The Shining Ones. David Eddings

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СКАЧАТЬ alone as the ancient warriors who had been drawn up protectively around him were abruptly no longer there.

      Kalten advanced on him, his bloody sword half raised and death in his ice-blue eyes.

      Rebal shrieked, wheeled his horse, and fled back into the storm, desperately flogging at his mount.

      ‘Kalten!’ Vanion roared as the knight spurred his horse to pursue the fleeing man. ‘Stop!’

      ‘But …’

       ‘Stay where you are!’

      Still caught in the grip of that reckless fury, Kalten started to object.

      ‘That’s an order, Sir Knight! Put up your sword!’

      ‘Yes, my Lord,’ Kalten replied sullenly, sliding his blood-smeared blade back into its sheath.

      ‘Take that weapon back out!’ Vanion bellowed at him. ‘Wipe it off before you sheathe it!’

      ‘Sorry, Lord Vanion. I forgot.’

      ‘Forgot? What do you mean, “forgot”? Are you some half-grown puppy? Clean that sword, Sir Knight! I want to see it shining before you put it away!’

      ‘Yes, my Lord,’ Kalten mumbled.

       ‘What did you say?’

      ‘Yes, my Lord!’ Kalten shouted it this time.

      ‘That’s a little better.’

      ‘Thanks, Vanion,’ Sparhawk murmured.

      ‘I’ll deal with you later, Sparhawk!’ Vanion barked. ‘Making him see to his equipment was your responsibility. You’re supposed to be a leader of men, not a goatherd.’ The Preceptor looked around. ‘All right,’ he said crisply, ‘let’s form up and go back. Smartly, gentlemen, smartly. We’re soldiers of God. Let’s try to at least look as if we knew what we’re doing!’

      There was some slight shelter from the wind back in among the trees. Vanion led the knights through the grove to rejoin Sephrenia, Khalad and the ‘children’.

      ‘Is everyone all right?’ Sephrenia asked quickly.

      ‘We don’t have any visible wounds, little mother,’ Sparhawk replied.

      She gave him a questioning look.

      ‘Lord Vanion was in fine voice,’ Ulath grinned. ‘He was a little dissatisfied with a couple of us, and he spoke to us about it – firmly.’

      ‘That will do, Sir Knight,’ Vanion said.

      ‘Yes, my Lord.’

      ‘Were you able to identify whoever it was who raised that party?’ Khalad asked Sparhawk.

      ‘No. Rebal was there, but we didn’t see anybody else.’

      ‘How was the fight?’

      ‘You should have seen it, Khalad,’ Berit said enthusiastically. ‘Sir Kalten was absolutely stupendous!’

      Kalten glared at him.

      Sephrenia gave the two of them a shrewd look. ‘We can talk about all this after we get clear of the storm,’ she told them. ‘Are you ready, Sparhawk?’

      ‘In a moment,’ he replied. He reached inside his tunic, took out the box, and commanded it to open. He put on Ehlana’s ring and lifted the Bhelliom out.

      ‘Here,’ Sephrenia said. She lifted Flute, and Sparhawk took the little girl into his arms.

      ‘How do we go about this?’ he asked her.

      ‘Once we get started, I’ll be speaking through your lips,’ she replied. ‘You won’t understand what I’m saying because the language will be strange to you.’

      ‘Some obscure Styric dialect?’

      ‘No, Sparhawk, not Styric. It’s quite a bit older than that. Just relax. I’ll guide you through this. Give me the box. When Bhelliom moves from one place to another, everything sort of shivers. I don’t think our friend out there will be able to locate Bhelliom again immediately, so if you put it – and your wife’s ring – back in the box immediately and snap the cover down on your own ring, he won’t have any idea of where we’ve gone. Now, hold Bhelliom in both hands and let it know who you are.’

      ‘It should know already.’

      ‘Remind it, Sparhawk, and speak to it in Trollish. Let’s observe the formalities.’ She nestled back into the protective circle of his mailed arms.

      Sparhawk lifted Bhelliom, making sure that the bands of both rings were firmly in contact with it. ‘Blue Rose,’ he said to it in Trollish. ‘I am Sparhawk-from-Elenia. Do you know me?’

      The azure glow which had bathed his hands hardened, became like fresh-forged steel. Sparhawk’s relationship with the Bhelliom was ambiguous, and the flower-gem had no real reason to be fond of him.

      ‘Tell it who you really are, Sparhawk,’ Flute suggested. ‘Make certain that it knows you.’

      ‘Blue Rose,’ Sparhawk said again, once more in the hideous language of the Trolls, ‘I am Anakha, and I wear the rings. Do you know me?’

      The Bhelliom gave a little lurch as he spoke the fatal name, and some of the steel went out of its petals.

      ‘It’s a start,’ he muttered. ‘What now?’

      ‘Now it’s my turn,’ she replied. ‘Relax, Sparhawk. Let me into your mind.’

      It was a strange sort of process. Sparhawk felt almost as if his own will had been suspended as the Child Goddess gently, even lovingly, took his mind into her two small hands. The voice that came from his lips was strangely soft, and the language it spoke was hauntingly familiar, skirting the very outer edges of his understanding.

      Then the world seemed to blur around him and faded momentarily into a kind of luminous twilight. Then the blur was gone, and the sun was shining. It was no longer raining, and the wind had dropped to a gentle breeze.

      ‘What an astonishing idea!’ Aphrael exclaimed. ‘I never even thought of that! Put the Bhelliom away, Sparhawk. Quickly.’

      Sparhawk put the jewel and Ehlana’s ring back into the box and snapped down the cover on his own ring. Then he turned and looked toward the south. There was an intensely dark line of cloud low on the horizon. Then he looked north again and saw a fair-sized town at the bottom of the hill, a pleasant-looking town with red-tile roofs glowing in the autumn sunshine. ‘Is that Korvan?’ he asked tentatively.

      ‘Well, of course it is,’ Flute replied with an airy little toss of her head. ‘Isn’t that where you said you wanted to go?’

      ‘We made good time,’ Ulath observed blandly.

      Sephrenia СКАЧАТЬ