The Hidden City. David Eddings

commoners. Then they all went down to the cellar.

      Caalador, who now wore the blocky face of a middle-aged Deiran knight, led the way into a damp, cobweb-draped tunnel with a smoky torch. When they had gone about a mile, he stopped and raised the torch. ‘This yere’s yer exit, Sporhawk,’ he said, pointing at a steep, narrow stairway. ‘You’ll come out in an alley – which it is ez don’t smell none too sweet, but is good an’ dork.’ He paused. ‘Sorry, Stragen,’ he apologized. ‘I wanted to give you something to remember me by.’

      ‘You’re too kind,’ Stragen murmured.

      ‘Good luck, Sparhawk,’ Caalador said then.

      ‘Thanks, Caalador.’ The two shook hands, and then Caalador lifted his torch and led the rest of the party off down the musty-smelling passageway toward their assorted destinations, leaving Sparhawk, Talen, and Stragen alone in the dark.

      ‘They won’t be in any danger, Vanion,’ Flute assured the Preceptor as the ladies were packing. ‘Ill be going along, after all, and I can take care of them.’

      ‘Ten knights then,’ he amended his suggestion downward.

      ‘They’d just be in our way, love,’ Sephrenia told him. ‘I do want you to be careful, though. A body of armed men is far more likely to be attacked than a small party of travelers.’

      ‘But it isn’t safe for ladies to travel alone,’ he protested. ‘There are always robbers and the like lurking in the forest.’

      ‘We won’t be in one place long enough to attract robbers or anybody else,’ Flute told him. ‘We’ll be in Delphaeus in two days. I could do it in one, but I’ll have to stop and have a long talk with Edaemus before I go into his valley. He might just take a bit of convincing.’

      ‘When art thou leaving Matherion, Lord Vanion?’ Xanetia asked.

      ‘About the end of the week, Anarae,’ he replied. ‘We’ve got to spend some time on our equipment, and there’s always the business of organizing the supply train.’

      ‘Take warm clothing,’ Sephrenia instructed. ‘The weather could change at any time.’

      ‘Yes, love. How long will you be at Delphaeus?’

      ‘We can’t be sure. Aphrael will keep you advised. We have a great deal to discuss with Anari Cedon. The fact that Cyrgon has summoned Klæl complicates matters.’

      ‘Truly,’ Xanetia agreed. ‘We may be obliged to entreat Edaemus to return.’

      ‘Would he do that?’

      Flute smiled roguishly. ‘I’ll coax him, Vanion,’ she said, ‘and you know how good I am at that. If I really want something, I almost always get it.’

      ‘You there! Look lively!’ Sorgi’s bull-necked bo’sun bellowed, popping his whip at Stragen’s heels.

      Stragen, who now wore the braids and sweeping mustaches of a blond Genidian Knight, dropped the bale he was carrying across the deck and reached for his dagger.

      ‘No!’ Sparhawk hissed at him. ‘Pick up that bale!’

      Stragen glared at him for a moment, then bent and lifted the bale again. ‘This wasn’t part of the agreement,’ he muttered.

      ‘He’s not really going to hit you with that whip,’ Talen assured the fuming Thalesian. ‘Sailors all complain about it, but the whip’s just for show. A bo’sun who really hits his men with his whip usually gets thrown over the side some night during the voyage.’

      ‘Maybe,’ Stragen growled darkly, ‘but I’ll tell you this right now. If that cretin so much as touches me with that whip of his, he won’t live long enough to go swimming. I’ll have his guts in a pile on the deck before he can even blink.’

      ‘You new men!’ the bo’sun shouted. ‘Do your talking on your own time! You’re here to work, not to discuss the weather!’ And he cracked his whip again.

      * * *

      ‘She could do it, Khalad,’ Berit insisted.

      ‘I think you’ve been out in the sun too long,’ Khalad replied. They were riding south along a lonely beach under an overcast sky. The beach was backed by an uninviting salt marsh where dry reeds clattered against each other in the stiff onshore breeze. Khalad rose in his stirrups and looked around. Then he settled back in his saddle again. ‘It’s a ridiculous idea, my Lord.’

      ‘Try to keep an open mind, Khalad. Aphrael’s a Goddess. She can do anything.’

      I’m sure she can, but why would she want to?’

      ‘Well –’ Berit struggled with it. ‘She could have a reason, couldn’t she? Something that you and I wouldn’t even understand?’

      ‘Is this what all that Styric training does to a man? You’re starting to see Gods under every bush. It was only a coincidence. The two of them look a little bit alike, but that’s all.’

      ‘You can be as skeptical as you want, Khalad, but I still think that something very strange is going on.’

      ‘And I think that what you’re suggesting is an absurdity.’

      ‘Absurd or not, their mannerisms are the same, their expressions are identical, and they’ve both got that same air of smug superiority about them.’

      ‘Of course they do. Aphrael’s a Goddess, and Danae’s a Crown Princess. They are superior – at least in their own minds – and I think you’re overlooking the fact that we saw them both in the same room and at the same time. They even talked to each other, for God’s sake.’

      ‘Khalad, that doesn’t mean anything. Aphrael’s a Goddess. She can probably be in a dozen different places all at the same time if she really wants to be.’

      ‘That still brings us right back to the question of why? What would be the purpose of it? Not even a God does things without any reason.’

      ‘We don’t know that, Khalad. Maybe she’s doing it just to amuse herself.’

      ‘Are you really all that desperate to witness miracles, Berit?’

      ‘She could do it,’ Berit insisted.

      ‘All right. So what?’

      ‘Aren’t you the least bit curious about it?’

      ‘Not particularly,’ Khalad shrugged.

      Ulath and Tynian wore bits and pieces of the uniforms of one of the few units of the Tamul army that accepted volunteers from the Elene kingdoms of western Daresia. The faces they had borrowed were those of grizzled, middle-aged knights, the faces of hard-bitten veterans. The vessel aboard which they sailed was one of those battered, ill-maintained ships that ply coastal waters. The small amount of money they had paid for their passage bought them exactly that – passage, and nothing else. They had brought their own food and drink and their patched blankets, and they ate and slept on the deck. Their destination was a small coastal village some twenty-five leagues east of the foothills of the Tamul mountains. They lounged on the deck in the daytime, drinking cheap wine and rolling dice for pennies.

      The sky was overcast when the ship’s longboat deposited them on the rickety wharf of the village. The day was cool, and the Tamul Mountains were little more than a low smudge on the horizon.

      ‘What was that horse-trader’s name again?’ Tynian asked.

      ‘Sablis,’ Ulath grunted.

      ‘I hope Oscagne was right,’ Tynian said. ‘If this Sablis has gone out of business, we’ll have to walk to those mountains.’

      Ulath stepped across the wharf to speak to a pinch-faced fellow who was mending a fish net. ‘Tell me, friend,’ he said politely in Tamul, ‘where can we find Sablis the horse-trader?’