Short Fiction Complete

by Fred Saberhagen

  Matt could face the personal danger calmly enough. He had spent most of his life within reach. of violence—though as one of The People he had rarely been in danger from another human being. And the Moderns had put not only skill but extra speed into his nerves, had given him Ay’s lithe hitting power and endurance, not to mention the sword they had crafted for him, which alone should be advantage enough to win a fight. What bothered Matt was the changes in history that the duel must bring.

  Everyone but the king and princess seemed happy at the prospect of a little blood-letting. The others seemed impatient at the delay necessary for Ay’s shield to be fetched up from his ship—the sword was already at Matt’s side. He thought of going by himself for a minute and reporting developments to Operations, but there was nothing they could tell him now that would get him out of the duel. So Matt passed the time in trying to make light conversation with the ladies, while Yunguf stood glowering and almost silent with a group who were apparently his relatives.

  The shield was soon brought by a hurrying Harl, who openly displayed his eagerness to see the fight get started, probably with a view to unsettling Yunguf’s nerves some more. The company moved outside. The king, chair and all, was established in the best vantage point, on the edge of a paved space that was evidently consecrated to weaponry, judging by the massive timber butts, much hacked and splintered, which stood along its farther side. Others arranged themselves as best they could to watch. There seemed to be no judge or referee. Matt took a stand in the arena, saw Yunguf coming with blade and shield ready, slow and powerful as a siege tower, and realized that the combat was on.

  The sun had passed the zenith by now, the air was warm, and exercise even when cautious soon raised a sweat. After a few slow feints Yunguf moved quickly at last. And Matt stepped back quickly, his shield, sword, shield parrying in good order the three blows of the attacking combination. He had hoped that at the clash of blades his opponent’s sword might break; but the contact had been glancing, and his opponent’s weapon evidently tough.

  Matt slid away from Yunguf and got back to the center of the arena. Yunguf turned to follow, breathing heavily already, and his balance uneven, with a muscular tension that must be the result of fear. Why such fear now, in such a warrior? It must have another cause than the mere danger of death in combat.

  Of course Matt could have no heart at all for this fight. Any killing he did today, any blows he struck, would be to the advantage of the berserkers. But to be beaten himself would do still more damage. Even now the audience was murmuring. No doubt his reluctance for this brawl was showing; he would be near slipping out of Ay’s character again. He had to win, and the sooner the better—but without killing, if that were possible.

  Matt raised sword and shield once more as Yunguf moved slowly into attacking range. Yunguf charged again, more smoothly this time, but Matt still beat him to the thrust, aiming along the side of Yunguf’s shield to cut the swordarm’s shoulder muscles. Yunguf twisted his body with the force of his own thrust—which slid off Matt’s shield—and got his torso in the way of Matt’s thrust, so it went between his upper ribs.

  The wound was shallow, and Yunguf was not yet stopped; but his next slash was weak and slow. Matt swayed back just enough to let it go by, then lunged in again, hooking the wounded man’s knee with his foot, with his shield forcing Yunguf’s upper body back.

  Yunguf fell like a tree, and there was Matt’s bloody point hovering at his throat, while Matt’s foot pinned Yunguf’s sword-wrist to the paving stone.

  “Will you yield to me—the combat—and its prize?” Matt was aware of his own panting now, and of Yunguf’s whistling, gurgling breath.

  “I yield me.” The answer, in strangled tones, came quickly enough. There were no grounds for hesitation.

  Matt stepped wearily back, wondering what Ay customarily used to wipe a bloody swordblade. Harl came to perform that office, and to scold him about his hesitancy of the start of the fight. Yunguf’s relatives had gone to Yunguf said, and the wounded man seemed to be sitting up easily enough. At least a killing had been avoided.

  Matt turned to the princess and her father—and stopped. Their frightened eyes were fixed on an object discarded on the ground nearby.

  It was Nomis’ outer robe, snowy in the sunlight. The wizard himself was no longer in sight; the white garment discarded would mean that he was donning black.

  A cough sounded wetly behind Matt, and he turned to see Yunguf with bright blood on his lips.

  VIII

  The great metal dragon lay motionless, buried almost completely in the muck of the sea bottom. Around it the dull life of the great depths stirred—in safety, for this berserker was now seeking to avoid killing anything. For it to end even a vegetable lifeline nonhistorically could provide a datum for the Modern’s computers, implacable as berserkers themselves, to use in their hunt for the dragon’s keyhole.

  The dragon was still under direct command of the berserker fleet besieging the planet in Modern times. On their own version of sentry screens the fleet’s linked computers had observed the lifting of Ay’s ship and crew to Modern times and the subsequent restoration of that ship and crew, with one lifeline added.

  It was obvious what the Moderns intended, for the berserkers themselves knew well the theory and practice of baiting traps. But a viable replacement for Ay was bait they could not afford to ignore. They must strike again, through the dragon or its arsenal of auxiliary devices.

  But this time they must be subtle. Matt must not be killed, at least not in any way that would spin a new thread of causation toward the dragon. The linked berserker computers arrived at an ideal solution; capture Matt alive and hold him so, until the pillars of Sirgol’s history came crashing down.

  Even while in hiding the dragon maintained around itself a net of subtle infraelectronic senses. Among the things it now observed was a black-robed man, standing on a pillar of seaside rock about two miles from the berserker’s hiding place, speaking on and on rhythmically, into the empty air. From data in its memory banks the berserker deduced that the man was attempting to call supernatural forces to his aid.

  And it caught the name of Ay.

  In the full sun of midafternoon Nomis stood chanting on his prinnacle of rock. The spells of deepest evil were best sung in darkness, but his hate and fear had grown until they seemed to spread a darkness of their own about him. He would not wait for the setting of the sun.

  While the sea birds wheeled and cried in the wind, he sang in his thin penetrating voice:

  Demon or darkness, rise and stalk

  put on the bones and make them walk

  Dead men’s bones through the weed and slime

  Walk and climb

  Walk to me here

  Speak to me here

  Of the secret to bring my enemy’s death.

  There was more, much more, cajoling and coercing the dark wet things that waited in the deeps for men to drown—waited for freshdrowned bones to fall through the fathoms, for limber young corpses that the demons could wear like clothes in their endless revels at the bottom of the sea. The dark wet things down there possessed all the knowledge of death, including how the death of Ay might be accomplished—something Yunguf had been unable to achieve, in spite of all the supernatural threats Nomis had lavished on the lout.

  Nomis’ thin arms quivered, holding drowned men’s fingers over his head. Then his arms swept low as he bowed, still chanting, eyelids closing out the sun. This time the spell would work, today the hatred was in him like a lodestone, drawing to him things of utter evil.

  When he came to a place in the chant where he could pause he did so, opening his eyes, wondering if he had heard another sound between the surges of the surf. Under the black robe his old man’s chest was heaving with exertion and excitement.

  A bird screamed. And from below, from somewhere on the furrowed length of cliff that climbed to his tabletop from the sea, there came once more a scraping sound, almost lost in w
ind and surf.

  He had just given up listening for more and started to chant again, when from much nearer to the top of the cliff there came a small clatter—a tumble of stones dislodged by a climbing foot or hand. The sound in itself was so ordinary that it momentarily drove all thoughts of magic from the magician’s tired mind. He could only think angrily that someone was about to discover his hideaway.

  Before him as he faced the sea was a deft that climbed to the tabletop between folds of rock. From just out of sight within his cleft there came now the sound of grit crunched under a heavy foot.

  And then Nomis’ world was shaken around him, not by doubt but by a proof that put an end to all his nagging doubts. His first sight of his climbing visitor showed him a drowned man’s skull, one small tendril of seaweed clinging to its glistening crown.

  With quick smooth movements the whole form climbed into his view. It was a man-form, thinner than any living human, hut fuller than any skeleton. Drowned skeletons must change when a demon possessed them—this one looked not so much like bone as like metal.

  Having emerged completely from the crevice, the demon-shape halted, standing taller than tall Nomis, so that it bent its skull-head down slightly on its cable neck to look at him. He had to struggle to make himself keep looking into the cloudy jewels of its eyes. A drop of water sparkled, falling from one bonelike fingertip. Only when die thing took another step toward him did Nomis remember to reinforce his chalked protective ring with a gesture and a muttered incantation.

  And then at last he also remembered to complete the successful ritual with a binding spell. “Now must you guide and serve me, until you are released! And serve me first by saying how my enemy may be put to death.”

  The shiny jaw did not move, but a quavery voice came forth from a black square where the mouth have been. “Your enemy is Ay. He landed today on this coast.”

  “Yes, yes. And the secret of his death?”

  Even to order Matt’s death would leave a track of causation on the Moderns’ screens. “You must bring your enemy here alive, unhurt, and give him to me. Then you will never see him more. For this I will help you gain whatever you desire.” Nomis’ mind raced; he had trained himself for nearly a lifetime to seize such an opportunity as this, and he was not going to fail now. So, the demon wanted Ay kept alive! That meant a vital magical connection existed between Ay and this thing from the deeps. That Ay should have enjoyed such help in his seafaring career was not surprising, considering the number of men he had sent to dwell among the fishes and the charmed life he himself seemed to bear.

  Nomis’ voice came out harsh and bold. “What is Ay to you, demon?”

  “My enemy.”

  Not likely! Nomis almost laughed the words aloud. He saw now it was his own body and soul the wet thing craved; but behind his spells and his chalked circles Nomis was not afraid. The demon had come to protect Ay. But Nomis would not let the demon know how much he had deduced. Not yet.

  “Harken, mud-thing! I will do you ask. Tonight at midnight I will bring your enemy here, bound and helpless.” Nomis saw possibilities here of gain so enormous that he would take any risk. “Now begone, and at midnight come here ready to grant me all I ask!”

  IX

  In the evening Matt walked with Alix along the battlements, watching the stars come out, while the princess’s ladies-in-waiting hovered just out of sight around corners.

  Matt’s preoccupation was evidently obvious. The girl beside him soon gave up a rather one-sided effort to make small talk and asked him plainly: “Do I please you, lord?” He stopped his moody pacing and turned to her. “You please me very well indeed.” And it was so. “If my thoughts go elsewhere, they are forced.”

  She smiled gently. The Moderns would not think Alix a beautiful girl. But all Matt’s life he had seen women’s beauty under sunburn and woodsmoke and toughness, and he could see beauty now in this different girl of his third world.

  “May I know then, lord, what problem forces your thoughts away?”

  “For one thing, the problem of the man I wounded. I have not made a good beginning here.”

  “Such concern does you credit I am pleased to discover you more gentle than I had been led to expect.” Alix smiled again. No doubt she understood that his concern over Yunguf rested on reasons of policy; though she could of course have no idea of how very far that policy ranged. She began to tell Matt of some things that she might do, people she could talk to, to help heal the breach between the new house of Ay and that of Yung.

  Watching her, he thought he could be king, if she were queen beside him. He would not be Ay. He knew now, as the Modems surely must, that no man could really live another’s life. But in Ay’s name, he might perhaps be king enough to serve the world.

  He interrupted Alix. “And do you find me pleasing, lady?”

  This time those marvelous eyes of hers did not flicker; with a warm light of promise they held fast to his. And as if by instinct the duenas came at that moment to announce that the decent time-limit for keeping company had been reached.

  “Until the morning, then,” he said, taking the princess’s hand briefly in the way permitted by courtly manners.

  “Until the morning, my lord.” And as the women led her away, she turned back to send him another glance before passing out of sight.

  He wished he could see her for ten thousand mornings more. He took off his helmet for a moment and rubbed his head. His communicator was still silent. No doubt he should call the Moderns and report all that had happened.

  Instead he put the helmet on again (Ay would wear it as a sort of dress uniform) and went down into the keep, to the chamber where Yunguf had been bedded down on orders of the court physician. Matt hesitated to enter when he saw a pair of the wounded man’s male relatives on watch inside. But when they saw Matt they beckoned him in, speaking to him freely and courteously. None of the house of Yung, it seemed, would bear him any ill will for winning a duel.

  Yunguf was pale. His difficult breath gurgled in his throat, and when he twisted on his pallet to spit up blood, the bandage loosened from his wound and air gurgled there also with his breath. When Matt asked him how he did, he whispered that he was dying; but he showed no fear now. He wanted to tell Matt something else, but talking came too hard.

  “Lord Ay,” said one of the relatives, “I think my cousin would warn you that there are things more subtle than swords set against you here.” Yunguf nodded.

  “I saw the white robe discarded on the ground.”

  “Ah, then you are warned. I hope your new god may defend you when your sword will avail you nothing.” A sea-bird cried in the night outside. Yunguf’s eyes turned to the small window, with fear in them again.

  Matt wished them well and went back to the roof; there he could be alone, since the castle kept only a token watch. Full night had now descended. He took a deep breath, and for the first time switched on the communicator, pressing his helmet’s right wing in a certain way.

  “Time Ops here.” The crisp Modern voice was only a whisper of sound, but it made the castle and the open night somehow unreal. Reality was a cramped cave-fortress, at the center of a fantastic web of machines and energy. In what he felt was a lifeless voice, Matt reported the duel and Nomis’ departure.

  “Yes, we saw Yunguf’s lifeline being hit by something. Nothing vital is involved there, though.” Time Ops of course meant that nothing vital to History was involved. “Have you seen or heard anything of the dragon yet?”

  “No. Why do you speak of that so much?”

  The tiny voice seemed to crackle. “Why? Because it’s important!”

  “What about my task here, of doing Ay’s work? Isn’t it important that that’s not going well?”

  There was a pause before Time Ops’ answer came. “You’re doing as well as can be expected, Matt. Yes, a damn good job, from what our screens show. As I said, what happened to Yunguf’s not vital. Your watching out for that dragon is.”

  Afte
r routinely breaking off the contact, Matt decided to visit Ay’s men, who had been quartered in a kind of guardroom built into the castle’s massive outer wall. With this in mind he descended from the keep along an outer stair.

  He was deep in thought, and it did not occur to him that the courtyard at the foot of the stair was darker than it ought to have been. A sound of rapid near-by movement alerted him, but too late; before he could draw his sword a wave of men were on him, weighing him down. And before he had shed Ay’s pride enough to cry for help, a smothering cover had been clamped tight around his head.

  “Sir, can you spare a minute? It’s important.”

  Time Ops looked up from his desk impatiently, but paused when he saw Derron’s face. “Come in, then, major. What is it?”

  Derron was carrying a metal winged thing under his arm. “Sir, I’ve been—sort of hanging on to this spare helmet. It’s the one Matt tossed off his ship before he was launched. Today some communications people came to see me about it. Turns out there’s a continuous noise-signal being generated in its transmitter.”

  Time Ops just looked up from behind his desk, waiting not too patiently for the point.

  “They told me, sir, that the signal from this helmet was interfering with a similar one put out by the helmet Matt’s wearing. No matter which one he took, he’d be walking around back there broadcasting a built-in noise, very easy for a berserker to home in on. The berserker must have thought it an obvious trap, sir, since it hasn’t homed in and killed him yet.”

  Time Ops grew angry, as if with Derron’s obtuseness. “No, it hasn’t killed him.” He flicked on his desk screen and spun a selector. “Take a look at this. Odegaid. Our present view of the critical section of Ay’s lifeline.”

  During his hitch of sentry duty Derron had learned to read the screens quite well. This was his first look in about a day at Ay’s lifeline, and this look confirmed the fear the last one had started. “It looks bad, sir. He’s getting way off the track.”