Swords: 09 - The Sixth Book Of Lost Swords - Mindsword's Story (4 page)

      
The yeoman holding the door open bowed lightly toward Vilkata.

      
“A pleasant morsel, Master,” the dry leaves rasped, “for the two of us to share tonight. For each of us to enjoy, in his own way. What remains will be appropriate as a small present for these villagers. A token of your appreciation of their years of hospitality.”

      
Vilkata began to laugh. His mirth rose louder and harder, as he had not laughed in years. Meanwhile the girl seemed to be petrified.

      
“Bring her in,” the Dark King commanded presently.

      
But the yeoman only bowed himself aside, out of deference, it seemed. “Nay, you, Master, shall of course be first.”

      
Vilkata looked at his new partner. Then he arose from his crude chair, on limbs and joints that had suddenly regained something of their youthful suppleness and strength, and stalked toward the door.

      
The girl screamed at his approach, and broke free of her paralysis. She ran into the little kitchen behind her. There was no door leading directly outside from the kitchen, and she went for the only window.

      
The man who had once been the Dark King, and now would be again, caught her from behind; the back of her simple dress tore in his grip as he pulled her back into the room. Now she slumped in his grip, and seemed to have no voice for screaming left.

      
But a moment later the girl broke free, with a spasmodic effort. Careening against the table in the center of the room, she snatched up a kitchen knife.

      
The demon blurred into action once more; one of the yeoman’s hands, suddenly sharp-taloned at the end of an arm unnaturally elongated, swung forward past Vilkata’s shoulder to strike.

      
The knife fell from the girl’s hand. Her face, suddenly bloody, grew blurred in the Dark King’s demonic vision, as she slumped forward into his ready grasp.

Chapter Three

      
Crown Prince Murat’s destination on his lonely ride was Tasavalta. Slightly more than a year had passed since his first visit to that realm. In the course of that visit he had met Princess Kristin for the first time. Murat had spent only a few days in her presence, and had not laid eyes on her since his hasty departure from her land. But throughout the intervening months the image of her lovely face had never completely left him; the impression of grace and beauty inspired by her chastely clothed body had endured.

      
Now, on the first day after Murat had found the Sword, Kristin’s presence was brighter and clearer than ever in his mind’s eye as he rode alone toward her homeland, traversing the desolation of the southern foothills of the Ludus Mountains.

      
Around midday the Crown Prince was roused from certain improbable daydreams concerning himself and the Princess by the discovery that he was being followed. Glancing back along the way he had come, he caught a glimpse of a single rider on his track, no more than two hundred meters behind him.

      
Setting all daydreams aside for the moment, Murat began to concentrate intently on matters at hand. Guiding his riding-beast into a maze of tumbled, almost house- sized boulders, he circled back to intercept his own trail, and at a carefully selected point of vantage waited to surprise the man who followed him. Disdaining to draw in his own defense the weapon he was carrying as a gift for the Princess, Murat instead unholstered an ordinary battle-ax from its place beside his saddle. Then he waited, listening to the approaching sound of hooves, ready for whoever might be coming.

      
Moments later a young man, armed, rode into sight, almost within arm’s length. Murat drew back his ax—

      
“Father! Don’t strike!”

      
The weapon was lowered, as the man who wielded it recoiled. Then the Crown Prince leaned forward in his saddle, staring with the stupidity of total astonishment into the eyes of his only son. Only in the last year or two had the youth grown into his full stature, and for a moment his father had failed to recognize him.

      
“Carlo!”

      
“Father!”

      
The ax was quickly reholstered, by a fumbling hand. After a moment or two of awkwardness—father and son had not seen each other for many months—they dismounted and embraced.

      
“You are looking well,” Murat commented at last, holding his son at arm’s length. Carlo, dark and round-faced, well dressed and well armed, was not as tall as his father, but in a year or two he would probably be physically stronger.

      
“And you,” the lad responded, “are looking tired.”

      
In the next moment explanations, and demands for news, poured out on both sides.

      
Carlo had left Culm only a month ago, and could report on what was happening there. Unfortunately the conditions that had turned his father into a semivoluntary exile still obtained. The aged Queen, Murat’s stepmother, still ruled, with her sickly consort at her side. And the royal couple, like many others in the homeland, still blamed Murat for failing to bring home the healing Sword of Love.

      
Without being asked, Carlo added to his report the information that his own mother and his sister were now living with his mother’s relatives. “I told Mother that I meant to find you, Father.”

      
“And had my dear wife any message for me?”

      
Carlo, suddenly downcast, had to admit that she had not.

      
Murat, having expected no other answer, shrugged; years ago his wife’s feelings and opinions had largely ceased to interest him. Then, seeing his son’s sad face, he smiled and tried to cheer him up. “I am glad that you came looking for me.”

      
Carlo brightened at that. He began to explain how, with considerable difficulty, he had managed to track down his father.

      
Then he asked, in a puzzled voice, and in the manner of one who really wanted to know, what his father was doing.

      
The older man gazed on his son with quiet satisfaction. “I have been on a quest of my own.”

      
“A successful quest?”

      
“Indeed! Very successful!” Murat, clutching the black hilt at his side, in his turn explained something—not all—about his search for, and recovery of, the Sword.

      
“But that’s wonderful!” Carlo was suitably impressed. “And where are you going now, Father? Back to Culm?”

      
“To Tasavalta.”

      
The youth shook his head, uncomprehending. “Tasavalta again! But why?”

      
“For a very good reason. On my last visit to that land, a year ago, I did someone a great wrong. Now at last I am able to do something to set the matter right.”

      
Carlo was frowning. He didn’t understand. “But—the Tasavaltans will want to throw you in prison, won’t they? Or worse?”

      
“Princess Kristin will listen to me. Especially when I present her with this Sword as a gift.”

      
“You intend to give it away? To the Princess in Sarykam?” The young man’s perplexity grew worse.

      
“Yes, that’s what I mean to do. Come, if you’re ready, let us ride on.”

      
The two remounted. As they rode on, side by side, Murat’s son was silent for a time. Then, still looking troubled, he said, “I hear that Prince Mark has a short temper. If they really believe that you have wronged them—” Carlo broke off, looking worried.

      
“Mark is generally away on some adventure. If he happens to be at home, well, I’m not afraid to face him. Short-tempered or not, he is said to be a fair man, and he will listen to me.”

      
Actually the Crown Prince spoke with somewhat more confidence than he felt. It had already occurred to him that in the unlikely event that Kristin’s clod of a husband was on hand when he, Murat, arrived in Sarykam, his welcome could well be unpleasant. But Murat had determined to take the chance.

      
Carlo, riding beside him, kept turning his head to look at the black hilt. At last the youth asked: “May I hold the Mindsword, Father? In the sheath, I mean. I won’t draw it, of course.”

      
His father considered the request seriously, then solemnly shook his head. “I think not. I have pledged not to draw it, nor to give it to anyone except the Princess herself.”

      
“I’m sorry, Father, but I still don’t understand why you intend to give it to Princess Kristin and Prince Mark.”

      
An edge crept into Murat’s voice. “I thought I had explained. A year ago I stole the Sword Woundhealer from that lady’s treasury. In doing so I wronged her greatly, though at the time I had convinced myself that what I was doing was the proper course of action. Now I am determined to make amends.”

      
Carlo was silent. Murat wondered suddenly if he was thinking that his father had wronged others also, in times past, and never made amends in such grand style.

      
At last the youth spoke again. “Isn’t there some other way for you to right the wrong you feel you have committed against Princess Kristin?”

      
“This is the way I choose,” Murat said shortly, and tapped the black hilt with his palm.

      
Carlo, well acquainted with that tone, did not argue.

      
Shortly before sunset the two travelers stopped to make camp for the night. The subject of Swords was not discussed again between them before they slept, Murat lying with the sheathed Sword as close to him as a lover’s body.

      
In the morning father and son traveled on companionably toward Tasavalta, speaking of peaceful matters, using the time to renew their acquaintance.

* * *

      
Early on the second day after Carlo had joined Murat, the pair became aware that they were being followed. No such luck as a single stalker this time, but rather a band of eight, who definitely had the look of bandits. When father and son tried to outdistance their pursuers, four more riders appeared ahead, posted in just the right spot for tactical advantage, efficiently cutting off the travelers’ escape.

      
Father and son slowed their hard-breathing mounts to a walk, and presently to a halt. A ravine to their right and a rock wall to their left formed practically impassable barriers. The two found themselves trapped, effectively surrounded by a dozen mounted men who were poorly clothed, heavily armed, and plainly devoid of good intentions.

      
Murat had not yet voiced to his son his worst fear: that these might not be merely ordinary brigands, but the agents of some great magician or other potentate who had somehow learned that he, Murat, now possessed the Mindsword, meant to have it from him, and felt confident of being able to achieve that end. The Crown Prince had been aware all along that his finding might well have shaken the threads of several complicated wizard-webs.

      
“Father?” Carlo awaited orders. The young man was pale, but bearing himself well; he had already drawn his own sword and looked ready to fight to the death if his father should command it.

      
Murat had as yet unsheathed no weapon. The pledge he had made to himself, in his own mind, never to draw the Sword for his own benefit, was indeed a solemn one. But now circumstances were gravely altered. Now not only was his own life at stake but his son’s as well, and not only their lives but possession of the Princess Kristin’s treasure.

      
While Murat hesitated, the band of ruffians were closing in calmly and efficiently to their front and rear, little by little improving their already overwhelming position, edging their riding-beasts momentarily closer and closer still—except for three who remained well out of sword-range, holding bows and arrows ready.

      
Until now the highwaymen had gone about their business without wasting breath on words. But now at last the bandit leader, one of the four who waited ahead, called out to his victims, demanding that the pair dismount and hand over all their worldly possessions. As he pronounced this ultimatum, the robber’s voice and attitude were rather cheery. If, he said, the surrounded pair surrendered their material possessions without fuss, he would graciously allow them to keep their lives.

      
Murat, his right hand resting lightly on the black hilt, replied in a firm princely voice. “I think that we will hand over nothing.”

      
“Oh, no?” The bandit leader sounded neither angered nor surprised by Murat’s defiance, but suddenly tired and rather sad. He was a squat man, with a long graying mustache, who occupied his saddle as if he might have been born there. “Well, then, your fate be on your own heads.” But still the brigand delayed, giving his men no command to attack, squinting at Murat now as if trying to settle some new doubt in his own mind. Presently he added: “Your clothing will be worth more to us if we can get it without holes or bloodstains. I grant you one last chance to reconsider.”

      
“Instead,” said the Crown Prince, raising his royal voice once more, “I propose a rather different arrangement. If you and your men will let us pass, and go promptly and peacefully on your way, I will refrain from drawing my Sword.”

      
There was no immediate reply from the mustached man. A great many people knew about the gods’ Twelve Swords, and quite a few had seen at least one of them at some time. For a moment the bandit leader did not appear to react at all. Then he said in the same tired voice: “Anyone can craft a sword with such a dull black hilt.”

      
Murat did not respond.

      
With a gesture the weary-looking robber ordered his archers to nock their arrows.

      
And Murat, feeling a profound reluctance mixed with an unexpected fiery anticipation, drew the Mindsword from its plain sheath.

      
His own first sensation was one of surprise. The naked Sword now in his grip and control had much less effect on him than it had had when he approached the unclaimed weapon. Now the vast power of the gods’ magic went flowing outward, away from the Sword’s holder in all directions.

      
The bandits’ riding-beasts, as well as Carlo’s, exploded in rearing and plunging excitement. This was caused, Murat supposed, by the sudden turmoil gripping their masters’ minds and bodies. One or two men in the enemy ranks were thrown, but no one save Murat, not even the victims themselves, paid much attention to this fact. Each of the men caught in the web of magic had to respond in his own way to the wrenching internal change imposed from without. Some of the bandits cast down their weapons violently, some sheathed them with great care. Several of those who were not thrown dismounted voluntarily, while others went galloping in little circles, shouting incoherently like drunken men or lunatics.

      
Among the bandits only their leader remained physically almost motionless. He bowed his head for a long moment, and his rough hands gripping the reins went white-knuckled.

      
His shoulders heaved. Moments later, he raised a tear-stained face to plead with Murat. “Forgive me, lord!” the robber cried in a breaking voice. “I did not know you—I could not see you clearly when we approached, I did not realize—”

      
“You are forgiven,” Murat called back mechanically. His chief emotion was relief that the armed threat had disappeared, that his life and his son’s life were safe. And at the same time he knew horror at what he had been forced to do. The Sword in his right hand felt very heavy; on drawing the Blade he had raised it overhead, but now he let his right arm sag down slowly to his side.