‘The Troll-Gods can’t reach out to men without the aid of Bhelliom,’ she explained, ‘and Bhelliom’s powerless as long as it’s locked in steel. It lay helpless in that iron deposit in Thalesia from the time this world was made until the day Ghwerig freed it. This may not be entirely foolproof, but it’s the best we can do, I think.’

‘Set the box down on the ground, Kurik,’ Flute instructed, ‘and open it. Sparhawk, take Bhelliom out of the pouch and tell it to sleep.’

‘Forever?’

‘I sort of doubt that. This world won’t last that long, and once it’s gone, Bhelliom will be free to continue its journey.’

Sparhawk took the pouch from his belt and untwisted the wire which held it closed. Then he upended the pouch and the Sapphire Rose fell out into his hand. He felt it shudder with a kind of relief as it was freed from its steel confinement. ‘Blue-Rose,’ he said calmly, ‘I am Sparhawk-from-Elenia. Do you know me?’

It glowed a deep, hard blue, neither hostile nor particularly friendly. The muted snarls he seemed to hear deep in his mind, however, told him that the Troll-Gods did not share that neutrality.

‘The time has come for you to sleep, Blue-Rose,’ Sparhawk said to the jewel. ‘There will be no pain, and when you awaken, you will be free.’

The jewel shuddered again, and its crystal glitter softened, almost as if in gratitude.

‘Sleep now, Blue-Rose,’ he said gently, holding the priceless thing in both hands. Then he placed it in the box and firmly closed the lid.

Wordlessly, Kurik handed him a small, cunningly-wrought lock. Sparhawk nodded and snapped the lock shut on the hasp, noting as he did that the lock had no keyhole. He looked questioningly at the Child-Goddess.

‘Throw it into the sea,’ she said, watching him intently.

A vast reluctance came over him. He knew that Bhelliom, confined as it was, could not be influencing him. The reluctance was his own. For a time, for a few short months, he had possessed something even more eternal than the stars, and he had somehow shared that just by touching it. It was that which made Bhelliom so infinitely precious. Its beauty, its perfection had never really had anything to do with it, though he yearned for just one last glimpse of it, one last touch of that soft blue glow on his hands. He knew that once he had cast it away, something very important would be gone from his life and that he would pass the remainder of his days with a vague sense of loss which might diminish with the passing of years, but would never wholly be gone.

He steeled himself, willing the pain of loss to come so that he might teach himself to endure it. Then he leaned back and threw the small steel object as far as he could out over the angry sea.

The hurtling steel box arched out over the crashing waves far below, and as it flew it began to glow, neither red nor blue nor any other colour, but rather sheer incandescent white. Far it went, further than any man could have thrown it, and then, like a shooting star, it fell in a long, graceful curve into the endlessly rolling sea.

‘That’s it then?’ Kalten asked. ‘That’s all we have to do?’

Flute nodded, her eyes filled with tears. ‘You can all go back now,’ she told them. She sat down beneath the tree and sadly took her pipes out from under her tunic.

‘Aren’t you coming with us?’ Talen asked her.

‘No,’ she sighed. ‘I’ll stay here for a while.’ Then she lifted her pipes and began to play a sad song of regret and loss.

They had only ridden a short distance with the sound of the pipes sadly following them when Sparhawk turned to look back. The tree was still there, of course, but Flute was gone. ‘She’s left us again,’ he told Sephrenia.

‘Yes, dear one,’ she sighed.

The wind picked up as they rode down from the promontory, and driven spray began to sting their faces. Sparhawk tried to pull the hood of his cloak forward to shield his face, but it was no use. No matter how hard he tried, the driving spray lashed at his cheeks and nose.

His face was still wet when he suddenly awoke and sat up. He mopped the salt brine away and reached inside his tunic.

Bhelliom was not there.

He knew that he would have to talk with Sephrenia, but there was something he wanted to find out first. He rose and went out of the house where they had set up their camp the previous day. Two doors down the street was the stable where they had put the cart in which Kurik lay. Sparhawk gently turned back the blanket and touched his friend’s cold face.

Kurik’s face was wet, and when Sparhawk touched his fingertip to his tongue, he could taste the salt brine of the sea. He sat for a long time, his mind reeling back from the immensity of what the Child-Goddess had so casually dismissed as mere ‘impossibilities’. The combined might of the Younger Gods of Styricum, it appeared, could accomplish anything. He decided at last not to even attempt a definition of what had happened. Dream or reality or something in between – what difference did it make? Bhelliom was safe now, and that was all that mattered.

They rode south to Korakach and on to Gaka Dorit, where they turned west towards Kadum on the Lamork border. Once they reached the lowlands, they began to encounter Zemoch soldiers fleeing to the east. There were no wounded with the soldiers, so there did not appear to have been a battle.

There was no sense of accomplishment or even of victory as they rode. The snow turned to rain as they came down out of the highlands, and the mournful dripping of the sky seemed to match their mood. There were no stories nor cheerful banter as they rode westward. They were all very tired, and all they really wanted to do was to go home.

King Wargun was at Kadum with a huge army. He was not moving, but sat firmly in place, waiting for the weather to break and for the ground to dry out. Sparhawk and the others were led to his headquarters, which, as might have been expected, were in a tavern.

‘Now there’s a real surprise,’ the half-drunk monarch of Thalesia said to the Patriarch Bergsten as Sparhawk and his friends entered. ‘I never thought I’d see them again. Ho, Sparhawk! come over by the fire. Have something to drink and tell us what you’ve been up to.’

Sparhawk removed his helmet and crossed the rushcovered tavern floor. ‘We went to the city of Zemoch, Your Majesty,’ he reported briefly. ‘As long as we were there anyway, we killed Otha and Azash. Then we started back.’

Wargun blinked. ‘That’s right to the point,’ he laughed. He looked around blearily. ‘You there!’ he bellowed at one of the guards at the door. ‘Go and find Lord Vanion. Tell him that his men have arrived. Did you find somewhere to lock up your prisoners, Sparhawk?’