The Book of Swords

by Gardner Dozois (ed)

  But the man in the robe addressed himself first to the imps. “Explain yourselves.”

  This the red one did, with much more prostrating and head-nodding, declaring that they were indentured to Thelerion the Exemplary, Grand Thaumaturge of the Thirty-Third Degree, while the spotted one mimicked every movement to support what was being said.

  “And that one,” the wizard asked, gesturing with the wand toward Baldemar. “What of him?”

  “Don’t answer that!” Baldemar said, leaping to his feet. “I will speak for myself.”

  But the interrogator made a motion with the wand and the red imp burst out with, “Oh, he’s a terrible man, and a willful liar! Trust not a word he utters!”

  “Hmm,” said the wizard. He pointed the black wood at Baldemar and said a few syllables audible only to himself. The man felt a cold shiver enter through the sole of his right foot, swiftly climb his leg, torso, and neck, then exit his left ear after performing what felt like a scouring of his skull with icy water. One hand trembled uncontrollably and he had difficulty suppressing an intense urge to urinate.

  “Now,” said the man with the wand, “what’s this all about?”

  Baldemar had been preparing a tale of misadventure and surprise, in which he featured as a creature of purest innocence. But when he opened his mouth to speak, his tongue rebelled, and he heard himself giving an unadorned version of how his employer, Thelerion the Exemplary, had sent him to recover the Sword of Destiny, in which endeavor he had failed. “Dreading my master’s wrath, I fled across the sea on this, his flying platform,” he finished.

  The wizard tugged at his nose, causing Baldemar to fear that another spell would be launched his way. Instead, he was told to accompany the wand-wielder down to his workroom. The imps were told to remain where they were. “I’ll send you up some hymetic syrup,” said the wizard.

  “Ooh!” said the red imp, as the two looked at each other with widened eyes.

  “Yum!” said the spotted one.

  —

  The wizard’s workroom was depressingly familiar. Thelerion’s had much the same contents: shelves crammed with ancient tomes, mostly leather-bound, some of the hides scaly; glass and metal vessels on a workbench, one of them steaming though no fire was set beneath it; an oval looking glass hanging on one wall, its surface reflecting nothing that was in this chamber; a small cage suspended on a chain in one corner, containing something that rustled when it moved.

  The wizard gestured for Baldemar to sit on a stool while he went to pick through a shelf of close-packed books. “Don’t try to run away,” he said, over his shoulder. “I’ve been having trouble with my paralysis spell. The fluxions have altered polarity and the last time I used it…”—he looked up at a large stain on the ceiling—“well, let’s just say it was an awful mess to clean up.”

  Baldemar sat on the stool.

  The wizard sorted through the next shelf down, made a small noise of discovery, and pulled out a heavy volume bound in tattered black hide. He placed it on a chest-high lectern and began to leaf through the parchment pages. “The Sword of Destiny, you said?”

  “Yes,” said Baldemar.

  The thaumaturge continued to hunt through the book. “Why did he want it, this Fellow-me-whatsit of yours?”

  “Thelerion,” said Baldemar, “the Exemplary. It was to complete a set of weapons and armor.” He named the other items in the ensemble: the Shield Impenetrable; the Helm of Sagacity; the Breastplate of Fortitude; the Greaves of Indefatigability. As he spoke, the wizard found a page, ran a finger down it, and his face expressed surprise.

  “He was going to put these all together?”

  “Yes.”

  “To what purpose?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The long face turned toward him. “Speculate.”

  “Revenge?” said Baldemar.

  “He has enemies, this Folderol?”

  “Thelerion. He is a thaumaturge. Do they not attract enemies as a lodestone attracts nails?”

  “Hmm,” said the other. He consulted the book again, and said, “But these items do not…care for each other. They would not gladly cooperate.”

  He tugged a thoughtful nose and continued in a musing tone, “The helmet and the shield might tolerate each other, I suppose, but the greaves would pay no attention to any strategy those two agreed upon. And the sword…”

  The wizard made a sound of suppressed mirth. “Tell me,” he said, “your master, he is a practitioner of which school?”

  “The green school,” Baldemar said.

  The wizard closed the book with a clap and a puff of dust. “Well, there you go,” he said, after a discreet sneeze. “Green school. And a northerner, at that. Say no more.” He shook his head and made a noise that put Baldemar in mind of an elderly spinster contemplating the lusts of the young.

  The wizard put the book back where he’d found it and favored his visitor with a speculative assessment. “But you’re an interesting specimen. So, what to do with you?”

  He was stroking his long chin while the series of expressions on his other features suggested that he was evaluating options without coming to a conclusion, when another man appeared in the doorway, clad in black-and-gold garments of excellent quality. He was even leaner than the wizard, his face an intricate tracery of fine wrinkles spread over a noble brow, an aristocratically arched blade of a nose, a well-trimmed beard as white as the wings of hair that swept back from his temples. A pair of gray eyes as cold as an ancient winter surveyed Baldemar as the man said, “Is he anything to do with that contraption on the roof?”

  “Yes, your grace,” said the wizard. “He arrived in it.”

  The aristocrat’s brows coalesced in disbelief. “He’s a thaumaturge?”

  “No, your grace. A wizard’s henchman who stole his master’s conveyance.”

  The man in the doorway frowned in disapproval and Baldemar shuddered. The fellow had the aspect of one who enjoyed showing thieves the error of their ways. Indeed, he looked the type to invent new and complex forms of education, the kind from which the only escape is a welcome graduation into death.

  But then the frown disappeared, to be replaced by the look of a man who has just come upon an unsought but useful item. “Stole from a thaumaturge, you say? That’s an accomplishment, isn’t it?”

  The wizard did not share the aristocrat’s opinion. “His master is some northern hedge-sorcerer. Green school, for Marl’s sake.”

  But the man in the doorway was yielding no ground. “Say as you will, it’s an accomplishment!”

  Understanding dawned in the thaumaturge’s face. “Ah,” he said, “I see where your grace is going.”

  “Exactly. We could cancel the race.”

  “Indeed.” The thaumaturge now again wore the face of a man who mentally balances abstract issues. After a while he said, “There is great disaffection this time around. The townspeople and the farmers have lost confidence in your…story.” He gestured toward the looking glass. “I have heard grumblings in many quarters.”

  The aristocrat’s stark face became even starker. “Revolt?” he said.

  A wave of a wizardly hand. “Some vague mutterings in that vein. But more are talking about packing up and moving to another county. The Duke of Fosse-Bellesay is founding new towns and clearing forest.”

  The aristocrat grimaced. “Little snot-nose,” he said.

  “Actually, your grace, he is now in his fifties.”

  The other man waved away the implication. “I remember his great-great-grandfather. He was just the same. Tried to steal my lead soldiers.”

  “Yes, your grace.”

  The conversation, Baldemar saw, had meandered off and left both participants temporarily stranded. Then the aristocrat seemed to recollect himself. He rubbed his hands against each other, their skin so dry it was like hearing two sheets of parchment frictioned together, and said, “So that’s settled. He’s accomplished. He’ll do.”

  The wizard con
sidered for but a moment, then said, “I’ll need him for a little while first. I think I can get an interesting paper out of him for The Journal of Hermetic Studies. But yes, he’ll do.”

  “Do for what?” Baldemar said.

  But the aristocrat had already gone, and the thaumaturge was looking for another book, humming to himself as he ran a finger over their spines. Baldemar thought about easing out the door, then glanced again at the stain on the ceiling, and decided to stay.

  —

  Over the ensuing few days, Baldemar learned several things: he had landed in the County of Caprasecca, which was ruled by Duke Albero, he of the papery skin. The wizard was Aumbraj, a practitioner of the blue school. The race the Duke had mentioned was a contest held every seven years to discover a “man of accomplishment” who would be sent as an emissary of the Duke to some hazily referenced realm. He would be accompanied by a woman who had bested all others in a test of domestic skills.

  “My companion is a beautiful woman?” he asked, when this news was given him by the Duke’s majordomo, a man who wore a large panache in his high-crowned black hat and was given to sniffing in disapproval at virtually everything that existence contrived to offer him.

  “Comeliness is not a factor,” the functionary said, with a mocking smile. “Certainly not in this case.”

  Baldemar’s hopes faded. He had briefly liked the idea of becoming an ambassador accompanied by some long-necked, pale aristocratic beauty, until the majordomo described the women’s champion as a lumbering rural wench who had been a bondsmaid on a dairy farm. “The things that were stuck to her boots defy description,” the servant said, adding a sniff of double strength.

  —

  Aumbraj had repaired Baldemar’s injuries and given him new clothing and boots. He was a prisoner but could wander the castle’s confines at will though if he saw Duke Albero at a distance, he should immediately endeavor to make that distance even greater. “But don’t try to leave,” said the thaumaturge. “You have opened up an interesting avenue of research, and I will want to question you further. That may not be possible if I have to restrain you with the paralysis spell.”

  They both glanced at the workroom ceiling and agreed that Baldemar would not venture beyond the castle’s walls. However, he did stand on the battlements facing the town and saw the Duke’s men-at-arms disassembling a succession of barriers and obstacles strewn along a taped course that followed the curve of the curtain wall. There were narrow beams over mud pits, netting that must be crawled under, some barrels that had to be foot-rolled up a gentle incline, and a series of rotating drums from which protruded stout wooden bars at ankle, chest, and head height, plus some clear patches of turf for sprinting.

  “It is some sort of obstacle course?” he asked a sentry.

  “Yes, you could call it that,” said the guard. “The townies and bumpkins don’t like it, though. We have to wield whips to keep them running.”

  “And the winner becomes the Duke’s ambassador?”

  The man-at-arms regarded Baldemar as if his question had revealed him to be a simpleton. “Sure,” he said, after a moment, “his grace’s ambassador.”

  Baldemar would have pressed him for a proper explanation, but at that moment he was summoned by Aumbraj. Since the summons consisted of a loud clanging in his head that only lessened when he went in the direction of the summoner and did not cease until he found him, Baldemar did not linger.

  “Describe the Sword of Destiny,” the thaumaturge said when he arrived breathless in his workroom.

  Baldemar did so, mentioning the ornate basket hilt and its inset jewels.

  “And you just seized it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Show me your hand.” When the man did so, the wizard examined his palm and the inside flesh of his fingers. “No burns,” he said, apparently to himself.

  Aumbraj tugged his nose again, then said, “You said you tricked the guardian erbs into entering another room then locked them in.”

  “I did.”

  “But once you had the Sword, they appeared and gave chase.”

  “Yes.” The how of that had puzzled Baldemar. The lock had been securely set.

  “And yet, they did not catch you.”

  “I ran very quickly.”

  “But they were erbs,” said Aumbraj. “Were they decrepit?”

  “No, it was a mature dam and her two grown pups.”

  “Hmm.” The wizard made a note on a piece of parchment before him on the workbench. “You ran onto the roof and there you left the Sword behind.”

  “It was hampering me, poking me in the leg.”

  “Just poking? Not slashing, gouging, stabbing?”

  “It was still in its scabbard, just stuck through my belt,” Baldemar said. “No one was wielding it.”

  Aumbraj’s pale hand batted away his last remark as irrelevant. “Now, this Flapdoodle who sent you after it, did he equip you with any thaumaturgical aids?”

  “Only the flying platform. I used my own rope and grapnel, my own lock picks.”

  “Hmm, and you’re quite sure that the Sword did not seek to kill you?”

  Baldemar showed surprise. “Quite sure.”

  “Hmm.”

  Another note on the parchment. The wizard rubbed a reflective chin then raised a finger to launch another question. But at that moment, Duke Albero appeared in the doorway, his face congested with concern. “He needs to go,” he said, flicking a finger in Baldemar’s direction.

  “I may be on the verge of a significant discovery,” Aumbraj said. “This man may be more…accomplished than the usual candidate. I need another day, at least.”

  The Duke’s expression brooked no argument. He consulted a timepiece he drew from his garments. “The seven years end this very afternoon. There can be no extensions.”

  “But—” the wizard began.

  “No buts.” The Duke was adamant. “No just-untils, or a-moment-mores. If he does not go, You-know-who will arrive. So he goes, and he goes now.”

  He stepped aside and the majordomo, accompanied by two men-at-arms, entered the workroom. Baldemar found himself once more under restraint.

  The Duke gestured for them to take him away but blocked the doorway long enough to tell Aumbraj, “And you will do nothing to interfere with his fulfillment of the requirements.”

  The thaumaturge looked as if he might have argued but dipped his head, and said, “I will do nothing to hinder him.”

  “Good.” Albero once more consulted his timepiece then said to his majordomo, “You have the medal?”

  “Yes, your grace.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  —

  Baldemar was taken to the castle’s forecourt, just past the gatehouse. There he stood, his attendants keeping hold of him while the majordomo took from a pouch at his belt a bronze medallion on a chain. Stamped into the metal were the words: For Merit. He showed it to the Duke, who stood in the doorway of the tower from which they had come and moved a hand in a gesture that urged speed.

  The functionary hung the chain around Baldemar’s neck. Meanwhile another pair of guards emerged from a timber outbuilding leading a plump young woman in a nondescript gown whose life experiences to this point had developed in her the habits of smiling nervously and wringing her hands. She wore an identical medal.

  No introductions were made. Instead the majordomo cocked his head toward a waist-high circle of masonry some distance across the courtyard, and said, “Here we go.”

  “What happens next?” Baldemar said, but no one thought the question worth answering. The stone circle had the look of a well, and when he arrived at it, he peered over and saw a deep shaft descending into darkness. The young woman also took a look into the depths and her smiling and hand-wringing intensified.

  “In you go,” said the man in the hat.

  “What?” Baldemar adopted an explanatory tone. “I am to be an ambassador. Where is the coach to carry me, my sash of office?”

&n
bsp; He looked about him, but saw only the woman, the guards and majordomo, the Duke, who was agitatedly gesturing, and high in the tower, at the workroom’s window, Aumbraj pointing his black wand in their direction and speaking a few syllables. The young woman gave a little start, as if someone had pinched her behind, but then the functionary was pointing toward the dark depths.

  “You and she go down,” he said. “As you see, we have provided the convenience of a ladder. Or we can offer you a more rapid descent.”

  The woman tried to withdraw but the guards were practiced at their task. In a moment, her arm was pinned back and she was forced to the brink of the well. “All right,” she said, “I’ll climb down.”

  The functionary considerately helped her over the rim and saw her firmly onto the iron ladder. When she had descended a few rungs, Baldemar accepted the inevitable and took his place above her. Steadily they made their way down into darkness while the circle of sky overhead relentlessly shrank. Then it disappeared altogether as the guards slid a wooden cover over the well. Baldemar heard a clank of iron against stone as it was locked into place.

  He had expected water, but when they came to the foot of the ladder, they were standing on dry rock. It was too dark to see anything, but a cold wind was blowing from somewhere.

  He said to the woman, “What happens now?”

  He could not see but could imagine her nervous smile and busy hands. “I don’t know,” she said. “They said it would be a journey to the land of Tyr-na-Nog and we would be received by princes and princesses. But…” She let her voice trail off.

  “Tyr-na-Nog?” Nothing more was forthcoming so Baldemar pressed her. “Has anyone ever come back from this paradise?”

  “No. But then, who would want to?”

  Baldemar realized he wasn’t dealing with the realm’s most intelligent specimen of womanhood. “Did you have to run an obstacle race?” he said.