The Hidden City

‘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 Klæl shouldered his way up out of the House of Cyrgon. His vast, leathery wings spread wide, 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 Alean’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 Klæl, 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 Klæl?’

‘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 Klæl 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 Klæl 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 Klæl 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, Klæl 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 Klæl 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.

Klæl 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 Klæl’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.

Klæl’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.