The Shining Ones

She shook her head. ‘It’s too generalized. Every God in the world’s going to know when Bhelliom starts to move, though, and we can be absolutely sure that at least some of them will come looking for it. Can we talk about this some other time?’

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Just stand watch at the bedroom door. I don’t like having an audience when I’m stealing things.’

‘You sound just like Talen.’

‘Naturally. He and I were made for each other. It was the Gods who invented theft in the first place.’

‘You’re not serious.’

‘Of course. We steal things from each other all the time. It’s a game. Did you think we just sat around on clouds basking in adoration? We have to do something to pass the time. You should try it sometime, father. It’s lots of fun.’ She looked around furtively, crouched low and reached for the bedroom door-handle. ‘Keep a lookout, Sparhawk. Whistle if you hear anybody coming.’

They all gathered in the sitting room of the royal apartment the following morning to receive their final instructions from Emperor Sarabian and Queen Ehlana. It was a formality, really. Everybody knew what they were supposed to do already, so they sat in the sunlit room making generalized small-talk and cautioning each other to be careful. People who are parting from each other do that a lot.

Alean, Queen Ehlana’s doe-eyed maid, was in the next room, and she was singing. Her voice was clear and sweet and true, and all conversation in the sitting room broke off as she sang. ‘It’s like listening to an angel,’ Patriarch Emban murmured.

‘The girl has a truly magnificent voice,’ Sarabian agreed. ‘She already has the court musicians in near-despair.’

‘She seems a bit sad this morning,’ Kalten said, two great tears glistening in his eyes.

Sparhawk smiled faintly. Kalten had preyed on maids since he had been a young man, and few had been able to resist his blandishments. This time, however, the shoe was on the other foot. Alean was not singing for her own entertainment. The brown-eyed girl was singing for an audience of one, and her song, dealing as it did with the sorrows of parting, filled Kalten’s eyes. She sang of broken hearts and other extravagances in a very old Elenian ballad entitled ‘My Bonnie Blue-Eyed Boy’. Then Sparhawk noticed that Baroness Melidere, Queen Ehlana’s lady-in-waiting, was also watching Kalten very closely. Melidere’s eyes met Sparhawk’s and she slowly winked. Sparhawk almost laughed aloud. He was clearly not the only one who was aware of Alean’s subtle campaign.

‘You will write, won’t you, Sparhawk?’ Ehlana said.

‘Of course I will,’ he replied.

‘I can virtually guarantee that, your Majesty,’ Vanion said. ‘If you give him just a little time, Sparhawk’s a great letter-writer. He devotes enormous amounts of time and effort to his correspondence.’

‘Tell me everything, Sparhawk,’ the queen urged.

‘Oh he will, your Majesty, he will,’ Vanion assured her. ‘He’ll probably tell you more than you ever really wanted to know about the Isle of Tega.’

‘Critic,’ Sparhawk muttered under his breath.

‘Please don’t be too vivid in your description of our situation here, your Grace,’ Sarabian was saying to Emban. ‘Don’t make Dolmant think that my empire’s falling down around my ears.’

‘Isn’t it, your Majesty?’ Emban replied with some surprise. ‘I thought that was why I was dashing back to Chyrellos to fetch the Church Knights.’

‘Well, maybe it is, but don’t destroy my dignity entirely.’

‘Dolmant’s very wise, your Majesty,’ Emban assured him. ‘He understands the language of diplomacy.’

‘Oh, really?’ Ehlana said with heavy sarcasm.

‘Should I convey your Majesty’s greetings to the Archprelate as well?’ Emban asked her.

‘Of course. Tell him that I’m desolate at being separated from him – particularly in view of the fact that I can’t keep an eye on him. You might also advise him that a little-known Elenian statute clearly says that I have to ratify any agreements he makes with the Earl of Lenda during my absence. Tell him not to get too comfortable in those pieces of my kingdom he’s been snipping off since I left, because I’ll just take them back again as soon as I get home.’

‘Does she do this all the time, Sparhawk?’ Sarabian asked.

‘Oh yes, all the time, your Majesty. The Archprelate bites off all his fingernails every time a letter from her reaches the Basilica.’

‘It keeps him young,’ Ehlana shrugged. She rose to her feet. ‘Now, friends,’ she said, ‘I hope you’ll excuse my husband and me for a few moments so that we can say our goodbyes privately. Come along, Sparhawk,’ she commanded.

‘Yes, my Queen.’

The morning fog had lifted, and the sun was very bright as their ship sailed out of the harbor and heeled over to take a southeasterly course which would round the southern tip of the Micaen peninsula to the Isle of Tega. The ship was well appointed, although she was of a slightly alien configuration. Khalad did not entirely approve of her, finding fault with her rigging and the slant of her masts.

It was about noon when Vanion came up on deck to speak with Sparhawk, who was leaning on the rail watching the coastline slide by. They were both wearing casual clothing, since there is no real need for formal garb on board ship.

‘Sephrenia wants us all in the main cabin,’ the Preceptor told his friend. ‘It’s time for one of those startling revelations we’ve all come to love and adore. Why don’t you round up the others and bring them on down?’

‘You’re in a peculiar humor,’ Sparhawk noted. ‘What’s the problem?’

‘Sephrenia’s being excessively Styric today,’ Vanion shrugged.

‘That one escaped me.’

‘You know the signs, Sparhawk – the mysterious expression, the cryptic remarks, the melodramatic pauses, the superior manner.’

‘Have you two been fighting?’

Vanion laughed. ‘Never that, my friend. It’s just that we all have little quirks and idiosyncrasies that irritate our loved ones sometimes. Sephrenia’s having one of her quirky days.’

‘I won’t tell her you said that, of course.’

Vanion shrugged. ‘She already knows how I feel. We’ve discussed it in the past – at length. Sometimes she does it just to tease me. Go get the others, Sparhawk. Let’s not give her too much time to perfect this performance.’

They all gathered in the main salon below decks, a cabin which was part dining room and part lounge. Sephrenia had not put in her appearance as yet and, after a few moments, Sparhawk understood what Vanion had been talking about. A familiar sound began to emerge from the lady’s cabin.

‘Flute?’ Talen exclaimed in astonishment, his voice cracking in that peculiar adolescent yodel which afflicts human males at the onset of puberty.

Sparhawk had wondered how Aphrael intended to get round the rather sticky problem of explaining her identity. To have appeared to the others as Princess Danae would quite obviously have been out of the question. Flute was quite another matter. His friends all recognized Flute as Aphrael, and that would eliminate the need for extended explanations. Sparhawk sighed as a rather melancholy thought occurred to him. He realized sadly that he didn’t know what his daughter really looked like. That dear little face which was engraved on his mind almost as deeply as Ehlana’s was only one in a long line of incarnations – one of thousands, more than likely.

Then the door to Sephrenia’s cabin opened, and the small Styric woman emerged with a smile that made her face look like the sun coming up, and with her little sister in her arms.

Flute, of course, was unchanged – and unchangeable. She appeared to be no more than six years old – precisely the same age as Danae. Sparhawk immediately rejected the possibility of coincidence. Where Aphrael was concerned, there were no coincidences. She wore the same short linen smock belted at the waist and the same plaited grass headband that she had been wearing when they had first met her. Her long hair was as black as night, and her large eyes nearly as dark. Her little bare feet were grass-stained. She held a simple many-chambered set of goatherd’s pipes to her bow-like lips, and her song was Styric, set in a complex minor key.

‘What a pretty child,’ Ambassador Norkan observed, ‘but is it really a good idea to take her along on this mysterious mission of yours, Prince Sparhawk? I gather there might be some danger involved.’

‘Not now there won’t be, your Excellency,’ Ulath grinned.

Sephrenia gravely set the Child Goddess on the cabin floor, and Flute began to dance to the clear, sweet music of her pipes.

Sephrenia looked at Emban and Norkan. ‘Watch the child closely, Emban, and you too, your Excellency. That should save us hours of explanation and argument.’

Flute pirouetted through the cabin, her grass-stained little feet flickering, her black hair flying and her pipes sounding joyously. This time Sparhawk actually saw the first step she placed quite firmly on insubstantial air. As one mounting an invisible stair, the Child Goddess danced upward, whirling as she climbed, bending and swaying, her tiny feet fluttering like birds’ wings as she danced on nothing at all. Then her song and her dance ended, and, smiling impishly and still standing in mid-air, she curtsied.