The Sword of Bheleu (11 page)

Other trade routes were possible, though. There were overmen on the Yprian Coast, and a route might be found to Dûsarra or other cities in Nekutta. So far, the overmen of the Northern Waste had acted only against the people of Eramma; the other human nations would have no grievance. If overland routes could not be found, the sea trade need no longer be limited to Lagur; there were other seaports in Orûn, he was sure, though he knew no names. There might well be other lands of which his people knew nothing, lying beyond Orûn to the east and south, or beyond the Gulf of Ypri to the west. Expeditions would have to be sent out.

There was so very much to do!

The first thing to do was to gather together the survivors of both sides of the battle and set up some sort of organization. That could best be done from the marketplace; it was the one gathering place in town, the place where anyone seeking aid or leadership would go.

Garth knew he should return there immediately. He headed in that general direction, following the glow of the fires that were centered on the square. There was enough light for him to find his way, and within a few moments he found himself on a street he recognized. He followed it in the direction of the market.

He had been certain of the street's identity; but as he approached the market, he thought for a moment that he had made a wrong turn and become lost. The square and its surrounding buildings were unrecognizable; not a single one of the surrounding structures still stood. The smoldering ruins were more thoroughly destroyed than those on Skelleth's fringe. Only the fact that he knew there was no other large clear space in the center of town reassured him that it was indeed the familiar square.

The market was thronged with people and animals, sitting, standing, or lying, clumped together at random. There were several overmen in sight, and a few warbeasts, but most of the crowd was made up of ragged humans and their pets and livestock. The majority were bunched tightly together in a mass that occupied most of the square, avoiding the hot and sooty rubble that surrounded it.

The overmen seemed to be distributed around the perimeter, Garth realized, acting as guards. It was obvious, though, that they were too few to have halted any concerted effort by the humans to leave. The warbeasts were posted in various streets, but the buildings had been so completely leveled that anyone with footwear adequate to protect him from heat and sharp edges could easily have walked out over the rubble between the streets. The humans stayed where they were because they had nowhere else to go.

He looked at the mob of sooty, filthy, ragged humans, at the sooty and bloodstained overmen, and at the smoldering ruins. This desolation was his own doing. He was appalled. How could he have done this?

No, he told himself,
he
hadn't done this. The Sword of Bheleu, or whatever power controlled it, was responsible. Garth's only fault had been over-confidence in believing that he could resist the weapon's magic. He was a reasonable being, with only good intentions; he would not willingly have contributed to such devastation. The sword's power had warped his thoughts and clouded his mind, subtly feeding the honest anger he had felt toward the Baron of Skelleth and using it to overcome his resistance.

He was rid of the thing now, and it was time to start making amends.

“Ho, there!” he called to the nearest overman. “Who's in charge?”

The warrior had been facing away from him, watching the milling humans; now he turned, and Garth recognized him as Tand, Galt's apprentice. His face was black with soot, but that did not quite conceal a line of blood on one sunken cheek. His breastplate was dented near the left shoulder, and a sword was ready in his hand.

When Tand saw who had spoken he lowered the sword. “Oh, it's you,” he said. “Galt and Kyrith are over there, talking to some of the humans.”

“Thank you.” Garth's gaze followed the younger overman's pointing finger, but he could not make out the two named with any certainty. He started to walk in the direction indicated.

“Garth?” Tand's voice was uncertain.

He stopped and turned back toward the apprentice. “Yes?”

“What happened? I thought this was to be a peaceful expedition, but you slew that human, the Baron, and then everyone was fighting. How did it start? Why did you kill him?”

Garth did not reply immediately. After a moment's consideration, he said, “It was as one of the guardsmen said; it was black magic. I was not myself. There was a spell upon me. I am sorry that it happened and I assure you I won't let it happen again.”

“Can you prevent it? How can you stop magic? If it could control you once, why not again?”

“I know what caused it and I have removed the cause.”

“Are you sure?”

Garth felt a moment of anger that the youth doubted him, and began a harsh reply. He stopped abruptly. The sword used and magnified anger, until his will was swallowed by his rage; could he be sure it was not still affecting him? He had left the sword in an empty street half a mile away, but he did not know how far its influence might extend. He could not give it any chance to gain control and lure him back. He suppressed his annoyance, fighting it down inside him. He did not answer the trader's apprentice, but turned and marched away.

Galt and Kyrith were in the northwestern corner of the square; Frima and Saram stood facing them. Koros stood, unattended, a few paces to one side. Garth noticed that Saram's arm was around Frima's waist, and hers was on his shoulder; the two of them, alone of all in sight, were clean, not smeared with dirt and soot.

Galt looked up as Garth approached and called, “Ah, Garth! We missed you!”

“Greetings, Galt. Greetings to you all.”

“We were just discussing matters with these two humans. We're told you brought the female here from the city of Dûsarra.”

“I did.” Garth was not interested in talking about Frima.

“She tells us that you rescued her from a sacrificial altar in order to deliver her to the old man who lives in the tavern here.”

Garth did not want to discuss the Forgotten King either. “Galt, you ask questions that do not concern you.”

“I ask on behalf of your wife, since she cannot speak for herself; she wishes to understand her husband's actions. I, too, am curious.”

“It seems foolish to me to waste time on such trivia when there are far more important concerns to be dealt with. We may have just started the Racial Wars again; surely you realize that.”

Galt's voice lost its normal lilt and turned flat as he replied, “Of course I realize that. You and your temper may have consigned our entire species to extinction, and we must do everything we can to prevent this war from spreading. I saw no need to discuss that immediately, however, since there appears to be little we ourselves can do at present. Your behavior is something else entirely. You must guess, Garth, that all those who know you are curious about how you have acted these past few months. I had hoped that we might come to understand your motives and perhaps learn what has brought about our present catastrophe, the better to prevent its recurrence. You are now inextricably involved in affairs of consequence, and your actions are therefore a matter of importance. Thus, we were attempting to understand them.”

“It was not my temper that did this,” Garth replied, gesturing to indicate the smoking ruins and ragged crowd. “It was that enchanted sword I brought back from Dûsarra.”

Kyrith made a sign to Galt, who said, “That was another subject that concerned us. Where did you get that sword? Why did the gem seem to glow? What sort of an enchantment does it bear? And where is it now? You were very vague about it before. And how did you make it burst into flame and spread fire about the way it did?”

“I didn't make it do anything. The sword has a will of its own, a very ferocious and destructive one, and it got out of control. It acted on its own.”

Galt was silent for a moment before replying, “Are you serious?”

Garth suppressed his annoyance. “Yes, I am serious. The sword is very powerfully enchanted and is either itself an independent entity or is magically linked to a spirit or wizard of some sort.”

“You said before that you found it in a temple someplace?”

“I pulled it from the altar in the temple of Bheleu, the god of destruction, in the city of Dûsarra.”

“The god of destruction? Is that what you were shouting about?”

“That was more of the sword's doing. The entity that controls it claims to be or represent Bheleu. It might be telling the truth. Enough of this, though; we have to straighten out the mess here and make peace with Eramma before the High King at Kholis sends an army to destroy us.”

“A few moments will make no difference. Garth, you have been acting strangely for these past few months. You have gone off on mysterious expeditions with little or no notice, vanishing completely for weeks with no explanation, leaving your wives and family to worry. You have undertaken single-handedly to establish trade with the humans of Eramma. You have now returned unexpectedly from your latest venture and immediately started a disastrous battle...”

Garth interrupted, saying, “The battle was not disastrous; we won easily. It's the consequences of the victory that may be disastrous.”

“I stand corrected. Let me finish, though. You started, then, a battle that could have disastrous consequences. You have acquired a sword with which you are able to perform destructive magic and you claim it has a mind and will of its own; after the battle the sword has mysteriously vanished. You have brought back with you a human female of no particular value, and then abandoned her. You have behaved oddly, perhaps even insanely, screaming a lot of nonsense about gods and death, while setting fires on all sides. I am told by this human, Saram, that you have made some sort of pact with a local wizard who has promised you immortality.

“Garth, surely you see that to all appearances you have become completely irrational, madder than the Baron you slew. We have all deferred to you, and let you go your way, so far as was practical, because you are a respected overman, an honored member of the City Council, an experienced military commander, the hereditary Prince of Ordunin, and generally as highly placed and well-considered as it is possible to be among our people. A great deal of eccentricity can be tolerated under such circumstances. There are limits, however, and until Kyrith and I, the legally appointed co-commanders of this force, have received some acceptable explanation of your behavior, we cannot allow you to go on as you have. The consequences could be too severe. If you refuse to explain yourself, we will be forced to consider you deranged—dangerously so, but perhaps only temporarily—and to exclude you from all authority. If you cause any further difficulty, we may have to disarm you and confiscate your goods and weapons, perhaps even place you under provisional arrest. Do you see our position?”

Garth listened to this speech with shifting emotions. At first he was annoyed, then astonished that Galt and Kyrith could think him to be mad. He was silent for a moment, considering.

He
had
behaved irrationally, he knew that. He had been under the sword's influence. He might even now be less than fully under his own control; he knew that the spell could be subtle and that he need not be touching the weapon to be affected, though he thought it must weaken with distance. He could not be trusted, either by himself or by others. Unpleasant as that conclusion was, he knew he had to accept it.

Hesitantly, he said, “You are correct, Galt and Kyrith. You are entitled to an explanation. I am not mad; I have reasons, reasons I think good and sufficient, for everything I have done. I can see, though, that from your viewpoint my behavior has been strange indeed. I will be glad to explain myself and let you decide for yourselves how to deal with me.”

Saram broke into the conversation. “If I might make a suggestion,” he said, “there is no need to stand about out here while explaining. The King's Inn, over there beyond the ruins of the mansion, was not damaged by the fighting. Frima and I were inside it the whole time, which is why we're unharmed. I suggest that we go there, where we can sit and speak more comfortably, and get some ale to keep tempers from fraying.”

Garth realized that he was, in fact, quite thirsty, his throat full of smoke. He nodded consent.

“An excellent idea,” Galt agreed.

Though the Baron's mansion was gone, the cellars remained, half-filled with rubble and not readily passable in the darkness, forcing the party to take a roundabout route to reach the street where the King's Inn stood. As they passed the ruins, Garth glanced down and noticed something pale in the wreckage. He looked more closely and saw that it was a statue. It had once been a human being, Garth knew; the Baron had used him as a test subject for the basilisk's legendary power. The overman suddenly no longer regretted killing the Baron, whatever the repercussions might be.

The street that ran behind the destroyed manor had been the town's filthiest alleyway, dark and forbidding; now, though, the destruction of the surrounding buildings had let in fresh air and firelight, so that it was no longer much worse than any other debris-strewn byway. Its most outstanding feature was the presence of an unburnt building, the King's Inn.

The three overpeople and two humans picked their way through the gloom, past broken stones and fallen timbers that littered their path, while Koros padded silently along a few paces behind, following its master.

Galt remarked, “It's curious that this tavern should have survived unscathed, so close to the square.”

“It is more curious than you know,” Garth said. “It alone, of all the buildings in Skelleth, withstood the power of the sword when I tried to set it ablaze.”

“I think that you and I, Garth, both suspect why this is,” Saram remarked.

“Tell me, then,” Galt said. “Or is this some great secret that you two share?”