Domes of Fire Part 37

'They became very co-operative at that point,' Sparhawk said.

'You gentlemen have a real treat in store for you,' Ulath told them. 'Fighting Trolls is very, very exhilarating.'

They set up their night's encampment that evening in a meadow beside a turbulent mountain stream that had carved a deep gorge in the mountains. The lower walls of the gorge were tree-covered, and they angled up steeply to the sheer cliffs rising a hundred or more feet to the rim of the cut. It was a good defensive position, Sparhawk noted as he surveyed the camp. Evening came early in these canyons, and the cooking fires flared yellow in the gathering dusk, their smoke drifting blue and tenuous downstream in the night breeze.

'A word with you, Prince Sparhawk?' It was Zalasta, and his white Styric robe gleamed in the half-light.

'Of course, learned one.'

'I'm afraid your wife doesn't like me,' the magician observed. 'She tries to be polite, but her distaste is fairly obvious. Have I offended her in some way?'

'I don't think so, Zalasta.'

A faintly bitter smile touched the Styric's lips. 'It's what my people call "the Elene complaint", then.'

'I rather doubt that. I more or less raised her, and I made her understand that the common Elene prejudice was without foundation. Her att.i.tude sort of derives from mine, and the Church Knights are actually quite fond of Styrics-the Pandions particularly so, since Sephrenia was our tutor. We love her very much.'

'Yes. I've observed that.' The magician smiled. 'We ourselves are not without our failings in that area. Our prejudice against Elenes is quite nearly as irrational as yours against us. Your wife's disapproval of me must come from something else, then.'

'It may be something as simple as your accent, learned one. My wife's a complex person. She's very intelligent, but she does have her irrational moments.'

'It might be best if I avoided her, then. I'll travel on horseback from now on. Our close proximity in that carriage exacerbates her dislike, I expect. I've worked with people who've disliked me in the past and it's no great inconvenience. When I have leisure, I'll win her over.' He flashed a quick smile. 'I can be very winning when I set my mind to it.'

He looked on down the gorge where the rapids swirled and foamed white in the gathering darkness. 'Is there any possibility that you might be able to retrieve the Bh.e.l.liom, Prince Sparhawk?' he asked gravely. 'I'm afraid we're at a distinct disadvantage without it. We need something powerful enough to achieve some measure of parity with a group of G.o.ds. Are you at liberty to tell me where you were when you threw it into the sea? I might be able to aid you in its retrieval.'

'There weren't any restrictions placed on me about discussing it, learned one,' Sparhawk replied ruefully. 'There wasn't any need for that, since I haven't got the foggiest idea of where it was. Aphrael chose the spot, and she very carefully arranged things so that we couldn't identify the place. You might ask her, but I'm fairly sure she won't tell you.'

Zalasta smiled. 'She is a bit whimsical, isn't she?' he said. 'We all loved her in spite of that, however.'

'That's right, you grew up in the same village with her and Sephrenia, didn't you?'

'Oh, yes. I am proud to call them my friends. It was very stimulating trying to keep up with Aphrael. She had a very agile mind. Did she give you any reason for her desire to keep the location a secret?'

'Not in so many words, but I think she felt that the jewel was far too dangerous to be loosed in the world. It's even more eternal than the G.o.ds themselves, and probably more powerful. I can't pretend to even begin to understand where it originated, but it seems to be one of those elemental spirits that are involved in the creation of the universe.' Sparhawk smiled. 'That gave me quite a turn when I found out about it. I was carrying something that could create whole suns not six inches from my heart. I think I can understand Aphrael's concern about the Bh.e.l.liom, though. She told us once that the G.o.ds can only see the future imperfectly, and she couldn't really see what might happen if the Bh.e.l.liom fell into the wrong hands. She and I took a very real chance of destroying the world to keep it out of the hands of Azash. She wanted to put it where n.o.body could ever use it again.'

'Her thinking is faulty, Prince Sparhawk.'

'I wouldn't tell her that, if I were you. She might take it as criticism.'

Zalasta smiled. 'She knows me, so she's not upset when I criticise her. If, as you say, the Bh.e.l.liom's one of those energies that's involved in the constructing of the universe, it must be allowed to continue its work. The universe will be flawed if it is not.'

'She said that this world won't last forever,' Sparhawk shrugged. 'In time, it'll be destroyed, and Bh.e.l.liom will be freed. The mind sort of shudders away from the notion, but I gather that the s.p.a.ce of time stretching from the moment Bh.e.l.liom was trapped on this world until the moment the world burns away when our sun explodes is no more than the blinking of an eye to the spirit which inhabits it.'

'I sort of choke on the notions of eternity and infinity myself, Prince Sparhawk,' Zalasta admitted.

'I think we'll have to accept the notion that Bh.e.l.liom's lost for good, learned one,' Sparhawk told him. 'We're at a disadvantage, certainly, but I don't see any help for it. We're going to have to deal with this situation ourselves, I'm afraid.'

Zalasta sighed. 'You may be right, Prince Sparhawk, but we really need the Bh.e.l.liom. Our success or failure may hinge on that stone. I think we should concentrate our efforts on Sephrenia. We must persuade her to intercede with Aphrael. She has an enormous influence on her sister.'

'Yes,' Sparhawk agreed. 'I've noticed that. What were they like as children?'

Zalasta looked up into the gathering darkness. 'Our village changed a great deal when Aphrael was born,' he reminisced. 'We knew at once that she was no ordinary child. The Younger G.o.ds are all very fond of her. Of all of them, she is the only child, and they've spoiled her outrageously over the aeons.' He smiled faintly. 'She's perfected the art of being a child. All children are lovable, but Aphrael is so skilled at making people love her that she can melt the hardest of hearts. The G.o.ds always get what they want, but Aphrael makes us do what she wants out of love.'

'I've noticed that.' Sparhawk said wryly.

'Sephrenia was about nine when her sister was born, and from the moment she first saw the Child-G.o.ddess, she committed her entire life to her service.' There was a strange note of pain in the magician's voice as he said it. 'Aphrael seemed to have almost no infancy,' he continued. 'She was born with the ability to speak-or so it seemed-and she was walking in an incredibly short period of time. It was not convenient for her to go through a normal babyhood, so she simply stepped over such things as teething and learning to crawl. She wanted to be a child, not a baby. I was several years older than Sephrenia and already deep into my studies, but I did observe them rather closely. It's not often that one has the opportunity to watch a G.o.d grow up.'

'Very rare,' Sparhawk agreed.

Zalasta smiled. 'Sephrenia spent every moment with her sister. It was obvious from the very beginning that there was a special bond between them. It's one of Aphrael's peculiarities that she adopts the subservient position of a young child. She's a G.o.ddess, and she could command, but she doesn't. She almost seems to enjoy being scolded. She's obedient-when it suits her to be-but every so often she'll do something outrageously impossible-probably just to remind people who she really is.'

Sparhawk remembered the swarm of fairies pollinating the flowers in the palace garden in Cimmura.

'Sephrenia was a sensible child who always acted older than her years. I suspect Aphrael of preparing her sister for a lifelong task even before she herself was born. In a very real sense, Sephrenia became Aphrael's mother. She cared for her, fed her, bathed her, although that occasioned some truly stupendous arguments. Aphrael absolutely hates to be bathed-and she really doesn't need it, since she can make dirt go away whenever she wants to. I don't know if you noticed it, but her feet always have gra.s.s-stains on them, even when she's in a place where there is no gra.s.s. For some reason I can't begin to fathom, she seems to need those stains.'

The Styric sighed. 'When Aphrael was about six or so, Sephrenia was obliged to become her mother in fact. The three of us were off in the forest, and while we were gone, a mob of drunken Elene peasants attacked our vilage and killed everyone there.'

Sparhawk drew in his breath sharply. 'That explains a few things,' he said. 'Of course it raises other things even more incomprehensible. After a tragedy like that, what could ever have persuaded Sephrenia to take on the ch.o.r.e of training generations of Pandion Knights?'.

'Aphrael probably told her to,' Zalasta shrugged. 'Don't make any mistakes, Prince Sparhawk. Aphrael may pretend to be a child, but in truth she is not. She will obey when it suits her, but never forget that she is the one who makes the ultimate decisions, and she always gets what she wants.'

'What happened after your village was destroyed?' Sparhawk asked.

'We wandered for a time in the forest, and then another Styric village took us in. As soon as I was sure that the girls were settled in and safe, I left to pursue my studies. I didn't see them again for many years, and when I finally met them again, Sephrenia was the beautiful woman she is now. Aphrael, however, was still a child, not a day older than she had been when I left them.'

He sighed again. 'The time we spent together when we were children was the happiest of my life. The memory of that time strengthens and sustains me when I am troubled.' He looked up toward the sky where the first stars were beginning to come out. 'Please make my excuses, Prince Sparhawk. I think I'd like to be alone with my memories tonight.'

'I will, Zalasta,' Sparhawk replied, laying a friendly hand on the Styric's shoulder.

'We're fond of him,' Danae said.

'Why are you keeping your ident.i.ty a secret from him then?'

'I'm not sure, father. Maybe it's just because girls need secrets.'

'That doesn't make sense, you know.'

'Yes, but I don't have to make sense. That's the nice thing about being universally adored.'

'Zalasta thinks we're going to need the Bh.e.l.liom.' Sparhawk decided to get right to the point.

'No.' Aphrael said it very firmly. 'I spent too much time and effort getting it into a safe place to turn around and drag it out every time there's a change in the weather. Zalasta always wants to unleash more power than is really necessary in situations like this. If all we're facing is the Troll-G.o.ds, we can manage without Bh.e.l.liom.' She held up one hand when he started to object. 'My decision, Sparhawk,' she told him.

'I could always spank you and make you change your mind,' he threatened.

'Not unless I let you, you can't.' Then she sighed. The Troll-G.o.ds aren't going to be a problem for much longer.'

'Oh?'

'The Trolls are doomed,' she said rather sadly, 'and once they're gone their G.o.ds will be powerless.'

'Why are the Trolls doomed?'

'Because they can't change, Sparhawk. We may not always like it, but that's the way the world is. The creatures of this world must change-or die. That's what happened to the Dawn-men. The Trolls supplanted them because they couldn't change, and now it's the turn of the Trolls. Their nature is such that they need a great deal of room. A lone Troll needs fifty or so square leagues of range, and he won't share that range with any other Troll. There just isn't enough room left for them any more. There are Elenes in the world now as well, and you're cutting down trees to build your houses and to clear fields for your crops. The Trolls might have survived if they only had to live with Styrics. Styrics don't chop trees down.' She smiled. 'It's not that we're really all that fond of trees. It's just that we don't have very good axes. When you Elenes discovered how to make steel, you doomed the Trolls-and their G.o.ds.'

'That lends some weight to the notion that the TrollG.o.ds may have allied themselves with someone else,' Sephrenia noted. 'If they can understand what's happening, they're probably getting desperate. Their survival depends on preserving the Trolls and their range.'

Sparhawk grunted. 'That might help to explain something that's been bothering me,' he said.

'Oh?' Sephrenia asked him.

'If there's someone involved as well as the Troll-G.o.ds, it might account for the differences I've been feeling. I've been getting this nagging sense that things aren't quite the same as they were last time-jarring little discrepancies, if you take my meaning. The major discrepancy lies in the fact that these elaborate schemes with people like Drychtnath and Ayachin are just too subtle for the Troll-G.o.ds to understand.' He made a rueful face. 'But that immediately raises another problem. How can this other one get the co-operation of the Troll-G.o.ds if he can't explain what he's doing and why?'

'Would it offend your pride if I offered you a simpler solution?' Danae asked him.

'I don't think so.'

'The Troll-G.o.ds know that others are smarter than they are, and the one you call 'our friend' has a certain hold over them. He can always cram them back into Bh.e.l.liom and let them spend several million years in that box on the sea-bottom if they don't co-operate. Maybe he's just telling them what he wants them to do without bothering to explain it to them. The rest of the time, he could just be letting them blunder around making noise. All that cras.h.i.+ng through the bushes would certainly help conceal what he's doing, wouldn't it?'

He stared at her for a long time. Then he laughed. 'I love you, Aphrael,' he said, lifting her in his arms and kissing her.

'He's such a nice boy,' the little G.o.ddess beamed to her sister.

Two days later, the weather changed abruptly. Heavy clouds swept in off the Tamul sea several hundred odd leagues to the east, and the sky turned suddenly murky and threatening. To add to the gloom, one of those breakdowns in communications so common in all government enterprises occurred. They reached a clan border marked by a several-hundred-yard-wide strip of open ground about noon only to find no escort awaiting them. The clan which had brought them this far could not cross that border, and, indeed, looked nervously back toward the safety of the forest.

'There are bad feelings between these two clans, Sparhawk-Knight,' Engessa advised gravely. 'It is a serious breach of custom and propriety for either clan to come within five hundred paces of the line between them.'

'Tell them to go on home, Atan Engessa,' Sparhawk told him. 'There are enough of us here to protect the queen, and we wouldn't want to start a clan war just for the sake of maintaining appearances. The other clan should be along soon, so there's no real danger.'

Engessa looked a bit dubious, but he spoke with the leader of their escort, and the Atans gratefully melted back into the forest.

'What now?' Kalten asked.

'How about some lunch?' Sparhawk replied.

'I thought you'd never think of that.'

'Have the knights and the Peloi draw up around the carriage and get some cooking fires going. I'll go tell Ehlana.' He rode back to the carriage.

'Where's the escort?' Mirtai asked brusquely. Now that she was an adult, Mirtai was even more commanding than she had been before.

'I'm afraid they're late,' Sparhawk told her. 'I thought we might as well have some lunch while we're waiting for them.'

'Absolutely splendid idea, Sparhawk,' Emban beamed.

'We thought you might approve, your Grace. The escort should be here by the time we finish eating.'

They were not, however. Sparhawk paced back and forth, chafing at the delay, and his patience finally evaporated. 'That's it!' he said loudly. 'Let's get ready to move out.'

'We're supposed to wait, Sparhawk,' Ehlana told him.

'Not out in the open like this, we're not. And I'm not going to sit here for two days waiting for some Atan clan-chief to mull his way through a message.'

'I think we'd better do as he says, friends,' Ehlana told the others. 'I know the signs, and my beloved's beginning to grow short-tempered.'

'-Er,' Talen added.

'You said what?' Ehlana asked him.

'Short-tempered-er. Sparhawk's always shorttempered. It's only a little worse now. You have to know him very well to be able to tell the difference.'

'Are you short-tempered-er right now, love?' she teased her husband.

'I don't think there is such a word, Ehlana. Let's get 'ready and move on out. The road's well-marked, so we can hardly get lost.'

The trees beyond the open s.p.a.ce were dark cedars with swooping limbs that brushed the ground and concealed everything more than a few yards back into the forest. The clouds rolling in from the east grew thicker and the light back among the trees grew dim. The air hung motionless and sultry, and the whine of mosquitoes seemed to grow louder as they rode deeper into the woods.

'I love wearing armour in mosquito country,' Kalten said gaily. 'I have this picture of hordes of the little blood-suckers sitting around with teeny little hammers trying to pound their beaks straight again,'

'They won't really try to bite you through the steel, Sir Kalten,' Zalasta told him. 'They're attracted by your smell, and I don't think any living creature finds the smell of Elene armour all that appetising.'

'You're taking all the fun out of it, Zalasta.'

'Sorry, Sir Kalten.'

There was a rumble far off to the east. 'The perfect end to a day gone sour,' Stragen observed, 'a nice rousing thunderstorm with lots of lightning, hail, driving rain and howling winds.'

Then, echoing down some unseen canyon back in the forest there came a hoa.r.s.e, roaring bellow. Almost immediately there came an answer from the opposite direction. Sir Ulath swore, biting off curses the way a dog tears at a piece of meat.

'What's wrong?' Sparhawk demanded.

'Didn't you recognise it, Sparhawk?' the Thalesian said. 'You've heard it before-back at Lake Venne.'

'What is it?' Khalad asked apprehensively.

'It's a signal that it's time for us to fort up! Those are Trolls out there!'

Chapter 22.

'It's not perfect, friend Sparhawk,' Kring said. a bit dubiously, 'but I don't think we've got time to look for anything better.'

'He's right about that, Sparhawk,' Ulath agreed. 'Time's definitely a major concern right now.'