Domes of Fire Part 29

'Several,' Sparhawk grunted, 'and none of them very pleasant. Do you remember that shadow I told you about? The one that was following me all over Eosia after I killed Ghwerig?'

Vanion nodded. 'We've been seeing it again, and this time everybody can see it.'

'That doesn't sound too good.'

'No, it doesn't. Last time, that shadow was the Troll-G.o.ds.'

Vanion shuddered, and then the both of them looked at Sephrenia.

'Isn't it nice to be needed?' Danae said to her sister.

'I'll talk with Zalasta,' Sephrenia sighed. 'He's been keeping abreast of things here in Sarsos for the emperor. He probably knows a great deal about this, so I'll have him stop by tomorrow.'

There was a loud splash. 'I told you that was going to happen, Mmrr,' Danae said smugly to the wild-eyed kitten struggling to stay afloat in the fountain. Mmrr's problems were multiplied by the fact that the goldfish were ferociously defending their domain by b.u.mping her paws and tummy with their noses.

'Fish her out, Danae,' Sparhawk told her.

'She'll get me all wet, father, and then mother will scold me. Mmrr got herself into that fix. Now let her get herself out.'

'She'll drown.'

'Oh, of course she won't, Sparhawk. She knows how to swim. Look at her. She's cat-paddling for all she's worth. '

'She's what?'

'Cat-paddling. You couldn't really call it dog-paddling, could you? She's not a dog, after all. We Styrics talk about cat-paddling all the time, don't we, Sephrenia?'

'I never have,' Sephrenia murmured.

Chapter 17.

A large part of the fun came from the fact that her parents could not antic.i.p.ate the Princess Danae's early-morning visits. They were certainly not a daily occurrence, and there were times when a whole week would go by without one. This morning's visit was, of course, the same as all the rest. Consistency is one of the more important divine attributes. The door banged open, and the princess, her black hair flying and her eyes filled with glee, dashed into the room and joined her parents in bed with a great, whooping leap. The leap was followed, as always, by a great deal of squirming and burrowing until Danae was firmly nestled between her parents. She never paid these visits alone. Rollo had never really been a problem. Rollo was a well-mannered toy, anxious to please and almost never intrusive. Mmrr, on the other hand, could be a pest. She was quite fond of Sparhawk and she was a genius at burrowing. Having a sharp-clawed kitten climb up the side of one's bare leg before one is fully awake is a startling experience. Sparhawk gritted his teeth and endured.

'The birds are awake.' Danae announced it almost accusingly.

'I'm so happy for them,' Sparhawk said, wincing as the kitten lurking beneath the covers began to rhythmically flex her claws in his hip.

'You're grumpy this morning, father.'

'I was doing just fine until now. Please ask your cat not to use me for a pin-cus.h.i.+on.'

'She does it because she loves you.'

'That fills my heart. I'd still rather have her keep her claws to herself, though.'

'Is he always like this in the morning, mother?'

'Sometimes,' Ehlana laughed, embracing the little girl. 'I think it depends on what he had for supper.'

Mmrr began to purr. Adult cats purr with a certain decorous moderation. Kittens don't. On this particular morning, Danae's small cat sounded much like an approaching thunderstorm or a grist-mill with an off-centre wheel.

'I give up,' Sparhawk said. He threw back the covers, climbed out of bed and pulled on a robe. 'There's no sleeping with the three of you around,' he accused them. 'Coming, Rollo?'

His wife and daughter gave him a quick, startled glance then exchanged a worried look. Sparhawk scooped up Danae's stuffed toy and ambled out of the room, holding it by one hind leg. He could hear Ehlana and Danae whispering as he left. He plumped the toy into a chair. 'It's absolutely impossible, Rollo, old boy,' he said, making sure that his women-folk could hear him. 'I don't know how you can stand it.' There was a profound silence from the bedroom. 'I think you and I should go away for a while, my friend,' Sparhawk went on. 'They're starting to treat us like pieces of furniture.'

Rollo didn't say anything, but then Rollo seldom did. Sephrenia, who was standing in the doorway, however, seemed a bit startled. 'Aren't you feeling well, Sparhawk?'

'I'm fine, little mother. Why do you ask?' He hadn't really expected anyone to witness a performance intended primarily for his wife and daughter.

'You do realise that you're talking to a stuffed toy, don't you?'

Sparhawk stared at Rollo in mock surprise. 'Why, believe you're right, Sephrenia. How strange that didn't notice that. Maybe it has something to do with being rousted out of bed at the crack of dawn.' No matten how hard he tried to put a good face on this, it wasn't going to go very well.

'What on earth are you talking about, Sparhawk?'

'You see, Rollo?' Sparhawk said, trying to rescue something. 'They just don't understand-any of them.'

'Ah-Prince Sparhawk?' It was Ehlana's maid Alcan. She had come into the room unnoticed, and her huge eyes were concerned. 'Are you all right?'

Things were deteriorating all around Sparhawk. 'It's a long, long story, Alcan,' he sighed.

'Have you seen the princess, my Lord?' Alcan was looking at him strangely.

'She's in bed with her mother.' There was really not much left for him to salvage from the situation. 'I'm going to the bath-house-if anybody cares.' And he stalked from the room with the tatters of his dignity trailing along behind him.

Zalasta the Styric was an ascetic-looking man with white hair and a long, silver beard. He had the angular, uncompleted-looking face of all Styric men, s.h.a.ggy black eyebrows and a deep rich voice. He was Sephrenia's oldest friend, and was generally conceded to be the wisest and most powerful magician in Styric.u.m. He wore a white, cowled robe and carried a staff, which may have been an affectation, since he was quite vigorous and did not need any aid when he walked. He spoke the Elenic language very well, although with a heavy Styric accent. They gathered that morning in Sephrenia's interior garden to hear the details of what was really going on in Tamuli. 'We can't be entirely positive if they're real or not, Zalasta was saying. 'The sightings have been random and very fleeting.'

'They're definitely Trolls, though?' Tynian asked him.

Zalasta nodded. 'No other creature looks quite like a Troll.'

'That's G.o.d's own truth,' Ulath murmured. 'The sightings could very well have been of real Trolls. Some time back they all just packed up and left Thalesia. n.o.body ever thought to stop one to ask him why.'

'There have also been sightings of Dawn-men,' Zalasta reported.

'What are they, learned one?' Patriarch Emban asked him.

'Man-like creatures from the beginning of time, your Grace. They're a bit bigger than Trolls, but not as intelligent. They roam in packs, and they're very savage.'

'We've met them, friend Zalasta,' Kring said shortly. 'I lost many comrades that day.'

'There may not be a connection,' Zalasta continued. The Trolls are contemporary creatures, but the Dawnmen definitely come from the past. Their species has been extinct for some fifty aeons. There have also been some unconfirmed reports of sightings of Cyrgai.'

'You can mark that down as confirmed, Zalasta,' Kalten told him. 'They provided us with some entertainment one night last week.'

'They were fearsome warriors,' Zalasta said.

'They might have impressed their contemporaries,' Kalten disagreed, 'but modern tactics and weapons and equipment are a bit beyond their capabilities. Catapults and the charge of armoured knights seemed to baffle them.'

'Just exactly who are the Cyrgai, learned one?' Vanion asked.

'I gave you the scrolls, Vanion,' Sephrenia said, 'didn't you read them?'

'I haven't got that far yet. Styric's a difficult language to read. Somebody should give some thought to simplifying your alphabet.'

'Hold it,' Sparhawk interupted. He looked at Sephrenia. 'I've never seen you read anything,' he accused her. 'You wouldn't let Flute even touch a book.

'Not an Elene book, no.'

'Then you can read?'

'In Styric, yes.'

'Why didn't you tell us?'

'Because it wasn't really any of your business, dear one.'

'You lied!' That shocked him for some reason.

'No, as a matter of fact I didn't. I can't read Elene largely because I don't want to. It's a graceless language, and your writings are ugly-like spiders' webs.'

'You deliberately led us to believe that you were too simple to learn how to read.'

'That was sort of necessary, dear one. Pandion novices aren't really very sophisticated, and you had to have something to feel superior about.'

'Be nice,' Vanion murmured.

'I had to try to train a dozen generations of those great, clumsy louts, Vanion,' she said with a certain asperity, 'and I had to put up with their insufferable condescension in the process. Yes, Sparhawk, I can read, and I can count, and I can argue philosophy and even theology if I have to, and I am fully trained in logic.'

'I don't know why you're yelling at me,' he protested mildly, kissing her palms. 'I've always believed you were a fairly nice lady-' he kissed her palms again, 'for a Styric, that is.'

She jerked her hands out of his grasp and then saw the grin on his face. 'You're impossible,' she said, also suddenly smiling.

'We were talking about the Cyrgai, I believe,' Stragen said smoothly. 'Just exactly who are they?'

'They're extinct, fortunately,' Zalasta replied. 'They were of a race that appears to have been unrelated to the other races of Daresia-neither Tamul nor Elene, and certainly not Styric. Some have suggested that they might be distantly related to the Valesians.'

'I couldn't accept that, learned one,' Oscagne disagreed. 'The Valesians don't even have a government, and they have no concept of war. They're the happiest people in the world. They could not in any way be related to the Cyrgai.'

'Temperament is sometimes based on climate, your Excellency,' Zalasta pointed out. 'Valesia's a paradise, and central Cynesga's not nearly so nice. Anyway, the Cyrgai wors.h.i.+pped a hideous G.o.d named Cyrgon-and, like most primitive people do, they took their name from him. All peoples are egotistical, I suppose. We're all convinced that our G.o.d is better than all the rest and that our race is superior. The Cyrgai took that to extremes. We can't really probe the beliefs of an extinct people, but it appears that they even went so far as to believe that they were somehow of a different species from other humans. They also believed that all truth had been revealed to them by Cyrgon, so they strongly resisted new ideas. They carried the idea of a warrior society to absurd lengths, and they were obsessed with the concept of racial purity and strove for physical perfection. Deformed babies were taken out into the desert and left to die. Soldiers who received crippling injuries in battle were killed by their friends. Women who had too many female children were strangled. They built a city-state beside the Oasis of Cyrga in Central Cynesga and rigidly isolated themselves from other peoples and their ideas. The Cyrgai were terribly afraid of ideas. Theirs was perhaps the only culture in human history that idealised stupidity. They looked upon superior intelligence as a defect, and overly bright children were killed.'

'Nice group,' Talen murmured.

'They conquered and enslaved their neighbours, of course-mostly desert nomads of indeterminate race and there was a certain amount of interbreeding, soldiers being what they are.'

'But that was perfectly all right, wasn't it?' Baroness Melidere added tartly. 'Rape is always permitted, isn't it?'

'In this case it wasn't, Baroness,' Zalasta replied. 'Any Cyrgai caught "fraternising" was killed on the spot.'

'What a refres.h.i.+ng idea,' she murmured.

'So was the woman, of course. Despite all their best efforts, however, the Cyrgai did produce a number of offspring of mixed race. In their eyes, that was an abomination, and the half-breeds were killed whenever possible. In time, however, Cyrgon apparently had a change of heart. He saw a use for these half-breeds. They were given some training and became a part of the army. They were called 'Cynesgans', and in time they came to comprise that part of the army that did all of the dirty work and most of the dying. Cyrgon had a goal, you see-the usual goal of the militaristically inclined.'

'World domination?' Vanion suggested.

'Precisely. The Cynesgans were encouraged to breed, and the Cyrgai used them to expand their frontiers. They soon controlled all of the desert and began pus.h.i.+ng at the frontiers of their neighbours. That's where we encountered them. The Cyrgai weren't really prepared to come up against Styrics.'

'I can imagine,' Tynian laughed.

Zalasta smiled briefly. It was an indulgent sort of smile, faintly tinged with a certain condescension. 'The priests of Cyrgon had certain limited gifts,' the Styric went on, 'but they were certainly no match for what they encountered.' He sat tapping his fingertips together. 'Perhaps when we examine it more closely, that's our real secret,' he mused. 'Other peoples have only one G.o.d-or at the most, a small group of G.o.ds. We have a thousand, who more or less get along with each other and agree in a general sort of way about what ought to be done. Anyway, the incursion of the Cyrgai into the lands of the Styrics proved to be disastrous for them. They lost virtually all of their Cynesgans and a major portion of their full-blooded Cyrgai. They retreated in absolute disorder, and the Younger G.o.ds decided that they ought to be encouraged to stay at home after that. No one knows to this day which of the Younger G.o.ds developed the idea, but it was positively brilliant in both its simplicity and its efficacy. A large eagle flew completely around Cynesga in a single day, and his shadow left an unseen mark on the ground. The mark means absolutely nothing to the Cynesgans or the Atans or Tamuls or Styrics or Elenes or even the Arjuni. It was terribly important to the Cyrgai, however, because after that day any Cyrgai who stepped over that line died instantly.'

'Wait a minute,' Kalten objected. 'We encountered Cyrgai just to the west of here. How did they get across the line?'

'They were from the past, Sir Kalten,' Zalasta explained, spreading his hands. 'The line didn't exist for them, because the eagle had not yet made his flight when they marched north.'

Kalten scratched his head and sat frowning. 'I'm not really all that good at logic,' he confessed, 'but isn't there a hole in that somewhere?'

Bevier was also struggling with it. 'I think I see how it works,' he said a little dubiously, 'but I'll have to go over it a few times to be sure.'

'Logic can't answer all the questions, Sir Bevier,' Emban advised. He hesitated. 'You don't have to tell Dolmant I said that, of course,' he added.

'It may be that the enchantment's no longer in force,' Sephrenia suggested to Zalasta. 'There's no real need for it, since the Cyrgai are extinct.'

'And no way to prove it either,' Ulath added, 'one way or the other.'

Stragen suddenly laughed. 'He's right, you know,' he said. 'There might very well be this dreadful curse out there that n.o.body even knows about because the people it's directed at all died out thousands of years ago.'

What finally happened to them, learned one?' he asked Zalasta. 'You said that they were extinct.'

'Actually, Milord Stragen, they bred themselves out of existence.'

'Isn't that a contradiction?' Tynian asked him.

'Not really. The Cynesgans had been very nearly wiped out, but now they were of vital importance, since they were the only troops at Cyrgon's disposal who could cross the frontiers. He directed the Cyrgai to concentrate on breeding up new armies of these formerly despised underlings. The Cyrgai were perfect soldiers who always obeyed orders to the letter. They devoted their attention to the Cynesgan women even to the exclusion of their own. By the time they realised their mistake, all the Cyrgai women were past child-bearing age. Legend had it that the last of the Cyrgai died about ten thousand years ago.'

'That raises idiocy to an art-form, doesn't it?' Stragen observed.

Zalasta smiled a thin sort of smile. 'At any rate, what used to be Cyrga is now Cynesga. It's occupied by a defective, mongrel race that manages to survive only because it sits astride the major trade routes between the Tamuls of the east and the Elenes of the west. The rest of the world looks upon these heirs of the invincible Cyrgai with the deepest contempt. They're sneaky, cowardly, thieving and disgustingly servile-a fitting fate for the offspring of a race that once thought it was divinely destined to rule the world.'

'History's such a gloomy subject,' Kalten sighed.

'Cynesga's not the only place where the past is returning to haunt us,' Zalasta added.