The Hidden City

did it?’
    ‘I don’t know, Sephrenia! Nobody’s talking to Danae. All I can get is the word “hostage”. Somebody’s managed to get into the castle, seize Ehlana and Alcan and spirit them out. Sarabian’s beside himself. He’s flooded the halls with guards, so Danae can’t get out of her room to find out what’s really happening.’
    ‘We must tell Sparhawk!’
    ‘Absolutely not. Sparhawk bursts into flames when Ehlana’s in danger. He’s got to get this army safely back to Matherion before we can let him catch on fire.’
    ‘But—’
    ‘No, Sephrenia. He’ll find out soon enough, but let’s get everyone to safety before he does. We’ve only got a week or so left until the sun goes down permanently and everything—and everyone—up here turns to solid ice.’
    ‘You’re probably right,’ Sephrenia conceded. She thought a moment, staring off at the frost-silvered forest beyond the meadow. ‘That word “hostage” explains everything, I think. Is there any way you can pinpoint your mother’s exact location?’
    Aphrael shook her head. ‘Not without putting her in danger. If I start moving around and poking my nose into things, Cyrgon will feel me nudging at the edges of his scheme, and he might do something to Mother before he stops to think. Our main concern right now is keeping Sparhawk from going crazy when he finds out what’s happened.’ She suddenly gasped and her dark eyes went very wide.
    ‘What is it?’ Sephrenia asked in alarm. ‘What’s happening?’
    ‘I don’t know!’ Aphrael cried. ‘It’s something monstrous!’ She cast her eyes about wildly for a moment and then steadied herself, her pale brow furrowing in concentration. Then her eyes narrowed in anger. ‘Somebody’s using one of the forbidden spells, Sephrenia,’ she said in a voice that was as hard as the frozen ground.
    ‘Are you sure?’
    ‘Absolutely. The very air stinks of it.’
    Djarian the necromancer was a cadaverous-looking Styric with sunken eyes, a thin, almost skeletal frame, and a stale, mildewed odor about him. Like the other Styric captives, he was in chains and under the close watch of Church Knights well-versed in countering Styric spells.
    A cold, oppressive twilight was settling over the encampment near the ruins of Tzada when Sparhawk and the others finally got around to questioning the prisoners. The Troll-Gods had taken their creatures firmly in hand when the feeding orgy had come suddenly to an end, and the Trolls were now gathered around a huge bonfire several miles out in the meadow holding what appeared to be religious observances of some sort.
    ‘Just go through the motions, Bevier,’ Sparhawk quietly advised the olive-skinned Cyrinic Knight as Djarian was dragged before them. ‘Keep asking him irrelevant questions until Xanetia signals that she’s picked him clean.’
    Bevier nodded. ‘I can drag it out for as long as you want, Sparhawk. Let’s get started.’
    Sir Bevier’s gleaming white surcoat, made ruddy by the flickering firelight, gave him a decidedly ecclesiastical appearance, and he heightened that impression by prefacing his interrogation with a lengthy prayer. Then he got down to business.
    Djarian replied to the questions tersely in a hollow voice that seemed almost to come echoing up out of a vault. Bevier appeared to take no note of the prisoner’s sullen behavior. His whole manner seemed excessively correct, even fussy, and he heightened that impression by wearing fingerless wool gloves such as scribes and scholars wear in cold weather. He doubled back frequently, rephrasing questions he had previously asked and then triumphantly pointing out inconsistencies in the prisoner’s replies.
    The one exception to Djarian’s terse brevity was a sudden outburst of vituperation, a lengthy denunciation of Zalasta—and Cyrgon—for abandoning him here on this inhospitable field.
    ‘Bevier sounds exactly like a lawyer,’ Kalten muttered quietly to Sparhawk. ‘I hate lawyers.’
    ‘He’s doing it on purpose,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘Lawyers like to spring trick questions on people, and Djarian knows it. Bevier’s forcing him to think very hard about the things he’s supposed to conceal, and that’s all Xanetia really needs. We always seem to underestimate Bevier.’
    ‘It’s all that praying,’ Kalten said sagely. ‘It’s hard to take a man seriously when he’s praying all the time.’
    ‘We’re Knights of the Church, Kalten—members of religious