‘This hunt becomes more and more not-simple,’ Ghworg grumbled.
‘That is because the man-things are more not-simple than the deer-things,’ Khwaj, God of Fire, told him. ‘The thought of Tynian-from-Deira is good. The one who hunts where there is no game does not eat.’
Ghworg pondered it. ‘We must follow the way of the hunt,’ he decided. ‘We will take our children to the place Zhubay to hunt the Children of Cyrgon. When they come there to graze, our children will kill them and eat them.’
‘It would make us glad if you would,’ Tynian said politely.
‘I will take our children into the Time-Which-Does-Not-Move,’ Ghnomb said. They will be in the place Zhubay before the Children of Cyrgon come there.’
Schlee, God of Ice, stuck his huge fingers into the dirt. The earth shuddered slightly and contorted itself into his picture of the continent. ‘Show us where, Ulath-from-Thalesia,’ he said. ‘Where is the place Zhubay?’
Ulath walked some distance along the southwestern edge of the tiny mountains of Atan, peering intently at the ground. Then he stopped, bent, and touched a spot a short way out into the northern end of the Desert of Cynesga. ‘It is here, Schlee,’ he said.
Ghworg, God of Kill, stood up. ‘We will take our children there,’ he declared. ‘Let us make Anakha glad.’
‘They’re watching us, Vanion,’ Sephrenia said quietly.
He pulled his horse in closer to hers. ‘Styrics?’ he asked quietly.
‘One of them is,’ she replied. ‘He’s not particularly skilled.’ She smiled faintly. ‘I may have to hit him over the head to get his attention.’
‘Whatever it takes, love,’ he said. He glanced back over his shoulder at the column of knights and then on ahead. They were coming down out of the mountains, and the Valley of the Sarna was beginning to broaden. ‘We should reach that bridge tomorrow,’ he told her. ‘After we cross the river, we’ll be in Cynesga.’
‘Yes, dear one,’ she said, ‘I’ve seen the map.’
‘Why don’t you cast the spell?’ he suggested. ‘Let’s give our inept Styric out there a chance to earn his keep.’ He looked at her gravely. ‘I’m having some second thoughts about this, Sephrenia. Klæl’s still out there, and if he thinks Sparhawk’s somewhere in this column with Bhelliom, he’ll be all over us.’
‘You can’t have it both ways, Vanion,’ she said with a fond smile. ‘You said that you were never going to let me out of your sight, so if you insist on going into dangerous places, I’m sort of obliged to go along. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll wake up that Styric.’ She began to speak softly in Styric, her fingers weaving the spell as she did so.
Vanion was puzzled. He took a certain pride in his familiarity with most of the spells, but this was one he had never seen or heard before. He watched more closely.
‘Never mind,’ she told him crisply, breaking off the spell. ‘You don’t need to know this one.’
‘But –’
‘Just look over there, Vanion,’ she said. ‘I can do this without any help.’ She paused. ‘Humor me, dear one. A girl needs a few secrets, after all.’
He smiled and turned his head.
There was a kind of vague blurring in the air about ten yards away, and then, as surely as if he were really there, Vanion saw Sparhawk appear, mounted as always on his evil-tempered roan. So real was the image that flies were attracted to the horse. ‘Brilliant!’ Vanion exclaimed. He sent out a probing thought and even encountered the familiar sense of Sparhawk’s presence. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that he was really here. Can you sustain this illusion?’
‘Naturally,’ she said in an infuriatingly offhand way. And then she laughed, reached out and fondly touched his cheek.
‘What took you so long?’ Talen asked the Child Goddess when she appeared on the edge of their camp outside Vigayo the following morning.
‘I’ve been busy,’ she replied with a little shrug. ‘This is a fairly complex business, you know. We all do want to get there at approximately the same time, don’t we? What’s the problem here, Sparhawk?’
‘We might have just had a bit of good luck for a change, Divine One,’ he replied. ‘Talen and I were in the village yesterday, and we heard one of the villagers refer to their oasis as “the Well of Vigay”.’
‘So?’
‘Why don’t you tell her about it, Talen?’
The young thief quickly repeated the conversation between Ogerajin and Stragen back in Beresa.
‘What do you think?’ Kalten asked the Child Goddess.
‘Does somebody have a map?’ she asked.
Sparhawk went to his saddle-bags, took out his tightly rolled map, and brought it to her.
She spread it out on the ground, knelt in front of it, and studied it for several moments. ‘There are some salt-flats out there,’ she conceded.
‘And they are in the right direction,’ Bevier pointed out.
‘Ogerajin’s been there,’ Talen added, ‘at least he says he has, so he’d almost have to know the way, wouldn’t he?’
‘There’s also a slaver’s route that runs off to the northwest,’ Mirtai said. ‘We saw a caravan following it when we first got here, and Ogerajin mentioned the fact that the Cyrgai keep slaves. It sort of stands to reason that the slave caravan’s bound for Cyrga, doesn’t it?’
‘You’re hanging all this speculation on the ravings of a madman, you know,’ Flute said critically.
‘We do have a bit of verification, Aphrael,’ Sparhawk reminded her. The villagers use the same term for their oasis as Ogerajin did, the salt-flats are where he said they were, and the slavers are going in that direction as well. I’m inclined to accept it.’
‘You said yourself that Cyrga’s somewhere in central Cynesga,’ Kalten reminded her, ‘and that’s where all of this points. Even if Ogerajin left some things out, we’ll still end up in the general vicinity of Cyrga. We’ll be a lot closer than we are right now, anyway.’
‘Since you’ve all made up your minds, why did you bother me with it?’ Her tone was just a bit petulant.
Talen grinned at her. ‘We didn’t think it’d be polite to run off without telling you, Divine One.’