The Last Book Of Swords : Shieldbreaker’s Story (24 page)

      
The Sword of Despair, said Draffut, was really the one to worry about. The Emperor had told him that.

      
It was Yambu who theorized that a few of the Swords, including Soulcutter, had shared an interesting property—the Tyrant’s Blade never discriminated among individuals. In effect, Soulcutter didn’t care who anyone was.

      
Neither did Woundhealer.

      
Nor had the Mindsword, before it was destroyed, ever distinguished one person from another—apart from singling out its current owner as the supreme object of devotion.

* * *

      
Back on Earth, Stephen had not traveled far from the grove in which he met the Emperor when, to his great joy, he encountered a recovered Karel, whose own magical search had led him to the young Prince. From that point on, under the great wizard’s protection, Stephen had nothing to fear from flying reptiles, nor could his reunion with his parents be delayed much longer.

* * *

      
Woundhealer had restored Mark to full health almost instantly upon its application, and now only a nearly-invisible white scar marked the place where Farslayer had come ravening into his flesh.

      
Prince and Princess together had continued their advance upon Sarykam, recruiting more armed troops readily from the villages, where a number of trained militia were available. Scouts reported that what had been Baron Amintor’s army, now commanded by a woman named Amalthea, was trying to reverse course and withdraw from Tasavalta.

      
And with the loss of Coinspinner’s luck, the army gave signs that, lacking some triumphant stroke by the Dark King personally, it would soon break up in internal conflicts.

* * *

      
Coming out from the capital to join Prince Mark were a number of de-converted soldiers, along with the bulk of the general population. With every passing hour, more converts now recovered spontaneously from the Mindsword’s hideous spell.

      
With these and other forces rapidly becoming available, the country moving toward full mobilization, the Prince acted swiftly to harry and punish the force of mercenaries as it strove to withdraw from Tasavalta. General Rostov, and the local leaders elsewhere, had not waited for Mark’s direct leadership before organizing and taking action.

      
The mercenary force was in retreat, threatened with disintegration, united now only for self-defense.

* * *

      
Less than two days after departing the coast of Tasavalta, the three passengers in the space shuttle were preparing for a landing on the Moon.

      
The lifeless-looking desert globe first became frighteningly large, then ceased to be an object in the sky at all, and was transformed into a world reassuringly below their feet. Draffut, the experienced traveler, meanwhile pointed out certain sights of interest—including the place from which Vilkata had rescued the demons—as they approached, and indicated at least roughly what territory lay definitely within the Emperor’s domain.

      
Yambu gritted her teeth, doing what she could to get ready for a confrontation with that impossible man, who had once been her husband.

      
The Beastlord also explained, to a pair of human beings too awed and bewildered to understand him very well, how he himself had come to be restored to power and majesty by immersion in what he called the Lake of Life—that had been the Emperor’s doing, of course. Draffut told his questioners that he expected they would have the chance to see the Lake of Life for themselves.

      
Yambu and Ben had both heard of the ancient, legendary Lake of Life, which supposedly had existed at some unknown location on the Earth.

      
Draffut assured his human listeners that the lunar Lake was a duplicate of the legendary one.

      
Below the travelers, a smooth area of the Moon’s surface that looked like pavement grew and grew.

      
Ben, long past astonishment, observed some kind of giant hatch or window in that surface yawn open to receive their vehicle.

      
And then, fairly abruptly and without fanfare, the voyage ended in an intact base or spaceport built securely under the lunar surface.

* * *

      
Back on Earth, at about the same time that their friends’ spacecraft reached the Moon, Prince Mark and Princess Kristin were joyfully reunited with their son and the old wizard who was Kristin’s uncle.

      
Moments later, while Stephen enjoyed the benefits of Woundhealer, he passed on to Kristin and Mark the most recent intelligence regarding the conditions in Sarykam, and what had happened to him in the course of his journey since leaving the city. Naturally the youth included his most recent information about Ben and Yambu—and Zoltan.

      
As a kind of afterthought, Stephen told his parents about his encounter with the Emperor—adding his continued uncertainty as to whether that meeting might have happened only in a dream.

      
Mark acknowledged his son’s information about that talk with a nod, but made almost no comment on the matter. Everyone, it seemed, got to talk to the Emperor sooner or later—everyone but him, the Emperor’s son. And what good did it all do, anyway, all these vague signs of encouragement and advice from the imperial Great Clown?

      
No one at the royal headquarters as yet had any certain knowledge of Coinspinner’s destruction, or Farslayer’s. Through Karel’s art the Prince was soon given warning that the Dark King was coming back with Soulcutter and more demons from the Moon.

Chapter Nineteen

      
When Ben’s mind grew clear again, he found himself standing, leaning against the wall, in a long hallway with several distant branches and many doors. The passage was three or four meters broad and considerably higher, smoothly carved from rock, and lighted by peculiar Old World lamps—a strange place, a very strange place indeed.

      
He was unarmed and still wearing the clothes in which he’d come from Earth.

      
Most unsettling at the moment was the fact that he could not remember just how he’d been separated from his two companions. He knew his parting from Draffut and Lady Yambu must have taken place—somehow—soon after their arrival on the Moon; but he could no longer recall the circumstances.

      
The big man distinctly remembered the blasting of Coinspinner into little pieces against the edge of Shieldbreaker back in the seaside cave—and then the menacing demon, and Draffut’s timely arrival. But the details of his journey to the Moon were hazy. He realized that his head injury must be producing some serious effects.

      
However he had come to be here, here he was, standing more than half weightless in this strange lunar corridor, with his companions nowhere in sight, listening to a droning, unearthly background murmur, as of Old World machinery. …

      
He thought that perhaps, buried deep in the sound, he could hear someone calling. Calling his name.

      
Ben found that he could walk—a little unsteadily, but he could certainly walk. Getting about here was quite easy because of the lack of weight. On he went, sampling the doorways in the long hall, discovering more rooms and tunnels, trying to find some clue as to how he might rejoin Draffut and the Silver Queen—and trying also to accustom himself to the strange lunar environment. Yes, he was on the Moon. That was hard to believe, but in his time he’d seen a few other things that were almost impossible, and he had managed to deal with them.

* * *

      
Vilkata, on returning to the Moon, at a landing place far from Draffut’s, had quickly noticed that the mysterious subsurface being, or entity, which he and his demons had previously observed, was now detectably more active than it had been a few days ago.

      
That was interesting; but just now the Dark King had little time to spare for odd phenomena. He had come here with the fixed purpose of obtaining Soulcutter, and he immediately bent all his efforts toward that goal.

      
When his attention was caught by the unexpected presence of more demons, fresh exiles from the Earth now gibbering and squealing in the airless lunar distance, he did the best he could, in passing, to gather these hapless creatures under his control. They would be useful, though not essential, when he made his last return to Earth, there to stake everything on one climactic effort to win the ultimate game of power.

* * *

      
Ben still continued his wandering in corridors of stone and Old World glass, trying to read the symbols of unknown languages carved into the stone walls.

      
Entering a room containing certain objects that struck him as hearteningly familiar, Ben decided he had found what must be a branch of the White Temple. The man-sized carved images of Ardneh, cubistic and vaguely mechanical, and of Draffut, were both eminently recognizable. Ben had never been one for much Temple-going, whether White, Red, or Blue. But under his current circumstances the familiarity of this room’s contents seemed benign and reassuring.

      
At the next door, Ben came upon what looked like a peculiar kind of library. At least part of the extensive chamber was devoted to that purpose, for, besides the incomprehensible Old World machines, there were real books and papers, maps and drawings, spread across many shelves and over tables. The visitor leafed through a few of the papers and bound volumes, discovering several different languages, but none that he could understand.

      
One book, occupying a place of prominence upon an incongruous hand-carved reading stand, drew Ben’s particular attention. The thick volume was printed in the common language that he understood, and the pages lay open at the place where in the ancient scripture the words said:
Ardneh, who rides the elephant, who wields the lightning, who rends fortifications as the rushing passage of time consumes cheap cloth…

* * *

      
Ben looked up at a slight sound, to discover that he was no longer alone. The Emperor had come in and was standing near the doorway through which Ben had entered.

      
“Hello,” said Ben simply, feeling no fear, but a certain awkwardness. He’d met this man before and, though that meeting had been years ago, had no trouble recognizing him at first glance.

      
“Hello,” replied the Emperor, in his unassertive voice. “I thought you’d probably soon find the library.”

      
Ben nodded gravely and looked around. He could feel the latest trickle of blood from his head wound drying on his face, but for the moment he was experiencing no pain or dizziness. “I’ve also discovered one of the few books in it that I can read.”

      
The other looked sympathetic, and Ben thought he might be about to offer medical assistance. But instead the Emperor asked: “Is there anything in particular you’d like translated?”

      
“I don’t suppose so. I … yes.” Ben nodded decisively. “Not these books, though. There were some words on the wall, out in the corridor—”

      
The Emperor was nodding. Then, in the manner of one preparing to convey information, he turned away, with a jerk of his head to indicate that Ben should come with him.

      
Two minutes later, the two men were standing in the branch of corridor where characters in Old World script were carved or painted on the wall:

AUTOMATIC RESTORATION DIRECTOR 2

NATIONAL EXECUTIVE HEADQUARTERS

REDUNDANT SYSTEM

      
A word-for-word translation of this legend left Ben little better informed than he had been; and the Emperor offered further explanation.

      
“The first letters of the words in the first two lines form an acronym—ARDNEH. You see, Ardneh, the Earthly entity destroyed so long ago, was a machine. A thinking machine of sorts, what the Old World folk called a computer.

      
“Doing the job for which it had been constructed, Ardneh cast a Change upon that world, and saved the world when war threatened to destroy it. A Change that cancelled the effectiveness of much of the Old World’s technology, and, at the same time, brought back magic. What had been nuclear explosions became demons.…”

      
Ben said: “The truth behind the story that the Scriptures tell.”

      
The Emperor nodded.

      
Ben felt light on his feet, light in his head. But not bad. It was perfectly easy to stand here. “But Ardneh, whatever he really was, existed on Earth. And was destroyed there, two thousand years ago, along with the demon Orcus.”

      
The Emperor’s hand—how human, how ordinary it appeared—reached up on the wall to tap a finger on the last two words of the inscription. He repeated their translation. “ ‘Redundant system.’ Meaning another Ardneh. One might say
Ardneh Two
.” He spoke two words in the old language. “The reason why the Change endures, and magic works, long after Ardneh on the Earth was done to death.”

      
“Ardneh-tu?” Ben repeated unfamiliar syllables.

      
“Yes. Would you like to meet him?”

* * *

      
Minutes later, at the entrance to yet another chamber carved from deep and ancient lunar rock, the Emperor stepped back, allowing Ben to go in alone.

      
He noted with little surprise that Yambu was already there, and looked up at Ben’s entrance. But before Ben could speak to her, a box of metal, large as a man but built into a wall, greeted him with words of welcome.

      
Ben stared back at the box, and was reminded of the White Temple’s carven image. He asked it: “You are Ardneh-tu?”

      
“I am.” The voice from the box was bland, human and yet unfeeling.

      
The two humans and the machine were confronting each other in a strangely-lighted room, densely occupied by metal boxes, cabinets, and consoles of unknown materials. There were chests of tools, long cables like multiheaded snakes, interlocking nests of metal and glass.

      
It was Yambu’s turn to ask a question; evidently she and the machine had begun a dialogue before Ben’s arrival. Now the Silver Queen, in the manner of one continuing some earlier discussion, asked Ardneh-tu: “Then the Emperor is your creation?”

      
“No. It would be closer to the truth to say that I am his work. And so are you. All humanity.”

      
Yambu questioned Ardneh-tu sharply: “But you told me that people of the Old World made you.”

      
“That is true.”

      
The lady looked helplessly to Ben, but he could only gesture vaguely with his huge hands, signalling his own hopeless lack of comprehension.

      
Yambu turned back to the box that spoke. “Then I do not understand.”

      
“Humans are not fully equipped to understand. It is not required of them.”

* * *

      
The Dark King, totally ignoring all presence on the Moon save for his own and those of his demonic escort, had been making his way, overcoming one magical barrier after another, to the crevice in deep rock where, according to Arridu’s story, Soulcutter had been hidden by the Emperor some twenty years ago.

      
For once, it appeared, Arridu, even without compulsion, had told the truth.

      
The Sword of Despair was encapsulated even as the great demon had described it, almost as the demons themselves had earlier been sealed in, embedded in a block of some solid crystalline material, and that, in turn, sunk deep in black volcanic rock.

      
Around the intruding wizard the rock for half a kilometer in every direction was shaking, breaking, shattering—the demons who were aiding him groaned and labored and cried out in their travail.

      
Extremely powerful magic was necessary to retrieve the Sword of Despair—a great price, of course, had to be paid to undo the Emperor’s sealing. But to a man who had willingly steeled himself to sacrifice his own eyes, no price was too great that still left him able to hate, to strike his enemies.

      
The job of extracting Soulcutter from the Emperor’s sealing required many hours, extreme exertion, and no little pain, even for a sorcerer of the Dark King’s power. But eventually, by dint of determined and ruthless effort, the magical procedures were completed and Vilkata was able to draw forth the sheathed Sword—and at that moment he collapsed, overtaken by some disaster against which Shieldbreaker had been able to afford him no protection.

      
The collapse was not physical, and it was accompanied by no dramatic show, but it was certain, and effectively complete. But the Dark King still stood tall, even as he allowed Arridu to strip him of both his Swords.

      
The demon standing in warrior form held the gods’ sheathed weapons negligently, both hilts clasped in one huge hand, as if he were as far beyond the power of their double magic as they were beyond mere ordinary steel.

      
Vilkata meanwhile continued to hold up his two empty hands, their fingers still half-clenched as if around black hilts. He gave no sign of understanding that the gods’ weapons had been taken from him. He turned his eyeless gaze from one hand to the other, seeing only what he wanted to see there—because Pitmedden had been driven insane too.

      
“Arridu!” The Dark King’s command still crackled with authority.

      
“Yes, great Master?” The demon’s voice this time was thick with mockery.

      
But Vilkata did not notice. “I want to get back to Earth as quickly as possible. Do you think the spacecraft or on a demon-ride . …?”

      
“Which would be swifter? Why, the great Master must decide that for himself—but is not the Master forgetting something?”

      
A light frown creased the eyeless face. “Forgetting—what?”

      
“Why, Unsurpassable Lord, that Your Lordship’s greatest enemy is even now your prisoner. And that the torture chamber awaits your pleasure.”

      
“I—yes, of course.” And Vilkata, turning in the indicated direction, saw to his delight that all was indeed as the demon had said. There, in the small, cramped room was the rack in readiness, the thumbscrews waiting, the small brazier where a fire of magical intensity heated sharp slivers of poisoned metal—a whole array of delights for the connoisseur of torment.

      
Only the victim was missing; and that lack, of course, could soon be remedied.

      
The great demon watched with amusement as the blind man approached the rack. Vilkata set aside, for the moment, his imaginary Swords, and began the task of fastening himself upon it. The ankles were easy, the left wrist a trifle more difficult. The right hand of course would have been impossible—but then it was necessary for the torturer to keep at least one hand free to work with.

      
Looking on, listening critically to Vilkata’s first scream of mingled agony and triumph, the great demon toyed with the hilt of Shieldbreaker and murmured: “Even the Sword of Force could not save you. Because it was no weapon which brought thee to this sorry state—only thine own will. Thy pledge so freely given was accepted, the bargain kept. Still art thou able to hate, to strike at thy enemies—that thy blows should actually hurt them was not guaranteed.”