“I think you could make yourself heard from one side of the
cape to the other without any help at all, Engessa-Atan,’ Kalten
said.
‘Not quite so far, Kalten-Knight,’ Engessa replied modestly.
‘Thy judgement of thy people’s speed will be more precise
than mine, Engessa-Atan,’ Bhelliom told him. ‘Advise me when
they have reached safety. I would not have them trapped north
of the wall.’
‘The wall?’ Ulath asked.
‘The barrier of which I spake.’ Vanion bent and touched the
ground with strangely gentle fingertips. “It is well, Anakha. We
are within a few paces of the place I sought.’
“I have ever had absolute faith in thine ability to find a precise
spot, Blue Rose.’
“‘Ever” is perhaps an imprecise term, Anakha.’ A faint, ironic
smile touched Vanion’s lips. “It seemeth me I do recall some talk
of finding thyself on the surface of the moon when first we
began to move from place to place.’
‘You did say that, Sparhawk,’ Kalten reminded his friend.
‘Thou spakest of thy daughter, Blue Rose,’ Sparhawk said,
rather quickly changing the subject. ‘May we be privileged to
meet her?’
‘Thou hast met her, Anakha. Thou standest this very moment
upon her verdant bosom.’ Vanion’s hand fondly patted the
ground.
‘The earth itself?’ Bevier asked incredulously.
‘is she not fair?’ There was a note of pride in the question.
Then Vanion straightened. ‘Let us withdraw somewhat from
this spot, Anakha. What I am to do here will take place some
six of thy miles beneath our feet, and its effects here at the
surface are difficult to predict. I would not endanger thee or
thy companions by mine imprecision, and there will be some
disturbance here. Is it safe to proceed now, Engessa-Atan?’
Engessa nodded. ‘Any Atan who hasn’t covered at least a
league by now doesn’t deserve to be called an Atan,’ he replied.
They turned and walked some hundred paces to the south.
Then they stopped.
‘Farther, I pray thee, Anakha, yet again as far, and it would
be well if thou and thy companions did lie upon the earth. The
disturbance may be quite profound.’
‘Your friend is beginning to make me nervous, Sparhawk,’
Tynian confessed as they walked another hundred paces back.
‘Exactly what is it planning here?’
‘You know as much about it as I do, my friend.’
Then they heard a deep-toned subterranean booming which
seemed to rise up out of the core of the earth. The ground
shuddered sharply under their feet.
‘Earthquake.’ ~Kalten shouted in alarm.
“I think that may be what you were asking about, Tynian,
Ulath rumbled.
‘This is not simple, Anakha,’ Bhelliom observed in an almost
clinical tone. ‘The pressures are extreme and must be adjusted
with great delicacy to achieve the end we do desire.’
The next jolt staggered them. The ground heaved and shuddered,
and the dreadful, hollow booming grew louder.
“It is time, Anakha. The disturbance which I did mention previously
is about to begin.’
‘Begin.?’ Bevier exclaimed. “It’s all I can do to stand up now!’
‘We’d better do as we’re told,’ Sparhawk said sharply, dropping
to his knees and then sprawling out face down on the carpet
of fallen leaves. “I think the next one’s going to be spectacular.’
‘The next one’ lasted for a full ten minutes. Nothing with legs
could have stood erect on the violently jerking and convulsing
earth. Then, with a monstrous roar, the earth not fifty paces in
front of them split. The land beyond that ghastly crack in the
earth’s shell seemed to fall away, while the shuddering ground
to which they clung heaved upward, rising ponderously, rippling
almost like a wind-tossed banner. Great clouds of birds,
squawking in alarm, rose from the shuddering trees.
Then the earthquake gradually subsided. The violence of the
tremors grew less severe and less frequent, although there were
a number of intermittent jolts. The awful booming sound grew
fainter, echoing up through miles of rock like the memory of a
nightmare. Vast clouds of dust came billowing up over the lip
of the newly formed precipice.
‘Now mayest thou contemplate mine handiwork, Anakha,’
Bhelliom said quite calmly, although with a certain modest
pride. ‘Speak truly, for I will not be offended shouldst thou find
flaws. If thou dost perceive faults in what I have wrought, I will
correct them at once.’
Sparhawk decided not to trust his feet just yet. Followed
closely by his friends, he crawled to the abrupt edge which had
not been there fifteen minutes earlier.
The cliff was almost as straight as a sword-cut, and it went
down and down at least a thousand feet. It stretched, moreover,
as far as the eye could reach both to the east and to the west.
A huge escarpment, a vast wall, now separated the upper
reaches of the North Cape from the rest of Tamuli.
‘What thinkest thou?’ Bhelliom asked, just a little anxiously.
‘Will my wall deny the Trolls access to the lands of thy friends?
I can do more if it is thy wish.’
‘No, Blue Rose,’ Sparhawk choked, ‘no more, I pray thee.’
“I am pleased that thou art satisfied.’
“It is a splendid wall, Blue Rose.’ It was a ridiculous thing to
say, but Sparhawk was badly shaken.
Bhelliom did not seem to notice. Vanion’s face was suddenly
creased with an almost shy smile at Sparhawk’s stunned
expression of approval. “It is an adequate wall,’ it said a bit
deprecatingly. ‘There was some urgency in our need, so I had
not time enough to mold and shape it as I might have wished,
but methinks it will serve. I would take it as kindness, however,
that when next thou dost require modification of the earth, thou
wouldst give me more extensive notice, for truly.’, work done in
haste is never wholly satisfactory.’
“I shall endeavor to remember that, Blue Rose.’
CHAPTER 27
“It’s not so bad in here, Sarabian,’ Mirtai was saying to the distraught
Emperor. ‘The floor’s carpeted here, so most of the tiles
weren’t broken when they fell.’ She was on her knees gathering
up the small opalescent tiles as Sparhawk and the others
emerged from that blurred gray emptiness.
‘Sparhawk!’ Sarabian exclaimed, recoiling in shocked surprise.
“I wish you’d blow a trumpet or something before you do that!’
‘What happened here, your Majesty?’ Vanion asked, staring
at the littered carpet.
‘We had an earthquake. Now I’ve got an economic disaster
on my hands in addition to everything else!’
‘You felt it here, your Majesty?’ Vanion choked.
“It was terrible, Vanion!’ Sephrenia said. “It was the worst
earthquake I’ve ever been through!’
‘Here?’
‘You’re going to make me cross if you keep saying that. Of
course we felt it here. Look at the walls.’
“It looks like a bad case of the pox,’ Kalten said.
‘The tiles were jumping off the walls like grasshoppers,’ Sarabian
said in a sick voice. ‘God knows what the rest of the city
looks like. This will bankrupt me.’
“It’s over four hundred leagues!’ Vanion choked. ‘Twelve hundred
miles!’
‘What is he talking about, Sparhawk?’ Ehlana demanded.
‘We were at the center of the earthquake,’ Sparhawk replied.
“It was up in northern Atan.’
‘Did you do this to me, Sparhawk?’ Sarabian demanded.
‘Bhelliom did, your Majesty. The Trolls won’t be attacking the
Atans any more.’
‘Bhelliom shook them all to pieces?’
Sparhawk smiled faintly. ‘No, your Majesty. It put a wall
across the North Cape.’
‘Can’t the Trolls climb over it?’ Betuana demanded.
“I wouldn’t think so, your Majesty,’ Vanion said. “It’s about a
thousand feet high, and it stretches from the Tamul Sea to that
coast that lies to the northwest of Sarsos. The Trolls won’t be
coming any farther south – not in the next two weeks, anyway,
and after that, it won’t make any difference.’
‘What exactly do you mean when you say “wall”, Vanion?’
Patriarch Emban asked.
‘Actually, it’s an escarpment, your Grace,’ Vanion explained,
‘a huge cliff that stretches all the way across the North Cape.
That’s what caused the earthquake.’
‘Won’t Cyrgon be able to reverse whatever Bhelliom did?’
Sephrenia asked.
‘Bhelliom says no, little mother,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘He isn’t
strong enough.’
‘He’s a God, Sparhawk.’
‘Evidently that doesn’t make any difference. What happened
was just too enormous. Bhelliom said that it shifted some things
about six miles beneath the surface of the earth, and certain
changes in the shape of that part of the continent happened all
at once instead of being spread out over a million or so years.
The changes were going to happen anyway, but Bhelliom just
made them happen all at once. I gather that the escarpment
will become a mountain range as it gradually breaks down. The
concepts are just too vast for Cyrgon to comprehend, and the
pressures involved are beyond his ability to control.’
‘What in God’s name have you done, Sparhawk?’ Emban
exclaimed. ‘You’re ripping the world apart!’
‘Tell them not to be disquieted, Anakha.’ Bhelliom spoke again