The Hidden City (22 page)

‘Well, of
course
they are, Sparhawk,' Aphrael's voice murmured in his ear. ‘Nothing ever changes here.'

He smiled.

The white deer led him to that beautiful, impractical boat, a swan-necked craft with sails like wings, elaborate embellishment and so much of its main structure above the water line that a sneeze would have capsized it, had it existed in the real world.

‘Critic,' Aphrael's voice accused him.

‘It's your dream, Divine One. You can put any impossibility in it that you want.'

‘Oh,
thank
you, Sparhawk!' she said with effusive irony.

The emerald green eyot, crowned with ancient oaks and Aphrael's alabaster temple, nestled in the sapphire sea, and the swan-necked boat touched the golden beach in only minutes. Sparhawk looked around as he stepped out onto the sand. The disguises most of them wore in the real world had been discarded, and they all had their own features here in this eternal dream. Some of them had been here before. Those who had not had expressions of bemused wonderment as they all lounged in the lush grass that blanketed the slopes of the enchanted isle.

The Child Goddess and Sephrenia sat side by side on an alabaster bench in the temple. Aphrael's expression was pensive, and she was playing a complex Styric melody in a minor key on her many-chambered pipes. ‘What kept you, Sparhawk?' she asked, lowering the rude instrument.

The person in charge of my travel arrangements took me on a little side-trip,' he replied. ‘Are we all here?'

‘Everybody who's supposed to be. Come up here, all of you, and let's get started.'

They climbed up the slope to the temple.

‘Where is this place?' Sarabian asked in an awed voice.

‘Aphrael carries it in her mind, your Majesty,' Vanion replied. ‘She invites us here from time to time. She likes to show it off.'

‘Don't be insulting, Vanion,' the Child Goddess told him.

‘Well, don't you?'

‘Of course, but it's not nice to come right out and say it like that.'

‘I feel different here, for some reason,' Caalador noted. ‘Better, somehow.'

Vanion smiled. ‘It's a very healthy place, my friend,' he said. I was seriously ill at the end of the Zemoch war – dying, actually. Aphrael brought me here for a
month or so, and I was disgustingly healthy by the time I left.'

They all reached the little temple and took seats on the marble benches lining the columned perimeter. Sparhawk looked around, frowning. ‘Where's Emban?' he asked their hostess.

‘It wouldn't have been appropriate for him to be here, Sparhawk. Your Elene God makes exceptions in the case of the Church Knights, but he'd probably throw a fit if I brought one of the Patriarchs of his Church here. I didn't invite the Atans either – or the Peloi.' She smiled. ‘Neither group is comfortable with the idea of religious diversity, and this place would probably confuse them.' She rolled her eyes upward. ‘You wouldn't
believe
how long it took me to persuade Edaemus to permit Xanetia to come. He doesn't approve of me. He thinks I'm frivolous.'

‘You?' Sparhawk feigned some surprise. ‘How could he possibly believe something like that?'

‘Let's get at this,' Sephrenia said. ‘Why don't you start, Berit? We know generally what happened, but we don't have any details.'

‘Yes, Lady Sephrenia,' the young knight replied. ‘Khalad and I were coming down the coast, and we'd been watched from almost the moment we came ashore. I used the spell and identified the watcher as a Styric. He came to us after several days and gave us another one of those notes from Krager. The note told us to continue down the coast, but once we get past the Tamul Mountains, we're supposed to cut across country to Sopal instead of continuing south. The note said that we'd get further instructions there. It was definitely from Krager. It had another lock of Queen Ehlana's hair in it.'

‘I'm going to talk with Krager about that when I catch up with him,' Khalad said in a bleak tone of voice. I
want to be sure he understands just how much we resent his even touching the Queen's hair. Trust me, Sparhawk. Before I'm done with him, he's going to regret it – profoundly.'

‘I've got enormous confidence in you, Khalad,' Sparhawk replied.

‘Oh,' Khalad said then, ‘there's something I almost forgot. Does anybody know of a way to make one of our horses limp – without actually hurting him? I think Berit and I might want to be able to slow down from time to time without causing suspicion. An intermittently lame horse should explain it to the people who are watching us.'

‘I'll talk with Faran,' Aphrael promised.

‘You won't need to limp on your way to Sopal,' Ulath told Khalad. ‘Ghnomb's going to see to it that Tynian and I are there long before you arrive. You might be able to see us when you get there, but you might not. I'm having a little trouble explaining some things to the Troll-Gods. We'll be able to see you, though. If I can't make Ghnomb understand, I'll slip a note in your pocket.'

‘If we
do
come out in the open, you'll just
love
our traveling companion,' Tynian laughed.

Berit gave him a puzzled look. ‘Who's that, Sir Tynian?'

‘Bhlokw. He's a Troll.'

‘It's Ghnomb's idea,' Ulath explained. I have to go through a little ceremony before I can talk with the Troll-Gods. Bhlokw doesn't. It speeds up communication. Anyway, we'll be there and out of sight. If Scarpa and Zalasta try to make the trade there in Sopal, we'll step out of No-Time, grab the lot of you, and disappear again.'

That's assuming that they're taking Queen Ehlana to Sopal to make the exchange,' Itagne said. ‘We've got
some things that don't match up, though. Sir Kalten picked up a rumor that Scarpa's holding the Queen and her maid in Natayos.'

‘I wouldn't want to wager the farm on it, your Excellency,' Kalten said. ‘It's second-hand information at best. The fellow I talked with probably isn't bright enough to make up stories, and he didn't have any reason to lie to me. He got
his
information from somebody else, though, and that makes the whole thing a little wormy.'

‘You've put your finger on the problem, Sir Kalten,' Sarabian said. ‘Soldiers gossip worse than old women.' He tugged at one earlobe and looked up at the rainbow-colored sky. The other side knows that I wasn't entirely dependent on the Ministry of the Interior for information, so they'll expect me to have ears in Natayos. This story Sir Kalten heard could have been planted for our benefit. Prince Sparhawk, is there any way at all you could use Bhelliom to confirm the rumor?'

‘It's too dangerous,' Sephrenia said flatly. ‘Zalasta would know immediately if Sparhawk did that.'

‘I'm not so sure, little mother,' Sparhawk disagreed. ‘It was just recently that we found out that the gold box doesn't totally isolate Bhelliom. I'm getting a strong feeling that a great deal of what we
think
we know about Bhelliom is pure misdirection. The rings evidently don't really mean anything at all – except possibly as a means of communication, and the gold box doesn't appear to be relevant either. It
could
be an idea Bhelliom planted to keep us from enclosing it in iron. I'm guessing, but I'd say that the touch of iron is still painful to it, but whether it's painful enough to actually confine it isn't all that certain.'

‘He's right, you know,' Aphrael told her sister. ‘A great deal of what we think we know about Bhelliom came from Ghwerig, and Bhelliom had absolute control
of Ghwerig. Our mistake was believing that Ghwerig knew what he was talking about.'

‘That still doesn't answer the question about using Bhelliom to investigate things in Natayos,' Sparhawk said, ‘and it's not the sort of thing I'd want to experiment with.'

‘I will go to Natayos,' Xanetia said quietly. ‘It had been mine intent to go unseen to Sopal, but Sir Tynian and Sir Ulath will be there already, and well able to determine if the Queen be truly there. I will go to Natayos and seek her there instead.'

‘Absolutely not!' Sarabian said. ‘I forbid it.'

‘I am not subject to thee, Sarabian of Tamuli,' she reminded him. ‘But fear not. There is no peril involved for me. None will know that I am there, and I can reach out to those who are about me and share their thoughts. I will soon be able to determine whether or no the Queen and her maidservant are in Natayos. This is precisely the kind of service we offered when we concluded our pact with Anakha.'

‘It's too dangerous,' he said stubbornly.

‘It seemeth me that thou hast forgot mine
other
gift, Sarabian of Tamuli,' she told him quite firmly. ‘The curse of Edaemus is still upon me, and my touch is still death, when I choose it so. Fear not for me, Sarabian, for should necessity compel me to it, I can spread death and terror through Natayos. Though it doth cause me pain to confess it, I can make Natayos once more a waste, a weed-choked ruin populated only by the dead.'

The city of Sarna in Western Tamul Proper lay just to the south of the Atan border in the deep gorge of the river from which it took its name. The surrounding mountains were steep and rugged and were covered with dark evergreens which sighed endlessly in the prevailing wind sweeping down out of the wilderness to the north. The weather was cold, and the leaden sky spat stinging pellets of snow as Vanion's army of Church Knights slowly descended the long, steep road leading down into the gorge. Vanion and Itagne, muffled in their heavy cloaks, rode at the head of the column.

‘I'd have much preferred to stay on Aphrael's island,' Itagne said, shivering and pulling his cloak tighter. ‘I've never been particularly fond of this time of year.'

‘We're almost there, your Excellency,' Vanion replied.

‘Is it customary to campaign in the wintertime, Lord Vanion?' Itagne asked. ‘In Eosia, I mean?'

‘We try to avoid it, your Excellency,' Vanion replied. ‘The Lamorks attack each other in the winter, but the rest of us usually have better sense.'

‘It's a miserable time to go to war.'

Vanion smiled faintly. ‘That it is, my friend, but that's not why we avoid it. It's a question of economics, really. It's more expensive to campaign in winter because you have to buy hay for the horses. It's the expense that keeps Elene kings peaceful when there's snow on the ground.' Vanion stood up in his stirrups to peer ahead. ‘Betuana's waiting,' he said. ‘We'd better ride down to meet her.'

Itagne nodded, and they pushed their horses into a jolting trot.

The Queen of Atan had left them at Dasan on the eastern edge of the mountains to come on ahead. She had several very good reasons, of course, but Vanion privately suspected that her decision had been influenced more by impatience than necessity. Betuana was too polite to speak of it, but she clearly had little use for horses, and she seldom missed an opportunity to outrun them. She and Engessa, both garbed in otter-skins, waited at the roadside about a mile outside the city.

‘Was there any trouble?' the Atan Queen asked.

‘No, your Majesty,' Vanion replied, his black armor clinking as he swung down out of his saddle. ‘We were watched, but there's nothing unusual about that. Has anything been happening in Cynesga?'

‘They're moving up to the border, Vanion-Preceptor,' Engessa replied quietly. ‘They aren't being very subtle about it. We've been disrupting their supply lines and ambushing their scouting parties just to keep them off-balance, but it's fairly obvious that they plan to come across the line in force.'

Vanion nodded. ‘It's more or less what we expected, then. If it's all right with you, your Majesty, I'd like to get my men settled in before we get too involved in discussions. I can always think better after I've seen to all the details.'

‘Of course,' Betuana agreed. ‘Engessa-Atan and I have arranged quarters for them. When will you be leaving for Samar?'

‘Tomorrow or the next day, Betuana-Queen. Tikume's Peloi are probably spread a little thin down there. He has a lot of ground to cover.'

‘He sent back to Pela for more men, Vanion-Lord,' Engessa advised. ‘You'll have a sizeable force in Samar in a week or so.'

‘Good. Let me go back and hurry the knights along. We have much to discuss.'

Night settled early at the bottom of the gorge of the River Sarna, and it was fully dark by the time Vanion joined the others in the headquarters of the city's Atan garrison. Like all Atan structures, the building was severely utilitarian and devoid of any embellishment. The lone exception in the conference room in which they gathered was a very large map covering one entire wall. The map was brightly colored and dotted here and there with fanciful illustrations. Vanion had bathed hurriedly and now wore plain clothing. The years had taught him that armor was impressive and even useful at times, but that no one had yet devised a way to make it comfortable or to eliminate its characteristic smell.

‘Are the quarters satisfactory?' Betuana enquired politely.

‘Most satisfactory, your Majesty,' he replied, settling into a chair. ‘Have you been advised of the details of our meeting with the Child Goddess?'

She nodded. ‘Itagne-Ambassador gave me a report,' she replied. She paused. ‘One is curious to know why one was excluded,' she added.

‘Theological considerations, your Majesty,' Vanion explained. ‘As I understand it, the Gods have an exquisitely complex etiquette in these situations. Aphrael didn't want to offend your God by inviting his children to her island. There were some other rather conspicuous absences as well. Emperor Sarabian was there and Ambassador Itagne, but Foreign Minister Oscagne wasn't.'

Itagne frowned slightly. ‘The Emperor and I are skeptics – agnostics, I suppose you could call us – but Oscagne's an out-and-out atheist. Would that account for it?'