It was not far from the place on the road where they had encountered the Seeker that they found Sephrenia and Vanion seated by a small fire with Flute characte-ristically seated on the limb of a nearby oak. Vanion, looking younger and more fit than he had in years, rose to greet his friends. As Sparhawk had more or less expected, Vanion wore a white Styric robe and no sword. ‘You’ve been well, I trust,’ the big Pandion asked as he dismounted.
‘Tolerable, Sparhawk. And you?’
‘No complaints, My Lord.’
And then they abandoned that particular pose and embraced each other roughly as the others all gathered around them.
‘Who’s been chosen to replace me as Preceptor?’ Vanion asked.
‘We’ve been urging the Hierocracy to appoint Kalten, My Lord,’ Sparhawk told him blandly.
‘You what?’ Vanion’s face was filled with chagrin.
‘Sparhawk,’ Ehlana reproached her husband, ‘that’s cruel.’
‘He’s just trying to be funny, Vanion,’ Kalten said sourly. ‘Sometimes his humour’s as twisted as his nose. Actually he’s the one who’s in charge.’
‘Thank God!’ Vanion said fervently.
‘Dolmant’s been trying to persuade him to accept a permanent appointment, but our friend here keeps begging off – some nonsense about having too many jobs already.’
‘If you people spread me any thinner, you’ll be able to see daylight through me,’ Sparhawk complained.
Ehlana had been looking with a certain awe at Flute, who, as she usually did, sat on the tree limb with her grass-stained feet crossed at the ankles and her pipes to her lips. ‘She looks exactly the way she did in that dream,’ she murmured to Sparhawk.
‘She never changes,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘Well, not too much, anyway.’
‘Are we permitted to talk to her?’ The young queen’s eyes were actually a little frightened.
‘Why are you standing over there whispering, Ehlana?’ Flute asked.
‘How do I address her?’ the queen nervously asked her husband.
He shrugged. ‘We call her Flute. Her other name’s a little formal.’
‘Help me down, Ulath,’ the little girl commanded.
‘Yes, Flute,’ the big Thalesian replied automatically. He went to the tree and lifted the small divinity down and set her feet on the winter-browned grass.
Flute took outrageous advantage of the fact that as Danae she already knew Stragen, Platime and Mirtai in addition to her mother. She spoke with them all quite familiarly, which noticeably added to their sense of awe. Mirtai in particular seemed quite shaken. ‘Well, Ehlana,’ the little girl said finally, ‘are we going to just stand here and stare at each other? Aren’t you even going to thank me for the splendid husband I provided for you?’
‘You’re cheating, Aphrael,’ Sephrenia scolded her.
‘I know, dear sister, but it’s so much fun.’
Ehlana laughed helplessly and held out her arms. Flute crowed with delight and ran to her.
Flute and Sephrenia joined Ehlana, Mirtai and Platime in the carriage. Just before they set out, however, the little Goddess thrust her head out of the window. ‘Talen,’ she called sweetly.
‘What?’ Talen’s tone was wary. Sparhawk rather suspected that Talen might just have had one of those chilling premonitions which beset young men and deer in almost the same way when they sense that they are being hunted.
‘Why don’t you join us here in the carriage?’ Aphrael suggested in honeyed tones.
Talen looked a bit apprehensively at Sparhawk.
‘Go ahead,’ Sparhawk told him. Talen was his friend, certainly – but Danae was his daughter, after all.
They rode on then. After several miles, Sparhawk began to have a vague sense of unease. Although he had been travelling the road between Demos and Cimmura since he had been a young man, it suddenly began to look strange to him. There were hills in places where there should not have been hills, and they passed a large, prosperous-looking farmstead Sparhawk had never seen before. He began to check his map.
‘What’s the matter?’ Kalten asked him.
‘Is there any way we could have made a wrong turn? I’ve been travelling this road back and forth for over twenty years now, and suddenly the usual landmarks aren’t there any more.’
‘Oh, that’s fine, Sparhawk,’ Kalten said sarcastically. He turned and looked back over his shoulder at the others. ‘Our glorious leader here has managed to get us lost,’ he announced. ‘We blindly followed him half-way across the world, and now he manages to lose his way not five leagues from home. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m beginning to experience a severe erosion of confidence here.’
‘Do you want to do this?’ Sparhawk asked him flatly.
‘And lose this opportunity to sit back and carp and criticize? Don’t be silly.’
They were obviously not going to reach any recognizable destination before dark, and they had not come prepared for camping out in the open. Sparhawk began to grow alarmed.
Flute thrust her head out of one of the windows of the carriage. ‘What’s the matter, Sparhawk?’ she asked.
‘We’re going to have to find some place to stay the night,’ he told her, ‘and we haven’t passed any kind of house for the last ten miles.’
‘Just keep going, Sparhawk,’ she instructed.
‘It’s going to start getting dark before long, Flute.’
‘Then we’d better hurry, hadn’t we?’ She disappeared back inside the carriage.
They reached a hilltop just at dusk and looked out over a valley that absolutely could not have been where it was. The land below was grassy and gently rolling, dotted here and there with copses of white-trunked birch trees. About half-way down the hill was a low, sprawling, thatch-roofed house with golden candlelight streaming from its windows.
‘Maybe they’ll put us up for the night,’ Stragen suggested.
‘Hurry right along now, gentlemen,’ Flute instructed from the carriage. ‘Supper’s waiting, and we don’t want it to get cold.’
‘She enjoys doing that to people, doesn’t she?’ Stragen said.
‘Oh, yes,’ Sparhawk agreed, ‘probably more than anything else she gets to do.’
Had it been somewhat smaller, the house might have been called a cottage. The rooms, however, were large and there were many of them. The furnishings were rustic but well made, there were candles everywhere, and each scrupulously-clean fireplace had a cheery fire dancing on the grate. There was a long table in the central room and it was set with what could only be called a banquet. There was not a single soul in the house, however.
‘Do you like it?’ Flute asked them with an anxious expression.
‘It’s lovely,’ Ehlana exclaimed, impulsively embracing the little girl.
‘I’m awfully sorry,’ Flute apologized, ‘but I just couldn’t bring myself to offer you ham. I know you Elenes all love it, but –’ She shuddered.
‘I think we can make do with what’s here, Flute,’ Kalten said, surveying the table with his eyes alight, ‘don’t you, Platime?’
The fat thief was looking almost reverently at all the food. ‘Oh, my goodness yes, Kalten,’ he agreed enthusiastically. ‘This’ll be just fine.’
They all ate more than was really good for them, and sat afterwards, sighing with that most pleasant of discomforts.
Berit came around the table and leaned over Sparhawk’s shoulder. ‘She’s doing it again, Sparhawk,’ the young knight murmured.
‘Doing what?’
‘The fires have been burning ever since we got here, and they still don’t need any more wood, and the candles aren’t even melting down.’
‘It’s her house, I suppose,’ Sparhawk shrugged.
‘I know, but –’ Berit looked uncomfortable. ‘It’s unnatural,’ he said finally.
‘Berit,’ Sparhawk pointed out with a gentle smile, ‘we just rode through an impossible landscape to reach a house that isn’t really here to
eat a banquet that nobody prepared, and you’re going to worry about a few little things like perpetually burning candles and fireplaces that don’t need wood?’
Berit laughed and went back to his chair.
The Child-Goddess took her duties as hostess very seriously. She even seemed anxious as she escorted them to their rooms and carefully explained a number of things that did not really need to be explained.
‘She’s such a dear little thing, isn’t she?’ Ehlana said to Sparhawk when they were alone. ‘She seems so desperately concerned about the comfort and well-being of her guests.’
‘Styrics are a bit more casual about these things,’ Sparhawk explained. ‘Flute’s not really used to Elenes, and we make her nervous.’ He smiled. ‘She’s trying very, very hard to make a good impression.’
‘But she’s a Goddess.’
‘She still gets nervous.’
‘Is it my imagination, or is she a great deal like our own Danae?’
‘All little girls are similar, I suppose,’ he replied carefully, ‘just like all little boys.’
‘Perhaps,’ Ehlana conceded, ‘but she even seems to smell like Danae, and they both seem to be very fond of kisses.’ She paused, and then her face brightened. ‘We really should introduce them to each other, Sparhawk. They’d love each other, and they’d be wonderful playmates.’
Sparhawk nearly choked on that idea.
The rhythm of the hoof-beats was familiar, and it was that more than anything which awakened Sparhawk early the next morning. He muttered an oath and swung his legs out of the bed.
‘What is it, dear?’ Ehlana asked in a sleepy voice.
‘Faran got loose,’ he said in an irritated tone. ‘He managed to pull his picket-line free somehow.’
‘He won’t run away, will he?’
‘And miss all the entertainment staying just out of my reach all morning will give him? Of course not.’ Sparhawk pulled on a robe and went to the window. It was only then that he heard the sound of Flute’s pipes.
The sky over this mysterious valley was overcast, as it had been all winter. Dirty-looking clouds, chill and unpromising, stretched from horizon to horizon, hurried along by a blustery wind.
There was a broad meadow not far from the house, and Faran was cantering easily in a wide circular course around the meadow. He wore no saddle nor bridle, and there was something almost joyful in his stride. Flute lay face up on his back with her pipes to her lips. Her head was nestled comfortably on his surging front shoulders, her knees were crossed, and she was beating time on the big roan’s rump with one little foot. The scene was so familiar that all Sparhawk could do was stare.
‘Ehlana,’ he said finally, ‘I think you might want to see this.’
She came to the window. ‘What on earth is she doing?’ she exclaimed. ‘Go and stop her, Sparhawk. She’ll fall off and get hurt.’
‘No, actually she won’t. She and Faran have played together like this before. He won’t let her fall off – even if she could.’
‘What are they doing?’
‘I have no idea,’ he admitted, although that was not entirely true. ‘I think it’s significant, though,’ he added. He leaned out of the window and looked first to the left and then to the right. The others were all at the windows, their faces filled with surprise as they watched their little hostess.
The blustery wind faltered, then died as Flute continued her song, and the winter-brown grass in the dooryard ceased its dead rattling.
The trilling song of the Child-Goddess rose into the sky as Faran continued to tirelessly circle the meadow, and as she played, the dirty-looking murk overhead opened and rolled back almost as a bolster is turned back on a bed, and a deep blue sky dotted with fluffy, sunrise-touched clouds appeared.
Sparhawk and the others stared up in wonder at that suddenly-revealed sky, and, as children sometimes will, they saw pink dragons and rosy griffins caught somehow in the wonder of the clouds that streamed and coalesced, piling higher and higher only to come apart again as all the spirits of air and earth and sky joined to welcome that spring which the world had feared might never come.
The Child-Goddess Aphrael rose to her feet and stood on the big roan’s surging back. Her glossy black hair streamed out behind her, and the sound of her pipes soared up to meet the sunrise. Then, even as she played, she began to dance, whirling and swaying, her grass-stained little feet flickering as she danced and joyously lifted her song.
Earth and sky and Faran’s broad back were all one to Aphrael as she danced, and she whirled as easily on insubstantial air as upon the now-verdant turf or that surging roan back.
Awe-struck, they watched from the house that wasn’t really there, and their sombre melancholy dropped away. Their hearts grew full as the Child-Goddess played for them that joyous, forever new song of redemption and renewal, for now at last the dread winter had passed, and spring had once again returned.
About the Author
The Sapphire Rose
David Eddings was born in Washington State and grew up near Seattle. He graduated from the University of Washington and went on to serve in the US Army. Subsequently, he worked as a buyer for the Boeing Company and taught college-level English. High Hunt, his first novel, was a contemporary adventure, but he soon began a spectacular career as a fantasy writer with his best-selling series The Belgariad. He consolidated his immediate success with three further enormously popular series, The Malloreon, The Elenium and The Tamuli. Writing with his wife Leigh, three final volumes rounded off the Belgariad: Belgarath the Sorcerer, Polgara the Sorceress and The Rivan Codex. These were followed by the epic standalone fantasy The Redemption of Althalus, and his latest series of books, The Dreamers.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
By David Eddings
THE ELENIUM
Book One: The Diamond Throne
Book Two: The Ruby Knight
Book Three: The Sapphire Rose
THE TAMULI
Book One: Domes of Fire
Book Two: The Shining Ones
Book Three: The Hidden City
By David and Leigh Eddings
Belgarath the Sorcerer
Polgara the Sorceress
The Rivan Codex
The Redemption of Althalus
THE DREAMERS
Book One: The Elder Gods
Book Two: The Treasured One
Book Three: Crystal Gorge
Copyright
Voyager
An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
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This paperback edition 1995
24
Previously published in paperback by Grafton 1992. reprinted once, and by HarperCollins Science Fiction & Fantasy 1993, reprinted twice
First published in Great Britain by Grafton 1991
Copyright © David Eddings 1991
The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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EPub Edition © JULY 2010 ISBN: 978-0-007-37508-0
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