by Dave Duncan
until he was in the center of the arch, then turned
to face his opponent across the width of the court.
Experienced spectators began whispering a name,
which in a moment worked its way along to the
Chivians: Herat!
Gartok had named three who could certainly
kill him and two who toyed with their victims.
Herat had belonged to both groups.
The monk was clean-shaven and wore his black
hair cropped short. He had the hollow belly
and hairless chest of a youth barely into manhood, but
appearances were reputed to be deceptive in
Samarinda. He emerged from the archway and paused
to raise his sword in a duelist's salute
while the great door silently closed behind him.
His blade shone gold.
Gartok returned the salute. The two men
marched toward each other. They looked more like man and
boy, though.
They met in the center, Herat stopping first and
raising his blade at guard to let the challenger
strike first. He turned his right shoulder toward his
opponent and placed his left hand on his hip,
fencer style. Gartok leaped in at
once with a dazzlingly fast two-handed slash. The
youngster parried it easily, and the challenger jumped
back. He began to circle, making feinting
movements, now using a matching one-handed grip.
The monk turned slowly to keep facing him.
Kromman said, "An expert commentary, if you
please, Sir Durendal."
"That was a very wild stroke. Gartok told me
that Herat likes to play cat and mouse. He was
gambling on surprise and assuming Herat would not
strike him dead if it failed."
"Could he have done?"
"I think so. Too early to be sure."
Gartok closed again, but Herat leaped back,
barely parrying. And again. The fight moved
swiftly across the court.
"Now who's winning?" asked the inquisitor.
"Why play ignorant?" Wolfbiter
snarled. "We know how good you are with a sword."
"Herat is," Durendal said. "Did you see
how neatly he avoided being pinned against the wall?
Gartok's good. Nothing fancy, but fast and
accurate. Herat's going to wear him out, though."
True enough. Herat let his opponent drive
him three times across the full width of the court,
until the older man began to tire. The third
time the monk was almost backed into a wall, he
changed tactics without warning and went on the
offensive in a flurry of clangorous parries
and ripostes. Round two had begun. Now the
pace was even faster, and it was Gartok who was in
full retreat. Monkeys shambled out of the way
whenever the battle came near.
"Do we have to watch this?" Wolfbiter asked
bitterly.
"That bad?" said the inquisitor.
"The only thing left to bet on is how long
he'll be made to suffer."
Or how long flesh and blood could stand that
pace, Durendal thought. He had never seen a
bout continue so long without a touch, and those were real
swords, not lightweight foils. "The kid is
superb. I wouldn't last a minute against him.
Well, maybe two. But he'd always beat me.
You agree, Wolf?"
"Loyalty forbids me to answer, sir.
Look at that! Point, edge, point again. He
hasn't repeated a move. He's just playing!"
The crowd was becoming noisy. Even Kromman
was showing signs of excitement, drumming
his fists on the wall. "This is it!" he rasped
as Gartok was expertly herded into a corner.
But no. With a wild slash at the monk's head
he broke out of the trap--was allowed to break
out. And round three began, for now Herat switched
to a very dirty game, pricking his opponent here and
there as the fancy took him: chest, arms, face,
even legs. None of the wounds seemed serious, but
soon the older man was streaming blood, while still
fighting desperately. He was driven
methodically backward around the courtyard, as if
to allow all the spectators a clear view of his
humiliation. In a moment they passed below the
Chivians, both fighters gasping for breath.
They did not progress much farther before pain and
despair and sheer exhaustion triumphed. The
challenger conceded. With a howl, he dropped his
sword and spread out his arms, waiting for the coup
de grace. The two men stood in tableau
for a moment, chests moving like bellows. Durendal
was fairly sure that Herat had been slowing down
near the end, so he was not without human limitations,
even if he was immortal.
The boy spoke and gestured, pointing at the
ground.
Gartok shook his head, and spoke a word that was
audible over the whole silent square: "Never!"
Herat laughed and flicked his golden sword in
the older man's face. Gartok screamed once
and doubled over, but then he straightened up again,
clasping his hands to his eyes, bleeding and blinded,
still too proud to kneel. That was a game he could
never win. Herat paced around him like a giant
cat circling its prey, making random cuts, but
seemingly just amusing himself, not playing to the
gallery, for he never once looked at the
spectators. Gartok was being flayed alive and
could not see the strokes coming. He screamed and
staggered; it sounded as if he was begging, but again he
refused a command to kneel. Eventually Herat
cut his throat and walked away, leaving him
to bleed to death.
The great door swung open to receive him. Something
about the way he wiped sweat from his forehead and the
relaxed way he walked suggested a young athlete
returning from a strenuous but enjoyable workout.
"I think we have seen all we need,"
Durendal said thickly. His gut was heaving.
"Why?" Wolfbiter asked. His face was
pale under his deep tan.
"What?"
"Why, sir? What is the purpose of all
this?"
"I wish I knew."
It was a curious question. Did barbarity need a
purpose?
They walked in silence through alleyways already
stiflingly hot under the midsummer sun, bustling with
people and carts and pack animals. Durendal chose
to leave the square by the far side and continued to bear
left, staying as close to the monastery as he could.
A couple of times he had to retrace his steps
at dead ends, but he had no serious trouble in
circling all the way around. He found only two
places where he could stand in the street and touch the
fortress. Everywhere else it was behind houses. There
was no other door.
Having now given himself time to think, he led the
way back to their room at the top of the precarious
stairway of slabs. He saw at a glance that the
packs had been emptied and carelessly stuffed
; back together. Cabuk had not been subtle. Knowing
his guests expected him to snoop and steal, he would
see no need to be devious about it.
Durendal scrambled up the ladder to the roof, which
was admittedly a superior feature of Hotel
Cabuk. At one time the house had possessed
another story, and most of the walls were still there, even
to windows blocked by the stonework of adjoining
buildings. When the original roof had burned
away to a few charred beams, the owners had spread
clay over the floor. The result seemed
likely to collapse at any moment, but the
resulting patio was private and as cool as
anywhere in Samarinda could be.
He kicked away enough litter to make a clearing
on the shady side and sat down. The other two
did the same. Finding he had a view of the
monastery towers, he glared at them with sudden
hatred. Why? Why murder a man every day? According
to the legends, this had been going on for thousands of
years. The Monastery of the Golden Sword had
always been there. There was no record of its founding.
Two years he had spent coming here, two years
he would need to return, and it seemed as if it would
all be wasted. He would go home with only
failure to report.
"Anyone want to eat?" he asked eventually,
and his companions shook their heads.
"Ideas, then. His Majesty told me
to rescue Everman or at least find out what
happened to him. We have--did have--an eyewitness
who saw him fight, so he's almost certainly still
alive." Was that progress? Yesterday at this
time, he had not expected as much. "At worst we
must linger here until he fights again and Wolf and
I can identify him. But how we go about getting a
message to him, I can't for the life of me ...
The castle--or monastery, whichever you want
to call it--seems to have no other door. Even if
it has its own well for water, they still have to get
food in and night soil out. Cabuk didn't
know, but he wouldn't care."
Wolfbiter was wearing his steady, calculating
stare. "And women. Monks may abstain, but
knights rarely do, even in theory. Those houses
crammed against the walls, they bother me, they
really do."
"You noticed the monkeys are all female?
Perhaps they don't always look like monkeys." The
alternative did not bear thinking about. "You think
there's a secret way in?"
"Must be. Several, through the houses. One of the
merchants told me that Samarinda is a good
place to buy swords. We can try to find out who
sells them and where he gets them."
"They may just leave them on the flagstones for the
scavengers."
"Yes, sir. But why not put Inquisitor
Kromman to work interviewing harlots and see if
any of them ever get called in by the brethren?
He's good at that sort--"
"Don't you start being childish. He's bad
enough. Today we explore the town and ask some
guarded questions. And we ought to find that merchant who
sent the letter. What was his name--Quchan?"
"Why?" Kromman asked with a disagreeable
pout.
"I'll write one and give it to him to send on
the next eastbound caravan. Then at least the King
may learn that we arrived." Assuming it ever
arrived, which was probably not probable. "If we
fail to return, he'll be less tempted to send
anyone else."
"But Quchan may very well be in league with the
brethren. I suggest you wait a few days first."
Durendal conceded the point with a nod,
knowing that the inquisitor was much better at
intrigue than he would ever be.
For a moment Kromman sat with a sour
expression on his face. Then he sighed. "I
wish I could show you both up as stupid
musclebound louts for missing something obvious. I
do think that's what you are, but I can't expose you
at the moment. We must prepare an escape
route in case we need to leave in a hurry. I
suggest we buy five horses and saddles and
stable them at one of those establishments outside the
gates. If we pay a high enough daily rate,
they should remain available."
"Five?" Wolfbiter said. "You think
Polydin's still alive too?"
"Everman was only twenty-two when he came
here. Few musclebound louts could be bribed with a
promise of immortality at that age." The
inquisitor sneered. "The brethren found a
Blade's weak spot, that's obvious."
He meant Everman's ward, because if they held
Jaque Polydin hostage, they could force
Everman to do anything. It was a horribly
logical way to explain how an honorable
swordsman had been turned into a cold-blooded
killer.
"Well, there's our first day," Durendal said.
"We'll see about horses, and explore the city
and make inquiries. I suppose we had
better eat something now before it gets any hotter.
Tomorrow we'll watch another man die."
It was small consolation that Kromman seemed
to be as baffled as he and Wolfbiter were.
The next day began very much like the first, with the
Chivians arriving at the courtyard as the sun was
rising. Durendal walked only a few yards
along the wall and stopped before he reached the house
from which Khiva son of Zambul had emerged the
previous morning.
"I want to watch from here today."
"Why?" demanded the inquisitor.
"Just a whim. You go 'round and talk to the human
sacrifices if you want."
Glowering suspiciously, Kromman remained.
So, of course, did Wolfbiter.
The challengers were gathering by the gate,
conspicuously including Khiva son of
Zambul, that hairy giant standing head and
shoulders above even the tallest. The sun crawled
up over the buildings, spreading brightness across the
flagstones. Yesterday's bloodstains were a darker
black, but the whole of the courtyard was a dark
color, dyed by the dried blood of centuries.
The previous day's inquiries had done nothing
to solve the mystery. Neither the inquisitor nor the
two Blades had managed to learn anything about the
monastery's domestic arrangements. No stall
keeper had admitted to delivering food or knowing
who did, and the men who gathered the night soil
claimed they did not collect any from the
brethren. None of which meant anything if
Wolfbiter's guess about concealed entrances was
correct.
The expedition had purchased horses in case
it must make a quick getaway. Whether a small
party could travel across Altain unmolested was
another problem, but if they could just reach
Koburtin, they could wait there for a caravan.
The trapdoor rose, and the first monkey
clambered out.
Durendal began to walk then, and his companions
followed in puzzled silence. They joined the
contestants, who greeted them cheerfully and asked
if they were now ready to submit their names.
Suddenly he decided to tackle the monkey
guardians. He had not intended to, for he would be
drawing attention to himself and might even put
Everman in danger, but he had learned to trust his
impulses. Swordsmen who waited to analyze
problems tended to die without finding answers. He
headed for the steps. Wolfbiter muttered a curse
and followed. Although the gate was still closed, the
monsters were clearly visible through the bars. They had
long tails, huge yellow fangs, an acrid
animal stench, and calluses on their shoulders where
the scabbard straps had worn the hair off. They
were certainly not people in costumes, yet the dark
eyes seemed intelligent.
"Give me your name and you will be called in
turn," one of them said.
When he did not reply, she repeated the
statement in another language, and then again in a
tongue he did not know.
"I am not ready to do that. I wish to speak with
one of the brothers."
The monkey scratched herself with big black
nails.
Feeling his skin crawl, he tried again. "I
have something important to tell the brethren."
Still no reaction. He glanced at
Wolfbiter. "Do you think she doesn't understand
or won't?"
"Won't. I'd be happier if you stood
farther from the bars, sir. I don't know how fast
she is."
Durendal moved back against the wall to ease
the strain on his ward, although the monkey's long arm
might still be able to reach him there.
"If you are going to put our names in,"
Wolfbiter said tensely, "give them mine first.
I will not be able to remain in the gallery if you are
down here fighting." He was speaking Chivian, but
could monkeys have the gift of tongues also?
"I'm not going to put anybody's name in. I
am not crazy, and I have a duty to report back
to my ward. Don't you answer questions?"
The monkey scratched again impassively.
The answer was no. The other one turned and
shambled toward the gong to begin the day's
spectacle. With an angry sense of failure,
Durendal trotted back up to the street and went
in search of a place to watch from. He had gained
nothing and might have warned the opposition that
Everman's friends had arrived at last.