Domes of Fire

Their map indicated that the journey to the capital at Darsas would take them ten days. It actually did not, of course.

‘How do you deal with people who happen to see us when we’re moving this way,’ he asked Danae as they moved along at that accelerated pace later that day. He looked at his blank-faced uncomprehending friends. ‘I’ve got a sort of an idea of how you convince the people who are travelling with us that we’re just plodding along, but what about strangers?’

‘We don’t move this way when there are strangers around, Sparhawk,’ she replied, ‘but they wouldn’t see us anyway. We’re going too fast.’

‘You’re freezing time then, the same way Ghnomb did in Pelosia?’

‘No, I’m actually doing just the opposite. Ghnomb froze time and made you plod along through an endless second. What I’m doing is –’ She looked speculatively at her father. ‘I’ll explain it some other time,’ she decided. ‘We’re moving in little spurts, a few miles at a time. Then we amble along for a while, and then we spurt ahead again. Making it all fit together is really very challenging. It gives me something to occupy my mind during these long, boring journeys.’

‘Did that important thing you mentioned get said?’ he asked her.

‘Yes.’

‘What was it?’ He decided that a small bruise on his dignity wouldn’t really hurt all that much.

‘I don’t know. I know that it was important and that somebody was going to say it, but I don’t know the details.’

‘Then you’re not omniscient.’

‘I never said that I was.’

‘Could it have come in bits and pieces? A word or two to Emban, a couple to Stragen and me and quite a bit more to Khalad? And then we sort of had to put them all together to get the whole message?’

She thought about it. ‘That’s brilliant, father!’ she exclaimed.

‘Thank you.’ Their speculations earlier had borne some fruit after all. Then he pushed it a bit further. ‘Is someone here in Astel changing the attitudes of the people?’

‘Yes, but that goes on all the time.’

‘So when the nobility began to mistreat their serfs, it wasn’t their own idea?’

‘Of course not. Deliberate, calculated cruelty is very hard to maintain. You have to concentrate on it, and the Astels are too lazy for that. It was externally imposed.’

‘Could a Styric magician have done it?’

‘One by one, yes. A Styric could have selected one nobleman and turned him into a monster.’ She thought a moment. ‘Maybe two,’ she amended. ‘Three at the most. There are too many variables for a human to keep track of when you get past that.’

‘Then it’s a God – or Gods – that made them all start mistreating their serfs here a few years back?’

‘I thought I just said that.’

He ignored that and went on. ‘And the whole purpose of that was to make the serfs resentful and ready to listen to someone inciting them to revolution.’

‘Your logic is blinding me, Sparhawk.’

‘You can be a very offensive little girl when you set your mind to it, did you know that?’

‘But you love me anyway, don’t you? Get to the point, Sparhawk. It’s almost time for me to wake the others.’

‘And the sudden resentment directed at the Tamuls came from the same source, didn’t it?’

‘And probably at about the same time,’ she agreed. ‘It’s easier to do it all at once. Going back into someone’s mind over and over is so tedious.’

A sudden thought came to him. ‘How many things can you think about at the same time?’ he asked her.

‘I’ve never counted – several thousand, I’d imagine. Of course there aren’t really any limits. I guess if I really wanted to, I could think about everything all at once. I’ll try it sometime and let you know.’

‘That’s really the difference between us, isn’t it? You can think about more things at the same time than I can.’

‘Well, that’s one of the differences.’

‘What’s another?’

‘You’re a boy, and I’m a girl.’

‘That’s fairly obvious – and not very profound.’

‘You’re wrong Sparhawk. It’s much, much more profound than you could ever imagine.’

After they crossed the river Antun, they entered a heavily forested region where rocky crags jutted up above the treetops here and there. The weather continued blustery and threatening, though it did not rain.

Kring’s Peloi were very uncomfortable in the forest, and they rode huddled close to the Church Knights, their eyes a bit wild.

‘We might want to remember that,’ Ulath noted late that afternoon, jerking his chin in the direction of a pair of savage-looking, shaved-headed warriors following so closely behind Berit that their mounts were almost treading on his horse’s hind hooves.

‘What was that?’ Kalten asked him.

‘Don’t take the Peloi into the woods.’ Ulath paused and leaned back in his saddle. ‘I knew a girl in Heid one summer who felt more or less the same way,’ he reminisced. ‘She was absolutely terrified of the woods. The young men of the town sort of gave up on her – even though she was a great beauty. Heid’s a crowded little town, and there are always aunts and grandmothers and younger brothers underfoot in the houses. The young men have found that the woods offer the kind of privacy young people need from time to time, but this girl wouldn’t go near the woods. Then I made an amazing discovery. The girl was afraid of the woods, but she was absolutely fearless where hay-barns were concerned. I tested the theory personally any number of times, and she never once showed the slightest bit of timidity about barns – or goatsheds either, for that matter.’

‘I really don’t get the connection,’ Kalten said. ‘We were talking about the fact that the Peloi are afraid of the woods. If somebody attacks us here in this forest, we’re not going to have time to stop and build a barn for them, are we?’

‘No, I suppose you’re right there.’

‘All right, what is the connection then?’

‘I don’t think there is one, Kalten.’

‘Why did you tell the story then?’

‘Well, it’s an awfully good story, don’t you think?’ Ulath sounded a bit injured.