The Hidden City

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 Alean 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, Klæl 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. Klæl’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 Klæl. 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.