The Hidden City (16 page)

The Styric shuddered, and his face took on a faintly nauseated look.

‘There's nothing quite like a few gobs of oozy pork-fat to slick up a man's gullet,' Khalad told him cheerfully. ‘It must come from all the garbage and half-rotten swill that pigs eat.'

The Styric made a retching sound.

‘You've delivered your message, neighbor,' Berit said coldly. ‘I'm sure you have someplace important to go, and we certainly wouldn't want to keep you.'

‘Are you sure you understand the message?'

‘I've read it. Elenes read very well. We're not illiterates like you Styrics. The message didn't make me very happy, so it's not going to pay you to stay around.'

The Styric messenger backed away, his face apprehensive. Then he turned and fled.

‘What does it say?' Khalad asked.

Berit gently held the identifying lock of the Queen's hair in his hand. ‘It says that there's been a change of plans. We're supposed to go on down past the Tamul Mountains and then turn west. They want us to go to Sopal now.'

‘You'd better get word to Aphrael.'

There was a sudden, familiar little trill of pipes. The two young men spun around quickly.

The Child Goddess sat cross-legged on Khalad's blankets, breathing a plaintive Styric melody into her many-chambered pipes. ‘Why are you staring at me?' she asked them. ‘I
told
you I was going to look after you, didn't I?'

‘Is this really wise, Divine One?' Berit asked her. ‘That Styric's no more than a few hundred yards away, you know, and he can probably sense your presence.'

‘Not right now, he can't,' Aphrael smiled. ‘Right now he's too busy concentrating on keeping his stomach from turning inside out. All that talk about pork-fat was really cruel, Khalad.'

‘Yes. I know.'

‘Did you have to be so graphic?'

‘I didn't know you were around. What do you want us to do?'

‘Go to Sopal the way they told you to. I'll get word to the others.' She paused. ‘What
did
you do to that ham, Khalad?' she asked curiously. ‘You've actually managed to make it smell almost edible.'

‘It's probably the cloves,' he shrugged. ‘Nobody's really all that fond of the taste of pork, when you get right down to it, but my mother taught me that almost anything can be made edible – if you use enough spices. You might want to keep that in mind the next time you're thinking about serving up a goat.'

She stuck her tongue out at him, and then she vanished.

It was snowing in the mountains of Zemoch, a dry, brittle snow that settled like a cloud of feathers in the dead calm air. It was bitterly cold, and a huge cloud of steam hung like a low-lying fog over the horses of the army of the Knights of the Church as they plodded forward, their hooves sending the powdery snow swirling into the air again. The preceptors of the militant orders rode in the lead, dressed in full armor and bundled in furs. Preceptor Abriel of the Cyrinic Knights, still vigorous despite his advanced age, rode with Darellon, the Alcione Preceptor, and with Sir Heldin, a scarred old veteran who was filling in as leader of the Pandions during Sparhawk's absence. Patriarch Bergsten rode somewhat apart. The huge Churchman was muffled to the ears in fur, and his Ogre-horned helmet made him look very warlike, an appearance offset to some degree by the small, black-bound prayer book he was reading. Preceptor Komier of the Genidians was off ahead with the scouts.

‘I don't think I'll ever be warm again,' Abriel groaned, pulling his fur cloak tighter about him. ‘Old age thins the blood. Don't ever get old, Darellon.'

‘The alternative isn't very attractive, Lord Abriel.' Darellon was a slender Deiran who appeared to have been swallowed up by his massive armor. He lowered his voice. ‘You didn't really have to come along, my friend,' he said. ‘Sarathi would have understood.'

‘Oh, no, Darellon. This is probably my last campaign. I wouldn't miss it for the world.' Abriel peered ahead. ‘What's Komier doing out there?'

‘Lord Komier said that he wanted to take a look at the ruins of Zemoch,' Sir Heldin replied in his rumbling basso. ‘I guess Thalesians take a certain pleasure in viewing the wreckage after a war's over.'

‘They're a barbaric people,' Abriel muttered sourly. He glanced quickly at Bergsten, who seemed totally immersed in his prayer book. ‘You don't necessarily have to repeat that, gentlemen,' he said to Darellon and Heldin.

‘I wouldn't dream of it, Abriel,' Bergsten said, not looking up from his prayer book.

‘You've got unwholesomely sharp ears, your Grace.'

‘It comes from listening to confessions. People tend to shout the sins of others from the rooftops, but you can barely hear them when they're describing their own.' Bergsten looked up and pointed. ‘Komier's coming back.'

The Preceptor of the Genidian Knights was in high spirits as he reined in his horse, swirling up a huge billow of the dustlike snow. ‘Sparhawk doesn't leave very much standing when he destroys a place,' he announced cheerfully. ‘I didn't entirely believe Ulath when he told me that our broken-nosed friend blew the lid off the Temple of Azash, but I do now. You've never
seen
such a wreck. I doubt if there's a habitable building left in the whole city.'

‘You really enjoy that sort of thing, don't you, Komier?' Abriel accused.

‘That's enough of that, gentlemen!' Bergsten cut in quickly. ‘We're not going to resurrect
that
worn-out old dispute again. We make war in different ways. Arcians like to build forts and castles, and Thalesians like to knock them down. It's all part of making war, and that's what we get paid for.'

‘We, your Grace?' Heldin rumbled mildly.

‘You know what I mean, Heldin. I don't personally get involved in that any more, of course, but –'

‘Why did you bring your axe along then, Bergsten?' Komier asked him.

Bergsten gave him a flat stare. ‘For old times' sake –
and
because you Thalesian brigands pay closer attention to a man who's got an axe in his hands.'

‘Knights, your Grace,' Komier mildly corrected his countryman. ‘We're called knights now. We
used
to be brigands, but now we're behaving ourselves.'

‘The Church appreciates your efforts to mend your ways, my son, even though she knows that you're lying in your teeth.'

Abriel carefully covered a smile. Bergsten was a former Genidian Knight himself, and sometimes his cassock slipped a bit. ‘Who's got the map?' he asked, more to head off the impending argument than out of any real curiosity.

Heldin unbuckled one of his saddle-bags, his black armor clinking. ‘What did you want to know, my Lord?' he asked, taking out his map.

‘The usual. How far? How long? What sort of unpleasantness up ahead?'

‘It's just over a hundred leagues to the Astellian border, my Lord,' Heldin replied, consulting his map, ‘and nine hundred leagues from there to Matherion.'

‘A hundred days at least,' Bergsten grunted sourly.

‘That's if we don't run into any trouble, your Grace,' Darellon added.

‘Take a look back over your shoulder, Darellon. There are a hundred thousand Church Knights behind us. There's
no
trouble that we can't deal with. What sort of terrain's up ahead, Heldin?'

‘There's some sort of divide about three days east of here, your Grace. All the rivers on this side of it run down into the Gulf of Merjuk. On the other side, they run off into the Astel Marshes. I'd imagine that we'll be going downhill after we cross that divide – unless Otha
fixed it so that water runs uphill here in Zemoch.'

A Genidian Knight rode forward. ‘A messenger from Emsat just caught up with us, Lord Komier,' he reported. ‘He says he has important news for you.'

Komier nodded, wheeled his horse and rode back toward the army. The rest of them pushed on as it started to snow a little harder.

Komier was laughing uproariously when he returned with the travel-stained messenger who had chased them down.

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

‘We have good news from home, your Grace,' Komier said gaily. ‘Tell our beloved Patriarch what you just told me,' he instructed the messenger.

‘Yes, my Lord,' the blond-braided Thalesian said. ‘It happened a few weeks back, your Grace. One morning the palace servants couldn't find a trace of the Prince Regent anywhere at all. The guards tore the place apart for two straight days, but the little weasel seemed to have vanished entirely.'

‘Mind your manners, man,' Bergsten snapped. ‘Avin's the Prince Regent, after all – even if he
is
a little weasel.'

‘Sorry, your Grace. Anyway, the whole capital was mystified. Avin Wargunsson never went anywhere without taking a brass band along to blow fanfares announcing his coming. Then one of the servants happened to notice a full wine barrel in Avin's study. That seemed odd, because Avin didn't have much stomach for wine, so they got to looking at the barrel a little more closely. It was clear that it had been opened, because quite a bit of wine had been spilled on the floor. Well, your Grace, they'd all worked up quite a thirst looking for Avin, so they decided to open the barrel, but when they tried to pry it open, they found out that it had been nailed shut. Now
nobody
nails a wine barrel shut in Thalesia, so everybody got suspicious right away.
They took some pliers and pulled out the nails and lifted the lid – and there was Avin, stone dead and floating face down in the barrel.'

‘You're not serious!'

‘Yes, your Grace. Somebody in Emsat's got a very warped sense of humor, I guess. He went to all the trouble of rolling that wine barrel into Avin's study just so that he could stuff him in and nail down the lid. Avin seems to have struggled a bit. He had splinters under his fingernails, and there were claw-marks on the underside of the lid. It made an awful mess. I guess the wine drained out of him for a half an hour after they fished him out of the barrel. The palace servants tried to clean him up for the funeral, but you know how hard wine-stains are to get out. He was very purple when they laid him out on the bier in the Cathedral of Emsat for his funeral.' The messenger rubbed at the side of his face reflectively. ‘It was the strangest funeral I've ever attended. The Primate of Emsat kept trying to keep from laughing while he was reading the burial service, but he wasn't having much luck, and that got the whole congregation to laughing too. There was Avin lying on that bier, no bigger than a half-grown goat and as purple as a ripe plum, and there was the whole congregation, roaring with laughter.'

‘At least everybody noticed him,' Komier said. ‘That was always important to Avin.'

‘Oh, they noticed him all right, Lord Komier. Every eye in the Cathedral was on him. Then, after they put him in the royal crypt, the whole city had a huge party, and we all drank toasts to the memory of Avin Wargunsson. It's hard to find something to laugh about in Thalesia when winter's coming on, but Avin managed to brighten up the whole season.'

‘What kind of wine was it?' Patriarch Bergsten asked gravely.

‘Arcian red, your Grace.'

‘Any idea of what year?'

‘Year before last, I believe it was.'

‘A vintage year,' Bergsten sighed. ‘There was no way to save it, I suppose?'

‘Not after Avin had been soaking in it for two days, your Grace.'

Bergsten sighed again. ‘What a waste,' he mourned. And then he collapsed over his saddlebow, howling with laughter.

It was cold in the Tamul Mountains as Ulath and Tynian rode up into the foothills. The Tamul Mountains were one of those geographic anomalies which crop up here and there, a cluster of worn-down, weary-looking peaks with no evident connection to neighboring and more jagged peaks forested by fir and spruce and pine. The gentler slopes of the Tamul Mountains were covered with hardwoods which had been stripped of their leaves by the onset of winter.

The two knights rode carefully, staying in the open and making enough noise to announce their presence. ‘It's very unwise to startle a Troll,' Ulath explained.

‘Are you sure they're out there?' Tynian asked as they wound deeper into the mountains.

Ulath nodded. ‘I've seen tracks – or places where they've tried to brush out their traces – and fresh dirt where they've buried their droppings. Trolls take pains to conceal their presence from humans. It's easier to catch supper if it doesn't know you're around.'

‘The Troll-Gods promised Aphrael that their creatures wouldn't eat humans any more.'

‘It may take a few generations for that notion to sift down into the minds of some of the stupider Trolls – and a Troll can be fearfully stupid when he sets his mind to it. We'd better stay alert. As soon as we get up out
of these foothills, I'll perform the ceremony that calls the Troll-Gods. We should be safe after that. It's these foothills that are dangerous.'

‘Why not just perform the ceremony now?'

Ulath shook his head. ‘Bad manners. You're not supposed to call on the Troll-Gods until you're up higher – up in
real
Troll country.'

This isn't Troll country, Ulath.'

‘It is now. Let's find a place to camp for the night.'

They built their camp on a kind of stair-stepped bench so that they had a solid cliff to their backs and a steep drop to the front. They took turns standing watch, and as the first faint light of dawn began to wash the darkness out of the overcast sky, Tynian shook Ulath awake. There's something moving around in the brush at the foot of the cliff,' he whispered.

Ulath sat up, his hand going to his axe. He cocked his head to listen. Troll,' he said after a moment.