see, someone else is now going to have to do the job.
It can’t wait, and Jord can’t walk.”
Jord was listening silently, frowning but not
interfering.
“I can’t leave town right now, nor can Barbara. It’ll
be a well-paid job, Denis, if you’ll do it.”
“Please do it,” the lady of the house urged softly.
Denis could feel his cheeks changing color a little.
He indicated agreement, almost violently. “I’ll need no
special pay, sir, mistress.”
Jord was still frowning at Denis intently.
Barbara, correctly interpreting this look, hasted to
reassure the older man. “Denis came to us a year and
a half ago, on the recommendation of the White
Temple. We had gone to them and told them we
were looking for a likely, honest prospect to be trained
to help us in our business. A lot of people recruit
workers there, you know.”
Jord asked Denis: “How long were you there, at the
White Temple?”
“Three years, a little more.”
“And why were you ready to leave?”
Denis shrugged. “They were good people, they
saved my life. And it was good to serve Ardneh for a
time. But then . . .” He made a gesture, of something
fading, falling away.
“You must have been only half grown when you
went to them.”
“And half dead also. They picked me up out of the
street after a gang fight, and brought me back to life. I
owed them .much, but I think I repaid their help in the
time that I was there. We parted on good terms.”
“Ah,” said Jord. He appeared to have relaxed a
little. He looked at Ben, and said, “Well sir, the
matter’s in your hands, not mine. Maybe sending this
lad is the best choice now.”
Ben cast a cautious look around, though he must
have been already certain that they were secure
against being overheard. Then he said quietly to
Denis, “You’ll be carrying two Swords.”
‘ “Two,” said Denis, almost inaudibly, and he
swallowed.
“Yes. They’re both here in the house now, and I
think we must get them away as quickly as we can,
since we must assume now that the enemy are
watching the house. The city authorities are disposed
to be friendly to me; but of course the Lord Mayor is
ultimately responsible to the Silver Queen as his
overlord. And she, as we all know, is at least
sometimes an ally of Vilkata, and of the Blue Temple
too. So we cannot depend with any certainty on the
Lord Mayor’s friendship, or even on his looking the
other way as we do certain things.”
“I’ll do my best. I’ll get them there safely,” said
Denis suddenly. He looked at Barbara as he said it.
And she, smiling her approval, could see a pulse
beating suddenly in his lean throat.
“Good,” said Ben. “You’re not going to take them to
the Princess, though. You’ll take them in the other
direction, to Sir Andrew. I fear someone’s already
waiting to waylay you on the road to Princess Rimac.
After what happened here last night I can almost feel
it.”
Jord nodded agreement, slowly and reluctantly. “We
must get the Swords into action somewhere. And Sir
Andrew’s a good man, by all I’ve heard about him.”
“And your son serves him,” Barbara reminded her
guest.
“Aye, Lady. Still . . . I know that Rostov was
counting on the Swords. Well, the responsibility’s
yours now. I failed early on.”
A little later, Denis and Jord were both watching
while Ben dug out from its hiding place the second of
the two Blades that Denis was to carry. The three
men were down on the ground floor of the house now,
in a little-traveled area behind the main shop, inside a
storeroom that was usually kept closed with a cheap
lock. None of the miscellaneous junk readily visible
inside the shed appeared to be worth anyone’s effort
to steal.
Ben was bent over, rummaging in a pile of what
looked like scrap metal, consisting mainly of
swordblades and knifeblades, bent or broken or
rusted, in all cases long disused. Denis could not
remember when he had seen any of the metalworkers
actually using this stuff.
From near the bottom of this pile of the
treacherously sharp edges, Ben carefully brought out,
one at a time, two weapons-the blades of both were
long, blackened, but unbent. And these two also had
hilts, which a majority of the others did not.
Before wiping the two blades clean, Ben held them
out to Jord. The older man put out his hand, hesitated,
and then touched a hilt, all of its details invisible under
carefully applied oil and grime.
“Doomgiver,” said the only human who had ever
handled all the Twelve. “There’s not one of them I’d
fail to recognize.”
The remainder of the day and much of the night had
passed before Denis was ready to depart. He was not
allowed one thing he asked for: a private good-bye
with young Kuan-yin, the nursemaidBen said they
would tell her that Denis had had to leave suddenly on
a business trip of an indefinite duration. That had
happened before, and Kuan-yin should not be too
surprised.
Denis got in some sleep also. There were
instructions to be memorized, which took a little time:
He dressed in white, in imitation of a lone Ardneh-
pilgrim, for his departure. Ben gave him some money
and some equipment. And Denis also had a private
conference with Jord.
When it was time to go, in the hour before dawn,
Denis was surprised not to be conducted to the back
door, where Jord had come in. Instead the master,
Old World light in hand, led Denis down a flight of
stairs into a place that Denis knew as nothing more
than a cramped basement storeroom. The place
smelled thickly of damp. There were the scurrying
sounds of rats, evidence that the creatures somehow
defied the anti-rodent spells and poisons that were
both periodically renewed.
The master used his strength to shift a heavy bale
out of position. Then it turned out that one of the
massive stones that made up this chamber’s floor
could be tilted up. Looking down into the cavity thus
created, Denis was surprised when the light showed
him a steady current of water of unknown depth,
scarcely a meter below his feet. Even though he
knew how close the house was to the river, he had
never suspected.
The man who Denis was now beginning to know as
Ben bent down and caught hold of a thin chain within
the opening. Then he tugged until the white prow of a
well-kept canoe appeared, bobbing with the water’s
motion.
“I loaded her up this afternoon,” Ben grunted, “while
you were sleeping. Your cargo’s under this floorboard
here. The two Swords, wrapped in a blanket so they
won’t rattle. And sheathed, of course. They may get
wet but they won’t rust.” Ben spoke with the calm
authority of experience. “There’s a paddle, and I think
everything else that you’re going to need.”
Denis had used canoes a time or two before, on
trading missions for the House of Courtenay. He
could manage the craft well enough. But it wasn’t
obvious yet how he was going to get this one back to
the river.
Ben gave him directions. You had to crouch down
low in the boat at first, to keep from banging your
head on the low ceiling of the secret waterway. Then
you moved the craft forward through the narrow
channel by pushing and tugging on the stonework of
the sides. There was not far to go, obviously, to reach
the river.
There were no markings on the white canoe, Denis
observed as he lowered himself carefully aboard.
There was nothing in it, or on Denis, to connect the
canoe or him to the House of Courtenay. Once Denis
was on his way, the plan called for him to play the role
of a simple Ardneh-pilgrim; his White Temple
experience would fit him well for that. As a pilgrim, it
was relatively unlikely that he’d be bothered by
robbers. Everyone had some interest in the availability
of medical care, and therefore in the wellbeing of
those who could provide it. A second point was that
Ardneh’s people were less likely than most to be
carrying much of value. In the .third place, Ardneh
was still a respected god, even if the better-educated
insisted that he was dead, and a good many people still
feared what might happen to them if they offended
him.
Last farewells were brief. Only the mistress of the
house, to Denis’s surprise, appeared at the last
moment, to press his hand at parting. The warmth of
her fingers stayed with his, like something sealed by
magic. He could not savor it now, nor get much of a
last look at her, because it was time to crouch down in
his canoe, to give his head the necessary clearance.