Authors: David Eddings
Belton 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.
Belton’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. ‘Belton and the
others were all allied to Annias, and Krager used to carry messages between Annias and Martel. Belton and his cohorts would almost certainly have known Krager. Pelk’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. Pelk 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 Rendor,’ 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 Rendor?’ Kalten asked them.
‘Hot, dry, dusty, hysterical,’ Tynian replied. ‘Rendor 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 villages, 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 Rendor were much more interested in punishment than in reconciliation. We had a chance for real peace in Rendor, 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 Rendor.’
‘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 Rendor 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.