The Reluctant Swordsman (7 page)

Neddy would mourn. But Neddy’s mother had already taken him and moved back east.
 
It had been on a farewell camping trip with Neddy that Wallie had been bitten by the damned encephalitis-carrying mosquito . . . in an area where mosquitoes had never been known to carry encephalitis before. Neddy would mourn him but would survive. Wally had to admit that he had done a good job on Neddy. The boy was in much better emotional shape to stand the loss than he would have been three years ago, when Wallie first became surrogate father to him. Neddy was already reconciled to their parting . . .

No! Start thinking like that and he would indeed be dead. The start of recovery was always the will to live. Remember that it was still delirium! It had to be.
 
He looked up and saw the little boy watching him with a mocking expression.

“This is heaven?” Wallie scoffed. “It doesn’t smell the way I expected.” The little-boy’s eyes flickered. They were extraordinarily bright eyes. “This is the World, the World of the Goddess. The People are preliterate, Mr. Smith. You should know from Earth that before the Age of Writing comes the Age of Legends.
 
I am a legend myself.”

“I’ll believe that.”

The boy nodded rather sadly and paused. “Let’s try it from the other end, then.
 
Shonsu was a swordsman, a remarkable swordsman. The Goddess had need of a swordsman. She chose Shonsu. He screwed up. He failed, and failed disastrously.” “What does that mean?” Despite his skepticism, Wale was intrigued.
 
“Never mind! He was punished for his failure, by death. He died yesterday of a fractured skull.” He smiled once more as Wallie’s fingers reached for the lump on his head. “Never mind that, either—it was cured. That body is in perfect working order, a remarkable specimen of the adult male. As you doubtless noted?” “Let’s leave that part of my fantasies out of this, shall we?” “As you please.” The boy waved his twig idly. “Shonsu is dead, then, but the task remains undone. You were available, Mr. Smith. Never mind how. You have been given that remarkable body, you have been given the language, and you have been given the highest possible rank in one of the two top-ranking crafts in the World. All crafts have their patron gods, but the priests and the swordsmen belong to the Goddess Herself . . . and they don’t let anyone else forget it, believe me! Those are exceptional gifts you have received.” “And I am supposed to undertake the mission?”

The gap-tooth grin flashed briefly. “Exactly.”

“Dangerous, I assume?”

The boy nodded. “Moderately, yes. So the body is at risk—but it was a free gift, remember! If you are successful, then you will be rewarded with long life and satisfaction and happiness. There are almost no limits on a swordsman of the Seventh, Mr. Smith—wealth, power, women. Anything you want, really. Any woman will accept you. No man will ever argue with you.” Wallie shook his head. “Who are you?”

“I am a god,” the boy said simply. “A demigod, to be exact.”

The big man looked around the squalid little cabin, smiled, and shook his head.

“I think the asylum must be very full. They are doubling up the inmates.” The boy scowled angrily. The flies did not seem to buzz around him the way they did around Wallie. It was an insane conversation, yet Wallie had nothing better to do with his time.

“A swordsman is a soldier, is he?”

The boy nodded. “And policeman. And judge. And other things.”

“I know absolutely nothing about soldiering.”

“You can be taught, very painlessly. And taught to use a sword, too, if that is worrying you.”

“That is not something I yearn for breathlessly. Let me guess, though. The mission was to kill this Hardduju character. Am I right?” “No!” the boy snapped. “You are wrong! However, you should do that also. As an honorable swordsman, you should regard it as your duty to uphold the honor of your craft. Hardduju is venal.”

Wallie rose and wandered over to sit on the bed. “He certainly seems to have more enemies than friends. It is none of my business, and no one has proved anything to me, anyway.”

The boy twisted round on the chair to face him, looking furious. “You don’t need a trial in his case, for he is a swordsman. All you need do is challenge. You need give no reason, and he cannot refuse. I assure you that he is no match for Shonsu.”

Wallie laughed. “He would be for me! Except perhaps at tennis. Can I choose the weapons?”

The boy bared his teeth in anger. “You were given Shonsu’s language, Mr.
 
Smith—you can be given his skill as easily. The task is important! Much more important than shaving a few mils off the unit cost of polypropylene, say, or evaluating consultants’ reports on alternative catalytic systems for hydrogenation.”

“You’ve been going through my IN basket, haven’t you, figment? Well, prove it!

Tell me what this so important task is.”

“Gods do not beg!”

Wallie shrugged. “And I do not believe in gods.”

“Ah! Now we have it, don’t we?”

“Do a miracle,” Wallie suggested, grinning. “Turn that chair into a throne.”

The boy’s face was shadowed, but the bright eyes seemed almost to flash.
 
“Miracles are crude! And they are not done upon demand!” Then he returned to his grin again. “Besides, if I performed a miracle, it would hardly help you to believe that the World is real, would it?”

Wallie chuckled and agreed. He wondered when breakfast would be served. The boy leaned back in the chair. It was too big for him, and he bent like a banana, stared at Wallie with his chin on his chest. “Where does faith come from?” He could bang the boy’s ear and throw him out, but what would he do with the rest of his day? “Faith? It comes from upbringing.” The boy sneered at him. “That just pushes the problem back one generation, doesn’t it?”

“True,” Wallie agreed, amused. “Well, define faith as an attempt to attribute your own values to an omnipotent being. How’s that?” “Lousy,” the boy said. “Why should you want to attribute etcetera, etcetera?” Wallie felt that he was being nudged toward saying something he didn’t want do, but he wasn’t sure what. “To find a happy ending? To explain suffering by postulating a deeper meaning?”

It was growing hot already, although the sun was still low and the day young.
 
Wallie could feel perspiration running down his ribs. The skinny boy seemed unaffected.

“Better,” he said. “Now, how can we give you faith in the World? You had a taste of its joys. Would a taste of its suffering do any more—a taste of hell work better than a taste of heaven?”

“No.” That was not an attractive prospect.

The dark eyes flickered again. “So you refuse the edict of the Goddess, do you?”

If it were not absurd, that small boy might be thought to be threatening . . .
 
“Tell your goddess to blow it out her ear,” Wallie said firmly. “I have absolutely no intention of being a swordsman, in this or any other world.” The boy stared at him coldly. “I’m only a demigod—I shall tell Her no such thing. Why don’t you come down to the temple and tell Her yourself?” “Me? Bow to an idol? A clay idol—or stone?”

“Stone.”

“Never!”

“Why not?” the boy asked. “You honored a cloth flag often enough.” Wallie felt he had lost a point somewhere. “But I believed in what the flag stood for.”

Then the boy laughed and jumped off the chair. “There it is again! But we must move—there are assassins on their way here, so you should leave.” Wallie sprang to his feet also. “Kind of you to mention it. I need some pants.”

The boy pointed to the bundle on the floor. “You haven’t opened your present.” How had he missed that earlier? Wallie lifted the bundle onto the bed and unwrapped it.

“Put on the kilt first,” the boy said, watching him. “A little short, perhaps, but it will do. Now the harness. The boots won’t fit.” “No, they don’t,” Wallie agreed, struggling. He needed about a size thirty, he concluded.

“Cut the ends with the sword, then.” The boy sniggered. “You can’t be a swordsman with bare feet.”

Wallie drew the sword. It was fearsome. “What do they use this for?” he asked.
 
“Elephant hunting?” Holding the blade near its end with his fingertips, he used the point to slit the toes of the boots. Then he could get them on, but they pinched and his toes stuck out the ends. The boy giggled once more.
 
“Why don’t I just leave the sword for now?” Wallie said.

The boy shook his head. “A swordsman without a sword would be a public scandal.” The scabbard was attached to the harness and hung down his back. When he tried to lift the sword high enough to insert the point, his hand hit the roof. He tried to sit on the bed and found he was sitting on the scabbard. He began to lose his temper, for the boy was grinning widely.
 
“You could kneel,” he suggested. “Or bend over. Of course the scabbard will tilt to the side.”

So it would, sliding on the straps across his back. Wallie could pull the top of the scabbard to one side and the bottom to the other and, with much cursing and almost losing an ear, he sheathed the sword.

“Not bad,” the boy said, regarding him. “You have the guard on the wrong side.
 
Shonsu is ambidextrous, so it doesn’t matter, I suppose. Remember to take it with your left hand when you want to kill someone.” “I’ve no intention of trying to draw this!” But Wallie did draw it, then replaced it the other way round.

“Now straighten it up with the hilt beside your ear,” the boy said. He picked up a small leather thong, the only thing left on the cloak. “Hairclip,” he explained.

“I never went for the leather scene,” Wallie muttered, pulling his hair back and tying the thong around it—thick, heavy hair, not Wallie Smith’s hair. “I really have to go out in public in this rig? I’ll be arrested.” He scowled into the foggy, spotted mirror.

The boy laughed. “Only swordsmen arrest people, and you’re a high-orbit swordsman. No, you’re fine. The girls would whistle at you if they dared. Let’s go.”

Wallie hesitated, seeing the cloak on the bed and the hamper with the fortune in silver dishes inside it. “What happens to this stuff?” he asked.
 
“It will be stolen,” the boy answered. “Does it matter?” Wallie detected an odd note in the question, saw a gleam in the sharp eyes. It was a trick question—if he admitted that it mattered, then he was admitting that the things had value and hence that they were in some way real. Once he took that hook, he would be as good as landed.

“Not to me.”

“Then let’s go,” the boy repeated, dancing over to the door.
 
“Hold it, Shorty!” Wallie said. “How do I know that you aren’t leading me into a trap?”

The mischievous pixie face grinned again, showing the missing tooth. “I am.”

The same question hung in the air, this time unspoken: Does it matter?
 
Wallie shrugged and smiled. “Lead on, then!” He followed the boy out of the cottage.

††††††

It was a beautiful morning, languorously tropical, even if it did smell too much of horses and people. As soon as he cleared the shadow of the cottage, the sun struck hot on his back—the sort of morning that made him think of summer vacations, of beaches and suntanned girls, of hiking in forests or beating tennis balls. The boy skipped across the road, jumped up on the low parapet, and started trotting down it, arms outspread to keep his balance, wobbling. Wallie marched over to join him and noticed the long drop to trees below. But any comment from him would draw the same question again.
 
There were only a few people coming up the roadway. As he approached they made gestures and bowed. He nodded to them and kept on marching.
 
“How do I respond to the salutes?” he demanded of his guide.
 
“A nod is fine,” the boy said, now walking more steadily on a broader stretch of wall. His face was almost level with Wallie’s. “Ignore the blacks and whites, of course. Yellows, too, if you like. Greens and blues you should acknowledge—clenched fist on the heart. That means you’re not going to draw, you see, just like a handshake means you don’t have a weapon hidden.” He spread his arms again for a crumbling, narrow section. “Don’t smile—it would be out of character.”

“Not even pretty girls?”

The boy glanced a warning at him. “From a swordsman of your rank it would be almost an order.”

Wallie took a closer look at the next few groups he passed. Orange garments went with four facemarks, brown with three. White meant one, obviously the very junior. He had seen no black garments yet, but he knew what that meant—slave.
 
Preadolescents, male and female both, went naked like his companion.
 
“That’s for civilians,” the boy continued. “With swordsmen it’s a lot more complicated. One type of salute for just passing in the street, another for serious talk. Depends on whose rank is higher and so on.” He jumped a gap and landed as surely as a goat on the other side. “Replies are different from salutes.”

Wallie said nothing to that. The road angled down the side of the valley into a crowded huddle of buildings, beyond which towered an immense cathedral-like edifice, surmounted by seven golden spires . . . the temple of the Goddess at Hann. Certainly that was their destination. Beyond the temple, the far wall of the valley, steep and bare and rocky, was split by a canyon. From the window of the cottage he had been able to see along that canyon to the falls from which rose the great plume of spray; from his present position only the cloud was visible.