The Ruby Knight Part 36

"Sleep here for but a short while longer, My King, for as soon as our task is completed, I will return here and take thee home." There were tears in Ulath's ice-blue eyes. "Let him rest, Tynian," he said. "His final journey will be long."

Tynian nodded and let King Sarak sink back into the earth.

"That's it then, isn't it?" Kalten said eagerly. "We ride to Lake Venne and go swimming."

"It's easier than digging," Kurik told him. "All we have to worry about is the Seeker and that Troll." He frowned slightly. "Sir Ulath," he said, "If Ghwerig knows exactly where Bh.e.l.liom is, why hasn't he retrieved it in all these years?"

"The way I understand it, Ghwerig can't swim," Ulath replied. "His body's too twisted. We'll probably still have to fight him, though. As soon as we bring Bh.e.l.liom out of the lake, he'll attack us."

Sparhawk looked towards the west where the light from the newly risen sun sparkled on the waters of the lake. The tall, summer-green gra.s.s of the fields near the mound moved in long waves in the fitful morning breeze, and the fields were bounded near the lake by the greyish sedge and marsh gra.s.s which covered the peat bogs. "We'll worry about Ghwerig when we see him," he said. "Let's go and have a closer look at this lake."

They all slid down the gra.s.sy side of the mound and climbed into their saddles. "Bh.e.l.liom shouldn't be too far out from sh.o.r.e," Ulath said as they rode towards the lake.

"Crowns are made of gold, and gold's heavy. A dying man couldn't throw something like that very far." He scratched at his chin. "I've looked for things under water before," he said. "You have to be very methodical about it. Just floundering around doesn't accomplish very much."

"When we get there, show us how it's done," Sparhawk replied.

"Right. Let's ride due west until we come to the lake. If the Earl of Heid was dying, he wouldn't have taken any side trips." They rode on. Sparhawk's elation was overshadowed by some anxiety. There was no way of knowing how long it would be before the Seeker returned with a horde of numb faced men at its back, and he knew that he and his friends could not wear armour while they probed the depths of the lake. They would be defenceless. Not only that, as soon as the spirit of Azash saw them in the lake, He would know exactly what they were doing, and for that matter, so would Ghwerig.

The light breeze was still blowing as they rode west, and puffy white clouds marched at a stately pace across the deep blue sky.

There's a grove of cedar trees up ahead," Kurik said, pointing to a low, dark green patch of vegetation a quarter of a mile away. "We're going to need to build a raft when we get to the lake. Come along, Berit. Let's start chopping." He led his string of pack-horses towards the grove with the novice close behind him.

Sparhawk and his friends reached the lake about midmorning and stood looking out over the water rippling in the breeze. That's going to make looking for something on the bottom very difficult," Kalten said, pointing towards the murky, peat-stained depths.

"Any notion of where the Earl of Heid might have come out on the lake-sh.o.r.e?" Sparhawk asked Ulath.

"Count Ghasek's story said that some Alcione Knights came along and buried him," the Genidian replied. "They were in a hurry, so they probably wouldn't have moved his body very far from where he fell. Let's look around for a grave."

"After five hundred years?" Kalten said sceptically. "There won't be much to mark it, Ulath."

"I think you're wrong, Kalten," Tynian disagreed.

"Deirans build cairns over graves when they bury somebody. The earth might flatten out over a grave, but rocks are a bit more permanent."

"All right," Sparhawk said, "let's spread out and start looking for a pile of rocks."

It was Talen who found the grave, a low mound of brown-stained stones, partially covered by muddy silt which had acc.u.mulated over centuries of high water.

Tynian marked it by sinking the b.u.t.t of his pennon-tipped lance into the mud at the foot of the grave.

"Shall we get started?" Kalten asked.

"Let's wait for Kurik and Berit," Sparhawk said. "The lake-bottom's a little too soupy for wading. We're going to need that raft." It was perhaps a half-hour later when the squire and the novice joined them. The pack-horses were laboriously pulling a dozen cedar logs behind them.

It was shortly after noon when they finished lashing the logs together with ropes to form a crude raft. The knights had discarded their armour and worked in loin cloths, sweating in the hot sun.

"You're getting sunburned," Kalten told the pale skinned Ulath.

"I always do," Ulath replied. "Thalesians don't tan very well." He straightened as he finished tying the last knot in the rope which held one end of the raft together. "Well, let's launch it and see if it floats," he suggested.

They pushed the raft down the slippery mud beach into the water. Ulath looked at it critically. "I wouldn't want to make a sea voyage on that thing," he said, "but it's good enough for our purposes here. Berit, go over to that willow thicket and cut yourself a couple of saplings."

The novice nodded and returned a few minutes later with two long, springy wands.

Ulath went to the grave and picked up two stones somewhat larger than his fist. He hefted them a couple of times, one in each hand, then tossed one to Sparhawk.

"What do you think?" he asked. "Does that feel to be about the same weight as a gold crown?"

"How would I know?" Sparhawk asked. "I've never worn a crown."

"Guess, Sparhawk. The day's wearing on, and the mosquitoes are going to come out before long."

"All right, that's probably about the weight of a crown, give or take a few pounds."

That's what I thought. All right, Berit, take your saplings and pole the raft out into the lake. We're going to mark the area we want to search."

Berit looked a little puzzled, but did as he was told.

Ulath hefted one of his rocks. That's far enough, Berit," he called. He gave the rock an underhand toss towards the shaky raft. "Mark that place!" he bellowed.

Berit wiped the water the rock had splashed on him from his face. "Yes, Sir Ulath," he said, poling the raft towards the widening circles on the surface of the lake.

Then he took one of his willow saplings and sank one end of it down into the muddy bottom.

"Now pole the raft off to the left," Ulath shouted. "I'll throw the next rock a ways beyond you."

"Your left or mine, Sir Ulath?" Berit asked politely.

Take your pick. I just don't want to brain you with this." Ulath was tossing his rock from one hand to the other and squinting out at the brown-stained waters of the lake.

Berit pushed the raft out of the way, and Ulath launched his rock with a mighty heave.

"Lord!" Kalten said. "No dying man could ever throw anything that far."

"That was the idea," Ulath said modestly. That's the absolute outer limit of the area we search. Berit!" he bellowed in a shattering voice, "Mark that spot and then go down. I need to know how deep we're going and what kind of bottom we've got to work with."

Berit hesitated after he marked the place where the second rock had struck the water. "Would you please ask Lady Sephrenia to turn her back?" he asked plaintively, his face suddenly bright red.

"If anyone laughs, he'll spend the rest of his life as a toad," Sephrenia threatened, resolutely turning her back on the lake and turning the curious little girl Flute around at the same time.

Berit stripped and went over the edge of the raft like an otter. He reemerged a minute later. Everyone on sh.o.r.e, Sparhawk noticed, had held his breath while the agile novice had been down. Berit exhaled explosively, spraying water. "It's about eight feet deep, Sir Ulath," he reported, clinging to the end of the raft, "but the bottom's muddy two feet of it at least-mucky and not very nice. The water's dark brown. You can't see your hand in front of your face."

"I was afraid of that," Ulath muttered.

"How's the water?" Kalten called out to the young man in the lake.

"Very, very cold," Berit chattered.

"I was afraid of that, too," Kalten said glumly.

"Well, gentlemen," Ulath said, "time to get wet."

The rest of the afternoon was distinctly unpleasant. As Berit had announced, the water was cold and murky, and the soft bottom was thick with brown mud from the nearby peat-bogs. "Don't try to dig around in that with your hands," Ulath instructed. "Probe with your feet."

They found nothing. By the time the sun went down, they were all exhausted and blue with the cold.

"We have a decision to make," Sparhawk said soberly after they had dried themselves and put on tunics and mail-shirts. "How long is it going to be safe for us to stay here? The Seeker knows almost exactly where we are, and our scent will lead it right to us. As soon as it sees us in the lake, Azash will know where Bh.e.l.liom is. That's something we can't let him find out."

"You're right, Sparhawk," Sephrenia agreed. "It will take the Seeker a while to gather its forces, and a while longer to lead them back here, but I think we'll need to set a time limit on how long we stay in this place."

"But we're so close," Kalten objected.

"It's not going to do us any good to find Bh.e.l.liom just to turn it over to Azash," she pointed out. "If we ride off, we'll lead the Seeker away from this spot. We know where Bh.e.l.liom is now. We can always come back later when it's safe."

"Noon tomorrow?" Sparhawk asked her.

"I don't think we should stay any longer."

That's it then," Sparhawk said. "At noon we'll pack up and go back to the city of Venne. I get the feeling that the Seeker won't take its men into a town. They'd be very conspicuous the way they shamble around."

"A boat," Ulath said, his face ruddy in the light of their fire.

"Where?" Kalten asked, peering out at the night shrouded lake.

"No. What I mean is, why don't we ride to Venne and hire a boat? The Seeker will follow our trail to Venne, but it won't be able to sniff our tracks over water, will it? It'll camp outside Venne waiting for us to come out, but we'll be back here by then. We'll be free to search for Bh.e.l.liom until we find it."

"It's a good idea, Sparhawk," Kalten said.

"Is he right?" Sparhawk asked Sephrenia. "Will travelling by water throw the Seeker off our trail?"

"I believe it will," she replied.

"Good. We'll try it then."

They ate a meager supper and went to their beds. They rose at sunrise the following morning, took quick breakfast and poled the raft back out to the markers that indicated where they had left off the previous day. They anch.o.r.ed the raft and once again went into the chill waters to probe at the muddy bottom with their feet.

It was almost noon when Berit surfaced not far from where Sparhawk was treading water and catching his breath. "I think I've found something." the novice said, gasping for air. Then he up-ended himself and swam down head-first. After a painfully long minute, he came up again. It was not a crown he held in his hand, though, but a brown-stained human skull. He swam to the raft and laid the skull up on the logs. Sparhawk squinted up at the sun and swore. Then he followed Berit to the raft.

He hauled himself up on the logs. "That's it," he called to Kalten, whose head had just popped up out of the water.

"We can't stay here any longer. Gather up the others, and let's get back to sh.o.r.e."

When they reached the sh.o.r.e, the sunburned Ulath Curiously examined the skull. "Seems awfully long and narrow for some reason," he said.

"That's because he was a Zemoch," Sephrenia told him.

"Did he drown?" Berit asked.

Ulath sc.r.a.ped some of the mud off the skull and then poked one finger into an aperture in the left temple. "Not with this hole in the side of his head, he didn't." He went down to the lake-sh.o.r.e and sloshed the skull around in the water to rinse centuries of acc.u.mulated mud out of it.

Then he brought it back and shook it. Something rattled inside. The big Thalesian laid it on the mounded-up stones of the grave of the Earl of Heid, took up a rock and cracked the skull open as casually as a man might crack a walnut. Then he picked something up out of the fragments. "Thought so," he said. "Somebody put an arrow in his brain-pan, probably from sh.o.r.e." He handed the rusty arrowhead to Tynian. "Do you recognize it?"

"It's Deiran forging," Tynian said after examining it.

Sparhawk thought back for a moment. "Ghasek's account said that Alcione Knights from Deira came along and wiped out the Zemochs who'd been pursuing the Earl of Heid. We can be fairly certain that the Zemochs saw the Earl throw the crown into the lake. They'd have gone out after it, wouldn't they? - and in the exact spot where it hit the water. Now we find this one with a Deiran arrow in his head. It's not too hard to reconstruct what happened. Berit, can you pinpoint the precise spot where you found the skull?"

"To within a few feet, Sir Sparhawk. I was taking bearings on things along the sh.o.r.e. It was straight out from that dead snag over there and about sixty feet out into the lake."

"That's it, then," Sparhawk said exultantly. "The Zemochs were diving after the crown, and the Alciones came along and raked them with arrows from sh.o.r.e. That skull was probably lying no more than a few yards from Bh.e.l.liom."

Sephrenia said, "We'll come back for it later. We know where it is but - we must leave immediately, Sparhawk, and it would be far too dangerous to have Bh.e.l.liom in our possession with the Seeker right behind us."

Grudgingly, Sparhawk had to admit that she was probably right. "All right, then," he said in a disappointed tone, "let's break down the camp and get out of here. We'll wear mail instead of armour so we won't be so conspicuous. Ulath, push that raft back out into the lake. We'll wipe out any traces that we've been here and ride on up to Venne." It took them about half an hour, and then they moved north. They rode north along the lake, moving at a gallop.

As usual, Berit rode to the rear, watching for signs of pursuit.

Sparhawk was melancholy. Somehow it seemed that for weeks he had been trying to run in soft sand. No matter how close he got to the one thing which would save his queen, something always seemed to interfere, to force him away from the goal. He began to have darkly superst.i.tious feelings. Sparhawk was an Elene and a Church Knight. He was at least nominally committed to the Elene faith and its rigid rejection of anything remotely related to what the Church called "heathenism".

Sparhawk had been abroad in the world too long, however, and seen far too many things to accept the dictates of his Church at face value. He realized that in many ways he hung suspended between absolute faith and total skepticism. Something somewhere was desperately trying to keep him away from Bh.e.l.liom, and he was fairly certain he knew Who it was - but why would Azash bear such enmity towards the young queen of Elenia? Sparhawk grimly began to think of armies and invasions. If Ehlana died, he vowed to himself that he would obliterate Zemoch and leave Azash weeping alone in the ruins without one single human to worship Him.

They reached the city of Venne not long after noon of the following day and returned through the gloomy streets to the now-familiar inn. "why don't we just buy this place?" Kalten suggested as they dismounted in the courtyard. "I'm starting to feel as if I've lived here all my life."

"Go ahead and make the arrangements," Sparhawk told him. "Kurik, let's walk down to the lake-sh.o.r.e and see if we can find a boat before the sun goes down."

The knight and his squire walked out of the inn yard and down the cobbled street that led towards the lake.

"This town doesn't get any prettier when you get to know it," Kurik observed.

"We're not here for the scenery," Sparhawk growled.

"What's the matter, Sparhawk?" Kurik asked. "You've, been in a foul humour for the last week or more."

"Time, Kurik," Sparhawk sighed, "time. Sometimes it's ""almost as if I can feel it dribbling through my fingers. We were within no more than a few feet of Bh.e.l.liom, and then we had to pack up and leave. My queen is dying inch by inch, and things keep getting in my way. I'm starting to feel a very powerful urge to hurt some people."

"Don't look at me."

Sparhawk smiled faintly. "I think you're safe, my friend," he said, putting his hand affectionately on Kurik's shoulder. "If nothing else, I'd hate to make wagers on the outcome if you and I ever had a really ,serious disagreement."

"There's that, too," Kurik agreed. Then he pointed.

"Over there," he said.

"Over there what?"

"That tavern. People with boats go in there."

"How do you know that?"