Eddings David - Tamuli - 01 - Domes of Fire

  Domes of Fire

  David Eddings

  The Tamuli book 1

  Danger stalked Queen Ehlana's realm. When an ambasador from the

  far-off Tamul Empire begged for help, Sparhawk, Ehlana's champion and

  Prince Consort, was the Emperor's last hope. For surely the knight who

  had killed the evil God Azash could prevail against the terror in

  Tamul. But waiting for him was a glittering court seething with

  corruption, treachery--and the greatest danger Sparhawk would ever

  face!

  Prologue

  Excerpted from Chapter Two of The Cyrga

  Affair: An Examination of the Recent Crisis.

  Compiled by the Contemporary History Department

  of the University of Matherion.

  It was quite obvious to the Imperial Council at this point

  that the empire was facing a threat of the gravest nature

  a threat which his Imperial Majesty's government

  was ill-prepared to confront. The empire had long

  relied upon the armies of Atan to defend her interests

  during the periodic outbreaks of incidental civil disorder

  which are normal and to be expected in a disparate population

  ruled by a strong central authority. The situation

  facing his Majesty's government this time, however,

  did not appear to arise from spontaneous demonstrations

  by a few malcontented hotheads spilling out into

  the streets from various university campuses during

  the traditional recess which follows final examinations.

  Those particular demonstrations can be taken in stride,

  and order is usually restored with a minimum of bloodshed.

  The government soon realized that this time, however,

  things were different. The demonstrators were not

  high-spirited schoolboys, for one thing, and domestic

  tranquillity did not return when 'classes at the universities

  resumed. The authorities might still have maintained

  order had the various disruptions been the result

  of ordinary revolutionary fervour. The mere presence of

  Atan warriors can dampen the spirits of even the most

  enthusiastic under normal circumstances. This time, the

  customary acts of vandalism accompanying the demonstrations

  were quite obviously of paranormal origin.

  Inevitably, the imperial government cast a questioning

  eye at the Styrics in Sarsos. An investigation by Styric

  members of the Imperial Council whose loyalty to the

  throne could not be questioned, however, quite clearly

  indicated that Styricum had had no part in the disturbances.

  The paranormal incidents were obviously coming

  from some as yet to be determined source and were so

  widespread that they could not have emanated from

  the activities of a few Styric renegades. The Styrics themselves

  were unable to identify the source of this activity,

  and even the legendary Zalasta, pre-eminent magician

  in" all of Styricum though he might be, ruefully confessed

  to total bafflement.

  It was Zalasta, however, who suggested the course

  ultimately taken by his Majesty's government. He

  advised that the empire might seek assistance from

  the Eosian continent, and he specifically directed the

  government's attention to a man named Sparhawk.

  All imperial representatives on the Eosian continent

  were immediately commanded to drop everything else

  and to concentrate their full attention upon this man.

  It was imperative that his Majesty's government have

  information about this Sparhawk person. As the reports

  from Eosia began to filter in, the Imperial Council began

  to develop a composite picture of Sparhawk, his appearance,

  his personality and his history.

  Sir Sparhawk, they discovered, was a member of one

  of the quasi-religious orders of the Elene Church. His

  particular order is referred to as 'The Pandion Knights'.

  He is a tall, ' lean man of early middle years with a

  battered face, a keen intelligence and an abrupt, even

  abrasive manner. The Knights of the Elene Church are

  fearsome warriors, and Sir Sparhawk is in the forefront

  of their ranks of champions. At the time in the history

  of the Eosian continent when the four orders of Church

  Knights were founded, the circumstances were so

  desperate that the Elenes set aside their customary

  prejudices and permitted the Militant Orders to receive

  instruction in the arcane practices of Styricum, and it

  was the proficiency of the Church Knights in those arts

  which helped them to prevail during the First Zemoch

  War some five centuries ago.

  Sir Sparhawk held a position for which there is

  no equivalent in our empire. He was the hereditary

  'Champion' of the royal house of the Kingdom of

  Elenia. Western Elenes have a chivalric culture replete

  with many archaisms. The 'Challenge' (essentially an offer

  to engage in single combat) is the customary response

  of members of the nobility who feel that their honour

  has been somehow sullied. It is amazing to note that

  not even ruling monarchs are exempt from the necessity

  of answering these challenges. In order to avoid the

  inconvenience of responding to the impertinences of

  assorted hotheads, the monarchs of Eosia customarily

  designate some highly-skilled (and usually widelyfeared)

  warrior as a surrogate. Sir Sparhawk's nature

  and reputation is such that even the most quarrelsome

  nobles of the kingdom of Elenia find after careful consideration

  that they have not really been insulted. It is a

  credit to Sir Sparhawk's skill and cool judgement that

  he has seldom 'even been obliged to kill anyone during

  these affairs, since, by ancient custom, a severely

  incapacitated combatant may save his life by surrendering

  and withdrawing his challenge.

  After his father's death, Sir Sparhawk presented himself

  to King Aldreas, the father of the present queen, to

  take up his duties. King Aldreas, hoWever, was a weak

  monarch, and he was dominated by his sister, Arissa,

  and by Annias, the Primate of Cimmura, who was also

  Princess Arissa's surreptitious lover and the father of

  her bastard son, Lycheas. The Primate of Cimmura, who

  was the de facto ruler of Elenia, had hopes of ascending

  the throne of the Archprelacy of the Elene Church

  in the Holy City of Chyrellos, and the presence of the

  stern and moralistic Church Knight at the court inconvenienced

  him, and so it was that he persuaded King

  Aldreas to send Sir Sparhawk into exile in the Kingdom

  of Render.

  In time, King Aldreas also became inconvenient, and

  Primate Annias and the Princess poisoned him, thus

  elevating Princess Ehlana, Aldreas' daughter, to the

  throne. Th
ough she was 'young, Queen Ehlana had

  received some training from Sir Sparhawk as a child,

  and she was a far stronger monarch than her father had

  been. She soon became more than a mere inconvenience

  to the Primate. He poisoned her as well, but Sir Sparhawk's

  fellow Pandions, aided by their tutor in the

  arcane arts, a Styric woman named Sephrenia, cast an

  enchantment which sealed the queen up in crystal and

  sustained her life.

  Thus it stood when Sir Sparhawk returned from exile.

  Since the Militant Orders had no wish to see the Primate

  of Cimmura on the Archprelate's throne, certain of the

  champions of the other three orders were sent to assist

  Sir Sparhawk in finding an antidote or a cure which

  could restore Queen Ehlana to health. Since the queen

  had denied Annias access to her treasury in the past,

  the Church Knights reasoned that should she be

  restored, she would once again deny Annias the funds

  he needed to pursue his candidacy.

  Annias allied himself with a renegade Pandion named

  Martel, and this Martel person was, like all Pandions,

  skilled in the use of Styric magic. He cast obstacles, both

  physical and supernatural, in Sparhawk's path, but

  Sir Sparhawk and ' his companions were ultimately

  successful in discovering that Queen Ehlana could

  only be restored by a magical object known as 'The

  Bhelliom.'

  Western Elenes are a peculiar people. They have a

  level of sophistication in worldly matters which sometimes

  surpasses our own, but at the same time, they

  have an almost childlike belief in the more lurid forms

  of magic. This 'Bhelliom' we are told, is a very large

  sapphire which was laboriously carved into the shape

  of a rose at some time in the distant past. The Elenes

  here insist that the artisan who carved it was a Troll. We

  will not dwell on that absurdity.

  At any rate, Sir Sparhawk and his ' friends overcame

  many obstacles and were ultimately able to obtain

  the peculiar talisman, and (they claim) it was successful

  in restoring Queen Ehlana - although one strongly

  suspects that their tutor, Sephrenia, accomplished

  that task unaided, and that the apparent use of the

  Bhelliom was little more than a subterfuge she used

  to protect her ,from the virulent bigotry of western

  Elenes.

  When the Archprelate Cluvonus died, the Hierocracy

  of the Elene Church journeyed to Chyrellos to participate

  in the 'election' of his successor. Election is a peculiar

  practice which involves the stating of preference.

  That candidate who receives the approval of a majority

  of his fellows is elevated to the office in question. This,

  of course, is an unnatural procedure, but since the Elene

  clergy is ostensibly celibate, there is no non-scandalous

  way the Archprelacy can be made hereditary. The

  Primate of Cimmura had bribed a goodly number of

  high churchmen to state a preference for him during the

  deliberations of the Hierocracy, but he still fell short of

  the needed majority. It was at this point that his

  underling, the aforementioned Martel, led an assault on

  the Holy City, hoping thereby to stampede the Hierocracy

  into electing Primate Annias. Sir Sparhawk and a

  limited number of Church Knights were able to keep

  Martel away from the Basilica where the Hierocracy was

  deliberating. Most of the city of Chyrellos, however,

  was severely damaged or destroyed during the fighting.

  As the situation reached crisis proportions, help

  arrived for the beleaguered defenders in the form of

  the armies of the western Elene kingdoms. (Elene

  politics, one notes, are quite robust.) The connection

  between the Primate of Cimmura and the renegade

  Martel came to light as well as the fact that the pair

  had a subterranean arrangement with Otha of

  Zemoch. Outraged by the ' perfidy of the man, the

  Hierocracy rejected his candidacy and elected instead

  one Dolmant, the Patriarch of Demos. This Dolmant

  appears to be competent, though it may be too early to

  say for certain.

  Queen Ehlana of the Kingdom of Elenia was scarcely

  more than a child, but she appeared to be a strongwilled

  and spirited young woman. She had long had a

  secret preference for Sir Sparhawk, though he was more

  than twenty Years her senior, and upon her recovery

  it had been announced that the two were betrothed.

  Following the election of Dolmant to the Archprelacy,

  they were wed. Peculiarly enough, the queen retained

  her authority, although we must suspect that Sir Sparhawk

  exerts considerable influence upon her in state as

  well as domestic matters.

  The involvement of the Emperor of Zemoch in the

  internal affairs of the Elene Church was, of course, a

  Casus belli, and the armies of western Eosia, led by the

  Church Knights, marched eastward across Lamorkand

  to meet the Zemoch hordes poised on the border. The

  long-dreaded Second Zemoch War had begun.

  Sir Sparhawk and his companions, however, rode

  north to avoid the turmoil of the battlefield, and they

  then turned eastward, crossed the mountains of northern

  Zem'och and surreptitiously made their way to

  Otha's capital at the city of Zemoch, evidently in pursuit

  of Annias and Martel.

  The best efforts of the empire's agents in the west

  have failed to reveal precisely what took place at

  Zemoch. It is quite certain that Annias, Martel and

  Otha himself perished there, but they are of little note

  in the pageant of history. What is far more relevant

  is the incontrovertible fact that Azash, Elder God

  of Styricum and the driving force behind Otha and

  his Zemochs, also perished, and it is undeniably true

  that Sir Sparhawk was responsible. We must concede

  that the levels of magic unleashed at Zemoch were

  beyond our comprehension and that Sir Sparhawk

  has powers at his command such as no mortal has

  ever possessed. As evidence of the levels of violence

  unleashed in the confrontation, we need only point

  to the fact that the city of Zemoch was utterly destroyed

  during the discussions.

  Clearly, Zalasta the Styric had been right. Sir

  Sparhawk, the prince consort of Queen Ehlana, was

  the one man in all the world capable of dealing with

  the crisis in Tamuli. Unfortunately, Sir Sparhawk was

  not a citizen of the Tamul Empire, and thus could not

  be summoned to the imperial capital at Matherion

  by the emperor. His Majesty's government was in

  a quandary. The emperor had no authority over this

  Sparhawk, 'and to have been obliged to appeal to a man

  who was essentially a private citizen would have been

  an unthinkable humiliation.

  The situation in the empire was daily worsening, and

  our need for the intervention of Sir Sparhawk was growing

  more and more urgent. Of equal urgency was the

>   absolute necessity of maintaining the empire's dignity.

  It was ultimately the Foreign Office's most brilliant

  diplomat, First Secretary Oscagne, who devised a solution

  to the dilemma. We will discuss his Excellency's

  brilliant diplomatic ploy at greater length in the following

  chapter.

  PART ONE

  Eosia

  CHAPTER 1

  It was early spring, and the rain still had the lingering

  chill of winter. A soft, silvery drizzle sifted down out of

  the night sky and wreathed around the blocky watchtowers

  of Cimmura, hissing in the torches on each side

  of the broad gate and making the stones of the road

  leading up to the gate shiny and black. A lone rider

  approached the city.,He was wrapped in a heavy traveller's

  cloak and rode a tall, shaggy roan horse with a long

  nose and flat, vicious eyes. The traveler 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.

  The big' roan shuddered, shaking the rain

  out of his shaggy coat as they approached the east gate

  of the city and stopped in the ruddy circle of torchlight

  just outside the wall.

  An unshaven gate guard in a rust-splotched breastplate

  and helmet and with a patched green cloak hanging

  negligently from one shoulder came out of the

  gate house to look inquiringly at the traveler. He was

  swaying slightly on his feet.

  "Just passing through, neighbour,' the big man said

  in a quiet voice. He pushed back the hood of his cloak.

  . 'Oh,' the guard said, 'it's you, Prince Sparhawk. I

  didn't recognise you. Welcome home.'

  Thank you,' Sparhawk replied. He could smell the

  cheap wine on the man's breath.

  'Would you like to have me send word to the palace

  that you've arrived, your Highness?'

  "No. Don't bother them. I can unsaddle my own

  horse.' Sparhawk privately disliked ceremonies - particularly

  late at night. He leaned over and handed the

  guard a small coin. 'Go back inside, neighbour. You'll

  catch cold if you stand out here in the rain.' He nudged

  his horse and rode on through the gate.

  The district near the city wall was poor, with shabby,