David Eddings: The Shining Ones

‘Don’t tell him, then. just tell him that you need a reason to be out of town for a while. Put on a gravely mysterious face and let it go at that. Oscagne’s been around for long enough to recognize the symptoms of official reticence when he sees them.’

‘Why didn’t I think of that?’

‘Probably because your oath keeps getting in your way. I know that you’ve sworn to tell the truth, but that doesn’t mean that you have to tell the whole truth. You can leave things out, you know. Leaving things out is one of the prerequisites of the office of Preceptor.’

Sparhawk sighed. ‘Back to school, I see. I think I’m doomed to spend my whole life getting instructions from you—and being made to feel inadequate in the process.’

‘That’s what friends are for, Sparhawk.’

‘You’re not going to tell me, are you?’ Sparhawk tried very hard to keep it from sounding like an accusation.

‘Not yet, no,’ Princess Danae replied, carefully tying a doll’s bonnet on her cat’s head. Mmrr did not appear to care for the idea, but she endured her mistress’s little game with a look of resignation.

‘Why not?’ Sparhawk asked his daughter, flopping down into one of the blue armchairs in the royal apartment.

‘Because something might still come up to make it unnecessary. You’re not going to find Bhelliom until I decide to let you find it, father.’

‘You want us to sail with Tynian and Emban, though?’

‘Yes.’

‘How far?’

‘It doesn’t really matter. I just need Tynian with us when we first set out, that’s all.’

‘Then you don’t really have any set destination in mind—with that ship, I mean?’

‘Of course not. I just need Tynian to be along for a couple of days. We can go out to sea for a couple of leagues and then sail around in circles for two days if you want. It’s all the same to me.’

‘Thanks,’ he said acidly.

‘No charge. There.’ She held up the cat. ‘Isn’t she darling in her new bonnet?’

‘Adorable.’

Mmrr gave Sparhawk a flat look of pure hatred.

‘I can’t tell you why at the moment, your Excellency,’ Sparhawk said to Oscagne later that same day when they were alone in one of the hallways. ‘All I can say is that I need a reason to be away from Matherion with a group of nine or ten of my friends for an indeterminate period of time—several weeks or so. It has to be significant enough to convince my wife that it’s necessary, but not so serious as to worry her, and I have to sail on the same ship with Emban and Tynian.’

‘All right,’ Oscagne agreed. ‘How good an actor are you, Prince Sparhawk?’

‘I don’t think anybody’d pay money to watch me perform.’

Oscagne let that pass.

‘I gather that this ploy is primarily intended for your wife’s benefit?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then it might be best if the idea of sending you off someplace came from her. I’ll maneuver her into ordering you off on some inconsequential errand, and you can take it from there.’

‘I’d really like to see you try to maneuver Ehlana.’

‘Trust me, old boy. Trust me.

‘Tega?’ Sarabian asked his foreign minister incredulously. ‘The only superstition they have on the Isle of Tega is the one that says that it’s bad luck not to raise the price of sea-shells every year.’

‘They’ve never mentioned it to us in the past because they were probably afraid we’d think they were being silly, your Majesty,’ Oscagne replied urbanely. Oscagne looked decidedly uncomfortable in the blue doublet and hose Sarabian had ordered him to wear. He couldn’t seem to think of anything to do with his hands, and he appeared to be very self-conscious about his bony legs. ‘The word “silly” seems to strike at the very core of the Tegan soul. They’re the stuffiest people in the world.’

‘I know. Gahenas, my Tegan wife, can put me to sleep almost immediately—even when we’re...’ The Emperor threw a quick look at Ehlana and left it hanging.

‘Tegans have raised being boring to an art form, your Majesty,’ Oscagne agreed. ‘Anyway, there’s an old Tegan myth to the effect that the oyster-beds are haunted by a mermaid. Supposedly she eats oysters, shells and all, and that really upsets the Tegans. She also seduces Tegan divers, who tend to drown during the exchange of pleasantries.’

‘Isn’t a mermaid supposed to be half-girl and half-fish?’ Ulath asked.

‘So the legend goes,’ Oscagne replied.

‘And isn’t she supposed to be a fish from the waist down?’

‘I’ve been told so, yes.’

‘Then how... ?’ Ulath also looked quickly at Ehlana and then abruptly broke off.

‘How what, Sir Ulath?’ Ehlana asked him innocently.

‘It’s—ah—not really important, your Majesty,’ he replied with an embarrassed cough.

‘I wouldn’t even raise this absurd myth, your Majesties,’ Oscagne said to Sarabian and Ehlana, ‘except in the light of recent developments. The parallels between the vampires in Arjuna, the Shining Ones in southern Atan, and the werewolves, ghouls and Ogres in other parts of the Empire are really rather striking, wouldn’t you say? I’d imagine that if someone were to go to Tega and ask around, he might hear stories about some pre-historic pearl-diver who’s been resurrected and also find that some rabble-rouser’s telling the Tegans that this hero and his half-fish, half-human mistress are going to lead the oysters in a mass assault on Matherion.’

‘How droll,’ Sarabian murmured.

‘Sorry, your Majesty,’ Oscagne apologized. ‘What I’m getting at here is that we’ve probably got some relatively inexperienced conspirator on Tega. He’s just getting started, so he’s bound to make mistakes—but experienced or not, he knows a great deal about the whole conspiracy. Since our friends here won’t let us question Kolata too closely, we have to look elsewhere for information.’

‘We’re not being delicate about the Minister of the Interior, your Excellency,’ Kalten told him.

‘It’s just that we’ve seen what happens to prisoners who are on the verge of talking too much. Kolata’s still useful to us, but only as long as he stays in one piece. He won’t be much good if little chunks and globs of him get scattered all over the building.’

Oscagne shuddered. ‘I’ll take your word for it, Sir Kalten. At any rate, your Majesty, if some of our Elene friends here could go to Tega and put their hands on this fellow and talk with him before our enemy can dismantle him, they could probably persuade him to tell us everything he knows. Sir Sparhawk has some ambitions along those lines, I understand. He wants to find out if he can wring somebody out hard enough to make his hair bleed.’

‘You have a very graphic imagination, Sparhawk,’ Sarabian noted. ‘What do you think, Ehlana? Can you spare your husband for a while? If he and some of his knights went to Tega and held the entire island under water for a couple of hours, God only knows what kind of information might come bubbling to the surface.’

‘That’s a very good idea, Sarabian. Sparhawk, why don’t you take some of our friends, run on down to the Isle of Tega, and see what you can find out?’

‘I’d really rather not be separated from you, dear,’ he replied with feigned reluctance.

‘That’s very sweet, Sparhawk, but we do have responsibilities, you know.’

‘Are you ordering me to go, Ehlana?’

‘You don’t have to put it that way, Sparhawk. It’s only a suggestion, after all.’

‘As my Queen commands,’ he sighed, putting on a melancholy expression.

Empress Gahenas was a Tegan lady of middle years with a severe expression and tightly pursed lips. She wore a plain gray gown, buttoned to the chin, and long-sleeved gloves of scratchy wool. Her hair was drawn so tightly back into a bun that it made her eyes bulge, and her ears protruded from the sides of her head like open barn doors. Empress Gahenas disapproved of everything, that much was clear from the outset. She had come to Sparhawk’s study to provide background information on the Isle of Tega, but she did not come alone. the Empress Gahenas never went anywhere without her four chaperones, a cluster of ancient Tegan hags who perched on a varnished bench like a row of gargoyles.