The Paper Sword (17 page)

“I'm sorry I don't have time to play with you. But midday is upon us and I have duly paid,” Montither bellowed, a glint of cruel, confident mirth in his eyes. Instantly, Doombeard's enraged contortions became so extreme he nearly toppled the five thugs who now had to hang on to him for dear life. Belphegor's eyes bulged and his face reddened, but in accordance with his beliefs he just hung there without resisting.

Then, from behind him, Xemion heard a mighty voice shriek, “Put him down right now!”

It was Saheli. She was full of power and strength and certainty and her eyes shone so brightly her whole face seemed somehow radiant. Montither stared at her for a moment and then hurled Belphegor away from him and onto the ground and turned on her with a look of extreme offence.

“Are you addressing me, you dog?” Montither asked, but before she could reply Xemion saw him draw something from within his cloak in a clenched fist — a thin, curved blade, very lethal looking. Montither's cronies had seen it too. There was a thirsty look in their eyes at what was to come. Time seemed to slow down as Xemion saw one of them reaching toward him to restrain him while another reached for Saheli. Somewhere in the flash of calculation that preceded Xemion's next action, Vallaine's words of warning about using the painted sword flickered through his awareness. But this was the only way he could think of to stop all of them at once. In one quick motion he drew his painted sword and swept its point neatly up and accurately into the hollow of Montither's enraged neck, forcing him back against the black door.

“Do you want to die?” he bellowed in his most magnificent voice. If Montither had seen the sword properly he would have noticed that the silver paint was flaking off and that the hilt had come loose. But all he had seen was a silver flash and that, unlike most of the underfed city boys whom he was used to pushing around, his assailant was almost as big and almost as angry as he was. On a good day, on a brave day, he would have knocked the point aside and gone in low with his hinge blade, but today, off-balance, sprawled back against the black door, he suffered one of his rare moments of doubt. Worst of all, a rapid tide of pastiness swept across his stunned features for all to see.

A moment later, he did finally notice that fleck of paint lifting up from Xemion's blade, but just as he pushed back against the door to right himself, it opened inward behind him and he fell back into the arms of the hero of the Battle of Phaer Bay, Tiri Lighthammer.

Lighthammer wore the red uniform of a Phaer field marshal, complete with golden epaulets, white gloves, and a tri-pointed hat. He was stout and firm but his face was old and his eyes were hard and iron grey. Fifty years ago he had stood with a blade not so far from this very spot. He alone, of all his family, had made his own blade in the manner of his ancestors with the “low magic” of work. His comrades with their spellcrafted weapons laughed at him, but when the Kagans came and the Great Kone failed and their magical armaments and spellcrafted cavalry crumbled away beneath them and they were slaughtered naked on the beaches below it was only he with his crude self-made sword who drew Kagan blood that day. And in so doing, though he lost one of his three arms and one of his three legs, he had bought the city one extra day. For this, and for the small resistance he had headed ever since, his legend had been whispered forward from brother to sister from friend to friend all over the isle.

Ignorant of who had saved him, Montither lunged, hinge blade in hand, toward Xemion, whose painted sword now slanted down from his fist. But Lighthammer grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him back.

“What's this?” he yelled, his voice full of a lifetime of authority. Montither came round swinging, but seeing Tiri Lighthammer's military uniform his arm fell instantly to his side. “This coward ambushed me,” he claimed, enraged.

Saheli tried to say something, but Lighthammer cut her short with a quick “Hut!” Limping forward, he took a closer look at Xemion's sword and a grim sneer twitched at the corners of his mouth.

“That is not even a real sword,” he announced contemptuously. “It's a painted stick. This is a detail anyone with training would not have missed.” At this, the Nain brothers, who had picked themselves up from the ground and seemed to be completely recovered from their ordeal, laughed full out, big, sandy-sounding Nainish “ha-has,” pointing at Montither. Their raspy laughter was so infectious most of the others in the crowd couldn't help but join in.

“Silence!” Lighthammer's shout was quick and effective. Everyone, even Montither's assortment of thugs, obeyed.

“Now!” He turned to Xemion with a bemused but approving glance and said, “Congratulations, young man, on the perfect execution of a ruse. But now your ruse is ruined. And this fellow — he is large and nasty and murderously displeased with you.”

With that Lighthammer pointed to the black-bronze door. “Inside,” he ordered quietly. Belphegor and Tomtenisse Doombeard, who had hurriedly shouldered their way forward, made sure they were first and second to enter. Montither, his face livid, followed them, his bleeding and bruised entourage not far behind.

Separation

T
he
gate opened onto a walkway that led to one end of what had once been an oval-shaped track where in times gone by the gorehorses had run. The excavated portion of the stadium they were entering was little more than an eighth the size of the whole structure. Most of the rest of it still lay buried under tons of rubble. Still, the little that could be seen of its marble walls, everywhere engraved with bas-relief figures from Elphaerean history, gave testament to the greatness that once had been.

Xemion and Saheli stood just beyond the aisle, unable to penetrate the mass of people crowded in front of them. Xemion kept scanning the faces of the late arrivals who continued to pour into the stadium behind them. He was half-expecting to see Tharfen and Torgee, but there was no sign of them. Soon there were so many people that some had to stand in the walkway jammed together all the way back to the black gates.

Xemion was tall, but there were numerous Thralls who were even taller, making it hard to get a good view of the dais that had been set up at the end of the track. He did, however, catch Montither glaring at him from about fifty yards away. Xemion instantly turned away, but he felt Montither's eyes on him for a long time and he was surprised to have found something in them that slightly frightened him. He'd seen a version of it before in young Tharfen, but this was a hundred times greater and far more pure: Hate. He shivered and clenched his jaw and did his best not too look back at him, but when he did, Montither was still glaring.

“I think he must be in love with you,” joked a gangly Thrall who stood beside them. He wore a flat, square cap at an angle atop a longish oval head whose upper portion was almost entirely dominated by the large round eyes typical of his people. These factors, combined with the slightly crooked set of his jaw, gave him a comic air. “Rich boy,” he sneered. He mimed a rigid parody of Montither's scared face at the end of Xemion's sword. Xemion couldn't help but laugh. The Thrall reverted to his former appearance and made a little bow. “Lirodello,” he announced. Xemion and Saheli bowed and told him their own names.

“I am the quarter master's assistant,” he informed them, and then he winked. “But I'm just here for the Thralleens.” His eyebrows moved up and down suggestively as he jerked his head in the direction of three enormous Muscle-Thralls who were standing nearby. They were all at least seven feet tall and clad mostly in a mixture of black leather and feathers. The leather was so tightly fitted it revealed even the imprint of their abdominal muscles. It proceeded upward from there, covering their bosoms and reaching to their shoulders where the leather had been cut into a fringe of thin decorative strips that dangled and shifted as the Thralls moved, making visible their massive biceps as thick as oak branches. These were pleasingly decorated with hieroglyphic tattoos and orange chevrons. Noticing Lirodello's eyes upon her, the youngest-looking one glanced back at him, but quickly brought her massive hand up shyly over her lips, a movement that swelled that particular bicep to twice its size.

Saheli returned Lirodello's rapidly moving eyebrows with a friendly smile. He winked and pointed to the stage. “That's some of the ones that got took down to Pathar,” he advised solemnly.

Xemion's gaze was drawn to a row of seats at the side of the dais in which sat four youths, all of whom wore black patches over one eye. There was a sickly pallor to their flesh that reminded him of Rotan Smedenage, the examiner. “Those ones up there,” Lirodello said to Saheli, making sure she saw them too. “The ones with faces like small rotting moons,” he added. “Do you see them?”

“Why do they wear the black patches?” Saheli asked. She took out her glass to observe them more closely.

Lirodello drew in close to her and murmured in an even more solemn voice, “Pathans did a little science on them — removed one eye. Attempt please not to imagine that.” He put his thumb into one side of his mouth and pulled it out with a popping sound.

Xemion frowned at him.

“And a bit of their brains, too,” Lirodello added to Saheli, obviously enjoying the effect his words were having on his listeners. Saheli clicked her telescope shut and tucked it away in her pocket.

“They were trying to do something with a ‘living' kone,” Lirodello went on.

“What do you mean a living kone?” Xemion asked.

Lirodello tilted his hat forward on his long, oval head and became almost serious for a moment. He drew in close and out of the corner of his mouth said, “Well, you know how the old spell kones worked, lowering a crystal eye with a crank to read the spell?”

“Yes,” Xemion answered just as seriously.

“And you know how the kones didn't work for the Pathans, but worked very well for the rest of us?”

“Yes.”

Lirodello leaned in so close now they both became aware at once of the faint, sweet lavender smell he exuded. “Well, the Pathan scientists thought that if they could remove the living eye of a spellbinder and keep it alive and separate from him it could replace the crystal in a spell kone and then it would work for them too. As long as the original spellbinder was kept alive, they thought it could act as reader to the turning of the kone.” He took in their horrified astonishment triumphantly. “That's why they took any children they thought might have spellbinding talent down to Pathar ten years ago.” Lirodello lifted his eyebrows up and down about ten times rapidly. “Then the religious Pathans came into power under their new king and ended it all and Veneetha Azucena managed to get some of the spellbinders back.” And then he added, as though it were a humorous aside, “Except for their eyes, of course.”

Any more of Lirodello's tales were forestalled by two trumpeters who marched out from either side of the stage and let loose with a fanfare. A stout elderly man wearing an ink-blue robe with sleeves so long they completely covered his hands walked to the centre of the stage and bellowed, “Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome our founder, funder, and chief commanding officer, Veneetha Azucena!” As he raised his arm in a gesture of welcome, one of his long sleeves drew back to reveal a bronze hook on the end of his arm where his hand should have been. Immediately, a very tall woman strode forward to a joyous roar from the crowd.

Veneetha Azucena was attired in the splendid regalia of an old Elphaerean commander — a jade-green ankle-length cloak, knee-high leather boots, burnished copper chain mail, a peaked bronze helmet, and, high atop it, a waving purple plume. Against the dark bluish-black of her skin and the rolling blackness of her hair, which spilled out of her helmet in a great profusion of rings and curls, the effect was stunning. For a long time she just stood, holding a piece of paper in one hand, as she gazed slowly back and forth at the crowd, almost as though she were taking the time to look each one of them individually in the eye. Eventually she nodded her head at the hushed group and smiled.

“Well, aren't we blessed to be here today?” Her voice was full and rich and feminine, with just a touch of sandiness in its tone to give it a sparkle. Her sense of joy was immediately infectious.

“Yes! Yes!” numerous members of the crowd called out. Xemion had never seen such a large group of people, let alone heard such happy shouting. The resonance of it thrilled him. He looked at Saheli and he could see that she, too, was swept up in it.

“Now, I wonder what could have brought such a large group of Phaerlanders to our old home in Ulde?”

There was laughter and waves of cheers, Xemion's and Saheli's among them.

“I knew that some of you would come, but there must be more than three times the number we expected,” she continued. “Most of you, I see, are young, some of you are still children, and I understand why it is you who have come instead of your mothers and fathers. This is the way of your generation. You feel the new wind that is arising off the northern seas. You have a longing in your heart that cannot be quenched anywhere but here in our old Phaer home.”

The crowd responded with jubilant cheers.

“And, may I say, I am happy to see so many Thralls and Nains here. I welcome each one of you as a fellow Phaerlander, for we are all, as the Elphaereans named us when our ancestors first came in search of freedom and shelter to these shores, one Phaer people.”

Again, there were cheers.

“As you know, this historic moment has been coming a long time. Half a century has passed since the overthrow of our island and its people by the Pathans, and for most of that time our great city was left half-buried and all but abandoned. Only in the past three years have we even been allowed back in, and since then Phaerman, Thrall, and Nain alike have been recovering old Ulde, street by street. The curse and trash of the spell kones, which once so stained and littered these ancient stones, is fast fading.

“But all this time, one great point of Phaer pride, our prowess with the blade, has been denied us. For fifty years, the Pathan has persisted. Never again, they stated, could we be entrusted with the protection of our own Phaer Isle. And so while my traitorous ancestors have grown rich on the backs of those whose labour in vineyards and coal mines they exploited and commanded, the rest of you have been left impoverished, uneducated, and, now with the departure of the Pathans, undefended. Unless of course you count the churlish blades of the last kwislings, who dare to dream that they will maintain their traitorous power even now when their masters are gone.

“Well, this needs to be set right, doesn't it? When my father passed away and I came into my inheritance my first thought was that I should throw all my riches into the sea, for I would not have such blood as all that on my hands. But fortunately, I thought better of it and have instead been using my fortune to advocate in the Pathan courts for a sensible sure return of Phaer arms to Phaer hands.”

The crowd cheered and Veneetha Azucena began to stride back and forth as she spoke. Every once in a while as she turned the wind would catch her long black hair so that it streamed out behind her.

“The more Pathan forces have been recalled to deal with their conflict underground, I have argued, the more they should seek our assistance in protecting this upper flank of their empire. Yes, my friends, the Pathans need us!”

There was laughter at this but she hushed it instantly with a wave of her hand.

“Recently, when the new regime came to power, we intensified our persuasions. They are a pious group and we tried to reach them by appealing to the tenets of their religion. We got them to stop all the terrible experiments and release our poor brothers and sisters whom you see before you here.” She indicated the pale, one-eyed ones who made no response to her announcement. “We believed for a while that our efforts would bear fruit. But this past week, after many years of court challenges, even as the last cohort of Pathan soldiers was being called away, even as governance of our fair city was being shifted over to traitorous kwisling hands, we received our final answer. Again ‘No!' they say. And just today they sent an envoy demanding that I acknowledge my acceptance of their ruling.”

She waved the piece of paper in the air.

“Now, I see this document, and I am told that it is addressed to me, and I wonder, do they think I, one woman, am the Phaer People? I am but one citizen. If they want an answer to such a general question, they must ask the general population. Very convenient then, that you have all dropped by today.”

Some in the crowd laughed at this.

“Because this is a question we must decide in the Phaer way of our ancestors, by a vote. Are you prepared? Have you given it some thought? Are you ready to give your answer today to the Pathan courts?”

The crowd's answer arose as though from one mouth. “Yes!”

It was an exciting moment and Xemion and Saheli looked at one another with joy in their eyes. Xemion took this moment to do something he'd been building up his courage to do ever since the lineup outside when he'd noticed that so many of the arrivals had come as couples, arms around one another's shoulders or waists. He reached out and took Saheli's hand.

He only felt her warm grip for a few seconds before there was a booming crack at the back of the aisle and the doorway to the stadium flew open. A troop of soldiers in full Pathan infantry garb marched two abreast down the aisle into the stadium, pushing the people in front of them were forward into the crowd. In the confusion that followed, Xemion was knocked to his feet, somehow letting go of Saheli's hand. The Pathans, with burnished shields locked in a narrow V-formation, continued on into the crowd as Xemion struggled to rise. Their round leather helmets and monolithically dull faces revealed them to be kwislings, but the figure who led them was not.

Xemion got back to his feet in time to see him reach the front of the stadium, where he stopped, turned, and rested his hand casually on the hilt of a sword whose pommel sported a dark black garnet as big as a baby's head. He was a royal Pathan. This was signalled by the two slightly parted beak-like visors that brought his black helmet to a severe point in the front, a sign of high royalty. These visors sheltered him from the glare of the sun, a precaution that all Pathans must take on the overearth, but they also served another more important ceremonial function. They prevented the viewing of his face, a sacred requirement for Pathan royalty and a pleasure denied ordinary citizens of Pathar on pain of death since time immemorial.