‘Wait a minute,’ Kalten objected. ‘We encountered Cyrgai just to the west of here. How did they get across the line?’
‘They were from the past, Sir Kalten,’ Zalasta explained, spreading his hands. ‘The line didn’t exist for them, because the eagle had not yet made his flight when they marched north.’
Kalten scratched his head and sat frowning. ‘I’m not really all that good at logic,’ he confessed, ‘but isn’t there a hole in that somewhere?’
Bevier was also struggling with it. ‘I think I see how it works,’ he said a little dubiously, ‘but I’ll have to go over it a few times to be sure.’
‘Logic can’t answer all the questions, Sir Bevier,’ Emban advised. He hesitated. ‘You don’t have to tell Dolmant I said that, of course,’ he added.
‘It may be that the enchantment’s no longer in force,’ Sephrenia suggested to Zalasta. ‘There’s no real need for it, since the Cyrgai are extinct.’
‘And no way to prove it either,’ Ulath added, ‘one way or the other.’
Stragen suddenly laughed. ‘He’s right, you know,’ he said. ‘There might very well be this dreadful curse out there that nobody even knows about because the people it’s directed at all died out thousands of years ago. What finally happened to them, learned one?’ he asked Zalasta. ‘You said that they were extinct.’
‘Actually, Milord Stragen, they bred themselves out of existence.’
‘Isn’t that a contradiction?’ Tynian asked him.
‘Not really. The Cynesgans had been very nearly wiped out, but now they were of vital importance, since they were the only troops at Cyrgon’s disposal who could cross the frontiers. He directed the Cyrgai to concentrate on breeding up new armies of these formerly despised underlings. The Cyrgai were perfect soldiers who always obeyed orders to the letter. They devoted their attention to the Cynesgan women even to the exclusion of their own. By the time they realised their mistake, all the Cyrgai women were past child-bearing age. Legend had it that the last of the Cyrgai died about ten thousand years ago.’
‘That raises idiocy to an art-form, doesn’t it?’ Stragen observed.
Zalasta smiled a thin sort of smile. ‘At any rate, what used to be Cyrga is now Cynesga. It’s occupied by a defective, mongrel race that manages to survive only because it sits astride the major trade routes between the Tamuls of the east and the Elenes of the west. The rest of the world looks upon these heirs of the invincible Cyrgai with the deepest contempt. They’re sneaky, cowardly, thieving and disgustingly servile – a fitting fate for the offspring of a race that once thought it was divinely destined to rule the world.’
‘History’s such a gloomy subject,’ Kalten sighed.
‘Cynesga’s not the only place where the past is returning to haunt us,’ Zalasta added.
‘We’ve noticed,’ Tynian replied. ‘The Elenes in western Astel are all convinced that Ayachin’s returned.’
‘Then you’ve heard of the one they call Sabre?’ Zalasta asked.
‘We ran across him a couple of times,’ Stragen laughed. ‘I don’t think he poses much of a threat. He’s an adolescent poseur.’
‘He satisfies the needs of the western Astels, though,’ Tynian added. ‘They’re not exactly what you’d call deep.’
‘I’ve encountered them,’ Zalasta said wryly. ‘Kimear of Daconia and Baron Parok, his spokesman, are a bit more serious, though. Kimear was one of those men on horseback who emerge from time to time in Elene societies. He subdued the other two Elene Kingdoms in western Astel and founded one of those empires of a thousand years that spring up from time to time and promptly fall apart when the founder dies. The hero in Edom is Incetes – a bronze-age fellow who actually managed to hand to Cyrgai their first defeat. The one who does his talking for him calls himself Rebal. That’s not his real name, of course. Political agitators usually go by assumed names. Ayachin, Kimear and Incetes appeal to the very simplest of Elene emotional responses – muscularity, primarily. I wouldn’t offend you for the world, my friends, but you Elenes seem to like to break things and burn down other people’s houses.’
‘It’s a racial flaw,’ Ulath conceded.
‘The Arjuni present us with slightly different problems,’ Zalasta continued. ‘They’re members of the Tamul race, and their deep-seated urges are a bit more sophisticated. Tamuls don’t want to rule the world, they just want to own it.’ He smiled briefly at Oscagne. ‘The Arjuni aren’t very attractive as representatives of the race, though. Their hero is the fellow who invented the slave-trade.’
Mirtai’s breath hissed sharply, and her hand went to her dagger.
‘Is there some problem, Atana?’ Oscagne asked her mildly.
‘I’ve had experience with the slave-traders of Arjuna, Oscagne,’ she replied shortly. ‘Someday I hope to have more, and I won’t be a child this time.’
Sparhawk realised that Mirtai had never told them the story of how she had become a slave.
‘This Arjuni hero’s of a somewhat more recent vintage than the others,’ Zalasta continued. ‘He was of the twelfth century. His name was Sheguan.’
‘We’ve heard of him,’ Engessa said bleakly. ‘His slavers used to raid the training camps of Atan children. We’ve more or less persuaded the Arjuni not to do that any more.’
‘That sounds ominous,’ Baroness Melidere said.
‘It was an absolute disaster, Baroness,’ Oscagne told her. ‘Some Arjuni slavers made a raid into Atan in the seventeenth century, and an imperial administrator got carried away by an excess of righteous indignation. He authorised the Atans to mount a punitive expedition into Arjuna.’
‘Our people still sing songs about it,’ Engessa said in an almost dreamy fashion.
‘Bad?’ Emban asked Oscagne.
‘Unbelievable,’ Oscagne replied. ‘The silly ass who authorised the expedition didn’t realise that when you command the Atans to do something, you have to specifically prohibit certain measures. The fool simply turned them loose. They actually hanged the King of Arjuna himself and then chased all his subjects into the southern jungles. It took us nearly two hundred years to coax the Arjuni down out of the trees. The economic upheaval was a disaster for the entire continent.’
‘These events are somewhat more recent,’ Zalasta noted. ‘The Arjuni have always been slavers, and Sheguan was only one of several operating in northern Arjuna. He was an organiser more than anything. He established the markets in Cynesga and codified the bribes that protect the slave-routes. The peculiar thing we face in Arjuna is that the spokesman’s more important than the hero. His name is Scarpa, and he’s a brilliant and dangerous man.’
‘What about Tamul itself?’ Emban asked, ‘and Atan?’
‘We both seem to be immune to the disease, your Grace,’ Oscagne replied. ‘It’s probably because Tamuls are too egotistical for hero worship and because the Atans of antiquity were all so much shorter than their descendants that modern Atans overlook them.’ He smiled rather slyly at Engessa. ‘The rest of the world’s breathlessly awaiting the day when the first Atan tops ten feet. I think that’s the ultimate goal of their selective breeding campaign.’ He looked at Zalasta. ‘Your information’s far more explicit than ours, learned one,’ he complimented the Styric. ‘The best efforts of the empire have unearthed only the sketchiest of details about these people.’
‘I have different resources at my disposal, Excellency,’ Zalasta replied. ‘These figures from antiquity, however, would hardly be of any real concern. The Atans could quite easily deal with any purely military insurrection, but this isn’t a totally military situation. Someone’s been winnowing through the darker aspects of human imagination and spinning the horrors of folk-lore out of thin air. There are vampires and werewolves, ghouls, Ogres and once even a thirty-foot giant. The officials shrug these sightings off as superstitious nonsense, but the common people of Tamuli are in a state of abject terror. We can’t be certain of the reality of any of these things, but when you mingle mon
sters with Trolls, Dawn-men and Cyrgai, you have total demoralisation. Then, to push the whole thing over the edge, the forces of nature have been harnessed as well. There have been titanic thunderstorms, tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and even isolated eclipses. The common people of Tamuli have become so fearful that they flee from rabbits and flocks of sparrows. There’s no real focus to these incidents. They simply occur at random, and since there’s no real plan behind them, there’s no way to predict when and where they’ll occur. That’s what we’re up against, my friends – a continent-wide campaign of terror – part reality, part illusion, part genuine magic. If it isn’t countered – and very, very soon – the people will go mad with fear. The empire will collapse, and the terror will reign supreme.’
‘And what was the bad news you had for us, Zalasta?’ Vanion asked him.
Zalasta smiled briefly. ‘You are droll, Lord Vanion,’ he said. ‘You may be able to gather more information this afternoon, my friends,’ he told them all. ‘You’ve been invited to attend the session of the Thousand. Your visit here is quite significant from a political point of view, and – although the council seldom agrees about anything – there’s a strong undercurrent of opinion that we may have a common cause with you in this matter.’ He paused, then sighed. ‘I think you should be prepared for a certain amount of antagonism,’ he cautioned. ‘There’s a reactionary faction in the council that begins to foam at the mouth whenever someone even mentions the word “Elene”. I’m sure they’ll try to provoke you.’
‘Something’s happening that I don’t understand, Sparhawk,’ Danae murmured quietly a bit later. Sparhawk had retired to one corner of Sephrenia’s little garden with one of Vanion’s Styric scrolls and had been trying to puzzle out the Styric alphabet. Danae had found him there and had climbed up into his lap.
‘I thought you were all-wise,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that supposed to be one of your characteristics?’
‘Stop that. Something’s terribly wrong here.’
‘Why don’t you talk with Zalasta about it? He’s one of your worshippers, isn’t he?’
‘Whatever gave you that idea?’
‘I thought you and he and Sephrenia grew up together in the same village.’
‘What’s that got to do with it?’
‘I just assumed that the villagers all worshipped you. It’s sort of logical that you’d choose to be born in a village of your own adherents.’
‘You don’t understand Styrics at all, do you? That’s the most tedious idea I’ve ever heard of – a whole village of people who all worship the same God? How boring.’
‘Elenes do it.’
‘Elenes eat pigs too.’
‘What have you got against pigs?’
She shuddered.
‘Who does Zalasta worship if he’s not one of your adherents?’
‘He hasn’t chosen to tell us, and it’s terribly impolite to ask.’
‘How did he get to be a member of the Thousand then? I thought you had to be a high priest to qualify for membership.’
‘He isn’t a member. He doesn’t want to be. He advises them.’ She pursed her lips. ‘I really shouldn’t say this, Sparhawk, but don’t expect exalted wisdom from the council. High priests are devout, but that doesn’t require wisdom. Some of the Thousand are frighteningly stupid.’
‘Can you get any kind of clue about which God might be at the bottom of all these disturbances?’
‘No. Whoever it is doesn’t want any of the rest of us to know his identity, and there are ways we can conceal ourselves. About all I can say is that he’s not Styric. Pay very close attention at the meeting this afternoon, Sparhawk. My temperament’s Styric, and there may be things I’d overlook just because I’m so used to them.’
‘What do you want me to look for?’
‘I don’t know. Use your rudimentary intuition. Look for false notes, lapses, any kind of clue hinting at the fact that someone’s not entirely what he seems to be.’
‘Do you suspect that there might be some member of the Thousand working for the other side?’
‘I didn’t say that. I just said that there’s something wrong. I’m getting another of those premonitions like the one I had at Kotyk’s house. Something’s not what it’s supposed to be here, and I can’t for the life of me tell what it is. Try to find out what it is, Sparhawk. We really need to know.’
The council of the Thousand met in a stately marble building at the very centre of Sarsos. It was an imposing, even intimidating building that shouldered its way upward arrogantly. Like all public buildings, it was totally devoid of any warmth or humanity. It had wide, echoing marble corridors and huge bronze doors designed to make people feel tiny and insignificant.
The actual meetings took place in a large, semicircular hall with tier upon tier of marble benches stair-stepping up the sides. There were ten of those tiers, naturally, and the seats on each tier were evenly spaced. It was all very logical. Architects are usually logical, since their buildings tend to collapse if they are not.
At Sephrenia’s suggestion, Sparhawk and the other Elenes wore simple white robes to avoid those unpleasant associations in the minds of Styrics when they are confronted by armoured Elenes. The knights, however, wore chain-mail and swords under their robes.
The chamber was about half-full, since at any given time a part of the council was off doing other things. The members of the Thousand sat or strolled about talking quietly with each other. Some moved purposefully among their colleagues, talking earnestly. Others laughed and joked. Not a few were sleeping.
Zalasta led them to the front of the chamber where chairs had been placed for them in a kind of semi-circle.
‘I have to take my seat,’ Sephrenia told them quietly. ‘Please don’t take immediate action if someone insults you. There’s several thousand years of resentment built up in this chamber, and some of it’s bound to spill over.’ She crossed the chamber to sit on one of the marble benches.
Zalasta stepped to the centre of the room and stood silently, making no attempt to call the assemblage to order. The traditional courtesies were obscure here. Gradually, the talking tapered off, and the Council members took their seats. ‘If it please the Council,’ Zalasta said in Styric, ‘we are honoured today by the presence of important guests.’
‘It certainly doesn’t please me,’ one member retorted. ‘These “guests” appear to be Elenes for the most part, and I’m not all that interested in hob-nobbing with pig-eaters.’
‘This promises to be moderately unpleasant,’ Stragen murmured. ‘Our Styric cousins seem to be as capable of boorishness as we are.’
Zalasta ignored the ill-mannered speaker and continued. ‘Sarsos is subject to the Tamul Empire,’ he reminded them, ‘and we benefit enormously from that relationship.’
‘And the Tamuls make sure we pay for those benefits,’ another member called.
Zalasta ignored that as well. ‘I’m sure you’ll all join with me in welcoming First Secretary Oscagne, the Chief of the Imperial Foreign Service.’
‘I don’t know what makes you so sure about that, Zalasta,’ someone shouted with a raucous laugh.
Oscagne rose to his feet. ‘I’m overwhelmed by this demonstration of affection,’ he said dryly in perfect Styric.
There were cat-calls from the tiers of seats. The cat-calls died quite suddenly when Engessa rose to his feet and stood with his arms folded across his chest. He did not even bother to scowl at the unruly councillors.
‘That’s better,’ Oscagne said. ‘I’m glad that the legendary courtesy of the Styric people has finally asserted itself. If I may, I’ll briefly introduce the members of our party, and then we’ll place an urgent matter before you for your consideration.’ He briefly introduced Patriarch Emban. An angry mutter swept through the chamber.
‘That’s directed at the Church, your Grace,’ Stragen told him, ‘not at you personally.’
When Oscagne introduced Ehlana, one council member on the top ti
er whispered a remark to those seated near him which elicited a decidedly vulgar laugh. Mirtai came to her feet like an uncoiling spring, her hands darting to her sheathed daggers.
Engessa said something sharply to her in the Tamul tongue.
She shook her head. Her eyes were blazing and her jaw was set. She drew a dagger. Mirtai may not have understood Styric, but she did understand the implications of that laugh.
Sparhawk rose to his feet. ‘It’s my place to respond, Mirtai,’ he reminded her.
‘You will not defer to me?’
‘Not this time, no. I’m sorry, but it’s a sort of formal occasion, so we should observe the niceties.’ He turned to look up at the insolent Styric in the top row. ‘Would you care to repeat what you just said a little louder, neighbour?’ he asked in Styric. ‘If it’s so funny, maybe you should share it with us.’
‘Well, what do you know,’ the fellow sneered, ‘a talking dog.’
Sephrenia rose to her feet. ‘I call upon the Thousand to observe the traditional moment of silence,’ she declared in Styric.
‘Who died?’ the loud-mouth demanded.
‘You did, Camriel,’ she told him sweetly, ‘so our grief will not be excessive. This is Prince Sparhawk, the man who destroyed the Elder God Azash, and you’ve just insulted his wife. Did you want the customary burial – assuming that we can find enough of you to commit to the earth when he’s done with you?’