Seventh Decimate

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  “Magister Rummage does not respond gently when the principles of our hospitality are ignored.”

  “I did not touch my sword,” repeated the Amikan. “Is this your hospitality? I trusted it. I have respected it. This Bellegerin does not.”

  With his free hand, the hunchback clasped Magister Avail’s arm and began to tap a message.

  The portly theurgist attempted reassurance. “Calm yourself, Commander. Fear nothing. I have said that the fault is mine. When the Prince accepted our invitation, I imagined that I had no clear cause to doubt his readiness. I neglected to caution him.

  “But if there is no fault in him, there is certainly none in you. You are our guest, as he is. Magister Rummage will permit no harm between you.”

  Without warning, Magister Rummage released Prince Bifalt’s wrists. The tearing pain as the Prince’s limp hands fell to the table forced a cry between his teeth.

  “Come, Prince,” continued Magister Avail. “I will see you mended.”

  Prince Bifalt attempted to roll off the table, get his legs under him. But his limbs refused to obey him. Through a veil of pain, he watched the Amikan commander resume his seat.

  After a moment, the familiar monk, Set Ungabwey’s adviser, took the Amikan’s place among the crowded spectators.

  “If you will permit it, Magisters,” murmured the monk. Head lowered, he regarded the tabletop rather than the sorcerers or the Prince. “I will stand surety for him. His back is hurt. His wrists will not heal themselves. And he is known to me, in a small way. I will escort him to the physicians.”

  Magister Rummage tapped rapidly on his deaf comrade’s arm. In a moment, Magister Avail recovered his smile.

  “Thank you,” he replied to the monk. “Your offer is gracious. His ire may be eased if he speaks with a man who can both hear and answer.”

  Bowing, the monk of the Cult of the Many moved around the end of the table to reach Prince Bifalt. As the monk drew near, the hunchback gripped the Prince’s shoulders, lifted him bodily, and set him on his feet. At once, the monk clasped his arm so that he would not lose his balance.

  Prince Bifalt’s hands hung at his sides. They felt like lumps of iron dragging on the savaged bones of his wrists. In his back, every rib seemed dislocated. He had mind enough to know that he needed a physician. Even the best surgeon in Belleger would probably leave him crippled. Still, he refused to move, despite the monk’s gentle pressure, until Magister Rummage, gnashing his teeth, snatched up the Prince’s saber and slammed it into its scabbard at his belt. Then he allowed himself to be led away.

  Using the last force of his will, he avoided any glance at the Amikan.

  He could not imagine why his enemy was here. The man was not the first Amikan to visit the library. Someone before him had read and mastered Marrow’s Seventh Decimate. What more did Amika need to satisfy its hunger for Belleger’s destruction?

  But Prince Bifalt was in too much pain to think. He did not notice where the monk took him when they left the refectory, or what corridors they traveled. He did not hear the monk murmur, “Soon, Prince. Soon.” Unable to suffer the hurt of his wrists, he concentrated instead on trying to shuffle his feet in a way that might loosen his back.

  What did stand surety mean? The words told him nothing.

  Their passage through the Last Repository may have been short. To Prince Bifalt, it felt intolerable. By the time the monk reached his destination, the Prince was staggering. He needed all the support the monk could give him.

  The monk had not said a word during the confrontation in Set Ungabwey’s wagon.

  The library’s infirmary was spacious and well lit, but it was not clean. Dirt, feathers, beads, and strange powders were scattered across the floor. There were only two cots, both soiled with sweat, blood, and other fluids. The room had no surgeon’s table, no array of knives, probes, or bone-saws, no recognizable supply of balms, unguents, or obvious medicines. Instead, the walls were lined with shelves holding piles of small bones and large feathers, dirty pouches of beads or powders, an assortment of rattles, and strips of cloth which appeared to have been used to bind many seeping wounds without ever being washed.

  The cots were empty. A single individual occupied the chamber. He was one of the naked men. Like them, he wore only a loincloth. Like them, he had a number of beads and feathers woven into his hair. However, he was distinguished by tattoos on his arms, torso, and legs. Each of them depicted some form of mangled flesh.

  Instinctively, Prince Bifalt recoiled. The man was a savage.

  The savage gave his patient a contemptuous glance. More respectfully, he regarded the monk, although the monk did not lift his gaze from the floor. Then the man turned away to study his shelves.

  Hardly able to form words, the Prince managed to ask, “Who is he?” He meant, What is he?

  “Amika is a small place,” answered the monk, speaking softly, “but Belleger is smaller. The world is large. This healer undertook a year’s journey and crossed an ocean to study among the Magisters and their tomes. Now he repays the opportunity, which he considers a debt.

  “In the language of his people, he is a shaman. His gift is sorcery by another name. But it is not a Decimate. It cannot be used for harm.

  “Any Decimate has two uses. One is beneficial. The other wreaks damage and death. But sorcery is greater than you know. Decimates are a lesser portion of the knowledge gathered here.”

  During his quest, Prince Bifalt had learned that sorcery exceeded his conception of it. The voice in his mind, and the saving of his life, had told him as much. And in Set Ungabwey’s caravan, he had discovered that the world itself was far larger than he could have realized. Now, wounded and bitter, he found that he could not accept further expansion. If the world were too large to be understood, it made Belleger too small to be valued. Of necessity, he closed his mind to the implications. Rather than struggle to imagine realms a year and oceans distant, he clung to his purpose.

  Through his pain, he demanded, “The sorcerers keep this knowledge?” He meant, Keep it for themselves?

  “They preserve it,” amended the monk. “They share it freely with any who will not misuse it.”

  There Prince Bifalt stood on surer ground. “You are mistaken.” If his perception of the world’s scale—and Belleger’s—had shifted, one truth did not. “They shared the seventh Decimate with Amika. Amika has used it to ensure Belleger’s ruin.”

  During this exchange, the savage or healer selected a pouch and two rattles from his collection. Before the monk could reply, the man approached the Prince, opened his pouch, and tossed a foul powder at the Prince’s face.

  Prince Bifalt tried to flinch away, but he could not stop himself from inhaling.

  At once, a fit of coughing took him: a spasm of revulsion so fierce it seemed to rip the muscles of his chest.

  Fortunately, the fit was brief. And when it passed, the pain in his back had vanished. His chest ached for a breath or two. Then that discomfort faded as well.

  Sneering, the savage or healer turned away again. Shaking his rattles, he began to stamp his feet in a small circle, around and around. Deep in his throat, he made a guttural sound. It had the cadences of chanting.

  Prince Bifalt gaped. He could not stop himself. He was transfixed. At every turn, he saw that the shaman’s eyes had rolled back in his head. They showed only a moist glare of white.

  Compelled by chanting, or by the irregular beat of rattles, the Prince’s mind made circles like the shaman’s. It spun around and around until it was gone.

  When he returned to himself an hour or two later, awakened by the rank odor of old stains, he was lying on one of the filthy cots. To escape the smell, he swung his legs off the cot, rolled to sit upright. Blinking away the residue of sleep, he regarded the infirmary.

  The tattooed savage was absent. The monk of the Cult of the Many sat o
n the other cot with his eyes closed like a man deep in meditation.

  After a moment, the Prince realized that sitting up did not hurt his back. Cautiously, he moved his fingers. Wincing in anticipation, he turned his wrists. They were not swollen. The bones did not grind against each other. There was no pain. His hands and forearms felt as strong as ever.

  —sorcery by another name. He had no other explanation. That shaman was a better physician than anyone in Belleger.

  A disquieting thought. It confirmed Belleger’s littleness. Worse, it suggested that Magister Rummage could unleash violence whenever he wished. There would be no lasting consequences. As long as he did not kill his victim outright—

  Prince Bifalt tested his neck. He tested his wrists again. He made sure he still had his weapons. They lay on the floor nearby. Then he shifted his attention to the monk.

  The man seemed to feel the Prince’s gaze. He opened his eyes, took and released a deep breath. But he did not look at his companion. Softly, always softly, he asked, “Are you satisfied, Prince?”

  Satisfied? wondered Prince Bifalt. Satisfied how? That he had been healed? Yes. That the shaman’s sorcery could not do harm? No. That he could trust the Last Repository’s hospitality? Never.

  That the Amikan he had wanted to kill was here for some innocent purpose? Absolutely not.

  Clearing remembered pain from his throat, the Prince said the first words that came to him.

  “The shaman healed me.” He rolled his wrists to demonstrate their wholeness, flexed his fingers. “But he holds me in contempt. I saw it in his eyes. He did not heal me because I was broken. He did it to pay his debt.

  “I am a prince of Belleger, King Abbator’s eldest son. My quest is honorable. It is also vital. How does he imagine I have earned his scorn?”

  He meant, How does he dare despise me? Is this what the sorcerers teach, men who have more power than kings and princes?

  The monk may have shrugged under his robe. “His gift is the healing of wounds. He knows only that you provoked Magister Rummage. In his mind, such folly merits scorn. He does not see you.” After a pause, the monk added, “That gift is mine.”

  Prince Bifalt started to ask how the savage could have known that the hunchback had broken his wrists. But then he realized what the answer would be. Magister Rummage enforced the sorcerers’ prohibition against violence. Only he had the authority—or the inclination—to harm anyone who violated that principle.

  Shaking his head, the Prince asked a different question.

  “What do you see? What does your gift tell you?”

  Without hesitation, the monk replied, “I see your confusion, Prince. You are at war with yourself. Your struggle is not with Amika. It is within you. But you do not know it.”

  This unexpected response startled harsh laughter from Prince Bifalt. “Absurd,” he retorted. “If that is what you see, your gift is an illusion. I serve my king and my people. I serve Belleger’s survival. Amika will not rest until we are destroyed or enslaved. My war is there.”

  The monk made a low musing sound. Without raising his eyes, he asked, “How will they destroy you?”

  The Prince saw no reason to hold back. This was not an occasion for diplomacy. He did not need caution with the Cult of the Many. Whatever the monks might be elsewhere, here some of them were mere servants.

  “They have already done it,” he answered. “They have worked the seventh Decimate against us. They have rid us of sorcery. Now we have only our rifles, and they are not enough.”

  “Dire straits indeed,” admitted the monk, nodding. “But they do not explain your presence. Why have you come so far, when you are needed to defend your homeland?”

  “We have our rifles,” insisted the King’s son. “Amikan armies will not overcome us easily or quickly. Still, their sorcery will slaughter us eventually. I have been sent to acquire the seventh Decimate for Belleger. If our enemies also are deprived of sorcery, we can stand against them for a time.”

  “Ah,” reflected the monk. “The Seventh Decimate. One of Hexin Marrow’s books. And, of course, Amika does not have rifles.

  “What will you do, Prince, when you have balanced the scales?”

  Prince Bifalt knew his answers. He had them ready. “They will not be balanced. Our rifles are too few. Without the Decimate of fire, they are difficult to forge.” He meant impossible. “And Amika’s supply of men seems endless. There are always more. But our population has been shredded. Generation after generation, we put fewer men in the field.

  “Our enemies do not need sorcery to overrun us. They will sweep us from the earth when they realize we do not have enough rifles.”

  The monk appeared to consider Belleger’s plight. After a moment, he remarked, “Yet you imagine the seventh Decimate can save you. Your quest serves no purpose otherwise.”

  “I think it can,” asserted the Prince. “As I have said, it will end Amika’s use of sorcery. But I think it will also restore our Magisters.” He had no other explanation for the desperation of the ambush that had killed more than half of his men. “Then the atrocity of our losses will be avenged.”

  Briefly, the monk raised his eyes to Prince Bifalt. However, the Prince saw nothing in them. They regarded him as if they were unaware of his presence.

  Returning his gaze to the floor, the monk asked, “Will such a victory be honorable? You suffer in a conflict that is unequal in Amika’s favor. Will you be vindicated when the conflict is unequal in yours?”

  “It will be just,” countered the Prince. Then honesty forced him to confess, “But I understand you. I have considered your question. Perhaps you will understand me.

  “An unequal victory will not be honorable, if it is gained by sorcery. There can be no honor in the world while sorcery exists. There can be no honor while one man can kill another, or use him, without hazard to himself because his victim is defenseless. The gifts of Magisters are given unequally. Those who are not gifted are helpless through no fault or failing of theirs.

  “Monk, I loathe sorcery. I despise its arrogance. I hate its power to corrupt those who have it. It is dishonorable. If I could, I would rid the world of it.”

  “But not,” suggested the monk mildly, “until Belleger has defeated Amika.”

  “Yes!” snapped the King’s son. “I will not sacrifice my people to soothe my conscience. I am not so arrogant. Amika must be broken. It must be made to surrender.”

  Gathering his cassock, the monk rose to his feet. His gaze considered the shaman’s shelves, the walls of the chamber. Slowly, he moved to leave the infirmary.

  Near the entryway, however, he turned to the Prince once more. His gaze regarded the floor.

  “Then, Prince Bifalt,” he said gently, “eldest son of Belleger’s King, I stand by what I have seen. You profess to loathe sorcery, but you mislead yourself. If you did not covet it, you would not consent to Amika’s ruin. An equal contest would content you. You would not choose to dishonor yourself. You would not choose dishonor for your people.”

  Prince Bifalt swallowed a spike of anger. “Again you are absurd,” he retorted. “Belleger’s struggle is not only a matter of honor. Its cost in lives is high. Bellegerin lives, yes—but also Amikan.

  “Have you seen how Amika abuses its own people? Do you know Amikans kill their wounded after every battle? Have you watched them starve their own children in order to sacrifice them as bait?”

  The monk bowed his head. “I have not. It must be terrible.”

  “Then,” avowed the Prince, “you judge what you do not understand. I admit that the means I strive to acquire are not honorable. I accept the dishonor. The ends I want to achieve are just. They are necessary.

  “That will satisfy me.”

  The monk sighed. “I do not judge, Prince. The Cult of the Many does not. I merely inquire. If your cause is just, why does serving i
t enrage you? Do you need anger to stifle your judgment of yourself? Are you not already corrupted?”

  For an instant, Prince Bifalt stared. Then he burst out laughing. Does he accuse me—me!—of judging myself? Of hiding my judgment behind a screen of anger? He does not know me.

  The Prince had made mistakes. He understood them all. But his wrath was not one of them. It was more than honest: it was reasonable. His interminable frustration and Belleger’s helplessness explained it. Only a madman would not feel as he did, believe as he did.

  Prince Bifalt’s laughter sent the monk out of the infirmary.

  Mirth relieved him for the moment. It vindicated him to himself. But it did not answer any of his needs. When it subsided, he wrapped his resolve around him, retrieved his weapons, and stood. If he could find a servant who would guide him, he meant to seek for some sorcerer who might tell him what he had to know. Failing that, he wanted to return to the refectory. He had not broken his fast; and perhaps Elgart would be there. He would force himself to ignore the Amikan.

  In one way, however, he did not know his own mind. At unexpected moments, he remembered what Slack had told him.

  A man is not a man at all if he cannot enter and enjoy every chamber of himself.

  Why was he haunted by the words of a man who had betrayed him and Belleger?

  A servant waiting in the passage outside the infirmary led him back to the refectory. Although he told her plainly that he wished to speak with someone of importance in the Repository—with any personage who was not deaf or mute—she did not reply. When they reached the entrance to the refectory, she gestured him inward, but did not accompany him.

  Prince Bifalt found the hall almost empty. He saw no more than a dozen men and women seated at widely scattered tables, and none of them were Elgart, or Amandis, or anyone he knew. If any of them noticed him, they did not show it. Only the sounds of bustle from the kitchen assured him that he would still be fed.