The Last Book Of Swords : Shieldbreaker’s Story (7 page)

      
Knowing that the Mindsword must be perilously near, Stephen did not dare to release his grip on Shieldbreaker’s hilt even for a moment. Propping up Sightblinder in a position where he could grab it again instantly, he worked left- handed to extract two sword-belts from the Sword-chamber’s inner rack. Working with his left hand and his right elbow, he managed, after a long struggle that at times seemed hopeless, to get the two belts fastened around his waist, so that one long leather scabbard hung at his right, the other at his left. Then he took up Sightblinder again, enduring the weight of double magic long enough to sheath the Sword at his right side, from which position he should be able to draw it handily left-handed.

* * *

      
Looking at the doors of the inner vault, which still stood open, Stephen made a great effort to think coherently. Stonecutter of course was still inside the vault, but it would simply have to stay there. Yes, no doubt he ought to close those doors before he left—that would set at least a small additional obstacle in the path of whoever was about to overrun the palace wholly. He grabbed one door and slammed it; the other one came with it automatically. No special closing incantation was required.

* * * * * *

      
As the young Prince prepared to leave the armory, Shieldbreaker in his right hand kept muttering to itself as if in eager expectation of the joys of combat. Cautiously, being very careful never to let go for an instant, he changed his grip on the black hilt from his right hand to his left, to better balance the physical weight of the sheathed Sword of Stealth. He thought that any difficulty he could eliminate, even the most minor, might make the difference for him between success and failure.

      
On his way to the door he had to detour slightly to avoid stepping right over the old man’s body. But before setting foot out of the Sword-chamber the young Prince paused, fascinated against his will, to take one more horrified look at Bazas.

      
Almost straddling the corpse, which lay sprawled upon its back, Stephen for the first time took note of the ruined hilt of Dragonslicer, black wood splintered and still smoldering, still clutched in the old man’s hand.

      
At that sight, another thought went fluttering through the youth’s shocked, half-disconnected mind:
But how now was he ever going to be able to complete his father’s gift—?

      
Shaking his head in an attempt to clear it, the young Prince shuffled past the dead man and stepped through the doorway. He turned his back on the Sword-vault chamber, and started automatically for the nearest stair. He had done very little conscious planning, but was holding to the fixed idea that his parents several days ago had gone to the village of Voronina, some sixty kilometers away, and that he must reach them there with the two important Swords.

      
If only, Stephen prayed, circumstances did not compel him to travel any distance with both Swords drawn. And if only he could decide correctly which one he had to have drawn at any moment. …

      
Walking with a persistent slight unsteadiness, he was halfway across the room in which the abandoned workbench stood holding its neat and meaningless pile of dragonscales, and where the Old World lamp now burned unheeded, when what seemed a better plan of action struck him with the force of inspiration.

      
The house of Stephen’s grandparents, of Mark’s mother, Mala, and foster-father, lord, was right here in Sarykam, at no enormous distance from the palace. Surely he, Stephen, would be able to carry his two Swords on foot successfully at least that far. In the house of lord and Mala he would be able to get help.

      
But now more demons were coming toward him. The vile creatures were moving somewhere near. …

      
Hastily Stephen snatched Sightblinder lefthanded from its sheath. Once more his head went spinning with the force of double magic, but now he could see, feel, exactly where the foul things were. Still more than a hundred meters distant, they were no immediate threat, but at any moment that might change.

      
Restricted by his burden to a staggering and seriously uneven progress, the young Prince went forward carrying both Swords drawn. He would continue to do so, he told himself, at least until he could get out of the palace.

      
Experiencing recurring waves of a feeling that the world was twisting itself into knots around him, a sensation unpleasantly reminiscent of the night last winter when he’d secretly experimented with drinking too much wine, Stephen kept going.

      
He had gained no more than a couple of rooms’ distance from the Sword-vault, traversing with difficulty the darkened armory on a course for the nearest ascending stairs, when through a concentric pair of doorways on his left he observed movement, that of one person walking.

      
The enhanced perception granted the young Prince by Sightblinder showed him the single figure clearly: that of a man bearing in front of him a Sword raised like a torch, who had just now descended to the level of the armory by another stair, several rooms away.

      
For a moment Stephen could not react. The mental strain of carrying the two Swords was growing worse, not lessening. Invisible surges of power seemed to blend inside his nervous system, with unpredictable effect. Nevertheless Sightblinder still augmented the boy’s sight sufficiently to allow him to become aware of the invader before the invader saw him; and it also enabled Stephen to identify the Dark King with certainty, even from several rooms away. That man had just come hurrying—alone, except for the one demon which clung to him like an incubus, and functioned as his eyes—down, down into the dimly lighted armory.

      
Not that this towering, eyeless albino, in the ordinary course of events, would have been very difficult to identify.

      
Stephen tensed, and in his sudden concentration even came close to forgetting for the moment that he was carrying two drawn Swords.

      
Vilkata. The Dark King
.

      
This was the man—say, rather, the monster—who, two years ago, had almost killed Stephen’s mother, inflicting upon her months of physical and mental agony. The evil magician who was the deadly enemy of Stephen’s father. The fiend who preferred the society of demons to that of people, and who had wrought great havoc upon the whole world—the realm of Tasavalta in particular.

      
The boy’s naturally combative nature, and his princely training in the theory and practice of war, asserted themselves, and he was ready to attack.

Chapter Six

      
At once, without the need to pause or think, the young Prince turned away from the stairs he had been about to climb and began to retrace his steps toward the Sword-chamber. He was moving to intercept the invader. Scarcely conscious of the continuing pain in his shoulder or the bruises on his knees and elbows, Stephen stalked his hated enemy. Shieldbreaker was once more in his right hand, drumming softly as he held it ready for a thrust. In the left hand of the young Prince, Sightblinder continued to exert its silent power; with the help of the Sword of Stealth the youth was able vaguely to perceive the demon accompanying his foe, a half-transparent cloud of something in the air beside the wizard’s head.

      
Meanwhile the eyeless magician had satisfied himself that he was now on the deepest level of the palace. The bright image of the Tyrant’s Blade, gripped fiercely in the Dark King’s right fist, emitted a muted roaring, to itself and to the world, the sound of a fire started by some enthusiastic mob.

      
Unaware of Stephen watching him from three rooms away, Vilkata paused briefly at the foot of the stairs to gaze about him with his unnatural vision. In the next moment the Dark King, without looking back, beckoned to someone or something above and behind him, at the top of the stone stairs; then the man turned his back on the stairs, and turning away from Stephen also, strode forward purposefully.

      
In response to the Master’s commanding gesture, a small squad of demons, fanatical and protective, came pouring after Vilkata down the stairs, to take up their positions swirling behind him like an evil mist. None of these creatures darted ahead to scout, because the Eyeless One had already warned them that he must be first to enter the room where the Tasavaltan Swords were kept. The Dark King walked at the head of his powers alone—except, of course, for Pitmedden, who continued to provide his sight.

      
Yes, Vilkata was thinking, the weapons and tools arrayed here in profusion left no doubt that he had reached the armory. Now, to locate the room of Swords…

      
Holding the murmuring, faintly roaring steel of Skulltwister—in his own demonic vision a towering spear of pale fire—raised before him as he advanced toward the Sword-vault through the lowest level of the palace, Vilkata sighted from the corner of his eye a movement on his left which was not demonic. To his surprise he became aware that someone else, a single human figure, was walking there in the dim light, indeed was steadily approaching him.

      
A moment later, scowling doubtfully, the Dark King felt an inward chill as he identified the newcomer as the newly-converted Karel. Yes, Princess Kristin’s wizard-uncle, the same almost-tearful convert who just a minute ago, up on one of the higher levels of the palace, had informed Vilkata of the words of the incantation necessary to open both inner and outer sealings of the Sword-vault.

      
As Pitmedden’s vision presented the image of the Tasavaltan magician, the old man’s hands, slightly upraised, were empty. Karel’s mien was humble, his smile gentle and apologetic, as befitted a convert in the full flush of his enthusiasm.

      
Vilkata was vaguely puzzled. Only moments ago he had left Karel behind him, at the head of the last flight of descending stairs. Had the Tasavaltan wizard so quickly disobeyed orders and followed him downstairs out of some irrational concern for Vilkata’s welfare? Or did Karel perhaps come bearing urgent information? Some fresh news of Prince Mark? Or—?

      
“What is it now?” the Dark King snapped at the approaching one. Meanwhile his swarm of demons hung over his head, snarling and droning among themselves, like poison bees around his ears. However Vilkata’s bodyguard perceived this human walking toward them, the figure caused them no alarm.

* * *

      
Stephen, having closed now within a few paces of his enemy, seeing the tall man’s pale face with its scarred and empty sockets turn toward him, felt a chill of fear, despite his intellectual confidence in Sightblinder’s protection. When the villain snapped a question at him, the young Prince, suffering another wave of confusion, hardly understood what the man was saying.

      
Under the continuing burden of the two Swords’ double magic, Stephen wondered who the Dark King took him for … a moment passed before the lad realized that it hardly mattered. Vilkata was not alarmed or alerted. There was no need for him, Stephen, to pretend anything. The Sword of Stealth would do all the necessary pretending for him.

      
But duration and reality were crumbling. His next step toward the Dark King seemed to take forever. The young Prince tried to steel his nerves by reminding himself that his father, even as a boy, had held two Swords simultaneously and had survived the experience.

      
Stephen advanced another pace toward his foe, and yet another. In fact he was walking almost at normal speed, yet each stride seemed to be protracted through endless time. It seemed to be taking him minutes, hours, just to get from one room of the armory to the next.

      
The tall, hideous figure of his enemy shrugged, and turned away from him again … but the double magic of the Swords was roaring in Stephen’s ears, and now, whatever else happened, he was going to have to stop, for just a moment, to try to organize his thoughts. …

      
Brutal, physical noise cleared the cobwebs of magic from his mind, and momentarily shocked the young Prince back to full awareness. Ever louder and more savage had grown the sounds of disturbance drifting in through the high, barred windows of the lower levels of the palace. The cheering, roaring tumult issuing from the Mindsword itself was being drowned out, swallowed up in the rush of similar sounds from human throats. It sounded as if a joyous crowd was pouring out into the streets around the palace to welcome the arrival of their glorious new Master. The conversion had overtaken hundreds, perhaps thousands of the citizens of Sarykam in their sleep, had engulfed everyone within the palace and the houses on the nearby streets, all who had been within an arrow’s flight of the Sword of Madness along whatever route its bearer had used to enter the city.

      
Now the roaring had become more raucous. Individual screams and challenges testified that something like all-out war had erupted in the precincts of the city surrounding the palace. Of course, besides the possible thousands of new converts, there would still be an even greater number who had remained outside the Mindsword’s sharply defined range. The fanatical converts could not but see the latter now as deadly enemies, no matter that they might have been close relatives or friends an hour ago—and the converts were ready to strike for their Master in deadly earnest, and with the full advantage of surprise.

      
Stephen blinked and looked around, to find himself alone. Now where had Vilkata got to? He must be up ahead, he must by now have reached the repository of the Swords. Now the young Prince, still doubly armed, clinging to his sanity and alertness as best he could, forced himself to follow.

* * *

      
The Dark King had already forgotten for the moment the perfect image of a nodding, smiling, speechless Karel, approaching him obsequiously, because Vilkata was sure that he had now reached the Sword-chamber itself. Still holding the Mindsword raised before him like a torch, he had arrived at the doorway of a vaulted room which, if the directions he’d been given were correct, must be the very one he wanted.

      
The wizard placed a sensitive hand high on the stone wall, fingers delicately stroking. Shreds of old Karel’s protective magic clinging to the doorway, ineffective now but still perceptible, assured the invader that he had come to the right place—and supporting evidence, tending to confirm that this was no ordinary room, was visible in the form of a dead body, physically mangled, on the floor inside.

      
Vilkata paused, scowling. Just here and now, he could not interpret the presence of a corpse as a sign that things were going well.

      
His escort of demons, droning almost mindlessly, still filled the air around him.

      
Using the glowing point of Skulltwister, the tool readiest to hand, the Dark King quite easily, almost absent-mindedly, put aside whatever bits of Karel’s handiwork still survived about the doorway. Taking note of the nature of these remnants of enchantment as he did so, and of how completely their fabric had been torn apart, he thought: Akbar has certainly been here. That senior demon, and few other beings, human or demonic, could have shredded Karel’s defensive handiwork in such a way. But then the question persisted: Where was Akbar now?

      
After stepping across the threshold of the Sword-chamber, Vilkata paused again before approaching the inner vault, whose doors he saw were closed. He delayed a moment to study more closely the body on the floor. With faint disappointment the Dark King saw that the dead man was no one he could recognize as an enemy.

      
Particularly the intruder now took note of the blasted Sword-hilt in the corpse’s hand.

      
Vilkata bent to investigate further; even without touching this relic he thought he could identify it, even drained of magic as it was. There was no doubt that these scorched wooden splinters, no gram of metal left, had once been part of the Sword Dragonslicer.

      
No doubt at all?

      
“Pitmedden.”

      
“Master?”

      
“Do you pry his fingers open. I want to get a better look at that black wood, to make absolutely sure.”

      
Some part of the vision-demon’s nature took on the form of a dwarfish, malignant-looking human child, unnaturally hairy, crouched by the dead man’s outflung right arm. In a moment the dead fingers loosed their grip.

      
The white dragon-symbol, offering a final confirmation of the smashed weapon’s identity, was still visible upon the hilt.

      
A shattered Sword just now was even a worse sign than a dead body, because it was a sure indication that Shieidbreaker had already been brought into action.

      
Vilkata, scowling at this discovery, was suddenly no longer sanguine about his chances of finding the Sword of Force available when the inner Sword-vault—obviously this construction standing in the center of the chamber—should be opened.

      
In another moment he had employed the secret incantation given him by Karel, and the two doors thudded back.

      
Vilkata frowned to find the vault already emptied of its best treasure.

      
Only one Sword, obviously Stonecutter, was still in its rack. For the time being, Vilkata let it stay there. Above and below the single occupant, four empty velvet spaces yawned.

      
A moment later Karel appeared—for the second time in a few moments, as Vilkata thought. Princess Kristin’s mighty uncle, as helpless in the Mindsword’s grip as the humblest of servants, having now in great concern for his Master’s welfare followed him downstairs, caught up with the Dark King in the Sword-chamber, discovered in his turn the body of Bazas, recognized the man, and expressed grief over the loss.

      
“What loss is that?” demanded the Eyeless One. Karel murmured something to the effect that it was to be hoped that Bazas before dying had also seen the light, the glorious truth about Vilkata.

      
Vilkata mumbled viciously. “Old idiot, are you going to prove as useless as you look? What does it matter what a dead man thought or felt? The real loss is here; the most important Swords are gone. I want to know who has them.”

      
Karel obediently turned his attention to the inner vault. He was clearly surprised, and every bit as chagrined as Vilkata, by the absence of Sightblinder and Shieidbreaker. “I do not know who has them, Master,” he admitted sadly.

      
Vilkata shook his head impatiently at this evidence of ineptitude. “Well, where was Shieldbreaker when you saw it last? And Sightblinder? Surely they are customarily kept here?”

      
“Yes, sire. I had thought they would be here now.” The old wizard continued to look stricken at the loss.

      
“Well, find them! You know the people here, the lay of the land. Use your vaunted powers!”

      
The elder wizard looked gently pained. “Master, if whoever now possesses those two Swords does not wish to be found, neither my powers nor any others will search effectively.” And the graybeard made a helpless gesture.

      
Of course he was right. The Dark King gestured too, and muttered, summoning into the armory more demons, who rolled down the stairs like so many billows of smoke. A moment later, fearing Shieidbreaker in the hands of some unknown enemy, he shouted to bring more human converts to his side as well, potential unarmed champions and defenders if he should need them.

* * *

      
To the young Prince, who had been brought to a virtual halt two rooms away, these additional demons, which would ordinarily have sickened him to the point of disability, now seemed no more than storm-wraiths passing at a distance. Armed as the boy was, they could neither harm him nor even really see him; each demon, Stephen supposed, must be perceiving him as one of their own kind, or as the wizard whom they worshipped, no matter that the real wizard was visible only a few paces distant. Such was the power of the Sword of Stealth. …

      
Stephen’s mind was for the moment clear again, though he had to struggle to keep his perceptions and his balance steady. Once more his feet were carrying him relentlessly, almost silently, toward the Sword-room, and in each hand he still held a heavy weapon poised.