‘I wonder if perhaps it might have been a mistake to arm the Church Knights with Styric magic as well as conventional weapons,’ Dolmant mused. ‘We seem to be dabbling in an area best left untapped.’

That decision was made over nine hundred years ago, your Grace,’ Abriel reminded him, coming back to the table, ‘and if the Knights of the Church had not been proficient in magic, the Zemochs would have won that battle on the plains of Lamorkand.’

‘Perhaps,’ Dolmant said.

‘Go on with your story, Sparhawk,’ Komier suggested.

‘There’s not too much more, my Lord. I didn’t know what the Damork was until Sephrenia told me about it later, but I knew that it was something we were forbidden to contact. After a while, the thing vanished, and I rode in to talk with Martel. We were friends, and I wanted to warn him that what he was doing was prohibited, but he seemed almost mad somehow. He shrieked at me and told me to mind my own business. That didn’t leave me any choice. I rode on to our motherhouse at Demos and reported what I’d seen to Vanion and Sephrenia. She told us what the creature was and how dangerous it was to have it loose in the world. Vanion ordered me to take a number of men and to apprehend Martel and to bring him to the motherhouse for questioning. He went completely wild when we approached him, and he went to his sword. Martel’s very good to begin with, and his madness made him all the more savage. I lost a couple of very close friends that day. We finally managed to overpower him and we dragged him back to the motherhouse in chains.’

‘By the ankles, as I recall,’ Kalten added. ‘Sparhawk can be very direct when he’s irritated.’ He smiled at his friend. ‘You didn’t endear yourself to him by doing it that way, Sparhawk,’ he said.

‘I wasn’t trying to. He’d just killed two of my friends, and I wanted to give him plenty of reasons to accept my challenge when Vanion was finished with him.’

‘Anyway,’ Vanion took up the story, ‘when they brought Martel back to Demos, I confronted him. He didn’t even try to deny what he’d been doing. I ordered him to stop practising the forbidden secrets, and he defied me I had no choice but to expel him from the order at that point. I stripped him of his knighthood and his armour and turned him out of the front gate.’

‘That could have been a mistake,’ Komier grunted. ‘I’d have had him killed. Did he raise that thing again?’