The Swordbearer

Chapter Seventeen

The Raftery The Maurath's engineers allowed the last stones to slide back into their shafts. The passage through was open save for a lumber barrier across the Sound-side mouth. Flyers chewed and clawed at those timbers.

Inside the barrier, Gathrid stood with his palms on the pommels of his swords, waiting. A mob of Ventimiglians swept toward him. He glared into their startled faces.

The twin blades whined and slew. Daubendiek protested having to share. Gathrid smiled grimly. The blade could not refuse to perform. If it would not respond to his will, it must to that of Suchara. • She was there with him. He felt her displeasure. She was being compelled to serve the will of a servant. But Aarant, lamented Aarant, had shown him the ways. She had to support him or abandon all hope of success in her own enterprise.

Gathrid heaped bodies before him. The Ventimiglians lost their momentum. They fell back, tried sorcery.

Sea-green light blazed. It blinded them. They charged again. Again they failed to best the Swords.

It may have taken minutes or hours. Time had little meaning when Gathrid had Daubendiek in hand.

Finally, he sensed the Mindak approaching.

The man was reluctant. There was a feel of panic about him. He did not want this meeting. But both Chuchain and his own obsessions drove him to it.

Mead's ethereal beauty ghosted through Gathrid's thoughts. He wished there were another way.

The flyers stopped assaulting the Maurath. The constant clangor of combat faded as an uneasy truce developed. Gathrid smote the timbers blocking the tunnel and stepped outside, onto the head of the Causeway. He would have more room there.

He waited.

A silhouette appeared in the tunnel's mouth. It bore nothing save a tall staff.

Ahlert seemed to walk a mile, so slowly did he approach. He stopped ten feet away.

He wore no armor. He had shed all weapons save a ceremonial dagger. He had robed himself as High Thaumaturge of Senturia, one of his many titles. His face was sad. His eyes were remote.

"I'd hoped we could avoid this, Gathrid. I felt like an older brother toward you. But the Great Old Ones are indifferent to friendships."

"How well I know." Get out of my heart, Tureck, he snapped at himself. Though Kacalief remained in the back of his mind, he added, "I'd hoped to avoid it too. I keep thinking of Mead. Can't you go home? Can't we end this any other way?"

"Ask your Sword, Gathrid. Ask your Mistress. If I dared defy Chuchain, if I dared turn away, what would happen?"

Gathrid pictured it. Daubendiek would leap into Ah-lert's back. He would not be able to stop the blade. "There must be a way."

"Not for us. For us it's too late. Only if They were conquered... . There's no end to the Game, Gathrid. I learned that much in Ansorge. And we have to play. However it comes out, I 'm sorry.''

"So am I. For you, for me, for everyone who's died and for all of us yet to die. What are you after, anyway? Why are you here? What do you have to gain by overcoming me?"

Daubendiek whined impatiently.

Ahlert shrugged. "I don't know. Do you know why you're here? What's Sartain to you, that its fate should matter enough to risk death?''

"As you say. We have to play. Even when we think we're free, we're being manipulated. You've come unarmed. Do you really expect to win past me? Or are you going to defy Chuchain by committing suicide?"

"Not likely." Ahlert smiled. But his eyes hardened.

Gathrid never really saw the move, so swift did the Mindak swing his staff. Daubendiek lightninged up, absorbed most of the blow's force. But the staff's tip caressed his temple.

His ears rang. His knees wobbled. His head began to ache.

"The Staff of Chuchain," Ahlert explained. "You didn't see it in the Brothers' War... . Aarant?

Are you still there? The Great Old One showed me where the people of Ansorge had hidden it."

He struck again. The Staff slid over and along Daubendiek to prod Gathrid's stomach. Agony exploded at the touch, like all the cramps in the world. The Sword's counterstroke rang like thunder as Ahlert turned it. "You don't have Aarant to help you anymore, do you? And I have at last come into the fullness of my Power as the Chosen of Chuchain."

Daubendiek wove a deadly pattern. Ahlert retreated a few steps into the tunnel. Its confines seemed to expand around Gathrid as he experienced the feeling of growth. All things mundane became beneath notice. Rogala, who chattered advice from an observation port, was no more worthy of attention than a chattering monkey. Count Cu-neo, leaning out a sally port, was of even less account.

Daubendiek turned Ahlert's third blow. Gathrid had a feeling of a universe sagging past on rusty wings as the Staff's tip rocketed away from his face.

The Sword had encountered this weapon before, in ages past. It remembered. As it did, so did Gathrid.

Daubendiek had been defeated in their last encounter.

That battle had lasted two entire days. Then, as now, the fates of Empires had swung on its outcome.

Daubendiek had learned from that defeat. It applied its lessons now. But the Staff had learned, too. The two rang upon one another like demon hammers in the forges of Hell.

In Gathrid's weaker moments Suchara shielded him with her umbra. Chuchain did the same for his servant. Ahlert fought in light that danced between shades of gold and scarlet. The face of his master appeared behind him, filling the tunnel, glaring past Gathrid.

The youth knew another such face blocked the passage behind him. He wished he could see Suchara's material image. It would tell a lot about what she thought of herself.

He began to recover. He was able, occasionally, to unleash an offensive flurry.

Wits recovered, he could see that his situation was not as desperate as he had feared. The Staff was a mighty talisman, but was limited by the limitations of its wielder. Ahlert remained handicapped by the injury he had sustained before the gates of Ansorge. Evidently Chuchain could not overcome the bite of a Toal as easily as Suchara could the old gnawing of polio.

Daubendiek spotted the weakness. It began probing to Ahlert's left, driving deeper and deeper into his guard. Soon the Sword was slicing air scant inches from the Mindak's withered arm.

Seeing the tide shifting, Ahlert abandoned attack. Hope faded from his eyes.

Applying his will and Aarant's teachings, Gathrid forced Daubendiek down.

Suchara projected rage. Gathrid ignored her. "Will you go now?" he asked.

The Mindak leaned on the Staff, panting. He said nothing for a long time. Then, "I can't."

"Don't be stubborn. I don't want to do this."

"I'm not. I really can't. I don't have the will to break his spell." He readied the Staff.

"Damn!" Gathrid raised the Sword.

The pressure from Daubendiek and Suchara became intolerable. He gave them their head. Ahlert ducked and weaved, keeping his left covered while trying to trap Gathrid with his only hope, the Ordrope Diadem. The youth evaded with an almost instinctual ease. His one previous exposure had burned a lesson deep into his brain.

There was no doubt. This time Ahlert would perish. Even Chuchain, who drove his servant to mad extremes in a vain effort to nurse victory from the teat of fate, realized that. The Mindak could not overcome Daubendiek using one hand.

But Gathrid could control the manner of the man's demise. He could allow Ahlert to perish with dignity intact.

He let the Sword think it had control. He encouraged its attack to Ahlert's left. He pushed till he and the Mindak had danced through a half-circle.

He finished it with the long quiescent blade in his left hand. The surprise was complete. It took in not only Ahlert but Daubendiek and Suchara.

The Mindak staggered to the tunnel wall, good hand pressed to his wound. Blood darkened his fingers. Scarlet trickled along the Staff.

The younger sword groaned in triumph.

Daubendiek lashed like the tail of an angry tiger.

Ahlert sank till he rested on his knees, back against the wall. He beckoned Gathrid. The youth stepped closer, placed a foot on the Staff.

"Tell Mead," Ahlert gasped. "Tell her I'm sorry. I couldn't. Be what she wanted." "I will,"

Gathrid lied.

"And trust no one. The Dark Woman-. Is among you. I feel her. Very near." He grimaced, 'ground his fist against his stomach. Only the Power of the Staff kept him going. "It hurts. More than I thought it would. The Sword would have been. More merciful. More to your benefit. Finish it now."

Gathrid refused. He still nurtured some pale, pathetic hope that the Great Old Ones would relent.

Daubendiek lanced out. Gathrid tasted its spite. The mind that had been the Mindak Ahlert was as strong as Tureck Aarant's had been. It was as disorienting as it had been in that brief glimpse through the Or-drope Diadem. Gathrid staggered under its impact.

He returned to reality to find someone bending over Ahlert, trying to pry the Staff from his bloody fingers. Daubendiek lashed out again.

Gathrid reeled as the stiff, stubborn personality of Ye-don Hildreth hit him. He screamed. As he seemed to have done so many times before.

For two furious minutes he smashed Daubendiek against the stone of the Maurath. His rage was so overpowering the blade could not stay him.

Then a cold rationality returned. He bent over Ahlert himself. The Ordrope Diadem he shifted to his own head. He tucked the Staff under his arm. Someday, he thought, Staff, Diadem and both swords would accompany him on a long sea voyage. He could consign them to the deeps... .

A shadow fell across the mouth of the tunnel. A feeling of threat tainted the air. Gathrid left off his silent apologies. His gaze met that of a Toal.

It was like none he had encountered before. This was a man in the flesh and armor of an Imperial Legate. The body still lived. But Gathrid recognized its spiritual stench. He knew those cold, dead eyes. He knew the Hell-stallion it rode, that only a Toal could master. No mortal animal would permit such a devil to bestride it.

So. Nieroda had found her way around Ahlert's refusal to reveal how to introduce a Toal into new flesh. She had begun installing her fallen Dead Captains in live bodies. The bodies of Imperials.

She's close, Ahlert had said... .

This monster was a fit object for his wrath.

The youth hurtled out of the tunnel, oblivious to the possibility that the flyers might have returned. The Toal's mount reared, screamed.

Daubendiek protested Gathrid's action. The youth had seized total control. His will was behind his decisions. The soul, the stubbornness of Yedon Hildreth had tilted the balance away from Suchara.

At that moment Gathrid was completely confident of his ability to master the Great Sword and defy Suchara.

Daubendiek whined in fright. Gathrid bid it slay the Dead Captain.

Suchara fought him. Fought him for no better reason than because this was what he wanted to do.

Had he not wanted to slay the Toal, She would have driven him.

"Kill it!" he thought at the Sword. Reluctantly, the blade went for the Toal.

The false Legate tried to flee.

Gathrid slew its mount with the younger sword. He allowed the Toal itself no chance to gain its footing. He drove Daubendiek through its breastplate.

Deep inside Gathrid, the half-forgotten soul of Mohr-hard Horgrebe cackled evilly, spitefully, feeling its former possessor suffering.

Gathrid did not let the Toal flee with the smoke rising from the corpse of Legate Cervenka. On a subjective level, with his newfound will and a year of anger, he seized the fell spirit. They struggled for a moment, crashing around that nowhere place where he had destroyed his own haunt.

He took that demon by the throat and shook it the way a terrier shakes a rat.

It ended quickly.

Gathrid bent, recovered a glowing Toal-sword. He tossed it to Theis Rogala, who had pursued him onto the Causeway. "Hang onto that."

The dwarf gulped, bobbed his head. He was pale and frightened. He could not believe what he was seeing, what he had heard when Ahlert had spoken to Tureck Aarant.

Gathrid smiled at him, his eyes narrow. "Greetings from Tureck, Theis." Rogala flinched. He would do some heavy thinking before using his dagger to complete this cycle of the Sword's history. . No need to worry yet, Gathrid thought. Suchara would not order him murdered while Nieroda yet remained in the game.

Or would she? Would she be that frightened?

He shrugged. Rogala was too disturbed to try anything soon.

He stared at Sartain. The Dark Champion was there somewhere. The Toal had proved Ahlert's statement. He reached inside and read Legate Cervenka. Sometime after Hildreth and the army had moved into the Maurath, Nieroda had descended on the Raftery. Now she was subverting the Imperial Palace.

The youth smiled, though he was not amused. Gerdes Mulenex had made a pact with a devil at Katich.

The devil had come to collect.

That was what the Mindak had meant by saying she was looking over their shoulders.

The youth examined his surroundings. The flyers had vanished. Ahlert's wizards had packed up their witcheries. Easterners lined the ramparts of the Maurath. In their faces he saw awe, fear and dismay. Their officers were trying to get them to withdraw.

They knew what had happened to their Emperor. The hopes that had brought them west had died with him. Despair had fallen on them like a deadly cloud.

Gathrid thought of Mead again. Belfiglio, too, would know. The task of informing the Mindak's wife would fall to the old slave. Gathrid did not envy him his mission.

Hildreth's senior officers began gathering in the tunnel. "Let them depart in peace," Gathrid said, pointing upward with the younger sword. "Muster your battalions. We have work on the island.

Nieroda is there."

He was sure they would revolt. Someone must have seen him fell Hildreth.

His previous usurpations had accustomed them to accepting his authority. There were no witnesses to Hildreth's murder, apparently. They began forming their units.

Gathrid gazed down at Count Cuneo. He indulged in a moment of self-loathing. Suchara and Daubendiek had surprised him again. He swore it would be their undoing.

Being free of self-doubt was a new experience. It pleased him.

He went roaming through the soul of Legate Cervenka, his quarry knowledge of Nieroda and the Toal.

The Legate knew very little. He had been seized during the night, by Red Brothers, while directing a militia regiment in counterattack against Ahlert's Imperial Brigade. He had been spirited into the Raftery. He had been unconscious, so did not know how he had been taken through the Ventimiglian lines. He had wakened possessed by the demon. Nieroda had handed him a Toal sword.

The lights had gone out again. He had wakened back at his command post, under instructions to break the siege of the Raftery.

That siege seemed to bother Nieroda. She had revealed herself in order to press the counterattack.

The imminence of conflict between Ahlert and the Swordbearer had caused her to rush Toal Cervenka to the Mindak's aid, judging him to be the weaker man. The Toal had arrived too late.

Two thousand weary survivors of the battle for the Maurath assembled on the Causeway. The rest Gathrid left to oversee the Ventimiglian withdrawal.

A Colonel Bliebel, who had been an intimate of Count Cuneo, protested the force's weakness arid exhaustion.

"I just want you to keep order, Sir. I'll handle Nie-roda and her devils myself. Theis. My horse."

Ever efficient, Rogala had the animal ready.

Gathrid mounted, started toward Sartain. He searched the sky, wondering what had become of the flyers. Only their dead remained.

It won't be long before Theis draws his dagger, he thought. The dwarf had developed a sudden slyness, an evasiveness, which suggested thoughts he did not want to reveal. Might Suchara be ready to concede this round to Bachesta? She might fear losing the Sword more than she disliked losing the Game.

He surveyed Rogala from the edge of his vision. The dwarf was watching him intently, nervously.

Should he disarm the man?

No. That would make him more dangerous. Suchara would provide another blade, in an inconspicuous time and place. And Rogala himself would become less predictable.

A committee from the Imperial Palace met them at the Causeway's end. They bore instructions from Elgar, who wanted the Raftery relieved. Despite the efforts of the Brotherhood and Anderle's militia, Ahlert's Imperial Brigade remained solidly entrenched.

The easterners were aware of their Mindak's demise. But their commander, Tracka, felt obligated to fulfill his final charge. He had abandoned all his other operations to concentrate on rooting out Nieroda and the Dead Captains.

Gathrid glared at the messengers suspiciously. He did not have to be schooled in the treacherous ways of the Great Old Ones to see that, on at least two levels, it was in Elgar's interest to let the Ventimiglians reduce the Raftery. They would settle a personal score with Gerdes Mu-lenex and rid Anderle of the long-standing problem of the Brotherhood. An eastern victory would devour the leaders of the Orders.

He merely nodded to the messengers, then led the surviving Guards Oldani toward Galen.

"Peace," he told the first Ventimiglian patrol to cross his path. He waved his followers back out of earshot. "Please inform Thaumaturge-General Tracka that the Swordbearer would like to confer."

He was, it developed, not unexpected. Tracka arrived within fifteen minutes.

Gathrid had met the brigadier but had seldom spoken to him. Their paths had crossed at both the Karato and Kacalief. Tracka respected the Power Gathrid represented, but did not fear him. Ahlert had been known to remark that his leading commander had only one weakness. He feared nothing at all.

"You fought well here, General," Gathrid said. "I'd say brilliantly, considering your resources.

We've been both enemies and allies. I want to suggest an armistice now, while there's yet something to be saved."

Tracka, like many men of his class, physically resembled Ahlert. Gathrid had little deja vu flutters while speaking with him.

Tracka frowned. He was the most taciturn of the eastern commanders. He communicated more by gesture and expression than by the spoken word.

"I know your orders, General. I commend you for trying to execute them. But I think it's time you passed this task on. The Western Army is headed home. The wives of the men of the Imperial Brigade await them just beyond Covingont."

"Vermin infest the Raftery."

"Is that your opinion, or just the Mindak's?"

Tracka's face became as lifeless as that of a corpse.

"Mine, Swordbearer. The place must be scourged and scoured."

"I'll go along with that. The point I want to make is, your people don't have to do it. I'll handle it. I owe the Mindak that much."

Tracka shrugged. "I haven't been relieved of my obligation."

Gathrid felt Ahlert fuming inside him. "Damn all stubborn men!" he growled. "Can't you compromise?

To save the lives of good soldiers?"

The intransigent general stared at Gathrid for more than a minute. His gaze moved over the youth's swords, neatly avoided the trap of the Ordrope Diadem. "Perhaps," he said at last. "If you can convince me that the traitors will be destroyed."

"Tell me about their defenses."

Tracka peered again. His right cheek twitched nervously. He scratched at it, shrugged. "The usual.

And the Toal. We've handled them with massed ballistae fire. They keep finding new flesh, though."

"You gain with every Brother slain."

"Exactly. They have to run out of bodies sometime."

"What about Nieroda?"

"She's most evidenced by her absence. She hasn't involved herself in the fighting."

"Why would she be so determined to hold the Raf-tery?"

Tracka shrugged.

"The same reason the Mindak wanted it?"

"His Lordship didn't confide in me."

Gathrid leaned toward the general, whispered, "I think we'll become allies again. I'll join your next assault. Will you go afterward, win or lose?"

Tracka did his peering. He had flat, narrow eyes. He was intimidating. Gathrid wondered if there were something wrong with his eyesight. "If your effort satisfies me."

Gathrid returned to Bleibel, who immediately protested the arrangement. Gathrid ordered him to clear the streets for the Brigade's evacuation. "We won't spill any more blood if we don't have to, Colonel. While you're at it, assemble some boats in case they have to go off that way."

"Sir. ..."

"I'll get them off the hill," Gathrid promised. "But without us paying for it in blood." He allowed his hand to drift suggestively near Daubendiek.

Bleibel accepted the orders.

Gathrid returned to Tracka. "How soon can we begin? Some of my officers have a taste for blood.

I've put them to work. I'd like to finish before they get back."

Tracka smiled. "I'll start it now. You'll have Toal to face in a minute."

Gathrid glanced at Rogala. The dwarf had fallen into one of his dark, brooding moods. He could not stop thinking about Ahlert having called out to Aarant. The possibility that Gathrid had shared his predecessor's soul had shaken him deeply.

Tracka did not exaggerate his timetable. By the time Gathrid had climbed to the Winged Victories four Toal were leading a counterattack. Small witcheries had set the slopes of Galen aglow.

Another two Toal had taken station halfway up the Hundred Steps. No Ventimiglian would battle past them.

"You'll have to guard me for a while after I make each kill," Gathrid told Tracka. "I'll be making real kills, not just separating them from the flesh. I have to leave my body to manage it."

The Thaumaturge-General nodded.

The first two Toal were easy. They were not expecting the fate he brought them. The next two fought more desperately, with more cunning. They consumed more of his strength. They were vicious.

They did not mind having their bodies killed, but wanted no part of being done for themselves.

Six more, Gathrid thought when he finished the fourth.

His knees were wobbly. He leaned against the plinth of a Victory. That last one had been tough. He glanced round. The Brothers were losing ground fast now that they had no Toal to give them backbone.

He pushed off the column, allowed Daubendiek free rein amongst the Raftery's mortal defenders. He and the Sword devoured their energies. That no'longer seemed such a wicked thing to do.

Reds and Mulenex street bullies, the defenders began scurrying amongst the Victories and Pillars in vain flight. A mob surged up the Hundred Steps, only to be turned back by unsympathetic Toal.

Daubendiek feasted till they scattered.

Gathrid went for the Toal. The first was almost too easy.

The second proved to be a master bladesman. He was a genius both at surviving and delaying.

Gathrid began to wonder why the thing insisted on holding its ground. It had no long-term hope.

He saw why soon enough.

On the narrow veranda surrounding the Raftery the remaining Toal were assembling ballistae and training them down the Hundred Steps. One salvo would end the threat of the Swordbearer. He might deflect a shaft or two, but not an entire flight.

He retreated a dozen steps, sheathed his weapons, vaulted from the Steps to the steep, rocky slope of Galen. He felt neither trepidation nor lack of self-confidence as he scrambled across and up the hillside. The knowledge and skills of mountaineers came to his mind and muscles freely. He reached the veranda before the Toal could realign their weapons.

He had, he thought, achieved his potential as Sword-bearer. This was the state to which every would-be possessor of the blade aspired.

Two more Toal perished before his ferocity.

He staggered to a wall. The last had taken him to his limit. His heart was determined and his will demanding, but his flesh could be pushed no farther.

And three Toal remained. One held the Steps. One blocked the Raftery door. The third was among the ballistae, the strings of which Gathrid had slashed. It was closing in on him, sensing his weakness. Its sword swayed like a cobra about to strike.

Tracka engaged the Toal on the Steps. He used a blade plundered from one of the thing's comrades.

Rogala scampered back and forth behind the general, looking for a chance to plant his knife. Down among the Pillars and Victories Ventimiglian artillerymen were setting up engines with which to support the assault. The last defenders there had surrendered.

Gathrid knew the artillery would not save him. It could not be brought to bear in time.

He tottered away from the Toal, scattering mortals, slaying several. Each gave him a bit more strength.

He stalked them in moments when he was not beating back some thrust by the Toal.

His bad leg began to bother him. His conscience called him vampire.

He went on, ignoring that pitiful little voice. They were just cattle. He would use or slay them as he saw fit. ...

With the fulfillment of the Swordbearer's potential came Nieroda-thinking, Suchara-Chuchain- Bachesta-Ulalia thinking. He did not realize he was becoming more and more like the things he hated.

It was ever thus. The more mighty, evil and implacable the foe, the more like him one had to become to overturn him. Then, lo! There was a new power risen, scarcely distinguishable from that which had fallen.

So it went. The Lords of Darkness are crafty.

There were not enough Reds to give Gathrid the strength he needed to face several Toal. And the Toal guarding the Raftery entrance was spiriting the few available inside.

Gathrid glanced down the Steps. Tracka continued his duel. The Toal appeared on his way to victory. The general did not possess the tireless energy of a Dead Captain.

He caught Rogala's attention, beckoned him.

Now, he thought, we'll find out where Suchara stands.

She was not yet ready to write him off. But she was tempted. Nearly a minute passed before Rogala plunged off the stairs. He scrambled up the slopes like some hairy rock ape.

Gathrid's antagonist pushed him hard, driving him to an edge of the veranda overhanging a precipice.

Rogala charged the Toal from behind. He hit as the Toal spun to face him.

Gathrid drove Daubendiek into the thing's side.

This time he avoided meeting the Toal on the nether plane. Having driven it from flesh sufficed.

He could regain strength for a killing match while the thing sought a new body.

He pushed through oily smoke to survey the course of the battle.

Heavy bloodshed had not been avoided.

Tracka was weakening. But now the ballistae below were ready. That would be the Brigade's final victory.

A human wave had hit Ventimiglian positions along the line where rubble met housing the besiegers had not razed. Nieroda had ordered Bleibel back from the waterfront.

Gathrid turned to the Toal blocking the doorway.

There would be no passing the creature. It stood deep inside an entranceway too narrow for effective sword-play. It had discarded its own blade in favor of a fire-headed lance.

"Keep it busy," Rogala growled. "I'll fix it."

A roar drew Gathrid to the head of the Steps. Halfway down them smoke boiled up from a corpse porcupined with ballistae shafts. The Ventimiglians had disposed of Tracka's Toal.

The Thaumaturge-General staggered onto the veranda, looked at the doorway. "So close. So damned close."

The remnants of his Brigade were being battered by a mob. Gathrid supposed Nieroda had begun assembling them even before his departure from the Maurath.

She always seemed aware of his movements.

Rogala barely had time to complete his task, securing the Staff of Chuchain from Gathrid's horse as Bleibel's first armed breaker arrived. He had wasted time rescuing his boxed intimate, Gacioch.

He barely outhustled the surge, which washed against the Pillars before receding. To Gathrid's eye it looked like every adult male in Sartain had come to relieve the Raftery.

The-dwarf collapsed on his behind, gasping, after galloping up to the veranda. Attempts at speech gurgled through his foam-flecked lips. Retreating Ventimiglians cursed him as they tripped over him. Weakly, he offered Tracka the Staff. He communicated his idea by gesture.

Tracka caught on. He barked orders. Soldiers dragged a ballista around. They restrung and cocked it. Tracka tumbled the Staff into its trough. "Move!" the general growled at Gathrid.

The Toal saw what was coming, but had its orders. It could do nothing but try to turn the Staff with its lance.

It failed.

The Staff lightninged into its chest, smashing armor and bone. The Toal hurtled backward, clacking as it tumbled into the deeps of the council chamber. A wail of dismay rose inside the Raftery.

Gathrid whipped inside.

Down on the main floor the Toal thrashed like a cat with a broken back. The Brothers were fighting one another to get through exits to lower levels.

"Inside! Inside!" Tracka growled. A stream of Ventimiglians poured in. Bleibel had reached the Steps. The once strongest and proudest of Ventimiglian brigades had been reduced to a handful over two hundred men. More were fighting below, but they were doomed.

"Clear them out!" Tracka ordered, indicating the Brothers. His troops went after them. They were too panicky to use their sorcerous skills. Tracka told Gathrid, "Hell of a mess, isn't it? Now they get a shot at kicking the door in."

"Uhm." Gathrid stepped back outside.

Rogala, with Gacioch hooting him on, Was tottering toward the doorway. Bleibel's face appeared over the marble horizon of the veranda. Combat clamor continued among the Pillars and Victories.

The lower slopes of Galen were carpeted with citizen corpses. The mounds of dead were only lightly freckled with bodies in Brigade uniform. Sartain would have much to mourn.

"You lied to me!" Bleibel panted.

"When? I didn't say I'd save the Raftery. I told you I'd get the Brigade to leave without fighting the Guards. But you wouldn't let me."

"Why did you do this?"

"Because Nevenka Nieroda is running this place."

"The Emperor sent orders to seize you. You have to answer for treason and the murder of Count Cuneo."

Gacioch guffawed. He made rude remarks concerning the intelligence of a prince who expected Daubendiek to swear fealty.

Gathrid smiled at the Colonel. "Did he tell you how you were going to arrest me?"

"Unfortunately, no."

"But, being as stubborn as everyone else, you're determined to get yourself killed trying."

"Who knows?"

"You're too late to rescue the Raftery. Tracka is cleaning it out. Tell Elgar that."

"I'm supposed to take Tracka in too. He's Ahlert's most likely successor. He'll have to answer for Venti-miglia's crimes."

Toal-sword in hand, Tracka tried to push past Gathrid.

"Easy, General. Colonel, did your orders come from Elgar himself? In person?"

"His messengers brought them."

"That's not the same. Doesn't tell me what I need to know. Tell you what. Give us fifteen minutes.

Then we'll come with you."

Tracka protested.

Bleibel muttered, "I don't know. ..."

"It's better than getting yourself killed, isn't it? All I want is a chance to find out why someone is so desperate to keep us away from here."

Bleibel surprised Gathrid. "It may mean my head. You've got fifteen minutes. No longer. I'll do what I have to when they're up."

Thirteen of Gathrid's minutes swifted past without result. He and Tracka swept through chamber after corpse-choked chamber on level after bloody level. There were a stunning number of rooms secreted beneath Galen. They contained nothing but the mundane. Tapping the walls turned up nothing but solid stone.

"I'm beginning to think you outguessed yourself," Tracka growled. "Or were misled. That's the woman's style."

"No. There's something here. She doesn't want it found. I'm positive."

The lowest level was a small, dank chamber footing a long, jagged stair. "This's got to be it,"

Gathrid said. "It can't just be a dead end. Look close."

Had the entrance not been left open by Brothers fleeing Tracka's soldiers, the downstair's itself might have gone undetected.

Tracka found the concealed doorway when he noted scrapes in the slime on the floor. Rogala then located a trigger mechanism hidden beneath a wrought bronze sconce.

"We're cutting it fine," Gathrid observed. "Just a minute left."

"You won't get back to Bleibel in time," Rogala grumbled.

A great slab of a door stuttered open. Its rusty hinges howled like a chorus of singing dragons.

Light exploded from the other side.

Gathrid flung Daubendiek ahead of him and charged.

The sole occupant of the chamber was Gerdes Mule-nex. The fat Fray Magister lay on his back on a stone bench, breathing shallowly. His bloated face was pale and without character.

"Let me," Rogala said, gesturing them back. He approached the fat man. After prodding Mulenex with a blunt finger, peeling back eyelids and smelling Mulenex's breath, he announced, "A Toal. With the demon on vacation."

"That explains a few things," Gathrid said. "And I think I know where the demon is. Hold it!"

Tracka was about to use his blade. The youth pushed it aside. "She'll know what's happened if you do. We can't let her. Not yet." Slowly, like a sleepwalker, he eased round Mulenex and stalked toward the source of the brilliant light.

"Theis, look at this."

Rogala grunted. "No wonder Count Cuneo was pushing us about betraying Anderle."

Gathrid probed the glow with his left hand. "He knew this was here."

"Undoubtedly. Yes. No wonder."

Gacioch had grown strangely silent. Till now he had been providing a barrage of unsolicited suggestions. Gathrid frowned. Gacioch silent was more an attention-grabber than Gacioch with his normal logorrhea.

"Misplaer would have known," Gathrid reasoned. "And Eldracher, Elgar and Ahlert. This was why the Mindak wanted Sartain so bad. Mulenex probably didn't know till the end." The youth's fingertips brushed what felt like solid, polished iron. "The Shield of Drie-brant."

He found the Shield's handgrip and armstraps. Laying Daubendiek aside, he fixed the Shield on his left arm. The Sword protested. Gathrid said, "We'd better hurry if we want to get to Bleibel in time."

Tracka nodded. The Thaumaturge-General's face remained expressionless. It seemed nothing fazed the man.

"Theis, stay here. If Mulenex starts to come round, kill him. Give it half an hour. Then do it anyway."

The dwarf protested, but found himself talking to the Swordbearer's back. Gathrid last heard Gacioch trying to convince Rogala that this was the best strategy.

Bleibel met them in the council chamber, ten minutes past deadline. Tracka's soldiers had managed to stall him without further bloodshed.

The Colonel stared for a long time. Finally, "You'll come with me now?"

"Yes," Gathrid said. "I wouldn't miss it."

"Yes," said Tracka, distracted. He was lost in the nuances of sorceries he might need to survive this day. Gathrid had shared his suspicions during their climb from the Shield Chamber.

"Your weapons, then."

"Don't be silly."

Tracka's hand went to his hilt. "I know only one way to give a weapon, Colonel."

"We're going with you," Gathrid said. "But don't expect us to put ourselves at your mercy. The grandest fool wouldn't do that after all that's happened."

The right side of Bleibel's face twitched. His sword hand strayed weaponward. He thought better of it, spun, stamped up the stairs. Gathrid followed. Tracka assembled his men, followed too. Near the door, at Gathrid's gesture, he recovered the Staff of Chuchain.

Lines of ragged Guards Oldani formed to their flanks once they descended the Hundred Steps.

Glancing back, Gathrid reflected that this tattered, limping parade was a microcosmic crosssection of the continent west of the Nirgenaus. It had been a bitter, demanding, devouring series of wars. A lot that was good had been destroyed.

To what purpose?

It was not finished yet. He might find an answer.

He hoped it would be acceptable, and feared that it would not be.