‘You can’t stop me,’ he said in a gentle voice. ‘I can cast the spell without your help, if I have to. If you want to keep your spells a secret, little mother, you shouldn’t chant them out loud, you know. You should know by now that I’ve got a very retentive memory.’

She stared at him. ‘I’m shocked at you, Vanion,’ she declared. ‘You were not so unkind when you were young.’

‘Life is filled with these little disappointments, isn’t it?’ he said urbanely.

‘I can stop you,’ she cried, still wringing her hands. ‘You forget just how much stronger I am than you are.’ There was a shrill triumph in her voice.

‘Of course you are. That’s why I’d have to call in help. Could you deal with ten knights all chanting in unison? – or fifty? – or half a thousand?’

‘That’s unfair!’ she exclaimed. ‘I did not know that you would go this far, Vanion and I trusted you.’

‘And well you should, dear one,’ he said, assuming suddenly the superior role, ‘for I will not permit you to make this sacrifice. I’ll force you to submit to me, because you know I’m right. You’ll release the burden to me, because you know that what you have to do is more important than anything else right now, and you’ll sacrifice anything to do what we both know must be done.’

‘Dear one,’ she began in an agonized voice ‘My dearest one –’

‘As I said,’ he cut her off, ‘the discussion is ended.’

There was a long and awkward silence as Sephrenia and Vanion stood with their eyes locked on each other’s face.

‘Did the physician in Dabour give you any hints about which objects might cure the Queen?’ Bevier asked Sparhawk a bit uneasily

‘He mentioned a spear in Daresia, several rings in Zemoch, a bracelet somewhere in Pelosia, and a jewel on the royal crown of Thalesia.’

Ulath grunted. ‘The Bhelliom.’

‘That solves it, then,’ Kalten said. ‘We go to Thalesia, borrow Wargun’s crown, and come back here with it.’

‘Wargun doesn’t have it,’ Ulath told him.

‘What do you mean, Wargun doesn’t have it? He’s the King of Thalesia, isn’t he?’

‘That crown was lost five hundred years ago.’

‘Could we possibly find it?’

‘Almost anything is possible, I suppose,’ the big Thalesian replied, ‘but people have been looking for it for five hundred years without much success. Do we have that kind of time?’

‘What is this Bhelliom?’ Tynian asked him.

‘The legends say that it’s a very large sapphire carved in the shape of a rose It’s supposed to have the power of the Troll-Gods in it.’

‘Does it?’

‘I wouldn’t know I’ve never seen it. It’s lost, remember?’