The Paper Sword

by Robert Priest

  “That’s right,” Xemion confirmed. “Bound.” He lingered over the word for a second. It was an opening to the idea of betrothal, he thought, a natural way to bring up what she’d said to the man with the red hand. She sighed again and almost smiled. Xemion was just about to bring up the subject when Chiricoru’s vocalizations, which had been arising regularly from outside, quickly graduated to a kind of shrill hissing shriek. This was followed by a bestial snort so deep it shook the tree.

  “Chiricoru!” Saheli screamed.

  7

  Rotan Smedenage

  When the new examiner, Rotan Smedenage, had reached the village of Sho earlier that morning most of its inhabitants had been out in their boats harvesting that much-prized Pathan delicacy, kelp. Finding no sign of the man with a red hand whose agitations he had come to investigate, Smedenage decided to use his time productively by examining the local children. He was the first kwisling ever to be promoted to the position of examiner and he took this part of his job very seriously. The only way to impress the Pathans, he believed, was to be more Pathan than the Pathans themselves. There was little he could do to acquire their crystal-faceted facial features, but their body shape had come to him courtesy of a very strict forced diet. This had allowed him to acquire huge rolls of fat about his waist, thighs, and upper arms, thereby approximating the stout torso of a Pathan. A puffed and blotchy ruff of hairy neck flesh that spilled from the top of his white Pathan robes added to this effect. His porcine, small-eyed face with its recessed chin was clearly that of a man, but when he pulled the black visor over it and stood with his hands on his hips his resemblance to a Pathan, he believed, grew uncanny. And that encouraged him to behave like a Pathan.

  Whenever he examined the children, for instance, whether or not he thought they were being forthcoming with him, he always made sure to instill fear in them by whacking their little backsides raw with his antler horn lath. Despite such rough techniques he’d found no evidence that day of any spellbinding traits among the children of Sho, even after repeated interrogations that had left most of the village’s young screaming themselves hoarse. Many kwislings might have found this part of the job a little sickening but some strange mercy in Smedenage’s nature actually allowed him to enjoy it. This was good because it kept vital in him that heartless spark so necessary to the detection and suppression of the dark arts and so prized by his Pathan betters.

  He’d just gone to the stable to retrieve his earth boar and was preparing to head back to the little harbour where the kennel ship was docked when he overheard Torgee and Tharfen as they returned from the mountain. Unaware of his presence, they had stopped outside the stable so Tharfen could rehearse the story she would tell their mother about where they had been all day.

  When he overheard the details about a man with a red hand and a sword and a cloak that changed colours, Rotan Smedenage became so ecstatic his jowls began to tremble with clearly visible excitations. This was just what he’d been waiting for. This was weapons. He burst out of the stable, lath in hand, with a loud “Aha!” intending to freeze the children in terror so that he could interrogate them thoroughly.

  Panicked, Torgee fled one way and Tharfen the other. But the examiner was very good at catching runaway children. Especially smaller ones like Tharfen. For brief full-on spurts he could run much faster than his great size would have suggested. This was a requirement of the job. He could never have risen to be the first Phaer examiner if he were not capable of great bursts of speed. He saw that Tharfen, who had taken off along the pathway going east, could run faster than her older brother who had headed along the northward-leading path, but he also instantly took in the fact that Torgee was much bigger. So, being strategic, another of his winning qualities, he took off after the girl.

  He came up so quickly and quietly behind her Tharfen barely had a moment to realize what had hit her. But what had hit her was his massive hand as he wrapped his palm and fingers around the back of her neck and pushed her to the ground. He didn’t want her yelling yet, so he pushed her face into the grass to minimize the sound of any screams. He had various shackles and cuffs and hooks that he might have used, but he rarely found it necessary to resort to anything more lethal than the lath that he kept along his right side. With one quick yank he had it out and with a quick flip he had lifted her cloak. Underneath she wore a slight pair of green shorts. It was down upon these that he brought with a whipping sound his flexible lath. The examiner didn’t have to spank Tharfen very long. She’d never been spanked before. She’d never even had her dignity compromised before. Her first muffled cry was more one of outrage than pain. The second began with outrage but soon turned to agony. The third cry was shocked and its agony was so uncontainable it felt like it would shred her little throat with its emergence. She struggled and bucked but he was ten times as strong. Only now did he begin to interrogate her. “Where is he? Where does he live?” Immediately she broke like they all broke sooner or later. No one can bear the pain he could administer, not even an adult, he suspected. Her answer was sobbed so convulsively she could barely enunciate the guttural inexact phrases bursting out of her.

  He turned her over and shook her by her shoulders. “Calm yourself, child, or I will hit you again and again.” Somehow Tharfen managed to do this, perhaps because now that she was facing him her outrage gave her a new kind of strength. Finally, in a hoarse voice, she managed to tell him something that she only knew because she had secretly followed Xemion one day to find out where he lived. “There is a rose forest and in the rose forest he lives inside a tree.” She pointed north.

  This so excited the examiner he jerked her up into the air. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes!” she screamed.

  And suddenly he had a vague memory of that forest, one of the few that must have survived from his childhood. “The beating you’ve had so far was to obtain information,” he growled over the sound of Tharfen’s attempts to stifle her ongoing sobs. “And this second beating is your punishment for resisting me, for lying, and for participating in the playing of swords.” Against her wild bucking and her screams he bent her over once more. This time he whacked her bare thighs with his hand four times. It wasn’t just that he particularly enjoyed this but that it also helped him differentiate between what blows were administered for torture and what were for punishment.

  It was approaching evening now but Smedenage did not intend to let this opportunity slip away. The only ascent to the forest that began on the cliffs high above Sho was a narrow roadway that had been cut into the stone of the mountain eons ago. So long that its once precisely fitted blocks were now half unearthed and disarticulated by the eons of lilies and sunflowers that had gradually wedged them apart. This made climbing them especially difficult and time-consuming, but that was what the earth boar was for. With a grunt, Rotan Smedenage straddled the broad back of his mount and steered it toward the road. The poor beast with its cloven hooves totally unsuitable for the jumbled increments of the climb struggled and teetered under the great weight of its master as it made its way slowly higher. Although none of his extraordinary efforts with the whip succeeded in increasing its laborious pace, Rotan Smedenage did not cease in whipping it until he began to fear he might grow tired and have no energy left to deal with his prey. It took almost an hour to reach the top and by that time the sun was close to setting.

  As the boar panted resentfully along under elm and oak, Rotan Smedenage felt his newly acquired bronze sword slap against his thigh. The Pathans had only changed the weapons law several days before to allow their chosen kwisling officials to carry them, and he was eager to use it. Perhaps he would have a chance with this forest lad who lived in the tree, he thought. Especially if, as he had gathered fom the girl, the boy liked playing with stick swords.

  The sky was already darkening by the time Smedenage got to the tunnel through the mesh of thorns and flowers that surrounded the tower tree. Here he came up against one of the disadvantages of riding an earth boa
r — size. This pig was far too large to make it through, so he got the animal to back out, gave it a hearty whack, and proceeded through the hedge on foot.

  The second he got to the other side and saw Chiricoru he was held as though in thrall. This was beyond his wildest dreams. A golden swan! First, swans shouldn’t be golden. It wasn’t natural. And second, was that a red cock’s wattle on its neck? He peered more intently through the deepening twilight. Yes! This was some kind of obscene cock-swan: a fully grown chimerant! The thought filled him with the same kind of revulsion some people feel toward insects. He wanted to kill her instantly, but first the relevant details of Pathan regulation ran in a flash through his excellent brain. The beast was clearly so ancient it must have originated from a time before the invention of spell kones one hundred years ago. That meant Class 3. Smedenage smiled fully. Those chimerants created by the practice of competitive spell-crossing among ancient mages. Such creatures were capable of reproducing and therefore could and must be terminated immediately. With a terrible smile he could not restrain, the obese man began to stalk the bird. Chiricoru sensed his malice and kept backing away from him.

  “Here birdie! Here birdie!” he whispered soothingly. He thought of taking out his sword and lopping off the bird’s head, but decided to reserve the first use of his weapon for some nobler purpose. Strangling would be better. When he’d backed her up against the far side of the hedge, he charged at her suddenly, only to have her scoot away with a terrified cry. That was when the boar, still grousing on the other side of the hedge, let loose the huge snort that had alerted Xemion and Saheli. Smedenage, enraged, tried again, “Here birdie! Birdie!” his voice high and nasal, his eyes pinholes of red fury.

  Suddenly a high voice called from above. “No! Don’t.” It sounded like a young girl’s voice, but when Smedenage looked up at the face that had appeared in the opening high in the tree he saw much more than a child. He saw an incredibly pretty maid. Eagerly he calculated her age: Fifteen? Sixteen? He grinned back at Saheli arrogantly; his face was so red and sweaty by now it might have been an overgrown boiled beet. “What do you mean, don’t? This is a chimerant, as you must well know, and I’m putting it down.”

  “But you can’t,” the maid shouted.

  Rotan Smedenage took in a deep breath and drew himself to his full girth. “What do you mean I can’t?” he called up to her haughtily. “Do you realize I am the examiner? I think you’d better come down here right now.”

  While Chiricoru waddled back and forth, trapped in the cul-de-sac, Rotan Smedenage sized up the two people who exited the tower tree and made their way to where he stood. The boy was much bigger than he had thought — more of a young man really — but that shouldn’t be a problem. Smedenage rested his palm on the hilt of his sword reassuringly.

  “Now, first of all,” he demanded of Xemion. “Who are you?”

  “His name is Xemion,” Saheli answered. Xemion, still obeying Anya’s order to restrain his voice outside the tower tree, stood behind her while she kept her eye on Chiricoru.

  “And who are you?” he asked of Saheli in an almost scoffing tone.

  “My name is Saheli.”

  “It says nothing on the census about a dwelling place here. Why isn’t it registered in the census? Who is the proprietor?”

  “Anya Kuzelnika,” Xemion asserted in as flat a tone as he could muster. “The old woman who raised me.”

  “Well, where is she then?”

  “She —” Saheli turned and pointed toward the other end of the clearing where the stone they had erected was still barely visible in the semi-darkness. “She has gone to spirit.”

  Immediately the expression of suspicion deepened in the examiner’s face. “Really?” he said with such an aura of doubt that it offended Xemion.

  “Yes, really,” he replied succinctly.

  Smedenage met his eye and the two held each other’s gaze as the exchange continued. “So you are telling me that the old woman is dead and that the two of you have taken over her … home?” His palm gripped the hilt of his sword eagerly as he beheld the flare of anger in Xemion’s eyes.

  “That is the truth, sir,” Saheli said somewhat tremulously. “She passed away only recently and —”

  “And how do you fit into all this, might I ask?” the portly man interrupted. Chiricoru, aware of the rising alarm in Saheli’s voice, had come a little closer.

  “I rescued her four months ago when she was drowning in the river,” Xemion answered sharply. “Is there anything wrong with that?”

  Smedenage looked just as sharply back at Xemion. “I don’t believe I like your tone.” Then he added pointedly, “Though it is a very rich and eloquent tone, I’ll admit.”

  “I’m sorry,” Saheli jumped in. “We’re both very upset still about her passing.”

  “And how do you come to have that creature?” Smedenage pointed with obvious disgust at Chiricoru, who once again backed off a ways.

  “She’s our pet,” Xemion answered. He had never felt so angry. “She was the old woman’s pet since she was a child.”

  “I see. So let me summarize: The old woman has conveniently died. The two of you have taken over her quarters. And now you are using it to give shelter to an illegal chimerant, which —”

  “She did not conveniently die,” Xemion interjected in a voice that was almost a shout. “In fact, she —”

  Rotan Smedenage gasped. “Do not raise your voice to me, boy!” he shrieked. He took out his lath and, glaring at Xemion, began to tap it ominously in his palm.

  “Xemion, please. Let me answer,” Saheli said, her voice trembling.

  “Well, no. No,” Smedenage snapped, attempting to re-establish his authority. “I am rather interested in hearing his voice.”

  Xemion glowered and clenched his jaw but remained quiet. Rotan Smedenage also managed to calm himself a little. “Now, tell me what you know about a man with a red hand.”

  Both Saheli and Xemion remained quiet but Smedenage did not miss the guilty look that passed between them.

  “I’m going to ask you one more time, and you had better answer me. What do you know of a man with a red hand?”

  Xemion shrugged. He had vowed to say nothing. Saheli shook her head. She, too, felt bound by the vow even though she hadn’t shaken Vallaine’s hand.

  “I see.” A quiet coldness had now come over Rotan Smedenage. “Well then, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you both to come with me for a little visit to the underearth.”

  “But sir,” Saheli pleaded. “I think we can —”

  “Do not dare to question my authority!” When Rotan Smedenage bellowed like this all the great mass of his body gave such a deep guttural thunder to his words that they seemed to shake the very ground. “If you do, you question the authority of the entire Pathan empire!”

  For a second both Saheli and Xemion watched desperately as Chiricoru, her guardian sense alerted, came closer to Smedenage.

  “We’re not going anywhere with you,” Xemion insisted in his grim monotone. Smedenage could see that the young man looked much more willing to defend himself than most of the little children he was used to dealing with.

  “Oh, won’t you?” he said sinisterly. With surprising speed the portly Smedenage wheeled about and grabbed at Chiricoru, catching her right at the crook of one wing. The other flapped frantically and she began to honk and squawk in terror. Smedenage held on tight, avoiding Chiricoru’s beak as she tried to peck his face with her broad swan’s bill.

  “Let her go!” Xemion screamed as he dashed forward. But Smedenage got hold of the poor bird’s neck.

  “I will not!” he retorted indignantly. “I am an official of the Pathan government and I am terminating this chimerant,” he shouted with clear joy. Rotan Smedenage had less than a second to squeeze hard on Chiricoru’s throat before the point of Xemion’s painted sword reached his thick neck.

  “Stop!” Xemion screamed. Rotan Smedenage’s moment to use his own new sword had c
learly come, but he had been expecting at most to face some simple ineffective toy sword. This was clearly a full-size sword and in the deepening twilight it had a silvery, luminous glow to it like that of the stars. He quickly noted also the look of strength and fury in Xemion’s eyes and as the forward pressure of the young man’s weapon increased at his neck he strategically abandoned any semblance of courage and dropped the bird instantly to the ground.

  “Get down on the ground,” Xemion growled, pressing the point closer into the man’s flaccid jowls. “And give me your sword.”

  “Don’t kill me,” Rotan Smedenage protested meekly as he handed over his blade. His face was now as white as it had previously been beet red.

  “Get right down on the ground,” Xemion shouted gruffly as he sheathed his painted sword and took up instead the examiner’s. Rotan Smedenage quickly did as he was told. And then Xemion, in his scorn and anger, made a mistake. “You fool,” he spat as he slid the painted sword into its makeshift scabbard at his side. “It wasn’t even a real sword. It’s nothing more than a painted stick. But now I do have a real sword — your sword.” He lifted the sword over the man threateningly. “And I ought to cut your head off with it.”

  “Maid,” the examiner whined desperately to Saheli who had put her staff down and was now holding Chiricoru in her arms, attempting to comfort her. “Please don’t let him hurt me.”

  “You hurt our bird, you cruel man,” she screamed, glaring at him with cold protective fury. Rotan Smedenage quickly shut up but Chiricoru did the opposite. Startled by such a fierce tone from one who had only ever uttered gentle phrases, she began to squirm and honk grievously in Saheli’s arms with such vigour that Saheli dropped her. Automatically, Xemion lunged to catch the bird and this gave Rotan Smedenage the moment he’d been waiting for. He popped up from the ground and ran toward a small opening he’d seen in the hedge. Xemion quickly passed Chiricoru back into Saheli’s arms, lifted Smedenage’s sword over his head, and ran after him.