The Book of Swords

by Gardner Dozois (ed)

  “No, that’s just for the boys. We have our own competition of women’s skills: sewing, milking a cow, baking bread, plucking a chicken.”

  “And you won?”

  “I was surprised,” she said. “There were better seamstresses and bakers in the contest, yet somehow they all faltered and it was I who received the accolade!”

  “Which is at the bottom of a dry well.”

  She said nothing, but he could hear the faint sound of her hands comforting each other.

  “Stay here,” Baldemar said, “I’ll explore a little.” He felt his way around the wall until he found a gap, then he got down on hands and knees to cross it until the wall resumed again. While he crawled, he was chilled by a river of cold air. He stood up, and said, “Say something.”

  “What?” Her voice came from the darkness; he oriented himself and found his way back to her side.

  “There’s a tunnel,” he said.

  Her voice came quavering. “Where does it go?”

  He told her he did not know and had no desire to find out. They stood in the darkness and felt the wind. The flow of air must mean that the tunnel connected with the outside world, but he had no desire to grope his way through blackness in which anything might lurk.

  Time passed. The woman introduced herself as Enolia. Baldemar gave her his name. They sat on the rock, backs against the wall on either side of the ladder. After a time, Baldemar let his mind wander and found himself thinking about the wizard’s questions about the Sword of Destiny. Enolia’s voice brought him back to the here and now.

  “I smell something.”

  His head came up and now he caught it, too: a sour odor, almost sulfurous, with a nose-tickling peppery overtone that made him want to sneeze. “It’s coming from the tunnel,” he said. A moment later, he added, “And there’s a light.”

  They stood up, backs against the wall. Baldemar missed his knife, which was still in his boot, far away to the north. Then he found himself missing the Sword.

  The tunnel was long and the light was far down it. It did not flicker like a flame nor throw a beam like a mirror-backed lantern. He saw a shapeless yellow glow that gradually resolved into a sphere with a flattened bottom, the shape of the tunnel. The closer it came, the stronger grew the taint of brimstone with a strong underlay of putrefaction.

  He felt motion beside him and realized that the woman was trying to fit herself between him and the wall. “Stop that,” he said, but she did not.

  “I’m frightened,” she said.

  So was Baldemar, but there was no point dwelling on it. He couldn’t quite bring himself to try to hide behind her, so he let her peep over his shoulder as the light came nearer. When it was a hundred paces away, he saw that there was something within the sphere. At fifty paces, he could almost make out what it was; at thirty, he could see it clearly and wished he did not have to. The stench became the olfactory equivalent of deafening.

  A moment later, the yellow glow filled the mouth of the tunnel and the bottom of the well. There was neither torch nor lantern; the light somehow came sourcelessly from the creature before him. It regarded them from several eyes, then an orifice that resembled no mouth that Baldemar had ever seen spoke in a voice that was somewhere between a hiss and a gobble.

  “Well, here we are again.”

  “It is the first time for us,” said Baldemar. He felt Enolia’s head nodding against his shoulder in strident agreement.

  “I don’t suppose,” said the demon—the man couldn’t think of another word that did the thing justice—“that you bring me a message from Duke Albero? Something along the lines of, ‘I’m ready. Take me’?”

  Baldemar said that no message had been vouchsafed to him and felt the woman’s nose rub his shoulder as she signaled the same was true for her. “But,” he added, “I’m willing to climb the ladder and ask for one if you can give me some help with the lid up there.”

  The demon made a sound that might have been a sigh, if a sigh could sound that horrible. “We might as well get on with it, then,” it said.

  “With what?” Despite the almost unbreathable air, Baldemar felt a strong urge to extend this part of the encounter rather than discover just what “get on with it” might entail.

  “The usual.”

  “And what is the usual?”

  The demon focused all of its eyes on the man. Baldemar felt an uncomfortable pressure in his skull and a terrible itching of his palms and soles, but he bore the sensations as best he could while maintaining an expression of polite interest.

  Part of the glowing creature moved and settled. Baldemar thought he might have just witnessed how a demon shrugged. “Very well,” it said, “Duke Albero made one of those agreements I’m sure you’ve heard about. Wealth, power, health, longevity, and so on, until he should grow weary of the eternal sameness of existence. Meanwhile, I have to hang about and do his bidding.”

  “He seems to have fended off the weariness,” Baldemar said. “Indeed, he looks capable of doing so indefinitely.”

  “Hence the escape clause,” said the demon. “Every seventh year, he must send me a man and a woman of accomplishment. I ask them three riddles. If they can answer them, I go up and collect the Duke and take him back with me.”

  “And if they can’t?”

  Again the complex set of strange motions. “I take the messengers.”

  “By any chance, would you take them to a paradise?”

  “No, not a paradise,” was the answer. “Certainly not for them. Indeed, I find it rather confining, myself. I would much prefer to collect the Duke and go home.”

  “Oh,” said Baldemar. The gibbering from behind him increased, but he forced himself to focus his mind, and said, “What is the first riddle?”

  The demon said, “What walks on four legs in the morning, on two at noon, and three in the evening?”

  “Seriously?” said Baldemar.

  “You can’t answer?” Another demonic sigh; a limb festooned with hooks and grapples reached for him.

  “Of course I can answer,” said Baldemar. “Everybody knows that one.”

  The arm or leg or whatever it was withdrew into the glow. “None of the Duke’s messengers has ever answered it correctly,” the creature said.

  Baldemar realized that the seven-yearly contests were not intended to determine who among the Duke’s subjects were the most learned. They were instead tests of gullibility.

  “The answer,” he said, “is ‘man.’ As an infant he crawls on all fours; that is the morning of his life. In maturity, his noon, he walks on his own two feet. And in the evening, which is his dotage, he relies on a cane.”

  All the demon’s eyes again concentrated their gazes upon the man and again he had to resist the urge to rub itchy palms and soles together. “It’s hard for me to think when you do that,” he said.

  The creature sent most of its eyes looking in other directions. “I was just surprised,” it said. “No one has got it right before.”

  “The ‘accomplishments’ of the Duke’s previous messengers,” said Baldemar, “were not in the arena of intellect.”

  “I should have specified scholars,” the demon said, “but now I’m encouraged. Here is the second conundrum. Do take your time.” The man thought that the contortion of its facial parts might approximate a smile. Shivering, he looked away and listened to the riddle.

  “There are two sisters; each gives birth and death to the other. What are they?”

  The conundrum rang a faint chime in the back of his mind, but he could not quite close a mental grip upon it. He said to Enolia, “Do you know it?”

  “No, it makes no sense,” she said. She began to snuffle against his shoulder. “Poor me! I shall never see another dawn. Oh, woe—”

  “Dawn! That’s it!” Baldemar said. “The sisters are night and day. Each gives birth to the other, each ends the life of the other.”

  “Very good!” said the demon. “Very, very good!” The man could not be sure,
but beneath the pure horror of its hideous voice and writhing facial parts, it sounded actually pleased. “And now the last, and simplest.” It paused portentously then said, “What do I have in my hand?”

  Instinctively, Baldemar looked at the limb that had reached for him, then at another that arched up and over what he thought might be the demon’s head if it had a neck, finally at a third appendage that more or less curled at its more or less feet.

  “Is there a clue?” he said.

  “I wish there could be,” said the demon. “I have long wanted to leave here and install the Duke in my collection.”

  “Let me think.”

  “Yes, do.”

  The first riddle had been easy. The second had come courtesy of a prompt from the woman. He now spoke to her over his shoulder. “Anything?”

  Her voice was a whisper, “Nothing,” and he could feel she had gone back to wringing her hands.

  “Can you repeat the question?” he said.

  “What is in my hand?”

  “Which hand?”

  “No clues,” said the demon. “Oh, dear. Does this mean you’re falling at the last jump?”

  “Give me a minute.”

  Baldemar was mentally cudgeling his brain. What would a demon have in its hand? What would this particular demon have in its particular hand? For some reason, or no reason at all, he wanted to blurt out, A piece of cake!

  The young woman began to blub, her tears and nasal flows wetting his shirt. “It’s not fair,” she said. “It doesn’t even have a hand!”

  A sensation came upon Baldemar, like a cooling flow of water on a searing summer day. “Nothing,” he told the demon. “You have nothing in your hand because you don’t have a hand. Just a kind of paw, and a crabby claw thing, and…”—he couldn’t find the words—“and whatever that other thing is, but I know it’s not a hand!”

  There was a silence at the bottom of the well, broken only by the woman’s stifled sobs. Then the yellow glow around the demon deepened to gold and became tinged with red around the edges. “Good-bye,” it said then swept up the shaft of the well at great speed, taking most of its stench with it.

  Baldemar looked up and saw the timber lid fly apart into splinters. He pulled Enolia into the tunnel as a rain of sharp wood briefly fell, then said, “Come on!”

  He threw himself at the ladder and climbed with as much alacrity as his still-trembling legs could deliver. The young woman matched him step for step. When they climbed over the rim of the well, it was early evening. He saw the flying platform, far off in the distance, framed against the dying light.

  From the castle came shouts and screams, the clatter of boots on stone flags. In the nearby stables, hooves were pounding against stalls. Then, from on high, came one great cry of despair.

  “Get back!” he warned the woman as a pulsing sphere of red light appeared at the top of the keep, leapt into the air, and arrowed down toward the well. It paused above the opening and Baldemar had a glimpse of the Duke wrapped in what might have been a tentacle bedecked with curved thorns, the circles of his eyes and mouth forming a perfect isosceles triangle. He was making sounds that were not quite words.

  The demon had all of its eyes trained on the new addition to its collection but it let one stray toward the man. “He who made me ordained that gratitude may never be part of my nature,” it said, “but I am required to seek equipoise.”

  Baldemar said, “I am not prepared to make a bargain with you. No offense meant.”

  “None taken,” said the demon. “But I cannot be obligated and I find that I am, to both of you. You may each ask a service of me at no further charge.”

  Baldemar took this statement and turned it over to examine it from several angles, demons being what they were. But the woman said, “I would like a nice farm, with good crop fields and healthy livestock, a warm well-furnished house with a pump right in the kitchen.”

  “Done,” said the fiend. “It used to belong to the Kazakian family.”

  “I was their servant,” she said. “They were always cruel to me, said I was not good enough to clean their muddy boots. The girls pulled my hair and the boys clutched me in private places.”

  “I know,” said the fiend, then as an aside to Baldemar it added, “Equipoise, as I said.”

  To Enolia, it said, “The Kazakians are now your indentured servants.” A claw handed her several scrolls and a cane fashioned from black, spiraled wood. “Here are all the necessary documents, and a stout stick to beat them with.”

  The woman took them and clasped them to her bosom. A smile briefly softened her features before they assumed an aspect of determination. “I have to go now,” she said, and left without further ceremony.

  Baldemar had finished his examination of the demon’s offer. “Free of charge?” he said. “No comebacks?”

  “No comebacks, but hurry up and decide. I am eager to introduce Duke Albero to his new circumstances.”

  “Can we leave it open? Can I call you when I have need?”

  “If it is not too long,” said the demon. “I experience obligation as a nagging itch. When you know what you want, say the name Azzerath, and I shall arrive forthwith.” Then it disappeared down the well with the gibbering addition to its collection.

  —

  The castle was empty of people though filled with the odor the demon had left behind. Baldemar breathed through his mouth and found it bearable. He had not gone far before he came upon the majordomo’s hat, the man’s head still in it. From a room dedicated to trunks and lidded baskets he took a capacious satchel. In the Duke’s quarters, he changed into richer garments then examined the coffers and cupboards, choosing items that were valuable yet sturdy—precious metals and gems, mostly—along with as much weight in gold coins as he could carry. He also filled a purse with silver bits and bronze asses for incidentals.

  The coins all bore the likeness of the Duke. Baldemar studied the aquiline profile on one then turned it to see the obverse. It showed a date from a previous century and Albero’s motto in an extinct tongue: Miro, odal miro.

  Baldemar thought back to his school days and found he could translate it. “Mine, all mine,” he said. He dropped the coin into the purse, put the purse in the satchel, and patted its comforting bulk. Then he smiled the exact smile as the woman had before she set off.

  —

  The black horse the Duke had ridden was in its stall, half-maddened by the smell of demon. But Baldemar was an experienced horse handler and soon calmed the beast. He saddled and bridled it with the Duke’s own gold-chased tack and affixed the satchel securely behind. He walked it out into the courtyard, still clucking and cooing to comfort it, and saw that some of the men-at-arms had abandoned their weapons when the fiend arrived. He picked up a serviceable sword, and, since he was riding, a long-shafted lance. It had a black-and-gold pennant that he tore off.

  The animal’s iron shoes beat solid notes on the drawbridge as it carried Baldemar out of the castle. The fortification’s surrounds were empty and he suspected that he would find the town similarly deserted. Demons had that effect.

  “Now,” he said to himself, “I’ll ride to the land’s edge and take passage on a ship sailing north. I’ll buy myself a house in one of the Seven Cities of the Sea and invest in the fiduciary pool. Maybe I’ll get a boat and take up fishing.”

  He touched his heels to the black’s sides and the horse began to canter toward the town. Just then, a voice from above him said, “There you are!”

  Baldemar looked up. The flying platform was just overhead, Aumbraj leaning on the balustrade. It settled to the turf, and the wizard said, “Come aboard. We have to go.”

  The man was tempted to urge the horse to a gallop. But the thaumaturge was tapping the palm of one hand with the wand. He climbed aboard and the flying platform turned north. Past the town, he looked down and saw Enolia marching along a lane that led to a capacious stone farmhouse. She paused to roll up her sleeves then used her stick to take a
few practice swipes at the weeds that grew beside the track before resuming her methodical progress toward the house. When the platform’s shadow passed over her, she did not look up.

  —

  “The thing is,” the thaumaturge said, “you really ought to be dead.”

  They were flying north over the Sundering Sea at an even faster speed than Baldemar had come south. Aumbraj had fed the imps well on hymetic syrup and conjured an invisible shield to protect him and Baldemar from the shrieking wind of their passage.

  The wizard’s henchman had been watching the waves ripple the surface of the sea. Now he turned to the thaumaturge. “The demon would have given me a fate worse than death,” he said. “He would have taken Enolia and me for playthings.”

  “I’m not talking about the demon. I’m talking about the Sword of Destiny. It is known to be very—touchy about being touched.”

  He grinned at his play on words but Baldemar bored in on the substance of his remark. “You’re saying the Sword…has a will of its own?”

  “A will—and a history of seeing that will turned into ways. And means, if you get what I’m saying.”

  Baldemar said, “So Thelerion was sending me to be killed?” His disaffection for his employer plumbed new depths.

  “I doubt that,” said Aumbraj. “He simply didn’t know what he was getting into—or, more properly, getting you into. But it’s clear from my researches that the moment your hand touched the Sword, you should have found yourself looking at a charred stump somewhere between your wrist and elbow.”

  Baldemar shuddered. But the thaumaturge went on, oblivious to his distress. “Instead, the Sword merely freed the erbs you had sequestered so that they could chase you away. Even then, it did not allow them to catch you, as they certainly should have. The man has not yet been born who can outrun an erb, especially up stairs.”

  Baldemar forced from his mind the image of what would have happened if the beasts had caught him.

  “Then, instead of hacking off a leg, it hampered you just enough to make you leave it behind.”

  “So it didn’t want to kill me, yet it didn’t want me to take it away.”