The Ruby Knight

watch, Sir Sparhawk.’
    ‘We’ll send somebody up to replace you. This is important.’ Sparhawk led the way along the parapet to the steep stone stairs that led down into the courtyard.
    ‘Where have you been, Sparhawk?’ Kurik demanded angrily when the two had descended. Sparhawk’s squire wore his usual black leather vest, and his heavily muscled arms and shoulders gleamed in the orange torchlight that illuminated the courtyard. He spoke in the hushed voice men use when talking at night.
    ‘I had to go to the cathedral,’ Sparhawk replied quietly.
    ‘Are you having religious experiences?’ Kalten asked, sounding amused. The big blond knight, Sparhawk’s boyhood friend, was dressed in chain and had a heavy broadsword belted at his waist.
    ‘Not exactly,’ Sparhawk told him. ‘Tanis is dead. His ghost came to me at about midnight.’
    ‘Tanis?’ Kalten’s voice was shocked.
    ‘He was one of the twelve knights who were with Sephrenia when she encased Ehlana in crystal. His ghost told me to go to the crypt under the cathedral before it went to give up its sword to Sephrenia.’
    ‘And you went? At night?’
    ‘The matter was of a certain urgency.’
    ‘What did you do there? Violate a few tombs? Is that how you got the spear?’
    ‘Hardly,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘King Aldreas gave it to me.’
    ‘ Aldreas !’
    ‘His ghost anyway. His missing ring is hidden in the socket.’ Sparhawk looked curiously at his two friends. ‘Where were you going just now?’
    ‘Out to look for you.’ Kurik shrugged.
    ‘How did you know I’d left the chapterhouse?’
    ‘I checked in on you a few times,’ Kurik said. ‘I thought you knew I usually did that.’
    ‘Every night?’
    ‘Three times at least,’ Kurik confirmed. ‘I’ve been doing that every night since you were a boy – except for the years you were in Rendor. The first time tonight, you were talking in your sleep. The second time – just after midnight – you were gone. I looked around, and when I couldn’t find you, I woke up Kalten.’
    ‘I think we’d better go wake the others,’ Sparhawk said bleakly. ‘Aldreas told me some things, and we’ve got some decisions to make.’
    ‘Bad news?’ Kalten asked.
    ‘It’s hard to say. Berit, tell those novices in the stable to go and replace you on the parapet. This might take a while.’
    They gathered in Preceptor Vanion’s brown-carpeted study in the south tower. Sparhawk, Berit, Kalten and Kurik were there, of course. Sir Bevier, a Cyrinic Knight, was there as well, as were Sir Tynian, an Alcione Knight, and Sir Ulath, a huge Genidian Knight. The three were the champions of their orders, and they had joined with Sparhawk and Kalten when the Preceptors of the four orders had decided that the restoration of Queen Ehlana was a matter that concerned them all. Sephrenia, the small, dark-haired Styric woman who instructed the Pandions in the secrets of Styricum, sat by the fire with the little girl they called Flute at her side. The boy, Talen, sat by the window rubbing at his eyes with his fist. Talen was a sound sleeper, and he did not like being awakened. Vanion sat at the table he used for a writing desk. His study was a pleasant room, low, dark beamed, and with a deep fireplace that Sparhawk had never seen unlighted. As always, Sephrenia’s simmering tea-kettle stood on the hob.
    Vanion did not look well. Roused from his bed in the middle of the night, the Preceptor of the Pandion Order, a grim, careworn knight who was probably even older than he looked, wore an uncharacteristic Styric robe of plain white homespun cloth. Sparhawk had watched this peculiar change in Vanion over the years. Caught at times unawares, the Preceptor, one of the stalwarts of the Church, sometimes seemed almost half Styric. As an Elene and a Knight of the Church, it was Sparhawk’s duty to reveal his observations to the church authorities. He chose, however, not to. His loyalty to the Church was one thing – a commandment from God. His loyalty to Vanion, however, was deeper, more personal.
    The Preceptor was grey-faced, and his hands trembled slightly. The burden of the swords of the three dead knights he had compelled Sephrenia to relinquish to him was obviously weighing him down more than he would have admitted. The spell Sephrenia had cast in the throne-room and which sustained the queen had involved the concerted assistance of twelve Pandion Knights. One by one those knights would die, and their