Nightsword

by Margaret Weis

  He began, tentatively, to walk down the path.

  He was breathing too fast, he realized, but there didn’t seem to be anything he could do about it. He sweated despite the chill in the enormous room. It was all too horrible—but he continued to walk, setting one foot ahead of the other in light, considered steps. As he moved down the cleared path, he could see the dust around him reforming at the periphery of his vision. It was as though he were the center of a circle, and as he moved, the circle moved with him. Where the circle touched, the dust rose up on its own, seeking the form of its former self. He dared not look. He knew the bones were rising up from the ground, the dust of the flesh struggling back towards its remembered form, the robes somehow taking shape from the ashen remains.

  He dared not look.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he occasionally noted the dust-robed skulls turning toward him as he moved.

  His eyes remained fixed ahead. One step. Then the other.

  He heard their voices as he passed them.

  “Misery. Forgive.”

  L’Zari sensed that as the mystical circle about him passed away from them, their bones drifted silently back to their place, and the dust, he trusted, covered them over as before.

  So he hoped. He dared not look.

  One step. Then the last.

  He stood at the base of stairs rising sharply up the side of the platform. Several large cylinders of translucent material were embedded around the octagonal pedestal, their interior reaches dark and as dead as the bones stretching outward into the chamber. The low wall surrounding the top of the platform prevented him from seeing what was above him. L’Zari mounted the stairs quickly and stood at last on the central platform.

  The air was as still as the dead.

  It was a table—or so L’Zari thought at first glance. There were seven high-backed chairs surrounding it, each mounted to the massive table base by a metallic arm. Several of the chairs were swung on these arms away from the table; some swiveled to face outward. There were the vague hints of control surfaces and blank display screens forming the low wall around the platform, but none of these attracted L’Zari’s attention.

  Someone lay slumped over the table.

  It had been human—the bone structure was unmistakable. It sat in one of the chairs, dressed in an ancient, bulky pressure suit—undoubtedly the only thing holding the corpse’s bones together.

  What kind of material could have remained intact over these centuries? L’Zari thought as he moved closer.

  The skull sagged out of the neck locking ring and lay sideways in a ridiculously tall miter hat that was obviously more ceremonial than practical. Clergy or holy man of some type, the youth thought. The bones of the right hand had fallen to the floor, as the end of the suit’s right sleeve hung over the edge of the table. The left-hand bones lay extended from the metallic locking ring at the end of the left sleeve; the index finger extended, while the other fingers appeared curled. It was as though the figure were pointing toward something on the map on which the corpse now lay.

  The map?

  “Hebat!” L’Zari exclaimed.

  He rushed forward, leaning over the table to look more closely. L’Zari had done some cartography work in his schooling—mostly it had been regarding where the major empires were and what major trade routes had been established over the years. He loved maps. Maps could take you places in your mind far from where you were. L’Zari would often examine maps for hours on end and imagine himself on distant worlds, any of which were better than the one he was on. Navigational cartography was an entirely different science, he knew, but he had picked up a few things recently in his travels. The wind ghosts had led him here—was this the object of their misery?

  The map-sheet was unimaginably old yet it showed no signs of age. The sheet itself was large—nearly as large as the youth was tall—and made of some thin, shiny material of a creamy color. In his rush to examine it, L’Zari caught his hand on the corner of the map and folded it over under his weight. L’Zari hurriedly removed his hand and was quite astonished to watch the sheet unfold itself slowly, leaving no crease lines in the material’s surface.

  L’Zari leaned over the map, taking care not to disturb the long dead spacer lying atop it. Dim green lines radiated out from one quadrant of the map; their convergence the young man took for the galactic center. He was amazed to find that if he shifted slightly, the map line rotated under his motion, showing a more dimensional aspect to the representation of stars and grid lines. There was a bright green line that traced in from the map’s edge and wound its way toward the converging lines but stopped short of the core itself. L’Zari moved closer to the map and the region expanded its detail and view. He saw now that the green line ended in a cluster of hundreds of small objects which …

  “Bonefield Narrows!” L’Zari exclaimed aloud, forgetting in his excitement that only the dead were there to hear him. “That’s Bonefield Narrows!”

  It was then that he noticed the dull red line extending past the bright green. It snaked through a circuitous route, sometimes seeming to double back on itself, although with some shifting of his head, L’Zari could see that the route never crossed itself in three-dimensional space.

  The dull red line ended at the very center of the galactic core.

  Only the legendary ships of the Lost Empire had ever known the route to the galactic core. They had never returned. Others had tried to follow them but none had known the way. Now, before L’Zari, lay the map to every spacer’s dream.

  A map which, he suddenly realized, he could not read. The symbols on the map were strange to his eye and his biolink could not translate the ancient writings of the Lost Empire. Spread before him were the secrets of the greatest known treasure in all the galaxy—and he gazed at them as though he were illiterate.

  L’Zari smiled. He might not be able to read a navigation map—but he certainly knew someone who could.

  “I’m sorry, old one,” L’Zari said to the corpse as he moved around the table, “but your turn is finished. It’s time you made room for a new age.”

  L’Zari put his booted foot against the pressure suit and pushed. The suit toppled out of the seat, clattering noisily away from the table, the bones rattling against the metal flooring. The skull twisted away from the other remains and obstinately remained lying, still thrust into the tall hat, on the map. For a moment, L’Zari wondered if his impulsive action might anger the ghosts of the hall, but not a whisper of wind disturbed the still air. With that moment of doubt behind him, L’Zari grasped the edge of the map and, in a single smooth motion, pulled it free of the table, sending the skull crashing to the floor, shattering it.

  L’Zari folded the map once across the center, then unfolded it again. As he suspected, the crease line vanished at once in the miraculous map face. Smiling, L’Zari began folding the map in earnest, its size finally manageable as he slipped it into his leather shoulder bag. He wondered for a moment if the map would unfold itself in the bag but it seemed to hold its shape well.

  He closed the flap on his bag and, well satisfied with his prize, returned to the problem of an exit. He now had something that would make his father notice him, probably even make him proud of him. That was treasure enough for today.

  A loud rumbling to one side of the great chamber disturbed L’Zari’s musings: Someone was opening one of the massive doors.

  “Father!” L’Zari cried out.

  “Aye, son,” came the distant voice.

  He ran down the stairs and across the hall, heedless of the dust billowing around his footsteps. His father was here now and he could afford to be brave.

  “Father! Wait till you see …”

  He was halfway across the chamber before he noticed, in the dim blue light, the towering, massive figures standing behind Kip-lei. The deep forest-green of their scaled hides was unmistakable, even in the bad illumination of the chamber. L’Zari could sense more than see the flattened muzzles of their faces and t
win sets of ivory horns on their heads. One of them brandished long cutlass blades from each of its four arms. The other had three arms only but wore several ranks of firearms suspended from its neck. Both seemed to grin hideously.

  The Gorgons had found them.

  5

  Unfinished Tales

  L’Zari tried to turn at the sight of the Gorgons but his footing was unsure. His boots slid through the dust covering the smooth flooring and he fell. Clouds of gray billowed into the air.

  “L’Zari, no!” his father called out. “Stop, boy! Stop!”

  “The child has spirit, Kip-lei, I will grant you that,” hissed the three-armed Gorgon through L’Zari’s biolink. “The same spirit as his father—he can run away with the best of them, I’ll wager: just as you ran away from me, Kip-lei!”

  “Who are you?” L’Zari demanded with considerably more confidence than he felt.

  “Me, child?” the Gorgon replied with a snakish laugh. “You have not the years to deserve my name!”

  “You know him, son,” Kip replied quietly. “We spoke of him earlier.”

  “Lord Marren-kan,” L’Zari said flatly.

  “Am I that popular?” Marren-kan’s lips curled up over his long canine teeth. “I see that I must be. Yet for one who is so highly regarded, your father seems to have shown an inordinate lack of respect. Not only did he see fit to relieve me of one of my cherished possessions but he insisted on running away from me when I came to reclaim it.”

  L’Zari noticed then the highly decorated globe resting in the Gorgon chief’s extended hand.

  Marren-kan stepped down onto the floor of the chamber, the impact of his clawed foot thundering through the space as his tail rasped through the lower edge of the huge doorway. “What wonderful circumstance, would you not agree, small child? All these years I’ve sailed the Maelstrom Wall in search of this Settlement Ship. I never could understand the images in the globe. To think that all I needed was a double-talking thief and a swindler to lead me to it.”

  The Gorgon moved among the bones, kicking at them as he gazed down at them. “Wonderful spectacle,” he hissed almost to himself. “Over a thousand of your clan must have died in here. Pity that we missed it.”

  “I would agree,” L’Zari said evenly.

  The Gorgon turned to him with a quick motion. Wordlessly he grinned, grasping L’Zari’s neck completely in his oversized hand and lifting him off the floor.

  “No!” shouted his father, rushing forward. “No, Marren-kan! He is the last one! If he dies, who will bury our dead? Who will tell our tale? Who will sing our songs?”

  The pain was excruciating. L’Zari’s vision was filled with drifting white specks floating about the Gorgon’s hideous face. Slowly, deliberately, the Gorgon lowered the young man. L’Zari’s feet found the ground just after the beast released him. His father caught him as he was wracked with a choking spasm and fell.

  “You know our customs well, little human!” Marren-kan intoned with distaste. “You swear to me that he is the last?”

  “I claim this as my right, by the Master’s Name!”

  “By your words, then, he is the last,” Marren-kan agreed. “He will bury your dead. He will sing your songs.”

  “Dead?” L’Zari coughed once more. “Father—Kip, what does he mean?”

  The old spacer held the young man in his arms and spoke gently to him for the first and last time. “The Gorgon creeds demand that at least one of their enemy be left alive after a battle so as not to offend their gods. The survivor is supposed to bury his own dead and live to recount the tale of battle to the kin of those who lost their lives. I’ve claimed that right for you, my son.”

  “Father!” L’Zari began to struggle. “No! The crew …”

  “Hold still, boy, there’s not much time.” Kip kept his eyes on the Gorgon captain as he spoke in a rush. “I’m sorry it has come to this, lad. Your mother’s ships have been searching for you—I’ve left a trail for them to follow although it’ll be tough enough for them to find you here in the Narrows. There’s plenty about that’s safe to eat and drink until they arrive. Tell your mother that I thought of her sweetness at the end …”

  “Father, no!” L’Zari couldn’t believe he had come this far just to watch his father give up. “There’s got to be something we can do …”

  “The crew is dead already, son—dead if they’re lucky. Gorgons are really amazing healers, lad. They know more about medicine than any human I’ve ever met does. Sometimes they’ll run a man through just for the sport of it, then patch him back up at their pleasure, just to run him through again. Better for the crew that they die now once and for all than die a thousand deaths for the Gorgons’ pleasure. They took Old Phin’s breath just before they found me. I was their last man until we discovered you about. I’d barter for our lives, boy, but there’s nothing I can offer …”

  “Wait! Yes, there is!” L’Zari’s mind burned with the thrill of it. “I found a map!”

  “What, lad?”

  “I found a map—a Lost Empire map. It shows the passage to the core.”

  His father smiled. He would always remember that smile.

  “Give it to me, lad! Quick! I’ve the devil to deal with!” The boy pulled the folded map from his case and handed it to his father. Kip winked at his son and slipped the map into the breast of his shirt. Standing, he then turned toward the Gorgon. “Captain, would you be interested in a proposition?”

  “The only proposition I’ll have of you now is the squeal of your own blood in your throat!” Marren-kan spit the words, drawing his twin sabers from both scabbards and thundering toward the human, his tail flailing in anticipation. “You’ve declared your last man. It’s time to put an end to your thieving words!”

  The sabers crossed each other, advancing on Kip’s neck.

  L’Zari held his breath.

  “Not even for the treasure of Lokan?” Kip said, unflinching. “Not even for the passage to the Nightsword?”

  The Gorgon stopped. L’Zari waited. He could hear the faint cold sound of steel rubbing against steel.

  “Your deal?” the towering pirate intoned.

  The razor edges of both swords hovered only centimeters away from the man’s neck.

  “My life for the passage to untold wealth and power,” Kip said calmly. “My life for the secrets of the core.”

  The steel slid backward slightly, away from the old spacer’s throat. “And just where are these secrets kept?”

  “Here”—Kip smiled—“in my own head.”

  The Gorgon laughed. It was a hideous sound: deep and rumbling yet spiced with the squeal of nails on slate. In moments the huge beast was nearly in hysterics, his weapons lowered casually to his side while his third arm reached out and grasped Kip’s shoulder, seemingly for support.

  “You? You know the course of the Lokan Crusade?” the Gorgon brayed. “You, who had to steal my director just to find this place are now telling me you know the way to the core?”

  Kip began to laugh as well. “Yes, as a matter of fact I do! I can lead you to the greatest treasure ever …”

  “Liar!” laughed Marren-kan.

  The Gorgon chief suddenly thrust upward with his swords, holding his target still with his third hand. Both blades passed straight through the old spacer’s body under the rib cage. The strength of the blow carried the sabers cleanly through up to the hilts, the blades themselves undeterred by the bones and spine they passed through. The movement continued upward, the Gorgon’s laugh turning suddenly into a horrendous battle cry of rage. Kip’s body, his face frozen in a mixture of surprise, pain, and horror, was lifted clear of the ground, impaled on the blades.

  L’Zari screamed and rushed forward, but the second Gorgon was too quick. A single blow brought a merciful blackness crashing down on his conscious mind.

  L’zari awoke some time later to the whispering winds in the chamber. A great pool of blood he discovered nearby and believed it to be that of his fathe
r, but no trace of the body was to be found. Nor was there any sign of the map. It was as if both had vanished.

  The winds whispered to him again.

  “Last one.”

  Yes, he remembered. He was the last one.

  He staggered about the halls of the Settlement Ship. He wouldn’t recall later how long. All he could remember was that when he emerged he was ravenously hungry, thirstier still, and too tired to care about either one.

  He was the last one.

  The ship was floating in the harbor but its mastlines had been cut and the drive-tree broken. It was of little matter since he couldn’t have possibly flown the ship by himself even if he were in one of the more stable quantum zones of the galaxy.

  He was the last one. He salvaged what he could.

  He found the crew sometime later, murdered on the shore, their carcasses being cleaned up by the planetoid’s natural scavengers.

  He was the last one. He buried them all.

  Several months passed, uncounted as days by L’Zari—there being no setting of any of the suns by which he could gauge the time. In that eternal day, the ships of his mother’s family found him asleep on the deck of the ship without sails.

  He was the last one—and had one further duty to perform. He told the tale, but it was a tale without an ending, and he could not rest until the tale was told in full. The final fate of his father remained a mystery. Had the Gorgons taken him? Had they healed him only to kill him again? Did he live yet? Marren-kan and his Gorgon raiders were never known among the stories of humanity after that time. L’Zari searched the stars, took those jobs that furthered his travel and accrued him greater power, but always with the gnawing emptiness driving him from within. Marren-kan had vanished, and with him, the fate of his father. The boy passed from youth to manhood and from manhood into success and position but was never whole. The end of his father’s tale remained unknown. The story was not finished, and until it was complete, L’Zari could not rest.