Bevier and Tynian were deep in a sombre conversation. ‘It is a sin,’ Bevier was saying stubbornly. ‘To even suggest it is a heresy and a blasphemy. The Fathers of the Church have reasoned it out, and reason, coming as it does from God, is of God. Thus God Himself tells us that He and He alone is Divine.’

‘But –’ Tynian began to object.

‘Hear me out, my friend,’ Bevier said to him. ‘Since God tells us that there are no other Divinities, for us to believe otherwise is blackest sin. We are embarked upon a quest founded in childish superstition. The Zemochs are a danger, certainly, but they are a worldly danger, even as the Eshandists. They have no supernatural allies. We are throwing our lives away searching for a mythical foe who exists only in the diseased imaginations of our heathen enemies. I will reason with Sparhawk about this presently, and I have no doubt that he can be persuaded to abandon this vain quest.’

‘That might be best,’ Tynian agreed, albeit somewhat dubiously. The two of them seemed totally unaware that Sparhawk was clearly riding within earshot.

‘You’ve got to talk with him, Kurik,’ Kalten was saying to Sparhawk’s squire. ‘We haven’t got a chance in the world.’

‘You tell him,’ Kurik growled. ‘I’m a servant. It’s not my place to tell my lord that he’s a suicidal madman.’

‘I honestly believe we should slip up behind him and tie him up. I’m not just trying to save my own life, you understand. I’m trying to save his too.’

‘I feel the same way, Kalten.’

‘They’re coming!’ Berit screamed, pointing at a nearby cloud of swirling dust. ‘Arm yourselves!’

The war-like shouts of Sparhawk’s friends were shrill, tinged with panic, and their charge had an air of desperation about it. They crashed into the dust-cloud, swinging their swords and axes at the unfeeling air.

‘Help them, Sparhawk!’ Talen cried, his voice shrill.

‘Help them with what?’

‘The monsters! They’ll all be killed!’

‘I rather doubt that, Talen,’ Sparhawk replied coolly, watching his friends flailing at the dust-cloud with their weapons. ‘They’re more than a match for what they’re facing.’

Talen glared at him for a moment, then rode several yards away, swearing to himself.

‘I take it that you don’t see anything in the dust either,’ Sephrenia said calmly.

‘That’s all it is, little mother – just dust.’

‘Let’s deal with that right now.’ She spoke briefly in Styric, then gestured.

The thickly billowing dust-cloud seemed to shudder and flinch in upon itself for a moment, and then it gave a long, audible sigh as it slithered to the ground.

‘Where did they go?’ Ulath roared, looking around and brandishing his axe.

The others looked equally baffled, and the looks they directed at Sparhawk were darkly suspicious.