spoke with one of the Pandions who came along with us – a Sir
Alvor. He told me that since Sephrenia refuses to learn to read
Elenic, she and Sparhawk devised a way round her deliberate
incapacity. She can glance at a page – a single glance – and then
make the whole page come up in a mirror or on the surface of
a basin of water hours or even days later. Sir Alvor knows the
spell. He’s a fairly young and agile fellow, so he’ll be able to
creep across the roof-top with you. Take him along next time
you visit the Interior Ministry and turn him loose in Teovin’s
hidden closet. I rather imagine he’ll be able to carry that entire
library out with him in a single night.’
‘Does it really work, your Majesty?’ Caalador asked her a bit
doubtfully. ‘Oh, yes, Caalador. I handed Alvor a book he’d never seen
before. he leafed through it in a couple of minutes and then
printed it on that mirror over there – page after page after page.
I checked what he was producing against the original, and it
was absolutely perfect – right down to the smudges and the
food-stains on the pages.’
‘Them there Pandion fellers is real useful t’ have around,’
Caalador admitted.
‘You know,’ she smiled, ‘i’ve noticed the exact same thing
myself. There’s one in particular who does all sorts of useful
things for me.
CHAPTER 13
‘We don’t have any choice, dear,’ Vanion said to Sephrenia.
‘We’ve even tried turning around and going back, and we still
keep moving in the same direction. We’re going to have to use
the Bhelliom.’ He looked on up the gorge lying ahead of them.
The mountain river was tumbling over the boulders jutting up
out of its bed, sawing its way deeper and deeper into the rock
with its white, roaring passage. The sides of the gorge were
thick with evergreens which dripped continually in the swirling
mist rising out of the rapids.
‘No, Vanion,’ Sephrenia replied stubbornly. ‘We’ll fall directly
into their trap if we do that. The Delphae want the Bhelliom,
and as soon as Sparhawk tries to use it, they’ll attack us and try
to kill him and take it away from him.’
‘They’ll regret it if they do,’ Sparhawk told her.
‘Maybe,’ she said, ‘but then again, maybe not. We don’t know
what they’re capable of. Until I know how they’re misleading
us, I can’t even guess at what else they can do. There are too
many uncertainties involved to be taking chances.’
‘isn’t this what they call an impasse?’ Khalad suggested. ‘We
keep going north no matter how much we try to go in some
other direction, and we don’t know what the Delphae will do
if Sparhawk tries to use Bhelliom to pull us out of these nountains.
Why don’t we just stop?’
‘We have to get back to Matherion, Khalad,’ Sparhawk
objected.
‘But we’re not going’ to Matherion, my Lord. Every step
we take brings us that much closer to Delphaeus. We’ve been
twisting and turning around through these mountains for two
days now, and we’re still going north. If all directions lead to a
place where we really don’t want to go, why keep moving at all?
Why not find a comfortable camp-site and stay there for a while?
Let’s make them come to us, instead of the other way around.’
“It makes sense, Lord Vanion,’ Itagne agreed. ‘As long as we
keep moving, the Delphae don’t have to do a thing except herd
us in the right direction. If we stop moving, they’ll have to try
something else, and that might give Lady Sephrenia some clues
about their capabilities. It’s called “constructive inaction” in
diplomatic circles.’
‘What if the Delphae just decide to wait us out?’ Ulath
objected. ‘Autumn isn’t a good time to linger in the mountains.
It wasn’t so bad in those foothills we came through when we
left the desert, but now that we’re up here, time starts to get
very important.’
“I don’t think they’ll wait, Sir Ulath,’ Itagne disagreed.
‘Why not? They’ve got all the advantages, haven’t they?’
‘Let’s just call it a diplomat’s instinct. I caught a faint odor of
urgency about them when they approached us. They want us
to go to Delphaeus, right enough, but it’s also important to them
that we get there soon.’
‘i’d like to know how you worked that out, your Excellency,’
Kalten said skeptically.
“It’s a combination of a thousand little things, Sir Kalten – the
tone of voice, slight changes of expression, even their posture
and their rate of breathing. The Delphae weren’t as certain of
themselves as they seemed, and they want us to go to Delphaeus
as quickly as possible. As long as we keep going, they don’t
have any reason to make further contact, but I think we’ll find
that if we just sit still, they’ll come to us and start making concessions.
I’ve seen it happen that way many times.’
‘Does it take long to learn how to be a diplomat, your Excellency?’
Talen asked him with a speculative look.
‘That depends entirely on your natural gifts, Master Talen.’
‘i’m a quick learner. Diplomacy sounds like a lot of fun.’
“It’s the best game there is,’ Itagne smiled. ‘There’s no other
that even approaches it.’
‘Are you considering another career-change, Talen?’ his
brother asked him.
‘i’m never going to be a very good knight, Khalad – not unless
Sparhawk takes the Bhelliom and makes me about four times
bigger than I am now.’
‘isn’t this about the third occupation you’ve grown excited
about so far this year?’ Sparhawk asked him. ‘Have you given
up the notion of becoming the emperor of the thieves or the
archprelate of larceny?’
“I don’t really have to make any final decisions yet, Sparhawk.
I’m still young.’ Talen suddenly thought of something. ‘They
can’t arrest a diplomat, can they, your Excellency? I mean, the
police can’t really touch him at all – no matter what he does?’
‘That’s a long-standing custom, Master Talen. If I throw your
diplomats into a dungeon, you’ll turn around and do the same
thing to mine, won’t you? That puts a diplomat more or less
above the law.’
‘Well, now,’ Talen said with a beatific smile, ‘isn’t that something
to think about?’
“I like caves.’ Ulath shrugged. ‘Are you sure you’re not part Troll, Ulath?’ Kalten asked.
‘Even Trolls and Ogres can have good ideas once in a while.”
A cave’s got a roof in case the weather turns sour, and nobody
can come at you from behind. This one’s a good cave, and it’s
been used before. Somebody spent quite a bit of time building
a wall around that spring in there so that there’s plenty of water.’
‘What if he comes back and wants his cave again?’
“I don’t think he’ll do that, Kalten.’ The big Thalesian held up
a beautifully crafted flint spearhead. ‘He left this behind when
he moved out. I’d say that he’d probably be too old to give us
much to worry about – fifteen or twenty thousand years too old,
at least.’ He touched a careful thumb to the serrated edge of the
spearpoint. ‘He did very nice work, though. He drew pictures
on the wall, too – animals, mostly.’
Kalten shuddered. ‘Wouldn’t it be sort of like taking up residence
in a tomb?’
‘Not really. Time’s all one piece, Kalten. The past is always
with us. The cave served the fellow who made this spearpoi’nt
very well, and the work he left behind inclines me to trust his
judgement. The place has everything we need – shelter, water,
plenty of firewood nearby, and then there’s that steep meadow
a hundred yards off to the south, so there’s plenty of forage for
the horses.’
‘What are we going to eat, though? After a couple of weeks
when our supplies run out, we’ll be trying to boil rocks down
for soup-stock.’
‘There’s game about, Sir Kalten,’ Khalad told him. ‘I’ve seen
deer down by the river and a flock of feral goats higher up the
slope.’
‘Goat?’ Kalten made a face.
“It’s better than rock soup, isn’t it?’
‘Sir Ulath is right, gentlemen,’ Bevier told them. ‘The cave’s
in a defensible position. So far as we know, the Delphae have
to get close enough to touch us in order to do us any harm.
Some breastworks and a well-planted field of sharpened stakes
on that steep slope leading down to the river will keep them at
arm’s length. If Ambassador Itagne is right and the Delphae are
pressed for time, that should encourage them to come to the
bargaining table.’
‘Let’s do it,’ Vanion decided. ‘And let’s get right at it. The
Delphae seem to come out at night, so we’ll want some defenses
in place before the sun goes down.’
The overcast which had turned the sky into an oppressive leaden
bowl for the past week was gone the following morning, and