The Shining Ones

  ‘The what?’ Itagne choked.

  ‘I do not do that often – nor willingly,’ she replied. ‘Edaemus did not intend for me to be a man, and I find it most uncomfortable. A man’s body is so cluttered and untidy.’ She held out her arm and examined it closely. ‘The color seemeth me correct,’ she observed. Then she took a lock of her now-black hair and looked at it. ‘And this as well,’ she added. ‘What thinkest thou, Itagne? Would I pass unnoticed in Matherion now?’

  ‘Hardly, divine Xanetia,’ he smiled. ‘Thy passage through the streets of fire-domed Matherion would stop the hearts of all who beheld thee, for thou art fair, and thy beauty doth bedazzle mine eye beyond all measure.’

  ‘Well said,’ Sparhawk murmured.

  ‘Thine honeyed words fall sweetly upon mine ears, Itagne,’ Xanetia smiled. ‘Thou art, I do believe, a master of flattery.’

  ‘You should probably know that Itagne is a diplomat, Anarae,’ Vanion advised her, ‘and his words aren’t always to be trusted. This time he’s telling you the truth, though. You’re an extraordinarily beautiful woman.’

  She looked at him gravely. ‘Thine heart is sore within thee, is it not, Lord Vanion?’ she observed.

  He sighed. ‘It’s my personal problem, Anarae,’ he replied.

  ‘Not entirely so, my Lord. Now are we all of the same fellowship, and the troubles of one are the troubles of all. But that which troubleth thee is of far greater note and causeth us all much greater concern than that which might grow from our comradely feelings for thee. This breach between thy beloved and thee doth imperil our cause, and until it be healed, our common purpose doth stand in peril.’

  They rode eastward, following a scarcely perceptible track which seemed more like a game trail than a route normally followed by humans. Sephrenia, accompanied by Bevier and young Berit, rode some distance to the rear, her face set and her eyes as hard as flint.

  Sparhawk and Vanion rode in the lead, following occasional directions from Xanetia, who rode directly behind them under Kalten’s watchful eye. ‘Just give her some time, Vanion,’ Sparhawk was saying. ‘Women deliver ultimatums and declarations of war fairly often. Things like that are usually intended to get our attention. Any time I start neglecting Ehlana, she says something she doesn’t really mean to bring me up short.’

  ‘I’m afraid this goes a little further than that, Sparhawk,’ Vanion replied. ‘Sephrenia’s a Styric, but she’s never been so totally irrational before. If we could find out what’s behind this insane hatred of hers, we might be able to do something about it, but we’ve never been able to get any coherent reasons out of her. Apparently, she hates the Delphae simply because she hates the Delphae.’

  ‘Aphrael will straighten it out,’ Sparhawk said confidently. ‘As soon as we get back to Matherion, I’ll have a talk with Danae, and…’ Sparhawk broke off as a sudden thought chilled his blood. ‘I have to talk with Xanetia,’ he said, abruptly wheeling Faran around.

  ‘Trouble?’ Kalten asked as Sparhawk joined them.

  ‘Nothing immediate,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘Why don’t you go on ahead and ride with Vanion for a while. I need to talk with Xanetia.’

  Kalten gave him a questioning look but rode on forward without any further questions.

  ‘Thou art troubled, Anakha,’ Xanetia observed.

  ‘A little, yes. You know what I’m thinking, don’t you?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Then you know who my daughter is?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s a sort of secret, Anarae. Aphrael didn’t consult with my wife when she chose her present incarnation. It’s very important that Ehlana doesn’t find out. I think her sanity depends on it.’

  ‘Thy secret is safe, Anakha, I do pledge thee my silence on this issue.’

  ‘What really happened, Xanetia? – between the Styrics and the Delphae, I mean. I don’t want your version or Sephrenia’s. I want the truth.’

  ‘Thou art not meant to know the truth, Anakha. A part of thy task is to resolve this issue without recourse to the truth.’

  ‘I’m an Elene, Xanetia,’ he said in a pained voice. ‘I have to have facts in order to make decisions.’

  ‘Then it is thine intent to judge? – to decide if the guilt doth condemn the Styrics or the Delphae?’

  ‘No. My intent is to get to the bottom of Sephrenia’s behavior so that I can change her mind.’

  ‘Is she so important to thee?’

  ‘Why do you ask questions when you already know the answers?’

  ‘My questions are intended to help thee formulate thy thought, Anakha.’

  ‘I’m a Pandion Knight, Xanetia. Sephrenia’s been the mother of our order for three centuries. Any one of us would give up his life for her without any hesitation at all. We love her, but we don’t share all of her prejudices.’ He leaned back in his saddle. ‘I’ll only wait for so long, Xanetia. If I don’t get the real truth out of you – or out of Sephrenia – I’ll just ask Bhelliom.’

  ‘Thou wouldst not!’ Her now-dark eyes were filled with a sudden chagrin.

  ‘I’m a soldier, Xanetia, so I don’t have the patience for subtlety. You’ll excuse me? I have to go talk with Sephrenia for a moment.’

  ‘Dirgis,’ Xanetia told them as they crested a hill and saw a typical Atan town lying in the valley below.

  ‘Well, finally,’ Vanion said, taking out his map. ‘Now we know where we are.’ He looked over his map for a moment and then squinted up at the evening sky. ‘Is it too late in the day for us to take one of those long steps, Sparhawk?’

  ‘No, my Lord,’ Sparhawk replied. There’s plenty of light.’

  ‘Are we still concerned about that?’ Ulath asked. ‘Haven’t you and Bhelliom hammered that out yet?’

  ‘We haven’t been having any private chats,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘There are still people out there who can locate Bhelliom when it’s out in the open, so I’ve been keeping it inside its little house – just to be on the safe side.’

  ‘It’s well over three hundred leagues, Sparhawk,’ Vanion pointed out. ‘It’s going to be later there.’

  ‘I’m never going to get used to that,’ Kalten said sourly.

  ‘It’s really very simple, Kalten,’ Ulath told him. ‘You see, when the sun goes down in Matherion, it’s still…’

  ‘Please, Ulath,’ Kalten told him, ‘don’t try to explain it to me. It just makes things worse. When people start to explain it, I sometimes think I can actually feel the world moving under me. I don’t like that very much. Just tell me that it’s later there, and let it go at that. I don’t really need to know why it’s later.’

  ‘He’s a perfect knight,’ Khalad told his brother. ‘He doesn’t even want explanations.’

  ‘Look on the bright side of it, Khalad,’ Talen replied. ‘After we’ve gone through the wonderful training they’ve got planned for us, we’ll be exactly like Kalten. Think how much easier life’s going to be for us when we don’t have to understand anything at all.’

  ‘I’d guess that it’s very close to being fully dark in Matherion by now, Sparhawk,’ Vanion said. ‘Maybe we’d better wait until morning.’

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ Sparhawk disagreed. ‘The time’s going to come sooner or later when we’re going to have to make one of these jumps after the sun goes down. There’s nothing urgent in the wind right now, so it’s a good time for us to answer this question once and for all.’

  ‘Ah – Sparhawk?’ Khalad said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘If you’ve got a question, why not ask? Now that you and Bhelliom are on speaking terms, wouldn’t it be simpler – and safer – to just ask it first? Before you start experimenting? Matherion’s on the coast, as I recall, and I’d rather not come down about a hundred leagues out to sea.’

  Sparhawk felt just a little foolish. He took out the small golden box and opened the lid. He paused momentarily, casting his question in antique Elenic. ‘I must needs have thine advice on a certain matter, Blue Ros
e,’ he said.

  ‘Say thy question, Anakha.’ This time the voice came from Khalad’s lips.

  That’s a relief,’ Kalten said to Ulath. ‘I almost chewed up my tongue with all the “thee”s and “thou”s last time.’

  ‘Can we safely go from one place to another when the pall of darkness hath covered the earth?’ Sparhawk asked.

  ‘There is no darkness for me, Anakha.’

  ‘I did not know that.’

  ‘Thou hadst but to ask.’

  ‘Yes. I do perceive that now. Mine understanding doth grow with each passing hour. On the eastern coast of far-flung Tamuli there doth lie a road which doth proceed southward to fire-domed Matherion.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When my companions and I first beheld Matherion, we came in sight of it when we did crest a long hill.’

  ‘Yes. I share thy memory of the place.’

  ‘Couldst thou take us there, e’en though darkness doth cover the face of the earth?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Sparhawk started to reach into the box for his wife’s ring. Then he stopped. ‘We share a common purpose and thus are comrades. It is not meet that I should compel thee and whip thee into compliance with the power of Ghwerig’s rings. Thus I do not command thee, but request instead. Wilt thou take us to this place we both know out of comradeship and common purpose?’

  ‘I will, Anakha.’

  Chapter 16

  The blur that surrounded them momentarily was that same featureless gray, no darker than it had been when Bhelliom had transported them in daylight. Night and day appeared to be irrelevant. Sparhawk dimly perceived that Bhelliom took them through some different place, a colorless emptiness that adjoined all other places – a kind of doorway to everywhere.

  ‘You were right, my Lord,’ Kalten said to Vanion, looking up at the star-studded night sky. ‘It is later here, isn’t it?’ He looked sharply at Xanetia, who swayed slightly in her saddle. ‘Are you unwell, Lady?’ he asked her.

  ‘It is of no moment, Sir Knight. A slight giddiness, nothing more.’

  ‘You get used to it. The first few times are a little unsettling, but that wears off.’

  Khalad held out the box, and Sparhawk put Bhelliom back inside. ‘I do not do this to imprison thee,’ he told the jewel. ‘Our enemies can sense thy presence when thou art exposed, and this receptacle doth conceal thee from their search.’

  The Bhelliom pulsed slightly in acknowledgement.

  Sparhawk closed the cap over his ring, took the box from his squire, and closed it. Then he tucked it back into its usual place inside his tunic.

  Matherion, ruddy with torchlight, lay below, and the pale path of light from the newly risen moon stretched from the horizon across the waters of the Tamul Sea to her doorstep, yet another of the innumerable roads leading to the city the Tamuls called the center of the world.

  ‘Are you open to a suggestion, Sparhawk?’ Talen asked.

  ‘You sound just like Tynian.’

  ‘I know. I’m sort of filling in for him while he’s away. We’ve been out of Matherion for a while, so we don’t know what’s really been going on here. Suppose I slip into town and have a look – ask a few questions, find out what we’re riding into – the usual sort of thing.’

  Sparhawk nodded. ‘All right,’ he said.

  ‘That’s all? Just “all right”? No protests? No objections? No hour-long lectures about being careful? I’m disappointed in you, Sparhawk.’

  ‘Would you listen to me if I objected or delivered a lecture?’

  ‘No, not really.’

  ‘Why waste the time, then? You know what you’re doing and how to do it. Just don’t take all night.’

  Talen swung down from his horse and opened his saddle-bags. He took out a rough, patched smock and pulled it on over his other clothes. Then he bent, rubbed his hand in the dirt of the road, and artfully smudged his face. He stirred up his hair and sifted a handful of straw from the roadside onto it. ‘What do you think?’ he asked Sparhawk.

  ‘You’ll do.’ Sparhawk shrugged.

  ‘Spoil-sport,’ Talen grumbled, climbing back on his horse. ‘Khalad, come along. You can watch my horse for me while I sniff around.’

  Khalad grunted, and the two rode on down the hill.

  ‘Is the child truly so gifted?’ Xanetia asked.

  ‘He’d be offended if you called him a child, Lady,’ Kalten replied, ‘and he can come closer to being invisible than anybody I know.’

  They drew back some distance from the road and waited.

  It was an hour later when Talen and his brother returned.

  ‘Things are still more or less the way they were when we left,’ the boy reported.

  ‘No open fighting in the streets, you mean?’ Ulath laughed.

  ‘Not yet. Things are a little hectic at the palace, though. It’s got something to do with documents of some kind. The whole government’s in an uproar. None of the people I talked with knew all that much about it. The Church Knights and the Atans are still in control, though, so it’s safe to jump from here to the courtyard of Ehlana’s castle if we want.’

  Sparhawk shook his head. ‘Let’s ride in. I’m sure there are still Tamuls inside the walls, and probably half of them are spies. Let’s not give away any secrets if we don’t have to. Is Sarabian still staying in the castle?’

  Talen nodded. ‘Your wife’s probably been teaching him a few tricks – “roll over”, “play dead”, “sit up and beg” – that sort of thing.’

  ‘Talen!’ Itagne exclaimed.

  ‘You haven’t met our queen yet, have you, your Excellency?’ Talen grinned. ‘I’d say that you’re in for a whole new experience, then.’

  ‘It has to do with setting up the new filing system, my Lord,’ the young Pandion at the drawbridge explained in reply to Vanion’s question. ‘We needed room to rearrange things, so we spread all the government files out on the lawn.’

  ‘What if it rains?’

  ‘That would probably simplify the job a great deal, my Lord.’

  They dismounted in the courtyard and went up the broad stairs to the ornately carved main door, paused briefly to put on the cushioned shoes that protected the brittle floor-covering, and went inside.

  Queen Ehlana had been advised of their arrival, and she was waiting for them at the door to the throne-room. Sparhawk’s heart caught in his throat as he looked at his lovely young wife. ‘So nice of you to stop by, Sir Sparhawk,’ she said tartly before she threw her arms about his neck.

  ‘Sorry we’re so late, dear,’ he apologized after they had exchanged a brief, formal sort of kiss. ‘Our travel plans got a little skewed.’ He was painfully conscious of the half-dozen or so Tamuls lingering nearby trying to look very hard as if they weren’t listening. ‘Why don’t we go on upstairs, my Queen? We’ve got quite a bit to tell you, and I’d like to get out of this mail-shirt before it permanently embeds itself into my skin.’

  ‘You are not going to wear that stinking thing into my bedroom, Sparhawk. As I remember, the baths lie in that general direction. Why don’t you take your fragrant friends and go make use of them? The ladies can come with me. I’ll round up the others, and we’ll all meet you in the royal quarters in about an hour. I’m sure your explanation of your tardiness will be absolutely fascinating.’

  Sparhawk felt much better after he had bathed and changed into the conventional doublet and hose. He and his friends trooped on up the stairs that mounted into the central tower where the royal apartments were located.

  ‘You’re late, Sparhawk,’ Mirtai said bluntly when they reached the top of the stairs.

  ‘Yes. My wife’s already pointed that out to me. Come inside. You’ll need to hear this too.’

  Ehlana and the others who had remained behind were gathered in the large, blue-draped sitting room. Sephrenia and Danae were conspicuously absent, however.

  ‘Well, finally!’ Emperor Sarabian said as they entered. Sparhawk was startled by the change in
the Emperor’s appearance. His hair was tied back from his face, and he wore tight-fitting black hose and a full-sleeved linen shirt. He looked younger for some reason, and he was holding a rapier with the kind of familiarity that spoke of much practice. ‘Now we can get on with the business of overthrowing the government.’

  ‘What have you been up to, Ehlana?’ Sparhawk asked.

  ‘Sarabian and I have been expanding our horizons.’ She shrugged.

  ‘I knew I shouldn’t have stayed away so long.’

  ‘I’m glad you brought that up. That very same thought’s been on my mind for the longest time now.’

  ‘Why don’t you just save yourself some time and unpleasantness, Sparhawk?’ Kalten suggested. Just show her why we had to take this little trip.’

  ‘Good idea.’ Sparhawk reached inside his doublet and took out the unadorned gold box. Things were beginning to get out of hand, Ehlana, so we decided to go fetch some reinforcements.’

  ‘I thought that’s what Tynian was doing.’

  ‘The situation called for something a little more significant than the Church Knights.’ Sparhawk touched the band of his ring to the lid of the box. ‘Open,’ he said. He kept the lid partially closed to conceal the fact that his wife’s ring was also inside.

  ‘What have you done with your ring, Sparhawk?’ she asked him, looking at the cover concealing the stone.

  ‘I’ll explain in a bit.’ He reached in and took out the Bhelliom. ‘This is why we had to leave, dear.’ He held up the stone.

  She stared at it, the color draining from her face. ‘Sparhawk!’ she gasped.

  ‘What a magnificent jewel!’ Sarabian exclaimed, reaching his hand out toward the Sapphire Rose.

  ‘That might not be wise, your Majesty,’ Itagne cautioned. ‘That’s the Bhelliom. It tolerates Sparhawk, but it might pose some dangers to anyone else.’

  ‘Bhelliom’s a fairy-tale, Itagne.’

  ‘I’ve been re-assessing my position on various fairy-tales lately, your Majesty. Sparhawk destroyed Azash with Bhelliom – just by touching it to him. I don’t advise putting your hands on it, my Emperor. You’ve shown some promise in the past few months, and we’d sort of hate to lose you at this point.’