The Hidden City

But there was no rationality nor fear of authority in the panic-stricken faces of his poorly trained men. The screaming mob simply diverged and bypassed him on either side. He ran at them again, swinging great strokes with his sword, cutting down his own men.

He was so desperate to restore order that he did not even feel the knife-stroke that went in just below his ribs on the left side. He could not even understand why his knees buckled or why he fell under the trampling feet of his soldiers as they fled screaming into the trackless forest.

* * *

‘Are you sure this map’s accurate, Tynian?’ Patriarch Bergsten demanded, peering at the miniature world under his feet.

‘It’s the most accurate map you’ll ever see, your Grace,’ Tynian assured him. ‘Bhlokw cast the spell, and the Troll-Gods put their hands into the ground and felt the shape of the continent. This is it – down to the last tree and bush. Everything’s here.’

‘Except for Cyrga, Tynian-Knight,’ Engessa amended. The Atan general was completely healed now, and he looked as fit as ever. His face, however, was troubled. His Queen had greeted him almost abruptly when she had first arrived, and she was now quite obviously avoiding him.

Sephrenia was seated on one of the benches in Aphrael’s alabaster temple with the rainbow light from the impossible sky playing over her face. ‘We’d hoped that Schlee might be able to feel Cyrga when he recreated the continent, your Grace,’ she said, ‘but Cyrgon’s illusion seems to be absolute. Not even a Trollish spell can break it.’

‘What’s the best guess we can come up with?’ Bergsten asked.

Aphrael walked lightly across the tiny world Bhlokw had conjured up for them. She stepped over the minuscule city of Cynestra and continued south to a mountainous region in the center of the desert. ‘It used to be somewhere in this general vicinity,’ she said, gesturing vaguely over the mountains.

‘Used to be?’ Bergsten asked her sharply.

She shrugged. ‘Sometimes we move things.’

‘Whole cities?’

‘It’s possible – but it’s a reflection of bad planning.’

Bergsten shuddered and began marking off distances on the miniature continent with a long piece of string. ‘I’m up here at Pela,’ he told them, pointing at a spot in central Astel. ‘That’s almost three hundred leagues from the general vicinity of Cyrga, and I’ll have to stop to capture Cynestra along the way. The rest of you are much closer, so you’re going to have to hold off a bit if we all want to get there at approximately the same time.’

Aphrael shrugged. ‘I’ll tamper,’ she said.

Bergsten gave her a puzzled look.

‘Divine Aphrael has ways of compressing time and distance, your Grace,’ Sparhawk explained. ‘She can –’

‘I don’t want to hear about it, Sparhawk!’ Bergsten said sharply, putting his hands over his ears. ‘You’ve already put my soul in danger just by bringing me here. Please don’t make it any worse by telling me things I don’t need to know about.’

‘Whatever you say, your Grace,’ Sparhawk agreed.

Emban was pacing around the cluster of up-thrusting mountains in the center of the Cynesgan Desert. ‘We’re all going to be converging on these mountains,’ he said. ‘I’m no expert, but wouldn’t our best move be to just stop in the foothills and wait until everyone’s in place before we make the final assault?’

‘No, your Grace,’ Vanion said firmly. ‘Let’s stay out a bit from the foothills – at least a day’s ride. If we run into Klæl’s creatures, we’ll need room to maneuver. I want a lot of flat ground around me when that happens.’

The fat little Churchman shrugged. ‘You’re the soldier, Vanion.’ He pointed toward the south. ‘There’s our weakness,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a good concentration of forces coming out of the east, the northeast and the north, but we don’t have anybody covering the south.’

‘Or the west,’ Sarabian added.

‘I’ll cover the west, your Majesty,’ Bergsten told him. I can position my knights and the Peloi to block off that entire quadrant.’

‘That still leaves the south,’ Emban mused.

‘It’s already been taken care of, Emban,’ Aphrael assured him. ‘Stragen’s been spinning stories about a vast Church fleet off the southern coast, and I’ve been weaving illusions to back him up. How long is it going to take the Trolls to get into position north of Zhubay, Ulath?’

‘Just as long as it takes to persuade the Troll-Gods that we need their children there instead of in the Tamul mountains,’ the big Thalesian replied. ‘A day or so, probably. Once they’re convinced, they’ll put their children into No-Time. If we didn’t have to stop now and then to feed the Trolls, we could be in Zhubay before you could even blink. If I knew where Cyrga was, I could have fifteen hundred Trolls on the doorstep by morning.’

‘There’s no need to rush.’ The Child Goddess looked around with steely eyes. ‘Nobody – and I mean nobody – is going to move on Cyrga until I know that Ehlana and Alean are safe. If I have to, I can keep you running around in circles out there in that desert for generations, so don’t try to get creative on me.’

‘Is the Queen of Elenia so very important to you, Divine One?’ Betuana asked mildly. ‘War is hard, and we must accept our losses.’

‘It’s a personal matter, Betuana,’ Aphrael said shortly. ‘These are your positions.’ She gestured over the miniature continent. ‘Bergsten will come in from the north and west to cover that side of the city; Ulath, Tynian and Bhlokw will bring the Trolls down from Zhubay and join with Betuana’s Atans on their left flank; Vanion will come in from the east and be joined on his left by Kring and the Peloi; Stragen’s persuaded that disgusting Dacite in Beresa that there are a million or so Church Knights landing on the coast around Verel and Kaftal, and that should divert most of the armies of Cynesga. We’ll all converge on Cyrga. There are some discrepancies in the distances, but I’ll take care of those. When the time comes, you will all be in place – even if I have to pick you up one by one and carry you.’ She stopped abruptly. ‘What is your problem, Bergsten? Don’t laugh at me, or I’ll take you by the nose and shake you.’