‘Think of what?’ Sparhawk demanded.

‘Try it, my Lord,’ Khalad grinned. ‘I think you might be surprised.’

‘If we wind up on the moon, you two are in trouble,’ Sparhawk threatened.

‘Just try it, Sparhawk,’ Flute told him.

‘Blue Rose! Take us to Zhubay!’ He said it without much conviction.

The air blurred again, and when it cleared they were sitting on their horses beside another oasis. There were a number of significant differences between this one and the one they’d just left.

‘There probably isn’t any need,’ Khalad said to his brother, ‘but you might want to ask anyway, just to be sure.’

Talen rode on round the oasis and spoke with an old woman who had just come out of one of the houses. He was grinning when he came back. ‘Zhubay,’ he told them.

‘How could it find the place with only the name to work with?’ Sparhawk demanded. ‘It’s probably never even heard the name Zhubay before.’

‘But the people who live here have, my Lord,’ Khalad shrugged. ‘The name “Zhubay” was sort of floating around in their minds. That’s all Bhelliom really needed to find the place. Isn’t that more or less the way it works, Flute?’

‘That’s exactly how it works. All Sparhawk has to do is mention the name of the place he wants to visit. Bhelliom will find it and take us there.’

‘Are you sure?’ Talen sounded uncertain about the whole notion. ‘It seems awfully simple to me.’

‘There’s one way to find out. Take us to Ahkan, Sparhawk.’

‘Where is it? What kingdom, I mean?’

‘I don’t think you need to know that. Just take us there.’

Ahkan was a town in the mountains – some mountains, somewhere. It was surrounded by dark green fir trees, and the nearby peaks were snow-capped.

‘Better and better,’ Flute said happily.

‘Where are we?’ Talen asked, looking around. ‘This isn’t Cynesga, that’s for certain, so where is it?’

‘What difference does it make?’ Flute shrugged. ‘Torrelta, Sparhawk.’

It was snowing in Torrelta. The wind came howling in off a lead-gray sea driving a blizzard before it. The buildings around them were dim and indistinct in the swirling snow-storm, but they seemed to be constructed of rough-hewn logs.

‘There’s no limit!’ Flute exclaimed. ‘We can go anywhere!’

‘All right,’ Sparhawk said very firmly, ‘just which “anywhere” have we come to?’

‘It doesn’t matter. Let’s go back to where we started from.’

‘Of course,’ he agreed pleasantly. ‘Just as soon as you tell us where we are.’

‘I’m getting cold, Sparhawk. I’m not dressed for a blizzard.’

‘It’s nice and warm back in Cynesga,’ he told her, ‘and we’ll go there – just as soon as you tell me where we are.’

She said a naughty word. ‘Torrelta’s on the north coast of Astel, Sparhawk. It’s almost winter here now.’

He looked around with feigned surprise. ‘Why, I believe you’re right. Isn’t that amazing?’ He visualized the flat gravel plain near the dry wash where they had set up camp the previous evening. He groped for a name for a moment, then remembered the blunder he had made when they had first set out. ‘Hold the box open, Khalad,’ he instructed. ‘I’ll put Bhelliom and Ehlana’s ring inside just as soon as we get back.’ He drew the picture in his mind again. ‘Take us there, Blue Rose!’ he commanded.

‘Where have you been?’ Sephrenia demanded. She and Vanion had ridden out onto the gravel plain to look for them.

‘Oh,’ Talen said evasively, brushing the snow off his shoulders, ‘here and there.’

‘I gather that one of the places was quite a ways off,’ Vanion surmised, looking at the snow still clinging to the travelers.

‘It’s really amazing, Sephrenia,’ Flute said happily, ‘and it’s all so simple.’

Khalad closed the box and handed it to Sparhawk. Sparhawk snapped the cap down over the ruby on his ring and then put the box back inside his tunic. ‘We made a couple of false starts right at first, though,’ he admitted.

‘How does it work?’ Vanion asked.

‘We just let Bhelliom take care of everything,’ Sparhawk shrugged. ‘We have to do it that way, actually. It’s when we try to help that things go wrong.’

‘Could you be just a bit more specific than that?’ Sephrenia asked Flute.

‘Sparhawk’s really very close. All he has to do is tell Bhelliom a name – any name – of any place at all. Bhelliom goes and finds it, and then it takes us there.’

‘That’s all?’

‘That’s it, dear sister. Not even Sparhawk can make any mistakes this way.’

Chapter 10

‘We have to pick up someone there, that’s why,’ Flute told them.

‘Who?’ Kalten asked.

‘I don’t know. All I know is that someone’s supposed to go with us, and we have to pick him up in Cynestra.’

‘Another one of those hunches of yours?’

‘You can call it that if you want to.’

‘I don’t think we’ll want to go into the city itself until we’ve had a chance to feel things out,’ Vanion said, looking up from his map. There’s a village just to the west of town. Let’s go there and nose around a bit.’

‘What’s the name?’ Sparhawk asked him, opening the box and taking out his wife’s ring.

‘Narset,’ Vanion replied, looking up from the map.

‘All right.’ Sparhawk took out the Bhelliom. He held it up and frowned slightly. ‘May I borrow your handkerchief, little mother?’ he asked Sephrenia.

‘Use your own,’ she told him.

‘I seem to have left home without one. I’m not going to blow my nose on it, Sephrenia. Bhelliom’s getting dusty. I wanted to brush it off a bit.’

She gave him a peculiar look.

‘It’s being very helpful. I don’t want it to think that I’m ungrateful.’

‘Why should you care what it thinks?’

‘She’s obviously never commanded troops,’ Sparhawk said to Vanion. ‘You might want to expose her to the notion of two-way loyalty someday.’

‘If I get around to it. Do you suppose we can go to Narset – as soon as you’ve finished with your housekeeping?’

Sparhawk brushed off the glowing petals of the Sapphire Rose. ‘How’s that?’ he asked it.

‘I think he’s losing his grip on his sanity,’ Kalten said to Ulath.

‘Not really,’ Sparhawk disagreed. ‘It’s got an awareness – almost a personality. I could use the rings like whips and drive it, I suppose, but I think I’d prefer willing cooperation. The time may come when that’s important.’ He gave Sephrenia back her handkerchief. ‘Hold the box open, Khalad,’ he told his squire. ‘I’ll want to put Bhelliom and Ehlana’s ring away again just as soon as we arrive.’ He looked at Vanion again. ‘Narset?’ he asked.

‘Narset,’ Vanion replied firmly.

‘Blue Rose,’ Sparhawk said, taking the jewel in both hands, ‘let’s go to Narset.’

The Bhelliom throbbed, and that blurred twilight came down briefly. Then it cleared again.

Narset was a small, dusty village. The houses were hardly more than mud huts, and they had flat roofs and animal pens at the rear, pens that seemed largely decorative, since chickens, pigs and goats wandered freely in the streets. There was a fair-sized city lying to the east, and all the buildings in that city were covered with white plaster to ward off the brutal desert sun.

Sparhawk put Bhelliom and Ehlana’s ring away and flipped the golden cap back down over his own ring.

‘We’ve got company coming,’ Talen warned.

A sallow-faced Tamul in a green silk robe was approaching with a squad of Cynesgan soldiers, swarthy men in the same flowing black and white robes and intricately wound cloth head-dresses as the guards at the border had worn. The Tamul had hard-looking eyes, which he tried to conceal behind a contrived expression of joviality. ‘Well met, Sir Knights,’ he greeted them in slightly accented Elenic. ‘We’ve been expecting you. I am Kanzad, chief of the local office of the Ministry of the Interior. Ambassador Taubel posted me here to greet you.’

‘His Excellency is too kind,’ Vanion murmured.

‘All the officials of the Empire have been instructed to cooperate with you fully, Lord…?’

‘Vanion.’

Kanzad covered a momentary confusion. ‘I was led to believe that a Sir Sparhawk would be in command of your party.’

‘Sparhawk’s been detained. He’ll be joining us later.’

‘Ah.’ Kanzad recovered. ‘I’m afraid there’ll be some slight delay before you can enter the city, Lord Vanion.’

‘Oh?’

Kanzad smiled a thin, humorless smile. ‘King Jaluah’s feeling neglected at the moment.’ He threw a quick look at the squad of Cynesgans standing several paces behind him, then lowered his voice to a confidential tone. ‘Frankly, Lord Vanion, the Cynesgans and this pest-hole they call home are so unimportant in the affairs of the Empire that no one really takes them seriously. They’re terribly touchy about that. Some idiot at the embassy neglected to pass on a routine communication from Matherion, and now the king’s sulking in his palace. His sycophants have filled the streets with crowds of demonstrators. Ambassador Taubel’s trying to smooth things over without resorting to the use of the Atan garrison, but things are a bit strained in the streets of Cynestra just now. His Excellency suggests that you and your companions wait here in Narset until he sends word that it’s safe for you to proceed.’

‘As you think best,’ Vanion murmured politely.

Kanzad visibly relaxed. ‘First of all, let’s get in out of this accursed sun.’ He turned and led them into the shabby village. There were no more than a couple of dozen of the mud huts surrounding a well located in the sun-baked central square. Sparhawk idly wondered if the women of the village went to the well in the first steely light of dawn as the women of Cippria in Rendor had, and if they could possibly move with that same fluid grace. Then, for no reason at all, he wondered how Lillias was doing.

Aphrael leaned toward him from her sister’s horse. ‘Shame on you, Sparhawk,’ she murmured.

‘You’ve met Lillias,’ he replied easily, ‘so you know that she’s not the sort of woman you forget – no matter how much you might want to.’

The only building of any substance in the village was the local police station, an ominous stone structure with black iron bars on the windows. Kanzad’s expression was smoothly apologetic. ‘It’s not very inviting, Lord Vanion,’ he said deprecatingly, ‘but it’s the coolest place in this pig-sty.’

‘Should we kill him now and get it over with?’ Bevier murmured to Sparhawk in Styric.

‘Let’s hold off on that,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘We have to wait for Aphrael’s friend – whoever he is – so let’s not precipitate anything just yet.’

‘I’ve had some refreshments prepared,’ Kanzad said to Vanion. ‘Why don’t we go inside? That sun is really growing unbearable.’

The knights dismounted and followed the policeman into the large, dusty office. There was a long table set against one wall, a table laden with plates of sliced melon and figs and with flagons that promised other refreshments. ‘The fruits and melons here aren’t nearly as palatable as those you’d find in Matherion,’ Kanzad apologized, ‘but the local wines aren’t entirely undrinkable.’

‘Thanks all the same, Kanzad,’ Vanion declined, ‘but we stopped for lunch no more than an hour ago. We’re all just fine.’

A momentary flicker of annoyance crossed the Tamul’s face. ‘I’ll go make sure that your horses are being properly cared for, then, and I’ll send a messenger to the embassy to advise Ambassador Taubel of your arrival.’ He turned and went on out.

‘Could you arrange some privacy, dear?’ Vanion asked Sephrenia in Styric.

‘Of course,’ she smiled. She quickly wove the spell and released it.

‘Someday you’ll have to teach me that one,’ he said.

‘And become redundant?’ she smiled. ‘Not on your life, my love.’

‘We appear to have taken them by surprise,’ Bevier noted. ‘Kanzad doesn’t seem to have had much time to knock the rough edges off those lies he told us.’

‘I wouldn’t,’ Ulath said as Kalten reached for one of the wine flagons. ‘One sip of that would probably stiffen you like a plank.’

Kalten regretfully pushed the flagon away. ‘I suppose you’re right,’ he agreed.

‘We’re prisoners, then, aren’t we,’ Talen sighed. ‘That’s depressing. I’ve been a thief all my life, and this is the first time I’ve ever been arrested.’

‘The fact that these refreshments are probably poisoned complicates things just a bit,’ Ulath growled. ‘Aside from that, Kanzad’s been very helpful. He’s just put us inside the strongest building in the village, and he rather carelessly forgot to take our weapons. We can hold this place for as long as necessary.’

‘You’re a fraud, Ulath,’ Bevier laughed. ‘Tynian’s right. You pretend to hate sieges, but you’re always the first one to suggest forting up.’

‘A true friend wouldn’t mention that.’

‘I can provide water if the worst comes to the worst,’ Sephrenia told them, ‘but let’s not precipitate anything just yet.’ She reached down and picked Flute up. ‘Have you had any hints about the one we’re waiting for yet?’

Flute shook her head. ‘Nothing very specific so far. I think he’s on his way, though.’

‘Good. This isn’t really a very pleasant place.’

‘A thought, my Lords,’ Berit said. ‘Wouldn’t it be a good idea to have Kanzad in here with us – just as a precaution? If someone starts thinking about storming the building, that might make them give it a few second thoughts.’