The Shining Ones (50 page)

Aphrael, of course, was in complete control of the situation. She rode with her arms about Xanetia’s waist, and Aphrael’s touch was one of the more powerful forces on earth. Sparhawk was quite certain that Xanetia was not really suffering. The Child Goddess would not permit that. The Anarae’s apparent horror and remorse at what she had been compelled to do was entirely for the benefit of her two comforters. Aphrael was quite deliberately erasing Sephrenia’s racial animosity and
Betuana’s superstitious aversion by the simple expedient of intensifying Xanetia’s outward appearance of grief.

It was easy to underestimate Aphrael when she appeared in one of her innumerable incarnations as a capricious little girl, and that was probably the main reason she had chosen the form of the Child Goddess in the first place. Sparhawk, however, had seen the reality of Aphrael waveringly reflected in the brass mirror back in Matherion, and the reality was neither childish nor whimsical. Aphrael always knew exactly what she was doing, and she always got exactly what she wanted. Sparhawk firmly fixed the wavering image of the reality of Aphrael in his mind so that it would always be present when the dimples and the kisses began to cloud his judgement.

The days were significantly shorter this far to the north. The sun rose far to the southeast now, and it did not go very high above the southern horizon before it started to descend again. Each long night’s frost piled up on the previous night’s lacy blanket, since the pale, weak sun no longer had the strength to melt what had built up during the hours of darkness.

It was nearly sunset when a towering Atan came loping down a frosty forest path to meet them. He went directly to Queen Betuana and banged his fist against his chest in salute. Betuana motioned quickly to Sparhawk and the others. ‘A message from Engessa-Atan,’ she said tersely. ‘There are enemies gathering on the coast at the eastern end of the wall.’

‘Trolls?’ Vanion asked quickly.

The tall Atan shook his head. ‘No, Vanion-Lord,’ he replied. ‘They’re Elenes, and for the most part they’re not warriors. They’re cutting trees.’

‘To use in building fortifications?’ Bevier asked.

‘No, Church Knight. They are lashing the trees together to build things that will float.’

‘Rafts?’ Tynian asked. ‘Ulath, you said that Trolls are afraid of the sea. Would they be willing to use rafts to go around the outer edge of the escarpment?’

‘It’s hard to say,’ the blond-braided Thalesian replied. ‘Ghwerig
did
use a boat to cross Lake Venne, and he almost had to have stolen a ride on some ship to get from Thalesia to Pelosia when he followed King Sarak during the Zemoch war, but Ghwerig wasn’t like other Trolls.’ He looked at the Atan. ‘Are they building these rafts north of the wall or here on the south side?’

‘They’re on this side of the wall,’ the Atan replied.

‘That doesn’t make too much sense, does it?’ Kalten asked.

‘Not to
me,
it doesn’t,’ Ulath admitted.

‘I think we’d better get up there and have a look, Sparhawk,’ Vanion said. ‘That attack on Betuana last night was fair evidence that Zalasta knows we’re coming, so this little stroll through the woods has accomplished its purpose. Let’s join forces with Engessa and Kring and find out if Sorgi’s made it to the beach yet. Winter’s coming on very fast anyway, and I think we’ll want to deal with the Trolls before the sun goes down permanently.’

‘Would you see to that, Divine One?’ Sparhawk said to Aphrael. ‘I’d ask Bhelliom to do it, but you’ve been handling things so well that I wouldn’t want to appear critical by taking over at this point.’

Aphrael’s eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t push your luck, Sparhawk,’ she said ominously.

Sparhawk was never really certain whether Aphrael had somehow moved them during the night or had slipped them across the intervening miles at some point between the time when they swung up into their
saddles and the time when their mounts took their first steps. The Child Goddess was too practiced, too skilled, to be caught tampering when she didn’t want to be.

The hill was the same hill that had been lying to the northwest of their night’s encampment when the sun had gone down – or so it seemed – but when they crested it about a half-hour after they set out, there was a long, sandy beach and the lead-gray expanse of the Tamul Sea on the other side instead of a broad, unbroken forest.

‘That was quick,’ Talen said, looking around. Talen’s presence on this expedition had never really been explained to Sparhawk’s satisfaction. He suspected Aphrael, however. It was easy to suspect Aphrael of such things, and more often than not the suspicions proved to be well founded.

‘There’s someone coming down the beach,’ Ulath said, pointing at a tiny figure riding along the water’s edge from the north.

‘Khalad.’ Talen shrugged.

‘How can you tell?’

‘He’s my brother, Sir Ulath – besides, I recognize his cloak.’

They rode on down the hill and out onto the sand.

‘What kept you?’ Khalad asked Sparhawk bluntly when he joined them.

‘I’m glad to see you too, Khalad.’

‘Don’t try to be funny, Sparhawk. I’ve been struggling to keep Engessa and his Atans from swimming round the outer edge of the escarpment for the past ten days. They want to go attack the Trolls all by themselves. How did Stragen’s plan come off?’

‘It’s hard to say,’ Talen told him. ‘We were on the road during the Harvest Festival. I know Stragen and Caalador well enough to know that
most
of the people they were after are probably dead by now, though.
We’re a little late because we wanted to make sure that Zalasta’s people saw us coming. We thought we might be able to divert him enough to keep him out of the way of Caalador’s murderers.’

Khalad grunted.

‘Are the Trolls gathering anywhere nearby?’ Ulath asked.

‘As closely as we can tell, they’re all clustered around the abandoned village of Tzada over on the other side of the Atan border,’ Khalad replied. ‘They tried to climb the wall for a while, but then they pulled back. Engessa’s got scouts on top of the wall watching them. They’ll let us know when they start to move.’

‘Where are Engessa and Kring?’ Vanion asked him.

‘Up the beach about a mile, my Lord. We’ve built an encampment back in the forest a ways. Tikume’s joined us. He brought in several thousand of the eastern Peloi about five days ago.’

‘That should help,’ Kalten said. ‘The Peloi are very enthusiastic about their wars.’

‘Any sign of Sorgi yet?’ Sparhawk asked.

‘He’s feeling his way in through the reefs,’ Khalad replied. ‘He sent a longboat on ahead to let us know that he was coming.’

‘What’s this business with the rafts all about?’ Vanion asked him.

‘They aren’t rafts, my Lord. They’re sections of a floating bridge.’

‘A bridge? A bridge to where?’

‘We aren’t sure. We’ve been staying back a ways so that the Edomish peasants constructing it won’t see us.’

‘What are Edomishmen doing on
this
side of the continent?’ Kalten asked with some astonishment.

‘Building a bridge, Sir Kalten. Weren’t you listening? Talen’s old friend Amador – or Rebal, or whatever he calls himself now – is sort of in charge, but Incetes is
there too, and
he’s
the one who’s making the big impression. He bellows orders in archaic Elenic, and he’s been braining anyone who doesn’t understand him or move fast enough.’

‘Is it that counterfeit one we saw in the woods near Jorsan?’ Talen asked.

‘I don’t think so. This fellow seems to be quite a bit bigger, and he’s got a sizeable contingent of men in bronze armor with him. I’d guess that somebody’s resurrecting people out of the past again.’

‘That would probably be Djarian of Samar,’ Sephrenia said. ‘Maybe he
can
raise whole armies after all.’

‘He can if Cyrgon’s lending him a hand,’ Aphrael added. The Child Goddess had appeared to be dozing in her sister’s arms, but she had clearly been listening. She opened her large, dark eyes. ‘Hello, Khalad,’ she said. ‘You look a little wind-burned.’

‘We’ve had some gales coming in off the Tamul Sea, Divine One. There’s a strong smell of ice mixed up in them.’

‘
That’s
what they’re doing,’ Ulath said, snapping his fingers.

‘Does he still do that?’ Tynian asked. ‘I was hoping you’d cured him of it by now.’

‘Ulath likes to play leap-frog with his mind, Tynian,’ Sephrenia said calmly. ‘He’ll come back in a moment or two and fill in the blank spaces for us.’

‘How long has it been cold up here, Khalad?’ Ulath asked.

‘It wasn’t particularly warm when we
got
here, Sir Ulath.’

‘Is any ice forming up in the inlets and along the beach at night?’

‘Some. It isn’t very thick, though, and the tide comes in and breaks it up before it has the chance to spread.’

‘The floating ice a mile or so out to sea
isn’t
breaking
up, though,’ Ulath said. ‘It rises and falls with the tide because it’s not grinding up against the rocks. It’s probably almost a foot thick out there by now. The Edomishmen aren’t building rafts or a bridge. They’re building a pier out to that pan-ice. There’ll be another one north of the wall as well. The Trolls
will
cross the ice. We know that because they did it to get here from Thalesia. Cyrgon’s going to march the Trolls to the pier north of the wall and drive them out to the pan-ice. Then they’ll march south across the ice and come ashore on this south pier.’

‘And then they’ll attack the Atans again,’ Vanion said bleakly. ‘How thick will the pan-ice have to be to support the weight of the Trolls?’

‘Two feet or so. It should be thick enough by the time the piers are finished – if it stays cold.’

‘I think we can count on Cyrgon to make sure that it stays cold,’ Tynian noted.

‘There’s something else, too,’ Khalad added. ‘If Cyrgon’s playing with the weather this way, it won’t be
too
long before Sorgi’s ships are locked in ice. I think we’d better come up with something, my Lords – and fairly soon – or we’re going to be hip-deep in Trolls again.’

‘Let’s go talk with Kring and Engessa,’ Sparhawk said.

‘The beach has changed, friend Sparhawk,’ Kring was saying. ‘When you get close to the cliff, there’s about a mile of what used to be the sea-bottom that’s out of the water now.’

‘It looks as if Bhelliom pushed the land to the north of the break underneath the rest of the continent,’ Khalad added. ‘It sort of slid under and pushed this side of the crack upward to form the cliff. That’s what raised the sea-bottom on this side. The land to the north of the cliff sank, though, so the sea went a couple of miles inland. You can see tree-tops sticking up out of the water. The break was clean and straight back where we were when the earthquakes started, but there were a lot of landslides out here on the coast. There are big rocks sticking up out of the water north of the cliff.’

‘Where are those Edomishmen you mentioned?’ Vanion asked.

‘Up near the top of the cliff, my Lord. They’re cutting trees and rolling the logs down to the edge of the water. That’s where they’re building the rafts.’ Khalad paused, his expression slightly critical. ‘They aren’t very good rafts,’ he added. ‘If the Trolls try to come ashore on that floating pier, they’re going to get their feet wet.’

‘He’s his father’s son, all right,’ Kalten laughed. ‘Why do you care whether or not the Trolls get their feet wet, Khalad?’

‘If you’re going to do something, you should do it right, Sir Kalten,’ Khalad said stubbornly. ‘I hate sloppy workmanship.’

‘Where’s this place where the Trolls are gathering?’ Vanion asked. ‘What was its name again?’

‘Tzada, Vanion-Preceptor,’ Engessa replied. ‘It’s over in Atan.’

‘What are they doing?’

‘It’s a little hard to tell from the top of the cliff.’

‘Where’s the border between Tamuli proper and Atan?’ Tynian asked.

‘There isn’t any real border, Tynian-Knight,’ Queen Betuana told him. ‘It’s just a line drawn on the map, and the line doesn’t mean anything up here on the North Cape. A land where the sun goes down in the late autumn and doesn’t come up again until early spring and where the trees freeze and explode in midwinter doesn’t attract too many settlers. The western part of the cape’s supposed to be in Astel; the middle’s in Atan; and the east is called part of Tamuli proper. Nobody up here really pays any attention to things like that. The land belongs to anybody foolish enough to live this far north.’

‘It’s about a hundred and fifty leagues to Tzada,’ Engessa told them.

‘That’s a good week’s travel for a Troll,’ Ulath said. ‘How far along are the Edomishmen with their pier?’

Khalad scratched his cheek. ‘I’d guess that they’ve got a good ten more days before they finish.’

‘And in ten days the pan-ice out to sea should be thick enough to hold the weight of the Trolls,’ Ulath concluded.

‘Cyrgon will make
sure
it’s thick enough,’ Flute said.

‘Somebody’s doing some very tight scheduling,’ Bevier noted. ‘The Edomishmen will have their piers complete in ten days, the ice will be thick enough to walk on, and if the Trolls set out from Tzada three days from now, they’ll get here just when everything’s ready.’

‘We have all sorts of options here,’ Vanion said. ‘We could destroy this southern pier and leave the Trolls stranded out on the ice; we could just wait and meet them when they try to come ashore; we could use Sorgi’s ships to assault them while they’re on the pier itself; or we could…’

Queen Betuana was firmly shaking her head.

‘Something wrong, your Majesty?’ Vanion asked her.

‘We don’t have that much time, Vanion-Preceptor,’ she replied. ‘How long is the daylight here now, Engessa-Atan?’

‘Not much more than five hours, Betuana-Queen.’

‘In ten days it won’t even last that long. Do we want to fight Trolls in the dark?’

‘Not even a little bit, your Majesty.’ Ulath shuddered. ‘The point is that we don’t really want to fight them at all. We want to steal them. We could just ignore all this construction work here on the coast, you know. Sorgi’s ships could ferry us around these work-gangs and put us ashore far enough north of the escarpment so that Bhelliom won’t set off a new batch of earthquakes, and then we could have it carry us directly to Tzada.’

‘That’s a good plan, Ulath-Knight,’ Betuana agreed, ‘except for the ice. It’s already forming out there, you know.’

‘Aphrael,’ Sparhawk said to the Child Goddess, ‘could you melt that ice for us?’

‘If I really
had
to,’ she replied, ‘but it wouldn’t be polite. The ice is a part of winter, and winter belongs to the earth. The earth is Bhelliom’s child, not mine, so you’ll have to talk to Bhelliom about it.’

‘What should I ask it to do?’

She shrugged. ‘Why not just leave that up to Bhelliom? Tell it that the ice is a problem and let
it
decide how to deal with it. You’ve got a lot to learn about the etiquette of these situations, Sparhawk.’

‘I suppose so,’ he admitted, ‘but it’s the sort of thing that doesn’t come up every day, so I haven’t had much practice.’

‘You see what I mean about those rafts, Sparhawk?’ Khalad said. ‘Those green logs lie so low in the water that you couldn’t lead a donkey along that pier without getting him wet all the way up to the hocks.’

‘How would
you
have built them?’

‘I’d have used a double layer of logs – one layer across the top of the other.’ The two of them were lying under some bushes on a knoll watching the Edomish peasants laboring on the rafts. The first part of the pier was already anchored in place, and it jutted about a quarter of a mile out into the icy water. Additional rafts were being added to the outer end as quickly as they were completed.

‘There’s Incetes,’ Khalad said, pointing at a huge man in a bronze mail-shirt and horned helmet. ‘He and those prehistoric warriors he brought with him have been driving those poor peasants to the point of exhaustion. Rebal’s running around waving his arms and trying to look important, but it’s Incetes who’s really in charge. The peasants don’t seem to understand his dialect, so he’s been talking to them by hand.’ Khalad scratched his short black beard. ‘You know, Sparhawk, if we killed him, his warriors would vanish, and one charge by the knights would chase Rebal and his peasants half-way back to Edom.’

‘It’s a nice idea, but how are we going to get close enough to kill him?’

‘I’m already close enough, Sparhawk. I could kill him from right here.’

‘He’s two hundred and fifty paces away, Khalad. Your father said that the maximum range with a crossbow is
two hundred yards – and even that involved a lot of luck.’

‘I’m a better shot than father was.’ Khalad lifted his crossbow. ‘I’ve modified the sights and lengthened the arms a bit. Incetes is close enough, believe me. I could stick a bolt up his nose from here.’

‘That’s a graphic picture. Let’s go talk with Vanion.’ They slid back down the back of the knoll, mounted their horses, and rode back to their hidden encampment. Sparhawk quickly explained his squire’s plan to the others.

‘Are you sure you could hit him at that range, Khalad?’ Vanion asked a bit skeptically.

Khalad sighed. ‘Do you want a demonstration, my Lord?’ he asked.

Vanion shook his head. ‘No. If you tell me you can hit him, then I’ll believe you.’

‘All right. I can hit him, my Lord.’

‘That’s good enough for me.’ Vanion frowned. ‘What would you say might be the absolute extreme range of the crossbow?’ he asked.

Khalad spread his hands uncertainly. ‘I’d have to experiment, Lord Vanion,’ he said. ‘I’m sure I could build one that would reach out a thousand yards, but aiming it would be difficult, and it would probably take two men a half-hour to re-cock it. The arms would have to be very stiff.’

‘A thousand paces,’ Vanion sighed, shaking his head. He rapped his knuckles on the chest of his suit of armor. ‘I think we’re becoming obsolete, gentlemen.’ Then he straightened. ‘Well, we’re not obsolete yet. As long as we’re here anyway, let’s go ahead and neutralize this southern pier. All it’s going to cost us is one crossbow bolt and a single mounted charge. The dismay it’s going to cause our enemies is worth
that
much anyway.’

Kring and Tikume came riding up the hill from the beach with Captain Sorgi clattering along beside him. Sorgi was not a very good horseman, and he rode stiffly, clinging to the saddle-bow. ‘Friend Sorgi came ashore in one of those rowboats,’ Kring said. ‘His big boats are still about a mile out in the water.’

‘Ships, friend Kring,’ Sorgi corrected with a pained expression. ‘The little ones are boats, but the big ones are called ships.’

‘What’s the difference, friend Sorgi?’

‘A ship has a captain. A boat operates by mutual consent.’ Sorgi’s expression grew somber. ‘We have a problem, Master Cluff. The ice is forming up right behind my ships. I’ll be able to bring them ashore, but I don’t think they’ll be of much use to you. I’ve had soundings taken, and we’ll have to sail a couple of miles out to get around the reef that runs out to sea from that cliff. We don’t
have
those two miles any more. The ice is moving inshore very fast.’

‘You’d better talk with Bhelliom, Sparhawk,’ Aphrael said. ‘I think I told you that this morning.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘as a matter of fact you did.’

‘Why didn’t you do it, then?’

‘I had a few other things on my mind.’

‘They get like that as they grow older,’ Sephrenia told her sister. ‘They get mulish and deliberately put off doing things they’re supposed to do just because
we
suggest them. They
hate
being told what to do.’

‘What’s the best way to get around that?’

Sephrenia smiled sweetly at the warriors standing around her. ‘I’ve always had good luck with telling them to do the exact opposite of what I really want.’

‘All right,’ the Child Goddess said doubtfully. ‘It sounds silly to me, but if it’s the only way to get the job done…’ She drew herself up. ‘Sparhawk!’ she said in a commanding voice. ‘Don’t you
dare
talk to Bhelliom!’

Sparhawk sighed. ‘I wonder if Dolmant could find an opening in a monastery for me when I get home,’ he said.

Sparhawk and Vanion went off a ways from the others to consult with the Sapphire Rose. Flute trailed along behind them. Sparhawk touched his ring to the lid of the box. ‘Open,’ he said.

The lid snapped up.

‘Blue Rose,’ Sparhawk said, ‘winter doth approach with unseemly haste, and the freezing of the sea doth hinder our design. We would proceed some distance beyond thine excellent wall so that our movements will not perturb thy daughter.’

‘Thou art considerate, Anakha,’ Vanion’s voice replied.

‘His courtesy is not untainted by self-interest, Flower-Gem,’ Aphrael said with an impish little smile. ‘When thy daughter shudders, it doth unsettle his stomach.’

‘You didn’t have to say that, Aphrael,’ Sparhawk told her. ‘Are you going to do this?’

‘No. My manners are better than that.’

‘Why did you come along, then?’

‘Because I owe Bhelliom an apology – and it owes me an explanation.’ She looked into the golden cask, and the azure glow from the stone illuminated her face. She spoke directly to the stone in a language Sparhawk did not understand, although it was somehow tantalizingly familiar. There were pauses as she spoke, pauses during which Sparhawk presumed Bhelliom was responding, communing directly with her in a voice which only she could hear. At one point she laughed, peal upon peal of silvery laughter that almost seemed to sparkle in the chill air. ‘All right, Sparhawk,’ she said finally, ‘Bhelliom and I have finished apologizing to each other. You can go ahead and present your problem now.’

‘You’re too kind,’ he murmured.

‘Be nice.’

‘I would not trouble thee with our trivial concerns, Blue Rose,’ Sparhawk said then, ‘but methinks the onset of the winter ice hath been hastened by Cyrgon’s hand, and it is beyond our power to respond.’

Vanion’s tone was stern as Bhelliom replied. ‘Methinks Cyrgon doth need instruction in courtesy, Anakha – and perchance in humility as well. He hath bent his will to the premature formation of the ice. I will tweak his beard for this. There are rivers in the sea, and he hath turned one of these aside to freeze this coast in furtherance of his design. I will turn aside yet another and bring the torrid breath of tropic climes to this northern shore and consume his ice.’

Aphrael clapped her hands together with a delighted laugh.

‘What’s so funny?’ Sparhawk asked her.

‘Cyrgon’s going to be a little sick for a few days,’ she replied. ‘Thou art wise beyond measure, Flower-Gem,’ she said gaily.

‘Thou art kind to say so, Aphrael, but methinks thy praise hath some small taint of flattery to it.’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘a
little,
perchance, but over-fulsome praise for those we love is no sin, is it?’

‘Guard well thine heart, Anakha,’ Bhelliom advised. ‘The Child Goddess will steal it from thee when thou dost least expect it.’

‘She did that years ago, Blue Rose,’ Sparhawk replied.

‘I can do this myself, Sparhawk,’ Khalad whispered. ‘I don’t need a chaperone.’ The two were lying behind a log atop the knoll from which they had observed the Edomish workmen the previous day. The work-gangs were laboring by the smoky light of fires being fed with green wood. The moon was full, and the smoke from the fires seemed almost to glow in its pale light.

‘I just came along to admire the shot, Khalad,’ Sparhawk replied innocently. ‘I like to watch professionals in action. Besides, I have to give Ulath the signal just as soon as you put Incetes to sleep.’ He shivered. ‘Aren’t we just a bit early?’ he asked. ‘The sky won’t start to get light for another hour yet. All we’re doing here is sprouting icicles.’

‘Did you want to do this?’

‘No. I probably couldn’t even come close at this range.’

‘Then do you want to keep your mouth shut and let me do it?’

‘You’re awfully grouchy for so young a fellow, Khalad. That doesn’t usually set in until a man’s much older.’

‘Dealing with knights has prematurely aged me.’

‘How does this new sight of yours work?’

‘Do you know what the word “trajectory” means?’