The Hidden City

into the antique armor customarily worn by those who worshipped him—a burnished steel cuirass, a crested helmet, a large round shield and a sword in his fist.
    A peculiar insight came to Sparhawk as he slid down through the dawn-cool air. Cyrgon was not so much stupid as he was conservative. It was change that he hated, change that he feared. He had frozen his Cyrgai eternally in time and had erased any potential for change or innovation from their minds. The Cyrgai, unmoved by the winds of time, would remain forever as they had been when their God had first conceived of them. He had wrought an ideal and fenced it all about with law and custom and an innate hatred of change, and frozen thus, they were doomed —and had been since the first of them had placed one sandaled foot on the face of the ever-changing world.
    Sparhawk smiled faintly. Cyrgon, it appeared, needed instruction in the benefits of change, and his first lesson would be in the advantages of modern equipment, weaponry, and tactics. Sparhawk thought, ‘Armor’, and he was immediately encased in black-enameled steel. He almost casually discarded his plain working sword and filled his hand with his heavier and longer ceremonial blade. Now he was a fully-armed Pandion Knight, a soldier of God—of several Gods, he rather ruefully amended that thought—and he was, almost by default, the champion not only of his Queen, his Church and his God—but also, if he read Bhelliom’s thought correctly, of his fair and sometimes vain sister, the world. He drifted down and settled to earth amidst the wreck of the destroyed temple.
    ‘Well-met, Cyrgon,’ he said with profoundest formality.
    ‘Well-met, Anakha,’ the God replied. ‘I had misjudged thee. Thou art suitable now. I had despaired of thee, fearing that thou wouldst never have realized thy true significance. Thine apprenticeship hath been long and methinks, hindered by thine inappropriate affiliation with Aphrael.’
    ‘We’re wasting time, Cyrgon,’ Sparhawk cut through the flowery courtesies. ‘Let’s get at this. I’m already late for breakfast.’
    ‘So be it, Anakha!’ Cyrgon’s classic features were set in an expression of approval. ‘Defend thyself.’ and he swung a huge sword stroke at Sparhawk’s head. But Sparhawk had already begun his stroke, and so their swords clashed harmlessly in the air between them. It was good to be fighting again. There was no politics here, no confusion of dissembling words or false promises, just the clean, sharp ring of steel on steel and the smooth flow of muscle and sinew over bone.
    Cyrgon was quick, as quick as Martel had been in his youth, intricate moves of wrist and arm and shoulder that marked the master swordsman seemed to come unbidden, almost in spite of himself, to the ancient God.
    ‘Invigorating, isn’t it?’ Sparhawk panted through a wolf-like grin, lashing a stinging cut at the God’s shoulder. ‘Open your mind, Cyrgon. Nothing is set in stone—not even something as simple as this.’
    And he lashed out with his sword again, flicking another cut onto Cyrgon’s sword-arm. The immortal rushed at him, forcing the oversized round shield against him, trying with will and main strength to overcome his better-trained opponent. Sparhawk looked into that flawless face and saw regret and desperation there. He bunched his shoulder, as Kurik had taught him, and locked his shield-arm, forming an impenetrable barrier against the ineffectual flailing of his opponent. He parried only with his lightly held sword.
    ‘Yield, Cyrgon,’ he said, ‘and live. Yield, and Klael will be banished. We are of this world, Cyrgon. Let Klael and Bhelliom contend for other worlds. Take thy life and thy people and go. I would not slay even thee.’
    ‘I spurn thine insulting offer, Anakha!’ Cyrgon half-shrieked.
    ‘I guess that satisfies the demands of knightly honor,’ Sparhawk muttered to himself with a certain amount of relief. ‘God knows what I’d have done if he’d accepted.’ He raised his sword again. ‘So be it then, brother,’ he said. ‘We weren’t meant to live in the same world together anyway.’ His body and will seemed to swell inside his armor. ‘Watch, brother,’ he grated through clenched teeth. ‘Watch and learn.’
    And then he unleashed five hundred years of training, coupled with his towering anger, at this poor, impotent godling, who had ripped asunder the peace of the world, a peace toward which Sparhawk had yearned