Free Domes of Fire by David Eddings Page B

while encouraging another was inconsistent.
    ‘Is this going to involve anything spectacular?’ he asked her when they were several miles out of town. ‘How do you mean, spectacular?’
    ‘You don’t have to fly or anything, do you?’
    ‘It’s awkward that way, but I can if you’d like.’
    ‘No, that’s all right, Danae. What I’m getting at is would you be doing anything that would startle travellers if we went out into this meadow a ways and you did whatever it is there?’
    ‘They won’t see a thing, father,’ she assured him. ‘I’ll race you to that tree out there.’ She didn’t even make a pretence of nudging her pony’s flanks, and despite Faran’s best efforts, the pony beat him to the tree by a good twenty yards. The big roan warhorse glowered suspiciously at the short-legged pony when Sparhawk reined him in.
    ‘You cheated,’ Sparhawk accused his daughter.
    ‘Only a little.’ She slid down from her pony and satcross-legged under the tree. She lifted her small face and sang in a trilling, flute-like voice. Her song broke off, and for several moments she sat blank-faced and absolutely immobile. She did not even appear to be breathing, and Sparhawk had the chilling feeling that he was absolutely alone, although she clearly sat not two yards away from him.
    ‘What is it, Sparhawk?’ Danae’s lips moved, but it was Sephrenia’s voice that asked the question, and when Danae opened her eyes, they had changed. Danae’s eyes were very dark; Sephrenia’s were deep blue, almost lavender.
    ‘We miss you, little mother,’ he told her kneeling and kissing the palms of his daughter’s hands.
    ‘You called me from half-way round the world to tell me that? I’m touched, but…’
    ‘It’s something a little more, Sephrenia. We’ve been seeing that shadow again – the cloud too.’
    ‘That’s impossible.’
    ‘I sort of thought so myself, but we keep seeing them all the same. It’s different, though. It feels different for one thing, and this time it’s not just Ehlana and I who see it. Stragen and Ulath saw it too.’
    ‘You’d better tell me exactly what’s been happening, Sparhawk.’
    He went into greater detail about the shadow and then briefly described the incident in the mountains near Cardos. ‘Whatever this thing is,’ he concluded, ‘it seems very intent on keeping us from finding out what’s going on in Lamorkand.’
    ‘Is there some kind of trouble there?’
    ‘Count Gerrich is raising a rebellion. He seems to think that the crown might fit him. He’s even going so far as to claim that Drychtnath’s returned. That’s ridiculous, isn’t it?’
    Her eyes grew distant. ‘Is this shadow you’ve beenseeing exactly the same as the one you and Ehlana saw before?’ she asked.
    ‘It feels different somehow.’
    ‘Do you get that same sense that it has more than one consciousness in it?’
    ‘That hasn’t changed. It’s a small group, but it’s a group all the same, and the cloud that tore the Earl of Belton to pieces was definitely the same. Did the Troll-Gods manage to escape from Bhelliom somehow?’
    ‘Let me think my way through it for a moment, Sparhawk,’ she replied. She considered it for a time. In a curious way she was impressing her own appearance on Danae’s face. ‘I think we may have a problem, dear one,’ she said finally.
    ‘I noticed that myself, little mother.’
    ‘Stop trying to be clever, Sparhawk. Do you remember the Dawn-men who came out of that cloud up in Pelosia?’
    Sparhawk shuddered. ‘I’ve been making a special point of trying to forget that.’
    ‘Don’t discount the possibility that the wild stories about Drychtnath may have some basis in fact. The Troll-Gods can reach back in time and bring creatures and people forward to where we are now. Drychtnath may very well indeed have returned.’
    Sparhawk groaned. ‘Then the Troll-Gods have managed to escape, haven’t they?’
    ‘I didn’t say that, Sparhawk. Just because