The Ruby Knight

  ‘I wouldn’t take too long, Your Grace,’ Kalten advised. ‘If you do, it could be that you’ll arrive in Chyrellos just in time to kiss the ring of the Archprelate Annias.’

  ‘That must never happen,’ Alstrom declared sternly. ‘The siege at the gates is my concern, Ortzel, not yours. Therefore I must regretfully withdraw my hospitality. You will leave my castle just as soon as it’s convenient.’

  ‘Alstrom!’ Ortzel gasped. ‘This is my home. I was born here.’

  ‘But our father left it to me. Your proper home is in the Basilica of Chyrellos. I advise you to go there at once.’

  Chapter 6

  ‘We’ll need to go to the highest point in your castle, My Lord,’ Sephrenia said after the Patriarch of Kadach had angrily stormed from the room.

  ‘That would be the north tower,’ he replied.

  ‘And can one see the besieging army from there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. First, however, we must give your soldiers instructions on how to proceed with this.’ She pointed at the barrel. ‘All right, gentlemen,’ she said crisply, ‘don’t just stand there. Pick the barrel up and bring it along, and whatever you do, don’t drop it or get it near any fire.’

  Her instructions to the soldiers manning the catapults were fairly simple, explaining the proper mixture of the powder, naphtha and pitch. ‘Now,’ she went on, ‘listen very carefully. Your own safety depends on this. Do not set fire to the naphtha until the last possible instant, and if any of the smoke blows in your direction, hold your breath and run. Under no circumstances breathe any of those fumes.’

  ‘Will they kill us?’ one soldier asked in a frightened voice.

  ‘No, but they’ll make you ill and confuse your minds. Cover your noses and mouths with damp cloths. That may protect you a bit. Wait for the baron’s signal from the north tower.’ She tested the wind direction. ‘Hurl the burning material to the north of those troops on the causeway,’ she told them, ‘and don’t forget to throw some at those ships in the river as well. Very well then, Baron Alstrom. Let’s go to the tower.’

  As it had been for the last several days, the sky was cloudy, and a brisk wind whistled through the unpaned embrasures of the north tower. Like all such purely defensive constructions, the tower was severely utilitarian. The besieging army of Count Gerrich looked oddly ant-like, a mass of tiny men with armour glinting the colour of pewter in the pale light. Despite the height of the tower, an occasional crossbow bolt chinked against its weathered stones.

  ‘Be careful,’ Sparhawk murmured to Sephrenia as she thrust her head out of one of the embrasures to peer at the troops massed before the gate.

  ‘There’s no danger,’ she assured him as the wind whipped at her hooded white robe. ‘My Goddess protects me.’

  ‘You can believe in your Goddess all you want,’ he replied, ‘but your safety is my responsibility. Have you any idea of what Vanion would do to me if I let you get hurt?’

  ‘And that’s only after I got through with him,’ Kalten growled.

  She stepped back from the embrasure and stood tapping one finger thoughtfully against her pursed lips.

  ‘Forgive me, Madame,’ Alstrom said. ‘I recognize the necessity of chasing off that creature out there, but a purely temporary withdrawal of Gerrich’s troops won’t really do us all that much good. They’ll return as soon as the smoke dissipates, and we still won’t be any closer to getting my brother safely away from here.’

  ‘If we do this right, they won’t return for several days, My Lord.’

  ‘Are the fumes that powerful?’

  ‘No. They’ll clear off in an hour or so.’

  ‘That’s hardly time enough for you to make good your escape,’ he pointed out. ‘What’s to prevent Gerrich from coming back and continuing the siege?’

  ‘He’s going to be very busy.’

  ‘Busy? With what?’

  ‘He’s going to be chasing some people.’

  ‘And who is that?’

  ‘You, me, Sparhawk and the others, your brother, and a fair number of men from your garrison.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s wise, Madame,’ Alstrom said critically. ‘We have secure fortifications here. I don’t propose to abandon them and risk all our lives in flight.’

  ‘We’re not going anywhere just yet.’

  ‘But you just said -’

  ‘Gerrich and his men will think they’re pursuing us. What they’ll actually be chasing, however, will be an illusion.’ She smiled briefly. ‘Some of the best magic is illusion,’ she said. ‘You trick the mind and the eye into believing wholly in something that’s not really there. Gerrich will be absolutely convinced that we’re trying to take advantage of the confusion to bolt. He’ll follow with his army, and that should give us plenty of time to slip your brother away to safety. Is that forest on the horizon fairly extensive?’

  ‘It goes on for several leagues.’

  ‘Very good. We’ll lead Gerrich in there with our illusion and let him wander around amongst the trees for the next few days.’

  ‘I think there’s a flaw here, Sephrenia,’ Sparhawk said. ‘Won’t the Seeker come back just as soon as the smoke clears? I don’t think an illusion would deceive it, would it?’

  ‘The Seeker won’t come back for at least a week,’ she assured him. ‘It will be very, very ill.’

  ‘Should I signal the troops manning the catapults?’ Alstrom asked.

  ‘Not yet, My Lord. We have other things to do first. Timing is very important in this. Berit, I’ll need a basin of water.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ The novice went towards the stairs.

  ‘Very well, then,’ she continued. ‘Let’s get started.’ She patiently began to instruct the Church Knights in the spell. There were Styric words Sparhawk had not learned before, and Sephrenia adamantly insisted that each of them repeat them over and over until pronunciation and intonation were absolutely perfect. ‘Stop that!’ she commanded at one point when Kalten tried to join in.

  ‘I thought I could help,’ he protested.

  ‘I know just how inept you are at this, Kalten. Just stay out of it. All right, gentlemen, let’s try it again.’

  Once she was satisfied with their pronunciation, she instructed Sparhawk to weave the spell. He began to repeat the Styric words and to gesture with his fingers. The figure that appeared in the centre of the room was vaguely amorphous, but it did appear to be wearing Pandion black armour.

  ‘You didn’t put a face on it, Sparhawk,’ Kalten pointed out.

  ‘I’ll take care of that,’ Sephrenia said. She spoke two words and gestured sharply.

  Sparhawk stared at the shape before him. It was much like looking into a mirror.

  Sephrenia was frowning.

  ‘Something wrong?’ Kalten asked her.

  ‘It’s not too hard to duplicate familiar faces,’ she replied, ‘or those of people who are actually present, but if I have to go look at the face of everybody in the castle, this could take days.’

  ‘Would these help?’ Talen asked, handing her his sketch pad.

  She leafed through the pages, her eyes widening as she turned each page. ‘The boy’s a genius!’ she exclaimed. ‘Kurik, when we get back to Cimmura, apprentice him to an artist. That might keep him out of trouble.’

  ‘It’s only a hobby, Sephrenia,’ Talen said, blushing modestly.

  ‘You do know that you could make far more as a painter than as a thief, don’t you?’ she said pointedly.

  He blinked, and then his eyes narrowed speculatively.

  ‘All right. Now it’s your turn, Tynian,’ Sephrenia told the Deiran.

  After each had created a mirror image of himself, she led them to an embrasure overlooking the courtyard. ‘We’ll build the large illusion down there,’ she told them. ‘It might get a little crowded if we tried to do it up here.’

  It took them an hour to complete the illusion of a mass of armed and mounted men down in the courtyard. Then Sephreni
a went through Talen’s sketch pad again and put a face on each figure. Then she made a broad sweep of her arm, and the images of the Church Knights joined the illusion below.

  ‘They aren’t moving,’ Kurik said.

  ‘Flute and I will take care of that,’ Sephrenia told him. ‘The rest of you will need to concentrate to keep the images from breaking up. You’ll have to hold them together until they reach that forest over there.’

  Sparhawk was already sweating. Building a spell and then releasing it was one thing. Holding one in place was quite something else. He suddenly realized how much strain Sephrenia was bearing.

  It was early afternoon by now. Sephrenia looked through the embrasure at Count Gerrich’s troops. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I guess we’re ready. Signal the catapults, My Lord,’ she said to Alstrom.

  The baron took a piece of red cloth out from under his sword-belt and waved it out of the embrasure. Below, the catapults began to thud, hurling their burning missiles over the wall and into the midst of the besieging army while other engines showered the ships in the river. Even from this distance, Sparhawk could hear the soldiers coughing and choking on the dense cloud of lavender smoke coming from the burning balls of pitch, naphtha and Sephrenia’s powder. The smoke rolled across the field in front of the castle, sparkling with that firefly glitter. Then it engulfed the knoll where Gerrich, Adus and the Seeker were standing. Sparhawk heard an animal-like screech, and then the black-robed Seeker burst from the smoke, flogging its horse mercilessly. It seemed unsteady in its saddle, and it was holding the edge of its hood tightly across its face with one pale claw. The soldiers who had been blocking the road leading from the castle gate came reeling out of the smoke, coughing and retching.

  ‘All right, My Lord,’ Sephrenia said to Alstrom, ‘lower the drawbridge.’

  Alstrom signalled again, this time with a green cloth. A moment later, the drawbridge boomed down.

  ‘Now, Flute,’ Sephrenia said, and began to speak rapidly in Styric even as the little girl raised her pipes.

  The mass of illusory men in the courtyard, who had until now been rigidly immobile, seemed to come to life all at once. They rode out through the gate at a gallop and plunged directly into the smoke. Sephrenia passed her hand over the basin of water Berit had brought to the tower and peered intently into it. ‘Hold them, gentlemen,’ she said. ‘Keep them intact.’

  A half-dozen of Gerrich’s soldiers who had escaped from the smoke stood coughing, retching and digging at their eyes on the causeway leading away from the castle. The illusory army rode directly through them. The soldiers fled screaming.

  ‘Now we wait,’ Sephrenia said. ‘It’s going to take a few minutes for Gerrich to get his wits together and realize what seems to be happening down there.’

  Sparhawk heard startled shouts coming from below and then bellowed commands.

  ‘A little faster, Flute,’ Sephrenia said quite calmly. ‘We don’t want Gerrich to catch up with the illusion. He might begin to grow suspicious if his sword goes through the Baron here without any effect.’

  Alstrom was staring at Sephrenia in awe. ‘I would not have believed this possible, My Lady,’ he said in a shaking voice.

  ‘It did turn out rather well, didn’t it?’ she said. ‘I wasn’t entirely positive I could pull it off.’

  ‘You mean -’

  ‘I’ve never done it before, but we can’t learn without experimentation, can we?’

  On the field below, Gerrich’s troops were scrambling into their saddles. Their pursuit was disorganized, a chaos of galloping horses and brandished weapons.

  ‘They didn’t even think to charge that open drawbridge,’ Ulath noted critically. ‘Very unprofessional.’

  ‘They aren’t thinking very clearly just now,’ Sephrenia told him. ‘The smoke does that to people. Are they all clear of the area yet?’

  ‘There are a few still floundering around down there,’ Kalten advised. ‘They seem to be trying to catch their horses.’

  ‘Let’s give them time to get out of our way. Continue to hold the illusion, gentlemen,’ she said, looking into her basin of water. ‘It’s still a couple of miles to those woods.’

  Sparhawk clenched his teeth. ‘Can’t you speed things up a bit?’ he asked her. ‘This isn’t easy, you know.’

  ‘Nothing worthwhile is ever easy, Sparhawk,’ she told him. ‘If the images of those horses start to fly, Gerrich is going to get very, very suspicious – even in his present condition.’

  ‘Berit,’ Kurik said, ‘you and Talen come with me. Let’s go down and get the horses ready. I think we all might want to leave in a hurry.’

  ‘I’ll go with you,’ Alstrom said. ‘I want to talk with my brother before he leaves. I’m sure I’ve offended him, and I’d rather have us part friends.’

  The four of them went on down the stairs.

  ‘Just a few minutes longer now,’ Sephrenia said. ‘We’re almost to the edge of the woods.’

  ‘You look as if you just fell into a river,’ Kalten said, glancing at Sparhawk’s sweaty face.

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ Sparhawk said irritably.

  ‘There,’ Sephrenia said finally. ‘Let it go now.’

  Sparhawk let out an explosive breath of relief and released the spell. Flute lowered her pipes and winked at him.

  Sephrenia continued to look into her basin. ‘Gerrich’s about a mile from the edge of the trees,’ she reported. ‘I think we should let him get well into the woods before we leave.’

  ‘Whatever you say,’ Sparhawk replied, leaning wearily against a wall.

  It was about fifteen minutes later when Sephrenia set her basin on the floor and straightened. ‘I think we can go down now,’ she said.

  They descended to the courtyard where Kurik, Talen and Berit had the horses. The Patriarch Ortzel, stiff-lipped and pale with anger, was with them, and his brother was at his elbow. ‘I shall not forget this, Alstrom,’ he said, pulling his black ecclesiastical robe tighter about him.

  ‘You may feel differently after you’ve had time to think about it. Go with God, Ortzel.’

  ‘Stay with God, Alstrom,’ Ortzel replied, more out of habit, Sparhawk thought, than from any real sense of emotion.

  They mounted and rode out through the gate and on across the drawbridge. ‘Which way?’ Kalten asked Sparhawk.

  ‘North,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘Let’s get clear of this place before Gerrich comes back.’

  ‘That’s supposed to be a number of days.’

  ‘Let’s not take any chances.’

  They rode north at a gallop. It was late afternoon by the time they reached the shallow ford where they had first encountered Sir Enmann. Sparhawk reined in and dismounted. ‘Let’s consider our options,’ he said.

  ‘What precisely did you do back there, Madame?’ Ortzel was saying to Sephrenia. ‘I was in the chapel, and so I did not see what happened.’

  ‘A bit of deception is all, Your Grace,’ she replied. ‘Count Gerrich thought he saw your brother and the rest of us escaping. He gave chase.’

  ‘That’s all?’ He looked surprised. ‘You didn’t -’ He left it hanging.

  ‘Kill anybody? No. I strongly disapprove of killing.’

  ‘That’s one thing we agree about anyway. You’re a very strange woman, Madame. Your morality seems to coincide rather closely with that laid down by the true faith. I would not have expected that from a heathen. Have you ever given any thought to conversion?’

  She laughed. ‘You too, Your Grace? Dolmant’s been trying to convert me for years now. No, Ortzel. I’ll remain faithful to my Goddess. I’m far too old to change religions at this stage in my life.’

  ‘Old, Madame? You?’

  ‘You wouldn’t believe it, Your Grace,’ Sparhawk told him.

  ‘You have all given me much to consider,’ Ortzel said. ‘I have followed what I perceived to be the letter of Church doctrine. Perhaps I should look beyond that perception and seek guidance from God.’ He walked a lit
tle way upstream, his face lost in thought.

  ‘It’s a step,’ Kalten muttered to Sparhawk.

  ‘A fairly big one, I’d say.’

  Tynian had been standing at the edge of the shallow ford looking thoughtfully towards the west. ‘I have an idea, Sparhawk,’ he said.

  ‘I’m willing to listen.’

  ‘Gerrich and his soldiers are all searching that forest, and if Sephrenia’s right, the Seeker will be unable to give chase for at least a week. There won’t be any enemies on the other side of this river.’

  ‘That’s true, I suppose. We should probably have a look around on the other side before we get overconfident, though.’

  ‘All right. That’s the safest way, I suppose. What I’m getting at is that if there aren’t any troops over there, it won’t take more than a couple of us to escort His Grace safely to Chyrellos while the rest of us go on to Lake Randera. If things are quiet, we don’t all have to ride to the Holy City.’

  ‘He’s got a good point, Sparhawk,’ Kalten agreed.

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ Sparhawk said. ‘Let’s go on across and have a look around before we make any decisions.’

  They remounted and splashed on across the shallow ford. There was a thicket on the far side. ‘It’s going to get dark soon, Sparhawk,’ Kurik said, ‘and we’re going to have to make camp. Why don’t we hole up in that thicket for the night. Once it gets completely dark, we can come out and look for campfires. No group of soldiers is going to set up for the night without building fires, and we’ll be able to see them. That would be a lot easier and faster than riding up and down the river all day tomorrow trying to flush them out.’

  ‘Good idea. Let’s do it that way then.’

  They made camp for the night in the centre of the thicket and built only a small cook-fire. By the time they had finished eating, night had fallen over Lamorkand. Sparhawk rose to his feet. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘let’s go and have a look. Sephrenia, you and the children and His Grace stay here out of sight.’ He led the way out of the thicket. Once they were clear of the trees, he and his companions fanned out, all of them peering intently into the night. The clouds obscured the moon and stars and made the darkness almost total.