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

had been stricken—obviously there had not been enough to keep him from lunging for the Sword—was now undone. He had felt the last remnants of that enchantment passing, falling from him, like spiders’ webs dissolving in morning sunlight.

      “Where are we?” she was asking him again, now in what sounded like tearful trust. She wiped at her eyes. “Who are you?” she added, with more curiosity than fright.

      “Who am I. A good question. I ask that of myself, sometimes. Here, sit down, rest, and let me think.” Seating his oddly transformed companion upon a mossy lump of earth—she obeyed directions like a willing child—Valdemar paced about, wondering what question he ought now to ask the Sword.

      His cut fingers, still slowly dripping blood, kept him from concentrating, and he used the peerless edge of Wayfinder to cut a strip from the edge of his own shirt, thinking to make a bandage. The crouching griffin kept turning its head watchfully from time to time, as if estimating its chances of successful escape or rebellion. Valdemar thought that the beast’s eyes glowed faintly with their own fire in the deepening night.

      Tigris, sitting obediently where he had put her, had ceased to weep and was slowly recovering something like equanimity. Now, when he got close enough in the gloom to see her face, he could tell that she was smiling at him. It was a vastly transformed smile, displaying simple joy and anxious friendliness. A child, waiting to be told what was going to happen next.

      As Valdemar stared at the metamorphosed Tigris, a new suspicion really hit him for the first time: the suspicion that this impossible, dangerous young woman could be, in fact, his Sword-intended bride to be.

      Going to her, he unbuckled the empty swordbelt from her slender waist, and, while she watched trustingly, fastened it around his own. Then he sheathed Wayfinder. Waving the little bloodstained rag of cloth which he had been trying to tie up his hand, he asked: “I don’t suppose you could help me with this?”

      “What?”

      “It’s just that trying to bandage my own fingers, working with one hand, is rather awkward.”

      And when he held out the cloth to Tigris, she made a tentative effort to help him. But the sight, or touch, of blood at close range evidently upset her, and the bandaging was only marginally successful.

      Gripping the black hilt of the Sword of Wisdom in his now precariously bandaged hand, Valdemar drew it and asked: “Safety for myself—and for my intended bride—whoever she may be!”

      The Sword promptly gave him a direction. Generally south again. He decided that, since this island had been certified safe for the time being, further travel would have to wait till morning.

      The next question, of course, was whether the griffin was going to get restless and fly away before sunrise. Or grow hungry, perhaps, and decide to eat its erstwhile passengers.

      Valdemar sighed, and decided they would take their chances here for the night.

* * *

      The remaining hours of darkness were spent uncomfortably, with each passenger sleeping, or trying to sleep, in one of the side-baskets, which were still fastened to the griffin’s flanks. Some cargo in the right basket—the most interesting items were food and blankets—was unloaded to make room for Tigris. Valdemar thought it would be hard for the magical beast to attack them while they were on its back; and if the thing felt moved to fly during the night, it could hardly leave its passengers behind. As matters worked out, the griffin remained so still during most of the night that Valdemar wondered from time to time whether the beast had died. But he definitely felt more secure staying in the basket.

      As if his current crop of problems were not quite enough, Valdemar continued to be nagged by worries about his untended vines back home, and about his lack of a wife. The images rose before him of several of the women with whom he had had temporary arrangements; all of them, for various reasons, had proven unsatisfactory.

      At last he slept, but fitfully.

* * *

      In the morning, when it seemed that no more sleep was going to be possible, Valdemar stretched and took stock of the situation. Tigris, as he could see by peering across the empty saddle, was still sleeping like a babe. She actually had one finger in her mouth.

      The griffin, on feeling its heavier passenger stir, looked round lazily; but at least it had done nothing—yet—in the way of a serious rebellion.

      Valdemar had the Sword of Wisdom still gripped in his right hand. Raising it again, he bluntly demanded: “Where is the woman I should marry?”

      His wrist was twisted by an overwhelming force. Remorselessly the weapon continued to point out Tigris.

      Dismounting with a grunt, straightening stiffened limbs, Valdemar walked around to the animal’s right flank and awakened his companion, who rewarded him with a cheerful, vacant smile.

      Then, chewing on some of the food they had removed from that cargo basket, he attempted to nail down the Sword’s meaning beyond any doubt. Addressing Wayfinder, he demanded: “Are you trying to tell me that this, this one with me now, is the very woman? That this creature is not simply meant to be a help of some kind to finding my rightful bride?”

      The Sword, without a tremor, still indicated Tigris.

      “Oh, by all the gods!” the young man roared. Such was his disgust that he felt a serious impulse to throw this Sword away.

      He did in fact make an abortive gesture toward that end, but such was his practical nature that the Sword went no farther than necessary to stick the sharp point in a nearby tree. A moment later and Valdemar had hastened to retrieve the weapon of the gods. Wayfinder might produce some unpleasant surprises, but still it seemed to be the only hope he had.

      A few minutes later they were preparing to fly again. This time Valdemar occupied the saddle, and Tigris went indifferently into the left basket, where he had ridden as her