Domes of Fire Part 1

Domes of Fire.

David Eddings.

Danger stalked Queen Ehlana's realm. When an ambasador from the far-off Tamul Empire begged for help, Sparhawk, Ehlana's champion and Prince Consort, was the Emperor's last hope. For surely the knight who had killed the evil G.o.d Azash could prevail against the terror in Tamul. But waiting for him was a glittering court seething with corruption, treachery-and the greatest danger Sparhawk would ever face!

Prologue.

Excerpted from Chapter Two of The Cyrga Affair: An Examination of the Recent Crisi The Cyrga Affair: An Examination of the Recent Crisis, Compiled by the Contemporary History Department of the University of Matherion.

It was quite obvious to the Imperial Council at this point that the empire was facing a threat of the gravest nature a threat which his Imperial Majesty's government was ill-prepared to confront. The empire had long relied upon the armies of Atan to defend her interests during the periodic outbreaks of incidental civil disorder which are normal and to be expected in a disparate population ruled by a strong central authority. The situation facing his Majesty's government this time, however, did not appear to arise from spontaneous demonstrations by a few malcontented hotheads spilling out into the streets from various university campuses during the traditional recess which follows final examinations.

Those particular demonstrations can be taken in stride, and order is usually restored with a minimum of bloodshed. The government soon realized that this time, however, things were different. The demonstrators were not high-spirited schoolboys, for one thing, and domestic tranquillity did not return when 'cla.s.ses at the universities resumed. The authorities might still have maintained order had the various disruptions been the result of ordinary revolutionary fervour. The mere presence of Atan warriors can dampen the spirits of even the most enthusiastic under normal circ.u.mstances. This time, the customary acts of vandalism accompanying the demonstrations were quite obviously of paranormal origin.

Inevitably, the imperial government cast a questioning eye at the Styrics in Sarsos. An investigation by Styric members of the Imperial Council whose loyalty to the throne could not be questioned, however, quite clearly indicated that Styric.u.m had had no part in the disturbances.

The paranormal incidents were obviously coming from some as yet to be determined source and were so widespread that they could not have emanated from the activities of a few Styric renegades. The Styrics themselves were unable to identify the source of this activity, and even the legendary Zalasta, pre-eminent magician in all of Styric.u.m though he might be, ruefully confessed to total bafflement.

It was Zalasta, however, who suggested the course ultimately taken by his Majesty's government. He advised that the empire might seek a.s.sistance from the Eosian continent, and he specifically directed the government's attention to a man named Sparhawk.

All imperial representatives on the Eosian continent were immediately commanded to drop everything else and to concentrate their full attention upon this man.

It was imperative that his Majesty's government have information about this Sparhawk person. As the reports from Eosia began to filter in, the Imperial Council began to develop a composite picture of Sparhawk, his appearance, his personality and his history.

Sir Sparhawk, they discovered, was a member of one of the quasi-religious orders of the Elene Church. His particular order is referred to as 'The Pandion Knights'.

He is a tall, lean man of early middle years with a battered face, a keen intelligence and an abrupt, even abrasive manner. The Knights of the Elene Church are fearsome warriors, and Sir Sparhawk is in the forefront of their ranks of champions. At the time in the history of the Eosian continent when the four orders of Church Knights were founded, the circ.u.mstances were so desperate that the Elenes set aside their customary prejudices and permitted the Militant Orders to receive instruction in the arcane practices of Styric.u.m, and it was the proficiency of the Church Knights in those arts which helped them to prevail during the First Zemoch War some five centuries ago.

Sir Sparhawk held a position for which there is no equivalent in our empire. He was the hereditary 'Champion' of the royal house of the Kingdom of Elenia. Western Elenes have a chivalric culture replete with many archaisms. The 'Challenge' (essentially an offer to engage in single combat is the customary response of members of the n.o.bility who feel that their honour has been somehow sullied. It is amazing to note that not even ruling monarchs are exempt from the necessity of answering these challenges. In order to avoid the inconvenience of responding to the impertinences of a.s.sorted hotheads, the monarchs of Eosia customarily designate some highly-skilled (and usually widely-feared) warrior as a surrogate. Sir Sparhawk's nature and reputation is such that even the most quarrelsome n.o.bles of the kingdom of Elenia find after careful consideration that they have not really been insulted. It is a credit to Sir Sparhawk's skill and cool judgement that he has seldom even been obliged to kill anyone during these affairs, since, by ancient custom, a severely incapacitated combatant may save his life by surrendering and withdrawing his challenge.

After his father's death, Sir Sparhawk presented himself to King Aldreas, the father of the present queen, to take up his duties. King Aldreas, however, was a weak monarch, and he was dominated by his sister, Arissa, and by Annias, the Primate of Cimmura, who was also Princess Arissa's surrept.i.tious lover and the father of her b.a.s.t.a.r.d son, Lycheas. The Primate of Cimmura, who was the de facto ruler of Elenia, had hopes of ascending the throne of the Archprelacy of the Elene Church in the Holy City of Chyrellos, and the presence of the stern and moralistic Church Knight at the court inconvenienced him, and so it was that he persuaded King Aldreas to send Sir Sparhawk into exile in the Kingdom of Render.

In time, King Aldreas also became inconvenient, and Primate Annias and the Princess poisoned him, thus elevating Princess Ehlana, Aldreas' daughter, to the throne. Though she was young, Queen Ehlana had received some training from Sir Sparhawk as a child, and she was a far stronger monarch than her father had been. She soon became more than a mere inconvenience to the Primate. He poisoned her as well, but Sir Sparhawk's fellow Pandions, aided by their tutor in the arcane arts, a Styric woman named Sephrenia, cast an enchantment which sealed the queen up in crystal and sustained her life.

Thus it stood when Sir Sparhawk returned from exile.

Since the Militant Orders had no wish to see the Primate of Cimmura on the Archprelate's throne, certain of the champions of the other three orders were sent to a.s.sist Sir Sparhawk in finding an antidote or a cure which could restore Queen Ehlana to health. Since the queen had denied Annias access to her treasury in the past, the Church Knights reasoned that should she be restored, she would once again deny Annias the funds he needed to pursue his candidacy.

Annias allied himself with a renegade Pandion named Martel, and this Martel person was, like all Pandions, skilled in the use of Styric magic. He cast obstacles, both physical and supernatural, in Sparhawk's path, but Sir Sparhawk and his companions were ultimately successful in discovering that Queen Ehlana could only be restored by a magical object known as 'The Bh.e.l.liom.'

Western Elenes are a peculiar people. They have a level of sophistication in worldly matters which sometimes surpa.s.ses our own, but at the same time, they have an almost childlike belief in the more lurid forms of magic. This 'Bh.e.l.liom', we are told, is a very large sapphire which was laboriously carved into the shape of a rose at some time in the distant past. The Elenes here insist that the artisan who carved it was a Troll. We will not dwell on that absurdity.

At any rate, Sir Sparhawk and his friends overcame many obstacles and were ultimately able to obtain the peculiar talisman, and (they claim) it was successful in restoring Queen Ehlana-although one strongly suspects that their tutor, Sephrenia, accomplished that task unaided, and that the apparent use of the Bh.e.l.liom was little more than a subterfuge she used to protect her from the virulent bigotry of western Elenes.

When the Archprelate Cluvonus died, the Hierocracy of the Elene Church journeyed to Chyrellos to partic.i.p.ate in the 'election' of his successor. Election is a peculiar practice which involves the stating of preference. That candidate who receives the approval of a majority of his fellows is elevated to the office in question. This, of course, is an unnatural procedure, but since the Elene clergy is ostensibly celibate, there is no non-scandalous way the Archprelacy can be made hereditary. The Primate of Cimmura had bribed a goodly number of high churchmen to state a preference for him during the deliberations of the Hierocracy, but he still fell short of the needed majority. It was at this point that his underling, the aforementioned Martel, led an a.s.sault on the Holy City, hoping thereby to stampede the Hierocracy into electing Primate Annias. Sir Sparhawk and a limited number of Church Knights were able to keep Martel away from the Basilica where the Hierocracy was deliberating. Most of the city of Chyrellos, however, was severely damaged or destroyed during the fighting.

As the situation reached crisis proportions, help arrived for the beleaguered defenders in the form of the armies of the western Elene kingdoms. (Elene politics, one notes, are quite robust.) The connection between the Primate of Cimmura and the renegade Martel came to light as well as the fact that the pair had a subterranean arrangement with Otha of Zemoch. Outraged by the perfidy of the man, the Hierocracy rejected his candidacy and elected instead one Dolmant, the Patriarch of Demos. This Dolmant appears to be competent, though it may be too early to say for certain.

Queen Ehlana of the Kingdom of Elenia was scarcely more than a child, but she appeared to be a strong-willed and spirited young woman. She had long had a secret preference for Sir Sparhawk, though he was more than twenty years her senior, and upon her recovery it had been announced that the two were betrothed.

Following the election of Dolmant to the Archprelacy, they were wed. Peculiarly enough, the queen retained her authority, although we must suspect that Sir Sparhawk exerts considerable influence upon her in state as well as domestic matters.

The involvement of the Emperor of Zemoch in the internal affairs of the Elene Church was, of course, a casus belli, and the armies of western Eosia, led by the Church Knights, marched eastward across Lamorkand to meet the Zemoch hordes poised on the border. The long-dreaded Second Zemoch War had begun.

Sir Sparhawk and his companions, however, rode north to avoid the turmoil of the battlefield, and they then turned eastward, crossed the mountains of northern Zemoch and surrept.i.tiously made their way to Otha's capital at the city of Zemoch, evidently in pursuit of Annias and Martel.

The best efforts of the empire's agents in the west have failed to reveal precisely what took place at Zemoch. It is quite certain that Annias, Martel and Otha himself perished there, but they are of little note in the pageant of history. What is far more relevant is the incontrovertible fact that Azash, Elder G.o.d of Styric.u.m and the driving force behind Otha and his Zemochs, also perished, and it is undeniably true that Sir Sparhawk was responsible. We must concede that the levels of magic unleashed at Zemoch were beyond our comprehension and that Sir Sparhawk has powers at his command such as no mortal has ever possessed. As evidence of the levels of violence unleashed in the confrontation, we need only point to the fact that the city of Zemoch was utterly destroyed during the discussions.

Clearly, Zalasta the Styric had been right. Sir Sparhawk, the prince consort of Queen Ehlana, was the one man in all the world capable of dealing with the crisis in Tamuli. Unfortunately, Sir Sparhawk was not a citizen of the Tamul Empire, and thus could not be summoned to the imperial capital at Matherion by the emperor. His Majesty's government was in a quandary. The emperor had no authority over this Sparhawk, and to have been obliged to appeal to a man who was essentially a private citizen would have been an unthinkable humiliation.

The situation in the empire was daily worsening, and our need for the intervention of Sir Sparhawk was growing more and more urgent. Of equal urgency was the absolute necessity of maintaining the empire's dignity. It was ultimately the Foreign Office's most brilliant diplomat, First Secretary Oscagne, who devised a solution to the dilemma. We will discuss his Excellency's brilliant diplomatic ploy at greater length in the following chapter.

Part One: Eosia

Chapter 1.

It was early spring, and the rain still had the lingering chill of winter. A soft, silvery drizzle sifted down out of the night sky and wreathed around the blocky watchtowers of Cimmura, hissing in the torches on each side of the broad gate and making the stones of the road leading up to the gate shiny and black. A lone rider approached the city. He was wrapped in a heavy traveller's cloak and rode a tall, s.h.a.ggy roan horse with a long nose and flat, vicious eyes. The traveler was a big man, a bigness of large, heavy bone and ropy tendon rather than of flesh. His hair was coa.r.s.e and black, and at some time his nose had been broken. He rode easily but with the peculiar alertness of the trained warrior.

The big' roan shuddered, shaking the rain out of his s.h.a.ggy coat as they approached the east gate of the city and stopped in the ruddy circle of torchlight just outside the wall. An unshaven gate guard in a rust-splotched breastplate and helmet and with a patched green cloak hanging negligently from one shoulder came out of the gate house to look inquiringly at the traveler. He was swaying slightly on his feet.

'Just pa.s.sing through, neighbour,' the big man said in a quiet voice. He pushed back the hood of his cloak.

'Oh,' the guard said, 'it's you, Prince Sparhawk. I didn't recognise you. Welcome home.'

'Thank you,' Sparhawk replied. He could smell the cheap wine on the man's breath.

'Would you like to have me send word to the palace that you've arrived, your Highness?'

'No. Don't bother them. I can unsaddle my own horse.' Sparhawk privately disliked ceremonies-particularly late at night. He leaned over and handed the guard a small coin. 'Go back inside, neighbour. You'll catch cold if you stand out here in the rain.' He nudged his horse and rode on through the gate.

The district near the city wall was poor, with shabby, run-down houses standing tightly packed beside each other, their second storeys projecting out over the wet littered streets. Sparhawk rode up a narrow, cobbled street with the slow clatter of the big roan's steel-shod hooves echoing back from the buildings. The night breeze had come up, and the crude signs identifying this or that tightly-shuttered shop on the street-level floors swung creaking on rusty hooks.

A dog with nothing better to do came out of an alley to bark at them with brainless self-importance. Sparhawk's horse turned his head slightly to give the wet cur a long, level stare that spoke eloquently of death. The empty-headed dog's barking trailed off and he cringed back, his rat-like tail between his legs. The horse bore down on him purposefully. The dog whined, then yelped, turned and fled. Sparhawk's horse snorted derisively.

'That make you feel better, Faran?' Sparhawk asked the roan.

Faran flicked his ears.

'Shall we proceed then?'

A torch burned fitfully at an intersection, and a buxom young wh.o.r.e in a cheap dress stood, wet and bedraggled, in its ruddy, flaring light. Her dark hair was plastered to her head, the rouge on her cheeks was streaked and she had a resigned expression on her face.

'What are you doing out here in the rain, Naween?' Sparhawk asked her, reining in his horse.

'I've been waiting for you, Sparhawk.' Her tone was arch, and her dark eyes wicked.

'Or for anyone else?'

'Of course. I am a professional, Sparhawk, but I still owe you. Shouldn't we settle up one of these days?'

He ignored that. 'What are you doing working the streets?'

'Shanda and I had a fight,' she shrugged. "I decided to go into business for myself.'

'You're not vicious enough to be a street-girl, Naween.' He dipped his fingers into the pouch at his side, fished out several coins and gave them to her. 'Here,' he instructed. 'Get a room in an inn someplace and stay off the streets for a few days. I'll talk with Platime, and we'll see if we can make some arrangements for you .'

Her eyes narrowed. 'You don't have to do that, Sparhawk. I can take care of myself.'

'Of course you can. That's why you're standing out here in the rain. Just do it, Naween. It's too late and too wet for arguments.'

'This is two I owe you, Sparhawk. Are you absolutely sure . . . ?' She left it hanging.

'Quite sure, little sister. I'm married now, remember?'

'So?'

'Never mind. Get in out of the weather.' Sparhawk rode on, shaking his head. He liked Naween, but she was hopelessly incapable of taking care of herself.

He pa.s.sed through a quiet square where all the shops and booths were shut down. There were few people abroad tonight, and few business opportunities. He let his mind drift back over the past month and a half. No one in Lamorkand had been willing to talk with him.

Archprelate Dolmant was a wise man, learned in doctrine and Church politics, but he was woefully ignorant of the way the common people thought. Sparhawk had patiently tried to explain to him that sending a Church Knight out to gather information was a waste of time, but Dolmant had insisted, and Sparhawk's oath obliged him to obey. And so it was that he had wasted six weeks in the ugly cities of southern Lamorkand where no one had been willing to talk with him about anything more serious than the weather. To make matters even worse, Dolmant had quite obviously blamed the knight for his own blunder.

In a dark side-street where the water dripped monotonously onto the cobblestones from the eaves of the houses, he felt Faran's muscles tense. 'Sorry,' he said quietly. 'I wasn't paying attention.' Someone was watching him, and he could clearly sense the animosity which had alerted his horse. Faran was a war-horse, and he could probably sense antagonism in his veins.

Sparhawk muttered a quick spell in the Styric tongue, concealing the gestures which accompanied it beneath his cloak. He released the spell slowly to avoid alerting whoever was watching him.

The watcher was not an Elene. Sparhawk sensed that immediately. He probed further. Then he frowned. There were more than one, and they were not Styrics either. He pulled his thought back, pa.s.sively waiting for some clue as to their ident.i.ty. The realization came as a chilling shock. The watchers were not human. He shifted slightly in his saddle, sliding his hand toward his sword-hilt. Then the sense of the watchers was gone, and Faran shuddered with relief. He turned his ugly face to give his master a suspicious look.

'Don't ask me, Faran,' Sparhawk told him. "I don't know either.' But that was not entirely true. The touch of the minds in the darkness had been vaguely familiar, and that familiarity had raised questions in Sparhawk's mind, questions he did not want to face.

He paused at the palace gate long enough to firmly instruct the soldiers not to wake the whole house, and then he dismounted in the courtyard.

A young man stepped out into the rain-swept yard from the stable. 'Why didn't you send word that you were coming, Sparhawk?' he asked very quietly.

'Because I don't particularly like parades and wild celebrations in the middle of the night,' Sparhawk told his squire, throwing back the hood of his cloak. 'What are you doing up so late? I promised your mothers I'd make sure you got your rest. You're going to get me in trouble, Khalad.'

'Are you trying to be funny?' Khalad's voice was gruff, abrasive. He took Faran's reins. 'Come inside, Sparhawk. You'll rust if you stand out here in the rain.'

'You're as bad as your father was.'

'It's an old family trait.' Khalad led the prince consort and his evil-tempered warhorse into the hay-smelling stable where a pair of lanterns gave off a golden light.

Khalad was a husky young man with coa.r.s.e black hair and a short-trimmed black beard. He wore tight-fitting black leather breeches, boots and a sleeveless leather vest that left his arms and shoulders bare. A heavy dagger hung from his belt, and steel cuffs encircled his wrists. He looked and behaved so much like his father that Sparhawk felt again a brief, brief pang of loss. 'I thought Talen would be coming back with you,' Sparhawk's squire said as he began unsaddling Faran.

'He's got a cold. His mother-and yours-decided that he shouldn't go out in the weather, and I certainly wasn't going to argue with them.'

'Wise decision,' Khalad said, absently slapping Faran on the nose as the big roan tried to bite him. 'How are they?'

'Your mothers? Fine. Aslade's still trying to fatten Elys up, but she's not having too much luck. How did you find out I was in town?'

'One of Platime's cut-throats saw you coming through the gate. He sent word.'

'I suppose I should have known. You didn't wake my wife, did you?'

'Not with Mirtai standing watch outside her door, I didn't. Give me that wet cloak, my Lord. I'll hang it in the kitchen to dry.' Sparhawk grunted and removed his sodden cloak. 'The mail shirt too, Sparhawk,' Khalad added, 'before it rusts away entirely.' Sparhawk nodded, unbelted his sword and began to struggle out of his chain-mail shirt.

'How's your training going?'

Khalad made an indelicate sound. "I haven't learned anything I didn't already know. My father was a much better instructor than the ones at the chapterhouse. This idea of yours isn't going to work, Sparhawk. The other novices are all aristocrats, and when my brothers and I outstrip them on the practice field, they resent it. We make enemies every time we turn around.' He lifted the saddle from Faran's back and put it on the rail of a nearby stall. He briefly laid his hand on the big roan's back, then bent, picked up a handful of straw and began to rub him down.

'Wake some groom and have him do that,' Sparhawk told him. 'Is anybody still awake in the kitchen?'

'The bakers are already up, I think.'

'Have one of them throw something together for me to eat. It's been a long time since lunch.'

'All right. What took you so long in Chyrellos?'

'I took a little side trip into Lamorkand. The civil war there's getting out of hand, and the Archprelate wanted me to nose around a bit.'

'You should have got word to your wife. She was just about to send Mirtai out to find you.' Khalad grinned at him. "I think you're going to get yelled at again, Sparhawk.'

'There's nothing new about that. Is Kalten here in the palace?'

Khalad nodded. 'The food's better here, and he isn't expected to pray three times a day. Besides, I think he's got his eye on one of the chambermaids.'

'That wouldn't surprise me very much. Is Stragen here too?'

'No. Something came up, and he had to go back to Emsat.'

'Get Kalten up then. Have him join us in the kitchen. I want to talk with him. I'll be along in a bit. I'm going to the bathhouse first.'

'The water won't be warm. They let the fires go out at night.'

'We're soldiers of G.o.d, Khalad. We're all supposed to be unspeakably brave.'