At the end of that first week Malachi gave me a sword. It was wrapped in oilcloth. I unrolled it carefully and there it was: black-twined, in a plain black lacquered sheath. I held it in my left hand and drew the blade. Its mirror finish blazed in the late afternoon sun. Reflections spread across the grass as I turned the blade.
I put it back into the sheath. It settled in with a comfortable snick. “I can’t take this.”
“Yes, you can. Oh, sure, it’s worth a fortune—the blade was forged in the sixteenth century; I saved for ten years to buy it from some idiot who didn’t know how much it was worth. But I have this one now.” He patted his side. The tsuba rattled. “I found it in an arms museum. It’s worth a dozen of the one you’re holding.” He reached out and I handed him the sword. He put it in his belt next to his own and drew it. It whicked as it cut the air. “This blade,” he said, looking at his reflection in it, “is an exceptionally good one. I expect you always to treat it with the respect it deserves. Take care of it, keep it well-oiled and clean—I’ll show you how. It ought to last your lifetime.” He half-smiled. “If it doesn’t get used too much, that is.” He returned it to me. “And give it a name.”
“A name?”
He nodded. “Every good sword has a name.”
“Oh. What’s your sword’s name?”
“Kaishaku-nin. Literally it means ‘one who assists.’ You know about seppuku?”
I nodded.
“The kaishaku was the one who stood behind the man committing seppuku,” he continued. “He waited until the proper cuts were made, then took off the head with one clean stroke of his katana. Usually a kaishaku was a close friend or relative of the man committing seppuku. It was a great honor.”
“Does the sword have to have a Japanese name?”
“Not necessarily.”
I nodded. “I’ll have to think about it.”
“Take your time. Work with it, get used to it, and it will name itself.” He went on to tell me an improbable story about a ronin—a sort of unemployed samurai, a loner—who had a set of swords with named Pecker One and Pecker Two. The sun had set by the time he finished.
A week later as we gathered our gear and started inside after a particularly grueling session, we heard a dog barking at the front gate. Ariel and Faust had returned.
*
“Where the hell have you been?” I demanded.
Malachi was out back, wrestling on the grass with Faust. The black Chow growled ferociously, play-biting his arms. Malachi had already fed him two bowls of Jim Dandy.
I’d hugged Ariel when Malachi and I had greeted them at the gate. She felt so good to touch, my arms around her dove-soft coat. I became cross when we got inside, though—I’d been worried.
She looked indignant. “I took a sabbatical. I thought we needed a break from each other. At least it seemed like you needed a break from me.”
“I didn’t need a break from you, I just … didn’t know how to feel.” I paused. “Ariel—Malachi told me what you did for me. How you brought me back. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“And hold it over your head? I didn’t want to use it against you. No one should use somebody’s gratitude as ammunition.”
I shook my head. “I remember the darkness, the way you pulled me out of it. And then the day of the Change—it felt so damned real, as if I were there again.”
“It was a memory, Pete. Nothing more.”
“But I lived it over again, all of it. Why? Did you do it?”
She nodded. “I’m sorry, Pete. Sorrier than you could know. You tried so hard to forget all that happened to you, and I had to bring it back.”
“Why? I’m not mad at you, I just want to know.”
“When you were dead—that darkness you felt—I tried to bring you back. But I couldn’t unless you wanted to come back, and I couldn’t make you want to; you had to do that from within yourself.”
“The Song.”
“Yes. It gave you strength. It broke you from death and into a coma. But that didn’t mean you were going to be able to come back to me. You still could have died any time. I needed to give you something vivid, something concrete you could hang on to. Good or bad.” She lowered her head. “Those were your strongest memories, I’m afraid, and I had to make you live them over again. Please forgive me.”
“Forgive you? I’m the one who should be saying that. I overreacted. I’m stupid sometimes.”
She said nothing.
“I love you, you know.”
She blinked. “I love you, Pete.”
“Yeah, I know. It shows. So where the hell have you been!”
“No place in particular. Faust and I just wandered around the city. I found out some things you should know.”
“Such as?”
“Well—most important. Emilio wants me. It appears he’s been offered a large amount—of what, I don’t know—for my horn.”
“Why, that son of a bitch.”
“Whatever. Faust and I went back to the library to follow up a hunch I had. Russ had told us about Emilio and I thought maybe he’d come looking for us after we had left the library.”
“And?”
“It was a mess. Somebody had been there.”
“Lovely.”
“Faust led me to trading bars. I hung around and listened to talk. Apparently Russ Chaffney told somebody about me when he got back, either after we met him on the overpass or after leaving Malachi’s, and—”
“—And they told somebody else, and so on. I get the idea.”
“Yes. Someone wants me, all right. Half the city knows. We’re probably among the last who don’t, because Malachi keeps himself pretty separated from the rest of the goings-on here. I’d expect Emilio to show up within the next few days.”
“Why would he wait that long?”
“I’m not sure. It seems as if he’s waiting for someone, though—I’m sure he wouldn’t come here alone.”
“Simply wonderful. I’d better tell Malachi.” I turned to go out the front door—the rest were still boarded shut. I looked back at Ariel. “Didn’t anyone notice you poking around in trading bars?”
“I doubt it. I mostly stayed behind the buildings and listened—my hearing’s better than yours. Besides, I can be pretty quiet when I want to.”
“Gee, I hadn’t noticed.” I went outside to tell Malachi.
*
Next day: routine as usual. Up at six a.m., stretch out, work basic slashes, thrusts, blocks, and parries; practice drawing the blade and returning it without looking—that was hard as hell—break for a while, fight Malachi with bokken and homemade armor until I could barely lift my arms, then break for lunch.
I dragged myself inside, sweating.
“You’re getting pretty good with that thing,” said Ariel.
“Oh, yeah? You’d be good, too, if you had a homicidal maniac on the business end of it trying to do to you before you did to him.”
“You’re getting into shape. Amazing for a few weeks’ time.” She blinked. “You’ve changed, too. You seem more self-confident.”
I grinned. “You, too, can fear no man! Send check or money order today to Malachi Lee’s Sadistic School of Swordplay. Money back if not completely worn out in half a month.” I got serious. “You’ve changed, too. Something I can’t quite put my finger on. You act … . I don’t know. Older.”
She nodded. “I feel it. You can’t bring somebody back from death and not be changed. I saw a little of what you felt in that darkness, Pete. It changed me. Innocence is in many ways ignorance. I lost some of my ignorance when I saw that.”
“That’s not good.”
She tossed her head. “It happened.” She scraped at the floor, then looked up, dismissing it. “So tell me about the new addition to your arsenal.” She inclined her head at the sword at my left hip.
“My new appendage. Malachi gave it to me.”
“That was very generous of him. He must have a lot of confidence in you; I doubt he’d
give a sword—especially one as valuable as that one seems to be—to just anyone.”
“You wouldn’t know it, to hear him talk. ‘Hopeless’ this and ‘waste of time’ that. I’m just not Jedi material, I guess.”
Though she couldn’t have understood the reference, she laughed. It was good to hear; I hadn’t realized how much I missed it until I heard it again.
“I’m supposed to give it a name,” I said, smiling.
“Oh, really? What are you going to name it?”
“Nothing spectacular. Got any suggestions?”
“Lady Vivamus, maybe? Anduril? Durandul? Stormbringer, perhaps?”
I shook my head. “I think I’ll name it Fred.”
“Fred?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“Fred?”
“I like that name,” I said defensively. “Tell you what—I’ll make it official.” I walked out the front door, making damn sure the crossbow trap wasn’t connected. I’d become gun shy; every time I walked out the door now I felt this cold, prickling sensation in the small of my back.
Ariel followed me down the porch steps. I stood in the yard and drew my sword, holding it so the sunlight blazed along the length of the curved blade. I squinted up at it. “I dub thee … Fred!”
“Oh, shit,” said Ariel, tail swishing.
I slid the blade back into the sheath without looking and with only minor fumbling. I was just beginning to get the feel of the blade, as if it really were an extension of my arm. “There you go,” I said, walking back to Ariel. “It’s done.”
“Wait until Malachi finds out. He’ll kill you.”
I snorted. “I am luff tuff Nipponese swordsman now. Utterry invinciber.”
Ariel’s eyes widened and I turned to see Malachi behind me, shaking his head. Faust was close beside him, bright-eyed and panting in the heat. “Hopeless,” said Malachi, and he turned away, still shaking his head and muttering something about silk purses and sow’s ears. Or casting pearls before swine. Or something like that.
*
Someone shook me awake and I reached for my sword.
“Hold on, it’s me!”
“Wha?” I shook my head. “Russ?”
He nodded. “Come on, get up. We need you.”
I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed. I rubbed my eyes, still not completely awake. “What are you doing here?”
“Keep your voice down.” Asmodeus sat on his shoulder, “I just got here,” he said, stroking the falcon’s neck feathers. “Emilio and four other people are on their way here to get Ariel. They’re about a half hour behind me.”
I hurried into the living room, clutching Fred. I’d been sleeping in my clothes in case I had to get up in a hurry. “What’s up?” I asked Malachi.
“You know as much as we do. We’re waiting.”
Hell of a way to wake up … . Russ was looking at me strangely. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
He blinked. “Oh—nothing. You just look a lot better than the last time I saw you. You ought to change your name to Lazarus.”
I said nothing and looked out the window at the heads on the fence.
Russ saw me looking. “Sometimes he reminds me of those World War Two pilots who stenciled swastikas and bombs on the sides of their planes to mark their kills. Morbid.” Asmodeus stirred on his shoulder. He stroked her with a finger. “It’s okay,” he said. He looked from the falcon to Ariel and Faust. “Place is turning into a goddamn Doctor Dolittle set,” he muttered.
I looked at Malachi. He was perched on the edge of the couch. He stared out the window and didn’t move.
“What are we going to do?” I asked no one in particular.
Russ answered. “We’re going to wait and see what they do.” He nodded at the sword in my hand. “Malachi tells me you’re a natural with that thing. I sure hope so. I brought my baby.” He hefted a thirty-inch Adirondack wooden baseball bat. He flipped it, caught the heavy end, let the other end fall against his forearm, and casually extended his arm toward me. The business end of the bat shot toward me, stopping an inch in front of my chest. Before I could move it was snapped away and the bat was twirling like a baton. He fanned it until he was moving it in a sort of batting stance, one hand on the smaller end, the other halfway up. He lowered the bat and grinned. “Nervous?”
“Yes.”
Malachi stood up from the couch. I looked out the window. Motion. I counted four people. They began helping each other over the padlocked fence.
“We ought to nail them as they come inside,” said Russ.
Malachi shook his head. “They won’t come in. They’ll wait for us. We’ll play it their way, for now.” He turned from the window and looked at us. “Let’s go.”
*
We met them just inside the front gate. Malachi wore a fill dress kimono of black silk with Kaishaku-nin secured at his side. Russ dangled the baseball bat casually. On his shoulder Asmodeus spread her wings. Faust stood quietly beside Malachi, displaying none of his usual excitement. I’d grabbed my blowgun quickly, intending to try to get off one good shot if it got down to it. Fred was slung tightly at my hip. Ariel stood behind us.
We must have looked like something out of a comically absurd Western. The Magnificent Seven meet Fantasia. I’d have been laughing if I hadn’t been scared out of my wits.
One of the four men was Emilio. Another I recognized as the other man who’d been on the overpass when Ariel and I arrived in Atlanta. He carried a hatchet. The third man was tall, with long blond hair. He carried a Bear compound hunting how with a quiver attached. The fourth swaggered with a broadsword thrust through his wide leather belt.
Emilio still wore his knives. They gleamed in the morning sun: throwing knives, trench knives, push-blades, two boot-knives. In his right hand was a black-handled and wickedly curved machete. In his left a chain was coiled around his palm with about three feet dangling free. I looked nervously at Malachi, but his face registered nothing. He’d told me once during training that a good length of chain, wielded by a man who knew what he was doing, was a sword’s natural enemy. “It can be thrown hard against the blade,” he’d said. “It wraps around and makes the edge useless. A good tug and you’re thrown off balance—and balance is everything to a swordsman. If you try to slash and hit the chain, same thing—it binds the blade.”
We stopped about five yards from them. The one with the compound bow reached out, pulled out an arrow, and fitted it, but kept the bow pointed down.
Emilio and the one with the broadsword stepped forward until they were eight feet from us. “We want the horse,” said Emilio.
“She’s not a horse,” I said. I hadn’t meant to say anything but it came out before I could stop it.
Emilio laughed. His eyes flicked to my sword. “You didn’t have that when you came here.” He glanced at Malachi, who regarded him with absolutely no expression. “I suppose now you think you’re pretty bad with it.”
I tried to follow Malachi’s example and said nothing.
He raised the chain, letting it swing back and forth like a pendulum. “Come on,” he said to me. “Just you and me. You win and nobody bothers your pretty horse. You lose, she’s mine.”
“No,” said Malachi. “If you want somebody, you come for me.”
“Since when did you become a Boy Scout?” asked the broadsword carrier.
Malachi’s face remained impassive.
“Okay,” breathed Emilio, and suddenly he grinned. His teeth were even and white. “You and me, samurai.” He laughed at the word.
“All right.” Malachi separated himself from us, never taking his eyes from Emilio’s. The two squared off. Emilio crouched forward, waving the chain from side to side. The machete weaved in slow circles, waiting. Malachi flowed into his stance. His feet were wide apart. He stood with knees bent, up on the balls of his bare feet and leaning forward slightly, bent at the waist. He’d pushed down on the sheath of his sword so that the handle pointed down, the tip up. His right
hand gripped the twined handle firmly, just beneath the guard. His eyes were leveled at Emilio’s chest, but they looked through him, as if he saw something there that I didn’t, something hypnotizing.
Emilio twitched the chain, trying to draw Malachi into movement. Malachi remained still. His eyes narrowed; he was judging distance. Suddenly he moved, and if I hadn’t spent long hours learning from him I would have missed it completely. As it was I only saw the blur. He drew his sword and slashed horizontally. It split Emilio’s nose. Maintaining the sword’s momentum, he turned his right wrist so the sword arced up, brought his left hand up to grab the bottom of the handle, and sliced straight down. The movement brought the sword vertically through Emilio’s nose, quartering it.
The whole thing took less than half a second. Emilio hadn’t had time to move.
Emilio put his hands to his face and screamed. Bright red blood flowed from between his fingers, down his forearms.
I had to piece together what happened after that. Emilio, blood still streaming freely, sank to his knees. The broadsword wielder drew and headed for Malachi, who leaned back, holding Kaishaku-nin so that the sword’s tip almost touched the ground, edge upward.
Ten yards away, the one with the bow lifted it, took aim at me, and let fly. The arrow sped at me, though of course I couldn’t see it, and then Ariel was in front of me, head snapping down and, just as quickly, up. The arrow broke in two.
The man looked after his shot in disbelief. He drew another hunting arrow. I brought the Aero-mag to my lips and blew. The shot was hurried, though, and the dart hit him wide of my mark. He dropped his bow and spun, clutching his shoulder. He tried to pull out the dart and couldn’t; it was wedged in the socket and probably against bone. He ran away. In the confusion he must have managed to pull himself over the fence one-handed. We didn’t see him again, anyhow.
Russ Chaffney, meanwhile, had engaged the hatchet-bearer. He blocked the man’s powerful swings successfully with the baseball bat, holding it with both hands and catching the hatchet on the handle, just beneath the blade. He couldn’t counter, though; the heavy blade didn’t give him time to swing. Asmodeus had taken wing and was trying to get in at the man’s eyes, but he was slashing too wildly. As Russ kept trying to get in on him the man backed out of range.
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