efficient ways to persuade people to change their minds.’
‘Such as the threat to unleash the Atans?’ Emban suggested slyly.
‘That does work rather well, your Grace,’ Oscagne admitted. ‘The
presence of the Atans has usually been enough in the past to keep
political discussion from becoming too spirited. Atans make excellent
policemen. He sighed. ‘You noted that slight qualification, I’m sure. I
said, ‘in the past.’ Unfortunately, that doesn’t hold true any more. An
empire comprised of disparate peoples must always expect these little
outbreaks of nationalism and racial discord. It’s the nature of the
insignificant to try to find some way to assert their own importance.
It’s pathetic, but racism is generally the last refuge of the
unimportant. These outbreaks of insignificance aren’t normally too
widespread, but suddenly all of Tamuli is in the throes of an epidemic
of them. Everyone’s sewing flags and singing national anthems and
labouring over well-honed insults to be directed at ‘the yellow dogs’.
That’s us, of course.’ He held out his hand and looked at it critically.
‘Our skins aren’t really yellow, you know. They’re more . . .’ He
pondered it.
‘Beige?’ Stragen suggested. ‘That’s not too flattering either, Milord
Stragen.’ Oscagne smiled. ‘Oh, well. Perhaps the emperor will appoint a
special commission to define our skin tone once and for all.’ He shrugged.
‘At any rate, incidental outbreaks of nationalism and racial bigotry would
be no real problem for the Atans, even if they occurred in every town in
the empire. It’s the unnatural incidents that cause us all this concern.’
‘I thought there might be more,’ Ulath murmured. ‘At first, these
demonstrations of magic were directed at the people themselves,’ Oscagne
went on. ‘Every culture has its mythic hero – some towering personality who
unified the people, gave them national purpose and defined their character.
The modern world is complex and confusing, and the simple folk yearn for
the simplicity of the age of heroes when national goals could be stated
simply and everyone knew precisely who he was. Someone in Tamuli is
resurrecting the heroes of antiquity.’ Sparhawk felt a sudden chill.
‘Giants?’ he asked. ‘well.’ Oscagne considered it. ‘Perhaps that is’ the
proper term at that. The passage of the centuries blurs and distorts, and
our cultural heroes tend to become larger than life. I suppose that when we
think of them, we do think of giants. That’s a very acute perception, Sir
Sparhawk.’
‘I can’t actually take credit for it, your Excellency. The same sort of
thing’s been happening here.’ Dolmant looked at him sharply. ‘I’ll explain
later, Sarathi. Please go on, Ambassador Oscagne. You said that whoever’s
stirring things up in Tamuli started out by raising national heroes. That
implies that it’s gone further.’
‘Oh, yes indeed, Sir Sparhawk. Much, much further. Every culture has its
hobgoblins as well as its heroes. It’s the hobgoblins we’ve been
encountering – monsters, afreets, werewolves, vampires – all those things
adults use to frighten children into good behaviour. Our Atans can’t cope
with that sort of thing. They’re trained to deal with men, not with all the
horors the creative genius of aeons has put together. That’s our problem.
We have nine different cultures in Tamuli, and suddenly each one of them
has taken to pursuing its traditional historic goals. When we send in our
Atans to restore order and to re-assert imperial authority, the horors rise
up out of the ground to confront them. We can’t deal with it. The empire’s
disintegrating, falling back into its component parts. His Imperial
Majesty’s government hopes that your Church can recognise a certain
community of interest here. If Tamuli collapses back into nine warring
kingdoms, the resulting chaos is almost certain to have its impact here in
Eosia as well. It’s the magic that has us so concerned. We can deal with
ordinary insurrection, but we’re unequipped to deal with a continent-wide
conspiracy that routinely utilises magic against us. The Styrics at Sarsos
are baffled. Everything they try is countered almost before they can set it
in motion. We’ve heard stories about what happened in the City of zemoch,
and it is to you personally that I must appeal, Sir Sparhawk. Zalasta of
Sarsos is the pre-eminent magician in all of Styricum, and he assures us
that you are the only man in all the world with enough power to deal with
the situation.’
‘Zalasta may have an exaggerated idea of my abilities,’ Sparhawk said.
%,YWeu’ykenomwethi Actually) your Excellency) I was only a very small part
of what happened at Zemoch. When you get right down to it, I was hardly
more than a channel for power I couldn’t even begin to describe. I was the
instrument of something else.’
‘Be that as it may, you’re stil our only hope. Someone is quite obviously
conspiring to overthrow the empire. We must identify that someone. Unless
we can get to the source of all of this and neutralise it, the empire will
‘collapse. Will you help us, Sir Sparhawk?’
‘That decision’s not mine to make, your Excellency. You must appeal to my
queen and to Sarathi here. If they command me, I’ll go to Tamuli. If they
forbid it, I won’t.’
‘I’ll direct my enormous powers of persuasion at them, then,’ Oscagne
smiled. ‘But even assuming that I’m successful – and there’s little doubt
that I shall be we’re still faced with an almost equally serious problem.
We must protect his Imperial Majesty’s dignity at all costs. An appeal from
one government to another is one thing, but an appeal from His Majesty’s
government to a private citizen on another continent is quite another. That
is the problem which must be addressed.’
‘I don’t see that we have any choice, Sarathi,’ Emban was saying gravely.
It was late evening. Ambassador Oscagne had retired for the night, and the
rest of them, along with Patriarch Ortzel of Kadach in Lamorkand, had
gathered to give his request serious consideration. ‘we may not entirely
approve of some of the policies of the Tamul Empire, but its stability is
in our vital interest just now. We’re fully committed to our campaign in
Render. If Tamuli flies apart, we’ll have to pull most of our armies – and
the Church Knights – out of Render to protect our interests in Zemoch.
Zemoch’s not much of a place, I’ll grant you, but the strategic importance
of its mountains can’t be overstated. We’ve had a hostile force in those
mountains for the past two thousand years, and that fact has occupied the
full attention of our Holy Mother. If we allow some other hostile people to
replace tHe Zemochs, everything Sparhawk achieved in Otha’s capital is
lost. We’ll go right back to where we were six years ago. We’ll have to
abandon Render again and start mobilising to meet a new threat from the
east.’
‘You’re stating the obvious, Emban,’ Dolmant told him. ‘I know, but
sometimes it helps to lay everything out so that we can all look at it.’
‘Sparhawk,’ Dolmant said then, ‘if I were to order you to Matherion but
your wife ordered you to stay home, what would you do?’
‘i’d probably have to go into a monastery to pray for guidance For the
next several years.’
‘Our Holy Mother Church is overwhelmed by your piety, Sir Sparhawk.’
‘I do what I can to please her, Sarathi. I am her true knight, after all.’
Dolmant sighed. ‘Then it all boils down to some sort of accommodation
between Ehlana and me, doesn’t it?’
‘Such wisdom can only have come from God,’ Sparhawk observed to his
companions. ‘Do you mind?’ Dolmant said tartly. Then he looked at the Queen
of Elenia with a certain resignation. ‘Name your price, your Majesty.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Let’s not tiptoe around each other, Ellana. Your champion’s put my back
to the wall.’
‘I know,’ she replied, ‘and I’m so impressed with him that I can barely
stand it. We’ll have to discuss this in private, revered Archprelate. We
wouldn’t want Sir Sparhawk to fully realise his true value, now would we?
He might begin to get the idea that we ought to pay him what he’s actually
worth.’
‘I hate this,’ Dolmant said to no one in particular. ‘I think we might
want to touch briefly on something else,’ Stragen suggested. ‘The Tamul
Ambassador’s story had a certain familiar ring to it – or was I the only
one who noticed that? We’ve got a situation going on in Lamorkand that’s
amazingly similar to what’s happening in Tamuli. The Lamorks are all
blithely convinced that Drychtnath’s returned, and that’s almost identical
to the situation Oscagne described. Then, on our way here from Cimmura, we
were set upon by a group of Lamorks who could only have come from
antiquity. Their weapons were steel, but their armour was bronze, and they
spoke Old Lamork. After Sir Ulath killed their leader, the ones who were
still alive vanished. Only their dead remained, and they seemed to be all