Above the sound of rushing blood in his ears, above the scream of the voice in his head, Corin heard a loud cry of rage. It was cried in the Seltic tongue. It was a battle cry and a song. It was like many voices in chorus. And the thieves fell back from it. Through their midst like a dragon boat’s prow through foaming waves came a tall figure, swinging a massive two handed sword, sweeping it around as he whirled in a deadly circle, stars sparkling in his blue eyes, auburn hair streaming around him. The sound of the song was uplifting to Corin though it filled his enemies with terror. And Agmar came through them, like a farmer with a scythe, cutting them down like the tall summer grass. The thieves tried to surround him, to backstab him, but he swung in mad circles, a dance of death, his great two handed sword a glinting circle in the spectral moonlight into which none could enter and live. And as he danced he sang, a song of heroes, of beasts and armies overcome, of last stands at the gates of the underworld, of mortals defying gods and demons fleeing in fear. And these tales were in a language Corin didn’t know, yet now he somehow understood it. The sword thrilled in his hand, and each time it struck it rung with tones like those of Agmar’s voice. And the tones of the bard’s song harmonised in ways no human vocal chords should have been able to produce, as if Agmar sang in many voices. And to the euphoria of the song that both bard and sword were singing Corin blocked and slashed and thrust with more confidence, his fatigue forgotten, every stroke only making him stronger. And then he and the bard stood alone in the square, the remaining thieves having fled, down alleyways, over roofs, even through open doors and windows; anywhere to escape the terrifying song and its accompaniment of slaughter.
Agmar laughed and wiped his great two handed sword on the cape of a decapitated master thief. “Remember thief, the greatest asset of a warrior is the ground he chooses to fight on. Your enemies chose the ground on which you couldn’t fight them, but unwittingly chose the ground on which they couldn’t hold me back.”
“There were so many of them.”
“Yes, but they’re sneaking thieves, give them an open battlefield and their courage soon fails them.” He gazed ironically at the thief. “And yet, you, Corin, boy thief, rascal, more than held your own.”
“It wasn’t me.”
Agmar looked around theatrically. “Hmm, where did the fighter flee?”
“It was the sword.”
Agmar raised an eyebrow. “So it drew your arm? It’s as I thought. A sentient sword. It is a gift, or a curse.”
“Why a curse?”
“Well, such swords are not common, not even among relics of power, but I’ve heard tell that a sentient sword might choose its victims against its wielder’s wishes. It might just as easily strike down friend as foe.”
“Maybe I should ditch it then.”
“No, at least find out what exactly it is first. It may be a blessing. If it’s truly a curse, then get rid of it. But start with knowledge, not ignorance. Speaking of which, let’s visit the old twins. I gather that’s where you were heading before you were so rudely interrupted by the thieves.”
“Speaking of which, how did you happen upon us?”
“It occurred to me that without me you wouldn’t be able to pass through the palace precincts, so you were likely to do something foolish.”
“I grew up on this city’s streets. It’s not like I’ve never passed through this quarter.”
“No, but as you left the baiting pit I saw a thief following. I guessed from what happened to you recently that they weren’t friendly. I followed at a distance, and he was joined by others. A regular party of scoundrels. Not that I have anything against scoundrels. You, for instance….”
“But I took so many back streets.”
“Yes, but I guess someone overheard us. They knew where you were heading. As I did, of course. I guess that this square is the conjunction of many of the back ways. They must have known about where you’d likely appear. I simply followed them. If there had only been one I’d probably have lost his trail or he’d have sensed me, but there were so many of them that it wasn’t too hard.”
Corin looked around at the bodies, at least a score were scattered around them. “You’re pretty dangerous with that bloody ridiculously big sword.”
Agmar mock bowed. “And you, master thief, are dangerous enough with that blade that I don’t think you’ll need to worry too much about the thieves’ guild for now.”
“Until they send proper assassins to deal with me silently, sneakily.”
Agmar winked, “But you’re sneakier than them, right?”
Corin grinned, sheathing the bone sword.
Chapter 9: Thief of Knowledge
Jared looked away from the lens, blinked and rubbed his eyes. He went outside his observatory. No one was around. His brother’s stairway to the moon, a ridiculous project in Jared’s estimation, rose into the greying sky. His brother was nowhere to be seen. Probably at work high up in the sky, getting closer to nowhere. The moon was setting in the west, its prismatic illumination replaced by the grey of dawn. Whatever Jared might think of the stairway as a utilitarian object, he had to admire his brother’s skill and determination. If only he could get him to help more with the observatory, the secrets of the moon’s interior would be sooner revealed, and with it the wisdom of the gods. Jared walked over to the southern edge of the tower. It took a few minutes, since the tower, like those of all four quartering gates of the city, had a diameter of four hundred yards. He peered over the battlements. Why did they have battlements here? Who would be foolish enough to try to take this city? It would be easy enough to take the inner ring, with its palace buildings close to the water, and access under the outer ring, but the outer ring was so far above the water you would have to extend enormous scaling towers from a ship’s deck. And how would you get a ship up to the caldera lake? Unless you built it up here. It amazed him how impractical these so called men of the world sometimes were. And they called him a dreamer. He looked southwards across the lake to the great arc of the Labyrinth of Leaves.
He and his twin brother had both been monks there once, many years ago. Still some nights he dreamed of it, of being lost in its mazes. He would hold up his lantern at each archway to read the runes, but they were incomprehensible. He would open a book and its letters were meaningless scrawls. After a life devoted to learning he knew so little, such a tiny fraction of the sum of all human knowledge. And because of his ignorance he couldn’t find his way in the dark. So he must search further, going forth into the darkness, not to discover something new, but to find a trace of what he had once known. But it was nowhere to be found, and in the Labyrinth of Leaves he knew it was a vanishingly small part of the whole, a part he might spend a lifetime not finding. And yet he must try. And then he would wake, and know his knowledge was not enough, and never could be.
That the new abbot was, unlike his predecessor, reluctant lending books and scrolls from the labyrinth to the twins, made the search for knowledge more difficult. Whenever they asked he would hum and haw. That volume could not be found. That part of the library had been catalogued but the catalogue had not been catalogued. And so on, and so on. Jared wondered if he saw resentment in the abbot’s face, envy of these two who had escaped. Yet, for all Jared’s love of practical science, he suspected some of the envy was his own. He could no longer walk freely in the labyrinth. So much had been lost to gain so little. So little knowledge! But, he quickly corrected himself, what lifetime can yield more? Soon enough he would find himself in a darkness deeper than any in the great library, in a place where all turnings led only to oblivion, led away from what little he had known. The old abbot had died. He been a friend, and the old abbess also. But she was the Oracle now, and the one who replaced her in the library, though her heart was kind, had not yet the wisdom not to pass requests through the obfuscating new abbot, who was more politician than philosopher. Nor had she the learning to find a tome herself. He might try to explain in detail how to find what he sought, but he didn�
��t want her to realize how well this outsider knew the labyrinth. The Orders of the Leaves guarded their mysteries jealously.
A rush of air announced the descent of Javid, standing on one of the stone slabs with which he was constructing his stairway. The slab reached the tower and Javid inscribed a rune of dispelling in the air, then stepped off and joined Jared at the battlement. Javid breathed in deeply, and said, “The air has cleared.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” Jared said, looking into his brother’s face. Since it was like looking into a mirror he saw his own aging there but, perhaps because of the air, which Jared did notice now that it had been mentioned, Javid’s mood was brighter.
“Lost in your work?”
“Finding myself in my work.” Jared looked at his brother ironically.
“I could do with some help,” Javid replied hopefully.
“So could I.”
“You know my work is the more important.”
“What, building a stairway to nowhere?” As soon as he said it he knew he should not have.
Javid’s face clouded over. “The moon isn’t nowhere.”
“And yet,” Jared said, pointedly looking to the horizon where the moon was setting while pointing straight up, that’s where your stairway ends.”
“Star-way. It’s a work in progress.”
Jared relented. “Like life,” he sighed, and the same doubts that had previously assailed him struck again.
“Until it ends,” Javid’s sigh echoed Jared’s own.
“Or all things end. When the lost are found…”
“…the old age will end. I don’t think the prophecy refers to our mortality.”
“Why not? With each man a whole world dies.”
“But with each man’s end life continues. New children are born. Likewise, with the end of all things a new world might be born.”
“Whether or not a new age will begin is not said in the prophecy.”
“Well, let’s hope the lost are not found.”
“Who even knows what the lost are?”
The brothers turned as two figures approached. The thief, Corin, and the bard, Agmar.
“How fare the wise?” Agmar said.
The flattery worked quickly. “Never wise enough,” said one, smiling with a mix of modesty both true and false. Corin thought it might be Jared, by observing the length of one protruding white hair of his left eyebrow, but couldn’t be sure; they looked so similar, “but we are but the servants of learning.”
“And in learning is knowledge, Jared,” said his brother, “the treasure of the wise.”
“Yes, Javid, and what could be more divine?”
The mirror image nodded sagely at itself.
Corin could think of several things – the glimmer of stolen gold, Rose’s caresses, a talking donkey – but he kept his thoughts to himself. At least he thought he could tell one from the other now, as long as they didn’t change places. “Could you tell me about this?” he said. He unstrapped the sheath and partly drew the sword.
Jared examined the blade while Javid looked on. Jared took a large, flat, transparent gem out of his purse. The gem was shaped like a lens but with facets which seemed to shift when Corin looked at them, folding into and out of each other. Jared held it an inch above the blade and looked through it. He moved the gem along the blade, his face a study in concentration. Then he nodded.
“Certainly a magical blade,” Jared said, looking up at Corin, “that much is clear. Look at this.”
Corin looked through the gem. The facets shifted and he felt disoriented but couldn’t drag his eyes away. As the facets shifted images started to appear in them, and as the images appeared they shifted with the facets, folding in and out of each other, forming and reforming, dissolving and coalescing. He saw a river flowing and two bull headed beings, their giant humanoid bodies towering above the currents, their horns locked, the water churned to foam about their massive thighs.
“Do you see them?” Jared asked.
Corin nodded dumbly, still staring at the image in the lens. “Yes.”
“The runes are…”
“Runes?”
“You said you saw them.”
“Them, huh?” As Corin looked the figures in the stream dissolved, the colour of their forms flowing beyond their outlines, which twisted together, and knotted then unravelled then knotted again. He understood that the outlines were runes, and they flowed along the blade. The runes pulsed to a rhythm, and he could feel the rhythm in his hands before he heard it in his head without the aid of his ears. It grew in intensity, like the thrumming of some mad minstrel on the sounding board of his lute. But this thrumming had meaning, not the emotional meaning of music, but the meaning of a language that was taking form in new ways in every moment. It coalesced into words, and he knew the voice. And the voice had power. What it spoke was. And its silence was the end of things.
Corin tried to form the words with his mouth, but they weren’t made for any human tongue. Only by contorting his vocal organs into unnatural shapes would he begin to express what he knew, but between the knowledge and the word the meaning dissolved, leaving nothing but ordinary human sounds, “It talks.” He wasn’t sure whether he screamed or whispered or merely calmly spoke.
“Talks?”
“In my head.” He tried to shake off the impression, to drag his mind away from meanings beyond human comprehension, meanings that threatened to tear the very fabric of the world apart.
“Or you talk to yourself and mistake madness for magic.”
Corin felt a cold sweat roll down his brow, and panic overtook him. Can’t you see, he wanted to scream, don’t you hear? But all he said was, “You said yourself it’s magic.”
“Yes, but…a talking sword. It’s unheard of…except. How did you come by this?”
Then the vision and the voice faded, and he found the strength to drag his eyes away. Agmar was peering at him curiously. Corin looked up into Jared’s eyes. The old man didn’t seem to have noticed his panic, and his brow was dry. He shook his head vigorously, blinking and flexing his jaw to chase away any residue of the hallucination. Jared observed him with a scholar monk’s curiosity. He waited patiently for Corin to answer.
Corin explained as well as he could everything that had happened at the top of the necromancer’s tower.
“A woman like water, who vanished. Obviously the sister of the goddess you spoke of before. And the air has cleared.”
“What has air clearing got to do with a sword talking?” Corin asked.
“Nothing. But you released the nymph. The god’s benediction returns. She swims with her sisters again. Look to yonder aqueduct. See how it flows freely now? But this sword sounds fascinating.”
“Allow me, brother,” Javid said, then to Corin, “unsheathe it and lay it on the stones.”
Corin was reluctant. “You don’t want me to draw it.”
“Why ever…?”
“It may be cursed,” Agmar said.
“Ah! Of course. Brother, let’s stand back a moment.”
The twins backed away and Corin carefully drew the sword and lay it on the stones. Javid stepped forward and knelt by the blade. He inscribed a rune above it with his finger tip. The rune hung like fire in the air. At first nothing else happened, then the stones trembled, water beaded in the gaps between them, and rolled, as if dripping down a wall, though from all different directions, towards the blade. The opaque blade became transparent, and began to flow in a circuit, hilt to tip back to hilt.
“It can’t be,” Javid breathed in amazement.
“It can’t be what?” Corin asked.
“No, no. I can’t be sure. I need more information. I can’t decide, but if it is…one of the divine artefacts…relics of the gods…”
“Of which there are many,” Jared said.
“When the lost are found…,” Javid said.
“…the old age will end,” Jared completed.
“What are the lost?” Corin aske
d.
Agmar said, “At the time of creation, when gods contended with gods, many relics were crafted of their substance. Some say it was a way for gods to gain power over other gods, others that they were trophies of their victories. Whatever the gods intended the relics had great power, and many were gifted to mortals. But the old heroes died, as all mortals must, and the relics were lost. Some were passed down through the lines of kings, but all are now gone.”
“At least from the knowledge of men,” said Jared.
“And the knowledge of men is so limited,” Javid added regretfully.
“But what do you think this sword is?”
“I wouldn’t want to jump to conclusions. I need access to the Codex of Metma. Within are the runes I need for my research.”
“To tell what the sword is?”
“Uh…yes. That’s right.”
“You hesitated. You really want this codex. You’re making a deal.”
“You’re a smart lad.”
“You don’t grow up on the streets without knowing a hustle when you hear it.”
“Well…?”
“And then you’ll tell me?”
“You’ll find your answers there.” Both of the twins smiled mysteriously.
“Where?”
“In the Labyrinth.”
“How?”
“We can tell you no more.”
“But you want me to fetch this book for you.”
“Yes.”
“For nothing?”
“For guidance.”
“What guidance?”
“You’ll discover.”
“Why don’t you just tell me?”
“You wouldn’t understand if we did.”
Corin looked at Agmar. Agmar shrugged. “I told you they’re wise. Whether you want to listen to them is up to you.”
Bloodspate: A Song of Agmar Tale Page 10