Now they’re supposed to go to Sepal on the coast of the Sea of
Arjun.’
Stragen swore.
‘I already said that,’ Talen told ‘him.
‘We probably should have expected it,’ Sparhawk said. ‘Krager’s
working for the other side, and he knows us well enough
to anticipate some of the things we might try to do.’ He suddenly
banged his fist into the palm of his hand. ‘I wish I could talk
with Sephrenia!’ he burst out.
“You can, as I recall,’ Stragen said. ‘Didn’t Aphrael fix it once
so that you and Sephrenia talked together when she was in
Sarsos and you were in Cimmura?’
Sparhawk suddenly felt more than a little foolish. ‘i’d forgotten
about that,’ he admitted.
‘That’s all right, old boy,’ Stragen excused him. ‘You’ve got a
lot on your mind. Why don’t you have a word with her Divine
little Whimsicality and see if she can arrange a council of war
someplace? I think it might be time for a good, old-fashioned
get-together. ‘
Sparhawk knew where he was before he even opened his eyes.
The fragrance of wildflowers and tree blossoms immediately
identified the eternal spring of Aphrael’s own private reality.
‘Art thou now awake, Anakha?’ the white deer asked him,
touching his hand with her nose. ‘
‘Yea, gentle creature,’ he replied, opening his eyes and touching
the side of her face. He was in the pavilion again and he
looked out through the open flap at the flower-studded
meadow, the sparkling azure sea, and the rainbow-colored sky
above.
‘The others do await thy coming on the eyot,’ the hind advised
him.
‘We must hasten, then,’ he said, rising from his bed. He followed
her from the pavilion out into the meadow where the
white tigress indulgently watched the awkward play of her
large-footed cubs. He rather idly wondered if these were the
same cubs she had been tending when he had first visited this
enchanted realm a half-dozen years ago.
‘Well, of course they are, Sparhawk,’ Aphrael’s voice murmured
in his ear. ‘Nothing ever changes here.’
He smiled.
The white deer led him to that beautiful, impractical boat, a
swan-necked craft with sails like wings, elaborate embellishment
and so much of its main structure above the water line that a
sneeze would have capsized it, had it existed in the real world.
‘Critic,’ Aphrael’s voice accused him.
‘it’s your dream, Divine One. You can put any impossibility
in it that you want.’
‘Oh, thank you, Sparhawk!’ she said with effusive irony.
The emerald green eyot, crowned with ancient oaks and
Aphrael’s alabaster temple, nestled in the sapphire sea, and the
swan-necked boat touched the golden beach in only minutes.
Sparhawk looked around as he stepped out onto the sand. The
disguises most of them wore in the real world had been discarded,
and they all had their own features here in this eternal
dream. Some of them had been here before. Those who had not
had expressions of bemused wonderment as they all lounged in
the lush grass that blanketed the slopes of the enchanted isle.
The Child Goddess and Sephrenia sat side by side on an alabaster
bench in the temple. Aphrael’s expression was pensive,
and she was playing a complex Styric melody in a minor key on
her many-chambered pipes. ‘What kept you, Sparhawk?’ she
asked, lowering the rude instrument.
“The person in charge of my travel arrangements took me on
a little side-trip,’ he replied. ‘Are we all here?’
‘Everybody who’s supposed to be. Come up here, all of you,
and let’s get started.’
They climbed up the slope to the temple.
‘Where is this place?’ Sarabian asked in an awed voice.
‘Aphrael carries it in her mind, your Majesty,’ Vanion replied.
‘She invites us here from time to time. She likes to show it off.’
‘Don’t be insulting, Vanion,’ the Child Goddess told him.
‘Well, don’t you?’
‘Of course, but it’s not nice to come right out and say it like
that.’
‘I feel different here, for some reason,’ Caalador noted. ‘Better,
somehow.’
Vanion smiled. ‘it’s a very healthy place, my friend,’ he said. ‘I
was seriously ill at the end of the Zemoch war – dying, actually.
Aphrael brought me here for a month or so, and I was disgustingly
healthy by the time I left.’
They all reached the little temple and took seats on the marble
benches lining the columned perimeter. Sparhawk looked
around, frowning. ‘Where’s Emban?’ he asked their hostess.
‘it wouldn’t have been appropriate for him to be here, Sparhawk.
Your Elene God makes exceptions in the case of the
Church Knights, but he’d probably throw a fit if I brought one
of the Patriarchs of his Church here. I didn’t invite the Atans
either – or the Peloi.’ She smiled. ‘Neither group is comfortable
with the idea of religious diversity, and this place would probably
confuse them.’ She rolled her eyes upward. ‘You wouldn’t
believe how long it took me to persuade Edaemus to permit Xanetia
to come. He doesn’t approve of me. He thinks I’m frivolous.’
‘You?’ Sparhawk feigned some surprise. ‘How could he possibly
believe something like that?’
‘Let’s get at this,’ Sephrenia said. ‘Why don’t you start, Berit?
We know generally what happened, but we don’t have any
details.’
‘Yes, Lady Sephrenia,’ the young knight replied. ‘Khalad and
I were coming down the coast, and we’d been watched from
almost the moment we came ashore. I used the spell and identified
the watcher as a Styric. He came to us after several days
and gave us another one of those notes from Krager. The note
told us to continue down the coast, but once we get past the
Tamul Mountains, we’re supposed to cut across country to Sepal
instead of continuing south. The note said that we’d get further
instructions there. It was definitely from Krager. It had another
lock of Queen Ehlana’s hair in it.’
‘i’m going to talk with Krager about that when I catch up with
him,’ Khalad said in a bleak tone of voice. ‘I want to be sure he
understands just how much we resent his even touching the
Queen’s hair. Trust me, Sparhawk. Before I’m done with him,
he’s going to regret it – profoundly.’
‘i’ve got enormous confidence in you, Khalad,’ Sparhawk
replied.
‘Oh,’ Khalad said then, ‘there’s something I almost forgot.
Does anybody know of a way to make one of our horses limp
without actually hurting him? I think Berit and I might want
to be able to slow down from time to time without causing
suspicion. An intermittently lame horse should explain it to the
people who are watching us.’
‘i’ll talk with Faran,’ Aphrael promised.
‘You won’t need to limp on your way to Sepal,’ Ulath told
Khalad. ‘Ghnomb’s going to see to it that Tynian and I are there
long before you arrive. You might be able to see us when you
get there, but you might not. I’m having a little trouble explaining
some things to the Troll-Gods. We’ll be able to see you,
though. If I can’t make Ghnomb understand, I’ll slip a note in
your pocket.’
‘if we do come out in the open, you’ll just love our traveling
companion,’ Tynian laughed.
Berit gave him a puzzled look. ‘Who’s that, Sir Tynian?’
‘Bhlokw. He’s a Troll.’
‘it’s Ghnomb’s idea,’ Ulath explained. ‘I have to go through
a little ceremony before I can talk with the Troll-Gods. Bhlokw
doesn’t. It speeds up communication. Anyway, we’ll be there
and out of sight. If Scarpa and Zalasta try to make the trade
there in Sepal, we’ll step out of No-Time, grab the lot of you,
and disappear again.’
That’s assuming that they’re taking Queen Ehlana to Sepal
to make the exchange,’ Itagne said. ‘We’ve got some things that
don’t match up, though. Sir Kalten picked up a rumor that
Scarpa’s holding the Queen and her maid in Natayos.’
‘I wouldn’t want to wager the farm on it, your Excellency,
Kalten said. ‘it’s second-hand information at best. The fellow I
talked with probably isn’t bright enough to make up stories, and
he didn’t have any reason to lie to me. He got his information
from somebody else, though, and that makes the whole thing
a little wormy.’
‘You’ve put your finger on the problem, Sir Kalten,’ Sarabian
said. ‘Soldiers gossip worse than old women.’ He tugged at one
earlobe and looked up at the rainbow-colored sky. ‘The other
side knows that I wasn’t entirely dependent on the Ministry of
the Interior for information, so they’ll expect me to have ears in
Natayos. This story Sir Kalten heard could have been planted
for our benefit. Prince Sparhawk, is there any way at all you
could use Bhelliom to confirm the rumor?’
‘it’s too dangerous,’ Sephrenia said flatly. ‘Zalasta would
know immediately if Sparhawk did that.’
‘i’m not so sure, little mother,’ Sparhawk disagreed. ‘it was
just recently that we found out that the gold box doesn’t totally
isolate Bhelliom. I’m getting a strong feeling that a great deal of