“The tower is not being completed?”
“The tower itself is almost finished, I understand, but there is still work needed on the adjacent plaza. I think the contract will be fulfilled, my lord, eventually. Of course his honor and his companions were invited to stay to dinner. That was when Sailor Holiyi arrived at the tenancy. Word came to the manor. There was some problem in passing a message—I was at the dinner, also.”
Holiyi had been told to find Quili, but the presence of two priestesses might have caused some confusion. Hence the delay, passing information under the ears of sorcerers.
“Quili and I managed to slip out for a quick word together,” Valia explained, “at the end. She dares not leave yet. If you wish to come back with me, then we should wait awhile, to be sure. If not . . . she sends her love to you and Adept Nnanji, my lord.”
Nnanji grinned. “Give her mine.”
“And certainly mine,” Wallie added. “How many companions did this sorcerer of the Sixth bring with him?”
“Two. Both Thirds.”
Wallie’s pulse began to beat a little faster. “But Builder Garadooi will be returning to Ov with them?”
Nnanji stiffened slightly.
Valia indulged a genteel laugh. “If they cast a spell on him. But it will take a strong one! He did promise that in a couple of days . . . ” Then she guessed, and her lips clamped together in angry silence.
Tomiyano had arrived there also. “The road runs by the River?”
Nnanji nodded. “There is a ferry,” he said softly.
“They were being very insistent that he go with them, my lord,” Valia protested. She was frightened now, furious at her own stupidity. “And he was still trying to persuade them to spend the night. The family boat will be arriving in the morning—”
“But you invited us to the manor. You thought they were leaving.”
She would not admit that. “They may have.”
Wallie ignored her then. He had often watched Honakura twist the truth without actually lying, and the old man was much more skilled at it than this pompous priestess was.
In the gathering gloom, the light from the River was reflecting in Nnanji’s eyes, making them shine. But the bloodlust that should have been there was missing. He was watching Wallie intently, very still, not seething with excitement as he should be at the prospect of action. Nnanji knew the answer and was waiting to see if Wallie did.
“Then here’s your chance, Shonsu!” Tomiyano rubbed his hands gloatingly. “Five of us and three of them. Not bad odds, wouldn’t you say, when we have surprise on our side?”
Wallie said, “No.”
“What! Why not? Kill two, take one alive! It’s your chance to find out what they have in their pockets, man! A heaven-seat opportunity! We’ll tie him up and gag him—”
“No.”
“Why not?” die captain shouted. “What’s wrong with it?”
“Lord Shonsu is not Swordsman Kandoru,” Nnanji said, more quietly than ever.
“What’s he got to do with it?” Tomiyano was looking from one swordsman to the other, baffled.
“He drew against a guest.”
Thana was as puzzled as her brother. “She said we couldn’t go up to the house yet—we’ve been refused hospitality. We’re not guests!”
“But they are.” Nnanji was smiling faintly, approving.
“We shall not move against the sorcerers, adept,” Wallie told Valia. It was crazy. Tomiyano was quite right—this was a heaven-sent opportunity, a chance to capture a sorcerer of the Sixth. But Valia had unwittingly betrayed her guests to their enemies, and to take advantage of that error would not be honorable. Good manners did not permit a war to be fought that way . . . crazy! Insane! But Nnanji was pleased—Lord Shonsu was a man of honor. Why should Wallie care what Nnanji thought? Why did that wry smile feel good? Penance for what he had done in Aus? Crazy!
Tomiyano snorted in disgust. Thana shook her head over such landlubber nonsense.
“I thank you, my lord,” Valia said humbly. “The blame would have been laid to Quili . . . ” There was less great lady now. “Will you not come up to the manor?”
“I think the hour is late,” Wallie said. “We should return to our vessel before true darkness.”
“As you please, my lord.” Valia hesitated. “I was not going to mention . . . this was told in confidence, but there was no oath. I think my duty is to pass it on. You would find out soon anyway.”
Wallie felt a sudden tingle of premonition. “Yes?”
“It seems to be the cause of the sorcerers’ impatience.” She was incapable of coming straight to a point. “Honorable Rathazaxo reported that a tryst has been called.”
“
A TRYST
?” shouted Nnanji. “
Where
?”
Valia recoiled. “At Casr, adept.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“And has She blessed it?”
Valia backed away before his vehemence. “Apparently, adept.”
“Her swordsmen are coming?”
“So his honor said . . . ”
Nnanji stepped across the circle and grabbed Wallie by the shoulders. If he tried to shake him, nothing happened. “That’s it, brother! You were wondering how to fight sorcerers, and there’s the answer! Why didn’t we think of it?”
“What the demons is a tryst?” Tomiyano growled.
“It’s a holy war! It needs two Sevenths, a swordsman, and a priest—” He swung back to Valia, growing shrill with excitement. “And bullocks? They had the bullocks?”
She nodded.
“Why bullocks?” Tomiyano asked. “A barbecue?”
“No, no, no!” Nnanji was almost dancing. “There hasn’t been a tryst for—oh! centuries. It takes a priest and a swordsman to call one, and they wade into the River. The bullocks go first.”
Tomiyano’s eyes popped wide. “It would take more than bullocks to get me—”
Nnanji spun back to Wallie. “But if the stories are true and the swordsmen are coming, then the Goddess has blessed it! So it’s a real tryst! The saga of Arganari . . . Za? Guiliko?”
“Who leads this tryst?” Thana asked with a glance at Wallie. “The Seventh who called it?”
Nnanji paused and frowned. “No, I don’t think . . . not necessarily.” His lips moved as he pondered. “Leadership is decided by combat, I think. The best swordsman.” He swung round to face Wallie again and shouted. “
The best swordsman in the World
! Of course! And remember the ballad of Chioxin, brother? The emerald led a tryst, and so did the ruby! The fourth did, too! That’s what your sword is for!”
And the leader’s aide-de-camp and oath brother could be certain of an honorable mention in the epics to follow. Nnanji was as thrilled as a medieval squire given tickets to the next crusade. Thana and Tomiyano also had caught the excitement. Even Jja and Holiyi were beaming. Of course—a tryst against the sorcerers, led by Lord Shonsu and Her own sword.
So here was something else to think about. Lots of things. Perhaps Wallie had been interpreting the riddle wrongly. The army might not be
Sapphire
’s crew after all. A tryst was a real army, the greatest the World ever knew. He had done nothing to earn that.
Nnanji lapsed into silence, his lips moving again as he recited epics to himself, researching trysts.
“I cannot persuade you to come up to the manor, my lord?” Valia asked. “Quili is anxious to see you, and the builder will be, also, if he did not accompany the sorcerers.”
But Wallie had too much on his mind—riddles and trysts, circles and armies, Casr and Aus. And he did not want to face his former helpers and have to confess that what they had been told about him was true.
“I think not, holy one. Give them our love and, again, our thanks. Tell them we shall continue the fight against the evil ones, and that it progresses. I think we must return to our ship before true darkness.”
Or would
Sapphire
have vanished, and the dinghy find itself delivering the seventh sword to Casr? Under that bitter thought he tasted relief that Jja and Vixini were with him.
“And on to Casr, my lord brother?” Nnanji said eagerly.
Wallie sighed. “Yes. She has summoned Her swordsmen, so yes, we must go to Casr.”
Then Thana’s eyes went wide, and a brightness seemed to glow in her face. Before she could speak, the others wheeled around, staring to the north. Huge, but very distant, a giant rose of flame was unfolding graceful petals into the somber dusk—higher, higher, and ever brighter, belittling the range on which it grew, lighting the dark landscape below, setting the very sky ablaze. Then the darkening crest reached into the heavens themselves and was touched by the rays of the invisible sun, blooming pink and gold.
A volcanic eruption . . . the blast would arrive later, but the wind would carry the ash westward, toward Casr . . . Wallie was still analyzing, when he realized how this would appear to his companions.
“The Fire God rages!” Valia exclaimed, making the sign of the Goddess. “He fears the tryst called against his sorcerers!”
“He didn’t fear it until he heard who was going to lead it!” said Nnanji. He grinned proudly at Wallie. A little hero worship was creeping back. Lord Shonsu was a man of honor.
††††
The first thing the sun god discovered when he returned to the World was the monstrous mushroom standing high above RegiVul, dwarfing the mountains themselves. Playfully he painted it red, then gold, and finally a very pale blue, but the Fire God still tinted the underside with angry rosy flickers. A little later the sun observed
Sapphire
as she headed into Ov.
Wallie had slept little and badly. He had been counting on the god’s riddle to solve his problem for him. Turn the circle, he had thought, and some divine revelation would show him how to fight sorcerers. Instead his problem now looked worse. The sorcerers had known of his sickness at Ki San. They had demonstrated again an inexplicable ability to pass information. A tryst had been called. As a swordsman, he now had a sacred duty to head for Casr. Certainly the tryst explained why he had been given the legendary sword, but for Shonsu to return to Casr would be virtual suicide. Now he must beware not only denunciation but also challenge, for other Sevenths would flock to a tryst.
In the bitterest hours of the night, he had reproached himself for another blunder. He should have ambushed that sorcerer Sixth as he headed home to Ov, instead of pandering to Nnanji’s stupid scruples.
But had he turned the circle? During a discussion that had run halfway to dawn, Honakura had suggested that perhaps he had not yet done so. Seven cities had fallen to the sorcerers;
Sapphire
had visited but six. The way back ran by Ov, so let the ship call there. No one could think of a better plan, but no one was very happy with the prospect. The sorcerers would be doubly alert for swordsmen now. Moreover,
Sapphire
had no logical excuse to trade in Ov. Ov was a tin-mining center; the bronze ingots that Brota had purchased at a knock-down price in Gi had themselves come from Ov. To offer them for sale there would make no sense and might rouse suspicion.
A short visit, then, Wallie suggested, and offered to pay the dock fees. Brota accepted that suggestion without argument.
Ov was huge, bigger even than Dri or Ki San, the sailors said. It sprawled in patches and weals on the higher reaches of a low gray landscape, whose hollows were fetid swamp. The buildings themselves were a drab gray, also, monotonous and ugly—a city built of fossilized business suits, Wallie concluded peevishly. Amid such tedious dullness, the sorcerers’ tower was a welcome relief, black and vertical, evil instead of merely funereal. It stood, as usual, about a block back from the River. Its exterior seemed to be complete, and sunlight streaked from glass in at least one of the high windows.
The River was shallow, and the dock unlike any other Wallie had seen, a long pier extending far out from shore, branching at the end to form a T. Each captain tried to moor as close to the city as he dared approach, so the vertical part of the T was crowded, the crossbar almost empty.
Wallie, Nnanji, and Tomiyano, the three wise monkeys, gathered in the deckhouse as Brota brought
Sapphire
in. She found a berth about halfway along the vertical, on the downstream side.
“Good position,” Tomiyano said. “Cut the cables and the current will sweep us away. Good for a fast escape.” He glanced at Wallie.
“Good fighting terrain,” Wallie agreed. “No warehouses overlooking us—they could only bring up reinforcements from one side.” Then he caught the captain’s eye, and each admitted in silence that he was uneasy. Seven times they had risked bringing a swordsman of the Seventh to a sorcerer city in violation of the local laws. This was the end of the line. Superstition said that if something was going to happen, it should happen now. Superstition worked well in the World.
Nnanji had caught the mood, also. Half the night, Nnanji had been in spate on the subject of trysts—the Tryst of Rof and the Tryst of Za, Guiliko’s Tryst and Farhanderi’s Tryst—honor and glory and blood and immortality. Now he had succumbed to the prevailing dreariness of Ov.
His brother strolled into the deckhouse in his slave costume.
“You don’t have to,” Nnanji said, “if you don’t want to.”
Even Katanji seemed more subdued than usual. He hesitated and then said, “My duty, mentor?”
Nnanji bit his lip and nodded.
“Keep it short, though,” Wallie said. “Just a quick look at the tower and then right back, okay?”
Sapphire
bumped gently against the fenders.
The Fire God was angry . . . Honakura wandered in. “Too far to town for my old legs,” he muttered, and hauled himself up to sit on a chest.
They all felt it, but no one would say it: Something was going to go wrong.
A wagon went by and made a drumming, roaring sound on the roadway that was built of timber over stone piers. It was also narrow and cluttered by ships’ loads on both sides.
“Phew!” Nnanji pulled a face. “Now we know why this spot was empty!” The vessel on the opposite side of the pier was a cattle boat, as evidenced by mournful bellowings and an unmistakable stench.
“Must have swordsmen aboard?” Tomiyano suggested, and dodged the ensuing punch. For a moment the two of them indulged in a wrestling match. Wallie was amused, remembering the beginning of the voyage.
Sapphire
was a much happier ship now.