‘I’ll see to it, Sparhawk.’
Sparhawk tugged thoughtfully at the knot on his bandage.
‘Leave it alone,’ Sephrenia told him.
He took his hand away. ‘I’m not trying to tell the preceptors what to do,’ he said to the abbot, ‘but you might suggest in your message that a few small contingents of Church Knights in the streets of Rendorish cities right now might remind the local population of just how unpleasant things can get if they pay too much attention to all these rumours.’
‘And head off the need for whole armies later on,’ the abbot agreed. ‘I’ll definitely mention it in my report.’
Sparhawk rose to his feet, ‘I’m in your debt again, my Lord Abbot,’ he said. ‘You always seem to be here when I need you.’
‘We serve the same master, Sparhawk,’ the abbot replied. He grinned then. ‘Besides,’ he added, ‘I sort of like you. You Pandions don’t always do things the way we would, but you get results, and that’s what counts, isn’t it?’
‘We can hope.’
‘Be careful in the desert, my friend, and good luck.’ ‘Thank you, my Lord.’
They went down to the central court of the monastery as the bells began to chime their call to morning prayers. Kurik tied Sephrenia’s sword case to the pack mule’s saddle, and they all mounted. Then they rode out through the front gate with the sound of the bells hovering in the air above them.
Sparhawk’s mood was pensive as they reached the dusty coast road and turned west towards Jiroch.
‘What is it, Sparhawk?’ Sephrenia asked him.
‘Those bells have been calling me for ten years now,’ he replied. ‘Somehow I’ve always known that someday I’d come back to this monastery.’ He straightened in his saddle ‘It’s a good place,’ he said. ‘I’m a little sorry to leave it, but,’ He shrugged and rode on.
The morning sun was very bright, and it reflected back blindingly from the wasteland of rock, sand, and gravel lying on the left side of the road. On the right side was a steep bank leading down to a gleaming white beach, and beyond that lay the deep blue waters of the inner sea. Within an hour it was quite warm. A half-hour later it was hot.
‘Don’t they ever get a winter down here?’ Kurik asked. mopping at his streaming face.
‘This is winter, Kurik,’ Sparhawk told him.
‘What’s it like in the summer?’
‘Unpleasant. In the summer you have to travel at night.’
‘How far is it to Jiroch?’
‘About five hundred leagues.’
‘Three weeks at least.’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘We should have gone by ship – waterspouts or no.’
‘No, Kurik,’ Sephrenia disagreed. ‘None of us could be of any help to Ehlana if we’re all lying on the bottom of the sea.’
‘Won’t that thing that’s after us just use magic to locate us anyway?’
‘It seems that it can’t do that,’ she replied. ‘When it was looking for Sparhawk ten years ago, it had to question people. It couldn’t just sniff him out.’
‘I’d forgotten that,’ he admitted.
They rose early each day, even before the stars faded, and pushed their horses hard during the early morning hours before the sun became a bludgeon at midday. Then they rested in the scant shade of the tent the abbot had pressed on them, while their mounts grazed listlessly on scrubby forage in the blistering sun. As the sun sank towards the west, they rode on, usually until well after dark. Occasionally, they reached some desert spring, inevitably surrounded by lush vegetation and shade. At times, they lingered for a day to rest their horses and to gather the strength to face the savage sun again.
It was at such a spring, where crystal water came purling out of a rocky slope to gather in an azure pool surrounded by palm trees, that the shade of a black-armoured Pandion Knight visited them. Sparhawk, clad in only a loincloth, had just emerged dripping from the pool when he saw the mounted figure approaching from the west. Although the sun stood at the figure’s back, it cast no shadow, and he could clearly see the sun-blasted hillsides through both horse and man. Once again he caught that charnelhouse reek; as the figure approached, he saw that its horse was little more than a vacant-eyed skeleton. He made no attempt to reach a weapon, but stood shivering despite the furnacelike heat as the mounted spectre bore down on them. Some few yards away, the shade reined in its skeletal mount and, with a deadly slow motion, drew its sword. ‘Little mother,’ it intoned hollowly to Sephrenia, ‘I have done all that I could.’ It raised the hilt of its weapon to its visor in a salute, then reversed the blade and offered the hilt across its insubstantial forearm.
Sephrenia, pale and faltering, crossed the hot gravel to the spectre and took the sword hilt in both hands. ‘Thy sacrifice shall be remembered, Sir Knight,’ she said in a trembling voice.
‘What is remembrance in the House of the Dead, Sephrenia? I did what duty commanded of me. That alone is my solace in the eternal silence.’ Then it turned its visored countenance towards Sparhawk. ‘Hail, brother,’ it said in that same empty voice – ‘Know that thy course is aright. At Dabour shalt thou find that answer which we have sought. Shouldst thou succeed in thy quest, we shall salute thee with our hollow cheers in the House of the Dead.’
‘Hail, brother,’ Sparhawk replied in a choked voice, ‘and farewell.’
Then the spectre vanished.
With a long, shuddering moan, Sephrenia collapsed. It was as if the weight of the suddenly materialized sword had crushed her to earth.
Kurik rushed forward, scooped her slight form up in his arms, and carried her back into the shade beside the pool.
Sparhawk, however, moved at a resolute pace towards the spot where she had fallen, heedless of the blistering gravel under his naked feet, and retrieved his fallen brother’s sword.
Behind him, he heard the sound of Flute’s pipes. The melody was one that he had not heard before. It was questioning and filled with a deep sadness and an aching kind of longing. He turned around with the sword in his hand. Sephrenia lay on a blanket in the shade of the palms. Her face seemed drawn, and quite suddenly dark circles had appeared beneath her now-closed eyes. Kurik knelt anxiously beside her, and Flute sat cross-legged not far away with her pipes to her lips, sending her strange, hymn-like song soaring into the air.