The Diamond Throne

wharf.
    There was a clattering sound from the hold, and Faran trotted up on deck. Sparhawk stared at his war horse inamazement. Flute sat cross-legged on the big roan’s broad back playing her pipes. The melody she played was a peculiarly drowsy one, almost like a lullaby. Before Sparhawk and Kurik could run to intercept her, she tapped Faran’s back with the side of her foot, and he placidly walked down the gangway to the wharf.
    ‘What is she doing?’ Kurik exclaimed.
    ‘I can’t even begin to guess. Get Sephrenia – fast!’
    On the wharf, Flute rode directly towards the squad of church soldiers stationed at the far end. The soldiers had been closely examining every disembarking passenger and sailor, but they paid no attention to Flute and the roan horse She impudently rode back and forth in front of them several times, then turned. She seemed to be looking directly at Sparhawk and, still playing her pipes, she raised one little hand and motioned to him.
    He stared at her.
    She made a little face and then quite deliberately rode directly through the soldiers’ ranks. They absently stepped aside for her, but not one of them so much as looked at her.
    ‘What’s going on down there?’ he demanded as Sephrenia and Kurik joined him behind the deckhouse.
    ‘I’m not altogether sure,’ Sephrenia replied, frowning.
    ‘Why aren’t the soldiers paying any attention to her?’ Kurik asked as Flute rode through the ranks of red tunics once again.
    ‘I don’t think they can see her.’
    ‘But she’s right there in front of them.’
    ‘That doesn’t seem to matter.’ Her face slowly took on an expression of wonder. ‘I’d heard about this,’ she murmured. ‘I thought it was just an old folk tale, but perhaps I was wrong.’ She turned to Sparhawk. ‘Has she looked back at the ship at all since she rode down onto that wharf?’
    ‘She sort of motioned to me to follow her,’ he said.
    ‘You’re sure?’
    ‘That’s the way it looked to me.’
    She drew in a deep breath. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘there’s one way to find out, I suppose.’ Before Sparhawk could stop her, she rose and walked out from behind the deckhouse.
    ‘Sephrenia!’ he called after her, but she continued on across the deck as if she had not heard him. She reached the rail and stood there.
    ‘She’s right out in plain sight,’ Kurik said in a strangled tone.
    ‘I can see that.’
    ‘The soldiers are certain to have a description of her. Has she gone out of her mind?’
    ‘I doubt it. Look.’ Sparhawk pointed towards the soldiers on the wharf. Although Sephrenia was standing in plain view, they did not even appear to look at her.
    Flute, however, saw her and made another of those imperious little gestures.
    Sephrenia sighed and looked at Sparhawk. ‘Wait here,’ she said.
    ‘Wait where?’
    ‘Here on board ship.’ She turned, walked to the gangway and went on down to the wharf.
    ‘That rips it,’ Sparhawk said bleakly, rising to his feet and drawing his sword. Quickly he counted the soldiers on the wharf. ‘There aren’t that many of them,’ he said to Kurik. ‘If we can take them by surprise, there might be a chance.’
    ‘Not a very good one, Sparhawk. Let’s wait a moment and see what happens.’
    Sephrenia walked up the wharf and stopped directly in front of the soldiers.
    They ignored her.
    She spoke to them. They paid no attention.
    Then she turned back towards the ship. ‘It’s all right, Sparhawk,’ she called. ‘They can’t see us – or hear us. Bring the other horses and our things.’
    ‘Magic?’ Kurik asked in a stunned voice.
    ‘Not any kind that I ever heard about,’ Sparhawk replied.
    ‘I guess we’d better do what she says, then,’ Kurik advised, ‘and sort of immediately I’d hate to be right in the middle of those soldiers when the spell wears off.’
    It was eerie to walk down the gangway in plain view of the church soldiers and to saunter casually up the wharf until they were face to face with them. The soldiers’ expressions were bored, and they gave no indication that anything at all was amiss. They routinely stopped every sailor and passenger leaving the wharf, but paid no attention whatsoever to Sparhawk, Kurik, and the horses. The soldiers stepped out of the way with no command from their corporal and immediately closed ranks again once Sparhawk and Kurik had led the horses off the wharf and onto the cobblestones of the street.
    Without a word, Sparhawk lifted Flute