‘Did I say it wrong?’ he asked. ‘Are they called the Gibberese, or maybe the Gibberenians? – the people who speak Gibberish, I mean.’
‘Oh, Kalten,’ she laughed softly. ‘I love you.’
‘What did I say?’
Rebal’s voice had risen to a near-shriek, and he brought both arms down sharply.
There was a sudden explosion in the middle of the bonfire, and a great cloud of smoke boiled out into the clearing.
‘Herken, Maisteres alle!’ a huge voice came out of the smoke. ‘Now hath the tyme for Werre ycom. Now, be me troth, shal alle trew Edomishmen on lyve to armes! Tak ye uppe the iren swerd; gird ye your limbes alle inne the iren haubergeon and the iren helm! Smyte ye the feendes foule, which beestes derk do sette hom and fey in deedly peril. Goe ye to bataile ferse to fend the feendes of the acurset Chirche of Chyrellos! Follwe! Follwe! Follwe me, as Godes hondys yeve ye force!’
‘Old High Elenic!’ Bevier exclaimed. ‘Nobody’s spoken that tongue in thousands of years!’
‘I’d follow him, whatever tongue it is,’ Ulath rumbled. ‘He makes a good speech.’
The smoke began to thin, and a huge, ox-shouldered man wearing ancient armor and holding a mighty two-handed sword above his head appeared at Rebal’s side. ‘Havok!’ he bellowed. ‘Havok and Werre!’
Chapter 5 (#ulink_0b0898d9-1c2b-5a49-8231-490195d9fe16)
‘They’ve all gone now,’ Berit reported when he and Talen returned to the camp concealed in the narrow ravine. ‘They spent a lot of time marching around in circles shouting slogans first, though.’
‘Then the beer ran out,’ Talen added dryly, ‘and the party broke up.’ He looked at Flute. ‘Are you sure this was supposed to be important?’ he asked her. ‘It was the most contrived hoax I’ve ever seen.’
She nodded stubbornly. ‘It was important,’ she insisted. ‘I don’t know why, but it was.’
‘How did they make that big flash and all the smoke?’ Kalten asked.
‘One of the fellows near the fire threw a handful of some kind of powder onto the coals,’ Khalad said, shrugging. ‘Everybody else was watching Rebal, so they didn’t see him when he did it.’
‘Where did the one in the armor come from?’ Ulath asked.
‘He was hiding in the crowd,’ Talen explained. ‘The whole thing was at about the same level as you’d find at a country fair – one that’s held a long way from the nearest town.’
‘The one who was pretending to be Incetes gave a fairly stirring speech, though,’ Ulath noted.
‘It certainly should have been,’ Bevier smiled. ‘It was written by Phalactes in the seventh century.’
‘Who was he?’ Talen asked.
‘Phalactes was the greatest playwright of antiquity. That stirring speech came directly from one of his tragedies, Etonicus. That fellow in the antique armor substituted a few words is all. The play’s a classic. It’s still performed at universities once in a while.’
‘You’re a whole library all by yourself, Bevier,’ Kalten told him. ‘Do you remember every single thing you’ve ever read – word for word?’
Bevier laughed. ‘I wish I could, my friend. Some of my classmates and I put on a performance of Etonicus when I was a student. I played the lead, so I had to memorize that speech. The poetry of Phalactes is really very stirring. He was a great artist – Arcian, naturally.’
‘I never liked him very much,’ Flute sniffed. ‘He was as ugly as sin; he smelled like an open cesspool; and he was a howling bigot.’
Bevier swallowed hard. ‘Please don’t do that, Aphrael,’ he said. ‘It’s very unsettling.’
‘What was the story about?’ Talen asked, his eyes suddenly eager.
‘Etonicus was supposed to be the ruler of a mythic kingdom somewhere in what’s now eastern Cammoria,’ Bevier replied. ‘The legend has it that he went to war with the Styrics over religion.’
‘What happened?’ Talen’s tone was almost hungry.
‘He came to a bad end,’ Bevier shrugged. ‘It’s a tragedy, after all.’
‘But …’
‘You can read it for yourself sometime, Talen,’ Vanion said firmly. ‘This isn’t the story hour.’
Talen’s face grew sulky.
‘I’d be willing to wager that you could paralyze our young friend here in mid-theft,’ Ulath chuckled. ‘All you’d have to do is say, “Once upon a time”, and he’d stop dead in his tracks.’
‘This throws a whole new light on what’s been happening here in Tamuli,’ Vanion mused. ‘Could this all be some vast hoax?’ He looked inquiringly at Flute.
She shook her head. ‘No, Vanion. There has been magic of varying levels in some of the things we’ve encountered.’
‘Some, perhaps, but not all, certainly. Was there any magic at all involved in what we saw tonight?’
‘Not a drop.’
‘Is that how you measure magic?’ Kalten asked curiously. ‘Does it come by the gallon?’
‘Like cheap wine, you mean?’ she suggested tartly.
‘Well, not exactly, but …’
‘This was very important,’ Sparhawk said. Thank you, Aphrael.’
‘I live but to serve.’ She smiled mockingly at him.
‘Stop that.’
‘You’ve missed me entirely, Sparhawk,’ Kalten said.
‘We’ve just found out that not everything that’s being reported back to Matherion is the result of real magic. There’s a fair amount of fraud mixed in as well. What does that suggest?’
‘The other side’s lazy.’ Kalten shrugged.
‘I’m not so sure,’ Ulath disagreed. ‘They’re not afraid to exert themselves when it’s important.’
‘Two,’ Sephrenia said. ‘Three at the most.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ Ulath said with a puzzled look.
‘Now do you see how exasperating that is, Ulath?’ she said to him. ‘This charade we watched here tonight rather strongly hints at the fact that there aren’t very many people who can really work spells on the other side. They’re spread out a bit thin, I’d say. What’s going on here in Edom – and probably in Astel and Daconia as well – is rather commonplace, so they don’t feel that they have to waste magic on it.’
