The Shining Ones (43 page)

‘Things aren’t working out the way I thought they would,’ Ulath said in a gloomy voice. ‘The Trolls are learning to hide from arrows and crossbow bolts.’

‘Even a Troll is bound to learn eventually,’ Talen said. Talen seemed fully recovered from his tumble out of the maple tree, although he still complained of headaches occasionally.

‘No,’ Ulath disagreed. ‘That’s the whole point. Trolls
don’t
learn. Maybe it’s because their Gods don’t learn – or can’t. The Trolls that are walking around right now know exactly what the first Troll who ever lived knew – no more, no less. Cyrgon’s tampering with them. If he alters the Trolls to the point that they can learn things, mankind’s going to be in serious trouble.’

‘There’s something more, too, isn’t there, Ulath?’
Bevier asked shrewdly. ‘You’ve had your “theological expression” on your face for the past several days. You’re tussling with some moral dilemma, aren’t you?’

Ulath sighed. ‘This is probably going to upset everybody, but try to consider it on its merits instead of just going up in flames about it.’

‘That doesn’t sound too promising, old boy,’ Stragen murmured. ‘You’d better break it to us gently.’

‘I don’t think there
is
a gentle way, Stragen. Betuana’s dispatches are getting more and more shrill. The Trolls won’t come out in the open any more. The mounted Atans can’t get at them with lances, and the arrows and crossbow bolts are hitting more trees than Trolls. They’re even setting grass-fires so they can hide in the smoke. Betuana’s right on the verge of calling her people home, and without the Atans, we don’t have an army any more.’

‘Sir Ulath,’ Oscagne said, ‘I gather that this gloomy preamble is a preparation for a shocking suggestion. I think we’ve all been sufficiently prepared. Go ahead and shock us.’

‘We have to take the Trolls away from Cyrgon,’ Ulath replied, absently scratching Mmrr’s ears. ‘We can’t let him continue to teach them even rudimentary tactics, and we definitely don’t want them cooperating with each other the way they have been.’

‘And how exactly are you going to take totally unmanageable brutes away from a God?’ Stragen asked him.

‘I was sort of thinking along the lines of letting their
own
Gods do it. The Troll-Gods
are
available, after all. Ghwerig imprisoned them inside Bhelliom, and Sparhawk’s got Bhelliom tucked away inside his shirt. I’d imagine that Khwaj and the others would do almost
anything
for us if we promise to give them their freedom.’

‘Are you mad?’ Stragen exclaimed. ‘We can’t turn
them loose! That’s unthinkable!’ He dropped the pair of gold coins he always carried now.

‘I’d be more than happy to consider alternatives – if anyone can come up with some. The threat to Atan is serious enough, but the longer Cyrgon dominates the Trolls, the more they’re going to learn from him. Sooner or later, they’ll go back to Thalesia. Do we really want a trained army of Trolls outside the gates of Emsat? We’ve got at least
some
small advantage if we deal with the Troll-Gods. We hold the key to their freedom. But we don’t really have
anything
Cyrgon wants – except Bhelliom itself. I’d rather deal with the Troll-Gods, myself.’

‘Why don’t we just have Sparhawk take Bhelliom to northern Atan and exterminate the Trolls with it?’

Sparhawk shook his head. ‘Bhelliom won’t do that, Stragen. It won’t obliterate an entire species. I know that for certain.’

‘You’ve got the rings. You could force it to do as you say.’

‘No. I won’t do that. Bhelliom isn’t a slave. If it cooperates, it’s going to have to be willingly.’

‘We can’t just turn the Troll-Gods loose, Sparhawk. I may be a thief, but I’m still a Thalesian. I’m not going to just sit by and let the Trolls over-run the entire peninsula.’

‘We haven’t even talked with the Troll-Gods yet, Stragen,’ Ulath told him. ‘Why don’t we see what they have to say before we decide? No matter what, though, we’re going to have to do
something
very soon. If we don’t, we’re going to start seeing long columns of Atans marching out of their barracks on their way back home.’

Danae slipped down from Ulath’s lap and retrieved Stragen’s coins. ‘You dropped these, Milord,’ she said sweetly. Then she frowned. ‘Is it my imagination, or is one of them just a little lighter than the other?’

Stragen looked at her with a slightly sick expression on his face.

It was somewhat later, and Sparhawk and Vanion were escorting Sephrenia back to her room. They reached the door and stopped.

‘Oh, this is absurd!’ Sephrenia suddenly burst out in an exasperated tone of voice. ‘Vanion, go get your things and come back home where you belong!’

Vanion blinked. ‘I…’

‘Hush!’ she told him. Then she glared at Sparhawk. ‘And not a word out of you, either!’

‘Me?’

‘You have packing to do, Vanion,’ she said. ‘Don’t just stand there gawking.’

‘I’ll get right at it.’

‘And don’t take all day.’ She threw her arms up in the air. ‘Men! Do I have to draw pictures for you? I did everything short of lighting signal fires and blowing trumpets, and all you wanted to talk about was the weather – or fish. Why wouldn’t you
ever
get to the point?’

‘Well – I…’ he floundered. ‘You
were
very angry with me, Sephrenia.’

‘That was then. This is now. I’m not angry any more, and I want you to come back home. I’m going to go have a word with Danae, and I want to see you back in our room when I return.’

‘Yes, dear,’ he replied meekly.

She glared at him for a moment, and then she spun on her heel and went off down the hall, talking to herself and waving her hands in the air.

‘Well, Krager’s back,’ Talen reported as they gathered again later that afternoon. ‘One of the beggars saw him slipping in through the back gate of the Cynesgan
embassy about two hours ago – staggering might be a better word for it, though. He was roaring drunk.’

‘That’s the Krager we’ve come to know and love,’ Kalten laughed.

‘I can’t understand how Zalasta can put any faith in a known drunkard,’ Oscagne said.

‘Krager’s very intelligent when he’s sober, your Excellency,’ Sparhawk explained. ‘That was the only reason Martel put up with him.’ He scratched at his cheek. ‘Could we prevail on you to go back to that lookout near the embassy, Anarae?’

Xanetia started to rise from her chair.

‘Not right now,’ he smiled. ‘It usually takes Krager all night to sober up, so tomorrow morning should be soon enough. I think we’ll want to know what instructions he brings to the Cynesgan ambassador.’

‘There’s something else, too,’ Stragen added. ‘We’ve never really been sure if Krager knows that we’re using criminals to gather information for us. He knew that we were getting help from Platime in Cimmura and that we had contact with thieves and the like in other cities in Eosia, but we should find out if he’s made the connection between the two continents yet.’

‘He sort of hinted that he knew when he talked with me after we put down the coup,’ Sparhawk reminded him.

‘I don’t want to discard the entire apparatus on the basis of a hint, Sparhawk,’ Stragen said, ‘and I
really
need to know if he’s aware of the fact that we can use certain criminals for things other than spying.’

‘I shall probe his mind most closely,’ Xanetia promised.

‘Where are Vanion and Sephrenia, Sparhawk?’ Ehlana asked suddenly. ‘They should have been here an hour ago.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry, dear. I meant to tell you about that. I
excused them for the rest of the day. They have something important to take care of.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I am, dear – right now.’

‘What are they doing?’

‘They’ve resolved their differences. I’d imagine they’re discussing that right now – at some length.’

She flushed slightly. ‘Oh,’ she said in a neutral sort of way. ‘What finally got them back together again?’

He shrugged. ‘Sephrenia got tired of the estrangement and told Vanion to come back home. She was very direct about it – and she even managed to twist it around so that it was all his fault. You know how that goes.’

‘That will do, Sir Knight,’ she said firmly.

‘Yes, your Majesty.’

‘Would this Krager person know where Zalasta is right now, Prince Sparhawk?’ Oscagne asked.

‘I’m sure he does, your Excellency. Zalasta probably doesn’t
want
him to know – Krager being what he is, and all – but it’s very hard to hide things from Krager when he’s the least bit sober.’

‘He could be enormously valuable to us, Prince Sparhawk. Particularly in the light of the Anarae’s special gift.’

‘You’d better get all you can from him right now, your Excellency,’ Talen suggested, ‘because just as soon as my brother gets back from Atan, he’ll probably kill him.’

Oscagne looked startled.

‘It’s a personal thing, your Excellency. Krager was involved in the death of our father – around the edges, anyway. Khalad wants to do something about that.’

‘I’m sure we can persuade him to wait, young master.’

‘I wouldn’t be, your Excellency.’

‘It’s been a part of us for so long that I don’t think we’d be Styrics without it, Anarae,’ Sephrenia said sadly.

It was one of those private meetings at the top of the tower. Sparhawk and his daughter had joined Sephrenia, Vanion and Xanetia as evening settled over Matherion so that they could discuss certain things the others did not need to know about.

‘It is even so with us, Sephrenia of Ylara,’ Xanetia confessed. ‘Our hatred of thy race doth in part define the Delphae as well.’

‘We tell our children that the Delphae steal souls,’ Sephrenia said. ‘I was always taught that you glow because of the souls you’ve devoured, and that the people you touch decay because you’ve jerked their souls out of them.’

Xanetia smiled. ‘And we tell
our
young ones that the Styrics are ghouls who rob graves for food – when there are no Delphaeic children nearby to be eaten alive.’

‘I know a child with a slightly Styric background who’s been considering cannibalism lately,’ Sparhawk noted blandly.

‘Snitch!’ Danae muttered.

‘What’s this?’ Sephrenia demanded of her sister.

‘The Child Goddess was very upset when she found out that Zalasta had deceived her,’ Sparhawk said in an offhand sort of way, ‘and even more upset when she discovered that he wanted to steal you from her. She said she was going to rip his heart out and eat it right before his very eyes.’

‘Oh – I probably wouldn’t have done it.’ Aphrael tried to shrug it off.

‘Probably?’
Sephrenia exclaimed.

‘His heart’s so rotten it would have made me sick.’

Sephrenia gave her a long, steady look of disapproval.

‘Oh, all
right,
’ the Child Goddess said, ‘I was exaggerating.’ She looked pensively out over the city, then back at Sephrenia and Xanetia. ‘All this hatred and the wild
stories the Styrics and the Delphae tell their children about each other aren’t really natural, you realize. You’ve been very carefully coached to feel this way. The real argument was between my family and Edaemus, and it involved things you wouldn’t even understand. It was a silly argument – like most arguments are – but Gods can’t keep their arguments private. You humans were drawn into something that didn’t really concern you at all.’ She sighed. ‘Like so many of our disagreements, that one started to spill over from the part of the world where
we
live into your part. It’s
our
party, and you never should have been invited.’

‘Where
is
this country of yours, Aphrael?’ Vanion asked curiously.

‘Right here.’ She shrugged. ‘All around us, but
you
can’t see it. It might be better if we had our own separate place, but it’s too late now. I should have told Sephrenia about our foolishness when she and I were children and I heard her parroting some of that nonsense about the Delphae, but then the Elene serfs destroyed our village and killed our parents, and Zalasta tried to shift his own guilt to the Delphae, and that set her prejudices in stone.’ She paused. ‘I always
knew
there was something about Zalasta’s story that didn’t ring true, but I couldn’t get into his thoughts to find out what it was.’

‘Why not?’ Vanion asked her. ‘You
are
a Goddess, after all.’

‘You’ve
noticed
!’ she exclaimed. ‘What a
thrilling
discovery that must have been for you!’

‘Mind your manners,’ Sparhawk told her.

‘Sorry, Vanion,’ she apologized. ‘That
was
a little snippy, wasn’t it? I can’t look into Zalasta’s thoughts because he isn’t one of my children.’ She paused. ‘Don’t you find the fact that
I’m
limited but Xanetia isn’t just a bit interesting, Sephrenia?’

‘Xanetia and I are exploring our differences, Aphrael,’
Sephrenia smiled. ‘Every one of them we’ve examined so far has turned out to be imaginary.’

‘Truly,’ Xanetia agreed. Sparhawk could only begin to imagine how difficult even these tentative steps toward peacemaking must be for this strangely similar pair of women. The tearing down of institutionalized bigotry must have been somewhat akin to dismantling a house that had been standing for a hundred centuries.

‘Vanion, dear,’ Sephrenia said then, ‘it’s starting to get a little chilly.’

‘I’ll run down and fetch your cloak.’

She sighed. ‘No, Vanion,’ she told him. ‘I don’t
want
a cloak. I want you to put your arms around me.’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I should have thought of that myself.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘Try to think of it more often.’

He smiled and put his arms about her.

‘That’s
so
much nicer,’ she said, snuggling up against him.

‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask,’ Sparhawk said to his daughter. ‘Regardless of who put them up to it, the people who attacked Ylara
were
Elenes. How in the world did you ever persuade Sephrenia to take on the chore of teaching the Pandions the Secrets? She must have hated Elenes.’

‘She did.’ The Child Goddess shrugged. ‘And I wasn’t too fond of you myself. I had Ghwerig’s rings, though, and I absolutely
had
to get them on the fingers of King Antor and the first Sparhawk – otherwise, I wouldn’t be here.’ She paused, and her eyes narrowed.
‘That’s intolerable!
’ she exclaimed.