the season. He ignored it and willed another bolt of lightning into existence; it struck with a blinding brilliance and earthshaking roar at the feet of the three strangers.
'That was a warning!' he bellowed, slackening the gale he had conjured so that he could be heard. 'Annoy me no further!'
'Surrender yourself and your sword, and we will let you live!' shouted back the man with the staff.
Garth began to consider whether he might, in fact, be wise to surrender or at least to inquire about exact terms, but then dropped the idea as a rush of anger flooded through him. He was dimly aware that it was the sword's doing, but that did not give him the power to resist it.
'I am Bheleu!' he screamed. 'I surrender to no one!'
The storm roared into redoubled frenzy, and twin lightning bolts bracketed the three wizards. Garth swept the sword through the air above his head, leaving a trail of flame glowing in the air. With a word he sent Koros charging toward them, though his left foot was still out of the stirrup.
He was within a few yards before the wizards could manage any reaction beyond cringing in fear; but before he could strike at them, the central human raised the staff again. This time his invocation was in everyday speech, not archaic phrasing, as he called, 'By all the gods, help!'
The staff suddenly blazed with light and Garth was himself again, free of Bheleu's control, though the sword still flamed in his hands. He held the sword in one hand while he used the other to slap Koros on the neck, turning its charge aside before it trampled the wizard into the little patch of snow at his feet. He called for the warbeast to halt.
The other two wizards had turned and fled as the warbeast approached, but the man with the staff had stood his ground.
'Yield, Garth of Ordunin!' he cried.
'Don't be a fool,' Garth replied. 'You're no danger to me; why should I yield? Who are you, anyway?'
'I am Karag of Sland, and I hold the Great Staff of Power, lost these three centuries!'
Garth looked the man over carefully and decided that even Karag wasn't entirely sure if he was bluffing. Whatever this staff was, Garth guessed that he hadn't had it long.
'Why did you attack me?'
'You have taken the Sword of Bheleu and destroyed Dыsarra and Skelleth with it; you must be stopped before you usher in the true Age of Destruction!'
Garth was grateful that the man's desperate invocation had apparently had the unintentional effect of freeing him temporarily from the sword's control. He might, he thought, be able to settle this peacefully.
'I don't want an age of destruction any more than you do,' he replied mildly. 'If that staff is as powerful as the sword, though, what do you have to worry about?' As he spoke he tested his hands, and discovered that though his mind might be free, his fingers were not. He regretted that; he had hoped that this over-eager wizard might have solved all his problems for him without meaning to.
His conversation was interrupted abruptly by the return of the tall, brown-haired human, who came lurching back out of the surrounding storm. With a hysterical scream of 'Die, monster!' he swung his strange, curved sword at Garth's waist mounted as Garth was, his neck was well out of the man's reach.
With one hand, without thinking about it, Garth brought the Sword of Bheleu around to fend off the attack. The two blades met in a spitting shower of red and white sparks; then the wizard's sword exploded into glittering shards that stitched red gashes across the man's face and chest. Garth was unharmed. He felt a twinge of annoyance and then a renewed surge of fury; the sword was winning out over whatever had restrained it.
He lifted the blade to the sky and lightning blazed down around him, wrapping him in blue-white fire for a brief instant and then jumping to the broken hilt of the Blood-Sword of Hishan of Darbul-though Garth did not know that was its name. The tall human staggered, his mouth open as if to scream, though all sound was lost in the booming torrent of thunder; the blood boiled from the wizard's wounds, and he fell in a charred heap at the warbeast's feet.
The fit of rage passed and, hoping that this death might serve him, Garth tried again to drop the sword. It still held him.
He did not even notice that he was in the center of a blazing pyre; there had been so many pyrotechnic displays in the last few minutes that he had lost track of them. Koros growled, and he looked up from the glowing red jewel.
He was surrounded by flame, but he felt no heat and remained unharmed; something held it back, protecting both him and his mount.
He waved the sword, and the flames parted before him. He found himself looking at the man who called himself Karag of Sland; the man stood, the staff in his hands and the blood draining from his face, directly in front of the warbeast and its rider.
Then, suddenly, red mist swirled out of nowhere and wrapped around the wizard. There was nothing Garth could do in time to stop it, other than slaying the man where be stood, which he chose not to do. He looked around and saw that a similar fog was appearing around the other two wizards, both the live one who was still fleeing some two hundred yards away, and the smoldering corpse.
As he watched, the red stuff vanished again, taking the three humans with it. He had almost expected that to happen.
He gazed around at the area where the battle had occurred. There was a large ring of blackened earth which had now frozen hard, pocked with small craters where lightning bolts had struck. The central circle of snow was mostly a puddle. A few glittering fragments of sword were visible, and a few traces of bright blood.
New snow would come and cover the signs, he knew; but, come spring, it would be months before anything grew here. It was only a minor work of destruction and a single death, but still he sighed. It seemed that even when the sword did not force him to destroy of its own volition, other forces drove him to destroy in self- defense.
No, he corrected himself, most of this destruction was not his doing, but that of the wizards. He was simply the focus for it. The death, though, was his doing; he regretted that.
This was a new complication in his life. He wondered whether it justified changing his plan to consult the Wise Women. If wizards were to pop out of nowhere everywhere he went, he could hardly keep a visit to Ordunin a secret.
He would move on slowly, he decided; if there were further attacks, he would turn back.
That decided, he took a moment to get his foot securely back in the stirrup and urged Koros forward.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The councilors all stared in horror at the charred corpse that had appeared on the edge of the pentagram, almost ignoring Karag and Kubal.
'What happened?' Shandiph asked at last.
'He can control lightning,' Karag answered. He was shaking, the staff that was still clutched in his hands fluttering like a bird's wing.
'How did you survive, then?'
'I don't know. Kubal fled, and I tried to ward him off with the staff. I think it worked, at least temporarily.'
'Then the sword is not unbeatably powerful!' someone exclaimed.
Karag shook his head. 'I have never seen so much power. I don't mean just the sword, but the staff as well. It felt like a live thing in my hands. Without the magicks in this room, we wouldn't have a chance. He made a storm from nothing with a single gesture, and directed the lightning wherever he chose; the sword burned and spat fire. The staff made a wall of flame that consumed everything it touched, until he turned it back with the sword's flame. He rides a great black monster with fangs as long as my fingers.'
Kubal nodded agreement. 'I didn't know what we were doing; I didn't know he could be so powerful. I didn't believe Kala when she said that he could summon storms.'
'The three of you were all acting stupidly,' Shandiph said. 'The essence of magic is not power, but
