by David Duncan
A faint blush spread over the high cheekbones, the dark eyes were lowered. "Thank you, apprentice." A good voice. Jja turned to take the baby, who was now sitting on Nnanji's shoulders, wedged hi place by his sword hilt. Little Vixini resisted, screaming angrily and clutching the swordsman's ponytail.
Then Lord Shonsu's strong arm pulled another woman up from the boat. "This," he said, "is Cowie." There was an odd note in the way he spoke, as if he had said something funny.
Cowie was another slave, and another sort of slave. If Lord Shonsu was the epitome of masculinity, then Cowie was the ultimate sex partner. Quili had never seen a figure so exaggeratedly female, and it was barely concealed at all by the flimsy wisp of garment. Her breasts strained against it, her arms and legs were soft and voluptuously rounded, her face was a lovely and sweet nothing. At the sound of her name, the provocative lips parted in an automatic smile, but her eyes continued to stare blankly at the shore.
Quili remembered her misgivings about her own too-tight gown. In this company she was not going to be noticed.
Nnanji had said something about buying a slave. She glanced at him, and he turned away.
Then another black-clad figure was lifted up by hands below, accepted, and gently set down by Lord Shonsu. He was very tiny and very old, his head totally hairless, his neck a crumple of wrinkles. The gown he wore appeared to be both too large for him and also a woman's garment. A black headband covered his brow. Quili blinked in astonishment at this apparition―babies, slaves, and beggars? What other surprises would Lord Shonsu produce?
"This is Honakura, who prefers to conceal his rank and craft," the swordsman said. "I don't know why, but we humor him."
The little ancient wheeled around angrily, waggling an arthritic finger to scold the giant swordsman towering over him. "You must not speak my name, either! A Nameless One is exactly that―no craft, no rank, no name! Address me as 'old man' if you wish."
Lord Shonsu regarded him with mild amusement. "As you wish... old man. Apprentice, meet one old man."
Honakura, if that was really his name, turned back toward Quili. He chuckled and smiled, revealing a mouth devoid of teeth. "Thus I also serve Her," he said.
"You are welcome... old man."
Lord Shonsu boomed a laugh. "And this..." He dropped on one knee and reached down into the boat. Then he sprang upright, hoisting a youth bodily into the air, a First. He floated there, his shoulders gripped in Shonsu's great hands, and he beamed down at Quili as if there was nothing undignified about such an unorthodox arrival, or as if Sevenths clowned with Firsts all the time.
The big man's voice came from somewhere behind the boy's grubby white kilt. "This is our mascot. Apprentice Quili, may I have the unparalleled honor of presenting the dreaded Novice Katanji, swordsman of the first rank?"
Then he let go. Novice Katanji landed unevenly, stumbled, recovered, and grinned. He tumbled for his sword hilt, which was canted over behind his left shoulder.
"Leave that!" Shonsu said quickly. "You'll decapitate someone―probably yourself."
Katanji shrugged, still grinning, and made the salute to a superior in civilian fashion. Bewildered, Quili responded. It was very rare to make formal presentation of a First; slaves and beggars were always ignored. Lord Shonsu not only had a peculiar sense of humor, he must also dislike formalities and ritual.
The young Katanji was a dark-eyed imp. His single facemark was raw and new, his curly black hair cropped short like a child's. There was a hairclip precariously balanced in it, but no ponytail resulting. He was grubby, but not as filthy as Nnanji, and innocent of bloodstains. Remembering Nnanji's story, Quili could guess that Novice Katanji had sworn to the code of the swordsmen only the previous day. Nnanji must be his mentor, for surely no Seventh would take a First as protégé. Yet perhaps this unconventional Shonsu was capable of even that.
"You are welcome also, novice," Quili said.
His big eyes' regarded her solemnly. "Your gracious hospitality is already evident, apprentice." Then those eyes dropped, to linger over her cloak.
Quili glanced down and saw that the right side was stained, the faded yellow cloth marked by streaks of grease, and even perhaps blood, where Nnanji had hugged her against himself. She looked up in mingled shame and anger, as Novice Katanji turned away with a deliberate smirk showing on his face. Impudent little devil!
"No more strays, sailor?" Lord Shonsu was addressing the two men still in the boat. "Then you will come ashore for food and rest before you seek to return?"
"Oh, no, my lord." The captain was a fat and obsequious man. He would probably be very glad to be rid of so strange a cargo. To carry a Jonah reputedly brought good fortune to a vessel and normally the Goddess sent it home again promptly, but Lord Shonsu would be an unnerving passenger.
"We must not keep Her waiting, my lord," the sailor explained.
"May She be with you, then." Shonsu reached in a pouch on his harness and flipped a couple of coins down. They glinted in the sunlight. Free swords paying gold to mere boatmen?
"There we are, apprentice. Seven of us looking for a bite of breakfast." Lord Shonsu had turned to Quili again with high good spirits. He was amused―her astonishment must be showing. Two swordsmen, two slave women, a boy, a baby, and a beggar? What sort of army was that?
Then the menacing frown snapped back, and he stared along the jetty at the road vanishing into the notch of the gorge. He swung around to Nnanji.
"Transportation?"
Horror fell over Nnanji's face, and he jerked to attention. "I forgot, my lord."
"Forgot? You?"
Nnanji gulped. "Yes, my lord."
For a moment Shonsu's eyes flicked to Quili, then back to Nnanji. "I suppose there has to be a first time for anything," he said darkly. "Apprentice, we have a problem. I assume that we need to climb at least as high as the top of that cliff?"
"I am afraid so, my lord."
Shonsu turned back to the boatmen, who were fumbling with sails. "Wait! Toss up a couple of those pallets... and the awning. Thank you. Good journey!" He stooped to untie a line. Nnanji jumped for the other, watching to see exactly what Shonsu did and copying him.
Kandoru would never have played at being a deckhand, nor a porter, yet now this incredible Seventh gathered up the pallets and tarpaulin and went striding landward along the jetty, the astonished Quili having to trot to keep up with him.
"Apprentice, can you find us a wagon? The old man can probably manage, but Cowie..." He smirked again as he said that name. "Dear Cowie has lost one of her sandals. I should hate her beautiful soft feet to be damaged."
"I am sure I can find a cart, my lord," Quili said. A cart for a lord of the seventh rank? And would there be any men left to harness the horse? She had watched it being done often enough...
"That would do very well," Shonsu said cheerfully. They had reached the land, where the jetty stood above dry shingle. Quickly he spread the tarpaulin over the planks, then he jumped down and put the pallets below it. As his companions arrived, he reached up and lifted them down effortlessly. "We shall be comfortable enough in here until you return."
"I shall be as quick as I can, my lord."
"There's no hurry. I need to have a private talk with Nnanji, and this seems like a good chance." He flashed that heart-melting smile again.
Confused and unhappy, Quili mumbled something―she was not sure what―and headed for the road. As she entered the gorge, the sun tucked itself up into the clouds, and the World became gloomier and more drab. She had not lied, but she had left these swordsmen in ignorance of their danger. She must try to prevent bloodshed. Merciful Goddess! Whom was she supposed to shield―the workers, or the sorcerers, or the swordsmen?
†††
Wallie paced slowly back along the jetty, gathering his thoughts. His boots made hollow drum noises on the weathered planks, and beside him Nnanji's kept time. Nnanji was waiting in excited silence to hear what revelations the great Lord Shonsu was about to imp
art.
The jetty was stained with cattle dung―probably the estate exported cattle to the nearest city, Ov. The River was very wide, the far shore a faint line of smudge, and no sails marred the empty expanse of gray and lifeless water. At Hann the River had been about the same width, yet Hann lay a quarter of a World away. The River was everywhere, Honakura had said, and in a lifetime of talking with pilgrims in the temple, he had never heard tell of source or mouth. Apparently it was endless and much the same everywhere, a geographical impossibility. The River was the Goddess.
No sails... "The ferry's gone!"
"Yes, my lord." Nnanji did not even sound surprised.
Wallie shivered at this evidence of divine surveillance, then forced his mind back to the matter at hand. Twice before he had told his story, but this time would be harder. Honakura had accepted it as an exercise in theology. Believing in many worlds and a ladder of uncountable lives, he had been puzzled only that the dead Wallie Smith should have been reincarnated as the adult Shonsu, instead of as a baby. That was a miracle, and priests could believe in miracles, Honakura had wanted to hear about Earth and Wallie's previous existence, but those would not interest Nnanji.
Jja had not cared about the mechanism or the reason. She was content to know that the man she loved was hidden inside the swordsman, an invisible man with no rank or craft, as alienated from the World as she was. Only thus could a slave dare to love a Seventh. Nnanji's attitude would be very different.
The two men reached the end of the pier and stopped.
"Nnanji, I have a confession to make. I have never lied to you, but I have not told you the whole truth."
Nnanji blinked. "Why should you? It was you the Goddess chose to be Her champion. I am honored to be allowed to help. You need not tell me more, Lord Shonsu."
Wallie sighed. "I did lie to you, then, I suppose. I said my name was Shonsu... and it isn't."
Nnanji's eyes grew very wide, strange pale spots in his grimy face. No man of the People could ever look unshaven, but his red hair had been blackened the previous day with a blend of charcoal and grease. Later adventures had added guano and cobwebs, road dust and blood. Now thoroughly smeared, the resulting film made him look comic and ridiculous. But Nnanji was no joke. Nnanji had become a very deadly killer, much too young to be trusted with either the sword skill his mentor had taught him so rapidly or the power that came with his new rank―a swordsman of the Fourth had the potential to do a mountain of damage. Nnanji would have to be kept under very close control for a few years, until maturity caught up with his abilities. That might be why the gods had ordered that he be irrevocably bound by the arcane oath to which the present conversation must lead.
"I did meet with a god," Wallie said, "and what he told me was this: the Goddess had need of a swordsman. She chose the best in the World, Shonsu of the Seventh. Well, he said that there was none better, which is not quite the same thing, I suppose. Anyway, this swordsman failed, and failed 'disastrously.'"
"What does that mean, my lord?"
"The god wouldn't say. But Shonsu was driven to the temple by a demon. The priests' exorcism failed. The Goddess took his soul―and left the demon. Or what Shonsu thought was a demon. It was me, Wallie Smith. Except I wasn't a demon..."
He was not telling this very well, Wallie thought, but he was amused by the puzzled nods he was being given. Others might mock at so absurd a yarn, but Nnanji would want very much to believe. Nnanji had a ruinous case of hero worship. It had suffered an agonizing death the previous day, but then the Goddess had sent a miracle to support Her champion, and Nnanji's adoration had sprung back to life again, stronger than ever. He would grow out of it, and Wallie could only hope that the education would not be too painful, nor too long delayed. No man could live up to Nnanji's standards of heroic behavior.
They turned together and began to wander landward again.
"Another way of looking at it, I suppose, is as a string of beads―that's one of the priests' images. A soul is the string, the beads are the separate lives. In this case, the Goddess broke the rules. She untied the string and moved one of the beads."
Nnanji said, "But..." and then fell silent.
"No, I can't explain it. The motives of gods are mysterious. Anyway, I am not Shonsu. I remember nothing of his life before I woke up in the pilgrim cottage with Jja tending me and old Honakura babbling about my doing a fast murder for him. Before that, as far as I recall, I was Wallie Smith."
He did not try to explain language, how he thought in English and spoke in the language of the People. Nnanji would not be able to comprehend the idea of more than one language, and Wallie himself did not know how the translation worked.
"And you were not a swordsman in the other world, my lord?"
Manager of a petrochemical plant? How did one explain that to an iron-age warrior in a preliterate World? Wallie sighed. "No, I wasn't. Our crafts and ranks were different. As near as I can tell you, I was an apothecary of the Fifth."
Nnanji shuddered and bit his lip.
But there had been Detective Inspector Smith, who would have been so horrified by his murdering, idol-worshiping, slave-owning son. "My father was a swordsman."
Nnanji sighed in relief. The Goddess was not as fickle as he had feared.
"And you were a man of honor, my lord?"
Yes, Wallie thought. He had been law-abiding, and a decent sort of guy, honest and conscientious. "I think so. I tried to be, as I try here. Some of our ways were different. I did my best, and I promised the god that I would do my best here also."
Nnanji managed a faint smile.
"But when the reeve of the temple guard claimed that I was an imposter, he was correct. I did not know the salutes and responses. I did not know one end of a sword from the other."
Nnanji spluttered. "But―but you know the rituals, my lord! You are a great swordsman!"
"That came later," Wallie said, and went on to relate how he had met the demigod three times, how he had managed to find belief in the gods, and how he had then been given Shonsu's skill, the legendary sword, the unknown mission. "The god gave me the ability to use a sword, he gave me the sutras. But he gave me none of Shonsu's private memories at all, Nnanji. I don't know who his parents were, or where he came from, or who taught him. On those things, I am still Wallie Smith."
"And you nave no parentmarks!"
"I have one now." He showed Nnanji the sword that had appeared on his right eyelid the previous night, the sign of a swordsman father. "It wasn't there yesterday morning. I think it is a sort of joke by the little god, or perhaps a sign that he approves of what we did yesterday."
Nnanji said he liked the second possibility better. The idea that gods might play jokes did not appeal to him.
They reached the landward end of the jetty and turned to pace Riverward again. It was a strange story, almost as strange in the World as it would have been on Earth, and Wallie took his time, explaining as well as he could how it felt to be two people, how his professional knowledge differed from his personal memories.
"I think I understand, my lord," Nnanji said at last, frowning down ferociously at the rain-slicked, rough-cut planks. "You greatly puzzled me, for you did not behave like other highranks. You spoke to me as a friend when I was only a Second. You did not kill Meliu and Briu when you had the chance―most Sevenths would have welcomed an excuse to cut more notches in their harness. You treat Jja like a lady and you were even friendly to Wild Ani. That was the way of honor in your other world?"
"It was," Wallie said. "Friends are harder to make than enemies, but they are more useful."
Nnanji brightened. "Is that a sutra?"
Wallie laughed. "No, it is just a little saying of my own, but it is based on some of our sutras. It works, though: look how useful Wild Ani turned out to be!"
Nnanji agreed doubtfully―swordsmen should not have to seek help from slaves. "I would swear the second oath to you, my lord, if you will have me as protegé. I still wish to lear
n swordsmanship from you, and the ways of honor..." He paused and added thoughtfully, "And I think I should like to learn some of this other honor, also."
Wallie was relieved. He had half feared that his young friend would understandably flee from him as a madman. "I shall be proud to be your mentor again, Nnanji, for you are a wonderful pupil and one day you will be a great swordsman."
Nnanji stopped, drew his sword, and dropped to his knees. There were other things that Wallie wanted to tell him, but Nnanji was never plagued by hesitations or deep reflection, and he now proceeded to swear the second oath: "I, Nnanji, swordsman of the Fourth, do take you, Shonsu, swordsman of the Seventh, as my master and mentor and do swear to be faithful, obedient, and humble, to live upon your word, to team by your example, and to be mindful of your honor, in the name of the Goddess."
Wallie spoke the formal acceptance. Nnanji rose and sheathed his sword with some satisfaction. "You mentioned another oath also, mentor?" The demigod had warned that swordsmen were addicted to fearsome oaths, and Nnanji was no exception.
"I did. But before we get to that, I must tell you about my mission. When I asked what the Goddess required of me, all I was given was a riddle."
"The god gave you a task and didn't tell you what it was? Why?"
"I wish I knew that! He said that it was a matter of free will; that I must do what seemed right to me. If I only followed orders, then I would be less a servant than a tool." Another explanation, of course, might be that the demigod did not trust Wallie―either his courage or his honesty―and that was worrisome.
