“Guile, is it? I have other ideas about that. And I wasn’t overcome. I was only taken unawares, and—and distractedfor a moment. Who said that I was overcome?” Mars glowered fiercely.
Hermes heaved a sigh of divine proportions. “Have it your own way, then.”
. . . and then Lo-Yang, like some figure out of a dream, was bending over Keyes, shaking him awake. The magician’s body convulsed in a nervous start, bringing him up into a sitting position. He comprehended with amazement that his apprentice had returned after all. He saw the long, thin rope, its upper end secured somehow, hanging down into the cave.
“Master! Thank Ardneh, you can see again! What’s happened? Your face is all dried blood. And what are these two swords?”
“Never mind my face. Pick up that Sword on the floor, and bring it with us, but as you value your life, do not even imagine yourself drawing it. Let us go!”
They scrambled toward the rope. But before either of the men could start to climb, Mars appeared, his face set in a mask of stubborn anger, and put out one finger to snap the long rope from its fastening at its upper end.
Keyes could feel all hope die with the falling coil.
Mars said nothing, but he was smiling, ominously. And he had another Sword in hand. It was soon plain which Sword this was, for the god wielding it began carving out a block of stone, part of the solid cave-roof. It was a huge slab, and when it fell the men trapped in the cave would have to be very alert and lucky to dodge it and escape quick death.
Lo-Yang collapsed on his knees, forehead to the ground.
Mars’s companion, he of the winged sandals, was standing back a little watching, with the attitude of one who has serious misgivings but is afraid or at least reluctant to interfere.
Maybe, thought Keyes suddenly, all hope is not dead after all. A moment later, he could see the sudden opening to the sky as the block of stone came loose. Aiming Doomgiver at it like a spear, he saw the slab twist in the air, and then fall up instead of down, looping through the precise curve necessary to bring it into violent contact with the Wargod’s own head.
Mars reeled, and his helmet, grossly dented, flew aside. Only a god could have survived such an impact. The Wargod did not even lose consciousness, but in his shock let Stonecutter fall from his hand into the cave, the bare Blade clanging on rock.
“Now you know as well as I do, what I have here.” At first Keyes whispered the words. Then he shouted them at the top of his voice. “Doomgiver! Doomgiver! I hold the blessed Sword of Justice!”
Mars, battered, lacking his helmet but refusing to admit that he was even slightly dazed, still pigheadedly confident of his own prowess, came down into the cave with some dignity, treading thin air as before. Mars was coming to take the Sword back, hand-to-hand, from Keyes. Well, Shieldbreaker could be captured that way, couldn’t it? And it the strongest Sword of all?
While the two men cowered back, the god first grabbed up the sheathed Soulcutter, and tossed it carelessly up and out of the cave, well out of the humans’ reach. Any god who thought he needed a Sword’s help could pick it up!
Then Mars turned his attention to Doomgiver, and confronted the stubborn man who held it. Keyes noted with some amazement that his great opponent, bruised as he was, appeared less angry now than he had at the start of the adventure; in fact the Wargod was gazing at Keyes with a kind of grudging appreciation.
“You seem a brave man, with the fiber I like to see among my followers. I would be willing to accept your worship. And for all I care personally, you might keep Vulcan’s bit of steel and magic. Humans might retain them all; we who possess the strength of gods have no need of such—such tricks. But the Council has decided otherwise. Therefore, on behalf of the Council, I—”
And Mars reached out confidently, to reclaim Doomgiver from Keyes’s unsteady grip—but somehow the Sword in the man’s hand eluded the god’s grasp. Mars tried again, and failed again—and then his effort was interrupted.
A roaring polyphonic outcry reached the cave, a wave of divine anger coming from the place a hundred meters distant where the Council had so recently passed its resolution.
“My Sword is gone!” one of the distant voices bellowed, expressing utter outrage.
“And mine!” another answered, yelling anguish.
The protest swelled into a chorus, each with the same complaint. Keyes could not interpret the wind-blown, shouted words. But he needed only a moment to deduce their meaning. Mars acting in the Council’s name and with its authority had assaulted a man who held Doomgiver, by trying to deprive the man of his Sword, and intending to fling that Sword away—and Doomgiver had exacted its condign retaliation. The Council of Divinities had lost all of theirSwords instead. The great majority of Vulcan’s armory had been flung magically to the four winds, and lay scattered now across the world.
The uproar mounted, as more deities realized the truth. A number of gods at no great distance were violently cursing the name of Mars, and the Wargod was not one to let them get away with that. He listened for a moment, then rose in his divine wrath and mounted swiftly from the cave.
His mind was now wholly occupied with a matter of overriding importance—the names the others called him. So he had forgotten Stonecutter, which still lay where he had dropped it.
Several more hours had passed, and the westering sun was low and red, before Demeter returned to the cave in which she had hidden the Sword of Justice. She had wanted to get it out of the way for a time, so that her colleagues should not nag her with questions when they saw her carrying a Sword.
Demeter had spent most of the day thinking the matter over and had come to a decision. The Game still did not greatly appeal to her, and it would be best if she gave Doomgiver to someone else.
On her approach to the cave, Demeter observed the tracks of a pair of riding-beasts, both coming and going, and when she looked in over the edge of the deep hole, she beheld a set of crude steps, more like a ladder than a stair, freshly and cleanly hewn out of one solid wall. Human beings! No other creatures would carve steps.
Rising wind whined through the surrounding rock formations. The only living things now in the cave were a helplessly immortal demon, strangely trapped in a lower pit, and a few mortally wounded bats.
No need to look in the place where she had hidden her Sword, to know that it was gone. Well, why not? Let it go. Perhaps the humans needed Justice more than any of Demeter’s divine colleagues did.
Perpetually at odds with each other as they were, the members of the Council needed some time to realize that their terrible Blades had been scattered across a continent, perhaps across the whole earth, among the swarms of contemptible humans. As that realization gradually took hold, the gods met the crisis in their usual fashion, by convening to enjoy one of their great, wrangling, all-but-useless arguments.
The only fact upon which all could agree was that their Swords had all been swept away from them. All the Swords, that is, except for Shieldbreaker, which remained, as far as could be determined, immune to the power of any other Sword, and thus would not have been affected by Doomgiver’s blow.
But whichever divinity still possessed the Sword of Force was obviously refusing to reveal the fact, doubtless for fear it would be taken away by some unarmed opponent.
For good or ill, the Great Game was off to a roaring start.
1999
THE SENIOR PROM
An alternate-history future in which AIDS never arrived to halt the sexual revolution . . .
Fred Saberhagen is best known for his Berserker series, about self-replicating robots that seek to end all organic life. The latest novel in the series is Shiva in Steel. He has also written in diverse worlds from high fantasy, chronicled in his Swords series to Gothic horror in his novels about Dracula. His short fiction has been published in such classic magazines as Omni, Astounding, If, Galaxy, and Amazing, as well as The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. He lives with his wife in Albuquerq
ue, New Mexico.
The rented fancy codpiece, crusted on the outside with jade and fluorescent ceramics, was beginning to feel right on Bill, and he was getting used to his rented tux and trousers, see-through garments like chain mail of translucent plastic, by the time he had escorted Glory to the train station platform at Anaheim North. Right on time there came the rented private train, a series of long silvery cars, all windowless except the last, swaying slightly under the massive monorail, and Bill and Glory stepped aboard the first car in the late June twilight. Glory’s blonde hairdo bounced as she took off her little formal cape with a swirl. Repressin’ near opaque that cape was, but she had it off before any of the chaperones aboard the train could have had a chance to look at it and worry.
Behind them the door puffed shut again, and with no more sound than that the train went gliding out. Those of the other kids who were aboard already whooped hello, and Bill and Glory chattered back.
“—steady idea, rentin’a train—”
“—yeah, reproductive. But—”
Bill could tell that, under the happy excitement of starting their prom, a lot of the kids were disappointed about something. But whatever it was, nobody was giving him any funny looks for coming in with Gloriana Chang, and the worry that had been trying to build up at the back of his mind grew weaker. Now that she had her cape off, Glory looked staid and hip enough to suit any chaperone. She wore a black G-string under the filmy swirl of her almost transparent skirt, and she had Bill’s corsage strung around her long bare neck almost like a lei, the ends of the flower-string pasted to her skin in front, just enough to cover her nipples.
Looking down through the windowless car they had entered, Bill saw that all the regular seats had been taken out of it, and it had been decorated in an odd way, with that psychic- or psycho- (or whatever they called it) -delic stuff, from way back long ago in Grandpa’s day. It ran heavily to swirling stripes and patterns that tried to wrench your eye. And there was not much in the way of regular chairs or other furniture, but pads and pillows on the floor to sit on, and boxes here and there for low tables. He saw a set of little drums that looked like they might be real enough to beat on. The flunkies carrying around things to eat and drink were wearing sandals and long hair, the males among them bearded, all of them with dirt-makeup on their faces and clothes, and jewelry chains around their necks.
“Hashbury,” said Glory to Bill in a scornful whisper. “They said that would be the theme, of all the decorations and stuff. I dreaded the worst but I didn’t think they’d really do it.”
“How old and hip can you get?” Bill agreed, pretty loudly. There was only one pair of chaperoning parents in sight, people he didn’t recognize, and they were down at the other end of the long car where they couldn’t hear. Recorded music was going already, a little hot and jumpy for anyone to try to dance to, but at least going, reverbing from floor and ceiling of the long, lightly swaying car. Down the middle of the car was a long clear space where some of the kids were dancing, or trying to. Maybe later on the music would get better.
Marty Wood, a tall kid who was standing near Bill and Glory with a glass of something in his hand, leaned over, wearing a sneaky kind of smile, and asked in a low voice: “How ’bout if they’d done it in Early Puritan instead, Glory?”
Glory giggled, not in a nervous or embarrassed way, but as if she was really amused. Bill didn’t like that at all, and didn’t know if he should get mad at Marty or not. Instead he just took Glory by the arm and suggested: “What say we try out the beds?” She only nodded sweetly and agreeably and came with Bill right away. He thought that would show Marty Wood that there was nothing wrong with her, that he should take his dirty jokes to someone else.
Bill and Glory walked easily down the edge of the long dance floor. It wasn’t at all crowded; there were still a lot of kids to be picked up on the trains’s first circular run around Greater Los Angeles. Members of the graduating class lived all over the city.
They passed out through a door at the end of the room, traversed a roaring, swaying, screened-in junction, and entered the second car of the train. Here the air was perfumed to a spicier sweetness, and the lights were pink. A pink satiny passage, oval in cross-section, ran down the length of this car, passing a number of small, open bedchambers, each pinkly lighted, furnished with mirrors and a bedlike floor. Here, as on the dance floor, there was still plenty of room. Bill guided Glory into one of the empty chambers and they started to undress each other.
In the short time he had known Glory, Bill had always found sex with her enjoyable. Now, clutching her against himself, he thought: So what if there is a little talk? Guys always like to make up stories. Judging by the way she acted—at least what he had seen of her behavior—she was a nice girl, the kind a male naturally wanted to take to a prom. You only went to one prom, and it would be a repression of a blow to have it ruined.
Sure, most times a male got a kick out of it when a female made out that she was holding back a little, when she hinted at repression. But at a prom, for sex’ sake, things ought to be nice and steady and conservative.
Actually, to Bill, Hashbury as a mode of decoration didn’t seem so bad. Enjoying a few old things now and then didn’t mean that you were hip. . . .
His orgasm came to interrupt his train of thought. Then, right after the climax, in the familiar dangerous time when lust was weak, his thoughts took a sudden sharp turn toward dangerous territory: What if, after all, it were possible that Glory and he should sometime—just suppose—
But not now, not at the prom, should he sit around nursing his dirty thoughts. He turned his mind determinedly to sex, keeping his eyes on Glory’s body as she dressed.
Finishing the adjustment of her corsage, she suggested: “There’re four cars on this train, right? Let’s go see what’s in the other two.”
“One of ’em must be a banquet car.”
“Let’s go see!”
“All right.”
Sure enough, the next car they came to, walking toward the rear of the train, was the banquet car. Here there were real chairs at the many tables. The food and drink came in irregularly-shaped containers marked with stains of fake Hashbury dirt. Munching at the buffet were a couple of parents whom Bill recognized—Ann Lohmann’s folks. Bill looked around for Ann, but she was not in sight. He wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t make it to the prom. Sex, a guy would have to be pretty daring or stupid to bring a female like her. Yes, he told himself again, he had done well to bring Glory. Even if three other females had turned him down before he asked her. It hadn’t been his fault that most of the females were already paired off when he stared trying to make a date for the prom. When a male had to switch schools in the middle of his last term, he was repressin’ lucky not to get stuck with some dog or puritan, or get left out altogether. He had done very well to get a girl like Glory on short notice.
The woman at the buffet table turned toward Bill and Glory sort of tentatively, nodding and smiling.
“How are you, Female Lohmann?” Bill asked politely. It wasn’t her fault her daughter was frigid.
Female Lohmann, a fleshy woman in sandals, a microskirt and a transparent blouse, smiled and nodded more energetically. She asked them: “You didn’t happen to see my Ann in the other car? Well, she’ll be along later, I expect. If she cares to come. She’s grown up and free now, and quite mature—my libido, but you all are, aren’t you? It seems just yesterday—”
Male Lohmann came from somewhere to stand nodding and smiling at his wife’s side, trying, Bill thought, to look happy. Well, it didn’t seem likely that any of the guys would bring Ann. Sex, it would be worse to bring a girl like that than to stay home. Her parents would just have to take their turn at chaperoning like all the others, grit their teeth, and go on pretending she didn’t want to come.
Female Lohmann suggested they all go back to the dance car, and Bill and Glory went along. There they mingled with the growing crowd of kids, talking and dancing
. As he was dancing out of politeness with Female Lohmann, Bill saw his own parents getting on the train. After he had waved hello to them, he cleared his throat and asked his partner politely if he could give her an orgasm.
“Oh, an old lady like me? My libido, the party’s for you young folks!” but she was plainly pleased, and on his first insistence she went right with him to the bedroom car. Her body felt doughy, but he closed his eyes and tried to imagine he was back in Sex Ed class in freshman year, with that redheaded girl—what had her name been? Anyhow, it was soon over. Female Lohmann seemed to enjoy it quite a bit, and when he had escorted her back to the dance car his parents nodded approvingly. It paid to be polite and make friends with people, even those who were temporarily having a tough time over something.
When he rejoined Glory, there were a pair of professional dancers on the floor, everyone else having been cleared off to let them perform. Some of the chaperones watching looked uncomfortable; the dancers were somewhat too heavily clothed, and their movements were a little too stiff and chill. But Glory . . . the way she looked, watching the dancers, made Bill uneasy. He twisted his neck in the unfamiliar plastic collar of his tux. She had in her eyes what you would have to call a faraway look.
“Hi,” he said, taking his place beside her, and squeezing her breast mechanically. “Did I miss anything?”
She waited a deliberate moment before she turned to look at him, before she gave any sign that she was at all aware of his caressing hand. And when she did turn, there was still something distant in her eyes. And this behavior got to him, it shook him. It filled his mind with such images as in the past had led him, in solitude, to forbidden acts. For him, such images were those of starlight, of cold metal, of peaceful snowfall in the mountains; above all, of something that was like the sun. Usually in these daydreams there would be a girl, some girl, often the freshman redhead from Sex Ed class, standing beside him, looking outward with him.
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