'I dunno,' said Ben. 'Just that, now that I think about it, your sword looks a whole lot like the one that Nestor uses.'
Chapter 6
Putting aside an arras of blue and white, and signalling his blue-robed wizard to follow him, Duke Fraktin entered a concealed and windowless chamber of his castle, a room well guarded by strong magic. An eerie Old World light, steadier than any flame, came alive as the men entered, shed by flat panels of a strange material hanging on the walls. The light fell brightly on the rear wall of the chamber, which was almost entirely taken up by a large map. Painstakingly drawn in several colors, and lettered with many names, this map depicted the entire continent of which the Duke's domain was no more than a tenth part. Some areas of the map were largely blank, but most of it was firmly drawn, showing both the lines of physical features and the tints of political control. Behind those trusted contours and colors lay decades of aerial reconnaisance by generations of flying creatures, some reptiles, some birds, others hard to classify by species, but all half-intelligent.
On one of the side walls, near the map, there hung a mask of dark, tooled leather, with a cowled jacket on a peg beside it.
But Duke Fraktin's present concern was not with any of these things. Instead he stopped in front of a large table, on which rested a carved wooden chest, itself the size of a small coffin. He signalled to his wizard that he wished this chest to be opened.
Accordingly the wizard laid both hands upon its lid, whereupon there rose from the chest a faint humming, buzzing sound, as of innumerable insects. In response to this sound the wizard muttered words. Apparently it was now necessary to wait a little, for the conversation between the two men went on with the chest still unopened, the magician's hands still resting quietly on it.
'Then does Your Grace still believe that these attackers were common bandits? Such do not commonly include warbeasts in their armament.'
'No,' agreed the Duke gently. He was looking at the map now, without really paying it much attention. 'Nor do they commonly attempt to kidnap any of my relatives.'
'Then it would seem, sire, that they were not simply bandits.'
'That had occurred to me.'
'Agents, perhaps, of the Grand Duke?'
'Basil bears me no love, I'm sure of that. And of course he too may have learned of the existence of the swords, and he may be trying now to gather them all into his own hands, even as I would have them all in mine… hah, Blue-Robes, how I wish I knew how many all across the continent are playing the same game. I presume your latest divinations still indicate that the magic blades at least are not scattered all around the earth?'
'The swords are all still on this continent, Your Grace. I am quite positive of that. But as to exactly where, in whose possession… '
The Duke's darkening mood sounded in his voice. 'Yes, exactly. And there's no telling how many know of them by now. Bah. Kings and princes, queens and bandits, priests, scoundrels and adventurers of every stripe… bah, what a fine mess.'
'At least Your Grace has had a chance to get in on the game. You were not left in ignorance that it is taking place.'
'Game, is it?' The Duke snorted. 'You know I have small tolerance for games. But I must play, or be swallowed up, when others gain the power of the swords. And you need not remind me any more that I have your skill at divination to thank for my awareness of the game, late as it comes; I've thanked you for that already. Gods, I wonder whose men those were. The Margrave's, you suppose? They didn't even seem to know or care about the sword, at least according to the descriptions of events we have.'
The wizard, his hands stroking the carven lid of the wooden chest, coughed. It was a sound as delicate and diplomatic as the Duke's habitual sigh. 'I think not the Margrave's, sire. Perhaps they could have been agents of the Queen of Yambu?'
The Duke, nagged by irritation on top of worry, flared up sullenly, then recovered. 'Have I not told you never to speak of that… but never mind. You are right, we must consider Yambu also, I suppose. But I do not think it was her… no, I do not think so.'
'Perhaps not… then we must face the possibility, Your Grace, that they were agents of the Dark King himself. I did find it odd that a mere miller should have mentioned that august name.' 'I would say that this one- armed Jord is not your ordinary miller. But then, the commons in general are not nearly so ignorant of their rulers and their rulers' affairs as those rulers generally suppose.'
'Just so, sire.' The wizard nodded soothingly. 'We have then primarily to consider Grand Duke Basil, Queen Yambu — and Vilkata himself. While remembering, as Your Grace so wisely points out, that there are still other possibilities.'
'Yes.' But now the Duke's attention was straying, drawn by a thought connected with the huge map. His gaze had lifted to the map, and had come to rest at an unmarked spot near the eastern limit of his own domain and of the continent itself, right at the inland foot of the coastal range that was labeled as the Ludus Mountains. Right about there, somewhere, ought to be the high village — what had the woman named it? Treefall, that was it — from which the god had conscripted his human helpers, keeping them for a night and a day of labor, death, and mutilation. It now struck Duke Fraktin as absurd that the village where such an enigmatic and almost incredible event had taken place should not even be marked on his map.
The woman had asked him… no, she had as much as told him that he, the Duke, had been there, and had fathered a bastard on her there, the night after Jord's maiming, in one of those hill country funeral rites. The Duke knew something about those.
A bold story indeed for any woman to make up out of nothing. Still, the fact was that the Duke could remember nothing like that happening, and he had, as a rule, a good memory. A better memory, he thought, for women than for most things. Of course he couldn't recall everything from thirteen years ago. Exactly what had he been doing at that time?
The insect-buzzing sound had died away. The wizard pushed up the lid of the huge box. Both men stared at the fine sword that was reveled inside, nesting in a lining of rare and fantastically beautiful blue fur. The sword had not been brought to the Duke in any such sumptuous container as this; in fact it had arrived, wrapped for concealment, in the second-best cloak of a Red Temple courtesan.
The clear light from the Old World wall panels glinted softly on mirror steel. Beneath the surface of the blade, the Duke's eye seemed to be able to trace a beautiful, finely mottled pattern that went centimeters deep into the metal, though the blade was nowhere a full centimeter thick.
Putting both hands on the hilt, the Duke lifted the sword gently from the magical protection of the chest. 'Are they ready out on the terrace?' he asked, without taking his eyes from the blade itself.
'They have so indicated, Your Grace.'
Now the Duke, holding the sword raised before him as if in ritual, led the way out of the blind room behind the arras, across a larger chamber, and through another doorway, whose curtains were stirred by an outdoor breeze. The terrace on which he emerged was open to the air, and yet it was a secret place. The view was cut off on all sides by stone walls, and by high hedges planted near at hand. On the stone pavement under the gray sky, several soldiers in blue and white were waiting, and with them one other man, a prisoner. The prisoner, a middle- aged, well-muscled man, wore only a loincloth and was not bound in any way. Yet he was sweating profusely and kept looking about him in all directions, as if he expected his doom to spring out at him at any moment.
The Duke trusted his wizard to hold the sword briefly, while he himself quickly slipped a mail shirt on over his head, and put on a light helm. Then he took back the sword, and stood holding it like the experienced swordsman that he was.
The Duke gestured toward the prisoner. 'Arm him, and step back.'
Most of the soldiers, weapons ready, retreated a step or two. One tossed a long knife, unsheathed, at the prisoner's feet.
'What is this?' the man demanded, his voice cracking.
