It opened baleful red eyes and spoke to him in his own voice, magnified somehow so that it resounded from the very bones of his skull.

"Garth, why do you resist me?"

Confused, uncertain what, was happening, Garth did not answer.

"It does you no good to defy me, Garth. You are my chosen vehicle. I created you in my own image, formed you from conception to birth, shaped your body to house me. You are destined to wield my sword and wreak my will. I have waited since the beginning of time for my age of dominion, and you cannot deny it to me. You will serve me, willingly in the joy of power and destruction, or unwillingly in bondage, for the thirty years I am to rule. The choice is yours. Do you still defy me?"

Garth stared in horror, unable to answer. He had caught a glimpse of the thing's face.

"I have been benevolent so far. I have refrained from destruction on your behalf and allowed you to waste time in useless attempts to free yourself from my power. You still resist, and thus I have deigned to speak to you. I could smash your will and force you to submit, and I will do so if you do not cooperate, but I would prefer to have you savor my triumph with me. You are my chosen; do not make me destroy you."

"I...I must think," Garth replied, stalling for time.

"I give you until dawn."

The blackness vanished and the world returned, but Garth could still see, in the back of his mind, the red eyes of the G.o.d.

They were his own eyes. As Bheleu had said, Garth was created in his image. The G.o.d had Garth's face, distorted somehow into an insane thing of terror.

The wizards were still attacking him, despite the carnage they had suffered. Eldritch flashes of light and color sparked up on every side, and a shimmering golden pentagram had formed in the air around him. The thing was ofno consequence; pentacles could bind demons, but not G.o.ds.

One of the humans had crept up behind him, and he saw from the corner of his eye that it was the darkskinned wizard, flinging a blue crystal sphere at him; he swung the sword to meet it in mid-air. It shattered, and blue smoke poured out.

"Twenty leagues due north of Lagur!" someone called, his voice cracking.

The blue smoke expanded and began to wrap itself around Garth. He laughed and blasted the smoke away with a twitch of his blade.

"You sought to dump me in mid-ocean?" He laughed again; he was a mix of both selves, Garth's consciousness with Bheleu's power and knowledge-which he needed to carry on the fight. "Is that the best you can do?" he asked mockingly.

Kubal, still standing where he had crept to fling the teleporting crystal, stared up at the overman. Karag's scheme had not worked. The overman had resisted the spell. Half the councilors were dead already, and the overman was laughing.

Kubal fainted.

Bheleu laughed and brought the sword around, intending to incinerate the unconscious wizard.

Garth fought him. The man had battled to prevent destruction; Garth could do no less. There was no need to kill him.

The sword wavered.

"Perhaps I was too generous. I may not wait until dawn," a voice within Garth said. He alone heard and understood the words.

Bheleu was threatening him. The G.o.d did not care to be thwarted. He wanted to kill this f.e.c.kless wizard here and now, regardless of Garth's reluctance and his avowed intention of allowing Garth freedom to choose his fate.

Garth realized that he could not give in to the G.o.d; his choice was no choice at all. He could fight and have his own personality destroyed, or he could acquiesce and cooperate-which would require him to act in a manner alien to him, taking pleasure in killing, surrounding himself with death and chaos.

If he chose that course, he would no longer be himself any more than if he forced Bheleu to blot his consciousness out of existence. He had a choice of quick destruction, or slow, subtle, but equally sure destruction.

He had to free himself of the G.o.d's domination, and he had to act immediately. Bheleu had given him until dawn, so that was the maximum he could hope for, but it was plain his time might be even shorter; the G.o.d did not seem to feel any obligation to live up to his offer, should Garth continue to resist in the interim.

He wished he had never left Skelleth; he might be able to call upon the Forgotten King and surrender to him before Bheleu could prevent it. Here, in the wilderness, he appeared to be doomed.

In despair, he chose to proclaim his defiance rather than yield willingly. There was always a chance that some miracle would save him. He called, in the same voice Bheleu had used, "I would rather serve the Forgotten King and Death himself!"

The sword turned and pointed at Kubal's prostrate form, but before it could spit forth its flame, a bony hand reached up and grabbed the overman's wrist.

"Swear, Garth," the familiar hideous voice said, plainly audible in a sudden silence that descended upon the battlefield.

Garth stared at the hand and the tattered yellow cowl that flapped in the dying wind. He swallowed and realized he could detect no trace of Bheleu's influence upon him. The fire in the sword was dying away, the red gem's glow dimming.

The gem went black.

Garth remembered that the old man had always seemed to know more than he should. He must have known what was happening here. It was nevertheless a mystery how he had appeared, unscathed, in the midst of the battle, at exactlythe right moment. Garth realized that there were still attackers on all sides and said, "The wizards..."

"They will not harm us," the Forgotten King replied. "Swear that you will fetch me the Book of Silence."

Garth looked down at Kubal. He knew nothing about the man, save that he was a wizard who had come to halt the Age of Bheleu. He would die if Garth did not swear the oath asked of him.

All the wizards would die and hundreds more in time. Bheleu had said that his age would last for thirty years. Garth had not thought of it in those terms; he had thought of the duration of the sword's control as indefinite and vague. Thirty years was definite, and far longer than anything he had thought about.

Thirty years with no control of his own actions-thirty years of killing anyone who opposed him, rightly or wrongly-thirty years of aimless, wanton destruction and death! Garth could not face that. Anything was better than that. He had killed too often already, ended too many lives that were not his to end.

He would not give in to either destruction or death; he would not betray himself and others in that way.

"I swear," he said, "that if you tell me where it can be found, I will bring you the Book of Silence."

"After you bring it, you will aid me in the magic for which I require it. Swear!"

"I will aid in your magic."

The old man's other hand reached up and plucked the great sword casually from Garth's numbed fingers. "I will keep this," he said, "as a token of your good faith."

The words stung, but Garth nodded. He looked around at the wizards.

They stood, motionless, about him.

The Forgotten King held up the Sword of Bheleu and said, "I send you to your homes."

Blue mist gathered around each of the living wizards, thickened, and then vanished, taking them with it and leaving several corpses strewn across the valley, sprawled on the blasted earth. The snow had been melted away for well over a hundred yards in every direction.

"Won't they just return?" Garth asked.

"No. They have the war between Sland and Kholis to keep them busy, and they have been sealed away from the old magicks."

Garth had no idea what the old man was referring to. He gazed about regretfully at the dead. They had brought matters to a head sooner than he had wished; he had never had the chance to ask the Wise Women whether he had another course of action available. He was free of the sword now, but at a price to himself that seemed terrible indeed.

He had sworn an oath he had no intention of fulfilling; his honor was gone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX.

Haggat put down his new scrying gla.s.s and stared at it thoughtfully. He was not entirely pleased with the course events had followed, but it would do. The Council of the Most High had suffered badly, though it was not destroyed. The overman Garth yet lived, but he no longer possessed the Sword of Bheleu and could therefore be dealt with by the cult's ordinary methods. That was all satisfactory.

The yellow-garbed figure might be a problem, however. Haggat did not know who or what he was, but he obviously controlled considerable power, judging by the ease with which he had taken the sword from Garth and apparently rendered it harmless. The scrying gla.s.s would not show him directly, any more than it had been able to show Garth while the sword's powershielded him, but Haggat caught glimpses while watching Garth's slow journey back to Skelleth. The man in yellow tatters had walked at his side the entire distance and occasionally come partially into view. His face had never been visible at all, not even for the briefest of glimpses. He carried the sword as if it weighed nothing and seemed unbothered by cold or fatigue from the long walk-though it was hard to be sure from such fleeting images.

He probably wasn't anybody important, Haggat decided finally. He was some obscure wizard who had chanced upon a spell that could control the sword, at a guess. He was nothing to worry about.

Anyway, it was Garth who concerned the cult. The death of the former high priest had yet to be avenged. Something would have to be done about that.

Shandiph was a wanderer and had no true home of his own; he materialized in Chalkara's chambers in Kholis, side by side with the court wizard, and then collapsed onto the rug. He had survived the great blast, but his injuries were serious. He had remained upright, casting spells, only through force of will.

Chalkara was unhurt; she bent over him and tended to his injuries as best she could, while shouting for the servants.

"Where are the others?" he managed to ask.

"I don't know," she replied. "That...that whatever-it-was said it was sending us home; perhaps the others are in their own homes now."

"They aren't all dead?"

"No, no. They're not. I saw that many still lived."

"That's good." His head fell back on the cushion she had slid beneath it.

"Shandi...who was that? How could he do all that?"

"I think it was the King in Yellow," Shandiph answered.

"He has the sword now."

Shandiph shook his head slightly. "He can't use it. Only the G.o.d's chosen one can use it."

"Then it's all over?"

He nodded, weakly.

A servant appeared in the doorway, staring in astonishment.

"Don't just stand there," Chalkara snapped, "Go find a physician!"

The girl nodded and vanished, her running footsteps echoing in the stone corridor.

Chalkara remained, kneeling over Shandiph's body, praying to the Lords of Eir that he wouldn't die.

There was shouting outside his door; Karag dropped the last splintered fragment of the Great Staff and worked the latch.

Servants and guardsmen were hurrying past; he reached out a soot-blackened hand and stopped a rushing housemaid.

"What's happening?" he croaked.

"Oh, my lord wizard, you're back!"

"Yes, I'm back. What's going on?"

"The Baron has just returned from Kholis, my lord, and they say he's angrier than anyone has ever seen him! The High King has again denied him the Barony of Skelleth, he says, and kidnapped his wizard-he means you! Oh, you had better go and see him at once!"

Karag nodded. "I will go immediately." He released the woman's arm, and she ran off.

He looked down at himself. He was filthy, his cloak was in tatters, but he was unhurt; the staff had protected him. Then that great burst of light had shattered the staff, and he had been certain he was about to die. He remembered that.

Kubal had crept up behind the overman, as his plan called for, while Chalkara drew the pentagram, and he had used the transporting spell, but it hadn't worked; the sword had absorbed it somehow. The overman had laughed; Karag remembered that with painful clarity. The overman had laughed at hisscheme.

Then there had been a stranger in a ragged yellow cloak at the overman's side, taking the sword from him-and then he was here, in his own room.

It didn't seem to make much sense.

There was more shouting somewhere, and he decided against taking time to clean himself up. The Baron would be mad enough with him as it was. He joined the hurrying crowd in the pa.s.sageway and made his way down to the great hall.

As he walked in the door, the Baron, standing on the dais, immediately caught sight of him.

"There you are, traitor! Have you returned to beg my forgiveness?"

"What have I done, my lord? How did I come here?" He had decided instantly upon his approach; he would claim to remember nothing of the last few days. Let the Baron think he had been kidnapped.

The Baron glared at him for a long moment, then said, "All right, I will accept you back, and you will tell me later what became of you. Right now I have more important matters to attend to. I have abrogated the covenant and declared war upon the Baron of Kholis, who calls himself King. My men are preparing to march even now, and the messengers I sent back from the false king's castle have had siege engines built. You, wizard, will aid me in this war with your spells."

Karag stared up at his master in dismay.

Garth sat quietly at the Forgotten King's table in the King's Inn, staring at his mug of ale. He and the old man had travelled all night and half the following morning to return to Skelleth, and Garth had then slept away the rest of the day. When he awoke, the King was back in his corner as if nothing had happened. There was no sign of the sword.

Garth had gotten his ale and seated himself, but neither had spoken.

Finally, the overman said, "It would seem that the Age of Destruction is averted; what does that do to the reckoning of time?"

"Lessened, not averted," the old man replied "Only lessened?"

"Yes. Already the Kingdom of Eramma is destroyed by civil war."

"It is?"

The old man nodded.

Garth wondered at that. He saw no sign of any war, and no news of one had reached him since his return to Skelleth. Still, he knew that the Forgotten King had knowledge beyond the ordinary.

"That's unfortunate. Wars are wasteful and unnecessary."