The Shining Ones

‘You have to tell it to open, Sparhawk,’ Flute instructed.

‘Open!’ Sparhawk commanded, touching the ring to the box again.

The lid popped up, and Sparhawk saw the Bhelliom nestled inside. The Sapphire Rose was perfect, eternal, and it glowed a deep blue. It seemed strangely resentful as Sparhawk reached in and lifted it out, however. ‘We all know who we are,’ he told the stone and its unwilling inhabitants. ‘I’m not going to speak to you in Trollish because I know you can understand me, no matter what language I use. I want you to stop this nonsense with that cloud, and I want you to do it right now! When I turn round to look, your little patch of private darkness had better be gone. I don’t care how you do it, but get rid of that cloud!’

The Sapphire Rose grew suddenly hot in his hand, and it seemed almost to writhe against his fingers. Flickers of red, green, orange and purple, all interspersed with streaks of white, stained the azure petals of Bhelliom as the Troll-Gods trapped within the gem fought to resist. Bhelliom, however, appeared to exert some kind of over-control, and those ugly flickers were smothered as the jewel began to burn more brightly.

Then there was a sudden, violent jolt which numbed Sparhawk’s arm to the shoulder.

‘That’s the way!’ Kalten shouted with a sudden laugh.

Sparhawk turned in his saddle and saw that the cloud was gone. ‘What happened?’

‘It sort of flopped around like a fresh-caught eel,’ Kalten laughed again, ‘and then it flew all to pieces. What did you do, Sparhawk? I couldn’t hear what you said.’

‘I let our blue friend and its tenants know that the cloud was starting to irritate me. Then I sort of hinted at the fact that I get ugly when I’m irritated.’

‘They must have believed you.’

Flute was staring at Sparhawk in open astonishment. ‘You broke all the rules!’ she accused him.

‘I do that sometimes. It’s quicker to cut across the formalities once in a while.’

‘You’re not supposed to do it that way.’

‘It worked, didn’t it?’

‘It’s a question of style, Sparhawk. I’m technically in charge here, and I don’t know what Bhelliom and the Troll-Gods are going to think of me after that.’

He laughed, and then gently put Bhelliom back into its box. ‘Nice job,’ he told it. They were going to have to work together, after all, and a little encouragement now and then never hurt. Then he firmly closed the lid. ‘It’s time for some speculation, gentlemen,’ he said to the others. ‘What can we make of this?’

‘They know where we are, for one thing,’ Talen offered.

‘It could be the rings again,’ Sephrenia noted. That’s what happened last time. The cloud – and the shadow – were concentrating on Sparhawk and Ehlana right at first because they had the rings.’

‘Bhelliom’s closed up inside the box,’ Sparhawk said, ‘and so are the Troll-Gods.’

‘Are they still inside the jewel?’ Ulath asked him.

‘Oh, yes,’ Sparhawk said. ‘I could definitely feel them when I took Bhelliom out.’ He looked at Aphrael, phrasing his next question carefully. There were still some things that needed to be concealed. ‘I’ve heard that a God can be in more than one place at the same time.’ He left it a little tentative.

‘Yes,’ she replied.

‘Does that apply to the Troll-Gods as well?’

She struggled with it. ‘I’m not sure,’ she admitted. ‘It’s a fairly complicated business, and the Troll-Gods are quite limited.’

‘Does this box confine them in the same way that chain-mail pouch did back in Zemoch?’

She shook her head. ‘It’s different. When they’re encased in gold that way, they don’t know where they are.’

‘Does that make a difference?’

‘You have to know where you are before you can go someplace else.’

‘I’ll take your word for it.’ He made a face. ‘I think we may have blundered again,’ he said sourly.

‘How so?’ Bevier asked him.

‘We don’t really have any absolute proof that the Troll-Gods are in league with our enemy. If they’re trapped inside this box with Bhelliom and can’t get out, they couldn’t be, could they?’

‘That was Ghworg in the mountains of Atan,’ Ulath insisted. ‘That means that he’s out and about at least.’

‘Are you sure, Ulath? Those peasants around the bonfire were convinced that the big fellow in the ancient armor was Incetes too, you know.’

‘All the evidence points to it, Sparhawk. Everything we’ve seen this time is just like it was last time, and it was the Troll-Gods then, wasn’t it?’

‘I’m not even positive about that any more.’

‘Well, something had to have enough authority over the Trolls to make them migrate from Thalesia to the north coast of Atan.’

‘Just how smart do you have to be in order to be a Troll? I’m not saying that it was something as crude as the hoax Rebal foisted off on those peasants, but …’ Sparhawk left it hanging.

‘That would be a fairly complex hoax, dear one,’ Sephrenia murmured.

‘But not quite impossible, little mother. I’ll drop the whole line of thought if you’ll just tell me that what I’m suggesting is impossible.’

‘Don’t throw it away just yet,’ she said, her face troubled.

‘Aphrael,’ Sparhawk said, ‘will this gold box keep our friend out there from being able to locate Bhelliom?’

She nodded. ‘The gold shields it. He can’t hear it or feel it, so he can’t just move toward the sound or the sense of it.’

‘And if I put Ehlana’s ring in there as well? Would the box shield that too?’

‘Yes, but your own ring’s still out in the open where he can feel its location.’

‘One thing at a time.’ He touched his ring to the lid of the box. ‘Open,’ he said.

The latch clicked, and the lid raised slightly.

Sparhawk removed Ehlana’s ring from his finger and put it inside the box. ‘You look after it for a while,’ he told the Bhelliom.

‘Please don’t do that, Sparhawk,’ Vanion told him with a pained look.

‘Do what?’

‘Talk to it like that. You make it sound like a real being.’