Domes of Fire Part 27

'I'd guess that he holds a position somewhat akin to Gerrich in Lamorkand and to Sabre in Western Astel,' Sparhawk surmised. 'I was a little surprised to see Sabre here,' he added. He had to step rather carefully here. Both he and Emban were sworn to secrecy on the matter of Sabre's real ident.i.ty.

'Professional courtesy, no doubt,' Stragen murmured. 'The fact that he was here sort of confirms our guess that all these a.s.sorted upheavals and disturbances are tied together. There's somebody in back of all this somebody we haven't seen or even heard of yet. We're going to have to catch one of these intermediaries of his and wring some information out of him sooner or later.' The blond thief looked around. 'What now?' he asked.

'How long did you say it would be until the Atans arrive from Sarsos, Engessa?' Sparhawk asked the towering Atan.

'They should arrive sometime the day after tomorrow, Sparhawk-Knight.' The Atan glanced toward the east. 'Tomorrow, that is,' he corrected, 'since it's already starting to get light.'

'We'll care for our wounded and wait for them then,' Sparhawk decided. 'I like lots of friendly faces around me in times like this.'

'One question, Sparhawk-Knight,' Engessa said. 'Who is Anakha?'

'That's Sparhawk,' Ulath told him. 'The Styrics call him that. It means "without destiny".'

'All men have a destiny, Ulath-Knight.'

'Not Sparhawk, apparently, and you have no idea how nervous that makes the G.o.ds.'

As Engessa had calculated, the Sarsos garrison arrived about noon the following day, and the hugely increased escort of the Queen of Elenia marched easterly. Two days later, they crested a hill and gazed down at a marble city situated in a broad green field backed by a dark forest stretching to the horizon.

Sparhawk had been sensing a familiar presence since early that morning, and he had ridden on ahead eagerly. Sephrenia was sitting on her white palfrey beside the road. She was a small, beautiful woman with black hair, snowy skin and deep blue eyes. She wore a white robe of a somewhat finer weave than the homespun she had normally worn in Eosia.

'h.e.l.lo, little mother,' he smiled, saying it as if they had been apart for no more than a week. 'You've been well, I trust?' He removed his helmet.

'Tolerable, Sparhawk.' Her voice was rich and had that familiar lilt.

'Will you permit me to greet you?' he asked in that formal manner all Pandions used when meeting her after a separation.

'Of course, dear one.'

Sparhawk dismounted, took her wrists and turned her hands over. Then he kissed her palms in the ritual Styric greeting. 'And will you bless me, little mother?' he asked.

She fondly placed her hands on his temples and spoke her benediction in Styric. 'Help me down, Sparhawk,' she commanded. He reached out and put his hands about her almost child-like waist. Then he lifted her easily from her saddle. Before he could set her down, however, she put her arms about his neck and kissed him full on the lips, something she had almost never done before. 'I've missed you, my dear one,' she breathed. 'You cannot believe how I've missed you.'

Part Three: Atan

Chapter 16.

The carriage came around a bend in the road and approached the spot where Sparhawk and Sephrenia waited. Ehlana was talking animatedly to Oscagne and Emban, but she broke off suddenly, her eyes wide. 'Sephrenia?' she gasped. 'It is! It's Sephrenia.' Royal dignity went out the window as she scrambled down from the carriage.

'Brace yourself,' Sparhawk cautioned with a gentle smile. Ehlana ran to them, threw her arms around Sephrenia's neck and kissed her, weeping for joy.

The queen's tears were not the only ones shed that afternoon. Even the hard-bitten Church Knights were misty-eyed for the most part. Kalten went even further and wept openly as he knelt to receive Sephrenia's blessing.

'The Styric woman has a special significance, Sparhawk-Knight?' Engessa asked curiously.

'A very special significance, Atan Engessa,' Sparhawk replied, watching his friends cl.u.s.tered around the small woman. 'She touches our hearts in a profound way. We'd probably take the world apart if she asked us to.'

'That's a very great authority, Sparhawk-Knight.' Engessa said it with some approval. Engessa respected authority.

'It is indeed, my friend,' Sparhawk agreed, 'and that's only the least of her gifts. She's wise and beautiful, and I'm at least partially convinced that she could stop the tides if she really wanted to.'

'She is quite small, though,' Engessa noted.

'Not really. In our eyes she's at least a hundred feet tall-maybe even two hundred.'

'The Styrics are a strange people with strange powers, but I had not heard of this ability to alter their size before.' Engessa was a profoundly literal man, and hyperbole was beyond his grasp. 'Two hundred, you say?'

'At least, Atan.'

Sephrenia was completely caught up in the outpouring of affection, and so Sparhawk was able to observe her rather closely. She had changed. She seemed more open, for one thing. No Styric could ever completely lower his defences among Elenes. Thousands of years of prejudice and oppression had taught them to be wary-even of those Elenes they loved the most. Sephrenia's defensive sh.e.l.l, a sh.e.l.l she had kept in place around her for so long that she had probably not even known it was there, was gone now. The doors were all open. There was something more, however. Her face had been luminous before, but now it was radiant. A kind of regretful longing had always seemed to hover in her eyes, and it was gone now. For the first time in all the years Sparhawk had known her, Sephrenia seemed complete and totally happy.

'Will this go on for long, Sparhawk-Knight?' Engessa asked politely. 'Sarsos is close at hand, but ...' He left the suggestion hanging.

'I'll talk with them, Atan. I might be able to persuade them that they can continue this later.' Sparhawk walked toward the excited group near the carriage. 'Atan Engessa just made an interesting suggestion,' he said to them. 'It's a novel idea, of course, but he pointed out that we could probably do all of this inside the walls of Sarsos, since it's so close anyway.'

'I see that hasn't changed,' Sephrenia observed to Ehlana. 'Does he still make these clumsy attempts at humour every chance he gets?'

'I've been working on that, little mother,' Ehlana smiled.

'The question I was really asking was whether or not you ladies would like to ride on into the city, or would you like to have us set up camp for the night.'

'Spoil-sport,' Ehlana accused.

'We really should go on down,' Sephrenia told them. 'Vanion's waiting, and you know how cross he gets when people aren't punctual.'

'Vanion?' Emban exclaimed. 'I thought he'd be dead by now.'

'Hardly. He's quite vigorous, actually. Very vigorous at times. He'd have come with me to meet you, but he sprained his ankle yesterday. He's being terribly brave about it, but it hurts him more than he's willing to admit.'

Stragen stepped up and effortlessly lifted her up into the carriage. 'What should we expect in Sarsos, dear sister?' he asked her in his flawless Styric.

Ehlana gave him a startled look. 'You've been hiding things from me, Milord Stragen. I didn't know you spoke Styric.'

'I always meant to mention it to you, your Majesty, but it kept slipping my mind.'

'I think you'd better be prepared for some surprises, Stragen,' Sephrenia told him. 'All of you should.'

'What sort of surprises?' Stragen asked. 'Remember that I'm a thief, Sephrenia, and surprises are very bad for thieves. Our veins tend to come untied when we're startled.'

'I think you'd all better discard your preconceptions about Styrics,' Sephrenia advised. 'We aren't obliged to be simple and rustic here in Sarsos, so you'll find an altogether different kind of Styric in those streets.' She seated herself in the carriage and held out her arms to Danae. The little princess climbed up into her lap and kissed her. It seemed very innocuous and perfectly natural, but Sparhawk was privately surprised that they were not surrounded by a halo of blazing light. Then Sephrenia looked at Emban. 'Oh, dear,' she said. 'I hadn't really counted on your being here, your Grace. How firmly fixed are your prejudices?'

'I like you, Sephrenia,' the little fat man replied. 'I resent the Styrics' stubborn refusal to accept the true faith, but I'm not really a howling bigot.'

'Are you open to a suggestion, my friend?' Oscagne asked.

'I'll listen.'

'I'd recommend that you look upon your visit to Sarsos as a holiday, and put your theology on a shelf someplace. Look all you want, but let the things you don't like pa.s.s without comment. The empire would really appreciate your co-operation in this, Emban. Please don't stir up the Styrics. They're a very p.r.i.c.kly people with capabilities we don't entirely understand. Let's not precipitate avoidable explosions.'

Emban opened his mouth as if to retort, but then his eyes grew troubled, and he apparently decided against it.

Sparhawk conferred briefly with Oscagne and Sephrenia and decided that the bulk of the Church Knights should set up camp with the Peloi outside the city. It was a precaution designed to avert incidents. Engessa sent his Atans to their garrison just north of the city wall, and the party surrounding Ehlana's cariage entered through an unguarded gate.

'What's the trouble, Khalad?' Sephrenia asked Sparhawk's squire.

The young man was looking around, frowning. 'It's really none of my business, Lady Sephrenia,' he said, 'but are marble buildings really a good idea this far north? Aren't they awfully cold in the winter time?'

'He's so much like his father,' she smiled. 'I think you've exposed one of our vanities, Khalad. Actually, the buildings are made of brick. The marble's just a sheathing to make our city impressive.'

'Even brick isn't too good at keeping out the cold, Lady Sephrenia.'

'It is when you make double walls and fill the s.p.a.ce between those walls with a foot of plaster.'

'That would take a lot of time and effort.'

'You'd be amazed at the amount of time and effort people will waste for the sake of vanity, Khalad, and we can always cheat a little, if we have to. Our G.o.ds are fond of marble buildings, and we like to make them feel at home.'

'Wood's still more practical,' he said stubbornly.

'I'm sure it is, Khalad, but it's so commonplace. We like to be different.'

'It's different, all right.'

Sarsos even smelled different. A faint miasma hung over every Elene city in the world, an unpleasant blend of sooty smoke, rotting garbage and the effluvium from poorly-constructed and infrequently drained cesspools. Sarsos, on the other hand, smelled of trees and roses. It was summer, and there were small parks and rose bushes everywhere. Ehlana's expression grew speculative. With a peculiar flash of insight, Sparhawk foresaw a vast programme of public works looming on the horizon for the capital of Elenia.

The architecture and layout of the city was subtle and highly sophisticated. The streets were broad and, except where the inhabitants had decided otherwise for aesthetic reasons, they were straight. The buildings were all sheathed in marble, and they were fronted by graceful white pillars. This was most definitely not an Elene city.

The citizens looked strangely un-Styric. Their kinsmen in the west all wore robes of lumpy white homespun. The garb was so universal as to be a kind of identifying badge. The Styrics of Sarsos, however, wore silks and linens. White still appeared to be the preferred colour, but there were other hues as well, blue and green and yellow, and not a few garments were a brilliant scarlet. Styric women in the west were very seldom seen, but they were much more in evidence here. They also wore colourful clothing and flowers in their hair.

More than anything, however, there was a marked difference in att.i.tude. The Styrics of the west were timid, sometimes as fearful as deer. They were meek-a meekmess designed to soften Elene aggressiveness, but that very att.i.tude quite often inflamed the Elenes all the more. The Styrics of Sarsos, on the other hand, were definitely not meek. They did not keep their eyes lowered or speak in soft, hesitant voices. They were a.s.sertive. They argued on street corners. They laughed out loud. They walked along the broad avenues of their city with their heads held high as if they were actually proud to be Styric. The one thing that bespoke the difference more than anything else, however, was the fact that the children played in the parks without any signs of fear.

Emban's face had grown rigid, and his nostrils were pinched-in with anger. Sparhawk knew exactly why the Patriarch of Ucera was showing so much resentment. Candour compelled him to privately admit that he shared it. All Elenes believed that Styrics were an inferior race, and despite their indoctrination, the Church Knights still shared that belief at the deepest level of their minds. Sparhawk felt the thoughts rising in him unbidden.

How dare these puffed-up, loudmouthed Styrics have a more beautiful city than any the Elenes could construct? How dare they be prosperous? How dare they be happy? How dare they strut through these streets behaving for all the world as if they were every bit as good as Elenes? Then he saw Danae looking at him sadly, and he pulled his thoughts and unspoken resentments up short. He took hold of those unattractive emotions firmly and looked at them. He didn't like what he saw very much. So long as Styrics were meek and submissive and lived in misery in rude hovels, he was more than willing to leap to their defence, but when they brazenly looked him squarely in the eye with unbowed heads and challenging expressions, he found himself wanting to teach them lessons.

'Difficult, isn't it, Sparhawk?' Stragen said wryly. 'My b.a.s.t.a.r.dy has always made me feel a certain kins.h.i.+p with the downtrodden and despised. I found the towering humility of our Styric brethren so inspiring that I even went out of my way to learn their language. I'll admit that the people here set my teeth on edge, though. They all seem so disgustingly self-satisfied.'

'Stragen, sometimes you're so civilised you make me sick.'

'My, aren't we touchy today?'

'Sorry. I just found something in myself that I don't like. It's making me grouchy.'

Stragen sighed. 'We should probably never look into our own hearts, Sparhawk. I don't think anybody likes everything he finds there.'

Sparhawk was not the only one having trouble with the City of Sarsos and its inhabitants. Sir Bevier's face reflected the fact that he was feeling an even greater resentment than the others. His expression was shocked, even outraged.

'Heard a story once,' Sir Ulath said to him in that disarmingly reminiscent fas.h.i.+on that always signalled louder than words that Ulath was about to make a point. That was one of Sir Ulath's characteristics. He almost never spoke unless he was trying to make a point. 'It seems that there was a Deiran, an Arcian and a Thalesian. It was a long time ago, and they were all speaking in their native dialects. Anyway, they got to arguing about which of their modes of speech was G.o.d's own. They finally agreed to go to Chyrellos and ask the Archprelate to put the question directly to G.o.d himself.'

'And?' Bevier asked him.

'Well, sir, everybody knows that G.o.d always answers the Archprelate's questions, so the word finally came back and settled their argument once and for all.'

'Well?'

'Well what?'

'What is G.o.d's native dialect?'

'Why, Thalesian, of course. Everybody knows that Bevier.' Ulath was the kind of man who could say that with a perfectly straight face. 'It only stands to reason, though. G.o.d was a Genidian Knight before he decided to take the universe in hand. I'll bet you didn't know that, did you?' Bevier stared at him for a moment, and then began to laugh a bit sheepishly. Ulath looked at Sparhawk, and one of his eyelids closed in a slow, deliberate wink. Once again Sparhawk felt obliged to rea.s.sess his Thalesian friend.

Sephrenia had a house here in Sarsos, and that was another surprise. There had always been a kind of possessionless transience about her. The house was quite large, and it was set apart in a kind of park where tall old trees shaded gently-sloping lawns and gardens and sparkling fountains. Like all the other buildings in Sarsos, Sephrenia's house was constructed of marble, and it looked very familiar.

'You cheated, little mother,' Kalten accused her as he helped her down from the carriage.

'I beg your pardon?'

'You imitated the temple of Aphrael on the island we all saw in that dream. Even the colonnade along the front is the same.'

'I suppose you're right, dear one, but it's sort of expected here. All the members of the Council of Styric.u.m boast about their own G.o.ds. It's expected. Our G.o.ds would feel slighted if we didn't.'

'You're a member of the council here?' He sounded a bit surprised.

'Of course. I am the high priestess of Aphrael, after all. '

'It seems a little odd to find somebody from Eosia on the ruling council of a city in Daresia.'

'What makes you think I came from Eosia?'

'You didn't?'

'Of course not-and the council here in Sarsos isn't just the local government. We make the decisions for all Styrics, no matter where they are. Shall we go inside? Vanion's waiting.'

She led them up the marble stairs to a broad, intricately engraved bronze door, and they went on into the house. The building was constructed around an interior courtyard, a lush garden with a marble fountain in the centre. Vanion half-lay on a divan-like chair near the fountain with his right leg propped up on a number of cus.h.i.+ons. His ankle was swathed in bandages, and he had a disgusted expression in his face. His hair and beard were silvery now, and he looked very distinguished. His face was unlined, however. The cares that had weighed him down had been lifted, but that would hardly account for the startling change in him. Even the effects of the dreadful weight of the swords he had forced Sephrenia to give him had somehow been erased. His face looked younger than Sparhawk had ever seen it. He lowered the scroll he had been reading.

'Sparhawk,' he said irritably, 'where have you been?'

'I'm glad to see you too, my Lord,' Sparhawk replied.

Vanion looked at him sharply and then laughed, his face a bit sheepish. 'I guess that was a little ungracious, wasn't it?'

'Crotchety, my Lord,' Ehlana told him. 'Definitely crotchety.' Then she cast dignity aside, ran to him and threw her arms about his neck. 'We are displeased with you, my Lord Vanion,' she said in her most imperious manner. Then she kissed him soundly. 'You have deprived us of your counsel and your company in our hour of need.' She kissed him again. 'It was churlish of you in the extreme to absent yourself from our side without our permission.' She kissed him yet again.