The Swordbearer

Chapter Eleven

Senturia Three days passed before Ahlert recovered sufficiently to travel. Gathrid spent the time with Loida or wandering through the hidden city. He avoided Rogala religiously. He discovered that the hopes of his eastward journey had been but shadows cast by futility. Excepting Belfiglio's Eye, the rich ore of this motherlode had, it seemed, been transferred to the Mindak's palaces at Senturia. In An-sorge he saw only ruins and more ruins.

The Mindak's people showed him where the Toal had been unearthed, in caverns far beneath Ansorge proper. The twelve crypts were incredibly old. When Gathrid viewed the place where Nieroda had slept he fancied he smelled sour evil still.

He returned from the caverns early the third day, after learning that they would be leaving next morning. As he joined Loida he thought he saw someone slipping through the rocks near their slightly separate encampment. "Who was that?"

"Rogala."

"What was he doing here?"

"Talking to Gacioch."

"There's a pair," Gathrid muttered. "Look, I don't want him hanging around."

"Grouch." Loida made a sour face at him. "How did it go down there today?" She had accompanied him once, had found the ruins too spooky for further visits.

"A whole lot of nothing. What they've found is already gone. What they haven't you can't see. The murals and reliefs and stuff don't make much sense."

"Lord Telani told me we're leaving tomorrow."

"I heard. I'm glad. I'm getting restless." He picked up a stick, drew figures in the dust.

"Movement becomes an end in itself."

"You can't run away."

"I know. I tried to leave the Sword down there today. It wouldn't let me. When I got fifteen feet away, I started shaking. It hurt. It made me run back and grab it."

"That's spooky."

"That's terrifying. I can't live with it and I can't live without it."

"Don't think about it." She leaned over a small fire and simmering pot. "A soldier gave me a rabbit and some vegetables." She raised the pot lid. Stew smells tantalized Gathrid's nose.

"Smells good."

"Then just think about supper."

"How soon?"

"I don't know. What do I know about cooking? I just did what the man told me."

Exasperated, Gathrid asked, "How long did he say?" He wished she would discourage these soldiers more.

"All right. Another half hour, I guess."

"I'm going for a walk, then."

What he did was run. Strongly and steadily, as he had not been able since his bout with polio. And as he ran, exhilarating in his ability, he reflected that the Sword was not all bad. It hadn't given him a lot, but had given something important.

And he thought about Loida and how her fears and his nagging depression kept them from communicating about anything that mattered, kept them from getting to know one another. She got along better with Gacioch and the young soldiers who kept buzzing round. She and the demon went on like a brother and sister comedy insult act.

He wished he could reassure the girl. He could not. They both knew their fears were not imaginary.

They would be heading for Ventimiglia's capital tomorrow. Loida would be in great peril there. So might he be, though reason said the Mindak had no excuse for treachery yet.

Near the end of his run he glimpsed the dwarf scrambling through the rocks, following him. He grinned. Served Rogala right, having to bust his tail to stay near the Sword. He upped his pace.

All the disorder, squalor, misery and crowding lacking in the country manors was concentrated in Senturia. Gathrid tapped his memories. He knew the slums well. These Quarters produced the soldiers who fleshed out the brigades. No other career offered such opportunities for the poor.

There was plunder to be had, out on the frontiers. A man who survived a tour with his brigade could buy his way out.

Gathrid searched their dreams, their so-small dreams, marveling at those men, and pitying them.

The Mindak's party passed through the slums. People ignored them. Farther in, Gathrid saw buildings and monuments known to his soldier-souls only by repute. There had been a renaissance during the last century. Senturia's heart had been demolished, then rebuilt as the domain of the wealthy. The poor encircled the rich like ramparts of despair.

The city's center boasted a dozen scattered palacios belonging to Ventimiglia's leading families.

Between them lay great plazas, imaginative fountains, reflecting lakes and the somber structures of the colleges and universities where wizardry was taught and knowledge preserved. There was a feral park from which deer peeped out as the riders passed. This district denied that poverty could exist in the Mindak's Empire.

"Look at the pigeons," Loida murmured. "There must be millions of them."

One of Gathrid's spare souls snickered. Pigeons were wards of the Twelve Families. It was a crime to harm them. Even so, poor folk of the Quarters made the birds guests of honor at many a meal.

Ahlert's home proved to be a rambling, interconnected mass of baroque structures covering a dozen acres atop a low hill. A few armed men, flashy in family colors, patrolled a walkway encircling a ten-foot wall. They looked bored. On spying their master they became jaunty and arrogant.

"The House of the Five Fountains," Ahlert told Gath-rid. "Don't ask about the name. There're six fountains. Four for fresh water... . My ancestors must have had grandiose plans."

"More grandiose plans," Rogala muttered. "He calls it a house. I've seen smaller cities."

"How many people live here?" Gathrid asked. Loida had been imprisoned here. He hadn't believed her stories before.

"It varies. We're at a high point now, what with our western venture. Several thousand."

Gathrid exchanged glances with Loida. The girl looked triumphant.

The quiet seen from outside the house proved to be a mask. The House of the Five Fountains was busy as an ant's nest. Loida said, "Those are the clerks and accountants who keep track of profits and cost out west."

Whole courtyards were filled with western plunder. It was decaying for want of buyers. Gathrid looked for something from Gudermuth. He did not find a thing. .

Ahlert told him, "I was too successful. I saturated the market. We quit plundering after we occupied Greven-ing. We're concentrating on long-term projects now. Mainly colonial ventures."

Gathrid controlled his temper. The reckoning would come. Those who had died to enrich Ahlert would be avenged.

People stared at him. They avoided his eye. They knew him. They were afraid.

The Mindak observed, "Our alliance won't be popular. I don't think they realize what losing control of Nie-roda means."

Rogala grumbled, "Those brigades rebelled out of boyish high spirits, eh?"

"Some people take that attitude. They think they'll come around. They can't encompass the noncommercial aspect." Ahlert halted, dismounted, handed his animal to a groom. A platoon of stableboys took the other mounts. "It snuck up on us. We found Ansorge when there were civil wars in Gorsuch and Silhavy. They were weak. We were strong. The wizardries we controlled, augmented from Ansorge, made us think we could enrich the family on the cheap.''

"And you became addicted to conquest."

"Not entirely. Greed had more to do with it. The Corichs got excited by all the loot. They wanted more. The great families wanted their share. More powerful and effective weapons were coming out of Ansorge. We found Nieroda and the Toal. It looked like nothing could stop us."

Ahlert led them through long marble hallways filled with bustling clerks. "Then I started changing. A few years ago the title Emperor meant nothing. I took it to heart. I got grand ideas.

A world-spanning Empire, at peace. My family mastering its commerce. ... I hadn't heard of Chuchain or Suchara. I didn't know my delvings in Ansorge were wakening them, or that Chuchain was whispering into my dreams. Sometimes I wish I hadn't found the Hidden City."

They entered a large hall. The houseboys bearing personal effects spread out, heading in several directions. Ahlert sped his guests hither and yon. Loida and Gathrid followed a half-dozen servants. Between them they hadn't enough possessions to burden one. Gathrid still wore the clothing in which he had fled Kacalief. He looked and smelled it, though he had washed when he could. Loida wore the clothing in which she had, fled the Mindak's nephews.

She said, "That man doesn't sound like a mad conqueror. ''

Gathrid replied, "I haven't met anybody who fit his part. Except maybe Gerdes Mulenex. The others are as reluctant as I am."

"What about your sister?"

"I don't know. She was a special case. Maybe she was like Mulenex. She did fit in with what happened to her."

They climbed several flights of stairs. Ahlert's palacio ceased being showy off the level where visitors were welcomed. Their rooms, facing one another across a bare, narrow third-floor hallway, were windowless, small and spartan. A houseboy told Gathrid, "Don't be alarmed, Lord. The Mindak himself sleeps in a room like this." He leaned close, confided, "It's an affectation of the family. Humble beginnings, you know. They want to remind themselves that it isn't a long way from Five Fountains to the Quarters."

"The more I see of him and Ventimiglia, the more confused I get. Every conclusion I draw gets contradicted."

The servant smiled. "We puzzle ourselves, Lord." Gathrid kept the man there. He did not mind wasting the afternoon chatting. Gathrid pumped him about the Mindak and his family.

A dozen generations back, Ahlert's ancestors had been mercenaries. Luck, a talent for politics and sorcery, and a run of steel-willed offspring had built Ventimiglia's most powerful house.

"It's happened a hundred times," the servant averred. "That's why Quarters folk enlist. They all think they can make it if they just win a stake."

Hours passed. Someone knocked. The servant looked alarmed. "Don't worry," Gathrid said. "I kept you here, didn't I? Enter."

An elderly woman came in. Her arms were filled with apparel. "Lord, I was told you need fresh clothing. I brought a selection. We'll tailor you something better tomorrow.'' She surveyed his rags with ill-concealed disdain. She snapped at the houseboy, "Have you shown him the baths?"

"We were about to go. Lord?"

Gathrid got up off the narrow cot and followed the man. "I do need one."

Behind them, the woman shouted, "Maid! There's a bed here needs changing."

"Don't mind her, Lord. She's only had the floor for a month. She's still got the swelled head."

Two days passed before Gathrid saw the Mindak again. He spent his time talking to servants and visiting with Loida. Gacioch disappeared. The girl said Rogala had collected him. She did not mind. Gacioch was beginning to grate.

Ahlert had them attend what he called a small family dinner. A hundred people attended. Brothers and cousins, uncles, and others and others, some of such far remove that in Gudermuth they would not have been considered family at all. The meal lasted for hours, and was an adventure in itself.

Gathrid met the Mindak's wife there. Her name was Mead, she was in her late twenties, and she was the most radiantly beautiful woman Gathrid had ever seen. He was smitten. Her smile melted the hardness growing in him. He hardly heard Ahlert's annoying chatter.

"We'll be here at least two months. I have to mend more fences than I expected. Some members of my syndicate aren't as philosophical about Nieroda as we are. They consider her defection an insult from us."

Gathrid half-listened while he watched Mead chat with Ahlert's sister. The topic was babies. The sister was extremely gravid. Mead was in the third or fourth month of her first pregnancy. Gathrid would not have guessed had she not mentioned it.

Ahlert continued, "I'll have to smooth their feathers, then get them to raise another army. So you don't get bored in the meantime, I arranged access to our libraries and historians. Rogala says you're interested in the history of the Great Sword. My people did a lot of research when we thought we could lay hands on it first."

"Uhm." Gathrid nodded. He watched Mead till Loida poked him in the ribs. "Why'd you do that?"

"It's not polite to stare. And the Mindak is trying to tell you something."

Embarrassed, he devoted more attention to Ahlert.

"We found a cache of readable books in Ansorge. They span several thousand years. Some are in Old Pe-tralian. Those are the springboard my people are using to translate the rest. You could help, being familiar with Petralian."

"I suppose." Ahlert had become formal and remote. The youth's staring had not won him any affection.

"You seem distracted, Gathrid."

"It's a strange land. Everything is different. I don't know what to do. I grew up in a remote outpost. This's the first real city I've seen. No one here but Loida shares my background."

Ahlert smiled. "I suppose so. That hadn't occurred to me. Well, scholars are scholars. You won't be uncomfortable doing your research."

The Mindak was right. The men he joined next morning were indifferent to anything but their pursuit of knowledge.

He was a research project himself, Gathrid discovered. He spent half the day answering questions.

After lunch they answered his and showed him where to find the histories he wanted to plumb. The pattern persisted for weeks. They drained him of every thought even vaguely relating to the Great Sword.

The first thing Gathrid read was a report delivered to the Mindak two years earlier, "A Summary History of the Great Sword, also known as the Sword of Suchara, also known as Daubendiek." Its style matched that of its title. It contained sketches of previous Swordbearings.

Tureck Aarant had been one of the luckiest Sword-bearers. His Choosing had been brief and comparatively painless. It had ended in a quick death at Rogala's hand. That section added little to Gathrid's knowledge.

Aarant's immediate predecessor had been killed in battle. His predecessor had committed suicide.

Earlier, there had been a Swordbearer who had met his fate at the hand of someone bearing the Shield of Dreibrant, and several who had been as successful as Aarant. There was mention of a Stodreich Uetrecht who, like Anyeck, had overreached. Rogala had ended his stewardship after just two days.

The earliest Swordbearer with a remembered name was one Scharon Chaudoin. His entry was longer than Aarant's. He had been a contemporary and enemy of Nev-enka Nieroda when she had been alive.

She had used the name Wistma Povich then, and had adopted the name Nieroda later.

Chaudoin had battled Sommerlath and been defeated. Povich had separated him from his esquire and captured him. He had been the longest lived Swordbearer.

His life had spanned a thousand years, the entire lifetime of Sommerlath's Queen. He had spent every moment of her reign imprisoned in a large bottle drifting at the end of a tether over Victory Square in Spillenkothen. He had shared his prison with Daubendiek and a bloodsucking imp.

The Sword had remained in his hand. He hadn't had room to use it. He'd simply had to wait till Rogala had found a way to kill him.

After the report, Gathrid read history books. The more he read, the more he saw a pattern. The scholars confirmed his notion. •

Evenings involved meals with Ahlert's family. After Gathrid's novelty value faded, those shrank.

Rogala and Gacioch became part of the dinner scene. Gathrid avoided the dwarf otherwise, and did not talk to him at table.

Gacioch he saw more frequently. Ahlert's scholars were studying the severed head too. Gacioch made himself difficult. The youth often heard the demon's cursing from his study bench.

He enjoyed being round the scholars. Had the choice been his, he would have joined them. One evening he detained the Mindak after their supper.

"How are the studies coming?" Ahlert asked. "Are they keeping you busy?"

"Hurting and helping, I guess. There's so much pain in it. There're too many parallels between my path and Aarant's. And the others."

"We Chosen follow a script," Ahlert mumbled. "They fight the same old fights."

"I don't like it. In fact, I can't stand it. I don't want to follow Aarant's road. I'd rather be a scholar. This's the first time in my life I've ever done something I really enjoyed."

"Why'd you want to see me? I don't have much time. I have a meeting with the Corichs."

Gathrid unslung Daubendiek and proffered the Sword. "Take it. You wanted it. I don't."

Ahlert refused. "It's too late, Gathrid. Suchara is awake. I'm not even tempted. She'd destroy me.

It's safer for both of us to play the game out."

"But ..."

"They call me a lot of names, but fool isn't one of them. Only a fool would wrestle Suchara when She's awake. Sorry. You've been Chosen."

Gathrid cursed under his breath. He cursed again when he spied Rogala in a doorway, a knowing smirk peeping through his beard.

Ahlert said, "Take your walk with Loida. You'll feel better.''

Gathrid departed, stamping his feet angrily.

He and Loida took long walks after dinner every evening. They seldom spoke while strolling. Talk did no good. Just the proximity of another lonely soul was adequate medicine.

"Let's go to the lily pools tonight," Loida suggested. "What happened? You were really happy at supper, when you were joking with Mead." She looked as though she had bitten into a pellet of alum. She made the same face whenever Mead's name came up. Gathrid did not notice. He was not perceptive about women.

Loida Huthsing was blessed with patience.

"I tried to give Ahlert the Sword. He wouldn't take it. He practically laughed at me."

"Oh. Let's go to the lily pools anyway. Somebody said they're blooming again."

"Isn't it late in the year?"

"Sometimes sorcery is good for something besides making war."

The ponds she favored lay in one of Senturia's wild parks. They were surrounded by exotic trees.

Among those there were benches and tables and statuary. The area was popular with young couples.

Gathrid never noticed. Perhaps he was too young.

They stayed out late that evening, watching the moon shine off the pools. The silvery orb worked no magic. It only reminded Gathrid of his sister. He talked about her and brooded about his Swordbearing. Loida became exasperated.

"You're so naive!" she snapped. "So self-involved."

"That's not true. I just don't want to hurt people."

"Whatever you say, Mister Imperceptive. I swear, that foul-mouthed demon is better company than you are. Let's go back."

"Loida. ..."

"Oh, just be quiet."

They played out similar scenes several times. Gathrid never caught on.

He remembered that night only because it was then that he learned that all was not sweetness and light between the Mindak and Mead.

They were in the dining hall when he and Loida returned. Ahlert was in a foul mood. His meeting with the Corichs had gone poorly. He and Mead were arguing about conquests to be undertaken after Nieroda's destruction.

The Mindak argued that genocide was a rational and pragmatic policy. "If we wipe them out, they're no trouble later. We can use our own people to exploit the land.'' He seemed baffled by Mead's insistence that assimilation was a better course.

"It's inhuman. How can you murder all those people?"

"Murder? That's a hard word, Mead."

"That's what it is."

"Is it murder when we clear a forest to build a new manor? Wait. I guess it is. If you're one of the trees. But we need the land. ..."

"Piffle. You aren't interested in the land. All you want is profit for the family. You've gotten carried away by your conqueror image. I warned you before. And it caught up with you, didn't it?

Your devils all turned on you."

"Mead, please."

"I did warn you. And you wouldn't listen. You started a huge war without the Empire behind you.

Now you're scrambling around licking the boots of low-caste Corichs so you can put another army together. That doesn't befit your dignity. Why not take your losses? Just close the Karato Pass.

Let the Alliance deal with Nevenka Nie-roda.''

"I can't. You know that. The investment is too big."

"It's an investment of ego."

"I agreed to protect the people who bought land in Silhavy and Gorsuch."

"So your honor is involved? Your word? What about your word to me? You haven't been a real husband to me since you found Ansorge. You've been running around playing warrior."

Loida took Gathrid's arm and pulled him away from the doorway. "That's enough," she whispered.

"Their fights aren't any of your business."

Gathrid tried to pull free. Loida would not let him. "Come on. Off to bed."

He went. And lay awake a long time, hating Ahlert for giving his wife such pain, yet halfway admiring him for concealing the truth of his unwanted commitment to Chuchain.

There came an evening meal when the Mindak was in high spirits. He joked with his relatives and enjoyed himself immensely. He was about to burst with good news. He barely kept it pent till after the desserts. Then he announced, "I sewed up my negotiations with the Corichs today. They've given me all the men I need. We begin moving come the end of the week. The army will assemble at Covingont."

A dour Mead asked, "Isn't it too late in the year? It won't be long before winter closes the Karato."

"Beggars can't be choosers. I had to take what I could get when I could get it."

"And what did you have to give up?"

Ahlert's smile faded. He gave his wife a hard look. She shut up. He told the others, "Finish whatever you have going. We're moving out. Any questions?"

Gathrid had a score, but this was not the time for them. Mead had thrown Ahlert into a black mood.

During their evening walk, Loida asked, "Are you leaving me behind?"

Gathrid had not thought about it. "You don't want to stay, do you?" There were those in the Mindak's family who had their eyes on her. She had been consecrated. They meant to complete her dedication. Had she been shielded only by the Mindak, she might have disappeared already. The added threat of the Great Sword kept them at bay.

"Thank you so much."

"What are you upset about now?"

"Never mind. It's not important."

Gathrid kept making the same mistakes. He accepted her word when she wanted to be pumped instead.

She became foul company for several days. She reclaimed Gacioch from Rogala, and shared more time with the demon than with Gathrid.

He reacted the way she wanted, and did not realize what he was feeling.

The old voices down inside him kept their opinions hidden. They often teased him, and never told him why. He grew ever more baffled.

And then it all seemed unimportant. He was moving again. He was astride a horse, and that horse was headed west. He and Daubendiek were about to write another chapter in the tale of the Great Sword. He hated himself for being excited.