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

      “To a place where I can find what I need.”

      From time to time Tigris spoke again to Wayfinder, questioned it, in a language Valdemar did not know. He inquired: “Is it too much to ask—I couldn’t hear you clearly—exactly what query you have just put to our guide?”

      Tigris ignored the question. Her face was grim.

      The great wings beat on, marking out slices of time and space. With every fleeting moment Tigris felt an incremental growth of fear. An increase of the driving, nagging, growing terror that she would not be able to reach her goal before her Ancient Master caught wind of her treacherous intention. The goal to which the Sword was guiding her, for all she knew, might still be halfway around the world.

      She had not asked the Sword of Wisdom for safety.

      And Wayfinder, upon which her life now depended, was forcing her to bring this peasant clod along. And still she had no inkling why.

Chapter Eleven

      On having Wayfinder fall so unexpectedly into her hands, Tigris had needed only a moment to make her great decision. She would strike for freedom, gambling impulsively on the Sword of Wisdom’s tremendous power. After all, there was no telling when, if ever, an equal opportunity would arise. She had expected quick meaningful answers from this weapon of the gods, affording her a fighting chance of success in her revolt against her Swordless Master.

      But so far, to her growing terror and rage, things were not working out as she had hoped.

      In her anger, she lashed out at the grape-growing peasant Valdemar. He was the handiest target; and besides, there was something intrinsically irritating in the very nature of this young man with whose presence the Sword had saddled her for some indeterminate time to come.

      Bridling her impatience and fury, concentrating her attention, straining to be logical, she resumed her questioning as they flew. She dared not harm this oaf seriously until she could determine just what his purpose in her life might be.

      The peasant answered her questions with an irritating lack of fear—as if he were confident in being indispensable to her. But she had practically no success in extracting useful information from him.

      In something like despair she demanded: “So, what am I to do with you when I reach the end of this flight?”

      “You will let me go my way, I hope. Perhaps my bride will be there.”

      Tigris told him what he could do with his bride. Then, as the griffin bore them over a lifeless wilderness of splintered rock, an idea struck her, with the force of inspiration.

      “I wonder if I have now carried you far enough,” she mused aloud. “Perhaps the Sword will be satisfied if I leave you in safekeeping here, while I go on, unencumbered, to solve the next step of the puzzle, whatever it may be.”

      Safekeeping? Valdemar, not knowing what she had in mind, or whether to be pleased or worried, clung to his seat in silence. Decisively the young enchantress reined her griffin around in a horizontal loop, and caused the beast to land on a rocky pinnacle perhaps twenty or thirty meters high. The small flat space that formed this spire’s top was totally inaccessible from the ground.

      “Now get off,” she commanded.

      “Ma’am?”

      “You heard me, insolent fool! Get out, get off. If this mode of transportation bothers you, you may be free of it for a time at least. I will be back for you, I suppose, when I have performed the next step required by the Sword.”

      Silently, somewhat awkwardly, Valdemar climbed out of his basket, planting one foot after the other carefully on the one square meter or so of flat rock not occupied by the crouching body of the griffin itself. He stood there carefully, not saying anything. He was thinking that the Sword had brought him to this pass, and there must be some benefit in it for him. At least in potential.

      Tigris settled herself in the central saddle and flicked the reins. Her mount sprang back into the air.

      But then, when she would have urged on her steed again, she found the damned Sword in her right hand pointing inexorably straight back to the abandoned man.

* * *

      Muttering abuse and imprecations, she steered the animal back to land on the spire again, a process that made Valdemar crouch and cling in fear, ducking under one of the great wings to keep from being knocked into a deadly fall.

      “Get on!” his persecutor commanded.

      The youth needed no second invitation. In a moment they were airborne again, the satisfied Sword once more pointing almost due west. Valdemar, settling himself more comfortably in his basket, remarked against the rush of air: “So, it seems that Wayfinder insists that our fates are somehow bound together.”

      Tigris did not answer. “Do you know where we are going?” he asked patiently.

      Eyes of blue fire burned at him. “Plague me with one more question and I’ll slice out your tongue!”

      “No, you won’t.”

      The griffin, urged on by its mistress, was swiftly gaining speed, far beyond anything attained in the first leg of their flight; the terrible wind of their accelerating passage whipped Valdemar’s words away and tore them to shreds. Now Tigris made a magical adjustment to screen the wind somewhat, and managed to hear what her captive had said when he bravely repeated it. But she said nothing in reply.

      Valdemar, fighting to keep calm, continued: “As I see it, you can’t afford to do me any serious harm. Because the Sword insists that you need me for something, but you don’t know what it is. I’d like to know the answer too, and it might help me figure it out if I knew exactly what you are trying to get the Sword to do for you.”

      Tigris, resisting the urge to commit magical violence upon this fool, stubbornly remained silent.

      Still she had no more idea than did her reluctant passenger of where they were going, and under her controlled calm the