The enchantress lighted tapers, from a small oil lamp that was already burning. She distributed a few of these in the otherwise dark corners of the room, and placed two more on the central table where Dragonslicer now rested on a white linen cloth.

Most of the floor s.p.a.ce in the room was open, while shelves round all the walls contained an armament of magic, arrayed in books and bottles, boxes, jars, and bags. One set of open dishes held grain and dried fruit, another set what looked like plain water and dry earth.

- Yoldi made Mark sit down at the table near the sword, where she made him comfortable, and gave him a delicious drink, not quite like anything he had ever tasted before. Then she began to question him closely about his family, and about the several G.o.dswords he had seen, and about what he thought he would do with his own sword if he could ever get it back. Her questions suggested new ideas to Mark, and made him see his own situation in what seemed like a new light, so that when he looked at the sword before him on the table now he saw it as something different from the weapon he had once held in his own two hands and used to kill a dragon. The more he talked with Yoldi the more fearfully impressive the whole business grew. But somehow he was not more frightened.

Their chat was interrupted by an urgent tapping at the door.

Yoldi went to open it, and listened briefly to someone just outside. A moment-later, with a solemn face, she was beckoning to Mark to follow her out of the room She led him up many stairs, and finally up a ladder, which brought them out onto what proved to be the highest rooftop of the castle. This was a flat area only a few meters square, copper-sheeted against weather and attack by fire, and bounded by a chesthigh parapet of stone. Sir Andrew's Master of the Beasts, a dour young manwho gave the impression of wanting to be old, was on the roof already, doing something to one of a row of man-sized cages that stood under a shelter along the northern parapet. In these cages were kept the flyers, the inhuman messengers and scouts, temporarily before launching and when they had returned from flights.

When Dame Yoldi and Mark appeared on the roof, the Beast- Master silently pointed to the east, into the approaching night.

In that direction a large arc of the horizon was sullenly aglow, with what looked like an untimely dawn, or distant flames.

"The mountains," Mark said, understanding the origin of the glow. And then: "My home."

Dame Yoldi, standing behind him, held him by the shoulders.

"In which direction exactly is your village, boy?" Her voice at first sounded almost eager. "Can you point toward it? But no, I don't suppose that's possible. It's somewhere near those mountains, though."

"Yes." And Mark, coniinuing to stare at the distant fires, lapsed into silence.

"Don't be afraid." Yoldi's tone turned rea.s.suring, while remaining brisk, refusing to treat volcanoes as a disaster. Her grip was comforting. "Your folic are probably all right. I know these foothill people, ready to take care of themselves. It might actually be a good thing for them, make them get out of Duke Fraktin's territory if they haven't done so already." The enchantress turned away to the dour man, asking: "When is your next scout due back from the east?"

Mark did not understand whatever it was that the man answered. He was intent on wondering what might be happening to his home, on picturing his mother and his sister as stumbling refugees.

"I wonder," Dame Yoldi was musing to herself, "if anyone's told Andrew about this yet. He ought to be told, but he's down there talking to the fellow from Yambu-probably wouldn't do to interrupt him now."

And now Mark saw that one of the airborne scouts was indeed coming in against the fading sky; coming from the south and not the east, but approaching with weary, urgent speed.

Baron Amintor, who was Queen Yambu's emissary to Sir Andrew, was a large man, the size of Sir Andrew himself but younger. The Baron with his muscles and his scars looked more the warrior than the diplomat. He had the diplomat's smooth tongue, though, and Sir Andrew had to admit to himself that the man's man ners were courteous enough. It was only the substance of what the visitor had to say that Sir Andrew found totally objectionable.

The two men were conversing alone in a small room, not far above the ground level of the castle, and within earshot of Sir Andrew's armory, where the clang of many hammers upon metal signalled the process of full mobilization that the knight had already put into effect. It was a sound he did not want his visitor to miss.

Not that the Baron appeared to be taking the least notice of it. "Sir Andrew, if you will only hand over to me now, fordelivery to the Queen, whichever of these swords you now possess, and grant the Queen's armies the right of free pa.s.sage through your territory-which pa.s.sage you will not be able to deny her in any caseyou will then be under her protection as regards these threats you have lately been receiving from Duke Fraktin. And, I may add, from any similar threats that may arise from any quarter. Any quarter," Amintor repeated, with a sly, meaningful look, almost a wink. At that point he paused.

Sir Andrew wondered what particular fear or suspicion that near-wink had been calculated to arouse in him; but no matter, he was worrying to capacity already, though he trusted that it did not show.

Baron Amintor went on: "But, of course, Her Majesty cannot be expected to guarantee the frontiers or the safety of any state that is unfriendly to her. And if for some misguided reason you should withhold from. her these swords, these tools so necessary to Her Majesty's ambitions for a just peace, then Her Majesty cannot do otherwise than consider you unfriendly." At this point the Baron's voice dropped just a little. It seemed that, bluff soldier that he was, it rather shocked him to think of anyone's being unfriendly to Yambu.

' Ah," Sir Andrew remarked. "The tools necessary for a just peace. I rather like that. Yes, that's quite good..

"Sir Andrew, believe me, Her Majesty has every intention of respecting your independence, as much as possible. But, to be unfriendly and small at the same time-that is really not the policy of wisdom."

"Wisdom, is it? Small, are we?" Bards would never repeat such words of defiance; but Sir Andrew felt that the man standing before him did not deserve anything in the way of fine or even thoughtful speech. And anyway he felt too angry to try to produce it.

"Good sir, the fact is that your domain is comparatively small.

Comparatively weak. Duke Fraktin is of course as well aware of these facts as you and I are, and the Duke is not your friend. The people of your lands-well, they are brave, I am sure. And loyal to you-most of them at least. But they are not all that numerous.

And they are widely scattered. This castle-" and here the Baron, being bluff and military, thumped his strong hand on the wall - is a fine fortress. The noise from your armory is entertaining.

But, how many fighting men have you actually mobilized so far, here on the spot and ready to fight? Two hundred? Fewer, perhaps? No, of course you need not tell me. But think upon the number in your own mind. Compare it to the numbers that are ready to cross your borders now, from two directions, east and west. You can prevent neither the Queen's army crossing, nor the Duke's. And then think upon the people in your outlying villages that you are never going to be able to defend. At least not without Her Majesty's gracious help."

Sir Andrew stood up abruptly. He was so angry that he did not trust himself. "Leave me now."

The Baron was already standing. He turned, without argument, without either delay or evidence of fear, and took a couple of steps toward the door. Then he paused. "And have you any further message for the Queen?"

"I say leave me for now. You will be shown where to wait. Iwill let you know presently about the message."

As soon as Sir Andrew was alone, he left the small chamber where he had been talking with Baron Amintor, and walked into another, larger room, where most of his old books were kept. There by lamplight he picked up a volume, fingered it, opened it, closed it, and put it down again. When was he ever going to have time to read again? Or would he die in battle soon, and never have time again to read another book?

After that, he took himself in a thoughtful, silent, solitary walk down into the dungeon. There he stood in front of the one cell that held a human being, gazing thoughtfully at the prisoner.

Kaparu his captive looked back at him nervously. Down the side corridor, workers were busy opening the cells where birds and animals were confined, preparing to set the small inmates free. War was coming, and luxuries had to go, including the dream of a vivarium in the castle grounds.

At length the knight spoke. "You, Kaparu, are my only human prisoner. Have you meditated upon the meaning of my last reading to you? I do not know when, if ever, it will be possible to read to you again, and try to teach you to be good."

"Oh, yes, indeed I have meditated, sire." Kaparu's hands slipped sweatily on the bars to which he would have clung.

"And-and I have learned this much at least, that you are a good man. And I was quite sure already that those who are planning to invade your lands are not good people. So, I -I would give much, sire, not to be in this cell when . . . that is, if. . . "

"When my castle is overrun by them, you mean. A natural and intelligent reaction."

"Oh, if you would release me, sire, if you would let me out, I would be grateful. I would do anything."

"Would you go free, and rob no more?"

"Gladly, sire, I swear it."

Sir Andrew, hesitating in inward conflict, asked him: "Is your oath to be trusted, Kaparu? Have you learned that it is no light thing to break an oath?"

"I will. not break mine, sire. Your readings to me . . . they have opened my eyes. I can see now that all my earlier life was wrong, one great mistake from start to finish."

Sir Andrew looked long at Kaparu. Then, with a gentle nod, he reached for the key ring at his own belt.

A little later, when the knight had heard the latest message from the flying scouts, and had begun to ponder the terrible news of the raising of the Gray Horde, he sent away Yambu's amba.s.sador with a final message of defiance. There seemed to him to be nothing else that he could do.

After that, Sir Andrew went up to the highest parapets of his castle, which at the moment were otherwise unoccupied, there to lean out over his battlement and brood. Everywhere he looked, preparations for war and seige were being made, and he had much to ponder.

Presently he was aware that someone else had joined him on the roof, and he looked up from his thoughts and saw Dame Yoldi standing near. From her expression he judged that she had no urgent news or question for him, she had simply come in his hour of need to see what else she might be able to do to help.

"Andrew.""Yoldi . . . Yoldi, if the power in these G.o.d-forged swords is indeed so great, that these evildoers around us are ready to risk war with each other, as well as with us, to obtain even one of them-if it is so great, I say, then how can I in good conscience surrender to them even one source of such power?"

Dame Yoldi nodded her understanding, gently and sadly. "It would seem that you cannot. So you have already decided.

Unless the consequences of refusing to surrender strike you as more terrible still?"

"They do notl By all the demons that Ardneh ever slew or paralyzed, we must all die at some time, but we are not all doomed to surrender! But the people in the villages haunt me, Yoldi. I can do nothing to protect them from Fraktin or Yambu."

"It would give those village people at least some hope for the future-those among them who survive invasion-if you could stand fast, here in your strong place, and eventually reclaim your lands."

"If I try to stand fast, here or anywhere, then I must say to my people: 'March to war.' We know, you and I, what war is like.

Some of the young ones do not know . . . but it apears that the evil and the horror of war are coming upon them anyway, whatever I decide. No surrender will turn back such enemies as these, once they are mobilized upon my borders, or moderate what they do to my people. Regardless of what they might promise now. Not that I have asked them for any promises, or terms. Why ask for what I would never believe from them anyway?"

A silence fell between the knight and the enchantress, the world around them quiet too except for the distant c.h.i.n.king from the armorers. "I must go back to my own work," Yoldi said at last, and kissed the lord of the castle once, and went away.

"And I must go down," said Sir Andrew aloud to himself, "and inspect the defenses."

A little later when he was walking upon the castle's outer wall, near one of the strong guard-towers that defended the main gate, Sir Andrew encountered one of his old comrades in arms, and fell into conversation with him.

' A long time, Sir Andrew, since we've had to draw our swords atop these walls."

"Yes, a long time."

At some point the comrade had turned into quite an old man, white-haired and wrinkled, and Sir Andrew, not remembering him as such, could not quite shake the feeling that this aged appearance was some kind of a disguise, which the other would presently take off. The talk they had sounded cheerful enough, though most of the matters they talked about were horrible, seige and stratagem, raid and counterattack and sally.

"That kept 'em off our backs a good long time, hey sir?"

"Not long enough." Sir Andrew sighed.

And presently he was once more left alone, still standing on the wall near the main gate. This was a good vantage point from which to overlook the thin, intermittent stream of provision carts, fighting men, and refugees that came trickling up thewinding road that led from the intersection of the highways to the castle.

Here came some priests and priestesses of Ardneh, white- robed and hurried, who had just pa.s.sed an inspection at the checkpoint down the way. They were driving two carts, that Sir Andrew could at least hope were filled with medical supplies.

Sometimes, in time of war, Temples of Ardneh stood unscathed in the midst of contending armies. Each leader and each fighter hoped that if he were wounded, he would be cared for if there were room. But evidently it would not be that way this time.

Ardneh, in a sense, was coming to Sir Andrew's side; and, medical supplies aside, the troops were sure to take that as a good omen.

Sir Andrew closed his eyes, and gripped the parapet in front of him. He thought of praying to Ardneh for more direct help- although with part of his mind he knew, knew better than almost anyone else in the world, that though Ardneh had once lived, he had now been dead for almost two thousand years. Sir Andrew knew it well. And yet . . .

And this mystery regarding Ardneh called to mind another, that had long troubled Sir Andrew and that none of his studies had ever been able to solve: If Ardneh was dead, why were all the world's other G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses alive? The common opinion was that all of them had been living since the creation of the world, or thereabouts, and that of course Ardneh was still alive with all the others. But Sir Andrew had the gravest doubts that the common opinion was correct.

He tended instead to trust certain historical writings, that spoke in matter-of-fact terms of Ardneh's exist- ence and his death, but did not so much as mention Vulcan, Hermes, Aphrodite, Mars, or any of the rest- with the sole exception of the Beast-Lord Draffut. And Draffut was not a.s.signed the importance of Ardneh, or of their evil opponent Orcus, Lord of Demons.

And whatever Sir Andrew might think of G.o.ds, he had no doubts at all about the reality of demons.

At some time in his long years of study and deep thought, a horrible suspicion had been born, deep in his mind: That the ent.i.ties that who now called them- selves G.o.ds, were recognized by humanity as G.o.ds, and who claimed to rule the world-whenever they bothered to take an interest in it-that these beings were in fact demons who had survived from the era of Ardneh and of Orcus. But there were, comfortingly, important difficulties with that theory too.

After all Sir Andrew's study of the G.o.ds, all he could say about them with absolute certainty was very little: That most of them were real, here and now, and very powerful. The swords were testimony enough to the real power of Vulcan.

Yoldi was a fine magician, and a brave one. But there were limits to the ability of any magician to reach and control the ultimate powers of reality.

Why in the names of all the G.o.ds and demons didthe universe have to be such a complicated, confused, and contrary place? Sir Andrew thought now, not for the first time, that if he had been put in charge of the design, he would have done things differently.

Sir Andrew had opened his eyes for a while, closed them again, and was trying to decide whether he was really praying to Ardneh now or not, when he heard his name called from below. Looking down, he saw that one man had stepped aside from the continued trickle of traffic approaching the castle, and was now standing just below Sir Andrew on the shoulder of the road. The man was in his late youth or early middle age, rather slight of build, and with a traveled look about him. He wore a large sword, belted on with what looked like rope or twine, that immediately drew Sir Andrew's attention.

The man had to speak again before Sir Andrew recognized the dragon-hunter, Nestor. "Sir Andrew? I bring you greetings from the Beast-Lord, Dmffut."

CHAPTER 17.

Even traveling almost without pause, at the best speed made possible by his enormous strides, it had taken Draffut a day and a half to get from the temple island near the middle of the Great Swamp east as far as the high plains. And night was falling again before he reached the region in Duke Fraktin's domain where the upward slope of land began to grow p.r.o.nounced., The volcanic fires that had lighted the eastern sky when seen from hundreds of kilometers away were at this close range truly spectacular.

Almost immediately upon leaving the swamp behind, Draffut had begun to encounter refugees from the eruption. These were mainly folk from Duke Fraktin's high villages, where a ma.s.s evacuation had obviously started. The villagers were fleeing their homes and land in groups, as families, as individuals, moving anywhere downslope, most of them lost now in unfamiliar territory. Some of these people, pa.s.sing Draffut at a little distance, shouted to him word of what they considered Vulcan's wrath-as if Draffut should not be able to see for himself the flaming sky ahead.

Draffut was not sure whether these folk were trying to warn him, to plead for his intercession with the G.o.ds, or both. "I will speak to Vulcan about it," he said, when he said anything at all in answer. Carefully he avoided stepping on any of the people.

For the most part of course they said nothing to him. They were astonished and terrified to see him, and in their panic would sometimes have run right under his feet, or would have driven their livestock or their farm-carts into him. Draffut made his way considerately around them all, and went on east. and up.

He had no such need to be careful with the small units of Duke Fraktin's army that he encountered along the way, some of them even before he had entered the Duke's domain. Whether mounted or afoot, these always scattered in flight before Draffut's advance, as if they took it for granted that he would be their deadly enemy. Draffut could not help thinking back to the time when soldiers had cheered him and looked to him for help.

But that had been many ages and wars ago, and halfway around the world from here.In a lifetime that had spanned more than fifty thousand years, Draffut had often enough seen swarms of human refugees, and even burning skies like these. But seldom before had he felt the earth quiver beneath his feet as it was quivering now.

When he got in among the barren foothills he continued climbing without pause. Now the rumbling towers of fire loomed almost above his head, and fine ash drifted continuously down around him. He thought that there were forces here that could destroy him, that he was no longer immune to death, as he might once have been. His own powers, absorbed over ages, were fading as slowly as they had been gained, but they were fading.

Yet he could feel little personal fear. By his nature, Draffut could not help but be absorbed in larger things than that.

The shuddering, burning agony of the mountains against the darkening sky brought back more old memories to Draffut. One of these recollections was very old indeed, of another mountain, upon another continent, that once-had split to spill the Lake of Life . . . that had been in the days of Ardneh's greatest power.

Ardneh, whom Draffut had never really known at all, despite the current human version of the history of the world. It hardly mattered now, for now Ardneh was long dead . . .

The question to be answered now was, where had these new creatures of power sprung from, these upstart ent.i.ties calling themselves G.o.ds? Ardneh in his days of greatest strength had never claimed to be a G.o.d, nor had the evil Orcus. Indeed, it seemed to Draffut looking back that for thousands of years the very word G.o.d had been almost forgotten among humanity.

If he tried to peer back too far into his own past, he reached an epoch where all memory faded, blurring into disconnected scenes and meaningless impressions. He knew that these were remnant of a time when his intelligence, brain, and body had been very different from what they were now. But certainly Draffut's memory of the past few thousand years was sharp and clear. He could recall very well the days when Ardneh and Orcus had fought each other. And in those days, not one of these currently boasting, sword-making upstarts who called themselves G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses had walked the earth: They bore names from the remote past of human myth, but who were they? By what right did they plan for themselves games that involved for humanity the horror of wars? Draffut could no longer delay finding out.

He had climbed only a little way up the first slopes of the real mountain when he found his way blocked by a slow stream of lava, three or four meters wide. The air above the lava writhed with heat. And in the night and the h.e.l.lglow on the far side of the molten stream, visible amid swirling fumes and boiling air, there stood a two-legged figure far too large to be human, even if a human could have stood there and lived. The figure was roughly the same size as Draffut himself, and it was regarding Draffut, and waiting silently.

In the raging heat he could see nothing of the figure clearly but its presence. He stopped, and called a salutation to it, using an ancient tongue that either Ardneh or Orcus would have understood at once. There was no reply.

Now Draffut summoned up what he could of his old powers,concentrating them in his right hand. Then he bent down and thrust that hand into the sluggish, crusting, seething stream of lava. Without allowing himself to be burned, he scooped up a dripping handful of the molten rock. With another exertion of his will he gave the handful of magma temporary life, so that what had been dead rock quickened and soared aloft in the hot, rising air, making a small silent explosion of living things exquisite as b.u.t.terflies.

Still the figure that waited beyond the lava-stream would not move or speak. But now another like itself had joined it, and as Draffut watched yet another and another one appeared. The G.o.ds were a.s.sembling to watch what he was doing, to judge him silently.

He wanted more than that from them. He stood erect and brushed his hands clean of smoking rock. It was impossible to tell from the silent observation whether the onlookers were impressed by what he had done.

In a carrying roar he challenged them: "Why do you not tell humanity the truth? Are you afraid of it?"

There was a stir among the group, images wavering in the heat. With the noise of the earth itself pervading all, Draffut could not tell what they might be saying among themselves. At last a voice, larger than human, boomed back at him: "Tell them yourself, you s.h.a.ggy dog."

Another voice followed, high clear tones that must be those of a G.o.ddess: "We know well what you used to be, Beast-Lord, when first you followed your human masters into the cave of the Lake of Life, fifty thousand years ago and more. Do not pretend to grandeur now."

And yet another voice, belligerent and male: "Yes, tell them yourself-but will they believe what they are told by a dog, the son of a b.i.t.c.h? Never mind that some of them now think you are a G.o.d. We can fix that!"