'Deathwings. The Master. The Ancient One.'
She considered each name carefully, as seemed to be her duty, then signed that they were strange to her.
'He has gone by other names as well.' Karel rubbed his sleep-tousled hair. 'He has at least one other name, very powerful, that is very much older-and I would give much to know it. But I know now that he is still alive, and actively our enemy.'
'The Dark King?'
Her uncle shook his head. 'Would that it were only he.'
'Only? Who is it, then? Tell me! What is the danger?'
Karel seemed almost at a loss to explain. 'The danger is himself, and that he must be our enemy,' he said at length. 'I am talking about an incredibly ancient and evil-and powerful-magician. I had thought that he was dead, many centuries ago. Everyone thought so, as far as I am aware. But he has somehow-I do not know how-managed to survive into the present. It would take me all night to tell you all I know and suspect about him, and the telling would help you very little.'
'I see,' she said, and wondered if she did.
'I am afraid you don't see,' her mentor told her sharply. 'You cannot. Perhaps it was foolish of me to wake you in this way. I can see only a little, and ... you think I mean that he is merely old. That would not disturb me so. There are others who have achieved centuries.'
Something prickled down the back of Kristin's neck and then went on down her spine. 'What do you mean, then?'
'If the Beastlord Draffut is still alive,' said Karel above the howling wind outside, 'he will be able to identify this man-if the one of whom I speak can still be called a man. Probably no other being on the planet except the Great Worm Yilgarn has survived so long.'
'So, what are we to do?' the Princess asked.
'What we can. Get your husband back here, to begin with. We must contend now with greater problems than a healing.'
She said: 'I had word upon retiring-I was going to tell you tomorrow-Zoltan's riding-beast has been found, unharmed. It was grazing along the Sanzu, not twenty kilometers from the cave.' There could be no doubt of which cave the Princess meant. 'The saddle was still on it.'
'But no clue to where the boy himself might be?'
'Nothing.'
'I will want to look at that riding-beast tomorrow,' said Karel abstractedly. Suddenly the Princess noticed that he looked very old. 'About the Ancient One of whom I spoke. I am sorry that I woke you tonight; there is nothing we can do immediately.'
'It doesn't matter. I couldn't sleep.'
'I must warn you, though. He is truly abroad in the world again, and there is no way that I can match him. Nor can any other magician who lives today. Only the Swords themselves, perhaps, will stand above his power. My hope is that the Ancient One will busy himself with other matters and not turn against us directly yet. That he will attack us only through his surrogates, Burslem and others.'
'As you say,' said Kristin, 'we will do what we must and what we can. Beyond that it is all in the hands of Ardneh.'
'I would,' said Karel, 'that Ardneh were still alive.'
He arose from his chair, slowly and heavily, and turned as if to depart. Then he faced her again. 'Tell me about Rostov. What is the General planning to do tomorrow?'
'Working on ways to use the army more efficiently in hunting for Zoltan, and patrolling the frontiers. Our army is not very large these days, as you know. I'm considering the idea of sending reinforcements after Mark. The news his birds have brought in has not been reassuring.'
The wizard nodded. 'Let me talk with you again in the morning before you issue orders. I am going to sleep no more tonight.'
'Nor I, I think. Good night.'
In the morning there was more news by flying messenger, none of it particularly good. Certain other units of the army were still being deployed into the area beyond High Manor and the surrounding hills, where Swordface had been found. A renewed and expanded search was being pressed in that area.
And then a message came in from Mark, informing his wife that the Sword he had sought was stolen from the Temple- and he was taking their son with him and going after it.
The Princess passed on the news to her advisers. And then she tried to pray to Ardneh.
CHAPTER 14
ON the evening of the day on which his hand first drew the Sword of Heroes from its sheath, Zoltan told his hosts that he intended to leave the farm in the morning, taking the Sword with him. 'My uncle needs it, if what we have been told is true. As I must believe it is. I don't know where to find him, but I must try.'
He was half expecting the old people to try to argue him out of that course of action-to tell him that the news about Uncle Mark, like the Sword itself, had come to him in a strange way and ought to be distrusted. Zoltan had his own argument ready: he couldn't take that chance. But the Stills did not argue. They only promised him, calmly, such help as they could manage.
Early in the morning Mother Still called Zoltan into her pantry, where from a shelf devoted to remedies she took down several small jars and packages for him to carry with him on his journey. These medicines she labeled carefully and packed into a bundle. Meanwhile Father Still was making preparations of a different kind. He said he thought he knew where there was a saddle in the barn, and he expected he could spare one load beast from the harvest.
Saddlebags and a roll of blankets appeared from somewhere. And in the kitchen, Zoltan was loaded down with food until he had to cry a halt, fearing that his load beast would be staggered with the burden.
Approaching that animal for the first time, Zoltan thought he could see why Father Still had been so sure it could be spared from the farm. It was an aged and bony beast, with a considerable amount of gray in its brown coat, and the farmer had to expend much tugging and swearing just to get it out of the barn. Under ordinary conditions the appearance of this mount would have been enough to discourage Zoltan from starting even the simplest journey. Even the finest farm animal was not the kind of beast you could ride out on thinking seriously of adventure, and this creature was not the finest. Once he was mounted, the thick shaggy hide and hard rib cage under him felt as if they might be impervious to beatings, if and when he should have to resort to that method of obtaining greater speed. And the saddle, now that he got a good look at it, was an old one and a poor one, with the additional drawback that it had doubtless been designed for a riding-beast. It seemed in some danger of sliding from the animal's back at every jarring step.
But Zoltan accepted as courteously as he could the gifts that were meant to help him, and at last all was ready for his departure. With his new Sword hung from his waist upon its fancy belt and Farmer Still walking ahead to show him the way, Zoltan rode to the gate, ready to push on.
The farm, Zoltan discovered, had one real gate to the outside world. He had never seen that gate until now because it was on the opposite side of the farm from where he'd come in.
Mother Still, too, had ungrudgingly taken time out from her work to come as far as the gate with Zoltan and bid him farewell.
Father Still, on parting, gave Zoltan directions and advice.
His uncle Mark ought to be somewhere between here and Tasavalta-especially if, as seemed likely, Mark was out in that area searching for his missing nephew. And, if Mark truly was in need of Dragonslicer, it stood to reason that he was, or was about to be, in some kind of trouble with a dragon. Large dragons, the rare few that survived to grow into the land walker stage, were the only kind that meant real trouble, and one thing large dragons always needed was plenty of water. The only way to get plenty of water in this country was from one of the relatively few streams that crossed it. Anyone who had trouble with a dragon would have it near a stream. 'Simple enough? Hey?' The farmer grinned at his own logic.
Zoltan had to admit there was a certain sense to it.
Now Zoltan's route, according to this scheme, was also simple. Once outside the gate, he had only to follow the boundary hedge of the farm around its perimeter until he came to running water, the stream that was here
