‘She of all people should be free of that sort of thing.”
‘i’m afraid not, my friend. Styrics are good haters, I guess.”
how do we want to handle this?’
‘I’ll confront her directly.’
Sparhawk winced. ‘She’ll turn you into a frog if you do.
Vanion smiled briefly. ‘No. I lived in Sarsos, remember? A
Styric can’t do anything like that without the consent of his God,
and Aphrael’s sort of fond of me – I hope.’
‘I’ll round up the others and get them out from underfoot so
that you can speak with her privately.’
‘No, Sparhawk, it has to be done in front of them. She’s trying
to slip around behind us to recruit converts. They’re all going
to have to be made aware of the fact that she’s not to be trusted
in this particular situation.’
‘Wouldn’t it be a little better to talk with her privately at first?
– before you humiliate her publicly?’
Vanion shook his head stubbornly. ‘We’ve got to meet this
head on,’ he declared.
‘You’d better hope that Aphrael’s fond of you,’ Sparhawk
murmured.
‘They’ve reverted to total paganism,’ Sephrenia said stubbornly.
‘They might as well worship trees or oddly shaped rocks. They
have no creed, no doctrine and no restraints. Their use of witchcraft
proves that.’ They had gathered at Vanion’s summons in
a large room at the end of the hall, and Sephrenia was urgently,
even stridently, trying to make her case.
‘What’s the difference?’ Talen shrugged. ‘Magic, witchcraft,
it’s all the same, isn’t it?”
‘Magic is of the Gods, Talen,’ Bevier explained. ‘Our Holy
Mother, in her wisdom, has chosen to allow the Church Knights
to learn the secrets of Styricum that we might better serve her.
There are restraints on us – certain areas we may not enter.
Witchcraft is unrestrained because it is of the evil one.’
‘The Devil, you mean? I’ve never really believed in the Devil.
There’s plenty of concentrated wickedness in people anyway,
so we can probably get along fairly well without him. I’ve known
some very nasty people, Bevier. ‘
‘The existence of the Devil has been proved.’
‘Not to me it hasn’t.’
‘Aren’t we wandering a bit?’ Ulath suggested. ‘Does it really
matter what the Delphae worship? We’ve allied ourselves with
all sorts of people in the past in order to achieve this or that
goal. Bhelliom says that we have to join forces with the
Delphae, or we’re going to lose. I don’t like losing, so what’s the
problem?’
‘Bhelliom doesn’t know anything about this world, Ulath,’
Sephrenia said.
‘So much the better. It comes at the problem with a clear and
uncluttered understanding. If I need to jump behind a tree to
keep from being swept away by an avalanche, I’m not going to
stop to question the tree about its beliefs first.’
‘Bhelliom will do or say anything in order to gain its freedom,’
Sephrenia asserted. ‘That’s why I was so much against using it
in the first place.’
‘We have to believe Bhelliom, Sephrenia,’ Vanion told her,
obviously trying to keep his irritation under control. “It doesn’t
make much sense for us to trust it with our very lives and then
not believe what it tells us, does it? It has done some very useful
things for us in the past, you know.”
‘Only because it was compelled to, Vanion. Bhelliom submits
because it’s forced to submit. I trust the Bhelliom even less than
I trust the Delphae. It’s alien, totally alien, and we have no way
of knowing what it will do. We’re safe only for as long as we
keep it chained and force it to obey us. The minute we begin to
listen to it, we’re in great danger.’
‘is that how you feel about us too, little mother?’ he asked
her sadly. ‘We’re Elenes, and as a race we’ve proved time and
again that we’re not to be trusted. Do you want to chain us as
well? – and force us to obey you?’
‘Don’t be absurd. Bhelliom’s not a person.
‘The Delphae are, though, aren’t they?’
‘No!’
‘You’re being illogical, Sephrenia. The Delphae are human
We don’t care for the Zemochs or the Renders, but we’ve never
tried to pretend that they aren’t human. There are a lot of Elenes
who don’t like you Styrics, but we’ve never gone so far as to
try to deny your humanity.’ He paused, then drew in a deep
breath. “I guess that’s what it comes down to, love. If you’re
going to deny the humanity of the Delphae, how can I be positive
that you’ don’t secretly feel the same way about me? I’ve
lived in Sarsos, and many of the Styrics there wanted to treat
me like some lower life-form. Did you agree with them? have I
been some kind of pet, Sephrenia? a dog maybe? Or a tame
ape that you kept around for your private amusements? Hang it
all, Sephrenia, this is a question of morality. If we deny anyone’s
humanity, we open the door to unimaginable horror. Can’t you
see that?’
‘The Delphae are different. ‘
‘Nobody’s different We have to believe that, because if we don’t,
we deny our own humanity as well. Why don’t you understand?’
Her face was very, very pale. ‘This is all very high-sounding
and noble, Vanion, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with
the Delphae. You don’t know anything about what they are or
who they are so you don’t really know what you’re talking
about. You’ve always come to me for guidance in the past when
your ignorance was putting you in danger. Am I correct in
assuming that we’re not going to do that any more?’
‘Don’t be silly.’
‘i’m not. I’m being very serious. Are you going to ignore me
on this issue? Are you going to take up with these monstrous
lepers, no matter what I tell you?’
‘We don’t have any choice in the matter, can’t you see that?
Bhelliom tells us that we’re going to fail if we don’t – and we can’t
fail. I think the whole world’s going to depend on our not failing.’
‘You seem to have outgrown your need for me, then. It would
have been polite of you to have told me that before you brought
me to this accursed valley, but I suppose I was silly to expect
politeness from an Elene in the first place. As soon as we get
back to Matherion, I’ll make arrangements to return to Sarsos
where I belong.’
‘Sephrenia..
‘No. This concludes it. I’ve served the Pandion order well and
faithfully for three hundred years and I thank you for your
generous payment for my years of toil. We’re through Vanion.
This ends it. I hope the rest of your life will be happy, but happy
or sad, you’re going to live it without me.’ And she turned and
swept from the room.
“It will be very dangerous Anari,’ Itagne warned, ‘and Xanetia
is the most important of all your people. Is it prudent to risk
her life?’
‘Truly, Itagne of Matherion,’ the old man replied, ‘Xanetia is
precious to us, for she will be Anarae. She is, however, the most
gifted of us and it may well be that her gifts will weight the scale
in our final confrontation with our common enemy.’ Sparhawk,
Vanion and Itagne had been summoned to meet with Codon prior
to their departure from the valley of Delphaeus. It was a fine
autumn morning. A hint of frost, fast melting in the newly risen
sun, gleamed on the meadow, and the shade under the boughs
of the evergreens beyond that meadow was a deep, deep blue.
“I merely wished to point it out, Anari,’ Itagne said. ‘For all
its splendor, Matherion is a city filled with hidden dangers with
rough, ignorant people who will react very strongly to the
appearance of one of the Delphae in their midst. Your gentle
Xanetia is an ethereal, unworldly sort of person, hardly more
than a girl. The fact that she’s a Shining One will protect her to
some degree against overt physical attack, but are you really
willing to expose her to the curses, the vituperation and all the
other kinds of abuse she’s sure to encounter there at the center
of the world?’
The Anari smiled. ‘Thou hast misperceived Xanetia, Itagne of
Matherion. Doth she truly seem so much a child to thee? Would
thy mind be more easy if thou wert aware that she is well past
her first century of life?’
Itagne stared at him and then at Xanetia, who sat quietly near
the window. ‘You are a strange people, Anari,’ he said. ‘i’d have
guessed her age at no more than sixteen years.’
“It is impolite to speculate about a lady’s age, Itagne of
Matherion,’ the pale woman smiled.
‘Forgive me, Anarae,’ Itagne replied with a courtly bow.
‘His Excellency here has raised a fairly important point, Anari,’
Vanion said. The Preceptor’s face was still marked by the pain