‘Thanks,’ Sparhawk said dryly.
‘I’m sorry, dear one, but you don’t. Every time you’ve ever picked it up, either Aphrael or I have had to walk you through it step by step. We’re definitely going to need some time. We have to teach Bhelliom how to be quiet, and we have to teach you how to use it without having someone hold your hand.’
‘I love you too, Sephrenia.’
She smiled fondly. ‘You’re holding tremendous power in your hands, Sparhawk, but it’s not of much use if all you know how to do is wave it around like a battle-flag. I don’t think we should rush back to Matherion immediately. That story you cooked up for Ehlana will explain our absence for at least two or three more weeks. We’ll want to avoid the traps and ambushes our enemies are going to lay for us along the way, of course.’ She paused. ‘They might even be useful. They’ll give you something to practice on.’
‘Jump around,’ Ulath grunted.
‘Will you stop that, Ulath?’ she snapped at him.
‘Sorry, Sephrenia. It’s a habit of mine. After I think my way through something, I just blurt out the conclusion. The intermediate steps aren’t usually very interesting. Our friends out there have been raising random disturbances to keep the Atans running back and forth across the continent – werewolves here, vampires there, Shining Ones off in that direction, and antique armies in this. There’s no real purpose to all that except to confuse the imperial authorities. We could steal a page right out of their book, you know. They can hear and feel Bhelliom – particularly when it’s doing something noisy. I gather that there’s no real limit to how far it can jump at one time, so let’s just say that Sparhawk wants to see what the weather’s like in Darsas. He has Bhelliom pick him up by the scruff of the neck and drop him down in the square outside King Alberen’s palace. He stays there for about a half-hour – long enough for the other side to smell him out – then he hops across the continent to Beresa in southern Arjuna and stays long enough to make his presence known there. Then he goes to Sarsos, then to Jura in southern Daconia, then back to Cimmura to say hello to Platime – all in the space of one afternoon. He’d get all sorts of practice using Bhelliom, and by the time the sun went down, they wouldn’t know where he was or where he was going to go next. To make it even more fun, our mysterious friend out there wouldn’t know which of these little jumps was the significant one, so he’d almost have to follow along.’
‘Carrying that hurricane on his back every step of the way,’ Kalten added. ‘Ulath, you’re brilliant.’
‘Yes,’ the blond-braided Thalesian agreed with becoming modesty, ‘I know.’
‘I like it,’ Vanion approved. ‘What do you think, Sephrenia?’
‘It would give Sparhawk and Bhelliom the chance to get to know each other,’ she agreed, ‘and that’s basically what we need here. The better they know each other, the better they’ll be able to work together. I’m sorry, Sir Ulath. Blurt out conclusions anytime you feel like it.’
‘All right then,’ Vanion said in his most business-like fashion, ‘when Sparhawk’s off on one of his little excursions, the rest of us will be sort of invisible – well, not really invisible, but if Bhelliom’s not with us, our friend won’t be able to hear us or feel us, will he?’
‘Probably not,’ Flute agreed. ‘Even if he could, Sparhawk will be making so much noise that he won’t really pay much attention to you.’
‘Good. Let’s say that we set out from here. Sparhawk hops up to Darsas and rattles all the windows there. Then he hops back, picks us up and puts down in…’ He frowned at his map. ‘In Cyron on the Cynesgan border.’ He stabbed his finger down on the chart. ‘Then he hops around to several other places, leaving Bhelliom and the rings out in the open so that our friend knows where he is each time. Then he rejoins us at Cyron and boxes up Bhelliom again. By that time our friend will be so confused he won’t know where we are.’
‘Pay close attention, Sparhawk,’ Kalten grinned. ‘That’s the way a preceptor’s supposed to think.’
Sparhawk grunted. Then he thought of something. ‘I want to talk with you for a moment when we leave,’ he told his blond friend quietly.
‘Am I in trouble?’
‘Not yet, but you’re working on it.’
The slatternly serving-girl brought in their meal, glowering at Vanion as she did, and Sparhawk and his friends began to eat.
They did not linger after lunch, but rose immediately and trooped out.
‘What’s your problem?’ Kalten asked as he and Sparhawk trailed along behind the others.
‘Quit trying to get yourself killed.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Don’t be coy, Kalten. I saw what you were doing this morning. Don’t you realize how transparent you are to people who know you?’
‘You’re unwholesomely clever, Sparhawk,’ the blond Pandion accused.
‘It’s a character defect of mine. I’ve got enough to worry about already. Don’t add this to it.’
‘It’s such a perfect solution.’
‘For a non-existent problem, you jackass. Alean’s had her eyes on you ever since we left Chyrellos. She’s not going to throw all that effort away. It’s you she’s after, Kalten, not Berit. If you don’t stop this nonsense, I’ll take you back to Demos and have you confined in the mother-house.’
‘How do you propose to do that?’
‘I’ve got this blue friend here, remember?’ Sparhawk patted the bulge in the front of his tunic. ‘I can pick you up by the hair, deposit you in Demos and be back before Vanion even gets into his saddle.’
That’s not fair.’
‘Now you’re starting to sound like Talen. I’m not trying to be fair. I’m trying to keep you from killing yourself. I want your oath.’
‘No.’
‘Demos is nice this time of year. You’ll enjoy it. You can spend your days in prayer.’
Kalten swore at him.
‘You’ve got some of the words right, Kalten. Now just put them together into a proper oath. Believe me, my friend, you’re not going to go one step farther with us until you give me your oath to stop all this nonsense.’
‘I swear,’ Kalten muttered.
‘Not good enough. Let’s make it nice and formal. I want it to make an impression on you. You’ve got this tendency to overlook things if they aren’t all spelled out.’
‘Do you want me to sign something in my own blood?’ Kalten demanded acidly.
‘It’s a thought, but I don’t have any parchment handy. I’ll accept your verbal oath – for the time being. I may change my mind later, though, so keep your veins nice and loose and your dagger sharp.’
‘Sparhawk?’ Ambassador Fontan exclaimed. ‘What are you doing in Darsas?’ The ancient Tamul diplomat stared at the big Pandion in astonishment.
‘Just passing through, your Excellency,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘May I come in?’
‘By all means, my boy.’ Fontan opened his door wide and Sparhawk and Flute entered the crimson-carpeted study of the Tamul Embassy.
‘You’re looking well, your Royal Highness,’ Fontan smiled at the little girl. Then he looked at her more closely. ‘I’m sorry,’ he apologized to her. ‘I mistook you for Prince Sparhawk’s daughter. You resemble her very much.’
‘We’re distantly related, your Excellency,’ Flute told him without turning a hair.
‘Has word reached you about what happened in Matherion a few weeks ago, your Excellency?’ Sparhawk asked, tucking the Bhelliom back into his inside tunic pocket.
‘Just yesterday,’ Fontan replied. ‘Is the Emperor safe?’
Sparhawk nodded. ‘My wife’s looking after him. Our time’s limited, your Excellency, so I’m not going to be able to explain everything. Are you cosmopolitan enough to accept the notion that the Styrics have some very unusual capabilities?’
Fontan smiled faintly. ‘Prince Sparhawk, a man my age is willing to accept almost anything. After the initial shock of astonishment that comes ea
ch morning when I wake up and discover that I’m still alive, I can face the day with an open mind.’
‘Good. My friends and I left Korvan down in Edom about an hour ago. They’re riding on toward Cyron on the border, but I came here to have a word with you.’
‘An hour ago?’
‘Just take it on faith, your Excellency,’ Flute told him. ‘It’s one of those Styric things Sparhawk was talking about.’
‘I’m not certain how much your messenger told you,’ Sparhawk continued, ‘but it’s urgent that all of the Atan garrison commanders in the empire know that the Ministry of the Interior’s not to be trusted. Minister Kolata’s working for the other side.’
‘I never liked that man,’ Fontan said. He gave Sparhawk a speculative look. ‘This message is hardly so earth-shaking that it would move you to violate a whole cluster of natural laws, Sparhawk. What are you really doing in Darsas?’
‘Casting false trails, your Excellency. Our enemies have ways of detecting my presence, so I’m going to give them a presence to detect in various towns in assorted corners of the Empire in order to confuse them a bit. My friends and I are returning overland from Korvan to Matherion, and we’d prefer not to be ambushed along the way. This isn’t a confidential visit, Ambassador Fontan. Feel free to let people know that I stopped by. They’ll probably know already, but let’s confirm it for them.’
‘I like your style, Sparhawk. You’ll be crossing Cynesga?’
Sparhawk nodded.
‘It’s an unpleasant country.’
‘These are unpleasant times. Oh, it won’t really hurt if you’re sort of smug when you tell people that you’ve seen me. Our side was definitely behind up until now. That changed a few days ago. Our enemy, whoever he is, is at a distinct disadvantage right now, and I’d sort of like to grind his face in that fact for a while.’
‘I’ll get word to the town crier immediately.’ The ancient man squinted up at the ceiling. ‘How long can you stay?’
‘An hour at the very most.’
‘Plenty of time, then. Why don’t we step over to the palace? I’ll take you into the throne-room, and you can pay your respects to the king – in front of his entire court. That’s the best way I know of to let people know you’ve been here.’
‘I like your style, your Excellency,’ Sparhawk grinned.
It grew easier each time. At first, Bhelliom seemed impossibly dense, and Flute frequently had to step in, speaking in that language which Sparhawk strongly suspected was the original tongue of the Gods themselves. Gradually, the stone seemed to grasp what was wanted of it. Its compliance was never fully willing, however. It had to be compelled. Sparhawk found that visualizing Vanion’s map helped quite a bit. Once Bhelliom grasped the fact that the map was no more than a picture of the world, it grew easier for Sparhawk to tell the jewel where he wanted to go.
This is not to say that there weren’t a few false starts. Once, when he had been concentrating on the town of Delo on the east coast, the thought crossed his mind that there was a certain remote similarity between that name and the name of the town of Demos in east-central Elenia, and after the momentary gray blur where the world around him shifted and changed, he found himself and Flute riding Faran in bright moonlight up the lane that led to Kurik’s farm.
‘What are you doing?’ Flute demanded.
‘My attention wandered. Sorry.’
‘Keep your mind on your work. Bhelliom’s responding to what you’re thinking, not what you’re saying. It probably doesn’t even understand Elenic – but then, who really does?’
‘Be nice.’
‘Take us back immediately!’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
There was that now-familiar lurch, and the moonlight faded into gray. Then they were back in bright autumn sunshine on the road a few miles outside Korvan, and their friends were staring at them in astonishment.
‘What went wrong?’ Sephrenia asked Flute.
‘Our glorious leader here was wool-gathering,’ Flute replied with heavy sarcasm. ‘We just took a little sidetrip to Demos.’
‘Demos!’ Vanion exclaimed. ‘That’s on the other side of the world!’
‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘It’s the middle of the night there right now. We were on the road to Kurik’s farm. Maybe our stalwart commander here felt lonesome for Aslade’s cooking.’
‘I can live without these “stalwart commanders” and “glorious leaders”,’ Sparhawk told her tartly.
‘Then do it right.’
There was a certain desperation in the flicker of darkness at the edge of Sparhawk’s vision this time, and a faint flicker of harried confusion. Sparhawk did not even stop to think. ‘Blue Rose!’ he barked to the Bhelliom, bringing up his other hand so that both rings touched the deep blue petals, ‘destroy that thing!’
He felt a brief jolt in his hands and heard a sizzling kind of crackle behind him.
The shadow that had dogged their steps for so long, which they had thought at first to be Azash and then the Troll-Gods, gave a shrill shriek and began to babble in agony. Sparhawk saw Sephrenia’s eyes widen.
The shadow was crying out, not in Zemoch or Trollish, but in Styric.
Chapter 8
‘Well now, yer Queenship,’ Caalador was saying, ‘I don’t know ez I’d stort a-dancin’ in the streets jist yet. Them fellers over t’ Interior’s bin a-doin’ ever’thang but a-nailin’ th’ doors shet t’ keep us from a-puttin’ our hands on this yere pertic’ler set o’ files, an’ now they turns up sorta unexpected-like amongst a hull buncha others – which I’d swear a oath to that I already looked over ‘bout four er five times my own self. Don’t that smell jist a bit like a dead fish t’ you?’
‘What did he say?’ Emperor Sarabian asked.
‘He’s suspicious,’ Ehlana translated. ‘He thinks that our discovery of these files was too easy. He may just have a point.’
They had gathered again in the royal apartment in what was by now generally called ‘Ehlana’s Castle’ to discuss the surprising discovery of a hitherto missing set of personnel files. The files themselves were stacked in heaps upon the tables and the floor of the main sitting room.
‘Do you always have to complicate things, Master Caalador?’ The Emperor’s expression was slightly pained. As he habitually did now, Sarabian was wearing western-style clothes. Ehlana felt that this morning’s choice of a black velvet doublet and pearl-grey hose was not a happy one. Black velvet made Sarabian’s bronzetinted skin look sallow and unhealthy.
‘I’m a professional swindler, your Majesty,’ Caalador replied, dropping the dialect. ‘I’ve learned that when something seems too good to be true, it probably is.’
Stragen was looking into one of the files. ‘What an amazing thing,’ he said. ‘Someone in the Ministry of the Interior seems to have discovered the secret of eternal youth.’
‘Don’t be cryptic, Stragen,’ Ehlana told him, adjusting the folds of her blue dressing gown. ‘Say what you mean.’
He took a sheet of paper out of the file he was holding. ‘This particular document looks as if it were only written last week – which it probably was. The ink’s barely dry.’
‘They are still using those files, Milord,’ Oscagne said, ‘despite the inconvenience. It’s probably just a recently filed document.’
Stragen took out another sheet of paper and handed both documents to the Foreign Minister. ‘Do you notice anything unusual about these, your Excellency?’
Oscagne shrugged. ‘One of them’s fairly new, the other’s turned yellow with age, and the ink’s faded so badly you can hardly read it.’
‘Exactly,’ Stragen said. ‘Don’t you find it just a little odd that the faded one’s supposed to be five years younger than the fresh one?’
Oscagne looked more closely at the two sheets of paper. ‘Are you trying to say that they falsified an official document?’ he exclaimed. ‘That’s a capital offense!’
‘Let me see those,’ Sarabian said.
‘Oh, yes,’ Sarabian noted, ‘Chalba. Kolata’s been singing his praises for the past fifteen years.’ He held up the suspicious document. ‘This purports to be his appointment to the ministry. It’s dated no more than a week after Kolata took office.’ He looked at Stragen. ‘You think this has been substituted for the original?’
‘It certainly looks that way, your Majesty.’
Sarabian frowned. ‘What could there possibly have been on the original that they’d have wanted to conceal?’ he asked.
‘I have no idea, your Majesty. There must have been something, though.’ He leafed through the file. ‘This Chalba’s rise in the ministry was positively meteoric. It looks as if he was getting promoted every time he turned around.’
‘That sounds a bit like the sort of thing one does for a close friend,’ Oscagne mused, ‘…or a relative.’
Sarabian smiled faintly. ‘Yes, it does, doesn’t it? Your brother Itagne seems to have risen quite nearly as rapidly.’
Oscagne made a face. ‘That wasn’t my idea, your Majesty. Itagne’s not a career officer of the Foreign Ministry. I press him into service in emergencies, and he always extorts promotions out of me. I’d rather not have anything to do with him at all, but he’s so brilliant that I don’t have any choice. My younger brother’s intensely competitive, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find that he has his eye on my position.’
‘This fallacious document Stragen found might give us a place to start,’ Caalador mused. Caalador frequently dipped in and out of the dialect like a leaping trout. ‘If Kolata took a cluster of friends and relatives into the ministry with him, wouldn’t it stand to reason that they’d be the ones he’d trust the most?’
‘It would indeed,’ Stragen agreed, ‘and we’d be able to tell from the dates on their appointments just who these cronies of his are, and his cronies would have been the people he’d have been most likely to confide in when he decided to take up treason as a hobby. I’d guess that anybody whose appointment coincided with Kolata’s elevation to office is probably involved in this business.’
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