Sightblinder's Story

by Fred Saberhagen

  That moment had been quite long enough. A wave of faintness came over the lady watching. She, who had once been a queen, was not accustomed to such a reaction in herself, or minded to tolerate it, and she fought against the weakness fiercely.

  That she should have a strong reaction was understandable. She had just seen the Emperor, the father of her only child. He had been cloaked in gray and masked in a black domino, as she had so often seen him in the past.

  Yambu hurried back to her room. Her hands were shaking as she put on her pilgrim’s rugged footgear and her traveling outfit of trousers and cloak. Leaving her room again, she hastened back to the upper veranda, where she set out the prearranged signal, a simple bright-colored rag snagged on a rugged railing, which would indicate to her new allies that she wanted to meet with them at once.

  Having done that, Yambu left the building and went out into the muddy street. She climbed through the town to the place where she had seen the gray-cloaked figure pass, on the highest of the town’s three streets that ran parallel to the waterfront.

  So, the Emperor was here. But what did his presence signify? Years had passed since she had seen him last, and that had been on the night before a battle.

  Peering up and down each street as she came to it, she saw only a few of the townsfolk going about their business, and a few of the new garrison of soldiers in gray and red. There was no sign of the Emperor, or any other person or thing of interest. After hesitating briefly at the edge of town, Yambu continued on the path that went uphill, to the appointed place of meeting with Zoltan and Ben. This was well away from the settlement, beside a small stream on the rocky hillside.

  * * *

  Only a few minutes after she arrived there the two men joined her. When they did, they found her pale but composed.

  “We saw your signal—” Ben of Purkinje began.

  The lady cut him off with an imperious hand. “Ben.”

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “You told me that after the stone struck Ariane in the head—down there in the treasure vaults of the Blue Temple—she was still able to move about. For some time.”

  This was obviously not what Ben had been expecting as an opening to this hastily summoned meeting, and he frowned. But after looking closely at the former queen, he did not protest the apparent wild irrelevance. “That’s right,” he said.

  “And then, some minutes or an hour after being hit, she suddenly collapsed.”

  “Yes.”

  “And died.”

  “And died.”

  “But are you quite certain that she was dead?”

  He looked around at the wet woods and back at her. No, he hadn’t been expecting this at all. “Of course I am. She died within a minute or two of losing consciousness—but why do you ask about that now?”

  “Because,” said the former queen, “I have just seen my daughter.” She ignored their brief clamor of questions and pressed on. “On the hillside not far below us here. As if she were just coming up out of the town. I would have gone to her, but she waved me away. And she was smiling. As soon as I recovered from my shock I went to the place where I had seen her, but she was gone.”

  Zoltan muttered words of astonishment. But Ben had been hit too hard even for that. The color had faded suddenly under the weathered surface of his skin.

  Lady Yambu went on. “I should tell you that despite the depth of my surprise her appearance was not totally unexpected to me. Because I met her father once, years after she was supposed to have died. And on that occasion he assured me solemnly that Ariane was still alive.”

  Using both arms, the lady made a gesture expressive of both frustration and determination. She went on: “He has, as everyone knows, a reputation for insane jokes; I, who have borne one of his children, can tell you that the reputation is well deserved. But I can tell you also that he was not joking when he told me Ariane was living. To have told me such a thing at such a time could not have been a joke, not even an insane one. No, he was very sober and convincing.” She paused. “Still, at the time I did not believe him.”

  “Why not?” asked Zoltan.

  The lady, as he had more than half expected, ignored his question totally. She said: “Also, I thought that I saw him, my daughter’s father, walking here upon this hillside only a few minutes before I saw her.”

  Ben said hoarsely: “Her father was—is—the Emperor.”

  “So you know that. And presumably you also know something about him—? Good. I shall not have to try to explain that he is not the figure of simpleminded fun that common folktales paint him.” Yambu heaved a sigh. “Not that I really could explain that man. Yes, her father assured me that she was still alive, despite what had happened to her down in the treasure vaults. He told me that she had been living with him for several years.”

  “Living with him.” Ben’s voice was a hoarse mutter. “Gods and demons. Where?”

  “The gods only know that. Or perhaps the demons know. Wherever he chose to live, I suppose.”

  Long moments went by in which all three of them were silent. Ben was staring intently at the lady. Then at last he said in a choked voice: “You lie. Or he lied to you. I tell you I saw her die.”

  Yambu appeared to think the accusation too ridiculous to deserve her anger; she only sniffed at him imperiously. “Why in the world should I lie to you? And as for the Emperor lying to me on such a matter—no, I think not. Not on that occasion anyway.”

  Zoltan spoke up again, after a hesitation but firmly enough when the words came. “Lady, you have told us you did not believe him.”

  “True, I did not believe him when he told me, or for years afterward. But recently I have been giving the matter much thought. And I know who I saw today.”

  Ben was staring at her as if there were some truth that he too had to have and by staring he could force it somehow into visibility. He appeared to be unable to find anything to say.

  At last Yambu repeated her earlier question to him: “Was Ariane still a virgin when you saw her die?”

  Ben was slow to answer, and his voice was low. “We loved each other, she and I. She was very young and very beautiful, and the daughter of a queen, and when you look at me I know it sounds ridiculous to say she loved me. But so it was.”

  Yambu measured him with her eyes. “I have not said it was ridiculous.”

  Zoltan, meanwhile, was staring silently at the huge man, as if he had never seen him before. It was quite plain that Mark’s nephew had never heard this story before, or suspected anything like it.

  Ben, gazing into the past now, went on. “We had only a few days to try to know each other. And not so much as a quarter of an hour, in any of those days, to be alone together. So if it is of any importance to you, yes, your daughter remained a virgin until she died. At the time, the point was of considerable magical importance to the wizards. And so I know that it is true, even though she had been in the Red Temple.” Ben jumped up from the rock he had been sitting on. “And if I thought—if I could believe for a moment—that Ariane was still alive,

  I would leave all that I possess to go to her.”

  Yambu asked him harshly: “Would you leave even your Prince?”

  Ben’s enormous shoulders slumped. He said: “That decision does not have to be made. My Prince, alive or dead, is here, and here I stay until I have done all that I can do for him. And your daughter is dead. I tell you that I saw her die.”

  * * *

  Abruptly the three people fell silent; they were all aware that someone, a single person, was passing on one of the hillside paths not far away. From behind intervening evergreen shrubs they observed the passerby with great interest. But it was only some local peasant, bearing a small load of firewood, and they turned away.

  The place where they had met and had been talking until now was relatively public, and by common consent they moved to continue their conference at a place farther from any trail. The new site, also on the hillside, had the advantage of better conc
ealment, of allowing them to overlook much of the town, while being themselves screened from any likely observation by a growth of low evergreen bushes. Zoltan, looking down, thought that the bunched needles made the town beyond them look like a drawing half-obliterated by the mad scrawling lines of some determined vandal.

  * * *

  Their discussion was just getting under way again when it was once more interrupted. All three of the people on the hillside saw, at a distance of a hundred meters or so, a peculiar figure walking in the nearest street of the settlement below.

  What drew their attention to the figure was first the darting, scrambling way it moved. Second was the fact that the other people in the street turned to gaze after it as it darted from between buildings on one side into an alley on the other. After it had passed, some of the townsfolk appeared to exchange looks, and perhaps words, with one another before going on about their business.

  The three on the hillside studied the figure itself as well as they could at the distance; then they also exchanged glances among themselves. If they had marveled before, they were dumbfounded now.

  Ben said: “It was your daughter, walking in the street. And I am going down to her.”

  “It was she,” Yambu agreed in a stunned voice. “I will go with you.”

  “Wait!” cried Zoltan. His voice was not very loud, but something in it stopped the other two.

  The young man looked at them, one after the other. He said: “Lady, I have never seen your daughter Ariane. What does she look like?”

  It was Ben who answered. “You could not have missed her just now, among those shabby commoners. Tall, and as strong as most men, but there’s no doubt from her shape that she’s a woman, and still young. And her red hair, like a long flame down her back. She moved across the street quite near the intersection, jumping over the worst of a puddle….” Ben stopped. Yambu was nodding her agreement.

  But Zoltan’s face was contorted, his eyes squeezed shut as if he were in pain. “I did not see her,” he announced.

  “What do you mean?” Yambu demanded.

  “I saw someone, a single person, cross the street near the intersection, just as you did, and jump the mud puddle while the townspeople moved away. But it was certainly not a young woman, with red hair or without. It was Prince Mark again, my uncle, whom I know well.”

  There was a brief silence while the others digested this.

  “That red hair!” Ben ripped the words out like an oath. “There can’t be any mistake!”

  “What red hair? I tell you the one I saw just now was a man, brown-haired and bearded!”

  They all three looked at one another, all of them trying to master their emotions, all trying to think. Yambu said: “Then what we have seen is magic—”

  The three of them uttered the word almost in unison: “Sightblinder!”

  * * *

  “Or some spell equally powerful. Yes, that must be it.”

  They were sitting down again, in the same place, and Ben said those words, and the other two heard them, without conviction. All three of the people on the hillside had handled some of the Twelve Swords at one time or another—it was hard for any of them to believe in the existence of any such equally powerful spell.

  “We must investigate,” decreed the lady after a long silence, sighing as she spoke.

  “Whoever is carrying Sightblinder came down the hillside alone a little while ago,” said Zolton. “And perhaps he or she will soon be going up again.”

  “If not,” Ben decided in a heavy voice, “we must go down into the town and search for him, or her. Though for Zoltan and me it would be wise, as we all agreed earlier, to appear there as seldom as possible.”

  * * *

  The three decided to wait where they were for a while longer before trying to search the town.

  Before an hour had passed they saw a lone figure ascending the path again. And for each, as each whispered to the others, it was someone they loved or feared. This time for Ben it was his wife, who was at home in Tasavalta and in logic could not be here at all.

  Firmly disregarding the evidence of their senses, the three moved out of their ambush and closed in, as upon a dangerous armed enemy. Zoltan and Ben held weapons ready. Their quarry, whoever it really was, saw them coming and displayed alarm, and cried out warnings to them, words that reached the ears of each of them in the tone of some voice that had long been loved or feared. It cost each of the three an effort of will to ignore those pleading warnings and close in.

  At last, in a brushy hillside ravine well off any of the regular footpaths, they managed to corner their quarry, who by now was moving slowly and erratically, as if nearly exhausted.

  Ben saw Barbara, his own diminutive, dark-haired wife, looking at him piteously. Making a great effort, he called to her: “Throw down that damned magic blade, whoever you are—I know you have it there!”

  Yambu, this time, saw the Emperor again, turning at bay to face her, and wondered if it was her love for him or fear of him that the Sword played on to cast his image. She too moved forward implacably, though she was unarmed.

  Zoltan moved forward against an image of the Prince, his uncle, who now appeared to him with a Sword that might have been Shieldbreaker raised in a two-handed grip.

  “Stay back, all of you! I warn you!” called out the one voice that was heard as three quite different voices.

  But the three came on.

  The wielder of the Sword of Stealth raised it, making a halfhearted and inexpert defense.

  Still, it took courage for Ben to swing his staff against a Sword that suddenly looked like Shieldbreaker, gripped in the hands of Mark—Ben had not blundered, there was only a clang, as of hardwood on ordinary steel, and the Sword-holder, mishandling the weapon awkwardly, staggered back. Zoltan sprang forward to grapple with him, or her.

  Zoltan in the next moment found himself seizing his own mother’s arm and twisting it painfully—somehow the experience was even worse than he would have imagined such a thing would be. It wasn’t only that he saw his mother. He felt her tender flesh, heard her soft breath, he knew—though no longer quite with certainty—that it was her. But he gritted his teeth and persisted while his mother struggled wildly against him, screaming. Then Ben’s hands clamped upon the foe, and the struggle was over.

  There was a clanging thud, as of an arm’s length of steel falling to the rocky ground.

  Pinned upright by Ben’s grip upon his arms was a shabby, hungry-looking figure, lean and ill-favored, a mere boy, younger than Zoltan and not as big or strongly built. The youth was sobbing now, as with relief.

  On the earth at his feet, which were clad in worn country shoes, lay a black-hilted Sword. But only after Zoltan’s hand had touched the black hilt could he clearly see the small white symbol of a human eye upon it.

  The Sword of Stealth is given to

  One lowly and despised

  Sightblinder’s gifts: his eyes are keen

  His nature is disguised.

  “Who are you?” Ben was shouting at the boy. “What’s your name?”

  The answer came between great gasping sobs. “Arnfinn.”

  Chapter Five

  Arnfinn’s blubbering was not entirely the result of fear. A part of the cause was sheer relief, relief that the strain of the last few days was over. The responsibility of what to do with the terrible weapon he had been carrying had now been lifted from his shoulders. Whatever happened next, at least he was not going to have to support that oppressive weight any longer.

  He was sitting where he had been pushed down on the rocky earth of the hillside, collapsed in defeat and futility, while close around him stood the three people who had thrown him down and taken the Sword away from him. And even now, in the depth of his fear, he was struck by what an oddly assorted trio they made. One was the biggest, strongest-looking man Arnfinn had ever seen; the second was an elderly lady dressed in pilgrim’s gray; and the third was a young man only a little older than Arnfinn
, of sturdy build and rather ordinary appearance.

  Or, more exactly, the young man’s appearance had been rather ordinary, until he had started to handle the Sword.

  As soon as the young man picked up that magical blade, Arnfinn saw him changed into a rapid succession of other people. First came Arnfinn’s own father. Then a bully from the village of Lunghai, who more than once had made Arnfinn’s existence miserable; and after that a certain lady, really only a girl, the beauty of whose image, however false, could still make Arnfinn catch his breath. One figure followed another, each evoking either love or fear, or sometimes both. The sequence returned at last to Arnfinn’s father, who had been dead for years, and Arnfinn buried his face in his hands and wept again.

  Meanwhile the giant and the old woman were paying little attention to whatever transformations the Sword might have been causing their companion to undergo in their eyes. Their attention remained thoughtfully fixed on Arnfinn.

  When Arnfinn heard rather than saw the young man put down the Sword again, he dared to raise his face once more. These people had not killed him yet, and maybe they were going to let him live.

  It was the gray-robed woman, her voice imperious, her accent aristocratic, who shot the first question at him: “What were you doing with this blade?”

  “Nothing,” Arnfinn responded automatically, defensively, without thinking. That answer was almost the truth, but obviously it was not going to be satisfactory, though so far they were letting him take his time and think about it.

  Using his sleeve, he wiped his face of tears and sweat, achieving with the rough cleansing a kind of fatalistic calm. “I brought it here to town to try to sell it.”

  “Brought it from where?” the young man demanded.

  “From my home village. It’s a place called Lunghai. About three days walk to the west of here.”