‘You can verify it for yourself, Annias. When I take you back to Chyrellos, I’m sure you’ll have plenty of time to examine the records of the meeting. There’s quite a dispute in the works about who’s going to have the pleasure of putting you on trial and executing you. It may drag on for years. Somehow you’ve managed to offend just about everybody west of the Zemoch border. They all want to kill you for some reason.’

‘You’re being just a bit childish, Sparhawk,’ Martel sneered.

‘Of course I am. We all do that sometimes. It’s really a shame the sunset was so uninspiring this evening, Martel, since it was the last one you’re ever going to see.’

‘That’s true of one of us at any rate.’

‘Sephrenia.’ It was a rumbling, deep-toned gurgle more than a voice.

‘Yes, Otha?’ she replied calmly.

‘Bid thy witless little Goddess farewell,’ the slug-like man on the throne rumbled in antique Elene. His pig-like little eyes were focused now, though his hands still trembled. ‘Thine unnatural kinship with the Younger Gods draws to its close. Azash awaits thee.’

‘I rather doubt that, Otha, for I bring the unknown one with me. I found him long before he was born, and I have brought him here with Bhelliom in his fist. Azash fears him, Otha, and you would be wise to fear him too.’

Otha sank lower on his throne, his head seeming to retract turtle-like into the folds of his fat neck. His hand moved with surprising speed, and a beam of greenish light shot from it, a light levelled at the small Styric woman. Sparhawk, however, had been waiting for that. He had been holding his shield in both bare hands in a negligent-appearing posture. The blood-red stones of the rings were quite firmly pressed against the shield’s steel rim. With practised speed he thrust the shield in front of his tutor. The beam of green light struck the shield and reflected back from its polished surface. One of the armoured guards was suddenly obliterated in a soundless blast that sprayed the throne-room with white-hot fragments of his chain-mail.

Sparhawk drew his sword. ‘Have we just about finished with all this nonsense, Martel?’ he asked bleakly.

‘Wish I could oblige, old boy,’ Martel replied, ‘but Azash is waiting for us. You know how that goes.’

The hammering on the heavy door Tynian and Ulath were guarding grew louder.

‘Is that someone knocking?’ Martel said mildly. ‘Be a good fellow, Sparhawk, and see who it is. All that banging sets my teeth on edge.’

Sparhawk started forward.