The Ruby Knight

has it. We have to get out into open country so that Flute and I can sense which way he’s going with it. Go rouse the others and have Berit saddle our horses.’
    ‘You’re sure about this?’
    ‘Yes. Hurry, Sparhawk, or Ghwerig will get away.’
    He turned quickly and went back out into the hall. This was all moving so rapidly that he did not have time to think. He went from room to room, waking the others and instructing them all to gather in Sephrenia’s room. He sent Berit to the stable to saddle the horses, and last of all he woke Kalten.
    ‘What’s the problem?’ the blond Pandion asked, sitting up and rubbing sleepily at his eyes.
    ‘Something’s come up,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘We’re leaving.’
    ‘In the middle of the night?’
    ‘Yes. Get dressed, Kalten, and I’ll pack our things.’
    ‘What’s going on, Sparhawk?’ Kalten swung his legs over the edge of the bed.
    ‘Sephrenia will explain it. Hurry, Kalten.’
    Grumbling, Kalten began to dress while Sparhawk jammed their spare clothing into the pack they had brought up to their room. Then the two of them went back down the hall, and Sparhawk rapped on the door to Sephrenia’s room.
    ‘Oh do come in, Sparhawk. This is no time to stand on ceremony.’
    ‘Who’s that?’ Kalten asked.
    ‘Flute,’ Sparhawk replied, opening the door.
    ‘Flute? She can talk?’
    The others had already gathered in the room, and they were all looking at the little girl they had thought was mute with some astonishment.
    ‘To save time, gentlemen,’ she said, ‘yes, I can talk, and no, I didn’t want to before. Does that answer all the tiresome questions? Now listen very carefully. The Troll-Dwarf Ghwerig has managed to get his hands on Bhelliom again, and he’s trying to take it to his cave up in the mountains of Thalesia. Unless we hurry, he’ll get away from us.’
    ‘How did he get it out of the lake when he hasn’t ever been able to do it before?’ Bevier asked.
    ‘He had help.’ She looked around at their faces and muttered a naughty word in Styric. ‘You’d better show them, Sephrenia. Otherwise they’ll stand here all night asking foolish questions.’
    There was a large mirror – a sheet of polished brass, actually – on one wall of Sephrenia’s room. ‘Would you all come over here, please?’ Sephrenia said, going to the mirror.
    They gathered around the mirror, and she began an incantation Sparhawk had not heard before. Then she gestured. The mirror became momentarily cloudy. When it cleared, they seemed to be looking down at the lake.
    ‘There’s the raft,’ Kalten said in astonishment, ‘and that’s Sparhawk coming to the surface. I don’t understand, Sephrenia.’
    ‘We’re looking at things that happened just before noon yesterday,’ she told him.
    ‘We already know what happened.’
    ‘We know what we were doing,’ she corrected. ‘There were others there as well, however.’
    ‘I didn’t see anybody.’
    ‘They didn’t want you to see them. Just keep watching.’
    The perspective in the mirror seemed to change, moving away from the lake towards the sedge which grew thickly on the peat-bog. A dark-robed shape was crouched down, hidden in the marsh-grass.
    ‘The Seeker!’ Bevier exclaimed. ‘It was watching us!’
    ‘It wasn’t the only one,’ Sephrenia told him.
    The perspective changed again, sliding several hundred yards north along the lake to a clump of scrubby trees. A shaggy, grotesquely deformed shape was hidden in the grove.
    ‘And that’s Ghwerig,’ Flute told them.
    ‘That’s a dwarf ?’ Kalten exclaimed. ‘It’s as big as Ulath. How big is a normal one?’
    ‘About twice as big as Ghwerig,’ Ulath shrugged. ‘Ogres are even bigger.’
    The mirror clouded again as Sephrenia spoke rapidly in Styric. ‘Nothing important went on for quite a while, so we’re skipping that part,’ she explained.
    The mirror cleared again. ‘There we go, riding away from the lake,’ Kalten said.
    Then the Seeker rose from the marsh-grass and with it about ten wooden-faced men who appeared to be Pelosian serfs. Numbly, the serfs shambled down to the lake-shore and waded into the water.
    ‘We were afraid that might happen,’ Tynian said.
    The mirror clouded again. ‘They continued the search all through yesterday, last night and today,’ Sephrenia told them. ‘Then, just over an hour ago, one of them found Bhelliom. This part might be a little hard to see, because it was dark. I’ll lighten