The Reluctant Swordsman

by David Duncan

  The court sentences you to a week's amoebic dysentery and two weeks' probationary septicemia. It will try your case shortly.

  When the water had drained through the other grille, the evening meal was passed along in a basket-leftovers, mostly moldy fruit with a few stale crusts and scraps of meat that Wallie would not have touched even if his teeth had felt firm in his head. Anything better had gone before the basket reached him. A week in this cell would be a death sentence.

  Then the sun vanished with tropical swiftness; the cello chorus of the flies yielded to massed violins from the mosquitoes. Innulari's determined optimism seemed to fade also, and he began to brood. Wallie steered him around to the details of his faith and heard the same simple reincarnation belief that he had heard from the slave girl.

  "Surely it is evident?" asked the healer, sounding as if he were trying to convince himself as much as Wallie. "The River is the Goddess. As the River flows from city to city, so our souls flow from life to life."

  Wallie was skeptical. "You can't remember previous lives, can you? What is a soul, then, if it is not your mind?"

  "Quite different," the little man insisted. "The cities are lives and the River is the soul. It is an allegory to guide us. Or like beads on a string."

  "Oh, hell!" Wallie said quietly. He fell silent. You could not move a city on a river, but you could untie a string, move beads around, and then retie the string.

  The light faded and the incredible beauty of the rings filled the sky above him, thin ribbons of silver that would make a mere moon seem as uninspiring as a light bulb. He thought of the glory of the waterfall they called the Judgment. This was a very beautiful world.

  Even without the pains of his injuries he could have slept little. Leg cramps were common to all the inmates; there were more groans than snores in the jail. The ring system, which the slave woman had called the Dream God, made a good timepiece. The dark gap that marked the shadow of the planet rose in the east soon after sunset and moved across the sky. At midnight he saw it mark off two exactly equal arcs, and he saw it fade at dawn.

  Another day came, and he had not yet awakened to reality.

  ††

  Morning dawned fair, promising to be as hot as the day before. The healer Innulari seemed disappointed and eventually confessed that on very rainy days, when the Goddess could not see the Judgment, there were no executions.

  Clean-out came and went. The inmates fretted in uneasy quiet, whispering nervously.

  Then two priests, three swordsmen, four slaves came clattering down the stairs, pulling faces at the stench.

  "Innulari, healer of the Fifth, for negligence..."

  "Kinaragu, carpenter of the Third, for theft..."

  "Narrin, slave, for recalcitrance."

  As a priest called each name, a swordsman pointed. Slaves levered up the block and pulled out the victim. Each screamed at the pain when his stiffened legs were bent, each in turn was dragged away. Thus Wallie's immediate neighbors and another man farther along the line were taken away for execution, and the Death Squad departed. Then the fruit basket was passed again.

  Wallie realized that he was going to miss the talkative Innulari. An hour or two later he heard the bell tolling. He wondered if he should say a prayer to the healer's goddess for him, but he did not.

  In the middle of the morning, another five men were brought in. Although there was space beyond for many more, the place seemed suddenly crowded. Wallie acquired two new neighbors, who were delighted to see a swordsman of the Seventh in jail. They jeered at him and replied with obscenities when he tried to make conversation. He was exhausted by pain and lack of sleep, but if he seemed to nod off they would reach over and punch him from spite.

  * * *

  There was a sudden quiet. Wallie had perhaps been dozing, for he looked up to see the reeve regarding him with satisfied contempt from the safe side of the wall of slabs. He was holding a bamboo rod in both hands, flexing it thoughtfully, and there was no doubt as to his intended victim. Wallie's first decision was that he must show no fear. That would not be difficult, for his face was so swollen that probably no expression at all could show on it. Should he attempt to explain or should he remain silent? He was still debating that when the questioning began.

  "What is the first sutra?" Hardduju demanded.

  "I don't know," Wallie said calmly-he hoped calmly. "I-"

  Before he could say more, the reeve slashed the bamboo across the sole of Wallie's left foot. It was bad... the pain itself, as well as the reflex that jerked the top of his foot against the stone and skinned his ankle. Hardduju studied his reaction carefully and seemed to approve of it.

  "What is the second sutra?" That was the right foot.

  Back to the left foot for the third sutra. How many could there be? After the sixth sutra, though, the sadist stopped asking and just continued beating, watching Wallie's agony with a growing smile and obvious excitement, his face becoming red and shiny. He switched from one foot to the other at random and sometimes faked a stroke to see the foot yank back against the stone in anticipation.

  Wallie tried to explain and was given no hearing. He tried remaining silent until blood from his bitten tongue filled his mouth. He tried screaming. He tried begging. He wept.

  He must have fainted, for he had no clear memory of the monster's departure. He probably went into shock, too, because the rest of the day was a confusion-a long, shivery, disjointed hell. Perhaps it was good that he could not see his ruined feet lying in the furnace beyond the stone slab. The sun moved, the shadows of the lattice roof crawled over him, and the flies came to inspect his wounds. But his neighbors punched and jeered no more.

  * * *

  The evening basket had been passed down the line, and he had sent it on without eating or caring. The sun had set. The sky was rapidly growing dim when Wallie felt himself snap out of his shocked lethargy. He heaved himself up to a sitting position and glanced around. All the other inmates seemed to have become curiously listless and were lying down in silence. The slimy room was hushed, steaming from its latest inundation, shadowy in the fading light.

  The little brown boy was leaning against the slab that held Wallie's ankles, watching him. He was still naked, still as skinny as a bundle of sticks, still holding a leafy twig in one hand. His face was expressionless.

  "Well, does it matter?" he asked.

  "Yes, it does," Wallie said. Those were the first words he had spoken since Hardduju departed. His feet were balls of screaming agony that drowned out all the other pains and bruises.

  The little boy did not speak for a while, studying the prisoner, but eventually he said, "The temple court is in session, Mr. Smith, considering your case. What verdict will you have it reach?"

  "Me?" Wallie said. "How can I influence its verdict?" He felt drained of all emotion, too battered even to feel resentment.

  The boy raised an eyebrow. "All this is happening inside your head-it is all your illusion. You said so. Can't you dictate the verdict?"

  "I don't think that I can influence the temple court," Wallie said, "...but I think that you could."

  "Ah!" the boy said. "Maybe we're getting somewhere." He put his hands on the slab behind him and sprang up to sit on it, his legs dangling.

  "Who are you?" the man demanded.

  "Shorty." The boy did not smile.

  "I'm sorry!" Wallie shouted. "I didn't know!" He glanced both ways along the line of prisoners. No one stirred.

  "They won't notice," the boy said. "Just you. All right, let's get back to faith, shall we?"

  Wallie took a moment to gather his thoughts. He had to get this right, or he was going to die. Or worse.

  "I believe that this world is real. But Earth was real, too."

  The boy nodded and waited.

  "It was the horses," Wallie said. "They're like horses but not quite. I always believed in evolution, not creationism, but the People are... people. They don't be long to any Earthly race, but they're huma
n. Two worlds couldn't both produce real people by convergent evolution. Something similar for a similar ecological niche, perhaps, but not so similar. I mean, birds and bats both fly, but they're not the same. Noses and earlobes? They're not necessary, but the People have them, too. So in spite of what all the science fiction stories said, another world would not have an intelligent biped that was indistinguishable from Homo sapiens..."

  The boy yawned.

  "Gods!" Wallie said quickly. "It has to be gods, hasn't it? Purpose! Direction! That was what you meant with the beads, wasn't it? 'Every one is the same yet slightly different,' you said. Many worlds, variations on a theme. Copies of an ideal world, perhaps."

  "Very good!" The boy nodded approvingly. "Go on."

  "So the goddess is... is the Goddess. She brought me here."

  "And who are you?"

  That was the big question and now Wallie thought he knew. "I'm Wallie Smith and I am Shonsu... Wallie Smith's memories and Shonsu's body. Soul... I don't know about souls."

  "Then don't worry about them," the boy said. "And Hardduju? How do you feel about capital punishment now, Mr. Smith?"

  "I didn't say that I didn't believe in-"

  "But you thought it!"

  "Yes," Wallie confessed. "Get me out of here and let me kill that bastard, and I'll do anything you want-anything at all."

  "Well, well! Will you?" The boy shook his head. "Revenge? Not good enough!"

  "But I believe in the Goddess now!" Wallie protested, his voice breaking. "I will repent. I'll pray. I will serve Her, if She will allow it. I'll be a swordsman if that is what She wants. Anything!"

  "My!" the boy muttered mockingly. "Such unexpected devotion!" He fell silent, staring fixedly, and Wallie had the strangest fancy that he was being skimmed, perused-read as an accountant might run his eye down a balance sheet to the bottom line. "It's a very small faith, Mr. Smith."

  "It's all I've got," Wallie said. It was almost a sob.

  "It's a sort of chink of doubt in your disbelief. You will have to prove it."

  He had been afraid of that. "The Judgment?"

  The boy pulled a face. "You don't want to be Hardduju's slave, do you? He wouldn't sell you in the end-it would be too much fun to have a Seventh chained in the cellar. He has many other entertainments to try! So you'd rather go to the Judgment, wouldn't you?" He grinned his gap-toothed grin for the first time. "The trick is this: if you resist, they bang you on the head and drop you over the edge. Then you land on the rocks. But if you run and jump far out, then you come down in deep water. It is a test of faith."

  "I can't run on those feet," Wallie said. "Is there anything left of them?"

  The boy twisted around briefly to look down at Wallie's feet and then shrugged. "There is a shrine at the Place of Mercy. Pray for the strength to run." He was becoming indistinct as the light faded. "I told you that this was important. It is a rare opportunity for a mortal."

  "I haven't had much practice at praying," Wallie said humbly, "but I will do my best. I thought of praying for Innulari. Would it have helped?"

  The boy gave him an odd look. "It wouldn't have helped him, but it would have helped you." He paused and said, "The gods must not provide faith in the first place, Mr. Smith. I could have given you belief, but then you would have been a tool, not an agent. A mortal's service is of no value to the gods unless it is freely given-free will may not be dictated. Do you see? But once you have faith, the gods can increase it. You have found a spark. I can blow on a spark. I will do this much for you, in return for your kind thought about the healer."

  He pulled a leaf off his twig. At once the raging fires in Wallie's feet seemed to be plunged into ice water. The pain died away, and all the other pains also.

  "Until dawn," the boy said.

  Wallie started to gabble thanks, stuttering in his relief. "I don't even know what to call you," he said.

  "Call me Shorty for now," the boy said, and his gaptooth grin was just visible in the growing light of the Dream God. "It's been a long time since a mortal was so impudent. You amuse me." His eyes seemed to shine in the shadow. "Once you played a game called chess; you know what happens when a pawn reaches the end of its file?"

  The mockery was obvious, but Wallie quickly repressed his resentment. "Sir, it can be converted to any other piece except a king."

  The boy chuckled. "So you have reached the end of your file and you have been converted. Simple, isn't it? Remember, jump as hard as you can tomorrow, and we shall meet again."

  Then the slab was empty.

  * * *

  Thus, on his second night in the jail, Wallie slept soundly, but toward morning he found himself sitting at a table. It was a memory, a scene from his youth being played back to him so vividly that he could smell the cigarette butts and hear distant jazz from a radio in another room... green baize in darkness with a light shining down on it; playing cards, ashtrays, and glasses. Bill sat on his left, Justin on his right, and Jack had gone to the john.

  He was declarer in a game of bridge, doubled and drunk and vulnerable in a crazy contract, in one of those crazy deals where the cards were distributed in bunches. Clubs were trumps, and he still held the last one, the deuce. Bill led a spade to Wallie's solitary ace on the table, then obligingly moved the ace forward for him. Justin followed suit. That would force Wallie to lead from dummy, and they were waiting for him.

  He trumped his own ace, and a voice said "Barf!" Then he could lead out seven good hearts from his hand. The defenders were squeezed-whatever they discarded, he could keep. He heard himself yell in triumph... slam, bid, made, doubled, redoubled, vulnerable, game, and rubber. He reached for the scorepad. He felt it between his fingers. Then it was gone, he was back in the jail, and the first glimmer of dawn was starting to brighten the eastern sky.

  Believing in gods, he discovered, led one to believe in sendings. Who had made a bad lead? Chess and bridge... did the gods play games with humanity to while away eternity? The spades of a bridge deck were descended from the swords of tarot-had the Goddess trumped Her own ace of swords, Shonsu, with Wallie Smith, the deuce of clubs, the smallest card in the deck?

  As the light grew, the pains returned. But that was as the little boy had predicted, and he could believe that today he would be taken from the jail.

  A god had said so.

  †††

  The temple court had been busy. The Death Squad took six of the prisoners that day, and the first name on the list was: "Shonsu, swordsman of the Seventh, possessed of a demon." If Innulari's interpretation was correct, then old Honakura had lost out in the power struggle.

  Wallie was dragged roughly up the steps, through a guard room, and allowed to fall limply on hard, hot paving under the blistering sun. He had not screamed. He lay for a moment, fighting down nausea from the pain in his joints and his bruises, screwing up his eyes against the glare. Then he struggled to sit up as the others were hauled out and dropped beside him, whimpering or yelling. After one glance at his feet, he tried not to look at them any more.

  He was at the edge of a wide court, like a parade ground, and the heat danced within it in ripples. Behind him was the jail, and he could hear the River chattering happily behind that. Two sides of the yard were flanked by massive buildings, with the great spires of the temple rising in the distance. The fourth side lay open to a heaven of parkland and greenery.

  The priests departed, their job done. A bored-looking swordsman of the Fourth seemed to be in charge now. Efficient and shiny-smart, he was tapping a whip against his boot, looking over the victims.

  "Ten minutes to get your legs back," he announced. "Then you walk across the square and back. Or crawl, as you please." He cracked the whip loudly.

  A yellow-kilted, fresh-faced Second came around, tossing each condemned man a black cloth to wear. When he came to Wallie he frowned and looked at his superior.

  "Better get a cart for that one," the Fourth said.

  Wallie said loudly, "I am a swordsman
. I shall walk." He took the loincloth and ripped it in half, started to bandage one foot.

  "You're a filthy imposter," the Fourth snarled.

  Wallie tore a small strip from the other cloth and tied us hair back so that his facemarks were visible. "Not according to the temple court, swordsman." That was probably the wrong form of address, because the man flushed and raised his whip threateningly.

  "Go ahead," Wallie said. "Just like your boss."

  The man stared at him for a moment, then grabbed another cloth from the Second and tossed it to Wallie to wear.

  Wallie wasn't sure that he was being very smart, but he was required to prove his faith, and the only way he could see to do that was to prove his courage. Whether he proved it to the gods or the swordsmen or himself hardly seemed to matter. When the time came to cross the square, a couple of the men began by crawling and got whipped. Wallie walked. He walked very slowly, and as he put down each foot he gasped with the pain, but he lurched all the way across and back. And he held his head up.

  Then the six were chained together to be led along the riverbank, past buildings he could not see for tears, past the busy, noisy waters, which in a short while might be carrying his mangled carcass, round to the steps of the temple. There they had to stand for a while until a priestess came out and gabbled a blessing over them.

  The guard consisted of nine swordsmen and four hulking slaves. Wallie had been given the place of honor in the front, the chain from his neck held by one of the Seconds.

  Every step was a torment. How much of the water in his eyes was sweat running in, and how much tears running out, he did not know or care. He was only vaguely aware of the long road through the park and the big gate, but the chain gang was not far into the slums and alleys of the town when he heard a child's voice cry, "Hey! They got a swordsman!"