"It's getting late, Kurik."

"Do you want to do this?"

Sparhawk closed his mouth and watched without saying a word as Talen slipped away. The boy looked tired, and Kurik was a hard task-master. Sparhawk was like that on occasion.

Kurik consulted with Occuda for a few moments, then looked at his mortar-spattered crew. "Time to learn a new trade, gentlemen," he said. "You're now going to become carpenters. We're going to build a china cabinet out from that door. The hinges will still work, and I can fashion a hidden latch. The door will be completely concealed." He thought a moment, c.o.c.ked his head to listen to the m.u.f.fled shrieks coming from above. "I think I'll need some quilts, Occuda," he said thoughtfully. "We'll nail them to the other side of the door to keep the noise from being too loud in here."

"Good idea," Occuda agreed. "With no other servants around, I'll be spending a fair amount of time in here, and that screaming might get on my nerves."

"That's not the only reason we're doing it, but that's all right. Very well, gentlemen, let's get to work." Kurik grinned. "I'll make useful people out of you all yet," he said.

When they were done, the china cabinet was a solid piece of work. Kurik rather liberally laid a dark stain over it, then stepped back and viewed the new woodwork critically. "Wax it a couple of times after the stain dries," he said to Occuda, "and then scuff it up a bit. You'd probably better scratch it in a few places as well and blow dust into the corners. Then load it with crockery. n.o.body will ever know that it hasn't been here for a century or more."

"That is a very good man you've got there, Sparhawk, Ulath noted. "Would you consider selling him?"

"His wife would kill me," Sparhawk replied. "Besides, we don't sell people in Elenia."

"We're not in Elenia."

"Why don't we go back to that main room?"

"Not just yet, Sir Knights," Kurik said firmly. "First you have to sweep the sawdust up from the floor and put the tools away."

Sparhawk sighed and went looking for a broom.

After they had cleaned up the kitchen, they washed the mortar and sawdust off themselves, changed back into tunics and hose and returned to the room with the vaulted ceiling, where they found the count and Sephrenia deep in conversation while Talen and Flute sat not far away. The boy appeared to be teaching the little girl how to play draughts.

"You look much neater now," Sephrenia told them approvingly. "you were all really very messy out there in the courtyard."

"You can't lay brick or stone without getting mud on you," Kurik shrugged.

"I seem to have picked up a blister," Kalten mourned, looking at the palm of his hand.

"It's the first honest work he's done since he was knighted," Kurik said to the count. "With a little training, he might not make a bad carpenter, but the rest of them have a long way to go, I'm afraid."

"How did you conceal the door in the kitchen?" the count asked him.

"We built a china cabinet against it, my Lord. Occuda's going to do a few things to it to make it look old and then fill it with dishes. We padded the back of it to m.u.f.fle the sound of your sisters screaming."

"Is she still doing that?" the count sighed.

"It will not diminish as the years go by, My Lord," Sephrenia told him. "I'm afraid she'll scream until the day she dies. When she stops, you'll know that it's over."

"Occuda's making us something to eat," Sparhawk said to the count. "It's going to take him a while, so this might not be a bad time to have a look at the chronicle you've compiled."

"Excellent idea, Sir Sparhawk," the count said, rising from His chair. "Will you excuse us, Madame?"

"Of course."

"Perhaps you might care to accompany us?"

She laughed. "Ah, no, My Lord. I'd be of no use in a library."

"Sephrenia doesn't read," Sparhawk explained. "It has something to do with her religion, I think."

"No," she disagreed. "It has to do with language, dear one. I don't want to get into the habit of thinking in Elene. It might interfere at some point when I need to think - and speak - very rapidly in Styric."

"Bevier, Ulath, why don't you come with the count and me?" Sparhawk suggested. "Between you, you might be able to fill in some details that will help Him pinpoint the story we need."

They went back up the stairs and left the room. The three knights followed the count through the dusty hallways of the castle until they reached a door in the west wing. The count opened the door and led them into a dark room. He fumbled around on a large table for a moment, took up a candle and went back into the hallway to light it from the torch burning outside.

The room was not large, and it was crammed with books. They stood on shelves stretching from floor to ceiling and were piled in the corners.

"You are well-read, My Lord," Bevier said to him.

"It's what scholars do, Sir Bevier. The soil hereabouts is poor - except for growing trees - and the cultivation of trees is not a very stimulating activity for a civilized man."

He looked around fondly. "These are my friends," he said. "I'll need their companionship now more than ever, I'm afraid. I won't be able to leave this house ever again I'll have to stay here to guard my sister."

"The insane don't usually live for very long, My Lord," Ulath a.s.sured him. "Once they go mad, they begin to neglect themselves. I had a cousin who lost her mind one winter. She was gone by spring."

"It's a painful thing to hope for the death of a loved one, Sir Ulath, but G.o.d help me, I find that I do." The count put his hand on a foot-thick stack of unbound paper lying on his desk. "My life's work, gentlemen." He seated himself. "To business then. Exactly what are we looking for?"

"The grave of King Sarak of Thalesia," Ulath told him.

"He didn't reach the battlefield down in Lamorkand, so we a.s.sume he fell in some skirmish up here in Pelosia or in Deira - unless his ship was lost at sea."

Sparhawk had never thought of that. The possibility that Bh.e.l.liom lay at the bottom of the straits of Thalesia or the Sea of Pelos chilled him.

"Can you generalize a bit?" the count asked. "Which side of the lake was the king's destination? I've broken my chronicle down by districts to give it some organization."

"In all probability, King Sarak was bound for the east side," Bevier replied. "That's where the Thalesian army engaged the Zemochs."

"Are there any clues at all about where his ship landed?"

"Not any that I've heard," Ulath admitted. "I've made a few guesses, but they could be off by a hundred leagues or so. Sarak might have sailed to some seaport along the north coast, but Thalesian ships don't always do that.

We're reputed to be pirates in some quarters, and Sarak might have wanted to avoid the tiresome questions and just drove his prow up onto some deserted beach."

"That makes it a little more difficult," Count Ghasek said. "If I knew where he'd landed, I'd know which districts he might have pa.s.sed through. Does Thalesian tradition provide any description of the king?"

"Not in very much detail," Ulath replied, "only that he was about seven feet tall."

That helps a bit. The common people probably wouldn't have known his name, but a man of that size would have been remembered." He began to leaf through his ma.n.u.script. "Could he possibly have landed on the north coast of Deira?" he asked.

It's possible, but unlikely," Ulath said. "Relations between Deira and Thalesia were a bit strained in those days. Sarak probably wouldn't have put Himself in a position to have been captured."

"Let's begin up around the port of Apalia then. The shortest route to the east side of Lake Randera would run south from there." He began to leaf through the pages in front of him. He frowned. There doesn't seem to be anything useful here," he said. "How large was the King's party?"

"Not very sizeable," Ulath rumbled. "Sarak left Emsat in a hurry, and he only took a few retainers with him."

"All of the accounts I picked up in Apalia mention large bodies of Thalesian troops. Of course it could be as you suggested, Sir Ulath. King Sarak might have landed on some lonely beach and by-pa.s.sed Apalia entirely. Let's try the port of Nadera before we start combing beaches and isolated fishing villages." He consulted a map and then turned to a place about half-way through the ma.n.u.script and began to skim through it. "I think we've got something." he exclaimed with a Scholars enthusiasm. "A peasant up near Nadera told me about a Thalesian ship that slipped past the city during the night early in the campaign and sailed several leagues up the river before she landed. A number of warriors disembarked, and one of them stood head and shoulders above the rest. Was there anything unusual about Sarak's crown?"

"It had a large blue jewel on top of it," Ulath said, his face intent.

"That was him, then," the count said exultantly. "The story makes particular mention of that jewel. They say that it was the size of a man's fist."

Sparhawk let out an explosive breath. "At least Sarak's ship didn't sink at sea," he said with relief.

The count took a length of string and stretched it diagonally across the map. Then he dipped his pen into his inkwell and made a number of notes. "All right, then, he said crisply. "a.s.suming King Sarak took the shortest course from Nadera to the battlefield, he'd have pa.s.sed through the districts on this list. I've done research in all of them. We're getting closer, Sir Knights. We'll track down this king of yours yet." He began to leaf through rapidly. "No mention of him here," he muttered, half to himself, "but there weren't any engagements in that district." He read on, his lips pursed. "Here!" he said, his face breaking into a smile of triumph. ""A group of Thalesians rode through a village twenty leagues to the north of Lake Venne. Their leader was a very large man wearing a crown. We're narrowing it down."

Sparhawk found that he was actually holding his breath. He had been on many missions and quests in his life, but this searching out a trail through paper had a strange excitement to it. He began to understand how a man could devote his life to scholarship with absolute contentment.

"And here it is!" the count said excitedly. "We've found him."

"Where?" Sparhawk demanded eagerly.

"I'll read you the entire pa.s.sage," the count replied.

"You understand, of course, that I've cast the account in more gentlemanly language than that of the man who told it to me." He smiled. "The language of peasants and serfs is colourful, but hardly suitable for a scholarly work." He squinted at the page. "Oh, yes. Now I remember. This fellow was a serf. His master told me that the fellow liked to tell stories. I found him breaking up clods with a mattock in a field near the east side of Lake Venne. This is what he told me: ""It was early in the campaign, and the Zemochs under Otha had penetrated the eastern border of ,Lamorkand and were devastating the countryside as they marched. The western Elenian kings were rushing to meet them with all the forces they could muster, and large bodies of troops were crossing into Lamorkand from the west, but they were primarily farther south than Lake Venne. The troops coming down from the north were mostly Thalesians. Even before the Thalesian army landed, however, an advance party of them rode south past Lake Venne.

"Otha, as we all know, had sent out skirmishers and patrols well in advance of his main force. It was one of those patrols that intercepted the party of Thalesians mentioned above at a place called Giant's Mound."

"Was the place named before or after the battle?" Ulath asked.

"It almost had to have been after," the count replied.

Pelosians don't erect burial mounds. That's a Thalesian custom, isn't it?"

"Right, and the word "giant" describes Sarak rather well, wouldn't you say?"

"Exactly my thought. There's more, though." The count continued to read. ""The engagement between the Thalesians and the Zemochs was short and very savage. The Zemochs vastly outnumbered the small band of northern warriors and soon swarmed them under. Among the last to fall was the leader, a man of enormous proportions. One of his retainers, though sorely wounded, took something from his fallen leader's body and fled west towards the lake with it. There is no clear account of what it was that he took or what he did with it. The Zemochs pursued the retainer hotly, and he died of his wounds on the sh.o.r.e of the lake. However, a column of Alcione Knights, men who had been returned to their Mother-house in Deira to recuperate from wounds received in the campaign in Rendor, happened by on their way to Lake Randera and exterminated the Zemoch patrol to the last man. They buried the faithful retainer and rode on, by purest chance missing the site of the original engagement.

"As it happened, a sizeable force of Thalesians had been following the first party by no more than a day. When the local peasants informed them of what had transpired, they buried their countrymen and erected the mound over their graves. This second Thalesian force never reached Lake Randera, since they were ambushed two days later, and all were slain."

"And that explains why no one ever knew what had happened to Sarak," Ulath said. "There was no one left alive to tell anybody about it."

"This retainer," Bevier mused, "might it have been the king's crown he took?"

"It's possible," Ulath conceded. "More likely, though, it would have been His sword. Thalesians put great value on royal swords."

"It won't be hard to find out," Sparhawk said. "We'll go to Giant's Mound and Tynian can raise Sarak's ghost. He'll be able to tell us what happened to his sword - and his crown."

"Here's something odd," the count said. "I remember that I almost didn't write it down because it happened after the battle. The serfs have been seeing a monstrously deformed shape in the marshes around Lake Venne for centuries now."

"Some swamp creature?" Bevier suggested. "A bear perhaps?"

"I think that serfs would recognize a bear," the count said., "Maybe a moose," Ulath said. "The first time I ever saw a moose, I couldn't believe anything could get that big, and a moose hasn't got the prettiest face in the world."

"I remember that the serfs said that the thing walks on its hind legs."

"Could it possibly be a Troll?" Sparhawk asked. "That one who was roaring outside our camp by the lake?"

"Did the serfs describe it as s.h.a.ggy and very tall?" Ulath asked.

"It's s.h.a.ggy right enough, but they say it's squat, and its limbs are all twisted."

Ulath frowned. "That doesn't sound like any Troll I've ever heard about - except maybe - " His eyes suddenly went wide. "Ghwerig," he shouted, snapping his fingers. It has to be Ghwerig, that nails it down, Sparhawk. Ghwerig's looking for Bh.e.l.liom, and he knows right where to look."

"I think we'd better go back to Lake Venne," Sparhawk said, "and just as fast as we can. I don't want Ghwerig to find Bh.e.l.liom before I do. I definitely don't want to have to wrestle him for it."

Chapter 17.

"I am eternally in your debt, my friends," Ghasek said to them in the castle courtyard the next morning as they were preparing to leave.

"And we are in yours as well, My Lord," Sparhawk a.s.sured him. "Without your aid, we'd have had no chance of finding what we seek."

"G.o.d speed then, Sir Sparhawk," Ghasek said, shaking the big Pandion's hand warmly.

Sparhawk led the way out of the courtyard and back down the narrow track to the foot of the crag.

"I wonder what's going to happen to him," Talen said rather sadly as they rode along.

"He has no choice," Sephrenia said. "He has to stay there until his sister dies. She's no longer a danger, but she still has to be guarded and cared for."

"I'm afraid the rest of his life is going to be very lonely," Kalten sighed.

"He has his books and chronicles," Sparhawk disagreed."

That's all the company a scholar really needs."

Ulath was muttering under his breath.

"What's the trouble?" Tynian asked him.

"I should have known that the Troll at Lake Venne was there for some specific reason," Ulath replied. "I could have saved us some time if I'd investigated."

"Would you have recognized Ghwerig if you'd seen him?"

Ulath nodded. "He's dwarfed, and there aren't very many dwarfed Trolls about. She-Trolls usually eat deformed cubs as soon as they're born."

"That's a brutal practice."