‘It is good that you will. Speak to it.’
Parok was hammering futilely on the immovable door.
‘That won’t do you any good, old boy,’ Ulath urbanely advised the terrified Dacite nobleman. ‘Things have definitely taken a turn for the worse for you, Baron. This large fellow with the smoke coming out of his ears is the Troll-God Khwaj. He disapproves of your abduction of Queen Ehlana.’
‘Who are you?’ Parok half-screamed. ‘What’s going on here?’
‘You’ve been brought to the palace of punishment, Baron,’ Tynian advised him. ‘As my friend here just explained, Khwaj is quite put out with you. Trolls are a very moralistic sort. Things that we’ve come to take in stride – abductions, poisonings, and holding people for ransom – upset them enormously. There is one small advantage, though. You’re going to live forever, Baron Parok. You’ll never, ever die.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘You’ll see.’
‘Does it understand now?’ Khwaj demanded impatiently.
‘It is our thought that it does,’ Ulath replied in Trollish.
‘Good.’ Khwaj implacably advanced on the cringing Dacite, extending one vast paw. Then he clapped it down on top of Parok’s head. ‘Burn!’ he growled.
Baron Parok shrieked.
Then his face seemed to split, and incandescent fire came spurting out through his skin. His doublet smoked for an instant and then flashed into ashes.
He shrieked again.
His form was still the form of a man, but it was a form etched in flame. The Baron burned, unconsumed, and he danced and howled in agony.
Khwaj struck the immovable door with one huge paw, and the door burst outward in flaming chunks. ‘Go!’ he roared. ‘Run! Run forever, and burn always!’
The flaming Dacite fled shrieking.
The town of Arjun stood frozen in that eternal instant of perpetual now. The citizens, like statues, stood frozen stock-still, unaware of the burning wraith that ran through their silent streets. They did not hear its agonized screams. They did not see it flee toward the lake-shore.
Baron Parok, all ablaze, ran, trailing greasy smoke. He reached the docks and fled in flames out a long pier stretching into the dark waters of the Sea of Arjun. He did not pause when he reached the end of the pier, but plunged off, yearning toward the quenching water. But, like the moment itself, the surface of the lake was unyielding and as hard as diamond. The wraith of flame howled in frustration, kneeling on the glittering surface and hammering on it, pleading to be let in, begging to drown in the blessed coolness just beyond reach. Then Parok leaped to his feet, driven by the Troll-God’s awful command. Shrieking still in agony and unutterable loneliness, the man-shape of eternal flame ran out across the dark crystal surface, receding incandescent until it was no more than a single bright spark far out on the night-darkened lake. And its lost wail of pain and endless solitude came echoing back to the incurious shore.
‘I wish Sparhawk would find his way home again,’ Talen muttered as he and Stragen once again climbed the rickety stairs to the loft. ‘We’ve got some fairly important information, and there’s no way to pass it on to the others.’
‘There’s nothing we can do about it right now,’ Stragen told him. ‘Let’s see how Valash reacts to this story you cooked up. Keep it sort of vague until we see which way he jumps.’
‘And then will you teach me how to pick a pocket?’ Talen asked with overly-feigned enthusiasm.
‘All right,’ Stragen sighed. ‘I apologize. I’ll concede that you know what you’re doing.’
‘Oh, thank you, Vymer!’ Talen gushed. ‘Thank you, thank you!’
‘You’ve been spending too much time with Princess Danae,’ Stragen muttered sourly. ‘I hope she does marry you. You deserve it.’
‘Bite your tongue, Stragen. I can still run faster than she can.’
‘Running doesn’t always help, Reldin. I thought I could run, too, but Melidere cut my legs out from under me with a single word.’
‘Oh? Which word was that?’
‘Profit, my young friend. She waved unlimited amounts of gold in front of my face.’
‘You sold out, Stragen,’ Talen accused. ‘You betrayed every bachelor in the world for money.’
‘Wouldn’t you have? We’re not talking about a few farthings here.’
‘It’s the principle of the thing,’ Talen replied loftily. ‘I wouldn’t sell out for money.’
‘I don’t think it’ll be money that Danae’s going to offer you, my innocent young friend. If you start running right now, you might escape, but I sort of doubt it. I knew your father, and there’s a certain weakness in your family. Danae’s going to get you, Talen. You don’t have a chance.’
‘Could we talk about something else? This is a very distressing sort of subject.’
Stragen laughed, and they went through the patched door at the top of the stairs.
Valash sat in the faint light of his single candle listening with a look of pained resignation on his face as Ogerajin babbled and drooled a long, strung-out series of disconnected phrases.
‘He doesn’t seem to be getting any better,’ Stragen observed quietly when he and Talen joined the two at the table.
‘He won’t get better, Vymer,’ Valash sighed. ‘I’ve seen this particular disease run its course before. Don’t get too close to him. He’s virulently infectious at this stage.’
‘I certainly wouldn’t want to catch what he’s got,’ Talen shuddered.
‘Do you have something for me?’ Valash asked.
‘I’m not going to swear to this, Master Valash,’ Talen said cautiously. ‘The fellows I picked it up from weren’t any too reliable. You might want to pass it on to Panem-Dea, though. It concerns them rather directly, so they might want to take a few extra precautions.’
‘Go on,’ Valash said.
‘Well, I overheard a couple of Arjuni soldiers talking in a tavern down by the waterfront – real Arjuni soldiers, I mean, not the ones Lord Scarpa’s recruited. They were talking about some orders that just came in from the capital at Arjuna. From what I was able to gather, they’ve been ordered to prepare for an extended campaign out in the jungle. They think they’re going to be mounting an attack on Lord Scarpa’s camp at Panem-Dea.’