The Hidden City by David Eddings

‘Of course. if things go against us, I’d like to have you available

to speak out in my behalf when the trials start.’

‘That wouldn’t do any good, I’m afraid,’ she told him sweetly.

‘There won’t be any trial for you, Krager. Sparhawk’s already

given you to Khalad and Khalad’s already made up his mind.’

‘Khalad?’ Krager’s voice sounded a little weak.

‘Kurik’s oldest son. He seems to feel that you had some part

in his father’s death, and he feels obliged to do something about

it. I suppose you could try to talk him out of it, but I’d advise

you to talk fast if you do. Khalad’s a very abrupt young man,

and he’ll probably have you hanging from a meat-hook before

you get out three words.’

Krager didn’t answer, but slipped away instead, his shaved

scalp pale in the darkness. It wasn’t much of a victory, Ehlana

privately conceded, but in her situation victories of any kind

were very hard to come by.

‘They actually do that?’ Scarpa’s harsh voice was hungry.

‘it’s an old custom, Lord Scarpa,’ Ehlana replied in a meek

voice, keeping her eyes downcast as they plodded along the

muddy path. ‘Emperor Sarabian is planning to discontinue the

practice, however.’

‘It will be reinstituted immediately following my coronation.’

Scarpa’s eyes were very bright. ‘It is a proper form of respect.’

Scarpa had an old purple velvet cloak, shiny with wear, that he

had dramatically pulled over one shoulder in a grotesque imitation

of an imperial mantle, and he struck absurd poses with each

pronouncement.

‘As you say, Lord Scarpa.’ It was tedious to go over the same

things again and again, but it kept Scarpa’s mind occupied, and

when his attention was firmly fixed on the ceremonies and practices

of the imperial court in Matherion he was not thinking of

ways to make life unbearable for his captives.

‘Describe it again,’ he commanded. ‘I’ll need to know precisely

how it’s supposed to be done – so that I can punish those who

fail to perform it properly.’

Ehlana sighed. ‘At the approach of the imperial person, the

members of the court kneel ‘O

n both knees?’

‘Yes, Lord Scarpa.’

‘Excellent. excellent!’ His face was exalted. ‘Go on.’

‘Then, as the emperor passes, they lean forward, put the

palms of their hands on the floor and touch their foreheads to

the tiles.’

‘Capital!’ ~He suddenly giggled, a high-Pitched, almost girlish

sound that startled her. She gave him a quick, sidelong glance.

His face was grotesquely distorted into an expression of unholy

exaltation. And then his eyes grew wide and his expression

became one of near-religious ecstasy. ‘And the Tamuls who rule

the world shall be ruled by me!’ he intoned in a resonant,

declamatory voice. ‘All power shall be mine. the governance of

the world shall be in my hands, and disobedience will be death!’

Ehlana shuddered as he raved on.

And he came to her again as humid night settled over their

muddy forest encampment, drawn to her by a hunger, a greed,

that was beyond his ability to control. It was revolting, but

Ehlana realized that her knowledge of the particulars of traditional

court ceremonies gave her an enormous power over

him. His hunger was insatiable, and only she could satisfy it.

She grasped that power firmly, drawing strength and confidence

from it, actually relishing it even as Krager and the others withdrew

with expressions of frightened revulsion.

‘Nine wives, you say?’ Scarpa’s voice was almost Pleading.

‘Why not ninety? Why not nine hundred?’

‘It is the custom, Lord Scarpa. The reason for it should be

obvious.’

‘Oh, of course, of course.’ He brooded darkly over it. ‘I shall

have nine thousand!’ he proclaimed. ‘And each shall be more

desirable than the last. And when I have finished with them,

they shall be given to my loyal soldiers. Let no woman dare to

believe that my favor in any way empowers her. all women are

only whores. I shall buy them and throw them away when I tire

of them!’ his mad eyes bulged, and he stared into the camPfire.

The flickering flames reflected in those eyes seemed to seethe

like the madness that lay behind them.

he leaned toward her, laying a confiding hand on her arm.

‘I have seen that which others are too stupid to see,’ he told

her. ‘Others look, but they do not see – but I see. Oh, yes, I

see very well. They are all in it together, you know – all

of them. They watch me. They have always watched me. I can

never get away from their eyes – watching, watching, watching

_ and talking – talking behind their hands, breathing their cinnamon

-scented breath into each other’s faces. All foul and corrupt

– scheming, plotting against me, trying to bring me down. Their

eyes – all soft and hidden and veiled with the lashes that hide

the daggers of their hatred, watching, watching, watching.’ His

voice sank lower and lower. ‘And talking, talking behind their

hands so that I can’t hear what they’re saying. Whispering. I

hear it always. I hear the hissing susurration of their endless

whispering. Their eyes following me wherever I go – and their

laughing and whispering. I hear the hiss, hiss of their whispering endless

whisper – always my name – Ssscar-pa, Ssscar-pa,

Ssscar-pa, again and again, hissing in my ears. Flaunting their

rounded limbs and rolling their soot-lined eyes. Plotting, scheming

with the endless hissing whispers, always seeking ways to

hurt me. Ssscar-pa, Ssscar-pa, trying to humiliate me.’ His bluetinged

eyeballs were starting from his face, and his lips and

beard were flecked with foam. ‘I was nothing. They made me

nothing. They called me Selga’s bastard and gave me pennies

to lead them to the beds of my mother and my sisters and cuffed

me and spat on me and laughed at me when I cried and they

lusted after my mother and my sisters and all around me the

hissing in my ears – and I smell the sound – that sweet cloying

sound of rotten flesh and stale lust all purple and writhing with

the liquid hiss of their whispers and -‘

Then his mad eyes filled with terror, and he cringed back from

her and fell, grovelling in the mud. ‘Please, Mother!’ he wailed.

‘I didn’t do it! Silbie did it! pleasepleascplease don’t lock me in

there again. please not in the dark. pleasepleaseplease not in the

dark. not in the dark!’ And he scrambled to his feet and fled

back into the forest with his ‘Pleasepleaseplease’ echoing back

in a long, dying fall.

Ehlana was suddenly overcome with a wrenching, unbearable

pity and she bowed her head and wept.

Zalasta was waiting for them in Natayos. The sixteenth and

early seventeenth centuries had seen a flowering of Arjuni

civilization, a flowering financed largely by the burgeoning

slave-trade. An ill-advised slave-raid into southern Atan, however,

coupled with a number of gross policy blunders by the

Tamul administrators of that regioN had unleashed an uncontrolled

Atan punitive expedition. Natayos had been a virtual

%Ssm of a city with stately buildings and broad avenues. It was

now a forgotten ruin buried in the jungle, its tumbled buildings

snarled in ropelike vines, its stately halls now the home of

chattering monkeys and brightly colored tropical birds, and its

darker recesses inhabited by snakes and the scurrying rats which

were their prey.

But now humans had returned to Natayos. Scarpa’s army was

quartered there, and Arjunis, Cynesgans, and rag-tag battalions

of Elenes had cleared the quarter near the ancient city’s northern

gate of vines, trees, monkeys and reptiles in order to make it

semi-habitable.

Zalasta stood leaning on his staff at the half-fallen gate, his

silvery-bearded face drawn with fatigue and a look of hopeless

pain in his eyes. His first reaction when his son arrived with

the captives was one of rage. He snarled at Scarpa in Styric, a

language that seemed eminently suited for reprimand and one

which Ehlana did not understand. She took no small measure

of satisfaction, however, in the look of sullen apprehension that

crossed Scarpa’s face. For all his blustering and airs of preeminent

superiority, Scarpa still appeared to stand in a certain

awe and fear of the ancient Styric who had incidentally sired

him.

Once, and only once, apparently stung by something Zalasta

said to him in a tone loaded with contempt, Scarpa drew himself

up and snarled a reply. Zalasta’s reaction was immediate and

savage. He sent his son reeling with a heavy blow of his staff,

then leveled its polished length at him, muttered a few words,

and unleashed a fiery spot of light from the tip of the staff. The

burning spot struck the still-staggering Scarpa in the belly, and

he doubled over sharply, clawing at his stomach and shrieking

in agony. He fell onto the muddy earth, kicking and convulsing

as Zalasta’s spell burned into him. His father, the deadly staff