“So, are you going to tell me what this brilliant idea is, or do we have to keep rehashing the story about poor old Tarja for a few more hours?”
“Why do you take such delight in ridiculing my pain?”
“Because you're a lot tougher than you realise, demon child. I know you're hurting, but deep down you knew this would happen. As soon as Xaphista told you about the geas, you knew that Tarja didn't love you willingly. For all your human failings, you have an innate sense of what is right. It's part of being Harshini. You might lament losing him, but you know, in your heart, that it's better this way. The sooner you admit it openly, then the sooner you'll get over it.”
“Better?” she asked bitterly. “How could it be better?”
“Tarja was the chink in your armour, R'shiel. Xaphista would have exploited that weakness to its fullest. Don't you remember what you told me about Xaphista when he tried to seduce you into joining him? He used Tarja then, and you almost gave in.”
R'shiel had no wish to be reminded of that dreadful journey through Medalon, but she could not deny the truth of what Brak told her. She sank into the chair on the other side of the fire and stared at the flames, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of seeing that she knew he was right. She need not have bothered. Brak knew her too well.
“A moment ago you were bursting to tell me how you could bring Xaphista down. Do we really have time for you to sulk?”
She hurled the goblet at him. He ducked it easily and the glass shattered harmlessly against the far wall.
He smiled. “Feel better now?”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don't. You just hate the fact that I'm right.”
“It's the same thing.”
Brak sighed, as if his patience was wearing thin. “Ask me what you came to ask, R'shiel. I really do intend to get some sleep in what's left of this night.”
“I have to attack the core of Xaphista's power,” she told him with considerably less enthusiasm than she had had when she burst into his room earlier.
“So you said before.”
“We have to go after his priests.”
Brak frowned. “You won't turn a single Karien priest, R'shiel. Even if you managed to win their minds to your cause, Xaphista owns their souls. Each priest is linked to the Overlord through his staff.”
“Then that is their weakness. If I can use that link, I can reach every priest in Karien and cripple Xaphista overnight.”
“In theory, yes, but how are you going to do it?”
“Kalan had an idea that set me thinking. I have to get a close look at a staff, though. I want to see how it works.”
“I'll tell you how it works, R'shiel. Very, very well. Don't you recall what happened the last time you had a close encounter with a Staff of Xaphista?”
“I'm never likely to forget. But you told me the staff destroys magic. Well, if it can do that, then the staff has to use magic, too. And if it can use magic, maybe I can do something to change its purpose.”
Brak sighed and climbed to his feet. “Come on then.”
“Where are we going?”
“You want to take a look at a Staff of Xaphista? Garet Warner has more than a hundred of them piled up in a cavern under the amphitheatre.”
She jumped to her feet in astonishment. “You think it'll work?”
“No. I think it's the most misguided excuse for a plan that you've ever come up with, but I know you won't let it go until you've discovered that for yourself.”
She hugged him impulsively. “I knew you'd help me.”
He pushed her away gruffly. “Don't get too excited, R'shiel. I'm doing this to prove you wrong.”
“I'm not wrong. I know this will work.”
He picked up his cloak from the back of the chair where he had discarded it earlier and looked at her sceptically. “A few more burns from touching those staffs might convince you otherwise, demon child.”
Two determined-looking Defenders barred the entrance into the tunnel that led into the caverns under the amphitheatre. R'shiel demanded entry to no avail, but the ruckus brought out the officer in charge to see what all the fuss was about. He recognised R'shiel and frowned. Shorter than the average Defender and prematurely grey, he was renowned for his organisational abilities, rather than his fighting skills. He was also an old friend of Tarja's.
“You can't see the prisoners, R'shiel.”
“We don't want to see the Kariens, Captain Grannon. We just want to have a look at the staffs you took from the priests.”
He frowned, but could see no harm in her request. As far as Grannon was concerned, the staffs were just useless, if rather valuable, religious frippery.
“Very well. Go with them, Charal. And stay with them,” he added with a disturbing lack of trust.
The sergeant took a torch from the wall and led them through the tunnel into the caverns on the left. The staffs were piled in a careless heap in a room near the entrance. There were another two Defenders posted outside, who stood aside to let them enter. Charal went in first and held the torch high. The flames reflected off the staff heads like myriad tiny jewels. R'shiel and Brak stared at the pile, careful not to get too close.
“Can you pick one up for me?” she asked Charal.
“Captain Grannon didn't say you weren't allowed to touch them.”
“We can't touch them.” Brak explained. “They're specifically designed to harm anyone with Harshini blood.”
Charal looked sceptical, but he turned to the wall and dropped the torch into a metal bracket before bending down and picking up a staff at random. He thrust it at R'shiel, who took an involuntary step backwards.
“Careful!”
Swallowing a sudden lump of fear, R'shiel stepped closer and studied the hated symbol of Xaphista's power. The shaft had been treated with something that stained it black and made the metal suck in the light around it. The head of the staff was made of gold; shaped like a five-pointed star and intersected by a lightning bolt crafted of silver. Each point of the star was set with crystal and in the centre of the star was a larger gem of the same stone.
Charal looked at the staff curiously, his eyes alight with greed. “Are they real diamonds, do you think?”
“No,” Brak said. “They're crystals of some sort.”
“They look like the Seeing Stone.”
Brak stared at her. “What?”
“I said they look like the Seeing Stone. You know, the big crystal they have in the Temple at Greenharbour?”
“I know what the Seeing Stone is. Bring it closer to the light.”
Charal moved the staff until it caught the flames of the torch. R'shiel stepped closer, studied it for a moment, and then tentatively reached out towards the staff head.
“What are you doing?” Brak cried in horror.
“Putting a theory to the test.”
She lightly brushed her fingertip over the centre crystal. No bolt of agony shot through her, not even a whisper of pain.
“How... ?” he gasped in astonishment.
“I didn't touch the staff, just the crystal. Try it yourself.”
Reluctantly, Brak reached out to touch the sparkling jewel, jerking his hand back instinctively in anticipation of the torture he was certain awaited him. When nothing happened, he gingerly laid his finger on the stone and looked at R'shiel in wonder.
“I don't understand.”
“Watch,” she commanded. He stepped back as she reached for the staff once more, this time with her eyes blackened by the power she drew. She placed her finger on the centre crystal and the room flared with light as every stone in every staff on the floor began to glow in response to her touch. Charal dropped the staff with a cry of alarm. Brak jumped clear of it as the room was plunged back into relative darkness as soon as her contact with the crystal was severed.