The Ruby Knight Part 38

"To save time, gentlemen," she said, "yes, I can talk, and no, I didn't want to before. Does that answer all the tiresome questions? Now listen very carefully. The Troll-Dwarf Ghwerig has managed to get his hands on Bh.e.l.liom again, and he's trying to take it to his cave up in the mountains of Thalesia. Unless we hurry, he'll get away from us."

"How did he get it out of the lake when he hasn't ever been able to do it before?" Bevier asked.

"He had help." She looked around at their faces and muttered a naughty word in Styric. "You'd better show them, Sephrenia. Otherwise they'll stand here all night asking foolish questions."

There was a large mirror - a sheet of polished bra.s.s, actually - on one wall of Sephrenia's room. "Would you all come over here, please?" Sephrenia said, going to the mirror.

They gathered around the mirror, and she began an incantation Sparhawk had not heard before. Then she gestured. The mirror became momentarily cloudy. When it cleared, they seemed to be looking down at the lake.

"There's the raft," Kalten said in astonishment, "and that's Sparhawk coming to the surface. I don't understand, Sephrenia."

"We're looking at things that happened just before noon yesterday," she told him.

"We already know what happened."

"We know what we were doing," she corrected. "There were others there as well, however."

"I didn't see anybody."

"They didn't want you to see them. Just keep watching."

The perspective in the mirror seemed to change, moving away from the lake towards the sedge which grew thickly on the Peat-bog. A dark-robed shape was crouched down, hidden in the marsh-gra.s.s.

The Seeker!" Bevier exclaimed. "It was watching us!"

"It wasn't the only one," Sephrenia told him.

The perspective changed again, sliding several hundred yards north along the lake to a clump of scrubby trees. A small, grotesquely deformed shape was hidden in the grove.

"And that's Ghwerig," Flute told them.

"That's a dwarf?" Kalten exclaimed. "It's as big as Ulath. How big is a normal one?"

"About twice as big as Ghwerig," Ulath shrugged.

"Ogres are even bigger."

The mirror clouded again as Sephrenia spoke rapidly in Styric. "Nothing important went on for quite a while, so we're skipping that part," she explained.

The mirror cleared again. "There we go, riding away from the lake," Kalten said.

Then the Seeker rose from the marsh-gra.s.s and with it about ten wooden-faced men who appeared to be Pelosian serfs. Numbly, the serfs shambled down to the lake-sh.o.r.e and waded into the water.

"We were afraid that might happen," Tynian said.

The mirror clouded again. They continued the search all through yesterday, last night and today," Sephrenia told them. "Then, just over an hour ago, one of them found Bh.e.l.liom. This part might be a little hard to see, because it was dark. I'll lighten the image as much as I can for you."

It was a bit hard to make out, but it seemed that one of the serfs emerged from the lake carrying a mud-caked object in his hand. "King Sarak's crown," Sephrenia identified the object.

The black-robed Seeker rushed along the lake-sh.o.r.e, its scorpion-like claws extended and clicking eagerly, but Ghwerig reached the serf before Azash's creature could.

With a mighty blow of his gnarled fist he crushed in the side of the serf's head and seized the crown. Then he turned and ran before the Seeker could summon its followers out of the lake. Ghwerig's run was a peculiar loping gait involving both legs and one extraordinarily long arm. A man might be able to run faster, but not by very much.

The image faded.

"What happened next?" Kurik asked.

"Ghwerig stopped from time to time when one of the serfs began to overtake him," Sephrenia replied. "It looked as if he were deliberately slowing down. He killed them one by one."

"Where's Ghwerig now?" Tynian asked.

"We can't tell," Flute told him. "It's very hard to follow a Troll in the dark. That's why we have to get out into the open countryside. Sephrenia and I can feel Bh.e.l.liom, but only if we can get clear of all these townsmen."

Tynian considered it. "The Seekers more or less out of the picture now," he said. "It's going to have to go out and gather more people before it can go after Ghwerig."

"That's a comforting thought," Kalten said. "I wouldn't want to have to take them both on at once."

"We'd better get started," Sparhawk told them. "Put on your armour, gentlemen," he suggested. "When we run across Ghwerig, we might need it."

They went back to their rooms to gather their belongings and to dress themselves in steel. Sparhawk clanked down the stairs to settle up with the fat innkeeper, who stood leaning against the doorway of the empty tap-room, sleepy-eyed and yawning.

"We're going to be leaving now," Sparhawk said to him.

"It's still dark outside, Sir Knight."

"I know, but something came up."

"You've heard the news then, I gather."

"What news was that?" Sparhawk asked him cautiously.

"There's trouble down in Arcium. I haven't been able to really get the straight of it, but there's even been talk that it might be a war of some kind."

Sparhawk frowned. "That doesn't make much sense, neighbour. Arcium's not like Lamorkand. The Arcian n.o.bles foreswore their blood-feuds generations ago at the king's command."

I can only repeat what I heard, Sir Knight. The word that I've picked up is that the kingdoms of western Eosia are all mobilizing. Earlier tonight some fellows came through Venne in quite a hurry - fellows who weren't very interested in going off to fight in a foreign war - and they say that there's a huge army gathering to the west of the lake conscripting every man they run across."

"The western kingdoms wouldn't mobilize because of a civil war in Arcium," Sparhawk told him. "That kind of thing is an internal matter."

That's what puzzles me too," the innkeeper agreed, but what puzzles me even more is that some of those timid fellows have said that a fair portion of that army is made up of Thalesians."

"They must have been wrong," Sparhawk said. "King Wargun drinks quite a bit, but he still wouldn't invade a friendly kingdom. If these men you mentioned were trying to avoid being conscripted, they probably wouldn't have stopped to examine the men who were chasing them, and one man in a mail-shirt looks much like another."

"That's probably very true, Sir Knight."

Sparhawk paid for their night's lodging. "Thank you for the information, neighbour," he said to the innkeeper as the others began to come down the stairway. He turned and went out to the courtyard.

"What's going on, Sir Sparhawk?" Berit asked, handing Sparhawk Faran's "reins.

"The Seeker was watching us while we were in the lake," Sparhawk replied. "One of its men found Bh.e.l.liom, but Ghwerig the Troll took it away from him. Now we have to go and find Ghwerig."

"That might be a little difficult, Sir Sparhawk. There's fog rolling in off the lake."

"Hopefully, it'll burn off before Ghwerig gets this far north."

The others came out of the inn. "Let's all get mounted," Sparhawk said to them. "Which way do we go, Flute?"

"North for now," she replied as Kurik lifted her up to Sephrenia.

Berit blinked. "She knows how to talk!" he exclaimed.

"Please, Berit," she said to him, "Don't repeat the obvious. Let's go, Sparhawk. I can't pinpoint Bh.e.l.liom's location until we get away from here."

They rode out of the inn yard and into the foggy street, The fog was thick, hovering just this side of rainy drizzle, and it carried with it the acidic reek of the peat-bogs which surrounded the lake.

"This isn't a good night for coming up against a Troll," Ulath said, falling in beside Sparhawk.

"I doubt very much that we'll run across Ghwerig tonight," Sparhawk said. "He's on foot, and it's a long way from here to where he found Bh.e.l.liom - that's a.s.suming he's even coming this way."

"He almost has to, Sparhawk," the Genidian said. "He wants to get to Thalesia, and that means he's got to get to a seaport on the north coast."

"We'll know better which way he's moving once we get Sephrenia and Flute out of town."

"My guess would be Nadera," Ulath speculated. "It's a bigger seaport than Apalia, and there are more ships there. Ghwerig's going to have to sneak on board one. It's not likely that he could book pa.s.sage. Most sea captains are superst.i.tious about sailing with Trolls aboard."

"Would Ghwerig understand enough of our language to find out which ships are going to Thalesia by eaves~ dropping?"

Ulath nodded. "Most Trolls have a smattering of Elene and even Styric. They usually can't speak any language but their own, but they can understand a few words of ours."

They pa.s.sed through the city gate and reached the fork in the road north of Venne shortly before daybreak. They looked dubiously at the rutted track that led up into the mountains towards Ghasek and ultimately to the seaport at Apalia. "I hope he doesn't decide to go that way," the white-cloaked Bevier said with a shudder. "I don't really want to go back to Ghasek."

"Is he moving at all?" Sparhawk asked Flute.

"Yes," she replied. "He's coming north along the lakesh.o.r.e."

"I don't quite understand this," Talen said to the little girl. "If you can sense where Bh.e.l.liom is, why didn't we just stay at the inn until he got closer with it?"

"Because there are too many people in Venne," Sephrenia told him. "We can't get a clear picture of Bh.e.l.liom's location in the middle of all that welter of thoughts and emotions."

"Oh," the boy said, "that makes sense - I suppose."

"We could ride down the lake-sh.o.r.e and meet him," Kalten suggested. "Save us all a lot of time."

"Not in the fog," Ulath said firmly. "I want to be able to see him coming. I don't want to get surprised by a Troll."

"He's going to have to pa.s.s through here," Tynian said, or at least very close to here - if he's headed towards the north coast. He can't swim across the lake, and he can't go into Venne. Trolls are a little conspicuous, or so I'm told. When he gets closer, we can ambush him "It's got some possibilities, Sparhawk," Kalten said. "If we've got his probable line of travel pinpointed, we can catch him unawares up here. We can kill him and be half-way to Cimmura with Bh.e.l.liom before anyone is any the wiser."

"Oh, Kalten," Sephrenia sighed.

"Killing is what we do, little mother," he told her. "You don't have to watch if you don't want to. One Troll more or less in the world isn't going to make all that much difference."

"There could be a problem, though," Tynian said to Flute. "The Seeker's going to be hot on Ghwerig's heels just as soon as it gathers up enough men, and it can probably sense Bh.e.l.liom in the same way you and Sephrenia can, can't it?"

"Yes," she admitted."

"Then you're forgetting that we may have to face it just as soon as we dispose of Ghwerig, aren't you?"

"And you're forgetting that we'll have Bh.e.l.liom at that point and that Sparhawk has the rings."

"Would Bh.e.l.liom eliminate the Seeker?"

"Quite easily."

"Let's pull back into those trees a ways," Sparhawk suggested. "I don't know how long it's going to take Ghwerig to get here, and I don't want him coming up on us while we're all standing in the middle of the road talking about the weather and other things."

They withdrew into the shadowy cover of a stand of trees and dismounted.

"Sephrenia," Bevier said in a puzzled tone of voice, "If Bh.e.l.liom can destroy the Seeker with magic, couldn't you use ordinary Styric magic to do the same thing?"

"Bevier," she replied patiently, "If I could do that, don't you think I'd have done it a long time ago?"

"Oh," he said, sounding a bit abashed, "I didn't think of that, I suppose."

The sun came up blearily that morning. The pervading fog from the lake and the heavy mist out of the forest to the north half clouded the air at ground-level, although the sky above was clear. They set out watches and checked over saddles and equipment. After that, most of them dozed in the muggy heat, frequently changing watch. A man on short sleep in sultry weather is not always very alert.

It was not long after noon when Talen woke Sparhawk. "Flute wants to talk to you," he said.

"I thought she'd be asleep."

"I don't think she ever really sleeps," the boy said. "You can't get near her without her eyes popping open."

"Someday maybe we'll ask her about that." Sparhawk threw off his blanket, rose to his feet and splashed some water from a nearby spring on his face. Then he went to where Flute huddled comfortably next to Sephrenia.

The little girl's huge eyes opened immediately. "Where have you been?" she asked.

"It took me a moment to get fully awake."

"Stay alert, Sparhawk," she said. "The Seeker's coming."

He swore and reached for his sword.

"Oh, don't do that," she said disgustedly. "It's still a mile or so away."

"How did it get this far north so fast?"

"It didn't stop to pick up any people the way we thought it would. It's alone, and it's killing its horse. The poor beast is dying right now."

"And Ghwerig's still a good distance away?"