don’t usually cross the peninsula to Micae and then take a ship
across the gulf to the mainland.’
There don’t seem to be any roads over there,’ Vanion
frowned, looking at the map.
‘it’s a relatively uninhabited region, Lord Vanion,’ Oscagne
shrugged. ‘salt marshes and the like. What few tracks there are
wouldn’t show up on the map.’
‘Do the best you can,’ Vanion told the two young men. ‘Once
you get past the Tamul Mountains, you’ll hit that road that skirts
the western side of the jungle.’
‘i’d make a special point of staying out of those mountains
Berit,’ Ulath advised. ‘There are Trolls there now.’
Berit nodded.
‘You’d better have a talk with Faran, Sparhawk,’ Khalad suggested. ‘I
don’t think he’ll be fooled just because Berit’s wearing
your face and Berit’s going to have to ride him if this is going
to be convincing.’
‘i’d forgotten that,’ Sparhawk admitted.
‘I thought you might have.’
‘All right then,’ Vanion continued his instructions to the two
young men. “follow that road down to hydros, then take the
road around the southern tip of Arjuna to Beresa. That’s the
%ici tote, and they’ll probably be expecting you to go that
way.’
That’s going to take quite a while, Lord Vanion,’ Khalad said.
‘I know. Evidently Krager and his friends want it to. If they
were in a hurry, they’d have instructed Sparhawk to go by sea.”
‘Give Berit your wife’s ring, Sparhawk,’ Flute instructed.
‘What?’
‘Zalasta can sense the ring, and if he can, Cyrgon can, too and
Klael will definitely feel it. If you don’t give Berit the ring,
changing his face was just a waste of time.’
‘You’re putting Berit and Khalad in a great deal of danger,’
Sephrenia said critically.
‘That’s what we get paid for, little mother,’ Khalad shrugged.
‘I’ll watch over them,’ Aphrael assured her sister. She looked
critically at Berit. ‘Call me,’ she told him.
‘Ma’am?’
‘Use the spell, Berit,’ she explained with exaggerated patience.
‘I want to be sure you’re doing it right.’
‘Oh.’ Berit carefully enunciated the spell of summoning, his
hands moving in the intricate accompanying gestures.
‘You mispronounced “Knjernsticon”,’ she corrected him.
Sephrenia was trying without much success to suppress a
laugh.
‘What’s so funny?’ Talen asked her.
‘Sir Berit’s pronunciations raised some questions about his
meaning,’ Stragen explained.
‘What did he say?’ Talen asked curiously.
“just never mind what he said,’ Flute told him primly. ‘We’re
not here to repeat off-color jokes about the differences between
boys and girls. Practice on that one, Berit. Now try the secret
summoning. ‘
‘What’s that?’ Itagne murmured to Vanion.
‘it’s used to pass messages, your Excellency,’ Vanion replied.
‘it summons the awareness of the Child Goddess, but not her
presence. We can give her a message to carry to someone else
by using that spell.’
‘isn’t that just a little demeaning for the Child Goddess?
Do you really make her run errands and carry messages that
way?’
‘i’m not offended, Itagne.’ Aphrael smiled. ‘After all, we live
only to serve those we love, don’t we?’
Berit’s pronunciation of the second spell raised no objections.
‘You’ll probably want to use that one most of the time anyway,
Berit,’ Vanion instructed. ‘Krager warned Sparhawk about using
magic, so don’t be too obvious about things. If you get any
further instructions along the road, make some show of following
them, but pass the word on to Aphrael.’
‘There’s no real point in decking him out in Sparhawk’s armor
now, is there, Lord Vanion?’ Khalad asked.
‘Good point,’ Vanion agreed. ‘A mail-shirt should do, Berit.
We want them to see your face now.’
‘Yes, my Lord.’
‘Now you’d better get some sleep,’ Vanion continued. ‘You’ll
be starting early tomorrow morning.’
‘Not too early, though,’ Caalador amended. ‘We purely
wouldn’t want th’ spies t’ oversleep therselfs an’ miss seein’ y’
leave. Gittin’ a new face don’t mean shucks iffn y’ don’t git no
chance t’ show it off, now does it?’
It was chill and damp in the courtyard the following morning,
and a thin autumn mist lay over the gleaming city. Sparhawk
led Faran out of the stables. ‘Just be careful,’ he cautioned the
two young men in mail-shirts and travelers’ cloaks.
‘You’ve said that already, my Lord,’ Khalad reminded him.
‘Berit and I aren’t deaf, you know.’
‘You’d better forget that name, Khalad,’ Sparhawk said critically.
‘Start thinking of our young friend here as me. A slip of
the tongue in the wrong place could give this all away.’
‘I’ll keep that in mind.’
‘Do you need money?’
‘I thought you’d never ask.’
‘You’re as bad as your father was.’ Sparhawk pulled a purse
from under his belt and handed it to his squire. Then he firmly
took Faran by the chin and looked straight into the big roan’s
eyes. ‘I want you to go with Berit, Faran,’ he said. ‘Behave
exactly as you would if he were me.’
Faran flicked his ears and looked away.
‘Pay attention,’ Sparhawk said sharply. ‘This is important.’
Faran sighed.
‘He knows what you’re talking about, Sparhawk,’ Khalad
said. ‘He’s not stupid – just bad-tempered.’
Sparhawk handed the reins to Berit. Then he remembered
something. ‘We’ll need a password,’ he said. ‘The rest of us are
going to have different faces, so you won’t recognize us if we
have to contact you. Pick something ordinary.’
They all considered it.
‘How about “ramshorn”?’ Berit suggested. ‘it shouldn’t be too
hard to work it into an ordinary conversation, and we’ve used
it before.’
Sparhawk suddenly remembered Ulesim, most-favoreddisciple
-of-holy-Arasham, standing atop a pile of rubble with
Kuriks’s crossbow bolt sticking out of his forehead and the word
ramshorn still on his lips. ‘Very good, Berit – ah – Sir Sparhawk,
that is. It’s a word we all remember. You’d better get started.’
They nodded and swung up into their saddles.
‘Good luck,’ Sparhawk said.
‘You too, my Lord,’ Khalad replied. And then the pair turned
and rode slowly toward the drawbridge.
‘All we’ve really got to work with is the name Beresa,’ Sarabian
mused, somewhat later. ‘Krager’s note said that Sparhawk
would receive further instructions there.’
‘That could be a ruse, your Majesty,’ Itagne pointed out.
‘Actually, the exchange could take place at any time – and any
place. That might have been the reason for the instructions to
go overland.’
‘That’s true,’ Caalador agreed. ‘Scarpa and Zalasta might just
be waiting on the beach on the west side of the Gulf of Micae
wanting to make the trade right there, for all we know.’
‘We’re going to an awful lot of trouble here,’ Talen said. ‘Why
doesn’t Sparhawk just have Bhelliom go rescue the Queen? It
could pick her up and have her back here before Scarpa even
knew she was gone.’
‘No,’ Aphrael said, shaking her head. ‘Bhelliom can’t do that
any more than I can.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because we don’t know where she is – and we can’t go looking
for her, because they’ll be able to sense us moving around.’
‘Oh. I didn’t know that.’
Aphrael rolled her eyes upward. ‘Men!’ she sighed.
‘it was very resourceful of Ehlana to slip her ring to Melidere,’
Sephrenia said, ‘but locating her would be much easier if she
still had it with her.’
‘I sort of doubt that, dear,’ Vanion disagreed. ‘Zalasta of all
people knows that the rings can be traced. If Ehlana had still
been wearing it, the first thing Scarpa would have done would
been to send Krager or Elron off in the opposite direction
with it.’
‘You’re assuming that Zalasta’s involved in this,’ she disagreed.
‘There is the possibility that Scarpa’s acting on his own,
you know. ‘
‘it’s always better to assume the worst,’ he shrugged. ‘Our
situation is much more perilous if Zalasta and Cyrgon are
involved. If it’s only Scarpa, he’ll be relatively easy to dispose
of.’
‘But only after Ehlana and Alcan are safe,’ Sparhawk amended.
That goes without saying, Sparhawk,’ Vanion said.
‘Everything hinges on the moment of the exchange then,
doesn’t it?’ Sarabian noted. ‘We can make some preparations,
but we won’t be able to do anything at all significant until the
moment that Scarpa actually produces Ehlana.’
‘And that means that we have to stay close to Berit and
Khalad,’ Tynian added.
‘No.’ Aphrael was shaking her head. ‘You’ll give everything
away if you all start hovering over those two. Let me do the
staying close. I don’t wear armor, so no one will be able to
smell me from a thousand paces off. Itagne’s right. The exchange
could come at any time. I’ll let Sparhawk know the very instant
scarpa shows up with Ehlana and Alcan. Then Bhelliom can set
him down – with knife – right on top of them. Then we’ll have
the ladies back, and we’ll be more or less in charge of things
again.’
‘And that brings us right back to a purely military situation,’
Patriarch Emban mused. ‘I think we’ll want to send word to