‘Much.’ He picked her up and started toward town, his long legs stretching out in a rapid stride. He concentrated on that. It seemed to help him avoid thinking.
They went directly into town, made one turn off the main street, and came to a large, two-story building.
‘This is it,’ Aphrael said. ‘We’ll just go in and up the stairs. I’ll make the innkeeper look the other way.’
Sparhawk pushed open the door, crossed the common-room on the main floor and went up the stairs. They found Xanetia all aglow and cradling Sephrenia in her arms. The two women were on a narrow bed in a small room with roughly squared-off log walls. It was one of those snug, comfortable rooms such as one finds in mountain inns the world over. It had a porcelain stove, a couple of chairs, and a nightstand beside each bed. A pair of candles cast a golden light on the pair on the bed. The front of Sephrenia’s robe was covered with blood, and her face was deathly pale, tinged slightly with that fatal grey.
Sparhawk looked at her, and his mind suddenly filled with flames. ‘I will cause hurt to Zalasta for this,’ he growled in Trollish.
Aphrael gave him a startled look. Then she also spoke in the guttural language of the Trolls. ‘Your thought is good, Anakha.’ she agreed fiercely. ‘Cause much hurt to him.’ The rending sound of the Trollish word for “hurt” seemed very satisfying to both of them. ‘His heart still belongs to me, though,’ she added.
‘Has there been any change?’ she asked Xanetia, lapsing into Elene.
‘No, Divine One,’ Xanetia replied in a voice near to exhaustion. ‘I am lending our dear sister of mine own strength to sustain her, but I am nearly spent. Soon both she and I will die.’
‘Nay, gentle Xanetia,’ Aphrael said. ‘I will not lose you. Fear not, however. Anakha hath come with Bhelliom to restore ye both.’
‘But that must not be,’ Xanetia protested. ‘To do so would put the life of Anakha’s Queen in peril. Better that thy sister and I both perish than that.’
‘Don’t be noble, Xanetia,’ Aphrael told her tartly. ‘It makes my hair hurt. Talk to Bhelliom, Sparhawk. Find out how we’re supposed to do this.’
‘Blue Rose,’ Sparhawk said, touching his fingers to the bulge under his smock.
‘I hear thee, Anakha.’ The voice in Sparhawk’s mind was a whisper.
‘We have come unto the place where Sephrenia lies stricken.’
‘Yes.’
‘What must we now do? I implore thee, Blue Rose, do not increase the peril of my mate.’
‘Thine admonition is unseemly, Anakha. It doth bespeak a lack of trust. Let us proceed. Surrender thy will to me. It is through thy lips that I must speak with Anarae Xanetia.’
A strange, detached lassitude came over Sparhawk, and he felt himself somehow separating, his awareness sliding away from his body.
‘Attend to me, Xanetia.’ It was Sparhawk’s altered voice, but he had no consciousness of having spoken.
‘Most closely, World-Maker,’ the Anarae replied in her exhausted voice.
‘Let the Child Goddess assume the burden of supporting her sister. I have need of thy hands.’
Aphrael slipped onto the bed and took Sephrenia from Xanetia’s arms and held her in a tender embrace.
‘Take forth the box, Anakha,’ Bhelliom instructed, ‘and surrender it up unto Xanetia.’
Sparhawk’s movements were jerky as he pulled the golden box out from under his tunic and lifted the thong upon which it hung suspended up over his head.
‘Gather about thee that serenity which the curse of Edaemus bestowed upon thee, Xanetia,’ Bhelliom instructed, ‘and enfold the box—and mine essence—in thy hands, letting thy peace infuse that which thou dost hold.’
Xanetia nodded and extended her glowing hands to take the box from Sparhawk’s grasp.
‘Very good. Now, take the Child Goddess in thine arms. Embrace her and deliver me up unto her.’
Xanetia clasped both Aphrael and Sephrenia in her arms.
‘Excellent. Thy mind is quick, Xanetia. This is even better. Aphrael, open thou the box and draw me forth.’ Bhelliom paused. ‘No tricks,’ it admonished her with uncharacteristic colloquialism. ‘Seek not to ensnare me with thy wiles and thy soft touch.’
‘Don’t be absurd, World-Maker.’
‘I know thee, Aphrael, and I know that thou art more dangerous than ever Azash was or Cyrgon could be. Let us both concentrate all our attention upon the cure of thy sister.’
The Child Goddess opened the lid of the box and lifted out the glowing Sapphire Rose. Sparhawk, all bemused, saw the steady white glow which emanated from Xanetia take on a faint bluish flush as Bhelliom’s radiance joined her own.
‘Apply me, poulticelike, to her wound that I may heal that injury which Zalasta hath inflicted.’
Sparhawk was a soldier and he knew a great deal about wounds. His stomach knotted when he saw the deep, seeping gash in the upper swell of Sephrenia’s left breast. Aphrael reached out with Bhelliom and gently touched it to the bleeding wound.
Sephrenia started to glow with an azure radiance. She half-raised her head. ‘No,’ she said weakly, trying to push Aphrael’s hand away.
Sparhawk took both her hands in his and held them. ‘It’s all right, little mother,’ he lied softly. ‘Everything’s been taken care of.’ The wound in Sephrenia’s breast had closed, leaving an ugly purple scar. Then, even as they watched, the Sapphire Rose continued its work. The scar shrank down to a thin white line that became fainter and fainter and finally disappeared entirely.
Sephrenia began to cough. It was a gurgling, liquid kind of cough such as a nearly drowned man might make.
‘Hand me that basin, Sparhawk,’ Aphrael instructed. ‘She has to clear the blood out of her lungs.’
Sparhawk reached out and took the large, shallow basin from the nightstand and handed it to her.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You can have this back now.’ She gave him back the gold box, took the basin, and held it under Sephrenia’s mouth. That’s right,’ she said encouragingly to her sister as the woman began coughing up chunks of clotted blood. ‘Get it all out.’
Sparhawk looked away. The procedure was not very pretty.
‘Put thy mind at rest, Anakha,’ Bhelliom’s voice told him softly. ‘Thine enemies are unaware of what hath come to pass.’ The jewel paused. ‘I have not given Edaemus his due, for he is very shrewd. Methinks none other could have perceived the true import of what he hath done. To curse his children as he hath was the only true way to conceal them. I shudder to imagine the pain it must have caused him.’
‘I do not understand,’ Sparhawk confessed.
‘A blessing rings and shimmers in the lucid air like bell-sound, Anakha, but a curse is dark and silent. Were the light which doth emanate from Anarae Xanetia a blessing, all the world would hear and feel its o’erwhelming love, but Edaemus hath made it a curse instead. Therein lay his wisdom. The accursed are cast out and hidden, and no one—man or God—can hear or feel their comings and goings up and down the land. When she did take the box in her hands, Anarae Xanetia did smother all sound and sense of my presence, and when she did embrace Aphrael and Sephrenia and enfold them in her luminous darkness, none living could detect me. Thy mate is safe—for now. Thine enemies have no knowledge of what hath come to pass.’
Sparhawk’s heart soared. ‘I do sorely repent my lack of trust, Blue Rose,’ he apologized.
‘Thou wert distraught, Anakha. I do freely forgive thee.’
‘Sparhawk.’ Sephrenia’s voice was little more than a whisper.
‘Yes, little mother?’ He went quickly to the side of the bed.
‘You shouldn’t have agreed to this. You’ve put Ehlana in terrible danger. I thought you were stronger.’
‘Everything’s all right, Sephrenia,’ he assured her. ‘Bhelliom just explained it to me. Nobody heard or felt a thing while you were being healed.’
‘How is that possible?’
‘It was Xanetia’s presence—and her touch. Bhelliom says she easily muffled what was going on. It has to do with the difference between a blessing and a curse, as I understand it. However it works, what just happened didn’t put Ehlana in any danger. How are you feeling?’