Domes of Fire

Engessa arrived the next morning with a thousand Atan clansmen. The faces of their officers clearly showed that Engessa had spoken firmly with them about their failure to be at the clan-border at the appointed time. The wounded knights were placed on litters borne by Atan warriors, and the much enlarged party moved slowly on back to the road and continued eastward toward Lebas in Tamul proper. Hindered as they were by the wounded, they did not make good time – or so it seemed. After what had apparently been two full days of travel, Sparhawk spoke very briefly with his daughter, advising her that he needed to talk with her at some point while the minds of the others were asleep. When the blank faces of his companions indicated that Aphrael was compressing time again, he rode back to the carriage.

‘Please get right to the point, Sparhawk,’ the little Goddess told him. ‘It’s very difficult this time.’

‘Is it different somehow?’

‘Of course it is. I’m extending the pain of the wounded, and that’s very distasteful. I’m making them sleep as much as possible, but there are limits, you know.’

‘All right then, how much of what happened back there was real?’

‘How could I possibly know that?’

‘You mean you can’t tell?’

‘Well, of course I can’t, Sparhawk. When we create an illusion, nobody can tell. It wouldn’t be much of an illusion if someone could detect it, would it?’

‘You said “we”. If it was an illusion, there was a God behind it then?’

‘Yes – either directly or indirectly. If it was indirectly, though, someone has a great deal of influence with whatever God was involved. We don’t surrender that much power very often – or very willingly. Don’t beat around the bush, Sparhawk. What’s bothering you?’

‘I don’t really know, Aphrael,’ he confessed. ‘Something about it didn’t seem quite right.’

‘Specifics, Sparhawk. 1 need something specific to work with.’

‘It just seemed to me that it was overdone, that’s all. I got a distinct feeling that someone was just showing off. It was adolescent.’

She considered that, her bow-like little mouth pouting. ‘Maybe we are adolescent, Sparhawk. It’s one of the dangers of our situation. There’s nothing powerful enough to make us grow up, so we’re at liberty to indulge ourselves. I’ve even noticed that in my own character.’

‘You?’

‘Be nice, father.’ She said it almost absently, her small black brows knitted in concentration. ‘It’s certainly consistent,’ she added. ‘Back in Astel, that Sabre fellow showed a rather profound lack of maturity, and he was being rather tightly controlled. You may just have hit upon one of our weaknesses, Sparhawk. I’d rather you didn’t apply the notion to me directly, but keep the idea that we’re all just a bit immature sort of in the front of your mind. I won’t be able to see it myself, I’m afraid. If it is one of our failings, I’m just as infected with it as the others. We all love to impress each other, and it’s polite to be impressed when someone else is showing off.’ She made a little face. ‘It’s automatic, I’m afraid. Keep a firm hold on your scepticism, Sparhawk. Your cold-eyed lack of gullibility might be very useful. Now please go back to sleep. I’m very busy right now.’

They crossed the summit of the mountains of Atan and moved on down the eastern slopes toward the border. The demarcation between Atan and Tamul was abrupt and clearly evident. Atan was a wilderness of trees and rugged peaks, Tamul was a carefully-tended park. The fields were excruciatingly neat, and even the hills seemed to have been artfully sculpted to provide pleasing prospects and vistas. The peasantry seemed industrious, and they did not have that expression of hopeless misery so common on the faces of the peasants and serfs of the Elene Kingdoms.

‘Organisation, my dear Emban,’ Oscagne was telling the fat little churchman. ‘The key to our success lies in organisation. All power in Tamul descends from the emperor, and all decisions are made in Matherion. We even tell our peasants when to plant and when to harvest. I’ll admit that central planning has its drawbacks, but the Tamul nature seems to require it.’

‘Elenes, unfortunately, are much less disciplined,’ Emban replied. ‘The Church would be happier with a more docile congregation, but we have to make do with what God gave us to work with.’ He smiled. ‘Oh, well, it keeps life interesting.’

They reached Lebas late one afternoon. It was a small, neat city with a distinctly alien-looking architecture that leaned strongly in the direction of artistic embellishment. The houses were low and broad, with graceful roofs that curved upward at the ends of their ridge-lines as if the architects felt that abrupt straight lines were somehow incomplete. The cobbled streets were broad and straight, and they were filled with citizens dressed in brightly coloured silks.

The entrance of the westerners created quite a stir, since the Tamuls had never seen Elene knights before. It was the Queen of Elenia, however, who astonished them the most. The Tamuls were a golden-skinned, dark-haired people, and the pale, blonde queen filled them with awe as her carriage moved almost ceremonially through the streets.

Their first concern, of course, was the wounded. Oscagne assured them that Tamul physicians were among the finest in the world. It appeared, moreover, that the ambassador held a fairly exalted rank in the empire. A house was immediately provided for the injured knights, and a medical staff seemed to materialise at his command. Additional houses were provided for the rest of their company, and those houses were fully staffed with servants who could not understand a single word of the Elenic language.

‘You seem to throw a great deal of weight around, Oscagne,’ Emban said that evening after they had eaten an exotic meal consisting of course after course of unidentifiable delicacies and sometimes startling flavours.

‘I’m not the overweight one, my friend,’ Oscagne smiled. ‘My commission is signed by the emperor, and his hand had the full weight of the entire Daresian continent behind it. He’s ordered that all of Tamuli do everything possible – and even impossible – to make the visit of Queen Ehlana pleasant and convenient. No one ever disobeys his orders.’

‘They must not have reached the Trolls then,’ Ulath said blandly. ‘Of course Trolls have a different view of the world than we do. Maybe they thought Queen Ehlana would be entertained by their welcome.’