The Hidden City

by David Eddings

  ‘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?’

  ‘What if I don’t feel like telling you?’ the scrawny net-mender replied in a whining, nasal voice that identified him as one of those mean-spirited men who would rather die than be helpful, or even polite. Tynian had encountered his kind before, small men, usually, with an inflated notion of their own worth, men who delighted in irritating others just for the fun of it. ‘Let me,’ he murmured, laying one gently restraining hand on his Thalesian companion’s arm. Ulath’s bunched muscles clearly spoke of impending violence.

  ‘Nice net,’ Tynian noted casually, picking up one edge of it. Then he drew his dagger and began cutting the strings.

  ‘What are you doing?’ the pinch-faced fisherman screamed.

  ‘I’m showing you what,’ Tynian explained. ‘You said, “what if I don’t feel like telling you?” This is what. Think it over. My friend and I aren’t in any hurry, so take your time.’ He took a fistful of net and sawed through it with his knife.

  ‘Stop!’ the fellow shrieked in horror.

  ‘Ah – where was it you said we might find Sablis?’ Ulath asked innocently.

  ‘His corrals are on the eastern edge of town.’ The words came tumbling out. Then the scrawny fellow gathered up his net in both arms and held it to his chest, almost like a mother shielding a child from harm.

  ‘Have a pleasant day, neighbor,’ Tynian said, sheathing his dagger. ‘I can’t begin to tell you how much we’ve appreciated your help here. You’ve been absolutely splendid about the whole affair.’ And the two knights turned and walked along the wharf toward the shabby-looking village.

  * * *

  Their camp was neat and orderly with a place for everything and everything exactly where it belonged. Berit had noticed that Khalad always set up camp in exactly the same way. He seemed to have some concept of the ideal camp etched in his mind and, since it was perfect, he never altered it. Khalad was very rigid in some ways.

  ‘How far did we come today?’ Berit asked as they washed up their supper dishes.

  ‘Ten leagues,’ Khalad shrugged, ‘the same as always. Ten leagues is standard on level terrain.’

  ‘This is going to take forever,’ Berit complained.

  ‘No. It might seem like it, though.’ Khalad looked around and then lowered his voice until it was hardly more than a whisper. ‘We’re not really in any hurry, Berit,’ he said. ‘We might even want to slow down a bit.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Keep your voice down. Sparhawk and the others have a long way to go, and we want to be sure they’re in place before Krager – or whoever it is – makes contact with us. We don’t know when or where that’s going to happen, so the best way to delay it is to slow down.’ Khalad looked out into the darkness beyond the circle of firelight. ‘How good are you at magic?’

  ‘Not very,’ Berit admitted, scrubbing diligently. ‘I’ve still got a lot to learn. What did you want me to do?’

  ‘Could you make one of our horses limp – without actually hurting him?’

  Berit probed through his memory. Then he shook his head. I don’t think I know any spells that would do that.’

  ‘That’s too bad. A lame horse would give us a good reason to slow down.’

  It came without warning: a cold, prickling kind of sensation that seemed to be centered at the back of Berit’s neck. ‘That’s good enough,’ he said in a louder voice. ‘I’m not getting paid enough to scrub holes in tin plates,’ He rinsed off the dish he’d been washing, shook most of the water off it and stowed it back into the pack.

  ‘You felt it, too?’ Khalad’s whisper came out from between motionless lips. That startled Berit. How could Khalad have known?

  Berit buckled the straps on the pack and gave his friend a curt nod. ‘Let’s build up the fire a bit and then get some sleep.’ He said it loudly enough to be heard out beyond the circle of firelight. The two of them walked toward their pile of firewood. Berit was murmuring the spell and concealing the movements of his hands at the same time.

  ‘Who is it?’ Ag
ain, Khalad’s lips did not move.

  ‘I’m still working on that,’ Berit whispered back. He released the spell so slowly that it seemed almost to dribble out of the ends of his fingers.

  The sense of it came washing back to him. It was something on the order of recognizing an accent – except that it was done when nobody was talking. ‘It’s a Styric,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Zalasta?’

  ‘No, I don’t believe so. I think I’d recognize him. It’s somebody I’ve never been around before.’

  ‘Not too much wood, my Lord,’ Khalad said aloud. ‘This pile has to get us through breakfast too, you know.’

  ‘Good thinking,’ Berit approved. He reached out again, very cautiously. ‘He’s moving away,’ he muttered. ‘How did you know we were being watched?’

  ‘I could feel it,’ Khalad shrugged. ‘I always know when somebody’s watching me. How noisy is it when you get in touch with Aphrael?’

  ‘That’s one of the good spells. It doesn’t make a sound.’

  ‘You’d better tell her about this. Let her know that we are being watched and that it’s a Styric who’s doing the watching.’ Khalad knelt and began to carefully stack his armload of broken-off limbs on their campfire. ‘Your disguise seems to be working,’ he noted.

  ‘How did you arrive at that?’

  ‘They wouldn’t waste a Styric on us if they knew who you really are.’

  ‘Unless they don’t have anybody left except Styrics. Stragen’s celebration of the Harvest Festival might have been more effective than we thought.’

  ‘We could probably argue about that all night. Just tell Aphrael about our visitor out there. She’ll pass it on to the others, and we’ll let them get the headache from trying to sort it out with logic.’

  ‘Aren’t you curious about it?’

  ‘Not so curious that I’m going to lose any sleep over it. That’s one of the advantages of being a peasant, my Lord. We’re not required to come up with the answers to these earth-shaking questions. You aristocrats get the pleasure of doing that.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Berit said sourly.

  ‘No charge, my Lord,’ Khalad grinned.

  Sparhawk had never actually worked for a living before, and he discovered that he did not like it very much. He quickly grew to hate Captain Sorgi’s thick-necked bo’sun. The man was crude, stupid, and spitefully cruel. He fawned outrageously whenever Sorgi appeared on the quarterdeck, but when the captain returned below decks, the bo’sun’s natural character re-asserted itself. He seemed to take particular delight in tormenting the newest members of the crew, assigning them the most tedious, exhausting and demeaning tasks aboard ship. Sparhawk found himself quite suddenly in full agreement with Khalad’s class prejudices, and sometimes at night he found himself contemplating murder.

  ‘Every man hates his employer, Fron,’ Stragen told him, using Sparhawk’s assumed name. ‘It’s a very natural part of the scheme of things.’

  ‘I could stand him if he didn’t deliberately go out of his way to be offensive,’ Sparhawk growled, scrubbing at the deck with his block of pumice-stone.

  ‘He’s paid to be offensive, my friend. Angry men work harder. Part of your problem is that you always look him right in the eye. He wouldn’t single you out the way he does if you’d keep your eyes lowered. If you don’t, this is going to be a very long voyage for you.’

  ‘Or a short one for him,’ Sparhawk said darkly.

  He considered it that night as he tried, without much success, to sleep in his hammock. He fervently wished that he could get his hands on the idiot who had decided that humans could sleep in hammocks. The roll of the ship made it swing from side to side, and Sparhawk continually felt that he was right on the verge of being thrown out.

  ‘Anakha.’ The voice was only a whisper in his mind.

  Sparhawk was stunned. ‘Blue Rose?’ he said.

  ‘Prithee, Anakha, do not speak aloud. Thy voice is as the thunder in mine ears. Speak silently in the halls of thine awareness. I will hear thee.’

  ‘How is this possible?’ Sparhawk framed the thought. ‘Thou art confined.’

  ‘Who hath power to confine me, Anakha? When thou art alone and thy mind is clear of other distraction, we may speak thus.’

  ‘I did not know that.’

  ‘Until now, it was not needful for thee to know.’

  ‘I see. But now it is?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How dost thou penetrate the barrier of the gold?’

  ‘It is no barrier to me, Anakha. Others may not sense me within the confines of thine excellent receptacle. I, however, may reach out to thee in this manner. This is particularly true when we are so close.’

  Sparhawk laid his hand on the leather pouch hanging on a thong about his neck and felt the square outline of the box. ‘And should it prove needful, may I speak so with thee?’

  ‘Even as thou dost now, Anakha.’

  ‘This is good to know.’

  ‘I sense thy disquiet, Anakha, and I share thine anxiety for the safety of thy mate.’

  ‘Thou art kind to say so, Blue Rose.’

  ‘Expend thou all thine efforts to securing thy Queen’s release, Anakha. I will keep watch over our enemies whilst thou art so occupied.’ The jewel under sparhawk’s hand paused. ‘Hear me well, my friend,’ Bhelliom continued, ‘should it come to pass that no other course be open to thee, fear not to surrender me up to obtain thy mate’s freedom.’

  ‘That I will not do – for she hath forbidden it.’

  ‘Do not be untranquil if it should come to pass, Anakha. I will not submit to Cyrgon, even though mine own child, whom I love even as thou lovest thine, be endangered by my refusal. Be comforted in the knowledge that I will not permit my child – nor thee and all thy kind – to be enslaved by Cyrgon – or worse yet, by Klæl. Thou hast my promise that this will never happen. Should it appear that our task doth verge on failure, I give thee my solemn vow that I shall destroy this child of mine and all who dwell here to prevent such mischance.’

  ‘Is that supposed to make me feel better?’

  Chapter 5

  She was always tired, hovering at times on the verge of exhaustion, and she was nearly always wet and dirty. Her clothes were ripped and tattered, and her hair was a ruin. Those things were unimportant, however. She willingly submitted to discomfort and indignities to keep the madman who was their captor from hurting the terrified Alean.

  The realization that Scarpa was mad had come to her slowly. She had known from the first moment she had seen him that he was ruthless and driven, but the evidence of his insanity had become gradually more and more overwhelming as the endless days of her captivity ground on.

  He was cruel, but Ehlana had encountered cruel men before. After she and Alean had been hurried through the dank tunnels under the streets of Matherion to the outskirts of the city, they had been roughly shoved into the saddles of waiting horses, bound securely in place, and literally dragged at breakneck speed down the road leading to the port of Micae on the southwestern coast of the peninsula, seventy-five leagues away. A normal man does not mistreat the animals upon which he is totally dependent. That was the first evidence of Scarpa’s madness. He drove the horses, flogging them savagely until the poor beasts were staggering with exhaustion, and his only words during those dreadful four days were, ‘Faster! Faster!’

  Ehlana shuddered as she recalled the horror of that endless ride. They had –

  Her horse stumbled in the muddy path, and she was jolted forward, bringing her attention back into the immediate present. The cord which tightly bound her wrists to the saddlebow dug into her flesh, and the bleeding started again. She tried to ease into a different position so that the cord would no longer cut into the already open wounds.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Scarpa demanded. His voice was harsh, and it came out almost as a scream. Scarpa almost always screamed when he was talking to her.

  ‘I’m just trying to keep the cord from cutting
deeper into my wrists, Lord Scarpa,’ she replied meekly. She had been instructed early in her captivity to address him so and she had quickly found that failure to do so resulted in savage mistreatment of Alean and the withholding of food and water.

  ‘You’re not here to be comfortable, woman!’ he raged at her. ‘You’re here to obey! I see what you’re doing there! If you don’t stop trying to loosen those cords, I’ll use wire!’ His eyes bulged, and she saw again that strange, bluish cast to the whites of those eyes and the abnormally large pupils.

  ‘Yes, Lord Scarpa,’ she said in her most submissive tone.

  He glared at her, his face filled with suspicion and his mad eyes looking hungrily for some excuse to punish or humiliate his prisoners further.

  She lowered her gaze to stare fixedly at the rough, muddy track that wound deeper and deeper into the rank, vine-choked forest of the southeast coast of Daresia.

  The ship they had boarded at the port of Micae had been a sleek, black-hulled corsair that could not have been built for any honest purpose. She and Alean had been unceremoniously dragged below decks and confined in a cramped compartment that smelled of the bilges and was totally dark. After they had been two hours at sea, the compartment door had opened and Krager had entered with two swarthy sailors, one carrying what appeared to be a decent meal, and the other, two pails of hot water, some soap and a wad of rags for use as towels. Ehlana had resisted an impulse to embrace the fellow.

  ‘I’m really sorry about all this, Ehlana,’ Krager had apologized, squinting at her nearsightedly, ‘but I have no control of the situation. Be very careful of what you say to Scarpa. You’ve probably noticed that he’s not entirely rational.’ He had looked around nervously, then laid a handful of cheap tallow candles on the rough table and left, chaining the door shut behind him.

  They had been five days at sea and had reached Anan, a port city on the edge of the jungles of the southeast coast some time after midnight. Then she and Alean had been hustled into a closed carriage with the pouchy-eyed Baron Parok at the reins. During the transfer from the ship to the carriage, Ehlana had discreetly looked at each of her captors, seeking some weakness. Krager, despite his habitual drunkenness, was too shrewd, and Parok was Scarpa’s long-time confederate, a man evidently untroubled by his friend’s madness. Then she had coolly appraised Elron. She had noticed that under no circumstances would the foppish Astellian poet look her in the eye. His apparent murder of Melidere had evidently filled him with remorse. Elron was a poseur rather than a man of action, and he clearly had no stomach for blood. She had recalled moreover, how vain he had been about his long curls when she had first met him and had wondered what form of duress Scarpa had used to force him to shave his head in order to pose as one of Kring’s Peloi. She had surmised that the violation of his hair had raised certain strong resentments in him. Elron was clearly reluctant to participate in this affair, and that made him the weak link. She kept that fact firmly in mind now. The time might come when she could use it to her advantage.