Domes of Fire by David Eddings

but black, dry and crusty. What kind of spell could do that, Sparhawk?’

Tynian demanded. ‘I have no idea,’ Sparhawk replied in some bafflement.

‘Someone’s playing, and I don’t think I like the game.’

‘Bronze!’ Bevier exclaimed from nearby. The young Cyrinic Knight had

dismounted and was examining the armour of one of the shrivelled dead.

‘They’re wearing bronze armour, Sparhawk. Their weapons and helmets are

steel, but this mail shirt’s made out of bronze.’

‘What’s going on here?’ Kalten demanded. ‘Berit,’ Sparhawk said, ‘ride

back to the mother house at Demos. Gather up every brother who can still

wear armour. I want them here before noon.’

‘Right,’ Berit replied crisply. He wheeled his horse and galloped back the

way they had come. Sparhawk looked around quickly. ‘Up there,’ he said,

pointing at a steep hill on the other side of the road. ‘Let’s gather up

this crowd and get them to the top of that hill. Put the courtiers and

grooms and footmen to work. I want ditches up there, and I want to see a

forest of sharpened stakes sprouting on the sides of that hill. I don’t

know where those men in bronze armour went, but I want to be ready in case

they come back.’

‘You can’t order me around like that!’ an overdressed courtier exclaimed to

Khalad in an outraged tone of voice. ‘Don’t you know who I am?’

‘Of course I do,’ Sparhawk’s young squire replied in an ominous tone of

voice. ‘You’re the man who’s going to pick up that shovel and start

digging. Or if you prefer, you can be the man who’s crawling around on his

hands and knees picking up his teeth.’ Khalad showed the courtier his fist.

The courtier could hardly miss seeing it, since it was about an inch in

front of his nose. ‘It’s almost like old times, isn’t it?’ Kalten laughed.

‘Khalad sounds exactly like Kurik.’ Sparhawk sighed. ‘Yes,’ he agreed

soberly, ‘I think he’s going to work out just fine. Get the others, Kalten.

We need to talk.’ They gathered beside Ehlana’s carriage. The queen was a

bit pale, and she was holding her daughter in her arms. ‘All right,’

Sparhawk said. ‘Who were they?’

‘Lamorks, evidently,’ Ulath said. ‘I doubt that anybody else would be able

to speak Old Lamork.’

‘But why would they be speaking in that language?’ Tynian asked. ‘Nobody’s

spoken in Old Lamork for a thousand years.’

‘And nobody’s worn bronze armour for even longer,’ Bevier added.

‘Somebody’s using a spell I’ve never even heard of before,’ Sparhawk said.

‘What are we dealing with here?’

‘isn’t that obvious!’ Stragen said. ‘Somebody’s reaching back into the

past – the same way the Troll-Gods did in Pelosia. We’ve got a powerful

magician of some kind out there who’s playing games.’

‘It fits,’ Ulath grunted. ‘They were speaking an antique language, they

had antique weapons and equipment, they weren’t familiar with modern

tactics, and somebody obviously used magic to send them back to wherever

they came from – except for the dead ones.’

‘There’s something else too,’ Bevier added thoughtfully. ‘They were

Lamorks, and part of the upheaval in Lamorkand right now revolves around

the stories that Drychhtnath’s returned. This attack makes it appear that

those stories aren’t just rumours and wild concoctions dreamed up late at

night in some ale-house. Could Count Gerrich be getting some help from a

Styric magician? If Drychnath himself has actually been brought into the

present, nothing’s going to pacify the Lamorks. They go up in flames at

just the mention of his name.’ That’s all very interesting, gentlemen,’

Ehlana told them, ‘but this wasn’t just a random attack. We’re a goodly

distance from Lamorkand, so these antiques of yours went to a great deal of

trouble to attack us specifically. The real question here is why?’

‘We’ll work on finding an answer for you, your Majesty,’ Tynian promised

her. Berit returned shortly before noon with three hundred armoured

Pandions, and the rest of the journey to Chyrellos had some of the air of a

military expedition. Their arrival in the Holy City and their stately march

through the streets to the Basilica was very much like a parade, and it

caused quite a stir. The Archprelate himself came out onto a second-floor

balcony to watch their arrival in the square before the Basilica. Even from

this distance, Sparhawk could clearly see that Dolmant’s nostrils were

white and his jaw was clenched. Ehlana’s expression was regal and coolly

defiant. Sparhawk lifted his daughter down from the carriage. ‘Don’t wander

off,’ he murmured into her small ear. ‘There’s `something I need to talk

with you about.’

‘Later,’ she whispered back to him. ‘i’ll have to make peace between

Dolmant and mother first.’

‘That’ll be a neat trick.’

‘Watch, Sparhawk – and learn.’ The Archprelate’s greeting was chilly just

this side of frigid – and he made it abundantly clear that he was just

dying to have a nice long chat with the Queen of Elenia. He sent for his

first secretary, the Patriarch Emban, and rather airily dropped the problem

of making arrangements for Ehlana’s entourage into the fat churchman’s lap.

Emban scowled and waddled away muttering to himself. Then Dolmant invited

the queen and her prince consort into a private audience chamber. Mirtai

stationed herself outside the door. ‘No hitting,’ she told Dolmant and

Ehlana as they entered. The small audience chamber was draped and carpeted

in blue, and there were a table and chairs in the centre. ‘Strange woman

that one,’ Dolmant murmured looking back over his shoulder at Mirtai. He

took his seat and looked at Ehlana with a firm expression. ‘Let’s get down

to business. Would you like to explain this, Queen Ellana?’

‘Of course, Archprelate Dolmant.’ She pushed his letter across the table

to him. ‘Just as soon as you explain this.’ There was steel in her voice.

He picked up the letter and glanced at it. ‘It seems fairly

straightforward. Which part of it didn’t you understand?’ Things went

downhill from there rather rapidly. Ehlana and Dolmant were on the verge of

severing all diplomatic ties when the ‘Royal Princess Danae entered the

room dragging the Royal Toy rollo by one hind leg. She gravely crossed the

room, climbed up into the Archprelate’s lap and kissed him. Sparhawk had

received quite a few of the kind of kisses his daughter bestowed when she

wanted something, and he was well-aware of just how devastatingly potent

they were. Dolmant didn’t really have much of a chance after that. ‘I

should have read through the letter before I had it dispatched, I suppose,’

he admitted grudgingly. ‘Scribes sometimes overstate things.’

‘Maybe I over-reacted,’ Ehlana conceded. ‘I had a great deal on my mind.’

Dolmant’s excuse had the tone of a peace-offering. , ‘I was irritable on

the day when your letter arrived,’ Ehlana countered. Sparhawk leaned back.

The tension in the room had noticeably relaxed. Dolmant had changed since

his elevation to the Archprelacy. Always before, he had been a

self-effacing’ man, so self-effacing in fact that his colleagues in the

Hierocracy had not even considered him for ‘the highest post in the Church

until Ehlana had pointed out his many sterling qualities to them. The irony

of that fact was not lost on Sparhawk. Now, however, Dolmant seemed to

speak with two voices. The one was the familiar, almost colloquial voice of

their old friend. The other was the voice of the Archprelate, authoritarian

and severe. The institution of his office seemed to be gradually annexing

their old friend. Sparhawk sighed. It was probably inevitable, but he

regretted it all the same. Ehlana and the Archprelate continued to

apologise and offer excuses to each other. After a while they agreed to

respect one another, and they concluded their conference by agreeing to pay

closer attention to little courtesies in the future. Princess Danae, still

seated in the Archprelate’s lap, winked at Sparhawk. There were quite a

number of political and theological implications in what she had just done,

but Sparhawk didn’t really want to think about those. The reason for the

peremptory summons which had nearly led to a private war between Ehlana and

Dolmant had been the arrival of a high-ranking emissary from the Tamul

Empire on the Daresian continent, that vast land-mass lying to the east of

Zemoch. Formal diplomatic relations between the Elene Kingdoms of Eosia and

the Tamul Empire of Daresia did not exist. The Church, however, routinely

dispatched emissaries with ambassadorial rank to the imperial capital at

Matherion, in some measure because the three western-most kingdoms of the

empire were occupied by Elenes, and their religion differed only slightly

from that of the Eosian Church. The emissary was a Tamul, a man of the same

race as Mirtai, although she would have made at least two of him. His skin

was the same golden bronze, his black hair touched with grey and his dark

eyes were uptilted at the corners. ‘He’s very good,’ Dolmant quietly