CHAPTER 32

Talen dropped back to the parapet from the small window. ‘I can get through it,’ he whispered confidently.

‘What about that iron grate?’ Kalten demanded.

‘It’s ornamental. It wasn’t very good to begin with, and it’s been there for at least a couple of centuries. It won’t take long to work it loose. ’

‘Let’s hold off until Xanetia gets back,’ Sparhawk decided. ‘I want to know what we’re up against before we start crashing around.’

‘I’m not trying to be offensive,’ Mirtai said softly to Talen, ‘but I don’t see what good it’s going to do us to have you inside the cell when the fighting starts and half a dozen Cyrgai rush into the cell to kill Ehlana and Alcan.’

‘It’s on account the fact that they ain’t a-gonna git in the cell, Dorlin’ he said with an outrageous grin. ‘The door’s locked.’

‘They’ve got a key.’

‘Give me about a half a minute with the lock, and their key won’t fit. They won’t get in, trust me.’

‘Are there alternatives?’ Bevier asked.

‘Not in the amount of time we’ve got left before it starts getting light,’ Sparhawk replied with a worried glance at the eastern horizon. ‘Kalten, go up and have a look at that grating.’

‘Right.’ The blond Pandion climbed up to the small window, took hold of the ancient iron lattice in both hands and started to heave on it. Crumbs and fragments of mortar began to shower down on the rest of them.

‘Quietly.’ Mirtai hissed at him.

‘It’s already loose,’ he reported in a hoarse whisper. ‘The mortar’s rotten.’ He stopped wrenching at the bars and leaned closer to the window. ‘Ehlana wants to talk to you, Sparhawk,’ he called down softly.

Sparhawk climbed back up to the window. ‘Yes, love?’ he whispered into the darkness.

‘What are you planning, Sparhawk?’ she murmured, her voice so near that it seemed he could almost touch her.

‘We’re going to pull the bars loose, and then Talen’s going to crawl through the window. He’ll jam the lock so the people outside can’t get into the cell. Then the rest of us will rush the guards. Is Zalasta out there anywhere?’

‘No. He and Ekatas went to the temple. He knows that you’re here, Sparhawk. He sensed you somehow. Santheocles has men searching the city for you right now.’

‘I think we’re ahead of them. I don’t believe they realize that we’re already up here.’

‘How did you get up here, Sparhawk? All the stairways are guarded.’

‘We climbed up the outside of the tower. When do those guards out there start stirring around?’

‘When it begins to get light, usually. They cook what passes for food around here in the guardroom. Then a couple of them bring breakfast to Alcan and me.’

‘Your breakfast might be a little late this morning, love,’ he whispered with a slight grin. ‘I think the cooks might have other things on their minds before long.’

‘Be careful, Sparhawk.’

‘Of course, my Queen.’

‘Sparhawk,’ Mirtai called up softly. ‘Xanetia’s back.’

‘I have to run now, dear,’ he whispered into the darkness. We’ll have you out of there shortly. I love you.’

‘What a lovely thing to say.’ Sparhawk quickly climbed back down to the parapet.

‘Welcome back Anarae,’ he greeted Xanetia.

‘Thou art in a peculiar humor, Anakha,’ she replied in a slightly puzzled tone.

‘I just had a chat with my wife, Anarae,’ he said. ‘That always brightens my day. How many guards will we have to deal with?’

‘I do fear me that they number some score or more, Anakha.’

‘That could be a problem, Sparhawk,’ Bevier noted. ‘They’re Cyrgai and none too bright, but twenty of them might give us some trouble.’

‘Maybe not,’ Sparhawk disagreed. ‘Aphrael said that there are only three rooms up here - the main room, the cell where Ehlana and Alcan are, and the guardroom. Was she right, Anarae?’

‘Indeed,’ she replied. ‘The cell and the guardroom are here on this north side. The main room is on the south, overlooking the Temple of Cyrgon. I did glean from the sleepy thought of such Cyrgai who were awake that this ultimate tower is the customary retreat of King Santheocles, for he doth take some pleasure in surveying his domain from the parapet - and above all in receiving the adulation of his subjects in the city below.’

‘Stupid,’ Mirtai muttered. ‘Doesn’t he have anything better to do?’

Xanetia smiled faintly. ‘Much else would be quite beyond him, Atana. His guardsmen, limited though they themselves are, do hold their King’s understanding in low regard. But his wits, or lack thereof, are of little moment. Santheocles is the descendant of the royal house, and his sole function is to wear the crown.’

‘A hat-rack could do that,’ Talen noted. ‘Truly.’

‘Do the guardsmen have any kind of set routine?’ Bevier asked.

‘Nay, Sir Knight. They do but hold themselves in readiness to respond to the commands of their King, nothing more. In truth, they are trumpeters rather than warriors. Their primary duty is to announce with brazen notes to their fellow citizens that Santheocles will appear on the parapet to accept the adulation of the Cyrgai.’

‘And they do their waiting in the guardroom?’ Sparhawk pressed.

‘Save only for the pair who stand guard at the door to thy Queen’s prison and the other pair who bar the stairway which doth lead down into the lower levels of this tower.’

‘Can they get into the Queen’s cell from the guardroom? Bevier asked intently.

‘Nay. There is but one door.’

‘And how wide is the doorway between the guardroom and the main room?’

‘Wide enough for one man only, Sir Bevier.’

‘Kalten and I can hold that one, Sparhawk.’

‘Are there any other doors to the guardroom?’ Kalten asked.

Xanetia shook her head.

‘Any large windows?’

‘One window only - the mate to this one above us - though it is not barred.’

‘That narrows the opposition down to just those four guards in the main room then,’ Kalten said. ‘Bevier and I can keep the rest of them penned in for a week, if we have to.’

‘And Sparhawk and I can deal with the ones at the cell door and the top of the stairs,’ Mirtai added.

‘Let’s get Talen inside that cell,’ Sparhawk said, looking again toward the east, where a faint lessening of the darkness had begun. Kalten scrambled back up the wall to the window and began digging at the mortar with his heavy dagger.

‘Slip around and keep watch, Anarae,’ Sparhawk whispered. ‘Let us know if anybody comes up those stairs.’

She nodded and went on back round the corner of the tower. Sparhawk climbed up and attacked the mortar on the left side of the iron lattice while his friend continued to dig at the right. After a few moments

Kalten took hold of the rusty iron and pulled. ‘The bottom’s loose,’ he muttered. ‘Let’s get the top.’

‘Right.’ The two of them went to the top of the window and began to chip away the mortar there. ‘Be careful when it breaks away,’ Sparhawk cautioned. ‘We don’t want it clanging down on that parapet.’

‘This side’s free,’ Kalten whispered. ‘I’ll hold it while you dig your side loose.’ He reached inside, found a secure hand-hold with his right hand, and grasped the grating with his left. Sparhawk dug harder, sending a shower of chunks and dust to the parapet below. ‘I think that’s got it,’ he whispered.

‘We’ll see.’ Kalten’s shoulders heaved and there was a grinding sound as the ancient grate tore loose from the wall. Then, with the same movement, Sparhawk’s burly friend hurled the heavy obstruction out beyond the balustrade.

‘What are you doing?’ Sparhawk choked.

‘Getting rid of it.’

‘Do you know how much noise that thing’s going to make when it hits the ground?’

‘So what? It’s five hundred feet down. Let it make all the noise it wants to. If some Cyrgai or Cynesgan slave-driver’s standing under it, he’s in for a nasty surprise, though. But we can live with that, can’t we?’

Sparhawk pushed his head through the now unobstructed opening. ‘Ehlana?’ he whispered. ‘Are you there?’

‘Where else would I be, Sparhawk?’

‘Sorry. Stupid question, I suppose. The bars are out of the way now. We’re sending Talen in. Shout or something as soon as he gets the lock jammed so that the guards can’t get through the door.’

‘Get out of the way, Sparhawk,’ Talen said abruptly from just below. ‘I can’t get in there with you filling up the whole window.’ Sparhawk swung himself clear of the opening, and the agile boy began to wriggle his way through. Suddenly he stopped.

‘It’s not working,’ he muttered. ‘Pull me back out.’

‘What’s wrong?’ Kalten demanded.

‘Just pull me back out, Kalten. I don’t have time to explain.’ Sparhawk’s heart sank as he and Kalten hauled the young thief back.

‘Hold on for a minute.’ Talen turned until he was on his side, and then he extended his arms until they were stretched out above his head. ‘All right then, push.’

‘You’ll just get stuck again,’ Kalten objected.

‘Then you’ll have to shove harder. This is what comes of all that wholesome food, exercise, and clean living you keep pushing on me, Sparhawk. I’ve grown so much that I can’t get my shoulders through.’ He began to wriggle through the opening again. ‘Push, gentlemen!’ he instructed. The two of them pushed their hands against the soles of his feet.

‘Harder!’ he grunted.

‘You’ll tear all your skin off,’ Kalten warned.

‘I’m young. I heal fast. Push!’ The two shoved at his feet, and, with a great deal of squirming and a few muttered oaths, he was through.

‘Is he all right?’ Sparhawk whispered hoarsely through the window.

‘I’m fine, Sparhawk,’ Talen whispered back. ‘You’d better get moving. This won’t take me very long.’

Sparhawk and Kalten dropped back to the parapet. ‘Let’s go.’ Sparhawk said shortly, and the three knights and the Atan giantess moved quickly around the narrow parapet to the south side of the tower.

‘Quietly, Anakha.’ Xanetia’s voice seemed to come out of nowhere.

‘Are they stirring yet, Anarae?’ Bevier whispered.

‘Some few sounds do emanate from the guardroom,’ her voice replied. There were two large, unglazed windows at the front of the tower, one on each side of the broad door. Sparhawk cautiously raised his head above the lower edge of one of them and peered inside. The room, as Aphrael had reported, was fairly large. It was sparsely furnished with benches, a few backless chairs, a couple of low tables, and it was lit with primitive oil lamps. There was a narrow door on the right side of the rear wall with two statue-like Cyrgai, one on each side, guarding it. The stairway on the left-hand side of the room, also guarded, was enclosed on three sides by a low wall. The second doorway, the one leading into the guardroom, was also on the left side, not far from the top of the stairs. Sparhawk looked intently at the

guards, closely studying their weapons and equipment. They were well-muscled men in archaic breastplates, crested helmets and short leather kilts. Each had a large round shield strapped to his left arm, and each grasped an eight-foot spear in his right. They all had swords and heavy daggers belted at their waists. Sparhawk moved his head away from the window.

‘You’d all better take a look,’ he whispered to his friends. One by one, Kalten, Bevier, and Mirtai raised up slightly to peer into the room.

‘Is this locked, Anarae?’ Sparhawk whispered, pointing at the door leading out onto the parapet.

‘I did not think it wise to try it, Anakha. Cyrgai construction is crude, and me thinks no door-latch in the city may be attempted soundlessly. ‘ ‘You’re probably right,’ he breathed. ‘Let’s pull back around the corner,’ he told the others, leading them round to the east side.

‘It’s getting lighter, Kalten noted, pointing toward the horizon.

Sparhawk grunted. ‘We’ll go in through the windows,’ he told them. ‘We’d just jam up if we tried to go through the doorway anyhow. Bevier, you and Mirtai go through the one on the far side of the door.

Kalten and I’ll go through the one on this side. Be careful. Those spears seem to be their primary weapon, so they’ve probably had lots of training with them. Get in close and fast. Take them down in a hurry and then block that door to the guardroom. We’re going to have to hold those stairs, too.’

‘I’ll do that, Sparhawk,’ Mirtai assured him. ‘You concentrate on getting our friends out of that cell.’

‘Right,’ he agreed. ‘As soon as they’re free, I’ll unleash the Bhelliom. That should change the odds up here significantly.’ And then a clear voice raised in aching song that soared out above the sleeping city.

‘That’s the signal!’ Kalten told them. ‘That’s Alcan! Talen’s finished up. Let’s go!’

‘You heard him!’ Sparhawk said, stepping back so that Bevier and Mirtai could get past. ‘I’ll give the word, and we’ll all go in at the same time!’ Bevier and Mirtai crouched low as they ran past the window on the near side to take positions under the window beyond the door.

‘Stay clear of this, Anarae.’ Sparhawk murmured to the invisible Xanetia. ‘It’s not your kind of fight.’ He frowned. There was no sense of her presence nearby.

‘All right, Kalten,’ he said then, ‘let’s get to work.’ The two of them silently crept forward, swords in hand, to crouch beneath the broad window. Sparhawk raised slightly to look along the parapet. Bevier and Mirtai waited tensely under the far window. He drew in a deep breath and set himself

‘Now!’ he shouted, setting his hand on the window-ledge and vaulting through into the room. There had been four Cyrgai inside before. Now there were ten.

‘They’re changing the guard, Sparhawk!’ Bevier shouted, swinging his deadly lochaber in both hands.’

They still had the element of surprise, but the situation had drastically changed. Sparhawk swore and cut down a Cyrgai carrying a pail of some kind - the captives breakfast, most likely. Then he rushed the four confused guards milling in front of the cell door. One of them was fighting with the lock while the other three tried to get into position. They were disciplined, there was no question about that, and their long spears did raise problems. Sparhawk swore a savage oath and swung his heavy broadsword, chopping at the spears. Kalten had moved to one side, and he was also swinging massive blows at the spears.

There were sounds of fighting coming from the other side of the room, but Sparhawk was too intent on breaking through to the guard who was trying to force the cell door, to turn and look. Two of the spears were broken now, and the Cyrgai had discarded them and drawn their swords. The third, his spear still intact, had stepped back to protect the one feverishly struggling with the lock. Sparhawk risked a quick glance at the other side of the room, just in time to see Mirtai lift a struggling guard over her head and hurl him bodily down the stairs with a great clattering sound. Two other Cyrgai lay dead or dying nearby.

Bevier, even as he had in Otha’s throne-room in Zemoch, held the door to the guardroom while Mirtai, like some great, golden cat, savaged the remaining guards at the top of the stairs. Sparhawk quickly turned his attention back to the men he faced. The Cyrgai were indifferent swordsmen, and their oversized shields seriously hindered their movements. Sparhawk made a quick feint at the head of one, and the man instinctively raised his shield. Instantly recovering, Sparhawk drove his sword into the gleaming breastplate. The Cyrgai cried out and fell back with blood gushing from the sheared gash in his armor. It was not enough. The Cyrgai at the cell door had abandoned his efforts to unlock it and had begun slamming his shoulder against it. Sparhawk could clearly hear the splintering of wood. Desperately,

he renewed his attack. Once the Cyrgai broke through that door And then, without even being forced, the door swung inward. With a triumphant shout, the Cyrgai who had been battering at the door drew his sword. And then he screamed as a new light flooded the room. Xanetia, blazing like the sun, stood in the doorway with one deadly hand extended. The Cyrgai screamed again, falling back, tangling himself in the struggles of his two comrades. Then he broke free, ran to the window and plunged through. He was still running when he went over the balustrade with a long despairing scream. The other two Cyrgai at the cell door also fled, scurrying around the room like frightened mice.

‘Mirtai!’ Sparhawk roared. ‘Stand clear. Let them go!’ The Atana had just raised another struggling warrior over her head. She threw him down the stairs and turned sharply. Then she dodged clear to allow the demoralized Cyrgai to escape.

‘Stand aside, Sir Knight!’ Xanetia commanded Bevier. ‘I will bar that door, and I do vouchsafe that none shall pass!’ Bevier took one look at her glowing face and stepped away from the guardroom door. The Cyrgai inside the room also looked at her, and then they slammed the door shut.

‘It’s all right now, Ehlana,’ Sparhawk called. Talen came out first, and his face was pale and shaken. The boy’s tunic was ripped in several places, and a long, bleeding scrape on one arm spoke of his struggle to get through the narrow window. He was staring in awe at Xanetia.

‘She came through the window in a puff of smoke, Sparhawk!’ he choked. ‘Mist, young Talen,’ Xanetia corrected in a clinical tone. She was still all aglow and facing the guardroom door. ‘Smoke would be impractical for human flesh.’

There was a great deal of noise coming from the guardroom. ’

They seem to be moving furniture in there, Sparhawk,’ Bevier laughed. ‘Piling it against the door, I think.’

Then Alcan came running out of the cell to hurl herself into Kalten’s arms, and, immediately behind her, Ehlana emerged from her prison. She was even more pale than usual, and there were dark circles under her eyes. Her clothing was tattered, and her head was tightly bound in a bandage-like wimple.

‘Oh, Sparhawk!’ she cried out in a low voice, holding her arms out to him. He went to her and enfolded her in a rough embrace. From far below there came a savage bellow.

‘Anakha!’ Bhelliom’s voice roared in Sparhawk’s mind.

‘Cyrgon hath awakened to his peril! Release me.’ Sparhawk jerked the pouch out from under his tunic and fumbled with the drawstring.

‘What’s that shouting?’ Talen demanded.

‘Cyrgon knows that we’ve released Ehlana!’ Sparhawk replied tensely, drawing Kurik’s box out of the pouch. ‘Open!’ he commanded. The lid raised, and the blue radiance of the Bhelliom blazed forth.

Sparhawk carefully lifted out the jewel.

‘They’re coming up the stairs, Sparhawk.’ Mirtai warned.

‘Get clear!’ he said sharply. ‘Blue Rose!’ he said then. ‘Canst thou bar the way to our enemies, who even now rush up yon stairway?’

The Bhelliom did not answer, but the waist-high wall surrounding the head of the stairs collapsed inward, crashing down into the stairwell with a great clattering and a billowing cloud of dust.

‘Advise Aphrael that her mother is safe.’ Bhelliom’s voice was crisp.

‘Let the attack begin.’ Sparhawk cast the spell.

‘Aphrael!’ he said sharply. ‘We’ve got Ehlana. tell the others to move in!’

‘Can Bhelliom break Cyrgon’s illusion?’ she asked in a tone every bit as crisp as the Sapphire Rose’s had been.

‘Blue Rose,’ Sparhawk said silently, ‘the illusion of Cyrgon doth still impede the advance of our friends upon the city. Canst thou dispel it that they may bring their forces to bear upon this accursed place?’

‘It shall be as thou wouldst have it, my son.’

There was a momentary pause, and then the earth seemed to shudder slightly, and a vast shimmer ran in waves across the sky. From the leprous white temple far below there came a shrill screech of pain.

‘My goodness,’ Flute said mildly as she suddenly appeared in the center of the room. ‘I’ve never had a ten-thousand-year-old spell broken. I’ll bet it hurts like anything. Poor Cyrgon’s having an absolutely dreadful night.’

‘The night is not yet over, Child Goddess,’ Bhelliom spoke through Kalten’s lips. ‘Save thine unseemly gloating until all danger is past.’

‘Well, really!’

‘Hush, Aphrael. We must look to our defenses, Anakha. What Cyrgon knoweth, Klael doth also know.

The contest is at hand. We must make ready. ’

‘Truly,’ Sparhawk agreed. He looked around at his friends. ‘Let’s go,’ he told them. ‘We’ll spread out along the parapet, and keep your eyes open. Klael’s coming, and I don’t want him creeping up behind me. Is that stairway completely blocked?’

‘A mouse couldn’t get through all that rubble,’ Mirtai told him.

‘We can forget about the guards,’ Bevier announced, removing his ear from the guardroom door. ‘They’re still rearranging the furniture.’

‘Good.’ Sparhawk went to the door leading out to the parapet. It opened with a shrill protest of rusty hinges. ‘Don’t start getting brave,’ he cautioned his friends. ‘The fight’s between Bhelliom and Klael.

Spread out and keep watch.’

The eastern sky was pale with the approach of day as they came out onto the parapet, and Cyrgon’s agonized shrieking still echoed through the Hidden City.

‘There,’ Talen said, pointing toward the basalt escarpment beyond the lake to the south. A mass of figures, tiny in the distance and still dark in the dawn-light, were streaming out of “The Glen of Heroes”, moving into the basin before the gates of Cyrga.

‘Who are they?’ Ehlana cried, suddenly gripping Sparhawk’s arm. ‘Vanion,’ Sparhawk told her, ‘along with just about everybody else - Betuana, Kring, Ulath and the Trolls, Sephrenia -‘

‘Sephrenia?’ Ehlana exclaimed. ‘She’s dead!’

‘You didn’t really think I’d let Zalasta kill my sister, did you, Ehlana?’ Flute said.

‘But - he said that he’d stabbed her in the heart!’

The Child Goddess shrugged. ‘He did, but Bhelliom cured it. Vanion’s going to take steps.’

Talen came running round the parapet from the back of the tower. ‘Bergsten’s coming in from the other side,’ he reported. ‘His knights just trampled about three regiments of Cyrgai under foot without even slowing down.’

‘Are we going to be caught in the middle of a siege here? Kalten asked with a worried expression.

‘Not too likely,’ Bevier replied. ‘The defenses of this place are pitifully inadequate, and Patriarch Bergsten tends to be a very abrupt sort of man.’

There was a sudden eruption far below, and the roof of the pale temple exploded, hurling chunks of limestone in all directions as the infinite darkness of Klael shouldered his way up out of the House of Cyrgon. His vast, leathery wings spread wider and his blazing, slitted eyes looked about wildly.

‘Prithee, Anakha, hold me aloft that my brother may behold me.’ The voice coming from Kalten’s lips was detached. Sparhawk’s hand was shaking as he raised the Sapphire Rose over his head. Kalten, moving somewhat woodenly, gently put Alcan’s clinging arms aside and stepped to the stone rail at the front of the parapet. He spoke in a tongue no human mouth could have produced, and his words could quite probably have been heard in Chyrellos, half a world away. Enormous Klael, waist-deep in the ruins of Cyrgon’s Temple, raised his triangular face and roared his reply, his fanged mouth dripping flame.

‘Attend closely, Anakha.’ Bhelliom’s voice in Sparhawk’s mind was very quiet. ‘I will continue to taunt mine errant brother, and all enraged will he come to do battle with me. Be thou steadfast in the face of that approaching horror, for our success or failure do hang entire upon thy courage and the strength of thine arm.’

‘I do not take thy meaning, Blue Rose. Am I to smite Klael?’

‘Nay, Anakha. Thy task is to free me.’ The beast of darkness below savagely kicked aside the limestone rubble and advanced on the palace with hungry arms outstretched. When he reached the massive gates, he brushed them from his path with a whip of lightning clutched in one enormous fist. Kalten continued his deafening taunts, and Klael continued to howl his fury as he crushed his way through the lower wings of the palace, destroying everything that lay in the path of his relentless drive toward the tower. And then he reached it, and, seizing its rough stones in his two huge hands, he began to climb, his wings clawing at the

morning air as he mounted up and up.

‘How am I to free thee, Blue Rose?’ Sparhawk asked urgently.

‘My brother and I must be briefly recombined, my son,’ Bhelliom replied, ‘to become one again, as we once were, else must I forever be imprisoned within this azure crystal - even as Klael must remain in his present monstrous form. In our temporary combination will we both be freed.’

‘Combine? How?’

‘When he doth reach this not inconsiderable height and doth exult with resounding bellow of victory, must thou hurl me straightway into his gaping maw.’

‘Do what?’

‘He would with all his soul devour me. Make it so. In the moment of our recombination shall Klael and I both be freed of our present forms, and then shall our contest begin. Fail not, my son, for this is thy purpose and the destiny for which I made thee.’

Sparhawk drew in a deep breath. ‘I will not fail thee, Father, he pledged with all his heart. Still raging and with his leathery wings clawing at the air, Klael mounted higher and higher up the front of the palace tower. Sparhawk felt a sense of odd, undismayed detachment come over him. He looked full into the face of the King of Hell and felt no fear. His task was simplicity in itself. He had only to hurl the Sapphire Rose into that gaping maw, and, should a suitable opportunity for that not present itself, to hurl himself -

with Bhelliom in his outstretched fist instead. He felt no regret nor even sadness as the unalterable resolve settled over him. Better this than to die in a meaningless, unremembered skirmish on some disputed frontier as so many of his friends had. This had significance, and for a soldier, that was the best one could hope for.

And still Klael came, climbing higher and higher, reaching hungrily for his hated brother. No more than a few yards below now, his slitted eyes blazed in cruel triumph and his jagged fangs dripped fire as he roared his challenge. And then Sparhawk leapt atop the ancient battlement to stand poised with Bhelliom aloft in his fist. ‘For God and my Queen!’

He bellowed his defiance.

Klael reached up with one awesome hand. Then, like the sudden uncoiling of some tightly-wound spring, Sparhawk struck. His arm snapped down like a whip.

‘Go!’ he shouted, as he released the blazing jewel. As true as an arrow the Sapphire Rose flew from his hand even as Klael’s mouth gaped wider. Straight it went to vanish in the flaming maw. The tower trembled as a shudder ran through the glossy blackness of the enormity clinging to its side, and Sparhawk struggled to keep his balance on his precarious perch. Klael’s wings stiffened to their fullest extent, quivering with

awful tension. The great beast swelled, growing even more enormous.

Then he contracted, shriveling.

And then he exploded.

The detonation shook the very earth, and Sparhawk was

hurled back from the battlement to fall heavily on the parapet. he rolled quickly, came to his feet, and rushed back to the battlements. Two beings of light, one a glowing blue, the other sooty red, grappled with each other on insubstantial air not ten feet away.

Their struggle was elemental, a savage contesting of will and strength. They were featureless beings, and their shapes were only vaguely human. Heaving back and forth, they clung to each other like wrestlers in some rude village square, each bending all his will and force to subdue his perfectly-matched opponent.

Sparhawk and his friends lined the battlements, frozen, awed, able only to watch that primeval struggle.

And then the two broke free of each other and stood, backs bowed and arms half-extended, each facing his immortal brother in some inconceivable communion.

‘It falls to thee, Anakha,’ Bhelliom’s voice in Sparhawk’s mind was calm. ‘Should Klael and I continue, this world shall surely be destroyed, as hath oft-time come to pass before. Thou art of this world and must therefore be my champion. Constraints are upon thee which do not limit me. Klael’s champion is also of this world and is similarly constrained.’

‘It shall be even as thou has said, my father,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘I will serve as thy champion if it must

needs be. With whom must I contend?’

A great roar of rage came from far below, and a living flame surged up out of the shattered ruins of the chalk-white temple.

‘There is thine opponent, my son,’ the azure spirit replied. ‘Klael hath called him forth to do battle with thee.’

‘Cyrgon?’

‘Been so.’

‘But he is a God!’

‘And art thou not?’

Sparhawk’s mind reeled. ‘Look within thyself, Anakha. Thou art my son, and I made thee to be the receptacle of my will. I now release that will to thee that thou mayest be the champion of this world. Feel its .power infuse thee.’

It was like the opening of a door that had always been closed. Sparhawk felt his mind and will expanding infinitely as the barrier went down, and with that expanding there came an unutterable calm.

‘Now art thou truly Anakha, my son!.’ Bhelliom exulted. ‘Thy will is now my will. All things are now possible for thee. It was thy will which vanquished Azash. I was but thine instrument. In this occasion, however, shalt thou be mine. Bend thine invincible will to the task. Seize it in thine hands and mould it.

Forge weapons with thy mind and confront Cyrgon. If thine heart be true, he cannot prevail against thee.

Now go. Cyrgon awaits thee.’

Sparhawk drew in a deep breath and looked down at the rubble-littered square far below. The flame which had emerged from the ruins had coalesced into a blazing man-shape standing before the wreck of the temple.

‘Come, Anakha!’ it roared. ‘Our meeting hath been foretold since before time began. This is thy destiny!

Thou art honored above all others to fall by my hand.’

Sparhawk deliberately pushed aside the windy pomposity of archaic expression. ‘Don’t start celebrating until after you’ve won, Cyrgon!’ he shouted his reply. ‘Don’t go away! I’ll be right down!’ Then he set one hand atop the battlement and lightly vaulted over it. He stopped, hanging in mid-air. ‘Let go, Aphrael,’ he said.

‘What are you doing?’ she exclaimed. ‘Just do as you’re told. Let me go.’

‘You’ll fall.’

‘No, actually I won’t. I can handle this. Don’t interfere. Cyrgon’s waiting for me, so please let go.’

It was not actually flying, although Sparhawk was certain that he could fly if he needed to. He felt a peculiar lightness as he drifted down toward the ruins of the House of Cyrgon. It was not that he had no weight, it was more that his weight had no meaning. His will was somehow stronger than gravity. Sword in hand, he settled down and down like a drifting feather. Cyrgon waited below. The burning figure of the ancient God drew his fire about him, congealing the incandescent flame into the antique armor customarily worn by those who worshipped him - a burnished steel cuirass, a crested helmet, a large round shield and a sword in his fist. A peculiar insight came to Sparhawk as he slid down through the dawn-cool air.

Cyrgon was not so much stupid as he was conservative. It was change that he hated, change that he feared. he had frozen his Cyrgai eternally in time and had erased any potential for change or innovation from their minds. The Cyrgai, unmoved by the winds of time, would remain forever as they had been when their God had first conceived of them. He had wrought an ideal and fenced it all about with law and custom and an innate hatred of change, and frozen thus, they were doomed - and had been since the first of them had placed one sandalled foot on the face of the ever-changing world. Sparhawk smiled faintly.

Cyrgon, it appeared, needed instruction in the benefits of change, and his first lesson would be in the advantages of modern equipment, weaponry, and tactics. Sparhawk thought, ‘Armor’, and he was immediately encased in black-enamelled steel. he almost casually discarded his plain working sword and filled his hand with his heavier and longer ceremonial blade. Now he was a fully-armed Pandion Knight, a soldier of God - of several Gods, he rather ruefully amended that thought - and he was, almost by default, the champion not only of his Queen, his Church and his God - but also, if he read Bhelliom’s thought correctly, of his fair and sometimes vain Sister, the world. He drifted down and settled to earth

amidst the wreck of the destroyed temple.

‘Well-met, Cyrgon,’ he said with profoundest formality.

‘Well-met, Anakha,’ the God replied. ‘I had misjudged thee. Thou art suitable now. I had despaired of thee, fearing that thou wouldst never have realized thy true significance. Thine apprenticeship hath been long and methinks, hindered by thine inappropriate affiliation with Aphrael.’

‘We’re wasting time, Cyrgon,’ Sparhawk cut through the flowery courtesies. ‘Let’s get at this. I’m already late for breakfast. ’

‘So be it, Anakha!’

Cyrgon’s classic features were set in an expression of approval.

‘Defend thyself.’ and he swung a huge sword stroke at Sparhawk’s head. But Sparhawk had already begun his stroke, and so their swords clashed harmlessly in the air between them. It was good to be fighting again. There was no politics here, no confusion of dissembling words or false promises, just the clean, sharp ring of steel on steel and the smooth flow of muscle and sinew over bone. Cyrgon was quick, as quick as Martel had been in his youth, intricate moves of wrist and arm and shoulder that marked the master swordsman seemed to come unbidden, almost in spite of himself, to the ancient God.

‘Invigorating, isn’t it?’ Sparhawk panted through a wolf-like grin, lashing a stinging cut at the God’s shoulder. ‘Open your mind, Cyrgon. Nothing is set in stone - not even something as simple as this.’ And he lashed out with his sword again, flicking another cut onto Cyrgon’s sword-arm. The immortal rushed at him, forcing the oversized round shield against him, trying with will and main strength to overcome his better-trained opponent. Sparhawk looked into that flawless face and saw regret and desperation there.

He bunched his shoulder, as Kurik had taught him, and locked his shield-arm, forming an impenetrable barrier against the ineffectual flailing of his opponent. He parried only with his lightly held sword.

‘Yield, Cyrgon,’ he said, ‘and live. Yield, and Klael will be banished. We are of this world, Cyrgon. Let Klael and Bhelliom contend for other worlds. Take thy life and thy people and go. I would not slay even thee.’

‘I spurn thine insulting offer, Anakha!’ Cyrgon half-shrieked.

‘I guess that satisfies the demands of knightly honor,’ Sparhawk muttered to himself with a certain amount of relief. ‘God knows what I’d have done if he’d accepted.’ He raised his sword again. ‘So be it then, brother,’ he said. ‘We weren’t meant to live in the same world together anyway.’

His body and will seemed to swell inside his armor. ‘Watch, brother,’ he grated through clenched teeth.

‘Watch and learn.’ And then he unleashed five hundred years of training, coupled with his towering anger, at this poor, impotent godling, who had ripped asunder the peace of the world, a peace toward which Sparhawk had yearned since his return from exile in Render. He ripped Cyrgon’s thigh with the classic

‘Pas-four’. He slashed that perfect face with Martel’s innovative “parry-pas- nine”. He cut away the upper half of Cyrgon’s oversized round shield with Vanion’s “Third feint-and-slash”. Of all the Church Knights, the Pandions were the most skilled swordsmen, and of all the Pandions, Sparhawk stood supreme.

Bhelliom had called him the equal of a God, but Sparhawk fought as a man superbly trained, a little out of condition and really too old for this kind of thing - but with an absolute confidence that if the fate of the world rested in his hands, he was good for at least one more fight. His sword blurred in the light of the new-risen sun, flickering, weaving, darting. Baffled, the ancient Cyrgon tried to respond. The opportunity presented itself, and Sparhawk felt the perfect symmetry of it. Cyrgon, untaught, had provided the black-armored Pandion precisely the same opening Martel had given him in the temple of Azash. Martel had fully understood the significance of the series of strokes. Cyrgon, however, did not. And so it was that the thrust which pierced him through came as an absolute surprise. The God stiffened and his sword fell from his nerveless fingers as he lurched back from that fatal thrust. Sparhawk recovered from the thrust and swept his bloody sword up in front of his face in salute. ‘An innovation, Cyrgon,’ he said in a detached sort of voice. ‘You’re really very good, you know, but you ought to try to stay abreast of things.’ Cyrgon sagged to the flagstoned court, his immortal life spilling out through the gash in his breastplate.

‘And wilt thou take the world now, Anakha?’ he gasped. Sparhawk dropped to his haunches beside the

stricken God.

‘No, Cyrgon,’ he replied wearily. ‘I don’t want the world just a quiet little corner of it.’

‘Then why camest thou against me?’ ‘I didn’t want you to have it either, because if you had, my little part wouldn’t have been safe.’ He reached out and took the pallid hand. ‘You fought well, Cyrgon. I have respect for you. Hail and farewell.’ Cyrgon’s voice was only a whisper as he replied,

‘Hail and farewell, Anakha.’ There was a great despairing howl of frustration and rage. Sparhawk looked up and saw a man-shape of sooty red streaking upward into the dawn sky as Klael resumed his endless journey toward and beyond the farthest star.