by Dave Duncan
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.
The summons of the gong died away.
“Khiva son of Zambul!”
“Here!” roared the giant. He ripped off his bearskin and hurled it to the waiting scavengers, then went plunging naked down the stairs. He emerged through the gate, crouching under the stone lintel, and strode past the monkeys. He was much larger than they but not much less hairy. If his nudity was not just bluff and he truly was a berserker, then today’s match might not be the pushover Durendal had been expecting.
At that moment Kromman inquired, “What odds on Khiva the Short?”
When his ward did not answer, Wolfbiter said, “A thousand to one on the golden sword. Khiva hasn’t got a brain in his head.”
“He has a lot of muscles in his body.”
“I’d take the same odds on me against that lout—and cut him down to my size, or less.”
Boom!—boom!—boom! The giant’s fast blows seemed designated to tear the gong from its chains. They reverberated like thunder through the square, echoing off the monastery wall.
The great door began to open.
“He does not lack enthusiasm or courage,” the inquisitor said. “Intelligence in swordsmen is a relative matter, and that ax of his is at least six feet long. His arm can’t be much less. How do you close with him, Sir Wolfbiter?”
“I wear him out. I dodge his stroke and come in behind it. It must weigh—Oh, death and fire! Sir, isn’t that Everman?”
Steady! Durandal forced his fists to unclench and laid his palms on the wall. Everman had been one of the best. Superb, he had told the King. Trouble was, he was short, like Wolfbiter. He looked tiny, standing there in that huge archway. This was to be a battle of the bull and the bulldog.
The two men advanced toward the center as the monastery door closed. Sunlight glinted on Everman’s auburn hair. He had always been pale skinned, rarely taking a tan even in midsummer, and now his chest and arms seemed almost milk white. The closer he came to the giant, the smaller he became, like a boy facing an ogre.
Khiva had no use for duelists’ courtesies. He roared out a battle cry and charged, swinging that enormous ax around his head with one hand. Hair and beard streaming behind him, he bore down on his opponent within a whistling circle of flashing steel, safe from any swordsman’s reach. That was not the technique Wolfbiter had predicted.
Everman halted and watched him come, waiting in a half crouch. Which way would he jump—left or right? He would be far more nimble than Khiva, who would need five or ten paces to come to a halt and reverse direction, but even that great bone-brain must know that Everman would dodge. Khiva could lunge sideways at the last minute. If he guessed wrong, he could try again, but Everman would have no second chances. The contest would end when the challenger ran out of wind or the monk out of dodges.
They met and both men went down. Everman rolled clear and bounced to his feet at once, unharmed and unarmed. The giant slid to a halt face downward, while his ax clattered and clanged across the flagstones halfway to the monastery door. He had grown a bloody horn between his shoulder blades.
The encounter had been almost too fast for even Durendal’s expert eye. Everman had simply dropped to his knees under the ax and then sprung up, thrusting his sword two-handed into Khiva’s chest. The son of Zambul had done the rest, impaling himself on the blade with his own momentum. Stab! Gartok had said, right to the heart. The wonder was that Everman had not been crushed by the giant’s fall, but he was upright, dancing from foot to foot, and Khiva was prone, spread-eagled, hardly twitching. The spectators were silent.
The victor took hold of the corpse by one ankle and walked around it until it flopped over on its side and he could retrieve his sword. Then he headed back toward the monastery door. He had won his bout in little more than a minute, spilling almost no blood. He had not once looked at the audience, any more than Herat had the previous day—mortals must be beneath immortals’ notice. There was no cockiness in his walk, as there had been in Herat’s, but there was no dejection either.
Impulse: Durendal cupped his hands to his mouth and bellowed at the top of his voice, “Starkmoor!”
Everman missed a step and then kept walking, not looking around. He passed under the arch, turned to the left, and disappeared from view. The door swung shut.
The swordsmen began to disperse in gloomy silence.
“Oh, I approve,” said Kromman. “Very sharp and concise. Merciful pest control. Stamp on them quick so they don’t suffer.”
Durendal rounded on him. “Will you shut up, you slime-mouthed reptilian shit bucket? That man is a friend of mine, and he is in trouble!”
Kromman stared back at him with the fish-eyed gaze of an inquisitor. “Men are known by the company they keep, Sir Durendal.”
“Sometimes we have no choice. Let’s get out of here.”
“This way, sir.” Wolfbiter was wearing his warning expression, the one that made him look like a constipated trout.
“Lead,” Durendal said, puzzled.
But his Blade moved only a few paces, to the middle of the terrace, and then turned. “Here, I think. Pretend we’re having an argument or a discussion or something.” He was facing the monastery and the other two had their backs to it.
“You are behaving very much out of character,” Kromman complained. “I do not know what could provoke a Blade to start cultivating the superior habits of an inquisitor, but of course I am prepared to stand here all day if it will further your education and progress.”
A group of four contestants went by. Muttering, they disappeared into an alley.
“I just keep wanting to know why,” Wolfbiter said apologetically.
Kromman beamed like a toad. “You’re watching to see what happens to the body!”
The Blade gave him his familiar dark appraising stare. “Yes. And at the moment the monkeys are troopin
g back down the—Ah! The last two have gone for it. Yes, they’re carrying it to the trapdoor.”
Durendal said, “Only two?” Khiva would have outweighed an ox.
“Only two, sir, and not making heavy work of it, either. Gone. You can look now.”
The trapdoor had closed. The courtyard was deserted, bearing no sign of Khiva’s death except his great ax, which lay abandoned in the sunshine.
“What does it mean, Wolf?”
“I think that must be how they feed the livestock.”
“But—but they can’t go through all this just for that, surely?”
“Look!” Kromman snapped.
A wiry adolescent had dropped over the wall on one side of the yard, and two more came down on the other. They all raced for the ax. The solitary youth reached it first and sprinted back the way he had come with the other two in close pursuit. Reaching the wall, he hurled his booty up to his waiting friends. The opposition abandoned the contest and ran back to their own helpers. Thief and would-be thieves were hauled up, over the coping. The rival gangs vanished into convenient alleys and the courtyard was truly deserted again.
“Very slick,” Durendal grumbled, leading the way homeward. “They do it every day. I don’t think I could have handled Khiva as neatly as Everman did, though.” He would not have wanted to, that was the difference. “What you were hinting, Wolf, is that the monkeys are the masters and the brethren are the servants. A murder a day just to feed the apes on human flesh?”
Wolfbiter glanced appraisingly at him and said nothing.
They walked on in silence through the morning crowds.
“We have broken cover,” the inquisitor said suddenly. “You spoke to the monkeys and then shouted to Everman. I think your idea of a letter sent through Master Quchan may now be a wise precaution. If the brethren are opposed to our meddling, they will probably have little trouble tracking us down very shortly and—”
Durendal caught his companions’ arms to halt them. Cabuk’s house was straight ahead. Waiting there, seated on the third block of the staircase with his feet resting on the second, was a man in the anonymous dusty garments of Altain. The face under the flapped, conical cap was Everman’s, and he had already seen them.
6
He stepped down to the road as they approached, offering a hand and a wary smile. “Durendal! I did not expect you. And…Wait, don’t tell me. Not Chandler…Wolfbiter!” The smile broadened. “Sir Wolfbiter now, of course! Fire, how the years go! And?” He looked quizzically at Kromman.
“Master Ivyn Chalice, merchant.” Durendal’s conscience squirmed. He was lying to a brother Blade. “Our infallible guide. Let’s go up.”
“No, we’ll talk here. How are things back in Chivial? And Ironhall?” Everman had not changed on the outside, whatever he had become inside. His face was unusually pale for Altain but the same face it had been eight years ago. The gingery eyebrows and eyelashes were the same, his eyes perhaps more cautious. Immortality must agree with him.
“The land’s at peace. The King was well when we left—remarried, expecting a second child. Queen Godeleva produced a daughter and he divorced her. Grand Master finally died. Master of Archives succeeded him.” Durendal felt waves of unreality wash over him as he tried to discuss such matters in this exotic alleyway—with bizarre crowds trooping by, mules and even camels, beggars chanting, conical caps with earflaps, hawkers wheeling carts and waving hot meat on sticks, alien scents, harsh voices, slanted eyes without visible lids.
Everman nodded as if none of it mattered very much. “I was afraid he’d try again. I didn’t expect you, though. You were not bound to the King.”
“I am now.”
“You have had a long journey for nothing, brother.” His red-brown eyes stared intently at Durendal. “There is no philosophers’ stone. Discard the first wrong answer. There is no secret in Samarinda that you can steal for good King Ambrose.”
“There are mysteries, though.” Not the least of them was whatever had changed a former friend into this stranger. “There is a source of gold. And apparently there is immortality.”
Everman shrugged sadly. “But nothing you can take or use. Look…” He reached for his sword and Fang flashed into Wolfbiter’s fist.
Everman jumped and raised both hands quickly, palms out. He glanced from one Blade to the other and then smiled. “I can tell who is whose ward. I just want to show you something.”
“Put your sword up, Wolf.” Fortunately none of the passersby had taken alarm. “Show us what?”
Everman pointed at the stone on the pommel, keeping his hand well away from the hilt. “The cat’s eye is coated with wax. The blade’s covered with gold paint. I was going to draw it and show you the scratches. This is Reaper, the sword I took from the anvil in Ironhall. You want to look closer?”
“What’s the significance?”
“Discard the second wrong answer. There is no enchanted sword in the monastery, in spite of its name. There are some fiery good swordsmen, but no enchanted swords.”
“There’s you. Why? Why did you join them?” What are you now, who were once my friend? Why kill men the way you swatted that half-witted giant this morning? What harm had he ever done you?
A passing wagon caused them to move closer together. Everman sighed and leaned an elbow on one of the slabs of the stair.
“My ward died, so discard the third wrong answer. Master Polydin died of a fever in Urfalin.” He peered around at their faces. “You know what that does to a Blade. I decided to carry on, and I made it all the way here. I prowled around like you’ve been doing, I expect, and couldn’t find out anything at all. So I put my name in. The day my turn came, Yarkan drew short straw. He brought out a broadsword and I managed to prick his knee. They took me inside…. There’s a stack of gold bars there. I tucked one under each arm and walked out again. That night I sat in my room and stared at them and tried to decide what on earth I needed gold bars for.”
Durendal could not see Kromman’s left hand and suspected he was not signaling anyway or else that all this was true. “And?”
“And the next day I answered my call again—they give you a second chance, you know. If I hadn’t taken it, then Yarkan would have fought again, but this time they sent out Dhurma. I won again.”
“Ironhall would be proud of you.”
A brief smile made Everman’s face seem absurdly boyish. “Our style was new to them. They know it now—I’ve taught them. The third day they sent Herat.”
“Third?”
He shrugged, almost seeming embarrassed. “You haven’t heard that part? Three wins and you’re in. I couldn’t resist. I’d been sent to discover the secret, remember.”
“You were always a daredevil.”
“Oh? The well is calling the puddle deep, Sir Durendal.”
“We watched Herat yesterday. Vicious. You beat Herat?”
“Nobody ever beats Herat. He says I gave him the best sport he’d had in a century or two, though. When I was about to pass out from loss of blood, he dropped his guard. I was so mad I disemboweled him.”
Wolfbiter whispered, “Fire and death!”
Everman chuckled. “Fire, maybe. We staggered back to the monastery together, but he was helping me more than I was helping him—holding his guts in with one hand and me up with the other. Their healing conjurements are vastly better than anything we have back in Chivial. By next morning I was good as new. I became one of them.”
“And you’re staying there of your own free will?”
Everman nodded. “I’m going to stay here forever.” He met Durendal’s stare defiantly. “Of my own free will.”
A beggar boy started wailing for alms. Kromman clipped him on the ear to send him packing. He used his right hand, though, not signaling. How much of Everman’s tale was true? What should Durendal ask next? Gold? Immortality? Monkeys eating human flesh?
“The King sent me to get you back. If there was a philosophers’ stone, and I could find it, w
ell and good, but my prime directive is to bring you home. He won’t have one of his Blades made into a performing bear.”
“Kind of him. And since I don’t want to leave?” Everman had lost his smile. He was as tense as if he had his sword in his hand.
“He said I could use my own judgment.”
“You always had good judgment, even if you were a worse daredevil than me. Go home and meddle no more in Samarinda.”
Durendal glanced inquiringly at Kromman, but the inquisitor’s fishy stare told him nothing. How much of the story was true? None of it, if Polydin was chained in the monastery cellar.
“In the King’s name, Sir Everman, I command—”
“Screw fat Ambrose.”
Wolfbiter hissed at this sedition. Everman laughed.
Appeal had failed, duty had failed. The renegade seemed ready to terminate the discussion. If he dodged off into the crowds, he would be gone forever. All Durendal had left to try now was force.
“There are three of us, brother, and only one of you. We could take you, I think.”
Everman stared hard at him and then shook his head sadly. “Brother, you say? Oh, brother, brother! Look over there.”
They all looked. Three youths were lounging against the opposite wall, watching. The middle one was Herat. He smiled.
“My brothers now,” Everman said. “Go home, Sir Durendal. Go home, Sir Wolfbiter. There is nothing in Samarinda for you or for the King. Whatever secrets the monastery holds will not work in Chivial, I promise you. You will find only death here, and this is a long way from home to die.” His lip curled. “And take your tame inquisitor with you. Give my regards to Ironhall. Reaper is one sword that will never hang in the hall, but you don’t have to mention that.”
7
I suppose I’m just pigheaded. Hardest part of being a King—being any sort of leader—is knowing when to quit. You’ve wounded the quarry…. No, Durendal thought, the quarry had wounded him. The quarry had run him out of town with his tail between his legs. He was going home to report failure.