The Reluctant Swordsman

by David Duncan

  He knuckled his eyes clear to look, and there was an instant crowd. It had not occurred to him to wonder what the townsfolk thought of the daily death march. Innulari had told him that a majority of the condemned were slaves or criminals sent in by nearby cities, this being a meritorious service to the Goddess for some obscure and ancient reason, but some of the victims must be from the town and perhaps there might sometimes be attempts at rescue. That might explain the size of the guard, for nine to shepherd six in chains seemed excessive.

  But this was no rescue attempt. The crowd was jeering, running along ahead, and following behind-children and adolescents and young adults. A swordsman of the Seventh going to the Judgment was great sport. The noise and confusion in the narrow passageway grew rapidly, heads popped out of windows and doors, and the curious flocked in from side streets. The guard grew nervous and angry and increased the pace, jerking at the chain. Wallie kept his head up and his teeth clenched, and staggered along.

  A soft lump of filth struck him, and then more, not so soft. The shouting was being directed only at him, the noble lord, the valorous swordsman. Did you lose a battle then? Where's your sword, swordsman? Have this one for me, my lord...

  The Fourth in charge drew his sword, and it seemed for a few moments as if there might be bloodshed, with a riot sure to follow. But one of the slaves had been sent for help. Another troop of swordsmen arrived at the double, and the crowd was roughly dispersed. Wallie was in too much pain to be frightened, but he could read the message; swordsmen of the Seventh were not popular. With Hardduju as the local standard, that was easy to understand.

  The jail had not been hell at all, barely purgatory, for the journey was worse. A million times he cursed himself for not accepting the cart, however undignified that might have been, or rough on his bruises. He saw nothing of how he left the town or of the scenery beyond, noticing only that the path was climbing steeply. He was terrified that he might faint, for then he would either be dragged along to his destination or swiftly run through with a sword and dropped into the water. The rags on his feet were blood-soaked and chafing on raw flesh, the pain and heat unendurable. Every muscle and joint seemed to scream.

  A blast of cold air revived him when they had rounded a corner of rock and were approaching the falls, on a path flanked by a sheer drop on one side and overhanging cliff on the other. The ground trembled, the wind swirled a mist of cold droplets, and the roar hammered at his ears. The falls hung like a wall ahead. When he peered over the edge of the path, he saw white fury and rocks and churning tree trunks far below. His frail new faith faltered-could anyone at a ever come through that alive? Even if he managed to do so, would he not end up in the temple again, still not knowing the first sutra? But then the pain drove away the doubts, for deep inside he was raging, raging at the injustice and gratuitous cruelty, slobbering with his desire for revenge on the sadistic Hardduju-and just possibly raging against the little boy, the miracle-working mystery boy who found Wallie Smith amusing. Wallie was going to show them all, and every flame tempered his resolve.

  Now the pain in his feet was subsiding into numbness as if they had died, but that might have been the effect of the cooling spray, or partial loss of consciousness, or even because he was now so terrified at the ordeal ahead that he was mumbling a continuous stream of prayer. It was inarticulate and confused and made very little sense even to him, but perhaps it was being heard.

  The path ended suddenly, emerging from a gully onto the gentle grassy slope at the top of the jutting rocky spine. The prisoners were shoved forward, unchained, and allowed to collapse on the grass. A slave went around to collect the loincloths.

  Two guards with drawn swords remained by the gully, but the rest seemed unconcerned, so clearly that gully was the only way down. No-the only safe way down. Wallie fought off waves of nausea. He tried not to think of the future, to think instead how well he had done to arrive here at all. The little boy should be pleased with him.

  At the highest point of the slope stood the shrine, a blue stone baldachin over a small replica of the statue in the temple. Behind that was the shiny bare rock of the cliff. The lower edge of the meadow ended in empty air, the far wall of the canyon obscured by billowing clouds of mist. The falls were magnificent-terrifyingly close, a vertical river rushing from the heavens far above to hell far below, shaking the earth in fury, unforgettable, merciless white death.

  He turned his back on them and sat quietly, looking down the canyon toward the temple, still astonishingly large, even at this distance. Set like a jewel within its enameled park, it was a truly beautiful building and an astonishing tribute to the deity it honored. Somewhere down there was Hardduju. He owed Hardduju something.

  The town was not visible, but he could see the road angling up the valley wall and even make out the minute specks that were the pilgrim cottages. He thought of that sweet slave girl. Crushed at the bottom of the social structure, without status or freedom or possessions of any sort, condemned to whore for others' gain, she had offered him solace and kindness, the only person in the World who had yet done so. If he survived and by the intervention of the gods was given freedom to act, then there was another debt he had to repay.

  For some time nothing happened. The naked prisoners, the guards, and the slaves all sat around in the sunshine as if they were having a cigarette break. The wind played coyly around them, bringing one moment the icy touch of death from the falls and next the warm scents of damp earth and tropical flowers. Nobody looked at anybody else. The boom of the falls would have made conversation almost impossible anyway.

  The Fourth in charge had been keeping an eye on the temple and must have caught a signal, for he suddenly yelled that it was time. Apparently the honor of marching first in the chain gang was matched by the honor of dying last. Wallie felt no great urge to argue this precedence. The first man squealed and tried to shrink into the grass as the guards approached him. They shouted at him and kicked him until he rose, ran to the shrine, and wrapped himself around the Goddess. After about thirty seconds, a guard hit him with a wooden club, and he went limp. The slaves carried him over to the edge and swung, and if the bell tolled for him in the temple, then the roar of the falls drowned it out.

  The prisoners were trying to inch themselves away from the guards, clinging desperately to an extra few moments of terrified life. It made no difference. One by one they went over the edge. Then it was Wallie's turn.

  The Fourth came himself and alone. He had to stoop and shout to make himself heard. "You did walk, my lord, like a swordsman. Will you also jump?" His eyes said that courage could be admired in anyone, imposter or not. He was only a soldier doing his duty; Wallie managed to smile at him.

  "I shall jump," Wallie said. "I wish to pray first, but tell me when my time is up. I do not wish to be thrown." He hoped that his voice sounded calmer to the swordsman than it did to him.

  He limped up to the statue in the shrine and knelt down. Feeling very self-conscious, he prayed aloud to the idol for the physical strength to be able to run, and for the mental strength to want to.

  There was no reply, and there was nothing else to say. He was very much aware of the sun on his bare skin, the blue sky with white clouds, the temple at the bottom of the valley, the spectacular wall of water on the other side, and birds wheeling freely in the air around. The World was very beautiful and fife was sweet... and why did this have to happen to him?

  "Time," said the guard with the club.

  Wallie rose and turned. He started to hobble down the slope. Amazingly, his legs and feet supported him. He increased speed to a run. There were a few cheers behind him. He reached the edge almost before he expected it, threw out his arms, and sailed off into space in a ragged dive. There was a great wind, and spray in his face, and then nothing.

  ††††

  Tumult and madness in the heart of thunder...

  Darkness...

  He was hung over a beam like a towel, head down and feet down.
The noise was calamitous, beating at his head and swinging him around by sheer force of sound, in darkness with just enough glimmer to show the beam wedged in a wall of jagged rocks, with a monstrous wave sweeping along it, rising. He grabbed his knees and hung on grimly as the water engulfed him, lifted him, and spun him over like a hoop on a stick. It sucked at him voraciously and then dropped him again with a sickening impact, until the next one could arrive.

  Gasping and desperate, he clambered onto the top of the beam as the water began rising again. He lunged from the beam to the rocks in which it was jammed, found a handhold, pulled himself higher, and grabbed a rock with both hands and his knees. The next wave surged waist-deep around him. His fingers had started to slip before it sank back.

  Darkness and terrible noise.

  There was no hope of being heard, but he would not be able to withstand another wave. He tried to shout, but managed only an urgent croak: "Shorty! Help Me!"

  Sudden silence. Peace. The waves had stopped.

  He thought he had gone deaf, or died. The pain in his chest was killing him. He had lost half his hide on the rocks.

  Light began to creep in around him. He blinked, then made out the shape of the rocks and the beam below and then more rocks, a steep slope of jumbled talus, boulders as big as houses or small as a desk, plastered with debris like the beam-which was obviously a piece of a ship's mast-and planks and tree trunks and branches, heaped and piled in steep chaos. It was a hillside, a giant's junk pile, with him clinging on it like a fly.

  His chest was bursting. He breathed in small gasps, every one a death.

  There was no source for the light, but it blazed up brighter and brighter like a winter sun. All the rocks glittered with it, and the lumber shone like mirrors. The roof was a jutting ledge of rock. The space below was enclosed in brilliant draperies of crystal and silver, frozen white splendor-iridescent jagged ice curtains. And downward, almost directly below his feet, the monstrous waves churned by the waterfall were stilled into immobile chasms of dark blue-green obsidian, encrusted with timbers and other deadly flotsam, grading to indigo and black in their depths. The air shimmered with myriads of brilliant specks, a mist of airborne diamonds. This was a space behind the falls, frozen by miracle.

  He was in no state to appreciate a miracle. He saw a flat rock, pulled himself onto it, and collapsed. Torrents of water gushed from his lungs in spasms of pain. He retched and puked and then lay still, breathing once more in huge, rasping lungfuls.

  At length his mind cleared. The pain subsided enough for him to raise his head and look around at this silent crystal-and-stone cathedral, this glacier cave shining whitely like the palace of the Snow Queen. The rugged drop below his rock perch was horrifying. The petrified waves were enormous-angry giants momentarily balked of their prey.

  "You have arrived, then," said the voice of the little boy, "safe if not quite sound?" He was sitting cross-legged on a nearby rock, higher, flatter, and more comfortable-looking than Wallie's. He held his leafy twig. He was showing his tooth gap in a mocking grin.

  "I think I'm dying," Wallie said weakly. He no longer cared. Every man must have a limit, and he had passed his. The gods could play with someone else.

  "Well, we can fix that," the boy said. "Stand up."

  Wallie hesitated and then obeyed, staggering to his bloody and pulped feet, unable to straighten, swaying dangerously.

  "My! You are a mess!" the boy said. He looked Wallie over and then pulled a leaf from his twig.

  Wallie felt himself heal. A wave of healing pouring through him. It started at the pounding pain in his head, washing that away. His vision cleared, then his loose teeth seemed to grip tightly into his skull, his ribs knitted, his sprains soothed, cuts closed, bruises eased, and his swollen testicles shrank back to normal size. The miracle reached his feet and died out.

  He looked himself over, sat down, and inspected his feet. They were better than before, but a long way from being cured. His eyes remained puffed and swollen, his bruises visible, if no longer very painful. The insides of him no longer felt too bad, but the outside was still an obvious catastrophe, and walking on those feet would still be hell.

  "Give me another shot!" he demanded. "You ran out of juice about halfway."

  The boy frowned warningly. "Hell does much more for you than heaven, Mr. Smith. I'll leave you a few reminders."

  There was no way to argue with such power. Wallie looked anew at the strangely vitrified waterfall. It had taken a miracle to bring him here alive. It would certainly take another to get him out. He wondered where the light was coming from. But he was stiff in pain, angry, and resentful.

  "You proved your faith," the boy said. He leaned his reedy forearms on pointed knees, staring thoughtfully down at Wallie. "You told me that faith was an attempt to explain suffering by postulating a higher meaning. Does that help?"

  "I thought it amused you," Wallie said, still bitter.

  This time there was menace in the frown. "Be careful!"

  "Sorry," Wallie mumbled, not feeling sorry. "You've been testing me?"

  "Proving you. You proved yourself. That is a tough body, but being tough is more than muscles and bone." He chuckled. "The Goddess does not need a swordsman who will sit down and convene a committee at every emergency. You displayed great courage and persistence."

  "And I suppose that I wasn't capable of that three days ago?" Wallie squirmed on the rock, trying to find a smooth spot to kneel on. He assumed he should be kneeling.

  "Of course you were," the god said, "but you didn't know it. Now you do. Enough of that! You proved your faith and you have agreed to undertake the task, right? The rewards can be whatever you want-power, riches, physical prowess, long life, happiness... your prayers will be answered. If you succeed. The alternative is death, or worse."

  Wallie shivered, although he was not cold. "The carrot and the stick?"

  "Certainly. And now you know both. But from now on you must earn your rewards."

  "Who are you?"

  The boy smiled and jumped to his feet. He bowed, sweeping his twig over the rock as a courtier might have swung a plumed cap over a palace floor. But he was only a skinny, naked little boy. "I am a demigod, a minor deity, an archangel-whichever you wish. You may call me 'Master' as it is forbidden for you to know my name." He dropped back to his seat. "I choose this shape because it amuses me and will not alarm you."

  Wallie was not impressed. "Why play games with me? I could have believed in you sooner if you had chosen a more godlike form-even a halo..."

  He had gone too far. The boy pouted in anger. "As you wish," he said, "just a small one."

  Wallie screamed and covered his eyes, but too late.

  The cave had been brilliant before. Now it blazed with glory like the face of a star. The boy remained a boy, but some small part of his divinity gleamed through for an instant, and that was enough to reduce a mortal to abject terror.

  In that flicker of majesty, Wallie was shown age beyond imagining, enduring since before the galaxies and continuing long after such transient fireworks would have faded; mind that would register an IQ in the trillions and could know every thought of every being in the universe; power that could snuff out a planet as easily as clean a fingernail; a nobility and purity that made all mankind seem bestial and worthless; cold, marble purpose that could not be withstood by anything; compassion beyond human conception that knew the sufferings of mortals and why they suffered, yet could not prevent those sufferings without destroying the very mortal essence that made their sufferings inevitable. He also sensed something deeper and more terrible than all of those, a presence for which there were no words, but which in a mortal might have been boredom or resignation, and was the dark side of immortality, the burden of omniscience and of having no limit to the future, no surprises in store, no end even beyond the end of time, forever and ever and ever...

  He became aware that he was groveling and writhing on the rock, gibbering with terror and contriti
on, wetting himself, howling, begging for mercy and forgiveness. His limbs shook uncontrollably. He wanted to hide, to die, to bury himself in the ground. He would have run all the way back to the jail, had that been a way to escape from that memory of glory.

  It took him a long time to regain control. When his eyes cleared and he could rise to his knees, the little boy was stiff sitting in the same place, but had turned his attention to the curtain of coruscating crystal that had once been a waterfall. He was pointing a finger at it and fragments moved at his bidding, building themselves into a tall lattice of mind-warping multidimensional complexity. Divine sculpture... even a glimpse at it was enough to make Wallie giddy. He looked away quickly.

  "Master?" he whispered.

  "Ah!" The skinny little boy turned back to him with a satisfied and gap-toothed smile. He did not wait for any attempt at apology. "You have recovered! I see you have scraped some more skin off. Well, now that we have straightened out your soul, more or less cured your body, and improved your attitude, perhaps we can get down to business?"

  "Yes?"

  "Yes, what?"

  "Yes, Master," Wallie said as humbly as he could. Obviously gods did not take kindly to smart-aleck mortals.

  The boy put an elbow on a knee and wagged a finger in the air, as though telling a story. "Now-Shonsu was a very great swordsman. There is perhaps no greater in the World at the moment." He paused for a moment, considering. "Possibly one about equal. Hard to say-we shall see." He grinned mischievously. "Shonsu had a mission, a task. He failed, and the penalty was death."

  Wallie opened his mouth, and the little boy said, "You must not question the justice of the gods!" in a voice that stopped anything Wallie might have been about to say.

  "No. Master."

  "The Goddess requires you to bring about what Shonsu could not."

  How far dare he question? "Master, why me? How and why was I brought here? How can I succeed where the greatest-"