The Shining Ones

The cup stopped in mid-air and hung there.

‘Take the vessel down, Anakha,’ Vanion’s voice instructed.

Sparhawk took hold of the cup and immediately found that it was as immobile as a mountain. He tried as hard as he could to move it, but it simply stayed where it was.

‘Thou couldst not so much as move a leaf, Anakha,’ Bhelliom told him. ‘Thou canst easily move thyself through that frozen moment, but to move other objects would require thee to move the entire universe.’

‘I see,’ Sparhawk said glumly. ‘Then we wouldn’t be able to cut down trees and build forts, would we?’

‘Are those structures of great importance to thee? Doth some obscure custom require them?’

‘Nay, Blue Rose. It is our intent to place obstructions in the path of the Trolls that they may not attack our friends, the Atans.’

‘Wouldst thou be offended were I to offer suggestion?’

Ulath looked sharply at Tynian. ‘Have you been talking to that poor stone in secret?’ he accused.

‘Very funny, Ulath,’ Tynian said sourly.

‘I did not understand.’ Vanion’s tone was slightly chilly.

‘It is an ongoing discussion between the two, Blue Rose,’ Sparhawk explained, giving the pair a hard look. ‘It hath reached a point so obscure now that it is incomprehensible. Gladly would I hear thy suggestion, my friend.’

‘Is it needful to injure the Trolls, Anakha? If they be totally denied access to the lands of thy friends, the Atans, must thou kill them?’

‘Indeed, Blue Rose, we would prefer not to cause them harm. When their Gods wrest them from Cyrgon’s dominion, shall they be our allies.’

‘Would it offend thee should I erect a barrier before them? – a barrier beyond their ability to cross?’

‘Not in the least. Indeed, we would be most grateful.’

‘Let us then to Atan, and I will make it so. I would not see any destroyed needlessly. My child will surely aid me, and between us, she and I will bar the Trolls from proceeding farther southward.’

‘Thou hast a daughter too, Blue Rose?’ Sparhawk was stunned.

‘I have millions, Anakha, and each is as precious to me as thine is to thee. Let us to Atan, then, that the bloodshed may cease.’

Northern Atan was forested, but the more rugged mountains lay to the south. The mountains of the north had been ground down by glaciers in ages past, and the land sloped gradually on down to the Sea of the North where eternal pack-ice capped the globe. Sparhawk looked around quickly. Bhelliom had responded to his unspoken request and had brought only warriors to this northern forest. There were certain to be arguments about that later, but that could not be helped.

‘Engessa-Atan.’ Vanion’s voice was crisply authoritative. An absurd notion occurred to Sparhawk. He wondered suddenly if Bhelliom had ever commanded troops.

‘Yes, Vanion-Preceptor?’ the big Atan replied.

‘Command thy kinsmen to withdraw one league’s distance from the place where now they are engaged.’

Engessa looked sharply at Vanion, then realized that it was not the Pandion Preceptor who had spoken. ‘That will take some time, Blue Rose,’ he explained. ‘The Atans are engaging the Trolls all across the North Cape. I will have to send messengers.’

‘Do thou but speak the command, Engessa-Atan. All shall hear thee, thou hast mine assurance.’

‘I wouldn’t argue, friend Engessa,’ Kring advised. ‘That’s the jewel that stops the sun. If it says they’ll all hear you, they’ll all hear you, take my word for it.’

‘We’ll try it, then.’ Engessa raised his face. ‘Withdraw!’ he roared in a shattering bellow. ‘Fall back one league and regroup!’

The huge voice echoed and re-echoed through the forest.

‘I think you could make yourself heard from one side of the cape to the other without any help at all, Engessa-Atan,’ Kalten said.

‘Not quite so far, Kalten-Knight,’ Engessa replied modestly.

‘Thy judgement of thy people’s speed will be more precise than mine, Engessa-Atan,’ Bhelliom told him. ‘Advise me when they have reached safety. I would not have them trapped north of the wall.’

‘The wall?’ Ulath asked.

‘The barrier of which I spake.’ Vanion bent and touched the ground with strangely gentle fingertips. ‘It is well, Anakha. We are within a few paces of the place I sought.’

‘I have ever had absolute faith in thine ability to find a precise spot, Blue Rose.’

‘“Ever” is perhaps an imprecise term, Anakha.’ A faint, ironic smile touched Vanion’s lips. ‘It seemeth me I do recall some talk of finding thyself on the surface of the moon when first we began to move from place to place.’

‘You did say that, Sparhawk,’ Kalten reminded his friend.

‘Thou spakest of thy daughter, Blue Rose,’ Sparhawk said, rather quickly changing the subject. ‘May we be privileged to meet her?’

‘Thou hast met her, Anakha. Thou standest this very moment upon her verdant bosom.’ Vanion’s hand fondly patted the ground.

‘The earth itself?’ Bevier asked incredulously.

‘Is she not fair?’ There was a note of pride in the question. Then Vanion straightened. ‘Let us withdraw somewhat from this spot, Anakha. What I am to do here will take place some six of thy miles beneath our feet, and its effects here at the surface are difficult to predict. I would not endanger thee or thy companions by mine imprecision, and there will be some disturbance here. Is it safe to proceed now, Engessa-Atan?’

Engessa nodded. ‘Any Atan who hasn’t covered at least a league by now doesn’t deserve to be called an Atan,’ he replied.

They turned and walked some hundred paces to the south. Then they stopped.

‘Farther, I pray thee, Anakha, yet again as far, and it would be well if thou and thy companions did lie upon the earth. The disturbance may be quite profound.’

‘Your friend is beginning to make me nervous, Sparhawk,’ Tynian confessed as they walked another hundred paces back. ‘Exactly what is it planning here?’

‘You know as much about it as I do, my friend.’

Then they heard a deep-toned subterranean booming which seemed to rise up out of the core of the earth. The ground shuddered sharply under their feet.

‘Earthquake!’ Kalten shouted in alarm.

‘I think that may be what you were asking about, Tynian,’ Ulath rumbled.

‘This is not simple, Anakha,’ Bhelliom observed in an almost clinical tone. ‘The pressures are extreme and must be adjusted with great delicacy to achieve the end we do desire.’

The next jolt staggered them. The ground heaved and shuddered, and the dreadful, hollow booming grew louder.

‘It is time, Anakha. The disturbance which I did mention previously is about to begin.’

‘Begin?’ Bevier exclaimed. ‘It’s all I can do to stand up now!’

‘We’d better do as we’re told,’ Sparhawk said sharply, dropping to his knees and then sprawling out face down on the carpet of fallen leaves. ‘I think the next one’s going to be spectacular.’

‘The next one’ lasted for a full ten minutes. Nothing with legs could have stood erect on the violently jerking and convulsing earth. Then, with a monstrous roar, the earth not fifty paces in front of them split. The land beyond that ghastly crack in the earth’s shell seemed to fall away, while the shuddering ground to which they clung heaved upward, rising ponderously, rippling almost like a wind-tossed banner. Great clouds of birds, squawking in alarm, rose from the shuddering trees.

Then the earthquake gradually subsided. The violence of the tremors grew less severe and less frequent, although there were a number of intermittent jolts. The awful booming sound grew fainter, echoing up through miles of rock like the memory of a nightmare. Vast clouds of dust came billowing up over the lip of the newly formed precipice.

‘Now mayest thou contemplate mine handiwork, Anakha,’ Bhelliom said quite calmly, although with a certain modest pride. ‘Speak truly, for I will not be offended shouldst thou find flaws. If thou dost perceive faults in what I have wrought, I will correct them at once.’

Sparhawk decided not to trust his feet just yet. Followed closely by his friends, he crawled to the abrupt edge which had not been there fifteen minutes earlier.

The cliff was almost as straight as a sword-cut, and it went down and down at least a thousand feet. It stretched, moreover, as far as the eye could reach both to the east and to the west. A huge escarpment, a vast wall, now separated the upper reaches of the North Cape from the rest of Tamuli.

‘What thinkest thou?’ Bhelliom asked, just a little anxiously. ‘Will my wall deny the Trolls access to the lands of thy friends? I can do more if it is thy wish.’

‘No, Blue Rose,’ Sparhawk choked, ‘no more, I pray thee.’

‘I am pleased that thou art satisfied.’

‘It is a splendid wall, Blue Rose.’ It was a ridiculous thing to say, but Sparhawk was badly shaken.

Bhelliom did not seem to notice. Vanion’s face was suddenly creased with an almost shy smile at Sparhawk’s stunned expression of approval. ‘It is an adequate wall,’ it said a bit deprecatingly. ‘There was some urgency in our need, so I had not time enough to mold and shape it as I might have wished, but methinks it will serve. I would take it as kindness, however, that when next thou dost require modification of the earth, thou wouldst give me more extensive notice, for truly, work done in haste is never wholly satisfactory.’

‘I shall endeavor to remember that, Blue Rose.’

Chapter 27

‘It’s not so bad in here, Sarabian,’ Mirtai was saying to the distraught Emperor. ‘The floor’s carpeted here, so most of the tiles weren’t broken when they fell.’ She was on her knees gathering up the small opalescent tiles as Sparhawk and the others emerged from that blurred gray emptiness.

‘Sparhawk!’ Sarabian exclaimed, recoiling in shocked surprise. ‘I wish you’d blow a trumpet or something before you do that!’

‘What happened here, your Majesty?’ Vanion asked, staring at the littered carpet.

‘We had an earthquake! Now I’ve got an economic disaster on my hands in addition to everything else!’

‘You felt it here, your Majesty?’ Vanion choked.

‘It was terrible, Vanion!’ Sephrenia said. ‘It was the worst earthquake I’ve ever been through!’

‘Here?’

‘You’re going to make me cross if you keep saying that. Of course we felt it here. Look at the walls.’

‘It looks like a bad case of the pox,’ Kalten said.

‘The tiles were jumping off the walls like grasshoppers,’ Sarabian said in a sick voice. ‘God knows what the rest of the city looks like. This will bankrupt me.’

‘It’s over four hundred leagues!’ Vanion choked. ‘Twelve hundred miles!’

‘What is he talking about, Sparhawk?’ Ehlana demanded.

‘We were at the center of the earthquake,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘It was up in northern Atan.’

‘Did you do this to me, Sparhawk?’ Sarabian demanded.

‘Bhelliom did, your Majesty. The Trolls won’t be attacking the Atans any more.’

‘Bhelliom shook them all to pieces?’

Sparhawk smiled faintly. ‘No, your Majesty. It put a wall across the North Cape.’

‘Can’t the Trolls climb over it?’ Betuana demanded.

‘I wouldn’t think so, your Majesty,’ Vanion said. ‘It’s about a thousand feet high, and it stretches from the Tamul Sea to that coast that lies to the northwest of Sarsos. The Trolls won’t be coming any farther south – not in the next two weeks, anyway, and after that, it won’t make any difference.’

‘What exactly do you mean when you say “wall”, Vanion?’ Patriarch Emban asked.

‘Actually, it’s an escarpment, your Grace,’ Vanion explained, ‘a huge cliff that stretches all the way across the North Cape. That’s what caused the earthquake.’

‘Won’t Cyrgon be able to reverse whatever Bhelliom did?’ Sephrenia asked.

‘Bhelliom says no, little mother,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘He isn’t strong enough.’

‘He’s a God, Sparhawk.’

‘Evidently that doesn’t make any difference. What happened was just too enormous. Bhelliom said that it shifted some things about six miles beneath the surface of the earth, and certain changes in the shape of that part of the continent happened all at once instead of being spread out over a million or so years. The changes were going to happen anyway, but Bhelliom just made them happen all at once. I gather that the escarpment will become a mountain range as it gradually breaks down. The concepts are just too vast for Cyrgon to comprehend, and the pressures involved are beyond his ability to control.’

‘What in God’s name have you done, Sparhawk?’ Emban exclaimed. ‘You’re ripping the world apart!’

‘Tell them not to be disquieted, Anakha.’ Bhelliom spoke again in Vanion’s voice. ‘I would not hurt my daughter, for I do love her. She is a wayward and whimsical child at times, much given to tantrums and sweet, innocent vanity. Behold how she doth adorn herself with spring and mantle her shoulders with the white gown of winter. The stresses and tensions which I did relieve in raising the wall had, in truth, been causing her some discomfort for the past thousand eons. Now is she content, and indeed doth she take some pleasure in her new adornment, for, as I say, she is a trifle vain.’

‘Where’s Kring?’ Mirtai asked suddenly.

‘We left him, Engessa and Khalad back at the escarpment,’ Sparhawk told her. ‘Bhelliom’s excellent wall keeps the Trolls from getting at us, but it also keeps us from getting at them. We have to work out some way to get the Troll-Gods past it to steal back their Trolls.’

‘You’ve got Bhelliom, Sparhawk,’ Stragen said. ‘Just jump over it.’

Sparhawk shook his head. ‘Bhelliom says that we’d better not. The ground’s still a little touchy near the wall right now. If we jump around too much in that general vicinity, we might set off more earthquakes.’

‘God!’ Sarabian cried. ‘Don’t do that! You’ll shake the whole continent apart!’

‘We’re trying to avoid that, your Majesty. Engessa, Kring and Khalad are working on something. If we can’t go down the escarpment, we may have to use Tynian’s fleet and sail around the eastern end of it.’