The Ruby Knight

by David Eddings

  The solution was simple, of course. All they had to do was to come up with a way to convey the horses to the west side of the lake. Then the Seeker could haunt the region around Venne until it grew old and died without causing Sparhawk and his friends any further inconvenience. The boat which he and Kurik had hired, though, would not be capable of carrying more than two horses at a time. The notion of making eight or nine separate trips half-way down the lake to deposit the horses on some lonely beach on the west side of the lake made Sparhawk almost want to scream with impatience. Hiring several boats was an alternative, though not a very good one. A single boat probably would not attract attention; a fleet of them, though, would. Perhaps they could find someone dependable enough to herd the horses down the west shore. The only problem with that was that Sparhawk was not sure whether the Seeker could identify the smell of the horses as well as that of the people who rode them. He scratched absently at the finger which bore his ring. The finger seemed to be tingling and throbbing for some reason.

  There was a light tap on the door.

  ‘I’m busy,’ he said irritably.

  ‘Sparhawk.’ The voice was light and musical, and it had that peculiar lilt that identified the speaker as Styric. Sparhawk frowned. He didn’t recognize the voice.

  ‘Sparhawk, I need to talk with you.’

  He rose and went to the door. To his astonishment, it was Flute. She slipped into the room and closed the door behind her.

  ‘So you can talk?’ he asked, surprised.

  ‘Of course I can.’

  ‘Why haven’t you then?’

  ‘It wasn’t necessary before. You Elenes babble far too much.’ Although her voice was that of a little girl, her words and inflections were peculiarly adult. ‘Listen to me, Sparhawk. This is very important. We must all leave immediately.’

  ‘It’s the middle of the night, Flute,’ he objected.

  ‘How terribly observant of you,’ she said, looking towards the darkened window. ‘Now please be still and listen. Ghwerig has retrieved Bhelliom. We have to intercept him before he can get to the north coast and sneak aboard a ship bound for Thalesia. If he evades us, we’ll have to follow him to his cave in the mountains of Thalesia, and that would take quite a while.’

  ‘According to Ulath, nobody even knows where the cave is.’

  ‘I know where it is. I’ve been there before.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Sparhawk, you’re wasting time. I have to get out of this city. There’s too much distraction here. I can’t feel what’s happening. Put on your iron suit and let’s go.’ Her tone was abrupt, even imperious. She looked at him, her large, dark eyes grave. ‘Is it possible that you’re such a total lump that you can’t feel Bhelliom moving through the world? Isn’t that ring telling you anything?’

  He started slightly and looked at the ruby ring on his left hand. It still seemed to be throbbing. The small child standing in front of him seemed to know far too much. ‘Does Sephrenia know about all this?’

  ‘Of course. She’s getting our things together.’

  ‘Let’s go and talk with her.’

  ‘You’re beginning to irritate me, Sparhawk.’ Her dark eyes flashed, and the corners of her bow-like pink mouth turned down.

  ‘I’m sorry, Flute, but I still have to talk with Sephrenia.’

  She rolled her eyes upward. ‘Elenes,’ she said in a tone so like Sephrenia’s that Sparhawk almost laughed. He took her hand and led her from the room and down the hallway.

  Sephrenia was busily stowing clothing, both hers and Flute’s, in the canvas bag sitting on the bed in her room. ‘Come right in, Sparhawk,’ she said to him as he paused in the doorway. ‘I’ve been expecting you.’

  ‘What’s going on, Sephrenia?’ he asked in a baffled tone of voice.

  ‘Didn’t you tell him?’ she asked Flute.

  ‘Yes, but he doesn’t seem to believe me. How can you tolerate these stubborn people?’

  ‘They have a certain charm. Believe her, Sparhawk,’ she said gravely to him. ‘She knows what she’s talking about. Bhelliom has emerged from the lake. I felt it myself, and now Ghwerig has it. We have to get out into open country so that Flute and I can sense which way he’s going with it. Go rouse the others and have Berit saddle our horses.’

  ‘You’re sure about this?’

  ‘Yes. Hurry, Sparhawk, or Ghwerig will get away.’

  He turned quickly and went back out into the hall. This was all moving so rapidly that he did not have time to think. He went from room to room, waking the others and instructing them all to gather in Sephrenia’s room. He sent Berit to the stable to saddle the horses, and last of all he woke Kalten.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ the blond Pandion asked, sitting up and rubbing sleepily at his eyes.

  ‘Something’s come up,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘We’re leaving.’

  ‘In the middle of the night?’

  ‘Yes. Get dressed, Kalten, and I’ll pack our things.’

  ‘What’s going on, Sparhawk?’ Kalten swung his legs over the edge of the bed.

  ‘Sephrenia will explain it. Hurry, Kalten.’

  Grumbling, Kalten began to dress while Sparhawk jammed their spare clothing into the pack they had brought up to their room. Then the two of them went back down the hall, and Sparhawk rapped on the door to Sephrenia’s room.

  ‘Oh do come in, Sparhawk. This is no time to stand on ceremony.’

  ‘Who’s that?’ Kalten asked.

  ‘Flute,’ Sparhawk replied, opening the door.

  ‘Flute? She can talk?’

  The others had already gathered in the room, and they were all looking at the little girl they had thought was mute with some astonishment.

  ‘To save time, gentlemen,’ she said, ‘yes, I can talk, and no, I didn’t want to before. Does that answer all the tiresome questions? Now listen very carefully. The Troll-Dwarf Ghwerig has managed to get his hands on Bhelliom again, and he’s trying to take it to his cave up in the mountains of Thalesia. Unless we hurry, he’ll get away from us.’

  ‘How did he get it out of the lake when he hasn’t ever been able to do it before?’ Bevier asked.

  ‘He had help.’ She looked around at their faces and muttered a naughty word in Styric. ‘You’d better show them, Sephrenia. Otherwise they’ll stand here all night asking foolish questions.’

  There was a large mirror – a sheet of polished brass, actually – on one wall of Sephrenia’s room. ‘Would you all come over here, please?’ Sephrenia said, going to the mirror.

  They gathered around the mirror, and she began an incantation Sparhawk had not heard before. Then she gestured. The mirror became momentarily cloudy. When it cleared, they seemed to be looking down at the lake.

  ‘There’s the raft,’ Kalten said in astonishment, ‘and that’s Sparhawk coming to the surface. I don’t understand, Sephrenia.’

  ‘We’re looking at things that happened just before noon yesterday,’ she told him.

  ‘We already know what happened.’

  ‘We know what we were doing,’ she corrected. ‘There were others there as well, however.’

  ‘I didn’t see anybody.’

  ‘They didn’t want you to see them. Just keep watching.’

  The perspective in the mirror seemed to change, moving away from the lake towards the sedge which grew thickly on the peat-bog. A dark-robed shape was crouched down, hidden in the marsh-grass.

  ‘The Seeker!’ Bevier exclaimed. ‘It was watching us!’

  ‘It wasn’t the only one,’ Sephrenia told him.

  The perspective changed again, sliding several hundred yards north along the lake to a clump of scrubby trees. A shaggy, grotesquely deformed shape was hidden in the grove.

  ‘And that’s Ghwerig,’ Flute told them.

  ‘That’s a dwarf?’ Kalten exclaimed. ‘It’s as big as Ulath. How big is a normal one?’

  ‘About twice as big as Ghwerig,’ Ulath shrugged. ‘Ogres are even bigger.’<
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  The mirror clouded again as Sephrenia spoke rapidly in Styric. ‘Nothing important went on for quite a while, so we’re skipping that part,’ she explained.

  The mirror cleared again. ‘There we go, riding away from the lake,’ Kalten said.

  Then the Seeker rose from the marsh-grass and with it about ten wooden-faced men who appeared to be Pelosian serfs. Numbly, the serfs shambled down to the lake-shore and waded into the water.

  ‘We were afraid that might happen,’ Tynian said.

  The mirror clouded again. ‘They continued the search all through yesterday, last night and today,’ Sephrenia told them. ‘Then, just over an hour ago, one of them found Bhelliom. This part might be a little hard to see, because it was dark. I’ll lighten the image as much as I can for you.’

  It was a bit hard to make out, but it seemed that one of the serfs emerged from the lake carrying a mud-caked object in his hand. ‘King Sarak’s crown,’ Sephrenia identified the object.

  The black-robed Seeker rushed along the lake-shore, its scorpion-like claws extended and clicking eagerly, but Ghwerig reached the serf before Azash’s creature could. With a mighty blow of his gnarled fist he crushed in the side of the serf’s head and seized the crown. Then he turned and ran before the Seeker could summon its followers out of the lake. Ghwerig’s run was a peculiar loping gait involving both legs and one extraordinarily long arm. A man might be able to run faster, but not by very much.

  The image faded.

  ‘What happened next?’ Kurik asked.

  ‘Ghwerig stopped from time to time when one of the serfs began to overtake him,’ Sephrenia replied. ‘It looked as if he were deliberately slowing down. He killed them one by one.’

  ‘Where’s Ghwerig now?’ Tynian asked.

  ‘We can’t tell,’ Flute told him. ‘It’s very hard to follow a Troll in the dark. That’s why we have to get out into the open countryside. Sephrenia and I can feel Bhelliom, but only if we can get clear of all these townsmen.’

  Tynian considered it. ‘The Seeker’s more or less out of the picture now,’ he said. ‘It’s going to have to go out and gather more people before it can go after Ghwerig.’

  ‘That’s a comforting thought,’ Kalten said. ‘I wouldn’t want to have to take them both on at once.’

  ‘We’d better get started,’ Sparhawk told them. ‘Put on your armour, gentlemen,’ he suggested. ‘When we run across Ghwerig, we might need it.’

  They went back to their rooms to gather their belongings and to dress themselves in steel. Sparhawk clanked down the stairs to settle up with the fat innkeeper, who stood leaning against the doorway of the empty tap-room, sleepy-eyed and yawning.

  ‘We’re going to be leaving now,’ Sparhawk said to him.

  ‘It’s still dark outside, Sir Knight.’

  ‘I know, but something came up.’

  ‘You’ve heard the news then, I gather.’

  ‘What news was that?’ Sparhawk asked him cautiously.

  ‘There’s trouble down in Arcium. I haven’t been able to really get the straight of it, but there’s even been talk that it might be a war of some kind.’

  Sparhawk frowned. ‘That doesn’t make much sense, neighbour. Arcium’s not like Lamorkand. The Arcian nobles foreswore their blood-feuds generations ago at the king’s command.’

  ‘I can only repeat what I heard, Sir Knight. The word that I’ve picked up is that the kingdoms of western Eosia are all mobilizing. Earlier tonight some fellows came through Venne in quite a hurry – fellows who weren’t very interested in going off to fight in a foreign war – and they say that there’s a huge army gathering to the west of the lake conscripting every man they run across.’

  ‘The western kingdoms wouldn’t mobilize because of a civil war in Arcium,’ Sparhawk told him. ‘That kind of thing is an internal matter.’

  ‘That’s what puzzles me too,’ the innkeeper agreed, ‘but what puzzles me even more is that some of those timid fellows have said that a fair portion of that army is made up of Thalesians.’

  ‘They must have been wrong,’ Sparhawk said. ‘King Wargun drinks quite a bit, but he still wouldn’t invade a friendly kingdom. If these men you mentioned were trying to avoid being conscripted, they probably wouldn’t have stopped to examine the men who were chasing them, and one man in a mail-shirt looks much like another.’

  ‘That’s probably very true, Sir Knight.’

  Sparhawk paid for their night’s lodging. ‘Thank you for the information, neighbour,’ he said to the innkeeper as the others began to come down the stairway. He turned and went out to the courtyard.

  ‘What’s going on, Sir Sparhawk?’ Berit asked, handing Sparhawk Faran’s reins.

  ‘The Seeker was watching us while we were in the lake,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘One of its men found Bhelliom, but Ghwerig the Troll took it away from him. Now we have to go and find Ghwerig.’

  ‘That might be a little difficult, Sir Sparhawk. There’s fog rolling in off the lake.’

  ‘Hopefully, it’ll burn off before Ghwerig gets this far north.’

  The others came out of the inn. ‘Let’s all get mounted,’ Sparhawk said to them. ‘Which way do we go, Flute?’

  ‘North for now,’ she replied as Kurik lifted her up to Sephrenia.

  Berit blinked. ‘She knows how to talk!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Please, Berit,’ she said to him, ‘don’t repeat the obvious. Let’s go, Sparhawk. I can’t pinpoint Bhelliom’s location until we get away from here.’

  They rode out of the innyard and into the foggy street. The fog was thick, hovering just this side of rainy drizzle, and it carried with it the acidic reek of the peat-bogs which surrounded the lake.

  ‘This isn’t a good night for coming up against a Troll,’ Ulath said, falling in beside Sparhawk.

  ‘I doubt very much that we’ll run across Ghwerig tonight,’ Sparhawk said. ‘He’s on foot, and it’s a long way from here to where he found Bhelliom – that’s assuming he’s even coming this way.’

  ‘He almost has to, Sparhawk,’ the Genidian said. ‘He wants to get to Thalesia, and that means he’s got to get to a seaport on the north coast.’

  ‘We’ll know better which way he’s moving once we get Sephrenia and Flute out of town.’

  ‘My guess would be Nadera,’ Ulath speculated. ‘It’s a bigger seaport than Apalia, and there are more ships there. Ghwerig’s going to have to sneak on board one. It’s not likely that he could book passage. Most sea-captains are superstitious about sailing with Trolls aboard.’

  ‘Would Ghwerig understand enough of our language to find out which ships are going to Thalesia by eavesdropping?’

  Ulath nodded. ‘Most Trolls have a smattering of Elene and even Styric. They usually can’t speak any language but their own, but they can understand a few words of ours.’

  They passed through the city gate and reached the fork in the road north of Venne shortly before daybreak. They looked dubiously at the rutted track that led up into the mountains towards Ghasek and ultimately to the seaport at Apalia. ‘I hope he doesn’t decide to go that way,’ the white-cloaked Bevier said with a shudder. ‘I don’t really want to go back to Ghasek.’

  ‘Is he moving at all?’ Sparhawk asked Flute.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘He’s coming north along the lake-shore.’

  ‘I don’t quite understand this,’ Talen said to the little girl. ‘If you can sense where Bhelliom is, why didn’t we just stay at the inn until he got closer with it?’

  ‘Because there are too many people in Venne,’ Sephrenia told him. ‘We can’t get a clear picture of Bhelliom’s location in the middle of all that welter of thoughts and emotions.’

  ‘Oh,’ the boy said, ‘that makes sense – I suppose.’

  ‘We could ride down the lake-shore and meet him,’ Kalten suggested. ‘Save us all a lot of time.’

  ‘Not in the fog,’ Ulath said firmly. ‘I want to be able to see him coming. I don’t want to get s
urprised by a Troll.’

  ‘He’s going to have to pass through here,’ Tynian said, ‘- or at least very close to here – if he’s headed towards the north coast. He can’t swim across the lake, and he can’t go into Venne. Trolls are a little conspicuous, or so I’m told. When he gets closer, we can ambush him.’

  ‘It’s got some possibilities, Sparhawk,’ Kalten said. ‘If we’ve got his probable line of travel pinpointed, we can catch him unawares up here. We can kill him and be half-way to Cimmura with Bhelliom before anyone is any the wiser.’

  ‘Oh, Kalten,’ Sephrenia sighed.

  ‘Killing is what we do, little mother,’ he told her. ‘You don’t have to watch if you don’t want to. One Troll more or less in the world isn’t going to make all that much difference.’

  ‘There could be a problem, though,’ Tynian said to Flute. ‘The Seeker’s going to be hot on Ghwerig’s heels just as soon as it gathers up enough men, and it can probably sense Bhelliom in the same way you and Sephrenia can, can’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ she admitted.

  ‘Then you’re forgetting that we may have to face it just as soon as we dispose of Ghwerig, aren’t you?’

  ‘And you’re forgetting that we’ll have Bhelliom at that point and that Sparhawk has the rings.’

  ‘Would Bhelliom eliminate the Seeker?’

  ‘Quite easily.’

  ‘Let’s pull back into those trees a ways,’ Sparhawk suggested. ‘I don’t know how long it’s going to take Ghwerig to get here, and I don’t want him coming up on us while we’re all standing in the middle of the road talking about the weather and other things.’