understatement. He kept staring at Flute with bulging eyes as
they rode eastward from Cynestra.
‘Oh, do stop that, Itagne,’ she told him. ‘i’m not going to
sprout another head or turn into a gorgon. ‘
He shuddered and passed one hand across his face. “I should
probably tell you that I don’t believe in you,’ he said. ‘i’m not
trying to be offensive, mind. It’s just that I’m a confirmed skeptic
in religious matters.’
‘i’ll bet I can change your mind,’ she suggested with an impish
little smile.
‘Stop that,’ Sephrenia told her.’
‘He’s a self-confessed agnostic, Sephrenia. That makes
him fair game. Besides, I like him. I’ve never had a Tamul worshiper
before, and I think I want one. Itagne will do just
fine. ‘
‘No.’
“I didn’t ask you to buy him for me, Sephrenia. I’ll coax him
out of the bushes all by myself, so you’re not in any way
involved. It’s really none of your business, dear sister, so keep
your nose out of it.’
‘Does this ever get any easier?’ Itagne plaintively asked the
rest of them.
‘No,’ Kalten laughed. ‘You get numb after a while, though.
I’ve found that drinking helps.”
‘That’s Kalten’s answer to everything,’ Flute said with an airy
little toss of her head. ‘He tries to cure winter with a barrel of
Arcian red – every year.’
‘Have we finished here in this part of the Empire?’ Sparhawk
asked her.
‘No. Something else is supposed to happen.’ The Child Goddess
sighed and nestled against her sister. ‘Please don’t be angry
with me, Sephrenia,’ she said. ‘You’re not going to like what’s
coming, I’m afraid. It’s necessary, though. No matter how much
it upsets you, always remember that I love you.’ She sat up and
held her hands out to Sparhawk. “I need to talk with you,’ she
said to him”… privately.’
Secrets?’ Talen asked her.
‘Every girl needs secrets, Talen. You’ll learn more about that
as time goes on. Let’s ride off a ways, Sparhawk.’
They rode away from the road for several hundred yards, and
then moved on, keeping pace with the others. Faran’s steel-shod
hooves clattered on the rusty sun-baked gravel of the desert
floor.
‘We’ll be going on toward the Tamul border,’ Flute said as
they rode. ‘This event that’s ahead of us will happen there, and
I’ll have to leave you before it does.’
‘Leave?’ He was startled.
‘You’ll be able to manage without me for a while. I can’t be
present when this event takes place. There’s a propriety
involved. I may be as flighty and frivolous as Itagne suggested,
but I do have good manners. A certain personage will be taking
part in this affair and he’d be insulted if I were present. He
and I have had some disagreements in the past, and we’re not
speaking to each other at the moment.’ She made a rueful little
face. “It’s been quite a lengthy moment,’ she admitted, ‘eight or
ten thousand years, actually. He’s doing something I don’t really
approve of – of course, he’s never fully explained it to me. I like
him well enough, but he’s got a terribly superior attitude. He
always behaves as if the rest of us are too stupid to understand
what he’s doing – but I understand very well. He’s breaking
one of the cardinal rules.’ She waved her hand as if brushing
it aside. ‘That’s between him and me, though. Look after
my sister, Sparhawk. She’s going to have a very difficult
time.”
“She’s not going to get sick, is she?’
“She’d probably prefer that.’ The Child Goddess sighed. “I
wish there were some way I could spare her this, but there isn’t.
She has to go through it if she’s going to continue to grow.’
‘Aphrael, she’s over three hundred years old.’
‘What’s that got to do with it? I’m a hundred times older than
that, and I’m still growing. She has to do the same. I’m lovable,
Sparhawk, but I never promised to be easy. This is going to be
terribly painful to her, but she’ll be much better for having gone
through it.’
‘You’re not making any sense, you know.”
“I don’t have to make sense, father. That’s one of the advantages
of my situation.’
They made the journey from Cynestra to the border west of
Sama in easy stages, moving at a leisurely pace from oasis to
oasis. Sparhawk could not be positive, but it seemed Aphrael
was waiting for something. She and Vanion spent a great deal
of time with the map, and their jumps across the sun-baked
gravel of eastern Cynesga grew shorter and shorter, and their
stays at the oases longer. As they neared the border, their pace
slowed even more, and more often than not they found themselves
simply riding, plodding their way eastward through
the interminable empty miles without any resort to Bhelliom
at all.
“It’s difficult to get anything very precise,’ Itagne was saying
on the afternoon of their fourth day out from Cynestra. ‘Most of
the sightings have been made by desert nomads, and they don’t
trust the authorities enough to speak with them at any length.
There have been the usual wild stories about vampires and werewolves
and harpies and the like, but I rather imagine that most
of those flew out of the neck of a wine-skin. The Cynesgan
authorities laugh most of those off as no more than the hallucinations
of ignorant people who drink too much and spend too
much time out in the sun. They take the reports of sightings of
the Shining Ones very seriously, however.’
‘All right, Itagne,’ Kalten said irritably, ‘we’ve been hearing
about these “Shining Ones” ever since we came to Daresia.
People turn all trembly and white-knuckled and refuse to talk
about them. We’ve got you way out here in the desert where
you can’t run away, so why don’t you tell us just who – or what
– they are.’
“It’s really quite grotesque, Sir Kalten,’ Itagne told him, ‘and
more than a little sickening.’
‘i’ve got a strong stomach. Are they some kind of monster?
Twelve feet tall and with nine heads or something?’
‘No. Actually they’re supposed to look like ordinary humans.’
‘Why are they called by that peculiar name?’ Berit asked.
‘Why don’t you let me ask the questions, Berit?’ Kalten said
bluntly. Kalten, it appeared, still had problems where Berit was
concerned.
‘Excuse me, Sir Kalten,’ Berit replied, looking just a bit startled
and slightly hurt.
‘Well?’ Kalten said to Oscagne’s brother. ‘What does it mean?
Why are they called that?’
“Because they glow like fireflies, Sir Kalten.’ Itagne shrugged.
‘That’s all?’ Kalten asked incredulously. ‘The whole continent
collapses in terror just because some people glow in the dark?’
‘Of course not. The fact that they glow is just a warning.
Everybody in Tamuli knows that when he sees someone who
shines like the morning star coming toward him, he’d better
turn round and run for his life.’
‘What are these monsters supposed to be able to do?’ Talen
asked. ‘Do they eat people alive or tear them all to pieces or
something?’
‘No,’ Itagne replied somberly. ‘The legend has it that their
merest touch is death.’
‘Sort of like poisonous snakes?’ Khalad suggested.
‘Much worse than that, young sir. The touch of the Shining
Ones rots a man’s flesh from his bones. It’s the decay of the
grave, and the victim isn’t dead when it happens. The descriptions
from folk-lore are very lurid. We’re given pictures of people
standing stock-still, shrieking in agony and horror as their faces
and limbs dissolve into slime and run like melted wax.’
‘That’s a graphic picture.’ Ulath shuddered. ‘i’d imagine it
sort of interferes with establishing normal relations with these
people.’
‘indeed, Sir Ulath,’ Itagne smiled, ‘but despite all of that, the
Shining Ones are among the most popular figures in Tamul
literature – which may provide you with some insight into the
perversity of our minds.’
‘Are you talking about ghost stories?’ Talen asked him. “Some
people like those, I’ve heard.’
‘Delphaeic literature is far more complex than that.’
‘Delphaeic? What does that mean?’
‘Literature refers to the Shining Ones as the Delphae,’ Itagne
replied, ‘and the mythic city where they live is called Delphaeus.’
“It’s a pretty name.’
“I think that’s part of the problem. Tamuls tend to be sentimentalists,
and the musical quality of the word fills the eyes of our
lesser poets with tears and their brains with mush. They ignore
the more unpleasant aspects of the legend and present the
Delphae as a simple, pastoral people who are grossly miSunderstood.
For seven centuries they’ve inflicted abominable
pastoral verse and overdrawn adolescent eclogues on us.
They’ve pictured the Delphae as lyric shepherds, glowing like
fireflies and mooning about the landscape, over-dramatically
suffering the pangs of unrequited love and pondering – ponderously,
of course – the banalities of their supposed religion. The
academic world has come to regard Delphaeic literature as a bad