Czytaj książkę: «The Complete Elenium Trilogy: The Diamond Throne, The Ruby Knight, The Sapphire Rose»

DAVID EDDINGS
The Diamond Throne
The Elenium
BOOK ONE

Map

Dedication

For Eleanor and for Ralph,

For courage and for faith.

Trust me.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Map

Dedication

Prologue

Part One: Cimmura

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Part Two: Chyrellos

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Part Three: Dabour

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Prologue

Ghwerig and the Bhelliom – From the Legends of the Troll-Gods

At the dawn of time, long before the ancestors of Styricum slouched, fur-clad and club-wielding, out of the mountains and forests of Zemoch onto the plains of central Eosia, there dwelt in a deep cavern lying beneath the perpetual snows of northern Thalesia a dwarfed and misshapen Troll named Ghwerig. Now, Ghwerig was an outcast by reason of his ugliness and his over-whelming greed, and he laboured alone in the depths of the earth, seeking gold and precious gems that he might add to the treasure-hoard which he jealously guarded. Finally there came a day when he broke into a deep gallery far beneath the frozen surface of the earth and beheld by the light of his flickering torch a deep blue gemstone, larger than his fist, embedded in the wall. Trembling with excitement in all his gnarled and twisted limbs, he squatted on the floor of that passage and gazed with longing at the huge jewel, knowing that its value exceeded that of the entire hoard which he had laboured for centuries to acquire. Then he began with great care to cut away the surrounding stone, chip by chip, so that he might lift the precious gem from the spot where it had rested since the world began. And as more and more it emerged from the rock, he perceived that it had a peculiar shape, and an idea came to him. Could he but remove it intact, he might by careful carving and polishing enhance that shape and thus increase the value of the gem a thousand-fold.

When at last he gently took the jewel from its rocky bed, he carried it straightaway to the cave wherein lay his workshop and his treasure-hoard. Indifferently, he shattered a diamond of incalculable worth and fashioned from its fragments tools with which he might carve and shape the gem which he had found.

For decades, by the light of smoky torches, Ghwerig patiently carved and polished, muttering all the while the spells and incantations which would infuse this priceless gem with all the power for good or ill of the Troll-Gods. When at last the carving was done, the gem was in the shape of a rose of deepest sapphire blue. And he named it Bhelliom, the flower-gem, and he believed that by its might all things might be possible for him.

But though Bhelliom was filled with all the power of the Troll-Gods, it would not yield up that power unto its misshapen and ugly owner, and Ghwerig pounded his fists in rage upon the stone floor of his cavern. He consulted with his Gods and made offerings to them of heavy gold and bright silver, and his Gods revealed to him that there must be a key to unlock the power of Bhelliom, lest its might be unleashed by the whim of any who came upon it. Then the Troll-Gods told Ghwerig what he must do to gain mastery over the gem which he had wrought. Taking the shards which had fallen unnoticed in the dust about his feet as he had laboured to shape the sapphire rose, he fashioned a pair of rings. Of finest gold were the rings, and each was mounted with a polished oval fragment of Bhelliom itself. When it was done, he placed the rings one on each of his hands and then lifted the sapphire rose. The deep, glowing blue of the stones mounted in his rings fled back into Bhelliom itself, and the jewels that adorned his twisted hands were now as pale as diamond. And as he held the flower-gem, he felt the surge of its power, and he rejoiced in the knowledge that the jewel he had wrought had consented to yield to him.

As the uncounted centuries rolled by, great were the wonders Ghwerig wrought by the power of Bhelliom. But the Styrics came at last into the land of the Trolls. When the Elder Gods of Styricum learned of Bhelliom, each in his heart coveted it by reason of its power. But Ghwerig was cunning and he sealed up the entrances to his cavern with enchantments to repel their efforts to wrest Bhelliom from him.

Now at a certain time, the Younger Gods of Styricum took counsel with each other, for they were disquieted about the power which Bhelliom would confer upon whichever God came to possess it, and they concluded that such might should not be unloosed in the earth. They resolved then to render the stone powerless. Of their number they selected the nimble Goddess Aphrael for the task. Then Aphrael journeyed to the north, and, by reason of her slight form, she was able to wriggle her way through a crevice so small that Ghwerig had neglected to seal it. Once she was within the cavern, Aphrael lifted her voice in song. So sweetly she sang that Ghwerig was all bemused by her melody, and he felt no alarm at her presence. So it was that Aphrael lulled him. When, with dreamy smile, the Troll-Dwarf closed his eyes, she tugged the ring from off his right hand and replaced it with a ring set with a common diamond. Ghwerig started up when he felt the tug; but when he looked at his hand, a ring still encircled his finger, and he sat him down again and took his ease, delighting in the song of the Goddess. When once again, in sweet reverie, his eyes dropped shut, the nimble Aphrael tugged the ring from off his left hand, replacing it with yet another ring mounted with yet another diamond. Again Ghwerig started to his feet and looked with alarm at his left hand, but he was reassured by the presence there of a ring which looked for all the world like one of the pair which he had fashioned from the shards of the flower-gem. Aphrael continued to sing for him until at last he lapsed into deep slumber. Then the Goddess stole away on silent feet, bearing with her the rings which were the keys to the power of Bhelliom.

Now, upon a later day, Ghwerig lifted Bhelliom from the crystal case wherein it lay that he might perform a task by its power, but Bhelliom would not yield to him, for he no longer possessed the rings which were the keys to its power. The rage of Ghwerig was beyond measure, and he went up and down in the land seeking the Goddess Aphrael that he might wrest his rings from her, but he found her not, though for centuries he searched.

Thus it was for as long as Styricum held sway over the mountains and plains of Eosia. But there came a time when the Elenes rode out of the east and intruded themselves into this place. After centuries of random wandering to and fro in the land, some of their number came at last into far northern Thalesia and dispossessed the Styrics and their Gods. And when the Elenes heard of Ghwerig and his Bhelliom, they sought the entrances to the Troll-Dwarf’s cavern throughout the hills and valleys of Thalesia, all hot with their lust to find and own the fabled gem by reason of its incalculable worth, for they knew not of the power locked in its azure petals.

It fell at last to Adian of Thalesia, mightiest and most crafty of the heroes of antiquity, to solve the riddle. At peril of his soul, he took counsel with the Troll-Gods and made offering to them, and they relented and told him that Ghwerig went abroad in the land at certain times in search of the Goddess Aphrael of Styricum that he might reclaim a pair of rings which she had stolen from him, but of the true meaning of those rings they told him not. And Adian journeyed to the far north and there he awaited each twilight for a half-dozen years the appearance of Ghwerig.

When at last the Troll-Dwarf appeared, Adian went up to him in a dissembling guise and told him that he knew where Aphrael might be found and that he would reveal her location for a helmet full of fine yellow gold. Ghwerig was deceived and straightaway led Adian to the hidden mouth of his cavern and he took the hero’s helm and went into his treasure chamber and filled it to overflowing with fine gold. Then he emerged again, sealing the entrance to his cavern behind him. And he gave Adian the gold, and Adian deceived him again, saying that Aphrael might be found in the district of Horset on the western coast of Thalesia. Ghwerig hastened to Horset to seek out the Goddess. And once again Adian imperilled his soul and implored the Troll-Gods to break Ghwerig’s enchantments that he might gain entrance to the cavern. The capricious Troll-Gods consented and the enchantments were broken.

As rosy dawn touched the ice fields of the north into flame, Adian emerged from Ghwerig’s cavern with Bhelliom in his grasp. He journeyed straightaway to his capital at Emsat and there he fashioned a crown for himself and surmounted it with Bhelliom.

The chagrin of Ghwerig knew no bounds when he returned empty-handed to his cavern to find that not only had he lost the keys to the power of Bhelliom, but that the flower-gem itself was no longer in his possession. Thereafter he usually lurked by night in the fields and forests about the city of Emsat, seeking to reclaim his treasure, but the descendants of Adian protected it closely and prevented him from approaching it.

Now as it happened, Azash, an Elder God of Styricum, had long yearned in his heart for possession of Bhelliom and of the rings which unlocked its power and he sent forth his hordes out of Zemoch to seize the gems by force of arms. The kings of the west took up arms to join with the Knights of the Church to face the armies of Otha of Zemoch and of his dark Styric God, Azash. And King Sarak of Thalesia took ship with some few of his vassals and sailed south from Emsat, leaving behind the royal command that his earls were to follow when the mobilization of all Thalesia was complete. As it happened, however, King Sarak never reached the great battlefield on the plains of Lamorkand, but fell instead to a Zemoch spear in an unrecorded skirmish near the shores of Lake Venne in Pelosia. A faithful vassal, though mortally wounded, took up his fallen lord’s crown and struggled his way to the marshy eastern shore of the lake. There, hard-pressed and dying, he cast the Thalesian crown into the murky, peat-clouded waters of the lake, even as Ghwerig, who had followed his lost treasure, watched in horror from his place of concealment in a nearby peat bog.

The Zemochs who had slain King Sarak immediately began to probe the brown-stained depths, that they might find the crown and carry it in triumph to Azash, but they were interrupted in their search by a column of Alcione Knights sweeping down out of Deira to join the battle in Lamorkand. The Alciones fell upon the Zemochs and slew them to the last man. The faithful vassal of the Thalesian king was given an honourable burial, and the Alciones rode on, all unaware that the fabled crown of Thalesia lay beneath the turbid waters of Lake Venne.

It is sometimes rumoured in Pelosia, however, that on moonless nights the shadowy form of the immortal Troll-Dwarf haunts the marshy shore. Since, by reason of his malformed limbs, Ghwerig dares not enter the dark waters of the lake to probe its depths, he must creep along the marge, alternately crying out his longing to Bhelliom and dancing in howling frustration that it will not respond to him.

PART ONE

Chapter 1

It was raining. A soft, silvery drizzle sifted down out of the night sky and wreathed around the blocky watch-towers of the city of Cimmura, hissing in the torches on each side of the broad gate and making the stones of the road leading up to the city shiny and black. A lone rider approached the city. He was wrapped in a dark, heavy traveller’s cloak and rode a tall, shaggy roan horse with a long nose and flat, vicious eyes. The traveller was a big man, a bigness of large, heavy bone and ropy tendon rather than of flesh. His hair was coarse and black, and at some time his nose had been broken. He rode easily, but with the peculiar alertness of the trained warrior.

His name was Sparhawk, a man at least ten years older than he looked, who carried the erosion of his years not so much on his battered face as in a half-dozen or so minor infirmities and discomforts and in the several wide purple scars upon his body which always ached in damp weather. Tonight, however, he felt his age, and he wished only for a warm bed in the obscure inn which was his goal. Sparhawk was coming home at last after a decade of being someone else with a different name in a country where it almost never rained, where the sun was a hammer pounding down on a bleached white anvil of sand and rock and hard-baked clay, where the walls of the buildings were thick and white to ward off the blows of the sun, and where graceful women went to the wells in the silvery light of early morning with large clay vessels balanced on their shoulders and black veils across their faces.

The big roan horse shuddered absently, shaking the rain out of his shaggy coat, and approached the city gate, stopping in the ruddy circle of torchlight before the gatehouse.

An unshaven gate guard in a rust-splotched breastplate and helmet, and with a patched green cloak negligently hanging from one shoulder, came unsteadily out of the gatehouse and stood swaying in Sparhawk’s path. ‘I’ll need your name,’ he said in a voice thick with drink.

Sparhawk gave him a long stare, then opened his cloak to show the heavy silver amulet hanging on a chain about his neck.

The half-drunk gate guard’s eyes widened slightly, and he stepped back a pace. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘sorry, my Lord. Go ahead.’

Another guard poked his head out of the gatehouse. ‘Who is he, Raf?’ he demanded.

‘A Pandion Knight,’ the first guard replied nervously.

‘What’s his business in Cimmura?’

‘I don’t question the Pandions, Bral,’ the man named Raf answered. He smiled ingratiatingly up at Sparhawk. ‘New man,’ he said apologetically, jerking his thumb back over his shoulder at his comrade. ‘He’ll learn in time, my Lord. Can we serve you in any way?’

‘No,’ Sparhawk replied, ‘thanks all the same. You’d better get in out of the rain, neighbour. You’ll catch cold out here.’ He handed a small coin to the green-cloaked guard and rode on into the city, passing up the narrow, cobbled street beyond the gate with the slow clatter of the big roan’s steel-shod hooves echoing back from the buildings.

The district near the gate was poor, with shabby, rundown houses standing tightly packed beside each other with their upper floors projecting out over the wet, littered street. Crude signs swung creaking on rusty hooks in the night wind, identifying this or that tightly shuttered shop on the street-level floors. A wet, miserable-looking cur slunk across the street with his ratlike tail between his legs. Otherwise, the street was dark and empty.

A torch burned fitfully at an intersection where another street crossed the one upon which Sparhawk rode. A sick young whore, thin and wrapped in a shabby blue cloak, stood hopefully under the torch like a pale, frightened ghost. ‘Would you like a nice time, sir?’ she whined at him. Her eyes were wide and timid, and her face gaunt and hungry.

He stopped, bent in his saddle, and poured a few small coins into her grimy hand. ‘Go home, little sister,’ he told her in a gentle voice. ‘It’s late and wet, and there’ll be no customers tonight.’ Then he straightened and rode on, leaving her to stare in grateful astonishment after him. He turned down a narrow side street clotted with shadow and heard the scurry of feet somewhere in the rainy dark ahead of him. His ears caught a quick, whispered conversation in the deep shadows somewhere to his left.

The roan snorted and laid his ears back.

‘It’s nothing to get excited about,’ Sparhawk told him. The big man’s voice was very soft, almost a husky whisper. It was the kind of voice people turned to hear. Then he spoke more loudly, addressing the pair of footpads lurking in the shadows. ‘I’d like to accommodate you, neighbours,’ he said, ‘but it’s late, and I’m not in the mood for casual entertainment. Why don’t you go rob some drunk young nobleman instead, and live to steal another day?’ To emphasize his words, he threw back his damp cloak to reveal the leather-bound hilt of the plain broadsword belted at his side.

There was a quick, startled silence in the dark street, followed by the rapid patter of fleeing feet.

The big roan snorted derisively.

‘My sentiments exactly.’ Sparhawk agreed, pulling his cloak back around him. ‘Shall we proceed?’

They entered a large square surrounded by hissing torches where most of the brightly coloured canvas booths had their fronts rolled down. A few forlornly hopeful enthusiasts remained open for business, stridently bawling their wares to indifferent passers-by hurrying home on a late, rainy evening. Sparhawk reined in his horse as a group of rowdy young nobles lurched unsteadily from the door of a seedy tavern, shouting drunkenly to each other as they crossed the square. He waited calmly until they vanished into a side street and then looked around, not so much wary as alert.

Had there been but a few more people in the nearly empty square, even Sparhawk’s trained eye might not have noticed Krager. The man was of medium height and he was rumpled and unkempt. His boots were muddy, and his maroon cape carelessly caught at the throat. He slouched across the square, his wet, colourless hair plastered down on his narrow skull and his watery eyes blinking nearsightedly as he peered about in the rain. Sparhawk drew in his breath sharply. He hadn’t seen Krager since that night in Cippria, almost ten years ago, and the man had aged considerably. His face was greyer and more pouchy-looking, but there could be no question that it was Krager.

Since quick movements attracted the eye, Sparhawk’s reaction was studied. He dismounted slowly and led his big horse to a green canvas food vendor’s stall, keeping the animal between himself and the nearsighted man in the maroon cape. ‘Good evening, neighbour,’ he said to the brown-clad food vendor in his deadly quiet voice. ‘I have some business to attend to. I’ll pay you if you’ll watch my horse.’

The unshaven vendor’s eyes came quickly alight.

‘Don’t even think it,’ Sparhawk warned. ‘The horse won’t follow you, no matter what you do – but I will, and you wouldn’t like that at all. Just take the pay and forget about trying to steal the horse.’

The vendor looked at the big man’s bleak face, swallowed hard, and made a jerky attempt at a bow. ‘Whatever you say, my Lord,’ he agreed quickly, his words tumbling over each other. ‘I vow to you that your noble mount will be safe with me.’

‘Noble what?’

‘Noble mount – your horse.’

‘Oh, I see. I’d appreciate that.’

‘Can I do anything else for you, my Lord?’

Sparhawk looked across the square at Krager’s back. ‘Do you by chance happen to have a bit of wire handy – about so long?’ He measured out perhaps three feet with his hands.

‘I may have, my Lord. The herring kegs are bound with wire. Let me look.’

Sparhawk crossed his arms and leaned them on his saddle, watching Krager across the horse’s back. The past years, the blasting sun, and the women going to the wells in the steely light of early morning fell away, and quite suddenly he was back in the stockyards outside Cippria with the stink of dung and blood on him, the taste of fear and hatred in his mouth, and the pain of his wounds making him weak as his pursuers searched for him with their swords in their hands.

He pulled his mind away from that, deliberately concentrating on this moment rather than the past. He hoped that the vendor could find some wire. Wire was good. No noise, no mess, and with a little time it could be made to look exotic – the kind of thing one might expect from a Styric or perhaps a Pelosian. It wasn’t so much Krager, he thought as the tense excitement built in him. Krager had never been more than a dim, feeble adjunct to Martel – an extension, another set of hands, just as the other man, Adus, had never been more than a weapon. It was what Krager’s death would do to Martel – that was what mattered.

‘This is the best I could find, my Lord,’ the greasy-aproned food vendor said respectfully, coming out of the back of his canvas booth and holding out a length of rusty, soft-iron wire. ‘I’m sorry. It isn’t much.’

‘It’s just fine,’ Sparhawk replied, taking the wire. He snapped the rusty strand taut between his hands. ‘It’s perfect in fact.’ Then he turned to his horse. ‘Stay here, Faran,’ he said.

The horse bared his teeth at him. Sparhawk laughed softly and moved out into the square, some distance behind Krager. If the nearsighted man were found in some shadowy doorway, bowed tautly backward with the wire knotted about his neck and ankles and with his eyes popping out of a blackened face, or face down in the trough of some back-alley public urinal, that would unnerve Martel, hurt him, perhaps even frighten him. It might be enough to bring him out into the open, and Sparhawk had been waiting for years for a chance to catch Martel out in the open. Carefully, his hands concealed beneath his cloak, he began to work the kinks out of his length of wire, even as he stalked his quarry.

His senses had become preternaturally alert. He could clearly hear the guttering of the torches along the sides of the square and see their orange flicker reflected in the puddles of water lying among the cobblestones. That reflected glow seemed for some reason very beautiful. Sparhawk felt good – better perhaps than he had for ten years.

‘Sir Knight? Sir Sparhawk? Can that be you?’

Startled, Sparhawk turned quickly, swearing under his breath. The man who had accosted him had long, elegantly curled blond hair. He wore a saffron-coloured doublet, lavender hose, and an apple-green cloak. His wet maroon shoes were long and pointed, and his cheeks were rouged. The small, useless sword at his side and his broad-brimmed hat with its dripping plume marked him as a courtier, one of the petty functionaries and parasitic hangers-on who infested the palace like vermin.

‘What are you doing back here in Cimmura?’ the fop demanded, his high-pitched, effeminate voice startled. ‘You were banished.’

Sparhawk looked quickly at the man he had been following. Krager was nearing the entrance to a street that opened into the square, and in a moment he would be out of sight. It was still possible, however. One quick, hard blow would put this over-dressed butterfly before him to sleep, and Krager would still be within reach. Then a hot disappointment filled Sparhawk’s mouth as a detachment of the watch marched into the square with lumbering tread. There was no way now to dispose of this interfering popinjay without attracting their attention. The look he directed at the perfumed man barring his path was flat with anger.

The courtier stepped back nervously, glancing quickly at the soldiers who were moving along in front of the booths, checking the fastenings on the rolled-down canvas fronts. ‘I insist that you tell me what you’re doing back here,’ he said, trying to sound authoritative.

‘Insist? You?’ Sparhawk’s voice was full of contempt.

The other man looked quickly at the soldiers again, seeking reassurance, then he straightened boldly. ‘I’m taking you in charge, Sparhawk. I demand that you give an account of yourself.’ He reached out and grasped Sparhawk’s arm.

‘Don’t touch me,’ Sparhawk spat out the words, striking the hand away.

‘You hit me!’ the courtier gasped, clutching at his hand in pain.

Sparhawk took the man’s shoulder in one hand and pulled him close. ‘If you ever put your hands on me again, I’ll rip out your guts. Now get out of my way.’

‘I’ll call the watch,’ the fop threatened.

‘And how long do you think you’ll continue to live after you do that?’

‘You can’t threaten me. I have powerful friends.’

‘But they’re not here, are they? I am, however.’ Sparhawk pushed him away in disgust and turned to walk on across the square.

‘You Pandions can’t get away with this high-handed behaviour any more. There are laws in Elenia now,’ the overdressed man called after him shrilly. ‘I’m going straight to Baron Harparin. I’m going to tell him that you’ve come back to Cimmura and about how you hit me and threatened me.’

‘Good,’ Sparhawk replied without turning. ‘Do that.’ He continued to walk away, his irritation and disappointment rising to the point where he had to clench his teeth tightly to keep himself under control. Then an idea came to him. It was petty –even childish – but for some reason it seemed quite appropriate. He stopped and straightened his shoulders, muttering under his breath in the Styric tongue, even as his fingers wove intricate designs in the air in front of him. He hesitated slightly, groping for the word for carbuncle. He finally settled for boils instead and completed the incantation. He turned slightly, looked at his tormentor, and released the spell. Then he turned back and continued on across the square, smiling slightly to himself. It was, to be sure, quite petty, but Sparhawk was like that sometimes.

He handed the food vendor a coin for minding Faran, swung up into his saddle, and rode across the square in the misty drizzle, a big man shrouded in a rough woollen cloak, astride an ugly-faced roan horse.

Once he was past the square, the streets were dark and empty again, with guttering torches hissing in the rain at intersections and casting their dim, sooty orange glow. The sound of Faran’s hooves was loud in the empty street. Sparhawk shifted slightly in his saddle. The sensation he felt was very faint, a kind of prickling of the skin across his shoulders and up the back of his neck, but he recognized it immediately. Someone was watching him, and the watcher was not friendly. Sparhawk shifted again, carefully trying to make the movement appear to be no more than the uncomfortable fidgeting of a saddle-weary traveller. His right hand, however, was concealed beneath his cloak, and it sought the hilt of his sword. The oppressive sense of malevolence increased, and then, in the shadows beyond the flickering torch at the next intersection, he saw a figure robed and hooded in a dark grey garment that blended so well into the shadows and wreathing drizzle that the watcher was almost invisible.