The Complete Tamuli Trilogy: Domes of Fire, The Shining Ones, The Hidden City. David Eddings
stone block. In the centre of the altar lay a black velvet cushion, and nestled on it there was a plain gold circlet.
The song swelled, and it echoed back from nearby mountains.
And then, out of the velvet black throat of night, a star fell. It was an incandescently brilliant white light streaking down across the sky. Down and down it arched, and then it exploded into a shower of brilliant sparks.
‘Stop that!’ Sparhawk hissed to his daughter.
‘I didn’t do it,’ she protested. ‘I might have, but I didn’t think of it. How did they do that?’ She sounded genuinely baffled.
Then, as the glowing shards of the star drifted slowly toward the earth filling the night with glowing sparks, the golden circlet on the altar rose unaided, drifting up like a ring of smoke. It hesitated as the Atan song swelled with an aching kind of yearning, and then, like a gossamer cobweb, it settled on the head of the child, and when Mirtai turned with exultant face, she was a child no longer.
The mountains rang back the joyous sound as the Atans greeted her.
‘They know nothing of magic.’ Zalasta said it quite emphatically.
‘That circlet didn’t rise up into the air all by itself, Zalasta,’ Vanion disagreed, ‘and the arrival of the falling star at just exactly the right moment stretches the possibility of coincidence further than I’m willing to go.’
‘Chicanery of some kind perhaps?’ Patriarch Emban suggested. ‘There was a charlatan in Ucera when I was a boy who was very good at that sort of thing. I’d be inclined to look for hidden wires and burning arrows.’ They were gathered in the Peloi camp outside the city the following morning, puzzling over the spectacular conclusion of Mirtai’s Rite of Passage.
‘Why would they do something like that, your Grace?’ Khalad asked him.
‘To make an impression maybe. How would I know?’
‘Who would they have been trying to impress?’
‘Us, obviously.’
‘It doesn’t seem to fit the Atan character,’ Tynian said, frowning. ‘Would the Atans cheapen a holy rite with that kind of gratuitous trickery, Ambassador Oscagne?’
The Tamul Emissary shook his head. Totally out of the question, Sir Tynian. The rite is as central to their culture as a wedding or a funeral. They’d never demean it just to impress strangers – and it wasn’t performed for our benefit. The ceremony was for Atana Mirtai.’
‘Exactly,’ Khalad agreed, ‘and if there were hidden wires coming down from those tree-branches she’d have known they were there. They just wouldn’t have done that to her. A cheap trick like that would have been an insult, and we all know how Atans respond to insults.’
‘Norkan will be here in a little while,’ Oscagne told them. ‘He’s been in Atan for quite some time. I’m sure he’ll be able to explain it.’
‘It cannot have been magic,’ Zalasta insisted. It seemed very important to him for some reason. Sparhawk had the uneasy feeling that it had to do with the shaggy-browed magician’s racial ego. So long as Styrics were the only people who could perform magic or instruct others in its use, they were unique in the world. If any other race could do the same thing, their importance would be diminished.
‘How long are we going to stay here?’ Kalten asked. This is a nervous kind of place. Some young knight or one of the Peloi is bound to make a mistake sooner or later. If somebody blunders into a deadly insult, I think all this good feeling will evaporate. We don’t want to have to fight our way out of town.’
‘Norkan will be able to tell us,’ Oscagne replied. ‘We don’t want to insult the Atans by leaving too early either.’
‘How far is it from here to Matherion, Oscagne?’ Emban asked.
‘About five hundred leagues.’
Emban sighed. ‘Almost two more months,’ he lamented. ‘I feel as if this journey’s lasted for years.’
‘You do look more fit, though, your Grace,’ Bevier told him.
‘I don’t want to look fit, Bevier. I want to look fat, lazy and pampered. I want to be fat, lazy and pampered – and I want a decent meal with lots of butter and gravy and delicacies and fine wines.’
‘You did volunteer to come along, your Grace,’ Sparhawk reminded him.
‘I must have been out of my mind.’
Ambassador Norkan came across the Peloi campground with an amused expression on his face.
‘What’s so funny?’ Oscagne asked him.
‘I’ve been observing an exquisite dance, old boy,’ Norkan replied. ‘I’d forgotten just how profoundly literal an Elene can be. Any number of Atan girls have approached young Sir Berit and expressed a burning interest in western weaponry. They were obviously hoping for private lessons in some secluded place where he could demonstrate how he uses his equipment.’
‘Norkan,’ Oscagne chided him.
‘Did I say something wrong, old chap? I’m afraid my Elenic’s a bit rusty. Anyway, Sir Berit’s arranged a demonstration for the entire group. He’s just outside the city wall giving the whole bunch of them archery lessons.’
‘We’re going to have to have a talk with that boy,’ Kalten said to Sparhawk.
‘I’ve been told not to,’ Sparhawk said. ‘My wife and the other ladies want to keep him innocent. It seems to satisfy some obscure need.’ He looked at Norkan. ‘Maybe you can settle an argument for us, your Excellency.’
‘I’m good at peace-making, Sir Sparhawk. It’s not as much fun as starting wars, but the emperor prefers it.’
‘What really happened last night, Ambassador Norkan?’ Vanion asked him.
‘Atana Mirtai became an adult,’ Norkan shrugged. ‘You were there, Lord Vanion. You saw everything I did.’
‘Yes, I did. Now I’d like to have it explained. Did a star really fall at the height of the ceremony? And did the gold circlet really rise from the altar and settle itself on Mirtai’s head?’
‘Yes. Was there a problem with that?’
‘Impossible!’ Zalasta exclaimed.
‘You could do it, couldn’t you, learned one?’
‘Yes, I suppose so, but I am Styric.’
‘And these are Atans?’
‘That’s exactly my point.’
‘We were also disturbed when we first encountered the phenomenon,’ Norkan told him. ‘The Atans are our cousins. So, unfortunately, are the Arjuni and the Tegans. We Tamuls are a secular people, as you undoubtedly know. We have a pantheon of Gods that we ignore except on holidays. The Atans only have one, and they won’t even tell us what His name is. They can appeal to Him in the same way you Styrics appeal to your Gods, and He responds in the same fashion.’
Zalasta’s face suddenly went white. ‘Impossible!’ he said again in a choked voice. ‘We’d have known. There are Atans at Sarsos. We’d have felt them using magic.’
‘But they don’t do it at Sarsos, Zalasta,’ Norkan said patiently. ‘They only use it here in Atan and only during their ceremonies.’
‘That’s absurd!’
‘I wouldn’t tell them you feel that way. They hold you Styrics in some contempt, you know. They find the notion of turning a God into a servant a bit impious. Atans have