Particularly in the light of the Anarae’s special gift.’
‘You’d better get all you can from him right now, your Excellency,’
Talen suggested, ‘because just as soon as my brother gets
back from Atan, he’ll probably kill him.’
Oscagne looked startled.
“It’s a personal thing, your Excellency. Krager was involved
in the death of our father – around the edges, anyway. Khalad
wants to do something about that.’
‘i’m sure we can persuade him to wait, young master.”
“I wouldn’t be, your Excellency. ‘
“It’s been a part of us for so long that I don’t think we’d be
Styrics without it, Anarae,’ Sephrenia said sadly.
It was one of those private meetings at the top of the tower.
Sparhawk and his daughter had joined Sephrenia, Vanion
and Xanetia as evening settled over Matherion so that they
could discuss certain things the others did not need to know
about.
“It is even so with us, Sephrenia of Ylara,’ Xanetia confessed.
‘Our hatred of thy race doth in part define the Delphae as well.’
‘We tell our children that the Delphae steal souls,’ Sephrenia
said. “I was always taught that you glow because of the souls
you’ve devoured, and that the people you touch decay because
you’ve jerked their souls out of them.’
Xanetia smiled. ‘And we tell our young ones that the Styrics
are ghouls who rob graves for food – when there are no
Delphaeic children nearby to be eaten alive.’
“I know a child with a slightly Styric background who’s been
considering cannibalism lately,’ Sparhawk noted blandly.
‘Snitch,’ Danae muttered.
‘What’s this?’ Sephrenia demanded of her sister.
‘The Child Goddess was very upset when she found out that
Zalasta had deceived her,’ Sparhawk said in an offhand sort of
way, ‘and even more upset when she discovered that he wanted
to steal you from her. She said she was going to rip his heart
out and eat it right before his very eyes.’
‘Oh – I probably wouldn’t have done it.’ Aphrael tried to
shrug it off.
‘Probably?’ Sephrenia exclaimed.
‘His heart’s so rotten it would have made me sick.’
Sephrenia gave her a long, steady look of disapproval.
‘Oh, all right,’ the Child Goddess said, “I was exaggerating.’
She looked pensively out over the city, then back at Sephrenia
and Xanetia. ‘All this hatred and the wild stories the Styrics and
the Delphae tell their children about each other aren’t really
natural, you realize. You’ve been very carefully coached to feel
this way. The real argument was between my family and
Edaemus, and it involved things you wouldn’t even understand.
It was a silly argument – like most arguments are – but
Gods can’t keep their arguments private. You humans were
drawn into something that didn’t really concern you at all.’ She
sighed. ‘Like so many of our disagreements, that one started to
spill over from the part of the world where we live into your
part. It’s our party, and you never should have been invited.’
‘Where is this country of yours, Aphrael?’ Vanion asked
curiously.
‘Right here.’ She shrugged. ‘All around us, but you can’t see
it. It might be better if we had our own separate place, but it’s
too late now. I should have told Sephrenia about our foolishness
when she and I were children and I heard her parroting some
of that nonsense about the Delphae, but then the Elene serfs
destroyed our village and killed our parents, and Zalasta tried
to shift his own guilt to the Delphae, and that set her prejudices
in stone.’ She paused. “I always knew there was something about
Zalasta’s story that didn’t ring true, but I couldn’t get into his
thoughts to find out what it was.’
‘Why not?’ Vanion asked her. ‘You are a Goddess, after all.’
‘You’ve noticed,’ she exclaimed. ‘What a thrilling’ discovery that
must have been for you!’
‘Mind your manners,’ Sparhawk told her.
‘Sorry, Vanion,’ she apologized. ‘That was a little snippy,
wasn’t it? I can’t look into Zalasta’s thoughts because he isn’t
one of my children.’ She paused. ‘Don’t you find the fact that
I’m limited but Xanetia isn’t just a bit interesting, Sephrenia?’
‘Xanetia and I are exploring our differences, Aphrael,’
Sephrenia smiled. ‘Every one of them we’ve examined so far
has turned out to be imaginary.’
‘Truly,’ Xanetia agreed. Sparhawk could only begin to imagine
how difficult even these tentative steps toward peacemaking
must be for this strangely similar pair of women. The tearing
down of institutionalized bigotry must have been somewhat
akin to dismantling a house that had been standing for a hundred
centuries.
‘Vanion, dear,’ Sephrenia said then, ‘it’s starting to get a little
chilly.’
‘I’ll run down and fetch your cloak.’
She sighed. ‘No, Vanion,’ she told him. “I don’t want a cloak.
I want you to put your arms around me.’
‘Oh.’ he said. “I should have thought of that myself.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘Try to think of it more often.’
He smiled and put his arms about her.
That’s so much nicer,’ she said, snuggling up against him.
There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask,’ Sparhawk said
to his daughter. ‘Regardless of who put them up to it, the people
who attacked Ylara were Elenes. how in the world did you ever
persuade Sephrenia to take on the chore of teaching the
Pandions us the Secrets? She must have hated Elenes.’
‘She’ did.’ The Child Goddess shrugged. ‘And I wasn’t too
fund of you myself. I had Ghwerig’s rings, though, and I absolutely
had to get them on the fingers of King Antor and the first
Sparhawk – otherwise, I wouldn’t be here.’ She paused and
her eyes narrowed. ‘That’s intolerable.’ she exclaimed.
‘What is?’
‘Bhelliom manipulated me. after I stole the rings from
Ghwerig – or maybe even before – it put the notion into the
rings themselves. I know it did. I no sooner took those rings than
the idea occurred to me to separate them by giving one of them
to your ancestor and the other to Ehlana’s. This has all been
Bheliom’s scheme. That – that thing used me!’
‘My, my,’ Sparhawk said blandly.
‘And it was so clev~er!’ she fumed. “It seemed like such a good
idea. your blue friend and I are going to have a long talk about
this!’
‘You were telling us how you forced Sephrenia to become our
tutor, I believe,’ he said.
“I commanded her to do it – after coaxing wouldn’t work. First
I ordered her to take the rings to that pair of bleeding savages, and
then I took her to your mother-house at Demos and compelled
her to become your tutor. I had to have her there to keep your
family on the right track. You’re Anakha, and I knew I’d need
some kind of hold on you. Otherwise, Bhelliom would have had
you all to itself, and I didn’t trust it enough to let that happen.’
‘Then you did plan all this in advance,’ Sparhawk said just a
bit sadly.
‘Bhelliom may have planned it first,’ she said darkly. “I was
absolutely sure it was my idea. I thought that if I just happened
to be your daughter, you’d at least pay some attention to me.’
He sighed. “It was all completely calculated, then, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, but that doesn’t have anything to do with the way I feel
about you. I had a great deal to do with inventing you, Sparhawk,
so I do really love you. You were a darling baby. I almost
disassembled Kalten when he broke your nose. Sephrenia talked
me out of it, though. Mother was a different story. You were
sweet, but she was adorable. I loved her from the first moment
I saw her, and I knew you two would get on well together. I’m
really rather proud of the way things have turned out. I even
think Bhelliom approves – of course it would never admit it.
Bhelliom’s so stuffy sometimes.’
‘Did your cousin Setras actually go into the Basilica and talk
with Dolmant?’ Vanion asked her suddenly.
‘Yes.’
‘How did Dolmant take it?’
‘Surprisingly well. Of course, Setras can be very charming
when he wants to be, and Dolmant is fond of me.’ She paused,
her dark eyes speculative. “I think his Archprelacy’s going to
bring about some rather profound changes in your Church,
Vanion. Dolmant’s mind isn’t absolutely locked in stone the way
Ortzel’s is. I think Elene theology’s going to change a great deal
while he’s Archprelate.’
‘The conservatives won’t like that.’
‘They never do. Conservatives wouldn’t even change their
underwear if they didn’t have to.’
‘That’s extremely questionable from a legal standpoint, your
Majesty,’ Oscagne said. ‘i’m not personally questioning your
word, Anarae,’ he added quickly, ‘but I think we can all see the
problem here. All we’ll have in the way of evidence is Xanetia’s
unsubstantiated testimony about what somebody’s thinking.
Even the most pliable of judges is likely to choke a bit on that.
These are going to be very difficult cases to prosecute – particularly