The Hidden City
‘Yes, I can imagine,’ she murmured. Her relationship with Zalasta was peculiar. The circumstances made ranting and denunciation largely a waste of time, so Ehlana was civil to him. He appeared to be grateful for that, and his gratitude made him more open with her. That civility, which cost her nothing, enabled her to pick up much information from the Styric’s rambling conversation.
‘Anyway,’ Zalasta continued, ‘Cyzada was terrified when Cyrgon commanded him to summon Klæl, and he tried very hard to talk the God out of the notion. Cyrgon was implacable, though, and he was filled with rage when Sparhawk neatly plucked the Trolls right out of his grasp. We’d never even considered the possibility that Sparhawk might release the Troll-Gods from their confinement.’
‘That was Sir Ulath’s idea,’ Ehlana told him. ‘Ulath knows a great deal about Trolls.’
‘Evidently so. At any rate, Cyrgon forced Cyzada to summon Klæl, but Klæl no sooner appeared than he went in search of Bhelliom. That took Cyrgon aback. It had been his intention to hold Klæl in reserve – hiding, so to speak – and to unleash him by surprise. That went out the window when Klæl rushed off to the North Cape to confront Bhelliom. Sparhawk knows that Klæl is here now – although I have no idea what he can do about it. That was what made the summoning of Klæl such idiocy in the first place. Klæl can’t be controlled. I tried to explain that to Cyrgon, but he wouldn’t listen. Our goal is to gain possession of Bhelliom, and Klæl and Bhelliom are eternal enemies. As soon as Cyrgon takes Bhelliom in his hands, Klæl will attack him, and I’m fairly certain that Klæl is infinitely more powerful than he is.’ Zalasta glanced around cautiously. ‘The Cyrgai are in many ways a reflection of their God, I’m afraid. Cyrgon abhors any kind of intelligence. He’s frighteningly stupid sometimes.’
‘I hate to point this out, Zalasta,’ she said insincerely, ‘but you have this tendency to ally yourself with defectives. Annias was clever enough, I suppose, but his obsession with the Archprelacy distorted his judgment, and Martel’s drive for revenge made his thinking just as distorted. From what I gather, Otha was as stupid as a stump, and Azash was so elemental that all he had on his mind were his desires. Coherent thought was beyond him.’
‘You know everything, don’t you, Ehlana?’ he said. ‘How on earth did you find all of this out?’
‘I’m not really at liberty to discuss it,’ she replied.
‘No matter, I suppose,’ he said absently. A sudden hunger crossed his face. ‘How is Sephrenia?’ he asked.
‘Well enough. She was very upset when she first found out about you, though – and your attempt on Aphrael’s life was really ill-conceived, you know. That was the one thing that convinced her of your treachery.’
‘I lost my head,’ he confessed. ‘That cursed Delphaeic woman destroyed three hundred years of patient labor with a toss of her head.’
‘I suppose it’s none of my business, but why didn’t you just accept the fact that Sephrenia was wholly committed to Aphrael and let it go at that? There’s no way you can ever compete with the Child Goddess, you know.’
‘Could you have ever accepted the idea that Sparhawk was committed to another, Ehlana?’ His tone was accusing.
‘No,’ she admitted, ‘I suppose I couldn’t have. We do strange things for love, don’t we, Zalasta? I was at least direct about it, though. Things might have worked out differently for you if you hadn’t tried deceit and deception. Aphrael’s not completely unreasonable, you know.’
‘Perhaps not,’ he replied. Then he sighed deeply. ‘But we’ll never know, will we?’
‘No. It’s far too late now.’
‘The glazier cracked the pane when he was setting it into the frame, my Queen,’ Alean said quietly, pointing at the defective triangle of bubbled glass in the lower corner of the window. ‘He was very clumsy.’
‘How did you come to know so much about this, Alean?’ Ehlana asked her.
‘My father was apprenticed to a glazier when he was young,’ the doe-eyed girl replied. ‘He used to repair windows in our village.’ She touched the tip of the glowing poker to the bead of lead that held the cracked pane in place. ‘I’ll have to be very careful,’ she said, frowning in concentration, ‘but if I do it right, I can fix it so that we can take out this little section of glass and put it back in again. That way, we’ll be able to hear what they’re talking about out there in the street, and then we’ll be able to put the glass back in again so that they’ll never know what we’ve done. I thought you might want to be able to listen to them, and they always seem to gather just outside this window.’
‘You’re an absolute treasure, Alean!’ Ehlana exclaimed, impulsively embracing the girl.
‘Be careful, my Lady!’ Alean cried in alarm. ‘The hot iron!’
Alean was right. The window with the small defective pane was at the corner of the building, and Zalasta, Scarpa and the others were quartered in the attached structure. It appeared that whenever they wanted to discuss something out of the hearing of the soldiers, they habitually drifted to the walled-in cul-de-sac just outside the window. The small panes of cheap glass leaded into the window-frame were only semi-transparent at best, and so, with minimal caution, Alean’s modification of the cracked pane permitted Ehlana to listen and even marginally observe without being seen.
On the day following her conversation with Zalasta, she saw the white-robed Styric approaching with a look of bleakest melancholy on his face and with Scarpa and Krager close behind him. ‘You’ve got to snap out of this, Father,’ Scarpa said urgently. ‘The soldiers are beginning to notice.’
‘Let them,’ Zalasta replied shortly.
‘No, Father,’ Scarpa said in his rich, theatrical voice, ‘we can’t do that. These men are animals. They function below the level of thought. If you walk around through these streets with the face of a little boy whose dog just died, they’re going to think that something’s wrong and they’ll start deserting by the regiment. I’ve spent too much time and effort gathering this army to have you drive them away by feeling sorry for yourself.’
‘You’d never understand, Scarpa,’ Zalasta retorted. ‘You can’t even begin to comprehend the meaning of love. You don’t love anything.’
‘Oh, yes I do, Zalasta,’ Scarpa snapped. ‘I love me. That’s the only kind of love that makes any sense.’
Ehlana just happened to be watching Krager. The drunkard’s eyes were narrowed, shrewd. He casually moved his ever-present tankard around behind him and poured most of the wine out. Then he raised the tankard and drank off the dregs noisily. Then he belched. ‘Parn’me,’ he slurred, reaching out his hand to the wall to steady himself as he weaved back and forth on his feet.
Scarpa gave him a quick, irritated glance, obviously dismissing him. Ehlana, however, rather quickly reassessed Krager. He was not always nearly as drunk as he appeared to be.
‘It’s all been for nothing, Scarpa,’ Zalasta groaned. ‘I’ve allied myself with the diseased, the degenerate and the insane for nothing. I had thought that once Aphrael was gone, Sephrenia might turn to me. But she won’t. She’d die before she’ll have anything to do with me.’
Scarpa’s eyes narrowed. ‘Let her die then,’ he said bluntly. ‘Can’t you get it through your head that one woman’s the same as any other? Women are a commodity – like bales of hay or barrels of wine. Look at Krager here. How much affection do you think he has for an empty wine barrel? It’s the new ones, the full ones, that he loves, right, Krager?’
Krager smirked at him owlishly and then belched again. ‘Parn’me,’ he said.
‘I can’t really see any reason for this obsession of yours anyway,’ Scarpa continued to grind on his father’s most sensitive spot. ‘Sephrenia’s only damaged goods now. Vanion’s had her – dozens of times. Are you so poor-spirited that you’d take the leavings of an Elene?’
Zalasta suddenly smashed his fist against the stone wall with a snarl of frustration.
‘He’s probably so used to having her that he doesn’t even waste his time murmuring endearments to her any more,’ Scarpa went on. ‘He just takes what he wants from her, rolls over and starts to snore. You know how Elenes are when they’re in rut. And she’s probably no better. He’s made an Elene out of her, Father. She’s not a Styric any more. She’s become an Elene – or even worse, a mongrel. I’m really surprised to see you wasting all this pure emotion on a mongrel.’ He sneered. ‘She’s no better than my mother or my sisters, and you know what they were.’
Zalasta’s face twisted, and he threw back his head and actually howled. ‘I’d rather see her dead!’
Scarpa’s pale, bearded face grew sly. ‘Why don’t you kill her then, Father?’ he asked in an insinuating whisper. ‘Once a decent woman’s been bedded by an Elene, she can never be trusted again, you know. Even if you did persuade her to marry you, she’d never be faithful.’ He laid an insincere hand on his father’s arm. ‘Kill her, Father,’ he advised. ‘At least your memories of her will be pure; she never will be.’
Zalasta howled again and clawed at his beard with his long fingernails. Then he turned quickly and ran off down the street.
Krager straightened, and his seeming drunkenness slid away. ‘You took an awful chance there, you know,’ he said in a cautious tone.
Scarpa looked sharply at him. ‘Very good, Krager,’ he murmured. ‘You played the part of a drunkard almost to perfection.’
‘I’ve had lots of practice,’ Krager shrugged. ‘You’re lucky he didn’t obliterate you, Scarpa – or tie your guts in knots again.’
‘He couldn’t,’ Scarpa smirked. ‘I’m a fair magician myself, you know, and I’m skilled enough to know that you have to have a clear head to work the spells. I kept him in a state of rage. He couldn’t have worked up enough magic to break a spider-web. Let’s hope that he does kill Sephrenia. That should really scatter Sparhawk’s wits, not to mention the fact that as soon as the desire of his life is no more than a pile of dead meat, Zalasta’s very likely to conveniently cut his own throat.’
‘You really hate him, don’t you?’
‘Wouldn’t you, Krager? He could have taken me with him when I was a child, but he’d come to visit for a while, and he’d show me what it meant to be a Styric, and then he’d go off alone, leaving me behind to be tormented by whores. If he doesn’t have the stomach to cut his own throat, I’d be more than happy to lend him a hand.’ Scarpa’s eyes were very bright, and he was smiling broadly. ‘Where’s your wine barrel, Krager?’ he asked. ‘Right now I feel like getting drunk.’ And he began to laugh, a cackling, insane laugh empty of any mirth or humanity.
‘It’s no use!’ Ehlana said, flinging the comb across the room. ‘Look at what they’ve done to my hair!’ She buried her face in her hands and wept.
‘It’s not hopeless, my Lady,’ Alean said in her soft voice. ‘There’s a style they wear in Cammoria.’ She lifted the mass of blonde hair on the right side of Ehlana’s head and brought it over across the top. ‘You see,’ she said. ‘It covers all the bare places, and it really looks quite chic’
Ehlana looked hopefully into her mirror. ‘It doesn’t look too bad, does it?’ she conceded.
‘And if we set a flower just behind your right ear, it would really look very stunning.’
‘Alean, you’re wonderful!’ the Queen exclaimed happily. ‘What would I ever do without you?’
It took them the better part of an hour, but at last the unsightly bare places were covered, and Ehlana felt that some measure of her dignity had been restored.
That evening, however, Krager came to call. He stood swaying in the doorway, his eyes bleary and a drunken smirk on his face. ‘Harvest-time again, Ehlana,’ he announced, drawing his dagger. ‘It seems that I’ll need just a bit more of your hair.’
Chapter 6
The sky remained overcast, but as luck had it, it had not yet rained. The stiff wind coming in off the Gulf of Micae was raw, however, and they rode with their cloaks wrapped tightly about them. Despite Khalad’s belief that it was to their advantage to move slowly, Berit was consumed with impatience. He knew that what they were doing was only a small part of the overall strategy, but the confrontation they all knew was coming loomed ahead, and he desperately wanted to get on with it. ‘How can you be so patient?’ he asked Khalad about mid-afternoon one day when the onshore wind was particularly chill and damp.
‘I’m a farmer, Sparhawk,’ Khalad replied, scratching at his short black beard. ‘Waiting for things to grow teaches you not to expect changes overnight.’
‘I suppose I’ve never really thought about what it must be like just sitting still waiting for things to sprout.’
‘There’s not much sitting still when you’re a farmer,’ Khalad told him. ‘There are always more things to do than there are hours in the day, and if you get bored, you can always keep a close watch on the sky. A whole year’s work can be lost in a dry-spell or a sudden hailstorm.’
‘I hadn’t thought about that either.’ Berit mulled it over. ‘That’s what makes you so good at predicting the weather, isn’t it?’
‘It helps.’
‘There’s more to it than that, though. You always seem to know about everything that’s going on around you. When we were on that log-boom, you knew instantly when there was the slightest change in the way it was moving.’
‘It’s called “paying attention”, my Lord. The world around you is screaming at you all the time, but most people can’t seem to hear it. That really baffles me. I can’t understand how you can miss so many things.’
Berit was just slightly offended by that. ‘All right, what’s the world screaming at you right now that I can’t hear?’
‘It’s telling me that we’re going to need some fairly substantial shelter tonight. We’ve got bad weather coming.’
‘How did you arrive at that?’
Khalad pointed. ‘You see those seagulls?’ he asked.
‘Yes. What’s that got to do with it?’
Khalad sighed. ‘What do seagulls eat, my Lord?’
‘Just about everything – fish mostly, I suppose.’
‘Then why are they flying inland? They aren’t going to find very many fish on dry land, are they? They’ve seen something they don’t like out there in the gulf and they’re running away from it. Just about the only thing that frightens a seagull is wind – and the high seas that go with it. There’s a storm out to sea, and it’s coming this way. That’s what the world’s screaming at me right now.’
‘It’s just common sense then, isn’t it?’
‘Most things are, Sparhawk – common sense and experience.’ Khalad smiled slightly. I can still feel Krager’s Styric out there watching us. If he isn’t paying any more attention than you were just now, he’s probably going to spend a very miserable night.’
Berit grinned just a bit viciously. ‘Somehow that information fails to disquiet me,’ he said.
It was more than a village, but not quite a town. It had three streets, for one thing, and at least six buildings of more than one story, for another. The streets were muddy, and pigs roamed freely. The buildings were made primarily of wood and they were roofed with thatch. There was an inn on what purported to be the main street. It was a substantial-looking building, and there were a pair of rickety wagons with dispirited mules in their traces out front. Ulath reined in the weary old horse he had bought in the fishing village. ‘What do you think?’ he said to his friend.
‘I thought you’d never ask,’ Tynian replied.
‘Let’s go ahead and take a room as well,’ Ulath suggested. The afternoon’s wearing on anyway, and I’m getting tired of sleeping on the ground. Besides, I’m a little overdue for a bath.’
Tynian looked toward the starkly outlined peaks of the Tamul Mountains lying some leagues to the west. ‘I’d really hate to keep the Trolls waiting, Ulath,’ he said with mock seriousness.
‘It’s not as if we had a definite appointment with them. Trolls wouldn’t notice anyway. They’ve got a very imprecise notion of time.’
They rode on into the innyard, tied their horses to a rail outside the stable and went on into the inn.
‘We need a room,’ Ulath told the innkeeper in heavily accented Tamul.
The innkeeper was a small, furtive-looking man. He gave them a quick, appraising glance, noting the bits and pieces of army uniform that made up most of their dress. His expression hardened with distaste. Soldiers are frequently unwelcome in rural communities for any number of very good reasons. ‘Well,’ he replied in a whining, sing-song sort of voice, ‘I don’t know. It’s our busy season -’
‘Late autumn?’ Tynian broke in skeptically. ‘That’s your busy season?’
‘Well – there are all the wagoneers who can come by at any time, you know.’
Ulath looked beyond the innkeeper’s shoulder into the low, smoky taproom. ‘I count three,’ he said flatly.
There are bound to be more along shortly,’ the fellow replied just a bit too quickly.
‘Of course there are,’ Tynian said sarcastically. ‘But we’re here now, and we’ve got money. Are you going to gamble a sure thing against the remote possibility that some wagon might stop here along about midnight?’
‘He doesn’t want to do business with a couple of pensioned-off veterans, Corporal,’ Ulath said. ‘Let’s go talk with the local commissioner. I’m sure he’ll be very interested in the way this fellow treats his Imperial Majesty’s soldiers.’
‘I’m his Imperial Majesty’s loyal subject,’ the innkeeper said quickly, ‘and I’ll be honored to have brave veterans of his army under my roof.’
‘How much?’ Tynian cut him off.
‘A half-crown?’
‘He doesn’t seem very certain, does he, Sergeant?’ Tynian asked his friend. I think you misunderstood,’ he said then to the nervous innkeeper. ‘We don’t want to buy the room. We just want to rent it for one night.’
Ulath was staring hard at the now-frightened little Tamul. ‘Eight pence,’ he countered with a note of finality.
‘Eight?’ the innkeeper objected in a shrill voice.
‘Take it or leave it – and don’t be all day about it. We’ll need a little daylight to find the Commissioner.’
‘You’re a hard man, Sergeant.’
‘Nobody ever promised you that life would be easy, did they?’ Ulath counted out some coins and jingled them in his hand. ‘Do you want these or not?’
After a moment of agonized indecision, the innkeeper reluctantly took the coins.
‘You took all the fun out of that, you know,’ Tynian complained as the two went back out to the stable to see to their horses.
‘I’m thirsty,’ Ulath shrugged. ‘Besides, a couple of ex-soldiers would know in advance exactly how much they were willing to pay, wouldn’t they?’ He scratched at his face. ‘I wonder if Sir Gerda would mind if I shaved off his beard,’ he mused. This thing itches.’
‘It’s not really his face, Ulath. It’s still yours. You’ve just been modified to look like him.’
‘Yes, but when the ladies switch our faces back, they’ll use this one as a model for Gerda, and when they’re done, he’ll be standing there with a naked face. He might object.’
They unsaddled their horses, put them into stalls and went on into the taproom. Tamul drinking establishments were arranged differently from those owned by Elenes. The tables were much lower, for one thing, and here the room was heated by a porcelain stove rather than a fireplace. The stove smoked as badly as a fireplace, though. Wine was served in delicate little cups and ale in cheap tin tankards. The smell was much the same, however.
They were just starting on their second tankard of ale when an officious-looking Tamul in a food-spotted wool mantle came into the room and walked directly to their table. ‘I'll have a look at your release papers, if you don’t mind,’ he told them in a loftily superior tone.
‘And if we do?’ Ulath asked.
The official blinked. ‘What?’
‘You said if we don’t mind. What if we do mind?’
‘I have the authority to demand to see those documents.’
‘Why did you ask, then?’ Ulath reached inside his red uniform jacket and took out a dog-eared sheet of paper. ‘In our old regiment, men in authority never asked.’
The Tamul read through the documents Oscagne had provided them as a part of their disguise. These seem to be in order,’ he said in a more conciliatory tone. ‘Sorry I was so abrupt. We’ve been told to keep our eyes out for deserters – all the turmoil, you understand. I guess the army looks a lot less attractive when there’s fighting in the wind.’ He looked at them a bit wistfully. ‘I see you were stationed in Matherion.’
Tynian nodded. ‘It was good duty – a lot of inspections and polishing, though. Sit down, Commissioner.’
The Tamul smiled faintly. ‘Deputy-Commissioner, I’m afraid, Corporal. This backwater doesn’t rate a full Commissioner.’ He slid into a chair. ‘Where are you men bound?’
‘Home,’ Ulath said, ‘back to Verel in Daconia.’
‘You’ll forgive my saying so, Sergeant, but you don’t look all that much like a Dacite.’
Ulath shrugged. I take after my mother’s family. She was an Astel before she married my father. Tell me, Deputy-Commissioner, would we save very much time if we went straight on across the Tamul Mountains to reach Sopal? We thought we’d catch a ferry or some trading ship there, go across the Sea of Arjun to Tiana and then ride on down to Saras. It’s only a short way from there to Verel.’
‘I’d advise staying out of the Tamul Mountains, my friends.’
‘Bad weather?’ Tynian asked him.
‘That’s always possible at this time of year, Corporal, but there have been some disturbing reports coming out of those mountains. It seems that the bears up there have been breeding like rabbits. Every traveler who’s come through here in the past few weeks reports sighting the brutes. Fortunately they all run away.’
‘Bears, you say?’
The Tamul smiled. ‘I’m translating. The ignorant peasants around here use the word “monster”, but we all know what a large, shaggy creature who lives alone in the mountains is, don’t we?’
‘Peasants are an excitable lot, aren’t they?’ Ulath laughed, draining his tankard. ‘We were out on a training exercise once, and this peasant came running up to us claiming that he was being chased by a pack of wolves. When we went out to take a look, it turned out to be one lone fox. The size and number of any wild animal a peasant sees seems to grow with each passing hour.’
‘Or each tankard of ale,’ Tynian added.
They talked with the now-polite official for a while longer, and then the man wished them a good journey and left.
‘Well, it’s nice to know that the Trolls made it this far south,’ Ulath said. ‘I’d hate to have to go looking for them.’
‘Their Gods were guiding them, Ulath,’ Tynian pointed out.
‘You’ve never talked with the Troll-Gods, I see,’ Ulath laughed. ‘Their sense of direction is a little vague – probably because their compass only has two directions on it.’
‘Oh?’
‘North and not-north. It makes finding places a little difficult.’
The storm was one of those short, savage gales that seem to come out of nowhere in the late autumn. Khalad had dismissed the possibility of finding any kind of shelter in the salt marshes and had turned instead to the beach. At the head of a shallow inlet he had found the mountain of driftwood he’d been seeking. A couple of hours of fairly intense labor had produced a snug, even cozy little shelter on the leeward side of the pile. The gale struck just as the last light was fading. The wind screamed through the huge pile of driftwood. The surf crashed and thundered against the beach, and the rain sheeted horizontally across the ground in the driving wind.
Khalad and Berit, however, were warm and dry. They sat with their backs against the huge, bleached-white log that formed the rear wall of their shelter and their feet stretched out toward their crackling fire.