The Sword of Bheleu

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “What are the others?”

  Miloshir replied, “The White Stone of Tema, the Black Stone of Andhur Regvos, the Whip of Sai, the Dagger of Aghad, and the Book of Silence are the remaining five.”

  “And each of these is as mighty as the Sword of Bheleu, yet we know where none of these potential menaces are?” Karag demanded.

  “Oh, no, they are not equally powerful; none of these is the equal of the Sword of Bheleu except the Book of Silence, which holds the fate of the world in its pages.”

  “But we know where none of them are?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Where does the basilisk fit into this?” Deriam asked. “Surely it’s the equal of one of these mysterious objects!”

  “Ah, there’s debate about that. Some say that the basilisk is the true token of The God Whose Name Is Not Spoken, and that the Book of Silence is a lesser item, or a myth, or perhaps the token of Dagha himself.”

  “I can readily believe that that thing is the symbol of the death-god. If it is, then we possess two of the tokens, including one mightier than this sword; Garth stands no chance.”

  Miloshir looked at Deriam, and then up and down the tables at the thirteen other councilors present. “I hope you’re right,” he said.

  Chapter Nineteen

  It was plain that there would be no shortage of fuel in Skelleth that winter; partially burned beams and rafters were plentiful, and charcoal abounded. Nor was building stone lacking, since the ring of ruins provided all that might be needed. It was sound wood, for roofing, flooring, and furniture, that was most sorely missed. Ceilings could be constructed of arched stone and roofs made of thatch, but such work took vast amounts of time, as well as consuming great quantities of stone and requiring elaborate scaffolding.

  There were no forests or even groves anywhere in the vicinity; firewood had traditionally been gathered from bushes by those fortunate enough to use wood at all, rather than dried dung. No building had been done in Skelleth since the completion of the Baron’s mansion some two hundred years earlier. Prior to that, wood had been shipped in by caravan in great wagons, as had much of the stone and other material.

  What wood could be salvaged was used, but the supply ran out when some twenty-odd houses had been erected and before any had been furnished.

  There was talk of using the wood, chairs, and tables from the King’s Inn, but that was quickly abandoned when it became clear that neither Garth nor the Forgotten King thought much of the idea.

  Therefore, Saram decided that it was time to re-establish communication with the south, so that wood could be bought. He said as much to Garth.

  Garth had been doing very little since Selk’s arrival and the killing of the warbeast. He had made a halfhearted attempt to cut off his left hand while it held the sword; but as he had expected, the knife-blade broke before it had cut deeply, and the wound healed overnight. After that failure he had spent much of his time sitting and staring at the sword, trying to devise some way to get free of it without giving in to the Forgotten King.

  Galt, after due consideration, had decided to stay; he realized that the City Council would almost certainly be willing to put him to death to appease the Erammans. They were unlikely to pardon him, since such an action would look very suspicious once the High King heard of it. Someone had to be the scapegoat, and he and Garth had been chosen.

  Of the forty-one other overmen in Skelleth, fourteen had remained; twenty-seven, including all the wounded, had gone home when offered the choice.

  Selk was being kept under guard in one of the upstairs rooms of the King’s Inn; he remained fairly quiet, but complained at every opportunity that there was something unsettling about the room, something in the air that made his skin crawl. Garth and the others could detect nothing but an extraordinary amount of dust.

  The overman guards at the five gates were withdrawn, due to the loss of so many warriors, leaving only humans.

  Galt lost interest in governing his remaining party, leaving Saram in virtually complete control of the village. It was under these circumstances that Saram came to ask Garth’s opinion about sending an embassy to Kholis.

  Garth considered. “I think,” he said, “that you may be right. It has been more than a fortnight since the battle, and we have heard nothing from anywhere south of here. I think that we can therefore tell them whatever we choose, and they will accept it. Furthermore, winter will be here soon—already the winds have turned northerly and cold—and the High King will be unable to send an army here without extreme difficulty once the snows begin.”

  “I hope he’ll have no reason to send an army. I don’t intend to tell him that you’re an occupying force.”

  “That’s good; what do you propose to tell him?”

  “I’ve been thinking it over some, and I think this will hold up. I will send a message saying that the Baron, whom everyone knew to be mad, finally went berserk while speaking with a peaceful trading mission and set fire to the village. In the ensuing confusion many died, and much of the town was destroyed. The survivors joined together to rebuild, with the aid of your overmen, when it became clear that it was the Baron’s insanity that began the fighting and fires, rather than any legitimate dispute or action of your party. We need not mention that your trade mission consisted of sixty warriors; we need not mention anyone but the sixteen of you still here. I exclude Selk, the seventeenth; he can be another little secret. We will ask for supplies to be sent so that we may survive the winter and for a new Baron of Skelleth to be named, and we will express our continued loyalty to the Kingdom of Eramma. How does that sound?”

  “Good, very good; it puts all the responsibility for wrongdoing on the dead Baron.”

  “I thought you’d like it.”

  “If the King accepts it, then we can present the City Council with a whole new situation and ask them to reconsider.”

  “If you want to, yes.”

  “Why do you say, ‘If you want to?’ Why should I not want to?”

  “It seems to me that your Council isn’t very helpful; why not just forget about them?”

  “I came here to establish trade between the Northern Waste and Eramma. I intend to establish that trade, whether the others involved want it or not; it will benefit both, whether the rulers have the wit to realize it or not.”

  “Oh. I see. Garth—whatever happens, whether you convince your City Council or not—you’re welcome to stay here in Skelleth as long as I’m running it.”

  “With luck, though, that won’t be long; the High King will be sending a new Baron.”

  “Ah, that’s true. I’d forgotten.” He smiled. “I’ll be able to relax, then, and pay some attention to my wife.”

  “Your wife?” Garth was startled.

  “Certainly.”

  “What wife?”

  “Frima, of course”

  “Oh.” Garth considered that. “Are you two married?”

  “More or less. The law says that a marriage is valid if approved by the lord of the region. As acting baron, I’m the local lord, and I say we’re married. When we get a new Baron I may ask him to confirm it.”

  “I see. Congratulations, then.”

  Saram studied the overman’s face. “Are you missing your own wives? Perhaps you could send for them.”

  “No. My kind is not as prone to loneliness as you humans are.”

  “You seem depressed, though.”

  “I am depressed, not by the absence of my wives, but by the presence of this sword, and by the stupidity of the Council.”

  “Oh. There isn’t anything I can do about the Council, other than send my message to Kholis; is there any way I can help you with the sword?”

  “I know of none.”

  “Let me see if I can pull your fingers free”

  Garth cooperated, and a moment later Saram was s
tuffing burned fingers in his mouth.

  “How can you hold that thing?” he muttered.

  “I don’t have much choice; I have even tried severing my hand, with no success.”

  “Shall I try?”

  “If you wish, but I warn you, your blade will probably break”

  “I won’t try it, then; I like my sword”

  Garth snorted.

  “Listen, maybe you can burn the thing out.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Maybe you can use up all its power. Then it would be too weak to hold you.”

  “I had considered that, but I could think of no way to do so without killing innocent people and destroying property.”

  “Why don’t you go out on the plain somewhere, where there’s no one to kill and nothing to destroy?”

  “And what would I do then?”

  “Can you direct the sword’s power, as you did when it possessed you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Can you make it possess you?”

  “I have tried without success.”

  “Well, I suggest that you go out on the plain, find a nice barren spot, and then try to make the sword burn, as it did when you slew the Baron. Try to burn the earth itself. See what happens.”

  Garth thought that over. His mind was not clear, and he could think only slowly and muddily; he knew, vaguely, that this was the sword’s doing.

  He could think of no objection to Saram’s proposal. “I will try it,” he said.

  “Good. I have to go put together that embassy to Kholis,” Saram said, rising, “but I wish you luck.”

  Garth watched him depart, then held up the sword and looked at it. The gem was glowing bright blood-red.

  Nothing else he had tried had done any good, and he couldn’t trust the sword to behave itself much longer. He rose, pulled the cloak he had borrowed from Galt more tightly around him with his free hand, and headed toward the West Gate; that direction led to the most desolate stretch of wilderness.

  He could feel winter coming; the air felt thin and hard and chilled him, even through the cloak, tunic, gambeson, and his own fur beneath. Skelleth had no autumn in the usual sense, since there were no trees to drop leaves nor late crops to harvest—the hay was brought in late in summer—but it did have a brief period between the warmth of summer and the first snow, and that was what had arrived in the last few days. The only warmth Garth could detect anywhere in the world around him was the heat of the sword’s hilt in his hand.

  It was oddly comforting. He knew that he should be uneasy about feeling anything positive about the thing’s power, but the warmth was welcome nonetheless.

  None of the few people he passed on the way out of town paid much attention to him; they had become accustomed to seeing him wandering about the village, hoping to find some means of release from the sword’s thrall. Even the guards at the West Gate did nothing more than nod polite greetings.

  Out on the open plain the north wind drove through him; his right flank became so cold that his left seemed warm by contrast. The sword’s hilt in his right hand burned like a live coal, but it was a good, soothing heat and did not cause him any pain.

  He strode on across the wasteland. Skelleth was not considered part of the Northern Waste, but it was still harsh, barren country, little better than his homeland. The few farms that he passed or crossed were empty and silent; the hay had been cut and gathered a month before, and the farmers had taken their crops and their goats and gone to the village to take shelter for the winter when first the north wind blew down from the hills. Only the ice-cutters ventured out on the plains once the snows came, and then only in large groups.

  At the end of an hour he had traveled something over four miles, a distance he thought should be sufficient. He stopped and looked around.

  The plain lay, bleak and empty, in all directions. To the north it ended in low hills; to the east Skelleth was still visible as a line on the horizon; to the south and west there was nothing else for as far as he could see. He had left the old Yprian Road a hundred yards from the gate, and it was now lost in the distance.

  He took the sword in two hands and stood for a moment feeling the warmth that now bathed them both; the left seemed to be thawing, though it had not actually frozen. He concentrated on the heat and let it flow up his arms.

  He was not sure at first how to go about what he wanted to do. He recalled that, when he was possessed, he often lifted the sword above his head just prior to performing his magical feats; feeling slightly foolish, he raised the blade up.

  Without any conscious volition, his hesitant gesture changed; he thrust the sword powerfully upward, pointing at the sky, until the red gem was directly before his red eyes, its glow as bright and warm as fresh blood. Overhead, the steely gray sky was darkened by wisps of black cloud.

  The glowing jewel held his gaze. He stared at it in fascination for a long moment, and the clouds gathered above him. Thunder rumbled in the northern hills.

  The sound broke his trance, and he looked upward.

  The sky had not been clear when he left the town, but it had shown no threat. Now it was filled with blossoming thunderclouds. There would be a storm long before he could reach the shelter of the village walls.

  He still held the sword before him, its point toward the sky; now, involuntarily, he thrust it up above his head, crying out, “Melith!”

  The name was unfamiliar to him; it was answered by a flash of lightning and a low rumble of thunder.

  He remembered suddenly that, when he had entered the temple of Bheleu in Dûsarra and first taken the sword, the sky had been full of thunder, and lightning had blasted the broken roof of the temple. Lightning had struck the altar and scattered the bonfire that surrounded it.

  Lightning had struck the sword while he held it.

  He realized suddenly that he was standing on a dead-flat plain in a thunderstorm, holding up six feet of bare steel. Lightning had an affinity for metal, as everyone knew, and was drawn as well to the highest objects in reach. Standing thus would ordinarily have verged on suicide.

  This was no ordinary sword, however, and he began to wonder if it was an ordinary storm. Was it natural or had the sword summoned it? Had the storm that shattered the temple of Bheleu been natural?

  He did not think he cared to try so dangerous a test of the sword’s nature as to invite being struck by lightning. Merely because he had survived it once did not mean he could do so again. He yanked the sword down.

  It resisted, but obeyed.

  Immediately the seething clouds overhead stilled; where it had seemed that the storm would break in seconds and pour a torrent upon him, now the clouds were calm, and it seemed as if there were no storm at all. No lightning flashed. No thunder roared. Even the north wind died away to a breeze.

  He recalled Saram’s proposed test; would the sword burn the earth? He thrust it out before him, pointing at the ground a dozen feet away.

  The gem flared up brightly, and a rumble sounded. At first he thought that it was fresh thunder, but then the ground heaved up beneath him, rolling under his feet. Staggering to keep his balance, his left hand fell from the hilt, while his right, holding the sword, swung out to his side.

  The tremor stopped, and the earth was again as still and solid as ever.

  He no longer felt the cold; the warmth of the sword’s touch had spread through his body. As he looked at the blade and realized what had just happened, sweat broke out on his forehead.

  He could not believe that the sword had caused an earthquake. He took it in both hands, in a reversed grip, and placed the tip on the soil at his feet.

  Nothing happened.

  He held it in that position, waiting and thinking. He realized that he did not want anything to happen. Perhaps that was affecting his experiment. He forced himself to stop de
nying the sword’s power, and instead recited to himself, “Move, earth, I command it!”

  The ground shook, roaring; he saw dust swirl up on all sides.

  “Stop!” he cried.

  It stopped.

  Earthquakes frightened him. The uneasy movement of that most immovable of things upset his view of the way the world should be. Such displays undoubtedly consumed vast amounts of the sword’s energy, but he could not bear to continue.

  Storms, however, were something he was accustomed to.

  He looked at the gem. It was glowing brightly, vividly red.

  It could not be limitless, he told himself. It must exhaust itself eventually.

  With that thought in his mind, he raised the sword above his head and summoned the storm to him.

  The light of the jewel bathed him in crimson, and the blade glowed brilliantly white as the storm broke about him with preternatural fury. A bolt of lightning burned through the air over his head and shattered against the sword, bathing him in a shower of immense blue-white sparks, but he felt nothing but a slight warmth and a mounting joy in the power he wielded.

  Another bolt followed the first, though Garth knew that was not natural; and then a third came. He was washed in white fire, and the ground at his feet was burned black.

  Lightning continued to pour down upon him while cold rain beat against the plain around him. He stayed dry in the heart of the storm, for the lightning and the heat of the sword boiled away the rain before it could touch him, encircling him in steam and mist.

  He discovered that he could steer the lightning away from him and direct it where he chose by pointing with the sword, as he had spread flame in Skelleth. He drew the sword’s heat into him and thrust it upward, and the rain turned warm around him; then he sucked it back down and away, and the rain became first sleet, and then hail—though the frozen drops were smaller than natural hailstones.