The Shining Ones

  Sparhawk remembered Vanion’s declamation on fish that morning. ‘Are you making any progress at all with Sephrenia?’ he asked.

  ‘We’re speaking to each other, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘It wasn’t. Why don’t you just sit down and talk with her? – about something more significant than the weather, or how many birds can sit on a limb, or what kind of fish can live in the moat?’

  Vanion gave him a sharp look. ‘Why don’t you mind your own business?’

  ‘It is my business, Vanion. She can’t function while there’s this rift between you – and neither can you, for that matter. I need you – both of you – and I can’t really count on either of you until you resolve your differences.’

  ‘I’m moving as fast as I dare, Sparhawk. One wrong move here could destroy everything.’

  ‘So could a failure to move. She’s waiting for you to take the first step. Don’t make her wait too long.’

  Stragen came out onto the parapet. ‘He’s awake now,’ he reported. ‘He’s not very coherent, and his eyes aren’t focused, but he’s awake. Your daughter’s making quite a fuss over him, Sparhawk.’

  ‘She’s fond of him,’ Sparhawk shrugged. ‘She tells everybody that she’s going to marry him someday.’

  ‘Little girls are strange, aren’t they?’

  ‘Oh, yes, and Danae’s stranger than most.’

  ‘I’m glad I was able to catch the two of you alone,’ Stragen said then. There’s something I’d like to talk over with you before I mention it to the others.’ Stragen was absently twiddling two gold Elenic half-crowns in his right hand, carefully running one fingertip across the milled edges and hefting them slightly as if trying to determine their weight. Baroness Melidere’s confession appeared to have unsettled him just a bit. ‘Zalasta’s little fit of rage wasn’t quite as irrational as we thought it would be. Turning the Trolls loose on northern Atan was the most disruptive thing he could have done to us. We’ll have to deal with that, of course, but I think we’d better start preparing for his next move. Trolls don’t need much supervision once they’ve been pointed in the right direction, so Zalasta’s free to work on something else now, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Probably,’ Sparhawk agreed.

  ‘Now, I could be wrong…’

  ‘But you don’t think you are.’ Vanion completed his sentence sardonically.

  ‘He’s in a touchy mood today, isn’t he,’ Stragen said to Sparhawk.

  ‘He’s got a lot on his mind.’

  ‘It’s my guess that whatever Zalasta comes up with next is going to involve those conspirators Sarabian and Ehlana left in place for lack of jail cells.’

  ‘It could just as easily involve the armies Parok, Amador and Elron have raised in western Tamuli,’ Vanion disagreed.

  Stragen shook his head. ‘Those armies were raised to keep the Church Knights off the continent, Lord Vanion, and they were raised at Cyrgon’s specific orders. If Zalasta risked them now, he’d have to answer to Cyrgon for it, and I don’t think he’s that brave yet.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ Vanion conceded. ‘All right, let’s say that he will use those second-level conspirators. Sarabian and Ehlana have already set things in motion to round them up.’

  ‘Why bother rounding them up at all, my Lord?’

  ‘To get them off the streets, for one thing. Then there’s also the small detail of the fact that they’re guilty of high treason. They need to be tried and punished.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘As an example, you idiot!’ Vanion flared.

  ‘I’ll agree that getting them off the streets is important, Lord Vanion, but there are more effective ways to make examples of people – not only more effective, but more terrifyingly certain. When you send policemen out to arrest people, it’s noisy, and usually others hear the noise and manage to escape. There’s also the fact that trials are tedious, expensive, and not absolutely certain.’

  ‘You’ve got an alternative in mind, I gather,’ Sparhawk said.

  ‘Naturally. Why not have the executions first and the trials later?’

  They stared at him.

  ‘I’m sort of extending the idea I had the other day,’ Stragen said. ‘Caalador and I have access to a number of non-squeamish professionals who can carry out the executions privately.’

  ‘You’re talking about murder, Stragen,’ Vanion accused.

  ‘Why, yes, Lord Vanion, I believe that is the term some people do use to describe it. The whole idea behind “examples” is to frighten others so much that they won’t commit the same crime. It doesn’t really work, because criminals know that their chances of being caught and punished are very slim.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s just one of the hazards of doing business. We professional criminals break laws all the time. We don’t, however, break our own rules. People in our society who break the rules aren’t afforded the courtesy of being tried. They’re just killed. No acquittals, no pardons, no last-minute jail-breaks. Dead. Period. Case closed. The justice of regular society is slow and uncertain. Ours is just the opposite. If you want to use terror to keep people honest, use real terror.’

  ‘It has got possibilities, Vanion,’ Sparhawk suggested tentatively.

  ‘You’re not seriously considering it, are you? There are thousands of those people out there! You’re talking about the largest mass murder in history!’

  ‘It’s a way to get my name in the record books, anyway,’ Stragen shrugged. ‘Caalador and I are probably going to do this anyway. We’re both impatient men. I wouldn’t have bothered you about it, but I thought I’d like to get your views on the subject. Should we tell Sarabian and Ehlana, or should we just go ahead and not bother them? Discussions about relative morality are so tedious, don’t you think? The point here is that we need to come up with something that will unhinge Zalasta all the more, and I think this might be it. If he wakes up some morning in the not too distant future and finds himself absolutely and totally alone, it might give him some second thoughts about the wisdom of his course. Oh, incidentally, I’ve borrowed Berit and Xanetia. They’re taking a stroll in the vicinity of the Cynesgan embassy so that Xanetia can run that dip-net of hers through the minds of the people inside. We’ve got quite a few names, but I’m sure there are more.’

  ‘Doesn’t she have to be in the same room with somebody to listen to his thoughts?’ Vanion asked.

  ‘She’s not really certain. She’s never had occasion to test the limits of her gift. The expedition today is something in the nature of an experiment. We’re hoping that she’ll be able to reach in through the walls and pull out the names of the people inside. If she can’t, I’ll find some way to get her inside so that she can seine out what we need. Caalador and I want as much information and as many names as we can get. Setting up the largest mass murder in history is a very complicated business, and we don’t want to have to do it twice.’

  Chapter 24

  ‘It’s diversionary,’ Ulath said the next morning. He lowered one of the dispatches Emperor Sarabian had brought with him. ‘The werewolves and vampires and ghouls are just illusions, so they can’t really hurt anybody, and these attacks on Atan garrisons are no more than suicidal gestures intended to keep things confused. This is just more of what they were doing before.’

  ‘He’s right,’ Sparhawk agreed. ‘None of this is new, and it doesn’t have any real purpose except to keep the Atans in place.’

  ‘Unfortunately, it’s succeeding very well,’ Bevier said. ‘We can’t reduce the Atan garrisons by very much to send help to Betuana with all this going on.’

  ‘Lord Vanion’s idea of detaching platoon-sized units from the main garrisons should help a little,’ Sarabian protested.

  ‘Yes, your Majesty,’ Bevier replied, ‘but will it be enough?’

  ‘It’s going to have to be,’ Vanion said. ‘It’s all we can spare right now. We’re talking about Atans, though, and numbers aren’t that significant where they’re concerned. One Atan is
half an army all by himself.’

  Stragen motioned to Sparhawk, and the two of them drifted over to the long table laden with breakfast. The blond thief carefully selected a pastry. ‘It worked,’ he said quietly. ‘Xanetia has to be able to see the person whose thoughts she’s stealing, but Berit found a building that’s fairly close and quite a bit higher than the embassy. Xanetia’s got a comfortable room to sit in with a window that faces the ambassador’s office. She’s picking up all sorts of information – and names – for us.’

  ‘Why are we keeping this from the others?’

  ‘Because Caalador and I are going to use the information to set that new world record I was telling you about yesterday. Sarabian hasn’t authorized it yet, so let’s not upset him over something he doesn’t need to know about – at least not until we’ve stacked all the bodies in neat piles.’

  Princess Danae fell ill the next day. It was nothing clearly definable. There was no fever, no rash, and no cough involved – only a kind of listless weakness. The princess seemed to have no appetite, and it was difficult to wake her.

  ‘It’s the same thing as it was last month,’ Mirtai assured the little girl’s worried parents. ‘She needs a tonic, that’s all.’

  Sparhawk, however, knew that Mirtai was wrong. Danae had not really been ill the previous month. The Child Goddess made light of her ability to be in two places at the same time, but her father knew that when her attention was firmly fixed on what was going on in one place, she would be semi-comatose in the other. This illness was quite different somehow. ‘Why don’t you go ahead and try a tonic, Ehlana?’ he suggested. ‘I’ll go talk with Sephrenia. Maybe she can think of something else.’

  He found Sephrenia sitting moodily in her room. She was looking out the window, although it was fairly obvious that she did not even see the view. ‘We’ve got a problem, little mother,’ Sparhawk said, closing the door behind him. ‘Danae’s sick.’

  She turned sharply, her eyes startled. ‘That’s absurd, Sparhawk. She doesn’t get sick. She can’t.’

  ‘I didn’t think so myself, but she’s sick all the same. It’s nothing really tangible, no overt symptoms or anything like that, but she’s definitely not well.’

  Sephrenia rose quickly. ‘I’d better go have a look,’ she said. ‘Maybe I can get her to tell me what’s wrong. Is she alone?’

  ‘No. Ehlana’s with her. I don’t think she’ll be willing to leave. Won’t that complicate things?’

  ‘I’ll take care of it. Let’s get to the bottom of this before it goes any further.’

  Sephrenia’s obvious concern worried Sparhawk all the more. He followed her back to the royal quarters with growing apprehension. She was right about one thing. Aphrael was not in any way susceptible to human illnesses, so this was no simple miasmic fever or one of the innumerable childhood diseases that all humans catch, endure and get over. He dismissed out of hand the notion that there could be such a thing as the sniffles of the Gods.

  Sephrenia was very business-like. She was muttering the Styric spell before she even entered Danae’s room.

  ‘Thank God you’re here, Sephrenia!’ Ehlana exclaimed, half rising from her chair beside the little girl’s bed. ‘I’ve been so…’

  Sephrenia released the spell with a curious flick of her hand, and Ehlana’s eyes went blank. She froze in place, half risen from her chair and with one hand partially extended.

  Sephrenia approached the bed, sat on the edge of it, and took the little girl in her arms. ‘Aphrael,’ she said, ‘wake up. It’s me – Sephrenia.’

  The Child Goddess opened her eyes and began to cry.

  ‘What is it?’ Sephrenia asked, holding her sister even more tightly and rocking back and forth with her.

  ‘They’re killing my children, Sephrenia!’ Aphrael wailed. ‘All over Eosia! The Elenes are killing my children! I want to die!’

  ‘We have to go to Sarsos,’ Sephrenia said to Sparhawk and Vanion a short while later when the three of them were alone. ‘I have to talk with the Thousand.’

  ‘I know that it’s breaking her heart,’ Vanion said, ‘but it can’t really hurt her, can it?’

  ‘It could kill her, Vanion. The younger Gods are so totally involved with their worshipers that their very lives depend on them. Please, Sparhawk, ask Bhelliom to take us to Sarsos immediately.’

  Sparhawk nodded bleakly and took out the box and touched his ring to the lid. ‘Open!’ He said it more sharply than he’d intended.

  The lid snapped up.

  ‘Blue Rose,’ Sparhawk said, ‘a crisis hath arisen. The Child Goddess is made gravely ill by reason of the murder of her worshipers in far-off Eosia. We must at once to Sarsos that Sephrenia might consult with the Thousand of Styricum regarding a cure.’

  ‘It shall be as thou dost require, Anakha.’ The words came from Vanion’s mouth. The Preceptor’s expression turned slightly uncertain. ‘Is it proper for me to tell thee that I feel sympathy for thee and thy mate for this illness of thine only child?’

  ‘I do appreciate thy kind concern, Blue Rose.’

  ‘My concern doth not arise merely from kindness, Anakha. Twice hath the gentle hand of the Child Goddess touched me, and even I am not proof against the subtle magic of her touch. For the love we all bear her, let us away to Sarsos that she may be made whole again.’

  The world seemed to shift and blur, and the three of them found themselves outside the marble-sheathed council hall in Sarsos. Autumn was further along here, and the birch forest lying on the outskirts of the city was ablaze with color.

  ‘You two wait here,’ Sephrenia told them. ‘Let’s not stir up the hot-heads by marching Elenes into the council chamber again.’

  Sparhawk nodded and opened Bhelliom’s golden case to put the jewel away.

  ‘Nay, Anakha,’ Bhelliom told him, still speaking through Vanion’s lips. ‘I would know how Sephrenia’s proposal is received.’

  ‘An it please thee, Blue Rose,’ Sparhawk replied politely.

  Sephrenia went on inside.

  ‘It’s cooler here,’ Vanion noted, pulling his cloak a little tighter about him.

  ‘Yes,’ Sparhawk agreed. ‘It’s farther north.’

  ‘That more or less exhausts the weather as a topic. Quit worrying, Sparhawk. Sephrenia has a great deal of influence with the Thousand. I’m sure they’ll agree to help.’

  They waited as the minutes dragged by.

  It was probably half an hour later when Sparhawk felt a sharp surge, almost a shudder, pass through Bhelliom. ‘Come with me, Anakha!’ Vanion’s voice was sharp, abrupt.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘The Styric love of endless talk discontents me. I must needs go past the Thousand to the Younger Gods themselves. These babblers do talk away the life of Aphrael.’ Sparhawk was a bit surprised by the vehemence in Vanion’s voice. He followed as his Preceptor, walking in a gait that was peculiarly not his own, stormed into the building. The bronze doors to the council chamber may have been locked. The screech of tortured metal that accompanied Vanion’s abrupt opening of them suggested that they had been, at any rate.

  Sephrenia was standing before the council pleading for aid. She broke off and stared incredulously at Vanion as he burst through the door.

  ‘We don’t allow Elenes in here!’ one of the council members on a back bench shrieked in Styric, rising to his feet and waving his arms.

  Then a sort of strangled silence filled the chamber. Vanion began to swell, spreading upward and outward into enormity even as an intensely blue aura flickered brighter and brighter around him. Flickers of lightning surged through that aura, and ripping peals of thunder echoed shockingly back from the marble-clad walls. Sephrenia stared at Vanion in sudden awe.

  Prompted by an unvoiced suggestion which only he could hear, Sparhawk raised the glowing Sapphire Rose. ‘Behold Bhelliom!’ he roared. ‘And hearken unto its mighty voice!’

  ‘Hear my words, ye Thousand of Styricum!’ The voice coming from the e
normity which a moment before had been Vanion was vast. It was a voice to which mountains would listen and which waves and torrents would stop at once to hear. ‘I would speak with your Gods! Too small are ye and too caught up in endless babble to consider this matter!’

  Sparhawk winced. Diplomacy, he saw, was not one of Bhelliom’s strong suits.

  One of the white-robed councillors drew himself up, spluttering indignantly. ‘This is outrageous! We don’t have to…’ He was suddenly gone, and in his place stood a confused-looking personage who appeared to have been interrupted in the middle of his bath. Naked and dripping, he gaped at the huge, blue-lighted presence and at the glowing jewel in Sparhawk’s hand. ‘Well, really…’ he protested.

  ‘Setras!’ the profound voice said sharply. ‘How deep is thy love for thy cousin Aphrael?’

  ‘This is most irregular!’ the youthful God protested.

  ‘How deep is thy love?’ The voice was inexorable.

  ‘I adore her, naturally. We all do, but…’

  ‘What wouldst thou give to save her life?’

  ‘Anything she asks, of course, but how could her life be in danger?’

  ‘Thou knowest that Zalasta of Styricum is a traitor, dost thou not?’

  There were gasps from the council.

  ‘Aphrael said so,’ the God replied, ‘but we thought she might have been a little excited. You know how she is sometimes.’

  ‘She told thee truly, Setras. Even now do Zalasta’s minions slaughter her worshipers in far-off Eosia. With each death is she made less. If this be permitted to continue, soon she will be no more.’

  The God Setras stiffened, his eyes suddenly blazing. ‘Monstrous!’

  ‘What wilt thou give that she may live?’

  ‘Mine own life, if need be,’ Setras replied with archaic formalism.

  ‘Wilt thou lend her of thine own worshipers?’

  Setras stared at the glowing Bhelliom, his face filled with chagrin.

  ‘Quickly, Setras! Even now doth the life of Aphrael ebb away!’