Most convincing of all, the Sword with the white hand on its hilt could work its healing magic as powerfully as ever upon the wounded in his camp. Except for its failure to help his son, there was no reason to doubt that it was genuine.
But Mark could not fathom the meaning of that one exception.
Anyway, Amintor was no magician, nor was a bandit leader likely to have a great enchanter in his employ. And why, supposing the Baron had the power to do so, should he have directed such an effort against Adrian? As far as Mark knew, the pointless infliction of pain had never been one of the Baron's traits. He had no objection to the happiness of other people-as long as they did not dare to deny him anything he wanted.
The fact was undeniable: the Sword of Mercy could cure the hurts of everyone except Adrian.
Why?
Could its magic be somehow blocked by the only equally powerful force Mark knew of, that of another Sword? He could not see how.
Or might there be some other source of power that was even stronger than the Swords?
Whatever the answer, he could not sit here indefinitely in the middle of nowhere, bemoaning his fate. Mark at last, reluctantly, gave the order to start for home.
But scarcely had the march begun when a group of riders came in sight, approaching from dead ahead. There were three white-robed figures in the group, and when they had come closer Mark could be sure that they were priests of Ardneh. At least one of them was of high rank, to judge from the way the others deferred to him. These were accompanied by half a dozen armed servants and attendants.
Mark called a halt and exchanged greetings with the priests of Ardneh. A conference began, and all of the White Temple people were overjoyed to learn that the Prince had indeed been able to retrieve Woundhealer.
"We will erect a statue and a shrine in your honor, great Prince, above the new repository where we keep the Sword."
Mark gave the speaker back a black look in return. "You may erect my statue if you like. But there will be no such repository."
The others gazed at him mystified.
"I mean I am not going to return the Sword into your care. I am taking it home with me to Sarykam."
The ones in white robes were aghast. "It is ours, Prince; it was stolen from us. What can we do to persuade you to give it back?"
"You can heal my son."
"The Sword cannot heal him?"
"Can you? With the Sword or without it?"
The priests looked at one another. "We will do what we can," the leader announced.
Ordering their servants to establish camp, they set up a tent and brought the patient into it. After a lengthy examination, the white-robes declared that they could do nothing for him. They were as mystified as Mark by the Sword's failure.
One of the priests offered the opinion that Adrian's condition might be the result of some punishment inflicted by Ardneh himself.
It was not a wise thing to say. The Prince was enraged.
"And you want me to return the Sword to you? What for? So that the next bandit gang that comes along can take it away from you again and sell it to the highest bidder? Then you can all weep and wail some more and accuse me of not being there to defend you. And accuse this child of having offended the kind gods ... I want to hear no more of gods, or of you, either. Get yourselves out of my sight."
"But, our Sword ..."
"It belongs to me now, if it belongs to anyone. And it can cure just as many folk in Tasavalta as it can in your oasis in the middle of nowhere. More, for we'll retain it."
The priests of the White Temple were accustomed to courtesy, if not respect, from almost everyone whom they encountered. This outburst surprised and offended them. But, observing the black expression of the Prince, they withdrew with no further protests.
Hardly had the Tasavaltans resumed their progress toward home when a handful of lame and diseased folk, having materialized seemingly from nowhere out of the barren landscape, appeared in the path of the column. These approached the Prince, crowding around his riding-beast, pleading to be allowed to benefit from Woundhealer's power. Somehow they had already learned that it was in his hands.
Mark called a halt again and gave orders to the physicians that they should use the Sword to help the sufferers. And all indeed were healed.
Ben, observing the process, commented: "If we stay in one place very long, Prince, we're going to find ourselves surrounded by an army of 'em."
"And if we move, I expect we may find more waiting wherever we arrive. Well, we'll do the best we can. I'll not deny Woundhealer's help to anyone who asks for it."
For several days the Tasavaltans' march toward home continued without further incident.
The fundamental question about the Sword's failure would not cease tormenting Mark.
"Why, Ben? Why?"
Neither Ben nor anyone else could answer that.
Ben mumbled and scowled and was glad when he could find some excuse to turn away. The Master of the Beasts turned his head also and scanned the skies, as if suddenly hopeful that one of his missing scouts might yet return. The magicians and the doctors scowled when Mark questioned them yet again, and said as little as they could.
Once, one of the magicians answered: "Perhaps Karel can tell us the answer, Highness, when we are home again."
And through all the puzzling and the questioning, Adrian lay for the most part wrapped in his own dreams, enfolded in his own blind world. He spoke sometimes to his father, who in turn said nothing to his son of Swords or illness or danger, but tried to tell him that they were going home and cheer him with thoughts of friends and toys and good food waiting there. The condition of the young Prince was apparently no different than it had been before the Sword of Mercy was brought to him. No seizures had assaulted him since then, but often in the past, periods of many days had passed without an attack.
Meanwhile, Shieldbreaker continued to be much in his father's thoughts. Once Mark said to Ben: "Gods and demons, why didn't you bind and gag me before you let me give that Sword away? I think that, after all, the scoundrel's swindled me somehow." And Ben could give no answer.
* * *
Mark had ridden out a little in advance of the small column, scouting the way ahead. He was gazing into the distance when, quite near, a strange figure appeared to him. It was that of a wizard, a caricature that gabbled a strange childish warning, cautioning him that he ought not to return home yet. He was able to see the figure only indistinctly and could understand only a word or two of what it said.
The Prince was suspicious of this warning and hesitantly decided not to heed it. He reported it to Ben and his own magicians when the others rejoined him, but they could make nothing of it.
"Had you seen this figure anywhere before, sir?"
"I ... I was about to say no. But yet ... there was something familiar."
On the next day, a certain man appeared among a group of other feeble travelers intercepting the column. This man was young and would have been robust and active except that he suffered with an infected wound in one arm, which came near to driving him mad with pain. He was also terrified that any ordinary surgeon who treated him was certainly going to amputate his arm.
The fear was well-founded, thought Mark, looking at the injury. But when Woundhealer had rested on the limb for a few moments, the smell of gangrene was gone. A few moments more and the man sat up, flexing his biceps and proclaiming himself ready to draw a sword.
He drew no blade, however, but rather, in the relief of being healed, made a confession.
"I must tell you, Prince-I was one of the bandit band of Amintor who fought against you. I was wounded in the fight on the day that he attempted to kidnap your son."
Mark stared at him, feeling a sullen hatred, knowing that its indulgence would bring him no peace. "Well," he said at last. "That is over. Here you are, and here I am. And my son is as well as he has ever been. Go your way."
"First, Highness, I would pay my debt to you-and also to him
, who deserted me on the battlefield and saved himself." And the man spat on the ground.
He went on to relate his knowledge of Amintor's plans, including the time and place for meeting Burslem. This man claimed to have dispatched the flying messengers that carried word between Burslem and the Baron as they planned their meeting.
Mark had learned enough to bring him to the point of a new decision. Ben and the others who had listened to the story agreed that the man was probably telling the truth.
"So, Amintor is taking Shieldbreaker on to Burslem, trying to form a partnership-I'm sure of it now, Ben. The answer to our problem with Woundhealer lies somehow with the Baron ... that smooth smiling devil has swindled me somehow. I gave him the Sword I promised. Now there's nothing to keep me from taking it away from him again. He has no more than three days' start, on a long journey. With my mount I can catch him before he meets Burslem, since I know now where he's headed."
Someone, one of the mounted troopers spoiling for another fight, let out a whoop of triumph.
But Ben waited soberly for what was coming next.
Mark strode to the tent in which his son was sleeping, put back the flap, and looked inside. "Take him home for me, Ben. I leave you in charge of magicians, doctors, soldiers, everything. Much good have they done me, or Adrian. Take them all, and see that my son gets home to his mother safely." "Yes, Your Highness. Immediately, sire. And where in all the hells of the Blue Temple did you say that you were going? I don't think I could have heard it properly."
" After Amintor."
"You're going alone? As he goes to meet the great magician?"
"I was alone in giving my Sword away, was I not? If what our informant told us is true, I should be able to overtake the Baron while he is still alone as well." Mark went into the tent to speak to his son.
"And what if our informant, as you call him, lied after all?" Ben's question outside the tent went unanswered.
Inside, the Prince bent over the small pallet. "We'll win out, son. Or we'll lose. But we'll not lose by staying home and waiting for the sky to fall on us. Are you with me? I have the feeling that you're with me." And Mark gently squeezed the painfully thin hand and arm that lay within his grip. "Not that you can ride with me. Not yet. Ben will see you safely home. I'll be home when I have Shieldbreaker back."
CHAPTER 19
MARK, once he had gripped Ben's hand and had formally left him in command of the Tasavaltan force, did not look back, but completed his hasty preparations and rode out in pursuit of Amintor.
He was barely out of sight of his own column when again he heard a strange, crabbed voice calling him: "Prince! Prince!" But the next words, though conveying a sense of urgency, were garbled.
Mark turned quickly in his saddle and caught a glimpse of the strange little figure, as of a caricature of a wizard. But, as before, he could not get a clear look at it. And in a moment, both voice and image were gone.
Ben, left in command of the Tasavaltan column, angrily issued orders to continue the march home. He disapproved of what Mark was doing now, even as he had disapproved of trading off the Sword of Force in the first place. Of course, he was not the sprout's father, nor was he Prince.
With the column in motion again, he rode along at the head of it, grumping steadily. The other people in the train left him alone as much as possible. It was unusual to see Ben of Purkinje in a foul temper, and it was all the more ominous for that.
He thought he heard a faint cry behind him. Ben turned his mount to ride briefly beside the litter. Pulling aside the canvas cover, he saw that the Princeling's eyes were closed. The small body turned stiffly under a light cover. To Ben, who would have admitted he was no expert, it looked more like restless sleep than a real seizure.
A physician looking over Ben's shoulder sighed. "Should we call a halt, sir?"
Ben frowned at him. "To what purpose? This doesn't look like a fit to me. And what if it were? The child is always having them anyway, isn't he?"
"Frequently, sir."
"And they never kill him. My orders are to get him home. If you think he needs treatment, do what you can for him while we keep moving. Unless you think it essential that we stop?"
"No sir." The man sounded defeated, almost indifferent. Ben would have discharged him in an instant if he'd thought there was a better replacement available. "I have no reason to believe that it's essential."
Without further speech Ben urged his mount to a faster pace, leading the column on.
The next few hours of the journey passed uneventfully. The crying from the litter was not repeated. Then a keen-eyed soldier reported flying creatures in view, approaching from almost directly ahead. The column was alerted; but as the winged forms drew near, it was plain that they were friendly birds. A faint cheer went up from some of the human travelers.
Three of the birds landed at once, perching wearily on the backs of the load beasts that now bore the empty protective cages. One of the arrivals was an owl, flying now in daylight with hooded eyes, relying on the guidance of its diurnal escort. Meanwhile the remaining flyers continued to circle powerfully above. Ben, squinting upward, could make them out more clearly now. He had heard the beast master back in Sarykam talking about them, but none had been available yet when the column left the city. They were hybrid creatures, bred of owl and hawk and magic. Grown to a size and ferocity beyond those of any other bird, they were intended by the Master of the Beasts in Sarykam to serve as escorts through dangerous air for the smaller though more intelligent messengers. The new hybrid aerial fighters unfortunately did not tolerate burdens well, even the smallest message capsules. Their brains were not well suited for making observations, or at least for relaying them in ways understandable to humans. Nor were their marginal powers of speech good enough to repeat messages accurately.
The packets that the messenger-birds had brought were quickly opened.
The three message packets-all holding the same information, in deliberate redundancy-came from the Princess herself and were addressed to Mark, but under the circumstances Ben made no scruple about opening them.
He skimmed impatiently through the first short paragraph of personal communication. Kristin missed her husband but refrained from actually urging him to hurry home before completing the mission that he had undertaken. All was well at the Palace except that Zoltan was still missing, though his riding-beast had now been found unhurt. The boy's mother was naturally taking it very hard, as was his sister Elinor. The efforts of the search parties continued and were now being directed more to the southwest. It was quite possible that Mark and his escort on their way home might encounter some of the patrols.
That was about it. Ben, seeing no reason not to do so, passed on the messages for others in his party to read. He ordered the resumption of the march while trying to compose in his mind a reply to send the Princess.
* * *
Back in the Palace at Sarykam, Princess Kristin was having a difficult interview with General Rostov.
He could report no further success by the parties searching for Zoltan. Except for one detail-the discovery, many kilometers to the southwest of the place where Swordface had been discovered, of the trail of what had to be a great worm. Such a trail was certainly a remarkable phenomenon in itself, in this part of the world particularly, but it was hard to connect directly with any of the strange and tragic events that had prompted the search.
It had to be assumed that Prince Zoltan had somehow come to grief. The one ray of hope was that as yet no ransom demand had been received, from the villain Burslem or anyone else.
Kristin, when her turn came, had some bad news to report to Rostov also.
A few hours ago a messenger-bird had straggled in, bearing word from her husband. The note it carried identified it as the last bird he had available, and she had sent out additional replacements. That was not the bad news.
The bad news in the message was that Shieldbreaker was now in the hands of the former Baron Amintor. And t
hat Woundhealer, though obtained at such a great price, was doing nothing to help Prince Adrian.
Prince Adrian was not foremost in Rostov's thoughts. On hearing of the loss of the Sword of Force, he raged, though out of respect for the Princess he almost managed to keep his anger silent.
Almost. As he stalked off, announcing that he could not delay a minute in starting to adjust the defenses of the realm to take into account this new catastrophe, he muttered something.
The Princess wondered if she could possibly have heard it right. She summoned Rostov back to repeat what he had just said.
Standing before her again, the General burst out that the Sword of Force, upon which so much depended, had now been simply thrown away.
"You said something more than that, General. I thought I heard the words high treason. Is that true?"
"I am sorry, Princess," he muttered hoarsely.
Color flamed in her cheeks. "If it were anyone but you, Rostov .. , understand, once and for all, that I will allow no such muttering in my presence. Especially when my husband is the object of it. If you have anything to say on the subject of treason, it is your duty to say it to me loudly and clearly. Now, have you?"
"No, Madam." He was almost whispering. "I am very sorry that I said what I did."
"You should be. Now off about your duties." She waved a hand in a gesture of unusual violence.
The General was gone in a moment.
She had no more than a few moments to herself before she was informed that the chief wizard Karel wanted to see her. As soon as she was alone with her uncle, he announced his latest discovery: that Burslem and Amintor had now hooked up in an evil partnership.
What made matters even worse, their partnership was somehow related to a third party, the Ancient One, whose presence Karel had warned Kristin about earlier.
Karel was making preparations to dash off to the southwest, in an effort to forestall the enemy's plans against Mark and Adrian-the wizard thought he could now see those plans taking shape.
Kristin's uncle was still with her when the captain of the Palace Guard came to her with a report that a strange reptile had just dropped a note on a high roof of the Palace. The unwelcome beast was now perched arrogantly upon an even higher steeple, as if awaiting a reply.
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