‘It’s nothing, Divine One,’ he mumbled. ‘I’ll be fine. I swim like a fish.’ He deliberately avoided looking at her.
‘What’s bothering you, then?’
‘I’d really rather not say.’
She sighed. ‘Men.’ Then she climbed into the shaft leading down toward the unseen water rushing toward the inner wall.
‘Bring Kalten,’ she ordered, ‘and let’s get at this.
‘I’d really like to do something about that,’ Sephrenia murmured to Vanion as they peered over the top of the gravel mound at the encampment of the slavers.
‘So would I, love,’ Vanion replied, ‘but I think we’d better wait until later. If everything goes the way it’s supposed to, we’ll be waiting for them when they reach Cyrga.’ He raised himself a bit higher. ‘I think that’s the salt-flats just beyond that trail they’re following.’
‘We’ll be able to tell for certain when the moon rises,’ she replied.
‘Have you heard anything at all from Aphrael?’
‘Nothing I can make any sense of. The echoes are very confusing when she’s in two places at the same time. I gather that things are coming to a head in Matherion, and she and Sparhawk are swimming.’
‘Swimming? This is a desert, Sephrenia.’
‘Yes, I noticed that. They’ve found something to swim in, though.’ She paused. ‘Does Kalten know how to swim?’ she asked.
‘He splashes a great deal, but he manages to drag himself through the water. I wouldn’t call him graceful, by any means. Why do you ask?’
‘She’s having some sort of problems with him, and it has to do with swimming. Let’s go back and join the others, dear one. Just the sight of those slavers is setting my blood to boiling.’
They slid back down the gravel-strewn mound and walked along a shallow gully toward their armored soldiers. The Cyrinic knight, Sir Launesse, stood somewhat diffidently beside a burly, intricately curled and massively eyebrowed personage with heavy shoulders and a classical demeanor.
‘Sephrenia!’ the clearly non-human being said in a voice that could probably have been heard in Thalesia. ‘Well-met!’
‘Well-met indeed, Divine Romalic,’ she replied with just a trace of a weary sigh.
‘Please, dear,’ Vanion murmured, ‘ask him to lower his voice.’
‘Nobody else can hear him,’ she assured him. ‘The Gods speak loudly—but only to certain ears.’
‘Thy sister bids me give thee greetings,’ Romalic announced in a voice of thunder.
‘Thou art kind to bear those greetings, Divine One.’
‘Kindness and courtesy aside, Sephrenia,’ the huge God declaimed, combing his beard with enormous fingers, ‘art thou yet prepared to serve us all and to assume thy proper place?’
‘I am unworthy, Divine One,’ she replied modestly. ‘Surely there are others wiser and better suited.’
‘What’s this?’ Vanion asked.
‘It’s been going on for a long time, dear one,’ she explained. ‘I’ve been avoiding it for centuries. Romalic always has to bring it up, though.’
It all fell into place in Vanion’s mind. ‘Sephrenia.’ he gasped. They want you to be Over-Priestess, don’t they?’
‘It’s Aphrael, Vanion, not me. They think they can get around her by offering this to me. I don’t really want it, and they don’t really want to give it to me, but they’re afraid of her, and this is their way to placate her.’
‘Aphrael bids thee to make haste,’ Romalic proclaimed. ‘Ye must all be at the gates of Cyrga ere dawn, for this is the night of decision, when Cyrgon and, yea, even Klael, must be confronted and, we may hope, confounded. E’en now doth Anakha move ghost-like through the streets of the Hidden City towards his design. Let us hasten.’ He lifted his voice and thundered, ‘On to Cyrga!’
‘Is he always like this?’ Vanion murmured.
‘Romalic?’ Sephrenia said. ‘Oh, yes. He’s perfectly suited to the Cyrinic Knights. Come along, dear one. Let’s go to Cyrga.’
There were dim, flickering lights far above, but the pool was sunk in inky blackness when Sparhawk surfaced and explosively blew out the breath he had been holding.
‘Kalten,’ he heard Aphrael saying, ‘wake up.’
There was a startled cry and a great deal of splashing.
‘Oh, stop that,’ the Goddess told Sparhawk’s friend. ‘It’s all over, and you came through it just fine. Xanetia, dear, could we have a little light?’
‘Of a certainty, Divine One,’ the Anarae replied, and her face began to glow.
‘Are we all here?’ Aphrael asked quietly, looking around. As Xanetia’s light gradually increased, Sparhawk saw that the Goddess appeared to be no more than waist-deep in the pool, and she was holding Kalten up by the back of his tunic.
‘Do you want to give me a hand with this, Sparhawk?’ Bevier said.
‘Right.’ Sparhawk swam over to join the Cyrinic, and together they hauled in the slender rope Bevier had trailed behind him as they had come through the tunnel. At the other end of the rope were their tightly-bundled mail-shirts and swords.
‘Wait a minute,’ Bevier said when the rope suddenly went taut. ‘It’s caught on something.’ He drew in several deep breaths, plunged under the surface, and went hand-over-hand back along the rope. Sparhawk waited, unconsciously holding his own breath.
Then the rope came free, and he hauled it in quiclly. Bevier popped to the surface again, blowing out air.
‘Are you sure you aren’t part fish?’ Sparhawk asked him.
‘I’ve always had good lungs,’ Bevier replied. ‘Do you think we should get out our swords?’
‘Let’s see what Aphrael says first,’ Sparhawk decided, peering around. ‘I don’t see any place to climb up out of the water yet.’
‘Now what?’ Talen was asking the Goddess. ‘We’re swimming around at the bottom of a well here.’ He looked up at the sheer sides of the shaft rising from the pool. ‘There are some openings up there, but there’s no way to get to them.’
‘Did you bring it, Mirtai?’ Aphrael asked.
The giantess nodded. ‘‘Excuse me a moment,’ she said and she sank beneath the surface and began to pull off her tunic.
‘What’s she doing?’ Talen asked, peering down through the clear water.
‘She’s taking off her clothes,’ Aphrael replied, ‘and she doesn’t need any help from you. Keep your eyes where they belong.’
‘You run around naked all the time,’ he protested. ‘Why should you care if we watch Mirtai get undressed?’
‘It’s entirely different,’ she replied in a lofty tone. ‘Now do as you’re told.’
Talen thrust himself around in the water until he had his back to Mirtai. ‘I’m never going to understand her,’ he grumbled.
‘Oh, yes you will, Talen,’ she told him in a mysterious little voice. ‘But not quite yet. I’ll explain it all to you in a few more years.’
Then Mirtai rose to the surface coiling the coil of rope that had been slung over her shoulder under her tunic. ‘I’ll need something to stand on, Aphrael,’ she said, hefting the grappling hook attached to one end of the rope. ‘I won’t be able to throw this while I’m treading water.’
‘All right, gentlemen,’ Aphrael said primly, ‘eyes front.’
Sparhawk’s smile was concealed in the dimness. Talen was right. Aphrael seemed almost unaware of her own nakedness, but Mirtai’s was an entirely different matter. He heard the sound of water trickling off the sleek limbs of the golden giantess as she rose to stand, he surmised, on its very surface.
Then he heard the whistling sound of the grappling hook as Mirtai swung it in wider and wider circles. Then the whistling stopped for an interminable, breathless moment. There was the clink of steel on stone high above, followed by a grating sound as the points dug in.
‘Good cast,’ Aphrael said.
‘Lucky,’ Mirtai replied. ‘It usually takes two or three throws.’
Sparhawk felt a touch on his shoulder. ‘Here,’ Mirtai said, handing him the rope. ‘Hold this while I get dressed. Then we climb up and go find your wife.’