The summons of the gong died away.
"Khiva son of Zambul!"
"Here!" roared the giant. He ripped off his
bearskin and hurled it to the waiting scavengers, then
went plunging naked down the stairs. He emerged
through the gate, crouching under the stone lintel, and
strode past the monkeys. He was much larger than
they but not much less hairy. If his nudity was not
just bluff and he truly was a berserker, then today's
match might not be the pushover Durendal had been
expecting.
At that moment Kromman inquired, "What
odds on Khiva the Short?"
When his ward did not answer, Wolfbiter said,
"A thousand to one on the golden sword. Khiva
hasn't got a brain in his head."
"He has a lot of muscles in his body."
"I'd take the same odds on me against that
lout--and cut him down to my size, or less."
Boom!--boom!--boom! The giant's
fast blows seemed designated to tear the gong from
its chains. They reverberated like thunder through the
square, echoing off the monastery wall.
The great door began to open.
"He does not lack enthusiasm or
courage," the inquisitor said. "Intelligence in
swordsmen is a relative matter, and that ax of
his is at least six feet long. His arm can't be
much less. How do you close with him, Sir
Wolfbiter?"
"I wear him out. I dodge his stroke and come
in behind it. It must weigh-- Oh, death and fire!
Sir, isn't that Everman?"
Steady! Durendal forced his fists to unclench and
laid his palms on the wall. Everman had been
one of the best. Superb, he had told the King.
Trouble was, he was short, like Wolfbiter. He
looked tiny, standing there in that huge archway. This was
to be a battle of the bull and the bulldog.
The two men advanced toward the center as the
monastery door closed. Sunlight glinted on
Everman's auburn hair. He had always been
pale skinned, rarely taking a tan even in
midsummer, and now his chest and arms seemed almost
milk white. The closer he came to the giant,
the smaller he became, like a boy facing an
ogre.
Khiva had no use for duelists'
courtesies. He roared out a battle cry and
charged, swinging that enormous ax around his head with one
hand. Hair and beard streaming behind him, he bore
down on his opponent within a whistling circle of
flashing steel, safe from any swordsman's
reach. That was not the technique Wolfbiter had
predicted.
Everman halted and watched him come, waiting in
a half crouch. Which way would he jump--left
or right? He would be far more nimble than Khiva,
who would need five or ten paces to come to a halt
and reverse direction, but even that great bone-brain
must know that Everman would dodge. Khiva could
lunge sideways at the last minute. If he
guessed wrong, he could try again, but Everman would
have no second chances. The contest would end when the
challenger ran out of wind or the monk out of
dodges.
They met and both men went down. Everman
rolled clear and bounced to his feet at once,
unharmed and unarmed. The giant slid to a halt
face downward, while his ax clattered and
clanged across the flagstones halfway to the
monastery door. He had grown a bloody
horn between his shoulder blades.
The encounter had been almost too fast for even
Durendal's expert eye. Everman had simply
dropped to his knees under the ax and then sprung
up, thrusting his sword two-handed into Khiva's
chest. The son of Zambul had done the rest,
impaling himself on the blade with his own momentum.
Stab! Gartok had said, right to the heart. The
wonder was that Everman had not been crushed by the
giant's fall, but he was upright, dancing from
foot to foot, and Khiva was prone,
spread-eagled, hardly twitching. The
spectators were silent.
The victor took hold of the corpse by one
ankle and walked around it until it flopped over
on its side and he could retrieve his sword.
Then he headed back toward the monastery door.
He had won his bout in little more than a minute,
spilling almost no blood. He had not once
looked at the audience, any more than Herat had
the previous day--mortals must be beneath
immortals' notice. There was no cockiness in
his walk, as there had been in Herat's, but there was
no dejection either.
Impulse: Durendal cupped his hands to his
mouth and bellowed at the top of his voice,
"Starkmoor!"
Everman missed a step and then kept walking,
not looking around. He passed under the arch, turned
to the left, and disappeared from view. The door
swung shut.
The swordsmen began to disperse in gloomy
silence.
"Oh, I approve," said Kromman. "Very
sharp and concise. Merciful pest control. Stamp
on them quick so they don't suffer."
Durendal rounded on him. "Will you shut up, you
slime-mouthed reptilian shit bucket? That
man is a friend of mine, and he is in trouble!"
Kromman stared back at him with the fish-eyed
gaze of an inquisitor. "Men are known by the
company they keep, Sir Durendal."
"Sometimes we have no choice. Let's get out
of here."
"This way, sir." Wolfbiter was wearing his
warning expression, the one that made him look like a
constipated trout.
"Lead," Durendal said, puzzled.
But his Blade moved only a few paces,
to the middle of the terrace, and then turned. "Here,
I think. Pretend we're having an
argument or a discussion or something." He was facing
the monastery and the other two had their backs to it.
"You are behaving very much out of character," Kromman
complained. "I do not know what could provoke a
Blade to start cultivating the superior habits
of an inquisitor, but of course I am prepared
to stand here all day if it will further your education and
progress."
A group of four contestants went by.
Muttering, they disappeared into an alley.
"I just keep wanting to know why," Wolfbiter
said apologetically.
Kromman beamed like a toad. "You're watching
to see what happens to the body!"
The Blade gave him his familiar dark
appraising stare. "Yes. And at the moment the
monkeys are trooping back down the-- Ah! The
last two have gone for it. Yes, they're carrying it
to the trapdoor."
Durendal said, "Only two?" Khiva would
have outweighed an ox.
"Only two, sir, and not making heavy work of
it, either. Gone. You can look now."
The trapdoor had closed. The courtyard was
deserted, bearing no sign of Khiva's death
except his grea
t ax, which lay abandoned in the
sunshine.
"What does it mean, Wolf?"
"I think that must be how they feed the
livestock."
"But--but they can't go through all this just for that,
surely?"
"Look!" Kromman snapped.
A wiry adolescent had dropped over the
wall on one side of the yard, and two more came
down on the other. They all raced for the ax. The
solitary youth reached it first and sprinted back the
way he had come with the other two in close
pursuit. Reaching the wall, he hurled his
booty up to his waiting friends. The opposition
abandoned the contest and ran back to their own
helpers. Thief and would-be thieves were hauled
up, over the coping. The rival gangs vanished
into convenient alleys and the courtyard was truly
deserted again.
"Very slick," Durendal grumbled, leading the
way homeward. "They do it every day. I don't
think I could have handled Khiva as neatly as
Everman did, though." He would not have wanted to,
that was the difference. "What you were hinting,
Wolf, is that the monkeys are the masters and the
brethren are the servants. A murder a day just
to feed the apes on human flesh?"
Wolfbiter glanced appraisingly at him and
said nothing.
They walked on in silence through the morning
crowds.
"We have broken cover," the inquisitor said
suddenly. "You spoke to the monkeys and then shouted
to Everman. I think your idea of a letter sent through
Master Quchan may now be a wise precaution.
If the brethren are opposed to our meddling, they will
probably have little trouble tracking us down very
shortly and--"
Durendal caught his companions' arms to halt
them. Cabuk's house was straight ahead.
Waiting there, seated on the third block of the
staircase with his feet resting on the second, was
a man in the anonymous dusty garments of
Altain. The face under the flapped, conical cap
was Everman's, and he had already seen them.
He stepped down to the road as they approached,
offering a hand and a wary smile. "Durendal! I
did not expect you. And ... Wait, don't
tell me. Not Chandler ... Wolfbiter!" The
smile broadened. "Sir Wolfbiter now, of
course! Fire, how the years go! And?" He
looked quizzically at Kromman.
"Master Ivyn Chalice, merchant."
Durendal's conscience squirmed. He was lying
to a brother Blade. "Our infallible guide.
Let's go up."
"No, we'll talk here. How are things back
in Chivial? And Ironhall?" Everman had not
changed on the outside, whatever he had become
inside. His face was unusually pale for Altain
but the same face it had been eight years ago.
The gingery eyebrows and eyelashes were the same, his
eyes perhaps more cautious. Immortality must
agree with him.
"The land's at peace. The King was well when
we left--remarried, expecting a second child.
Queen Godeleva produced a daughter and he
divorced her. Grand Master finally
died. Master of Archives succeeded him."
Durendal felt waves of unreality wash over
him as he tried to discuss such matters in this
exotic alleyway--with bizarre crowds trooping
by, mules and even camels, beggars chanting,
conical caps with earflaps, hawkers wheeling
carts and waving hot meat on sticks, alien
scents, harsh voices, slanted eyes without
visible lids.
Everman nodded as if none of it mattered very
much. "I was afraid he'd try again. I
didn't expect you, though. You were not bound to the
King."
"I am now."
"You have had a long journey for nothing,
brother." His red-brown eyes stared intently at
Durendal. "There is no philosophers' stone.
Discard the first wrong answer. There is no
secret in Samarinda that you can steal for good King
Ambrose."
"There are mysteries, though." Not the least of them
was whatever had changed a former friend into this stranger.
"There is a source of gold. And apparently there
is immortality."
Everman shrugged sadly. "But nothing you can
take or use. Look ..." He reached for his
sword and Fang flashed into Wolfbiter's fist.
Everman jumped and raised both hands quickly,
palms out. He glanced from one Blade to the other
and then smiled. "I can tell who is whose ward.
I just want to show you something."
"Put your sword up, Wolf."
Fortunately none of the passersby had taken
alarm. "Show us what?"
Everman pointed at the stone on the pommel,
keeping his hand well away from the hilt. "The
cat's eye is coated with wax. The blade's
covered with gold paint. I was going to draw it and
show you the scratches. This is Reaper, the sword
I took from the anvil in Ironhall. You want
to look closer?"
"What's the significance?"
"Discard the second wrong answer. There is
no enchanted sword in the monastery, in spite of
its name. There are some fiery good swordsmen, but
no enchanted swords."
"There's you. Why? Why did you join them?"
What are you now, who were once my friend? Why
kill men the way you swatted that half-witted
giant this morning? What harm had he
ever done you?
A passing wagon caused them to move closer
together. Everman sighed and leaned an elbow on one
of the slabs of the stair.
answer. Master Polydin died of a fever in
Urfalin." He peered around at their faces.
"You know what that does to a Blade. I decided
to carry on, and I made it all the way here. I
prowled around like you've been doing, I expect, and
couldn't find out anything at all. So I put my
name in. The day my turn came, Yarkan drew
short straw. He brought out a broadsword and
I managed to prick his knee. They took me
inside. ... There's a stack of gold bars there.
I tucked one under each arm and walked out again. That
night I sat in my room and stared at them and
tried to decide what on earth I needed gold
bars for."
Durendal could not see Kromman's left hand
and suspected he was not signaling anyway or
else that all this was true. "And?"
"And the next day I answered my call again--
they give you a second chance, you know. If I
hadn't taken it, then Yarkan would have fought again, but
this time they sent out Dhurma. I won again."
"Ironhall would be proud of you."
A brief smile made Everman's face
seem absurdly boyish. "Our style was new
to them. They know it now--I've taught them. The
third day they sent Herat."
"Third?"
He shrugged, almost s
eeming embarrassed. "You
haven't heard that part? Three wins and you're in.
I couldn't resist. I'd been sent to discover the
secret, remember."
"You were always a daredevil."
"Oh? The well is calling the puddle deep,
Sir Durendal."
"We watched Herat yesterday. Vicious. You
beat Herat?"
"Nobody ever beats Herat. He says I
gave him the best sport he'd had in a century
or two, though. When I was about to pass out from
loss of blood, he dropped his guard. I was so
mad I disemboweled him."
Wolfbiter whispered, "Fire and death!"
Everman chuckled. "Fire, maybe. We
staggered back to the monastery together, but he was
helping me more than I was helping him--
holding his guts in with one hand and me up with the other.
Their healing conjurements are vastly better than
anything we have back in Chivial. By next
morning I was good as new. I became one of
them."
"And you're staying there of your own free will?"
Everman nodded. "I'm going to stay here forever."
He met Durendal's stare defiantly. "Of
my own free will."
A beggar boy started wailing for alms.
Kromman clipped him on the ear to send him
packing. He used his right hand, though, not
signaling. How much of Everman's tale was
true? What should Durendal ask next?
Gold? Immortality? Monkeys eating
human flesh?
"The King sent me to get you back. If there was
a philosophers' stone, and I could find it,
well and good, but my prime directive is
to bring you home. He won't have one of his
Blades made into a performing bear."
"Kind of him. And since I don't want
to leave?" Everman had lost his smile. He was as
tense as if he had his sword in his hand.
"He said I could use my own judgment."
"You always had good judgment, even if you were a
worse daredevil than me. Go home and meddle
no more in Samarinda."
Durendal glanced inquiringly at Kromman,
but the inquisitor's fishy stare told him nothing.
How much of the story was true? None of it, if
Polydin was chained in the monastery cellar.
"In the King's name, Sir Everman, I
command--"
"Screw fat Ambrose."
Wolfbiter hissed at this sedition. Everman
laughed.
Appeal had failed, duty had failed. The
renegade seemed ready to terminate the discussion.
If he dodged off into the crowds, he would be gone
forever. All Durendal had left to try now was
force.