‘We don’t have to stand for re-election, Sarabian. That’s why we can do unpopular things.’

‘Only up to a point,’ he disagreed. ‘I have to live with the great houses of Tamul proper, and I’m still getting letters of protest from many of them about sons and brothers who were killed or maimed while the Atans were putting down the coup.’

‘They were traitors, weren’t they?’

‘No,’ he sighed, ‘probably not. We Tamuls pamper our children, and the noble houses carry that to extremes. Matherion’s a political city, and when young Tamuls enter the university, they’re expected to get involved in politics – usually of the most radical sort. The rank and position of their families protect them from the consequences of excessive juvenile enthusiasm. I was an anarchist when I was a student. I even led a few demonstrations against my father’s government.’ He smiled faintly. ‘I used to get arrested on an average of once a week. They never would throw me in the dungeon, though, no matter what kind of names I called my father. I tried very hard to get thrown into the dungeon, but the police wouldn’t cooperate.’

‘Why on earth did you want to spend time in a dungeon?’ she laughed.

‘Young Tamul noblewomen are terribly impressed by political martyrs. I’d have cut a wide track if I could have gotten myself imprisoned for a few days.’

‘I thought you got married when you were a baby,’ she said. ‘Isn’t it sort of inappropriate for a married man to be thinking about how wide a track he can cut among the ladies?’

‘My first wife and I stopped speaking to each other for about ten years when we were young, and the fact that I was required by tradition to have eight other wives made the notion of fidelity a sort of laughable concept.’ A thought came to him. ‘I wonder if Caalador would consider taking a post in my government,’ he mused.

‘You could do worse. I have a man named Platime in my government, and he’s an even bigger thief than Caalador.’ Ehlana looked on down the battlements and saw Mirtai approaching. ‘Any luck?’ she asked.

‘It’s hard to say,’ the giantess shrugged. ‘We got inside easily enough, but we didn’t find what we were looking for. Stragen and Caalador are going out to the university to talk with some of the scholars there.’

‘Are they suddenly hungering and thirsting after knowledge?’ Sarabian asked her lightly.

‘‘Tain’t hordly likely, dorlin’,’ Mirtai replied.

‘Darling?’ he asked her incredulously.

‘But you are, Sarabian,’ the golden giantess replied, gently touching his cheek. ‘I discovered tonight that conspirators and thieves and other scoundrels are supposed to be very affectionate with each other. You’re conspiring with us to overthrow the police, so you’re a member of the family now. Stragen wants to talk with some specialists in architecture. He suspects that there might be some secret rooms in the Interior Ministry. He’s hoping that the original plans for the building might be in some library.’ She gave the Emperor a sly, sidelong glance. ‘That’s what it iz that they’re a-doin’, dorlin’,’ she added.

‘Are you really sure you want Caalador in your government, Sarabian?’ Ehlana asked him. ‘That dialect of his seems to rub off on people. Give him a year or two, and everybody in the imperial compound will be calling you “dorlin”’.’

‘That might be preferable to some of the other names I’ve been called lately.’

Chapter 9

Sparhawk and his friends left Cyron early the next morning and rode eastward through vast golden fields of ripening wheat. The rolling countryside sloped gradually downward into the broad valley where the Pela and Edek rivers joined on the border between Edom and Cynesga.

Sparhawk rode in the lead with Flute nestled in his arms. The little girl seemed unusually quiet this morning, and after they had been on the road for a couple of hours, Sparhawk leaned to one side and looked at her face. Her eyes were fixed, vacant, and her face expressionless. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.

‘Not now, Sparhawk,’ she told him crossly. ‘I’m busy.’

‘Aphrael, we’re coming up on the border. Shouldn’t we…?’

‘Leave me alone.’ She burrowed her forehead into his chest with a discontented little sound.

‘What is it, Sparhawk?’ Sephrenia asked, pulling Ch’iel in beside Faran.

‘Aphrael won’t talk to me.’

Sephrenia leaned forward and looked critically at Flute’s face. ‘Ah,’ she said.

‘Ah what?’

‘Leave her alone, Sparhawk. She’s someplace else right now.’

‘The border’s just ahead, Sephrenia. Can we really afford to spend half a day trying to talk our way across?’

‘It looks as if we’ll have to. Here, give her to me.’

He lifted the semi-comatose little girl and placed her in her sister’s arms. ‘Maybe I can move us past the border without her. I know how it’s done now.’

‘No, Sparhawk. You’re not ready to try it by yourself. We definitely don’t want you to start experimenting on your own just yet. We’ll have to take our chances at the border. There’s no way of knowing how long Aphrael’s going to be busy.’

‘It’s not anything important, is it? I mean, is Ehlana in any kind of danger?’

‘I don’t know, and I don’t want to disturb Aphrael just now to find out. Danae will take care of her mother. You’re just going to have to trust her.’

‘This is very difficult, you know. How long does it take to adjust your thinking to the idea that there are three of her – and that they’re all the same one?’

She gave him a puzzled look.

‘Aphrael, Flute and Danae – they’re all the same person, but they can be in two places at once, or even three, for all I know, and doing two or three different things.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed.

‘Doesn’t that disturb you just a little?’

‘Does it concern you that your Elene God’s supposed to know what everybody in the world’s thinking? – all at the same time?’

‘Well – no. I suppose not.’

‘What’s the difference?’

‘He’s God, Sephrenia.’

‘So’s she, Sparhawk.’

‘It doesn’t seem quite the same.’

‘It is, though. Tell the others that we’re going to have to make the border crossing on our own.’

‘They’ll want to know why.’

‘Lie to them. God will forgive you – one of them will, anyway.’

‘You’re impossible to talk to when you’re like this, do you know that?’

‘Don’t talk to me, then. Right now I’d prefer that you didn’t anyway.’

‘Is something wrong?’

‘I was just a little upset when you dissolved that cloud and it started swearing at you in Styric.’

‘I noticed that myself.’ He made a face. ‘How could anyone have missed it? I gather it’s significant.’

‘What language do you swear in when you stub your toe?’

‘Elenic, of course.’

‘Of course. It’s your native tongue. Doesn’t that sort of suggest that Styric’s the native tongue of whoever’s behind that shadow?’

‘I hadn’t thought of that. I suppose it does.’

‘The fact disturbs me, Sparhawk – more than just a little bit. It suggests all sorts of things that I don’t really want to accept.’

‘Such as?’

‘There’s a Styric working with our enemy, for one thing, and he’s highly skilled. That shadow’s the result of a very complex spell. I doubt that there are more than eight or ten in all of Styricum who could have managed it, and I know all of those people. They’re my friends. It’s not a pleasant thing to contemplate. Why don’t you go bother somebody else and let me work on it?’

Sparhawk gave up and dropped back to talk with the others. ‘There’s been a little change of plans,’ he told them. ‘Aphrael’s occupied elsewhere just now, so we won’t be able to avoid the bordercrossing.’

‘What’s she doing?’ Bevier asked.

‘You don’t want to know. Believe me, Bevier, you, of all people, really don’t want to know.’

‘She’s doing one of those God-things?’ Talen guessed.

‘Talen,’ Bevier rebuked him. ‘They’re called miracles, not God-things.’

‘That was the word I was looking for,’ Talen replied, snapping his fingers.

Vanion was frowning. ‘Border-crossings are always tedious,’ he told them, ‘but the Cynesgans have a reputation for carrying that to extremes. They’ll negotiate the suitable bribe for days on end.’

‘That’s what axes are for, Lord Vanion,’ Ulath rumbled. ‘We use them to clear away inconveniences – underbrush, trees, obstructionist officials, that sort of thing.’

‘We don’t need an international incident, Sir Ulath,’ Vanion told him. ‘We might be able to speed things up a bit, though. I’ve got an imperial pass signed by Sarabian himself. It might carry enough weight to get us past the border without too much delay.’

The border between Edom and Cynesga was marked by the Pela River, and at the far end of the substantial bridge there stood a solid, block-like building with a horse corral behind it.

Vanion led them across the bridge to the barricade on the Cynesgan side, where a number of armed men in strange flowing robes waited.

The imperial pass Vanion presented to the border guards not only failed to gain them immediate passage, but even added further complications. ‘How do I know that this is really his Majesty’s signature?’ the Cynesgan captain demanded suspiciously in heavily accented Tamul. He was a swarthy man in a loose-fitting black and white striped robe and with a long cloth wound intricately around his head.

‘What’s much more to the point, neighbor, is how do you know that it isn’t?’ Sparhawk asked bluntly in the Tamul tongue. ‘The Atans take a very unpleasant stance toward people who disobey the Emperor’s direct commands.’

‘It means death to forge the Emperor’s signature,’ the captain said ominously.

‘So I’ve been told,’ Vanion replied. ‘It also means death to ignore his orders. I’d say that one of us is in trouble.’

‘My men still have to search your packs for contraband,’ the captain said haughtily. ‘I will consider this while they carry out their orders.’

‘Do that,’ Sparhawk told him in a flat, unfriendly tone of voice, ‘and keep in mind the fact that a wrong decision here could have a negative impact on your career.’

‘I didn’t catch your meaning.’

‘A man with no head seldom gets promoted.’

‘I have nothing to fear,’ the captain declared. ‘I am strictly following the orders of my government.’

‘And the Atans who’ll chop off your head will be strictly following the orders of theirs. I’m certain that everyone involved will take enormous comfort in the fact that all the legal niceties were observed.’ Sparhawk turned his back on the officious captain, and he and Vanion walked back to rejoin the others.

‘Well?’ Sephrenia asked them.

‘The Emperor’s voice doesn’t seem to be very loud here in Cynesga,’ Vanion replied. ‘Our friend in the bathrobe has a whole book-full of regulations, and he’s going to use every single one of them to delay us.’

‘Did you try to bribe him?’ Ulath asked.

‘I hinted at the fact that I might entertain a suggestion along those lines.’ Vanion shrugged. ‘He didn’t take the hint, though.’

‘Now that’s unusual,’ Kalten noted. ‘Bribes are always the first thing on the mind of any official anywhere in the world. That sort of suggests that he’s trying to hold us here until reinforcements arrive, doesn’t it?’

‘And they’re probably already on their way,’ Ulath added. ‘Why don’t we take steps?’

‘You’re just guessing, gentlemen,’ Sephrenia chided them. ‘You’re all just itching for the chance to do Elenish things to those border guards.’

‘Did you want to do Elenish things to people, Ulath?’ Kalten asked mildly.

‘I was suggesting constructive Elenishism before we even got here.’

‘We’re not contemplating it out of sheer blood-lust, little mother,’ Vanion told the woman he loved.

‘Oh, really?’

‘The situation’s manageable now, but if a thousand mounted Cynesgans suddenly ride in from the nearest garrison, it’s going to get out of hand.’

‘But…’

He held up one hand. ‘My decision, Sephrenia – well, Sparhawk’s, actually, since he’s the Preceptor now.’

‘Interim Preceptor,’ Sparhawk corrected.

Vanion did not like to be corrected. ‘Did you want to do this?’ he asked.

‘No. You’re doing just fine, Vanion.’

‘Do you want to be quiet, then? It’s a military decision, Sephrenia, so we’ll have to ask you – respectfully, of course – to keep your pretty little nose out of it.’

She said a very harsh word in Styric.

‘I love you too,’ he told her blandly. ‘All right, gentlemen, let’s sort of drift on over to our horses. We’ll do some of those Elenish things Ulath mentioned to the men who are going through our saddle-bags. Then we’ll run off all those horses in that corral and be on our way.’

There were a score of border guards under the captain’s command. Their primary weapon seemed to be the spear, although they wore a sort of rudimentary armor and scimitars at their waists.

‘Excuse me a moment, friend,’ Ulath said pleasantly to the fellow who was rifling his saddle-bags. ‘I’m going to need my tools for a couple of minutes.’ He reached for the war-axe slung from his saddle.

‘What for?’ the Cynesgan demanded suspiciously in broken Tamul.

‘There’s something in my way,’ Ulath smiled. ‘I want to remove it.’ He lifted his axe out of its sling, tested the edge with his thumb, and then brained the border guard with a single stroke.