Sightblinder's Story Page 3

  “There will still be room inside your icicle for you to shiver, if not to breathe,” called down the one who sat upon the throne; his was a human voice, harsh but not extraordinary. “You will find yourself able to dispense with breathing for a while, at least as long as you are under water. As most of your future existence lies in that environment, I thought it best to arrange something of the kind.”

  If Honan-Fu had any response to make, it must have been a silent one. He was a small man with wispy gray hair and epicanthic eyes, who had said very little to any of his conquerors since their first onslaught took him by surprise. And perhaps he was silent because by now his ice-encrusted lips had already grown too cold and stiff to talk.

  “You will be brought out of the lake from time to time,” called down the man—or being—on the throne, “to talk to me. You and I have much to talk about. But I am somewhat pressed for time just now, and our talk will have to wait. Unless there is something you feel you must say to me before you go. Any defiance you feel compelled to offer? Any bargainings you’d like to try? Now is the time, or they will have to wait indefinitely….”

  Still, the shivering little wizard had nothing to say in reply. Instead he had one more counterattack to try—magical, of course,—and it was more subtle and ingenious than any he had previously essayed. The man on the throne, despite his own ancient powers, had no inkling that the attack was coming until he was informed of it by a thrum of power in the Sword he held. Only half a heartbeat later did the conqueror’s more conventional defenses, his personal spells and demons, come into play; they would have protected him adequately, he was almost sure, but even before they were activated the counter spell of Honan-Fu had been rendered harmless by the Sword of Force.

  The man on the throne was surprised and delighted to observe the effectiveness of his latest acquisition.

  “Shieldbreaker, hey?” He held the Sword up at arm’s length and admired it. It and its eleven fellows were of divine workmanship, he had been told; he had discounted that theory until now. But now, he realized, he was going to have to trace down the truth of their provenance.

  “I could feel that power,” he said, more to himself than to anyone else. “I like it. This toy is going to remain at my side for some time to come, though as a rule I have a dislike for carrying edged weapons of any kind.”

  He wondered now, in passing, how effective this Sword might have been in an earlier era of his life, if it were set in opposition to the titanic powers of Orcus or of Ardneh—but those were tests, thank all the gods and demons, that he would never have to face again. The magician on the throne, who had been no more than human in that era, had somehow managed to survive both of those superpowers.

  And, from what he had seen of this future world during two years of tentative exploration since his arrival in it, he expected to be able to reign supreme.

  * * *

  Honan-Fu was by now completely encased in ice if still not exactly frozen solid. At a signal from the throne, burly attendants now untied the defeated magician from the tall wooden stakes, and dragged him away to be lowered into the lake. The spot selected was in its own little courtyard, really a grotto, a deeply arched recess in the wall of the keep itself. Behind its gate was a deep permanent well of fresh water, maintained by a direct connection to the lake outside the castle walls. Originally this well, or pool, had been intended to provide easy access to drinking water even during a hard-pressed siege. The grotto holding the well was accessible from the large courtyard through a small gate.

  As the former master of the castle was carried through the small gate and out of sight, the man on the throne heaved a sigh, like one who has disposed of yet another dull duty in a busy day. He toyed with his newly acquired Sword, spinning it briefly like an auger, so that light of torches flickered from its brightness, and the keen point bored a very little deeper into the stone floor of the balcony.

  And then his whole being appeared to change. Where he had been grotesque, only marginally human, he now appeared as a muscular young man, golden-haired, blue-eyed, and of surpassing beauty.

  “Now,” he called in an unchanged voice to his chief subordinate, an aging, bulky man in military uniform who stood below. “Bring out this Prince who owned this lovely implement before me. I’d like to have a word with him before he’s put away.”

  “I know him, sire,” the man below responded. “And I think he will repay more than a few minutes of Your Lordship’s attention.”

  The officer turned away and made an economical gesture of command. Presently the captured Prince Mark, battered and still somewhat bloody about the face from the morning’s fistfight, was brought out of a dark doorway in the lower castle wall, and bound up in the place just vacated by Honan-Fu, between the altar’s stakes. The men who bound him, as soon as they were finished, began to fill their pails with water again.

  At first Mark, having endured some hours of utter darkness in a dungeon, had to squint even in the faint light of the sunset sky and torches. Looking around him, he could see no sign that either of his Tasavaltan friends were also being held captive. That was faint consolation, but it was all he had.

  There was only one face in the hostile throng that Mark could recognize, and he saw it without surprise, though with a sinking in his heart toward despair.

  “Amintor,” he said through dry lips that were still caked with his own blood.

  The military officer, obviously here in a position of considerable importance, returned the Prince a salute, gravely but silently. Mark noted that the aging, portly baron, once a fearsome warrior himself, was limping heavily on his left leg. Mark had no doubt that the limp was a result of their last encounter, two years earlier.

  But there was an even worse sight than the face of his old enemy for the Prince to see. Despairingly, Mark identified the hilt of Shieldbreaker, visible in the well-formed fist of his still-unknown chief enemy.

  The occupant of the throne now leaned toward him slightly. His harsh voice was completely strange to Mark. “You are another man, Prince, to whom I intend to speak at some length. I believe that we have several matters of some importance to discuss. But alas, conversation must wait. Unless you have something you urgently wish to tell me now.”

  The first bucket of water splashed on Mark. He shivered involuntarily, though at first the wet chill felt good on his cracked lips and swollen face.

  “An indefinite time of discomfort awaits you, Prince. But at least the ice will not be eternal; sooner or later your time in the cold lake will be interrupted. Draw comfort from that fact if you can. But remember that how long you are allowed to spend out of your bath will depend upon how entertaining and informative I find your conversation.”

  The second pail of water splashed over Mark, and he felt the intense, magical cold of it, deeper even than the chill of ice, and fear and understanding began to grow. Meanwhile the handsome—nay, beautiful—man on the throne was studying him carefully. As if he wanted to watch the details of the freezing process, or perhaps as if Mark reminded him of someone that he had known long ago.

  Mark did not utter another word. His captors did not insist. The Ancient One exchanged a few words with Amintor. And soon the two of them were watching Mark, pale and with his teeth chattering, being lowered inside his own maturing icicle to a place in the deep lake beside the wizard Honan-Fu.

  Chapter Four

  Within a few minutes after Lady Yambu had released her dragon from the window of the inn, she and her visitors brought their conference to an end. It was mutually agreed among the three of them that the less they were seen together, the better.

  Leaving the inn by the back door, Zoltan and Ben at once turned their steps uphill and inland, climbing the gullied, unpaved alley behind the inn toward the edge of the settlement, which was hardly more than a stone’s throw away.

  Their chosen alley led them to an almost deserted street, and the street in turn, still climbing uphill, passed out of town and in a short distanc
e had become little more than a narrow footpath. Turning to look back as they passed the town’s last scattered buildings, they found themselves well above most of the settlement they had just quitted. There, standing out among lower and shabbier roofs, was the inn, one of the few two-story buildings. On the upper veranda that ran along its inland side, easy to see from here, was the place where Yambu was to leave a visible signal whenever she wanted another conference with them.

  As the two men continued hiking uphill along the path, they debated whether they were going to be able to trust her or not. Zoltan, who knew comparatively little about Yambu, voiced his suspicions. Ben shared these doubts to some extent, but he was more optimistic. He could remember more about the lady than her public reputation of years past.

  “She was your enemy then, and Uncle Mark’s,” Zoltan objected. “Why should we trust her now?”

  “Aye, I know she was. But there are enemies and then there are enemies. And whether it was wise or not, we’ve already made the decision now and it’s a case of trying to work with her. We’ve no other choice that makes any sense at all.”

  Zoltan had to agree, however reluctantly. The alternative to staying on the shores of Lake Alkmaar and trying to help Mark would be to leave at once for home. Tasavalta was months away, by riverboat until the cliffs were reached, and above them by foot or riding-beast. Doubtless more months would pass before they would be able to return with help. A slightly better choice than that might be for one of them to head back alone —Zoltan would probably be the swifter traveler—while the other one waited here by the lake, keeping an eye on developments as well as possible.

  Of course when the Princess in Tasavalta failed to receive a winged courier from Honan-Fu bearing word of her husband’s safe arrival, the Tasavaltans would begin to be alarmed and would take action anyway. Their first efforts at probing the situation, by winged scouts and by long-distance magic, would be under way long before either Zoltan or Ben, hurry as they might, could bring home word that help was needed.

  Sending a message from Triplicane directly by a flying beast would speed up the Tasavaltan mobilization enormously. Ben had hoped to find some such creatures available at the docks, but Lady Yambu had assured him there were none.

  Zoltan asked now: “What was that business of hers with the little dragon?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “A dragon’s not something our people in Tasavalta would be likely to use, or our allies either. More likely our enemies would use on—-have you any hope that anything will come of it?”

  Ben trudged on. Eventually he said: “I don’t know that either. If you decide to trust someone, then trust them. Or don’t. Half measures only do harm.”

  Scouting yesterday among these hills with Prince Mark, trying to find some native willing and able to tell them what had happened on the wizard’s island, Ben and Zoltan had observed an abandoned hut or two, with tattered nets of thin string still stretched outside, suggesting that the dwellings had once been inhabited by fowlers. These huts were now the objective of the two men, on the off chance that there might possibly be someone still living in the area with a flying messenger that could be bought or hired—or stolen—and might make it all the way to Tasavalta in a matter of a few days.

  As he went up the hill behind Ben, Zoltan was thinking gloomily that the odds of his uncle still being alive were not good, and they were worsening by the hour. He was also wondering if he, being somewhat faster, ought to suggest that he run on ahead of Ben and search. The trouble with that idea was that neither of them were quite sure where they were going. The supposed fowlers’ huts had been on this long and uneven hillside somewhere….

  Ben, who was still trudging a little in advance, stopped so suddenly that Zoltan almost ran into him.

  “What—” Zoltan began, and then fell silent, staring past Ben’s shoulder.

  An easy bowshot up the hill, Prince Mark, dressed just as they had seen him last, was standing looking down at them.

  Mark was poised alertly just off the nearly overgrown path where it ran between two pine trees. Even at the distance, Zoltan could see the marks of the morning’s fight on the Prince’s face, but he gave no sign of having been seriously hurt. As his nephew and his old friend stared up the slope at him, momentarily too shocked for speech, Mark raised a hand in a gesture that was more a signal of caution than a wave.

  Ben started uphill again, almost at a run. And was stopped after only two or three strides by a sudden pushing gesture of Mark’s palm.

  The Prince, his voice calm, called down to them: “Wait. Not now. Wait for me to come to you.”

  And then he stepped off the trail and disappeared into the nearby trees.

  Ben and Zoltan turned stunned faces to each other. Then, facing uphill again, they stood waiting, still speechless with surprise.

  Hardly had they begun to recover from their shock when they caught sight of the Prince again, as Mark became briefly visible through the trees a little way up the slope. He was still moving away from the path and following a course that angled down the hill. He shot a glance downhill and saw Ben and Zoltan watching him. Again Mark paused, just long enough to send them a reassuring wave. He was considerably closer now, and Zoltan could see the marks of the morning’s fight more clearly.

  And again, as soon as Zoltan and Ben started toward the Prince, he called out sharply to them. “Wait, I told you! Have patience, and I’ll be with you shortly.” Again his tall form moved out of sight, still on his angled downhill course.

  Groaning with a delayed sensation of relief, Ben began to mumble curses. In a moment he had slumped down to rest on a small rock outcropping. But a moment after that he was on his feet again, gazing with impatient curiosity toward the place where Mark had most recently vanished. There was no one to be seen there now.

  The two men waited. They looked uphill and down. Heartbeats of time stretched out into minutes, but Mark did not reappear.

  Nor was any sign of him to be found when his nephew and his old friend, stirred into activity again, reached the place where they had seen him last. Except that Zoltan found a small mark, badly blurred but very fresh, in a patch of wet earth exposed on the slope. The footprint, if it really was such, was too vague and incomplete to offer any hope of identification.

  Time ticked away. Now Zoltan and Ben began to gaze at each other in fresh bewilderment. Zoltan once stood up and drew in breath as if to shout Mark’s name, but Ben, suddenly scowling in suspicion, jabbed at him with a hand, almost knocking him off his feet, to keep him silent.

  Zoltan was now trying to recall the exact words Prince Mark had shouted to them. What he could remember was not at all encouraging. Mark’s declarations had been vaguely reassuring, but not at all informative.

  An effort to find more fresh tracks along the course the Prince had been following downhill soon came to nothing. There were a few old footprints blurred by rain, and the marks of little animals, but nothing useful.

  Ben was scowling fiercely. “Had he Shieldbreaker still with him just now? It seems to me I saw a sword hilt at his waist.”

  “No. No, I am sure that he did not.”

  Each held to his opinion on that point; though otherwise, they agreed, the Prince had been dressed just as they had seen him last.

  “And he told us to wait here. Didn’t he? Isn’t that what he called to us twice?”

  “All right. Yes, he did tell us that. Where did he go, though? Just to run off like that again without a word … this is madness.”

  “He might have got past us and be heading down to the settlement.”

  “That’s just what he did. But why should he do that? Without stopping to give us a word of explanation?”

  The two men repeated to each other the exact words they remembered the Prince uttering just a few minutes ago. The differences in their two versions were insignificant. He had really assured them that they did not have to worry about him. And he had ordered them to stay where they were.
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br />   Therefore they settled in, howbeit grimly and impatiently, to wait.

  * * *

  Shortly after her two visitors departed, Lady Yambu had gone out of her room, down the upstairs hall, and out onto the upper veranda. She had no particular goal in mind; such little walks had become her habit during the dreary days of her stay at the inn.

  Standing on the narrow rustic veranda, looking up toward the hills in the direction that she supposed her new allies must have taken when they departed, she observed a single figure moving, angling down along the partially wooded slope. Somehow, even at the distance, it did not appear to be one of the local people. It was certainly not the bulky form of Ben of Purkinje, and what she could make out of the clothing indicated that it wasn’t young Zoltan either. Unless for some reason the youth had changed his garments in the few minutes since she’d seen him last…. The distance, a couple of hundred meters, was too great for her to see much more of the figure than the movements of its arms and legs, but there was something about it, some tinge of familiarity, that tugged at her memory. Vaguely uneasy, she remained on the veranda, watching.

  * * *

  Less than a minute later the same figure came into her view again, much closer now. With movements that impressed her as furtive, it emerged from behind some trees and entered the highest street of the town proper. It was a man, she was sure of that now, and he was near enough for some details of his appearance to be observable. Yambu was able to focus on the figure for only a moment before it vanished again, this time behind a building.