by Dave Duncan
right after, when the ex-Brat had insisted on taking
the sacred name of Durendal. Master of Archives
had warned him what would happen if he defied a
tradition hallowed by three hundred years'
observance. Well, they hadn't broken him. He
had survived, struggled to be worthy of the great
name, won the grudging respect of the masters and his
peers. And he was worthy--the best of them all.
By tomorrow night he would be Prime and Byless
Second. Byless wouldn't be able to handle the
juniors.
Not Durendal's problem.
What was his problem was Harvest's appalling
silence. He must have been expecting the question, because
he had been Second when Pendering was called.
What choice did he have? Did any man ever
refuse? Presumably he still had the choice
all candidates had, the dismal election of walking
out of the gate forever; but to contemplate surrender after
so many years of effort--it was unthinkable, surely?
The only sound in the room was a faint
crackling as Grand Master crumpled a sheet of
parchment in his massive fist. The wax of the royal
signet broke off in fragments. After five
years of learning to read Grand Master's moods,
Durendal knew that now they were proclaiming
hurricane! Enforced absence from the feast might
explain some storminess, but not so much.
Harvest spoke at last, almost inaudibly.
"I am ready, Grand Master."
Soon Durendal would be saying those words. And
who would be sitting in the second chair?
Who was there now? He had not looked. The edge
of his eye hinted it was seeing a youngish man, too
young to be the King himself.
"My lord," Grand Master said, "I have the
honor to present Prime Candidate Harvest,
who will serve you as your Blade."
As the two young men turned to him, the anonymous
noble drawled, "The other one looks much more
impressive. Do I have a choice?"
"You do not!" barked Grand Master, color
pouring into his craggy face. "The King himself
takes whoever is Prime."
"Oh, so sorry! Didn't mean to twist your
dewlaps, Grand Master." He smiled
vacuously. He was a weedy, soft-faced
man in his early twenties, a courtier to the
core, resplendent in crimson and vermilion
silks trimmed with fur and gold chain. If the
white cloak was truly ermine, it must be worth a
fortune. His fairish beard came to a needle
point and his mustache was a work of art. A fop.
Who?
"Prime, this is the Marquis of Nutting, your
future ward."
"Ward?" The Marquis sniggered. "You make
me sound like a debutante, Grand Master.
Ward indeed!"
Harvest bowed, his face ashen as he
contemplated a lifetime guarding ... whom? Not the
King himself, not his heir, not a prince of the blood,
not an ambassador traveling in exotic lands,
not an important landowner out on the marches, not a
senior minister, nor even--at worst--the head of
one of the great conjuring orders. Here was no ward
worth dying for, just a court dandy, a parasite.
Trash.
Seniors spent more time studying politics than
anything else except fencing. Wasn't the
Marquis of Nutting the brother of the Countess
Mornicade, the King's latest mistress? If
so, then six months ago he had been the
Honorable Tab Nillway, a younger son of a
penniless baronet, and his only claim
to importance was that he had been expelled from the
same womb as one of the greatest beauties of the
age. No report reaching Ironhall had ever
hinted that he might have talent or ability.
"I am deeply honored to be assigned to your
lordship," Harvest said hoarsely, but the spirits did
not strike him dead for perjury.
Grand Master's displeasure was now explained.
One of his precious charges was being thrown away
to no purpose. Nutting was not important enough to have
enemies, even at court. No man of honor
would lower his standards enough to call out an upstart pimp
--certainly not one who had a Blade prepared
to die for him. But Grand Master had no choice.
The King's will was paramount.
"We shall hold the binding tomorrow midnight,
Prime," the old man snapped. "Make the
arrangements, Second."
"Yes, Grand Master."
"Tomorrow?" protested the Marquis querulously.
"There's a ball at court tomorrow. Can't we just
run through the rigmarole quickly now and be
done with it?"
Grand Master's face was already dangerously
inflamed, and that remark made the veins swell
even more. "Not unless you wish to kill a man, my
lord. You have to learn your part in the ritual. Both
you and Prime must be purified by ritual and
fasting."
Nutting curled his lip. "Fasting? How
barbaric!"
"Binding is a major conjuration. You will be in
some danger yourself."
If the plan was to frighten the court parasite
into withdrawing, it failed miserably. He merely
muttered, "Oh, I'm sure you exaggerate."
Grand Master gave the two candidates a
curt nod of dismissal. They bowed in unison and
left.
Harvest clattered quickly down the stairs and
strode off along a corridor that led to nowhere
except the library. Durendal, with his longer
legs, had no trouble keeping up with him. If the
man wanted to be alone, he could say so; but if
he needed support, then who else should offer it but
Second?
The glow of a lamp appeared ahead as someone
approached the corner. Harvest muttered an oath
and moved into a window embrasure. Leaning on the
stone sill, he thrust his face against the bars, as
if trying to fill his lungs with fresh air.
"You go back to the hall, Second.
Take--" His voice cracked. "Sit in my
chair. So they'll know."
Durendal thumped a hand on his shoulder. "You
forget that I have to fast also. Look on the bright
side, warrior!" You can always cut your throat,
which is what I would do. "You might have been gifted
to some tinpot princeling in the Northern Isles.
As it is, you'll live at court, romancing
all the beautiful maidens. What a sinecure--
wenching, dancing, hunting, and not a worry!"
"An ornament?"
"A long, quiet life is better than a
short--"
"No, it isn't. Never! Five years
I've slaved here, and I'm being wasted.
Utterly wasted!"
This was so obviously true that
Durendal found himself at a loss. He turned
hopefully to the lamp approaching and saw that it was
being carried by Sir Aragon, who was even older
than Grand Master. He contributed nothing
to Ironhall these days except
a glorious
reputation, for he had been Blade to the great
Shoulrack who had pacified Nythia for
Ambrose III. He was reputed to have been the
general's brains as well as his personal sword
and shield.
"Leave me," Harvest howled to the sky. "For
spirits' sake, Second, leave me, go away, and
let me weep like a crazy woman. Like that
dissolute, useless namby who is going to own my
soul."
Durendal stepped back. Aragon came
shuffling closer with his lamp in one hand, a cane in
the other, and a thick book under his arm. He was
frail, but he had not lost his wits. He took
in the situation at a glance.
"Bad news, lad?"
When Harvest did not answer, Durendal said,
"Prime is a little shocked, sir. He has
been assigned to the Marquis of Nutting."
"Who, by the eight, is he?"
"The brother of the King's current mistress."
The old man pulled a hideous face, all
wrinkles and yellow stumps of teeth. "I trust
you are not implying that a private Blade is in
some way inferior to a member of the Royal
Guard, Candidate?"
Huddled in his cloak of misery, Harvest
mumbled, "No, sir."
"It is a rare honor. There are a hundred
Blades in the Royal Guard all going mad with
boredom, but a private Blade has his work
cut out for him, a lifetime of devotion and
service. I congratulate you, my boy."
Propping his cane against the wall, he held out a
gnarled claw that would never again draw the sword
hanging at his side.
"Congratulate?" Harvest shouted, swinging around
but ignoring the proffered hand. Two red lines
framing his face showed where he had been leaning on
the bars. "Nutting is a nothing, a bag of
dung! What need has he for a Blade?"
"The King must think he has need, Candidate!
Do you presume to overrule your King? Do you know
things that he doesn't?"
Nice try, Durendal thought, but it
wouldn't console him, were he in poor Harvest's
half-boots.
Prime shuddered and made an effort to control
himself, although he was obviously close to tears now.
"The King knows what he is doing! Grand
Master's told him I'm not good enough for the Royal
Guard, so he's palming me off on a worthless
buffoon, a panderer. He isn't even a genuine
noble."
Aragon's shock seemed genuine enough. "You
are raving, Prime, and you know it! Neither Grand
Master nor anyone else ever passes judgment
on the candidates like that. Anyone who fails
to measure up is thrown out long before he becomes
a senior--you know that, too. I am well aware
that you can't fence like Durendal here. Who can? That
does not mean that all the rest of us are useless!
The reason the King always takes the first in line is
because even a below-average Blade is fields
ahead of any other swordsman anywhere. It
doesn't matter how you rank in Ironhall,
you're first-class by the world's standards. Now stop
making a fool of yourself." The rheumy eyes
glanced briefly at Durendal. "If Grand
Master were to hear of this exhibition, he might
indeed change the assignment--but he would do it
by striking you off the roll completely!"
Then Durendal would have to take his place, but
he was more concerned for his friend than he was for himself--or
hoped he was. Harvest's trouble was that he
wasn't quite ripe. He did not have his emotions under
adult control yet. He needed to do some more growing
up.
He had twenty-four hours to do it.
Durendal said, "You're an Ironhall
Blade, the deadliest human weapon ever
devised--loyal, fearless, and incorruptible.
How long since anyone died in a binding, Sir
Aragon?"
"Before my time. Sixty years ago, at
least."
"There you are. You're not afraid, are you?"
Harvest flinched. "Curse you, no! I'm not
a coward!"
"It's beginning to look like it."
"No!"
"Well, that's all right, then." Durendal
laid a friendly but powerful arm around Prime's
shoulders and propelled him bodily along the
corridor.
Aragon stared after them wistfully.
The secret, sacred heart of Ironhall was
the Forge, a vast and echoing crypt watered by its
own spring. The eight hearths around the walls--
each with its own bellows, anvil, and stone trough
--were where the magnificent cat's-eye swords
were made; but the focus of power was the coffinlike
slab of iron in the center, for there the human
Blades were tempered. Puberty alone would have
transformed the boys into men, but few of them would have
become the superb swordsmen who graduated. The
King's Blades were all stamped with the same die
--lean, well-muscled athletes. When Harvest
had stopped growing too soon, conjuration had
coaxed his body into another effort. When
Durendal had been in danger of growing too
big, then he in turn had lain on the anvil
while Master of Rituals invoked the
appropriate spirits to come to his aid. The final
drama, the binding of a Blade to his ward, must
inevitably be consummated among the fires of the
Forge.
On the day of a binding, the echoing cavern was
relinquished to the participants, who were required
to meditate there, starting before dawn. By the end of a very
long day, Durendal was still not sure he had
succeeded, because meditating wasn't something he'd ever
tried before; but if boredom was the measure of
success, he had done splendidly. Harvest
sat and chewed his fingernails to the elbow, while the
Marquis paced, fretted, and whined about hunger.
Once Master Armorer came in and asked
Harvest what he wanted to name his sword.
Harvest muttered, "Haven't decided." The
man shrugged and went away.
At sunset Master of Rituals appeared and
ordered the three of them to strip and bathe in four of the
eight troughs, in a particular order. After poking
a finger in the icy spring water, the Marquis
squawked and refused so vehemently that a pathetic
smile briefly warmed Harvest's pale face.
Alas, offered alternatives of calling off the
binding or being forcibly stripped and dunked by four
smiths, Nutting decided to cooperate; but he
must have set a record for the shortest bathing on
record.
Close to midnight, the knights and the rest of the
candidates filed in to begin the ritual.
Bright flames frolicked in the hearths, but the
shadows of six score men and boys made the
crypt dark and creepy. As the chanting soared
amid strange acoustics and the metallic beat of
hammers, Durendal sensed the spirits ga
thering. Some
spirituality always lingered there, for any forge sustained
all four of the manifest elements--earth from the
ore, fire from the hearths, air from the bellows,
water from the quenching troughs. Of the virtual
elements, the swords attracted spirits of death and
chance, while time and love were essential
ingredients of loyalty. Binding was a very potent
and complex conjuration.
His fast had left him vaguely light-headed,
yet he was buoyed up by the surging powers. Hard
to believe after so long that his life in Ironhall
was almost over. Soon he, also, would be bound and
stride out into the world behind his ward, whoever that might
be. He could not possibly draw a shorter
straw than poor Harvest had.
The procedure was very familiar. He had first
played a role in a binding on his third day in
Ironhall, because one part of the ritual was
assigned to the Brat. As the spirits of chance had
caused him to remain the Brat so long, he had
assisted no less than eight Blades at their
bindings, which might be a record, although a petty
one to be proud of.
Now he had emerged from the chorus to play a
major role once again, gathered with the other
participants inside the octogram. The locations
were obligatory: Prime stood at death point,
directly across from his future ward at love and
flanked by Second at earth and Byless, the next
most senior candidate, at air. Chance point was
always given to the Brat. The three who performed
most of the conjuration took the remaining points--
Master of Rituals as Invoker at fire,
Master of Archives as Dispenser at water, and
Grand Master as Arbiter at time.
Dispenser chanted the banishment of death, casting
grain across the octogram, grain being a symbol
of life. Banishing all death spirits when there was a
sword present was an impossibility, of
course; and the element of chance was fickle
by definition. When he had completed that second
revocation, Invoker began summoning spirits
of the required elements. The onlookers joined in
the triumphant dedication song of the Order, a
paean to brotherhood and service that made the
Forge throb like a great heart. Although the chamber was
stiflingly hot, Durendal felt the hair rise
on the back of his neck.
Grand Master went forward to scatter a handful of
gold coins on the anvil. He peered at their
distribution and seemed satisfied that they hinted at
