Sightblinder's Story

by Fred Saberhagen

  No one on the docks paid more than momentary attention to Zoltan as he, in his turn, scrambled up out of the water, shivering and gasping, to crawl across the stones. No one came forward to help him, any more than they had helped any of the half-dead stragglers who lay wheezing and quaking on the paving blocks around him. Those men who were able to stand up immediately after their swim were being ordered on into the castle through the small connecting gate that now stood open. A sergeant who stood beside the gate was bawling something about a formation in a courtyard. Deeper inside the castle, bugles were sounding, and drums beating; it was evident that at least a partial alert had been declared.

  Trying to jam his ill-fitting helmet more securely on his head, Zoltan got quickly to his feet and hurried in through the gate. Here there were fewer torches, and he paused to try to wring some of the water from his cape, meanwhile looking about him. So far, in the semidarkness and confusion, no one had noticed that his clothing under the cape was not a uniform.

  Water splattered from the cape as he squeezed and twisted its rough fabric. Not far ahead of him, framed by another gateway, Zoltan could see a large courtyard aswarm with military preparations. It was from there that the drums and bugles sounded, and it was there that he particularly did not wish to go.

  On his right, a darkened stairway offered the most obvious opportunity to turn aside; Zoltan seized that opportunity, and went trotting lightly and silently up.

  On the first dim landing he paused briefly to listen and look back, trying to make sure that no one below had noticed him slipping away. Then, deciding that he had already attained a level comfortably above most of the lights and activity, he started out to explore.

  Exploring in darkness, through totally unfamiliar territory, was slow and difficult work at best. Presently, seeking to find an area in which he could at least see where he was going, Zoltan took another stair upward. This ascent was a narrow and winding one, and proved longer than he had expected. When at last he came to a window he was able to see, on the tower levels of the castle that were higher still, more lights and several sentries. These guards were standing at attention or pacing slowly, and appeared calmly unaffected by the turmoil among their comrades at ground level.

  Zoltan stepped back from the window, drawing a deep breath. Slowly an unwelcome fact was impressing itself upon him: now that he was here, he had no plan of what to do next. It had been easy enough to say, at a distance: find Prince Mark. But if Mark was here, and still alive, where was he being held?

  Doing his best to think constructively upon that point, Zoltan decided that any prisoner so eminent and important would more likely be locked up in one of these towers than in a dungeon. He had of course no real evidence to support that point of view; but now it crossed his mind that Lady Yambu, assuming she had been able to reach the castle and was still here, would probably also be housed in one of these towers. He could not really picture her being thrown into a dungeon whatever happened. And if Zoltan could reach her, she might be able to help him, or at least provide him with some information about Mark.

  After another pause, to squeeze more water out of his uniform cape and other clothing, Zoltan began trying to work his way toward the base of one of the towers that he considered promising. Since he was totally unfamiliar with the layout of the rooms and corridors here, and having at times to grope his way through almost total darkness, a number of false starts and detours were inevitable. At one point, alerted by approaching torchlight, he took shelter in a darkened niche as a youth he took to be a messenger went trotting by.

  Pausing in yet another darkened passage, trying yet again to press more water from his garments, the shivering Zoltan wondered whether he ought now to dispose of helmet and cape, and try to pass himself off as a servant or some other civilian worker. He had seen a few such, at a distance, since entering the castle. But he supposed that if he did that his wetness would draw more attention. His clothes were not going to dry quickly on this chill, damp night. Until he could manage a total change of clothing, he had better stay as much as possible in darkness.

  He moved on slowly, looking for an opportunity to change his garments. Here was a row of doors, and some of them opened willingly enough when he pushed on them—these were small storerooms, but either empty or filled with moldering, useless junk. It seemed that Honan-Fu, or someone in his household, had been unwilling to throw anything away.

  It appeared that nothing so convenient as a clothing store was going to present itself to Zoltan’s need. When he had moved past the last of the storerooms, more windows showed him another tower, a good part of it lighted. In one of those high rooms, he thought with a shudder, his archenemy himself might well be quartered. He who called himself the Ancient One might even be peering out of one of those high windows at this moment, while receiving reports from his officers on the disturbances in the lake below. Zoltan shuddered once again, remembering his one contact with that man—if indeed he could be called a man—some two years ago.

  Zoltan moved on from the windows. At last, in a disused closet, he found some garments hanging on a row of pegs along a wall. There was a dry, shapeless, almost sizeless smock, which hid most of his own clothing when he put it on. Concealing the helmet and the still-dripping cape behind some junk in a dark corner of the closet, he at last felt ready to try to pass among the enemy.

  He would have to be one of the lower class of servants now; no one else would wear a garment so disreputable as this smock. Acting on an inspiration, Zoltan grabbed up a pot sitting on the closet floor. The vessel looked as if it might once have been used to carry water, or grain; he would take it with him. Looking as if you were already busy was the best protection against the curiosity of authority.

  Now he could postpone the real search for his uncle no longer. Ready or not, he was going to have to let himself be seen.

  He made his way, with some difficulty, from the area of the storerooms and closets into the base of one of the lighted towers. Zoltan could curse himself for not having foreseen the complexity of this place; but he had not, and the only thing to do now was try to get on with the job. Still, it was beginning to seem to him that the job of finding his uncle must be a hopeless one.

  Then he urged himself to get a grip on his nerves. Surely it would not be necessary for him to search everywhere inside the castle. The number of apartments in this particular tower was certainly quite limited, and when he had somehow eliminated all of them he would move on to the next-

  Rounding a sharp corner, Zoltan unexpectedly found himself confronting two figures in the corridor just ahead of him. The taller was a being with reptilian attributes: short, leathery wings, and a face no more than halfway human. In an instant he knew that he was facing, for the second time in his life, the terrible wizard known now as the Ancient One.

  Zoltan recoiled, his hand going to his side in search of a weapon that was no longer there, that had been taken from him when he was captured. A weapon that would have been useless in any case, because—because—

  The horror in front of him was standing still, looking at him, saying nothing. But over its bestially deformed shoulder there appeared another face, calm and recognizable, that of Lady Yambu.

  She said: “Zoltan, you need not be afraid. This is not who you think.”

  Zoltan sagged against a wall. “Ben?” he asked softly.

  The horror shook its head. “I am not Ben,” it informed him.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The fastest and most direct route from the front of Lady Ninazu’s manor back to the docks lay through the grounds rather than around the outer wall. Ben, half-urging the lady, half-towing her with him, was moving from the arena where the performance had taken place back toward the main gate. He was about to reenter that gate and then cut through the grounds to reach the boats when he was accosted by two men wearing rough civilian garb.

  He might have pushed them aside, but at the last moment he recognized the younger one as Haakon of the bushy
eyebrows, who had once introduced himself as a member of Honan-Fu’s constabulary.

  Ben stopped. Haakon and Ben gazed at each other for a moment in silence. Both of the local men ignored Lady Ninazu completely. On the field in front of the manor, meanwhile, the laughter was becoming louder, more certainly hysterical.

  Raising his voice to make himself heard above the noise, the man who was accompanying Haakon said to Ben: “Haakon tells me you are no friend of those rats who have moved in on the island. Well? Quickly, we have no time to waste.”

  “Well then, Haakon is telling you the truth. What of it? I’m in a hurry too.”

  Lady Ninazu did not appear to be offended by the fact that the men were ignoring her. She stood waiting patiently for the moment, looking from one to another of the three men as if trying to gauge the truth about them.

  “Nor are we friends of this invader who calls himself the Ancient One,” said the speaker to Ben. He was tall, with brown skin, white hair, and a grave manner. “I am Cheng Ho, and I was once a captain in the Triplicane constabulary.” He jerked his head toward the Emperor, who was still cavorting down at the far end of the field while waves of noise, noise that could no longer be called merriment, surrounded him. “Who is this man in the clown mask? We have served Honan-Fu for years, and have seen the magicians who visited him, and their contests; and yet we have never seen wizardry like this.”

  Suddenly Lady Ninazu seemed to awaken. She was impatient to be gone, and not about to allow Maxim the Strong to waste any more of his time with this riffraff.

  Ben didn’t want to lose her, or offend her either, and so he had to be quick. He said to the two local men: “All I can tell you in a few words about the one in the mask yonder is that you should trust him, if you are no friends of the invading soldiers. That is what I am doing now, trusting his advice. As far as I know, he is a magician without equal—and certainly he can have no love for those who now occupy the castle on the island.”

  Haakon and Cheng Ho had both taken notice of the lady now, and it seemed to Ben that they were about to speak to her—or to him about her. But her brief interval of patience was evidently exhausted. She would brook no further delays, and Ben allowed himself to be towed and ordered after her.

  The uproar made by the soldiers in the field behind them went on without pause as Ben and the lady passed through the unguarded gate and reentered the manor grounds. Taking a last look back Ben could see that the great majority of the civilian audience had already departed. A few of the soldiers were still on their feet, and appeared to be running aimlessly about. But the ground was covered with bodies in gray and red, kicking and convulsing.

  The sounds made by the Emperor’s enemies followed Ben and Lady Ninazu all across the darkened grounds. Again she led him at a fast walk, as if her vision was indeed keener in the dark than that of any ordinary girl or woman. Or perhaps it was only that she had spent so much time in these grounds that she knew the location of each tree. Presently they were moving past the arbor in which Ben had first encountered her, its lanterns now burning low; and now they were once more approaching the gate that led out to the boathouse and the docks.

  Together they listened carefully at the portal before Ben opened it. All was quiet outside, and when Ben swung back the gate there was no one there. Probably, he thought, all the soldiers had gone round to the front of the manor, attracted by sounds the like of which they had never heard before.

  Those sounds, not much diminished by the modest distance and the intervening walls, were still a great deal louder than he would have preferred.

  The oars that Ben had begun to put in place were still where he had dropped them, in the bottom of the little boat. There was no one to stop him now as he handed the lady down into the boat, and saw her seated in the stern, wearing an attitude of somewhat precocious dignity.

  “You are a worthy servant, Maxim.” She gave the pronouncement a judicious sound.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Ben returned. And I may at last prove myself a worthy friend, he thought, if I can still get out to that demon-damned island in time to do the Prince some good. And he told himself, for perhaps the thousandth time since Mark had been taken, that whoever had taken him was not likely to have killed him as quickly as this, or even to have harmed him very much as yet. They would be hoping to learn too much from him to do that. Hoping to learn too much, and also to collect a royal ransom.

  Ben cast loose the boat, and then settled himself on the middle thwart, and with steady, powerful strokes of the oars he began to propel himself and Lady Ninazu toward the glittering, magical-looking castle on its distant island.

  He rowed and rowed, but for a long time the terrible laughter of the stricken soldiers, like the dancing reflection of the manor’s lights, continued to follow them over the water. Plainly all of the townspeople of Triplicane, from one end of the settlement to the other, would be able to hear that sound. Those who had been present would spread the story. All who heard the sound or the story would marvel, and some of them would be brave enough to investigate to find out what was happening. Before morning the great bulk of the local population would be aware that the invaders had been dealt a serious blow. Ben had not stayed long enough to be sure exactly what was happening to the garrison, but he suspected that a good portion of their fighting force was being effectively wiped out.

  If the lady, seated on her cushions in the stern of the rowboat, had any thoughts at all about the horrible laughter and what might be happening to those who laughed, she kept those thoughts to herself. It was rather as if she was almost entirely caught up in the anticipation of reaching some long-desired goal, and that goal involved her getting to the castle. Holding herself elegantly erect, she leaned forward slightly on her seat, staring into the night past Ben. Evidently she was feasting her eyes upon the torchlit structure ahead of them as his efforts slowly but surely brought it nearer. From time to time, in crisp impatience, she uttered a sharp word or two, urging Ben to greater efforts at the oars.

  He responded with eager nods and smiles to these commands, and continued to set his own pace, which was already about as brisk as he felt capable of keeping up across the distance without exhaustion. He expected that he might well need some reserves of strength and wind when he arrived.

  Facing the stern of the boat as he rowed, Ben observed how the dark bulk of the manor and its surrounding walls and trees still hid the continuing performance of the Show of Ensor from his sight; a concealment for which he continued to feel grateful. Even with his own immediate fate to be concerned about, along with Mark’s and Zoltan’s, he still found even the sounds of that performance to be unpleasantly distracting. There were stretches of time as Ben rowed, sometimes periods of several minutes, in which the cacophony of that murderous laughter seemed to be abating not at all with the increasing distance.

  Only in Ben’s imagination could he now see what might be happening in the arena of the performance; and that uncertain vision showed him the Emperor still playing his own kind of joke, still cavorting in the guise of humility and humor even while the ground around him was littered thickly with his victims, who one after another expired in purple-visaged chokings.

  There was no wind tonight to blow those sounds away, and sound as always traveled far over water. At least what slight current there might be in the lake appeared to Ben to be favorable, bearing the rowboat on toward its goal.

  Ben rowed, and in the midst of his rowing there came a noisy but more natural-sounding disturbance from some distance in the darkness to his left. He looked in that direction, but the faint glow of moonlight on the broad expanse of water showed him nothing helpful. Now the noise came again, of men’s voices shouting raggedly, followed by a heavy splashing as if a boat might have been somehow overturned. Ben altered his course a trifle, intending to give a wide berth to the trouble, whatever it might be.

  “What are you doing, Maxim? You are turning off course.”

  “Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am,
but it sounded like some trouble off that way. Drunken soldiers or whatever. We don’t want to be stopped now, we want to get on to the castle without any interference.”

  “You have a point there, Maxim. Very well, you may deviate. But not too widely.”

  Again the lady sat gazing at the faerie structure ahead, all faint moonlight and mysterious shadows punctuated by sparks of flame. “That is my home, Maxim. And now at last, after many years, I am going there again.” Suddenly she fixed Ben with a sharp look. “You have never seen my twin brother, have you? The young lord Kunderu?”

  “No, ma’am. I haven’t had that privilege.”

  “You are right to put it in those terms. He is, you know, more like a god than like a man, more beautiful even than … and when I think of what our father has done to him—I do not see why the new lord of the castle refuses to set him free.”

  Ben had no ideas on that subject, and in fact he judged it best to keep as silent as possible on all matters political and familial. He grunted and wheezed a little, to demonstrate that he was going to need all his breath just to keep up the pace at which he continued to row. And in truth he was in a hurry. Looking at the stars and estimating the remaining distance to the castle dock, he judged that they would do well to complete the trip within an hour.

  Briefly he considered whether he might do better to pull all the way around the island, and try to come ashore on the side opposite the castle docks. But there might well be no way to get into the castle on that side. And besides, the lady’s growing tension as they approached the island convinced him that she would stand for no further detours without a very vigorous protest. There would be screaming, at the least.

  So far the wench had said no more about her father. Even stranger than that, perhaps, was the fact that her father seemed to have had her under long-term house arrest, in her own house—and still more curious, the new regime had evidently continued the confinement.