Domes of Fire by David Eddings

was riddled with short steel arrows. Someone’s been practising with a

crossbow.’

‘What’s a crossbow?’ Sarabian asked. ‘It’s a Lamork weapon, your Majesty.’

Sparhawk scribbled a quick sketch. ‘It looks something like this. The limbs

are much stronger than those of an ordinary long-bow, so it has greater

range and penetrating power. It’s a serious threat to an armoured knight.

Someone here in Matherion’s working on a way to counter the advantage our

armour gives us.’

‘It’s beginning to sound as if I’m hanging on to my throne by my

fingertips,’ Sarabian said. ‘Could I appeal to you for political asylum,

Ehlana?’

‘i’d be delighted to have you, Sarabian,’ she replied, but let’s not give

up on Sparhawk just yet. He’s terribly resourceful. ‘

‘As I was saying before,’ Sparhawk continued, ‘we can’t do too much about

the ghouls or werewolves or the Shining Ones or vampires, but I think we

might be able to give the Trolls and the Cyrgai a few surpriSeS. I’d like

for the Atans to have a bit more training with mounted tactics and the use

of Bevier’s engines, and then I think it might be time to let our opponent

know that he’s not going to win this in a walk. I’d particularly like to

decimate the Trolls. Our enemy’s relying rather heavily on the Troll-Gods,

and they’ll leave the alliance if too many of their worshippers get killed.

I think that early next week we might want to mount a couple of expeditions

– one up into Troll-country and another down to Sama. It’s time to make our

presence known.’

‘And this local business?’ Oscagne asked. ‘All this fascination with the

hidden city of the mind?’

‘Caalador will keep working on that. We’ve got their password now, and

that can open all kinds of doors for us. Vanion’s drawing up a list of

names. Before long, we’ll know everybody in Matherion who’s been talking

about the Hidden City.’ He looked at Sarabian. ‘Have I your Majesty’s

permission to detain those people if necessary?’ he asked. ‘if we move

first and round them all up before they can set their scheme in motion,

we’ll break the back of this plot before it gets too far along.’

‘Detain away, Sparhawk,’ Sarabian grinned. ‘I’ve got lots of buildings we

can use for prisons.’

‘All right, young lady,’ Sparhawk said quite firmly to his daughter a few

days later. ‘One of Caalador’s beggars saw Count Gerrich in a street not

far from here. How did you know that he’d be here in Matherion?’

‘I didn’t know, Sparhawk. I just had a hunch.’ Danae was sitting calmly in

a large chair, scratching her cat’s ears. Mmrr was purring gratefully. ‘A

hunch?’

‘intuition, if that word makes you feel any better. It just didn’t seem

right that Krager and Elron would be here without the others being here as

well – and that would logically include Gerich, wouldn’t it?’

‘Don’t confuse the issue by using the words ‘logic’ and ‘intuition’ in the

same sentence.’

‘Oh, Sparhawk, do grow up. That’s all that logic really is – a

justification for hunches. Have you ever known anyone who used logic to

disprove something he already believed?’

‘Well – not personally, maybe, but I’m sure there have been some.’

‘I’ll wait while you track one down. I’m an immortal, so time doesn’t

really mean all that much to me.’

‘That’s really offensive, Aphrael.’

‘Sorry, father.’ She didn’t sound very contrite. ‘Your mind gathers

information in hundreds of ways, Sparhawk – things you hear, things you

see, things you touch and even things you smell. Then it puts all of that

information together and jumps from there to a conclusion. That’s all that

hunches really are. Intuition is just as precise as logic, really, but it

doesn’t have to go through the long, tedious process of plodding along step

by step to prove things. It leaps immediately from evidence to conclusion

without all the tiresome intermediate steps. Sephrenia doesn’t like logic

because it’s so boring. She already knows the answers you’re so laboriously

trying to prove – and so do you, if you’d be honest about it.’

‘Folk-lore is full of these hunches, Aphrael – and they’re usually wrong.

How about the old notion that thunder sours milk?’

‘That’s a mistake in logic, Sparhawk, not a mistake in intuition.’

‘Would you like to explain that?’

‘you could just as easily say that sour milk causes thunder, you know.’

‘That’s absurd.’

‘Of course it is. Thunder and sour milk are both effects, not causes.’.’

‘You should talk to Dolmant. I’d like to see you try to explain that he’s

been wasting his time on logic all these years.’

‘He already knows,’ she shrugged. ‘Dolmant’s far more intuitive than you

give him credit for being. He knew who I was the moment he saw me – which

is a lot more than I can say for you, father. I thought for a while there

that I was going to have to fly in order to

persuade you.’

‘Be nice.’

‘I am. There are all sorts of things I didn’t say about you. What’s Krager

up to?’

‘Nobody knows.’

‘We really need to find him, Sparhawk.’

‘I know. I want him even more than you do. I’m going to enjoy wringing him

out like a wet sock.’

‘Be serious, Sparhawk. You know Krager. He’d tell you his whole life story

if you even frowned at him.’ He sighed. ‘You’re probably right,’ he

conceded. ‘It takes a lot of the fun out of it though.’

‘You’re not here to have fun, Sparhawk. Which would you rather have?

Information or revenge?’

‘Couldn’t we come up with a way to have both?’ She rolled her eyes upward.

‘Elenes,’ she sighed.

Bevier took a detachment of newly-trained Atan engineers west toward Sama

early the next week. The following day Kalten, Tynian and Engessa took two

hundred mounted Atans north toward the lands being ravaged by the Trolls.

At Vanion’s insistence the parties filtered out of Matherion in twos and

threes to assemble later outside the city. ‘There’s no point in announcing

what we’re up to,’ he said. A few days after the departure of the two

military expeditions, Zalasta left for Sarsos. ‘I won’t be very long,’ he

told them. ‘We have a certain commitment from the Thousand, ‘ but I think

I’d like to see some concrete evidence that they’re willing to honour that

commitment. Words are all well and good, but let’s see some action – just

as a demonstration of good faith. I know my brothers. Nothing in the world

would please them more than being able to reap the benefits of allying

themselves with us ‘in principle’ without the inconvenience of actually

being obliged to do anything to help. They’re best suited to deal with

these supernatural manifestations, so I’ll pry them loose from their

comfortable chairs in Sarsos and disperse them to these troublespots.’ He

smiled thinly at Vanion from under his beetling brows. ‘Extensive travel

might toughen them up a bit, my Lord,’ he added. ‘Perhaps we can avoid

spraining any more of your ankles in demonstrations of how flabby and lazy

they are.’

‘I appreciate that, Zalasta,’ Vanion laughed. There were always more

things to do than there was time for. The ceremonies and ‘occasions’ that

surrounded the state visit by the Queen of Elenia filled their afternoons

and evenings, and so Sparhawk and the others were obliged to work late and

rise early in order to conduct their surreptihous operations in the city

and the imperial compound. They all grew short-tempered from lack of sleep,

and Mirtai began to badger Sparhawk about the condition of his wife’s

health. Ehlana was, in fact, beginning to develop dark circles under her

eyes and an increasingly waspish disposition. The break-through came about

ten days after the departure of the expeditions to Sama and to the

newlyoccupied lands of the Trolls. Caalador arrived early one morning’ with

a kind of exultant tightness of his face and a large canvas sack in one

hand. ‘It was pure luck, Sparhawk,’ he chortled when the two met in the

royal apartment. We’re due for some,’ Sparhawk told him. ‘What did you

find?’

‘How would you like to know the exact day and hour when this ‘Hidden City’

business is going to come to a head?’

‘i’d be moderately interested in that, yes. That selfcongratulatory

expression spread all over your face says that you’ve found out a few

things.’

‘I have indeed, Sparhawk, and it fell into my hand like an over-ripe

peach.’ Caalador slid into his drawl. Them there fellers on t’ other side’s

mighty careless with wrote-down instructions. It seems that this yore

cut-purse o’ my acquaintance – enterprisin’ young feller with a real sharp

knife – he slit open the purse o’ this yore fat Dacite merchant, an’ a hull

fistful o’ coins come slitherin’ out, an’ mixt in with them there silver

an’ brass coins they wuz this yore message, which it wuz oz bed bin passt

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