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СКАЧАТЬ your brother. Sephrenia got directly to the point last night. No purely natural effort is going to effect his escape from this siege. We have no choice. We have to use magic – and His Grace appears to be unalterably opposed.’

      ‘I would not presume to instruct Ortzel in theology.’

      ‘Nor would I, My Lord. Might I point out, however, that should His Grace ascend to the Archprelacy, he’s going to have to modify his position – or at least learn to look the other way when this sort of thing happens. The four orders are the military arm of the Church, and we routinely utilize the secrets of Styricum in completing our tasks.’

      ‘I’m aware of that, Sir Sparhawk. My brother, however, is a rigid man and unlikely to change his views.’

      Sparhawk began to pace up and down, thinking fast. ‘Very well, then,’ he said carefully. ‘What we’ll have to do to get your brother out of the castle will seem unnatural to you, but I assure you that it will be very effective. Sephrenia is highly skilled in the secrets. I’ve seen her do things that verge on the miraculous. You have my guarantee that she will in no way endanger your brother.’

      ‘I understand, Sir Sparhawk.’

      ‘Good. I was afraid that you might object. Most people are reluctant to rely on things they don’t understand. Now, then, His Grace will in no way participate in what we may have to do. To put it bluntly, he’d just be in the way. All he’s going to do is take advantage of it. He will in no way be personally involved in what he considers a sin.’

      ‘Understand me, Sir Sparhawk, I am not opposed to you in this. I will try reason with my brother. Sometimes he listens to me.’

      ‘Let’s hope this is one of those times.’ Sparhawk glanced out of the window and swore.

      ‘What is it, Sir Sparhawk?’

      ‘Is that Gerrich standing on top of that knoll at the rear of his troops?’

      The Baron looked out of the embrasure. ‘It is.’

      ‘You might recognize the man standing beside him. That’s Adus, Martel’s underling. It seems that Martel’s been playing both sides in this affair. The one that concerns me, though, is that figure standing off to one side – the tall one in the black robe.’

      ‘I don’t think it poses much of a threat, Sir Sparhawk. It seems to be hardly more than a skeleton.’

      ‘You notice how its face seems to glow?’

      ‘Now that you mention it, yes, I do. Isn’t that odd?’

      ‘It’s more than odd, Baron Alstrom. I think I’d better go and talk with Sephrenia. She needs to know about this immediately.’

      Sephrenia sat beside the fire in her room with her ever-present teacup in her hands. Flute sat cross-legged on the bed, weaving a cat’s cradle of such complexity that Sparhawk pulled his eyes away from it lest his entire mind become lost in trying to trace out the individual strands. ‘We’ve got trouble,’ he told his tutor.

      ‘I noticed that,’ she replied.

      ‘It’s a little more serious than we’d thought. Adus is out there with Count Gerrich, and Krager’s probably lurking around somewhere in the background.’

      ‘Martel’s beginning to make me very tired.’

      ‘Adus and Krager don’t add that much to the problems we’ve already got, but that thing, the Seeker, is out there too.’

      ‘Are you sure?’ She came quickly to her feet.

      ‘It’s the right size and shape, and that same glow is coming out from under its hood. How many humans can it take over at any one time?’

      ‘I don’t think there are any limits, Sparhawk, not when Azash is controlling it.’

      ‘Do you remember those ambushers back near the Pelosian border? How they just kept coming even though we were cutting them to pieces?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘If the Seeker can gain control of Gerrich’s whole army, they’ll mount an assault that Baron Alstrom’s forces won’t be able to withstand. We’d better get out of here in a hurry, Sephrenia. Have you come up with anything yet?’

      ‘There are a few possibilities,’ she replied. ‘The presence of the Seeker complicates things a bit, but I think I know a way to get around it.’

      ‘I hope so. Let’s go and talk with the others.’

      It was perhaps a half-hour later when they all gathered again in the room where they had first met the previous day. ‘Very well, gentlemen,’ Sephrenia said to them. ‘We are in great danger.’

      ‘The castle is quite secure, Madame,’ Alstrom assured her. ‘In five hundred years it has never once fallen to besiegers.’

      ‘I’m afraid things are different this time. A besieging army usually assaults the walls, doesn’t it?’

      ‘It’s the common practice, once the siege engines have weakened the fortifications.’

      ‘After the assaulting force has taken heavy casualties, they normally fall back, don’t they?’

      ‘That’s been my experience.’

      ‘Gerrich’s men will not fall back. They will continue their attack until they overwhelm the castle.’

      ‘How can you be so sure?’

      ‘You remember the figure in the black robe I pointed out to you, My Lord?’ Sparhawk said.

      ‘Yes. It seemed to cause you some concern.’

      ‘With good reason, My Lord. That’s the creature that’s been pursuing us. It’s called a Seeker. It’s not human, and it’s subject to Azash.’

      ‘Beware of what you say, Sir Sparhawk,’ Patriarch Ortzel said ominously. ‘The Church does not recognize the existence of the Styric Gods. You are treading very close to the brink of heresy.’

      ‘Just for the purposes of this discussion, let’s assume that I know what I’m talking about,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘Putting Azash aside for the moment, it’s important for you and your brother to understand just how dangerous that thing out there really is. It will be able to control Gerrich’s troops completely, and it will hurl them against this castle until they succeed in taking it.’

      ‘Not only that,’ Bevier added bleakly, ‘they will pay no attention to wounds that would incapacitate a normal man. The only way to stop them is to kill them. We’ve met men under the Seeker’s control before, and we had to kill every last one of them.’

      ‘Sir Sparhawk,’ Alstrom said, ‘Count Gerrich is my mortal enemy, but he’s still an honourable man and a faithful son of the Church. He would not consort with a creature of darkness.’

      ‘It’s entirely possible that the count doesn’t even know it’s there,’ Sephrenia said. ‘The whole point here, however, is that we’re all in deadly peril.’

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