ He shrugged.

‘At any rate, incidental outbreaks of nationalism and racial bigotry would be no real problem for the Atans, even if they occurred in every town in the empire. It’s the unnatural incidents that cause us all this concern.’

‘I thought there might be more,’ Ulath murmured.

‘At first, these demonstrations of magic were directed at the people themselves,’ Oscagne went on. ‘Every culture has its mythic hero—some towering personality who unified the people, gave them national purpose and defined their character. The modern world is complex and confusing, and the simple folk yearn for the simplicity of the age of heroes when national goals could be stated simply and everyone knew precisely who he was. Someone in Tamuli is resurrecting the heroes of antiquity.’

Sparhawk felt a sudden chill. ‘Giants?’ he asked.

‘Well.’ Oscagne considered it. ‘Perhaps that is the proper term at that. The passage of the centuries blurs and distorts, and our cultural heroes tend to become larger than life. I suppose that when we think of them, we do think of giants. That’s a very acute perception, Sir Sparhawk.’

‘I can’t actually take credit for it, your Excellency. The same sort of thing’s been happening here.’

Dolmant looked at him sharply. ‘I’ll explain later, Sarathi. Please go on, Ambassador Oscagne. You said that whoever’s stirring things up in Tamuli started out by raising national heroes. That implies that it’s gone further.’

‘Oh, yes indeed, Sir Sparhawk. Much, much further. Every culture has its hobgoblins as well as its heroes. It’s the hobgoblins we’ve been encountering—monsters, afreets, werewolves, vampires—all those things adults use to frighten children into good behaviour. Our Atans can’t cope with that sort of thing. They’re trained to deal with men, not with all the horors the creative genius of aeons has put together. That’s our problem. We have nine different cultures in Tamuli, and suddenly each one of them has taken to pursuing its traditional historic goals. When we send in our Atans to restore order and to re-assert imperial authority, the horors rise up out of the ground to confront them. We can’t deal with it. The empire’s disintegrating, falling back into its component parts. His Imperial Majesty’s government hopes that your Church can recognise a certain community of interest here. If Tamuli collapses back into nine warring kingdoms, the resulting chaos is almost certain to have its impact here in Eosia as well. It’s the magic that has us so concerned. We can deal with ordinary insurrection, but we’re unequipped to deal with a continent-wide conspiracy that routinely utilises magic against us. The Styrics at Sarsos are baffled. Everything they try is countered almost before they can set it in motion. We’ve heard stories about what happened in the City of Zemoch, and it is to you personally that I must appeal, Sir Sparhawk. Zalasta of Sarsos is the pre-eminent magician in all of Styricum, and he assures us that you are the only man in all the world with enough power to deal with the situation.’

‘Zalasta may have an exaggerated idea of my abilities,’ Sparhawk said. Actually, your Excellency, I was only a very small part of what happened at Zemoch. When you get right down to it, I was hardly more than a channel for power I couldn’t even begin to describe. I was the instrument of something else.’

‘Be that as it may, you’re still our only hope. Someone is quite obviously conspiring to overthrow the empire. We must identify that someone. Unless we can get to the source of all of this and neutralise it, the empire will collapse. Will you help us, Sir Sparhawk?’

‘That decision’s not mine to make, your Excellency. You must appeal to my queen and to Sarathi here. If they command me, I’ll go to Tamuli. If they forbid it, I won’t.’

‘I’ll direct my enormous powers of persuasion at them, then,’ Oscagne smiled. ‘But even assuming that I’m successful—and there’s little doubt that I shall be we’re still faced with an almost equally serious problem. We must protect his Imperial Majesty’s dignity at all costs. An appeal from one government to another is one thing, but an appeal from His Majesty’s government to a private citizen on another continent is quite another. That is the problem which must be addressed.’

‘I don’t see that we have any choice, Sarathi,’ Emban was saying gravely. It was late evening. Ambassador Oscagne had retired for the night, and the rest of them, along with Patriarch Ortzel of Kadach in Lamorkand, had gathered to give his request serious consideration. ‘We may not entirely approve of some of the policies of the Tamul Empire, but its stability is in our vital interest just now. We’re fully committed to our campaign in Render. If Tamuli flies apart, we’ll have to pull most of our armies—and the Church Knights—out of Render to protect our interests in Zemoch. Zemoch’s not much of a place, I’ll grant you, but the strategic importance of its mountains can’t be overstated. We’ve had a hostile force in those mountains for the past two thousand years, and that fact has occupied the full attention of our Holy Mother. If we allow some other hostile people to replace the Zemochs, everything Sparhawk achieved in Otha’s capital is lost. We’ll go right back to where we were six years ago. We’ll have to abandon Render again and start mobilising to meet a new threat from the east.’

‘You’re stating the obvious, Emban,’ Dolmant told him.

‘I know, but sometimes it helps to lay everything out so that we can all look at it.’

‘Sparhawk,’ Dolmant said then, ‘if I were to order you to Matherion but your wife ordered you to stay home, what would you do?’

‘I’d probably have to go into a monastery to pray for guidance. For the next several years.’

‘Our Holy Mother Church is overwhelmed by your piety, Sir Sparhawk.’

‘I do what I can to please her, Sarathi. I am her true knight, after all.’

Dolmant sighed. ‘Then it all boils down to some sort of accommodation between Ehlana and me, doesn’t it?’

‘Such wisdom can only have come from God,’ Sparhawk observed to his companions.

‘Do you mind?’ Dolmant said tartly. Then he looked at the Queen of Elenia with a certain resignation. ‘Name your price, your Majesty.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Let’s not tiptoe around each other, Ehlana. Your champion’s put my back to the wall.’

‘I know,’ she replied, ‘and I’m so impressed with him that I can barely stand it. We’ll have to discuss this in private, revered Archprelate. We wouldn’t want Sir Sparhawk to fully realise his true value, now would we? He might begin to get the idea that we ought to pay him what he’s actually worth.’

‘I hate this,’ Dolmant said to no one in particular.

‘I think we might want to touch briefly on something else,’ Stragen suggested. ‘The Tamul Ambassador’s story had a certain familiar ring to it—or was I the only one who noticed that? We’ve got a situation going on in Lamorkand that’s amazingly similar to what’s happening in Tamuli. The Lamorks are all blithely convinced that Drychtnath’s returned, and that’s almost identical to the situation Oscagne described. Then, on our way here from Cimmura, we were set upon by a group of Lamorks who could only have come from antiquity. Their weapons were steel, but their armour was bronze, and they spoke Old Lamork. After Sir Ulath killed their leader, the ones who were still alive vanished. Only their dead remained, and they seemed to be all dried out.’

‘And that’s not all,’ Sparhawk added. ‘There were some bandits operating in the mountains of western Eosia. They were being led by some of Annias’ former supporters, and they were doing all they could to stir up rebellious sentiments among the peasantry. Platime managed to get a spy into their camp, and he told us that the movement was being fuelled by Krager, Martel’s old underling. After we rounded them up, we tried to question one of them about Krager, and that cloud we saw on our way to Zemoch engulfed the man and tore him all to pieces. There’s something afoot here in Eosia, and it seems to be coming out of Lamorkand.’

‘And you think there’s a connection?’ Dolmant asked him.

‘It’s a logical conclusion, Sarathi. There are too many similarities to be safely ignored.’ Sparhawk paused, glancing at his wife. ‘This may cause a certain amount of domestic discontent,’ he said regretfully, ‘but I believe we’d better think very seriously about Oscagne’s request. Someone’s harrowing the past to bring back people and things that have been dead for thousands of years. When we encountered this sort of thing in Pelosia, Sephrenia told us that only the Gods were capable of that.’

‘Well, that’s not entirely true, Sparhawk,’ Bevier corrected him. ‘She did say that a few of the most powerful Styric magicians could also raise the dead.’

‘I think we can discount that possibility,’ Sparhawk disagreed. ‘Sephrenia and I were talking about it once, and she told me that in the forty thousand years of Styric history, there have only been two Styrics who had the capability, and then only imperfectly. This raising of heroes and armies is happening in nine nations in Tamuli and at least one here in Eosia. There are just too many similarities for it to be a coincidence, and the whole scheme—whatever its goal—is just too complex to have come from somebody who doesn’t have an absolute grasp on the spell.’

‘The Troll-Gods?’ Ulath suggested bleakly.

‘I wouldn’t discount the possibility. They did it once before, so we know that they have the capability. Right now, though, all we have are some suspicions based on some educated guesses. We desperately need information.’

‘That’s my department, Sparhawk,’ Stragen told him ‘Mine and Platime’s. You’re going to Daresia, I assume?’

‘It’s beginning to look that way.’ Sparhawk gave his wife an apologetic look. ‘I’d gladly let someone else go, but I’m afraid he wouldn’t know what he’s looking for.’

‘I’d better go with you,’ Stragen decided. ‘I have associates there as well as here in Eosia, and people in our line of work can gather information much more quickly than your people can.’ Sparhawk nodded.

‘Maybe we can start right there,’ Ulath suggested. He looked at the Patriarch Ortzel. ‘How did all these wild stories about Drychtnath get started, your Grace? Nobody’s reputation really lasts for four thousand years, no matter how impressive he was to begin with.’

‘Drychnath is a literary creation, Sir Ulath,’ the severe blond churchman replied, smiling slightly. Even as Dolmant’s ascension to the throne had changed him, so Ortzel had been changed by living in Chyrellos. He no longer seemed to be the rigid, provincial man he had been in Lamorkand. Although he was by no means as worldly as Emban, he had nonetheless reacted to the sophistication of his colleagues in the Basilica. He smiled occasionally now, and he appeared to be developing a sly, understated sense of humour. Sparhawk had met with him on several occasions since Dolmant had ordered the cleric to Chyrellos, and the big Pandion found that he was actually beginning to like the man. Ortzel still had his prejudices, of course, but he was now willing to admit that points of view other than his own might have some small validity.

‘Somebody just made him up?’ Ulath was saying incredulously.

‘Oh, no. There was somebody named Drychtnath four thousand years ago. Probably some bully-boy with his brains in his biceps. I’d imagine that he was the usual sort—no neck, no forehead and nothing even remotely resembling intelligence between his ears. After he died, though, some poet struggling with failing inspiration seized on the story and embellished it with all the shopworn conventions of the heroic epic. He called it The Drychtnathasaga, and Lamorkand would be far better off if the poet had never learned to read and write.’ Sparhawk thought he detected some actual flashes of humour there.

‘One poem could hardly have that kind of impact, your Grace,’ Kalten said sceptically.

‘You underestimate the power of a well-told story, Sir Kalten. I’ll have to translate as I go along, but judge for yourself.’ Ortzel leaned back with his eyes half-closed. ‘Hearken unto a tale from the age of heroes,’ he began. His harsh, rigid voice became softer, more sonorous as he recited the ancient poem. ‘List, brave men of Lamorkland to the exploits of Drychtnath the smith, mightiest of all the warriors of yore.

‘Now as all men know, the Age of Heroes was an age of bronze. Massive were the bronze swords and the axes of the heroes of yore, and mighty were the thews of the men who wielded them in joyous battle. And none there was in all the length and breadth of Lamorkland mightier than Drychtnath the smith. Tall was Drychnath and ox-shouldered, for his labour moulded him even as he moulded the glowing metal. Swords of bronze wrought he, and spears as keen as daggers, and axes and shields and burnished helms and shirts of mail which shed the foeman’s blows as they were no more than gentle rain from on high.

‘And lo, warriors from all of dark-forested Lamorkland gladly gave good gold and bright silver beyond measure in exchange for Drychtnath’s bronze, and the mighty smith waxed in wealth and in strength as he toiled at his forge.’

Sparhawk tore his eyes from Ortzel’s face and looked around. The faces of his friends were all rapt. The Patriarch of Kadach’s voice rose and fell in the stately cadences of bardic utterance.

‘Lord,’ Sir Bevier breathed as the patriarch paused, ‘it’s hypnotic, isn’t it?’

‘That’s always been its danger,’ Ortzel told him. ‘The rhythm numbs the mind and sets the pulse to racing. The people of my race are susceptible to the emotionality of The Drychtnathasaga. An army of Lamorks can be whipped into a frenzy by a recitation of some of the more lurid passages.’

‘Well?’ Talen said eagerly. ‘What happened?’

Ortzel smiled rather gently at the boy. ‘Surely so worldly a young thief cannot be stirred by some tired old poem?’ he suggested slyly. Sparhawk nearly laughed aloud. Perhaps the change in the Patriarch of Kadach had gone further than he had imagined.

‘I like a good story,’ Talen admitted. ‘I’ve never heard one told that way before, though.’

‘It’s called ‘felicity of style’,’ Stragen murmured. ‘Sometimes it’s not so much what the story says, but how it says it.’

‘Well?’ Talen insisted. ‘What happened?’

‘Drychtnath discovered that a giant named Kreindl had forged a metal that could cut bronze like butter,’ Ortzel replied. ‘He went to Kreindl’s lair with only his sledge-hammer for a weapon, tricked the secret of the new metal out of the giant and then beat out his brains with the sledge. Then he went home and began to forge the new metal—steel—and hammered it out into weapons. Soon every warrior in Lamorkand—or Lamorkland as they called it in those days—had to have a steel sword, and Drychtnath grew enormously wealthy.’ He frowned. ‘I hope you’ll bear with me,’ he apologised. ‘Translating on the spot is a bit difficult.’ He thought a while and then began again.

‘Now it came to pass that the fame of the mighty smith Drychtnath spread throughout the land. Tall was he, a full ten span tween, and broad were his shoulders. His thews were as the steel from his forge, and comely were his features. Full many a maid of noble house yearned for him in the silences of her soul.

‘Now as it chanced to happen in those far-off days of yore, the ruler of the Lamorks was the aged King Hyghdahl, whose snowy locks bespoke his wisdom. No son on life had he, but a daughter, the child of his old, fair as morning dew and yclept Uts. And Hygdahl was sore troubled, for well he wot that when his spirit had been gathered to the bosom of Hrokka, strife and contention would wrack the lands of the Lamorks as the heroes vied with one another for his throne and for the hand of fair Uts in marriage, for such was the twin prize which would fall to the hand of the victor. And so resolved King Hygdahl at last to secure the future of realm and daughter with one stroke. And caused he to be sent word to every corner of his vasty realm. The fate of Lamorkland and of bright-eyed Uts would be decided by trial at arms. The mightiest hero in all the land would win wealth, wife and dominion by the strength of his hands.’ Ortzel paused in his translation.

‘What’s a span?’ Talen asked.

‘Nine inches,’ Berit replied. ‘It’s supposed to be as far as a man can stretch out the fingers of one hand.’

Talen made the quick computation in his head. ‘Seven and a half feet?’ he said incredulously. ‘He was seven and a half feet tall?’

‘It may be slightly exaggerated,’ Ortzel smiled.

‘Who is this Hrokka?’ Bevier asked him.

‘The Lamork War-God,’ Ortzel explained. ‘There was a period at the end of the bronze age when the Lamorks reverted to paganism. Obviously, Drychtnath won the trial-at-arms, and he didn’t even kill too many other Lamorks in the process.’ Then Ortzel took up his recitation.

‘And so it was that Drychtnath the smith, mighttest hero of antiquity, won the hand of bright-eyed Uts and became King Hygdahl’s heir.

‘And when the wedding-feast was done, went Hygdahl’s heir straightway to the King. “Lord King,” quotha, “since I have the honour to be the mightiest warrior in all the world, it is only meet that the world fall into my hands. To that end shall I bend mine efforts once Hrokka hath called thee home. I will conquer the world and subdue it and bend it to my will, and I will lead the heroes of Lamorkland e’en unto Chyrellos. There will I cast down the altars of the false God of that Church which doth, all womanly, hold strength in despite and weakens warriors with her drasty preaching. I spurn her counsel, and will lead the heroes of Lamorkland forth to bear back to our homes in groaning wains the loot of the world.”

‘Happily heard Hygdahl the hero’s words, for Hrokka, Sword-Lord of Lamorkland, glories in battleshife and doth inspire his children to love the sound of sword meeting sword and the sight of sparkling blood bedewing the grass. “Go forth, my son, and conquer,” quotha, “Punish the Peloi, crush the Cammorians, destroy the Deirans, and forget not to bring down the church which doth pollute the manhood of all Elenes with her counsels of peace and lowly demeanour.”

‘Now when word of Drychtnath’s design reached the Basilica of Chyrellos, the Church was troubled and trembled in fear of the mighty smith, and the princes of the Church took counsel one with the other and resolved to spit out the life of the noble smith, lest his design dispossess the Church and win her wealth to wend in wains Lamorkward, there to bedeck the highbuilt walls of the conqueror’s mead-hall. Conspired they then to send a warrior of passing merit to the court of Hygdahl’s heir to bring low the towering pride of dark-forested Lamorkland. In dissembling guise this traitorous warrior, a Deiran by birth—Starkad was his name—made his way to Drychnath’s mead-hall, and mildly made he courteous greeting to Hygdahl’s heir. And beseeched he the hero of Lamorkland to accept him as his vassal. Now Drychtnath’s heart was so free of deceit and subterfuge that he could not perceive perfidy in others. Gladly did he accept Starkad’s seeming friendship, and the two were soon as brothers even as Starkad had designed.

‘And as the heroes of Drychtnath’s hall laboured, Starcad was ever at Drychtnath’s right hand, in fair weather and foul, in battle and in the carouse which is battle’s aftermath. Tales he spun which filled Drychtnath’s heart with mirth, and for the love he bare his friend did the mighty smith gladly bestow treasures upon him, bracelets of bright gold and gems beyond price. Starkad accepted Drychtnath’s gifts in seeming gratitude and ever, like the patient worm, burrowed he his way ever deeper into the hero’s heart.

‘And at the time of Hrokka’s choosing was wise King Hygdahl gathered into the company of the Immortal Thanes in the Hall of Heroes, and then was Drychtnath king in Lamorkland. Well were laid his plans, and no sooner had the royal crown been placed upon his head than he gathered his heroes and marched north to subdue the savage Peloi.

‘Many were the battles mighty Drychtnath waged in the lands of the Peloi, and great were the victories he won. And there it was in the lands of the horse-people that the design of the Church of Chyrellos was accomplished, for there, separated from their friends by legions of ravening Peloi, Drychtnath and Starkad wrought slaughter upon the foe, bathing the meadow’s grass with the blood of their enemies. And there, in the full flower of his heroism, was mighty Drychtnath laid full low. Seizing upon a lull in the struggle when all stood somewhat apart to gather breath and strength to renew the struggle, the deceitful Deiran found his opportunity and drove his cursed spear, sharper than any dagger, full into his lord’s broad back.

‘And Drychtnath felt death’s cold touch as Starkad’s bright steel pierced him. And turned he then to face the man he had called friend and brother. “Why?” quotha, his heart wrung more by the betrayal than by Starkad’s stroke. “It was in the name of the God of the Elenes,” quoth Starkad with hot tears streaming from his eyes, for in truth loved he the hero he had just slain. “Think not that it was I who have smitten thee to the heart, my brother, for it was not I, but our Holy Mother Church which hath sought thy life.”

‘So saying, he raised once more his dreadful spear. “Defend thyself, Drychtnath, for though I must slay thee, I would not murder thee.” Then raised noble Drychtnath his face. “That will I not do, ” quotha, “for if my brother have need of my life, I give it to him freely.”

‘“Forgive me,” quoth Starkad, raising again his deadly spear. “That may I not do,” quoth the hero. “My life mayest thou freely have, but never my forgiveness.”

‘“So be it then,” quoth Starkad, and, so saying, plunged he his deadly spear full into Drychtnath’s mighty heart.

‘A moment only the hero stood, and then slowly, as falls the mighty oak, fell all the pride of Lamorkland, and the earth and the heavens resounded with his fall.’

There were tears in Talen’s eyes. ‘Did he get away with it?’ he demanded fiercely. ‘I mean, didn’t one of Drychtnath’s other friends pay him back?’ The boy’s face clearly showed his eagerness to hear more.

‘Surely you wouldn’t want to waste your time with some tired, worn-out old story that’s been around for thousands of years?’ Ortzel said. He feigned some astonishment, but there was a sly twinkle in his eye. Sparhawk covered his own smile with his hand. Ortzel had definitely changed, all right.

‘I don’t know about Talen,’ Ulath said, ‘but I would.’ There were obviously some strong similarities between the culture of present-day Thalesia and that of ancient Lamorkland.

‘Well, now,’ Ortzel said, ‘I’d say that some bargaining might be in order here. How many acts of contrition would the two of you be willing to give our Holy Mother in exchange for the rest of the story?’

‘‘Ortzel,’ Dolmant reproved him.

The Patriarch of Kadach held up one hand. ‘It’s perfectly legitimate exchange, Sarathi,’ he said. ‘The Church has used it many times in the past. When I was a simple country pastor, I used this exact method to ensure regular attendance at services. My congregation was known far and wide for its piety—until I ran out of stories.’ Then he laughed. They were all a bit startled at that. Most of them were fairly sure that the stern, unbending Patriarch of Kadach didn’t even know how. ‘I was only teasing,’ he told the young thief and the gigantic Thalesian. ‘I wouldn’t be too disappointed, however, if the two of you gave the condition of your souls some serious thought.’

‘Tell the story,’ Mirtai insisted. Mirtai was also a warrior, and also, it appeared, susceptible to a stirring tale.

‘Do I sense the possibility of a convert here?’ Ortzel asked her.

‘What you’re sensing is the possibility of failing health, Ortzel,’ she said bluntly. Mirtai never used titles when she spoke to people.

‘All right, then,’ Ortzel laughed again and continued with his translation.

‘Hearken then, O men of Lamorkland, and hear how Starkad was paid. Some tears then shed he over his fallen brother, then turned he his raging wrath upon the Peloi, and they fled screaming from him. Straightway left he the strife-place and journeyed even to the Holy City of Chyrellos, there to advise the princes of the Church that their design was done. And when they had gathered all in the Basilica which is the crown of their o’erweening pride, recounted Starkad the sad tale of the fall of Drychtnath, mightiest hero of yore.

‘And gloated then the soft and pampered princes of the Church at the hero’s fall, thinking that their pride and power and position were safe, and spake they each in praise of Starkad and offered him good gold beyond measure for the deed he had done.

‘Cold, however, was the hero’s heart, and he looked upon the little men he had served, recalling with tears the great man he had slain at their bidding. “Lordlings of the Church,” quotha then. “Think ye that mere gold will satisfy me as payment for what I have done in your behalf?”

‘“But what else may we offer thee?” they asked in great perplexity.

‘“I would have Drychtnath’s forgiveness,” quoth Starkad.

‘“But that we may not obtain for thee,” they said unto him, “for dreaded Drychtnath lieth low in the House of the Dead from whence no man returneth. Pray, mighty hero, tell us what else we may offer thee in recompense for this great service thou hast provided us.”

‘“But one thing,’ quoth Starkad in deadly earnest.

‘“And that is what?” they asked.

‘“Your heart’s blood,” quoth Starkad. And, so saying, sprang he to the massy door and chained it shut with chains of steel that none might escape him. Then drew he forth Soritha, dread Drychtnath’s bright blade, which he had brought with him to Chyrellos for just this purpose. And then took the hero Starkad his payment for the deed he had done on the plains of the Peloi.

‘And when he had finished collecting that which was owed him, the Church of Chyrellos lay headless, for not one of her princes saw the setting of the sun that day, and sorrowing still that he had slain his friend, Starkad sadly took his leave of the Holy City and never returned there more.

‘But it is said in dark-forested Lamorkland that the oracles and the auguries speak still of the mighty Drychtnath and of the day when the War-God Hrokka will relent and release the spirit of Drychtnath from his service as one of the Immortal Thanes in the hall of Heroes that he may come once more to Lamorkland to take up again that grand design. Then how the blood will flow, and then how the kings of the world will tremble as once again the world shakes beneath the mighty stride of Dread Drychtnath the Destroyer, and the crown and throne of the world shall lie in his immortal grip, as was from the beginning intended.’

Ortzel’s voice fell silent, indicating that he had reached the end.

‘That’s all?’ Talen protested vehemently.

‘I skipped over a great ‘number of passages,’ Ortzel conceded, ‘battle descriptions and the like. The Lamorks of antiquity had an unhealthy fascination with certain kinds of numbers. They wanted to know how many barrels of blood, pounds of brains and yards of entrails were spilled out during the festivities.’

‘But the story doesn’t end right,’ Talen complained. ‘Drychtnath was the hero, but after Starkad murdered him, he turned into the hero. That isn’t right. The bad people shouldn’t be allowed to change over like that.’

‘That’s a very interesting argument, Talen—particularly coming from you.’

‘I’m not a bad person, your Grace, I’m just a thief. It’s not the same at all. At least the churchmen all got what was coming to them.’

‘You have a long way to go with this one, Sparhawk,’ Bevier observed. ‘We all loved Kurik like a brother, but are we really sure that his son has the makings of a Church Knight in him?’

‘I’m working on that,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘So that’s what Drychtnath’s all about. Just how deeply do the commons in Lamorkand believe in the story, your Grace?’

‘It goes deeper than belief, Sparhawk,’ Ortzel replied. ‘The story’s in our blood. I’m wholly committed to the Church, but when I hear The Drychtnathasaga, I become an absolute pagan—for a while at least.’

‘Well,’ Tynian said, ‘now we know what we’re up against. We have the same thing going on in Lamorkand as we have in Render. We’ve got heresies springing up all around us. It still doesn’t solve our problem, though. How are Sparhawk and the rest of us going to be able to go to Tamuli without insulting the emperor?’

‘I’ve solved that problem already, Tynian,’ Ehlana told him.

‘I beg your Majesty’s pardon?’

‘It’s so simple that I’m almost ashamed of you all that you didn’t think of it first.’

‘Enlighten us, your Majesty,’ Stragen said. ‘Make us blush for our stupidity.’

‘It’s time for the western Elene Kingdoms to open communications with the Tamul Empire,’ she explained. ‘We are neighbours, after all. It’s politically very sound for me to make a state visit to Matherion, and if you gentlemen are all very nice to me, I’ll invite you to come along.’ She frowned. ‘That was the least of our problems. Now we’ll have to address something far more serious.’

‘And what is that, Ehlana?’ Dolmant asked her.

‘I simply don’t have a thing to wear, Sarathi.’

6

Sparhawk had learned to keep a tight rein on his emotions during the years since his marrage to the Queen of Elenia, but his smile was slightly fixed as the meeting broke up. Kalten fell in beside him as they all left the council chamber.

‘I gather that you’re less than pleased with our queen’s solution to the problem,’ he observed. Kalten was Sparhawk’s boyhood friend, and he had learned how to read that battered face.

‘You might say that, yes,’ Sparhawk replied tightly.

‘Are you open to a suggestion?’

‘I’ll listen.’ Sparhawk didn’t want to make any promises at this point.

‘Why don’t you and I go down into the crypt under the Basilica?’

‘Why?’

‘I thought you might want to vent certain feelings before you and your wife discuss the matter. You’re a bit savage when you’re angry, Sparhawk, and I’m really very fond of your wife. If you call her an idiot to her face, you’ll hurt her feelings.’

‘Are you trying to be funny?’

‘Not in the least, my friend. I feel almost the same way about it as you do, and I’ve had a very colourful education. When you run out of swear-words, I’ll supply some you might not have heard.’

‘Let’s go,’ Sparhawk said, turning abruptly down a side corridor. They passed through the nave quickly, perfunctorily genuflecting to the altar in passing, and descended into the crypt that contained the bones of several aeons’ worth of Archprelates.

‘Don’t bang your fists on the walls,’ Kalten cautioned as Sparhawk began to pace up and down, swearing and waving his arms in the air. ‘You’ll break your knuckles.’

‘It’s a total absurdity, Kalten!’ Sparhawk said after he had shouted profanities for several minutes.

‘It’s worse than that, my friend. There’s always room in the world for absurdities. They’re sort of fun actually, but this is dangerous. We have no way of knowing what we’re going to encounter in Tamuli. I love your wife dearly, but having her along is going to be inconvenient.’

‘Inconvenient?’

‘I’m trying to be polite. How does ‘bloody hindering awkward’ strike you?’

‘It’s closer.’

‘You’ll never persuade her to stay home though. I’d give that up as a lost cause before I even started. She’s obviously made up her mind, and she outranks you. You probably ought to try to put the best face on it avoid the embarrassment of being told to shut your mouth and go to your room.’ Sparhawk grunted. ‘I think our best approach is to talk with Oscagne. We’ll be taking the most precious thing in Elenia to the Daresian continent where things are far from tranquil. Your wife’s going there as a personal favour to the Emperor of Tamuli, so he’s obligated to protect her. An escort of a few dozen legions of Atans meeting us at the Astel border might be looked upon as a sign of his majesty’s appreciation, wouldn’t you say?’

‘That’s really not a bad idea, Kalten.’

‘I’m not totally stupid, Sparhawk. Now, Ehlana’s going to expect you to rant and rave and wave your arms at her. She’s ready for that, so don’t do it. She is going along. We lost that fight already, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Unless I chain her to the bed.’

‘There’s an interesting idea.’

‘Never mind.’

‘It’s tactically unsound to fight a last stand unless you’re trapped. Give her that victory, and then she’ll owe you one. Use it to get her to agree not to do anything while we’re in Tamuli without your express permission. That way we can keep her almost as safe as she’d be if she stayed home. There’s a good chance that she’ll be so happy that you didn’t scream at her that she’ll agree without thinking it all the way through. You’ll be able to restrict her movements when we get there—at least enough to keep her out of danger.’

‘Kalten, sometimes you amaze me,’ Sparhawk told his friend.

‘I know,’ the blond Pandion replied. ‘This stupidlooking face of mine is very useful sometimes.’

‘Where did you ever learn so much about manipulating royalty?’

‘I’m not manipulating royalty, Sparhawk. I’m manipulating a woman, and I’m an expert at that. Women are born negotiators. They love these little trades. If you go to a woman and say, “I’ll do this for you if you do that for me,” she’ll almost always be willing to talk about it at least. Women always want to talk about things. If you keep your eye on what you really want, you’ll almost always come out on top.’ He paused. ‘Metaphorically speaking of course,’ he added.

‘What are you up to, Sparhawk?’ Mirtai asked him suspiciously when he approached the suite of rooms Dolmant had provided for Ehlana and her personal retinue. Sparhawk carefully let the smug expression slide from his face and assumed one of grave concern instead. ‘Don’t try to be clever, Sparhawk,’ she told him. ‘if you hurt her, I’ll have to kill you, you know.’

‘I’m not going to hurt her, Mirtai. I’m not even going to yell at her.’

‘You’re up to something, aren’t you?’

‘Of course I am. After you lock me inside, put your ear to the door and listen.’ He gave her a sidelong look. ‘But you do that all the time anyway, don’t you?’

She actually blushed. She jerked the door open. ‘Just get in there, Sparhawk!’ she commanded, her face like a thundercloud.

‘My, aren’t we testy tonight?’

‘Go!’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

Ehlana was ready for him, that much was fairly obvious. She was wearing a dressing-gown of a pale rose that made her look particularly appealing, and she had done things with her hair. There was a barely noticeable tightness about her eyes, though.

‘Good evening, love,’ Sparhawk said calmly. ‘Tedious day, wasn’t it? Conferences can be so exhausting at times.’ He crossed the room, pausing to kiss her almost perfunctorily in passing, and poured himself a glass of wine.

‘I know what you’re going to say, Sparhawk.’ she said.

‘Oh?’ He gave her an innocent look.

‘You’re angry with me, aren’t you?’

‘No. Not really. What made you think I’d be angry?’

She looked a bit less sure of herself. ‘You mean you’re not? I thought you’d be raging by now about my decision to pay a state visit to Tamuli, I mean.’

‘No, actually it’s a very good idea. Of course we’ll have to take a few precautions to ensure your safety, but we always have to do that, so we’re sort of used to it, aren’t we?’

‘What kind of precautions are we talking about here?’ Her tone was suspicious.

‘Nothing all that extreme, dear. I don’t think you should go walking in the forest alone or visiting thieves’ dens without some sort of escort. I’m not talking about anything out of the ordinary, and you’re used to certain restrictions on your movements already. We’ll be in a strange country, and we don’t know the people. I know that you’ll trust me to sort of nose things out, and that you won’t argue with me if I tell you that something’s too dangerous. We can all live with that, I’m sure. You pay me to protect you, after all, so we won’t have any silly little squabbles about security measures, now will we?’ He kept his tone mild and sweetly reasonable, giving her no reason to raise any questions about exactly what he had in mind when he spoke of ‘security measures.’

‘You know much more about that sort of thing than I do, my love,’ she conceded, ‘so I’ll leave all that entirely in your hands. If a girl has a champion who just happens to be the greatest knight in the world, she’d be foolish not to pay attention to him, now wouldn’t she?’

‘My feelings exactly,’ he agreed. It was a small victory, to be sure, but when one is dealing with a queen, victories of any kind are hard to come by.

‘Well,’ she said, rising to her feet, ‘since we’re not going to fight, why don’t we go to bed?’

‘Good idea.’

The kitten Talen had given to Princess Danae was named Mmrr, and Mmrr had one habit that particularly irritated Sparhawk. Kittens like to have company when they sleep, and Mmrr had found that when Sparhawk slept, he curled up slightly and that the space just behind his knees was a perfect place for her to nest. Sparhawk customarily slept with the covers pulled tightly around his neck, but that was no real problem. A cold, wet nose touched to the back of his neck caused him to flinch away violently, and that involuntary movement would always open just enough of a gap for an enterprising kitten. Mmrr found the whole process quite satisfactory and even rather amusing. Sparhawk, however, did not. It was shortly before dawn when he emerged from the bedroom, tousled, sleepy-eyed and just a bit out of sorts.

Princess Danae wandered into the large central room absently dragging Rollo behind her. ‘Have you seen my cat?’ she asked her father.

‘She’s in bed with your mother,’ he replied shortly.

‘I should have known, I suppose. Mmrr likes the way mother smells. She told me so herself.’

Sparhawk glanced around and then carefully closed the bedroom door. ‘I need to talk with Sephrenia again,’ he said.

‘All right.’

‘Not here, though. I’ll find someplace.’

‘What happened last night?’

‘We have to go to Tamuli.’

‘I thought you were going to do something about Drychtnath.’

‘I am—in a way. It seems that there’s something—or someone—over on the Daresian continent that’s behind Drychtnath. I think we’ll be able to find out more about him there than we ever would here. I’ll make arrangements to have you taken back to Cimmura.’

She pursed her small mouth. ‘No, I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘I’d better go along with you.’

‘That’s absolutely out of the question.’

‘Oh, Sparhawk, do grow up. I’m going along because you’re going to need me when we get there.’ She negligently tossed Rollo over into a corner. ‘I’m also going because you can’t stop me. Come up with some reason for it, Sparhawk. Otherwise you’ll have to explain to mother how it is that I managed to get ahead of you when you all find me sitting in a tree alongside a road somewhere. Get dressed father, and go find a place where we can talk privately.’

Some time later, Sparhawk and his daughter climbed a narrow, spiraling wooden staircase that led to the cupola atop the dome of the Basilica. There was quite probably no more private place in the world, particularly in view of the fact that the wooden stairs leading up to the little bell-tower did not so much creak as they did shriek when anyone began to climb them. When they reached the unenclosed little house high above the city, Danae spent several minutes gazing out over Chyrellos.

‘You can always see so much better from up high like this,’ she said. ‘It’s just about the only reason I’ve ever found for flying.’

‘Can you really fly?’

‘Of course. Can’t you?’

‘You know better, Aphrael.’

‘I was only teasing you, Sparhawk,’ she laughed. ‘Let’s get started.’ She sat down, crossed her legs and lifted her little face to sing that trilling song she had raised back in Cimmura. Then again, her eyes closed and her face went blank as the song died away.

‘What is it this time, Sparhawk?’ Sephrenia’s voice was a bit tart.

‘What’s the matter, little mother?’

‘Do you realise that it’s the middle of the night here?’

‘It is?’

‘Of course it is. The sun’s on your side of the world now.’

‘Astonishing—though I suppose it stands to reason if you think about it. Did I disturb you?’

‘Yes, as a matter of fact you did.’

‘What were you doing so late at night?’

‘None of your business. What do you want?’

‘We’ll be coming to Daresia soon.’

‘What?’

‘The emperor asked us to come—well, he asked me actually. The rest are sort of tagging along. Ehlana’s going to make a state visit to Matherion to sort of give us all an excuse for being there.’

‘Have you taken leave of your senses? Tamuli’s a very dangerous place right now.’

‘Probably not much more than Eosia is. We were attacked by ancient Lamorks on our way here to chyrellos from Cimmura.’

‘Perhaps they were just modern-day Lamorks dressed in ancient garb.’

‘I rather doubt that, Sephrenia. They vanished when their attack began to fail.’

‘All of them?’

‘Except for the ones who were already dead. Would a little logic offend you?’

‘Not unless you drag it out.’

‘We’re almost positive that the attackers really were ancient Lamorks, and Ambassador Oscagne told us that someone’s been raising antique heroes in Daresia as well. Logic implies that this resurrection business is originating in Tamuli and that its goal is to stir up nationalistic sentiments in order to weaken the central governments—the empire in Daresia and the Church here in Eosia. If we’re right about the source of all of this activity being somewhere in Tamuli, that’s the logical place to start looking for answers. Where are you right now?’

‘Vanion and I are at Sarsos in eastern Astel. You’d better come here, Sparhawk. These long-distance conversations tend to blur things.’

Sparhawk thought for a moment, trying to remember the map of Daresia. ‘We’ll come overland then. I’ll find some way to get the others to agree to that.’

‘Try not to take too long, Sparhawk. It’s really very important that we talk face to face.’

‘Right. Sleep well, little mother.’

‘I wasn’t sleeping.’

‘Oh? What were you doing?’

‘Didn’t you hear what she told you before, Sparhawk?’ his daughter asked him.

‘Which was what?’

‘She told you that it was none of your business what she was doing.’

‘What an astonishingly good idea, your Majesty,’ Oscagne said later that morning when they had all gathered once again in Dolmant’s private audience-chamber. ‘I’d have never thought of it in a million years. The leaders of the subject nations of Tamuli don’t go to Matherion unless they’re summoned by his Imperial Majesty.’

‘The rulers of Eosia are less restrained, your Excellency,’ Emban told him. ‘They have total sovereignty.’

‘Astonishing. Has your Church no authority over their actions, your Grace?’

‘Only in spiritual matters, I’m afraid.’

‘Isn’t that inconvenient?’

‘You wouldn’t believe how much, Ambassador Oscagne,’ Dolmant sighed, looking at Ehlana reproachfully.

‘Be nice, Sarathi,’ she murmured.

‘Then no one is really in charge here in Eosia? No one has the absolute authority to make final decisions?’

‘It’s a responsibility we share, your Excellency,’ Ehlana explained. ‘We enjoy sharing things, don’t we Sarathi?’

‘Of course.’ Dolmant said it without much enthusiasm.

‘The rough-and-tumble, give-and-take nature of Eosian politics have a certain utility, Your Excellency,’ Stragen drawled. ‘Consensus politics gives us the advantage of bringing together a wide range of views.’

‘In Tamuli, we feel that having only one view is far less confusing.’

‘The Emperor’s view? What happens when the emperor happens to be an idiot? Or a madman?’

‘The government usually works around him,’ Oscagne admitted blandly. ‘Such imperial misfortunes seldom live very long for some reason, however.’

‘Ah,’ Stragen said.

‘Perhaps we should get down to work,’ Emban said. He crossed the room to a large map of the known world hanging on the wall. ‘The fastest way to travel is by sea,’ he noted. ‘We could sail from Madel in Cammoria out through the Inner Sea and then around the southern tip of Daresia and then up the east coast to Matherion.’

‘We?’ Tynian asked.

‘Oh, didn’t I tell you?’ Emban said. ‘I’ll be going along. Ostensibly, I’ll be Queen Ehlana’s spiritual advisor. In actuality, I’ll be the Archprelate’s personal envoy.’

‘It’s probably wiser to keep the Elenian flavour of the expedition,’ Dolmant explained, ‘for public consumption, anyway. Let’s not complicate things by sending two separate missions to Matherion simultaneously.’

Sparhawk had to move quickly, and he didn’t have much to work with. ‘Traveling by ship has certain advantages,’ he conceded, ‘but I think there’s a major drawback.’

‘Oh?’ Emban said.

‘It satisfies the requirements of a state visit, right enough, but it doesn’t do very much to address our real reason for going to Tamuli. Your Excellency, what’s likely to happen when we reach Matherion?’

‘The usual,’ Oscagne shrugged. ‘Audiences, banquets, reviewing troops, concerts, that giddy round of meaningless activity we all adore.’

‘Precisely,’ Sparhawk agreed. ‘And we won’t really get anything done, will we?’

‘Probably not.’

‘But we aren’t going to Tamuli for a month-long carouse. What we’re really going there for is to find out what’s behind all the upheaval. We need information, not entertainment, and the information’s probably out in the hinterlands, not in the capital. I think we should find some reason to go across country.’

It was a practical suggestion, and it rather neatly concealed Sparhawk’s real reason for wanting to go overland.

Emban’s expression was pained. ‘We’d be on the road for months that way.’

‘We can get as much done as we’ll accomplish in Matherion by staying home, your Grace. We have to get outside the Capital.’

Emban groaned. ‘You’re absolutely bent on making me ride a horse all the way from here to Matherion, aren’t you, Sparhawk?’

‘You could stay home, your Grace,’ Sparhawk suggested. ‘We could always take Patriarch Bergsten instead. He’d be better in a fight anyway.’

‘That will do, Sparhawk,’ Dolmant said firmly.

‘Consensus politics are very interesting, Milord Stragen,’ Oscagne observed. ‘In Matherion, we’d have followed the course suggested by the Primate of Ucera without any further discussion. We try to avoid raising the possibility of alternatives whenever possible.’

‘Welcome to Eosia, your Excellency,’ Stragen smiled.

‘Permission to speak?’ Khalad said politely.

‘Of course,’ Dolmant replied.

Khalad rose, went to the map and began measuring distance. ‘A good horse can cover ten leagues a day, and a good ship can cover thirty—if the wind holds.’ He frowned and looked around. ‘Why is Talen never around when you need him?’ he muttered. ‘He can compute these numbers in his head. I have to count them up on my fingers.’

‘He said he had something to take care of,’ Berit told him.

Khalad grunted. ‘All we’re really interested in is what’s going on in Daresia, so there’s no need to ride across Eosia. We could sail from Madel the way Patriarch Emban suggested, go out through the Inner Sea and then up the east coast of Zemoch to—’ He looked at the map and then pointed. ‘To Salesha here. That’s nine hundred leagues—thirty days. If we were to follow the roads, it’d probably be the same distance overland, but that would take us ninety days. We’d save two months at least.’

‘Well,’ Emban conceded grudgingly, ‘that’s something, anyway.’

Sparhawk was fairly sure that they could save much more than sixty days. He looked across the room at his daughter, who was playing with her kitten under Murtai’s watchful eye. Princess Danae was quite frequently present at conferences where she had no real business. People did not question her presence for some reason. Sparhawk knew that the Child Goddess Aphrael could tamper with the passage of time, but he was not entirely certain that she could manage it so undetectably in her present incarnation as she had when she had been Flute. Princess Danae looked back at him and rolled her eyes upward with a resigned expression that spoke volumes about his limited understanding, and then she gravely nodded her head. Sparhawk breathed somewhat easier after that.

‘Now we come to the question of the queen’s security,’ he continued. ‘Ambassador Oscagne, how large a retinue could my wife take with her without raising eyebrows?’

‘The conventions are a little vague on that score, Sir Sparhawk.’

Sparhawk looked around at his friends. ‘if I thought I could get away with it, I’d take the whole body of the militant orders with me,’ he said.

‘We’ve defined our trip as a visit, Sparhawk,’ Tynian said, ‘not an invasion.’

‘Would a hundred armoured knights alarm his Imperial Majesty, your Excellency?’

‘It’s a symbolic sort of number,’ Oscagne agreed after a moment’s consideration, ‘large enough for show, but not so large as to appear threatening. We’ll be going through Astel, and you can pick up an escort of Atans in the capital at Darsas. A sizeable escort for a state visitor shouldn’t raise too many eyebrows.’

‘Twenty-five knights from each order, wouldn’t you think, Sparhawk?’ Bevier suggested. ‘The differences in our equipment and the colours of our surcoats would make the knights appear more ceremonial than utilitarian. A hundred Pandions by themselves might cause concern in some quarters.’

‘Good idea,’ Sparhawk agreed.

‘You can bring more if you want, Sparhawk,’ Mirtai told him. ‘There are Peloi on the steppes of Central Astel. They’re the descendants of Kring’s ancestors. He might just want to visit his cousins in Daresia.’

‘Ah yes,’ Oscagne said, ‘the Peloi. I’d forgotten that you had those wild-men here in Eosia too. They’re an excitable and sometimes unreliable people. Are you certain that this Kring person would be willing to accompany us?’

‘Kring would ride into fire if I asked him to,’ Mirtai replied confidently.

‘The Domi is much taken with our Mirtai, your Excellency,’ Ehlana smiled. ‘He comes to Cimmura three or four times a year to propose marriage to her.’

‘The Peloi are warriors, Atana,’ Oscagne noted. ‘You would not demean yourself in the eyes of your people were you to accept him.’

‘Husbands take their wives more or less for granted, Oscagne,’ Mirtai pointed out with a mysterious little smile. ‘A suitor, on the other hand, is much more attentive, and I rather enjoy Kring’s attentions. He writes very nice poetry. He compared me to a golden sunrise once. I thought that was rather nice.’

‘You never wrote any poetry for me, Sparhawk,’ Ehlana accused her husband.

‘The Elene language is limited, my Queen,’ he responded. ‘It has no words which could do you justice.’

‘Nice try,’ Kalten murmured.

‘I think we all might want to spend a bit of time on some correspondence at this point,’ Dolmant told them. There are all sorts of arrangements to be made. I’ll put a fast ship at your disposal, Ambassador Oscagne. You’ll want to advise your emperor that the Queen of Elenia’s coming to call.’

‘With the Archprelate’s permission, I’ll communicate with my government by dispatch rather than in person. There are social and political peculiarities in various parts of the empire. I could be very helpful in smoothing her Majesty’s path if I went with her.’

‘I’ll be very pleased to have a civilised man along, your Excellency,’ Ehlana smiled. ‘You have no idea what it’s like being surrounded by men whose clothes have been tailored by blacksmiths.’

Talen entered the chamber with an excited expression on his face. ‘Where have you been?’ The question came from several parts of the room.

‘It’s such a comfort to be so universally loved that my activities arouse this breathless curiosity,’ the boy said with an exaggerated and sardonic bow. ‘I’m quite overwhelmed by this demonstration of affection.’

Ambassador Oscagne looked quizzically at Dolmant. ‘It would take far too long to explain, your Excellency,’ Dolmant said wearily. ‘Just keep a close watch on your valuables when that boy’s in the room.’

‘Sarathi,’ Talen protested. ‘I haven’t stolen a single thing for almost a week now.’

‘That’s a start, I suppose,’ Emban noted.

‘Old habits die hard, your Grace,’ Talen smirked. ‘Anyway, since you’re all dying to know, I was out in the city sort of nosing around, and I ran across an old friend. Would you believe that Krager’s here in Chyrellos?’