Woundhealers Story Page 22

  Shieldbreaker was thudding faintly again, and the Sword's hilt stung the Baron's wrist as his arm swung past the scabbard; he feared that the weapon was going to leap out into his hand. Let him once grasp the hilt of the Sword of Force now, and he would be unable to cast it down whatever Mark might do. And Shieldbreaker would never be effective against an unarmed man. To be safe, Amintor unbuckled the belt that held the Sword of Force at his side, and let belt and all fall to the sand.

  Next the Baron drew Farslayer-obedient, controllable Farslayer-and smiled. He advanced upon his foe.

  Mark waited until Amintor was quite near him. Then the Prince bent swiftly, plunging his arms into the sand at his feet. When his hands emerged, they were holding the hilt of a bright Sword.

  Amintor assumed the weapon was Woundhealer, though there was no way he could be absolutely sure. Damn Burslem for an incompetent wizard!

  "I suppose there is some logic in your behavior," he remarked, doing his best to conceal his rage.

  "As much as in yours, I suppose. The next time you try to set an ambush, you should bring quieter companions.”

  The Baron glanced back over one shoulder, directing a contemptuous look in the direction of his vanished patrol. "Your advice is good, Highness-had you no trustworthy friends either, that you come seeking me alone? Or is it some other object that brings you here like this? I cannot think why you would want to encounter me again.”

  "Can you not?”

  "No.”

  "Then tell me, bandit chieftain, how you worked your trick." Mark's own quiet rage could be heard in his voice.

  "Bandit chieftain!" The Baron genuinely felt offended. "Come, Prince, you should know by now that I have advanced a step or two beyond that status.”

  "Really? You have acquired fine new clothing since I saw you last, I see that much.”

  Amintor frowned. He still did not understand Mark's presence here, and it bothered him that he did not. "Which trick do you mean?" he called to Mark. "It must have been a good one if it has brought you here seeking me with such determination.”

  The Prince, his face quite unreadable, stared back at him for a long, silent moment. At last Mark said: "The Sword of Healing will not heal my son.”

  "Ah." Amintor let out a long, soft breath. Then he added, more to himself than to Mark: "Then it may be, after all, that there are powers in the world that can overmatch the Swords." It was not a reassuring thought for one who was relying upon Shieldbreaker against tremendous wizards.

  "I have no explanation," the Baron continued aloud, after a moment's thought. "But then, I gave you no guarantees when I traded you that Sword. No, Prince, I worked no trick upon you in that way. There would have been no point in my doing so. I was content to see you go your way in peace-of course, now that you are here-”

  The Baron had weighed the probabilities as best he could. Now he raised Farslayer and rushed in to strike. His object was not to kill but to disable, and he had little fear that Woundhealer would be able to do him any direct harm. Anything was possible, but a man had to be ready to take some risks.

  But Mark, younger and more agile, evaded the rush. Then, running to get past his opponent, he dashed toward the spot where Amintor had cast Shieldbreaker down.

  The Baron had not been careless, and had not let himself be drawn too far from where he had dropped that most effective Sword. In fact he had even begun to count, in a way, on Mark's trying to get to it. Still, it was a near thing. Amintor, hurrying back to defend his treasure, had to lunge desperately with Farslayer at the last moment to keep Mark from getting his hands on the Sword of Force. Mark nearly lost a hand in reaching to grab it up but managed to pull his arm out of the way of the slash in time, and danced away unhurt.

  Still, Amintor did not want to pick up Shieldbreaker and bind himself to it indissolubly for the duration of the combat. Farslayer would do just as well for now. Holding the Sword of Vengeance ready, he slowly advanced once more.

  Mark held his ground, waving Woundhealer gently before him in a two-handed grip.

  The imponderables brought into the situation by the Sword of Mercy slowed the Baron's feet and stayed his hand. If he were to throw Farslayer against it, what might happen? Then, behind him, he heard the unmistakable sounds of several riding-beasts approaching, at a slow pace.

  He backed away from Mark until he felt he could risk a turn-and-look. Then he allowed himself to relax slightly; it was the sergeant and three of the men who had been with him. One of them at least was wounded, pale and swaying in the saddle.

  The sergeant, after pausing to take in the situation, spoke. "The lieutenant"-he paused to spit-"and those who followed him are dead, Sir Baron.”

  "Good," said Amintor, breathing heavily. "Now we have another problem here.”

  "Indeed we have, sir. Though perhaps it is not the one you think.”

  Careful to keep Mark in one corner of his field of vision, the Baron turned again and regarded the sergeant silently.

  "Colonel Chou, at your service," said the mounted man with stripes on his sleeve. "I am, I may say, a trusted friend and adviser of the Magister Burslem. At the moment I am charged with collecting all the Swords for him-the late lieutenant was to undertake the same task for our former commander, Imamura, but he, as you can see, has failed. I shall not fail. Both of you, put down your Swords, please. The Sword that would help you now is at the moment out of reach of either of you, I see.”

  Amintor, with his eye on the speaker's midsection some thirty meters away, began to swing Farslayer in an arc. It was a certain killer, having the serious disadvantage that with one use of its power it was gone. Once the erstwhile sergeant was dead he would have to deal with the other people somehow-

  Only too late did the Baron see the practiced motion of the slinger's arm on the mount beside the newly self-proclaimed colonel. With a shock of mind-splitting pain the smooth stone struck the Baron on his left leg, near the knee. He went down before the impact, as if the leg had been taken off completely. The world was a mosaic of red and black before him.

  Yet he would not, could not, give up. Farslayer was gone, out of reach somewhere, fallen from his grasp before it could be launched. He crawled forward, dragging himself by his hands toward Shieldbreaker-

  But at the same time the former sergeant was galloping forward like a trick rider, reaching down from his saddle to grab up the Sword-

  The shaft of a small arrow sprouted from the rider's turban, and he fell from his saddle, rolling inertly toward the prize. His riderless animal swerved away.

  Amintor groaned, heaving with his arms to drag himself forward toward the treasure. But now he could not move. His broken leg was caught, snared in some trivial trap of desert vegetation. When he tried to move, he blacked out momentarily with the pain. He drew breath, then let out a piercing whistle, calling his war mount. In the background he could see Mark raising Woundhealer, sparring with one of the mounted troopers. The trooper was hesitating to close against the unknown Sword, but still he managed to block Mark's path toward the greater prize.

  And, beyond that, on the crest of a small rise, was a huge mounted figure Amintor could recognize as that of Ben of Purkinje. A figure now cocking a crossbow, with a single simple motion of arms so thick that they made the weapon look like a child's toy. And Amintor still could not move forward- He looked back, then centimetered himself backward on hands and belly and the one leg that worked. Farslayer's dark hilt came again within his grip.

  He saw Ben shoot a second trooper from the saddle, then duck under the swing of a battle-ax, aimed at him by a third.

  Amintor's own specially trained war mount came near enough to brandish its shod hooves defensively above its fallen master- By all the gods, a bit of luck at last! The beast crouched down when Amintor gasped another order at it. It got down low enough for him to hoist himself somehow aboard it, into the saddle.

  Mark and Ben between them had now finished off their last opponent. Mark dashed past the Baron a
nd grabbed up Shieldbreaker.

  Baron Amintor, sweating and grimacing with the agony of his broken leg, of broken plans and broken life, hauled out Farslayer-he had had to sheathe it to get himself mounted- and began to twirl the Sword over his head.

  He had known, for a long time, the proper recitation, and he began it now.

  "For thy heart, for thy heart-”

  Mark now had Shieldbreaker in hand. Quickly he tossed Woundhealer to Ben, who held it before him like a shield.

  "Who hast wronged me-”

  The Sword of Vengeance, howling, left Amintor's hands in a streak of rainbow light.

  Burslem, consulting certain indications, saw that now, as he had hoped and expected, his magic had completely overwhelmed the small Tasavaltan escort force that had been protecting the Princeling Adrian on his way back to Sarykam.

  On separating from Amintor, the wizard had led the bulk of his miniature army to the place where, his magic assured him, Adrian was to be found.

  Leaving his troops waiting on a small rise of land nearby, Burslem advanced alone toward the camp of the paralyzed Tasavaltans. His magic was in full control here, and he felt more than adequately protected by it.

  Some of the riding-beasts and loadbeasts were on their feet, others lying as if dead or drugged. None of the humans were standing. Some sat on the ground, staring ahead of them with empty eyes as if they were drugged or dead. Others lay at full length, or curled up, eyes closed as if they were only asleep. Some people had been starting to put up a tent when they were overcome, and canvas, attached to a couple of erected poles, flapped idly in a small breeze.

  In all that small section of landscape, as Burslem had intended, only one figure moved. He had withheld the full power of his magic from the Princeling himself. Valuable goods should not be damaged unnecessarily.

  The child himself, small and golden-haired, had gone a little apart from all the rest to sit right beside the stream. Appearing unperturbed by what had happened to the members of his escort, the boy was dipping a hand into the current and pulling it out, over and over again, letting the water run out of the cup made by his frail fingers. With each trial he watched the result carefully, as if the way in which the drops fell sparkling in the sun might be the most important thing in all creation.

  The child turned as Burslem approached, looking up at the wizard with pale blue eyes. At first those eyes stared almost blankly, but then they widened with growing fear.

  Burslem, as he took the last few steps, was not even watching the child closely. Instead his thoughts were on Amintor-ought he to have trusted the newly-promoted Colonel Chou to be able to get the Swords from him? Burslem had, or thought he had, a magical hold on Chou that would make rebellion on the colonel's part all but unthinkable-but one could never be perfectly sure of anyone or anything.

  But Burslem had been too much afraid of Amintor, and of the Swords, to make the attempt himself. Prince Mark had Woundhealer with him. Let Amintor and him fight it out.

  Burslem would be ready to face Swords again when he had his great worm back under control.

  And where was the great worm now? Would his inexplicable loss of control over it bring on the Master's serious displeasure? Burslem was in fact looking up and around at the sky again, even as he bent to snatch up the small body of his hostage from the riverbank.

  His reaching arms passed through empty air. The ground he walked on had changed beneath him in mid stride so that he overbalanced in his movement and nearly fell. Where was the child?

  The sky above Burslem, calm a moment ago, was going mad, as was the land around him. Discolored clouds swirled about the zenith, and the ground heaved underfoot. Only a moment ago those hills on the horizon had been arranged in a configuration drastically different from the one that they presented now. The land was stretching and recoiling, like fabric stretched upon the earth's tremendous loom, with titans' shuttles plying to and fro beneath.

  The boy was gone. The stream at the wizard's feet was boiling coldly, like water in a churn, with clouds like chunks of darkness coming up from it. Chaos, like gas, appeared to be escaping from the tormented surface in great bubbles.

  Something stung Burslem in the back; he skipped away from the attack and turned to see how the altered plants of the riverbank were lashing at him with new arms and claws. Only now, belatedly, did the wizard realize that his own protective powers had been scattered like blown leaves before this change. The soldiers of his army, too, had scattered- he could hear them howling their terror and could see some of them in panic flight, going over the next hill in the altered land, and then the hill after that. This, then, was the vengeance of the Master, Burslem's punishment for some known or unknown sin. It was useless to resist, he knew, but still he had to try, to fight for his survival.

  His intended victim had disappeared completely, no doubt preempted in some way by the Ancient One himself. Burslem was standing all alone under a darkling sky, his feet rooted in the middle of an enormous and forbidding plain. The clouds were quiet now, and the river had vanished completely from this odd space that centered itself upon him. Even the distant mountains now seemed to have been ironed away.

  The colors and shapes of everything that he could see were changing.

  Even if he had somehow displeased his Master, why should punishment be visited upon him only now, when he had at last achieved a measure of success? The wizard could not understand it.

  And now, gratefully but incomprehensibly, his scattered powers were coming back to him. Was there hope in resistance, after all? Or had the Master relented? No. This was not the Master's doing after all. Burslem could achieve no sense that the Ancient One was here at all, or acting here. And the overwhelming magic that had so wrenched out of shape the world around him had no real feeling of art to it at all. It felt like nothing but raw power. Like something born of rage and fear compounded ...

  On only a few occasions in his seven years of life had Prince Adrian sensed the presence of people who truly wished him harm. The presence of other human beings was usually a matter of indifference to him, though there were a few-his parents, a small handful of others-who were almost always welcome.

  One instance of terrifying hatred, accompanied by direct violence, stood out sharply in his experience. It had taken place on the day when he and the other children had gone to play in and around the caves. On that day Adrian had been a witness to the slaughter of the soldiers who had been detailed to protect them.

  Not that the little Prince had been physically present at that scene of horror, or that he had seen it with his sightless eyes. Rather he had observed and experienced it in the same way that he saw the rest of the world around him: with the inborn vision of a true, natural magician. And even that vision had been blinded for a time by the horror of the killing of the guards. For Adrian that experience had been shattering.

  From that moment a profound transformation had begun in Adrian. The first manifestation of it had been his mind's instinctive defense of the cave against the magical, demonic powers assaulting it from outside. After that had come an even deeper withdrawal from the world.

  Then the defense of himself and his friends had been resumed in a conscious though indirect way.

  Adrian had also been steadily aware that his parents and the other humans with whom he had close contact had also been alarmed and horrified by the ambush, and that they were in some way doing what they could to meet the threat that it represented.

  From Adrian's infancy he, like other infants, had been able to sense the feelings of those around him as well as hear their speech. Now, after the shock, he paid more and more attention to their words. Not that they often spoke in his hearing about things of real importance. But more and more the constant threat of physical danger, remote though it was, had turned Adrian away from his lifelong absorption with the magical aspects of the world, had made him reach out beyond the suddenly inadequate perceptions of the world that he could achieve with magic.

&nbs
p; The little Prince knew when his father rode off from the train alone, though he did not fully understand the reasons. He missed his father and could follow him, most of the time, with his nonphysical perceptions. In the same way Adrian had a fair grasp of the locations of many other people whom he knew as individuals. And he had already begun to do more than keep track of their whereabouts.

  If no one would listen when he tried to tell them things directly, perhaps they would listen to a wizard.

  And the elementals, the ones originally aroused by Karel on the day of the children's entrapment in the cave, had not been allowed to meld their energies back into those of the earth itself. Instead, Adrian had discovered how to keep them alive. He had played with them like toys, sending them here and there, augmenting their power and then allowing it to diminish while he tried to decide what else he might be able to do with them. It appeared that they might possibly be a useful means of defense.

  And then, at the moment when he belatedly become aware of the presence of Burslem, almost upon him, Adrian had called the elementals back to full life and had concentrated them all close around himself. It was almost a purely instinctive reaction, the only thing that he could think of to do at the moment. Another small child might have hidden his head in his arms, or jumped into the river to get away.

  From the day of the alarm at the cave, Adrian had spoken directly to no one else about what he feared, or what he was trying to do. The experience of his life to date was that no one else was really able to communicate with him. His parents tried to do so only through speech, and then almost always spoke only of the simplest things. It was as if they were totally unable to see the world of magic that lay all about them. The physicians who attended Adrian were hopeless, being concerned, as far back as he could remember, with nothing but getting answers to their questions about his body: Had he eaten? Had he slept? Had his bowels moved properly? Did anything hurt him, here, or here, or here? And the magicians, if anything, were even worse. They looked around him, never exactly at him, with their arts; like the physicians, the wizards peered and probed and examined, going about their own preconceived plans as best they could with their limited perceptions.