The Shining Ones (48 page)

‘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.’

‘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.’

‘We want to think about that for a while, though,’ Vanion added. ‘Sparhawk and I are still debating the issue. I still think we’ll want to make some show of marching north. If we leave here in about a week with banners flying and five thousand knights added to the
forces we’ve gathered in this general area, we’ll have Zalasta’s full attention. If we go out to sea, he won’t know we’re coming, and that might give him the leisure to sniff out some details of Stragen’s plans for our special celebration of the Harvest Festival. Both ideas have an element of surprise involved. We’re quibbling about which surprise would disrupt Zalasta’s plans the most.’

The training of Tamul horses began immediately. Tynian’s knights, of course, complained bitterly. The ridinghorses favored by the Tamul gentry were too small and delicate to carry armored men, and the oversized plow horses used by Tamul farmers were too slow and docile to make good war-horses.

They were always rushed now. Caalador had given the order, and it was irrevocable. The murders
would
take place during the Harvest Festival, whether their other plans were fully in place or not, and every minute brought the holiday that much closer.

It was five days following the return of Sparhawk and his friends from northern Atan when a runner reached Matherion with a message from Khalad. Mirtai admitted the weary Atan to the sitting room, where Sparhawk and Vanion were still arguing the relative merits of their opposing plans. Wordlessly, the messenger handed Khalad’s note to Sparhawk.

‘My Lord,’ he read the characteristically abrupt note aloud. ‘The earthquake has jumbled the northeast coast. Don’t rely on any charts of the area. You’re going to have to come by sea, however. There’s no way we can climb down the wall – particularly not with Trolls waiting for us at the bottom. Engessa, Kring and I will be waiting with the Atans and Tikume’s Peloi a couple of leagues south of where the wall dives into the Tamul Sea. Don’t take too long to get here. The other side is up to something.’

‘That throws both your plans out the window, doesn’t it,’ Emperor Sarabian noted. ‘You won’t be able to go by land, because you can’t climb down the wall, and you can’t go by sea, because the sea’s filled with uncharted reefs.’

‘And to make matters worse, we’ve only got about two days to make the decision,’ Itagne added. ‘The forces we’re sending to the north are going to have to start moving at least a week before the Festival if they’re going to reach the North Cape in time to spring our second surprise on Zalasta.’

‘I’d better go have a talk with Captain Sorgi,’ Sparhawk said, rising to his feet.

‘He and Caalador are down in the main pantry,’ Stragen advised him. ‘They’re both Cammorians, and Cammorians like to be close to food and drink.’

Sparhawk nodded, and he and Vanion quickly left the room.

An almost immediate friendship had sprung up between Caalador and Sorgi. They were, as Stragen had pointed out, both Cammorians, and they even looked much alike. Both had curly hair, though Sorgi’s was nearly silver by now, and they were both burly men with heavy shoulders and powerful hands. ‘Well, Master Cluff,’ Sorgi said expansively as Sparhawk and Vanion entered the large, airy kitchen store-room, ‘have you solved all the world’s problems yet?’ Captain Sorgi always called Sparhawk by the alias he had used the first time they had met.

‘Hardly, Sorgi. We’ve got one that maybe
you
can solve for us, though.’

‘Get the money part settled first, Sorgi,’ Caalador recommended. ‘01’ Sporhawk here, he gets a little vague when th’ time comes t’ settle up.’

Sorgi smiled. ‘I haven’t heard that dialect since I left home,’ he told Sparhawk. ‘I could sit and listen to
Caalador talk by the hour. Let’s not worry about money yet. The advice is free. It starts costing you money when I lift my anchor up off the bottom.’

‘We have to go to a place where there’s been an earthquake recently,’ Sparhawk told him. ‘Kurik’s son just sent me a message. The earthquake has changed things so much that all the old maps are useless.’

‘Happens all the time,’ Sorgi told him. ‘The estuary that runs on up to Vardenais changes her bottom every winter.’

‘How do you deal with that?’

Sorgi shrugged. ‘We put out a small boat with a strong sailor to do the rowing and a clever one to heave the sounding-line. They lead us through.’

‘Isn’t that sort of slow?’

‘Not nearly as slow as trying to steer a sinking ship. How big an area got churned up by the earthquake?’

‘It’s sort of hard to say.’

‘Guess, Master Cluff. Tell me exactly what happened, and give me a guess about how big the danger-spot is.’

Sparhawk glossed over the cause of the sudden change in the coastline and described the emergence of the escarpment.

‘No problem,’ Sorgi assured him.

‘How did you arrive at that conclusion, Captain?’ Vanion asked him.

‘We won’t have to worry about any reefs to the north of your cliff, my Lord. I saw something like that happen on the west coast of Rendor one time. You see, what’s happened is that the cliff keeps on going. It runs on out to sea – under the water – so once you get to the north of it, the water’s going to be a thousand feet deep. Not too many ships I know of draw that much water. I’ll just take along some of the old charts. We’ll go out about ten leagues and sail north. I’ll take my bearings every so often, and when we get six or eight leagues north of
this new cliff of yours, we’ll turn west and run straight for the beach. I’ll put your men ashore up there with no trouble at all.’

‘And
that’s
the problem with your plan, Sparhawk,’ Vanion said. ‘You’ve only got a hundred ships. If you take both the knights
and
their horses, you’ll only be able to take fifteen hundred up there to face the Trolls.’

‘Is a-winnin’ this yere arg-u-ment
real
important t’ you two?’ Caalador asked.

‘We’re just looking for the best way, Caalador,’ Sparhawk replied.

‘Then why not combine the two plans? Have Sorgi start north first thing in the morning, and you mount up your armies and ride on up that way as soon as you get things organized. When Sorgi gets to a place ten leagues or so south of the wall, he can feel his way in to shore. You meet him there, and he starts ferrying your army on around the reef and puts you down on the beach north of the wall. Then you can go looking for Trolls, and Sorgi can drop his anchor and spend his time fishing.’

Sparhawk and Vanion looked at each other sheepishly.

‘It’s like I wuz a-sayin’, Sorgi,’ Caalador grinned. ‘Th’ gentry ain’t got hordly no common sense a-tall. I b’leeve it’s ‘cause they ain’t got room in ther heads fer more’n one i’dee at a time.’

Inevitably, the day arrived when the relief column was scheduled to depart for Atan. It was before dawn when Mirtai came into the bedroom of the Queen of Elenia and her Prince Consort. ‘Time to get up,’ the giantess announced.

‘Don’t you know how to knock?’ Sparhawk asked, sitting up in bed.

‘Did I interrupt something?’

‘Never mind, Mirtai,’ he sighed. ‘It’s a custom, that’s all.’

‘Foolishness. Everybody knows what goes on in here.’

‘Isn’t it almost time for you and Kring to get married?’

‘Are you trying to get rid of me, Sparhawk?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Kring and I have decided to wait until after all of this is finished up. Our weddings are going to be a little complicated. We have to go through two ceremonies in two parts of the world. Kring’s not very happy about all the delay.’

‘I can’t for the life of me see why,’ Ehlana said innocently.

‘Men are strange.’ Mirtai shrugged.

‘They are indeed, Mirtai, but how would we amuse ourselves without them?’

Sparhawk dressed slowly, pulling on the padded, rust-stained underclothing with reluctance and eyeing his black-enameled suit of steel work-clothes with active dislike.

‘Did you pack warm clothing?’ Ehlana asked him. ‘The nights are getting chilly even this far south, so it’s going to be very cold up on the North Cape.’

‘I packed it,’ he grunted, ‘for all the good it’s going to do. No amount of clothing helps when you’re wearing steel.’ He made a sour face. ‘I know it’s a contradiction, but I start to sweat the minute I put the armor on. Every knight I’ve ever known does the same. We keep on sweating even when we’re freezing and icicles are forming up inside the armor. Sometimes I wish I’d gone into another line of work. Bashing people for fun and profit starts to wear thin after a while.’

‘You’re in a gloomy mood this morning, love.’

‘It’s just that it’s getting harder and harder to get started. I’ll be all right once I’m on the road.’

‘You
will
be careful, won’t you, Sparhawk? I’d die if I lost you.’

‘I’m not going to be in all that much danger, dear. I’ve got Bhelliom, and Bhelliom could pick up the sun and break it across its knee. It’s Cyrgon and Zalasta who’ll have to watch out.’

‘Don’t get over-confident.’

‘I’m not. I’ve got more advantages than I can count, that’s all. We’re going to win, Ehlana, and there’s nothing in the world that can stop us. All that’s really left is the tedious plodding from here to the victory celebration.’

‘Why don’t you kiss me for a while now?’ she suggested.
‘Before
you put on the armor. It takes weeks for the bruises to go away after you kiss me when you’re all wrapped in steel.’