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

      Tigris sounded as if she might have the wit and nerve to be able to win an argument with the creature. “Why do you want that?”

      “I wish to locate my own life, great lady,” muttered the ghastly voice of Dactylartha. “Where it has been hidden I do not know. But only by finding it again shall I be able to free myself of the power that the Ancient One now has over me.”

      Valdemar, trying to remain sane, and to understand, remembered with a shudder what little he had ever heard of the man who was sometimes called the Ancient One. Valdemar could also recall hearing somewhere that the only way to truly punish or control a demon—or to kill one—was to get at its life, which was almost invariably hidden, sometimes a long way from where the creature appeared and acted.

* * *

      Whether Dactylartha was telling her the truth or not, Tigris did not, would not, believe him. She was thinking that she dared not trust any of his kind—this one, perhaps, least of all.

      Valdemar watched her as she balanced the Sword of Vengeance in her hands. Such was Farslayer’s power, he knew, that Tigris—or anyone else—armed with it would be able to cut down Wood himself, or any other foe, at any distance. Only one other Sword, only Shieldbreaker itself, could provide a defense. What, then, was holding her back? Only the ominous presence of Dactylartha, it would seem.

      “Will you ask the question I want asked of the Sword of Wisdom?” the dry bones snapped.

      “After I have won my own struggle. Support me in my fight first!”

      They were shrieking at each other now, the woman and her demonic antagonist. Valdemar reeled and shuddered.

      He put his hands over his eyes, then brought them down and stared. To his horror the demon had now assumed the form of a giant manlike shape in black armor, standing frighteningly close.

      “Will you fight for him, then?” Tigris, her voice become unrecognizable, demanded of the thing. “You had better revolt, with me!”

      “It may not be, great sorceress, it may not be! When his life ends, so does mine.” The aerial blur of Dactylartha’s presence seemed to intensify. A crushing weight seemed to be descending upon the stomach, and the soul, of Valdemar.

      The woman was ready for combat. She had sheathed Farslayer, and her hands, one holding Wayfinder, rose in the subtle gesture of a great magician. “If I must slay you first, I will!”

      The struggle was closed between Tigris and Dactylartha.

      To Valdemar’s limited perception, the outcome appeared horribly uncertain.

      Made more desperately ill than ever by the increased activity of the monstrous demon, the young man thought he might be dying. But suddenly he found himself completely free of illness, for the moment, as the magical powers of the two contestants strained and nullified each other.

      Terror of the demon overrode all other fears. Valdemar lunged desperately for the Sword still sheathed at the slender waist of Tigris. In a moment he had seized the black hilt of Farslayer, pulled it from its scabbard, and was hurling it with all his strength at Dactylartha’s overwhelming presence—it was a crude effort, such as any unskilled fighter might make in desperation, throwing any sharp object at a foe.

      The Sword of Vengeance, relentlessly indifferent to its user’s skill or lack thereof, shot straight through the demon’s flickering, half-substantial image, and in a moment had vanished over the distant horizon.

      Valdemar had forgotten for the moment that the demon’s life must be hidden elsewhere.

      Dactylartha, frozen in position, stared for a long moment at his two human foes, glaring with eyes that were no longer eyes, out of a face no longer even a passable imitation of humanity. And in the next moment the demon died, shrieking a great shriek, his image exploding in spectacular fashion, and yet so quickly that he was able to do no harm to Tigris or Valdemar—nor carry any reports back to the Ancient One.

      His guts hollow with fear, but his eyes and mind once more clear, Valdemar discovered Tigris down on one knee, struggling with the after-effects of the contest.

      Stumbling closer, he seized her by the arm. “It’s gone. I think it must be dead.”

      “Dead and gone,” Tigris confirmed, in a dull voice. Moving slowly, also stumbling at first, she regained her feet. Then some energy returned. Shaking herself free of Valdemar’s grip, she cursed him for a peasant coward: “I could have managed that demon without wasting Farslayer on it! But nothing else will give me a chance to kill my Master, or to break free! I will be helpless without it … Damn you! Damn you, grower of poisoned grapes! I might have coped with the fiend by my own strength! You have cost me my chance for freedom, and damned me to hell!”

      The youth recoiled, shaken. “We might get it back—”

      “There will be no time.”

      Valdemar asked humbly: “What do we do now?”

      For a moment Tigris brandished Wayfinder, as if she meant to cut him down with it. Then, in a voice bleak with depression, close to despair, she admitted: “Still I dare not hurt you.”

      Valdemar could find nothing helpful to say. The woman cried out: “Sword, what am I to do? How am I to survive?”

      Wayfinder, displaying the infinite patience of the gods, silently indicated Valdemar.

      Tigris glared speculatively at her silent counselor. Then a gleam of hope appeared in her eyes. “Is it possible that the Sword of Wisdom has allowed for your idiocy in wasting Farslayer? In that case, peasant, it appears there may still be hope.”

      “I suppose we are to travel again?”

      “Is that it, Sword? Yes, I’ll drag him with me again, wherever you command. But which way?”

      Promptly Wayfinder directed her to the griffin, which had been cowering like a beaten puppy in the demon’s presence. Now, with Dactylartha gone, Tigris was quickly able to re-instill in the lesser creature something like a sense of duty.

      As soon as she and