Bladesman of Antares

“Our name will be forgotten, Dray! Obliterated! For my son is dead.”

There can be few words in any human tongue more dreadful than those: My son is dead. Before I could answer, Naghan went on: “He did not die well. He ran and hid. The wild men found him. They mocked him. They — they had sport — with him. I died, then, I think, before I bit the sword.”

“Rest easy, Naghan-”

“I shall never rest, Dray, in this world or on the Ice Floes of Sicce.”

So, there, in that shambles, chance played a card that put the idea into my head. It existed, of itself, full- grown like Athena in less than a heartbeat.

Naghan ham Farthytu was dying. His thoughts clouded. His stern grave face slackened, and spittle and blood ran from the corner of his mouth. He started to choke and I eased him. He was no longer truly of the world of Kregen.

I said: “Naghan ham Farthytu, Amak of Paline Valley.” I spoke with formality and he responded to my tone. “If you will it so, your name will not be forgotten. It will be regarded with the honor and respect it is due.”

He was dying. But he was past my foolish notion of going to Ruathytu and there erecting a monument to him and his family, a noble marble cenotaph in the Palace of Names. His bloodied hand lifted and grasped my sleeve. I bent closer. He rasped out the words, now, spitting blood, struggling to force his dying body to obey the commands of a brain abruptly clear and utterly determined. So, I truly think, chance brought me to that spot, and to the last words of a dying noble, and chance made me anticipate what he would say, what he would ask, even as I discarded the notion of erecting that monument in the Palace of Names as the only thing I might do for this man.

“Dray Prescot! You are a man of honor, a Jikai. It is my dying wish you take upon yourself the name of ham Farthytu! I would think well if the empire saw in you and your prowess the name of ham Farthytu.”

I hesitated. Stealing names can be habit-forming.

But Naghan gripped my arm, and his lined face implored me. He whispered weakly now, obsessed with his idea and his wishes, quite unable to see past his own desires to the problems attendant on the other side of the question. This was a thing he would never have asked of me in life. In death he had a privilege.

“You will do this for me, a dying man, Dray Prescot?”

Still I hesitated.

Then: “Yes, Naghan. I will.”

His sigh started deeply and finished in a choked fit of bloody coughing. But he would not let me go. His grip tightened feverishly. We must have made a macabre pair, blood everywhere, dead men and women scattered about, and, at his feet, the dead and dishonored body of his son.

“Dray — Dray — promise me, promise me by your god, you will take the name of ham Farthytu-”

How cheap to have betrayed him! To have promised by Havil the Green! He would have believed -

and I would be just as foresworn when I broke the oath.

“By Opaz, Naghan, I will use the name in Hamal. I will go to Ruathytu and there I shall be Naghan ham Farthytu.”

“No! No!” He tried to shake me, and his hand merely fluttered. “No, Dray! My son! My son!”

And then I saw what he truly wished.

I thought of my own father, and of the scorpion that killed him. I marveled. And then I thought of my little Drak — and I understood.

“Very well, Naghan. I will take the name in Hamal of Hamun ham Farthytu.”

“Yes, yes, Dray.” He was going. “You will be Amak. Amak Hamun. I wish — wish it so. .”

I stayed with him until he died.

When he gave the last death rattle, a sound I have heard many and many a time, I stretched, for I had held him at the last to ease him, and Nulty from behind my shoulder said: “He was a good man, Notor Hamun.”

I looked at Nulty.

His broad-barreled body with its glossy covering of blood made a ghastly sight.

“I thought you were dying, Nulty.”

“No, Notor Hamun. This blood is from the wild men, may Hanitcha harrow them to hell! I had a crack on the head, I think.”

“You called me Notor Hamun.”

“I heard what the Amak said.” Then, because Nulty was no slave but a free servitor, he could add: “I wish you well, Amak. Havil the Green could not have chosen better.”

If he could read my mind on what I thought of Havil the Green he’d change his tune!

So. . while I spent my spying expedition in Hamal I was to be Hamun ham Farthytu, Amak of Paline Valley.

The incentive to carry on my work had received an enormous boost. Over the matter of names I have always been choosy. A name is a precious commodity; abstract, it yet holds a potent sway, and in many minds of Kregen, no less than minds of Earth, is regarded as a solid and material object, a thing to be grasped and, once grasped, to give power. To those who wish for success, the remembrance and the efficient handling of names are essential.

We went outside and, in truth, Paline Valley was a sorry place. Nulty and I spent only the briefest of spells in cleaning ourselves, not sparing the time to take the baths of nine, then we set to the mournful burying. When all was done we rested and ate and drank, and, then, just sat. Nulty, a blocky man of great strength both of body and of mind, had the pragmatic Kregen way of regarding disaster and death. He was not in shock. At least, I did not think he was. He surprised me, at first, when he spoke his mind; but on reflection what he said made the soundest common sense.

“Now you are Amak Hamun, and I am the only survivor here, and it is fitting I should tender you my allegiance. I had been charged with the old Amak’s son. . to no avail.” He hesitated.

“You do not have to excuse him to me, Nulty.”

“It is not that, Notor. The old Amak is dead. Amak Naghan is dead. But there is now a new Amak, Hamun, Naghan’s son.”

“That is not true,” I said. I sighed. “But that is the way Naghan wished it to be.”

Nulty fingered his thraxter, that straight sword of Havilfarese fighting-men, where he had cleaned it with spittle and brick dust. His words were meaningful.

“Amak Naghan desired that his son should bring honor to his name. I follow his son, now, and I pledge my sword to the same high purpose. Amak Hamun, Naghan’s son, will bring honor.”

I took his point. I was in no frame of mind to argue with him. So I said: “Very well, Nulty. You may come with me to Ruathytu.”

“Yes, master,” was all he said. It was sufficient.

Chapter Five

Birth of a yokel at the shrine of Beng Salter

In the full determination to discover the secrets of the fliers of Hamal I made no urgent rush to the capital city. Nulty and I took our time. We had three mirvols between us, one the magnificent animal presented to me by Amak Naghan, the other two lesser beasts rounded up by Nulty after the raid, all that were left of the remudas perching on the mirvol towers up by the highest slopes of Paline Valley. There was no rush because it was necessary for me to learn as much as I could of the country. We swung slowly southward and eastward, for the capital, Ruathytu, is situated at the junction of the River Mak, the Black River, with the larger River Havilthytus, some sixty dwaburs inland from the eastern coastline. We had, according to Nulty, about two hundred and sixty dwaburs to go to the city in a direct line — as the fluttrell wings, in Hamalese vernacular. This 1,300 miles or so we greatly lengthened by making detours and visiting many of the towns and cities en route, and of generally, in Nulty’s case, getting over the shock of seeing his home so brutally destroyed. He had had no wife or children, desiring none; all he had cared for had been the old Amak and, as I knew, his son, Hamun. So we wandered along our way,