Читать книгу The Complete Tamuli Trilogy: Domes of Fire, The Shining Ones, The Hidden City - David Eddings - Страница 31

The carriage came around a bend in the road and approached the spot where Sparhawk and Sephrenia waited. Ehlana was talking animatedly to Oscagne and Emban, but she broke off suddenly, her eyes wide. ‘Sephrenia?’ she gasped. ‘It is! It’s Sephrenia!’ Royal dignity went out the window as she scrambled down from the carriage.

‘Brace yourself,’ Sparhawk cautioned with a gentle smile.

Ehlana ran to them, threw her arms around Sephrenia’s neck and kissed her, weeping for joy.

The queen’s tears were not the only ones shed that afternoon. Even the hard-bitten Church Knights were misty-eyed for the most part. Kalten went even further and wept openly as he knelt to receive Sephrenia’s blessing.

‘The Styric woman has a special significance, Sparhawk-Knight?’ Engessa asked curiously.

‘A very special significance, Atan Engessa,’ Sparhawk replied, watching his friends clustered around the small woman. ‘She touches our hearts in a profound way. We’d probably take the world apart if she asked us to.’

‘That’s a very great authority, Sparhawk-Knight.’ Engessa said it with some approval. Engessa respected authority.

‘It is indeed, my friend,’ Sparhawk agreed, ‘and that’s only the least of her gifts. She’s wise and beautiful, and I’m at least partially convinced that she could stop the tides if she really wanted to.’

‘She is quite small, though,’ Engessa noted.

‘Not really. In our eyes she’s at least a hundred feet tall – maybe even two hundred.’

‘The Styrics are a strange people with strange powers, but I had not heard of this ability to alter their size before.’ Engessa was a profoundly literal man, and hyperbole was beyond his grasp. ‘Two hundred, you say?’

‘At least, Atan.’

Sephrenia was completely caught up in the outpouring of affection, and so Sparhawk was able to observe her rather closely. She had changed. She seemed more open, for one thing. No Styric could ever completely lower his defences among Elenes. Thousands of years of prejudice and oppression had taught them to be wary – even of those Elenes they loved the most. Sephrenia’s defensive shell, a shell she had kept in place around her for so long that she had probably not even known it was there, was gone now. The doors were all open.

There was something more, however. Her face had been luminous before, but now it was radiant. A kind of regretful longing had always seemed to hover in her eyes, and it was gone now. For the first time in all the years Sparhawk had known her, Sephrenia seemed complete and totally happy.

‘Will this go on for long, Sparhawk-Knight?’ Engessa asked politely. ‘Sarsos is close at hand, but …’ He left the suggestion hanging.

‘I’ll talk with them, Atan. I might be able to persuade them that they can continue this later.’ Sparhawk walked toward the excited group near the carriage. ‘Atan Engessa just made an interesting suggestion,’ he said to them. ‘It’s a novel idea, of course, but he pointed out that we could probably do all of this inside the walls of Sarsos – since it’s so close anyway.’

‘I see that hasn’t changed,’ Sephrenia observed to Ehlana. ‘Does he still make these clumsy attempts at humour every chance he gets?’

‘I’ve been working on that, little mother,’ Ehlana smiled.

‘The question I was really asking was whether or not you ladies would like to ride on into the city, or would you like to have us set up camp for the night.’

‘Spoil-sport,’ Ehlana accused.

‘We really should go on down,’ Sephrenia told them. ‘Vanion’s waiting, and you know how cross he gets when people aren’t punctual.’

‘Vanion?’ Emban exclaimed. ‘I thought he’d be dead by now.’

‘Hardly. He’s quite vigorous, actually. Very vigorous at times. He’d have come with me to meet you, but he sprained his ankle yesterday. He’s being terribly brave about it, but it hurts him more than he’s willing to admit.’

Stragen stepped up and effortlessly lifted her up into the carriage. ‘What should we expect in Sarsos, dear sister?’ he asked her in his flawless Styric.

Ehlana gave him a startled look. ‘You’ve been hiding things from me, Milord Stragen. I didn’t know you spoke Styric.’

‘I always meant to mention it to you, your Majesty, but it kept slipping my mind.’

‘I think you’d better be prepared for some surprises, Stragen,’ Sephrenia told him. ‘All of you should.’

‘What sort of surprises?’ Stragen asked. ‘Remember that I’m a thief, Sephrenia, and surprises are very bad for thieves. Our veins tend to come untied when we’re startled.’

‘I think you’d all better discard your preconceptions about Styrics,’ Sephrenia advised. ‘We aren’t obliged to be simple and rustic here in Sarsos, so you’ll find an altogether different kind of Styric in those streets.’ She seated herself in the carriage and held out her arms to Danae. The little princess climbed up into her lap and kissed her. It seemed very innocuous and perfectly natural, but Sparhawk was privately surprised that they were not surrounded by a halo of blazing light.

Then Sephrenia looked at Emban. ‘Oh, dear,’ she said. ‘I hadn’t really counted on your being here, your Grace. How firmly fixed are your prejudices?’

‘I like you, Sephrenia,’ the little fat man replied. ‘I resent the Styrics’ stubborn refusal to accept the true faith, but I’m not really a howling bigot.’

‘Are you open to a suggestion, my friend?’ Oscagne asked.

‘I’ll listen.’

‘I’d recommend that you look upon your visit to Sarsos as a holiday, and put your theology on a shelf someplace. Look all you want, but let the things you don’t like pass without comment. The empire would really appreciate your co-operation in this, Emban. Please don’t stir up the Styrics. They’re a very prickly people with capabilities we don’t entirely understand. Let’s not precipitate avoidable explosions.’

Emban opened his mouth as if to retort, but then his eyes grew troubled, and he apparently decided against it.

Sparhawk conferred briefly with Oscagne and Sephrenia and decided that the bulk of the Church Knights should set up camp with the Peloi outside the city. It was a precaution designed to avert incidents. Engessa sent his Atans to their garrison just north of the city wall, and the party surrounding Ehlana’s carriage entered through an unguarded gate.

‘What’s the trouble, Khalad?’ Sephrenia asked Sparhawk’s squire. The young man was looking around, frowning.

‘It’s really none of my business, Lady Sephrenia,’ he said, ‘but are marble buildings really a good idea this far north? Aren’t they awfully cold in the winter time?’

‘He’s so much like his father,’ she smiled. ‘I think you’ve exposed one of our vanities, Khalad. Actually, the buildings are made of brick. The marble’s just a sheathing to make our city impressive.’

‘Even brick isn’t too good at keeping out the cold, Lady Sephrenia.’

‘It is when you make double walls and fill the space between those walls with a foot of plaster.’

‘That would take a lot of time and effort.’

‘You’d be amazed at the amount of time and effort people will waste for the sake of vanity, Khalad, and we can always cheat a little, if we have to. Our Gods are fond of marble buildings, and we like to make them feel at home.’

‘Wood’s still more practical,’ he said stubbornly.

‘I’m sure it is, Khalad, but it’s so commonplace. We like to be different.’

‘It’s different, all right.’

Sarsos even smelled different. A faint miasma hung over every Elene city in the world, an unpleasant blend of sooty smoke, rotting garbage and the effluvium from poorly-constructed and infrequently drained cesspools. Sarsos, on the other hand, smelled of trees and roses. It was summer, and there were small parks and rose bushes everywhere. Ehlana’s expression grew speculative. With a peculiar flash of insight, Sparhawk foresaw a vast programme of public works looming on the horizon for the capital of Elenia.

The architecture and layout of the city was subtle and highly sophisticated. The streets were broad and, except where the inhabitants had decided otherwise for aesthetic reasons, they were straight. The buildings were all sheathed in marble, and they were fronted by graceful white pillars. This was most definitely not an Elene city.

The citizens looked strangely un-Styric. Their kinsmen to the west all wore robes of lumpy white homespun. The garb was so universal as to be a kind of identifying badge. The Styrics of Sarsos, however, wore silks and linens. White still appeared to be the preferred colour, but there were other hues as well, blue and green and yellow, and not a few garments were a brilliant scarlet. Styric women in the west were very seldom seen, but they were much more in evidence here. They also wore colourful clothing and flowers in their hair.

More than anything, however, there was a marked difference in attitude. The Styrics of the west were timid, sometimes as fearful as deer. They were meek – a meekness designed to soften Elene aggressiveness, but that very attitude quite often inflamed the Elenes all the more. The Styrics of Sarsos, on the other hand, were definitely not meek. They did not keep their eyes lowered or speak in soft, hesitant voices. They were assertive. They argued on street corners. They laughed out loud. They walked along the broad avenues of their city with their heads held high as if they were actually proud to be Styric. The one thing that bespoke the difference more than anything else, however, was the fact that the children played in the parks without any signs of fear.

Emban’s face had grown rigid, and his nostrils were pinched-in with anger. Sparhawk knew exactly why the Patriarch of Ucera was showing so much resentment. Candour compelled him to privately admit that he shared it. All Elenes believed that Styrics were an inferior race, and despite their indoctrination, the Church Knights still shared that belief at the deepest level of their minds. Sparhawk felt the thoughts rising in him unbidden. How dare these puffed-up, loud-mouthed Styrics have a more beautiful city than any the Elenes could construct? How dare they be prosperous? How dare they be happy? How dare they strut through these streets behaving for all the world as if they were every bit as good as Elenes?

Then he saw Danae looking at him sadly, and he pulled his thoughts and unspoken resentments up short. He took hold of those unattractive emotions firmly and looked at them. He didn’t like what he saw very much. So long as Styrics were meek and submissive and lived in misery in rude hovels, he was more than willing to leap to their defence, but when they brazenly looked him squarely in the eye with unbowed heads and challenging expressions, he found himself wanting to teach them lessons.

‘Difficult, isn’t it, Sparhawk?’ Stragen said wryly. ‘My bastardy has always made me feel a certain kinship with the downtrodden and despised. I found the towering humility of our Styric brethren so inspiring that I even went out of my way to learn their language. I’ll admit that the people here set my teeth on edge, though. They all seem so disgustingly self-satisfied.’

‘Stragen, sometimes you’re so civilised you make me sick.’

‘My, aren’t we touchy today?’

‘Sorry. I just found something in myself that I don’t like. It’s making me grouchy.’

Stragen sighed. ‘We should probably never look into our own hearts, Sparhawk. I don’t think anybody likes everything he finds there.’

Sparhawk was not the only one having trouble with the City of Sarsos and its inhabitants. Sir Bevier’s face reflected the fact that he was feeling an even greater resentment than the others. His expression was shocked, even outraged.

‘Heard a story once,’ Sir Ulath said to him in that disarmingly reminiscent fashion that always signalled louder than words that Ulath was about to make a point. ‘That was one of Sir Ulath’s characteristics. He almost never spoke unless he was trying to make a point. ‘It seems that there was a Deiran, an Arcian and a Thalesian. It was a long time ago, and they were all speaking in their native dialects. Anyway, they got to arguing about which of their modes of speech was God’s own. They finally agreed to go to Chyrellos and ask the Archprelate to put the question directly to God himself.’

‘And?’ Bevier asked him.

‘Well, sir, everybody knows that God always answers the Archprelate’s questions, so the word finally came back and settled their argument once and for all.’

‘Well?’

‘Well what?’

‘What is God’s native dialect?’

‘Why, Thalesian, of course. Everybody knows that, Bevier.’ Ulath was the kind of man who could say that with a perfectly straight face. ‘It only stands to reason, though. God was a Genidian Knight before he decided to take the universe in hand. I’ll bet you didn’t know that, did you?’

Bevier stared at him for a moment, and then began to laugh a bit sheepishly.

Ulath looked at Sparhawk, and one of his eyelids closed in a slow, deliberate wink. Once again Sparhawk felt obliged to reassess his Thalesian friend.

Sephrenia had a house here in Sarsos, and that was another surprise. There had always been a kind of possessionless transience about her. The house was quite large, and it was set apart in a kind of park where tall old trees shaded gently-sloping lawns and gardens and sparkling fountains. Like all the other buildings in Sarsos, Sephrenia’s house was constructed of marble, and it looked very familiar.

‘You cheated, little mother,’ Kalten accused her as he helped her down from the carriage.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You imitated the temple of Aphrael on the island we all saw in that dream. Even the colonnade along the front is the same.’

‘I suppose you’re right, dear one, but it’s sort of expected here. All the members of the Council of Styricum boast about their own Gods. It’s expected. Our Gods would feel slighted if we didn’t.’

‘You’re a member of the council here?’ He sounded a bit surprised.

‘Of course. I am the high priestess of Aphrael, after all.’

‘It seems a little odd to find somebody from Eosia on the ruling council of a city in Daresia.’

‘What makes you think I came from Eosia?’

‘You didn’t?’

‘Of course not – and the council here in Sarsos isn’t just the local government. We make the decisions for all Styrics, no matter where they are. Shall we go inside? Vanion’s waiting.’ She led them up the marble stairs to a broad, intricately engraved bronze door, and they went on into the house.

The building was constructed around an interior courtyard, a lush garden with a marble fountain in the centre. Vanion half-lay on a divan-like chair near the fountain with his right leg propped up on a number of cushions. His ankle was swathed in bandages, and he had a disgusted expression in his face. His hair and beard were silvery now, and he looked very distinguished. His face was unlined, however. The cares that had weighed him down had been lifted, but that would hardly account for the startling change in him. Even the effects of the dreadful weight of the swords he had forced Sephrenia to give him had somehow been erased. His face looked younger than Sparhawk had ever seen it. He lowered the scroll he had been reading. ‘Sparhawk,’ he said irritably, ‘where have you been?’

‘I’m glad to see you too, my Lord,’ Sparhawk replied.

Vanion looked at him sharply and then laughed, his face a bit sheepish. ‘I guess that was a little ungracious, wasn’t it?’

‘Crotchety, my Lord,’ Ehlana told him. ‘Definitely crotchety.’ Then she cast dignity aside, ran to him and threw her arms about his neck. ‘We are displeased with you, my Lord Vanion,’ she said in her most imperious manner. Then she kissed him soundly. ‘You have deprived us of your counsel and your company in our hour of need.’ She kissed him again. ‘It was churlish of you in the extreme to absent yourself from our side without our permission.’ She kissed him yet again.

‘Am I being reprimanded or re-united with my Queen?’ he asked, looking a bit confused.

‘A little of each, my Lord,’ she shrugged. ‘I thought I’d save some time and take care of everything all at once. I’m really very, very glad to see you again, Vanion, but I was most unhappy when you crept away from Cimmura like a thief in the night.’

‘We don’t really do that, you know,’ Stragen noted clinically. ‘After you’ve stolen something, the idea is to look ordinary, and creeping attracts attention.’

‘Stragen,’ she said, ‘hush.’

‘I took him away from Cimmura for his health,’ Sephrenia told her. ‘He was dying there. I had a certain personal interest in keeping him alive, so I took him to a place where I could nurse him back to health. I badgered Aphrael unmercifully for a couple of years, and she finally gave in. I can make a serious pest of myself when I want something, and I really wanted Vanion.’ She made no attempt to conceal her feelings now. The years of unspoken love between her and the Pandion Preceptor were out in the open. She also made no effort to conceal what was quite obviously in both the Styric and the Elene cultures a scandalous arrangement. She and Vanion were openly living in sin, and neither of them showed the slightest bit of remorse about it. ‘How’s the ankle, dear one?’ she asked him.

‘It’s swelling up again.’

‘Didn’t I tell you to soak it in ice when it did that?’

‘I didn’t have any ice.’

‘Make some, Vanion. You know the spell.’

‘The ice I make doesn’t seem as cold as yours, Sephrenia.’ His voice was plaintive.

‘Men!’ she cried in seeming exasperation. ‘They’re all such babies!’ She bustled away in search of a basin.

‘You followed that, didn’t you, Sparhawk?’ Vanion said.

‘Of course, my Lord. It was very smooth, if I may say so.’

‘Thank you.’

‘What was that all about?’ Kalten asked.

‘You’d never understand, Kalten,’ Sparhawk replied.

‘Not in a million years,’ Vanion added.

‘How did you sprain your ankle, Lord Vanion?’ Berit asked.

‘I was proving a point. I advised the Council of Styricum that the young men of Sarsos were in extremely poor physical condition. I had to demonstrate by outrunning the whole bloody town. I was doing fairly well until I stepped in that rabbit-hole.’

‘That’s a real shame, Lord Vanion,’ Kalten said. ‘As far as I know, that’s the first contest you ever lost.’

‘Who said I lost? I was far enough ahead and close enough to the finish line that I was able to hobble on and win. The Council’s going to at least think about some military training for the young men.’ He glanced at Sparhawk’s squire. ‘Hello, Khalad,’ he said. ‘How are your mothers?’

‘Quite well, my Lord. We stopped by to see them when we were taking the queen to Chyrellos so that she could turn the Archprelate over her knee and spank him.’

‘Khalad!’ Ehlana protested.

‘Wasn’t I supposed to say that, your Majesty? We all thought that’s what you had in mind when we left Cimmura.’

‘Well – sort of, I guess – but you’re not supposed to come right out and say it like that.’

‘Oh, I didn’t know that. I thought it was sort of a good idea, myself. Our Holy Mother needs to have something to worry about now and then. It keeps her out of mischief.’

‘Astonishing, Khalad,’ Patriarch Emban murmured dryly. ‘You’ve managed to insult both Church and State in under a minute.’

‘What’s been going on in Eosia since I left?’ Vanion demanded.

‘It was just a small misunderstanding between Sarathi and me, my Lord Vanion,’ Ehlana replied. ‘Khalad was exaggerating. He does that quite often – when he’s not busy insulting the Church and State at the same time.’

‘We may just have another Sparhawk coming up here,’ Vanion grinned.

‘God defend the Church,’ Emban said.

‘And the crown,’ Ehlana added.

Princess Danae pushed her way through to Vanion. She was carrying Mmrr, her hand wrapped around the kitten’s middle. Mmrr, had a resigned expression on her furry face, and her legs dangled ungracefully. ‘Hello, Vanion,’ Danae said, climbing up into his lap and giving him an offhand sort of kiss.

‘You’ve grown, Princess,’ he smiled.

‘Did you expect me to shrink?’

‘Danae’ Ehlana scolded.

‘Oh, mother, Vanion and I are old friends. He used to hold me when I was a baby.’

Sparhawk looked carefully at his friend, trying to decide whether or not Vanion knew about the little princess. Vanion’s face, however, revealed nothing. ‘I’ve missed you, Princess,’ he said to her.

‘I know. Everybody misses me when I’m not around. Have you met Mmrr yet? She’s my cat. Talen gave her to me. Wasn’t that nice of him?’

‘Very nice, Danae.’

‘I thought so myself. Father’s going to put him in training when we get home. It’s probably just as well to get that all done while I’m still a little girl.’

‘Oh? Why’s that, Princess?’

‘Because I’m going to marry him when I grow up, and I’d like to have all that training nonsense out of the way. Would you like to hold my cat?’

Talen blushed and laughed a bit nervously, trying to pass off Danae’s announcement as some sort of little-girl whim. His eyes looked a bit wild, however.

‘You should never warn them like that, Princess,’ Baroness Melidere advised. ‘You’re supposed to wait and tell them at the last possible minute.’

‘Oh. Is that the way it’s done?’ Danae looked at Talen. ‘Why don’t you forget what I just said then?’ she suggested. ‘I’m not going to do anything about it for the next ten or twelve years anyway.’ She paused. ‘Or eight, maybe. There’s no real point in wasting time, is there?’

Talen was staring at her with the first faint hints of terror in his eyes.

‘She’s only teasing you, Talen,’ Kalten assured the boy. ‘And even if she isn’t, I’m sure she’ll change her mind before she gets to the dangerous age.’

‘Never happen, Kalten,’ Danae told him in a voice like steel.

That evening, after arrangements had been made and the crowd had been mostly dispersed to nearby houses, Sparhawk sat in the cool garden at the centre of the house with Sephrenia and Vanion. Princess Danae sat on the ledge surrounding the fountain watching her kitten. Mmrr had discovered that there were goldfish swimming in the pool, and she sat with her tail twitching and her eyes wide with dreadful intent.

‘I need to know something before I start,’ Sparhawk said, looking directly at Sephrenia. ‘How much does he know?’ He pointed at Vanion.

‘Just about everything, I’d say. I have no secrets from him.’

‘That’s not too specific, Sephrenia.’ Sparhawk groped for a way to ask the question without revealing too much.

‘Oh, do get to the point, Sparhawk,’ Danae told him. ‘Vanion knows who I am. He had a little trouble with it at first, but he’s more or less reconciled to the idea now.’

‘That’s not entirely true,’ Vanion disagreed. ‘You’re the one with the really serious problems though, Sparhawk. How are you managing the situation?’

‘Badly,’ Danae sniffed. ‘He keeps asking questions, even though he knows he won’t understand the answers.’

‘Does Ehlana suspect?’ Vanion asked seriously.

‘Of course she doesn’t,’ the Child Goddess replied. ‘Sparhawk and I decided that right at the beginning. Tell them what’s been happening, Sparhawk – and don’t be all night about it. Mirtai’s bound to come looking for me soon.’

‘It must be pure hell,’ Vanion said sympathetically to his friend.

‘Not entirely. I have to watch her, though. Once she had a swarm of fairies pollinating all the flowers in the palace garden.’

‘The bees are too slow,’ she shrugged.

‘Maybe so, but people expect the bees to do it. If you turn the job over to the fairies, there’s bound to be talk.’ Sparhawk leaned back and looked at Vanion. ‘Sephrenia’s told you about the Lamorks and Drychtnath, hasn’t she?’

‘Yes. It’s not just wild stories, is it?’

Sparhawk shook his head. ‘No. We encountered some bronze-age Lamorks outside of Demos. After Ulath brained their leader, they all vanished – except for the dead. Oscagne’s convinced that it’s a diversion of some kind – rather like the games Martel was playing to keep us out of Chyrellos during the election of the Archprelate. We’ve been catching glimpses of Krager, and that lends some weight to Oscagne’s theory, but you always taught us that it’s a mistake to try to fight the last war over again, so I’m not locking myself into the idea that what’s happening in Lamorkand is purely diversionary. I can’t really accept the notion that somebody would go to all that trouble to keep the Church Knights out of Tamuli – not with the Atans already here.’

Vanion nodded. ‘You’re going to need someone to help you when you get to Matherion, Sparhawk. Tamul culture’s very subtle, and you could make some colossal blunders without even knowing it.’

‘Thanks, Vanion.’

‘You’re not the only one, though. Your companions aren’t the most diplomatic men in the world, and Ehlana tends to jump fences when she gets excited. Did she really go head to head with Dolmant?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Danae said. ‘I had to kiss them both into submission before I could make peace between them.’

‘Who’d be the best to send, Sephrenia?’ Vanion asked.

‘Me.’

‘That’s out of the question. I won’t be separated from you again.’

‘That’s very sweet, dear one. Why don’t you come along then?’

He seemed to hesitate. ‘I–’

‘Don’t be such a goose, Vanion,’ Danae told him. ‘You won’t die the minute you leave Sarsos – any more than you did when you left my island. You’re completely cured now.’

‘I wasn’t worried about that,’ he told her, ‘but Sephrenia can’t leave Sarsos anyway. She’s a member of the Council of Styricum.’

‘I’ve been a member of the Council of Styricum for several centuries, Vanion,’ Sephrenia told him. ‘I’ve left here before – for long periods of time on occasion. The other members of the Council understand. They’ve all had to do the same thing themselves now and then.’

‘I’m a little vague on this ruling council,’ Sparhawk admitted. ‘I knew that Styrics kept in touch with each other, but I hadn’t realised it was quite so well-knit.’

‘We don’t make an issue of it,’ Sephrenia shrugged. ‘If the Elenes knew about it, they’d try to make some huge conspiracy out of it.’

‘Your membership on the council keeps coming up.’ Sparhawk noted. ‘Is this council really relevant, or is it just some sort of ceremonial body?’

‘Oh, no, Sparhawk,’ Vanion told him. The council’s very important. Styricum’s a Theocracy, and the council’s composed of the high priests – and priestesses – of the Younger Gods.’

‘Being Aphrael’s priestess isn’t really a very taxing position,’ Sephrenia smiled, looking fondly at the Child Goddess. ‘She’s not particularly interested in asserting herself, since she usually gets what she wants in other ways. I get certain advantages – like this house – but I have to sit in on the meetings of the Thousand, and that can be tedious sometimes.’

‘The Thousand?’

‘It’s another name for the Council.’

‘There are a thousand Younger Gods?’ Sparhawk was a bit surprised at that.

‘Well, of course there are, Sparhawk,’ Aphrael told him. ‘Everybody knows that.’

‘Why a thousand?’

‘It’s a nice number with a nice sound to it. In Styric it’s Ageraluon.’

‘I’m not familiar with the word.’

‘It means ten times ten times ten – sort of. We had quite an argument with one of my cousins about it. He had a pet crocodile, and it had bitten off one of his fingers. He always had trouble counting after that. He wanted us to be Ageralican – nine times nine times nine, but we explained to him that there were already more of us than that, and that if we wanted to be Ageralican, some of us would have to be obliterated. We asked him if he’d care to volunteer to be one of them, and he dropped the idea.’

‘Why would anyone want to have a pet crocodile?’

‘It’s one of the things we do. We like to make pets of animals you humans can’t control. Crocodiles aren’t so bad. At least you don’t have to feed them.’

‘No, but you have to count the children every morning. Now I understand why the question of whales keeps coming up.’

‘You’re really very stubborn about that, Sparhawk. I could really impress my family if I had a whale.’

‘I think we’re getting a little far afield,’ Vanion said. ‘Sephrenia tells me you’ve got some fairly exotic suspicions.’

‘I’ve been trying to explain something I can’t completely see yet, Vanion. It’s like trying to describe a horse when all you’ve to work with is his tail. I’ve got a lot of bits and pieces and not too much more. I’m positive that everything that we’ve seen so far – and probably a lot of things we haven’t – are all hooked together, and that there’s one intelligence guiding it all. I think it’s a God, Vanion – or Gods.’

‘Are you sure your encounter with Azash didn’t make you start seeing hostile divinities under beds and in dark closets?’

‘I have it on the very best authority that only a God could raise an entire army out of the past. The authority who told me was quite smug about it.’

‘Be nice, father,’ Danae said primly. ‘It’s too complex, Vanion,’ she explained. ‘When you raise an army, you have to raise each individual soldier, and you have to know everything about him when you do that. It’s the details that defeat human magicians when they try it.’

‘Any ideas?’ Vanion asked his friend.

‘Several,’ Sparhawk grunted, ‘and none of them very pleasant. Do you remember that shadow I told you about? The one that was following me all over Eosia after I killed Ghwerig?’

Vanion nodded.

‘We’ve been seeing it again, and this time everybody can see it.’

‘That doesn’t sound too good.’

‘No, it doesn’t. Last time, that shadow was the Troll-Gods.’

Vanion shuddered, and then the both of them looked at Sephrenia.

‘Isn’t it nice to be needed?’ Danae said to her sister.

‘I’ll talk with Zalasta,’ Sephrenia sighed. ‘He’s been keeping abreast of things here in Sarsos for the emperor. He probably knows a great deal about this, so I’ll have him stop by tomorrow.’

There was a loud splash.

i told you that was going to happen, Mmrr,’ Danae said smugly to the wild-eyed kitten struggling to stay afloat in the fountain. Mmrr’s problems were multiplied by the fact that the goldfish were ferociously defending their domain by bumping her paws and tummy with their noses.

‘Fish her out, Danae,’ Sparhawk told her.

‘She’ll get me all wet, father, and then mother will scold me. Mmrr got herself into that fix. Now let her get herself out.’

‘She’ll drown.’

‘Oh, of course she won’t, Sparhawk. She knows how to swim. Look at her. She’s cat-paddling for all she’s worth.’

‘She’s what?’

‘Cat-paddling. You couldn’t really call it dog-paddling, could you? She’s not a dog, after all. We Styrics talk about cat-paddling all the time, don’t we, Sephrenia?’

‘I never have,’ Sephrenia murmured.