The Hidden City

bandage-like wimple. ‘Oh, Sparhawk!’ she cried out in a low voice, holding her arms out to him. He went to her and enfolded her in a rough embrace.
    From far below there came a savage bellow.
    ‘Anakha!’ Bhelliom’s voice roared in Sparhawk’s mind. ‘Cyrgon hath awakened to his peril! Release me.’
    Sparhawk jerked the pouch out from under his tunic and fumbled with the drawstring.
    ‘What’s that shouting?’ Talen demanded.
    ‘Cyrgon knows that we’ve released Ehlana!’ Sparhawk replied tensely, drawing Kurik’s box out of the pouch. ‘Open!’ he commanded.
    The lid raised, and the blue radiance of the Bhelliom blazed forth. Sparhawk carefully lifted out the jewel.
    ‘They’re coming up the stairs, Sparhawk.’ Mirtai warned.
    ‘Get clear!’ he said sharply. ‘Blue Rose!’ he said then. ‘Canst thou bar the way to our enemies, who even now rush up yon stairway?’
    The Bhelliom did not answer, but the waist-high wall surrounding the head of the stairs collapsed inward, crashing down into the stairwell with a great clattering and a billowing cloud of dust.
    ‘Advise Aphrael that her mother is safe.’ Bhelliom’s voice was crisp. ‘Let the attack begin.’
    Sparhawk cast the spell. ‘Aphrael!’ he said sharply. ‘We’ve got Ehlana. Tell the others to move in!’
    ‘Can Bhelliom break Cyrgon’s illusion?’ she asked in a tone every bit as crisp as the Sapphire Rose’s had been.
    ‘Blue Rose,’ Sparhawk said silently, ‘the illusion of Cyrgon doth still impede the advance of our friends upon the city. Canst thou dispel it that they may bring their forces to bear upon this accursed place?’
    ‘It shall be as thou wouldst have it, my son.’
    There was a momentary pause, and then the earth seemed to shudder slightly, and a vast shimmer ran in waves across the sky. From the leprous white temple far below there came a shrill screech of pain.
    ‘My goodness,’ Flute said mildly as she suddenly appeared in the center of the room. ‘I’ve never had a ten-thousand-year-old spell broken. I’ll bet it hurts like anything. Poor Cyrgon’s having an absolutely dreadful night.’
    ‘The night is not yet over, Child Goddess,’ Bhelliom spoke through Kalten’s lips. ‘Save thine unseemly gloating until all danger is past.’
    ‘Well, really!’
    ‘Hush, Aphrael. We must look to our defenses, Anakha. What Cyrgon knoweth, Klael doth also know. The contest is at hand. We must make ready.’
    ‘Truly,’ Sparhawk agreed. He looked around at his friends. ‘Let’s go,’ he told them. ‘We’ll spread out along the parapet, and keep your eyes open. Klael’s coming, and I don’t want him creeping up behind me. Is that stairway completely blocked?’
    ‘A mouse couldn’t get through all that rubble,’ Mirtai told him.
    ‘We can forget about the guards,’ Bevier announced, removing his ear from the guardroom door. ‘They’re still rearranging the furniture.’
    ‘Good.’ Sparhawk went to the door leading out to the parapet. It opened with a shrill protest of rusty hinges. ‘Don’t start getting brave,’ he cautioned his friends. ‘The fight’s between Bhelliom and Klael. Spread out and keep watch.’
    The eastern sky was pale with the approach of day as they came out onto the parapet, and Cyrgon’s agonized shrieking still echoed through the Hidden City.
    ‘There,’ Talen said, pointing toward the basalt escarpment beyond the lake to the south.
    A mass of figures, tiny in the distance and still dark in the dawn-light, were streaming out of ‘the Glen of Heroes’, moving into the basin before the gates of Cyrga.
    ‘Who are they?’ Ehlana cried, suddenly gripping Sparhawk’s arm.
    ‘Vanion,’ Sparhawk told her, ‘along with just about everybody else—Betuana, Kring, Ulath and the Trolls, Sephrenia—’
    ‘Sephrenia?’ Ehlana exclaimed. ‘She’s dead!’
    ‘You didn’t really think I’d let Zalasta kill my sister, did you, Ehlana?’ Flute said.
    ‘But—he said that he’d stabbed her in the heart!’
    The Child Goddess shrugged. ‘He did, but Bhelliom cured it. Vanion’s going to take steps.’
    Talen came running round the parapet from the back of the tower. ‘Bergsten’s coming in from the other side,’ he reported. ‘His knights just trampled about three regiments of Cyrgai under foot without even slowing down.’
    ‘Are we going to be caught in the middle of a siege here?’ Kalten asked with a worried expression.
    ‘Not too likely,’