The Hidden City

The wedding was at an end, but the glowing Delphae did not return to their empty city. Xanetia placed one supporting arm around Anari Cedon’s frail old shoulders and guided him instead out onto the radiant surface of the lake, and the Shining Ones followed, raising a different hymn as incandescent Edaemus hovered in the air above them. The light of the lake grew brighter and brighter, and the ethereal glow of the Delphae seemed to merge, and individual figures were no longer distinguishable. Then, like the point of a spear, Edaemus streaked skyward, and all of his children streamed upward behind him. When Sparhawk and his friends had first come to Delphaeus, Anari Cedon had told them that the Delphae journeyed toward the light and that they would become the light, but that there were yet impediments. Bhelliom had evidently removed those barriers. The Delphae marked the starry sky like a comet as they rose together on the first step of their inconceivable journey.

The pale, clear radiance of the lake was gone, but it was not dark. An azure spark hung over it as Bhelliom surveyed what it had wrought and found that it was good. Then it too rose from the earth to rejoin the eternal stars.

They stayed that night in deserted Delphaeus, and sparhawk awoke early as usual. He dressed himself quietly and left the simple bedroom and his tousled, sleeping wife to go outside to check the weather.

Flute joined him when he reached the city gate. ‘Why don’t you put some shoes on?’ he asked her, noting that her bare, grass-stained little feet were sunk in the snow.

‘What do I need with shoes, Father?’ She held out her arms, and he picked her up.

‘It was quite a night, wasn’t it?’ he said, looking up at the cloudy sky.

‘Why did you do that, Sparhawk?’

‘Do what?’

‘You know what I mean. Do you realize what you could have done? You could have turned this world into a paradise, but you threw it all away.’

‘I don’t think that would have been a good idea, Aphrael. My idea of paradise would probably have been different from other people’s.’ He sniffed at the chill air. ‘I think we’ve got weather coming,’ he observed.

‘Don’t change the subject. You had ultimate power. Why did you give it up?’

He sighed. ‘I didn’t really like it all that much. There wasn’t any effort involved in it, and when you get something without working for it, it doesn’t really have any value. Besides, there are people who have claims on me.’

‘What’s that got to do with it?’

‘What could I have done if Ehlana had decided that she wanted Arcium? Or if Dolmant had decided that he wanted to convert Styricum? Or all of Tamuli? I have loyalties and obligations, Aphrael, and sooner or later, I’d have made bad decisions because of them. Trust me. I made the right choice.’

‘I think you’re going to regret it.’

‘I’ve regretted lots of things. You learn to live with it. Can you get us to Matherion?’

‘You could have done it yourself, you know.’

‘Don’t beat it into the ground, Aphrael. If you don’t want to, then we’ll just plow our way through the snow. We’ve done it before.’

‘You’re hateful, Sparhawk. You know I won’t let you do that.’

‘Now do you see what I mean about the power of loyalties and obligations?’

‘Don’t start lecturing me. I’m in no mood for it. Go wake up the others, and let’s get started.’

‘Whatever you say, Divine One.’

They located the rather large communal kitchen in which the Delphae had prepared all their meals and the storerooms where the food was kept. Despite their eons of enmity, the dietary prejudices of the Styrics and Delphae were remarkable similar. Sephrenia found the breakfast much to her liking, but Kalten grumbled a great deal. He did eat three helpings, however.

‘Whatever happened to friend Bhlokw?’ Kring asked, pushing back his plate. ‘I just realized that I haven’t seen him since Zalasta took fire.’

‘He went off with his Gods, Domi,’ Tynian replied. ‘He did what they sent him to do. and now he and the rest of the Trolls are on their way back to Thalesia. He wished us all good hunting. That’s about as close as a Troll can come to saying goodbye.’

‘It might sound a little strange,’ Kring admitted, ‘but I liked him.’

‘He’s a good pack-mate,’ Ulath said. ‘He hunts well, and he’s willing to share what he kills with the others in the pack.’

‘Oh, yes,’ Tynian agreed with a shudder. ‘If it wasn’t a freshly-killed dog, it was a haunch of raw Cyrgai.’

‘It was what he had, Tynian,’ Ulath defended his shaggy friend, ‘and he was ready to share it. You can’t ask more than that, can you?’

‘Sir Ulath,’ Talen said, ‘I’ve just eaten. Do you suppose we could talk about something else?’

They saddled their horses and rode out of Delphaeus.

As he left, Khalad reined in, dismounted, and closed the gate. ‘Why did you do that?’ Talen asked him. ‘The Delphae aren’t coming back, you know.’

‘It’s the proper thing to do,’ Khalad said as he remounted. ‘Leaving it open would have been disrespectful.’

Since they all knew who she really was, Flute made no attempt to conceal her tampering this time. The horses plodded along, as horses will if they aren’t being pushed, but every few minutes the horizon flickered and changed. Once, somewhat east of Dirgis, Sparhawk rose in his stirrups to look to the rear. Their clearly visible trail stretched back to the middle of an open meadow where it stopped abruptly, almost as if the horses and riders had been dropped there out of the sky.

They reached the now-familiar hilltop overlooking fire-domed Matherion and its harbor just as evening was approaching, and they rode on down to the city gratefully. They had all been long on the road, and it was good to be home again. Sparhawk rather quickly amended that thought in his mind. Matherion was not really home. Home was a dank, unlovely city on the Cimmura River, half a world away.

There were some startled looks at the gate of the imperial compound, and yet more startled looks at the drawbridge to Ehlana’s castle. Vanion had stubbornly rejected his wife’s urgings to conceal his head and face with the hood of his cloak and quite literally flaunted the fact that some thirty-odd years had somehow fallen away. Vanion was like that sometimes.

There were some visible changes inside the castle as well. They found the Emperor in the blue-draped sitting-room on the second floor, and in addition to Baroness Melidere, Emban and Oscagne, three of his wives, Elysoun, Gahennas, and Liatris were also present. Elysoun was probably the most notable, since she was now modestly dressed.