‘Zalasta may have an exaggerated idea of my abilities,’ Sparhawk said.
‘You know him?’
‘We’ve met. Actually, your Excellency, I was only a very small part of what happened at Zemoch. When you get right down to it, I was hardly more than a channel for power I couldn’t even begin to describe. I was the instrument of something else.’
‘Be that as it may, you’re still our only hope. Someone is quite obviously conspiring to overthrow the empire. We must identify that someone. Unless we can get to the source of all of this and neutralise it, the empire will collapse. Will you help us, Sir Sparhawk?’
‘That decision’s not mine to make, your Excellency. You must appeal to my queen and to Sarathi here. If they command me, ‘I’ll go to Tamuli. If they forbid it, I won’t.’
‘I’ll direct my enormous powers of persuasion at them, then,’ Oscagne smiled. ‘But even assuming that I’m successful – and there’s little doubt that I shall be – we’re still faced with an almost equally serious problem. We must protect his Imperial Majesty’s dignity at all costs. An appeal from one government to another is one thing, but an appeal from His Majesty’s government to a private citizen on another continent is quite another. That is the problem which must be addressed.’
‘I don’t see that we have any choice, Sarathi,’ Emban was saying gravely. It was late evening. Ambassador Oscagne had retired for the night, and the rest of them, along with Patriarch Ortzel of Kadach in Lamorkand, had gathered to give his request serious consideration. ‘We may not entirely approve of some of the policies of the Tamul Empire, but its stability is in our vital interest just now. We’re fully committed to our campaign in Rendor. If Tamuli flies apart, we’ll have to pull most of our armies – and the Church Knights – out of Rendor to protect our interests in Zemoch. Zemoch’s not much of a place, I’ll grant you, but the strategic importance of its mountains can’t be overstated. We’ve had a hostile force in those mountains for the past two thousand years, and that fact has occupied the full attention of our Holy Mother. If we allow some other hostile people to replace the Zemochs, everything Sparhawk achieved in Otha’s capitol is lost. We’ll go right back to where we were six years ago. We’ll have to abandon Rendor again and start mobilising to meet a new threat from the east.’
‘You’re stating the obvious, Emban,’ Dolmant told him.
‘I know, but sometimes it helps to lay everything out so that we can all look at it.’
‘Sparhawk,’ Dolmant said then, ‘if I were to order you to Matherion but your wife ordered you to stay home, what would you do?’
‘I’d probably have to go into a monastery to pray for guidance for the next several years.’
‘Our Holy Mother Church is overwhelmed by your piety, Sir Sparhawk.’
‘I do what I can to please her, Sarathi. I am her true knight, after all.’
Dolmant sighed. ‘Then it all boils down to some sort of accommodation between Ehlana and me, doesn’t it?’
‘Such wisdom can only have come from God,’ Sparhawk observed to his companions.
‘Do you mind?’ Dolmant said tartly. Then he looked at the Queen of Elenia with a certain resignation. ‘Name your price, your Majesty.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Let’s not tiptoe around each other, Ehlana. Your champion’s put my back to the wall.’
‘I know,’ she replied, ‘and I’m so impressed with him that I can barely stand it. We’ll have to discuss this in private, revered Archprelate. We wouldn’t want Sir Sparhawk to fully realise his true value, now would we? He might begin to get the idea that we ought to pay him what he’s actually worth.’
‘I hate this,’ Dolmant said to no one in particular.
‘I think we might want to touch briefly on something else,’ Stragen suggested. ‘The Tamul Ambassador’s story had a certain familiar ring to it – or was I the only one who noticed that? We’ve got a situation going on in Lamorkand that’s amazingly similar to what’s happening in Tamuli. The Lamorks are all blithely convinced that Drychtnath’s returned, and that’s almost identical to the situation Oscagne described. Then, on our way here from Cimmura, we were set upon by a group of Lamorks who could only have come from antiquity. Their weapons were steel, but their armour was bronze, and they spoke Old Lamork. After Sir Ulath killed their leader, the ones who were still alive vanished. Only their dead remained, and they seemed to be all dried out.’
‘And that’s not all,’ Sparhawk added. ‘There were some bandits operating in the mountains of western Eosia. They were being led by some of Annias’ former supporters, and they were doing all they could to stir up rebellious sentiments among the peasantry. Platime managed to get a spy into their camp, and he told us that the movement was being fuelled by Krager, Martel’s old underling. After we rounded them up, we tried to question one of them about Krager, and that cloud we saw on our way to Zemoch engulfed the man and tore him all to pieces. There’s something afoot here in Eosia, and it seems to be coming out of Lamorkand.’
‘And you think there’s a connection?’ Dolmant asked him.
‘It’s a logical conclusion, Sarathi. There are too many similarities to be safely ignored.’ Sparhawk paused, glancing at his wife. ‘This may cause a certain amount of domestic discontent,’ he said regretfully, ‘but I believe we’d better think very seriously about Oscagne’s request. Someone’s harrowing the past to bring back people and things that have been dead for thousands of years. When we encountered this sort of thing in Pelosia, Sephrenia told us that only the Gods were capable of that.’
‘Well, that’s not entirely true, Sparhawk,’ Bevier corrected him. ‘She did say that a few of the most powerful Styric magicians could also raise the dead.’
‘I think we can discount that possibility,’ Sparhawk disagreed. ‘Sephrenia and I were talking about it once, and she told me that in the forty thousand years of Styric history, there have only been two Styrics who had the capability, and then only imperfectly. This raising of heroes and armies is happening in nine nations in Tamuli and at least one here in Eosia. There are just too many similarities for it to be a coincidence, and the whole scheme – whatever its goal – is just too complex to have come from somebody who doesn’t have an absolute grasp on the spell.’
‘The Troll-Gods?’ Ulath suggested bleakly.
‘I wouldn’t discount the possibility. They did it once before, so we know that they have the capability. Right now, though, all we have are some suspicions based on some educated guesses. We desperately need information.’
‘That’s my department, Sparhawk,’ Stragen told him. ‘Mine and Platime’s. You’re going to Daresia, I assume?’
‘It’s beginning to look that way.’ Sparhawk gave his wife an apologetic look. ‘I’d gladly let someone else go, but I’m afraid he wouldn’t know what he’s looking for.’
‘I’d better go with you,’ Stragen decided. ‘I have associates there as well as here in Eosia, and people in our line of work can gather information much more quickly than your people can.’
Sparhawk nodded.
‘Maybe we can start right there,’ Ulath suggested. He looked at the Patriarch Ortzel. ‘How did all these wild stories about Drychtnath get started, your Grace? Nobody’s reputation really lasts for four thousand years, no matter how impressive he was to begin with.’
‘Drychtnath is a literary creation, Sir Ulath,’ the severe blond churchman replied, smiling slightly. Even as Dolmant’s ascension to the throne had changed him, so Ortzel had been changed by living in Chyrellos. He no longer seemed to be the rigid, provincial man he had been in Lamorkand. Although he was by no means as worldly as Emban, he had nonetheless