‘Definitely, my Lord.’
‘I sort of thought so myself. Let’s dig into the packs and put together something to eat.’
‘Is Sir Kalten skilled at estimating the time?’ Itagne asked Sparhawk.
Sparhawk smiled. ‘We normally rely on Khalad – when the sun’s out. When it’s cloudy, though, we fall back on Kalten’s stomach. He can usually tell you to within a minute how long it’s been since the last time he ate.’
Late that afternoon, when they had stopped for the night, Khalad stood a short distance from where the rest of them were setting up their encampment. He was looking out over the featureless desert with a slightly smug expression on his face. ‘Sparhawk,’ he called, ‘could you come here a moment? I want to show you something.’
Sparhawk put down Faran’s saddle and walked over to join his squire. ‘Yes?’ he asked.
‘I think you’d better talk with Lord Vanion. He probably won’t listen to me, since he’s already got his mind made up, but somebody’s going to have to convince him that we haven’t been riding east today.’
‘You’re going to have to convince me first.’
‘All right.’ The husky young man pointed out across the desert. ‘We came from that direction, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘If we’ve been riding east, that would be west, right?’
‘You’re being obvious.’
‘Yes, I know. I have to be. I’m trying to explain something to a knight. The last time I looked, the sun went down in the west.’
‘Please, Khalad, don’t try to be clever. Just get to the point.’
‘Yes, my Lord. If that’s west, then why’s the sun going down over there?’ He turned and pointed off toward the left, where an angry orange glow stained the clouds.
Sparhawk blinked, and then he muttered an oath. ‘Let’s go talk to Vanion,’ he said, and led the way back across the camp to where the Pandion Preceptor was speaking with Sephrenia.
‘We’ve got a problem,’ Sparhawk told them. ‘We made a wrong turn somewhere today.’
‘Are you still riding that tired horse, Khalad?’ Vanion’s tone was irritable. His conversation with Sephrenia had obviously not been going well.
‘Our young friend here just pointed something out to me,’ Sparhawk said, ‘…speaking slowly, of course, because of my limited understanding. He says that unless somebody’s moved the sun, we’ve been riding north all day.’
‘That’s impossible.’
Sparhawk turned and pointed toward the ugly orange glow on the horizon. ‘That’s not the direction we came from, Vanion.’
Vanion stared at the horizon for a moment, and then he started to swear.
‘You wouldn’t listen to me, would you?’ Sephrenia accused. ‘Now will you believe me when I tell you that the Delphae will deceive you at every turn?’
‘It was our own mistake, Sephrenia – well, mine, anyway. We can’t just automatically blame the Delphae for everything that goes wrong.’
‘I’ve known you since you were a boy, Vanion, and you’ve never made this kind of mistake before. I’ve seen you find your way on a dark night in the middle of a snowstorm.’
‘I must have confused a couple of landmarks and taken my bearings on the wrong one.’ Vanion grimaced. ‘Thanks for being so polite about it, Khalad – and so patient. We could have ridden on until we ran into the polar ice. I tend to get pig-headed sometimes.’
Sephrenia smiled fondly at him. ‘I much prefer to speak of your singleness of purpose, dear one,’ she told him.
‘It means the same thing, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes, but it sounds nicer.’
‘Set out some markers, Khalad,’ Vanion instructed. He looked around. There aren’t any sticks lying around, so pile up heaps of rock and mark them with scraps of colored cloth. Let’s get an absolute reference on the position of the sun this evening so that we don’t make the same mistake again tomorrow morning.’
‘I’ll take care of it, my Lord.’
‘They’re back,’ Kalten said, roughly shaking Sparhawk awake.
‘Who’s back?’ Sparhawk sat up.
‘Your glowing friends. They want to talk with you again.’
Sparhawk rose to his feet and followed his friend to the edge of the camp.
‘I was standing watch,’ Kalten said quietly, ‘and they just appeared out of nowhere. Itagne’s stories are entertaining enough, but I don’t think they’re all that accurate. The Shining Ones don’t shine all the time. They crept up on me in the dark, and they didn’t start to glow until they were in place.’
‘Are they still staying back a ways?’
Kalten nodded. ‘They’re keeping their distance. There’s no way we could rush them.’
There was no fog this time, and there were only two of the Shining Ones standing about twenty yards from the picketed horses. The eerie glow emanating from them still blurred their features, however.
‘Thy peril increases, Anakha,’ that same hollow, echoing voice declared. ‘Thine enemies are seeking thee up and down in the land.’
‘We haven’t seen anyone, neighbor.’
‘It is the unseen enemy which is most perilous. It is with their minds that thine enemies seek thee. We urge thee to accept our offer of sanctuary. It may soon be too late.’
‘I wouldn’t offend you for the world, neighbor, but we’ve only got your word for this unseen danger, and I think you may be exaggerating a bit. You said that Bhelliom’s directing my steps, and Bhelliom has unlimited power. I’ve tested that myself a few times. Thanks for your concern, but I still think I can take care of myself and my friends.’ He paused a moment and then plunged ahead on an impulse. ‘Why don’t we just cut across all this polite chit-chat? You’ve already admitted to a certain self-interest here. Why don’t you come right out and tell me what you want and what you’re prepared to offer in exchange? That might give us a basis for negotiation.’
‘Your charm’s positively blinding, Sparhawk,’ Kalten muttered.
‘We will consider thy proposal, Anakha.’ The echoing voice was cold.
‘Do that. Oh, one other thing, neighbor. Stop tampering with our direction. Deceit and trickery at the outset always seem to get negotiations off on the wrong foot.’
The glowing Delphae did not respond, but receded back into the desert and slipped out of sight.
‘Then you do believe me, don’t you, Sparhawk?’ Sephrenia said from just behind the two knights. ‘You realize how unprincipled and dishonest those creatures are.’
‘Let’s just say that I’m keeping an open mind on the subject, little mother. You were absolutely right about what you said earlier, though. We could blindfold Vanion, spin him around in circles for a day or so, and he’d still come out pointing due north.’ He looked around. ‘Is everybody awake? I think we’d better start considering options.’
They returned to the place where their beds were laid out on the hard, uncomfortable gravel. ‘You’re really very clever, Sparhawk,’ Bevier said. ‘The fact that our visitors didn’t deny that accusation you pulled out of the air suggests that Sephrenia’s been right about them all along. They have been misdirecting us.’
‘That doesn’t alter the fact that the Cyrgai are out there,’ Ulath reminded him, ‘and the Cyrgai are definitely our enemies. We may not know what the Delphae are really up to, but they ran off the Cyrgai for us last night, and that sort of inclines me to like them.’
‘Could that have been some sort of collusion?’ Berit asked.
‘That’s very unlikely,’ Itagne said. ‘The Cyrgai traditionally have a sublime belief that they’re the crown of creation. They’d never agree to any ruse that put them in a subservient position – not even for the sake of appearances. It’s just not in their racial make-up.’
‘He’s right,’ Sephrenia agreed, ‘and even though I hate to admit it, an alliance of that sort would be totally out of character for the Delphae as well. There could be no common ground between the
m and the Cyrgai. I don’t know what the Delphae are doing in this business, but they have their own agenda. They wouldn’t be cat’s paws for anyone else.’
‘Wonderful,’ Talen said sardonically, ‘now we’ve got two enemies to worry about.’
‘Why worry at all?’ Kalten shrugged. ‘Bhelliom can put us down on the outskirts of Matherion in the space between two heartbeats. Why don’t we just go away and leave the Cyrgai and the Delphae here in this wasteland to resolve their differences without us?’
‘No,’ Sephrenia said.
‘Why not?’
‘Because the Delphae have misdirected us already. We don’t want to go to Delphaeus.’
‘They’re not going to be able to fool the Bhelliom, Sephrenia,’ Vanion disagreed. ‘They might have been able to confuse me, but Bhelliom’s an entirely different matter.’
‘I don’t think we can take that chance, dear one. The Delphae want something from Sparhawk, and it’s obviously going to involve Bhelliom. Let’s not deliver them both into Delphaeic hands. I know that it’s tedious and dangerous, but let’s keep our feet on the ground. Bhelliom moves through a vast emptiness. If the Delphae can deceive it, we could come out of that emptiness almost any place.’
‘What’s an eclogue?’ Talen asked. They were riding toward what they hoped was the east the following morning, and Itagne was continuing his rambling discourse on Delphaeic literature.
‘It’s a sort of primitive drama,’ he replied. ‘It usually involves a meeting between two shepherds. They stand around discussing philosophy in bad verse.’
‘I’ve known a few sheep-herders,’ Khalad said, ‘and philosophy wasn’t their usual topic of conversation. They’re far more interested in women.’
‘There’s some of that involved in eclogues as well, but it’s so idealized that it’s hardly recognizable.’ Itagne tugged thoughtfully at one earlobe. ‘I think it’s some sort of disease,’ he mused. ‘The more civilized people become, the more they romanticize the simple bucolic life and ignore the dirt and grinding toil involved. Our sillier poets grow all weepy-eyed about shepherds – and shepherdesses, of course. It wouldn’t be nearly as much fun without the shepherdesses. The aristocracy periodically becomes enamored of the pastoral tradition, and they go to great lengths to act out their fantasies. Emperor Sarabian’s father even went so far as to have an idealized sheep-farm built down near Saranth. He and his court used to go there in the summer-time and spend months pretending to watch over flocks of badly over-fed sheep. Their rude smocks and kirtles were made of velvet and satin, and they’d sit around all moony-eyed composing bad verse and ignoring the fact that their sheep were wandering off in all directions.’ He leaned back in his saddle. ‘Pastoral literature doesn’t really hurt anything. It’s silly and grossly oversentimental, and the poets who become addicted to it tend to be a bit heavy-handed when they ladle on the moral lessons. That’s always been the problem with literature – finding a justification for it. It really doesn’t serve any practical purpose, you know.’
‘Except that life without it would be sterile and empty,’ Bevier asserted.
‘It would indeed, Sir Bevier,’ Itagne agreed. ‘Anyway, Delphaeic literature – which probably doesn’t have anything at all to do with the real Delphae – grew up around these ridiculous literary conventions, but after several centuries of that nonsense, the potentials of the pastoral tradition had been pretty much exhausted, so our poets began to wander afield – like untended sheep, if I may extend the metaphor. Sometime during the last century, they began to posit the notion that the Delphae practice a non-Styric form of magic. That really upsets my Styric colleagues at the university.’ Itagne looked back over his shoulder to make sure that Sephrenia, who still rode in the rear with Berit, was out of earshot. ‘Many people find something fundamentally irritating about Styrics. The pudding of smug superiority and accusatory self-pity doesn’t cook up very well, and the favorite form of Styric-baiting on the university campus is to mention “Delphaeic magic” to a Styric and then watch him go up in flames.’
‘Can you think of anything at all that might explain Sephrenia’s reaction to the Delphae?’ Vanion asked with troubled eyes. ‘I’ve never seen her behave this way before.’
‘I really don’t know Lady Sephrenia that well, Lord Vanion, but her explosion the first time I mentioned Delphaeic literature provides some clues. There’s a very brief passage in “Xadane” that hints that the Delphae were allied with the Styrics during the war that was supposed to have exterminated the Cyrgai. The passage was clearly based on a very obscure section in a seventhcentury historical text. There’s mention of a betrayal and not much more. Evidently, when their war with the Cyrgai began, the Styrics contacted the Delphae and tricked them into mounting an attack on the Cyrgai from the east. They promised aid and all manner of other inducements, but when the Cyrgai counter-attacked and began to over-run the Delphae, the Styrics chose to renege on their promises. The Delphae were almost exterminated. The Styrics have been wriggling and squirming for eons trying to justify that blatant breach of faith. There are many people in the world who don’t like Styrics, and they’ve used that betrayal as a vehicle for their bigotry. Styrics quite understandably don’t care much for the literature.’ He looked pensively out across the featureless desert. ‘One of the less attractive aspects of human nature is our tendency to hate the people we haven’t treated very well. That’s much easier than accepting guilt. If we can convince ourselves that the people we betrayed or enslaved were sub-human monsters in the first place, then our guilt isn’t nearly as black as we secretly know that it is. Humans are very, very good at shifting blame and avoiding guilt. We do like to keep a good opinion of ourselves, don’t we?’
‘I think it would take more than that to set Sephrenia off,’ Vanion said dubiously. ‘She’s too sensible to catch on fire just because somebody says unflattering things about Styrics. She’s spent several hundred years in the Elene kingdoms of Eosia, and anti-Styric prejudice there goes far beyond literary insults.’ He sighed. ‘If she’d only talk to me about it. I can’t get anything coherent out of her, though. All she does is splutter wild denunciations. I don’t understand at all.’
Sparhawk, however, had at least some slight inkling of what was happening. Aphrael had hinted that Sephrenia was going to encounter something extraordinarily painful, and it was growing increasingly obvious that the Delphae would be the cause of her pain. Aphrael had said that Sephrenia’s suffering would be necessary as a prelude to some kind of growth. Itagne, who really didn’t know any of them that well, may have hit upon something very relevant. Sephrenia was Styric to her fingertips, and the acceptance of racial guilt for an eons-old misbehavior would cause her the exact kind of pain Aphrael had so sorrowfully described. Sephrenia, however, would not be the only one who would suffer. Vanion had said that Sephrenia’s problems were also his. Unfortunately, the same held true of her pain.
Sparhawk rode on across the desolate waste, his thoughts as bleak as the surroundings.
Chapter 12
Kring looked pensively out across the lawn. ‘It came on me like a madness, Atan Engessa,’ he told his towering friend. ‘From the moment I first saw her, I couldn’t think of anything else.’ The two were standing in the shadows near the Ministry of the Interior.
‘You are fortunate, friend Kring,’ Engessa replied in his deep, soft voice. ‘Most men’s lives are never touched by such love.’
Kring smiled a bit wryly. ‘I’m sure my life would be much easier if it hadn’t touched mine.’
‘Do you regret it?’
‘Not for a moment. I’d thought that my life was full. I was the Domi of my people and I’d assumed that my mother would find me a suitable wife in due time, as is customary and proper. I’d have married and fathered sons, and that would have satisfied the requirements. Then I saw Mirtai, and I realized how empty my life had been before.’ He rubbed one hand over his shaved scalp. ‘My people will have a great deal of trouble
with her, I’m afraid. She’s like no other woman we’ve ever encountered. It wouldn’t be so difficult if I weren’t the Domi.’
‘She might not have accepted you if you hadn’t been, friend Kring. Mirtai is a proud woman. She was meant to be the wife of a ruler.’
‘I know. I wouldn’t have dared to approach her if I hadn’t been Domi. There’ll be trouble, though. I can see that coming. She’s a stranger, and she’s not at all like Peloi women. Status is very important to our women, and Mirtai’s of a different race, she’s taller than even the tallest of the Peloi men, and she’s more beautiful than any other woman I’ve ever seen. Just by themselves, those things would shrivel the hearts of Peloi women. You saw how Tikume’s wife Vida looked at her, didn’t you?’
Engessa nodded.
‘The women of my people will hate her all the more because I am their Domi. She will be Doma, the Domi’s wife, and she’ll have first place among the women. To make matters even worse, she’ll be one of the wealthiest of all the Peloi.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I’ve done quite well. My herds have increased, and I’ve stolen much. All my wealth will belong to her. She’ll own vast herds of sheep and cattle. The horse herds will still be mine, though.’
‘Is that the Peloi custom?’
‘Oh, yes. Sheep and cattle are food, so they belong to the women. The women also own the tents and the beds and the wagons. The gold we get from the king for Zemoch ears is owned by all the people in common, so about the only thing we Peloi men own are our weapons and our horses. When you get right down to it, the women own everything, and we spend our lives protecting their possessions.’
‘You have a strange society, friend Kring.’
Kring shrugged. ‘A man shouldn’t have his mind all cluttered with possessions. It distracts him when the time comes for fighting.’
‘There’s wisdom there, my friend. Who holds your possessions until you marry?’
‘My mother. She’s a sensible woman, and having a daughter like Mirtai will increase her status enormously. She has a great deal of authority among the Peloi women, and I’m hoping she’ll be able to keep matters under control – at least among my sisters.’ He laughed. ‘I’m going to enjoy watching the faces of my sisters when I introduce them to Mirtai and they have to bow to her. I’m not really fond of them. They all pray for my death every night.’