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

terror of her own ignorance, her fear of Wood, was threatening to overwhelm her. Her imagination could readily supply a hundred destinations, objectives to which Wayfinder could be sending her. But she had no real reason to credit any of them.

* * *

      Hours passed, tempting Tigris to despair, while their great steed still hurtled toward the west, now angling somewhat to the south, at mind-numbing velocity. Valdemar was stunned to see how the sun’s normal westward passage slowed, then stopped for them, then began to reverse itself. The griffin’s wings had long ago become an almost invisible blur. Great masses of cloud, above, below, and near them churned past.

      Tigris, almost lost in her own thoughts, became chillingly certain that Wood had by now had more than enough opportunity in which to suspect, if not actually prove, her treachery. And it was not the Ancient One’s habit to delay punishment until he was presented with airtight proof.

      And then, just when the enchantress had begun to wonder if her Master’s magic had already found her and begun to destroy her life, and the terrible flight was going to endure forever, the Sword of Wisdom suddenly swung its sharp point downwards.

      Tigris hastily moved to instruct her magic steed, directing it carefully toward the indicated goal.

      Obediently the griffin descended, through layers of cloud and slanting sunlight to the waiting earth.

      They emerged from the clouds at no more than mountain-top altitude. Valdemar, reviving from a kind of trance brought on by cold and monotony, observed in a dull voice that the object of their journey appeared to be nothing but an extensive desert. He had no idea how far they were from the wasteland where their flight had started.

      Tigris, moved by some impulse toward human feeling to engage in conversation, agreed. Thinking aloud, she speculated that Wayfinder might have brought them here in search of the Sword of Vengeance.

      “Farslayer? How would that help you?”

      “A dullwitted question. A bright young man like you must know the virtue of that Sword.”

      Within a minute or two the griffin brought its riders safely to a gentle landing on the earth.

      Muttering words of control into the nearest ear of the huge leonine head before her, Tigris climbed lithely from her saddle with drawn Sword, to stand confronting a harsh, lifeless-looking landscape under a midday sun. Valdemar promptly joined her, without waiting to be commanded. All was quiet, except for a faint whine of wind moving a drizzle of sand around their feet.

      The Sword in the young woman’s hand was pointing now in the direction of a barren hillock nearby.

      Together Valdemar and Tigris began to walk that way.

      As they drew near the hillock, he raised a hand to point toward its top. Up there, the cruciform outline of a black hilt showed against the distant sky, as if the point of a Sword were embedded in the ground, or in something that lay on the earth.

      Silently, keeping their discovery in view, the pair trudged toward the modest summit. What at a distance had appeared to be a Sword was one indeed. At close range the weapon was identifiable as Farslayer. The Sword of Vengeance was stuck through the ribcage of a half-armored skeleton, nearly buried in the sand.

      “So,” Tigris breathed, “I was right. It is to be his death. That is my only chance to escape from him. So be it, then.”

      Valdemar noted that the garments adorning the anonymous skeleton had once been rich, and gold rings still adorned some of the bony fingers.

      Tigris, murmuring some words of her art in an exultant tone, stretched out her hand to take hold of the black hilt. But scarcely had she possessed Farslayer, when there sounded a deep, dry whispering out of the low clouds above. Valdemar, looking up sharply, could see them stirring in turmoil.

      “What is it?” the young man asked in a hushed voice. At the same time he unconsciously took a step nearer his companion, as if some instinct told him that he needed her protection.

      Before Tigris could reply, there emerged from the lowering cover of clouds a churning gray vortex, a looming threat the size of a griffin, but barely visible to Valdemar. He found the silent onrush of this phenomenon all the more frightening because his eyes were almost willing to believe that nothing at all was there.

      “It is Dactylartha,” Tigris said in a low, calm voice. “Just stand where you are.”

      Valdemar nodded. Meanwhile, though his eyes had little to report, wind shrieked and roared about his ears, and those of the woman standing beside him on the hill.

      That was only the beginning. The wind soon quieted, but Valdemar’s stomach was literally sickened by the presence of the creature that now appeared; now he realized that this entity in the air above him, or something like it, must be what had sickened him before.

      But Tigris was speaking to the thing, then boldly challenging it, with the businesslike air of a woman long inured to facing things this bad, and even worse.

      Valdemar stood swaying slightly, averting his eyes from what was almost impossible to see anyway. He did not need his companion to tell him that, for the first time in his life, he was having a direct encounter with a demon.

      Tigris, facing the thing boldly, appeared to be perfectly comfortable and in control. She spoke to the demon sharply, calling it by the name of Dactylartha.

      Valdemar, retching helplessly despite his empty stomach, his knees shaky, had all he could do to keep from collapsing to the ground. Instead he forced himself to stand almost upright.

      To his relief the great demon was paying him no heed. Dimly Valdemar could hear the voice of Dactylartha, a sound that reminded him of dry bones breaking. The demon was speaking only to Tigris, saying something to the effect that it would join her in rebellion, or at least refrain from reporting her to the Master, provided she immediately loaned it the Sword of Wisdom.

      “Never.”

      “Then will the gracious lady consent to