‘I find no falsity in thy thought, Anakha, and I will strengthen thine arm and harden thine heart, lest others, beloved by thee, seek to turn thee aside from thy design and thy pledge. We are agreed.’

‘Done, then!’ Sparhawk was exultant.

‘And done!’ Bhelliom’s speech, emerging from Kalten’s lips, had been dry and unemotional, but this time the voice was also exultant.

‘And now to this decision which thou and I must make together.’

‘Sparhawk…’ Sephrenia’s tone was uncertain.

‘I’m sorry, little mother,’ he said, ‘I’m not talking with you at the moment. Please don’t interrupt.’ Sparhawk was not entirely sure whether he should address his question to the Sapphire Rose or to Kalten, who seemed to have been completely taken over by the spirit within the jewel. He settled for directing his question somewhere between them. ‘The Delphae have offered their assistance in exchange for a certain service,’ he said. ‘They would have us seal their valley that none may enter and none may leave, and in recompense for that small favor they promise to aid us. Is their offer made in good faith?’ Sparhawk heard Xanetia’s sharp intake of breath.

‘It is,’ Bhelliom replied. ‘There is no falsity in their offer.’

‘I didn’t think so myself, but I wanted to be sure.’

‘Anakha.’ The voice was firm. ‘When thou speakest so, thy mind is concealed from me. Our alliance is new and unfamiliar. It is not wise of thee to raise doubts in me by compressing thy words together so.’

Sparhawk suddenly laughed. ‘Forgive my lapse, Blue Rose,’ he said. ‘We can trust the Delphae, then?’

‘For the moment, yes. Their intent is presently without guile. It is uncertain what it will be tomorrow. Thy kind is inconstant, Anakha.’ Kalten’s voice hesitated briefly. ‘I say that not as criticism, merely as observation. For the nonce mayest thou put thy trust in their sincerity – and they in thine. What may come subsequently lieth in the hands of chance.’

‘Then there is such a thing as chance?’ Sparhawk was a bit surprised at that. ‘We are told that all things are pre-determined by the Gods.’

‘Whosoever told thee so was in error.’

Bevier gasped.

‘My journey and my task were interrupted by chance,’ Bhelliom continued. ‘If my course may be turned aside, might not thine as well? Truly I tell thee, Anakha, we must join with the Delphae in this enterprise, for if we do not, we shall surely fail. Whether one or both play the other false will depend on circumstance. At this time, the hearts of the Delphae are pure; that may change. At this time, thine heart is also pure; that may also change. But will we, nil we, we must join with them, lest we fail and languish forever in vilest bondage.’

‘You heard him, Bevier,’ Sephrenia was saying to the olive-skinned Arcian later when Sparhawk quietly entered the room where the two were deep in conversation, ‘they worship the lake – the source of the contamination that makes them outcast.’

‘He did mention a God, Lady Sephrenia,’ Bevier protested mildly. ‘I think he called their God Edaemus – or something like that.’

‘But Edaemus has abandoned them – cursed them and then turned his back on them.’

‘Anari said that Edaemus had gone before them to prepare a place for them.’ Bevier’s objection seemed even weaker. ‘He said that they were changing – turning into pure light.’

‘Lies,’ she snapped. ‘The light that marks them is not the mark of a blessing, Bevier, it’s the mark of their curse. Cedon was cleverly trying to twist it around to make it seem that the Delphae are turning into something holy, when the reverse is actually true.’

‘They do perform magic, Sephrenia, and a kind of magic I’ve never seen before. I wouldn’t have believed that anyone could return to childhood if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.’

‘Exactly my point, Bevier. They’re using witchcraft, not magic. You’ve never seen me imitate a God, have you?’

Sparhawk stepped unobserved back out into the hallway and went on down to the doorless cell Vanion occupied. ‘We’ve got a problem,’ he told the Preceptor of the Pandions.

‘Another one?’

‘Sephrenia’s trying to subvert Bevier. She’s trying to convince him that the Delphae practice witchcraft. You know Bevier. His eyes start to bulge out any time anyone so much as mentions the word.’

‘Why won’t she just leave it alone?’ Vanion exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air. ‘Wasn’t Bhelliom’s word good enough for her?’

‘She doesn’t want to believe, Vanion,’ Sparhawk sighed. ‘We’ve run into exactly the same thing when we’ve tried to convince rural Elenes that Styrics aren’t born with horns and tails.’

‘She of all people should be free of that sort of thing.’

‘I’m afraid not, my friend. Styrics are good haters, I guess. How do we want to handle this?’

‘I’ll confront her directly.’

Sparhawk winced. ‘She’ll turn you into a frog if you do.’

Vanion smiled briefly. ‘No. I lived in Sarsos, remember? A Styric can’t do anything like that without the consent of his God, and Aphrael’s sort of fond of me – I hope.’

‘I’ll round up the others and get them out from underfoot so that you can speak with her privately.’

‘No, Sparhawk, it has to be done in front of them. She’s trying to slip around behind us to recruit converts. They’re all going to have to be made aware of the fact that she’s not to be trusted in this particular situation.’

‘Wouldn’t it be a little better to talk with her privately at first? – before you humiliate her publicly?’

Vanion shook his head stubbornly. ‘We’ve got to meet this head on,’ he declared.

‘You’d better hope that Aphrael’s fond of you,’ Sparhawk murmured.

‘They’ve reverted to total paganism,’ Sephrenia said stubbornly. ‘They might as well worship trees or oddly shaped rocks. They have no creed, no doctrine and no restraints. Their use of witchcraft proves that.’ They had gathered at Vanion’s summons in a large room at the end of the hall, and Sephrenia was urgently, even stridently, trying to make her case.

‘What’s the difference?’ Talen shrugged. ‘Magic, witchcraft, it’s all the same, isn’t it?’

‘Magic is of the Gods, Talen,’ Bevier explained. ‘Our Holy Mother, in her wisdom, has chosen to allow the Church Knights to learn the secrets of Styricum that we might better serve her. There are restraints on us – certain areas we may not enter. Witchcraft is unrestrained because it is of the evil one.’

‘The Devil, you mean? I’ve never really believed in the Devil. There’s plenty of concentrated wickedness in people anyway, so we can probably get along fairly well without him. I’ve known some very nasty people, Bevier.’

‘The existence of the Devil has been proved.’

‘Not to me it hasn’t.’

‘Aren’t we wandering a bit?’ Ulath suggested. ‘Does it really matter what the Delphae worship? We’ve allied ourselves with all sorts of people in the past in order to achieve this or that goal. Bhelliom says that we have to join forces with the Delphae, or we’re going to lose. I don’t like losing, so what’s the problem?’

‘Bhelliom doesn’t know anything about this world, Ulath,’ Sephrenia said.

‘So much the better. It comes at the problem with a clear and uncluttered understanding. If I need to jump behind a tree to keep from being swept away by an avalanche, I’m not going to stop to question the tree about its beliefs first.’

‘Bhelliom will do or say anything in order to gain its freedom,’ Sephrenia asserted. ‘That’s why I was so much against using it in the first place.’

‘We have to believe Bhelliom, Sephrenia,’ Vanion told her, obviously trying to keep his irritation under control. ‘It doesn’t make much sense for us to trust it with our very lives and then not believe what it tells us, does it? It has done some very useful things for us in the past, you know.’

‘Only because it was compelled to, Vanion. Bhelliom submits because it’s forced to submit. I trust the Bhelliom even less than I trust the Delphae. It’s alien, totally alien, and we have no way of knowing what it will do. We’re safe only for as long as we keep it chained and force it to obey us. The minute we begin to listen to it, we’re in great danger.’

‘Is that how you feel about us too, little mother?’ he asked her sadly. ‘We’re Elenes, and as a race we’ve proved time and again that we’re not to be trusted. Do you want to chain us as well? – and force us to obey you?’

‘Don’t be absurd. Bhelliom’s not a person.’

‘The Delphae are, though, aren’t they?’

‘No!’

‘You’re being illogical, Sephrenia. The Delphae are human. We don’t care for the Zemochs or the Rendors, but we’ve never tried to pretend that they aren’t human. There are a lot of Elenes who don’t like you Styrics, but we’ve never gone so far as to try to deny your humanity.’ He paused, then drew in a deep breath. ‘I guess that’s what it comes down to, love. If you’re going to deny the humanity of the Delphae, how can I be positive that you don’t secretly feel the same way about me? I’ve lived in Sarsos, and many of the Styrics there wanted to treat me like some lower life-form. Did you agree with them? Have I been some kind of pet, Sephrenia? – a dog maybe? Or a tame ape that you kept around for your private amusements? Hang it all, Sephrenia, this is a question of morality. If we deny anyone’s humanity, we open the door to unimaginable horror. Can’t you see that?’

‘The Delphae are different.’

‘Nobody’s different! We have to believe that, because if we don’t, we deny our own humanity as well. Why won’t you understand?’

Her face was very, very pale. ‘This is all very highsounding and noble, Vanion, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with the Delphae. You don’t know anything about what they are or who they are, so you don’t really know what you’re talking about. You’ve always come to me for guidance in the past when your ignorance was putting you in danger. Am I correct in assuming that we’re not going to do that any more?’

‘Don’t be silly.’

‘I’m not. I’m being very serious. Are you going to ignore me on this issue? Are you going to take up with these monstrous lepers, no matter what I tell you?’

‘We don’t have any choice in the matter, can’t you see that? Bhelliom tells us that we’re going to fail if we don’t – and we can’t fail. I think the whole world’s going to depend on our not failing.’

‘You seem to have outgrown your need for me, then. It would have been polite of you to have told me that before you brought me to this accursed valley, but I suppose I was silly to expect politeness from an Elene in the first place. As soon as we get back to Matherion, I’ll make arrangements to return to Sarsos where I belong.’

‘Sephrenia…’

‘No. This concludes it. I’ve served the Pandion order well and faithfully for three hundred years, and I thank you for your generous payment for my years of toil. We’re through, Vanion. This ends it. I hope the rest of your life will be happy, but happy or sad, you’re going to live it without me.’ And she turned and swept from the room.

‘It will be very dangerous, Anari,’ Itagne warned, ‘and Xanetia is the most important of all your people. Is it prudent to risk her life?’

‘Truly, Itagne of Matherion,’ the old man replied, ‘Xanetia is precious to us, for she will be Anarae. She is, however, the most gifted of us, and it may well be that her gifts will weight the scale in our final confrontation with our common enemy.’ Sparhawk, Vanion and Itagne had been summoned to meet with Cedon prior to their departure from the valley of Delphaeus. It was a fine autumn morning. A hint of frost, fast melting in the newly risen sun, steamed on the meadow, and the shade under the boughs of the evergreens beyond that meadow was a deep, deep blue.

‘I merely wished to point it out, Anari,’ Itagne said. ‘For all its splendor, Matherion is a city filled with hidden dangers – with rough, ignorant people who will react very strongly to the appearance of one of the Delphae in their midst. Your gentle Xanetia is an ethereal, unworldly sort of person, hardly more than a girl. The fact that she’s a Shining One will protect her to some degree against overt physical attack, but are you really willing to expose her to the curses, the vituperation and all the other kinds of abuse she’s sure to encounter there at the center of the world?’

The Anari smiled. ‘Thou hast misperceived Xanetia, Itagne of Matherion. Doth she truly seem so much a child to thee? Would thy mind be more easy if thou wert aware that she is well past her first century of life?’

Itagne stared at him and then at Xanetia, who sat quietly near the window. ‘You are a strange people, Anari,’ he said. ‘I’d have guessed her age at no more than sixteen years.’

‘It is impolite to speculate about a lady’s age, Itagne of Matherion,’ the pale woman smiled.

‘Forgive me, Anarae,’ Itagne replied with a courtly bow.

‘His Excellency here has raised a fairly important point, Anari,’ Vanion said. The Preceptor’s face was still marked by the pain of the previous day’s conversation with Sephrenia. ‘The lady’s appearance won’t go unnoticed – not only in Matherion itself, but along the roads we’ll have to follow as we ride east as well. Is there some way we could disguise her enough so that whole villages won’t go into absolute panic the moment she rides by?’ He looked apologetically at the Delphaeic woman. ‘I wouldn’t offend you for the world, Anarae, but you are very striking.’

‘I thank thee for the compliment, gentle sir.’

‘Do you want to take over, Sparhawk?’ Vanion said. ‘I just seem to be digging myself in deeper.’

‘We’re soldiers, Xanetia,’ Sparhawk said bluntly, ‘and our answer to hostility is fairly direct. We can butcher our way from here to the imperial palace in Matherion if we have to, but I get the feeling that you might find that distressing. Would a disguise of some kind offend you?’ Then a thought came to him. ‘Can we disguise you? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you glow. Some of your people have come fairly close to us before the light started to show. Can your internal fire be dampened?’