lead them to us.”
“Too much of a coincidence otherwise.”
“Yes. And the alliance still holds, I suppose,
between Blue Temple and the Dark King.”
“Which means the Dark King’s people may know
about the courier too. And about what we have in our
possession here, that the courier was going to take
away, if the rest of the shipment ever arrives.” He
heaved another sigh.
“What do we do, Ben?” His wife spoke softly now,
standing close to him and looking up. At average
height he towered over her.
“At the moment, we try to keep the courier alive,
and see if he can tell us anything. About Deniswe’re
just going to have to trust him, as I say. He’s a good
man.”
He was about to open the bedroom door, but his
wife’s small hand on his arm delayed him. “Your
hands,” she reminded him. “Your robe.”
“Right.” He poured water into a basin and quickly
washed his hands, then changed his robe. Half his
mind was still down in . the workshop, reliving the
fight. Already in his memory the living bodies he had
just broken were taking on the aspects of creatures in
some awful dream. Te knew they were going to come
back later to assail him. Later perhaps his hands
would shake again. It was always like this for him
after a fight. He had to try to put it out of his mind for
now.
While he was getting into his clean robe, Barbara
said, “Ben, as soon as I saw that the man had only
one arm, you know what I thought of.”
“Mark’s father. But Mark always told us that his
father was dead. He sounded quite sure of it.”
“Yes, I remember. That he’d seen his father struck
down in their village street. But just suppose-”
“Yes. Well, we’ve got enough to worry about as it
is.
In another moment they were quietly making their
way downstairs together. The house around them
was as quiet now as if everyone were really sleeping.
Ben could picture most of his workers lying awake,
holding their breaths, waiting for the next crash.
In Denis’s room on the ground floor they found the
young man, his face pale under his dark hair, sitting
watch over a stranger who still breathed, but barely.
The mistress immediately went to work, improving on
her first effort at bandaging Denis’s arm. Ben thought
he could see a little more color coming slowly back
into the youth’s cheeks.
And now, for the third time since midnight, a noise
at the back door. This time a modest tapping.
Something in Ben wanted to react with laughter.
“Gods and demons, what a night. My house has
turned into the Hermes Gate to the High Road.”
And now, for the third time, after making sure that
his wife and his assistant were armed and as eady for
trouble as they could get, Ben maneuvered light and
lenses to look out into the narrow exterior passage.
This time, as he reported to the others in a whipser,
there were two human figures to be seen outside.
Both appeared to be men, and both were robed in
white.
“It looks like two of Ardneh’s people. One’s
carrying a big staff that. . .” Ben didn’t finish. Barbara
caught his meaning.
Those outside, knowing from the light that they
were under observation from within, called loudly:
“Master Courtenay? We’ve brought the wooden
model that you’ve been waiting for.”
“Ah,” said Ben, hearing a code that gave him
reassurance. Still he signed to his companions to
remain on guard, before he cautiously opened the door
once more.
This time the opening admitted neither a toppling
body nor an armed rush. There was only the peaceful
entry of the two in white, who as Ardneh’s priests
saluted courteously first the master of the house and
then the people with him. Denis, this time holding his
hatchet left-handed, was glad to be able to lower it
again.
White robes dripped water on a floor already
freshly marked by rain and mud and blood. If the
newcomers noticed these signs of preceding visitors,
they said nothing about them.
Instead, as soon as Ben had barred up the door
again, the older of the two whiteclad priests offered
him the heavy, ornate wooden staff. It was obviously
meant to be a ceremonial object of some kind, too
large and unwieldy to be anything but a burden on a
march or a hike. Tall as a man, cruciform in its upper
part, the staff was beautifully carved out of some light
wood that Denis could not identify. The uppermost
portion resembled the hilt of a gigantic wooden sword,
with the heads and necks of two carved dragons
recurving upon themselves to form the outsized
crosspiece.
“Beautiful,” commented Denis, with a sudden dry
suspicion. “But I wonder which of Ardneh’s rites
requires such an object? I saw nothing at all like it in
the time I spent as acolyte.”
The two white-garbed men looked at Denis. Then
they turned in silent appeal to the man they knew as
Master Courtenay. He told them tiredly, “You may
show us the inside of the wooden model too. Denis
here is fully in my confidence, as of tonight. He’s
going to have to be.”
Denis stared for a moment at his master, who was
watching closely what the priests were doing. The
younger priest had the staff now, and was pressing
carefully with strong fingers on the fancy carving. In
a moment, the wood had opened like a shell, revealing
a velvet-lined cavity inside. Hidden there, straight iron
hilt within wooden crosspiece, was a great Sword.
The plain handle, of what Denis took to be some hard
black wood, was marked in white with a small symbol,
the outline of an open human hand. The Sword was in
a leather sheath, that left only a finger’s-breadth of the
blade visible, but that small portion of metal caught the
eye. It displayed a rich mottling, suggesting
centimeters of depth in the thin blade, beneath a
surface gleam of perfect smoothness. Only the Old
World, or a god, thought Denis, could have made a
blade like that, . . . and Denis had never heard of any
Old World swords.
“Behold,” the elder priest of Ardneh said, even as
the hand of the younger drew forth the blade out of its
sheath. “The Sword of Mercy!”
And still Denis needed another moment-but no
more than that-to understand fully what he was being
allowed to see. When understanding came; he first
caught his breath, and then released it in a long sigh.
By now almost everyone in the world had heard of
the Twelve Swords, though there were probably those
who still doubted their reality, and
most had never seen one. The Swords had been
forged some twenty years ago, the more reliable
stories had it; created, all the versions of the legend
agreed, to serve some mysterious role in a divine
Game that the gods and goddesses who ruled the
world were determined to enjoy among themselves.
And if this wonderous weapon were not one of
those twelve Swords, thought Denis_ . . well, it was
hard to imagine what else it could be. In his time at
the House of Courtenay he had seen some elegant
and valuable blades, but never before anything like
this.
There were twelve of them, all of the stories agreed
on that much. Most of them had two names,
though some had more names than two, and a few
had only one. They were called Wayfinder, and
Farslayer, and the Tyrant’s Blade; there were the
Mindsword, and Townsaver, and Stonecutter,
called also the Sword of Siege. There were
Doomgiver, Sightblinder, Dragonslicer; Coin-
spinner and Shieldbreaker and the Sword o f Love,
that last thrice-named, also as Woundhealer and
the Sword of Mercy.
And, if any of the tales had truth in them at all,
each Sword had its own unique power, capable of
overwhelming all lesser magics, bestowing on its
owner some chance to rule the world, or at least to
speak on equal terms with those who died ….
The older priest had carefully accepted the naked
Sword from the hands of the younger, and now
Denis observed with a start that the old man was
now approaching him, Denis, with the heavy
weapon held out before him. Half-raised as if in
some clumsy system of attack, it wobbled slightly
in the elder’s hands.
Even in the mild lamplight the steel gleamed
breathtakingly. And Denis thought that a sound
was coming from it now, a sound like that of human
breath.
Whether he was commanded to hold out his
wounded arm, or did so automatically, Denis could
not afterwards remember. The room was very
quiet, except for the faint slow rhythmic hiss that
the Sword made, as if it breathed. The old man’s
thin arms, that looked as if they might never have