‘You can, as I recall,’ Stragen said. ‘Didn’t Aphrael fix it once so that you and Sephrenia talked together when she was in Sarsos and you were in Cimmura?’
Sparhawk suddenly felt more than a little foolish. ‘I’d forgotten about that,’ he admitted.
‘That’s all right, old boy,’ Stragen excused him. ‘You’ve got a lot on your mind. Why don’t you have a word with her Divine little Whimsicality and see if she can arrange a council of war someplace? I think it might be time for a good, old-fashioned get-together.’
Sparhawk knew where he was before he even opened his eyes. The fragrance of wildflowers and tree blossoms immediately identified the eternal spring of Aphrael’s own private reality.
‘Art thou now awake, Anakha?’ the white deer asked him, touching his hand with her nose.
‘Yea, gentle creature,’ he replied, opening his eyes and touching the side of her face. He was in the pavilion again and he looked out through the open flap at the flower-studded meadow, the sparkling azure sea, and the rainbow-colored sky above.
‘The others do await thy coming on the eyot,’ the hind advised him.
‘We must hasten, then,’ he said, rising from his bed. He followed her from the pavilion out into the meadow where the white tigress indulgently watched the awkward play of her large-footed cubs. He rather idly wondered if these were the same cubs she had been tending when he had first visited this enchanted realm a half-dozen years ago.
‘Well, of course they are, Sparhawk,’ Aphrael’s voice murmured in his ear. ‘Nothing ever changes here.’
He smiled.
The white deer led him to that beautiful, impractical boat, a swan-necked craft with sails like wings, elaborate embellishment and so much of its main structure above the water line that a sneeze would have capsized it, had it existed in the real world.
‘Critic,’ Aphrael’s voice accused him.
‘It’s your dream, Divine One. You can put any impossibility in it that you want.’
‘Oh, thank you, Sparhawk!’ she said with effusive irony.
The emerald green eyot, crowned with ancient oaks and Aphrael’s alabaster temple, nestled in the sapphire sea, and the swan-necked boat touched the golden beach in only minutes. Sparhawk looked around as he stepped out onto the sand. The disguises most of them wore in the real world had been discarded, and they all had their own features here in this eternal dream. Some of them had been here before. Those who had not had expressions of bemused wonderment as they all lounged in the lush grass that blanketed the slopes of the enchanted isle.
The Child Goddess and Sephrenia sat side by side on an alabaster bench in the temple. Aphrael’s expression was pensive, and she was playing a complex Styric melody in a minor key on her many-chambered pipes. ‘What kept you, Sparhawk?’ she asked, lowering the rude instrument.
The person in charge of my travel arrangements took me on a little side-trip,’ he replied. ‘Are we all here?’
‘Everybody who’s supposed to be. Come up here, all of you, and let’s get started.’
They climbed up the slope to the temple.
‘Where is this place?’ Sarabian asked in an awed voice.
‘Aphrael carries it in her mind, your Majesty,’ Vanion replied. ‘She invites us here from time to time. She likes to show it off.’
‘Don’t be insulting, Vanion,’ the Child Goddess told him.
‘Well, don’t you?’
‘Of course, but it’s not nice to come right out and say it like that.’
‘I feel different here, for some reason,’ Caalador noted. ‘Better, somehow.’
Vanion smiled. ‘It’s a very healthy place, my friend,’ he said. I was seriously ill at the end of the Zemoch war – dying, actually. Aphrael brought me here for a month or so, and I was disgustingly healthy by the time I left.’
They all reached the little temple and took seats on the marble benches lining the columned perimeter. Sparhawk looked around, frowning. ‘Where’s Emban?’ he asked their hostess.
‘It wouldn’t have been appropriate for him to be here, Sparhawk. Your Elene God makes exceptions in the case of the Church Knights, but he’d probably throw a fit if I brought one of the Patriarchs of his Church here. I didn’t invite the Atans either – or the Peloi.’ She smiled. ‘Neither group is comfortable with the idea of religious diversity, and this place would probably confuse them.’ She rolled her eyes upward. ‘You wouldn’t believe how long it took me to persuade Edaemus to permit Xanetia to come. He doesn’t approve of me. He thinks I’m frivolous.’
‘You?’ Sparhawk feigned some surprise. ‘How could he possibly believe something like that?’
‘Let’s get at this,’ Sephrenia said. ‘Why don’t you start, Berit? We know generally what happened, but we don’t have any details.’
‘Yes, Lady Sephrenia,’ the young knight replied. ‘Khalad and I were coming down the coast, and we’d been watched from almost the moment we came ashore. I used the spell and identified the watcher as a Styric. He came to us after several days and gave us another one of those notes from Krager. The note told us to continue down the coast, but once we get past the Tamul Mountains, we’re supposed to cut across country to Sopal instead of continuing south. The note said that we’d get further instructions there. It was definitely from Krager. It had another lock of Queen Ehlana’s hair in it.’
‘I’m going to talk with Krager about that when I catch up with him,’ Khalad said in a bleak tone of voice. I want to be sure he understands just how much we resent his even touching the Queen’s hair. Trust me, Sparhawk. Before I’m done with him, he’s going to regret it – profoundly.’
‘I’ve got enormous confidence in you, Khalad,’ Sparhawk replied.
‘Oh,’ Khalad said then, ‘there’s something I almost forgot. Does anybody know of a way to make one of our horses limp – without actually hurting him? I think Berit and I might want to be able to slow down from time to time without causing suspicion. An intermittently lame horse should explain it to the people who are watching us.’
‘I’ll talk with Faran,’ Aphrael promised.
‘You won’t need to limp on your way to Sopal,’ Ulath told Khalad. ‘Ghnomb’s going to see to it that Tynian and I are there long before you arrive. You might be able to see us when you get there, but you might not. I’m having a little trouble explaining some things to the Troll-Gods. We’ll be able to see you, though. If I can’t make Ghnomb understand, I’ll slip a note in your pocket.’