The Diamond Throne. David Eddings

come to know and respect their alien tutors, went perhaps a step further than the Church, letting it be generally known that unprovoked attacks on Styric settlements would result in swift and savage retaliation. Despite such organized protection, however, any Styric who entered an Elene village or town could expect taunts and abuse and, not infrequently, showers of stones and offal. Thus, Sephrenia’s appearance at Demos had not been without personal risks. Her motives for coming had been unclear, but over the years she had served faithfully; to a man the Pandions had come to love and respect her. Even Vanion, the preceptor of the order, frequently sought her counsel.

      Sparhawk looked at the volume lying on the table before her. ‘A book, Sephrenia?’ he said in mock amazement. ‘Has Vanion finally persuaded you to learn how to read?’

      ‘You know my beliefs about that practice, Sparhawk,’ she replied. ‘I was merely looking at the pictures.’ She pointed at the brilliant illuminations on the page. ‘I was ever fond of bright colours.’

      Sparhawk drew up a chair and sat, his armour creaking.

      ‘You saw Ehlana?’ Vanion asked, resuming his seat across the table.

      ‘Yes.’ Sparhawk looked at Sephrenia. ‘How did you do that?’ he asked her. ‘Seal her up like that, I mean?’

      ‘It’s a bit complex.’ Then she stopped and gave him a penetrating look. ‘Perhaps you’re ready, at that,’ she murmured. She rose to her feet. ‘Come over here, Sparhawk,’ she said, moving towards the fireplace.

      Puzzled, he rose and followed her.

      ‘Look into the flames, dear one,’ she said softly, using that odd Styric form of address she had used when he was her pupil.

      Compelled by her voice, he stared at the fire. Faintly, he heard her whispering in Styric, and then she passed her hand slowly across the flames. Unthinking, he sank to his knees and stared into the fireplace.

      Something was moving in the fire. Sparhawk leaned forward and stared hard at the little bluish curls of flame dancing along the edge of a charred oak log. The blue colour expanded, growing larger and larger, and within that nimbus of coruscating blue, he seemed to see a group of figures that wavered as the flame flickered. The image grew stronger, and he realized that he was looking at the semblance of the throne room in the palace, many miles away. Twelve armoured Pandions were crossing the flagstone floor bearing the slight figure of a young girl. She was borne, not upon a litter, but upon the flat sides of a dozen gleaming sword blades held rock-steady by the twelve black-armoured and visored men. They stopped before the throne, and Sephrenia’s white-robed figure stepped out of the shadows. She raised one hand, seeming to say something, though all Sparhawk could hear was the crackling flames. With a dreadful jerking motion, the young girl sat up. It was Ehlana. Her face was distorted and her eyes wide and vacant.

      Without thinking, Sparhawk reached towards her, thrusting his hand directly into the flames.

      ‘No,’ Sephrenia said sharply, pulling his hand back. ‘You may watch only.’

      The image of Ehlana, trembling uncontrollably, jerked to its feet, following, it seemed, the unspoken commands of the small woman in the white robe. Imperiously, Sephrenia pointed at the throne, and Ehlana stumbled, even staggered, up the steps of the dais to assume her rightful place.

      Sparhawk wept. He tried once again to reach out to his queen, but Sephrenia held him back with a gentle touch that was strangely like an iron chain. ‘Continue to watch, dear one,’ she told him.

      The twelve knights then formed a circle around the enthroned Queen and the white-robed woman standing at her side. Reverently, they extended their swords so that the two women on the dais were ringed in steel. Sephrenia raised her arms and spoke. Sparhawk could clearly see the strain on her face as she uttered the words of an incantation he could not even begin to imagine.

      The point of each of the twelve swords began to glow and grew brighter and brighter, bathing the dais in intense silvery-white light. The light from those sword tips seemed to coalesce around Ehlana and her throne. Then Sephrenia spoke a single word, bringing her arm down as she did so in a peculiar cutting motion. In an instant the light around Ehlana solidified, and she became as she had been when Sparhawk had seen her in the throne room that morning. The image of Sephrenia, however, wilted and collapsed on the dais beside the crystal-encased throne.

      The tears were streaming openly down Sparhawk’s face, and Sephrenia gently enfolded his head in her arms, holding him to her. ‘It is not easy, Sparhawk,’ she comforted him. ‘To look thus into the fire opens the heart and allows what we really are to emerge. You are gentler far than you would have us believe.’

      He wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘How long will the crystal sustain her?’ he asked.

      ‘For as long as the thirteen of us who were there continue to live,’ Sephrenia replied. ‘A year at most, as you Elenes measure time.’

      He stared at her.

      ‘It is our life force that keeps her heart alive. As the seasons turn, we will one by one drop away, and one of us who was there will then have to assume the burden of the fallen. Eventually when we have each and every one given all we can – your Queen will die.’

      ‘No!’ he said fiercely. He looked at Vanion. ‘Were you there, too?’

      Vanion nodded.

      ‘Who else?’

      ‘It wouldn’t serve any purpose for you to know that, Sparhawk. We all went willingly and we knew what was involved.’

      ‘Who’s going to take up the burden you mentioned?’ Sparhawk asked Sephrenia.

      ‘I will.’

      ‘We’re still arguing that point,’ Vanion disagreed. ‘Any one of us who were there can do it, actually.’

      ‘Not unless we modify the spell, Vanion,’ she told him just a bit smugly.

      ‘We’ll see,’ he said.

      ‘But what good does it do?’ Sparhawk demanded. ‘All you’ve done is to give her a year more of life at a dreadful cost – and she doesn’t even know.’

      ‘If we can isolate the cause of her illness and find a cure, the spell can be reversed,’ Sephrenia replied. ‘We have suspended her life to give us time.’

      ‘Are we making any progress?’

      ‘I’ve got every physician in Elenia working on it,’ Vanion said, ‘and I’ve summoned others from various parts of Eosia. Sephrenia’s looking into the possibility that the illness may not be of natural origin. We’ve encountered some resistance, though. The court physicians refuse to co-operate.’

      ‘I’ll go back to the palace then,’ Sparhawk said bleakly. ‘Perhaps I can persuade them to be more helpful.’

      ‘We thought of that already, but Annias has them all closely guarded.’

      ‘What is Annias up to?’ Sparhawk burst out angrily. ‘All we want to do is to restore Ehlana. Why is he putting all these stumbling blocks in our path? Does he want the throne for himself?’

      ‘I think he has his eyes on a bigger throne,’ Vanion said. ‘The Archprelate Cluvonus is old and in poor health. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Annias believed that the mitre of the Archprelacy might fit him.’

      ‘Annias? Archprelate? Vanion, that’s an absurdity.’

      ‘Life is filled with absurdities, Sparhawk. The militant orders are all opposed to him, of course, and our opinion carries a great deal of weight with the Church Hierocracy, but Annias has his hands in the treasury of Elenia up to the elbows and he’s very free with his bribes. Ehlana would have been able to cut off his access to that money, but she fell ill. That may have something to do with his lack of enthusiasm about her recovery.’

      ‘And he wants to put Arissa’s bastard on the throne to replace her?’ Sparhawk was growing angrier