‘We must tell Sparhawk!’
‘Absolutely not! Sparhawk bursts into flames when Ehlana’s in danger. He’s got to get this army safely back to Matherion before we can let him catch on fire.’
‘But-’
‘No, Sephrenia. He’ll find out soon enough, but let’s get everyone to safety before he does. We’ve only got a week or so left until the sun goes down permanently and everything – and everyone – up here turns to solid ice.’
‘You’re probably right,’ Sephrenia conceded. She thought a moment, staring off at the frost-silvered forest beyond the meadow. ‘That word “hostage” explains everything, I think. Is there any way you can pinpoint your mother’s exact location?’
Aphrael shook her head. ‘Not without putting her in danger. If I start moving around and poking my nose into things, Cyrgon will feel me nudging at the edges of his scheme, and he might do something to Mother before he stops to think. Our main concern right now is keeping Sparhawk from going crazy when he finds out what’s happened.’ She suddenly gasped and her dark eyes went very wide.
‘What is it?’ Sephrenia asked in alarm. ‘What’s happening?’
‘I don’t know!’ Aphrael cried. ‘It’s something monstrous!’ She cast her eyes about wildly for a moment and then steadied herself, her pale brow furrowing in concentration. Then her eyes narrowed in anger. ‘Somebody’s using one of the forbidden spells, Sephrenia,’ she said in a voice that was as hard as the frozen ground.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Absolutely. The very air stinks of it.’
Djarian the necromancer was a cadaverous-looking Styric with sunken eyes, a thin, almost skeletal frame, and a stale, mildewed odor about him. Like the other Styric captives, he was in chains and under the close watch of Church Knights well-versed in countering Styric spells.
A cold, oppressive twilight was settling over the encampment near the ruins of Tzada when Sparhawk and the others finally got around to questioning the prisoners. The Troll-Gods had taken their creatures firmly in hand when the feeding orgy had come suddenly to an end, and the Trolls were now gathered around a huge bonfire several miles out in the meadow holding what appeared to be religious observances of some sort.
‘Just go through the motions, Bevier,’ Sparhawk quietly advised the olive-skinned Cyrinic Knight as Djarian was dragged before them. ‘Keep asking him irrelevant questions until Xanetia signals that she’s picked him clean.’
Bevier nodded. I can crag it out for as long as you want, Sparhawk. Let’s get started.’
Sir Bevier’s gleaming white surcoat, made ruddy by the flickering firelight, gave him a decidedly ecclesiastical appearance, and he heightened that impression by prefacing his interrogation with a lengthy prayer. Then he got down to business.
Djarian replied to the questions tersely in a hollow voice that seemed almost to come echoing up out of a vault. Bevier appeared to take no note of the prisoner’s sullen behavior. His whole manner seemed excessively correct, even fussy, and he heightened that impression by wearing fingerless wool gloves such as scribes and scholars wear in cold weather. He doubled back frequently, rephrasing questions he had previously asked and then triumphantly pointing out inconsistencies in the prisoner’s replies.
The one exception to Djarian’s terse brevity was a sudden outburst of vituperation, a lengthy denunciation of Zalasta – and Cyrgon – for abandoning him here on this inhospitable field.
‘Bevier sounds exactly like a lawyer,’ Kalten muttered quietly to Sparhawk. ‘I hate lawyers.’
‘He’s doing it on purpose,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘Lawyers like to spring trick questions on people, and Djarian knows it. Bevier’s forcing him to think very hard about the things he’s supposed to conceal, and that’s all Xanetia really needs. We always seem to underestimate Bevier.’
‘It’s all that praying,’ Kalten said sagely. ‘It’s hard to take a man seriously when he’s praying all the time.’
‘We’re Knights of the Church, Kalten – members of religious orders.’
‘What’s that got to do with it?’
‘In his own mind he is more dead than alive,’ Xanetia reported later when they had gathered around one of the large fires the Atans had built to hold back the bitter chill. The Anarae’s face reflected the glow of the fire, as did her unbleached wool robe.
‘Were we right?’ Tynian asked her. ‘Is Cyrgon augmenting Djarian’s spells so that he can raise whole armies?’
‘He is,’ she replied.
‘Was that outburst against Zalasta genuine?’ Vanion asked her.
‘Indeed, my Lord. Djarian and his fellows are increasingly discontent with the leadership of Zalasta. They have all come to expect no true comradeship from their leader. There is no longer common cause among them, and each doth seek to wring best advantage to himself from their dubious alliance. Overlaying all is the secret desire of each to gain sole possession of Bhelliom.’
‘Dissension among your enemies is always good,’ Vanion noted, ‘but I don’t think we should discount the possibility that they’ll all fall in line again after what happened here today. Could you get anything specific about what they might try next, Anarae?’
‘Nay, Lord Vanion. They were in no wise prepared for what hath come to pass. One thing did stand out in the mind of this Djarian, however, and it doth perhaps pose some danger. The outcasts who surround Zalasta do all fear Cyzada of Esos, for he alone is versed in Zemoch magic, and he alone doth plunge his hand through that door to the nether world which Azash opened. Horrors beyond imagining lie within his reach. It is Djarian’s thought that since all their plans have thus far gone awry, Cyrgon in desperation might command Cyzada to use his unspeakable art to raise creatures of darkness to confront and confound us.’
Vanion nodded gravely.
‘How did Stragen’s plan affect them?’ Talen asked curiously.
‘They are discomfited out of all measure,’ Xanetia replied. ‘They did rely heavily on those who now are dead.’
‘Stragen will be happy to hear that. What were they going to do with all those spies and informers?’
‘Since they had no force capable of facing the Atans, Zalasta and his cohorts thought to use the hidden employees of the Ministry of the Interior to assassinate diverse Tamul officials in the subject kingdoms of the empire, hoping thereby to disrupt the governments.’
‘You might want to make a note of that, Sparhawk,’ Kalten said.
‘Oh?’
‘Emperor Sarabian had some qualms when he approved Stragen’s plan. He’ll probably feel much better when he finds out that all Stragen really did was beat our enemies to the well. They’d have killed our people if Stragen hadn’t killed theirs first.’
That’s very shaky moral ground, Kalten,’ Bevier said disapprovingly.
‘I know,’ Kalten admitted. That’s why you have to run across the top of it so fast.’
The sky was cloudy the following morning, thick roiling clouds that streamed in from the west, all seethe and confusion. Because it was late autumn and they were far to the north, it seemed almost that the sun was rising in the south, turning the sky above Bhelliom’s escarpment a fiery orange and reaching feebly out with ruddy, low-lying light to paint the surging underbellies of the swift-scudding cloud with a brush of flame.
The campfires seemed wan and weak and very tiny against the overpowering chill here on the roof of the world, and the knights and their friends all wore fur cloaks and huddled close to the fires.
There