Domes of Fire by David Eddings

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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