The Ruby Knight (24 page)

‘It's possible, but unlikely,' Ulath said. ‘Relations between Deira and Thalesia were a bit strained in those days. Sarak probably wouldn't have put himself in a position to have been captured.'

‘Let's begin up around the port of Apalia then. The shortest route to the east side of Lake Randera would run south from there.' He began to leaf through the pages in front of him. He frowned. ‘There doesn't seem to be anything useful here,' he said. ‘How large was the King's party?'

‘Not very sizeable,' Ulath rumbled. ‘Sarak left Emsat in a hurry, and he only took a few retainers with him.'

‘All of the accounts I picked up in Apalia mention large bodies of Thalesian troops. Of course it could be as you suggested, Sir Ulath. King Sarak might have landed on some lonely beach and by-passed Apalia entirely. Let's try the port of Nadera before we start combing beaches and isolated fishing villages.' He consulted a map and then turned to a place about half-way through the manuscript and began to skim through it. ‘I think we've got something!' he exclaimed with a scholar's enthusiasm. ‘A peasant up near Nadera told me about a Thalesian ship that slipped past the city during the night early in the campaign and sailed several leagues up the
river before she landed. A number of warriors disembarked, and one of them stood head and shoulders above the rest. Was there anything unusual about Sarak's crown?'

‘It had a large blue jewel on top of it,' Ulath said, his face intent.

‘That was him, then,' the count said exultantly. ‘The story makes particular mention of that jewel. They say that it was the size of a man's fist.'

Sparhawk let out an explosive breath. ‘At least Sarak's ship didn't sink at sea,' he said with relief.

The count took a length of string and stretched it diagonally across the map. Then he dipped his pen into his inkwell and made a number of notes. ‘All right, then,' he said crisply. ‘Assuming King Sarak took the shortest course from Nadera to the battlefield, he'd have passed through the districts on this list. I've done research in all of them. We're getting closer, Sir Knights. We'll track down this king of yours yet.' He began to leaf through rapidly. ‘No mention of him here,' he muttered, half to himself, ‘but there weren't any engagements in that district.' He read on, his lips pursed. ‘Here!' he said, his face breaking into a smile of triumph. ‘A group of Thalesians rode through a village twenty leagues to the north of Lake Venne. Their leader was a very large man wearing a crown. We're narrowing it down.'

Sparhawk found that he was actually holding his breath. He had been on many missions and quests in his life, but this searching out a trail through paper had a strange excitement to it. He began to understand how a man could devote his life to scholarship with absolute contentment.

‘And here it is!' the count said excitedly. ‘We've found him.'

‘Where?' Sparhawk demanded eagerly.

‘I'll read you the entire passage,' the count replied. ‘You understand, of course, that I've cast the account in more gentlemanly language than that of the man who told it to me.' He smiled. ‘The language of peasants and serfs is colourful, but hardly suitable for a scholarly work.' He squinted at the page. 'Oh, yes. Now I remember. This fellow was a serf. His master told me that the fellow liked to tell stories. I found him breaking up clods with a mattock in a field near the east side of Lake Venne. This is what he told me:

‘“It was early in the campaign, and the Zemochs under Otha had penetrated the eastern border of Lamorkand and were devastating the countryside as they marched. The western Elenian kings were rushing to meet them with all the forces they could muster, and large bodies of troops were crossing into Lamorkand from the west, but they were primarily farther south than Lake Venne. The troops coming down from the north were mostly Thalesians. Even before the Thalesian army landed, however, an advance party of them rode south past Lake Venne.

‘“Otha, as we all know, had sent out skirmishers and patrols well in advance of his main force. It was one of those patrols that intercepted the party of Thalesians mentioned above at a place called Giant's Mound.”'

‘Was the place named before or after the battle?' Ulath asked.

‘It almost had to have been after,' the count replied. ‘Pelosians don't erect burial mounds. That's a Thalesian custom, isn't it?'

‘Right, and the word “giant” describes Sarak rather well, wouldn't you say?'

‘Exactly my thought. There's more, though.' The count continued to read. ‘“The engagement between the Thalesians and the Zemochs was short and very
savage. The Zemochs vastly outnumbered the small band of northern warriors and soon swarmed them under. Among the last to fall was the leader, a man of enormous proportions. One of his retainers, though sorely wounded, took something from his fallen leader's body and fled west towards the lake with it. There is no clear account of what it was that he took or what he did with it. The Zemochs pursued the retainer hotly, and he died of his wounds on the shore of the lake. However, a column of Alcione Knights, men who had been returned to their Mother-house in Deira to recuperate from wounds received in the campaign in Rendor, happened by on their way to Lake Randera and exterminated the Zemoch patrol to the last man. They buried the faithful retainer and rode on, by purest chance missing the site of the original engagement.

‘“As it happened, a sizeable force of Thalesians had been following the first party by no more than a day. When the local peasants informed them of what had transpired, they buried their countrymen and erected the mound over their graves. This second Thalesian force never reached Lake Randera, since they were ambushed two days later, and all were slain.”'

‘And that explains why no one ever knew what had happened to Sarak,' Ulath said. ‘There was no one left alive to tell anybody about it.'

‘This retainer,' Bevier mused, ‘might it have been the king's crown he took?'

‘It's possible,' Ulath conceded. ‘More likely, though, it would have been his sword. Thalesians put great value on royal swords.'

‘It won't be hard to find out,' Sparhawk said. ‘We'll go to Giant's Mound and Tynian can raise Sarak's ghost. He'll be able to tell us what happened to his sword – and his crown.'

‘Here's something odd,' the count said. ‘I remember that I almost didn't write it down because it happened
after
the battle. The serfs have been seeing a monstrously deformed shape in the marshes around Lake Venne for centuries now.'

‘Some swamp creature?' Bevier suggested. ‘A bear perhaps?'

‘I think that serfs would recognize a bear,' the count said.

‘Maybe a moose,' Ulath said. ‘The first time I ever saw a moose, I couldn't believe anything could get that big, and a moose hasn't got the prettiest face in the world.'

‘I remember that the serfs said that the thing walks on its hind legs.'

‘Could it possibly be a Troll?' Sparhawk asked. ‘That one who was roaring outside our camp by the lake?'

‘Did the serfs describe it as shaggy and very tall?' Ulath asked.

‘It's shaggy, right enough, but they say it's squat, and its limbs are all twisted.'

Ulath frowned. ‘That doesn't sound like any Troll I've ever heard about – except maybe -' His eyes suddenly went wide. ‘Ghwerig!' he shouted, snapping his fingers. ‘It
has
to be Ghwerig. That nails it down, Sparhawk. Ghwerig's looking for Bhelliom, and he knows right where to look.'

‘I think we'd better go back to Lake Venne,' Sparhawk said, ‘and just as fast as we can. I don't want Ghwerig to find Bhelliom before I do. I definitely don't want to have to wrestle him for it.'

‘I am eternally in your debt, my friends,' Ghasek said to them in the castle courtyard the next morning as they were preparing to leave.

‘And we are in yours as well, My Lord,' Sparhawk assured him. ‘Without your aid, we'd have had no chance of finding what we seek.'

‘God speed then, Sir Sparhawk,' Ghasek said, shaking the big Pandion's hand warmly.

Sparhawk led the way out of the courtyard and back down the narrow track to the foot of the crag.

‘I wonder what's going to happen to him,' Talen said rather sadly as they rode along.

‘He has no choice,' Sephrenia said. ‘He has to stay there until his sister dies. She's no longer a danger, but she still has to be guarded and cared for.'

‘I'm afraid the rest of his life is going to be very lonely,' Kalten sighed.

‘He has his books and chronicles,' Sparhawk disagreed. ‘That's all the company a scholar really needs.'

Ulath was muttering under his breath.

‘What's the trouble?' Tynian asked him.

‘I should have known that the Troll at Lake Venne was there for some specific reason,' Ulath replied. ‘I could have saved us some time if I'd investigated.'

‘Would you have recognized Ghwerig if you'd seen him?'

Ulath nodded. ‘He's dwarfed, and there aren't very many dwarfed Trolls about. She-Trolls usually eat deformed cubs as soon as they're born.'

‘That's a brutal practice.'

‘Trolls aren't famous for their gentle dispositions. They don't even get along with each other most of the time.'

The sun was very bright that morning, and the birds sang in the bushes near the deserted village in the centre of the field below Count Ghasek's castle. Talen turned aside to ride into the village.

‘There won't be anything in there to steal,' Kurik called after him.

‘Just curious, that's all,' Talen called back. ‘I'll catch up with you in a couple of minutes.'

‘Do you want me to go and get him?' Berit asked.

‘Let him look around,' Sparhawk said. ‘He'll complain all day if we don't.'

Then Talen came galloping out of the village. His face was deathly pale, and his eyes were wild. When he reached them, he tumbled from his horse and lay on the ground retching and unable to speak.

‘We'd better go and have a look,' Sparhawk said to Kalten. ‘The rest of you wait here.'

The two knights rode warily into the deserted village with their lances at the ready.

‘He went this way,' Kalten said quietly, pointing at the tracks of Talen's horse in the muddy street with the tip of his lance.

Sparhawk nodded, and they followed the tracks to a house that was somewhat larger than the others in the village. The two dismounted, drew their swords and entered.

The rooms inside were dusty and devoid of any furniture. ‘Nothing at all in here,' Kalten said. ‘I wonder what frightened him so much.'

Sparhawk opened the door to a room at the back of the house and looked inside. ‘You'd better go and get Sephrenia,' he said bleakly.

‘What is it?'

‘A child. It's not alive, and it's been dead for a long time.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘Look for yourself.'

Kalten looked into the room and made a gagging sound. ‘Are you sure you want her to see that?' he asked.

‘We need to know what happened.'

‘I'll go and get her then.'

The two went back outside. Kalten remounted and rode out to where the others waited while Sparhawk stood near the door of the house. A few minutes later, the blond knight returned with Sephrenia.

‘I told her to leave Flute with Kurik,' Kalten said. ‘We wouldn't want her to see what's in there.'

‘No,' Sparhawk replied sombrely. ‘Little mother,' he apologized to Sephrenia, ‘this will not be pleasant.'

‘Few things are,' she said resolutely.

They took her inside the house to that back room.

She took one quick look and then turned aside. ‘Kalten,' she said, ‘go and dig a grave.'

‘I don't have a shovel,' he objected.

‘Then use your hands!' Her tone was intense, almost savage.

‘Yes, Sephrenia.' He seemed awed by her uncharacteristic vehemence. He left the house quickly.

‘Oh, poor thing,' Sephrenia mourned, hovering over the desiccated little body.

The body of the child was withered and dry. Its skin was grey, and its sunken eyes were open.

‘Bellina again?' Sparhawk asked. His voice seemed loud, even to himself.

‘No,' she replied. ‘This is the work of the Seeker. This is how it feeds. Here,' she pointed at dry puncture marks on the child's body, ‘and here, and here, and here. This is
where the Seeker fed. It draws out the body's fluids and leaves only a dry husk.'

‘Not any more,' Sparhawk said, his fist closing about the haft of Aldreas's spear. ‘The next time we meet, it dies.'

‘Can you afford to do that, dear one?'

‘I can't afford not to. I'll avenge this child – against the Seeker or Azash or even against the gates of Hell itself.'

‘You're angry, Sparhawk.'

‘Yes. You could say that.' It was stupid and served no purpose, but Sparhawk suddenly tore his sword from its scabbard and destroyed an inoffending wall with it. It didn't accomplish anything, but it made him feel a little better.

The others came silently down into the village and to the open grave Kalten had grubbed out of the earth with his bare hands. Sephrenia came out of the house with the dry body of the child in her arms. Flute came forward with a light linen cloth, and the two carefully wrapped the dead child in it. Then they deposited it in the rude grave.

‘Bevier,' Sephrenia said, ‘would you? This is an Elene child, and you are the most devout among these knights.'

‘I am unworthy.' Bevier was weeping openly.

‘Who
is
worthy, dear one?' she said. ‘Will you send this unknown child into the darkness alone?'

Bevier stared at her and then fell to his knees beside the grave and began to recite the ancient prayer for the dead of the Elene church.

Rather peculiarly, Flute came up beside the kneeling Arcian. Her fingers gently wove through his curly blue-black hair in a strangely comforting way. For some reason, Sparhawk began to feel that the strange little girl might be far, far older than any of them realized. Then
she raised her pipes. The hymn was an ancient one, almost at the core of the Elene faith, but there was a minor Styric overtone to it. Briefly, in the sound of the little girl's song, Sparhawk began to perceive some unbelievable possibilities.

When the burial was complete, they mounted and rode on. They were all very quiet for the rest of that day, and they stopped for the night at the campsite beside the small lake where they had encountered the wandering minstrel. The man was gone.

‘I was afraid of that,' Sparhawk said. ‘It was too much to hope for that he'd still be here.'

‘Maybe we'll catch up with him farther south,' Kalten suggested. ‘That horse of his wasn't in very good shape.'

‘What can we do about him even if we do catch him?' Tynian said. ‘You weren't planning to kill him, were you?'

‘Only as a last resort,' Kalten replied. ‘Now that Sephrenia knows how Bellina influenced him, she could probably cure him.'

‘Your confidence is very nice, Kalten,' she said, ‘but it might be misplaced.'

‘Will the spell she put on him ever wear off?' Bevier asked.

‘To some degree. He'll grow less desperate as time goes on, but he'll never be entirely free of it. It might even make him write better poetry, though. The important thing is that he'll grow less and less infectious. Unless he meets a fair number of people in the next week or so, he won't be much of a danger to the count, and neither will those servants.'

‘That's something at least,' the young Cyrinic said. He frowned slightly. ‘Since I was already infected, why did that creature come to me that night? Wasn't that just a waste of her time?' Bevier seemed still strongly shaken by the funeral service for the dead child.

‘It was for reinforcement, Bevier,' she told him. ‘You were agitated, but you wouldn't have gone as far as to attack your companions. She had to make sure you'd go to any lengths to free her from that tower.'

As they were setting up their night's camp, something occurred to Sparhawk. He went over to where Sephrenia sat by the fire with her teacup in her hands. ‘Sephrenia,' he said, ‘what's Azash up to? Why is He suddenly going out of His way to corrupt Elenes? He's never done that before, has He?'

‘Do you remember what the ghost of King Aldreas said to you that night in the crypt?' she said. ‘That the time had come for Bhelliom to re-emerge?'

‘Yes.'

‘Azash knows that too, and He's growing desperate. I'd guess that He's found that His Zemochs aren't reliable. They follow orders, but they're not very bright. They've been digging up that battlefield for centuries now, and they just keep ploughing over the same ground. We've found out more about Bhelliom's location in the past few weeks than they've found out in the past five hundred years.'

‘We were lucky.'

‘That's not entirely true, Sparhawk. I know that I tease you sometimes about Elene logic, but that was precisely what's got us so close to Bhelliom. A Zemoch is incapable of logic. That's Azash's weakness. A Zemoch doesn't think because he doesn't have to. Azash does all his thinking for him. That's why Azash so desperately needs Elene converts. He doesn't need their adoration; He needs their minds. He has Zemochs all over the western kingdoms gathering old stories – in the same way that we did. I think He believes that one of them will stumble over the right story and that then His Elene converts will be able to piece together the meaning of it.'

‘That's the long way around, isn't it?'

‘Azash has time. He's not pressed by the same sense of urgency that we are.'

Later that night, Sparhawk was standing watch some distance away from the fire, looking out over the small lake that glittered in the moonlight. Again, the howls of wolves echoed back in the dismal woods, but now for some reason the sound did not seem so ominous. The ghastly spirit which had haunted this forest was locked away forever, and the wolves were only wolves now and not harbingers of evil. The Seeker, of course, was an entirely different matter. Grimly Sparhawk promised himself that the next time they encountered it, he would bury the spear of Aldreas in the hideous creature.

‘Sparhawk, where are you?' It was Talen. He spoke quietly and stood near the fire peering out into the darkness.

‘Over here.'

The boy came towards him, putting his feet down carefully to avoid hidden obstructions on the ground.

‘What's the problem?' Sparhawk asked him.

‘I couldn't sleep. I thought you might like some company.'

‘I appreciate that, Talen. Standing watch is a lonely business.'

‘I'm certainly glad to be away from that castle,' Talen said. ‘I've never been so scared in my life.'

‘I was a little nervous myself,' Sparhawk admitted.

‘Do you know something? There were all sorts of very nice things in Ghasek's castle, and I didn't once think of stealing any of them. Isn't that odd?'

‘Maybe you're growing up.'

‘I've known some very old thieves,' Talen disagreed. Then he sighed disconsolately.

‘Why so mournful, Talen?'

‘I wouldn't tell just anyone this, Sparhawk, but it's not as much fun as it used to be. Now that I know I can take just about anything I want from almost anybody, the thrill has sort of gone out of it.'

‘Maybe you should look for another line of work.'

‘What else am I suited for?'

‘I'll give it some thought and let you know what I come up with.'

Talen laughed suddenly.

‘What's so funny?' Sparhawk asked him.

‘I might have just a little trouble getting references,' the boy replied, still laughing. ‘My customers didn't usually know they were doing business with me.'

Sparhawk grinned. ‘It could be a problem,' he agreed. ‘We'll work something out.'

The boy sighed again. ‘It's almost over, isn't it, Sparhawk? We know where that king's buried now. All we have left to do is go and dig up his crown, and then we'll go back to Cimmura. You'll go to the palace, and I'll go back to the streets.'

‘I don't think so,' Sparhawk said. ‘Maybe we can come up with an alternative to the streets.'

‘Maybe, but the minute it gets tedious, I'll just run away again. I'm going to miss all this, you know? There've been a few times when I was so scared I almost wet myself, but there have been good times too. Those are the ones I'll remember.'

‘At least we gave you something.' Sparhawk put his hand on the boy's shoulder. ‘Go back to bed, Talen. We'll be getting up early tomorrow.'

‘Whatever you say, Sparhawk.'

They set out at dawn, riding carefully along the rutted road to avoid injury to the horses. They passed the woodcutters' village without stopping and pressed on.

‘How far do you make it?' Kalten asked, about mid-morning.

‘Three – maybe four more days – five more at the most,' Sparhawk replied. ‘Once we get out of this forest, the roads improve and we'll make better time.'

‘Then all we have to do is find Giant's Mound.'

‘That shouldn't be much of a problem. From what Ghasek said, the local peasantry uses it as a landmark. We'll ask around.'

‘Then we get to start digging.'

‘It's not really the sort of thing you want to have somebody do for you.'

‘Do you remember what Sephrenia said at Alstrom's castle back in Lamorkand?' Kalten said seriously. ‘The business about Bhelliom's re-emergence ringing through the whole world?'