"Rings?" Kalten asked.
"The Troll-Dwarf, Ghwerig, made Bhelliom," Ulath explained. "Then he made a pair of rings to unlock its power. Without the rings, Bhelliom's useless."
"We already have the rings," Sephrenia told him absently, her face still troubled.
"We do?" Sparhawk was startled.
"You're wearing one of them," she told him, "and Aldreas gave you the other this very night."
Sparhawk stared at the ruby ring on his left hand, then back at his teacher. "How's that possible?" he demanded.
"How did my ancestor and King Antor come by these particular rings?"
"I gave them to them," she replied.
He blinked. "Sephrenia, that was three hundred years ago."
"Yes," she agreed, "approximately."
Sparhawk stared at her, then swallowed hard. "Three hundred years?" he demanded incredulously. "Sephrenia, just how old are you?"
"You know I'm not going to answer that question, Sparhawk. I've told you that before."
"How did you get the rings?"
"My Goddess, Aphrael, gave them to me - along with certain instructions. She told me where I'd find your ancestor and King Antor, and she told me to deliver the rings to them."
"Little mother," Sparhawk began, and then broke off as he saw her bleak expression.
"Hush, dear one," she commanded. "I will say this only once, Sir Knights," she told them all. "What we do puts us in conflict with the Elder Gods, and that is not lightly undertaken. Your Elene God forgives, the Younger Gods of Styricum can be persuaded to relent. The Elder Gods, however, demand absolute compliance with their whims. To counter the commands of an Elder God is to court worse than death. They obliterate those who defy them - in ways you cannot imagine. Do we really want to bring Bhelliom back into the light again?"
"Sephrenia We have to!" Sparhawk exclaimed. "It's the only way we can save Ehlana - and you and Vanion for that matter."
"Annias will not live forever, Sparhawk, and Lycheas is hardly more than an inconvenience. Vanion and I are temporary, and so, for that matter - regardless of how you feel personally - is Ehlana. The world won't miss any of us all that much." Sephrenia's tone was almost clinical.
"Bhelliom, however, is another matter - and so is Azash. If we fall and put the stone into that foul God's hands, we will doom the world forever. Is it worth the risk?"
"I'm the queen's champion," Sparhawk reminded her. "I have to do whatever I possibly can to save her life." He rose and strode across the room to her. "So help me God, Sephrenia," he declared, "I'll break open Hell itself to save that girl."
"He's such a child sometimes," Sephrenia sighed to Vanion. "Can't you think of some way to make him grow up?"
"I was sort of considering going along," the Preceptor replied, smiling. "Sparhawk might let me hold his cloak while he kicks in the gate. I don't think anybody's assaulted Hell lately."
"You too?" She covered her face with her hands. "Oh, dear," she sighed. "All right then, gentlemen," she said, giving up, "If you're all so bent on this, we'll try it - but only on one condition. If we do find Bhelliom, and it restores Ehlana, we must destroy it immediately after the task is done."
"Destroy it?" Ulath exploded. "Sephrenia, it's the most precious thing in the world."
"And also the most dangerous. If Azash ever comes to possess it, the world will be lost, and all mankind will be plunged into the most hideous slavery imaginable. I must insist on this, gentlemen. Otherwise, I'll do everything in my power to prevent your finding that accursed stone."
"I don't see that we've got much choice here," Ulath said gravely to the others. "Without her help, we don't have much hope of unearthing Bhelliom."
"Oh, somebody's going to find it all right," Sparhawk told him firmly. "One of the things Aldreas told me was that the time has come for Bhelliom to see the light of day again, and that no force on earth can prevent it. The only thing that concerns me right now is if it's going to be one of us who finds it, or some Zemoch, who'll carry it back to Otha."
"Or if it rises from the earth all on its own," Tynian added moodily. "Could it do that, Sephrenia?"
"Probably, yes."
"How did you get out of the chapterhouse without being seen by the Primate's spies?" Kalten asked Sparhawk curiously.
"I threw a rope over the back wall and climbed down."
"How about getting in and out of the city after the gates were all closed?"
"By pure luck the gate was still open when I was on my way to the cathedral. I used another way to get out."
"That garret I told you about?" Talen asked Sparhawk nodded.
"How much did he charge you?"
"A silver half-crown."
Talen looked shocked at that. "And they call me a thief. He silled you, Sparhawk."
"I needed to get out of the city." Sparhawk shrugged.
"I'll tell Platime about it," the boy said. "He'll get your money back. A half-crown? That's outrageous." The boy was actually spluttering.
Sparhawk remembered something. "Sephrenia, when I was on my way back here, something was out in the fog watching me. I don't think it was human."
"The Damork?"
"I couldn't say for sure, but it didn't feel the same. The Damork's not the only creature subject to Azash, is it?"
"No. The Damork is the most powerful, but it's stupid. The other creatures don't have its power, but they're more clever. In many ways, they can be even more dangerous."
"All right, Sephrenia," Vanion said then, "I think you'd better give me Tanis's sword now."
"My dear one -" she began to protest, her face anguished.
"We've had this argument once already tonight," he told her. "Let's not go through it again."
She sighed. Then the two of them began to chant in unison in the Styric tongue. Vanion's face turned a little greyer at the end when Sephrenia handed him the sword and their hands touched.
"All right," Sparhawk said to Ulath after the transfer had been completed. "Where do we start? Where was King Sarak when his crown was lost?"
"No one really knows," the big Genidian Knight replied. "He left Emsat when Otha invaded Lamorkand.
He took a few retainers and left orders for the rest of his army to follow him to the battlefield at Lake Randera."
"Did anyone report having seen him there?" Kalten asked.
"Not that I've ever heard. The Thalesian army was seriously decimated, though. It's possible that Sarak did get their before the battle started, but that none of the few survivors ever saw him "I expect that's the place to start then," Sparhawk said.
"Sparhawk," Ulath objected, "that battlefield is immense. All the Knights of the Church could spend the rest of their lives digging there and still not find the crown."
"There's an alternative," Tynian said, scratching his chin.
"And what is that, friend Tynian?" Bevier asked him "I have some skill at necromancy," Tynian told him. ""I don't like it much, but I know how it's done. If we can find out where the Thalesians are buried, I can ask them if any of them saw King Sarak on the field and if any know where he might be buried. It's exhausting, but the cause is worth it."
"I'll be able to aid you, Tynian," Sephrenia told him. "I don't practise necromancy myself, but I know the proper spells."
Kurik rose to his feet. "I'd better get the things we'll need together," he said. "Come along, Berit. You too, Talen."
"There'll be ten of us," Sephrenia told him "Ten?"
"We'll be taking Talen and Flute along with us."
"Is that really necessary?" Sparhawk objected. "Or even wise?"
"Yes, it is. We'll be seeking the aid of some of the Younger Gods of Styricum, and they like symmetry. We were ten when we began this search, so now we have to be the same ten every step of the way. Sudden changes disturb the Younger Gods."
"Anything you say." He shrugged.
Vanion rose and began to pace up and down. "We'd better get started with this," he said. "It might be safer if you left the chapterhouse before daylight and before this fog lifts. Let's not make it too easy for the spies who watch the house."
"I'll agree with that," Kalten approved. "I'd rather not have to race Annias's soldiers all the way to Lake Randera."
"All right, then," Sparhawk said, "let's get at it. Time's running a little short on us."
"Stay a moment, Sparhawk," Vanion said as they began to file out.
Sparhawk waited until the others had left, and then he closed the door.
"I received a communication from the Earl of Lenda this evening," the Preceptor told his friend.
"Oh?"
"He asked me to reassure you. Annias and Lycheas are taking no further action against the queen. Apparently the failure of their plot down in Arcium embarrassed Annias a great deal. He's not going to take the chance of making a fool of himself again."
"That's a relief."
"Lenda added something I don't quite understand, though. He asked me to tell you that the candles are still burning. Do you have any idea what he meant by that?"
"Good old Lenda," Sparhawk said warmly. "I asked him not to leave Ehlana sitting in the throne-room in the dark."
"I don't think it makes much difference to her, Sparhawk."
"It does to me," Sparhawk replied.
Chapter 2
The fog was even thicker when they gathered in the courtyard a quarter of an hour later. The novices were busy in the stables saddling horses.
Vanion came out through the main door, his Styric robe gleaming in the mist-filled darkness. "I'm sending twenty knights with you," he told Sparhawk quietly.
"You might be followed, and they'll offer some measure of protection."
"We need to hurry, Vanion," Sparhawk objected. "If we take others with us, we won't be able to move any faster than the pace of the slowest horse."
"I know that, Sparhawk," Vanion replied patiently.
"You won't need to stay with them for very long. Wait until you're out in open country and the sun comes up.
Make sure nobody's too close behind you and then slip away from the column. The knights will ride on to Demos. If anybody's following, they won't know you aren't still in the middle of the column."
Sparhawk grinned. "Now I know how you got to be Preceptor, my friend. Who's leading the column?"
"Olven."
"Good. Olven's dependable."
"Go with God, Sparhawk," Vanion said, clasping the big knight's hand, "and be careful."
"I'm certainly going to try."
Sir Olven was a bulky Pandion Knight with a number of angry red scars on his face. He came out of the chapterhouse wearing full armour, enamelled black. His men trailed out behind him. "Good to see you again, Sparhawk," he said as Vanion went back inside. Olven spoke very quietly to avoid alerting the church soldiers camped outside the front gate. "All right," he went on, "you and the others ride in the middle of us. With this fog, those soldiers probably won't see you. We'll drop the drawbridge and go out fast. We don't want to be in sight for more than a minute or two."
That's more words than I've heard you use at one time in the last twenty Years," Sparhawk said to his normally silent friend.
"I know," Olven agreed. "I'll have to see if I can't cut back a little."
Sparhawk and his friends wore mail-shirts and travellers' cloaks, since formal armour attracts attention out in the countryside. Their armour, however, was carefully stowed in packs on the string of a half-dozen horses Kurik would lead. They mounted, and the armoured men formed up around them. Olven made a signal to the men at the windlass that raised and lowered the drawbridge, and the men slipped the ratchets, allowing the windlass to run freely. There was a noisy rattle of chain, and the drawbridge dropped with a huge boom. Olven was galloping across it almost before it hit the far side of the fosse.
The dense fog helped enormously. As soon as he had galloped across the bridge, Olven cut sharply to the left, leading the column across the open field towards the Demos road. Behind them, Sparhawk could hear startled shouts as the church soldiers ran out of their tents to stare after the column in chagrin.
"Slick," Kalten said gaily. "Across the drawbridge and into the fog in under a minute."
"Olven knows what he's doing," Sparhawk said, "and what's even better is that it's going to be at least an hour before the soldiers can mount any kind of pursuit."
"Give me an hour's head start, and they'll never catch me," Kalten laughed delightedly. "This is starting out very well, Sparhawk."
"Enjoy it while you can. Things will probably start to go wrong later on."
"You're a pessimist, do you know that?"
"No. I'm just used to little disappointments."
They slowed to a canter when they reached the Demos road. Olven was a veteran, and he always tried to conserve his horses. Speed might be necessary later, and Sir Olven took very few chances.
A full moon hung above the fog, and it made the thick mist deceptively luminous. The glowing white fog around them confused the eye and concealed far more than it illuminated. There was a chill dampness in the air, and Sparhawk pulled his cloak about him as he rode.
The Demos road swung north towards the city of Lenda before turning south-easterly again to Demos, where the Pandion Mother-house was located. Although he could not see it, Sparhawk knew that the countryside along the road was gently rolling and that there were large patches of trees out there. He was counting on those trees for concealment once he and his friends left the column.
They rode on. The fog had dampened the dirt surface of the road, and the sound of their horses' hooves was muffled.
Every now and then the black shadows of trees loomed suddenly out of the fog at the sides of the road as they rode by. Talen shied nervously each time it happened.