The Hidden City by David Eddings

of his hands at the same time.

‘Who is it?’ Again, Khalad’s lips did not move.

‘i’m still working on that,’ Berit whispered back. He released

the spell so slowly that it seemed almost to dribble out of the

ends of his fingers.

The sense of it came washing back to him. It was something

on the order of recognizing an accent – except that it was done

when nobody was talking. ‘It’s a Styric,’ he said quietly.

‘Zalasta?’

‘No, I don’t believe so. I think I’d recognize him. It’s somebody

I’ve never been around before.’

‘Not too much wood, my Lord,’ Khalad said aloud. ‘This pile

has to get us through breakfast too, you know.’

‘Good thinking,’ Berit approved. He reached out again, very

cautiously. ‘He’s moving away,’ he muttered. ‘How did you

know we were being watched?’

‘I could feel it,’ Khalad shrugged. ‘I always know when somebody’s

watching me. How noisy is it when you get in touch

with Aphrael?’

‘That’s one of the good spells. It doesn’t make a sound.’

‘You’d better tell her about this. Let her know that we are

being watched and that it’s a Styric who’s doing the watching.’

Khalad knelt and began to carefully stack his armload of broken-off

limbs on their campfire. ‘Your disguise seems to be working, ‘

he noted.

‘How did you arrive at that?’

‘They wouldn’t waste a Styric on us if they knew who you

really are.’

‘Unless they don’t have anybody left except Styrics. Stragen’s

celebration of the Harvest Festival might have been more effective

than we thought.’

‘We could probably argue about that all night. just tell Aphrael

about our visitor out there. She’ll pass it on to the others, and

we’ll let them get the headache from trying to sort it out with

logic.’

‘Aren’t you curious about it?’

‘Not so curious that I’m going to lose any sleep over it.

That’s one of the advantages of being a peasant, my Lord.

We’re not required to come up with the answers to these

earth-shaking questions. You aristocrats get the pleasure of

doing that.’

‘Thanks,’ Berit said sourly.

‘No charge, my Lord,’ Khalad grinned.

Sparhawk had never actually worked for a living before, and he

discovered that he did not like it very much. He quickly grew

to hate Captain Sorgi’s thick-necked bo’sun. The man was crude,

stupid, and spitefully cruel. He fawned outrageously whenever

Sorgi appeared on the quarterdeck, but when the captain

returned below decks, the bo’sun’s natural character re-asserted

itself. He seemed to take particular delight in tormenting the

newest members of the crew, assigning them the most tedious,

exhausting and demeaning tasks aboard ship. Sparhawk found

himself quite suddenly in full agreement with Khalad’s class

prejudices, and sometimes at night he found himself contemplating

murder.

‘Every man hates his employer, From,’ Stragen told him, using

Sparhawk’s assumed name. ‘It’s a very natural part of the

scheme of things.’

‘I could stand him if he didn’t deliberately go out of his way

to be offensive,’ Sparhawk growled, scrubbing at the deck with

his block of pumice-stone.

‘He’s paid to be offensive, my friend. Angry men work harder.

Part of your problem is that you always look him right in the

eye. He wouldn’t single you out the way he does if you’d keep

your eyes lowered. If you don’t, this is going to be a very long

voyage for you.’

‘Or a short one for him,’ Sparhawk said darkly.

He considered it that night as he tried, without much success,

to sleep in his hammock. He fervently wished that he could get

his hands on the idiot who had decided that humans could sleep

in hammocks. The roll of the ship made it swing from side to

side, and Sparhawk continually felt that he was right on the

verge of being thrown out.

‘Anakha.’ The voice was only a whisper in his mind.

Sparhawk was stunned. ‘Blue Rose?’ he said.

‘Prithee, Anakha, do not speak aloud. Thy voice is as the

thunder in mine ears. Speak silently in the halls of thine awareness.

I will hear thee.’

‘How is this possible?’ Sparhawk framed the thought. ‘Thou

art confined.’

‘Who hath power to confine me, Anakha? When thou art alone

and thy mind is clear of other distraction, we may speak thus.’

‘I did not know that.’

‘Until now, it was not needful for thee to know.’

‘I see. But now it is?’

‘Yes.’

‘How dost thou penetrate the barrier of the gold?’

‘It is no barrier to me, Anakha. Others may not sense me

within the confines of thine excellent receptacle. I, however,

may reach out to thee in this manner. This is particularly true

when we are so close.’

Sparhawk laid his hand on the leather pouch hanging on a

thong about his neck and felt the square outline of the box. ‘And

should it prove needful, may I speak so with thee?’

‘Even as thou dost now, Anakha.’

This is good to know.’

‘I sense thy disquiet, Anakha, and I share thine anxiety for

the safety of thy mate.’

‘Thou art kind to say so, Blue Rose.’

‘Expend thou all thine efforts to securing thy Queen’s release,

Anakha. I will keep watch over our enemies whilst thou art so

occupied.’ The jewel under Sparhawk’s hand paused. ‘Hear me

well, my friend,’ Bhelliom continued, ‘should it come to pass

that no other course be open to thee, fear not to surrender me

up to obtain thy mate’s freedom.’

‘That I will not do – for she hath forbidden it.’

‘Do not be untranquil if it should come to pass, Anakha. I will

not submit to Cyrgon, even though mine own child, whom I

love,even as thou lovest thine, be endangered by my refusal.

Be comforted in the knowledge that I will not permit my child

– nor thee and all thy kind – to be enslaved by Cyrgon – or

worse yet, by Klael. Thou hast my promise that this will never

happen. Should it appear that our task doth verge on failure, I

give thee my solemn vow that I shall destroy this child of mine

and all who’ dwell here to prevent such mischance.’

‘is that supposed to make me feel better?’

CHAPTER 5

She was always tired, hovering at times on the verge of exhaustion,

and she was nearly always wet and dirty. Her clothes were

riPPed and tattered, and her hair was a ruin. Those things were

unimportant, however. She willingly submitted to discomfort

and indignities to keep the madman who was their captor from

hurting the terrified Alcan.

The realization that Scarpa was mad had come to her slowly.

She had known from the first moment she had seen him that

he was ruthless and driven, but the evidence of his insanity had

become gradually more and more overwhelming as the endless

days of her captivity ground on.

He was cruel, but Ehlana had encountered cruel men before.

After she and Alcan had been hurried through the dank tunnels

under the streets of Matherion to the outskirts of the city, they

had been roughly shoved into the saddles of waiting horses,

bound securely in place, and literally dragged at breakneck

sPeed down the road leading to the port of Micae on the southwestern

coast of the peninsula, seventy-five leagues away. A

normal man does not mistreat the animals upon which he is

totally dependent. That was the first evidence of Scarpa’s madness.

He drove the horses, flogging them savagely until the poor

beasts were staggering with exhaustion, and his only words

during those dreadful four days were, ‘Faster! Faster.’

Ehlana shuddered as she recalled the horror of that endless

ride. They had Her

horse stumbled in the muddy path, and she was jolted

forward, bringing her attention back into the immediate present.

The cord which tightly bound her wrists to the saddlebow dug

into her flesh, and the bleeding started again. She tried to ease

into a different position so that the

cord would no longer cut into the already open wounds.

‘What are you doing?’ Scarpa demanded. His voice was harsh,

and it came out almost as a scream. Scarpa almost always

SCreamed when he was talking to her.

‘i’m just trying to keep the cord from cutting deeper into

my wrists, Lord Scarpa,’ she replied meekly. She had been

instructed early in her captivity to address him so and she had

quickly found that failure to do so resulted in savage mistreatment

of Alcan and the withholding of food and water.

“you’re not here to be comfortable, woman!’ he raged at her.

“you’re here to obey! I see what you’re doing there! If you don’t

stop trying to loosen those cords, I’ll use wire!’ his eyes bulged,

and she saw again that strange, bluish cast to the whites of those

eyes and the abnormally large pupils.

‘Yes, Lord Scarpa,’ she said in ‘her most submissive tone.

He glared at her, his face filled with suspicion and his mad

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