The Shining Ones. David Eddings

was a certain desperation in the flicker of darkness at the edge of Sparhawk’s vision this time, and a faint flicker of harried confusion. Sparhawk did not even stop to think. ‘Blue Rose!’ he barked to the Bhelliom, bringing up his other hand so that both rings touched the deep blue petals, ‘destroy that thing!’

      He felt a brief jolt in his hands and heard a sizzling kind of crackle behind him.

      The shadow that had dogged their steps for so long, which they had thought at first to be Azash and then the Troll-Gods, gave a shrill shriek and began to babble in agony. Sparhawk saw Sephrenia’s eyes widen.

      The shadow was crying out, not in Zemoch or Trollish, but in Styric.

Chapter 8

      ‘Well now, yer Queenship,’ Caalador was saying, ‘I don’t know ez I’d stort a-dancin’ in the streets jist yet. Them fellers over t’ Interior’s bin a-doin’ ever’thang but a-nailin’ th’ doors shet t’ keep us from a-puttin’ our hands on this yere pertic’ler set o’ files, an’ now they turns up sorta unexpected-like amongst a hull buncha others – which I’d swear a oath to that I already looked over ’bout four er five times my own self. Don’t that smell jist a bit like a dead fish t’ you?’

      ‘What did he say?’ Emperor Sarabian asked.

      ‘He’s suspicious,’ Ehlana translated. ‘He thinks that our discovery of these files was too easy. He may just have a point.’

      They had gathered again in the royal apartment in what was by now generally called ‘Ehlana’s Castle’ to discuss the surprising discovery of a hitherto missing set of personnel files. The files themselves were stacked in heaps upon the tables and the floor of the main sitting room.

      ‘Do you always have to complicate things, Master Caalador?’ The Emperor’s expression was slightly pained. As he habitually did now, Sarabian was wearing western-style clothes. Ehlana felt that this morning’s choice of a black velvet doublet and pearl-grey hose was not a happy one. Black velvet made Sarabian’s bronze-tinted skin look sallow and unhealthy.

      ‘I’m a professional swindler, your Majesty,’ Caalador replied, dropping the dialect. ‘I’ve learned that when something seems too good to be true, it probably is.’

      Stragen was looking into one of the files. ‘What an amazing thing,’ he said. ‘Someone in the Ministry of the Interior seems to have discovered the secret of eternal youth.’