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‘And with you, Sir Knight.’
Sparhawk went on along the torchlit corridor until he came to a narrow stairway which wound up into the south tower between walls of massive, unmortared stones. At the top of the stairs there was a heavy door guarded by two young Pandions. Sparhawk did not recognize either of them. ‘I need to talk with Vanion,’ he told them. ‘The name is Sparhawk.’
‘Can you identify yourself?’ one of them asked, trying to make his youthful voice sound gruff.
‘I’ve just done so.’
It hung there while the two young knights struggled to find a graceful way out of the situation. ‘Why not just open the door and tell Vanion that I’m here?’ Sparhawk suggested. ‘If he recognizes me, fine. If he doesn’t, the two of you can try to throw me back down the stairs.’ He laid no particular emphasis on the word try.
The two looked at each other, then one of them opened the door and looked inside. ‘A thousand pardons, my Lord Vanion,’ he apologized, ‘but there’s a Pandion here who calls himself Sparhawk. He says that he wants to talk with you.’
‘Good,’ a familiar voice replied from inside the room. ‘I’ve been expecting him. Send him in.’
The two knights looked abashed and stepped out of Sparhawk’s way.
‘Thank you, my brothers,’ Sparhawk murmured to them. ‘Peace be with you.’ And then he went on through the door. The room was large, with stone walls, dark green drapes at the narrow windows, and a carpet of muted brown. A fire crackled in the arched fireplace at one end, and there was a candlelit table surrounded by heavy chairs in the centre. Two people, a man and a woman, sat at the table.
Vanion, the Preceptor of the Pandion Knights, had aged somewhat in the past ten years. His hair and beard were iron-grey now. There were a few more lines in his face, but there were no signs of feebleness there. He wore a mail shirt and a silver surcoat. As Sparhawk entered the room, he rose and came around the table. ‘I was about to send a rescue party to the palace for you,’ he said, grasping Sparhawk’s armoured shoulders. ‘You shouldn’t have gone there alone, you know.’
‘Maybe not, but things worked out all right.’ Sparhawk removed his gauntlets and helmet, laying them on the table. Then he unfastened his sword from its studs and laid it beside them. ‘It’s good to see you again, Vanion,’ he said, taking the older man’s hand in his. Vanion had always been a stern teacher, tolerating no shortcomings in the young knights he had trained to take their places in Pandion ranks. Although Sparhawk had come close to hating the man during his novitiate, he now regarded the blunt-spoken preceptor as one of his closest friends, and their handclasp was warm, even affectionate.
Then the big knight turned to the woman. She was small and had that peculiar neat perfection one sometimes sees in small people. Her hair was as black as night, though her eyes were a deep blue. Her features were obviously not Elene, but had that strangely foreign cast that marked her as a Styric. She wore a soft, white robe, and there was a large book on the table in front of her. ‘Sephrenia,’ he greeted her warmly, ‘you’re looking well.’ He took both of her hands in his and kissed her palms in the ritual Styric gesture of greeting.
‘You have been long away, Sir Sparhawk,’ she replied. Her voice was soft and musical and had an odd, lilting quality to it.
‘And will you bless me, little mother?’ he asked, a smile touching his battered face. He knelt before her. The form of address was Styric, reflecting that intimate personal connection between teacher and pupil which had existed since the dawn of time.
‘Gladly.’ She lightly touched her hands to his face and spoke a ritual benediction in the Styric tongue.
‘Thank you,’ he said simply.
Then she did something she rarely did. With her hands still holding his face, she leaned forward and lightly kissed him. ‘Welcome home, dear one,’ she murmured.
‘It’s good to be back,’ he replied. ‘I’ve missed you.’
‘Even though I scolded you when you were a boy?’ she asked with a gentle smile.
‘Scoldings don’t hurt that much.’ He laughed. ‘I even missed those, for some reason.’
‘I think that perhaps we did well with this one, Vanion,’ she said to the preceptor. ‘Between us, we’ve made a good Pandion.’
‘One of the best,’ Vanion agreed. ‘I think Sparhawk’s what they had in mind when they formed the order.’
Sephrenia’s position among the Knights Pandion was a peculiar one. She had appeared at the gates of the order’s motherhouse at Demos upon the death of the Styric tutor who had been instructing the novices in what the Styrics referred to as the secrets. She had neither been selected nor summoned, but had simply appeared and taken up her predecessor’s duties. Generally, Elenes despised and feared Styrics. They were a strange, alien people who lived in small, rude clusters of houses deep in the forests and mountains. They worshipped strange Gods and practised magic. Wild stories about hideous rites involving the use of Elene blood and flesh had circulated among the more gullible in Elene society for centuries, and periodically mobs of drunken peasants would descend on unsuspecting Styric villages, bent on massacre. The Church vigorously denounced such atrocities. The Church Knights, who had come to know and respect their alien tutors, went perhaps a step further than the Church, letting it be generally known that unprovoked attacks on Styric settlements would result in swift and savage retaliation. Despite such organized protection, however, any Styric who entered an Elene village or town could expect taunts and abuse and, not infrequently, showers of stones and offal. Thus, Sephrenia’s appearance at Demos had not been without personal risks. Her motives for coming had been unclear, but over the years she had served faithfully; to a man the Pandions had come to love and respect her. Even Vanion, the preceptor of the order, frequently sought her counsel.
Sparhawk looked at the volume lying on the table before her. ‘A book, Sephrenia?’ he said in mock amazement. ‘Has Vanion finally persuaded you to learn how to read?’
‘You know my beliefs about that practice, Sparhawk,’ she replied. ‘I was merely looking at the pictures.’ She pointed at the brilliant illuminations on the page. ‘I was ever fond of bright colours.’
Sparhawk drew up a chair and sat, his armour creaking.
‘You saw Ehlana?’ Vanion asked, resuming his seat across the table.
‘Yes.’ Sparhawk looked at Sephrenia. ‘How did you do that?’ he asked her. ‘Seal her up like that, I mean?’
‘It’s a bit complex.’ Then she stopped and gave him a penetrating look. ‘Perhaps you’re ready, at that,’ she murmured. She rose to her feet. ‘Come over here, Sparhawk,’ she said, moving towards the fireplace.
Puzzled, he rose and followed her.
‘Look into the flames, dear one,’ she said softly, using that odd Styric form of address she had used when he was her pupil.
Compelled by her voice, he stared at the fire. Faintly, he heard her whispering in Styric, and then she passed her hand slowly across the flames. Unthinking, he sank to his knees and stared into the fireplace.
Something was moving in the fire. Sparhawk leaned forward and stared hard at the little bluish curls of flame dancing along the edge of a charred oak log. The blue colour expanded, growing larger and larger, and within that nimbus of coruscating blue, he seemed to see a group of figures that wavered as the flame flickered. The image grew stronger, and he realized that he was looking at the semblance of the throne room in the palace, many miles away. Twelve armoured Pandions were crossing the flagstone floor bearing the slight figure of a young girl. She was borne, not upon a litter, but upon the flat sides of a dozen gleaming sword blades held rock-steady by the twelve black-armoured and visored men. They stopped before the throne, and Sephrenia’s white-robed figure stepped out of the shadows. She raised one hand, seeming to say something, though all Sparhawk could hear was the crackling flames. With a dreadful jerking motion, the young girl sat up. It was Ehlana. Her face was distorted and her eyes wide and vacant.
Without thinking, Sparhawk reached towards her, thrusting his hand directly into the flames.
‘No,’ Sephrenia said sharply, pulling his hand back. ‘You may watch only.’
The image of Ehlana, trembling uncontrollably, jerked to its feet, following, it seemed, the unspoken commands of the small woman in the white robe. Imperiously, Sephrenia pointed at the throne, and Ehlana stumbled, even staggered, up the steps of the dais to assume her rightful place.
Sparhawk wept. He tried once again to reach out to his queen, but Sephrenia held him back with a gentle touch that was strangely like an iron chain. ‘Continue to watch, dear one,’ she told him.
The twelve knights then formed a circle around the enthroned Queen and the white-robed woman standing at her side. Reverently, they extended their swords so that the two women on the dais were ringed in steel. Sephrenia raised her arms and spoke. Sparhawk could clearly see the strain on her face as she uttered the words of an incantation he could not even begin to imagine.
The point of each of the twelve swords began to glow and grew brighter and brighter, bathing the dais in intense silvery-white light. The light from those sword tips seemed to coalesce around Ehlana and her throne. Then Sephrenia spoke a single word, bringing her arm down as she did so in a peculiar cutting motion. In an instant the light around Ehlana solidified, and she became as she had been when Sparhawk had seen her in the throne room that morning. The image of Sephrenia, however, wilted and collapsed on the dais beside the crystal-encased throne.
The tears were streaming openly down Sparhawk’s face, and Sephrenia gently enfolded his head in her arms, holding him to her. ‘It is not easy, Sparhawk,’ she comforted him. ‘To look thus into the fire opens the heart and allows what we really are to emerge. You are gentler far than you would have us believe.’
He wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘How long will the crystal sustain her?’ he asked.
‘For as long as the thirteen of us who were there continue to live,’ Sephrenia replied. ‘A year at most, as you Elenes measure time.’
He stared at her.
‘It is our life force that keeps her heart alive. As the seasons turn, we will one by one drop away, and one of us who was there will then have to assume the burden of the fallen. Eventually when we have each and every one given all we can – your Queen will die.’
‘No!’ he said fiercely. He looked at Vanion. ‘Were you there, too?’
Vanion nodded.
‘Who else?’
‘It wouldn’t serve any purpose for you to know that, Sparhawk. We all went willingly and we knew what was involved.’
‘Who’s going to take up the burden you mentioned?’ Sparhawk asked Sephrenia.
‘I will.’
‘We’re still arguing that point,’ Vanion disagreed. ‘Any one of us who were there can do it, actually.’
‘Not unless we modify the spell, Vanion,’ she told him just a bit smugly.
‘We’ll see,’ he said.
‘But what good does it do?’ Sparhawk demanded. ‘All you’ve done is to give her a year more of life at a dreadful cost – and she doesn’t even know.’
‘If we can isolate the cause of her illness and find a cure, the spell can be reversed,’ Sephrenia replied. ‘We have suspended her life to give us time.’
‘Are we making any progress?’
‘I’ve got every physician in Elenia working on it,’ Vanion said, ‘and I’ve summoned others from various parts of Eosia. Sephrenia’s looking into the possibility that the illness may not be of natural origin. We’ve encountered some resistance, though. The court physicians refuse to co-operate.’
‘I’ll go back to the palace then,’ Sparhawk said bleakly. ‘Perhaps I can persuade them to be more helpful.’
‘We thought of that already, but Annias has them all closely guarded.’
‘What is Annias up to?’ Sparhawk burst out angrily. ‘All we want to do is to restore Ehlana. Why is he putting all these stumbling blocks in our path? Does he want the throne for himself?’
‘I think he has his eyes on a bigger throne,’ Vanion said. ‘The Archprelate Cluvonus is old and in poor health. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Annias believed that the mitre of the Archprelacy might fit him.’
‘Annias? Archprelate? Vanion, that’s an absurdity.’
‘Life is filled with absurdities, Sparhawk. The militant orders are all opposed to him, of course, and our opinion carries a great deal of weight with the Church Hierocracy, but Annias has his hands in the treasury of Elenia up to the elbows and he’s very free with his bribes. Ehlana would have been able to cut off his access to that money, but she fell ill. That may have something to do with his lack of enthusiasm about her recovery.’
‘And he wants to put Arissa’s bastard on the throne to replace her?’ Sparhawk was growing angrier by the minute. ‘Vanion, I’ve just seen Lycheas. He’s weaker – and stupider – than King Aldreas was. Besides, he’s illegitimate.’
Vanion spread his hands. ‘A vote of the Royal Council could legitimize him, and Annias controls the council.’
‘Not all of it, he doesn’t,’ Sparhawk grated. ‘Technically, I’m also a member of the council, and I think I might just want to sway a few votes if that ever came up. A public duel or two might change the minds of the council.’
‘You’re rash, Sparhawk,’ Sephrenia told him.
‘No, I’m angry. I feel a powerful urge to hurt some people.’
Vanion sighed. ‘We can’t make any decisions just yet,’ he said. Then he shook his head and turned to another matter. ‘What’s really going on in Rendor?’ he asked. ‘Voren’s reports were all rather carefully worded in the event they fell into unfriendly hands.’
Sparhawk rose and went to one of the embrasured windows with his black cape swirling about his ankles. The sky was still covered with dirty-looking cloud, and the city of Cimmura seemed to crouch beneath that scud as if clenched to endure yet another winter. ‘It’s hot there,’ he mused, almost as if to himself, ‘and dry and dusty. The sun reflects back from the walls and pierces the eye. At first light, before the sun rises and the sky is like molten silver, veiled women in black robes and with clay vessels on their shoulders pass in silence through the streets on their way to the wells.’
‘I’ve misjudged you, Sparhawk,’ Sephrenia said in her melodic voice. ‘You have the soul of a poet.’
‘Not really, Sephrenia. It’s just that you need to get the feel of Rendor to understand what’s happening there. The sun is like the blows of a hammer on the top of your head, and the air is so hot and dry that it leaves no time for thought. Rendors seek simplistic answers. The sun doesn’t give them time for pondering. That might explain what happened to Eshand in the first place. A simple shepherd with his brains half baked out isn’t the logical receptacle for any kind of profound epiphany. It’s the aggravation of the sun, I think, that gave the Eshandist Heresy its impetus in the first place. Those poor fools would have accepted any idea, no matter how absurd, just for the chance to move around – and perhaps find some shade.’
‘That’s a novel explanation for a movement that plunged all of Eosia into three centuries of warfare,’ Vanion observed.
‘You have to experience it,’ Sparhawk told him, returning to his seat. ‘Anyway, one of those sun-baked enthusiasts arose at Dabour about twenty years ago.’
‘Arasham?’ Vanion surmised. ‘We’ve heard of him.’
‘That’s what he calls himself,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘He was probably born with a different name, though. Religious leaders tend to change their names fairly often to fit the prejudices of their followers. From what I understand, Arasham is an unlettered, unwashed fanatic with only a tenuous grip on reality. He’s about eighty or so, and he sees things and hears voices. His followers have less intelligence than their sheep. They’d gladly attack the kingdoms of the north – if they could only figure out which way north is. That’s a matter of serious debate in Rendor. I’ve seen a few of them. These heretics that send the members of the Hierocracy in Chyrellos trembling to their beds every night are little more than howling desert dervishes, poorly armed and with no military training. Frankly, Vanion, I’d worry more about the next winter storm than any kind of resurgence of the Eshandist Heresy in Rendor.’
‘That’s blunt enough.’
‘I’ve just wasted ten years of my life on a nonexistent danger. I’m sure you’ll forgive a certain amount of discontent about the whole thing.’
‘Patience will come to you, Sparhawk.’ Sephrenia smiled. ‘Once you have reached maturity.’
‘I thought that I already had.’
‘Not by half.’
He grinned at her then. ‘Just how old are you, Sephrenia?’ he asked.
Her look was filled with resignation. ‘What is it about you Pandions that makes you all ask that same question? You know I’m not going to answer you. Can’t you just accept the fact that I’m older than you are and let it go at that?’
‘You’re also older than I am,’ Vanion added. ‘You were my teacher when I was no older than those boys who guard my door.’
‘And do I look so very, very old?’
‘My dear Sephrenia, you’re as young as spring and as wise as winter. You’ve ruined us all, you know. After we’ve known you, the fairest of maidens have no charm for us.’
‘Isn’t he nice?’ She smiled at Sparhawk. ‘Surely no man alive has so beguiling a tongue.’
‘Try him sometime when you’ve just missed a pass with the lance,’ Sparhawk replied sourly. He shifted his shoulders under the weight of his armour. ‘What else is afoot? I’ve been gone a long time and I’m hungry for news.’
‘Otha’s mobilizing,’ Vanion told him. ‘The word that’s coming out of Zemoch is that he’s looking eastward towards Daresia and the Tamul Empire, but I’ve got a few doubts about that.’
‘And I have more than a few,’ Sephrenia agreed. ‘The kingdoms of the west are suddenly awash with Styric vagabonds. They camp at crossroads and hawk the rude goods of Styricum, but no local Styric band acknowledges them as members. For some reason the Emperor Otha and his cruel master have inundated us with watchers. Azash has driven the Zemochs to attack the west before. Something lies hidden here that he desperately wants, and he’s not going to find it in Daresia.’
‘There have been Zemoch mobilizations before,’ Sparhawk said, leaning back. ‘Nothing ever came of it.’
‘I think that this time might be a bit more serious,’ Vanion disagreed. ‘When he gathered his forces before, it was always on the border; as soon as the four militant orders moved into Lamorkand to face him, he disbanded his armies. He was testing us, nothing more. This time, though, he’s massing his troops back behind the mountains – out of sight, so to speak.’
‘Let him come,’ Sparhawk said bleakly. ‘We stopped him five hundred years ago, and we can do it again if we have to.’
Vanion shook his head. ‘We don’t want a repetition of what happened after the battle at Lake Randera – a century of famine, pestilence and complete social collapse – no, my friend, that we don’t want.’
‘If we can avoid it,’ Sephrenia added. ‘I am Styric, and I know even better than you Elenes just how totally evil the Elder God Azash is. If he comes west again, he must be stopped – no matter what the cost.’
‘That’s what the Church Knights are here for,’ Vanion said. ‘Right now, about all we can do is keep our eyes on Otha.’
‘I’ve just remembered something,’ Sparhawk said. ‘When I was riding into town last night, I saw Krager.’
‘Here in Cimmura?’ Vanion asked, sounding surprised. ‘Do you think Martel could be with him?’
‘Probably not. Krager’s usually Martel’s errand boy. Adus is the one who has to be kept on a short chain.’ He squinted. ‘How much did you hear about the incident in Cippria?’ he asked them.
‘We heard that Martel attacked you,’ Vanion replied. ‘That’s about all.’
