‘Of course.’ The Child Goddess squinted at her. ‘Would you like to have me change the color?’ she asked. ‘Or maybe make it curly?’
The Queen pursed her lips. ‘Why don’t we talk about that a little?’ she said.
The Cynesgans who manned the outer wall of the Hidden City were not particularly good troops in the first place, and when the Trolls came leaping out of No-Time to scramble up the walls toward them, they broke and ran.
‘Did you tell the Trolls to open the gates for us?’ Vanion asked Ulath.
‘Yes, my Lord,’ the Genidian replied, ‘but it might be a little while before they remember. They’re hungry right now. They’ll eat breakfast first.’
‘We have to get inside, Ulath,’ Sephrenia said urgently. ‘We have to protect the slave-pens.’
‘Oh, Lord,’ he said. I forgot about that. The Trolls won’t be able to distinguish slaves from Cynesgans.’
‘I’ll go have a look,’ Khalad volunteered. He swung down from his horse and ran forward to the massively timbered gates. After a couple of moments he came back. ‘It’s no particular problem, Lady Sephrenia,’ he reported. ‘Those gates would fall apart if you sneezed on them.’
‘What?’
The timbers are very old, my Lady, and they’re riddled with dry-rot. With your permission, Lord Vanion, I’ll take some men and rig up a battering-ram. We’ll knock down the gate so that we can get inside.’
‘Of course,’ Vanion replied.
‘Come along then, Berit,’ Khalad told his friend.
‘That young man always manages to make me feel inadequate,’ Vanion muttered as they watched the pair ride back to rejoin the knights massed some yards to the rear.
‘As I remember, his father had the same effect on you,’ Sephrenia said.
Kring came galloping back around the wall. ‘Friend Bergsten’s preparing to assault the north gate,’ he reported.
‘Send word to him to be careful, friend Kring,’ Betuana advised. ‘The Trolls are already inside the city – and they’re hungry. It might be better if he delayed his attack just a little.’
Kring nodded his agreement. ‘Working with Trolls changes the complexion of things, doesn’t it, Betuana-Queen? They’re very good allies in a fight, but you don’t want to let them get hungry.’
About ten minutes later, Khalad and a few dozen knights dragged a large log into place before the gate, suspended it on ropes attached to several makeshift tripods, and began to pound on the rotting timbers. The gate shuddered out billows of powdery red dust and began to crumble and fall apart.
‘Let’s go!’ Vanion called tersely to his oddly assorted army and led the way into the city. At Sephrenia’s insistence, the knights went straight to the pens, freed the shackled slaves, and escorted them to safety outside the walls. Then Vanion’s force moved directly to the inner wall that protected the steep hill rising in the middle of Cyrga.
‘How long is that likely to last, Sir Ulath?’ Vanion said, gesturing toward a cluster of ravening Trolls.
‘It’s a little hard to say, Lord Vanion,’ Ulath replied. I don’t think we’ll get much co-operation from them as long as there are still Cynesgans running up and down the streets here in the outer city, though.’
‘Maybe it’s just as well,’ Vanion decided. ‘I think we want to get to Sparhawk and the others before the Trolls do.’ He looked around. ‘Khalad,’ he called, ‘tell your men to drag that battering ram up here. Let’s pound down the gate to the inner city and go find Sparhawk.’
‘Yes, my Lord,’ Khalad replied.
The gates to the inner wall were more substantial, and Khalad’s ram was pounding out great booming sounds when Patriarch Bergsten came riding along the wall, accompanied by the veteran Pandion, Sir Heldin, a Peloi whom Vanion did not recognize, and a tall, lithe Atan girl. Vanion was a bit startled to see that the Styric God Setras was also with them. ‘What do you think you’re doing, Vanion?’ Bergsten roared.
‘Knocking down this gate, your Grace,’ Vanion replied.
That’s not what I’m talking about. What in God’s name possessed you to let the Trolls make the initial assault?’
‘It wasn’t really a question of “let”, your Grace. They didn’t exactly ask for permission.’
‘We’ve got absolute chaos here in the outer city. My knights can’t concentrate on this inner wall because they keep running into Trolls. They’re in a feeding-frenzy, you know. Right now they’ll eat anything that moves.’
‘Must you?’ Sephrenia murmured with a shudder.
‘Hello, Sephrenia,’ Bergsten said. ‘You’re looking well. How much longer are you going to be with this gate, Vanion? Let’s get our people into the inner city where all we have to worry about are the Cyrgai. Your allies are making my men very nervous.’ He looked up at the top of the inner wall, sharply outlined against the dawn sky. ‘I thought the Cyrgai were supposed to be soldiers. Why aren’t they manning this wall?’
‘They’re a little demoralized right now,’ Sephrenia explained. ‘Sparhawk just killed their God.’
‘He did? I thought Bhelliom was going to do that.’
She sighed. ‘In a certain sense it did,’ she said. ‘It’s a little hard to separate the two of them at this point. Aphrael isn’t entirely sure where Bhelliom leaves off and Sparhawk begins right now.’
Bergsten shuddered. ‘I don’t think I want to know about that,’ he confessed. ‘I’m in enough theological trouble already. What about Klæl?’
‘He’s gone. He was banished as soon as Sparhawk killed Cyrgon.’
‘Oh, fine, Vanion,’ Bergsten said with heavy sarcasm. ‘You make me ride a thousand leagues in the dead of winter, and the fighting’s all over before I even get here.’
‘The exercise was probably good for you, your Grace.’ Vanion raised his voice. ‘How much longer, Khalad?’ he called.
‘Just a few more minutes, my Lord,’ Sparhawk’s squire replied. ‘The timbers are starting to crack.’
‘Good,’ Vanion said bleakly. ‘I want to locate Zalasta. He and I have some things to talk about – at great length.’
‘They’ve all bolted, Sparhawk,’ Talen reported, returning from his quick survey of the ruined palace. ‘The gates are standing wide open, and we’re the only people up here.’
Sparhawk nodded wearily. It had been a long night, and he was emotionally as well as physically drained. He could still, however, feel that enormous calm that had settled over him when he had at last understood the true significance of his strange relationship with Bhelliom. There were some fleeting temptations – curiosity perhaps more than anything else – a desire to experiment and test the limits of newly-recognized capabilities. He deliberately repressed them.
‘Go ahead, Sparhawk,’ Flute’s voice in his mind had a slight challenge in it. He turned his head to look quizzically at the ageless child, standing beside his wife. Ehlana’s face was serene as she ran her fingers through her long, pale-blonde hair. ‘What did you want me to do?’ he sent the thought back.
‘Anything that comes into your mind.’
‘Why?’
‘Aren’t you just the least bit curious? Wouldn’t you like to find out if you can turn a mountain inside out?’
‘I can,’ he replied. ‘I don’t see any reason to do something like that, though/
‘You’re hateful, Sparhawk!’ she suddenly flared.
‘What’s your problem, Aphrael?’
‘You’re such a lump!’
He smiled gently at her. ‘I know, but you love me anyway, don’t you?’
‘Sparhawk,’ Kalten called from the ornate bronze gate, ‘Vanion’s coming up the hill. He’s got Bergsten with him.’
Vanion had known Sparhawk since his novitiate, but the weary-looking man in black armor seemed to be almost a stranger. There was something about his face and in his eyes that had never been there before. The Preceptor approached his old friend with Patriarch Bergsten and Sephrenia with a sense of something very
close to awe.
As soon as Ehlana saw Sephrenia, she ran to her with a low cry and embraced her fiercely.
‘I see that you’ve wrecked another city, Sparhawk,’ Bergsten said with a broad grin. ‘That’s getting to be a habit, you know.’
‘Good morning, your Grace,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘It’s good to see you again.’
‘Did you do all this?’ Bergsten gestured at the ruined temple and the half-collapsed palace.
‘Klæl did most of it, your Grace.’
The hulking churchman squared his shoulders. ‘I’ve got orders for you from Dolmant,’ he said. ‘You’re supposed to turn the Bhelliom over to me. Why don’t you do that now – before we both forget?’
‘I’m afraid that isn’t possible, your Grace,’ Sparhawk sighed. I don’t have it any more.’
‘What did you do with it?’
‘It no longer exists – at least not in the shape it was before. It’s been freed from its confinement to continue its journey.’
‘You released it without consulting the Church? You’re in trouble, Sparhawk.’
‘Oh, do be serious, Bergsten,’ Aphrael told him. ‘Sparhawk did what had to be done. I’ll explain to Dolmant later.’
Vanion, however, had something else on his mind. ‘This is all very interesting,’ he said bleakly, ‘but right now I’m far more concerned about finding Zalasta. Does anybody have any idea of where I might find him?’
‘He might be under all that, Vanion,’ Ehlana told him, pointing at the ruined temple. ‘He and Ekatas were going there when they discovered that Sparhawk was here inside the walls of Cyrga. Ekatas escaped, and Mirtai killed him, but Zalasta might have been crushed when Klæl exploded the place.’
‘No,’ Aphrael said shortly. ‘He’s nowhere in the city.’
‘I really want to find him, Divine One,’ Vanion said.
‘Setras, dear,’ Aphrael said sweetly to her cousin, ‘would you see if you can find Zalasta for me? He has a great deal to answer for.’
‘I’ll see what I can do, Aphrael,’ the handsome God promised, ‘but I really ought to get back to my studio. I’ve been letting my own work slide during all this.’
‘Please, Setras,’ she wheedled, unleashing that devastating little smile.
He laughed helplessly. ‘Do you see what I was talking about, Bergsten?’ he said to the towering Patriarch. ‘She’s the most dangerous creature in the universe.’
‘So I’ve heard,’ Bergsten replied. ‘You’d probably better go ahead and do as she asks, Setras. You’ll do it in the end anyway.’
‘Ah, there you are, Itagne-Ambassador,’ Vanion heard Atana Maris say in a deceptively pleasant tone of voice. He turned and saw the lithe young commander of the garrison at Cynestra descending on the clearly apprehensive Tamul diplomat. ‘I’ve been looking all over for you,’ she continued. ‘We have a great deal to talk about. Somehow, not one of your letters reached me. I think you should reprimand your messenger.’
Itagne’s face took on a trapped expression.
Betuana dispatched runners to Matherion just before noon, when the last of the demoralized Cyrgai capitulated. Sir Ulath made an issue of the fact that what had happened to the Cynesgans in the outer city might have influenced that decision to some degree. Patriarch Bergsten had taken to looking at his countryman with a critical and speculative eye. Bergsten was a rough-and-ready churchman, willing to bend all sorts of rules in the name of expediency, but he choked just a bit on Ulath’s unbridled ecumenicism. ‘He’s just a little too enthusiastic, Sparhawk,’ the huge Patriarch declared. ‘All right, I’ll grant you that the Trolls were useful, but –’ He groped for a way to express his innate prejudices.
‘There’s a rather special kinship between Ulath and Bhlokw, your Grace,’ Sparhawk sidestepped the issue. ‘How much have we got left to do here? I’d sort of like to get my wife back to civilization.’
‘You can leave now, Sparhawk,’ Bergsten said with a shrug. ‘We can take care of cleaning up here. You didn’t leave very much for the rest of us to worry about. I’ll stay here with the knights to finish rounding up the Cyrgai; Tikume will take his Peloi back to Cynestra to help Itagne and Atana Maris set up the occupation; and Betuana’s going to send her Atans into Arjuna to re-establish imperial authority.’ He made a sour face. ‘There’s nothing really left but all the niggling little administrative details. You’ve robbed me of a very good fight, Sparhawk.’
‘I can send for more of Klæl’s soldiers if you want, your Grace.’
‘No. That’s all right, Sparhawk,’ Bergsten replied quickly. ‘I can live without any more of those fights. You’ll be going straight back to Matherion?’
‘Not straight back, your Grace. Courtesy obliges us to escort Anarae Xanetia back to Delphaeus.’
‘She’s a very strange lady,’ Bergsten mused. ‘I keep catching myself just on the verge of genuflection every time she enters a room.’
‘She has that effect on people, your Grace. If you really don’t need us here, I’ll talk with the others, and we’ll get ready to leave.’
‘What actually happened, Sparhawk?’ Bergsten asked directly. ‘I have to make a report to Dolmant, and I can’t make much sense out of what the others have been telling me.’
‘I’m not sure I can explain it, your Grace,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘Bhelliom and I were sort of combined for a while. It needed my arm, I guess.’ It was an easy answer, and it evaded a central issue that Sparhawk was not yet fully prepared to even think about.
‘You were just a tool, then?’ Bergsten’s look was intent.
Sparhawk shrugged. ‘Aren’t we all, your Grace? We’re the instruments of God. That’s what we get paid for.’
‘Sparhawk, you’re right on the verge of heresy here. Don’t throw the word “God” around like that.’
‘No, your Grace,’ Sparhawk agreed. ‘It’s just a reflection of the limitations of language. There are things that we don’t understand and don’t have names for. We just lump them all together, call it “God”, and let it go at that. You and I are soldiers, Patriarch Bergsten. We get paid to hit the ground running when somebody blows a trumpet. Let Dolmant sort it out. That’s what he gets paid for.’
Sparhawk and his friends, accompanied by Kring, Betuana and Engessa, rode out of shattered Cyrga shortly after dawn the following morning, bound for Sarna. Sparhawk had neither seen nor heard from Bhelliom since his encounter with Cyrgon, and he felt a peculiar sense of disappointment about that. The Troll-Gods had also departed with their children – all except for Bhlokw, who shambled along between Ulath and Tynian. Bhlokw was evasive about his reasons for accompanying them.
They rode northeasterly across the barren wastes of Cynesga, traveling in easy stages. The urgent need for haste was gone now. Sephrenia and Xanetia, once again working in concert, had returned all the faces to their rightful owners, and things were slowly settling back to normal.
It was about mid-morning ten days after they had left Cyrga and when they were but a few leagues from Sarna that Vanion rode forward to join Sparhawk at the head of the column. “A word with you, Sparhawk?’ he said.
‘Of course.’
‘It’s sort of private.’
Sparhawk nodded, turned the column over to Bevier and nudged Faran into a rolling canter. He and Vanion slowed again when they were about a quarter of a mile ahead of the others. ‘Sephrenia wants us to get married,’ Vanion said, cutting past any preamble.
‘You’re asking my permission?’
Vanion gave him a long, steady look.
‘Sorry,’ Sparhawk apologized. ‘You took me by surprise. There are problems with that, you know. The Church will never approve, and neither will the Thousand of Styricum. We’re not quite as hide-bound as we used to be, but the notion of interracial or interfaith marriage still raises some hackles.’
‘I know,’ Vanion said glumly. ‘Dolmant probably wouldn’t have any personal objections, but his hands are tied by Church law and doctrine.’
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‘Who are you going to get to officiate, then?’
‘Sephrenia’s already solved that problem. Xanetia’s going to perform the ceremony.’
Sparhawk nearly choked on that.
‘She is a priestess, Sparhawk.’
‘Well – technically, I suppose,’ Then Sparhawk suddenly broke out laughing.
‘What’s so funny?’ Vanion demanded truculently.
‘Can you imagine the look on Ortzel’s face when he hears that a Preceptor of one of the four orders, a Patriarch of the Church, has been married to one of the Thousand of Styricum by a Delphaeic priestess?’
‘It does violate a few rules, doesn’t it?’ Vanion conceded with a wry smile.
‘A few? Vanion, I doubt that you could find any single act that’d violate more.’
‘Do you object, too?’
‘Not me, old friend. If this is what you and Sephrenia want, I’ll back the two of you all the way up to the Hierocracy.’
‘Would you stand up with me, then? During the ceremony, I mean?’
Sparhawk clapped him on the shoulder. ‘I’d be honored, my friend.’
‘Good. That’ll keep it all in the family. Sephrenia’s already spoken to your wife about it. Ehlana’s going to stand with her.’
‘Somehow I almost knew that was coming,’ Sparhawk laughed.
They passed through Sarna and proceeded north along a snow-clogged mountain trail toward Dirgis in southern Atan. After they left Dirgis, they turned westward again and rode higher into the mountains.
‘We’re leaving a very wide trail behind us, Sparhawk,’ Bevier said late one snowy afternoon. ‘And the trail’s leading directly to Delphaeus.’
Sparhawk turned and looked back. ‘You’ve got a point,’ he conceded. ‘Maybe I’d better have a talk with Aphrael. Things have changed a bit, but I don’t think the Delphae are quite ready to welcome crowds of sightseers,’ He turned Faran around and rode back to join the ladies. Aphrael, as usual, rode with Sephrenia. ‘A suggestion, Divine One?’ Sparhawk said tentatively.
‘You sound just like Tynian.’
He ignored that. ‘How good are you with weather?’ he asked.