halfhearted attempt to cut off his left hand while it held the sword; but as he had expected, the knife-blade broke before it had cut deeply, and the wound healed overnight. After that failure, he had spent much of his time sitting and staring at the sword, trying to devise some way to get free of it without giving in to the Forgotten King.
Galt, after due consideration, had decided to stay; he realized that the City Council would almost certainly be willing to put him to death to appease the Erammans. They were unlikely to pardon him, since such an action would look very suspicious once the High King heard of it. Someone had to be the scapegoat, and he and Garth had been chosen.
Of the forty-one other overmen in Skelleth, fourteen had remained; twenty-seven, including all the wounded, had gone home when offered the choice.
Selk was being kept under guard in one of the upstairs rooms of the King's Inn; he remained fairly quiet, but complained at every opportunity that there was something unsettling about the room, something in the air that made his skin crawl. Garth and the others could detect nothing but an extraordinary amount of dust.
The overman guards at the five gates were withdrawn, due to the loss of so many warriors, leaving only humans.
Galt lost interest in governing his remaining party, leaving Saram in virtually complete control of the village. It was under these circumstances that Saram came to ask Garth's opinion about sending an embassy to Kholis.
Garth considered. 'I think,' he said, 'that you may be right. It has been more than a fortnight since the battle, and we have heard nothing from anywhere south of here. I think that we can therefore tell them whatever we choose, and they will accept it. Furthermore, winter will be here soon-already the winds have turned northerly and cold-and the High King will be unable to send an army here without extreme difficulty once the snows begin.'
'I hope he'll have no reason to send an army. I don't intend to tell him that you're an occupying force.'
'That's good; what do you propose to tell him?'
'I've been thinking it over some, and I think this will hold up. I will send a message saying that the Baron, whom everyone knew to be mad, finally went berserk while speaking with a peaceful trading mission and set fire to the village. In the ensuing confusion many died, and much of the town was destroyed. The survivors joined together to rebuild, with the aid of your overmen, when it became clear that it was the Baron's insanity that began the fighting and fires, rather than any legitimate dispute or action of your party. We need not mention that your trade mission consisted of sixty warriors; we need not mention anyone but the sixteen of you still here. I exclude Selk, the seventeenth; he can be another little secret. We will ask for supplies to be sent so that we may survive the winter and for a new Baron of Skelleth to be named; and we will express our continued loyalty to the Kingdom of Eramma. How does that sound?'
'Good, very good; it puts all the responsibility for wrongdoing on the dead Baron.'
'I thought you'd like it.'
'If the King accepts it, then we can present the City Council with a whole new situation and ask them to reconsider.'
'If you want to, yes.'
'Why do you say, `If you want to?' Why should I not want to?'
'It seems to me that your Council isn't very helpful; why not just forget about them?'
'I came here to establish trade between the Northern Waste and Eramma. I intend to establish that trade, whether the others involved want it or not; it will benefit both, whether the rulers have the wit to realize it or not.'
'Oh. I see. Garth-whatever happens, whether you convince your City Council or not-you're welcome to stay here in Skelleth as long as I'm running it.'
'With luck, though, that won't be long; the High King will be sending a new Baron.'
'Ah, that's true. I'd forgotten.' He smiled. 'I'll be able to relax, then, and pay some attention to my wife.'
'Your wife?' Garth was startled.
'Certainly.'
'What wife?'
'Frima, of course'
'Oh.' Garth considered that. 'Are you two married?'
'More or less. The law says that a marriage is valid if approved by the lord of the region. As acting baron, I'm the local lord, and I say we're married. When we get a new Baron I may ask him to confirm it.'
'I see. Congratulations, then.'
Saram studied the overman's face. 'Are you missing your own wives? Perhaps you could send for them.'
'No. My kind is not as prone to loneliness as you humans are.'
'You seem depressed, though.'
'I am depressed, not by the absence of my wives, but by the presence of this sword, and by the stupidity of the Council. '
'Oh. There isn't anything I can do about the Council, other than send my message to Kholis; is there any way I can help you with the sword?'
'I know of none.'
'Let me see if I can pull your fingers free'
Garth cooperated, and a moment later Saram was stuffing burned fingers in his mouth.
'How can you hold that thing?' he muttered.
'I don't have much choice; I have even tried severing my hand, with no success.'
'Shall I try?'
'If you wish, but I warn you, your blade will probably break'
'I won't try it, then; I like my sword'
Garth snorted.
'Listen, maybe you can burn the thing out.'
'I don't understand.'
'Maybe you can use up all its power. Then it would be too weak to hold you.'
'I had considered that, but I could think of no way to do so without killing innocent people and destroying property.'
'Why don't you go out on the plain somewhere, where there's no one to kill and nothing to destroy?'
'And what would I do then?'
'Can you direct the sword's power, as you did when it possessed you?'
'I don't know.'
'Can you make it possess you?'
'I have tried without success.'
'Well, I suggest that you go out on the plain, find a nice barren spot, and then try to make the sword burn, as it did when you slew the Baron. Try to burn the earth itself. See what happens.'
Garth thought that over. His mind was not clear, and he could think only slowly and muddily; he knew, vaguely, that this was the sword's doing.
He could think of no objection to Saram's proposal. 'I will try it,' he said.
'Good. I have to go put together that embassy to Kholis,' Saram said, rising, 'but I wish you luck.'
Garth watched him depart, then held up the sword and looked at it. The gem was glowing bright blood- red.
Nothing else he had tried had done any good, and he couldn't trust the sword to behave itself much longer. He rose, pulled the cloak he had borrowed from Galt more tightly around him with his free hand, and headed toward the West Gate; that direction led to the most desolate stretch of wilderness.
He could feel winter coming; the air felt thin and hard and chilled him, even through the cloak, tunic, gambeson, and his own fur beneath. Skelleth had no autumn in the usual sense, since there were no trees to drop leaves nor late crops to harvest-the hay was brought in late in summer-but it did have a brief period between the
