Nightsword

by Margaret Weis

  “Are the humans fighting the humans?” Celdric asked with perhaps a little more hope in his voice than the New Code would allow.

  “Well, the fact is that the humans are always fighting the humans, so far as I can tell. They must not be very good at it, however, since no clan in particular has ever completely destroyed their enemy. So far as I can tell, their wars are always taking place and never fought to any real conclusion. What is the point of conquest if one does not conquer?” Dedrak shook his head. “I’m never going to understand humans.”

  “So what does this Sentinel want?” Celdric asked, shaking his massive head and causing the various gilded chains decorating his horns to jangle sweetly. “He is far from his clan and can present little threat to us.”

  “He is a masterful wizard, Celdric,” Dedrak cautioned, “and should not be underestimated. However, he has not come for the purpose of war—he says—but on a mission of atonement.”

  “Atonement?” Celdric blinked.

  “Indeed.” Dedrak stretched and stood at last. “He claims that humanity has robbed our noble race of its destiny in the galaxy. We were wronged anciently by one of his ancestors and he has come to ask our help in making amends for his clan’s former indiscretion. Worse yet, he claims that another of his clan has preceded him here. He wants us to apprehend this second individual so that he may obtain the knowledge necessary to complete his quest.”

  “He uses us, Dedrak,” the old dragon said.

  “Yes, indeed, he does use us and his motivations are unclear.” Dedrak nodded. “Yet what he offers in return may well be worth our turning our eyes toward the sand rather than the sky.”

  “Nonsense!” Celdric raised his head in pride and disdain. “No human has anything to offer our clan!”

  “This one might,” Dedrak replied as much to himself as to his older friend. “He says that an ancient member of his clan robbed us of our destiny some three thousand years ago. A warrior who brought a bright blade through the heavens and …”

  “In the Name of the Fathers!” Celdric coiled his body back. “I know that story well! Star-sunderer!”

  “Yes, Star-sunderer indeed.”

  “It was a myth!”

  “Perhaps, but the very possibility that such an artifact could be put in the hands of the council was enough to gain its support. I have been going over the documentation presented by this Sentinel for the last six days and he presents a very interesting case, though I cannot say that I am altogether convinced. The Sentinel presents himself as a powerful being but he is, after all, merely a human, and a cunning one at that. I certainly do not know what his true motives may be, but the council says that I am to support him. Support him, then, I must.” Dedrak rose up suddenly, his wings extending as he reared back in his rage. “Me, Minister of Peace and Master of the Home Fleet of Tsultak, searching through transit records at the behest of a weak-robed human!”

  Celdric waited until his friend calmed himself. Dedrak finally lowered himself to the floor again. Puffs of threatening smoke drifted from his nostrils.

  “You know,” Celdric said at last, as he absently ran his forward claws across the polished marble floor, “it is still a great thing to dream about.”

  “What are you talking about, Old One?”

  “Well,” Celdric said cautiously, “it’s just such a delightful fantasy. The Star-sunderer of L’kan caused the ancient ascendancy of humans. It was the means by which humanity nearly destroyed everything that was not in its likeness and assured that they would remain in power for the last three thousand years.”

  Dedrak listened to his old friend intently.

  “Would it not be wonderful,” Celdric continued, “if that selfsame artifact were to surface again—say in the hands of some clan other than the humans?”

  Dedrak looked up at his old friend. “What you are suggesting is as devious as the humans themselves.”

  “Not devious—but perhaps not as delicate as the New Code would have it. Perhaps it is not a question of being devious but simply knowing when it is time to strike.” Celdric held up his right foreclaw to stave off the minister’s comment for a few moments more. “We have cultivated the New Code well in our attempts at ingratiating ourselves into the society of humans. We have even taken on their clothing after our own style. Do you not also long for the open sky, Dedrak? Would you rather that sky be filled with human stars—or those of your own clan?”

  Dedrak turned his massive head toward the ancient blue dragon. “That is, I believe, the intention of the council.”

  “Then we are all of one mind,” Celdric said pleasantly.

  “Indeed,” Dedrak returned. “If the Sentinel does indeed wish to atone for his clan’s injustices, then we shall dutifully assist him in finding this valued missing person. I believe I see your point in all of this, Celdric. Should he then subsequently lead us to the Star-sunderer of L’kan—this ‘Nightsword’ as his clan calls it—then he may complete his atonement by delivering the prize to us.”

  “What if he is not that penitent?” Celdric replied.

  “In that case”—Dedrak smiled wickedly—“he shall forfeit his life. Either way, we would be well on our way to ruling the stars once more, with humanity well back in its place.”

  21

  Cartographer

  “Are you sure you know where we’re going?” Griffiths said yet again. He could barely see. The few signs that he had been able to make out seemed to indicate that they were on sublevel Heel-spike, which meant absolutely nothing to Griffiths. All he knew was, it was the darkest part of the warrens that he had been led into yet by Evon Flynn. Through an occasional break in the coarse wall, he could make out the lighter regions of the volcanic shaft above him. Such glimpses beckoned him upward toward cooler and more pleasant surroundings. The shaft at this depth was rough. The promenade here was a tortuous route winding around massive protrusions from the wall itself. It was poorly maintained, in any event. He felt as though he were working his way down through Dante’s hells, certain that only the damned would be found this far down.

  “For the last time, Griffiths,” Flynn said with a bit too much cheer, “I’ve been here before.”

  “I’m sure you have,” the astronaut retorted, “but I still don’t see the need. There was a huge Cartography Merchant on the main promenade. Why couldn’t we have just gone there?”

  “Because the map we’re looking for isn’t in a fancy guild-merchant store, barbarian,” Flynn said, smiling at him just before disappearing around another rock.

  Griffiths wanted to push those glowing teeth down the dockworker’s throat. Instead he continued to follow the stevedore through the gloom.

  “Every merchant and would-be frontier explorer that passes through Tsultaki goes in that guild or one of a dozen on that same level just like it. The conversation is always the same,” Flynn went on, picking his way along the catwalk that passed for the promenade at this juncture. He spoke as he moved through the darkness, his voice suddenly shifting between a mocking falsetto and a deep bass as he acted out the parts of his little drama. “ ‘Excuse me, big master frontier guildsman! I’m looking for something really special in a map!’ So the guildsman says, ‘Of course, I will be glad to help you. What do you have in mind?’ ‘Oh,’ says the idiot adventurer, leaning over the counter and whispering too loudly, ‘I seek the treasure of Fu-bar-boo!’ ‘Ah,’ says the guildsman, ‘no living creature knows where that great treasure is—but for you, I have a map! A chart that no man has ever seen. But for you—for you I would be willing to part with it!’ ”

  “Fine,” Griffiths responded, ducking just in time to miss an outcropping of rock. “I get the picture.” Griffiths pushed back images in his mind of Satan tapping him on the shoulder amid the sulfur-laced gloom around him.

  “There isn’t a counter up there that doesn’t have a map to every known treasure rumored to be scattered out on the Maelstrom Wall as well as a good number that no one is supposed to have heard of. M
aking those maps is a major cottage industry here, Griffin …”

  “That’s Griffiths!”

  “… And while they might have enough information to get you from one star to another, they almost certainly have nothing whatsoever to do with finding any actual treasure, no matter how outlandish the claims of the nice creature behind the counter.” Flynn stopped with satisfaction before the closed metal door, set, it would seem, to fit the rough contours of a cavern in the sheer rock wall. “Ah, here we are at last!”

  The door looked ludicrously overmassive to Griffiths’s critical eye. Massive bolts affixed wide, rough-hammered bands across its gray surface. “Someone appears to be a little over-security conscious,” he remarked.

  “You said it,” Flynn replied as he knocked on the steel plate five distinct times. He waited for a moment and then knocked three times more before standing back.

  Griffiths, too, stood back before the massive door, waiting for something to happen.

  Nothing did.

  “It’s not moving,” Griffiths said at last.

  “Of course not,” Flynn responded. “Give it a moment, will you?”

  They waited.

  “What are we doing …”

  “Quiet!” warned Flynn.

  From behind the massive metal door, there came two faint knocks followed by a third.

  “That’s it!” Flynn said with a smile. “Come with me!”

  Griffiths was suddenly caught off guard. “Go? But we just got here!”

  “Not a moment to lose,” Flynn said as he moved quickly across a second catwalk and vanished around the corner of yet another outcropping.

  Griffiths quickly moved to follow. He rounded the corner and found himself facing the end of the catwalk at a rocky ledge—with his companion nowhere to be seen.

  “Flynn!” Griffiths called out in a sudden panic. “Flynn, where are you?” He turned around quickly, looking for some possible means of escape from the dead-end rocky alcove he was confronted with. Above him the slope was precipitous and wet—certainly impossible to scale. There was only one other place his companion might have gone. With trepidation he leaned over the shaking railing to gaze into the steaming depths below him. “Flynn!” he called loudly. “Are you …?”

  Two large hands reached out for him from the rock face itself. In a moment, the strong grip pulled Griffiths backward through the cliff and into the darkness.

  Griffiths began screaming. He couldn’t help himself. He had made the descent into hell and now the demons had gotten him! Images of brimstone and horned devils floated unbidden into his dark-enfolded mind. He shook uncontrollably; barely able to hear the voice that was speaking insistently to him just a few inches away.

  “Will you be quiet, Griffiths! Stay your mind to a cleat and stop your noise!”

  “What?” Griffiths said at last, struggling to make sense of his surroundings.

  “It’s a secret entrance, fool!” Flynn said, still holding onto the man to make sure he didn’t lose his nerve again. “The rock face is an illusion—not real.”

  “Secret?” Griffiths stammered, his heart rate finally dropping to tolerable levels.

  “Of course it’s secret.” Flynn rolled his eyes in disgust. “These friends don’t want just anybody to come visiting whenever they please.”

  “But what about the big metal door?” Griffiths gasped.

  “That’s no door!” Flynn said, finally releasing Griffiths and turning to face the dim flickering light around the bend in the tunnel. “You could cast columns of fire down on that metal plate all day and never even scratch the paint. That’s just there to distract the tourists.”

  Great, Griffiths thought to himself, I was a barbarian and now I’ve worked my way all the way down to tourist.

  The rock corridor wound its way back into the mountain. Small side chambers branched off from the main tunnel, each lit by glowing balls of pinkish light. Flynn continued to move ahead, however, as though the way were well known to him.

  “Look,” Griffiths said as he followed the large spacer. “Merinda said we needed to be back inside of three hours or she would come after us. It’s taken us nearly half that time just to make our way this far. Merinda is in no shape to mount a rescue mission.”

  “She’s doing just fine, barbarian,” Flynn said, moving with an easy gait farther into the heart of the mountain. “It’s only been a six-day now and already she’s walking the decks. She’s just a little weak still, that’s all. It will pass soon enough.”

  Griffiths continued along in silence for a moment. This was a complex series of tunnels and, he suddenly realized, potentially quite vast. “Say, Flynn, it seems strange to me that such a secret place would be left so unguarded. Why isn’t someone watching us?”

  Flynn snorted. “Who says they aren’t?”

  Griffiths was trying to think of an answer to this question when Flynn came to a halt before a ragged curtain. Light spilled into the corridor from the room beyond.

  “I have someone special I’d like you to meet.” Flynn smiled as he pulled the curtain aside.

  The room beyond was a magnificent cavern, brilliantly lit by several carefully placed floating globes. Ornately carved bookcases were fitted to fill every possible space around the cavern walls. The cascade of items had exceeded even their prodigious capacity, however, and covered nearly every flat surface available. Books without shelf space stood stacked between five and twenty deep in places. Scrolls in excess of the storage lay curled in soft mounds either on the floor or atop the bookcases. Maps seemed to explode out of their assigned drawers, spilling across several standing tables in disordered layers. In the center of this frozen hurricane of information sat a single figure atop a tall stool, his back turned toward them as they entered. He was a short, balding creature, leaning intently toward a massive and ornate drafting table. Pen in hand, the little creature was carefully drawing something on a large piece of parchment.

  “Here he is,” Flynn said with something of a cross between a smirk and honest pride. “This is the person I’ve brought you to see!”

  The small creature turned around to look at them.

  Griffiths was stunned. He had followed Flynn down into the heart of the volcano just to meet some sawed-off, pint-sized little shrimp of an alien?

  “Yoda?” was all Griffiths said, pointing incredulously at the diminutive creature before them.

  “Yo-dah back at you,” the small creature said, mimicking Griffiths’s expression and pointing back at him. “Bizarre custom have you for greeting, barbarian, but figure I to please a guest you can’t go wrong in trying.” The gnomish little man turned to Flynn. “Guy is this you want for me to work with, Evon?”

  “That’s right, Scrimshaw,” Flynn said, folding his arms across his chest and smiling as he leaned back against a disorderly table. “Thought you might help us out with a little stellar cartography problem.”

  “Help you I can, but pay me you must,” the little man said, his long pointed ears flapping in anticipation.

  It wasn’t until that moment that Griffiths realized what had happened. The biolink had done it to him once again. On Avadon, Griffiths’s perceptions of the people there had caused the biolink to translate their language as though they were from some Biblical epic. His impression of this creature at first led him to remember a character from a classic science-fiction film he had seen when he was a boy. Now, no matter where he went in the universe, whenever he encountered another of this dwarf creature’s race, he would hear that annoying voice in the translation.

  “Well, I happen to have the passport to your dreams right here in my hand, Scrimshaw,” Flynn said, casually twirling Merinda’s small baton in his right hand.

  “Hoommm! An Omnet payment wand you have!” The wrinkled, green dwarf’s eyes grew large. “Payment you will make. Service render well I shall.”

  “Yes, but at the agreed price, you little druk!” Flynn said, suddenly snatching the baton away from the outstretched ha
nd of the small creature. “A chart to our specifications. If you do your job well, then you will have our grateful payment plus a good bonus for your trouble.”

  “Hard is your bargain,” the green dwarf said. “Difficult to accept. Rich I shall make you and poor here in this cave shall I be.”

  “You’ll be rich enough while we challenge the Maelstrom Wall, Scrimshaw,” Flynn snorted. “Of course, you could come with us on the voyage. Your experience would be most valuable …”

  “Away with your offers,” Scrimshaw gasped, holding his oversized hands in front of his face as if to ward off an evil standing before him. “Safe will I be while dead you shall in space be floating.”

  “As you wish it.” Flynn shrugged, stowing the baton in his tunic pocket and turning back toward Griffiths. “I suppose we could go over to One-eyed Huka. He’ll make your chart for you …”

  “One-eyed Huka!” The dwarf’s voice went suddenly shrill and ugly. “Over the wrong eye did he put his patch, yes? Cartography his skill it is not! Star-map a chart only is not. Knowledge. Legends. History. These things a proper chart does make!”

  Flynn turned back toward Scrimshaw. “Then do we have a deal?”

  The pointy-eared dwarf sighed. “Deal we have. The barbarian you are bringing over here.”

  Flynn gripped Griffiths by the upper arm and began pulling him into the center of the room. It was all the astronaut could do to avoid stepping on the scattered tomes, scrolls, maps, and books strewn everywhere across the floor.

  “Hey! What are you doing?”

  “We need the map. The map inside your head,” Flynn said simply. “We just need to get the map from the inside to the outside.”

  “Here you may sit him,” Scrimshaw cackled, indicating a tall stool next to his large cartography table. Griffiths noticed that in addition to the paper items, a number of cables and odd pieces of equipment were situated around the table. Each had a rather sinister, torture chamber look to them.

  “But …”

  “Nothing to worry about.” Flynn gripped his companion firmly by both shoulders and sat him roughly down on the stool. “Just a simple process of mental transposition of thought. Doesn’t hurt a bit. You’ll find it quite interesting and a wonderful story to tell your children in the years to come.”