large, almost luminous eyes. ‘Ah, there you are, gentlemen,’ he
said urbanely in flawless Elenic. ‘i’ve been looking all over for
%you.’ He glanced around. ‘This is a really it)retclied place, don’t
you think? Exactly the sort of place you’d expect the Cyrgai to
inhabit. Cyrgon’s terribly warped. He adores ugliness. Have you
ever met him? Frightful fellow. No sense of beauty whatsoever.’
He smiled, a radiant, slightly vague smile. ‘My cousin Aphrael
sent me. She’d have come herself, but she’s a little busy right
now – but then, Aphrael’s always busy isn’t she? She can’t
stand to just sit quietly.’ He frowned. ‘She wanted me to tell
you something.’ His frown intensified. ‘What was it now? I have
the worst memory lately.’ He held up one hand. ‘No,’ he said,
‘don’t tell me. It’ll come to me in a moment. It’s terribly important,
though, and we’re supposed to hurry. I’ll probably
think of it as we go along.’ He looked around. ‘Do you gentlemen
by any chance happen to kn’ow which way we’re
supposed to go?’
‘It won’t work, Aphrael,’ Kalten said morosely. ‘i’ve tried it when
I was dead drunk and the same thing happens. I go crazy when
I feel the water closing over my head.’
‘Just try it, Kalten,’ the minimally dressed Goddess urged. ‘It
really will relax you.’ She pushed the tankard into his hand.
He sniffed suspiciously. ‘It smells good. What is it?’
‘We drink it at parties.”
‘The beer of the Gods?’ His eyes brightened. ‘Well, now.” He
took a cautious sip. ‘Well now,”he said enthusiastically. ‘That’s
the way it’s supposed to taste.’
‘Drink it all.’ she instructed, watching him intently.
‘Gladly. ‘ He drained the tankard and wiped his lips. ‘That’s
really good. If a man had the recipe for that, he could -‘ he broke
off, ‘his eyes Blazed.
‘Lay him down,’ Aphrael ordered. ‘Quickly, before he stiffens
up. I don’t want him all twisted into a pretz’el when I drag him
through the tunnel.’
Talen was doubled over with both hands tightly over his
mouth to stifle his laughter.
‘What’s your problem?’ the Goddess demanded tartly.
‘Nothing,’ he gasped.”Nothing at all.’
‘i’ve got a long way to go with that one,’ Aphrael muttered
to Sparhawk.
‘is this going to work?’ Sparhawk asked her. ‘Kalten, I mean?
Can you really drag an unconscious man underwater for any
distance without drowning him?’
‘i’ll stop his breathing.’ She looked around at the others. ‘I
don’t want any of you to try to help me,’ she cautioned. ‘You
just concentrate on getting through yourselves. I don’t have to
breathe, but you do, and I don’t want to have to spend an hour
fishing you out of that pool one by one after we get there. Now,
does anybody else have any problems you haven’t told me about?
This is the time to talk about them – before we’re all under water.
She looked pointedly at Bevier. ‘is there something you’d like to
tell me, Sir Knight? You seem to be having a crisis of some sort.
‘It’s nothing, Divine One,’ he mumbled. ‘i’ll be fine. I swim
like a fish.’ He deliberately avoided looking at her.
‘What’s bothering you, then?’
‘i’d really rather not say.’
She sighed. ‘Men.’ Then she climbed into the shaft leading
down toward the unseen water rushing toward the inner wall.
‘Bring Kalten,’ she ordered, ‘and let’s get at this.
‘i’d really like to do something about that,’ Sephrenia murmured
to Vanion as they peered over the top of the gravel mound at
the encampment of the slavers.
‘So would I, love,’ Vanion replied, ‘but I think we’d better
wait until later. If everything goes the way it’s supposed to,
we’ll be waiting for them when they reach Cyrga.’ He raised
himself a bit higher. ‘I think that’s the salt-flats just beyond that
trail they’re following.’
‘We’ll be able to tell for certain when the moon rises,’ she
replied.
‘Have you heard anything at all from Aphrael?’
‘Nothing I can make any sense of. The echoes are very confusing
when she’s in two places at the same time. I gather that
things are coming to a head in Matherion, and she and Sparhawk
are swimming.’
‘Swimming? This is a desert, Sephrenia.”
‘Yes, I noticed that. They’ve found something to swim in,
though.’ She paused. ‘Does Kalten know how to swim?’ she
asked.
‘He splashes a great deal, but he manages to drag himself
through the water. I wouldn’t call him graceful, by any means.
Why do you ask?’
‘She’s having some sort of problems with him, and it has to
do with swimming. Let’s go back and join the others, dear one.
just the sight of those slavers is setting my blood to boiling.’
They slid back down the gravel-strewn mound and walked
along a shallow gully toward their armored soldiers.
The Cyrinic knight, Sir Launesse, stood somewhat diffidently
beside a burly, intricately curled and massively eyebrowed
personage with heavy shoulders and a classical demeanor.
‘Sephrenia!’ the clearly non-human being said in a voice that
could probably have been heard in Thalesia. ‘Well-met!’
‘Well-met indeed, Divine Romalic,’ she replied with just a
trace of a weary sigh.
‘Please, dear,’ Vanion murmured, ‘ask him to lower his voice.’
‘Nobody else can hear him,’ she assured him. ‘The Gods speak
loudly – but only to certain ears.’
‘Thy sister bids me give thee greetings,’ Romalic announced
in a voice of thunder.
‘Thou art kind to bear those greetings, Divine One.
‘Kindness and courtesy aside, Sephrenia,’ the huge God
declaimed, combing his beard with enormous fingers, ‘art thou
yet prepared to serve us all and to assume thy proper place?’
‘I am unworthy, Divine One,’ she replied modestly. ‘Surely
there are others wiser and better suited.’
‘What’s this?’ Vanion asked.
‘It’s been going on for a long time, dear one,’ she explained.
‘i’ve been avoiding it for centuries. Romalic always has to bring
it up, though.’
It all fell into place in Vanion’s mind. ‘Sephrenia.’ he gasped.
They want you to be Over-Priestess, don’t they?’
‘It’s Aphrael, Vanion, not me. They think they can get around
her by offering this to me. I don’t really want it, and they don’t
really want to give it to me, but they’re afraid of her, and this
is their way to placate her.’
‘Aphrael bids thee to make haste,’ Romalic proclaimed. ‘Ye
must all be at the gates of Cyrga ere dawn, for this is the night
of decision, when Cyrgon and, yea, even klael, must be confronted
and, we may hope, confounded. E’en now doth Anakha
move ghost-like through the streets of the Hidden City towards
his design. Let us hasten.’ He lifted his voice and thundered,
‘On to Cyrga!’
‘is he always like this?’ Vanion murmured.
‘Romalic?’ Sephrenia said. ‘Oh, yes. He’s perfectly suited to
the Cyrinic Knights. Come along, dear one. Let’s go to Cyrga.’
There were dim, flickering lights far above, but the pool was
sunk in inky blackness when Sparhawk surfaced and explosively
blew out the breath he had been holding.
‘Kalten,’ he heard Aphrael saying, ‘wake up.’
There was a startled cry and a great deal of splashing.
‘Oh, stop that,’ the Goddess told Sparhawk’s friend. ‘It’s all
over, and you came through it just fine. Xanetia, dear, could we
have a little light?’
‘Of a certainty, Divine One,’ the Anarae replied, and her face
began to glow.
‘Are we all here?’ Aphrael asked quietly, looking around. As
Xanetia’s light gradually increased, Sparhawk saw that the Goddess
appeared to be no more than waist-deep in the pool, and
she was holding Kalten up by the back of his tunic.
‘Do you want to give me a hand with this, Sparhawk?’ Bevier
said.
‘Right.’ Sparhawk swam over to join the Cyrinic, and together
they hauled in the slender rope Bevier had trailed behind him
as they had come through the tunnel. At the other end of the
rope were their tightly-bundled mail-shirts and swords.
‘Wait a minute,’ Bevier said when the rope suddenly went
taut. ‘It’s caught on something.’ He drew in several deep
breaths, plunged under the surface, and went hand-over-hand
back along the rope. Sparhawk waited, unconsciously holding his own breath.
Then the rope came free, and he hauled it in quiclly. Bevier
Popped to the surface again, blowing out air.
‘Are you sure you aren’t part fish?’ SParhawk asked him.
‘i’ve always had good lungs,’ Bevier replied. ‘Do you think
we should get out our swords?’
‘Let’s see what Aphrael says first,’ Sparhawk decided, peering
around. ‘I don’t see any place to climb up out of the water yet.’
‘Now what?’ Talen was asking the Goddess. ‘We’re swimming
around at the bottom of a well here.’ He looked up at the sheer
sides of the shaft rising from the pool. ‘There are some openings
up there, but there’s no way to get to them.’
‘Did you bring it, Mirtai?’ Aphrael asked.
The giantess nodded. ”Excuse me a moment,’ she said