The Sapphire Rose

‘Hardly, dear one. That cloud’s still there.’

‘But the cloud’s never really hurt us, Sephrenia. It tried to make us melancholy and afraid, but that’s about all – and Flute took care of that for us. If that’s the best it can really do, it’s not much of a threat.’

‘Don’t let yourself grow overconfident, Sparhawk,’ she warned. ‘The cloud – or shadow, whichever it is – is probably a creature of Azash, and that would make it at least as dangerous as the Damork or the Seeker.’

The countryside did not improve as they rode eastward, nor did the weather. It was bitterly cold, and the billowing clouds of black dust erased the sky. What little vegetation they saw was stunted and sickly. They were following something that sort of looked like a trail, though its drunken meanderings suggested wild cattle rather than men. The waterholes were infrequent, and the water in them was ice which had to be melted down to water the horses.

‘Cursed dust!’ Ulath suddenly bellowed at the sky, throwing aside the cloth which covered his mouth and nose.

‘Steady,’ Tynian said to him.

‘What’s the use of all this?’ Ulath demanded, spitting out dust. ‘We can’t even tell which way we’re going!’ He pulled the cloth back across his face and rode on, muttering to himself.

The horses continued to plod on, their hooves kicking up little puffs of frozen dust.

The melancholy which had beset them in the mountains lying to the west of the Gulf of Merjuk was obviously returning, and Sparhawk rode on cautiously, watching with chagrin as the mood of his companions rapidly deteriorated even as he kept a wary eye on nearby ravines and rocky outcrops.

Bevier and Tynian were deep in a sombre conversation. ‘It is a sin,’ Bevier was saying stubbornly. ‘To even suggest it is a heresy and a blasphemy. The Fathers of the Church have reasoned it out, and reason, coming as it does from God, is of God. Thus God Himself tells us that He and He alone is Divine.’

‘But –’ Tynian began to object.

‘Hear me out, my friend,’ Bevier said to him. ‘Since God tells us that there are no other Divinities, for us to believe otherwise is blackest sin. We are embarked upon a quest founded in childish superstition. The Zemochs are a danger, certainly, but they are a worldly danger, even as the Eshandists. They have no supernatural allies. We are throwing our lives away searching for a mythical foe who exists only in the diseased imaginations of our heathen enemies. I will reason with Sparhawk about this presently, and I have no doubt that he can be persuaded to abandon this vain quest.’

‘That might be best,’ Tynian agreed, albeit somewhat dubiously. The two of them seemed totally unaware that Sparhawk was clearly riding within earshot.

‘You’ve got to talk with him, Kurik,’ Kalten was saying to Sparhawk’s squire. ‘We haven’t got a chance in the world.’

‘You tell him,’ Kurik growled. ‘I’m a servant. It’s not my place to tell my lord that he’s a suicidal madman.’

‘I honestly believe we should slip up behind him and tie him up. I’m not just trying to save my own life, you understand. I’m trying to save his too.’

‘I feel the same way, Kalten.’

‘They’re coming!’ Berit screamed, pointing at a nearby cloud of swirling dust. ‘Arm yourselves!’

The war-like shouts of Sparhawk’s friends were shrill, tinged with panic, and their charge had an air of desperation about it. They crashed into the dust-cloud, swinging their swords and axes at the unfeeling air.

‘Help them, Sparhawk!’ Talen cried, his voice shrill.

‘Help them with what?’

‘The monsters! They’ll all be killed!’

‘I rather doubt that, Talen,’ Sparhawk replied coolly, watching his friends flailing at the dust-cloud with their weapons. ‘They’re more than a match for what they’re facing.’

Talen glared at him for a moment, then rode several yards away, swearing to himself.

‘I take it that you don’t see anything in the dust either,’ Sephrenia said calmly.

‘That’s all it is, little mother – just dust.’

‘Let’s deal with that right now.’ She spoke briefly in Styric, then gestured.

The thickly billowing dust-cloud seemed to shudder and flinch in upon itself for a moment, and then it gave a long, audible sigh as it slithered to the ground.

‘Where did they go?’ Ulath roared, looking around and brandishing his axe.

The others looked equally baffled, and the looks they directed at Sparhawk were darkly suspicious.

They avoided him after that and rode with dark scowls, whispering to each other and frequently casting covert looks at him, looks filled with hostility. They made their night’s encampment on the leeward side of a steep bluff where pale, sand-scoured rocks protruded from an unwholesome, diseased-looking bank of leprous clay. Sparhawk cooked their meal, and his friends chose not to linger with him at the fire after the meal as was customary. He shook his head in disgust and went to his blankets.

‘Awaken, Sir Knight, an it please thee.’ The voice was soft and gentle, and it seemed filled with love. Sparhawk opened his eyes. He found himself in a gaily-coloured pavilion, and beyond the open tent flap was a broad green meadow, all aswirl with wild flowers. There were trees, ancient and vast, their branches heavy with fragrant blossoms, and beyond the trees lay a sparkling sea of deep, deep blue, bejewelled with the gleams of reflected sunlight. The sky was as no other sky had ever been. It was a rainbow that covered the entire dome of the heavens, blessing all the world beneath.

The speaker who had awakened him stood nudging at him with her nose and pawing impatiently at the carpeted floor of the pavilion with one forehoof. She was small for a deer, and her coat was of such dazzling whiteness as to be almost incandescent. Her eyes were large and meltingly brown, and they reflected a docility, a trust and a sweet nature that tugged at the heart. Her manner, however, was insistent. She most definitely wanted him to get up.

‘Have I slept overlong?’ he asked, a bit concerned that he might have offended her.

‘Thou wert a-weary, Sir Knight,’ she replied, automatically, it seemed, coming to his defence even against self-criticism. ‘Dress thyself with some care,’ the gentle hind instructed, ‘for I am bidden to bring thee into the presence of my mistress, who doth rule this realm and whom all her subjects adore.’