‘No. Something else is supposed to happen.’ The Child Goddess sighed and nestled against her sister. ‘Please don’t be angry with me, Sephrenia,’ she said. ‘You’re not going to like what’s coming, I’m afraid. It’s necessary, though. No matter how much it upsets you, always remember that I love you.’ She sat up and held her hands out to Sparhawk. ‘I need to talk with you,’ she said to him. ‘…privately.’
‘Secrets?’ Talen asked her.
‘Every girl needs secrets, Talen. You’ll learn more about that as time goes on. Let’s ride off a ways, Sparhawk.’
They rode away from the road for several hundred yards, and then moved on, keeping pace with the others. Faran’s steel-shod hooves clattered on the rusty sun-baked gravel of the desert floor.
‘We’ll be going on toward the Tamul border,’ Flute said as they rode. ‘This event that’s ahead of us will happen there, and I’ll have to leave you before it does.’
‘Leave?’ He was startled.
‘You’ll be able to manage without me for a while. I can’t be present when this event takes place. There’s a propriety involved. I may be as flighty and frivolous as Itagne suggested, but I do have good manners. A certain personage will be taking part in this affair and he’d be insulted if I were present. He and I have had some disagreements in the past, and we’re not speaking to each other at the moment.’ She made a rueful little face. ‘It’s been quite a lengthy moment,’ she admitted, ‘eight or ten thousand years, actually. He’s doing something I don’t really approve of – of course, he’s never fully explained it to me. I like him well enough, but he’s got a terribly superior attitude. He always behaves as if the rest of us are too stupid to understand what he’s doing – but I understand very well. He’s breaking one of the cardinal rules.’ She waved her hand as if brushing it aside. ‘That’s between him and me, though. Look after my sister, Sparhawk. She’s going to have a very difficult time.’
‘She’s not going to get sick, is she?’
‘She’d probably prefer that.’ The Child Goddess sighed. ‘I wish there were some way I could spare her this, but there isn’t. She has to go through it if she’s going to continue to grow.’
‘Aphrael, she’s over three hundred years old.’
‘What’s that got to do with it? I’m a hundred times older than that, and I’m still growing. She has to do the same. I’m lovable, Sparhawk, but I never promised to be easy. This is going to be terribly painful to her, but she’ll be much better for having gone through it.’
‘You’re not making any sense, you know.’
‘I don’t have to make sense, father. That’s one of the advantages of my situation.’
They made the journey from Cynestra to the border west of Sarna in easy stages, moving at a leisurely pace from oasis to oasis. Sparhawk could not be positive, but it seemed Aphrael was waiting for something. She and Vanion spent a great deal of time with the map, and their jumps across the sun-baked gravel of eastern Cynesga grew shorter and shorter, and their stays at the oases longer. As they neared the border, their pace slowed even more, and more often than not they found themselves simply riding, plodding their way eastward through the interminable empty miles without any resort to Bhelliom at all.
‘It’s difficult to get anything very precise,’ Itagne was saying on the afternoon of their fourth day out from Cynestra. ‘Most of the sightings have been made by desert nomads, and they don’t trust the authorities enough to speak with them at any length. There have been the usual wild stories about vampires and werewolves and harpies and the like, but I rather imagine that most of those flew out of the neck of a wine-skin. The Cynesgan authorities laugh most of those off as no more than the hallucinations of ignorant people who drink too much and spend too much time out in the sun. They take the reports of sightings of the Shining Ones very seriously, however.’
‘All right, Itagne,’ Kalten said irritably, ‘we’ve been hearing about these “Shining Ones” ever since we came to Daresia. People turn all trembly and white-knuckled and refuse to talk about them. We’ve got you way out here in the desert where you can’t run away, so why don’t you tell us just who – or what – they are.’
‘It’s really quite grotesque, Sir Kalten,’ Itagne told him, ‘and more than a little sickening.’
‘I’ve got a strong stomach. Are they some kind of monster? Twelve feet tall and with nine heads or something?’
‘No. Actually they’re supposed to look like ordinary humans.’
‘Why are they called by that peculiar name?’ Berit asked.
‘Why don’t you let me ask the questions, Berit?’ Kalten said bluntly. Kalten, it appeared, still had problems where Berit was concerned.
‘Excuse me, Sir Kalten,’ Berit replied, looking just a bit startled and slightly hurt.
‘Well?’ Kalten said to Oscagne’s brother. ‘What does it mean? Why are they called that?’
‘Because they glow like fireflies, Sir Kalten.’ Itagne shrugged.
‘That’s all?’ Kalten asked incredulously. ‘The whole continent collapses in terror just because some people glow in the dark?’
‘Of course not. The fact that they glow is just a warning. Everybody in Tamuli knows that when he sees someone who shines like the morning star coming toward him, he’d better turn round and run for his life.’
‘What are these monsters supposed to be able to do?’ Talen asked. ‘Do they eat people alive or tear them all to pieces or something?’
‘No,’ Itagne replied somberly. ‘The legend has it that their merest touch is death.’
‘Sort of like poisonous snakes?’ Khalad suggested.
‘Much worse than that, young sir. The touch of the Shining Ones rots a man’s flesh from his bones. It’s the decay of the grave, and the victim isn’t dead when it happens. The descriptions from folk-lore are very lurid. We’re given pictures of people standing stock-still, shrieking in agony and horror as their faces and limbs dissolve into slime and run like melted wax.’
‘That’s a graphic picture.’ Ulath shuddered. ‘I’d imagine it sort of interferes with establishing normal relations with these people.’
‘Indeed, Sir Ulath,’ Itagne smiled, ‘but despite all of that, the Shining Ones are among the most popular figures in Tamul literature – which may provide you with some insight into the perversity of our minds.’
‘Are you talking about ghost stories?’ Talen asked him. ‘Some people like those, I’ve heard.’
‘Delphaeic literature is far more complex than that.’
‘Delphaeic? What does that mean?’
‘Literature refers to the Shining Ones as the Delphae,’ Itagne replied, ‘and the mythic city where they live is called Delphaeus.’
‘It’s a pretty name.’
‘I think that’s part of the problem. Tamuls tend to be sentimentalists, and the musical quality of the word fills the eyes of our lesser poets with tears and their brains with mush. They ignore the more unpleasant aspects of the legend and present the Delphae as a simple, pastoral people who are grossly misunderstood. For seven centuries they’ve inflicted abominable pastoral verse and overdrawn adolescent eclogues on us. They’ve pictured the Delphae as lyric shepherds, glowing like fireflies and mooning about the landscape, over-dramatically suffering the pangs of unrequited love and pondering – ponderously, of course – the banalities of their supposed religion. The academic world has come to regard Delphaeic literature as a bad joke perpetuated far too long.’
‘It’s an abomination!’ Sephrenia declared with uncharacteristic heat.
‘Your critical perception does you credit, dear lady,’ Itagne smiled, ‘but I think your choice of terms over-dignifies the genre. I’d characterize Delphaeic literature as adolescent sentimentality perhaps, but I don’t really take it seriously enough to grow indignant about it.’
‘Delphaeic literature is a mask for the most pernicious kind of anti-Styric bigotry!’ she said in tones she usually reserved for ultimatums.
Vanion appeared to be as baffled by her sudden outburst as Sparhawk and the rest. He looked around, obviously seeking some way to change the subject.
‘It’s moving on toward sunset,’ Kalten noted, stepping in to lend a hand. Kalten’s perceptiveness sometimes surprised Sparhawk. ‘Flute,’ he said, ‘did you plan to put us down beside another one of those water-holes for the night?’
‘Oasis, Kalten,’ Vanion corrected him. ‘They call it an oasis, not a water-hole.’
‘That’s up to them. They can call it whatever they want, but I know a water-hole when I see one. If we’re going to do this the old-fashioned way, we’re going to have to start looking for a place to camp, and there’s a ruin of some kind on that hilltop over there to the north. Sephrenia can squeeze water out of the air for us, and if we stay in those ruins we won’t have to put up with the smell of boiling dog all night the way we usually do when we camp near one of their villages.’
‘The Cynesgans don’t eat dogs, Sir Kalten,’ Itagne laughed.
‘I wouldn’t swear to that without an honest count of all the dogs in one of their villages – both before and after supper.’
‘Sparhawk!’ It was Khalad, and he was roughly shaking his lord into wakefulness. There are people out there!’
Sparhawk threw his blankets to one side and rolled to his feet, reaching for his sword. ‘How many?’ he asked quietly.
‘I’ve seen a dozen or so. They’re creeping around among those boulders down by the road.’
‘Wake the others.’
‘Yes, my Lord.’
‘Quietly, Khalad.’
Khalad gave him a flat, unfriendly stare.
‘Sorry.’
The ruin in which they had set up their camp had been a fortress at one time. The stones were roughly squared off, and they had been set without mortar. Uncounted centuries of blowing dust and sand had worn the massive blocks smooth and had rounded the edges. Sparhawk crossed what appeared to have been a court to the tumbled wall on the south side of the fortress and looked down toward the road.
A thick cloud-bank had crept in during the night to obscure the sky. Sparhawk peered toward the road, silently cursing the darkness. Then he heard a faint rustling sound just on the other side of the broken wall.
‘Don’t get excited,’ Talen whispered.
‘Where have you been?’
‘Where else?’ The boy climbed over the rubble to join the big Pandion.
‘Did you take Berit with you again?’ Sparhawk asked acidly.
‘No. Berit’s a little too noisy now that he’s taken to wearing chain-mail, and his integrity always seems to get in the way.’
Sparhawk grunted. ‘Well?’ he asked.
‘You’re not going to believe this, Sparhawk.’
‘I might surprise you.’
There are more of those Cyrgai out there.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I didn’t stop one to ask him, but they look exactly the same as those ones we ran across west of Sarsos did. They’ve got on those funny-looking helmets, the old-fashioned armor, and those silly short dresses they wear.’
‘I think they’re called kilts.’
‘A dress is a dress, Sparhawk.’
‘Are they doing anything tactically significant?’
‘You mean forming up for an attack? No. I think these are just scouts. They don’t have their spears or shields with them, and they’re doing a lot of crawling around on their bellies.’
‘Let’s go talk with Vanion and Sephrenia.’
They crossed the rubble-littered courtyard of the ancient fortress. ‘Our young thief’s been disobeying orders again,’ Sparhawk told the others.
‘No, I haven’t,’ Talen disagreed. ‘You didn’t order me not to go look at those people, so how can you accuse me of disobeying you?’
‘I didn’t order you not to because I didn’t know they were out there.’
‘That did sort of make things easier. I’ll admit that.’
‘Our wandering boy here reports that the people creeping around down by the road are Cyrgai.’
‘Someone on the other side’s been winnowing through the past again?’ Kalten suggested.
‘No,’ Flute said, raising her head slightly. The little girl appeared to have been sleeping soundly in her sister’s arms. ‘The Cyrgai out there are as alive as you are. They aren’t from the past.’
‘That’s impossible,’ Bevier objected. ‘The Cyrgai are extinct.’
‘Really?’ the Child Goddess said. ‘How astonishing that they didn’t notice that. Trust me, gentlemen. I’m in a position to know. The Cyrgai who are creeping up on you are contemporary.’
‘The Cyrgai died out ten thousand years ago, Divine One,’ Itagne said firmly.
‘Maybe you should run down the hill and let them know about it, Itagne,’ she told him. ‘Let me go, Sephrenia.’
Sephrenia looked a little startled.
Aphrael kissed her sister tenderly, and then stepped a little way away. ‘I have to leave you now. The reasons are very complex, so you’ll just have to trust me.’
‘What about those Cyrgai?’ Kalten demanded. ‘We’re not going to let you wander off in the dark while they’re out there.’
She smiled. ‘Would someone please explain this to him?’ she asked them.
‘Are you going to leave us in danger like this?’ Ulath demanded.
‘Are you worried about your own safety, Ulath?’
‘Of course not, but I thought I could shame you into staying until we’d dealt with them.’
‘The Cyrgai aren’t going to bother you, Ulath,’ she said patiently. ‘They’ll be going away almost immediately.’ She looked around at them. Then she sighed. ‘I really have to leave now,’ she said regretfully. ‘I’ll rejoin you later.’
Then she wavered like a reflection in a pool and vanished.
‘Aphrael!’ Sephrenia cried, half reaching out.
‘That is truly uncanny,’ Itagne muttered. ‘Was she serious about the Cyrgai?’ he asked them. ‘Is it at all possible that some of them actually survived their war with the Styrics?’