Fred Saberhagen - Lost Swords 06 - Mindswords story

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... 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 little 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. 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 past Vilkata's shoulder to strike. . . .

Tor books by Fred Saberhagen

A Century of Progress

Coils (with Roger Zelazny)

Dominion

The Dracula Tape

Earth Descended

The Holmes-Dracula File

The Mask of the Sun

A Matter of Taste

An Old Friend of the Family

Specimens

Thorn

The Veils of Azlaroc

The Water of Thought

THE BERSERKER SERIES

The Berserker Wars

The Berserker Throne

Berserker Base (with Poul Anderson, Ed Bryant,

Stephen Donaldson, Larry Niven, Connie Willis,

and Roger Zelazny) Berserker Blue Death Berserker's Planet

THE BOOKS OF SWORDS

The First Book of Swords The Second Book of Swords The Third Book of Swords

THE BOOKS OF LOST 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 Fourth 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

MINDSWORD'S

STORY

THE

SIXTH BOOK

OF LOST SWORDS

FRED SABERHAGEN

TOR

fantasy

A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK NEW YORK

MINDSWORD'S STORY

This is a work of fiction. Ail 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.

49 West 24th Street

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New York, N.Y. 10010

ISBN: 0-812-51118-2

First edition: December 1990

First mass market printing: June 1991

Printed in the United States of America 0987654321

ONE

BETWEEN two lofty jagged mountain spines the rocky land declined in frozen swirls that bottomed in

a deep depression, forming at its lowest point a narrow and almost circular hollow shielded from

human observation by tall crags on every side. Around noon on a summer day a man alone was

climbing toward this hidden place. He had begun climbing far below, and he was headed directly for

the unseen hollow with fierce determination, as if he knew that it was there.

The climber was a strong and active man, though without any particular skill or experience in the

art of ascending mountains; more than once today he had come near falling to his death when a

handhold or foothold betrayed him. Dogged resolution had so far sustained him in his effort,

though several times in the past two hours he had come near despairing of his survival.

The one fighting his way upward with such dedication was tall, dark of hair and beard, handsome in

his own dark careless way. His age was approaching forty, and at the moment, breathing hard in the

thin mountain air, he was keenly aware of every year.

The man's lean body had been worn leaner by much recent travel and other difficulties. He was

dressed in the clothes of a soldier or a hunter; his jacket, much faded but still faintly blue and

orange, might have been part of a uniform when it was new. He wore a small pack on his back; at

the left side of his belt swung an empty sheath of a size to hold a long sword, balanced on the

right side by a long practical knife. Despite the difficulties of the ascent, the climber

evidently considered none of these items dispensable.

At the altitude where he had begun his long climb, the day was warm and sunny, but up here on the

high slopes, somewhere around timberline, the summer afternoon was beginning with a light, cold

drizzle, spiced with an occasional stinging pellet of snow or hail. Gusts of wind dragged rolling

mists across the mountain's face, more often than not obscuring the climber's view of what lay

ahead of him and above. Nevertheless he pressed on.

Already at many points in his ascent the climber had paused to rest. Now he did so once more,

clinging in a brief truce to the nearly vertical rock. While catching his breath he examined his

surroundings carefully, as if he expected to see something out of the ordinary. Also, he seemed to

be listening intently, in hopes of picking up the sound of something more meaningful than wind.

Soon he advanced again, with unflagging determination.

His hopes, whatever their foundation, were soon justified, for presently he was granted evidence

that his goal was near. As the climber's line of sight topped the next stony barrier he was able

to see, no more than thirty meters above him and ahead, the notched entrance to a circular pit,

which he knew must be the bottom of the hidden depression between crests.

At this sight the man paused, nodding to himself. Because of certain clues he had been given

before he began to climb, he felt certain of what he was going to discover in that desolate place.

And if any confirmation were needed that he was very near his goal, he had it now. Because now he

was beginning to hear the voices.

The voices, which sounded more in his mind than in his ears, were strange to him, not just

unfamiliar but extremely odd. In truth, as the explorer knew, they were not really vocal sounds.

But he could not help hearing them and thinking of them as voices, these songs and cries that were

so much more than the noise of the wet wind. There surged around him an utterance as of a

multitude at worship, singing a polyphonic paean above the gusts.

The climber moved forward another step, and now a new sign appeared to assure him that he was on

the right track, and had not far to go. The rocks ahead of him remained properly dead and

motionless whenever he gazed straight at them. But all the landscape near the corners of his

vision had now begun to move. The effect was such that the entire mountainside around him appeared

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to be on the verge of swirling away in an ecstatic dance.

Rendered momentarily dizzy by the illusion of dancing rocks, the seeker paused again, closing his

eyes. The mountainside beneath his hands and feet felt stable, and with his intellect he knew it

was. He understood perfectly well that the dance and the ecstasy were in his mind; but that

rendered them no less rhythmic or ecstatic.

Having moved a little closer to his goal, the climber was able now to hear the magic voices more

clearly, though still the words were indistinguishable. Some of the voices sounded human and some

did not, but all of them were shrieking together in a great chorus of triumph and rapture.

The one who sought opened his eyes and studied the way ahead.

Although much of the mountainside was obscured by blowing mist, he knew that, physically, the

worst of the climb was over. From where he stood, the surface he had still to negotiate angled

more and more back toward the horizontal. Within the space of a few breaths the tall dark man,

standing erect now and moving up on legs alone, was almost on the threshold of the notched

entrance to the hollow in the rocks.

As he drew steadily nearer to that point, the fanciful—or perhaps not so fanciful—idea crossed the

climber's mind that perhaps no other human being had set eyes upon these cracked and moss-grown

stones since the old mountains had thrust upward from the earth.

Once more he felt himself rendered a touch unsteady by the superhuman power of magic that loomed

ahead. Once more he paused to close his eyes, trying to regain an inner balance. Standing there

with eyes closed and arms outstretched, the man thought that now he could feel the mountain

dancing. It was as if the whole earth around him were acting out the joy of certain victory, of

success extended to eternity . . . though what victory, or what success was being celebrated, was

more than any mere mortal in his place could tell.

Opening his eyes, the adventurer found himself still groping like a blind man. Trying to make his

mind a blank, he forced himself to forge on, one shuffling step after another.

And now at last he had reached the very threshold of the entrance to the secret place, a point

from which he could see directly into the hollow before him.

Ahead, through swirling mist and wind, he beheld a broad cup of dark rock, irregular in shape,

some forty meters across here at the sculpted bottom. The whole bottom of the cup was deeply

littered by an age-old detritus of stones and rough soil eroded from the surrounding cliffs. Tough

grass and other small plants, only enough of them to emphasize the barrenness, grew very sparsely

in that soil.

In almost the precise middle of this desolate hollow, surmounting a natural cairn of tumbled

stones, an upright Sword was poised.

The cruciform dull black hilt stood uppermost, over a long blade. The metal of that blade,

straight as a ray of sun, and as naked as the surrounding rock, appeared unnaturally bright in the

dull, cloud-filtered daylight. It flashed intermittently, sending forth momentary gleams as

brilliant as the sun that hid itself above the wind-rushed clouds.

Considering the Sword's position, the discoverer surmised that it must at some time have fallen—or

been cast—from somewhere high on one of the surrounding cliffs. The weapon had landed point first

atop the rockpile, wedging itself indestructibly in some fine crevice, or perhaps cracking open

its own niche with the force of its falling weight behind that unbreakable point.

But it was very hard to think, or plan. In the visitor's ears and through his mind, the voices

that were not voices roared and sang unceasingly.

For a moment the tall man tilted back his head, the wind whipping his dark hair and beard, his

eyes squinting up into the rolling, rushing clouds as if he hoped to be able to gather from them

some sign, some trace, concerning the one who had discarded or accidentally dropped this god-

forged weapon here.

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How long might the Sword of Glory have been here, waiting to be claimed? The visitor could not be

sure, but it might well have been for years. He could picture how in winter that bright Blade

would stand here meters deep in drifted snow, and how in spring and summer it must be washed in

floods of snowmelt and of rain. But not the smallest spot of rust showed on that steel; and the

man who stood before it now would have been willing to wager his existence that this weapon had

not lost the faintest increment of keenness from either of its long, finely tapered edges.

Possibly, he thought, the Blade had worn a sheath when it fell—or was hurled—into its present

position. That it stood entirely naked now was easily explained—over a period of months or years,

any covering of cloth or leather could have been nibbled away by the sharp teeth of scavengers,

small mindless creatures unaffected by the magic they uncovered.

The absence of a covering, however, created certain problems for an approaching human being.

Hesitantly, advancing step by step with many pauses, the climber continued his progress toward the

matchless treasure. As much as possible he kept his eyes averted from that gleaming Blade, and he

tried without success to close his mind against the glare, the influence, that poured so

boundlessly, like some effortless reflection of a melting sun, from the thing atop the mound of

rock, the artifact that had been wrought at a god's forge from magic and meteoric metal.

The discoverer knew—but the knowledge was of little help—that the glare afflicting him was not

really in his eyes. He reminded himself as he advanced—though the suggestion did him little

good—that the roaring voices, those of beings forever balancing upon the brink of some orgasmic

triumph, were not really in his ears.

Useless efforts to protect himself, useless. The finder knew an almost overpowering urge to fall

on his knees and worship—not the Sword itself, no, but someone, something, he knew not who or

what, except that the object must be transcendent, and the Sword called him to it.

By now the man, gasping and trembling more in his excitement than from physical effort, was almost

near enough to reach out and touch that dull black hilt. But some basic instinct of survival,

justified or not, warned him that he must not do so yet.

When he dared to peer more closely at the hilt, he saw the small white symbol that he had known

must be there, the device of a waving banner.

"It is the Mindsword, then," the trembling explorer whispered to himself. "It can be nothing

else."—As if there could have been any doubt. But the mere sound of his own voice, which he could

still manage to hold steady, his own words, which he could still contain within the bounds of

rationality, helped him to master his excitement and his nameless fear.

He knew that many people, standing this close to this uncovered Blade, would have turned and fled

in helpless terror. Many others would have fallen down in mindless worship of they knew not what.

The discoverer, being a proud, able, and determined man, did neither. With tremendous stubbornness

he had forced his way here, risking his life, to take possession of this prize. And he was not

going to be deprived of it now.

But at the same time he feared that he might be unable to collect his treasure without help.

Yet again the adventurer squeezed shut his eyes, trying to establish some measure of composure.

Closed lids shut out the sight of the Sword, but could not banish its majestic, insistent

presence. In the depths of his mind and soul he could feel how the universe swirled around him.

Half-born emotions only partially his own, fledgling hopes, stillborn ambitions, washed over him

in a bewildering torrent. The man's brain echoed with the redoubled roar of a vast multitude of

voices, some human and some not. All of them were praying, praising, worshiping—who? Or what?

He thought that it would prove impossible for him, strong man that he was, to remain for an hour

within a hundred meters of this naked Blade when he did not control it. He had to possess his

prize quickly, before it drove him mad or forced him into flight. And before he could touch it

directly he had to cover it with something, muzzle its powers, put a sheath on it somehow.

The difficulty was not entirely unexpected; it was no accident that an empty sheath of the

required size hung at the discoverer's belt. But he could not slip a sheath on the weapon in its

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present position, and he still dared not perform the simple act of reaching out to pluck the

Mindsword from the rocks.

Surges of unidentifiable longing swept through the adventurer as he hesitated. He felt stabbed by

pangs of deathly devotion to some overwhelmingly great but tanta-lizingly unspecific cause. Bright

barbs that might have been sun-twinkles from the metal came dashing against his sanity like crests

of poisoned foam.

Moving a half-step closer, he stretched out a hand toward the naked Sword — and then at the last

moment dared not touch it.

Groaning, snatching back his trembling arm, the man fell back a step. And then another step, and

yet another.

But this man was not going to give up. There might be another way. With unsteady fingers he began

to unfasten the empty sheath from his Swordbelt.

With the detached sheath clutched in his left hand, the man gave a sound like a despairing giggle,

and bent to pick up some small rocks. These he tossed, one after another, in the direction of the

black hilt, trying to knock it over. At last one of his small missiles struck the Sword, which

tilted but did not topple under the impact.

Laughing madly now, the man threw bigger stones, pitching them harder and harder, knowing that no

rock he could ever throw, nothing he could ever do, could crack even the thinnest extremity of

those sharpened edges.

At last he lobbed a larger stone that hit the Sword directly. The treasure fell,

anticlimactically, making a slight noise. Obligingly its blade had now assumed a tilted position

on the rockpile, the bright point uppermost, angled some degrees above the horizontal. And now the

Sword's capturer could approach, sheath in hand, and — without needing to touch his prize directly

— could begin to bind and tame his quarry, to hood it like a falcon with the mundane empty

leather.

Slowly and carefully he got the point started into the sheath, then worked the sheath along the

blade. In its new position the Mindsword rocked, slowly and precariously, with every indirect

pressure from his hand.

The madness in the air, and in the rock, began to weaken.

The man could not have said how long the task occupied him, but eventually it was done. The simple

covering was effective. The world was stable again, the many voices muted into—almost—perfect

silence.

Now the latest possessor of the Mindsword could freely grasp the hard black pommel, feeling in it

no more than the subtle power that any thing of great magic might be expected to possess, the

sense of tremendous forces bound and coiled and waiting. Now he could pick up his great prize and

buckle it on tightly at his belt. And now the world around him was perfectly worldly once again,

consisting of little more than rocks and wind and rain. Somewhere birds were crying in the moving

mist. He had not noticed until now that there were birds nesting and flying and hunting amid these

lofty rocks.

For a quarter of an hour after the Sword was sheathed the newly armed adventurer sat on a small

ledge, resting with his treasure at his side, experiencing a reaction of weakness.

Then he was on his feet again, and briskly on his way. The hardest part of the long descent, down

to where he'd left his riding-beast, must be completed before nightfall. Early in the morning he'd

ride on, in the direction of Sarykam. He had a great gift now to give. A truly worthy gift, to

place in the lovely hands of the Princess Kristin.

TWO

IN a small village at the foot of the Ludus Mountains, not many kilometers from the spot where the

adventurer had very recently obtained his Sword, but at a considerably lower altitude, a blind

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albino man sat huddled in one corner of the small main room of a solidly built though sparsely

furnished hut.

Few people could have determined the blind man's age by looking at him, but certainly his youth

was decades past. His angular body, now slumped and blanket-covered in a crudely constructed

peasant's chair, would still have been very tall but for the fact that he never stood fully erect.

Long ringlets of unclean white hair hung past his bony shoulders, entering into confusion with a

once-white beard now colorless with old stains of food and drink.

No mask or bandage concealed the empty sockets of his eyes; long-lashed lids sagged over spots of

raw softness in a face that was otherwise all harsh masculine planes and angles.

The blind man had lived in this hut, or in another very similar dwelling nearby, for the past

fourteen years, rarely stirring out of doors for any purpose. Apart from his blindness he was not

physically crippled, though his lack of deliberate movement, together with occasional nervous

tremors in his limbs, suggested that he might be lame.

Actually the chief cause of his immobility lay in a disability of his will. For fourteen years he

had been obsessed with certain events in the ever-receding past.

This afternoon two visitors were standing in the blind man's hut. Both callers were men, and both

wore the humble dress—common furs and homespun cloth—of inhabitants of the nearby village. Half an

hour ago the pair of visitors had tapped at the unlocked door of the blind man's house, waited

with habitual patience for an answer that never came, and at last had let themselves in, calling

loudly to announce their arrival. Since then they had been standing deferentially in front of the

albino, waiting for him to show some awareness of their presence.

At last the one who sat huddled in the chair deigned to acknowledge, by a certain stillness of his

body, a cessation of the long-continued nervous movements of his hands and feet, that he had

perceived his callers' existence.

Seizing the opportunity the moment it arrived, the elder visitor spoke softly.

"Lord Vilkata?"

There was no immediate response, even when the quiet salutation was repeated. For some time the

man slumped in the chair pretended not to hear his callers. They did not take offense at such

behavior; it was only the Lord Vilkata's way. Since their rescue of the blind man from deep snow

at the foot of a nearby cliff some fourteen winters ago, many if not quite all of the villagers

had been convinced that he was one of the vanished race of gods, in fact the last survivor of that

august company. Therefore, his hosts believed, his presence in their village was certain sooner or

later to bring them inestimable benefits. True, their life so far had remained as harsh as ever

despite the albino's presence; but at least no disaster beyond the ordinary had befallen, and who

knew what might have happened were the Lord not here?

The blind man for his part had accepted deferential treatment, and the regular satisfaction of his

bodily wants, as no more than his due. Beyond that he had made few demands upon his hosts. Some of

the demands he did make were quite incomprehensible and never met. Others were quite clear. From

the first day the guest had insisted that his rescuers call him by what he said was his proper

name. So long as the villagers did that, and fed him as well as they could, and kept him warm, and

allowed him from time to time the company in bed of one or two of their more comely daughters—then

he would deign to speak to them.

Sometimes he even listened to them as well. "Grandfather?" This was the younger visitor, trying

out a theory of his own, that after all these years the eminent guest might be ready to answer to

a simpler title.

The experimenter might have saved his breath. The Lord Vilkata took no notice of him.

The senior of the two visitors said nothing for a while, and remained impassive. He had been

perfectly sure that the experiment would fail.

After a while the senior tried again, sticking to his own kind of patient communication. "Lord

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Vilkata?"

"Yes, what is it?" This time the snappish answer came at once, sooner than the elder had expected.

Something out of the ordinary was perturbing the blind god-man today.

The elder visitor asked gently, deferentially, what the honored one's trouble was.

The reply was quick and petulant: "My trouble stems from the Sword, of course. What else?"

They were back to the incomprehensible. The two visitors, standing before the huddled figure in

the chair, silently exchanged glances. It was nothing new for dear Grandfather—everyone called him

that, outside his hut— to talk about the Sword, though none of his hearers knew what "the Sword"

might be. For some time after his rescue, long years ago, the honored guest had talked of almost

nothing else but this strange Sword of enormous importance, and the elders of the village in those

days had expended much effort and time in a useless attempt to discover just what he meant. For

hours on end, sometimes seemingly for days, their guest and prisoner and lucky charm had harangued

the people who had saved his life in an effort to get them to organize search parties, go out into

the mountains, and find this mysterious weapon that so obsessed him.

During the first few years after their guest's arrival the people had listened to these tirades

patiently—taking shifts when necessary—and tried to understand. Of course the villagers knew in a

general way what swords were like, but really they knew and cared nothing about them beyond

that—they had their spears and slings and clubs for hunting, and for those rare other occasions

when weapons were essential. They harkened tolerantly to the blind man's urgent mumblings, and

sometimes to soothe him they pretended to search, but really they made no effort. Only madmen

would waste strength and time combing the mountains for objects that were not needed and perhaps

did not exist.

Before he had been three years among them, the villagers reached a consensus that their honored

Grandfather was quite mad. They accepted the fact that he was mad, as holy men and old men

sometimes were, but his madness did not diminish his holiness or his importance to the village.

The value of a resident lord, or god—the distinction was not a profound one for the

villagers—really did not depend on anything he said, or anything he did overtly. They soothed

their guest and prisoner as best they could, and told him pleasant lies to keep him quiet. Yes,

Great Elder, excuse us, Lord Vilkata, soon the weather will improve, and then we will climb back

up into the high country and resume the search. Next time we will certainly find your Sword.

Eventually the honored one had seemed to forget about the mysterious Sword, or at least he spoke

of it less and less frequently. Instead he spent what strength he had in other lamentations,

chiefly for his lost youth and fame and power.

But today the older of the pair of visiting elders was growing worried that those early days of

fiery obsession might have come back. Because:

"Someone," Old Grandfather was croaking now, "has found the Sword, and is carrying it away. Taking

it away, farther and farther, while we sit here and do nothing."

Once more the two men who stood before him exchanged glances. "What Sword would that be,

Grandfather?" the younger visitor asked, quite innocently. In the early years of the god's visit

this man had been only a simple villager and not an elder, too young to pay any attention to talk

about some unessential Sword. So his question now was no attempt at mockery. But still it was too

much for the albino, who lapsed into incoherent abuse.

Where once high intelligence had ruled, inside the skull of Vilkata the survivor, now stretched a

ravaged mental wasteland illuminated only intermittently by flashes of his former intellect. The

mind of the quondam Dark King ached in its concentration on a bitter craving for revenge upon the

world in general. Revenge, for the impertinence of the world, in having dared to escape his

domination! A sharper and more localized craving for vengeance was centered upon Prince Mark and

Princess Kristin of Tasavalta—and to a slightly lesser degree upon the Tasavaltan people—for what

Vilkata considered good and sufficient reason.

Inextricably mixed with these cravings for revenge there persisted a monumental regret for the

Mindsword's loss. Somehow, on that last day of Vilkata's power, that very nearly peerless weapon

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had slipped out of his possession. On that day, in staggering retreat with a band of fugitive

gods, crossing the mountains at no very great distance from this hut, Vilkata had been either

carrying the Mindsword or wearing it at his belt—he could not now remember which. That black day

had seen the Dark King in full flight from his last battlefield, where Soulcutter in the hands of

the Silver Queen had finally snuffed out his bid to rule the world. And then within hours he'd

somehow lost his own Sword—condemning himself to spend the next fourteen years trying to remember

exactly where and how.

He seemed to remember that, at one point during the disastrous retreat, the god Vulcan had been

carrying him on his back . . . but that might have been only a dream, or nightmare.

By the time the Dark King had lost his Sword, he'd already been half mad, suffering the psychic

pain of terminal defeat, and on top of that, the acid despair engendered by that other Sword,

Soulcutter. That output of the Sword of Despair had begun on the battlefield to eat into Vilkata's

innermost being.

On that day, on that particular field of combat, the dull dead force of Soulcutter had proven even

stronger than the Mindsword's blazing, dazzling call to glory. Vilkata's host, thousands of

warriors fanatically loyal to him and ferociously triumphant, had in a frighteningly short span of

time degenerated into something less than a mob. His large and powerful army had become little

more than an assembly of lethargic bodies. The warriors were slumping to the ground, all their

blood still in their veins and their bones unbroken, but their strength melting in a lunatic

inertia. The great mass of helpless men had been slain or taken captive before they could recover.

Only those few who remained physically close to Vilkata, deep inside the zone of the Mindsword's

power, had been able to survive. And even those survivors were badly shaken.

But since he'd fled the battlefield he'd seldom thought about the battle. Ever since that day,

most of the Dark sIXTH BOOK OF LOST SWORDS

King's conscious thought had been expended in a fruitless effort to recall just how and where and

when during the terrible retreat he'd lost his Sword. He'd been separated from it somewhere in

these very mountains, of that much he was certain. The region was thinly populated, and wherever

he'd dropped the treasure, it might still be there.

Alas, these local people, his faithful rescuers, had proven useless in this urgent quest. Vilkata

was beginning to wonder, though, if they might not know more than they pretended. It was quite

possible, he had recently begun to realize, that they wanted his great Sword for themselves. Might

they have already found it, and lied to him of continued failure?

No. In his clearer hours he knew that his mind had tended to wander since his loss, but

rationality still prevailed. He'd have known, he'd have felt the change, if anyone had picked the

Mindsword up. And, as the remnants of his once-mighty magic had continued to assure him, no one

had done so.

Not until today.

Today someone else had seized his treasure. The full horror of the fact was slowly being borne in

upon the man who had been the Dark King. He could even, behind his sightless eyesockets, conjure

up and nurse a fragmentary vision of the one who held it now. . . .

Suddenly screaming renewed abuse, he drove the pair of village elders from him. If they could not

comprehend his problem, at least they must be made to leave him alone so he could think. When the

two men were gone, some of the women who usually tended to him still remained in the hut—he could

hear them moving about in the next room —but they would know better than to bother him.

Vilkata lapsed back into his dark solitary thoughts. The nervous, unconscious movements of his

hands and feet soon resumed.

By sunset, the women had also departed, save for one girl, the youngest of several who currently

took turns sleeping in an outer room against the possibility that their guest-god should awaken

and require something during the night. When the older women looked in on him before leaving, the

blind man had let them know in a few savage words that tonight, as on most nights, he preferred to

sleep alone.

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Though his empty sockets were utterly dead to light, Vilkata was always able to tell when sunset

arrived. There were certain changes in the faint sounds of village life that drifted into his

small house from time to time, alterations in the sound of birds and insects, and a subtly

different feeling in the air.

On this particular evening, the sun was not long gone before another change occurred. This

alteration began very subtly, and was almost impossible to define at first. Only one long skilled

in magic could have noticed it as soon as the blind man did.

It was also completely unexpected, and it caused him to hold his breath for a full half minute

when he first became aware of it.

But there was no mistake. A very different sort of visitor was soon going to arrive.

Vilkata's senses, long trained to the implements and materials of enchantment, had been able to

detect the approach of this caller from afar, though he doubted very strongly that anyone else in

the village had the least inkling of who—or what—was coming.

Not the least doubt now. There was a subtle smell of sickness in the air, a feeling like an uneasy

shifting of the world beneath the blind man's chair, so he could easily have imagined himself

perched on the mast of some ship far out of sight of land on the great sea, with storms

surrounding him. This evening there was for a little while a more unusual manifestation, a heavy

throbbing as of a distant drum. This last Vilkata was able at once to recognize as no mere human

sound, and indeed it proceeded from a source that was ordinarily well beyond the reach of human

ears.

From the moment when the man who had been the Dark King first detected his approaching visitor, he

entertained no doubts about its nature. Most humans would have been terrified, but Vilkata was not

altogether dismayed. The time had been when he, by choice, had spent more hours of each day with

demons than with human beings.

The knowledge that a demon was swiftly approaching, the first such visitation he had experienced

in fourteen years, was not now the total surprise that it would have been a day ago, or on any day

when no one had laid hands upon his Sword. Still the event shocked Vilkata into a mental state

more closely approaching normality.

The drumming sound soon faded and disappeared, but the other manifestations grew rapidly in

strength. This evening the first overt sign of the newcomer's immediate presence was—happy

surprise!—a welcome return of vision to the blind man. Not ordinary vision, no, rather a lurid and

distorted approximation, more colorful than ordinary human eyesight and keener in some respects.

Despite this seeming acuity, Vilkata knew well that the demonic mode of sight was even less

trustworthy than that enjoyed by common folk.

"I can see," he suddenly whispered aloud, into what had been the unrelieved darkness of his hut.

Now the stark outlines of walls and furniture, the colors drab, were plain in lightless night. His

first reaction was that of a man awakening from dull sleep to horror and ugliness. Was this the

room in which he spent his days, and years? This shabby hovel, cramped and dirty—

Before Vilkata could complete the thought he heard the demon's voice. The syllables sounded in the

man's ears as any human might have heard them, light desiccated sounds evoking thoughts of dead

leaves swirling among dry bones.

"Receive and enjoy my humble gift of sight. Dark King," the demon said—and its tone was

reassuringly deferential, as of old.

Vilkata thought that he recognized—or rather that he ought to recognize—this particular demon. In

the old days he had known many of the foul things—many. He ought to remember this one's name. . .

The man mumbled his response, as if he were speaking to himself, unaccustomed to any real

conversation,

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"I can see my room now—but not my visitor." Still the thing's name eluded him, still its

individual presence hovered tantalizingly on the brink of recognizability.

"I hesitate to show myself," the dry bones scraped.

"I know your nature, visitor. That would indeed be hard to mistake. What can you have to fear from

me? Be bold and show yourself, assume whatever form you choose. What is your name?"

Without further hesitation the demon took form in Vilkata's vision, appearing as if from nowhere,

adopting a shape utterly incompatible with its voice—or with its real nature. The chosen form was

that of a naked woman. Vilkata was not surprised. In all the dealings he'd had with demons in the

days of his power, naked humanity was one of the most common illusions they projected.

Distrustfully he stared at this almost-convincing semblance of a female human body, lusty and

youthful. The woman-face was blurred in detail, as usual in these visions, but what did that

matter? The rest of the body, the sexual regions in particular, was very clear. Long black hair

fell around full breasts. The firmly rounded thighs were slightly parted, the painted eyelids half

lowered, the red lips smiling. The nameless female, archetype of a palace courtesan, sprawled

wantonly in a crude chair across the room, her body unadorned save for a long string of pearls.

The Dark King knew well that as a rule these erotic images lacked substance. He commanded sharply:

"Put on a different shape, I do not care for that one."

"As you wish, Lord Vilkata." The woman's lips moved to form the dry demon's voice, and even as

they moved, they changed. In a twinkling her shape had become that of a male human, an anxious-

looking, honest, sturdy yeoman of early middle age, unarmed and clothed for rough service,

standing beside the chair in which the woman had been sitting. Briefly the yeoman's shoulders

sprouted rudimentary wings, which disappeared again the moment Vilkata frowned at the

manifestation.

The eyeless man who was no longer blind prodded, in a suddenly strong voice: "I asked you your

name."

"I am Akbar, Lord Vilkata," said the yeoman in humble tones, going down on one knee in the center

of the shabby, uncarpeted wooden floor. "Perhaps you remember me."

"Akbar. Yes, of course. I do remember now." The demon of that name had been one of the most

cowardly and otherwise contemptible of the host who had served the Dark King—though by no means

the least powerful. "You may rise."

The figure of the yeoman bounced up briskly to his feet, capable-looking hands clasped before him.

"Long have I sought to find you, Dark King. I am anxious to serve you again, and I promise to do

so as faithfully as before."

Well, Vilkata could believe that kind of promise; because no demon, least of all the dastardly

Akbar, had ever served anyone with any kind of faith. But all of their race were very powerful,

and if you had the power and skill in magic to control demons, knew their limitations—and were

willing to accept the risks—they could be very useful.

Suddenly the man in the crude chair frowned. "Why have you come seeking me now, after all this

time? It must have something to do with the Sword."

The yeoman bowed. "My master is as clever as always."

"Ha. Perhaps I am still clever, perhaps not. But there are certain things a man does not

forget—what is it, then? What do you want?"

"It is with great humility, Master, that I propose—dare I use the word?—a partnership."

"Say on."

Vilkata listened carefully as the thing went on, always speaking with great deference, to suggest

what their relationship should be: from now on it would stay with Vilkata, or at least be in touch

with him frequently, and help him. His magically renewed vision would persist indefinitely, even

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