we go through the charcoal yards, we’ll come to the woods,’ he
told her. ‘Are you sure this noise that I can’t hear will be loud
enough to hide your spells?’
‘I’ll see if I can get some help. I just thought of something.
Cyrgon doesn’t know exactly where I am, and it’ll take him a
little while to identify me and pinpoint my exact location. I’ll
ask some of the others to come here and have a party or something.
If they’re loud enough, and if I move fast enough, he
won’t even know that I’ve been here.’
There were only a few workmen tending the sullen fires in
the charcoal yards that ringed Beresa, incurious men, blackened
by their tasks and far gone with drink, who lurched around
the smoky flames like hellish imps dancing on eternal coals.
Sparhawk walked even faster now, carrying the distraught Child
Goddess toward the shadowy edge of the tangled forest.
‘I’ll need to be able to see the sky,’ she told him. ‘I don’t
want any tree-limbs in my way.’ She paused. ‘Are you afraid of
heights?’ she asked.
‘Not particularly, why?’
“Just asking. Don’t get excited when we start. I won’t let anything
happen to you. You’ll be perfectly safe as long as I’m
holding your hand.’ She paused again. ‘Oh, dear,’ she murmured. ‘I
just remembered something.’
‘What?’ He pushed aside a branch and slipped past it into the
darkness of the forest.
‘I have to be real when I do this.’
‘What do you mean “real? you’re real now, aren’t you?’
‘Not exactly. Don’t ask questions, Sparhawk. Just find me a
patch of open sky and don’t bother me for a while. I have to
appeal for some help – if I can find them.’
He pushed through the tangled brush, a cold knot in his
stomach and his heart like a stone in his chest. The hideous
dilemma they faced tore at him, seeming almost to rip him apart.
Sephrenia was dying, but he must endanger Ehlana in order
to save her life. It was only the force of Bhelliom’s will that
kept him moving at all. His own will was paralyzed by the conflicting
needs of the two he loved most in all the world. He
pushed at the tangle surrounding him in a kind of hopeless
frustration.
Then he broke through the screen of brush into a small clearing
carpeted by deep moss where a pool of water fed by a gurgling
spring winked back at the stars strewn like bright grain
across the velvet night. It was a quiet place, almost enchanted,
but his eyes refused to accept its beauty. He stopped and set
Aphrael down. Her small face was devoid of expression, and
her eyes were blank, unseeing. Sparhawk waited tensely.
‘Well, finally.’ she said at last in an exasperated tone of voice.
‘it’s so hard to explain anything to them. They never stop bahbling
long enough to listen.’
‘Who’s this we’re talking about?’
‘The Tamul Gods. Now I can see why Oscagne’s an atheist
I finally persuaded them to come here to do their playing. That
should help to hide you and me from Cyrgon.’
‘Playing?’
‘They’re children, Sparhawk, babies who run and play and
squeal and chase each other for months on end. Cyrgon absolutely
hates them, so he won’t go anywhere near them. That
should help. They’ll be here in a few minutes, and then we’ll
be able to start. Turn your back, Father. I don’t like having
people watch me change.’
‘i’ve seen you before – your reflection anyway.”
‘That part doesn’t bother me. The process of the changeover’s
a little degrading, though. Just turn your back, Father. You
wouldn’t understand.’
He obediently turned and gazed up at the night sky. Several
familiar constellations were either missing or in the wrong
places.
‘All right, Father, you can turn around now.’ Her voice was
richer and more vibrant.
He turned. ‘Would you please put some clothes on?’
‘Why?’
“just do it, Aphrael. Humor my quirks.’
‘This is so tedious.’ She reached out and took hold of a gauzy
kind of veil she had spun out of nothing and wrapped herself
in it. ‘Better?’ she asked.
‘Not much. Can we leave now?’
‘I’ll check.’ Her eyes went distant for a moment. ‘They’re
coming,’ she reported. ‘They got side-tracked. It doesn’t take
much to distract them. Now, listen very carefully. Try to stay
calm when we do this. Just keep the fact firmly in mind that I’m
not going to let you get hurt. You won’t fall.’
‘Fall? Fall from where? What are you talking about?’
‘You’ll see. I’d do it differently, but we have to get to Dirgis
in a hurry, and I don’t want Cyrgon to have time to locate me.
We’ll take it in easy stages at first, so you’ll have time to get
used to the idea.’ She turned her head slightly. ‘They’re here,’
she said. ‘We can start now.’
Sparhawk cocked his head slightly. He seemed to hear the distant
sound of childish laughter, though it might have been only
the sound of an errant breeze rustling the leaves in the treetops.
‘Give me your hand,’ she instructed.
He reached out and took her by the hand. It seemed very
warm and somehow comforting.
“Just look up at the sky, Sparhawk,’ the heartbreakingly
beautiful young woman instructed.
He raised his face and saw the upper edge of the moon come
creeping pale and luminous up above the treetops.
“you can look down now.’
They were standing some ten feet above the rippled waters
of the pool. Sparhawk’s muscles tensed.
‘Don’t do that!’ she said sharply. ‘Just relax. You’ll slow us
down if I have to drag you through the air like a water-logged
cat. he tried, but he didn’t have much success. He was certain
that his eyes were lying to him, though. He could feel solidity
under his feet. He stamped on it, and it was as firm as earth
ought to be.
‘That’s just for now,’ the Goddess told him. ‘In a little while
you won’t need it any more. I always have to put something
solid down for Sephrenia -‘ Her voice broke off with a strange
little sob. ‘please get control of yourself, Sparhawk,’ she pleaded.
‘We must hurry. Look at the sky again. We’re going a little
higher.’ He felt nothing at all, no rush of air, no sinking in the pit of
his stomach, but when he looked down again, the clearing and
its enchanted pool had shrunk to a dot. The tiny lights of Beresa
twinkled from minuscule windows, and the moon had laid a
long, glowing path out across the Tamul Sea.
‘Are you all right!’ Her inflections were still Aphrael’s, but
her voice, and most definitely her appearance, were totally different.
Her face peculiarly combined Flute’s features with
Danae’s, making her the adult who had somehow been both
little girls. Sparhawk didn’t answer, but instead stood stamping
one foot on the solid nothing under him.
‘I won’t be able to keep that there when we start,’ she warned.
‘We’ll be going too fast. Just hold onto my hand, but don’t get
excited and break my fingers. ‘
‘Don’t do anything to surprise me, then. Are you going to
sprout wings?’
‘What an absurd idea. I’m not a bird, Sparhawk. Wings would
only get in my way. Just lean back and relax.’ She looked intently
at him. ‘You’re really handling this well. Sephrenia’s usually in
hysterics at this point. Would you be more at ease if you sat
down?’
‘On what?’
‘Never mind. Maybe we’d better stand. Take a couple of deep
breaths, and let’s get started.’
He found that looking up helped. When he was looking at
the stars and the newly risen moon, he could not see the awful
emptiness under him.
There was no sense of movement, no whistle of the wind in
his ears, no flapping of his cloak. He stood holding Aphrael’s
hand and looking intently at the moon as it receded ponderously
southward. Then there was a pale luminosity coming up from beneath them.
‘Oh, bother,’ the Goddess said.
“What’s wrong?’ His voice was a little shrill.
“look down.”
He looked down and saw a fairy-tale world under them.
cloud, glowing in the moonlight, stretched out
as if forever. Mountains of airy mist swelled up from a folded,
insubstantial plain, and pillars and castles of curded cloud stood
sentinel-like between. Sparhawk’s mind filled with wonder as
the soft, moonlit cloudscape flowed smoothly back below them.
‘beautiful,’ he murmured.
“maybe, but I can’t see the ground.’
I think I prefer it that way.’
I need reference points, Sparhawk. I can’t see where I am,
so I can’t tell where I’m going. Bhelliom can find a place with
nothing but a name to work with, but I can’t. I need landmarks,
and I can’t see them with all these clouds in the way.’
Why don’t you use the stars?’