with a faint smile. ‘It seems that Baron Kotyk’s brother-in-law’s come to
Matherion to expose the Department of Contemporary Literature to his
unspeakable art.’ Wouldn’t ‘inflict’ be a better word there, Bevier?’ Ulath
asked. ‘I’ve heard some of Elron’s poetry.’
‘
‘who’s Elron?’ Sephrenia asked. Sparhawk exchanged a long look with Emban.
They were still bound by the oaths they had given Archimandrite Morsel. ‘Ah
-‘ he began, not quite sure how to proceed, ‘he’s an Astel – a sort of
semi-aristocrat with literary pretensions. We’re not sure just how much
he’s involved in the disturbances in Astel, but his opinions and sympathies
seem to indicate that he’s a strong supporter of the man known as Sabre.’
‘isn’t it a coincidence that he just happens to have made the trip to
Matherion at just about the same time that we’re getting a strong odour of
dead fish in the streets?’ Tynian asked. ‘Why would he come to the very
centre of the culture of the godless yellow devils he professes to hate?’
‘Unusual,’ Ulath agreed. ‘Anything that’s unusual is suspicious,’ Kalten
asserted. ‘That’s a gross generalisation,’ Sparhawk accused. ‘Well, isn’t
it?’
‘in this case you might be right. Maybe we’d better keep an eye on him.
You’d better pull out your drawing pad again, Talen.’
‘You know, Sparhawk,’ the boy said, ‘I could make a lot of money drawing
these pictures if you weren’t so set on making a Pandion of me and saddling
me with all those high ideals.’
‘Service is its own reward, Talen,’ Sparhawk replied piously. ‘Caalador,’
Sephrenia said thoughtfully. ‘Yes, yet sorceress-ship?’
‘Please, don’t do that,’ she said wearily. ‘)’There) are a number of these
so-called firebrands loose in Tamuli. Is it at all possible that some of
the local thieves might have seen any of them?’
‘I’ll ask around, Lady Sephrenia, and I can send to the other kingdoms for
people who’ve seen them if I have to. I’m not sure how much good physical
descriptions are going to be, though. If you say that a man’s sort of
medium, that’s going to include about half the population almost by
definition.’
‘She can go beyond physical descriptions, Caalador,’ Talen assured him.
‘She’ll wiggle her fingers at your witnesses and put an image of the person
they’ve seen in a pail of water. I can draw a picture from that.’
‘It might not be a bad idea to have pictures of these various patriots in
circulation,’ Sephrenia murmured. ‘if Elron and Krager are here, others may
decide to visit Matherion as ‘well. If they’re going to hold a convention,
we should know about it, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Shouldn’t you add a picture of Count Gerich as well?’ Danae suggested.
‘But he’s all the way across the world in Lamorkand, Princess,’ Kalten
pointed out. ‘He’s still one of the people involved, Kalten,’ she said. ‘if
you’re going to do something, do it right. How much is it going to cost? A
few sheets of paper maybe? And the use of Talen’s pencil for half an hour?’
‘All right, include him. I don’t care. I don’t think he’ll ever show up
here, but go ahead and have Talen draw his picture, if you want.’
‘Oh, thank you, Kalten. Thank you, thank you, thank you.’
‘isn’t it nearly her nap-time?’ Kalten asked sourly. ‘Speaking of Krager,’
Sparhawk said, ‘have there been any new sightings of him?’ Just those two I
mentioned earlier,’ Caalador replied.
is he the kind who’s likely to go to ground?’ That’s Krager, all right,’
Kalten said. ‘He’s perfectly at home with sewer rats – being at least
half-rat himself. As long as there was someone around to fetch wine for
him, he’d be quite happy to stay down a rat-hole for six months at a
stretch.’
‘I really want him, Caalador,’ Sparhawk grated. ‘My friends are all having
a wonderful time telling me that they told me so.’
‘I didn’t follow that one,’ Caalador said with a puzzled look. ‘They all
think I should have killed him. Even Sephrenia’s all athirst for his
blood.’
‘Well, now, m’ friend,’ Caalador drawled, ‘I kin make a real good case fer
gist how forchoonate-like it wuz that
y’ din’t kill ‘im. You an’ yet friends here all knows this % bin iffn y’d
slit his weasand, now would he? We knows this yore Krager,
an’ we’ll chase im’ down sooner er later an’ set fire t’
his feet until he starts talkin’. If’n he wuz t’ be a
absolute stranger, we wouldn’t have no idea a-tall ’bout
who we wuz a-lookin’ fer, now would we?’ Sparhawk smiled
beatifically around at his friends. ‘See,’ he said to
them. ‘I told you I knew what I was doing.’
Later that day, Sparhawk and Ehlana met with Emperor Sarabian and Foreign
Minister Oscagne to discuss their findings to date. ‘is it at all possible
that anyone in the government might have noticed people using this sign and
counter-sign, your Excellency?’ Sparhawk asked Oscagne. ‘Quite possible,
Prince Sparhawk.’ Oscagne replied. ‘The interior ministry’s got spies
everywhere, but their reports probably won’t surface for six months to a
year. They’re great paper-shufflers over at Interior.’
‘Subat’s got his own spies,’ Sarabian said moodily, ‘but he wouldn’t tell
me if he’s discovered anything. I doubt that he’d tell me if someone had
cut the Isle of Tega adrift and towed it away.’
‘All the traditions of the Prime Ministry tell him to protect you, your
Imperial Majesty,’ Oscagne told him. ‘despite that little talk you had with
him, you’ll still probably have to pry information out of him. He devoutly
believes that it’s his duty to spare you the anguish of hearing unpleasant
news.’
‘if my house is on fire, I’d rather not be spared the anguish of finding
out about it,’ Sarabian said tartly. ‘I have informants in the other
ministries, your Majesty. I’ll put them to work on it. Speaking of that, by
the way, Interior’s been getting a great many reports of disturbances – far
more than we were experiencing previously. Kolata’s at his wits end.’
‘Kolata?’ Sparhawk asked. ‘The Minister of the Interior,’ Sarabian said,
‘the empire’s chief of police. He’s almost as good at keeping secrets from
me as Subat is. What’s afoot now, Oscagne?’ The graveyards have been
spitting out their dead, your Majesty. Someone’s been digging up the
recently deceased and re-animating them. They shamble about moaning and
blank-eyed. Whole villages in Edam have been abandoned because of them. The
werewolves are running in packs in Daconia, the vampires in the jungles of
Arjuna are flocking up like migratory birds, and the Shining Ones are
terrorising the region around Dasan. Add to that the fact that the Trolls
are on the march in northern Atan and that the town of Sarna’s been
attacked twice by what appear to be Cyrgai, and we have some fair evidence
that things may be coming to a head. In the past, these disturbances were
sporadic and localised. Now they’re becoming general.’ wonderful,’ Sarabian
said sourly. ‘I think I’ll just go into exile somewhere. ‘
‘you’ll miss all the fun, your Majesty,’ Sparhawk told him. What fun?’
‘We haven’t even begun to take counter-measures yet. We might not be able
to do too much about vampires and the like, but we can definitely move
against the Trolls and the Cyrgai. Engessa’s been training the local Atans
in certain Elene tactics. I think Engessa’s Atans might be able to deal
with the Trolls and the Cyrgai,’ Sparhawk said. Sarabian looked a bit
surprised. ‘Atan Engessa’s the commander of the garrison at Genae in
Astel,’ he said. ‘He doesn’t have any authority here in Matherion.’
‘As a matter of fact, he does, your Majesty,’ Sparhawk disagreed. ‘I
gather that he’s received a special commission from King Androl – or Queen
Betuana, more than likely.’ Other Atan commanders have been ordered to
follow his suggestions.’
‘Why doesn’t anybody ever tell me these things?’
‘imperial policy, your Majesty,’ Oscagne smiled. ‘if you were to know too
much, you might start interfering with the government.’
‘Anyway,’ Sparhawk continued, ‘Engessa was very impressed with our tactics
in the encounters we had on our way here. We’ve been training some of his
Atans in Western techniques.’
‘That’s surprising,’ Sarabian said. ‘I wouldn’t have expected Atans to
listen to anybody when it came to military matters.’
‘Engessa’s a professional, your Majesty,’ Sparhawk told him.
‘Professionals are always interested in technical advances in weaponry and
tactics. We rounded up some very large draught-horses so that we could
mount a number of his Atans, and Kalten and Tynian have been giving them
instruction with the lance. That’s the safest way to deal with Trolls,
we’ve found. Bevier’s taken another group in hand, and he’s teaching them
how to construct and use siege-engines. When we encountered those Cyrgai
outside Sarsos, Deviers catapults broke up their phalanx. It’s very hard to
maintain a military formation when it’s raining boulders. Oh, there’s
something else we should be aware of. Khalad found a tree outside town that
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