Tashigang.” And Denis’s quick eyes flicked around
Mark’s escort. “I did not know that there were
Tasavaltan troops nearby.”
“There are not many. My name is Mark.”
Nor had Denis failed to notice the large black hilt at
Mark’s side. “There was a man of that name who had-
and still has, for all I know-much to do with the
Twelve Swords. Or so all the stories say. But I didn’t
know that he was Tasavaltan.”
“I am not Tasavaltan, really . . . and yes, I have had
much to do with them. Much more than I could wish.”
Mark sighed.
But even as he spoke, Mark was tiredly, dutifully
drawing Coinspinner again. While Denis and the
Tasavaltan soldiers watched in alert silence, he swept
it once more round the horizon. “That way,” Mark
muttered, as he resheathed the Blade. “And nearby,
now, I think. The feeling in the hilt is strong.”
The Sword has pointed in the direction of the
abandoned carnival, which was just visible over the
nearest gentle rise of ground.
Mark began to walk in the direction of the carnival,
leading his mount. His escort followed silently,
professionally alert for trouble. Denis hesitated for a
moment, then abandoned his gravedigging temporarily
and came with them too. The ruined show was only
about a hundred meters distant.
Standing on the edge of the area of dilapidated tents
and flimsy shelters, Mark looked about him with a
frown. “This is very much like…”
“What?”
“Nothing.” But then Mark hesitated. His voice
when he replied again was strained. “Like one
carnival in particular that I remember seeing once . . .
long ago.”
It was of course impossible for him to be certain,
but he had a feeling that it was really the same one.
Something about the tents, or maybe the names of the
performers-though he could not remember any of
them consciously-on the few worn, faded signs that
were visible.
Yes. Nine years ago, or thereabouts, this very
carnival-he thought-had been encamped far from
here, in front of what had then been Sir Andrew’s
castle. That had been the night of Mark’s second
encounter with a Sword, the night on which someone
had thrust Sightblinder into his hands ….
One of the mounted Tasavaltan troopers sounded a
low whistle, a signal meaning that an enemy had been
sighted nearby. Mark forgot the past and sprang
alertly into his saddle.
There was barely time to grab for weapons before
a patrol of the Dark King’s cavalry was upon them.
Vilkata’s troops abandoned stealth when they saw
that they were seen, to come shouting and charging
between the tents and flimsy shacks.
Mark, with Coinspinner raised, met one mounted
attacker, a grizzled veteran who fell back wide-eyed
when he saw his opponent brandishing a Sword;
the magnificent blade made the god-forged weap-
ons unmistakable even when the black hilt with its
identifying symbol was hidden in a fist. Other fight-
ing swirled around them. Mark’s riding beast was
slightly wounded. He had to struggle to control it,
as it carried him some little distance where he
found himself almost alone. The Sword of Good
Luck could create certain difficulties for a leader,
even when it perhaps simultaneously saved his life.
He waved a signal to such of his Tasavaltan people
as he could see, then rode to lead them in a counter-
attack around a wooden structure a little larger
than the rest of the carnival’s components.
In a moment he discovered that his troops had
evidently missed or misread his hand signal, and he
was for the moment completely alone. Swearing by
the anatomies of several gods and goddesses, he
was wheeling his mount again, to get back to his
troops, when his eye fell on the faded legend over
the flimsy building’s doorway.
It read:
THE HOUSE OF MIRTH
And just outside the House of Mirth, a man was
sitting, waiting for Mark. The man, garbed in dull
colors, sat there so quietly on a little bench that
Mark had ridden past him once without even
noticing his presence. Mark was sure at once that
the man was waiting for him, because he was look-
ing at Mark as if he had been expecting him and no
one else.
The man on the bench was compactly built, of
indeterminate age, and wrapped in a gray cloak of
quiet but now somewhat dusty elegance. His face,
Mark thought, was quite calm and also quite ordi-
nary, and he sat there almost meekly, unarmed but
with a long empty scabbard at his belt.
Coinspinner pointed straight at the man. Then
the Sword seemed to leap and twist in Mark’s hand,
and he could not retain his hold upon it. The man
on the bench had done nothing at all that Mark
could see, but the Sword of Chance was no longer in
Mark’s grip, and the scabbard at the Emperor’s
side was no longer empty.
Even apart from Coinspinner’s evidence, Mark
had not the least doubt of who he was facing. He
had heard descriptions. He had heard enough to
make him wonder if, in spite of himself, he might be
awed when this moment came. But in fact the first
emotion that Mark felt was anger, and his first
words expressed it. They came in ‘a voice that trem-
bled a little with his resentment, and it was not
even the taking of the Sword that made him angry.
“You are my father. So my mother has told me.”
The Emperor gave no sign of feeling any anger in
response to Mark’s. He only looked Mark up and
down and smiled a little, as if he were basically
pleased with what he saw. Then he said: “She told
you truly, Mark. You are my son.”
“Return my Sword. I need it, and my troops need
me.
“Presently. They are managing without you at
the moment.”
Mark started to get down from his riding beast,
meaning to confront the other even more closely.
But at the last moment he decided to hold on to
whatever advantage remaining mounted might
afford him-even though he suspected that would
be none at all.
He accused the seated man again. “It was a long
time afterward, my mother said, before she realized
who you really were. Not until after I was born. You
were masked, when you took her. For a while she
thought you were Duke Fraktin, that bastard.
Playing tricks, like a . . . why did you do that to her?
And to my father?”
Mark heard his own voice quiver on the last
word. Somehow the accusation had ended more
weakly than it had begun.
The Emperor answered him steadily. “I did it, I
took her as you say, because I wanted to bring you
into being.”
“I . . .” It was difficult to find the right words,
properly angry and forceful, to answer that.
The man on the bench added: “You are one of my
many children, Mark. The Imperial blood flows in
your veins.”
Again Mark’s injured riding beast began to give
him trouble, turning restively this way and that. He
worked to control it, and told himself that if only he
had his Sword he would have turned his back on
this man and ridden away, gone back to join the
fight. But his Sword was gone. And now as soon as
the animal looked directly at the Emperor it qui-
eted. It stood still, facing the man on the bench and
trembling faintly.
And is it going to be the same with me? Will I be
pacified so easily? Mark wondered. Already his
intended fury at this man was weakening.
Mark said; “I have been thinking about that, too.
The Imperial blood. If I have it, what does that
mean?”
The Emperor stood up slowly. There was still
nothing physically impressive or even distinctive
about him. He was neither remarkably tall nor
short, and, to Mark’s dull senses at least, he radi-
ated no aura of magic. As he walked the few paces
to stand beside Mark’s trembling mount, he drew
Coinspinner and casually handed it up to Mark, hilt
first. “You will need this, as you say,” he remarked,
as if in an aside.
And then, as Mark almost dazedly accepted the
Sword, the Emperor answered his question. “It
means, for one thing, that you have the ordering of
demons. More precisely, the ability to order them
away, to cast them out. What words, what particu-
lar incantation you employ to do so matters little.”
Mark slid Coinspinner back into the sheath at his
own side. Now he was free to turn and ride away.
But he did not. “The demons, yes . . . tell me. There
was a girl named Ariane, who was with me once in
the Blue Temple dungeon. Who saved me from a
demon there. Was she . . . ?”
“Another of my children. Yes. Did she not once