David Eddings: The Shining Ones

‘If there is a north pier,’ Khalad said.

‘There has to be one, Khalad.’

‘You wouldn’t mind if I ambled over to the edge of the cliff and had a look for myself, would you? Logic is all well and good, but a little verification never hurt anything.’ They walked back down the knoll, mounted, and rode out to join their friends.

‘Not much of a fight,’ Kalten complained, looking disdainfully at the mob of terrified prisoners.

‘Those are the best kind,’ Tynian told him.

‘Sorgi’s coming,’ Ulath told them pointing at the fleet moving toward the beach. ‘As soon as Betuana and Engessa finish clearing the pier, we’ll be able to get started.’

The Atans were half-way to the end of the pier by now, and the terrified Edomishmen were being crowded into a tighter and tighter mass by that inexorable advance.

‘How cold is that water?’ Talen asked. ‘I mean, has it started to warm up at all?’

‘Not noticeably,’ Ulath said. ‘I saw a fish swim by earlier wearing a fur coat.’

‘Do you think a man could swim back to shore from the end of the pier?’

‘Anything’s possible.’ Ulath shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t want to wager any money on it, though.’

Rebal was at the very end of the pier by now, and his screams were growing increasingly shrill. The Atans leveled their spears and continued their inexorable advance. They did not even bother to kill the Edomishmen any more. They simply shoved everyone off the pier to struggle in the icy water. A large knot of the workmen at the very end of the pier went off the end in a kind of cluster, the ones at the extreme outer end dragging their fellows with them as they toppled off. The Atans lined the sides and the end of the pier, keeping everyone in the water at spear’s length from safety. That went perhaps somewhat beyond the bounds of civilized behavior, but Sparhawk knew of no diplomatic way to object to Queen Betuana about it, so he ground his teeth together and let it pass. There was a great deal of splashing at first, but that did not last for very long. Singly and in groups the freezing peasants gave up and slid under the waves. A few athletic ones struck out for shallow water, but no more than a handful reached that questionable safety.

Amador, Sparhawk noted, was not among the few survivors being rounded up by the Tamul soldiers at the water’s edge. Sorgi’s ships were standing at anchor some few yards off the beach by now, and the plans they had all drawn up the night before proceeded smoothly.

There was one thing, however, which their planning had not taken into account. Khalad had ridden to the edge of the cliff to look to the north, and he rode back with a slightly worried frown.

‘Well?’ Sparhawk asked him.

‘There’s a pier north of the wall, right enough,’ Khalad replied, dismounting, ‘but we’ve got a problem coming up from the south. Bhelliom’s warm current is arriving.’

‘Why is that a problem?’

‘I think Bhelliom got a little carried away. It looks as if the leading edge of that current is boiling.’

‘So?’

‘What do you get when you pour boiling water on ice Sparhawk?’

‘Steam, I suppose.’

‘Right. Bhelliom’s melting the ice out there, right enough, but it’s raising a lot of steam in the process. What’s another word for steam, my Lord?’

‘Please don’t do that, Khalad. It’s very offensive. Just how big is this fog-bank?’

‘I couldn’t see the end of it, my Lord.”

‘Thick?’

‘You could probably walk on it.’

‘Could we possibly stay ahead of it?’

Khalad pointed out to sea. ‘I sort of doubt it, my Lord. I’d say it’s already here.’

The fog was rolling across the water in a thick gray blanket, its leading edge a solid wall obscuring everything in its path.Sparhawk started to swear.

‘You seem melancholy, my queen,’ Alcan said when the ladies were alone.

Ehlana sighed.

‘I don’t like being separated from Sparhawk,’ she said. ‘There were too many years of that when he was in exile.’

‘You’ve loved him for a long time, haven’t you, your Majesty?’

‘I was born loving Sparhawk. It’s really more convenient that way. You don’t have to waste time thinking about other possible husbands. You can concentrate all your attention on the one you’re going to marry and make sure you’ve closed all his escape routes.’

There was a knock on the door, and Mirtai rose, put her hand on her sword-hilt, and went to answer it. Stragen entered. He was wearing rough clothes.

‘What on earth have you been up to, Milord?’ Melidere asked him.

‘Pushing a wheelbarrow, Baroness.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m not sure that it accomplishes all that much to disguise myself this way, butt it’s good to maintain proper work habits. I’ve been posing as an employee of the Ministry of Public Works. We’ve been repairing the street outside the Cynesgan embassy. Caalador and I rolled dice, and he won the right to sit on a roof-top to keep watch. I get to trundle wheelbarrow-loads of cobblestones to the pavers.’

‘I gather that something’s happening at the embassy?’ Ehlana guessed.

‘Yes, my Queen. Unfortunately, we can’t quite figure out what. All the chimneys are spouting smoke that doesn’t look like wood smoke. I think they’re burning documents. That’s usually a sign of incipient flight.’

‘Don’t they know that they haven’t a chance of getting out of town?’ Mirtai asked him.

‘It appears that they’re going to make a try anyway. It’s just a guess, but I’d say they’re planning something that’s going to seriously offend the authorities, and then they’re going to try to make a run for it.’ He looked at Ehlana. ‘I think we’d better tighten our security arrangements, your Majesty. All these preparations hint at something serious, and we don’t want to be caught off-guard.’

‘I’ll have a talk with Sarabian,’ Ehlana decided. ‘It was useful to have that embassy functioning as long as Xanetia was here to eavesdrop. Now that she’s off with Sparhawk and the others, the embassy’s just an irritation. I think it might be time to send in some Atans to nullify it.’

‘It’s an embassy, your Majesty,’ Melidere objected. ‘We can’t just go in and round everybody up. That’s against all the rules of civilized behavior.’

‘So?’

‘We don’t have much choice, Master Cluff,’ Sorgi said gravely. ‘When you’re out in deep water and this kind of fog comes up, all you can do is put out your sea-anchor and hope you don’t run aground on some island. You’d never be able to pick your way around the end of that reef with those rafts, and I’d rip the bottoms out of half the ships in the fleet if I tried to slip through the channel between the reef and the ice. We’re going to have to wait until this lifts—or thins out at least.’

‘And how long will that be?’ Sparhawk asked.

‘There’s no way to tell.’

‘The air’s colder than the water, Sparhawk,’ Khalad explained. ‘That’s what’s causing the fog. I don’t think it’s going to lift until the air warms up. We won’t be ready to leave here until tomorrow anyway. We’re going to have to do something to raise those rafts up out of the water a bit before we load men and horses on them. If we try to use them the way they are, we’ll be trying to move them half submerged.’

‘Why don’t you get started on that, Khalad?’ Vanion suggested. ‘Sparhawk and I’ll go have a talk with Sephrenia and Aphrael. We might just need a bit of divine intervention here. Coming, Sparhawk?’

The two of them went back on down the beach to the fire Kalten had built for the ladies.

‘Well?’ Sephrenia asked. She was seated on a driftwood log with her sister in her lap.