‘What’s your problem?’ Kalten asked.
‘We’ve just been blocked. If those idiots out there accept what Rebal’s telling them, the Church Knights are going to have to fight their way to Matherion foot by foot.’
They’re very quick to exploit a changing situation,’ Vanion agreed. ‘Too quick, perhaps. It’s almost a thousand leagues from here to Matherion. Either someone has a very good horse, or our mysterious friend out there’s breaking the rules again in order to get word out to the hinterlands of what happened after the coup was put down.’
Rebal was holding up his hands to quiet the shouting of the crowd. ‘Are you with me, my brothers?’ he called. ‘Will we defend our homes and our faith and help our friends, the Tamuls, at the same time?’
The mob howled its assent.
‘Let’s ask Incetes to help us!’ the man with the cudgel shouted.
‘Incetes!’ another bellowed. ‘Incetes! Call forth Incetes!’
‘Are you sure, my friends?’ Rebal asked, drawing himself up and pulling his dark cloak tightly around him.
‘Call him forth, Rebal! Raise Incetes! Let him tell us what to do!’
Rebal struck an exaggerated pose and raised both arms over his head. He began to speak, intoning guttural words in a hollow, booming voice.
‘Is that Styric?’ Kalten whispered to Sephrenia. ‘It doesn’t sound like Styric to me.’
‘It’s gibberish,’ she replied scornfully.
Kalten frowned. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard of them,’ he whispered. ‘What part of the world do the Gibbers come from?’
She stared at him, her face baffled.
‘Did I say it wrong?’ he asked. ‘Are they called the Gibberese, or maybe the Gibberenians? – the people who speak Gibberish, I mean.’
‘Oh, Kalten,’ she laughed softly. ‘I love you.’
‘What did I say?’
Rebal’s voice had risen to a near-shriek, and he brought both arms down sharply.
There was a sudden explosion in the middle of the bonfire, and a great cloud of smoke boiled out into the clearing.
‘Herken, Maisteres alle!’ a huge voice came out of the smoke. ‘Now hath the tyme for Werre ycom. Now, be me troth, shal alle trew Edomishmen on lyve to armes! Tak ye uppe the iren swerd; gird ye your limbes alle inne the iren haubergeon and the iren helm! Smyte ye the feendes foule, which beestes derk do sette hom and fey in deedly peril. Goe ye to bataile ferse to fend the feendes of the acurset Chirche of Chyrellos! Follwe! Follwe! Follwe me, as Godes hondys yeve ye force!’
‘Old High Elenic!’ Bevier exclaimed. ‘Nobody’s spoken that tongue in thousands of years!’
‘I’d follow him, whatever tongue it is,’ Ulath rumbled. ‘He makes a good speech.’
The smoke began to thin, and a huge, ox-shouldered man wearing ancient armor and holding a mighty two-handed sword above his head appeared at Rebal’s side. ‘Havok!’ he bellowed. ‘Havok and Werre!’
‘They’ve all gone now,’ Berit reported when he and Talen returned to the camp concealed in the narrow ravine. ‘They spent a lot of time marching around in circles shouting slogans first, though.’
‘Then the beer ran out,’ Talen added dryly, ‘and the party broke up.’ He looked at Flute. ‘Are you sure this was supposed to be important?’ he asked her. ‘It was the most contrived hoax I’ve ever seen.’
She nodded stubbornly. ‘It was important,’ she insisted. ‘I don’t know why, but it was.’
‘How did they make that big flash and all the smoke?’ Kalten asked.
‘One of the fellows near the fire threw a handful of some kind of powder onto the coals,’ Khalad said, shrugging. ‘Everybody else was watching Rebal, so they didn’t see him when he did it.’
‘Where did the one in the armor come from?’ Ulath asked.
‘He was hiding in the crowd,’ Talen explained. ‘The whole thing was at about the same level as you’d find at a country fair – one that’s held a long way from the nearest town.’
‘The one who was pretending to be Incetes gave a fairly stirring speech, though,’ Ulath noted.
‘It certainly should have been,’ Bevier smiled. ‘It was written by Phalactes in the seventh century.’
‘Who was he?’ Talen asked.
‘Phalactes was the greatest playwright of antiquity. That stirring speech came directly from one of his tragedies, Etonicus. That fellow in the antique armor substituted a few words is all. The play’s a classic. It’s still performed at universities once in a while.’
‘You’re a whole library all by yourself, Bevier,’ Kalten told him. ‘Do you remember every single thing you’ve ever read – word for word?’
Bevier laughed. ‘I wish I could, my friend. Some of my classmates and I put on a performance of Etonicus when I was a student. I played the lead, so I had to memorize that speech. The poetry of Phalactes is really very stirring. He was a great artist – Arcian, naturally.’
‘I never liked him very much,’ Flute sniffed. ‘He was as ugly as sin; he smelled like an open cesspool; and he was a howling bigot.’
Bevier swallowed hard. ‘Please don’t do that, Aphrael,’ he said. ‘It’s very unsettling.’
‘What was the story about?’ Talen asked, his eyes suddenly eager.
‘Etonicus was supposed to be the ruler of a mythic kingdom somewhere in what’s now eastern Cammoria,’ Bevier replied. ‘The legend has it that he went to war with the Styrics over religion.’
‘What happened?’ Talen’s tone was almost hungry.
‘He came to a bad end,’ Bevier shrugged. ‘It’s a tragedy, after all.’
‘But …’
‘You can read it for yourself sometime, Talen,’ Vanion said firmly. ‘This isn’t the story hour.’
Talen’s face grew sulky.
‘I’d be willing to wager that you could paralyze our young friend here in mid-theft,’ Ulath chuckled. ‘All you’d have to do is say, “Once upon a time”, and he’d stop dead in his tracks.’
‘This throws a whole new light on what’s been happening here in Tamuli,’ Vanion mused. ‘Could this all be some vast hoax?’ He looked inquiringly at Flute.
She shook her head. ‘No, Vanion. There has been magic of varying levels in some of the things we’ve encountered.’
‘Some, perhaps, but not all, certainly. Was there any magic at all involved in what we saw tonight?’
‘Not a drop.’
‘Is that how you measure magic?’ Kalten asked curiously. ‘Does it come by the gallon?’
‘Like cheap wine, you mean?’ she suggested tartly.
‘Well, not exactly, but …’
‘This was very important,’ Sparhawk said. Thank you, Aphrael.’
‘I live but to serve.’ She smiled mockingly at him.
‘Stop