LITMIR.BIZ

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of him,’ Engessa said bleakly. ‘His slavers used to raid the training camps of Atan children. We’ve more or less persuaded the Arjuni not to do that any more.’

      ‘That sounds ominous,’ Baroness Melidere said.

      ‘It was an absolute disaster, Baroness,’ Oscagne told her. ‘Some Arjuni slavers made a raid into Atan in the seventeenth century, and an imperial administrator got carried away by an excess of righteous indignation. He authorised the Atans to mount a punitive expedition into Arjuna.’

      ‘Our people still sing songs about it,’ Engessa said in an almost dreamy fashion.

      ‘Bad?’ Emban asked Oscagne.

      ‘Unbelievable,’ Oscagne replied. ‘The silly ass who authorised the expedition didn’t realise that when you command the Atans to do something, you have to specifically prohibit certain measures. The fool simply turned them loose. They actually hanged the King of Arjuna himself and then chased all his subjects into the southern jungles. It took us nearly two hundred years to coax the Arjuni down out of the trees. The economic upheaval was a disaster for the entire continent.’

      ‘These events are somewhat more recent,’ Zalasta noted. ‘The Arjuni have always been slavers, and Sheguan was only one of several operating in northern Arjuna. He was an organiser more than anything. He established the markets in Cynesga and codified the bribes that protect the slave-routes. The peculiar thing we face in Arjuna is that the spokesman’s more important than the hero. His name is Scarpa, and he’s a brilliant and dangerous man.’

      ‘What about Tamul itself?’ Emban asked, ‘and Atan?’

      ‘We both seem to be immune to the disease, your Grace,’ Oscagne replied. ‘It’s probably because Tamuls are too egotistical for hero worship and because the Atans of antiquity were all so much shorter than their descendants that modern Atans overlook them.’ He smiled rather slyly at Engessa. ‘The rest of the world’s breathlessly awaiting the day when the first Atan tops ten feet. I think that’s the ultimate goal of their selective breeding campaign.’ He looked at Zalasta. ‘Your information’s far more explicit than ours, learned one,’ he complimented the Styric. ‘The best efforts of the empire have unearthed only the sketchiest of details about these people.’

      ‘I have different resources at my disposal, Excellency,’ Zalasta replied. ‘These figures from antiquity, however, would hardly be of any real concern. The Atans could quite easily deal with any purely military insurrection, but this isn’t a totally military situation. Someone’s been winnowing through the darker aspects of human imagination and spinning the horrors of folk-lore out of thin air. There are vampires and werewolves, ghouls, Ogres and once even a thirty-foot giant. The officials shrug these sightings off as superstitious nonsense, but the common people of Tamuli are in a state of abject terror. We can’t be certain of the reality of any of these things, but when you mingle monsters with Trolls, Dawn-men and Cyrgai, you have total demoralisation. Then, to push the whole thing over the edge, the forces of nature have been harnessed as well. There have been titanic thunderstorms, tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and even isolated eclipses. The common people of Tamuli have become so fearful that they flee from rabbits and flocks of sparrows. There’s no real focus to these incidents. They simply occur at random, and since there’s no real plan behind them, there’s no way to predict when and where they’ll occur. That’s what we’re up against, my friends – a continent-wide campaign of terror – part reality, part illusion, part genuine magic. If it isn’t countered – and very, very soon – the people will go mad with fear. The empire will collapse, and the terror will reign supreme.’

      ‘And what was the bad news you had for us, Zalasta?’ Vanion asked him.

      Zalasta smiled briefly. ‘You are droll, Lord Vanion,’ he said. ‘You may be able to gather more information this afternoon, my friends,’ he told them all. ‘You’ve been invited to attend the session of the Thousand. Your visit here is quite significant from a political point of view, and – although the council seldom agrees about anything – there’s a strong undercurrent of opinion that we may have a common cause with you in this matter.’ He paused, then sighed. ‘I think you should be prepared for a certain amount of antagonism,’ he cautioned. ‘There’s a reactionary faction in the council that begins to foam at the mouth whenever someone even mentions the word “Elene”. I’m sure they’ll try to provoke you.’

      ‘Something’s happening that I don’t understand, Sparhawk,’ Danae murmured quietly a bit later. Sparhawk had retired to one corner of Sephrenia’s little garden with one of Vanion’s Styric scrolls and had been trying to puzzle out the Styric alphabet. Danae had found him there and had climbed up into his lap.

      ‘I thought you were all-wise,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that supposed to be one of your characteristics?’

      ‘Stop that. Something’s terribly wrong here.’

      ‘Why don’t you talk with Zalasta about it? He’s one of your worshippers, isn’t he?’

      ‘Whatever gave you that idea?’

      ‘I thought you and he and Sephrenia grew up together in the same village.’

      ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

      ‘I just assumed that the villagers all worshipped you. It’s sort of logical that you’d choose to be born in a village of your own adherents.’

      ‘You don’t understand Styrics at all, do you? That’s the most tedious idea I’ve ever heard of – a whole village of people who all worship the same God? How boring.’

      ‘Elenes do it.’

      ‘Elenes eat pigs too.’

      ‘What have you got against pigs?’

      She shuddered.

      ‘Who does Zalasta worship if he’s not one of your adherents?’

      ‘He hasn’t chosen to tell us, and it’s terribly impolite to ask.’

      ‘How did he get to be a member of the Thousand then? I thought you had to be a high priest to qualify for membership.’

      ‘He isn’t a member. He doesn’t want to be. He advises them.’ She pursed her lips. ‘I really shouldn’t say this, Sparhawk, but don’t expect exalted wisdom from the council. High priests are devout, but that doesn’t require wisdom. Some of the Thousand are frighteningly stupid.’

      ‘Can you get any kind of clue about which God might be at the bottom of all these disturbances?’

      ‘No. Whoever it is doesn’t want any of the rest of us to know his identity, and there are ways we can conceal ourselves. About all I can say is that he’s not Styric. Pay very close attention at the meeting this afternoon, Sparhawk. My temperament’s Styric, and there may be things I’d overlook just because I’m so used to them.’

      ‘What do you want me to look for?’

      ‘I don’t know. Use your rudimentary intuition. Look for false notes, lapses, any kind of clue hinting at the fact that someone’s not entirely what he seems to be.’

      ‘Do you suspect that there might be some member of the Thousand working for the other side?’

      ‘I didn’t say that. I just said that there’s something wrong. I’m getting another of those premonitions like the one I had at Kotyk’s house. Something’s not what it’s supposed to be here, and I can’t for the life of me tell what it is. Try to find out what it is, Sparhawk. We really need to know.’

      The council of the Thousand met in a stately marble building at the very centre of Sarsos. It was an imposing, even intimidating building that shouldered its way upward arrogantly. Like all public buildings, it was totally devoid of any warmth or humanity. It had wide, echoing marble corridors and huge bronze doors designed to make people feel tiny and insignificant.

      The actual meetings took place in a large, semicircular hall with

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