Domes of Fire

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 chore 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 identity 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 Bhelliom.’ 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-Gods, we can manage without Bhelliom.’ 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-Gods 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 Gods 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 Gods.’

‘That lends some weight to the notion that the Troll-Gods 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-Gods, 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-Gods 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-Gods 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-Gods 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 Bhelliom 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 crashing 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 Goddess 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.’