The Hidden City

surveying the merf around him with an imperious expression.
    Zalasta stood to one side of the man on the throne, and a wrinkled man in an ornamented black robe was at the front of the dais speaking in his own language. Sparhawk swore and quickly cast the spell.
    ‘Now what?’ Aphrael’s voice sounded in his mind.
    ‘Can you translate for me?’
    ‘I can do better than that.’
    He seemed to hear a faint buzzing sound and felt a momentary giddiness.
    ‘—and even now those forces do surround the sacred city,’ the wrinkled man was saying in a language Sparhawk now understood.
    A man with iron-grey hair and powerfully muscled arms stepped forward from the gathering before the dais. ‘What is there to fear, Ekatas?’ he asked in a booming voice. ‘Mighty Cyrgon clouds the eyes of our enemies as he has for a hundred centuries. Let them crouch among the bones beyond our valley and seek vainly the Gates of Illusion. They are as blind men and pose no danger to the Hidden City.’
    There was a murmur of agreement from the others standing before the dais.
    ‘General Ospados speaks truth,’ another armored man declared, also stepping forward. ‘Let us, as we have always, ignore these puny foreigners at our gates.’
    ‘Shameful!’ another bellowed, stepping to the front some distance from the two who had already spoken. ‘Will we hide from inferior races? Their presence at our gates is an affront that must be punished!’’
    ‘Can you make out what they’re saying?’ Talen whispered.
    ‘They’re arguing,’ Sparhawk replied.
    ‘Really?’ Talen’s tone was sardonic. ‘Could you be a little more specific, Sparhawk?’
    ‘Evidently Aphrael’s cousins have managed to get everybody here. From what the fellow in the black robe was saying, the city’s surrounded.’
    ‘It’s a comfort to have friends nearby. What do these people plan to do about it?’
    ‘That’s what they’re arguing about. Some of them want to just sit tight. Others want to attack.’
    Then Zalasta came to the front of the dais. ‘Thus says Eternal Klael,’ he declared. ‘The forces beyond the Gates of Illusion are as nothing. The danger is here within the walls of the Hidden City. Anakha is even now within the sound of my voice.’
    Sparhawk swore.
    ‘What’s wrong?’ Talen demanded.
    ‘Zalasta knows we’re here.’
    ‘How did he find that out?’
    ‘I have no idea. He says that he’s speaking for Klael, and Klael can probably feel Bhelliom.’
    ‘Even through the gold?’
    ‘The gold might hide Bhelliom from Cyrgon, but Bhelliom and Klael are brothers. They can probably feel each other halfway across the universe—even when there are whole suns burning between them.’ Sparhawk held up his hand. ‘He’s saying something else.’ He leaned closer to the window.
    ‘I know you can hear me, Sparhawk!’ Zalasta said in a loud voice, speaking in Elenic. ‘You’re Bhelliom’s creature, and that gives you a certain amount of power. But I am Klael’s now, and that gives me just as much as you have.’ Zalasta sneered. ‘The disguises were very clever, but Klael saw through them immediately. You should have done as you were told, Sparhawk. You’ve doomed your two young friends, and there’s not a single thing you can do about it.’
    There were a half-dozen men in nondescript clothing in the hallway outside the door to the room where the Emperor had been the last time Elysoun had visited him. Elysoun did not even think. ‘Sarabian!’ she shouted. ‘Lock your door!’
    The Emperor, of course, did not. After a momentary shocked pause while the assassins froze in their tracks and Liatris blistered the air around her with curses even as she drew her daggers, the door burst open and Sarabian, dressed in Elene hose, a full-sleeved linen shirt, and with his long, black hair tied back, lunged out into the hallway, rapier in hand.
    Sarabian was tall for a Tamul, and his first lunge pinned an assassin to the wall opposite the door. The Emperor whipped his sword free of the suddenly collapsing body with a dramatic flourish.
    ‘Quit showing off.’ Liatris snapped at her husband as she neatly ripped one of the assassins up the middle. ‘Pay attention!’
    ‘Yes, my love,’ Sarabian said gaily, crouching again into en garde.
    Elysoun had only a small, neat dagger with a five-inch blade. It was long enough, though. An Arjuni assassin with a foot-long poniard parried Sarabian’s next thrust and, snarling spitefully,