Of Berserkers, Swords and Vampires

by Fred Saberhagen

  A Red officer of apparent high rank spoke almost imploringly to Trofand. "We will obey you, my lord. Is there any way to save the island?"

  The priest looked uncertainly at Ariton. Brazil asked her: "Will you now marry the king, as you offered, and so unite your people with his?"

  She rubbed the arm that Galamand had twisted, and frowned.

  "There is no need for that now. The Sea God has rejected him. With your help, I will be ruler—"

  "Do you want the Tower to stand?" Brazil cut her off brutally.

  "Remember, too, that the Red soldiers are still strong, and perhaps not eager to serve you."

  She nodded, meekly wide-eyed for once.

  Brazil turned to Trofand. "Can the marriage be performed as soon as the king awakens?"

  "If he can be made to agree to it; I see that the Sea God has spared his life, for now his eyelids move."

  "I think he can be made to agree," said the high-ranking officer, grimly. "I think it is time we had a certain heir to the throne, and also an end to this unprofitable fighting in our own land."

  Brazil switched off his airspeaker, with throat muscles beginning to quiver with the relaxation of tension. "Sam, start cutting down that hump. But stand by to rebuild, until I give you the word that the honeymoon has started."

  Eight kilometers out at sea and eighty meters below the surface, scoutships Alpha and Omicron braced themselves on water-filled space, and thrust noses equipped with jury-rigged bulldozer blades against the mound of mud and sand rising from the bottom, the mound they had carefully constructed in the same manner the day before. It was not much of a mound for size, really, and unimpressive-looking to any but an oceanographer. But it shallowed the water above it, and so it slowed the waves, refracting those from one certain direction, focusing them as a lens treats light, causing them to converge on one small area eight kilometers away . . .

  Boris Brazil opened his eyes. He had not been asleep. He was slouched in an easy chair in an alcove of the recreation lounge aboard the Yuan Chwang, and Chandragupta was standing looking down at him.

  "Do you mind if I ask what you see behind your eyelids, my friend?" the Tribune asked.

  Brazil was not quick to answer.

  "Perhaps you see drowned men." The Tribune sat down facing Brazil and spoke with quiet sympathy. "My friend, you have what must be one of the most difficult jobs in the known universe; you must be a researcher, a diplomat, a fighter, a linguist, and a survival expert, by turns or all at once. And I know I have left out many things. I think you do very well in your job, considering that you are no more than human. We all agreed that your plan of threatening the Tower with waves should be tried. I still think it was good. It has set the islanders on the road to unity, and so no doubt averted more suffering than it caused."

  "Thanks, Chan." Brazil stretched, and uncoiled slowly from the chair. A little humor came back into his face. "I'm going to play it as lazy as I can for a couple of days." He straightened his offduty semi-uniform and said, half to himself: "Maybe I'll just mosey over toward Computing and check out—something. Hmm—"

  "Boris?" Foley's voice was heard before he came into sight.

  "There you are. Scout just sent back word from over nightside: they spotted one of those luminous water-rings over there; this one's fifteen kilometers across. Our regular standby crew is out, so Gates wants you in the briefing room on the double. Oh yeah—" Foley gave an uncertain smile. "He says: 'What would Thoreau have to say about that?' "

  Brazil's answer was probably inaccurate.

  SWORDS

  Blind Man's Blade

  The gods' great Game of Swords, and with it the whole later history of planet Earth, might have followed a very different course had the behavior of one or two divine beings—or the conduct of only one man—been different at the start. Even a slight change at the beginning of the Game produced drastic variation in the results. And Apollo has been heard to say that there have been several such beginnings.

  One of those divergent commencements—which, in the great book of fate, may be accounted as leading to an alternate universe, or perhaps simply as a false start—saw all of the gods' affairs thrown into turmoil at a remarkably early stage, even before the first move had been made in the Game. It happened on the day when the Swords, all new and virginally fresh, all actually still warm from Vulcan's forge, were being brought to the Council to be put into the hands of those players who had been awarded them by lot.

  The sun had just cleared the jagged horizon when Vulcan arrived at the open council-space, there to join the wide circle of deities already assembled in anticipation of his coming. They were his colleagues, all of them standing much taller than humans, their well-proportioned bodies casting long shadows in the lingering mists, but still dwarfed by the surrounding rim of icy mountains. There were moments when they all looked lost under the breadth of the the cold morning sky.

  The Smith brought with him a whiff of forge-smoke, a tang of melted meteoric iron. His cloak of many furs was wind-blown around his shoulders, and his huge left hand cradled carefully its priceless cargo of steel and magic, eleven weighty packages held in a neat bundle. And, despite the fact that a small but vocal minority of the Council still argued that no binding agreement on the rules of the Game had yet been reached, the Swords—almost every one of the Twelve Swords—were soon being portioned out among the chosen members of the meeting.

  Among those gods and goddesses who received a Sword in the distribution, no two reactions were exactly the same. Most were pleased, but not all. For example, there was the goddess Demeter, who stood looking thoughtfully at the object limping Vulcan had just pressed into her strong, pale hands. She gazed at the black sheath covering a meter's length of god-forged steel, at the black hilt marked by a single symbol of pure white.

  Demeter said pensively, in her high, clear voice: "I am not at all sure that I care to play this Game."

  Mars, who happened to be standing near her, commented:

  "Well, many of us do want to play, including some who have been awarded no Sword at all. Hand yours over to someone else if you don't want it." Mars had already been promised a Sword of his own, or his protest would doubtless have been more violent. Actually he thought he could do quite well in the Game without benefit of any such trick hardware; but he would not have submitted quietly to being left off the list.

  "I said I was not sure," Demeter responded. A male deity would probably have tossed the sheathed weapon thoughtfully in his hand while trying to decide. Demeter only looked at it. And she was still holding her Sword, down at her side, the dark sheath all but invisible in one of her large hands, when her tall figure turned and strode away into a cloud of mist.

  Another of her colleagues called after her to know where she was going; and as an afterthought added the question: "Which Sword do you have?"

  "I have other business," Demeter called back, avoiding a direct answer to either question. And then she went on. For all that anyone could tell, she was only seeking other amusement, displaying independence as gods and goddesses were wont to do.

  Meanwhile the distribution of Swords was still going on, a slow process frequently interrupted by arguments. Some of the recipients were trying to keep the names and powers of their Swords secret, while others did not seem to care who knew about them.

  The council meeting dragged along, its proceedings every bit as disorderly as those of such affairs were wont to be, and not made any easier to follow by the setting—a high mountain wasteland of snow and ice and rock and howling wind, an environment to which the self-convinced rulers of the earth were proud to display their indifference.

  Hera was complaining that the original plan of allowing only gods to possess Swords, which she believed to be the only good and proper and reasonable scheme, had been spoiled before it could be put into effect: "That scoundrel Vulcan, that damned clubfoot, enlisted a human smith to help him make the Swords. And then chose to reward the man!"

  Zeu
s stroked his beard. "Well? And if it amuses Vulcan to hand out a gift or two to mortals? Surely that's not unheard of?"

  "I mean he rewarded the human with the gift of Townsaver! That's unheard of! So now we have only eleven Swords to share among us, instead of twelve. Am I wrong, or is it we gods, and not humanity, who are supposed to be playing the Swordgame?"

  The speaker had meant the question to be rhetorical; but not even on this point could any general agreement be established. Many at the meeting expected their human worshipers to play a large part in the Game—though of course not in direct competition with gods.

  Debate on various questions concerning the distribution of Swords, and the conduct and rules of the Game, moved along by fits and starts, until Vulcan himself came forward, leaning sideways on his shorter leg, to demand the floor. As soon as the Smith thought he had the attention of a majority, he haughtily informed his accusers that he had decided to give away the Blade called Townsaver, because the gods themselves had no towns or cities, no settled or occupied places in the human sense, and thus none of them would be able to derive any direct benefit from that particular weapon.

  "Would you have chosen that one for yourself?" he demanded, looking from one deity to another nearby. "Hah, I thought not!"

  As the council meeting wrangled on, perpetually on the brink of dissolving in disputes about procedure, at least one other member of the divine company—Zeus himself—complained that the great Game was already threatened by human interference. How many of his colleagues, he wanted to know, how many of them realized that there was one man who by means of certain impertinent magic had already gained extensive theoretical knowledge of the Twelve Swords?

  Diana demanded: "How could a mere human manage that? I insist that the chairman answer me! How could a man do that, without the help of one or more of us?"

  Chairman Zeus, always ready for another speech, began pontificating. Few listened to him. Meanwhile, Vulcan sulked: "Who pays any attention to human magic tricks? Who cares what they find out? No one said anything to me about maintaining secrecy."

  In another of the rude, arguing knots of deities, the discussion went like this: "If putting Swords in the hands of humans hasn't been declared officially against the rules, it ought to be! It's bound to have a bad result."

  "Still, it might be fun to see what the vile little beasts would do with such weapons."

  Mars drew himself up proudly. "Why not? I hope no one's suggesting that they could do us serious damage with any weapon at all?"

  "Well . . . "

  Someone else butted in, raising a concern over the chance of demons getting their hands on Swords. But few in the assembly were particularly worried about that, any more than they were about humans.

  A dark-faced, turbaned god raised his voice. "Cease your quarreling! No doubt we'll have the chance to learn the answers to these interesting questions. If we are to use Vulcan'snew toys in aGame, of course they'll be scattered promiscuously about the world. Sooner or later at least one of them is bound to fall into human hands. And, mark my words, some demon will have another."

  Meanwhile, in a small cave at the foot of a low cliff of dark rock about two hundred meters distant from the nearest argument, a mere man named Keyes, and another called Lo-Yang, both weather-vulnerable human beings, shivering with cold and excitement though wrapped in many furs, were sitting almost motionless, watching and listening intently as they peered from behind a rock. Keyes, the leader of the pair, had chosen this place as one from which he and his apprentice could best observe the goings-on among the gods and goddesses, while still enjoying a reasonable hope that they would not be seen in turn.

  A dark and wiry man, Keyes, of indeterminate age. His companion was dark as well, but heavier, and obviously young. They had come to this place in the high, uninhabited mountains searching for treasure, wealth in the form of knowledge—Keyes, an accomplished magician, was willing to risk everything in the pursuit.

  Lo-Yang was at least as numb with fear as with cold, and at the moment willing to risk everything for a good chance to run away. He might even have defied his human master and done so, at any time during the past half hour, except that he feared to draw the attention of the mighty gods by sudden movement.

  Keyes was in most matters no braver than his associate and apprentice, but certainly he was more obsessed with the search for knowledge and power. He cursed the fact that though some of the gods' stentorian voices carried clearly to where he crouched trying to eavesdrop, he could understand nothing that he heard. Despite his best efforts at magical interpretation, the language the gods most commonly used among themselves was still beyond him. Keyes, exchanging whispers now and then with his companion, whose teeth were chattering, considered an attempt to work his way even nearer the place of council. But he rejected the idea; it would hardly be possible to do better than this well-placed but shallow little cave, inconspicuous among a number of similar holes in the nearby rock.

  He was in the middle of a whispered conversational exchange with his apprentice Lo-Yang, when without warning a great roaring fury swirled around him, and Keyes realized that he had been caught—that the enormous fingers of some god's hand had closed around him. Hopelessly the man tried to summon some defensive magic. Physically he struggled to get free.

  He might as well have endeavored to uproot a mountain or two and hurl them at the moon.

  Mars, who had captured Keyes, was not really concerned with the obvious fact that the man had been spying. Who cared what human beings might overhear, or think? The god was focused on another problem: he was due to receive a Sword, though Vulcan had not yet put it in his hands. Mars wanted a human for experimental purposes, so that he could learn a thing or two, in practical terms, about the powers of whatever Sword he was given before he used it in the Game. Mars considered himself fortunate to have been able to grab up a human so promptly; the creatures were not common in these parts. Keyes had happened to be the nearer of the two specimens Mars saw when it occurred to him to look for one.

  The captured man, knowing nothing of his captor's purpose, certain that his last moment had come, could feel the cold mist on his face, and thought he could hear the echo of his own frightened breath.

  The god-hand which had scooped Keyes up did not immediately crush him into pulp, or dash him on the rocks. The sweeping breeze of god-breath, redolent of ice and spice and smoke, told Keyes that an enormous face loomed over him.

  But his captor was not even looking at him. Only when the man saw that did he fully realize how far he was, for all his impertinence, beneath the gods' real anger. Nothing he might do would be of any real consequence to them—or so most of them thought. Some mice were doubtless nearby too, scampering among the rocks, but none of the debaters paid any heed to them at all.

  The god who had captured Keyes considered how best to keep him fresh and ready. Physically crippling the subject might affect the results of the experiment; and anyway some measure less drastic should suffice to do the job. A simple deprivation of eyesight, along with a smothering of the man's ability to do magic, ought to make him stay where he was put . . . so one god-finger wiped Keyes's face . . .

  Now. Where best to put him, for safe-keeping, until Mars should come into possession of the Sword he wished to test?

  The captor, still holding casually in one hand the wriggling, moaning, newly-blinded human form, looked about. Presently the terrible gaze of Mars fastened on the handiest hiding place immediately available. A moment later, treading windy space in the easy, heedless way of deities, he was descending into a house-sized limestone cave, by means of the wide, nearly vertical shaft which seemed to form the cavern's only entrance and exit.

  At the bottom he set his helpless captive down, not ungently, on the stone floor. Keyes was still mewing like a hurt kitten.

  "Here you will stay," Mars boomed in Keyes's human language.

  "Until I get back. That won't be long—there's something I want to try out on you. As y
ou can see . . . well, as you probably noticed when you could see . . . the only way out of this cave is a vertical climb up a steep shaft with slick sides and only a few scattered handholds."

  The god started to ascend that way himself, but disdaining handholds, simply walking in air. Halfway up he paused in midair, looking back down over his shoulder, to warn the once-ambitious wizard about the deep pits in the floor. "Better not fall into one of them. I don't want to find you dead and useless when I return." The tone seemed to imply that Keyes would be punished if he was impertinent enough to kill himself. And then the god was gone.

  The newly-blinded man was seized by an instinctive need to try to hide, some vague idea of groping his way voluntarily even farther down into the earth. Maybe the god who'd caught him would forget about him—maybe he wouldn't even notice if Keyes disappeared—

  But soon enough the man in the cave ceased his gasping and whimpering, his pointless attempt to burrow into the stone floor, and regained enough self-possession to reassure himself that although his vision was effectively gone, at least his eyeballs had not been ripped out. As far as he could tell his lids were simply closed, and he could not open them. There was no pain as long as he did not try. Attempts to force his eyes open with his fingers hurt horribly, but produced not even a pinhole's worth of vision. Physically his body seemed to be undamaged. But he felt that even more important components of his being, directly accessible to the divine intervention, had been violated . . .

  Presently, his mind having begun to work again at least intermittently, he went on groping his way around the cave, in search of some way out, or at least of better knowledge of his prison. He had barely glimpsed even the entrance to the cave before his sight was taken from him. It was warmer down here out of the wind, so much so that he shed some of his furs. In some locations, as he moved about, he was able to feel the warmth of the sun, which was now beginning to be high enough to penetrate the cave. There was tantalizing hope in the red glow of the direct sun through his sealed eyelids.