The Diamond Throne

beckoned again, then stepped out of the light and disappeared up the side street.
    The guards ran after her
    Sparhawk was out of the shadows at the mouth of the alley before the pair had rounded the corner. He was across the street in seconds, and he bounded up the steps two at a time, seized the heavy handle of one of the great arched doors, and pulled. Then he was inside. He smiledfaintly to himself, wondering how long the soldiers would search for the now-vanished apparition he had created.
    The inside of the cathedral was dim and cool, smelling of incense and candle wax. Two lone tapers, one on either side of the altar, burned fitfully, stuttering in the faint breath of night air that had followed Sparhawk into the nave. Their light was little more than two flickering pinpoints that were reflected only faintly in the gems and gold decorating the altar.
    Sparhawk moved silently down the central aisle, his shoulders tense and senses alert. Although it was late at night, there was always the possibility that one of the many churchmen who lived within the confines of the cathedral might be up and about, and Sparhawk preferred to keep his visit a secret and to avoid noisy confrontations.
    He knelt perfunctorily before the altar, rose, and moved out of the nave into the dim, latticed corridor leading towards the chancel.
    There was light ahead, dim but steady. Sparhawk moved quietly, keeping close to the wall. A curtained archway stood before him, and he carefully parted the thick purple drapes a finger’s width and peered in.
    The Primate Annias, garbed not in satin but in harsh monk’s cloth, knelt before a small stone altar inside the sanctuary His emaciated features were twisted in an agony of self-loathing, and he wrung his hands together as if he would tear his fingers from their sockets. Tears streamed openly down his face, and his breath rasped hoarsely in his throat.
    Sparhawk’s face went bleak, and his hand went to his sword hilt. The soldiers at the cathedral door had been one thing. Killing them would have served no real purpose Annias, however, was an entirely differentmatter. The primate was alone. A quick rush and a single thrust would remove this filthy infection from Elenia once and for all.
    For a moment the life of the Primate of Cimmura hung in the balance as Sparhawk, for the first time in his life, contemplated the deliberate murder of an unarmed man. But then he seemed to hear a light, girlish voice and saw before him a wealth of pale blonde hair and a pair of unwavering grey eyes. Regretfully, he let the velvet drapes close again and went to serve his Queen, who, even in her slumber, had reached out with her gentle hand to save his soul.
    ‘Another time, Annias,’ he whispered under his breath. Then he went on down the corridor past the chancel towards the entrance to the crypt.
    The crypt lay beneath the cathedral, and entry was gained by walking down a flight of stone stairs. A single tallow candle glittered at the top of the stairs, set in a grease-encrusted sconce Careful to make no noise, Sparhawk snapped the candle in two, re-lit the fragment remaining in the sconce and went on down, holding his half-candle aloft.
    The door at the bottom of the stairs was of heavy bronze Sparhawk closed his fist about the latch and twisted very slowly until he felt the bolt grate open. Then, a fraction of an inch at a time, he opened the thick door The faint creaking of the hinges seemed very loud in the silence, but Sparhawk knew that the sound would not carry up to the main floor of the church, and Annias was too caught up in his personal agonizing to hear anyway
    The inside of the crypt was a vast, low place, cold and musty-smelling. The circle of yellow light from Sparhawk’s bit of candle did not reach far, and beyond that circle, huge expanses lay lost in darkness. The archedbuttresses which supported the roof were draped with cobwebs, and dense shadows clotted the irregular corners. Sparhawk placed his back against the bronze door and very slowly closed it again. The sound of its closing echoed through the crypt like the hollow crack of doom.
    The shadowed crypt extended back to unrelieved darkness far under the nave of the cathedral. Beneath the vaulted ceiling and the web-draped buttresses lay the former rulers of Elenia, rank upon silent rank of them, each enclosed in a leprous marble tomb with a dusty leaden effigy reposing on its top. Two thousand years of Elenian history lay mouldering