The Seventh Book of Lost Swords : Wayfinder's Story Fred Saberhagen (phonics books txt) 📖

      Ben nodded. “Just don’t be all day about it.”

      The lady paused in the act of handing Wayfinder back to Valdemar. Frowning, she said to him: “You are something of a magician, are you not?”

      The tall youth blinked at her as if the question had surprised him. “I have a certain knack for doing tricks with light, and mirrors, and sand and water,” he admitted. “No more than that. Depending on the company in which I find myself, I sometimes claim to know a little magic. But how did you know?”

      “I have known another magician or two in my time. The art is wont to leave its traces.” Yambu shrugged. “In this company you may freely claim competence,” she told Valdemar. “I doubt that any of us are able to surpass you, in whatever it is you do with light and mirrors.”

      Valdemar received the Sword from her, and held it steadily. “I ask—” he began firmly, then hesitated, looking at the others. “I suppose there is no preferred formula of words?”

      “None I know of,” said Ben impatiently. “Just ask your question.” The rain was falling harder now, though so far the overhang of cliff had kept them almost dry.

      “Then I ask,” said Valdemar, with perhaps a hint of embarrassment in his voice, “the same question as before. When I spoke to this Sword in my own house.”

      Wayfinder pointed straight in the direction of the Silver Queen.

      The rain slackened somewhat. Ben, though tired, was eager to get moving, and none of the others insisted on a chance to rest. All four set out together, in the direction indicated by Wayfinder.

      Ben, who walked with Zoltan in the lead, now wore the Sword of Wisdom at his belt—drawing and using it occasionally, to confirm that they remained on the proper course—while Lady Yambu walked at Valdemar’s side.

      They had been hiking for a quarter of an hour when Valdemar asked: “What lies ahead of us?”

      “Not much but desert,” Ben returned shortly. “And somewhere in it, I suppose, the river I went boating on yesterday.”

      “A wasteland,” said Yambu. “One that will take us days to cross.”

Chapter Five

      Once Wood decided to depart the city where he and Tigris had visited the Blue Temple headquarters, he summoned up his preferred form of rapid transportation. He and his young lieutenant were soon mounted upon a griffin, riding the wind a kilometer above the land. The Ancient One’s chosen destination was one of his remoter strongholds. He and Tigris were bringing with them only a few assistants, chosen from those of his people he least mistrusted, who rode clinging for their lives on the backs of similar steeds.

      As soon as the Ancient One and his party had reached their goal, all of his helpers, including Tigris, were promptly assigned their tasks of magic, and set to work.

* * *

      Some hours later, laboring inside a stone-vaulted chamber enclosed by many barriers of matter and of magic, the master of the establishment raised his head over a massive wooden workbench lighted by Old World globes and marked with an intricacy of carven diagrams.

      He asked: “Tigris, are we completely secure against unfriendly observation?”

      “Master?” Across the room the young woman, startled, looked up from her own work.

      “I mean observation from outside. Are there spies, human or otherwise, anywhere in sight of our walls? Do you make sure that there are none. I would attend to the matter myself, but I am otherwise engaged at the moment.”

      “Now, Master?”

      “Now.”

      Suffering in silence the interruption of her own work, the young woman methodically disengaged herself from her current task. Then she employed her considerable powers to satisfy her Master’s latest wish, sending her perception outwards, while her body remained standing beside the bench.

      Outside the stronghold, not many meters distant and yet a world away, behind grim walls of heavy rock and curtains of dark magic, some trees and other vegetation grew naturally. There a handful of birds were singing. Not messengers, these. These birds were wild and small and totally unintelligent.

      Of unfriendly observation there was not a trace. Unless the small birds could be counted as unfriendly to the Master and his cause.

      For another moment, a moment longer than was really necessary, Tigris harkened carefully. Her body standing indoors did not move, except that her red lips parted.

      “Well?”

      The young woman returned fully to her body. “Nothing, Master. Nothing and no one out there now.”

      “You sense nothing?”

      Again Tigris employed the full range of her trained perceptions. Again she came back. “Only songbirds.”

      The Ancient One grunted something, a sound of grudging satisfaction, and returned to his powerful ritual, whose goal, his assistant knew, was the discovery of information about certain of Wood’s enemies, notably the Emperor, and the Emperor’s son, Mark of Tasavalta.

      Tigris, aware of a strange reluctance to do so, firmly put from her thoughts her memory of the outside world. She also returned, but more slowly, to her tasks.

      At odd moments during the next few hours, she pondered her own reactions. She had been somewhat surprised—though not entirely—to find herself prolonging the reconnaissance unnecessarily, simply to harken to the songbirds for one moment more.

* * *

      The hours passed. Lesser aides, bringing messages, were intercepted by Tigris, so that her Master should not be disturbed. The great magician had been isolated at his workbench for some time with certain half-material, semi-animate powers, and his own thoughts.

      At length, when it seemed a safe moment to interrupt her lord, Tigris approached him.

      His eyes, coming back from a great distance, at length focused on hers. “Well?”

      “Master, a reptile scout has just arrived at the stronghold, carrying intelligence.” She named a region that was many kilometers away.

      “So? What word, then?”

      “Sire, some Blue Temple people in that area have very recently acquired the Sword of Mercy.”

      Now the man’s beautiful blue eyes were truly focused. “Woundhealer.” He breathed the name in a hoarse whisper. “We know just where it is? There is no mistake?”

      “The location