‘You’re missing the point, Kurik,’ she replied gravely. ‘We thought that the Damork had appeared only recently, but it was here in Cippria ten years ago, before anything we’re involved with now even began.’

‘I don’t quite follow you,’ he admitted.

Sephrenia looked at Sparhawk. ‘It’s you, dear one,’ she said in a deadly quiet voice. ‘It’s not me or Kurik or Ehlana or even Flute. The Damork attacks have all been directed at you. Be very, very careful, Sparhawk. Azash is trying to kill you.’

Chapter 19

Doctor Voldi was a fussy little man in his sixties. His hair was thinning on top, and he had carefully combed it forward to conceal the fact. It was quite obvious that he dyed it to hide the encroaching grey. He removed his dark cloak, and Sparhawk saw that he wore a white linen smock. He smelled of chemicals, and he had an enormous opinion of himself.

It was quite late when the little physician was ushered into the abbot’s littered study, and he was struggling without much success to cover his irritation at having been called out at that hour. ‘My Lord Abbot,’ he stiffly greeted the black-bearded churchman with a jerky little bow.

‘Ah, Voldi,’ the abbot said, rising to his feet, ‘so good of you to come.’

‘Your monk said that the matter was urgent, my Lord. May I see the patient?’

‘Not unless you’re prepared to make a very long journey, Doctor Voldi,’ Sephrenia murmured.

Voldi gave her a long, appraising look. ‘You appear not to be a Rendor, madame,’ he noted. ‘Styric, I should say, judging from your features.’

‘Your eyes are keen, Doctor.’

‘I’m sure you remember this fellow,’ the abbot said, pointing at Sparhawk.

The doctor looked blankly at the big Pandion. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I can’t say that –’ Then he frowned. ‘Don’t tell me,’ he added, absently brushing his hair forward with the palm of his hand. ‘It was about ten years ago, wasn’t it? Weren’t you the one who’d been knifed?’

‘You have a good memory, Doctor Voldi,’ Sparhawk said. ‘We don’t want to keep you out too late, so why don’t we get down to cases? We were referred to you by a physician in Borrata. He greatly respects your opinion in certain areas.’ Sparhawk quickly appraised the little fellow and decided to apply a bit of judicious flattery. ‘Of course, we’d have probably come to you anyway,’ he added. ‘Your reputation has spread far beyond the borders of Rendor.’

‘Well,’ Voldi said, preening himself slightly. Then he assumed a piously modest expression. ‘It’s gratifying to know that my efforts on behalf of the sick have received some small recognition.’

‘What we need, good doctor,’ Sephrenia interjected, ‘is your advice in treating a friend of ours who has recently been poisoned.’

‘Poisoned?’ Voldi said sharply. ‘Are you sure?’

‘The physician in Borrata was quite certain,’ she replied. ‘We described our friend’s symptoms in great detail, and he diagnosed the condition as being the effects of a rather rare Rendorish poison called –?

‘Please, madame,’ he said, holding up one hand. ‘I prefer to make my own diagnoses. Describe the symptoms to me.’

‘Of course.’ Patiently she repeated what she had told the physicians at the University of Borrata.

The little doctor paced up and down as she talked, his hands clasped behind him and his eyes on the floor. ‘I think we can rule out the falling-sickness right at the outset,’ he mused when she had finished. ‘Some other diseases, however, do result in convulsions.’ He affected a wise expression. ‘It’s the combination of the fever and sweating that’s the crucial clue,’ he lectured. ‘Your friend’s illness is not a natural disease. My colleague in Borrata was quite correct in his diagnosis. Your friend has indeed been poisoned, and I would surmise that the poison involved was Darestim. The desert nomads here in Rendor call it deathweed. It kills sheep in the same way that it kills people. The poison is very rare, since the nomads uproot every bush they come across. Does my diagnosis agree with that of my Cammorian colleague?’

‘Exactly, Doctor Voldi,’ she said admiringly.

‘Well, that’s it, then.’ He reached for his cloak. ‘I’m glad to have been of help.’

‘All right,’ Sparhawk said. ‘Now what do we do?’

‘Make arrangements for a funeral.’ Voldi shrugged.

‘What about an antidote?’

‘There isn’t any. I’m afraid your friend is doomed.’ There was an irritating smugness about the way he said it. ‘Unlike most poisons, Darestim attacks the brain instead of the blood. Once it’s ingested – poof.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Tell me, does your friend have rich and powerful enemies? Darestim is fearfully expensive.’

‘The poisoning was politically motivated,’ Sparhawk said bleakly.

‘Ah, politics.’ Voldi laughed. ‘Those fellows have all the money, don’t they?’ He frowned then. ‘It does seem to me – He broke off, palming at his hair again. ‘Where did I hear that?’ He scratched at his head, disturbing the carefully slicked-down hair. Then he snapped his fingers again. ‘Ah yes,’ he said triumphantly, ‘I have it now. I’ve heard some rumours – only rumours, mind you – that a physician in Dabour has effected a few cures – members of the king’s family in Zand. Normally that information would have been immediately disseminated to all other physicians, but I have some suspicions about the matter. I know the fellow, and there have been some ugly stories about him circulating in medical circles for years now. There are some who maintain that his miraculous-appearing cures are the result of certain forbidden practices.’

‘Which practices?’ Sephrenia asked intently.

‘Magic, madame. What else? My friend in Dabour would immediately lose his head if word got out that he was practising witchcraft.’

‘I see,’ she said. ‘Did this rumour about a cure come to you from one single source?’

‘Oh, no,’ he replied. ‘Any number of people have told me about it. The king’s brother and several nephews fell ill. The physician from Dabour – Tanjin his name is – was summoned to the palace. He confirmed that they had all been poisoned with Darestim, and then he cured them. Out of gratitude, the king suppressed the information of exactly how the cures were effected, and he issued Tanjin a full pardon just to make sure.’ He smirked. ‘Not that the pardon is much good, mind you, since the king’s authority doesn’t go much beyond the walls of his own palace in Zand. Anyway, anyone with the slightest bit of medical knowledge knows how it was done.’ He assumed a lofty expression. ‘I wouldn’t stoop to that myself,’ he declared, ‘but Doctor Tanjin is notoriously greedy, and I imagine that the king paid him handsomely.’

‘Thank you for your assistance, Doctor Voldi,’ Sparhawk said then.

‘I’m sorry about your friend,’ Voldi said. ‘By the time you get to Dabour and back, he’ll be long since dead, I’m afraid. Darestim works rather slowly, but it’s always fatal.’

‘So’s a sword through the belly,’ Sparhawk said grimly. ‘At the very least, we’ll be able to avenge our friend.’

‘What a dreadful thought,’ Voldi shuddered. ‘Are you at all acquainted with the kind of damage a sword does to someone?’

‘Intimately,’ Sparhawk replied.

‘Oh, that’s right. You would be, wouldn’t you? Would you like to have me take a look at those old wounds of yours?’

‘Thanks all the same, Doctor. They’re quite healed now.’

‘Splendid. I’m rather proud of the way I cured those, you know. A lesser physician would have lost you. Well, I must be off now. I have a full day ahead of me tomorrow.’ He wrapped his cloak about him.

‘Thank you, Doctor Voldi,’ the abbot said. The brother at the door will escort you home again.’

‘My pleasure, my Lord Abbot. It’s been a stimulating discussion.’ Voldi bowed and left the room.

‘Pompous little ass, isn’t he?’ Kurik muttered.

‘Yes, he is,’ the abbot agreed. ‘He’s very good, though.’

‘It’s thin, Sparhawk,’ Sephrenia sighed, ‘very, very thin. All we have are rumours, and we don’t have time for wild goose chases.’

‘I don’t see that we have any choice, do you? We have to go to Dabour. We can’t ignore the slightest chance.’

‘It may not be quite as thin as you think, Lady Sephrenia,’ the abbot said. ‘I know Voldi very well. He wouldn’t confirm anything he hasn’t seen with his own eyes, but I’ve heard a few rumours myself to the effect that some members of the family of the King of Rendor fell ill and then recovered.’

‘It’s all we’ve got,’ Sparhawk said. ‘We’ve got to follow through on it.’

‘The fastest way to Dabour is by sea along the coast and then up the Gule River,’ the abbot suggested.

‘No,’ Sephrenia said firmly. ‘The creature that’s been trying to kill Sparhawk has probably realized by now that it failed last time. I don’t think we want to be looking over our shoulders for waterspouts every foot of the way.’

‘You’ll have to go to Dabour by way of Jiroch anyway,’ the abbot told them. ‘You can’t go overland. No one crosses the desert between here and Dabour, even at this time of year. It’s totally impassable.’

‘If that’s the way we have to do it, then that’s the way we’ll do it,’ Sparhawk said.

‘Be careful out there,’ the abbot cautioned seriously. ‘The Rendors are in a state of turmoil right now.’

‘They’re always in a state of turmoil, my Lord.’

‘This is a bit different. Arasham’s at Dabour preaching up a new holy war.’

‘He’s been doing that for over twenty years now, hasn’t he? He stirs up the desert people all winter, and then in the summer they go back to their flocks.’

‘That’s what’s different about this time, Sparhawk. Nobody pays much attention to the nomads, but somehow the old lunatic’s beginning to sway the people who live in the cities, and that makes it a little more serious. Arasham’s elated, of course, and he’s holding his desert nomads firmly at Dabour. He’s got quite an army.’

‘The city people in Rendor aren’t all that stupid. What’s impressing them so much?’

‘I’ve heard that there are some people spreading rumours. They’re telling the townsfolk that there’s a great deal of sympathy for the resurgence of the Eshandist movement in the northern kingdoms.’

‘That’s absurd,’ Sparhawk scoffed.

‘Of course it is, but they’ve managed to persuade a fair number of people here in Cippria that for the first time in centuries a rebellion against the Church might have some chance of success. Not only that, there have been fairly large shipments of arms filtered into the country.’

A suspicion began to grow in Sparhawk’s mind. ‘Have you any idea who’s been circulating these rumours?’ he asked.

The abbot shrugged. ‘Merchants, travellers from the north, and the like. They’re all foreigners. They usually stay in that quarter near the Elenian consulate.’

‘Isn’t that curious?’ Sparhawk mused. ‘I’d been summoned to the Elenian consulate that night when I was attacked in the street. Is Elius still the consul?’

‘Why, yes, as a matter of fact, he is. What are you getting at, Sparhawk?’

‘One more question, my Lord. Have your people by any chance seen a white-haired man going in and out of the consulate?’

‘I couldn’t really say. I didn’t tell them to look for that sort of thing. You have someone particular in mind, I gather?’

‘Oh, I do indeed, my Lord Abbot.’ Sparhawk rose and began to pace up and down. ‘Why don’t I have another try at Elene logic, Sephrenia,’ he said. He began to tick items off on his fingers. ‘One: The Primate Annias aspires to the Archprelate’s throne. Two: All four militant orders oppose him, and their opposition could block his ambitions. Three: In order to get that throne, he must discredit or divert the Church Knights. Four: The Elenian consul here in Cippria is his cousin. Five: The consul and Martel have had dealings with each other before. I got some personal evidence of that ten years ago.’

‘I didn’t know that Elius was related to the primate,’ the abbot said, looking a bit surprised.

‘They don’t make an issue of it,’ Sparhawk told him. ‘Now then,’ he continued, ‘Annias wants the Church Knights out of Chyrellos when the time comes to elect a new Archprelate. What would the Church Knights do if there were an uprising here in Rendor?’

‘We’d descend on the kingdom in full battle array,’ the abbot declared, forgetting that his choice of words clearly confirmed Sparhawk’s suspicions about the nature of his order.

‘And that would effectively remove the militant orders from the debate over the election in Chyrellos, wouldn’t it?’

Sephrenia looked at Sparhawk speculatively. ‘What kind of man is this Elius?’

‘He’s a petty time-server with little intelligence and less imagination.’

‘He doesn’t sound very impressive.’

‘He isn’t.’

‘Then someone else would have to be giving him instructions, wouldn’t they?’

‘Precisely.’ Sparhawk turned once more to the abbot. ‘My Lord,’ he said, ‘do you have any way to get messages to Preceptor Abriel at your motherhouse in Larium? Messages that can’t be intercepted?’

The abbot gave him a frosty stare.

‘We agreed to be frank with each other, my Lord,’ Sparhawk reminded him. ‘I’m not trying to embarrass you, but this is a matter of the greatest urgency.’

‘All right, Sparhawk,’ the abbot replied a bit stiffly. ‘Yes, I can get a message to Lord Abriel.’

‘Good. Sephrenia knows all the details and she can fill you in. Kurik and I have something to attend to.’

‘Just what are you planning?’ the abbot demanded.

‘I’m going to pay a call on Elius. He knows what’s been going on, and I think I can persuade him to share the information. We need confirmation of all this before you send the message to Larium.’

‘It’s too dangerous.’

‘Not as dangerous as having Annias in the Archprelacy, is it?’ Sparhawk considered it. ‘Do you happen to have a secure cell someplace?’ he asked.

‘We have a penitent’s cell down in the cellar. The door can be locked, I suppose.’

‘Good. I think we’ll bring Elius back here to question him. Then you can lock him up. I can’t let him go, once he knows I’m here, and Sephrenia disapproves of random murders. If he just disappears, there’ll be some uncertainty about what happened to him.’

‘Won’t he make an outcry when you take him captive?’

‘Not very likely, my Lord,’ Kurik assured him, drawing his heavy dagger. He slapped the hilt solidly against his palm. ‘I can practically guarantee that he’ll be asleep.’

The streets were quiet. The overcast which had obscured the sky that afternoon had cleared, and the stars were very bright overhead.

‘No moon,’ Kurik said quietly as he and Sparhawk crept through the deserted streets. ‘That’s a help.’

‘It’s been rising late the past three nights,’ Sparhawk said.

‘How late?’

‘We’ve got a couple more hours.’

‘Can we make it back to the monastery by then?’

‘We have to.’ Sparhawk stopped just before they reached an intersection and peered around the corner of a house. A man wearing a short cape and carrying a spear and a small lantern was shuffling sleepily along the street. ‘Watchman,’ Sparhawk breathed, and he and Kurik stepped into the shadows of a deeply recessed doorway.

The watchman plodded on past, the lantern swinging from his hand casting looming shadows against the walls of the buildings.

‘He should be more alert,’ Kurik growled disapprovingly.

‘Under the circumstances your sense of what’s proper might be a little misplaced.’

‘Right is right, Sparhawk,’ Kurik replied stubbornly.

After the watchman was out of sight, they crept on up the street.

‘Are we just going to walk up to the gate of the consulate?’ Kurik asked.

‘No. When we get close to it, we’ll go in over the roof tops.’

‘I’m not a cat, Sparhawk. Leaping from roof to roof isn’t my idea of entertainment.’

‘The houses are all built up against each other in that part of town. The roof tops are just like a highway.’

‘Oh,’ Kurik grunted. ‘That’s different then.’

The consulate of the Kingdom of Elenia was a fairly large building surrounded by a high, white-mortared wall. There were torches set on long poles at each corner, and a narrow lane running alongside the wall.

‘Does that lane run all the way around it?’ Kurik asked.

‘It did the last time I was here.’

‘There’s a significant hole in your plan then, Sparhawk. I can’t jump all the way from one of these roof tops to the top of that wall.’

‘I don’t think I could either.’ Sparhawk frowned. ‘Let’s go around and look at the other side.’

They crept through a series of narrow streets and alleys that wound along the back sides of the houses facing the consulate wall. A dog came out and barked at them until Kurik shied a rock at him. The dog yelped and ran off on three legs.

‘Now I know how a burglar feels,’ Kurik muttered.

‘There,’ Sparhawk said.

‘There where?’

‘Right over there. Some helpful fellow is doing some repairs on his roof. See that pile of beams stacked up against the side of that wall? Let’s go see how long they are.’

They crossed the alley to the stack of building material. Kurik studiously measured the beams off with his feet. ‘Marginal,’ he observed.

‘We’ll never know until we try,’ Sparhawk told him.

‘All right. How do we get up to the roof?’

‘We’ll lean the beams against the wall. If we slant them up right, we should be able to scramble up and then pull them after us.’

‘I’m glad you don’t have to construct your own siege engines, Sparhawk,’ Kurik observed sourly. ‘All right. Let’s try it.’

They leaned several beams against the wall, and Kurik, grunting and sweating, hauled himself up to the roof. ‘All right,’ he whispered down over the edge, ‘come on up.’

Sparhawk climbed up the beam, picking up a large splinter in his hand in the process. Then he and Kurik laboriously hauled the beams up after them and carried them one by one across the roof to the side facing the consulate wall. The flickering torches atop the wall cast a faint glow across the roof tops. As they were carrying the last beam, Kurik stopped suddenly. ‘Sparhawk,’ he called softly.

‘What?’

‘Two roofs over. There’s a woman lying there.’

‘How do you know it’s a woman?’

‘Because she’s stark naked, that’s how.’

‘Oh,’ Sparhawk said, ‘that. It’s a Rendorish custom. She’s waiting for the moon to rise. They have a superstition here that the first rays of the moon on a woman’s belly increase her fertility.’

‘Won’t she see us?’

‘She won’t say anything if she does. She’s too busy waiting for the moon. Press on, Kurik. Don’t stand there gawking at her.’

They struggled manfully to push a beam out over the narrow lane, a task made more difficult by the fact that their leverage diminished as they shoved the beam out farther and farther. Finally the stubborn beam clunked down on top of the consulate wall. They slid several more beams across along its top, then rolled them to one side to form a narrow bridge. As they were shoving the last one across, Kurik suddenly stopped with a muttered oath.

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