held a weapon before in all his life, reached out. The
blade, looking keener than any razor that Denis had
ever seen, steadied itself suddenly. It moved now as
if under some finer control than the visibly tremu-
lous grip of the old priest.
And now the broad point had somehow, without
even nicking flesh, inserted itself snugly under-
neath the tight bandage binding Denis’s forearm.
The bloodstained white cloth, cut neatly, fell
away, and the Sword’s point touched the wound
directly. Denis, expecting pain, felt instead an
intense moment of-something else, a sensation
unique and indescribable. And then the Sword
withdrew.
Looking down at his arm, Denis saw dried blood,
but no fresh flow. The dried, brownish stuff
brushed away readily enough when he rubbed at it
with his fingers. Where the dried blood had been,
he saw now a small, fresh, pink scar. The wound
looked healthy, easily a week or ten days healed.
It was at this moment, for some reason, that
Denis suddenly remembered something about the
man who, the legends said, had been forced to assist
Vulcan in the forging of the Swords. The stories
said of that human smith that as soon as his work
was done he had been deprived of his right arm by
the god.
“It is shameful, of course,” the elder priest was
saying, “that we must keep it hidden so, and sneak
through the night with it like criminals with their
plunder. But if we did not take precautions, then
those who would put Woundhealer to an evil use
would soon have it in their possession.”
“We will do our best,” the lady of the house
assured him, “to keep it from them.”
“But at the moment,” said the master, “we have
a problem even more immediate than that. Sirs, if
you will, bring the Sword this way with you, and
quickly. A man lies dying.”
Denis led the way, and quickly opened the door to
his own room. The master stepped in past him, and
indicated the still figure on the bed. “He arrived
here not an hour ago, much as you see him. And I
fear he is the courier who was to have carried on
what you have brought.”
The two priests moved quickly to stand beside
the bed. The young one murmured a prayer to
Draffut, God of Healing. The first quick touch of the
Sword was directly on the wound still bleeding in
the side of the unconscious man. Denis, despite his
own experience of only moments ago, could not
keep from wincing involuntarily. It was hard to
imagine that that keen, hard point would not draw
more blood, do more harm to human flesh already
injured. But the slow red ooze from the wound,
instead of increasing, dried up immediately. As the
Sword moved away, the packing that Denis had put
into the wound pulled out with it. The cloth hung
there, stuck by dried blood to the skin.
Feeling a sense of unreality, Denis passed his
hand over his eyes.
Now the Sword, still in the hands of Ardneh’s
elder servant, moved down to touch the wound on
the exposed knee. This time when the bare metal
touched him, the man on the bed drew in his
breath sharply, as if with some extreme and
exquisite sensation; a moment later he let out a
long sigh, eloquent of relief. But his eyes did not
open.
And now the tip of the Sword was being made to
pass back and forth over his whole body, not quite
touching him. It paused again, briefly, right above
the heart. Denis could see how the arms of the old
priest continued to tremble, as if it strained them to
hold this heavy weapon-not, Denis supposed, that
this Sword ought to be called a weapon. He won-
dered what would happen if you swung it against
an enemy.
The tip of the blade paused just once more, when
it reached the scarred stump of the long-lost arm.
There it touched, and there, to Denis’s fresh sur-
prise, it did draw blood at last, a thready red trickle
from the scarred flesh. Again a gasp came from the
unconscious man.
The bleeding stopped of itself, almost as quickly
as it had started. The old priest now slid the blade
back into its sheath, and handed it to his assistant,
who enclosed it once again within the staff of wood.
The elder’s face was pale now, as if the healing
might have taken something out of him. But he did
not pause to rest, bending instead to examine the
man he had been treating. Then he pulled a blanket
up to the patient’s chin and straightened.
“He will recover,” the elder priest announced,
“but he must rest for many days; he was nearly
dead before the Sword of Mercy reached him. Here
you can provide him with the good food he needs;
even so his recovery will take some time.”
Master Courtenay told the two priests of Ardneh
softly, “We thank you in his name-whatever that
may be. Now, will you have some food? And then
we’ll find you a place to sleep.”
The elder declined gravely. “Thank you, but we
cannot stay, even for food.” He shook his head. “If
this man was to be the next courier, as you say, I
fear you will have to find a replacement for him.”
“We will find a way,” the lady said.
“Good,” said the elder, and paused, frowning.
“There is one thing more that I must tell you before
we go.” He paused again, a longer time, as if what
he had to say now required some gathering of
forces. “The Mindsword has fallen into the hands of
the Dark King.”
An exhausted silence fell over the people in the
workshop. Denis was trying desperately to recall
what the various songs and stories had to say about
the weapon called the Mindsword.
There was, of course, the verse that everyone had
heard:
The Mindsword spun in the dawn’s gray light
And men and demons knelt down before
The Mindsword flashed in the midday bright
Gods joined the dance, and the march to war
It spun in the twilight dim as well
And gods and men marched off to-
“Gods and demons!” Master Courtenay swore
loudly. His face was grave and gray, with a look
that Denis had never seen on it before.
Moments later, having said their last farewells,
the two white-robed men were gone.
Denis closed and barred the door behind them,
and turned round. The master of the house was
standing in the middle of the workshop, with one
hand on the wooden Sword-case that stood leaning
there against the chimney. He was looking it over
carefully, as if it were something that he might
want to buy.
The lady was back in Denis’s room already,
looking down at the hurt man on the bed. Denis
when he came in saw that the man was now sleep-
ing peacefully and his color was a little better
already.
Out in the main room of the shop again, Denis
approached his master-whose real name, Denis
was already certain, was unlikely to be Courtenay.
“What are we going to do with the Sword now,
sir? Of course it may be none of my business.” It
obviously had become his business now; his real
question was how they were going to deal with
that fact.
His master gave him a look that said this point
was appreciated. But all he said was: “Even
before we worry about the Sword, there’s another
little job that needs taking care of. How’s your
arm?”
Denis fixed it. There was a faint residual sore-
ness. “Good enough.”
“Good.” And the big man walked around behind
the big toppled workbench, and lifted the tarpaulin
from that which had been concealed from Ardneh’s
priests.
It was going to be very convenient, Denis
thought, that the house was so near the river, and
that the night was dark and rainy.
CHAPTER 3
The chase under the blistering sun had been a
long one, but the young man who was its quarry
foresaw that it was not going to go on much longer.
Since the ambush some twenty kilometers back
had killed his three companions and all their riding
beasts, he had been scrambling on foot across the
rough, barren country, pausing only at intervals to
set an ambush of his own, or when necessary to
gasp for breath.
The young man wore a light pack on his back,
along with his longbow and quiver. At his belt he
carried a small water bottle-it was nearly empty
now, one of the reasons why he thought that the
chase must soon end in one way or another. His age
would have been hard to judge because of his
weathered look, but it was actually much closer to
twenty than to thirty. His clothes were those of a
hunter, or perhaps a guerrilla soldier, and he wore