The Hidden City (13 page)

Once, and only once, apparently stung by something Zalasta said to him in a tone loaded with contempt,
Scarpa drew himself up and snarled a reply. Zalasta's reaction was immediate and savage. He sent his son reeling with a heavy blow of his staff, then leveled its polished length at him, muttered a few words, and unleashed a fiery spot of light from the tip of the staff. The burning spot struck the still-staggering Scarpa in the belly, and he doubled over sharply, clawing at his stomach and shrieking in agony. He fell onto the muddy earth, kicking and convulsing as Zalasta's spell burned into him. His father, the deadly staff still leveled, watched his writhing son coldly for several endless minutes.

‘Now
do you understand?' he demanded in a deadly voice, speaking in Tamul this time.

‘Yes! Yes! Father!' Scarpa shrieked. ‘Stop! I beg you!'

Zalasta let him writhe and squirm for a while longer. Then he lifted the staff. ‘You are
not
master here,' he declared. ‘You are no more than a brain-sick incompetent. Any one of a dozen others here could command this army, so do not try my patience further. Next time, son or no son, I will let the spell follow its natural course. Pain is like a disease, Scarpa. After a few days – or weeks – the body begins to deteriorate. A man can die from pain. Don't force me to prove that to you.' And he turned his back on his pale-faced, sweating son. ‘My apologies, your Majesty,' he said to Ehlana. ‘This was
not
what I intended.'

‘And what
did
you intend, Zalasta?' she asked coldly.

‘The dispute is between your husband and myself, Ehlana. It was never in my mind to cause you such discomfort. This cretin I must unfortunately acknowledge took it upon himself to mistreat you. I promise you that he will not live to see the sunset of the day in which he does it again.'

‘I see. The humiliation and pain were not your idea, but the captivity was. Where's the difference, Zalasta?'

He sighed and passed a weary hand over his eyes. ‘It is necessary,' he told her.

‘For what reason? Sephrenia will never submit to you, you know. Even if Bhelliom and the rings fall into your hands, you cannot compel her love.'

‘There are other considerations as well, Queen Ehlana,' he said sorrowfully. ‘Please bring your maid and come with me. I'll see you to your quarters.'

‘Some dungeon, I suppose?'

He sighed. ‘No, Ehlana, the quarters are clean and comfortable. I've seen to that myself. Your ordeal is at an end, I promise you.'

‘My ordeal, as you call it, will not be at an end until I'm reunited with my husband and my daughter.'

‘That, we may pray, will be very soon. It is, however, in the hands of Prince Sparhawk. All he must do is follow instructions. Your quarters are not far. Follow me, please,' He led them to a nearby building and unlocked the door.

Their prison was very nearly luxurious, an apartment of sorts, complete with several bedrooms, a dining hall, a large sitting-room, and even a kitchen. The building had evidently been the palace of some nobleman, and, although the upper stories had long since collapsed, the ground-floor rooms, their ceilings supported by great arches, were still intact. The furnishings in the rooms were ornate, though mis-matched, and there were rugs on the floors and drapes to cover the windows – windows, Ehlana noticed, which had recently been fitted with stout iron bars.

The fireplaces were cavernous, and they were all filled with blazing logs, not so much to ward off the minimal chill of the Arjuni winter but to dry out rooms saturated with over a millennium of dank humidity. There were beds and fresh linen and clothing of an Arjuni cut, but most important of all, there was a fair-sized room with
a large marble bathtub set into the floor. Ehlana's eyes fixed longingly on that ultimate luxury. It so completely seized her attention that she scarcely heard Zalasta's apologies. After a few vague replies from her, the Styric realized that his continued presence was no longer appreciated, so he politely excused himself and left.

‘Alean, dear,' Ehlana said in an almost dreamy voice, ‘that's quite a large tub – certainly large enough for the two of us, wouldn't you say?'

Alean was also gazing at the tub with undisguised longing. ‘Easily, your Majesty,' she replied.

‘How long do you think it might take us to heat enough water to fill it?'

‘There are plenty of large pots and kettles in that kitchen, my Queen,' the gentle girl said, ‘and all the fireplaces are going. It shouldn't take very long at all.'

‘Wonderful,' Ehlana said enthusiastically. ‘Why don't we get started?'

‘Just exactly who is this Klæl, Zalasta?' Ehlana asked the Styric several days later when he came by to call. Zalasta came to their prison often, as if his visits in some way lessened his guilt, and he always talked, long, rambling, sometimes disconnected talk that often revealed far more than he probably intended for her to know.

‘Klæl is an eternal being,' he replied. Ehlana noted almost absently that the heavily accented Elenic which had so irritated her when they had first met in Sarsos was gone now. Another of his ruses, she concluded. ‘Klæl is far more eternal than the Gods of this world,' he continued. ‘He's in some way connected to Bhelliom. They're contending principles, or something along those lines. I was a bit distraught when Cyrgon explained the relationship to me, so I didn't fully understand.'

‘Yes, I can imagine,' she murmured. Her relationship
with Zalasta was peculiar. The circumstances made ranting and denunciation largely a waste of time, so Ehlana was civil to him. He appeared to be grateful for that, and his gratitude made him more open with her. That civility, which cost her nothing, enabled her to pick up much information from the Styric's rambling conversation.

‘Anyway,' Zalasta continued, ‘Cyzada was terrified when Cyrgon commanded him to summon Klæl, and he tried very hard to talk the God out of the notion. Cyrgon was implacable, though, and he was filled with rage when Sparhawk neatly plucked the Trolls right out of his grasp. We'd never even considered the possibility that Sparhawk might release the Troll-Gods from their confinement.'

‘That was Sir Ulath's idea,' Ehlana told him. ‘Ulath knows a great deal about Trolls.'

‘Evidently so. At any rate, Cyrgon forced Cyzada to summon Klæl, but Klæl no sooner appeared than he went in search of Bhelliom. That took Cyrgon aback. It had been his intention to hold Klæl in reserve – hiding, so to speak – and to unleash him by surprise. That went out the window when Klæl rushed off to the North Cape to confront Bhelliom. Sparhawk knows that Klæl is here now – although I have no idea what he can do about it. That was what made the summoning of Klæl such idiocy in the first place. Klæl can't be controlled. I tried to explain that to Cyrgon, but he wouldn't listen. Our goal is to gain possession of Bhelliom, and Klæl and Bhelliom are eternal enemies. As soon as Cyrgon takes Bhelliom in his hands, Klæl will attack
him,
and I'm fairly certain that Klæl is infinitely more powerful than he is.' Zalasta glanced around cautiously. ‘The Cyrgai are in many ways a reflection of their God, I'm afraid. Cyrgon abhors any kind of intelligence. He's frighteningly stupid sometimes.'

‘I hate to point this out, Zalasta,' she said insincerely, ‘but you have this tendency to ally yourself with defectives. Annias was clever enough, I suppose, but his obsession with the Archprelacy distorted his judgment, and Martel's drive for revenge made
his
thinking just as distorted. From what I gather, Otha was as stupid as a stump, and Azash was so elemental that all he had on his mind were his desires. Coherent thought was beyond him.'

‘You know everything, don't you, Ehlana?' he said. ‘How on earth did you find all of this out?'

‘I'm not really at liberty to discuss it,' she replied.

‘No matter, I suppose,' he said absently. A sudden hunger crossed his face. ‘How is Sephrenia?' he asked.

‘Well enough. She was very upset when she first found out about you, though – and your attempt on Aphrael's life was really ill-conceived, you know. That was the one thing that convinced her of your treachery.'

‘I lost my head,' he confessed. ‘That cursed Delphaeic woman destroyed three hundred years of patient labor with a toss of her head.'

‘I suppose it's none of my business, but why didn't you just accept the fact that Sephrenia was wholly committed to Aphrael and let it go at that? There's no way you can ever compete with the Child Goddess, you know.'

‘Could
you
have ever accepted the idea that Sparhawk was committed to another, Ehlana?' His tone was accusing.

‘No,' she admitted, ‘I suppose I couldn't have. We do strange things for love, don't we, Zalasta? I was at least direct about it, though. Things might have worked out differently for you if you hadn't tried deceit and deception. Aphrael's not completely unreasonable, you know.'

‘Perhaps not,' he replied. Then he sighed deeply. ‘But we'll never know, will we?'

‘No. It's far too late now.'

‘The glazier cracked the pane when he was setting it into the frame, my Queen,' Alean said quietly, pointing at the defective triangle of bubbled glass in the lower corner of the window. ‘He was very clumsy.'

‘How did you come to know so much about this, Alean?' Ehlana asked her.

‘My father was apprenticed to a glazier when he was young,' the doe-eyed girl replied. ‘He used to repair windows in our village.' She touched the tip of the glowing poker to the bead of lead that held the cracked pane in place. ‘I'll have to be very careful,' she said, frowning in concentration, ‘but if I do it right, I can fix it so that we can take out this little section of glass and put it back in again. That way, we'll be able to hear what they're talking about out there in the street, and then we'll be able to put the glass back in again so that they'll never know what we've done. I thought you might want to be able to listen to them, and they always seem to gather just outside this window.'

‘You're an absolute treasure, Alean!' Ehlana exclaimed, impulsively embracing the girl.

‘Be careful, my Lady!' Alean cried in alarm. ‘The hot iron!'

Alean was right. The window with the small defective pane was at the corner of the building, and Zalasta, Scarpa and the others were quartered in the attached structure. It appeared that whenever they wanted to discuss something out of the hearing of the soldiers, they habitually drifted to the walled-in cul-de-sac just outside the window. The small panes of cheap glass leaded into the window-frame were only semi-transparent at best, and so, with minimal caution,
Alean's modification of the cracked pane permitted Ehlana to listen and even marginally observe without being seen.

On the day following her conversation with Zalasta, she saw the white-robed Styric approaching with a look of bleakest melancholy on his face and with Scarpa and Krager close behind him. ‘You've got to snap out of this, Father,' Scarpa said urgently. ‘The soldiers are beginning to notice.'

‘Let them,' Zalasta replied shortly.

‘No, Father,' Scarpa said in his rich, theatrical voice, ‘we can't do that. These men are animals. They function below the level of thought. If you walk around through these streets with the face of a little boy whose dog just died, they're going to think that something's wrong and they'll start deserting by the regiment. I've spent too much time and effort gathering this army to have you drive them away by feeling sorry for yourself.'

‘You'd never understand, Scarpa,' Zalasta retorted. ‘You can't even begin to comprehend the meaning of love. You don't love anything.'

‘Oh, yes I do, Zalasta,' Scarpa snapped. ‘I love
me.
That's the only kind of love that makes any sense.'

Ehlana just happened to be watching Krager. The drunkard's eyes were narrowed, shrewd. He casually moved his ever-present tankard around behind him and poured most of the wine out. Then he raised the tankard and drank off the dregs noisily. Then he belched. ‘Parn'me,' he slurred, reaching out his hand to the wall to steady himself as he weaved back and forth on his feet.

Scarpa gave him a quick, irritated glance, obviously dismissing him. Ehlana, however, rather quickly reassessed Krager. He was not always nearly as drunk as he appeared to be.

‘It's all been for nothing, Scarpa,' Zalasta groaned.
‘I've allied myself with the diseased, the degenerate and the insane for nothing. I had thought that once Aphrael was gone, Sephrenia might turn to me. But she won't. She'd die before she'll have anything to do with me.'

Scarpa's eyes narrowed. ‘Let her die then,' he said bluntly. ‘Can't you get it through your head that one woman's the same as any other? Women are a commodity – like bales of hay or barrels of wine. Look at Krager here. How much affection do you think he has for an empty wine barrel? It's the new ones, the full ones, that he loves, right, Krager?'

Krager smirked at him owlishly and then belched again. ‘Parn'me,' he said.

‘I can't really see any reason for this obsession of yours anyway,' Scarpa continued to grind on his father's most sensitive spot. ‘Sephrenia's only damaged goods now. Vanion's had her – dozens of times. Are you so poor-spirited that you'd take the leavings of an Elene?'

Zalasta suddenly smashed his fist against the stone wall with a snarl of frustration.

‘He's probably so used to having her that he doesn't even waste his time murmuring endearments to her any more,' Scarpa went on. ‘He just takes what he wants from her, rolls over and starts to snore. You know how Elenes are when they're in rut. And she's probably no better. He's made an Elene out of her, Father. She's not a Styric any more. She's become an Elene – or even worse, a mongrel. I'm really surprised to see you wasting all this pure emotion on a mongrel.' He sneered. ‘She's no better than my mother or my sisters, and you know what
they
were.'