Farslayer's Story Page 6

  The hermit’s respite from the problem of Farslayer was brief. About noon on the day after the two pilgrims’ visit, his fourth visitor of this extraordinary spring showed up.

  This latest arrival was a man in his mid-thirties, dark-skinned and lean, and with a fierce, competitive eye. He had come a long way, and he had seen hard traveling, as could be told by the state of his mount and his equipment. Still he was well dressed, his riding-beast was a noble animal, and the way he wore his weapons at his belt suggested that they had most likely seen hard use at some time or other.

  With an unconscious groan Gelimer straightened his back from garden chores, and calmly made this latest traveler welcome. Last night what must finally have been the last storm of the season had dusted three or four more centimeters of snow over his garden and everything else in sight, including the new grave in the grove, and the fast disappearing carcass of the last riding-beast to have carried its master along these trails. Here in the sun the snow had already melted, but in the woods its white veil would still endure.

  Since the day after the death of its last owner, the Sword itself had been hidden as well as the hermit knew how to hide anything. Gelimer doubted very much that anyone was going to find it, barring interference by some major wizard.

  “Thank you for the invitation to dismount, good hermit … ahh!” And the formidable-looking rider, in turn, groaned with relief as he swung himself down from his saddle.

  The visitor introduced himself as Chilperic. No second name. And Gelimer still did not allow his suspicions to be aroused, when, almost as soon as he had settled himself upon a chair inside the house, this newest visitor inquired: “I suppose that a fair number of travelers are fortunate enough to enjoy your hospitality, good hermit? You occupy a somewhat strategic situation here.”

  “This site where I live?” Gelimer looked around him, as if he could see out through his wooden walls. “It is important only in potential. Ah, ’twould be strategic indeed if there were any measurable amount of traffic up and down the river here, but the water’s almost always too rough for that. Or if armies were often marching through this pass … but for twenty years at least that hasn’t happened, either. The war-makers both upstream and down all have enough to do in their own territories without tackling more. So this is only a lonely mountainside, left to me. Often months go by without a soul appearing at my door.”

  “I see. Interesting. And has this past month been entirely devoid of visitors?”

  Now, Gelimer was unable to accept this innocent-sounding question at face value. Indeed, he was almost convinced already that the serious search for the Sword, which he had been more than half expecting for many days, had finally arrived. For some reason it surprised the hermit at first that the searcher, if such he was, did not appear to be a local man at all. But on second thought, that was really no surprise.

  Gelimer answered: “On the contrary, sir, the past month has been comparatively busy. There have actually been three other travelers before yourself.” Here the hermit paused to sip his mead. Then he went on, trying to give the impression of a man who did not need to be prodded to talk to one random visitor about another, who in fact was even eager to talk on the subject, because he had something mildly unusual to tell.

  “The first one who stopped here gave me the impression of a man fleeing something, or someone.” And here the hermit, who had been granted time to think what he should do, went on to give a rough description of the man who had died with the Sword run through him, and of the strangely shaped bundle that man had been carrying. It was Gelimer’s idea, right or wrong, that an honest owner looking for his lost treasure would come out honestly and say what he was trying to find.

  Chilperic sipped at his mead, too. If the shape of the stranger’s bundle had suggested anything to him, he did not say so. When he spoke again his tone indicated no more than a polite interest, though indeed the question he asked was pertinent enough: “Ah, and how long ago was this?”

  The hermit allowed himself an equally polite effort to recall. “Let me see now. Was it before this past full moon, or after? But lately most of the nights have been cloudy anyway. I really cannot say with any certainty.”

  The other leaned forward, and spoke with evident sincerity. “I will be glad to make it worth your while to try to remember. The fact is that I have been searching for this man.”

  “I see. And what will happen when you find him?”

  “Oh, I am not a manhunter. Nothing like that.” The visitor, smiling, leaned back in his chair again. “I seek him only to satisfy my own curiosity. Nor do I really travel in search of this fellow you describe. It is only that in the course of my travels I keep encountering him—and his strange story. As an interested observer, I would like to know the ending of that tale. No, if you are kindly disposed toward the fellow, you need have no fear that he is going to suffer harm because of anything I do.”

  “You intrigue me.”

  “I should not. His story is not mine to tell.”

  Gelimer shrugged, doing his best to revert to an attitude of indifference. “Ardneh enjoins us to be kind to everyone. But I have no particular reason to wish this fellow well or to wish him ill, for that matter. If you told me he was a thief, though, and that you were trying to bring him to justice, I would be inclined to believe you.”

  “Why so?” asked Chilperic.

  “Because of the strange and jealous way he treated the peculiar bundle that he carried. As if—perhaps it had been stolen. Because of—well, because of a certain furtiveness in the fellow’s manner.”

  “Ah, yes, you mentioned a peculiar bundle. And you said it was of an unusual size and shape?”

  “Yes. Well…” And Gelimer gestured vaguely, measuring the air with his two hands. “A package wrapped in rough cloth. A weighty thing. It might have held a small shovel, or an axe.” Surely an honest seeker would come out openly now, and say I am looking for a Sword.

  “And I suppose you never saw the bundle opened?”

  “That is correct.” Ardneh was not picky about the letter of the truth, Gelimer had always thought; rather it was the underlying goal of speech that counted with the benign god. “He stayed in my house for a single night, ate sparingly, and was on his way again at first light, taking his bundle with him.” That of course was the point Gelimer had been anxious to establish if he could. “Although the weather was foul at that time and the trails exceedingly dangerous, nothing I could say would induce him to delay his departure.”

  “You say the weather was foul, good hermit. On the night when this visitor came to you, was there in fact a notably heavy snowstorm, with enough wind to make it almost a blizzard?”

  Gelimer tried his best to give the appearance of a man trying to remember, succeeding a little at a time, recovering something he had thought of small importance when it happened. “Why, I suppose that is a fair description of the weather, now that I think about it.”

  “And was this strange visitor traveling mounted or on foot?”

  “He had a riding-beast. Yes. I didn’t really notice much about the animal—but yes, that visitor traveled mounted.”

  “And in which direction did he go on his departure?” All pretense of a merely casual interest on the questioner’s part was gradually being discarded.

  “He was heading downslope, as I recall, toward the river. Of course he could easily have changed directions once he was out of my sight. He never said anything about where he was going. He did not even give me his name, which I thought odd.”

  “But not surprising, in his case his name, or at least the name I have known him to use, is Cosmo Biondo, and he is a great rogue.”

  “A rogue, you say.”

  “I do. You may count yourself fortunate, Sir Hermit, that he didn’t cut your throat while you were sleeping.”

  Gelimer, blinking to give his best impression of being mildly shocked, brought out from under his robes an amulet of Ardneh, which hung always around his neck. He held
the talisman in his hand and rubbed it. “Then I truly wish that I were able to tell you more about him. I wish that you were indeed trying to bring him to justice.”

  Chilperic shook his head, dismissing that idea, and sat back in his chair once more. But presently he leaned forward again to pose another question: “As I recall, you said you have been visited by two other travelers this month as well?”

  “Yes. They were two pilgrims, who came through here only yesterday. The riverboat they were traveling on, they said, had come to grief on the rocks below. The crew, I understand, were trying to tow the craft upstream again with a rope. But I really doubt that the two I met could have had anything to do with this Biondo fellow.”

  “Perhaps not. Headed upstream or down?”

  “They said that they were going down.”

  “What were they like?”

  Gelimer, seeing no reason not to do so, described yesterday morning’s pair of visitors in some detail. But he thoughtfully omitted to mention the conversation he had had with them on the subject of Swords.

  When today’s visitor had finished his refreshment, and stretched, and looked about the house, he expressed a wish to be on his way while the light and the weather remained good.

  Doing his best to pretend a certain reluctance to lose a temporary companion, the hermit at last bade his guest goodbye. “And good luck in your search—I would like sometime to hear the rest of this Biondo’s story.”

  Chilperic, already mounted, looked down at Gelimer and shook his head. “It might not be safe for you to know that story, good hermit—as for me, I already know the dangerous parts of the tale, and so am free to indulge my further curiosity.”

  And in a moment, with a final wave, this latest visitor too was gone, having said not a word during his visit on the subject of his own goals and business. He rode downslope, in the direction of the suspension bridge that would take him across the Tungri. Would he be reporting to the Senones, then? Or perhaps seeking to question them? But it would be as easy for this traveler as for the other one to change directions once he was out of sight, and Gelimer was not minded to follow him to be sure which way he went.

  Chapter Five

  On the morning after their arrival at the fishing village, Zoltan and Yambu were treated to a fine breakfast, an expression of the villagers’ gratitude for Zoltan’s part in last night’s modest victory. Having done justice to this homely feast of fish, beans, and the eggs of waterfowl, the travelers thanked their hosts, bade them farewell, and pressed forward on foot toward the hilltop stronghold or manor where dwelt the Malolo overlords.

  Patches of forest engulfed the path, between areas of cultivated land. As they walked, Zoltan told his companion the story of his encounter with Black Pearl during the night. She listened in silence and made no comment. He also warned Lady Yambu that when they reached the manor he was determined to raise the mermaid question with the authorities there, in one way or another, with whatever degree of diplomacy he could manage. Now that he knew the name of Black Pearl, and was certain that she was still alive, and here, somewhere close—well, whatever happened, he was not going to let her get away from him again.

  “Well, of course you must make every effort to find out more, since now you have actually seen her.” Yambu sighed. She believed what the lad had told her about last night—and she had really believed him about the mermaid all along—but still there were things about the business she did not like.

  Zoltan persisted. “Not only to find out more. If this mermaid curse was put upon her by some magician, then there must exist some magic that can take it off. I mean to restore her to true womanhood.”

  Yambu sighed again, this time silently, at the young man’s obvious determination. “When the time comes, then, to speak to the Malolo leaders on the subject, will you let me try my hand at the diplomacy? I do have somewhat more experience in the field than you.”

  “Would you, my lady?” Zoltan cried with sincere relief. “I would be immensely grateful.”

  Having reached that agreement, the two trudged on in silence for a time, proceeding through the woods along a well-trodden path at the moment empty of all other traffic. Presently Zoltan spoke again. “I wonder what the leaders of this Malolo clan are like.”

  “It is impossible to tell until we meet them. Something like other minor lordlings elsewhere, I suppose,” Yambu added with faint distaste. The lady took a dozen strides in thoughtful silence before she added: “The village leader back there gave me the impression that he thought something strange had been going on in the clan’s stronghold for some time, at least a month.”

  “Something strange?”

  “He really said nothing specific on the subject. But that was the impression I received.”

  Zoltan pondered this news in concerned silence. “I wonder where everyone is?” the lady remarked suddenly in a different voice.

  Indeed, the crude road which the two travelers were following had remained completely empty of other traffic, and this fact now began to take on an ominous aspect in Zoltan’s eyes. At each turn, as the rutted track wound back and forth through fields and forest, he kept expecting to encounter a farmer’s cart, a peddler, a goatherd, someone. But there was never anyone else in sight.

  “Have all the farmers fled their lands? It should be time for planting.”

  Yambu shook her head. “Not a good sign.”

  In due time, and without ever meeting anyone, the two travelers came upon the house, which stood less than an hour’s walk from the lakeside village where they had spent the night. The hill, upon which the Malolo clan had chosen to build their manor, had long ago been denuded of trees, leaving only a myriad of ancient stumps. Within a low wall, the stone and timber of the house were dark, and the grounds around the house long uncared for and eroded. Even in the clear light of day, the whole establishment had a forbidding aspect to Zoltan.

  Still no other people were in sight. And everything was silent except for the lowing of cattle, which seemed to be coming from outbuildings in the rear. The animals sounded as if they were in need of being milked.

  The front entrance of the manor was protected by a small drawbridge, let down over a long-dry moat. The outer end of the drawbridge, now resting on the earth, had crushed a new spring growth of weeds beneath it. From this fact Zoltan deduced that the bridge must commonly be kept raised at least as much as it was lowered. Evidently the long-standing feud sometimes included direct assaults upon the strongholds of the chief participants.

  However that might be, no one had bothered to raise the bridge today. Trudging on across its weathered timbers, the two travelers found themselves immediately before the manor’s great front door. Still they had not been challenged, or even observed as far as they could tell. They had seen no one since leaving the vicinity of the village. This absence of human activity caused them to once more exchange puzzled glances.

  Then Zoltan shrugged, raised his sword hilt, and rapped firmly, loudly, three times on the door.

  For a time, a period of time that became noticeably extended, there was no answer.

  He was just about to knock again, and louder still, when at last a small peephole, heavily protected by iron grillwork, opened near the middle of the door. “Who is it?” a crabbed and cracking tenor demanded from within.

  “Two pilgrims,” the lady on the doorstep answered, putting authority and volume into her voice. “The Lady Yambu and her attendant. We bring certain information that the chief of the Malolo clan should be glad to hear.”

  There followed a protracted and suspicious silence. Zoltan supposed that the speaker inside—he could not be sure from the voice whether it was a man or a woman was probably using the peephole to inspect the two on the doorstep.

  “You can give me the information,” the voice said next, adopting now a different but still peculiar tone, somewhere between wheedling and mindless threat.

  Yambu glared at the wooden barrier. “I do not conduct conversations through
a door.” This time no one would have doubted that a queen was speaking.

  Response from inside was immediate, in the form of a tentative rattling, as of a heavy doorbar in its sockets. Then came a brief silence as of hesitation, or perhaps a consultation carried on too quietly to be audible outside. Then the bar rattled again, this time banging decisively as it was thrown aside. Bolts clattered, and a moment later the left half of the double door was creaking open.

  Standing before the travelers was one man, unarmed and not very large, his gray beard and hair in wild disarray, his watery blue eyes blinking in the morning sun. The man’s clothes —leather trousers, leather vest over a once-white shirt—were so stained and generally shabby that Zoltan was ready at first to take the fellow for a servant. Behind the entranceway in which he stood stretched the dim length of a great hall, where the littered condition of floor and tables, along with a few overturned chairs, suggested at first glance that a notable revel of some kind might have been held here last night.

  The fellow who had opened the door looked at the Lady Yambu again, face-to-face this time, and bowed to her at once. “Welcome,” he said, in a somewhat more courteous tone than before. He stood aside. “Come in, my lady, come in.” But having said that much he stopped, seeming not to know how to proceed.

  “Thank you, Sir Wizard,” said the lady dryly, entering the house. And Zoltan, turning his head suddenly to look at the man once more, could see that the rings on his stained fingers were marked with insignia of power, and were of a richness that certainly no menial servant wore; and that a chain of thin gold encircled the man’s wrinkled neck and went down inside his dirty shirt.

  Yambu grabbed her companion by the sleeve and pulled him forward. “This is Zoltan of Tasavalta, who travels with me. Now may we know your name? Your public name at least?” It was a common practice for wizards of any rank to keep their true names unknown to any besides themselves.