The First Book of Swords

by Фред Сейберхэген

  As the wagon creaked its way toward the crossroads, Mark left his seat and went back under the cover. He had agreed with the others that it would be wise for him to stay out of sight as much as feasible until they knew whether or not the Duke was actively seeking him this far south. He felt the change in the wheels' progress when Ben turned off the main road. Then. looking forward through a small opening in the cover, Mark saw that people were already trotting or riding out from the fairgrounds to meet the wagon when it was still a couple of hundred meters down the side road that wound up from the intersection.

  One of those riding in the lead was the marshal of the fair, a well-dressed man identifiable by the colors of his jerkin, Sir Andrew's orange and black. The marshal silently motioned for the wagon to follow him, and rode ahead, guiding it through the busy fairgrounds to a reserved spot near the center. Mark, staying in the wagon out of sight, watched the blurred bright spots of torches move past, glowing through the wagon cover on both sides. Sounds surrounded the wagon too — of voices, music, animals, applause. Barbara had thought that the end of daylight would signal the fair's closing for the day, but obviously she had been wrong.

  When the marshal had led them to their assigned site, he rode close to the wagon and leaned from his saddle to peer inside. Mark went on with what he was doing, feeding the captive dragon from the replenished frog-crock — if the authorities here were really going to search for him, he would have no hope of hiding. But the marshal only stared at Mark blankly for a moment, then withdrew his head.

  Mark heard the official's voice asking: "Where's Nestor?"

  Ben gave the answer they had planned: "If he's not here somewhere already, he'll be along in a day or two. He was dickering over some new animals. A team, I mean."

  "Looks like you could use one. Well, Sir Andrew wants to see him, mind you tell him as soon as he gets here. There's a hunting contract to be discussed."

  Barbara: "Yessir, we'll remind him soon as we see him. It shouldn't be long now."

  The marshal rode away, shouting at someone else about garbage to be cleaned up. The three who had just arrived in the wagon immediately got busy, unpacking, tending to the animals, and setting up the tent in which they meant to exhibit the dragon. Their assigned space was a square of trodden grass about ten meters on a side, and the wagon had to be maneuvered into the rear of this space in order to make room for the big tent at the front. Their neighbor on one side was the pavilion of a belly-dancer, with a crowd-drawing preliminary show that went on every few minutes out front-Ben's attention kept wandering from his tasks, and once he tried to feed a frog to a loadbeast. In the exhibitor's space on the far side, a painted lean-to advertised and presumably housed a supposedly magical fire-eater. The two remaining sides of the square were open, bordering grassy lanes along which traffic could pass and customers, if any, could approach. Along these lanes a few interested spectators were already gathering, to watch the dragon-folk get settled. They had hoped to be able to set up after dark, unwatched, but there was no hope of that now. Nor of Mark's remaining unobserved, so he did not try.

  The tent in which the dragon was to be shown was made of some fabric lighter and tougher than any that Mark had ever seen before, and gaudily decorated with painted dragons and mysterious symbols. Ben told Mark that the cloth had come from Karmirblur, somewhere five thousand kilometers away at the other end of the world.

  As soon as the tent had been put up and secured, and a small torch mounted on a stand inside for light, the three exhibitors carried the caged dragon into it without uncovering the cage; the bystanders were going to have to pay something if they wanted to catch even the merest glimpse. The three proprietors were also planning to keep at least one of their number in or beside the wagon as much as possible. All obvious valuables were removed from the wagon, some to be carried in purses, others to be buried right under the dragon's cage inside the tent. But Nestor's sword remained within the vehicle, concealed under false floorboards that in turn were covered with a scattering of junk. Barbara, at least, still nursed hopes of being able to put the sword to use eventually, even if Nestor never rejoined the crew. Several times during the last few days Ben had argued the subject with her.

  He would be silent for a while, then turn to her with a lost, small-boy look. "Barb, I don't see how we're going to hunt dragons without Nestor. It was hard enough with him."

  Barbara's mobile face would show that she was giving the objection serious consideration, even if she had answered it before, not many hours ago. "You know best about that, Ben, the actual hunting. Maybe we could hire some other hunters to help us?"

  "Wouldn't be safe. If we do that they'll find out about the magic in the sword. Then they'll try to steal it." Despite the fact that it had taken Ben himself more than long enough to notice. But Mark didn't think that Ben was really slow-witted, as he appeared to be at first. It was just that he spent so much of his mental time away somewhere, maybe thinking about things like minstrelsy and verse.

  At last, after several arguments, or debates, Barbara had given in about the hunting, at least temporarily. "Well then, if we can't, we can't. If Nestor never shows up at Sir Andrew's, we'll just act more surprised than anyone else, and wonder aloud what could have happened to him. Then we'll wait around at Sir Andrew's for a little while after the fair's over, and if Nestor still isn't there we'll pack up and head south and look for another fair. At least it'll be warmer down south in the winter. Anyway, I don't suppose Sir Andrew would be eager to hire us as hunters without Nestor."

  "I don't suppose," Ben agreed with some relief. Then he added, as if in afterthought: "Anyway, if Sir Andrew takes me on as a minstrel, you'll be going south without me."

  He looked disappointed when Barbara agreed to that without any comment or hesitation.

  Mark didn't have any comment to make either. He suspected that if Nestor didn't appear, Barbara meant to sell the sword if she couldn't find a way to use it. He, Mark, would just have to decide for himself when the time came what he wanted to try to do about that. This sword wasn't his. But he felt it was a link, of sorts, to his own blade, about the only link that he still had. If Nestor came back at all, it would be with the idea of recovering his own sword, whatever other plans he might have.

  Of course, he might not have Mark's sword with him when he showed up. And if he did have it, he might not be of a mind to give it back.

  Any way Mark looked at the current situation, his chances of recovering his sword, his inheritance, looked pretty poor.

  Three hours after the dragon-people had arrived, the carnival was showing some signs of winding down for the night, though the grounds were by no means completely quiet as yet. Barbara still had the dragonexhibit open, though business had slowed down to the point where Ben was able to put on his plumed hat, collect his lute, and announce to his partners that he was going out to try his hand at minstrelsy.

  Mark's help was not needed at the showtent for the moment either, and he had retired to the wagon, where he meant to get something to eat, meanwhile casually sitting guard over the concealed sword.

  The inside of the wagon looked about twice as big now, with almost everything moved out of it. From where Mark was sitting he could just see the entrance to the tent, which had been erected at right angles to the wagon. Barbara had just finished conducting one small group of paying customers into the tent to see the dragon and out again, and she was presently chatting with a prospective first member of the next group. This potential customer was a chunkily-built little man, evidently of some importance, for he was dressed in fancier clothes than any Mark had seen since the seneschal, the Duke's cousin, went down.

  Mark was chewing on a piece of boiled fowl — Ben had laid in some food from a nearby concession before he left — and thinking gloomy thoughts about his missing sword, when he heard a faint sound just behind him, right inside the wagon. He turned to see a man whom he had never seen before, who was standing on the ground outside with his head and shoul
ders in the rear opening of the wagon. Knotted on the maws sleeve was what looked like the orange-and-black insignia of an assistant marshal of the fair. He was looking straight at Mark, and there was that in his eyes that made Mark drop his drumstick and dive right out of the front of the wagon without a moment's hesitation. Only as Mark cleared the seat did it fully register in his mind that the man had been holding a large knife unsheathed in his right hand.

  Mark landed on hands and knees on the worn turf just outside the wagon. He somersaulted once, and came up on his feet already running. As he reached the doorway of the tent he was drawing in a deep breath to yell for help. Inside the tent, the small dragon was already yowling continuously, and this perhaps served as a subliminal warning; Mark did not yell. When he looked into the tent he saw by the light of the guttering single torch how Barbara lay limp in the grasp of a second man in marshal's insignia, how the dragons cage had been tipped over backwards, and how the well-dressed stranger, who a moment ago had been chatting innocently with Barbara, was now frantically digging with his dagger into the ground where the cage had been, uncovering and scattering fine valuable crossbow bolts and bits of armor.

  Mark did not yell. But the men inside the tent both yelled when they saw him, and turned and rushed in his direction. He was just barely too quick for them, as he darted away and then rolled under the flimsily paneled side of the fire-eater's construction on the adjoining lot.

  The inside of that shelter was as dark as the toe of a boot; no flames were being ingested at the moment. But there came a quick stir in the blackness, an alarmed fumbling as of bedclothes, an urgent muttering of voices. Mark somehow stumbled and crashed his way through the darkness, once tripping over something and falling at full length. When he had come to the opposite wall he went out under it, in the same manner he had come in. There was no one waiting in the grass outside to seize him; for the moment he had foiled his pursuers. But for the moment only; he could hear them somewhere behind him, yelling, raising an alarm.

  He made an effort to get in under the wall of the next shelter, which was a tent, found his way blocked, and slid around the tent instead. Now a deep ditch offered some hope of concealment, and he slid down into the ditch to scramble in knee-deep water at the bottom. When he had his feet more or less solidly under him he followed the ditch around a turn, where he paused to look and listen for pursuit. He heard none, but realized that he'd already lost his bearings. This fairground was certainly the biggest of the two or three that Mark had ever seen. There, the dark bulk of the castle loomed, enormous on its small rise, with lights visible in a few windows. But to Mark in his bewildered state the castle was just where it ought not to have been, and at the moment it gave him no help in getting his bearings.

  Now people were yelling something in the distance. But he couldn't tell whether or not the cries had anything to do with him. What was he going to do now? If only, he thought, Kind Sir Andrew himself could be made to hear the truth…

  Mark followed the ditch for a few more splashing strides, then climbed from it into the deeper darkness behind another row of tents and shelters. He was moving toward lights and the sounds of cheerful music. It was in fact better music than Ben was ever going to be able to make, if he practiced for a hundred years. If only he could at least find Ben, and warn him…

  With this vague purpose of locating Ben, Mark looked out into the lighted carnival lanes while keeping himself as much as possible in the shadows. He crawled under someone's wagon, then behind a booth, seeking different vantage points. In another open way were clowns and jugglers, drawing a small crowd, laughter and applause. Mark tried to see if Ben was in the group somewhere, but was unable to tell. He moved briefly into the open again, until orange and black tied on a sleeve ahead sent him crawling back into hiding, through the partly open back door of a deserted-looking hut. Once more his entry roused an unseen sleeper; a man's voice muttered alarm, and half-drunken, halfcoherent threats.

  Mark darted out of the but again, and went trotting away from people, along a half-darkened traffic lane. Brighter torchlight shone round the castle's lowered drawbridge, now not far ahead of him. More suits of orange and black were there, gathered as if in conference. To avoid them, Mark turned a corner, toward more music. This time there were drums, and roistering voices. Maybe this crowd would be big enough to hide him for a while. And there, a few meters ahead, stood Ben, plumed hat tipped on the back of his head, his lute temporarily forgotten under one arm. His stocky figure was part of the small crowd gawking at the belly-dancer's outside-the-tent performance. Mark realized that he had unconsciously fled in a circle, and was now back near the place where he had started running.

  He took another step forward, intending to warn Ben. And at that same moment, the chunky dandy reappeared, approaching from the direction of the dragon-tent beyond. He saw Mark, and at once raised a fresh outcry. Mark yelped and turned and sped away. He didn't know whether Ben had even noticed him or not.

  Now, several more of the marshal's men were blocking the lane ahead of Mark. He turned on one toe, to dash in at right angles under the broad banner advertising the Maze of Mirth, past a startled clown-face and into a dim interior. The stuffed figure of a demon, crudely constructed, lurched at him out of the gloom, and a mad peal of laughter went up from somewhere behind it. The inside of this place was a maze, furnished with crude mirrors and dark lanterns flashing suddenly, constructed of confusingly painted walls all odd shapes and angles. The head of a real dragon, long since stuffed and varnished, popped out at Mark from behind a suddenly open panel.

  Mark could feel the burn on his face throbbing. Now another panel opened unexpectedly when he leaned on it, and he spun in confusion through a dark opening. A mirror showed him a distorted image of the chunky dandy, coming after him, perhaps still two mirrors away. The man's mouth was opening for a yell.

  An arm, banded in orange and black, came out of somewhere else to flail at Mark, and then was left behind when yet another panel closed. The very walls were shouting as they, moved, roaring with mad laughter…

  A new figure loomed before Mark, that of a tall, powerful clown in jester's motley. The clown was holding something out to Mark in one hand, while at the same time another hand; invisible, pushed at the jester's painted face. The face moved. It became a mask that slid back, revealing…

  The mask slid back from the face of the one-armed clown. The face revealed was fair and large and smiling. It was lightly bearded, as Mark had never seen it before, but he had not an instant's doubt of just whose face it was.

  "Father!"

  Jord nodded, smiling. The shape he was holding out was half-familiar to Mark. It was the shape of a sword's hilt. But this time the weapon was sheathed in ornate leather, looped with a leather belt. As Mark's two hands closed on the offered hilt, and drew the weapon from its sheath, his father's face fell into darkness and away.

  "Father?"

  Now someone's hands were moving round Mark's waist, deftly buckling a swordbelt on him. "Mark, take this to Sir Andrew. If you can." It was half the voice of Jord as Mark remembered it, half no more than an anonymous whisper.

  "Father…"

  Mark turned, with the drawn blade still in his hands, trying to follow dim images that chased each other away from him through mirrors. He saw the form of a lean carnival clown, two-armed and totally unfamiliar, backing away. Mark tried to follow the figure through the dim mad illumination, the light of torchflames beyond mirrors, glowing through mirrors and cloth. This time Mark could feel power emanating from the blade he held. But the flavor of the power was different, somehow, from what he had expected. Another sword? It fed Mark's hands with a secret, inward thrumming

  With a terrific shock, something came smashing through thin partitions near at hand. It was an axe, no, yet another sword, this one quite mundane though amply powerful. Enchantment seemed to vanish, as it was supposed to do when swords were out. A nearby mirror fell from the wall, shattering with itself the last i
mage of the retreating clown.

  And now hard reality reappeared, in the form of the chunky little man in dandy's clothes. He was all disarranged and rumpled with triumphant effort. His face, as he closed in on Mark, displayed his triumph. His mouth opened, awry, ready to bawl out something. The dandy lifted a torch toward Mark and then recoiled like one stabbed. Still staring at Mark, he made an awkward, half-kneeling gesture that was aborted by the narrowness of the passage. The orange-and-black armbands who now appeared behind him also stared at Mark, in obvious stupefaction…

  Mark could see now, without knowing quite how he saw it, that they were not what their armbands proclaimed them.

  The stocky leader said to Mark: "Your Grace… I am sorry… I never suspected that you would be… which way did he go?"

  Mark stood still, clutching the naked sword, feeling the weight of its unfamiliar belt around his waist. He felt unable to do anything but wait stupidly for whatever might happen next. He echoed: "He?"

  "That boy, Your Grace. It was the one that we are after, I am sure. He was right here."

  "Let him go, for now." Magic's mad logic had taken hold of Mark, and he knew, as he would have known in a dream, that he was speaking of himself.

  "I… yes, sire." The man in front of Mark was utterly bewildered by the order he had just heard, but never dreamt of disobedience. "The flying courier should have the other sword at any moment now, and will then depart at once. Unless Your Grace, now that you are here, wishes to change plans..?"

  "The other sword?"

  "The sword called Dragonslicer, sire. They must have hidden it there somewhere, in their wagon or their tent. Our men will have it any moment now. The courier is ready." The stocky man was sweating, and not only with exertion; it bothered him that it should be necessary to explain these things.

  Mark turned away from him. A great anger at this gang of thieves was building in him. Holding his newly acquired sword before him like a torch, he burst his way out through the hacked opening that made a new solution to the Maze of Mirth. Feeling the rich throb of the weapon's power steady in his wrists, he ran along the grassy lane outside, past men in orange and black who stumbled over each other to get out of his way. He heard their muttered exclamations.