Farslayer's Story

by Fred Saberhagen

  The insect chittering took on an ominous overtone. “There is nothing new in this report.”

  The man who sat by the fire frowned at the empty pan he was still holding in his right hand. Then he put it in the fire, concave side down, to cleanse it. He retained his calm. He said: “I am aware of that. The situation still holds. And tell him that the fight between the two contending clans, using Farslayer, did indeed take place just as some of his powers reported to him. Since my own last report I have visited the stronghold of the Malolo clan and made sure of that.”

  “A small accomplishment. And you have not visited the clan of the Senones?”

  “I am on my way there now. I intend to talk with the leaders of that clan tomorrow.”

  “But the Sword is still missing,” said the demon, as if that were the most reasonable remark in the world to make, making a point that the man might never have thought of for himself.

  “I am aware that the Sword is missing.” The man with an effort retained his patience. Suddenly he looked up from the fire, into the heart of the nearby aerial disturbance, as if to demonstrate that he was not afraid to do so. “That is why I am here.”

  “The Dark Master requires that you shall find the missing Sword for him.” Again, the voice of the visitor seemed to imply that the human needed instruction on this point.

  “I am aware of that, too.” Fear and anger contending in him, the man still managed to control himself. “The fact that the Sword of Vengeance is missing is not my fault.”

  “Yet the Dark Master will require it from you.” There was no doubt about it now. The power hovering over the fire, polluting the darkness among the trees, was seeking to goad Chilperic, to provoke him to some uncontrolled response. After a time its unreal sounding voice began to repeat mechanically: “Yet the Dark Master—”

  “Enough!” Chilperic stood up suddenly.

  “You claim the right to give me a command?” The questioner sounded pleased at the idea.

  “I do claim that right.” The man drew in a deep breath, then went on in a firm voice. “If one of us two must be subordinate to the other, then know that the lowly one will not be me. I carry with me a certain thing that I would have preferred not to show to you. But I will show it now, that you may know I am not subject to your terrors.”

  And in his right hand the man suddenly held up a small object, a thing he had just drawn out from under his belt. It looked like a thin, folded wallet of peculiar leather, grayish and wrinkled.

  He said: “Observe it closely. I have been entrusted with this by the Dark Master himself. I think you have seen it before. Whether you have seen it or not, you must know that it contains your life. If I were to hurl this little package into my fire now, or even hold it close above the flames—”

  “I was but jesting, Master, when I challenged you.” And the voice of the demon was suddenly clear and silvery, a joy to hear. “Surely you know that. Can you not tell when one of my poor kind is jesting?”

  “Aye, I think I can tell that. Rabisu, I did not want you to know that I held your life, for I suspected the knowledge might provoke you to more dangerous and subtle tricks than these you have played for mere annoyance.” Chilperic kicked his pan out of the fire.

  “I, Master? To attempt to play dangerous and subtle tricks with one of your experience and wisdom? Not I, Master, never I. If—”

  “Enough. Understand, evil babbler, that I keep this small pouch that holds your life close by me at all times. If you contemplate any serious action against me, I will know it, whether I am awake or asleep. That is part of the power of control our master has bestowed upon me. I will know in time to get out my knife and begin to carve—”

  “Enough, Great Master! More than enough! From this moment forward I am your humble servant.”

  “I rejoice to hear it.” The man sounded far from convinced. “But leave me now. Do not come to me again until I summon you, or the Dark Master sends you with a message.”

  “I hear and obey.” But before the demon vanished, it caused a plate of delicious looking and aromatic food to appear sitting on a flat rock beside the fire, just where the other food had been.

  The man picked up the offering and sniffed at it briefly. The dish was, or appeared to be, of fine porcelain. The food upon it smelled delicious. But in the next moment he threw plate and all behind him into the woods.

  Then patiently, squatting beside the fire, he once again began to prepare his evening meal.

  * * *

  The next morning Chilperic was up at dawn, busy with breaking camp. Once that routine chore was accomplished, he mounted his riding-beast and moved on to the stronghold of the Sonones clan. This he had no difficulty in finding; it was a large rambling house which stood conspicuously upon a hill only a few kilometers away from where he had spent the night.

  At the edge of the clearing surrounding this rural stronghold the traveler stopped briefly to survey the layout before him. Guards were in evidence, and in a few moments Chilperic had decided that these were not mercenaries, like the ones he’d encountered at the Malolo manor across the river. These looked more like conscripted locals: too poor and ineffective to be mercenaries.

  They were also too nervous in their behavior, too close to the edge of fear, when there was no obvious danger in sight. Two of them, gripping their weapons spasmodically, challenged Chilperic as he rode slowly forward. Obviously the men were impressed by his clothing, his weapons, and his mount, all of which were of the highest quality. But still, to get them to do what he required, he was required to display some patience, firmness, and a certain degree of courage.

  Eventually Chilperic was able to talk himself past the outer defenders of the fortified manor, by claiming to be a friend of two of the family members. Both of these people were, as Chilperic was secretly aware, very recently deceased. He of course pretended to great surprise and horror when the guards informed him that his friends were dead.

  He managed also to drop a hint or two establishing himself as a bitter enemy of the Malolo.

  Soon the officer of the local guards, finding himself outtalked and outthought, and not knowing what else to do, conducted this impressive visitor up to the main house. Once admitted there, Chilperic was soon able to confer with the new Tyrant of the Senones, a very young man named Hissarlik, who had taken over as head of the clan following the great slaughter.

  Naturally Chilperic pretended to be greatly surprised and dismayed when he heard from Hissarlik of the carnage inflicted upon his friends and others of this household, scarcely a month ago, by the terrible Sword of Vengeance.

  The two men sat talking in the main hall, on the ground floor of the manor. Two or three other surviving members of the Senones family were gathering around now to listen to the visitor, and look him over, and evaluate what he had to say.

  One of the survivors present was a vengeful-sounding youth named Anselm, Hissarlik’s cousin. Anselm’s face tended to twitch, and he limped badly. Chilperic gathered the youth had been crippled in some atrocity performed by a Malolo gang several years ago.

  Anselm’s sister or cousin—Chilperic was not sure at first—a young lady named Alicia, made an appearance also.

  “A dozen dead on that night,” Alicia proclaimed. “And our aunt Megara still has not recovered her wits, a month later.” Her eyes glittered venomously. “We owe a huge debt to those Malolo slime, and we mean to pay it.”

  “Your aunt Megara?” Chilperic murmured sympathetically.

  “Mine, too,” said Hissarlik. “She saw her father—he was the clan chief—struck down before her eyes.”

  “Oh, I see. Terrible, terrible.” And Chilperic, looking appropriately grim, gave his head a shake.

  Hissarlik, the nominal leader of this immature and yet dangerous looking crew, seemed to have a few years to go before turning twenty, but still he gave a first impression of inward maturity. Only after Chilperic had talked with him for a while did he begin to suspect why this young man had been
so far down the structure of leadership and responsibility as to be still surviving after that great exchange of Sword blows. This young fellow talked so boldly yet vaguely about the feats of arms for which he was responsible—bragging about a raid he’d ordered two nights ago against a Malolo fishing village—that Chilperic suspected that the problem, or one of the problems, might well be cowardice.

  Refreshments were brought in after a while, and the talk went on. Chilperic, when he thought the proper moment had arrived, and without dropping his pretense of being an old friend of some deceased members of the family, revealed himself as an agent of the macrowizard Wood. He expected that these people, or at least their best surviving magician, would have heard of Wood, and he was not wrong.

  That claim, as he had expected, somewhat perturbed and perhaps frightened his new acquaintances. Chilperic was ready to offer some kind of demonstration to back up his words. He reached inside his coat to touch the leather wallet at his belt; he was just magician enough himself to be able to detect the powerful demonic life that throbbed so vulnerably within.

  As soon as he saw that Hissarlik was groping for some way of expressing polite doubt about his relationship with the famous Wood, Chilperic once more touched glossy but wrinkled leather. Muttering a few words he’d had from the Ancient One himself, he called up the demon.

  This time the manifestation was much quicker, and distinctly visual. While the owners of the house shrank back, the demon appeared in their great hall in afternoon sunlight, blocking out some of the bright beams that came slanting in through the high windows. Rabisu, taking the image of a gigantic though transparent warrior—a demon could look like almost anything it chose—acquitted himself impressively, offering a demonstration of obedient power that would have gladdened the heart of any magician-master. He bent a steel bar into a loop, and caught a rat somewhere inside the wainscotting, and turned the little creature inside out, at the same time sucking it dry of life and blood, so deftly that there was hardly any mess.

  * * *

  It was about an hour after this demonstration when Chilperic, feeling that he had now established himself with the Senones leadership, decided to strike while the iron was hot, and began asking important questions.

  Anselm, in response to a direct query, told him that the last person to be struck down by Farslayer on that night a month ago must have been some Malolo youth. Cosmo’s name did not come up here directly.

  Hissarlik, Alicia, and Anselm each laid claim to having killed one of the Malolo on that night, but they could not agree exactly on each other’s claims. Chilperic soon lost interest in the details, and managed to switch the conversation.

  An hour after that, Chilperic and his hosts were halfway through a banquet celebrating their new alliance.

  Chilperic had seen to it that their talk never strayed far from the Sword for very long. Chewing thoughtfully on a tough piece of fowl, he remarked: “And it never came back into this house again.”

  “No.” Anselm hissed a sigh of exasperation. “It appears that our enemies still have it.”

  His sister murmured tensely: “They’re trying to break our nerves. Well, we won’t break.”

  Their cousin Hissarlik, seated at the head of the table, shook his head slowly. “I think they may not have it after all. Their last man to be struck down may have been away from the others when it happened. It’s possible that they just have never found him, or the weapon, either.”

  “Where else would he have been?” Alicia challenged him at once. “We searched the islands. We searched all over our side of the river, and they would have searched on theirs.”

  The chief could only shake his head. And Chilperic had no intention of enlightening his hosts at the moment.

  The story Chilperic had heard in the Malolo stronghold was of course not about their last man to be struck down, but rather about the misfit Cosmo. Cosmo Malolo, the mysterious one in that family, misfit and leading magician as well. Cosmo, who on that night of terror had simply grabbed up the Sword and ridden off with it, effectively putting an end to the cycle of revenge. It appeared that no one, except the hermit whom Chilperic had stopped to question, had seen Cosmo since that night.

  Chilperic wondered now whether he should have questioned the hermit further.

  In any event, it would seem that Cosmo had not been a simple defector, bound for enemy headquarters. Or, if so, he had never reached it. It would not have been reasonable for Cosmo to stop at the hermit’s at all if he intended to go no farther than the Senones manor. But then everyone agreed the weather on the night of the massacre had been terrible, the mountain trails deadly dangerous, and that might have been a factor in his whereabouts.

  Chilperic was increasingly sure that the Sword had not been carried here by Cosmo, and that none of these frightened but still bitterly determined Senones fanatics had made any systematic attempt to locate Farslayer since that horrible night of slaughter. The shock had perhaps disabled them more severely than was at first apparent.

  The more Chilperic talked to these people, the more their situation appeared to resemble that obtaining among the Malolo on the other side of the river. But of course Chilperic was not going to offer that comment aloud.

  “But where is the Sword now?” young Hissarlik asked him, plaintively and suddenly. It sounded almost as if the question were now occurring to him for the first time, or perhaps it was that he now felt for the first time that there was some point in asking it.

  “That question,” responded Chilperic with slow emphasis, “is also of great interest to my master, Wood.”

  “I see,” said Hissarlik after a pause, not really sounding as if he saw. “But I was just thinking, suppose … suppose that one of those poor peasants or fishermen over on the other side of the river should happen to come across this lost Sword. What would someone like that be likely to do with such a weapon?”

  Anselm tried for once to be reassuring. “The peasants? People like that wouldn’t know what to do with such a thing, cousin. Take my word, they’d be too frightened to do anything.”

  “But just suppose…”

  Chilperic, taking every opportunity to establish himself as a useful friend, concealed his contempt for this lack of fortitude and also did his best to be comforting. “Why, sire, there are every bit as many old enmities in villages as in castles. Farslayer would be used again, and soon, depend upon it. And then any magician worth his salt—assuming of course that he was alert and looking for the Sword—should be able to tell that it had been used again. Once that happened we’d be well on our way to getting our hands on it.”

  The Tyrant cast a look, eloquent of hopelessness, toward his two surviving relatives, neither of whom had any magical ability at all, if Chilperic was any judge. Chilperic had already been told in further detail how the most competent magician in the clan, Hissarlik’s Aunt Megara, had been paralyzed, thrown into a trance on the night of terror, and her first replacement had been among those slain by the Sword. That junior sorcerer, according to Hissarlik’s description of events, had just finished casting a spell intended to stop the Sword moments before it struck him down. There had been no indication that the magician’s efforts had slowed his own doom in the slightest.

  “But your most competent magician this sorceress, your aunt was thrown into a trance, you say? Not killed?”

  “Yes. Our aunt Megara,” said Hissarlik with dignity. “She’s been confined to her room ever since. She still exists almost as in a trance, scarcely able to talk or move about.”

  “Might I see her?” asked Chilperic, in his very most helpful and friendly voice. “I am of course no healer. But I have been present once or twice at similar cases, and…”

  By now Chilperic had been accepted as an old friend of the family. Its three surviving members now conducted him upstairs. On the second floor they entered a room half-choked with incense. No doubt these fumes were somehow intended to be magically helpful, but if the air was always like this Chilperic w
as not surprised that the occupant of the room had remained practically comatose.

  A woman lay in the single bed, between white sheets, being watched over by a faithful maid. Chilperic was surprised at first glance by the patient’s obvious youth. Her face was drawn and pale, but certainly not lined. It was not uncommon, of course, for a sorceress of skill to appear much younger than she really was. But such cheating of the calendar tended to fail in such a collapse as this.

  The woman in the bed ignored her visitor, though at intervals while he was there she managed to rouse herself enough to murmur a few words, usually something that sounded as if it might express some magical intention. These words never had any effect, as far as Chilperic could see.

  None of the family or servants, according to Hissarlik, had been able to do much for her.

  Chilperic, looking at her, was sure that he personally could not do much for her, either. But he knew someone who almost certainly could. He nodded to himself, and turned away.

  “Can you be of any help?” Alicia, with her burning eyes, demanded of him at once.

  “Not immediately, no, I’m sorry. But given a day or two it may very well be possible to help.”

  “Do you mean it?”

  “Yes indeed. Can you tell me more exactly what happened? Was your aunt in the manor house with you when she was stricken? You say it happened on the night of the great slaughter, and she saw her father killed beside her?”

  “No, it did not happen in the house. Rather she was found by some of our militiamen, out on Magicians’ Island. There’s a cave, a sort of a grotto out there, where magicians from both clans sometimes go to practice. They have warning spells or something to keep them from encountering each other. Aunt Meg was found lying unconscious with our father’s body beside her, the Sword through his heart. Farslayer had struck him down from behind. He was the first victim of the treacherous Malolo on that night.