Farslayer's Story (12 page)

That claim, as he had expected, somewhat perturbed and perhaps frightened his new acquaintances. Chilperic was ready to offer some kind of demonstration to back up his words. He reached inside his coat to touch the leather wallet at his belt; he was just magician enough himself to be able to detect the powerful demonic life that throbbed so vulnerably within.

As soon as he saw that Hissarlik was groping for some way of expressing polite doubt about his relationship with the famous Wood, Chilperic once more touched glossy but wrinkled leather. Muttering a few words he’d had from the Ancient One himself, he called up the demon.

This time the manifestation was much quicker, and distinctly visual. While the owners of the house shrank back, the demon appeared in their great hall in afternoon sunlight, blocking out some of the bright beams that came slanting in through the high windows. Rabisu, taking the image of a gigantic though transparent warrior—a demon could look like almost anything it chose—acquitted himself impressively, offering a demonstration of obedient power that would have gladdened the heart of any magician-master. He bent a steel bar into a loop, and caught a rat somewhere inside the wainscotting, and turned the little creature inside out, at the same time sucking it dry of life and blood, so deftly that there was hardly any mess.

* * *

It was about an hour after this demonstration when Chilperic, feeling that he had now established himself with the Senones leadership, decided to strike while the iron was hot, and began asking important questions.

Anselm, in response to a direct query, told him that the last person to be struck down by Farslayer on that night a month ago must have been some Malolo youth. Cosmo’s name did not come up here directly.

Hissarlik, Alicia, and Anselm each laid claim to having killed one of the Malolo on that night, but they could not agree exactly on each other’s claims. Chilperic soon lost interest in the details, and managed to switch the conversation.

An hour after that, Chilperic and his hosts were halfway through a banquet celebrating their new alliance.

Chilperic had seen to it that their talk never strayed far from the Sword for very long. Chewing thoughtfully on a tough piece of fowl, he remarked: “And it never came back into this house again.”

“No.” Anselm hissed a sigh of exasperation. “It appears that our enemies still have it.”

His sister murmured tensely: “They’re trying to break our nerves. Well, we won’t break.”

Their cousin Hissarlik, seated at the head of the table, shook his head slowly. “I think they may not have it after all. Their last man to be struck down may have been away from the others when it happened. It’s possible that they just have never found him, or the weapon, either.”

“Where else would he have been?” Alicia challenged him at once. “We searched the islands. We searched all over our side of the river, and they would have searched on theirs.”

The chief could only shake his head. And Chilperic had no intention of enlightening his hosts at the moment.

The story Chilperic had heard in the Malolo stronghold was of course not about their last man to be struck down, but rather about the misfit Cosmo. Cosmo Malolo, the mysterious one in that family, misfit and leading magician as well. Cosmo, who on that night of terror had simply grabbed up the Sword and ridden off with it, effectively putting an end to the cycle of revenge. It appeared that no one, except the hermit whom Chilperic had stopped to question, had seen Cosmo since that night.

Chilperic wondered now whether he should have questioned the hermit further.

In any event, it would seem that Cosmo had not been a simple defector, bound for enemy headquarters. Or, if so, he had never reached it. It would not have been reasonable for Cosmo to stop at the hermit’s at all if he intended to go no farther than the Senones manor. But then everyone agreed the weather on the night of the massacre had been terrible, the mountain trails deadly dangerous, and that might have been a factor in his whereabouts.

Chilperic was increasingly sure that the Sword had not been carried here by Cosmo, and that none of these frightened but still bitterly determined Senones fanatics had made any systematic attempt to locate Farslayer since that horrible night of slaughter. The shock had perhaps disabled them more severely than was at first apparent.

The more Chilperic talked to these people, the more their situation appeared to resemble that obtaining among the Malolo on the other side of the river. But of course Chilperic was not going to offer that comment aloud.

“But where is the Sword now?” young Hissarlik asked him, plaintively and suddenly. It sounded almost as if the question were now occurring to him for the first time, or perhaps it was that he now felt for the first time that there was some point in asking it.

“That question,” responded Chilperic with slow emphasis, “is also of great interest to my master, Wood.”

“I see,” said Hissarlik after a pause, not really sounding as if he saw. “But I was just thinking, suppose … suppose that one of those poor peasants or fishermen over on the other side of the river should happen to come across this lost Sword. What would someone like that be likely to do with such a weapon?”

Anselm tried for once to be reassuring. “The peasants? People like that wouldn’t know what to do with such a thing, cousin. Take my word, they’d be too frightened to do anything.”

“But just suppose…”

Chilperic, taking every opportunity to establish himself as a useful friend, concealed his contempt for this lack of fortitude and also did his best to be comforting. “Why, sire, there are every bit as many old enmities in villages as in castles. Farslayer would be used again, and soon, depend upon it. And then any magician worth his salt—assuming of course that he was alert and looking for the Sword—should be able to tell that it had been used again. Once that happened we’d be well on our way to getting our hands on it.”

The Tyrant cast a look, eloquent of hopelessness, toward his two surviving relatives, neither of whom had any magical ability at all, if Chilperic was any judge. Chilperic had already been told in further detail how the most competent magician in the clan, Hissarlik’s Aunt Megara, had been paralyzed, thrown into a trance on the night of terror, and her first replacement had been among those slain by the Sword. That junior sorcerer, according to Hissarlik’s description of events, had just finished casting a spell intended to stop the Sword moments before it struck him down. There had been no indication that the magician’s efforts had slowed his own doom in the slightest.

“But your most competent magician this sorceress, your aunt was thrown into a trance, you say? Not killed?”

“Yes. Our aunt Megara,” said Hissarlik with dignity. “She’s been confined to her room ever since. She still exists almost as in a trance, scarcely able to talk or move about.”

“Might I see her?” asked Chilperic, in his very most helpful and friendly voice. “I am of course no healer. But I have been present once or twice at similar cases, and…”

By now Chilperic had been accepted as an old friend of the family. Its three surviving members now conducted him upstairs. On the second floor they entered a room half-choked with incense. No doubt these fumes were somehow intended to be magically helpful, but if the air was always like this Chilperic was not surprised that the occupant of the room had remained practically comatose.

A woman lay in the single bed, between white sheets, being watched over by a faithful maid. Chilperic was surprised at first glance by the patient’s obvious youth. Her face was drawn and pale, but certainly not lined. It was not uncommon, of course, for a sorceress of skill to appear much younger than she really was. But such cheating of the calendar tended to fail in such a collapse as this.

The woman in the bed ignored her visitor, though at intervals while he was there she managed to rouse herself enough to murmur a few words, usually something that sounded as if it might express some magical intention. These words never had any effect, as far as Chilperic could see.

None of the family or servants, according to Hissarlik, had been able to do much for her.

Chilperic, looking at her, was sure that he personally could not do much for her, either. But he knew someone who almost certainly could. He nodded to himself, and turned away.

“Can you be of any help?” Alicia, with her burning eyes, demanded of him at once.

“Not immediately, no, I’m sorry. But given a day or two it may very well be possible to help.”

“Do you mean it?”

“Yes indeed. Can you tell me more exactly what happened? Was your aunt in the manor house with you when she was stricken? You say it happened on the night of the great slaughter, and she saw her father killed beside her?”

“No, it did not happen in the house. Rather she was found by some of our militiamen, out on Magicians’ Island. There’s a cave, a sort of a grotto out there, where magicians from both clans sometimes go to practice. They have warning spells or something to keep them from encountering each other. Aunt Meg was found lying unconscious with our father’s body beside her, the Sword through his heart. Farslayer had struck him down from behind. He was the first victim of the treacherous Malolo on that night.

“The militia brought Megara home, along with her father’s body. For a while we were all afraid that she was going to die, too. Oh gods, I was afraid we were going to have to bury her at night, under the stones out in the courtyard, with all the rest who died that night.” Alicia covered her face with her hands.

“
Can
you help us?” This time the question came from Hissarlik. Chilperic faced him thoughtfully. “I think I can. I certainly intend to try.”

Invited to stay the night, with a strong implication that he would be welcome to remain indefinitely, Chilperic lost no time in moving his few personal effects into a snug bedroom on the manor’s upper level. There a sobering number of well furnished rooms were vacant now. As soon as he was installed, he began to plan how to convince this puny Tyrant that he and his demon could overwhelm the Tyrant’s enemies provided, of course, that the Tyrant helped Chilperic to recover the missing Sword.

In the privacy of his room, where the demon was able to visit him without disturbing other members of the household, Chilperic was able to make certain other arrangements as well.

Next morning, as he joined his hosts for breakfast, Chilperic felt confident enough to hint strongly that some real help ought soon to be available.

Hissarlik and those with him were pleased and startled at the same time. “Then you have communicated with your master during the night?”

“Of course.”

“But how?”

“To a magician of the stature of my master, the great Wood, there are always means of communication.” Chilperic did not say that the means employed in this case had involved several nocturnal visits to the manor by the demon, carrying messages back and forth.

“This help you mention—how long do you think it will be before it becomes truly effective?”

Chilperic smiled encouragingly. “Perhaps I will be able to do something for you, and for your poor aunt, tomorrow. Perhaps it will take a day or two longer.”

“As soon as that?” The Tyrant seemed to be struggling with mixed feelings. Pleased, of course, as well he might be, but also a touch alarmed. “How near is your master himself, then?”

“Alas, the mighty Wood is still almost a continent away. But he has rapid means of transport available, when he wants to use them.”

The assurance did little to allay his host’s uneasiness. Still, to Chilperic, everything seemed fairly well under control.

Chapter Eight

H
alf an hour before midnight on his first night in Malolo manor, Zoltan, having listened patiently to the last ineffective warnings Lady Yambu felt bound to deliver, slipped out of a back door of the stronghold. He went quietly over the outer wall of the compound, which was no higher than his head, then moved as silently as possible through the moonlight toward the nearby forest, intent upon keeping his rendezvous with Black Pearl. Yambu’s disapproval of this midnight sortie made him uncomfortable, but a much greater degree of discomfort would have been required to keep him from going.

If the disgruntled mercenaries, Senones agents, or anyone else, were spying on the Malolo manor tonight, Zoltan observed no sign of their presence as he crossed the moonlit clearing. Once in among the trees he paused to let his eyes adjust to the deeper darkness. Then he moved along, steadily following a gradually descending slope. On his jaunt around the grounds late in the afternoon he had made certain where the creek ran near the manor house; and once he reached the creek tonight it ought to be easy to follow it downstream to the spot along the riverbank where Black Pearl had said she would meet him. Fortunately Zoltan possessed a natural talent for finding his way to any desired geographical goal.

The creek was just where he thought it ought to be, and when he had followed the path beside it for less than a kilometer, he emerged on the bank of the river. No mist had risen from the Tungri tonight, or else it had all dispersed again by this late hour, and the broad surface of the stream, a hundred meters wide, lay clear before him in the moonlight.

There was no house or dock in sight, nor had anyone been considerate enough to leave a boat where he might borrow it to go paddling out in search of his love. Zoltan found a smooth fallen log conveniently close to the water’s edge, and sat on it, doing his best to quiet his impatience, preparing himself to wait.

While he was waiting, Zoltan thought over the general situation. It could have been better, but certainly it also could have been worse. The great thing was that he had now found Black Pearl, and he now knew her name. There had been moments during the past three years when such an achievement had seemed impossible.

He was almost lost in thought, enjoying in his imagination the glowing possibilities of the future, when the dark water rippled directly in his line of vision, and she was in front of him again.