David Eddings - The Complete Elenium Trilogy - The Diamond Throne, The Ruby Knight, The Sapphire Rose

He shrugged. ‘As Vanion says, the old ones are the best.’

‘Oh, Sparhawk, I’m disappointed in you. How are you going to avoid giving that poor captain the imaginary lady’s name?’

‘I’ll think of something. Why don’t we go up on deck before the sun sets?’

Kurik spoke in a whisper. ‘I think the child’s asleep,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to wake her. You two go on ahead.’

Sparhawk nodded and led Sephrenia out of the cramped cabin.

‘I always forget how gentle he is,’ Sephrenia said softly.

Sparhawk nodded. ‘He’s the best and kindest man I know,’ he said simply. ‘If it weren’t for class distinctions, he’d have made an almost perfect knight.’

‘Is class really all that important?’

‘Not to me it isn’t, but I didn’t make the rules.’

They emerged on deck in the slanting, late-afternoon sunlight. The breeze blowing offshore was brisk, catching the tops of the waves and turning them into sun-splashed froth. Captain Mabin’s vessel, bound for Jiroch, was heeling over in that breeze on a course almost due west through the broad channel of the Arcian Strait. Her sails bellied out, snowy white in the afternoon sun, and she ran before the wind like a skimming sea bird.

‘How far do you make it to Cippria, Captain Sorgi?’ Sparhawk asked as he and Sephrenia stepped up onto the quarterdeck.

‘A hundred and fifty leagues, Master Cluff,’ Sorgi replied. ‘Three days, if this wind holds.’

‘That’s good time, isn’t it?’

Sorgi grunted. ‘We could make better if this poor old tub didn’t leak so much.’

‘Sparhawk!’ Sephrenia gasped, taking him urgently by the arm.

‘What is it?’ He looked at her in concern. Her face had gone deathly pale.

‘Look!’ She pointed.

Some distance from where Captain Mabin’s graceful ship was running through the Arcian Strait, a single, densely black cloud had appeared in an otherwise unblemished sky. It seemed somehow to be moving against the wind, growing larger and more ominously black by the moment. Then it began to swirl, ponderously at first, but then faster and faster. As it spun, a long, dark finger twitched and jerked down from its centre, reaching down and down until its inky tip touched the roiling surface of the Strait. Tons of water were suddenly drawn up into the swirling maw as the vast funnel moved erratically across the heaving sea.

‘Waterspout!’ the lookout shouted down from the mast. The sailors rushed to the rail to gape in horror at the swirling spout.

Inexorably the vast thing bore down on Mabin’s helpless ship, and then the vessel, which suddenly appeared very tiny, vanished in the seething funnel. Chunks and pieces of her timbers spun out of the great waterspout hundreds of feet in the air to settle with agonizing slowness to the surface again. A single piece of sail fluttered down like a stricken white bird.

Then, as suddenly as they had come, the black cloud and its deadly waterspout were gone.

So was Mabin’s ship.

The surface of the sea was littered with debris, and a vast cloud of white gulls appeared, swooping and diving over the wreckage as if to mark the vessel’s passing.

Captain Sorgi combed the wreckage-strewn water where Mabin’s ship had gone down until after dark, but he found no survivors. Then, sadly, he turned his ship southeasterly again, setting his course towards Cippria.

Sephrenia sighed and turned from the rail. ‘Let’s go below, Sparhawk.’

He nodded and followed her down the companionway.

Kurik had lighted a single oil lamp, and it swung from a low overhead beam, filling the small, dark-panelled compartment with swaying shadows. Flute had awakened, and she sat at the bolted-down table in the centre of the cabin, looking suspiciously at the bowl sitting in front of her.

‘It’s just stew, little girl,’ Kurik was saying to her. ‘It won’t hurt you.’

She delicately dipped her fingers into the thick gravy and lifted out a dripping chunk of meat. She sniffed at it, then looked questioningly at the squire.

‘Salt pork,’ he told her.

She shuddered and dropped the chunk back into the gravy. Then she firmly pushed the bowl away.

‘Styrics don’t eat pork, Kurik,’ Sephrenia told him.

‘The ship’s cook said that this is what the sailors eat,’ he said defensively. He looked at Sparhawk. ‘Was the captain able to find any survivors from the other ship?’

Sparhawk shook his head. ‘That waterspout tore it all to pieces. The same thing probably happened to the crew.’

‘It’s lucky we weren’t on board that one.’

‘Very lucky,’ Sephrenia agreed. ‘Waterspouts are like tornadoes. They don’t appear out of completely clear skies, and they don’t move against the wind or change direction the way that one did. It was being consciously directed.’

‘Magic?’ Kurik said. ‘Is that really possible – to call up weather like that, I mean?’

‘I don’t think I could do it.’

‘Who did then?’

‘I don’t know for certain.’ Her eyes, however, showed a certain suspicion.

‘Let’s get it out into the open, Sephrenia,’ Sparhawk said. ‘You’ve guessed something, haven’t you?’

Her expression grew a bit more certain. ‘In the past few months we’ve had several encounters with a hooded figure in a Styric robe. You saw it several times in Cimmura, and it tried to have us ambushed on our way to Borrata. Styrics seldom cover their faces. Have you ever noticed that?’

‘Yes, but I don’t quite make the connection.’

‘This thing had to cover its face, Sparhawk. It’s not human.’

He stared at her. ‘Are you sure?’

‘I can’t be absolutely positive until I see its face, but the evidence is beginning to pile up, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Could Annias actually do something like that?’

‘It’s not Annias. He might know a little rudimentary magic, but he couldn’t begin to raise a thing like that. Only Azash could have done it. He’s the only one who dares to summon such beings. The Younger Gods will not, and even the other Elder Gods have forsworn the practice.’

‘Why would Azash want to kill Captain Mabin and his crew?’

‘The ship was destroyed because the creature thought that we were on board.’

‘That goes a little far, Sephrenia,’ Kurik objected sceptically. ‘If it’s so powerful, why did it sink the wrong boat?’

‘The creatures of the underworld are not very sophisticated, Kurik,’ she replied. ‘Our simple ruse may have deceived it. Power and wisdom don’t always go hand in hand. Many of the greatest magicians of Styricum were as stupid as stumps.’

‘I don’t quite follow this,’ Sparhawk admitted with a puzzled frown. ‘What we’re doing has nothing to do with Zemoch. Why would Azash go out of his way to help Annias?’

‘It may be that there isn’t any connection. Azash always has his own motives. It’s quite possible that what he’s doing has nothing to do with Annias at all.’

‘It doesn’t wash, Sephrenia. If you’re right about this thing, it’s been working for Martel, and Martel works for Annias.’

‘Are you so sure that the creature is working for Martel and not the other way around? Azash can see the shadows of the future. One of us might be a danger to him. The seeming alliance between Martel and the creature may be no more than a matter of convenience.’

He began to gnaw worriedly at a fingernail. ‘That’s all I need,’ he said, ‘something else to worry about.’ Then a thought struck him. ‘Wait a minute. Do you remember what the ghost of Lakus said – that darkness was at the gate and that Ehlana was our only hope of light? Could Azash be that darkness?’