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

      In Valdemar’s eyes the young woman’s face was so hard and ruthless that he felt morally certain she could not really be as young as she appeared.

      Now she came a few steps closer, pointing Wayfinder deliberately at his midsection, so that momentarily he once more felt in danger of being skewered. From the steady way she held the heavy Sword, it was apparent that her slender wrists must be stronger than they looked.

      Fiercely she demanded of Valdemar: “You … very well, what is important about you? There must be something. What are you good for, what use am I to make of you?”

      The only response that came to the lips of the dazed youth was: “Well, you are certainly not the Emperor.”

      One of the lady’s eyebrows rose. “I should hope not.” It was a wary, calculating answer. “Were you expecting him?”

      She sounded as if she thought the Emperor’s arrival not a totally ridiculous idea. Why, Valdemar wondered, were all these knowledgeable people apparently taking the Great Clown so seriously?

      To his captor he replied: “Someone just moments ago—I mean the Chairman—was asking that Sword about the location of the Emperor’s treasure.”

      “I see.” Again what he said was being taken seriously.

      Meanwhile, Tigris was evaluating her young captive as impressively arrogant. At first glance he was only a peasant, but of course there had to be something special about him, for the Sword of Wisdom to pick him out as her ticket to freedom.

      He was continuing to stare at her in what she considered to be a very insolent way—allowing for the fact that men did tend to stare at her. The look had some fear in it, as might be expected of anyone but a madman in his situation. But it contained a measure of haughty defiance too.

      Just as Tigris was about to speak again, a small bird, unperturbed by drizzling rain and sullen cloud, began singing somewhere nearby. Her reaction, the way she turned to get a look at the bird, made Valdemar turn his head too. Yes, there was the little feathered thing, looking quite ordinary, perched in the branches of a tree not far from the destroyed pavilion.

      The diminutive songster, seemingly indifferent to the affairs of humans and the weapons of the gods, produced a few more notes, then flew away, as if suddenly frightened by something beyond the range of Valdemar’s senses.

      Tigris turned her attention to her prisoner again.

      Valdemar felt a sudden return of the physical sickness. Still he was unable to assign a cause.

      The lovely young woman regarded him in silence a little longer. Then she said: “I am still trying to fathom why the Sword of Wisdom should have pointed you out to me. Have you any idea why?”

      Before Valdemar could attempt a reply, one of the lady’s human subordinates came up to request orders, interrupting her train of thought. Turning aside, she commanded this man to dispatch a message to Master Wood. “Inform the Master that we have had great success.”

      “Shall I tell him, my lady, that the Sword we have taken here is not the one we were expecting to find?”

      “No, fool! The Master will know of that already. Use just the words I have just spoken: ‘great success.’ Nothing more and nothing less.”

      “Yes, my lady.” The soldier bowed himself away. Tigris returned her full attention to Valdemar.

      “Where is the Sword of Healing?” she demanded abruptly.

      “I don’t know.”

      Tigris stared at him. If she was really determined to find Woundhealer, he thought, all she had to do was put to work the Sword she had just captured. But he was sure that she had had some other goal in mind when she put her first question to Wayfinder. And she had been quite as surprised as he was at Wayfinder’s answer.

      In another moment Tigris, still with the Sword of Wisdom in hand, was giving orders that the camp be guarded well. She herself, she proclaimed to her subordinates, was about to go apart from them, because she needed solitude to work a certain special spell.

      With that accomplished, a new word and a gesture from the sorceress sufficed to grant Valdemar another degree of freedom from the magical restrictions on his movement. Suddenly he felt he could walk normally; he wondered what would happen should he attempt to run. Brusquely ordering him to follow, her eyes on Wayfinder, which she held in front of her, Tigris led the way out of what had been the Blue Temple camp.

      Stiffly Valdemar followed. His legs still moved only slowly, his powerful arms hung almost useless at his sides. Maybe, he thought, he could use both arms and legs effectively if he really tried. But probably that thought was delusion. The confident small woman who had just turned her back on him did not seem to be worried about anything that he might do.

      She continued to carry the Sword extended horizontally ahead of her, and he thought she was muttering to it again, though he could not make out her words. As if she might be asking Wayfinder for the best place to take Valdemar—for what purpose? He supposed that he was going to find out soon.

      As they paced on across the sandy wasteland, Lady Tigris still in the lead, the rain continued, a sullen dripping from a lowering, overcast sky. The birds were silent now, or absent, having taken flight from the ominous presence of the demon.

* * *

      This stalwart, healthy-looking youth, as far as Tigris could tell, was a damned unlikely candidate to be of any magical or political prowess or importance whatsoever.

      Physically, of course, he was impressive. It occurred to her to wonder whether he might have been someone’s personal bodyguard. Not Hyrcanus’s or the Director’s, because he was not Blue Temple. But then who…?

      “Who are you, fellow?” she demanded, turning to stare at him again, but almost as if asking the question of herself.

      He shook his shaggy head, perhaps to rid his eyes of rain. Looking down at her from his