Swords: 10 - The Seventh Book Of Lost Swords - Wayfinder's Story (8 page)

      
Valdemar raised his eyebrows. He said mildly: “It is important to me.”

      
The two young men were of the same age, or very nearly so; but Valdemar—only partially because of his size—generally gave the impression of being older.

      
“Well, perhaps you can manage to locate a wife without the help of Wayfinder,” said Zoltan. “Or—who knows?—if you come with us you might discover one to your liking in Sarykam.”

      
The other shrugged. “Perhaps, friend Zoltan. Anyway, you should remember that I am not ready to abandon my purpose. But I have already given the Sword to Lady Yambu, given it freely, and so I have no claim on it any longer.”

 
      
“You are welcome to take it back, long enough to ask a question,” the lady assured him.

      
Ben nodded. “Just don’t be all day about it.”

      
The lady paused in the act of handing Wayfinder back to Valdemar. Frowning, she said to him: “You are something of a magician, are you not?”

      
The tall youth blinked at her as if the question had surprised him. “I have a certain knack for doing tricks with light, and mirrors, and sand and water,” he admitted. “No more than that. Depending on the company in which I find myself, I sometimes claim to know a little magic. But how did you know?”

      
“I have known another magician or two in my time. The art is wont to leave its traces.” Yambu shrugged. “In this company you may freely claim competence,” she told Valdemar. “I doubt that any of us are able to surpass you, in whatever it is you do with light and mirrors.”

      
Valdemar received the Sword from her, and held it steadily. “I ask—” he began firmly, then hesitated, looking at the others. “I suppose there is no preferred formula of words?”

      
“None I know of,” said Ben impatiently. “Just ask your question.” The rain was falling harder now, though so far the overhang of cliff had kept them almost dry.

      
“Then I ask,” said Valdemar, with perhaps a hint of embarrassment in his voice, “the same question as before. When I spoke to this Sword in my own house.”

      
Wayfinder pointed straight in the direction of the Silver Queen.

      
The rain slackened somewhat. Ben, though tired, was eager to get moving, and none of the others insisted on a chance to rest. All four set out together, in the direction indicated by Wayfinder.

      
Ben, who walked with Zoltan in the lead, now wore the Sword of Wisdom at his belt—drawing and using it occasionally, to confirm that they remained on the proper course—while Lady Yambu walked at Valdemar’s side.

      
They had been hiking for a quarter of an hour when Valdemar asked: “What lies ahead of us?”

      
“Not much but desert,” Ben returned shortly. “And somewhere in it, I suppose, the river I went boating on yesterday.”

      
“A wasteland,” said Yambu. “One that will take us days to cross.”

Chapter Five

      
Once Wood decided to depart the city where he and Tigris had visited the Blue Temple headquarters, he summoned up his preferred form of rapid transportation. He and his young lieutenant were soon mounted upon a griffin, riding the wind a kilometer above the land. The Ancient One’s chosen destination was one of his remoter strongholds. He and Tigris were bringing with them only a few assistants, chosen from those of his people he least mistrusted, who rode clinging for their lives on the backs of similar steeds.

      
As soon as the Ancient One and his party had reached their goal, all of his helpers, including Tigris, were promptly assigned their tasks of magic, and set to work.

* * *

      
Some hours later, laboring inside a stone-vaulted chamber enclosed by many barriers of matter and of magic, the master of the establishment raised his head over a massive wooden workbench lighted by Old World globes and marked with an intricacy of carven diagrams.

      
He asked: “Tigris, are we completely secure against unfriendly observation?”

      
“Master?” Across the room the young woman, startled, looked up from her own work.

      
“I mean observation from outside. Are there spies, human or otherwise, anywhere in sight of our walls? Do you make sure that there are none. I would attend to the matter myself, but I am otherwise engaged at the moment.”

      
“Now, Master?”

      
“Now.”

      
Suffering in silence the interruption of her own work, the young woman methodically disengaged herself from her current task. Then she employed her considerable powers to satisfy her Master’s latest wish, sending her perception outwards, while her body remained standing beside the bench.

      
Outside the stronghold, not many meters distant and yet a world away, behind grim walls of heavy rock and curtains of dark magic, some trees and other vegetation grew naturally. There a handful of birds were singing. Not messengers, these. These birds were wild and small and totally unintelligent.

      
Of unfriendly observation there was not a trace. Unless the small birds could be counted as unfriendly to the Master and his cause.

      
For another moment, a moment longer than was really necessary, Tigris harkened carefully. Her body standing indoors did not move, except that her red lips parted.

      
“Well?”

      
The young woman returned fully to her body. “Nothing, Master. Nothing and no one out there now.”

      
“You sense nothing?”

      
Again Tigris employed the full range of her trained perceptions. Again she came back. “Only songbirds.”

      
The Ancient One grunted something, a sound of grudging satisfaction, and returned to his powerful ritual, whose goal, his assistant knew, was the discovery of information about certain of Wood’s enemies, notably the Emperor, and the Emperor’s son, Mark of Tasavalta.

      
Tigris, aware of a strange reluctance to do so, firmly put from her thoughts her memory of the outside world. She also returned, but more slowly, to her tasks.

      
At odd moments during the next few hours, she pondered her own reactions. She had been somewhat surprised—though not entirely—to find herself prolonging the reconnaissance unnecessarily, simply to harken to the songbirds for one moment more.

* * *

      
The hours passed. Lesser aides, bringing messages, were intercepted by Tigris, so that her Master should not be disturbed. The great magician had been isolated at his workbench for some time with certain half-material, semi-animate powers, and his own thoughts.

      
At length, when it seemed a safe moment to interrupt her lord, Tigris approached him.

      
His eyes, coming back from a great distance, at length focused on hers. “Well?”

      
“Master, a reptile scout has just arrived at the stronghold, carrying intelligence.” She named a region that was many kilometers away.

      
“So? What word, then?”

      
“Sire, some Blue Temple people in that area have very recently acquired the Sword of Mercy.”

      
Now the man’s beautiful blue eyes were truly focused. “Woundhealer.” He breathed the name in a hoarse whisper. “We know just where it is? There is no mistake?”

      
“The location is only approximate. But I believe the report.”

      
In excitement he seized her arm. His grip for some reason felt icy cold. “Tigris, my plans bear fruit!”

      
“Master, we all expected nothing less.”

      
Wood paused in thought, clasping his hands in front of him, smiling and nodding with satisfaction. “Woundhealer, my dear,” he remarked to his young associate, “is perhaps the only Sword that I would be willing to trust in the hands of a subordinate.

      
“Therefore I am not rushing out into the field to take it away from those Blue Temple fools—I may decide to send you. When you have completed your present tasks.”

      
The blond head bowed deeply. “I will of course be honored, Master.”

      
“We shall see. As usual, I have other important tasks to perform. Though I must admit that, in a way, there is no other Sword that I am more anxious to possess.”

      
Tigris allowed herself a display of mild surprise. “Master, the Sword of Mercy is certainly a tool of great value. We are, any and all of us, subject to injury sooner or later.”

      
“Obviously. But I think you miss my point.”

      
“Master?”

      
“Certainly, when one is badly hurt, healing is priceless. But surely you cannot fail to see that Woundhealer will also be of exquisite value in the torture chamber.”

      
“Ah.”

      
“Yes, ‘Ah’ indeed. Just consider the possibilities, when the occupant of the rack or of the boot can be revived over and over, times without number. When one is entertaining one’s enemy under such favorable conditions, one always hates to say a permanent goodbye. Imagine the guest, just as final unconsciousness is about to overtake him—or her—being restored to perfect physical health and strength, every nerve and every blood vessel intact again. And restored quickly, almost instantly! No need even to remove him—or her—from the rack for a period of recuperation.”

      
Wood sighed faintly. “I tell you, Tigris, I would give a great deal to be able to take the Sword of Love—and a few well-chosen guests, of course—and retire to one of my fortresses for a few years of well-earned rest and entertainment.”

      
“My Master, I look forward to making such a retreat with you. What pleasures could we not devise?” The blond young woman giggled, a delicious sound.

      
“Yes.” Wood stroked her hair, and his features softened momentarily. “You are a beautiful creature.”

      
“Thank you.”

      
“And loyal to me.”

      
“Naturally, Master.”

      
“Naturally.” The stroking hand moved on. “Really beautiful. And, of course, still really young. That is a rare quality among my close associates, and one I value. Yes my dear, you are precious to me.”

      
The head of yellow curls bowed humbly.

      
But Wood’s expression was hardening again. His fondling hand fell to his side. “Unfortunately, we can spare no time for any prolonged diversion now.”

      
“No, Master.”

      
Standing with hands braced on his workbench, issuing brisk commands, the Ancient One dictated the reply he wanted sent back to his people in the field.

      
The necessary materials were readily at hand. Tigris wrote what she was ordered to write. The message was short and to the point; the written words glowed briefly, then disappeared from the thin parchment, not to regain their visibility until the proper spell should be recited over them.

      
Now the wizard paced as he completed the dictation. “Tell my people that they are graciously granted permission to use Woundhealer to cure whatever wounds they may have suffered.”

      
“Yes, Master.”

      
“As for healing anyone else, if the question should come up … I think not.” The handsome man smiled his youthful smile.

* * *

      
A few minutes later, standing on the battlements to make sure that the winged messenger was properly dispatched, she gazed upon the open sky, and heard bird-song again.

      
This time, as she listened, the faint crease of a frown appeared above her eyes. There was something she did not understand. Something that bothered her.

      
Something those cheerful voices not only symbolized, but actively conveyed. A plea, or a warning, that she ought to, but still did not, understand.

      
The singers of course were only birds, nothing more than they seemed to be, she was very sure of that. And that point perhaps had meaning. Small and mindless and meaningless animals. Perhaps, though, simplicity, an absence of trickery, was not altogether meaningless.

      
Tigris had the irrational feeling that, years ago, when she was only a child, she might have been able to comprehend the birds … though the child she had been of course had not begun to understand the world as it really was.

      
Yet recently—today was not the first experience—she had been nagged by the notion that in childhood she must have known something of great importance, something essential, which she had since utterly forgotten. Recently there came moments when it seemed to her that the thing forgotten had once been, might still be, of overriding importance in her life.

      
It was unsettling.

      
Tigris closed her eyes, long enough to draw a breath and let it go. For no longer than that did she allow herself to waste the Master’s time. Here in the stronghold of the Ancient One, one had to guard one’s very thoughts with extreme care.

* * *

      
At that same hour, the Sword of Wisdom gripped in the huge right hand of Ben of Sarykam was guiding four people across an extensive wasteland.

      
They were making good time for travelers on foot, and Zoltan, the most impetuous of the four if not precisely the youngest, did a good job of restraining his impatience with the comparative slowness of his elders. But he kept wanting to hurry them along. As soon as Zoltan had heard of his Aunt Kristin’s horrible injury and desperate need, he had become wholeheartedly committed, perhaps even more than Ben, to the search for Woundhealer.

      
Their march across what was basically an uninhabited plain had gone on for two days now. In the afternoons the spring sun grew uncomfortably warm. Shade was scarce in this wasteland, and the walkers were all thankful that summer was yet to come.

      
Now and then Ben grumbled that if they kept on much longer in this direction, they were bound to come back to the river on which he had left the bandit boat, though at a point considerably downstream from that where he had made his escape.

      
“You are reluctant to reach a river?” Valdemar asked him. “I think it would be a refreshing change.”

      
“This one has bandits on it. I’ll tell them you’re the real Ben of Purkinje.”

* * *

      
As the day drew toward its close, the four, led to water by the sight of thriving vegetation, came upon a small stream that issued from a spring at the root of a rocky outcrop. Ben consulted with the lady, and by agreement they called a halt for food and rest.

      
Shrugging out of his small pack, Valdemar remarked: “I have no doubt that we are being led toward Woundhealer. But I wonder how far we have to go.”

      
Zoltan, shedding his own pack, answered: “No telling. We may not even be going straight toward the Sword itself.”

      
“Ah. It has already been explained to me that I may not be going directly toward my bride. Whoever she may be.”

      
“Right,” Ben grunted abstractedly.

      
“My purpose then may well be twice delayed.” For the first time since he had joined the others, the young vineyardist sounded faintly discouraged.

      
As the simple process of making camp got under way, Ben began to reminisce about another journey once taken under the guidance of the Sword of Wisdom. That had been nineteen years ago, and Wayfinder had been then in the hands of the vengeful Baron Doon, who had used the powers of the Sword to guide himself and his band of plunderers to the main hoard of the Blue Temple’s treasure.

      
“You speak as if you were there,” commented Valdemar.

      
“I was,” Ben answered shortly.

      
“I have heard some version of the story.”

      
“Would you like to hear the truth?”

      
“Of course.”

      
“Maybe one of these nights, when we are resting.”

* * *

      
The four had pooled their food supplies, but the total was quickly becoming ominously low. Zoltan expressed a hope of being able to find game in this country, despite its barrenness. He had with him a sling, a weapon with which he had gained some proficiency over the last few years. Zoltan went away to hunt.