The Swordbearer

Chapter Ten

Ansorge Gathrid's hand leapt to Daubendiek. He spurred ahead. Gacioch laughed. The feeling of growth came over the youth. Daubendiek whined in its scabbard, begging to be freed.

The men with the Mindak, captains and sorcerers all, backed away. Gathrid's horse reared, hammered the air with its hooves. It screamed, came to earth prancing.

The Mindak was not intimidated.

This was the first time Gathrid had seen the man un-armored. At Kacalief he had been but another suit of dark plate, indistinguishable from the Toal. Today he had eschewed all warlike gear save a ceremonial dagger. He was afoot, wearing clothing more suited to court than the field.

Have I guessed right? Gathrid wondered. Is this really Ahlert? Or might he be some viceroy?

Gathrid spied a circlet half ridden in the man's heavy, dark hair. It was a simple gold serpent with a ruby egg in its mouth.

The minds within the youth reacted, saying the coronet was another product of the Library. It was the infamous Ordrope Diadem, which had been Grellner's secret weapon. It gave its wearer the ability to look into minds, to ferret out character flaws and hidden dreams which could be twisted and manipulated. Anyone who looked into the jewel became entranced.

Only the Mindak would wear the Diadem. It was one cornerstone of his power.

Ahlert slowly spread his hands, showing himself unarmed. He peered intently, trying to draw Gathrid's gaze.

The temptation was too much. Gathrid glanced at the ruby.

Ahlert moaned and reeled back, throwing a forearm across his eyes. Gathrid swayed. He almost fell from his saddle. For an instant he felt a great vacuum sucking at his mind.

They exchanged stares. Ahlert's men withdrew to a safer distance. The Toal moved nearer Gathrid. A

shadow fluttered along the ground. Gathrid glanced up at the flyer.

Then he examined Ahlert more closely.

He had expected an elderly caricature of Gerdes Mu-lenex. What he saw instead was a thirtyish, lean, dark man with mouth corner quirks suggesting a rich sense of humor. But the man's dark eyes were cold, calculating, the windows of a nighted soul, of a man of boundless ambition.

Gathrid found him reminiscent of Yedon Hildreth, particularly in the aura of stubbornness he exuded.

Ahlert spread his hands again. "Come down, Sword-bearer. Let's talk."

Daubendiek quivered hungrily. Loida begged, "Kill him while you have the chance. He'll trick you."

"No doubt. Or I might fool him." He believed he was safe. The Mindak had something on his mind.

Conquering his memories of Kacalief, Gathrid said, "Speak."

"Here?"

The youth glanced around, understood. "Into the Library, then. You and me. Alone together." He met Ahlert's eye, squeezed Daubendiek's hilt. "Maybe only one of us will return."

Gacioch laughed again.

"The Library?"

"The underground city. The place where you dredge up these horrors." He indicated the Toal.

"Ah. Ansorge. Come along, then." The Mindak seemed to be a man of few words.

Loida was not pleased. "Don't leave me here! They'll sacrifice me."

Gacioch leered and jeered.

The Sword, though undrawn, made itself felt. Gathrid could summon no emotion concerning the girl's welfare.

"No one will harm you." The way the Mindak spoke, while surveying his officers, made that sound like a statement of natural law.

Gacioch wanted to go, too, but argued with no special vehemence. "Don't buy any cats in a sack, boy," he said by way of parting.

"You're certainly a puzzle," Gathrid told him.

"Glad to hear it. Glad to hear it. I'd stop being fun if I was predictable."

The Toal, too, wanted to go. It asked no permission. It dismounted, took lance in hand and began to follow.

"Begone," Ahlert ordered. "Mohrhard Horgrebe, I command you. Go you forth, whence you came. This I command in the name of Great Chuchain."

The hairs on Gathrid's neck stirred. Chuchain. Where had he heard that name? Something Rogala had muttered. An entity the equal of Suchara. Sometimes her ally, more often her rival.

The Toal came on.

"I was afraid of this," the Mindak said. "The break is complete."

"The name of Chuchain may be impotent, but is the Sword of Suchara?"

"Never mind. Let it come. There's another one here that can't be kept out. It's discorporeal."

Gathrid shrugged, followed the Mindak. The Toal Mohrhard Horgrebe did likewise. Then it stopped.

It seemed to listen. After a few seconds in that attitude, it took three jerky steps to one side and seated itself on a boulder.

Instructions from Nieroda?

Ahlert led Gathrid into a tunnel that showed signs of recent mining. He strode a dozen steps inward, halted, intoned, "The Child of the Father, Great Chuchain, and He Who Bears the Wrath of the Mother, Suchara of the Sorrows; He Who Slew the Son. I say three times, let us pass! Let us pass! Let us pass! In the Name of Great Chuchain."

Something stirred. Something caressed Gathrid's face with spider's silk, with the light, nimble fingers of elves. Unbidden, words formed on his lips. "In the Name of the Mother, Suchara Beneath the Sea.''

The fingers of gossamer withdrew. "Come," Ahlert told him.

It was not a long passage, and hardly as miserable as his subterranean trek with Rogala, yet Gathrid was relieved when they departed the tunnel. The sense of presence there, of unseen, hungry things watching, was overpowering.

"Ansorge," the Mindak said. "City of Everlasting Night. City of the Night People. The ones remembered as elves and trolls in your legends. They're all dead now. An unfortunate after-effect of the Brothers' War. Only their guardians remain. Their last project was to collect the wrack of the war. They didn't survive long enough to finish. Daubendiek and the Shield of Driebrant were their most noteworthy oversights."

For a minute Gathrid was just an awestruck sightseer. The cavern and city it contained stretched as far as he could see. Countless thousands of balls of light drifted around, mostly on aimless currents of air. Some bounced and dodged like playful butterflies while others swooped and darted like swallows on the hunt. They came in every color. Occasionally one changed hue.

"What are they?" Gathrid asked.

"We don't know. My best people have studied them. They might be alive, or magical. Or both. They won't hold still for a close examination. If you cage them, they die, and leave behind nothing you can dissect. Maybe we'll find out once we learn to decipher the underpeo-ple's writing."

"You can't read their records?"

"Only their pictographs. The exploration has been haphazard. We're like barbarians looting a temple. Like the Oldani and Hattori during the Sack of Sartain. We're probably missing the most interesting things simply because we don't recognize them." He stopped walking. "Earth. Air. Fire.

Water. And this. A fifth vision, perhaps? Greater than the others? But it was neutral. Always neutral. And now it's dead."

What was the man talking about? "You brought me here for a reason."

The Mindak resumed walking. "You asked. I came. We're here together. Chuchain and Suchara have moved us. We pawns can but go to our squares."

"A quote cribbed, no doubt, from Theis Rogala." Gathrid surprised himself with his boldness. He did not feel bold. He wondered if all self-assured men were just nervous, frightened boys hiding behind well-schooled facades.

"There is Purpose in our coming together," Ahlert told him. "The hourglasses have turned. The tides have shifted. I'm not the man I thought. I'm no general. I'm not much of a leader. I excel only at thaumaturgy. I'll tell you something, Swordbearer ... though you'll learn it for yourself, the way we all do. All ambition is self-delusion. It comes. You overreach. Then you find yourself in a death-struggle, just trying to hold onto what you had at the beginning."

Ahlert reminded Gathrid of his boyhood teacher. "Nieroda has challenged you," he said.

"Nieroda, the Toal, and men whom I believed were loyal captains. Because I showed so poorly in the west. No. I didn't fail there. I could've won. But I was too timid. And I didn't get the help I should have from Nieroda. It puzzled me then. I understand now.

"I was frightened of Yedon Hildreth. I thought I could handle him easier by stalling because he couldn't avoid politics. I didn't realize that I couldn't avoid them either. Then, too, there was what you did at Katich. It made me Doubt." He said the last word as though it were the name of some dread deity.

"That, too, is something you'll have to face to understand."

Self-revelation was not what Gathrid had expected. Argument or conflict, perhaps. Or a settlement of the debt of Kacalief. But not having his enemy talk to him like a brother. Nor his own willingness to listen.

"While they were enemies, they were reconciled," he said, quoting something he had heard from Plauen.

"Perhaps. Before foes with whom there can be no conciliation. But not forever." "Suchara would disapprove," Gathrid murmured. Ahlert smiled thinly, nodded. "Nieroda was another of my mistakes.

I believed I could master her, against all the evidence of history. No one, not even Bachesta herself, can control that daughter of Hell. I realize that now.''

"Her? Daughter?"

"You didn't know? I suppose not. There in the ruins of Anderle, you wouldn't. The memories have washed away. The books have been burned. Time is a cleansing rain. Yes. Nevenka Nieroda was female." "But the Toal ... And I slew ..." "The Toal are sexless. They never were human. They just possess the bodies of humans. But Nieroda was a Queen, in a land called Sommerlath, ten thousand years before the Immortal Twins were bom. She was the greatest witch who ever lived. So great she elevated herself to virtual demigod status." They walked a way in silence.

Ahlert was thoughtful. "A lot of people have tried. A lot more will. We all want to grasp the stars. Nieroda came closer than most. But like the rest of us, she overreached and drew back fingers webbed with damnation."

Overreaching had been Anyeck's flaw, Gathrid reflected. That last time she had gotten her hands on pure damnation. "You place your bet and take your chances."

"Exactly. Here we are."

"Here we are where?" They were among crumbling structures now. Gathrid had a feeling these were far older than they looked. There was no gnawing weather down here.

"What I call the House of the Eye." Ahlert stooped to pass through a low doorway. The cave dwellers had been small people.

There was a man inside. Gathrid rested a hand on Daubendiek's hilt.

"Magnolo Belfiglio," Ahlert said. "He lives with the Eye. He's the only one who can manipulate it.

He watches the west for me. Any news, Magnolo?"

"Nothing good, Grace. Nothing good. The Sixth Brigade has gone over. Gone over. That leaves the Imperial and the Ninth. The Ninth."

Belfiglio was incredibly old. And shaky. And confined to a wheeled chair. He was the first truly old person Gathrid had seen since entering Ventimiglia.

"The Western army is gone, then. I trust that Tracka and Marcagi have withdrawn."

"They have, Eminence."

To Gathrid, Ahlert explained, "The Imperial Brigade has to support the crown, no matter what. The Ninth is Ahlert family. It was my command once."

The Ventimiglian military was a curiously cobbled structure. Some larger families and trade associations maintained their own privately financed brigades. They were indistinguishable from those maintained by the Empire, but were loyal to their paymasters. The public units seldom took part in private ventures. The private units could be called by the Emperor at need.

There were also mercenary brigades raised by adventurers from among the free peasantry. Such armed associations had made up most of Ahlert's Western army. They had been the first to defect.

The Mindak's western adventure had, in reality, been instigated only by the man who wore Ventimiglia's crown, not by the crown itself. Ahlert had been acting not as Emperor but as a plundering warchief.

"And Rogala told me Ventimiglia had the advantage of a monolithic command," Gathrid muttered.

"And here at home?" Ahlert inquired of Belfiglio.

"The Corichs have repudiated their war captains. War captains. They know what Nieroda is, although they agree with her arguments. Her arguments."

"Have there been desertions from the brigades? Anyone coming back?"

"Very few, Luminence. Mostly career and family men with home ties stronger than their greed. Their greed."

"Then it'll be Ventimiglian against Ventimiglian. Damn! What think the Corichs?"

"Few will join an expedition, Grace. But none will hinder, nor will any support rebellion. There's been talk of denying the peasantry the right to form associations. Form associations."

"There always is. People change their minds when they need a few hired swords. Did you see any discernible lean anywhere?"

"No, Might. They await the rising wind. Rising wind."

"How does he know all that?" Gathrid asked. "I see no mystic Eye."

"It's all around you," Ahlert replied. "It's the room itself."

Gathrid glanced round. "Unusual. But not that unusual."

"I forget. If you had a mind like Magnolo's, you'd have noticed it right away. But Magnolo is unique."

"Oh?"

"You're thinking that makes him powerful? It does. He is. He's the factor that won me the crown.

My enemies would give anything to see him slain. Yet he's only a slave."

Were slaves less subject to temptation than free men? Ah. Of course. Ahlert had the Diadem. He could monitor Belfiglio's thoughts.

"What brought you here?" Ahlert asked.

"I don't know. Maybe I meant to destroy it."

"I see. Moved by Suchara. Want to see more of An-sorge? You'll see how hopeless it would be for one man to try anything."

Gathrid suspected he was being maneuvered away from the Eye. How could he harm it, though? By slaughtering the old man? "Might as well."

Later, he asked, "And why are you here? You should be getting your army under control."

"Those brigades have been written off. A while without pay, supplies or word from home will make them more amenable. But you're part right. I can't wait forever. Sooner or later, Nieroda will turn eastward. Probably after defeating Cuneo, while the troops are heady."

"That's not saying why you're here, only why you're not there."

"The will of Chuchain? I think the Great Ones mean us to be allies."

Gathrid half expected that. Visions of Kacalief returned. The excesses there had been committed by the Toal, but this was the man who had given the order to march.

"I know," Ahlert said. "It's ridiculous. We're enemies. I destroyed everything that meant anything to you. I lured your sister to her death. And you slew my myth of invincibility by slaying her. My throne will never be secure again. I can't raze Ventimiglia to expunge that memory. And you stole my chance to control all four Powers before they fully wakened. I had Chuchain, Bachesta and Ulalia. I would've had Suchara but for foul luck. All ambition is vanity."

"Still ..."

"Where lies the greater evil?"

It had been laid out like playing cards face up. Gang up on Nieroda. Make alliance with the old enemy, or face the Dark Champion alone.

Gathrid did not like it. It forced another questionable decision. He had faced nothing else since discovering the Great Sword. Nothing in this mad world, now, could be reduced to black and white.

"You convince the mind but not the heart."

"I know. I have the same conflicts. Let the intellect rule passion for a while."

Gathrid recognized a rock formation. "You're headed for the surface?''

Ahlert nodded. "We'll have to move fast if we do ally. The Toal up there will know instantly.

It'll act. We'll have to be there to stop it."

Gathrid pondered. The Mindak, though harsh, was human. Nieroda was something undead, something come back from the grave to torment the living.

Assuming Ahlert was telling the truth. This talk could be all maneuver... . "How can I believe you?"

"A touchy point. You could wait and see. That's always good. But in this case it would be too late by the time you got proof.''

"It would," Gathrid agreed.

"I'm strong. Ventimiglia is strong. But our system makes it impossible for me to command the Empire's whole strength. I depend on the support of the Corichs, the organizers of the peasant brigades. They're frightened. Nieroda is a mistress of elder sorceries. Horrors we can't comprehend these days. If you had time to go down and see the past ..." He seemed to disappear inside himself.

"Yes?"

"What? Oh. I can't win alone. She'd seize control of Ventimiglia. With the Empire and her ancient sorceries she would tear at the world like a wounded tiger. She'd destroy everything."

"You've given this some thought."

"A lot of thought." Ahlert stopped walking. "I'm going to place myself in your power. I'm betting you'll resist temptation long enough to learn the truth." Hands shaking, the Mindak removed the Ordrope Diadem. "Squat down here."

Gathrid was frightened. He had an urge to say he believed, and never mind the truth. Then an imp of suspicion whispered at his ear. Suppose that was what Ahlert was fishing for? He dropped to one knee.

The Mindak accepted the challenge.

The Diadem seemed weightless. A man could forget he wore it.

Gathrid rose. Pale, grim, Ahlert stared at the ruby. His dark eyes glazed. His personality hit Gathrid like a sudden storm. The cold power of it drove the youth back against the cavern wall.

He rolled with the force, released mental channels worn smooth by the Sword's predations. He learned more than he wanted to know. He yanked the Diadem off, thrust it at its owner. To live with that continuously, seeing every man's bleak black deeps. ... It was too much. Ahlert had an incredible will.

"You saw?" the Mindak demanded.

Gathrid nodded. Ahlert had not lied. His Western army had gone mad. It had to be neutralized.

The impossible had become imperative. His conscience allowed him no choice. He and Daubendiek had to serve Ventimiglia in order that he might serve his own people.

The Toal awaited them beyond the cave mouth. It snapped its lance at the Mindak. Daubendiek leapt into Gathrid's hand, slashed across, altered the weapon's path.

But not enough. Its fiery head grazed the Mindak's left arm. Ahlert roared in pain and anger.

A mob fell on the Toal, raging and tearing like wild dogs, wielding weapons both magical and mundane. Mohrhard Horgrebe, possessed, chopped and slashed, its sword a deadly blur. Its armor turned both blades and sorceries.

Gathrid spared but a glance for the Mindak before wading in.

Ahlert neutralized the lance's wizardry with incantations forced through clenched teeth. He saved himself, but not his arm. In seconds it withered to a dry, useless appendage.

But for Gathrid's quickness he would have died. "Damn me!" he muttered. "And I was expecting it, too."

Feeling a hundred feet tall, Gathrid shoved through the Toal's attackers. He let Daubendiek have its head. The Dead Captain held its ground.

Nevertheless, the match was less even than had been their previous encounter. Gathrid and the Great Sword were melding. In moments Daubendiek slew the Toal's blade. It perished with a great metallic scream. Daubendiek drove in over the lifeless steel.

The Toal felt much as had the one taken in the Sa-vards: cold, evil, and under it all a flicker of despair that was all that remained of Mohrhard Horgrebe, once a champion of wide renown.

A shadow rolled over the canyon. A cold wind whipped dust and leaves up in violent little windwitches.

Mocking laughter made the hills shake.

The thing that had circled above raced toward the west, into a blood-red setting sun. With the flying beast, or in it, went the thing that had possessed the corpse of Mohrhard Horgrebe.

The Mindak seized an enchanted bow and spellbound silver arrow. He sped the shaft after the flyer.

His ruined arm betrayed him. The arrow fell to earth less than a mile away.

Nieroda had foreseen the alliance. She had planned for the eventuality. Confirmation was on its way to her.

Gathrid's Toal-haunt gurgled merrily.

"Good show, boy. Good show."

"What the devil?"

Theis Rogala pushed through the crowd. He bowed to Gathrid and the Mindak-then sprang back when he saw the light in Gathrid's eyes.

The youth considered running the dwarf down. Then he shrugged. There would be little point. He went looking for Loida instead.

His feelings had been correct. Rogala had been tailing him.