The Ruby Knight

‘You’ve got sharp ears, friend.’

The two of them waited in the darkness as the sleepy guard strolled along the parapet and disappeared in the fog.

‘Give me a hand with this,’ the tavern-keeper said, stooping to lift one end of a heavy timber up onto the window-sill. ‘We slide it across to the parapet, and then you go on over. When you get there, I’ll throw you the end of this rope. It’s anchored here, so you’ll be able to slide down the outside of the wall.’

‘Right,’ Sparhawk said. They slid the timber across the intervening space. ‘Thanks, neighbour,’ Sparhawk said. He straddled the timber and inched his way across to the parapet. He stood up and caught the coil of rope that came out of the misty darkness. He dropped it over the wall and swung out on it. A few moments later, he was on the ground. The rope slithered up into the fog, and then he heard the sound of the timber sliding back into the garret. ‘Very neat,’ Sparhawk muttered, walking carefully away from the city wall. ‘I’ll have to remember that place.’

The fog made it a bit difficult to get his bearings, but by keeping the looming shadow of the city wall to his left, he could more or less determine his location. He set his feet down carefully. The night was quiet, and the sound of a stick breaking would be very loud.

Then he stopped. Sparhawk’s instincts were very good, and he knew that he was being watched. He drew his sword slowly to avoid the tell-tale sound it made as it slid out of its sheath. With the sword in one hand and the battle-spear in the other, he stood peering out into the fog.

And then he saw it. It was only a faint glow in the darkness, so faint that most people would not have noticed it. The glow drew closer, and he saw that it had a slight greenish cast to it. Sparhawk stood perfectly still and waited.

There was a figure out there in the fog, indistinct perhaps, but a figure nonetheless. It appeared to be robed and hooded in black, and that faint glow seemed to be coming out from under the hood. The figure was quite tall and appeared to be impossibly thin, almost skeletal. For some reason it chilled Sparhawk. He muttered in Styric, moving his fingers on the hilt of the sword and the shaft of the spear. Then he raised the spear and released the spell with its point. The spell was a relatively simple one, its purpose being only to identify the emaciated figure out in the fog. Sparhawk almost gasped when he felt the waves of pure evil emanating from the shadowy form. Whatever it was, it was certainly not human.

After a moment, a ghostly metallic chuckle came out of the night. The figure turned and moved away. Its walk was jerky as if its knees were put together backwards. Sparhawk stayed where he was until that sense of evil faded away. Whatever the thing was, it was gone now. ‘I wonder if that was another of Martel’s little surprises,’ Sparhawk muttered under his breath. Martel was a renegade Pandion Knight who had been expelled from the order. He and Sparhawk had once been friends, but no more. Martel now worked for Primate Annias, and it had been he who had provided the poison with which Annias had very nearly killed the queen.

Sparhawk continued slowly and silently now, his sword and the spear still in his hands. Finally he saw the torches which marked the closed east gate of the city, and he took his bearings from them.

Then he heard a faint snuffling sound behind him, much like the sound a tracking dog would make. He turned, his weapons ready. Again he heard that metallic chuckle. He amended that in his mind. It was not so much a chuckle as it was a sort of stridulation, a chittering sound. Again he felt that sense of overpowering evil, which once again faded away.

Sparhawk angled slightly out from the city wall and the filmy light of those two torches at the gate. After about a quarter of an hour, he saw the square, looming shape of the Pandion chapterhouse just ahead.

He dropped into a prone position on the fog-wet turf and cast the searching spell again. He released it and waited.

Nothing.

He rose, sheathed his sword and moved cautiously across the intervening field. The castle-like chapterhouse was, as always, being watched. Church soldiers, dressed as workmen, were encamped not far from the front gate with piles of the cobblestones they were ostensibly laying heaped around their tents. Sparhawk, however, went around to the back wall and carefully picked his way through the deep, stake-studded fosse surrounding the structure.

The rope down which he had clambered when he had left the house was still dangling behind a concealing bush. He shook it a few times to be certain the grappling hook at its upper end was still firmly attached. Then he tucked the war-spear under his sword-belt. He grasped the rope and pulled down hard.

Above him, he could hear the points of the hook grating into the stones of the battlement. He started to climb up, hand over hand.

‘Who’s there?’ The voice came sharply out of the fog overhead. It was a youthful voice, and familiar.

Sparhawk swore under his breath. Then he felt a tugging on the rope he was climbing. ‘Leave it alone, Berit,’ he grated, straining to pull himself up.

‘Sir Sparhawk?’ the novice said in a startled voice.

‘Don’t jerk on the rope,’ Sparhawk ordered. ‘Those stakes in the ditch are very sharp.’

‘Let me help you up.’

‘I can manage. Just don’t displace that hook.’ He grunted as he heaved himself up over the battlement, and Berit caught his arm to help him. Sparhawk was sweating from his exertions. Climbing a rope when one is wearing chain-mail can be very strenuous.

Berit was a novice Pandion who showed much promise. He was a tall, raw-boned young man who was wearing a mail-shirt and a plain, utilitarian cloak. He carried a heavy bladed battle-axe in one hand. He was a polite young fellow, so he did not ask any questions, although his face was filled with curiosity. Sparhawk looked down into the courtyard of the chapterhouse. By the light of a flickering torch, he saw Kurik and Kalten. Both of them were armed, and sounds from the stable indicated that someone was saddling horses for them. ‘Don’t go away,’ he called down to them.

‘What are you doing up there, Sparhawk?’ Kalten sounded surprised.

‘I thought I’d take up burglary as a sideline,’ Sparhawk replied drily. ‘Stay there. I’ll be right down. Come along, Berit.’

‘I’m supposed to be on watch, Sir Sparhawk.’

‘We’ll send somebody up to replace you. This is important.’ Sparhawk led the way along the parapet to the steep stone stairs that led down into the courtyard.

‘Where have you been, Sparhawk?’ Kurik demanded angrily when the two had descended. Sparhawk’s squire wore his usual black leather vest, and his heavily muscled arms and shoulders gleamed in the orange torchlight that illuminated the courtyard. He spoke in the hushed voice men use when talking at night.

‘I had to go to the cathedral,’ Sparhawk replied quietly.

‘Are you having religious experiences?’ Kalten asked, sounding amused. The big blond knight, Sparhawk’s boyhood friend, was dressed in chain and had a heavy broadsword belted at his waist.

‘Not exactly,’ Sparhawk told him. ‘Tanis is dead. His ghost came to me at about midnight.’

‘Tanis?’ Kalten’s voice was shocked.

‘He was one of the twelve knights who were with Sephrenia when she encased Ehlana in crystal. His ghost told me to go to the crypt under the cathedral before it went to give up its sword to Sephrenia.’

‘And you went? At night?’

‘The matter was of a certain urgency.’

‘What did you do there? Violate a few tombs? Is that how you got the spear?’

‘Hardly,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘King Aldreas gave it to me.’

‘Aldreas!’

‘His ghost anyway. His missing ring is hidden in the socket.’ Sparhawk looked curiously at his two friends. ‘Where were you going just now?’

‘Out to look for you.’ Kurik shrugged.

‘How did you know I’d left the chapterhouse?’

‘I checked in on you a few times,’ Kurik said. ‘I thought you knew I usually did that.’

‘Every night?’

‘Three times at least,’ Kurik confirmed. ‘I’ve been doing that every night since you were a boy – except for the years you were in Rendor. The first time tonight, you were talking in your sleep. The second time – just after midnight – you were gone. I looked around, and when I couldn’t find you, I woke up Kalten.’

‘I think we’d better go wake the others,’ Sparhawk said bleakly. ‘Aldreas told me some things, and we’ve got some decisions to make.’

‘Bad news?’ Kalten asked.

‘It’s hard to say. Berit, tell those novices in the stable to go and replace you on the parapet. This might take a while.’

They gathered in Preceptor Vanion’s brown-carpeted study in the south tower. Sparhawk, Berit, Kalten and Kurik were there, of course. Sir Bevier, a Cyrinic Knight, was there as well, as were Sir Tynian, an Alcione Knight, and Sir Ulath, a huge Genidian Knight. The three were the champions of their orders, and they had joined with Sparhawk and Kalten when the Preceptors of the four orders had decided that the restoration of Queen Ehlana was a matter that concerned them all. Sephrenia, the small, dark-haired Styric woman who instructed the Pandions in the secrets of Styricum, sat by the fire with the little girl they called Flute at her side. The boy, Talen, sat by the window rubbing at his eyes with his fist. Talen was a sound sleeper, and he did not like being awakened. Vanion sat at the table he used for a writing desk. His study was a pleasant room, low, dark beamed, and with a deep fireplace that Sparhawk had never seen unlighted. As always, Sephrenia’s simmering tea-kettle stood on the hob.

Vanion did not look well. Roused from his bed in the middle of the night, the Preceptor of the Pandion Order, a grim, careworn knight who was probably even older than he looked, wore an uncharacteristic Styric robe of plain white homespun cloth. Sparhawk had watched this peculiar change in Vanion over the years. Caught at times unawares, the Preceptor, one of the stalwarts of the Church, sometimes seemed almost half Styric. As an Elene and a Knight of the Church, it was Sparhawk’s duty to reveal his observations to the church authorities. He chose, however, not to. His loyalty to the Church was one thing – a commandment from God. His loyalty to Vanion, however, was deeper, more personal.