The Hidden City

crisis of some sort.
    ‘It’s nothing, Divine One,’ he mumbled. ‘I’ll be fine. I swim like a fish.’ He deliberately avoided looking at her.
    ‘What’s bothering you, then?’
    ‘I’d really rather not say.’
    She sighed. ‘Men.’ Then she climbed into the shaft leading down toward the unseen water rushing toward the inner wall.
    ‘Bring Kalten,’ she ordered, ‘and let’s get at this.
    ‘I’d really like to do something about that,’ Sephrenia murmured to Vanion as they peered over the top of the gravel mound at the encampment of the slavers.
    ‘So would I, love,’ Vanion replied, ‘but I think we’d better wait until later. If everything goes the way it’s supposed to, we’ll be waiting for them when they reach Cyrga.’ He raised himself a bit higher. ‘I think that’s the salt-flats just beyond that trail they’re following.’
    ‘We’ll be able to tell for certain when the moon rises,’ she replied.
    ‘Have you heard anything at all from Aphrael?’
    ‘Nothing I can make any sense of. The echoes are very confusing when she’s in two places at the same time. I gather that things are coming to a head in Matherion, and she and Sparhawk are swimming.’
    ‘Swimming? This is a desert, Sephrenia.’
    ‘Yes, I noticed that. They’ve found something to swim in, though.’ She paused. ‘Does Kalten know how to swim?’ she asked.
    ‘He splashes a great deal, but he manages to drag himself through the water. I wouldn’t call him graceful, by any means. Why do you ask?’
    ‘She’s having some sort of problems with him, and it has to do with swimming. Let’s go back and join the others, dear one. Just the sight of those slavers is setting my blood to boiling.’
    They slid back down the gravel-strewn mound and walked along a shallow gully toward their armored soldiers. The Cyrinic knight, Sir Launesse, stood somewhat diffidently beside a burly, intricately curled and massively eyebrowed personage with heavy shoulders and a classical demeanor.
    ‘Sephrenia!’ the clearly non-human being said in a voice that could probably have been heard in Thalesia. ‘Well-met!’
    ‘Well-met indeed, Divine Romalic,’ she replied with just a trace of a weary sigh.
    ‘Please, dear,’ Vanion murmured, ‘ask him to lower his voice.’
    ‘Nobody else can hear him,’ she assured him. ‘The Gods speak loudly—but only to certain ears.’
    ‘Thy sister bids me give thee greetings,’ Romalic announced in a voice of thunder.
    ‘Thou art kind to bear those greetings, Divine One.’
    ‘Kindness and courtesy aside, Sephrenia,’ the huge God declaimed, combing his beard with enormous fingers, ‘art thou yet prepared to serve us all and to assume thy proper place?’
    ‘I am unworthy, Divine One,’ she replied modestly. ‘Surely there are others wiser and better suited.’
    ‘What’s this?’ Vanion asked.
    ‘It’s been going on for a long time, dear one,’ she explained. ‘I’ve been avoiding it for centuries. Romalic always has to bring it up, though.’
    It all fell into place in Vanion’s mind. ‘Sephrenia.’ he gasped. They want you to be Over-Priestess, don’t they?’
    ‘It’s Aphrael, Vanion, not me. They think they can get around her by offering this to me. I don’t really want it, and they don’t really want to give it to me, but they’re afraid of her, and this is their way to placate her.’
    ‘Aphrael bids thee to make haste,’ Romalic proclaimed. ‘Ye must all be at the gates of Cyrga ere dawn, for this is the night of decision, when Cyrgon and, yea, even Klael, must be confronted and, we may hope, confounded. E’en now doth Anakha move ghost-like through the streets of the Hidden City towards his design. Let us hasten.’ He lifted his voice and thundered, ‘On to Cyrga!’
    ‘Is he always like this?’ Vanion murmured.
    ‘Romalic?’ Sephrenia said. ‘Oh, yes. He’s perfectly suited to the Cyrinic Knights. Come along, dear one. Let’s go to Cyrga.’
    There were dim, flickering lights far above, but the pool was sunk in inky blackness when Sparhawk surfaced and explosively blew out the breath he had been holding.
    ‘Kalten,’ he heard Aphrael saying, ‘wake up.’
    There was a startled cry and a great deal of splashing.
    ‘Oh, stop that,’ the Goddess told Sparhawk’s friend. ‘It’s all over, and you came through it just fine. Xanetia, dear, could we have a little light?’
    ‘Of a certainty, Divine One,’ the Anarae replied, and her