Arissa fumbled at the sash about her waist, pulled out a small glass vial and struggled to pull the stopper free.
Ulath did not slow his pace.
The vial was open now, and Arissa lifted her face and drank its contents. Her body instantly stiffened, and she gave a hoarse cry. Then she fell twitching to the floor of the terrace, her face black and her tongue protruding from her mouth.
“Ulath!’ Sephrenia said to the still-advancing Thalesian.
“No. It isn’t necessary.’
‘Poison?’ he asked her.
She nodded.
“I hate poison,’ he said, stripping the blood off the edge of his axe with his thumb and forefinger. He flung the blood away and then ran a practised thumb along the edge. “It’s going to take a week to polish out all these nicks,’ he said mournfully, turning and starting back down again, leaving the Princess Arissa sprawled on the terrace above him.
Sparhawk retrieved his sword and descended. He felt very, very tired now. He wearily picked up his gauntlets and crossed the littered floor to Berit, who stood staring at him in awe. “That was a nice throw,’ he said to the young man, putting his hand on Berit’s armoured shoulder.
‘Thank you, brother.’
Berit’s smile was like the sun coming up.
“Oh, by the way,’ Sparhawk added, ‘you’d probably better go and find Bevier’s axe. He’s very fond of it.’
Berit grinned. ‘Right away, Sparhawk.’
Sparhawk looked around at the corpse-littered temple, then up through the shattered dome at the stars twinkling overhead in the cold winter sky. “Kurik,’ he said without thinking, ‘what time do you make it?’ Then he broke off as a wave of unbearable grief overwhelmed him. He steeled himself. ‘Is everybody all right?’ he asked his friends, looking around. Then he grunted, not really trusting himself to speak. He drew in a deep breath. “Let’s get out of here,’ he said gruffly.
They crossed the polished floor and went up the wide terraces to the top. Somehow in the vast upheaval of the encounter at the altar, all the statues encircling the wall had been shattered. Kalten stepped on ahead and looked up the marble stairs. “The soldiers seem to have run off,’
he reported.
Sephrenia countered the spell which had blocked the stairs and they started up.
“Sephrenia.’ The voice was hardly more than a croak.
‘She’s still alive,’ Ulath said almost accusingly.
“That happens once in a while,’ Sephrenia said. “Sometimes the’poison takes a little longer.’
‘Sephrenia, help me. Please help me.’
The small Styric woman turned and looked back across the temple at Princess Arissa,,who had weakly raised her head to plead for her life.
Sephrenia’s tone was as cold as death itself. “No, Princess,’ she replied. “I don’t think so.’ Then she turned again and went on up the stairs with Sparhawk and the rest of them close behind her.
*Chapter 31
The wind had changed at some time during the night, and it now blew steadily out of the west, bringing snow with it.
The violent thunderstorm which had engulfed the city the previous night had unroofed many houses and exploded others. The streets were littered with debris and with a thin covering of wet snow. Berit had retrieved their horses , and Sparhawk and his friends rode slowly. There was no longer any need for haste. The cart Kalten had found in a side street trundled along behind them with Talen at the reins and Bevier resting in the back with Kurik’s covered body. Kurik, Sephrenia assured them as they set out would remain untouched by the corruption which is the final destiny of all men. ‘I owe Aslade that much at least,’
she murmured, nestling her cheek against Flute’s glossy black hair. Sparhawk was a bit surprised to find that in spite of everything, he still thought of the ChildGoddess as Flute. She did not look all that much like a Goddess at the moment. She clung to Sephrenia, her face tear-streaked, and each time she opened her eyes, they were filled with horror and despair.
The Zemoch soldiers and the few remaining priests of Azash had fled the deserted city, and the slushy streets echoed with a kind of mournful emptiness. Something quite peculiar was happening to Otha’s capital. The nearly total destruction of the temple had been completely underStandable, of course. The only slightly less severe damage to the adjoining palace was probably to be expected. It was what was happening to the rest of the city that was inexplicable. The inhabitants had not really left the city that long ago, but their houses were collapsing : not all at once as might have’been expected, given the explosive nature of what had taken place in the temple, but singly or in groups of two or three. It was somehow as if the decay which overcomes any abandoned city were taking place in the space of hours instead of centuries. The houses sagged, creaked mournfully and then slowly fell in on themselves.
The city walls crumbled, and even the paving stones of the streets heaved up and then settled back, broken and scattered.
Their desperate plan had succeeded, but the cost had been beyond what any of them had been prepared to pay.
There was no sense of triumph in their success, none of that exultation warriors normally feel in a victory. It was not merely the sorrowful burden of the cart which dampened their mood, however, but something deeper.
Bevier was pale from loss of blood, but his face was profoundly troubled. ‘I still don’t understand,’ he confessed.
“Sparhawk is Anakha,’ Sephrenia replied. ‘It’s a Styric word that means “without destiny”. all men are subject to destiny, to fate – all men except Sparhawk. Somehow he moves outside destiny. We’ve known that he would come, but we didn’t know when – or even who he would be.
He’s like no other man who’s ever lived. He makes his own destiny, and his existence terrifies the Gods.’
They left the slowly collapsing city of Zemoch behind in the thickly swirling snow slanting in from the west, although they could hear the grinding rumble of falling buildings for quite some time as they rode southward along the road leading to the city of Korakach, some eighty leagues to the south. About mid-afternoon, as the snow was beginning to let up, they took shelter for the night in a deserted village. They were all very tired, and the thought of riding even one more mile was deeply repugnant to them. Ulath prepared their supper without even any attempt to resort to his usual subterfuge, and they sought their beds even before the light had begun to fade.
Sparhawk awoke suddenly, startled to find that he was in the saddle. They were riding along the brink of a wind-swept cliff with an angry sea ripping itself to tattEred froth on the rocks far below. The sky overhead was threatening, and the wind coming in off the sea had a biting chill. Sephrenia rode in the lead, and she held Flute enfolded in her arms. The others trailed along behind Sparhawk, their cloaks drawn tightly around them and wooden-faced expressions of stoic endurance on their faces. They all seemed to be there, Kalten and Kurik, Tynian and Ulath, Berit and Talen and Bevier. Their horses plodded up the winding, weather-worn trail that followed the edge of the long, ascending cliff towards a jutting promontory that thrust a crooked, stony finger out into the sea. At the outermost tip of the rocky promontory stood a gnarled and twisted tree, its streaming branches flailing in the wind.
When she reached the tree, Sephrenia reined in her horse, and Kurik walked forward to lift Flute down. The squire’s face was set, and he did not speak to Sparhawk as he passed. It seemed to Sparhawk that something was wrong – terribly wrong – but he could not exactly put his finger on it.
“Very well, then,’ the little girl said to them. “We’re here to finish this, and we don’t have all that much time.’
“Exactly what do you mean by “finish it?”’ Bevier asked her.
‘My family has agreed that we must put Bhelliom beyond the reach of men or Gods. No one must ever be able to find it or use it again. The others have given me one hour – and all of their power – to accomplish this. You may see some things that are impossible _ you may even have noticed them already. Don’t concern yourselves about them, and don’t pester me with questions. We don’t have that much time. We were ten when we set out, and we’re the same ten now. It has to be that way. ‘
“We’re going to throw it into the sea then?’ Kalten asked her.
She nodded.
“Hasn’t that been tried before?’ Ulath asked her. ‘The Earl of~Heid threw King Sarak’s crown into Lake Venne, as I recall, and Bhelliom still re-emerged. ‘