The Shining Ones Read Free

of his concerns. Foreign Minister Oscagne is clearly using his influence over the Emperor to manipulate the situation. The invitation to Sir Sparhawk to come to Tamuli was obviously but the first step in some wider and more deadly scheme. Utilizing the present turmoil in Tamuli, the Foreign Minister has manipulated the Emperor into providing the very opening Dolmant needed to justify an incursion in force on to the Daresian Continent.
    This writer is fully convinced that the Empire faces the gravest threat in her long and glorious history. Thewilling cooperation of the Atans in the massacre within the imperial compound is clear evidence that not even their loyalty can be depended upon.
    To whom can we turn for aid? Where in all this world can we find a force sufficient to repel the savage minions of Dolmant of Chyrellos? Must the Empire in all her glory fall before the onslaught of the Elene zealots? I weep, my brothers, for the glory that must die. Firedomed Matherion, the city of light, the home of truth and beauty, the center of the world, is doomed. The darkness descends, and there is little hope that morning will ever come again.

Chapter 1
    The seasons were turning, and the long summer was winding down toward autumn. A tenuous mist hung in the streets of fire-domed Matherion. The moon had risen late, and its pale light starkly etched the opalescent towers and domes and imparted a soft glow to the fog lying in the streets. Matherion, all aglow, stood with her feet bathed in shining mist and her pale face lifted to the night sky.
    Sparhawk was tired. The tensions of the past week and the climactic events which had resolved them had drained him, but he could not sleep. Wrapped in his black Pandion cloak, he stood on the parapet looking pensively out over the glowing city. He was tired, but his need to evaluate, to assess, to understand, was far too great to permit him to seek his bed and let his mind sink into the soft well of sleep until everything had been put into its proper place.
    ‘What are you doing up here, Sparhawk?’ Khalad spoke quietly, his voice so much like his father’s that Sparhawk turned his head sharply to be sure that Kurik himself had not returned from the House of the Dead to chide him. Khalad was a plain-faced young man with thick shoulders and an abrupt manner. His family had served Sparhawk’s for three generations now, and Khalad, like his father, customarily addressed his lord with a plain-spoken bluntness.
    ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ Sparhawk replied with a brief shrug.
    ‘Your wife’s got half the garrison out looking for you, you know.’
    Sparhawk grimaced. ‘Why does she always have to do that?’
    ‘It’s your own fault. You know she’s going to send people out after you anytime you go off without telling her where you’ll be. You could save yourself – and us – a lot of time and trouble if you’d just tell her in the first place. It seems to me that I’ve suggested that several times already.’
    ‘Don’t bully me, Khalad. You’re as bad as your father was.’
    ‘Sometimes good traits breed true. Would you like to go down and tell your wife that you’re all right? – before she calls in the workmen to start tearing down the walls?’
    Sparhawk sighed. ‘All right.’ He turned away from the parapet. ‘Oh, by the way, you probably ought to know that we’ll be making a trip before long.’
    ‘Oh? Where are we going?’
    ‘We have to go pick something up. Have a word with the farriers. Faran needs to be re-shod. He’s scuffed his right front shoe down until it’s as thin as paper.’
    ‘That’s your fault, Sparhawk. He wouldn’t do that if you’d sit up straight in your saddle.’
    ‘We start to get crooked as we grow older. That’s one of the things you have to look forward to.’
    ‘Thanks. When are we leaving on this trip?’
    ‘Just as soon as I can come up with a convincing enough lie to persuade my wife to let me go off without her.’
    ‘We’ve got