The Shining Ones

‘He didn’t say anything about that. He was just about to start giving her recipes for boiled carp.’

‘That’s what you heard him saying, but that wasn’t what he was really saying. You’ve got to learn to listen with both ears, Danae.’

‘Elenes!’ she said, rolling her eyes upward.

Then they heard Kalten shout, ‘Look out!’

Sparhawk looked sharply toward the spot where the others were gathered around a tall maple tree. Talen was up among the topmost branches, inching his way slowly out on a very slender limb toward the wild-eyed Mmrr. Things weren’t going well. The limb was sturdy enough to support Mmrr, but Talen was too heavy. The limb was bending ominously, and there were unpleasant cracking sounds coming from its base.

‘Talen,’ Kalten shouted again, ‘get back!’

But by then, of course, it was too late. The tree-limb did not so much break off from the trunk as it did split at its base and peel down the side of the tree. Talen made a desperate grab, caught the confused and terrified cat in one hand, and then plunged headlong down through the lower branches of the tree.

The situation was still not irretrievable. The Church Knights were all versed in various levels of magic, Sephrenia was there, and Aphrael herself rode on Sparhawk’s shoulders. The problem was that no one could actually see Talen. The maple tree had large leaves and the boy was falling down through the limbs and was thus totally obscured by the foliage. They could hear him hitting limbs as he fell, a series of sharp raps and thumps accompanied by grunts and sharp cries of pain. Then he emerged from the lower foliage, falling limply to land with a thud on the grass under the tree with Mmrr still loosely held in one hand. He did not get up.

‘Talen!’ Danae screamed in horror.

Sephrenia concurred with the opinion of Sarabian’s physicians. Talen had suffered no really serious injuries. He was bruised and battered, and there was a large, ugly knot on his forehead from his encounter with the unyielding tree-limb which had knocked him senseless, but Sephrenia assured them that, aside from a splitting headache, he would have no lasting after-effects from his fall.

Princess Danae, however, was in no mood to be reassured. She hovered at the bedside, reacting with little cries of alarm each time the unconscious boy stirred or made the slightest sound.

Finally, Sparhawk picked her up and carried her from the room. There were people there who probably shouldn’t witness miracles. ‘It got away from you, didn’t it, Aphrael?’ he observed to the distraught Child Goddess.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You had to tamper with things – trying to fix things that would have fixed themselves if you’d just left them alone – and you almost got Talen killed in the process.’

‘It wasn’t my fault that he fell out of the tree.’

‘Whose fault was it, then?’ He knew that logically he was being grossly unfair, but he felt that maybe it was time for the meddling little Goddess to be brought short. ‘You interfere too much, Aphrael,’ he told her. ‘People have to be allowed to live their own lives and to make their own mistakes. We can usually fix our mistakes by ourselves, if you’ll just give us the chance. I suppose that what it gets down to is that just because you can do something doesn’t always mean that you should do it. You might want to think about that.’

She stared at him for a long moment, and then she suddenly burst into tears.

‘Tikume’s bowmen will help,’ Vanion said to Sparhawk a bit later when the two stood together on the parapet. ‘Ulath’s right about Trolls. You definitely want to slow them down before you fight them.’

‘And Khalad’s idea about the crossbows isn’t bad either.’

‘Right. Thank God you brought him along.’ The Preceptor pursed his lips. ‘I’d like to have you take personal charge of Khalad’s training when you get him back to Cimmura, Sparhawk. Make sure that he gets instruction in politics, diplomacy and Church Law as well as in military skills. I think he’s going to go a long way in our order, and I want to be sure he’s ready for any position.’

‘Even yours?’

‘Stranger things have happened.’

Sparhawk remembered Vanion’s declamation on fish that morning. ‘Are you making any progress at all with Sephrenia?’ he asked.

‘We’re speaking to each other, if that’s what you mean.’

‘It wasn’t. Why don’t you just sit down and talk with her? – about something more significant than the weather, or how many birds can sit on a limb, or what kind of fish can live in the moat?’

Vanion gave him a sharp look. ‘Why don’t you mind your own business?’

‘It is my business, Vanion. She can’t function while there’s this rift between you – and neither can you, for that matter. I need you – both of you – and I can’t really count on either of you until you resolve your differences.’

‘I’m moving as fast as I dare, Sparhawk. One wrong move here could destroy everything.’

‘So could a failure to move. She’s waiting for you to take the first step. Don’t make her wait too long.’

Stragen came out onto the parapet. ‘He’s awake now,’ he reported. ‘He’s not very coherent, and his eyes aren’t focused, but he’s awake. Your daughter’s making quite a fuss over him, Sparhawk.’

‘She’s fond of him,’ Sparhawk shrugged. ‘She tells everybody that she’s going to marry him someday.’

‘Little girls are strange, aren’t they?’

‘Oh, yes, and Danae’s stranger than most.’

‘I’m glad I was able to catch the two of you alone,’ Stragen said then. There’s something I’d like to talk over with you before I mention it to the others.’ Stragen was absently twiddling two gold Elenic half-crowns in his right hand, carefully running one fingertip across the milled edges and hefting them slightly as if trying to determine their weight. Baroness Melidere’s confession appeared to have unsettled him just a bit. ‘Zalasta’s little fit of rage wasn’t quite as irrational as we thought it would be. Turning the Trolls loose on northern Atan was the most disruptive thing he could have done to us. We’ll have to deal with that, of course, but I think we’d better start preparing for his next move. Trolls don’t need much supervision once they’ve been pointed in the right direction, so Zalasta’s free to work on something else now, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Probably,’ Sparhawk agreed.

‘Now, I could be wrong…’

‘But you don’t think you are.’ Vanion completed his sentence sardonically.

‘He’s in a touchy mood today, isn’t he,’ Stragen said to Sparhawk.

‘He’s got a lot on his mind.’

‘It’s my guess that whatever Zalasta comes up with next is going to involve those conspirators Sarabian and Ehlana left in place for lack of jail cells.’

‘It could just as easily involve the armies Parok, Amador and Elron have raised in western Tamuli,’ Vanion disagreed.

Stragen shook his head. ‘Those armies were raised to keep the Church Knights off the continent, Lord Vanion, and they were raised at Cyrgon’s specific orders. If Zalasta risked them now, he’d have to answer to Cyrgon for it, and I don’t think he’s that brave yet.’

‘Maybe you’re right,’ Vanion conceded. ‘All right, let’s say that he will use those second-level conspirators. Sarabian and Ehlana have already set things in motion to round them up.’

‘Why bother rounding them up at all, my Lord?’

‘To get them off the streets, for one thing. Then there’s also the small detail of the fact that they’re guilty of high treason. They need to be tried and punished.’

‘Why?’

‘As an example, you idiot!’ Vanion flared.

‘I’ll agree that getting them off the streets is important, Lord Vanion, but there are more effective ways to make examples of people – not only more effective, but more terrifyingly certain. When you send policemen out to arrest people, it’s noisy, and usually others hear the noise and manage to escape. There’s also the fact that trials are tedious, expensive, and not absolutely certain.’

‘You’ve got an alternative in mind, I gather,’ Sparhawk said.

‘Naturally. Why not have the executions first and the trials later?’

They stared at him.

‘I’m sort of extending the idea I had the other day,’ Stragen said. ‘Caalador and I have access to a number of non-squeamish professionals who can carry out the executions privately.’

‘You’re talking about murder, Stragen,’ Vanion accused.

‘Why, yes, Lord Vanion, I believe that is the term some people do use to describe it. The whole idea behind “examples” is to frighten others so much that they won’t commit the same crime. It doesn’t really work, because criminals know that their chances of being caught and punished are very slim.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s just one of the hazards of doing business. We professional criminals break laws all the time. We don’t, however, break our own rules. People in our society who break the rules aren’t afforded the courtesy of being tried. They’re just killed. No acquittals, no pardons, no last-minute jail-breaks. Dead. Period. Case closed. The justice of regular society is slow and uncertain. Ours is just the opposite. If you want to use terror to keep people honest, use real terror.’

‘It has got possibilities, Vanion,’ Sparhawk suggested tentatively.

‘You’re not seriously considering it, are you? There are thousands of those people out there! You’re talking about the largest mass murder in history!’

‘It’s a way to get my name in the record books, anyway,’ Stragen shrugged. ‘Caalador and I are probably going to do this anyway. We’re both impatient men. I wouldn’t have bothered you about it, but I thought I’d like to get your views on the subject. Should we tell Sarabian and Ehlana, or should we just go ahead and not bother them? Discussions about relative morality are so tedious, don’t you think? The point here is that we need to come up with something that will unhinge Zalasta all the more, and I think this might be it. If he wakes up some morning in the not too distant future and finds himself absolutely and totally alone, it might give him some second thoughts about the wisdom of his course. Oh, incidentally, I’ve borrowed Berit and Xanetia. They’re taking a stroll in the vicinity of the Cynesgan embassy so that Xanetia can run that dip-net of hers through the minds of the people inside. We’ve got quite a few names, but I’m sure there are more.’

‘Doesn’t she have to be in the same room with somebody to listen to his thoughts?’ Vanion asked.

‘She’s not really certain. She’s never had occasion to test the limits of her gift. The expedition today is something in the nature of an experiment. We’re hoping that she’ll be able to reach in through the walls and pull out the names of the people inside. If she can’t, I’ll find some way to get her inside so that she can seine out what we need. Caalador and I want as much information and as many names as we can get. Setting up the largest mass murder in history is a very complicated business, and we don’t want to have to do it twice.’

Chapter 24

‘It’s diversionary,’ Ulath said the next morning. He lowered one of the dispatches Emperor Sarabian had brought with him. ‘The werewolves and vampires and ghouls are just illusions, so they can’t really hurt anybody, and these attacks on Atan garrisons are no more than suicidal gestures intended to keep things confused. This is just more of what they were doing before.’

‘He’s right,’ Sparhawk agreed. ‘None of this is new, and it doesn’t have any real purpose except to keep the Atans in place.’

‘Unfortunately, it’s succeeding very well,’ Bevier said. ‘We can’t reduce the Atan garrisons by very much to send help to Betuana with all this going on.’

‘Lord Vanion’s idea of detaching platoon-sized units from the main garrisons should help a little,’ Sarabian protested.

‘Yes, your Majesty,’ Bevier replied, ‘but will it be enough?’

‘It’s going to have to be,’ Vanion said. ‘It’s all we can spare right now. We’re talking about Atans, though, and numbers aren’t that significant where they’re concerned. One Atan is half an army all by himself.’

Stragen motioned to Sparhawk, and the two of them drifted over to the long table laden with breakfast. The blond thief carefully selected a pastry. ‘It worked,’ he said quietly. ‘Xanetia has to be able to see the person whose thoughts she’s stealing, but Berit found a building that’s fairly close and quite a bit higher than the embassy. Xanetia’s got a comfortable room to sit in with a window that faces the ambassador’s office. She’s picking up all sorts of information – and names – for us.’

‘Why are we keeping this from the others?’

‘Because Caalador and I are going to use the information to set that new world record I was telling you about yesterday. Sarabian hasn’t authorized it yet, so let’s not upset him over something he doesn’t need to know about – at least not until we’ve stacked all the bodies in neat piles.’

Princess Danae fell ill the next day. It was nothing clearly definable. There was no fever, no rash, and no cough involved – only a kind of listless weakness. The princess seemed to have no appetite, and it was difficult to wake her.

‘It’s the same thing as it was last month,’ Mirtai assured the little girl’s worried parents. ‘She needs a tonic, that’s all.’

Sparhawk, however, knew that Mirtai was wrong. Danae had not really been ill the previous month. The Child Goddess made light of her ability to be in two places at the same time, but her father knew that when her attention was firmly fixed on what was going on in one place, she would be semi-comatose in the other. This illness was quite different somehow. ‘Why don’t you go ahead and try a tonic, Ehlana?’ he suggested. ‘I’ll go talk with Sephrenia. Maybe she can think of something else.’

He found Sephrenia sitting moodily in her room. She was looking out the window, although it was fairly obvious that she did not even see the view. ‘We’ve got a problem, little mother,’ Sparhawk said, closing the door behind him. ‘Danae’s sick.’