Fred Saberhagen - Lost Swords 08 - Shieldbreakers story

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NONE STANDS TO SHIELDBREAKER

The demon Akbar had once more returned and now was rushing again upon the Prince, sweeping from

the doorway the last shreds of protective magic.

The Sword of Force came literally leaping up out of its velvet casing to meet Stephen's grasping

fingers. Shieldbreaker continued its upward movement, pulling the young Prince's right arm

violently with it.

Shieldbreaker, hammering thunderstrokes, lashed out against the demonic intruder. Stephen's right

arm was pulled helplessly forward even as his body staggered back. Pain stabbed at his shoulder,

where the movement of the Sword twisted it.

The demon, an image of horror, emitted no bellow of outrage this time, but rather a choked cry, a

grating and unbreathing sound that was to haunt the young Prince in nightmares.

Tor books by Fred Saberhagen

THE BERSERKER SERIES

The Berserker Wars

Berserker Base (with Poul Anderson, Ed Bryant, Stephen

Donaldson, Larry Niven, Connie Willis, and Roger Zelazny)

Berserker: Blue Death

The Berserker Throne

Berserker's Planet

Berserker Kill

THE DRACULA SERIES

The Dracula Tapes

The Holmes-Dracula Files

An Old Friend of the Family

Thorn

Dominion

A Matter of Taste

A Question of Time

Stance for a Vampire

THE SWORDS SERIES

The First Book of Swords

The Second Book of Swords

The Third Book of Swords

The First Book of Lost Swords: Woundhealer's Story

The Second Book of Lost Swords: Sightblinder's Story

The Third Book of Lost Swords: Stonecutter's Story

The Forth Book of Lost Swords: Farslayer 's Story

The Fifth Book of Lost Swords: Coinspinner's Story

The Sixth Book of Lost Swords: Mindsword's Story

The Seventh Book of Lost Swords: Wayfmder's Story

The Last Book of Swords: Shieldbreaker's Story

OTHER BOOKS

A Century of Progress Coils (with Roger Zelazny)

Earth Descended

The Mask of the Sun

The Veils ofAzlaroc

The Water of Thought

THE LAST BOOK

SWORDS

SHIELDBREAKER'S STORY

FRED SABERHAGEN

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A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK

NEW YORK

NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen

property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher and neither the author nor

the publisher has received payment for this "stripped book."

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious,

and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10010

Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, Inc. ISBN: 0-812-50577-8

First edition: February 1994

First mass market edition: June 1995

Printed in the United States of America 0987654321

THE LAST BOOK

SWORDS

ONE

HUNCHED in his saddle on the flying demon's back, buffeted by winds of air and magic, Vilkata the

Dark King confronted catastrophe with a snarl of defiance. In his left hand Vilkata gripped the

magical reins of his monstrous steed, and in his wounded right fist he clutched the black hilt of

the naked, god-forged Mindsword, its flashing steel blade stained lightly with his own blood.

The cuts on his right wrist and hand had been inflicted perhaps three minutes ago. After that the

Mindsword had been sheathed again, its powers muffled; but when the Dark King had finally

succeeded in getting control of the Sword, only a few moments ago, his first act had been to fling

the scabbard clear, unleashing all Skulltwister's magic.

Too late.

Even armed and mounted as he was now, the ancient wizard, survivor of a thousand dreadful perils,

could not doubt that this time, at last, the doom of utter destruction had overtaken him.

With facial muscles clenched hard around the long-empty sockets of his eyes, the Dark King uttered

a tremendous scream, venting all the agony of his soul in a bellowing curse, a malediction as

profound as it was impotent, directed at all his enemies, known and unknown, and at the universe

itself for spawning them.

The Dark King's enemies were many, and what was happening now gave proof, if any proof were

needed, that some of them were very strong.

Around Vilkata, from the quasi-material throats of the two dozen or so flying, shape-changing

demons who formed his hideous escort, there rose despairing howls of such pitch and volume as to

suggest that the end of the world had come.

He, Vilkata, together with his mount and his entire escort- these now including in their number

the mighty demon Akbar, at one time the Dark King's mortal foe-the whole swarm of them, despite

the Mindsword's presence, regardless of anything that any and all of them could do, were being

swept away, helpless as leaves in a tornado.

Only moments ago, a mere few heartbeats in the past, the wizard Vilkata had been, as he thought,

on the brink of triumph. He had been locked in airborne combat above the torchlit palace of his

archfoe, Prince Mark of Tasavalta. And then, in the twinkling of an eye, not only had the

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Tasavaltan palace passed quite out of the Dark King's sight and reach, but so had the whole night-

shrouded city of Sarykam, as well as all of the human enemies and temporary allies by whom Vilkata

had been surrounded. It seemed that he had been cut off from the whole world.

And the Dark King knew the cause. It was impossible to avoid the bitter truth, even if he could

not understand it. He had heard the incantation of his doom, foolish-sounding but irresistible,

shouted by Prince Mark.

An instant after those words had fallen upon the air, the shouts, the clash of metal, the glare of

torches, all were gone. Vilkata and his demons had been wrapped up, bundled together as if by

hands of divine power, and thrown away. Now blackness and near-emptiness surrounded him and the

two dozen hideous, half-material creatures whose loyalty the Mindsword had compelled. They were

now encapsulated within an almost featureless void that was pervaded by a sense of movement,

caught in helpless hurtling flight at some indeterminable but awesome speed.

They were in rapid motion, certainly. But toward what destination? Speed and destination were both

completely out of their control. Gravity, as modified by the flying demons' magic, seemed to come

and go in yawning leaps. All sense of direction had been lost; even "up" and "down" no longer

seemed to have consistent meaning.

Vilkata understood that his own greatest weakness, as was so often the case among humans, was the

mirror image of his strength. The fact was that the Dark King's own skills in magic had long ago

led him to depend almost absolutely upon demons. The man was physically blind, by his own hand and

choice, and had been so for most of his long life. Only by magically borrowing the vision of a

demon was he able to see at all, but ordinarily the vision thus provided was keener than that of

any merely human eyes. Not now. Currently his perception of his surroundings was only sufficient

to suggest that the tornado of material and non-material energies evoked by Mark was carrying him

and his inhuman escort into a strange realm indeed.

The exact nature of this realm, or condition, was obscured by the same forces that enveloped

Vilkata and bore him through it. But at least his immediate fate was not to be annihilation, as he

had feared at the outset. Perhaps, he told himself, there even remained a glimmer of hope for

ultimate recovery.

Meanwhile, defeat, even if it should prove only temporary, was made all the more bitter by the

fact that only moments earlier he, the Dark King, had been, as he thought, so close to final

victory. So close to winning, to gathering in the gods' great Swords all for himself! But that

chance had now been obliterated. He, who had long played the great game for ultimate authority,

was in the grip of forces that held him helpless as an infant. Now, despite the awesome power of

the one Sword he still possessed, despite the strength of the demonic mount between his knees and

the other terrible monsters flying near at his command-despite all this, disaster.

Still, moment after moment flew by, and he remained alive. The ultimate blow had not yet fallen.

At least he had no fear that the demons droning and murmuring around him now were going to turn

against him. No, Vilkata's sense of magic assured him that, even here in this peculiar domain of

darkness and of hurtling movement, the Mindsword still retained its power to compel obedience,

loyalty, and worship.

Only moments before Mark's curse of banishment took effect, Akbar and Vilkata had been opposed to

each other in deadly combat. But then, suddenly, the demon had been deprived of Shieldbreaker, the

Sword which had for some time protected him, and almost at the same time the Mindsword had come

into Vilkata's hands. Akbar, along with every other thinking being within its radius of operation,

had fallen immediately under the domination of the Sword.

Now silence held. And duration, in this strange and shadowy and almost timeless realm, had become

difficult to quantify. Now, more than ever, the man could tell that he was dependent upon his

demonic escort for his continued survival, his very existence. Compelled by the power of the

Mindsword to an uncharacteristic loyalty, they were magically supplying him with air to breathe,

as well as eyes to see with. It was as if the sealed-off space which enclosed Vilkata and his

creatures during their helpless flight had quickly come to lack any atmosphere of its own.

Yes, the calculation of time was certainly a problem in this state .... More and more the wizard

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became convinced that time here-wherever "here" might be-was evolving very strangely. Had this

enforced passage endured for a day, an hour, a month, a year? Vilkata had lost all confidence in

his ability to tell.

Whatever might have been the correct objective reckoning of time, an epoch at length arrived when

one of the demons, murmuring deferentially as it hovered near its worshipped master, informed him

that it had fabricated for his priceless Sword a new sheath (the original was irretrievably lost),

of some leathery material obtained from the gods knew where. In this sheath he could put his

priceless Sword to rest while he tried to heal his injured hand. That was all right; the Dark King

knew from experience that the Mindsword need not be held unsheathed continuously to maintain its

compulsion, once that influence had been established.

Sword sheathed, he was able at last, with a sigh of relief, to let go the reins of the huge

magical creature he was still riding. Let go, for the time being, and try to get some rest. In

truth he was very weary. At a murmured command from him the saddle he had been sitting in reshaped

itself to suit his comfort, becoming something like a bed or hammock. The demon-beast he had been

riding reshaped itself as well, a trick they could do practically at will; then it vanished for

the time being from his ken. Still it continued to re-orient itself as necessary, providing for

its worshipped master some semblance of consistency regarding "up" and "down."

For many, many years the Dark King had had no eyes to close; but now he did the trick of magic

that allowed him to disconnect his borrowed vision. With sight now gone, he could still hear and

feel his faithful demons around him.

Ever since disaster struck he had drawn some measure of comfort from the fact that he certainly

was not going unaccompanied into the peculiar night which had so totally engulfed him. His

erstwhile enemy, the mighty Akbar, was drifting near him now, and the Dark King with only a

minimum of effort, performing an act magically analogous to slitting his eyelids open, was able to

see, through Akbar's inhuman perception, his own physical body: albino white of skin and hair,

tall and strong and ageless. And currently somewhat damaged.

The demon Akbar, doubtless taking note of this activity, commented sadly and unnecessarily that

its master had been wounded. Vilkata's right arm and hand had by now ceased to bleed, but were

still somewhat painful, gashed from an earlier accidental contact with the Mindsword, the Blade of

Glory. This particular weapon was known, among other things, for the ugliness, the resistance to

treatment, of the physical wounds it could inflict.

"See what you can do in the way of healing me," the magician ordered brusquely. He held up his

right hand, on which all of the blood was not yet dry.

"Yes, Master."

The damned monsters could probably do some good if they tried, Vilkata thought. Though in the

ordinary course of events the healing of any living thing, especially a human, would certainly be

among the least likely actions to be expected of any demon.

Once before, years ago, the Dark King had enjoyed an extended possession of the Mindsword. When in

that epoch he had carried the weapon into battle, his demonic vision had shown it to him as a

pillar of billowing flame long as a spear, with his own face glowing amid the perfect whiteness of

the flame. And so the weapon appeared to him now.

Hand resting uneasily on the hilt of his newly resheathed Sword, he totally blanked out his vision

once again and endeavored to rest. But anger and resentment prevented anything like complete

relaxation.

And exactly what was it that had mobilized this impersonal and overwhelming force against Vilkata?

Almost nothing, or so, in his present state of brooding helpless rage, it seemed to him.

No more than a few words of incantation cried out by his arch enemy, Prince Mark.

Such was the mysterious power against demons, and against those who depended upon demons, enjoyed

by Mark, the Emperor's son.

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* * *

When the Dark King decided that he had rested enough, and reclaimed his demonic vision, there was

really almost nothing to be seen. This bizarre state of darkness and movement which had been

imposed upon Vilkata and his escort by some enigmatic, overwhelming power, this rushing passage

into an incomprehensible distance, protracted itself for what he began to find, subjectively, to

be a very long time indeed. It seemed to him that he endured an immeasurable epoch, divorced from

any objective standard of duration.

Little more in the way of deliberate, articulate communication passed between the man and the

members of his demonic escort while the journey lasted. Vilkata had begun to fear that this

condition might prove to be eternal, when at last hints of change broke the monotony. A murmuring

developed among the demons. Something like a normal flow of time seemed to resume, and presently

demons and man alike were able to sense that the darkness and the sense of rushing movement were

also coming to an end.

And now, Vilkata realized with mingled relief and apprehension, the compelled journey had at last

concluded. The sense of encapsulation persisted for the moment; but seeming weightlessness had

been supplanted by gentle gravity. Once more "up" and "down" had become perfectly consistent-

though the magician retained the odd impression that his body was now considerably lighter than it

had been.

Now finally the sense of encapsulation was fading. Man and demons were free to move about. For the

first time since the Prince had cursed him, Vilkata could feel a solid surface under his booted

feet, a surface that felt like sandy soil.

Issuing crisp orders, making sure his compulsively loyal escort were deployed as a bodyguard

ranked closely about his own person, Vilkata magically grafted the vision of first one of his

enslaved creatures and then another to his own mind, in hopes that at least one of their

viewpoints would be able to provide him with useful information.

Having thus done his best to transcend the handicap of his own empty eye sockets, the Dark King

looked about him warily.

He was standing on a dusty, heavily cratered, windless, airless plain-he could breathe, he sensed,

only because his demons were loyally providing him with air. The Sun glared, with abnormal

brilliance, out of a black sky. The temperature of his surroundings was extremely high, well past

the point of human endurance, had he not been magically protected.

Vilkata's first impression of this environment was that it was a hellish place indeed to which the

Emperor's son had exiled him. This land, this airless space, were virtually as dead as the

encapsulation he had endured on the long journey. This place was breathless and silent, in fact

altogether lifeless, to a degree that the Dark King had never before encountered or even imagined.

Now, beyond the foreground of dusty, almost level plain, he could perceive hills of assorted

sizes, rounded and smoothly eroded but harshly cratered. The farthest of these elevations marked

out a sharp horizon under the clear but dark sky, which was strewn with unlikely numbers of hard,

unwinking stars. Already, as the last traces of encapsulation disappeared, there were many stars

to be seen, and more were steadily becoming visible.

In the middle distance of Vilkata's field of view were clustered a dozen or so strange buildings.

These were unmistakably relics of the Old World, structures fabricated of unknown crystalline and

metallic materials, the basic dome shape elaborated in incomprehensible variations. Certainly no

human skills available in Vilkata's world could have created anything like them. Some were no

bigger than peasants' huts, others the size of manor houses.

The inventions of the Old World were not completely foreign to the Dark King, whose education had

not been restricted to matters of statecraft and magic. Like every serious scholar, he had read

how the arrogant humans of that long-gone era, armed with their mysterious technology, had

admitted no limits to their ambition-and yet had been overtaken by destruction all the same.

Issuing orders to his demons in a steady voice, Vilkata sent a couple of them ahead to scout among

the buildings. In less than a minute the pair were back, saying they could detect no danger.

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Irritated by what he considered their casual attitude, he told them to go and look again, to make

absolutely sure.

But despite his irritation the Dark King had been reassured, and in his impatience he did not wait

for his scouts' second report. Hand ready on the Sword hilt at his side, he started to walk toward

the apparently deserted settlement. As soon as he began to walk, new strangeness almost overcame

him; his strides on this ground were awkward and bouncing, almost a slow bounding, as if his body

had indeed somehow been deprived of most of its weight.

Before he had covered half the distance to the nearest of the strange, domed, half-crystalline

structures, his pair of scouts, who could move with the speed of quasi-material beings, were at

his side again. Still the two demons had discovered no clear and present danger. But they were

obviously excited and worried by things they had just observed, babbling to their Master about Old

World technology beyond anything that they had ever seen before. Below the visible settlement

there stretched extensive underground passages and rooms, many of them still in a good state of

preservation; and in some of these there appeared to be wonders indeed.

The Dark King brushed aside talk of Old World things; he simply was not interested. "And people?

Is this place inhabited?"

"Not as far as we can tell, Master. There has been no one, I think, for a very long time indeed."

Vilkata grumbled some more at the excited creatures and kept on walking. It was not that he had

any wish to explore this alien land, where so much strangeness, so much-technology-was going to

make it difficult to concentrate on the familiar and important things of magic. But the Dark King

wanted to learn where he was as quickly as possible because he was eager to reassure himself

regarding his chances of returning to more familiar regions without inordinate delay. Only when he

had done that would it be possible to get on with his own business. And he had plenty of vital

business demanding his attention: first, of course, glorious revenge, and, when the lust for

revenge was stated, a return to the methodical accumulation of power.

Walking toward the Old World buildings with steps which were still mystically light and springy

(even though not magically assisted), over a crunchy soil, the Dark King put the question of

location to another of his demonic servants. Instinctively he chose for this purpose the demon who

might be expected to be most knowledgeable and capable, the Mind-sword's most eminent recent

convert, Akbar himself.

"Where in the world are we, Akbar? Tell me, you cloud of slime, are we still on the same continent

as Tasavalta and Sarykam?"

Akbar now assumed in Vilkata's perception the shape of a sturdy, reliable manservant who walked

beside him, crude boots crunching in the soil. In apologetic tones the manservant informed the

Master that the journey they had just concluded had evidently been indirect as well as protracted.

They had been helplessly following for approximately two earthly years a long, wandering course

through airless space. Akbar, in his usual smooth, oily fashion, did his best to take credit for

making the experience as relatively comfortable as it had been for the human wizard.

But Vilkata, staring incredulously at his informant, was shocked. Outraged! Two years, wasted in

confinement, as surely as if he had been clapped into a dungeon!

The Dark King snarled at his faithful demon, sending the manservant image cowering back in fear

and disappointment. A demon could ordinarily take any shape it chose, within broad limits, and

Akbar's likeness was now abruptly transformed into that of a young woman. Her body, voluptuous and

nearly nude, minced along on delicate bare feet beside Vilkata, moving hesitantly and awkwardly,

as if she were on the verge of darting away to take shelter behind one of the boulders

occasionally dotting the landscape. The look on the young woman's nearly perfect face confirmed

the impression of her utter helplessness and fear. In fact, her countenance reminded Vilkata

strongly of a young servant girl whose name he had forgotten-it was years since he had amused

himself for an evening by torturing her to death, but he still retained fond memories of the

experience.

At the moment, the adoption of this particular image by the demon struck the Dark King as

disgustingly stupid. Akbar could be that way at times-as though he thought his Master wanted or

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needed distraction, when his true need was to concentrate intensely on his problems!

Akbar, as Vilkata thought to himself, had always been one of the most cowardly and self-effacing

of demons, though by no means one of the least powerful. The race were hardly noted for their

bravery; but always this one had preferred to avoid even the slightest risk of death or

punishment, whenever possible using other creatures-human, animal, or demonic- to attain his ends.

But right now the wizard had more important problems demanding his attention than trying to fathom

the depths of a demon's character-if one could attribute such a quality as character to any member

of the race. His physical environment was the first thing he had to understand. Where exactly was

he, and in what kind of place? Here the pervasive ascendancy of forces other than magic made him

uneasy.

He paused in his springy walk toward the enigmatic buildings. His demonic escort stopped as well,

and waited, droning and half visible, in the space around his head. He was close enough now to the

Old World structures to see that many of them were ruined. Whatever information might be

discoverable among them could wait. Just now, with the utter alienness of his surroundings

impressing itself upon him with ever-increasing force, he wanted a simple answer to a simple

question: Which way was home, and how far?

Distractedly, Vilkata ran trembling fingers through his white beard, which-as he just noticed for

the first time-had indeed grown long during the involuntary voyage just completed. Staring around

him at the strange hills, he once more demanded the clear answer he had not yet been given.

"And where have our coerced wanderings brought us? What is this place?"

The cringing image of the young woman, becoming suddenly even more attractive, looked up brightly

and edged closer. Her eyes turned bright and hopeful as she replied: "Sire, we are now standing on

the Moon, upon that portion of her surface perpetually most distant from the Earth."

TWO

THE demon who had pronounced the shattering words, together with all his colleagues, peered in

anxious silence at his Master, concerned to see what effect this news might have upon him.

Vilkata, stunned by the announcement, said nothing for a few moments. It was impossible to hear

such an unprecedented claim without doubting it. Yet the unearthly strangeness of the environment,

impressing itself upon him more intensely with every moment, immediately undermined his doubts.

And the Dark King reminded himself again that the Mindsword compelled perfect loyalty; whatever

his demons' natural inclination, they would not, could not, lie to him. Not unless they deemed

that their Master's best interests would be served by such deception-and that condition hardly

seemed likely to apply in the present situation.

Was it conceivable that a demon could be mistaken in such a matter? No, not likely either.

Seeking to establish beyond all doubt the truth of his situation, and wanting the best advice he

could obtain on what to do about it, the Dark King summoned the whole number of his faithful

demonic horde close about him. There were about two dozen of them in all, at the moment assuming a

variety of human and almost-human shapes. Though Vilkata recognized them all individually, he had

never taken a count of their exact number.

One reason for this summoning was that he did not want any of the demons straying for any

dangerous length of time beyond the physical distance at which the Mindsword's influence would, in

time, begin to fade.

When he was sure he had the full attention of each member of his escort, he demanded proof of the

incredible statement one of their number had just made. Characteristically, he phrased the request

in the form of an accusation.

"We are on the Moon? Do you really expect me to believe that?"

Judging by the expressions on the faces of his slaves and guardians, such belief was indeed what

they, in their current state of enforced loyalty, had expected. The angry tone of their Master's

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question disturbed them.

"What proof can you offer?" the Dark King demanded.

If he had expected Akbar and the others to be perplexed by this demand, he was mistaken. To prove

to their choleric Master as clearly as possible that they spoke the truth, they lifted him gently

and carried him at arrow-speed over the rolling hills of the peculiar landscape, directly away

from the clustered Old World domes. When his bearers put him down a minute later, the Dark King

found himself gazing by means of his borrowed vision at an almost recognizable Earth, just risen

straight ahead of him above the sharply defined and not-too-distant horizon.

The great orb, vastly larger than the Moon as seen from Earth, and nearly full, was now hanging

motionless among the crowded stars, for all the world like some blue-white Moon, monstrously

swollen.

There was half a minute of silence before the Dark King, in a changed voice, murmured: "That is

... what I think it is?"

"Indeed, Master."

As he stared at his native planet, Vilkata's magically augmented vision was able to descry,

beneath the white film of distant clouds, the shape of continents and oceans. The sight was

finally convincing.

Suddenly his homeworld, so eminently recognizable, also looked so close, almost within reach.

Vilkata wanted to reach up and pluck blue Earth from black sky, crush all the juices from the

planet in his grip.

Impulsively he demanded: "How long will it take us to get back there? Surely not a matter of years

again? Such delay would be unendurable!"

Akbar, speaking with a fanatic's vehemence, and quickly supported by a chorus of his lesser

colleagues, assured his Master that they would find a way to make the homeward leg of their

journey infinitely faster.

"Never years, Master!"

"Never!"

Vilkata glared at them all. "Months, then? That would be almost as bad. Assure me that the return

trip to our own world will not be prolonged over months."

Akbar now turned supremely smooth and reassuring. "Days only, Master, I am sure. Never more than

days."

"How are we to travel? I have the feeling that this place is still connected to the Old World,

that it does not support magic as well as it might. Technology ..."

"Yet magic here works well enough for your purposes, Master, for here we are. As for getting home,

I can see already that there are several ways. We will soon determine the swiftest and most

secure," the demon promised.

"How?" Vilkata's voice, demanding particulars, grew louder, threatening. He waved the glowing

torch-vision of his Sword. Even before the lengthy voyage just concluded, he had flown uncounted

times on demons' backs, and was very familiar with the process. The idea of deliberately setting

out to travel from the Moon to the Earth by such means was unsettling, whatever magical protection

might be provided.

"We will discover the best way," Akbar assured him vaguely. The demon, evidently sensing that his

Master considered the maidenly form inappropriate just now, had taken that of a stout male

warrior. "I suggest we begin, great Master, with a thorough investigation of those buildings we

had sighted."

"Be it so."

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Again Vilkata was lifted gently by his guardians, and in moments they were all back at the

abandoned Old World settlement-if that was the right word for this collection of enigmatic and

apparently deserted structures. As they flew above the pockmarked surface, the Earth once more

slipped back below the strangely foreshortened lunar horizon.

With the complete dissipation of the encapsulating force, whatever it had been, which had confined

the man and demons together through their outward voyage, the demons' vision had dramatically

improved, as had that of the wizard who shared their perceptions. Now a truly unreasonable number

of stars were crowding the dark sky. Standing out in the display were a pair of the brighter

planets, the latter familiar to Vilkata from his long-ago studies in astrology. And always there

was the mercilessly glaring Sun, which so far had shown little inclination to move from the place

low in the sky where the Dark King had first seen it.

Flying, he was able to observe more clusters of human construction in the distance. Whatever the

true nature of this place, whatever its true location (he still clung fiercely to an atom of doubt

about being on the Moon-he did not want to be there!), it was certainly marked, in scattered

locations, with other clustered, abandoned settlements, the ruins of strange buildings and

devices.

Vilkata had learned the fact in his studies long ago-had learned but until now had never totally

believed-that the arrogant humans of the Old World had indeed, even without the benefit of any

magic at all, colonized the Moon.

One of the first things he had observed upon his arrival here was that the landscape was heavily

cratered, pocked and blasted with marks as of violent impacts or explosions. These concavities

came in all sizes, from kilometers in diameter-all distances here were hard for a stranger to

estimate by sight, and Vilkata thought that ordinary human vision would have done no better than

his-down to only centimeters. Some of these scars, whatever their provenance, overlay older

craters and were as fresh looking as if they had been formed only yesterday. In depth and width

and conformation these craters seemed to testify to titanic explosions, waves of heat which had

slagged and melted native rock and buildings alike.

Directing his demonic guardians to put him down again in the middle of the first cluster of Old

World constructions they had observed, the Dark King could see that many or most of the house-

sized domes were more than half destroyed, looking empty and airless as the surrounding landscape.

Hand on his Sword hilt, moving again with enforced slow springy strides, Vilkata at last stepped

warily in through one of the fractured walls, entering one of the broken, glassy shells. The tiled

floor, looking quite ordinary, was by far the most familiar thing in sight. Now at last he was

able to see enough details to convince himself completely that these buildings were the work of

the legendary folk of the Old World, constructed with the aid of all their mysterious technology.

Indoors and outdoors the place was littered thickly with the leavings of that antique race of

humanity, the piled debris of their colossal failure. Even as the tracks of their booted human

feet remained here and there visible in the crunchy soil around the buildings, evidently preserved

neither by technology nor magic, but only by the unearthly nature of this environment.

The Old World culture of technology, Vilkata knew, had died some fifty thousand Earthly years ago.

In response to mumbled orders from the increasingly tired and bewildered wizard, his escort soon

located for him, in one of the better-preserved ruins, a real bed, solid furniture upon a solid

floor. They filled his vision with bright, cheerful light, supplied his new quarters with air, and

found for him, miraculously preserved by more Old World technology, wine to drink and real food to

eat. A volume of comfortable living space the size of a small house was magically sealed off.

Once a secure and comfortable physical environment had been provided for their Master, half a

dozen demons, borrowing the shapes of young and beautiful humans of both sexes, came crowding

together on his bed to tempt him with their bodies. He considered this display thoughtfully for a

few moments, then snarled at its creators. Waving the naked, flaring Mindsword at them, he bade

them get out of his sight, ordered them on pain of destruction to concentrate their efforts upon

vigilantly standing guard.

When, about eight hours later, Vilkata awakened from the first real sleep he had enjoyed since his

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banishment-his first in two years, if Akbar was right about the time-with the hilt of the sheathed

Mindsword still gripped in his long-since healed right hand, he felt considerably better. The Dark

King was once more in command of himself, and ready to resume control over his own destiny.

A good thing, too, that he felt rested. Because within a few minutes of his awakening his demons

came to inform him of certain unsettling discoveries they had made while he slept- there were

ominous hints from beneath the lunar surface of a whole domain of ongoing mysterious activity

seemingly not native to the Moon. The centerpiece of this phenomenon seemed to be a certain very

ancient but still active individual presence, no more than a hundred kilometers away.

At the moment when his demons brought this news, the Dark King was standing before a mirror of

magic which presented him with a demonic vision of his own eyeless countenance. He paused in the

act of magically depilating his two-year beard.

"What sort of activity and presence?" he demanded. "What are you talking about?"

The demon-image of a voluptuous woman-this time one of Akbar's lesser colleagues was acting as

spokesman-observed him warily. "Great Lord, it is certainly connected with the Old World, and yet

it is not entirely of that."

" 'It'? What? What kind of information is that? Either tell me something definite and meaningful,

or- or-"

Again it was Akbar's turn to speak. He loomed in insubstantial form, a talking cloud. "Great Lord,

it is very hard to say exactly what it is that we have discovered. There is much technology, as

one might expect in any Old World settlement, and besides that there is much that is alive."

"Alive? Where? What is alive?"

"As to where, Sire, some kind of life exists here under the surface, in places not readily

accessible to our examination. We cannot be more specific at the moment because there are

barriers, magical and otherwise, to our close approach. We might assault those barriers

successfully. Whether we might gain or discover anything that would be worth the cost. . ."

The Dark King thought. "Human life? You told me earlier that there was none."

Akbar's cloud shape contracted, suggesting a humble bow. "To our infinite shame, Tremendous

Master, we may have been mistaken. What kind of life it is is hard to say without obtaining a

closer look."

"Dangerous to us? To me?"

"I think not, Sire. Rather such life as exists here seems- quiescent. Of course, what might happen

if we probe harder in our investigations . . ." Akbar gave the image of a shrug.

"You are babbling," Vilkata accused his faithful slave. Then he took thought before he added: "I

do not intend much exploring here. I suppose you have already carried out some local

investigation, or you would not have detected this supposed life."

"A rather thorough probing of our surroundings within a kilometer or two seemed only prudent,

Master."

The Dark King had to admit as much. "What else have you found? But never mind, it's plain I must

look the situation over for myself. You can tell me of your discoveries while I walk."

An hour after he had awakened, the man, holding the Mindsword drawn, was standing in a tunnel

several meters below the lunar surface, at the very rim of the territory his demons had already

thoroughly explored.

Within a few hundred meters of the room where he had rested ran at least half a dozen underground

tunnels, all lighted at convenient intervals with undying globes or panels of Old World radiance.

One of these passages, bending deeper underground than others, seemed to lead on to the heart of

the domain of mystery, the locus of the individual presence which, according to his demons, might

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