The Hidden City

Sepal instead of coming here.’
    Talen muttered a fairly vile oath.
    ‘My feelings exactly. Isn’t that Vymer coming up the street?’ Sparhawk pointed at a blond man in a tar-smeared smock who was lurching unsteadily toward them.
    Talen peered at the fellow. ‘I think you’re right.’ He made a face. ‘The ladies who changed things around may have gone a little far. He doesn’t even walk the same any more.’
    ‘What are you two doing out this late?’ Stragen asked as he joined them.
    ‘We got lonesome,’ Sparhawk replied in a flat tone of voice.
    ‘For me? I’m touched. Let’s go for a walk on the beach, my friends. I find myself yearning for the smell of salt water—and the nice loud sound of waves crashing on the sand.’
    They went on past the last of the wharves and then out onto the sand. The clouds had blown off, and there was a bright moon. They reached the water’s edge and stood looking out at the long combers rolling in off the south Tamul Sea to hammer noisily on the wet sand.
    ‘What have you been up to, Stragen?’ Sparhawk demanded bluntly.
    ‘Business, old boy. I just enlisted us in the intelligence service of the other side.’
    ‘You did what?’
    ‘The three you sensed when we first got here needed a few good men. I volunteered our services.’
    ‘Are you out of your mind?’
    ‘Of course not. Think about it for a while, Sparhawk. What better way is there to gather information? Our celebration of the Harvest Festival thinned their ranks drastically, so they can’t afford to be choosy. I paid Estokin to vouch for us, and then I told them a few lies. They’re expecting a certain Sir Sparhawk to flood the town with sharp-eyed people. We’re supposed to report anybody we see who’s acting a little suspicious. I provided them with a prime suspect.’
    ‘Oh? Who was that?’
    ‘Captain Sorgi’s bo’sun—you know, the fellow with the whip.’
    Sparhawk suddenly laughed. ‘That was a truly vicious thing to do, Stragen.’
    ‘I rather liked it, myself.’
    ‘Aphrael came by to call,’ Talen said. ‘She told Sparhawk that Berit and my brother have been ordered to change direction. Now they’re supposed to go to Sepal on the coast of the Sea of Arjun.’
    Stragen swore.
    ‘I already said that,’ Talen told him.
    ‘We probably should have expected it,’ Sparhawk said. ‘Krager’s working for the other side, and he knows us well enough to anticipate some of the things we might try to do.’ He suddenly banged his fist into the palm of his hand. ‘I wish I could talk with Sephrenia!’ he burst out.
    ‘You can, as I recall,’ Stragen said. ‘Didn’t Aphrael fix it once so that you and Sephrenia talked together when she was in Sarsos and you were in Cimmura?’
    Sparhawk suddenly felt more than a little foolish. ‘I’d forgotten about that,’ he admitted.
    ‘That’s all right, old boy,’ Stragen excused him. ‘You’ve got a lot on your mind. Why don’t you have a word with her Divine little Whimsicality and see if she can arrange a council of war someplace? I think it might be time for a good, old-fashioned get-together.’
    Sparhawk knew where he was before he even opened his eyes. The fragrance of wildflowers and tree blossoms immediately identified the eternal spring of Aphrael’s own private reality.
    ‘Art thou now awake, Anakha?’ the white deer asked him, touching his hand with her nose.’
    ‘Yea, gentle creature,’ he replied, opening his eyes and touching the side of her face. He was in the pavilion again and he looked out through the open flap at the flower-studded meadow, the sparkling azure sea, and the rainbow-colored sky above.
    ‘The others do await thy coming on the eyot,’ the hind advised him.
    ‘We must hasten, then,’ he said, rising from his bed. He followed her from the pavilion out into the meadow where the white tigress indulgently watched the awkward play of her large-footed cubs. He rather idly wondered if these were the same cubs she had been tending when he had first visited this enchanted realm a half-dozen years ago.
    ‘Well, of course they are, Sparhawk,’ Aphrael’s voice murmured in his ear. ‘Nothing ever changes here.’
    He smiled.
    The white deer led him to that beautiful, impractical boat, a swan-necked craft with sails like wings, elaborate embellishment and so much of its main structure above the water line that a sneeze would have capsized it, had it existed in the real world.
    ‘Critic,’