THE RECRUITER

Moral choices are never easy ones—especially when they involve personal survival. . .

GLEN COOK

Illustrated by Richard Olsen

SOME PEOPLE will do anything not to die, I thought as I stalked through calf-deep trash in one of the light canyons of St. Louis. Year: 3035. Mission: recruiting for Colonial service. Those are the polite words they use on paper or in the holonetnews. In reality, I was a one-unit press gang, a human brain riding a Navy-uniformed metal monstrosity responsible for collecting the scum of the slum of the universe for export to population-starved outworlds. Old Earth rectified her balance of payments deficit by selling warm bodies. '

Walk drunkenly in your tin man suit, act like an offworld Spike fool enough to wander the valley of the shadow alone. . . . Let them vent their envy and hatred of starmen on your tank of a body, then subdue a few and drag them to the Station where a lictor, with only your word to guarantee their criminality, will try, convict, and condemn them, and send them to the Colonial Draft. If they're good ones, not diseased or too far gone in psychotic rage against a universe that didn't see them born to the silver spoon, you'll earn a few retirement points. Enough of them, if you survive their attacks long enough, and you'll get yourself a real body, a good one, virgin-new, force-grown up from

a clone-cell salvaged from your corpse. Welcome to the company store.

Why didn't they just feed the out-worlds clones and let Old Earth go to hell? That's all these ground hogs want, to be left alone to die in their self-imposed misery and filth. Never mind population reduction and control of criminals and failing production capacities. Never mind the mules, just load the wagon.

Some people will do anything not to die. I knew. That's why I rode the iron man through cement and waste paper jungles. Nothing's free. The masters in Luna Command want return on their investment. If an Old Earther got killed fighting McGraws or Sangaree on some nether frontier they usually let him die the death-without-resurrection and left him to lie where he had fallen. Neither the services nor the Old Earth planetary government cared to support the cost of shipment-for-funeral. But if you were lucky, your psych profile was right, and they caught you before your brain rotted, they sometimes kindled you and offered a bargain.

Men like me make deals with devils. The choice wore three faces after I died straightening the mess on Hel-ga's World: I could go ahead and die:

I could request salvage, which meant being ego-scrubbed and cyborged in as control brain of some googol-bit data system somewhere; I could earn a new body recruiting colonists for my homeworld. Old Earth would purchase my contract from the Corps.

Didn't take much thought. I remembered Old Earth and how, when I left its squalor and hopelessness, I swore nothing would make me return, I remembered the driving need to escape its eternal smog of despair that, in the face of a cultural agoraphobia that was almost psychotic in its rejection of the starworlds, had led me to enlist in the Marines. I remembered all the things I'd fled, I'd thought, forever—then opted for life with a whole personality. I'd been gone long enough to forget how bad it really was. Old Earth seemed better than death. Those Psychs knew how to choose.

The light canyon began showing promise as its walls closed in. My electronic ears detected whispers and scurryings. Not rats. My ancestors had somehow managed to rid the world of those. Probably ate them all during the chaos following the collapse of World Commonweal in Century Twenty-Three. They ate everything then, including each other. Could be dogs. They'd been rein-troduced from offworld. But more likely potential recruits. The sort I . hunted frequented tight and shadowy, places. And their infra-red suggested people.

They seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, from places you couldn't have hidden a roach and shadows thin as their Social Insurance cards. Children. One of those gangs that enlisted no one with hair below the neck, vicious as piranha in their collective rage against anyone and ev-

erything. There were at least twenty of them, the females more feral than the males. The latter just wanted to hurt me, the starman who—I could no longer remember the convoluted logic that even I had once accepted—was responsible for the pointlessness and hopelessness of Old Earth life. But the females went for the groin, to destory the hook on which the offworld man hung his ego. Probably been exploiting some soul-abandoned hooker with it anyway. ...

I had the hardest time recruiting the children. They weren't yet people, weren't really as lost as a man or woman who had survived to maturity in that bleak environment. Though they didn't know or believe it, for them there was still hope. I hated taking that from them.

But they hurt me. And the recruiter body was programmed to react even when the brain wouldn't. Down in the chest cavity there was a little solid-state auto-pilot/mechanical conscience whose sole purpose was to make sure the fallible driver up top didn't blow a potential recruiting situation through some vagary of compassion. Its methods were simple. When I didn't get on the job soon enough to suit, it opened pain circuits. Then I felt what my attackers were doing as deeply as would any starman stupid enough to get himself in a similar situation.

They hurt me and I screamed; audio-tape agonies echoed off walls and down canyons generations along the path to ruin. A girl child made for my eyes with hammer and rusty ringer of iron while pot-belly, starveling boys pinned my arms and legs in rubbish and rubble. I had to act. They meant I should die.

Servo strength surged in my limbs,

voltage coursed my titanium skin. There were yips and shrieks and, humble-jumble, the little killers jumped or were hurled off. The fingers of my right hand were my arsenal, stunner, needier, gas gun, pinky a dainty beamer that could slice re-cuits up then as cold cuts and cook the blood into the slices. I sprayed a lot of gas, used the stunner on those observing, then the needier on a few trying to get away. In seconds I was the only upright form on the floor of that slash of shadow. "Twelve, thirteen," I counted. A nice baker's dozen. A lot of retirement points. The young ones were always worth more. Had more man hours left in them.

These would mean a substantial reduction in my remaining obligation— if I could get them to the Station without help-yelling. If I called a pickmeup, I'd have to share with the driver and defense-tech, and surrender most of my portion to repay the cost of fuel, maintenance, depreciation. . . . Welcome to the company store.

One solution was to take only those I could lug, three or four, but greed now completely obscured compassion. Despite all the paper stall thrown up like flak in my flight path, I was so near retirement I could smell it. St. Louis had been good recruiting.

I roped them together and woke them up. I'd quick-march them in with all senses combat-ready. Snipers would haunt the trek. Recruiters were damned unpopular. Before departing I used the laser to fire the canyon-bottom detritus. That would protect my rear and draw the attentions of those gutty enough to be outside. The periodic canyon fires were big events in lives otherwise pale on random stimuli.

There is just one word which fits

the condition in which the typical Old Earther exists: Poverty. Poverty of resources, of goods, of spirit, of morality, of intelligence, of courage. The brightest and richest and bravest got out generations ago; the moral were destroyed. The billions who remain are the descendants of those who hadn't the guts and off-your-ass to dump their welfare security and go where they could create something of their own. Rogues like myself turn up and opt out, commonly through the services, but we grow fewer in every generation. Old Earth is selectively breeding itself toward a whimpering Armageddon.

Station was a fortress I made steps ahead of a mob, with eleven resisting kids still trailing and one slow club-wielder worn as a stole. The door groaned shut behind us. Such hopelessness and despair filled their twenty-two little eyes. All would rather have died than face a real frontier. Old Earth was soul-desolation in human jungle, eye-deep in human-created horror, but to them it was secure, known, comfortable emotionally in its decay and deadliness, and required little of body or mind. The loathed starworlds would take care of tomorrow.

The door groaned shut and bodies smashed against it. It held long enough for me to herd my catch into a citadel room. Processing began immediately. Fingerprints, retinals, ID established. Move along now to the lictor. I'd seen it too many times before. The faces of the damned bore the resignation of Jobs by their God abandoned. I watched the relay of the mob breaking in to liberate them.

St. Louis hadn't been recruited much. In other zones the dullards knew better than to enter a door that gave. Station crew watched with

greedy glee as a crowd surged in before the lictor's eyes, breaking and entering. The trap closed. A little gas dropped gently in. They screamed, they trampled one another in an effort to force the door again. Futility.

Chuckles behind me. This meant points for everyone.

"Your lucky day, Klaus," I heard. "Big bonus on prepubescents today. Four points per."

Had I had a forehead of flesh I would have frowned. Sounded like. . . .

Whir. Communications printout coming in with our point credits as per now calculated at Recruiting Central in Geneva.

"Let's see. . . . You lucky Spike. You made a killing, Klaus. You only got two points to go. Two lousy points. Man." Envy there. The man had been in recruiting two years longer than I. Wasn't hungry enough to work the streets and canyons. Takes a special kind to stay with it long enough to get out.

I thought about those bonus points again. Suspicious. I checked the holocomm following processing. As I feared. Downdeep, two levels, my plunder was running through Medical, not for a Med-check. They were being anasthetized and fed to a battery of surgical Frankensteins, solid-state all, that opened heads like muskmelons and scooped brains into support/travel tanks for shipment to commercial wholesalers. Down the line little bodies were being salvaged for transplantable parts. Must be a big brain order in from one of the cryocyborgic data processors.

Old Earth's got to stabilize that balance of trade.

Engineering had seen to it that there were no distracting glands in my body. Couldn't get into a really

fine, shaking rage. It's hard to be mad when it's all in the mind, but I tried. I couldn't really stomach the brain snatching. But what could I do? We all do what we must to get what we need.

The choice was as simple as off-on. Stand by and not die, or revolt and joint the children on the disassembly line, enroute to computer interface consoles somewhere in the outworlds.

Someone popped to my moral crisis. The holo portrait changed. The new scene showed a clone tank percolating in a remote corner of Medical. My soon to be brain-home, the prize for which I'd jackboot-Pied Pi-pered the children to their ego-deaths. It was ready for occupation. They kept the clones near so we could be reminded whenever we caught a dose of conscience.

I wondered what it would be like to feel again (pain was the only sensation my metal horse could relay), to smell. I hadn't smelled anything but imagination since I died. The thoughts calmed me a little, but not enough. The old tin man suit's monitors must have been playing quisling.

"Only two more points, Klaus," someone reminded. Trying to tell me not to blow it now. Tradition is, everyone helps the man who's short. For some reason the fellow with the best excuse for playing hoyle is the most likely to break. Maybe because they've been at it so long. It builds, like strontium-90 deposits in the bones. "Two points. God, I envy you."

When I thought about it, I envied

me too. I could get out of the baby-stealing business almost any time. I just had to go catch a couple more. A week later I'd wake up a whole, free man, off Earth in Luna Command, credit in hand and passage to any frontier world available as soon as I learned to manage my new body.

Two points. Today one more kid would do, with points left over for friends. Friends? I hated them all, for what they were, mirrors in which I saw myself. They probably hated me. There'd be no reunions for this outfit. We were all predators devouring the weak.

I hated Old Earth and the cesspool of sub-humanity it had allowed itself to become. I wanted to pull cork and blow my fusion generator, myself, and the Station into the hell where we all belonged. I looked at that beautiful, virgin, scarfree young body in its clone tank and hated myself most of all.

Two points and it was mine.

I turned on a view of the hangers-round outside. Still a few children there. No one, not even Mr. Untouchable, Perfectly Just and Honest Lictor, would yell foul if I. . . . Points for him, too, you see. The lictor was still in flesh, but he was old.. Youth was the one way to reach him.

I looked at the clone body, looked at the street. Time to make a choice.

I did.

What choice was there, really?

Some people will do anything not to die.

—GLEN COOK

Glen Cook's The Swordbearer has just

been published by Timescape,

for whom he's also finishing up two new novels

in his "Dread Empire" series. Meanwhile,

Shadowline. the first of a new trilogy, has just been published by Warner Books,

art: Val Lakey/Artifact

DARKWAR

by Glen Cook

Three figures glided through an empty night street. Moonlight twinkled off the medals and tunic buttons of the tallest. There was a gentle tinkle as she moved. The smaller two made no sound at all. They were silth sisters, sorceresses, trained to the ways of the dark. The tall female, Kerath Hadon, knew that they trailed her only because she had asked them to do so.

A remote flash brightened the quiet street. Kerath glanced up. For a moment she saw only three moons. The smallest had an orbital motion perceptible to the eye.

Razor slashes of coherent light ripped the velvet sky, come and gone so fast she actually saw only afterimages. "Another strike at Frostflyer and Dreanikeeper," Kerath said.

Her companions said nothing. One may have nodded. These silth wasted no words. Kerath shivered. They spooked her. "Come. Let's get this done while we still have a few ships left."

A series of flashes illuminated the city, revealing crumbling old walls recently whitewashed in defiance of the doom overhanging the Meth homeworld, filling gothic aches with shadows, silhouetting distant onion domes. Kerath snarled, "Suslov is serious tonight. Here." She tapped a sagging door. It opened. A gray-whiskered male poked his muzzle into the rippling light, his eyes flashing golden.

"You?"

"Yes, it's me, Shadar. Wouldn't you know it? Is the High Lord here?"

"Waiting impatiently, Marshall. Off the street before you're

seen."

Kerath pushed inside. Her shadows followed, two dark ghosts. Shadar led them through two rooms, to the foot of a stair. "Up there. Kerath? Marshall? Good luck."

"No luck involved, Shadar. Strictly fiat. But thank you." She touched his hand gently.

A moment later she stood in the doorway of a brightly lighted room. A half-dozen males with gray whiskers and ragged fur stared at her with tight eyes and tighter lips. Kerath flashed teeth. Folgar suspected. She stepped inside. "I thought this would be private, High Lord."

The eldest male flexed muscles still powerful despite gnawing age. "The circumstances suggested some unpleasant possibilities. You'll understand my urge to include reliable witnesses, Mar-' shall." His teeth showed mockingly.

Kerath's ears tilted forward and down, the Meth equivalent of a sneer. The presence of his henchmen would do Folgar no good.

₁₄₄ GLEN COOK

"You and your packmates have destroyed the Meth, High Lord. The people are sick of alien ways, and even more sick of endless defeat." Kerath gestured toward the doorway. "The Meth might welcome the return of old ways."

A low rumble started deep in a half-dozen throats, an unconscious warning sound from males who saw their territories threatened. "Why are those silth witches here?" one demanded.

"Marshall?" Folgar asked. He concealed his emotions well, for a male.

Kerath drew herself to her straightest. She knew she made an imposing figure, a hero of the Meth, well marked with medals and scars. She even wore the white cuff badge of Snow-No-More, a defeat that fewer than a hundred Meth had survived. "For three generations your all-male party has held the power, High Lord. What have you done with it? You have harried the silth. Slain their greatest. And you have made the Meth into bumbling imitations of the humans you admire." She had rehearsed the message often, but her delivery was not going well. She did not feel it.

Folgar nodded. "To the point, Marshall. The Command had something in mind when they sent you."

Kerath would not be hurried. "You set aside the old ways, the old truths, the old knowledge. You made mock of millennia of tradition. You made the Meth a reflection of Man. Then you tried to usurp the humans. What has it profited you? What has it gained the Meth?"

Folgar stared stonily. His companions watched the silth warily, frightened, as if faced by something returned from the grave.

"Our worlds are lost. Our greatest warships are debris scattered among the stars. Our best fighters lie in iron coffins far in the bitter cold of the deep. We retain only that speck of space inside Biter's orbit. Frostflyer andDreamkeeper are our last heavy ships. We have become prisoners upon our homeworld, awaiting the fall of a monstrous hammer. We are helpless to turn away the asteroid Suslov sends to shatter our world."

"He won't bring it all the way in," Folgar countered.

"He will if he must. I know Pyotr Suslov, High Lord. He doesn't bluff. But, of course, your contention is correct insofar as you know. You have been arranging a secret surrender."

Folgar's ears flicked in surprise.

"The Command knows." Kerath did not conceal her contempt. "Male treachery. It's always with us. You started this war, and

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145

now you mean to sell the Meth simply so you can retain power when the fighting stops."

"Now, Marshall..."

"The Meth would drink your blood if they saw the Command's tapes of your communications with Suslov."

"Are you threatening me, Marshall?"

"This is the message from the Command. There will be no surrender. The Meth will die as they have always lived: without dishonor. If the asteroid cannot be turned, so be it. May the All forfend."

"Marshall—" Folgar's ears were back now, in fighting position.

"The Command will take appropriate steps if you have any further contact with Suslov."

"This is rebellion."

Kerath admitted it. "The Armed Force is the source of all power, Folgar. It no longer supports you. It is assuming direction of the war effort."

"Why are they with you?" Loathing and hatred edged Folgar's voice as he indicated the silth.

"We fought your way, the way that imitates humans. We failed. Now we turn to the ways of our foremothers."

The old males growled. A chair overturned. Someone dropped a bottle. The stink of male fear filled the room.

"Darkwar?" Folgar asked.

"Darkwar."

"But the old darkships were scrapped. Nor are there trained silth crews anymore."

Kerath revealed the points of her teeth. "Wrong on both counts. The silth have ships you never found. The legendary Ceremony darkships. And sisters who escaped your hunters. End of message from the Command."

Folgar growled, but there was a touch of fear in his defiance.

Kerath turned away. "Come," she told the silth.

Shadar awaited her at the foot of the stair. "You did well."

Kerath nodded. "I thought so."

"Good luck again, Marshall." Shadar touched her arm.

Kerath paused to hug the Meth who had sired her, before pushing into the street.

The sky was quiet. The orbital skirmish had ended. Frostflyer and Dreamkeeper still radiated the glow of active energy screens. They had survived again.

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II

Kerath was uneasy in the company of the silth, though she concealed it well. Her adult life had run in tracks prescribed by Folgar's ilk. These sorceresses were anachronisms, shadows of ideas long outdated. Facing down Folgar's scruffy pack was one thing; believing that the Command was doing right was quite another.

She pushed off a bulkhead, floated across the lighter's cabin, checked the harnesses of her companions. "Rendezvous with Dreamkeeper in fifteen minutes." They looked at her with fathomless eyes, saying nothing.

They were so young to be so spooky. They never spoke. That was unnerving. But they had to be good. Littermates, they had been chosen Mistresses of the Ships over any others of the surviving silth. It was said they were as filled with the dark strength as the great silth of old, when darkwar decided the destiny of the Meth.

Did the Command want those grim days to return from shadow? Folgar was a fool, yes, but he was right when he claimed the Meth were better off for having shed the yoke of the silth.

Docking alarm sounded. Overhead speakers relayed crisp instructions. The crew was trying to impress the oncoming Marshall. .

Kerath needed no impressing. Dreamkeeper sprang from the same core of honor as she. The ship was a survivor.

She released her charges. "Follow me."

An honor guard waited aboard the warship. Kerath accepted their accolade but told the ship's commander, "Don't waste any more energy on protocol. My companions are cargo, and I don't need it,"

"As you will, Marshall. Let me show you to your quarters."

"Have the other personnel arrived?"

The commander glanced back. The silth stalked them like wicked shadows. The boots of Kerath and the commander rang on the gray-painted steel decks. The two in black seemed to glide a whisker above the plating. "They're here. Have you noticed the quiet?"

"I noted a distinct lack of curiosity."

"The crew is staying out of the way. The first group distressed them. Now you bring Mistresses of the Ships. "They're frightened."

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147

Kerath showed a glimpse of teeth. "They have cause, Commander. / wouldn't be here had I not been directed."

"When you were a whelp, did they tell you tales about the grauken?"

"Did they? My older brothers tried to convince our litter that he lived under our bed." The grauken was a shape-changing night monster fond of delicate young flesh, an archetype born during primitive winters, when desperate packs resorted to cannibalism to survive, luring or capturing the young of other packs.

"Seeing the silth aboard my ship gives me the feeling I'd have if I did find the grauken under my bed."

"I know," Kerath said. "How well I know."

"These are our guests' quarters," the commander said, halting before a door. He tapped. The door slid open a crack. "Sisters?" He indicated the two figures in black.

Kerath caught a glimpse of the cabin as the two entered. The darkness was barely broken by red light. Shapes in black sat motionless. A terrible bittersweet odor rolled out, offending Ker-ath's nostrils.

The door clumped shut.

"The grauken's den," the commander observed. "They're calling it that already. I hope the Command knows what it's doing."

"So do I, Commander. So do I. I don't think I could go on if I thought my efforts would facilitate a silth rebirth."

"Nor I. I suppose we must have faith that the Command can neutralize them once they have served their purpose."

"Are we ready to space?"

"Programmed for jump. Frostflyer should be moving up to cover our drive ports. Whenever you give the order, Marshall."

"Then show me my quarters. I'll shift uniforms and join you on the bridge."

Ill

"Ready on Frostflyer, Marshall."

"Ready here, Marshall," the ship's commander said.

Kerath stared into the situation display tank. The humans were shifting their dispositions. Suslov had noted Frostflyer's change of station. "They anticipate a strike at the asteroid."

"As they would say, it's in the cards," the commander replied. "They would see that as our only remaining option."

148 GLEN COOK

"A weak one, though. If we reshape the collision orbit, they'll just warp another hunk of rock into the same groove."

"In that light, what we're doing here doesn't make much sense either."

"No. I suspect the Command just wants to scare them into backing off." Kerath studied the proposed track of the warships. It feinted toward the incoming asteroid, then curved out of the system. "It should work. Tney should be rushing one way when we jump the other."

"And then what?"

"It's hoped they'll assume we've been sent out as commerce raiders. If we shake loose, they'll concentrate on guarding their shipping lanes."

"That's the book?"

Kerath revealed a little tooth. "That's the book. Let's hope Pyotr Suslov buys it. Go when ready, Commander."

It looked book for a while. But when Frostflyer and Dreamkeeper turned, human warships responded immediately. Kerath studied the tank. "Two main battles and a heavy chaser. Suslov hedged his bets." She turned suddenly, sensing a difference, a change of energy in the air.

Two silth had come onto the narrow balcony overlooking the fighting bridge: the two she had brought aboard. They remained out of the way, observing, but their chill filled the compartment.

"Coming up to first jump," the commander said. "And two. And one. And jump." The tank blanked. The fringes of the universe folded in. Bulkheads melted and crawled. Meth wavered like dancing flames. Kerath glanced at the silth. They remained rocks of blackness.

Real space clicked into place.

The tank began to assemble a portrait from data retrieved by the ship's exterior sensors. "Frostflyer is with us, right on station."

Kerath stared into the tank, watching starpoints wink into being, willing it not to show anything red.

"One counter. Two counter. Three counter. They stayed with us, Marshall."

"I see them, Commander. Next jump."

The stars changed thrice more. Three times the human trackers came through behind them. "They're good," Kerath observed. "Really good."

"Suggestions, Marshall?"

"They were ragged that go. The chaser was a half-minute late. Perhaps it's a cumulative error."

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"We have only four jumps to shake them, Marshall."

"Continue, Commander." . Next jump the humans translated even more raggedly, arriving over a span of a full minute. Kerath sighed. Time to act. "Commander, Mission Officer to Frostflyer. Turn and attack after next drop. Lead them away. Head for home the long way."

The commander stared at her for several seconds before relaying the order.

The ships jumped, and dropped. Frostflyer charged toward where the humans were expected to appear. Kerath glared at the tank.

The first human ship appeared directly in Frostflyer's path. The tank showed a great deal of weaponry action.

A second ship dropped. And then the first vanished.

"Ha!" a tech cried. "Got one!"

"Or it jumped out," Kerath whispered to herself, watching Frostflyer curve toward the newcomer.

The chaser arrived as the commander ordered the next jump. When translation was complete, Kerath suggested, "Hold the next jump. Let's see if they come through after us. Better to fight them here than around the target."

The commander observed, "It won't much matter now, will it? They've followed long enough to know we're not headed toward any commerce lane. If they bring in a fleet on our line of flight..."

"But it'll take days, or even weeks, to find us. That should be time enough."

Nothing appeared on Dreamkeeper's backtrail. After waiting an hour, Kerath ordered the journey resumed.

Much, much later, as the ship cruised that section of space approximating its destination, she directed, "Secure to quarters, Commander. Standard watches. We'll begin searching after we've rested."

"Very well, Marshall."

The silth were at the hatchway when Kerath departed. She thought their eyes looked feverish in the subdued lighting. She nodded greeting and started to slip past.

A hand touched her elbow. She stopped as if she had encountered an iron bar. A whisper said, "The steel ship, Frostflyer, is no more. Two alien ships lighted its path into darkness. The third is injured. It limps back to its base. We tell you, that those with kin aboard Frostflyer might begin mourning in timely fashion."

"Yes. Thank you." Kerath shook off the staying hand and

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GLEN COOK

rushed to her quarters. For half an hour she sat rubbing fingers over her personal sidearm. The action had a calming effect.

She had ordered Frostflyer, half the fleet-in-being, half the surviving might of the Meth, to its death.

Her sleep was filled with terrible dreams, haunted by dry, withered old bitches flying on black wings. Last hope of the Meth. The Command had given its trust into the wrong hands.

IV

"Coming up now, Commander."

Kerath and the ship's commander leaned over a vidtech's shoulders, peering into her screen. "Searchlights," the commander ordered.

Immediately something flashed out in the darkness. "There," Kerath gasped. "More light."

Several lights concentrated on the target. Gradually, parts became visible.

"Darkship," the commander breathed. "They really still exist. The Ceremony legend is true."

Kerath nodded, unable to avert her gaze from that ghost out of the far past, when disputes between silth sisterhoods were settled by combats between Mistresses of the Ships far in the black heart of space. The darkship didn't look like a ship at all, just a giant titanium girderwork dagger marked with mysterious symbols.

The darkship sprang from an era when sisterhoods formed associations human translators still confused with nations, corporations, and even families. The competition for control of the wealth of the stars had been savage, till silth-run merchanters had encountered humans, with their contagious alien ways and unshakable disbelief. The ensuing confusion among the silth had allowed their overthrow, and hatred of their long tyranny had led to merciless slaughter, witchhunts that persisted yet, and over-reactive tilts toward the new human ideas.

"It needs a lot of repair," the commander observed.

"Supposed to be twelve of them," Kerath replied. "The legend is, they chose to meet and die a ritual death here rather than go home and submit to the will of the new order. We'll choose the best preserved."

The silth had other ideas. They wanted to locate specific ships.

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"The spells of our foremothers guard them still," said the one who did the talking. "Only those two will be accessible to us."

Kerath frowned. That might mean troublesome delays. "You're the experts," she said, grudging them every extra minute.

Two days went into locating the right ships. They had drifted apart over the centuries. One of the two had sustained considerable damage.

Kerath worried. Suslov would be on the hunt. She did not want to waste time making repairs. The silth ignored her protests. They led their shadowy sisters out and went to work. There was nothing Kerath could do to hurry or help them, or to alter their perception of the way" things should be done.

Kerath was sleeping when an orderly came with the commander's request that she join her on the bridge.

"Thought you'd want to see this, Marshall." The commander indicated a screen. "They've got one moving. There's not a hint of drive, but it's, moving."

Kerath surveyed the detection boards. The commander was right. The darkship appeared only on visual and radar. She stared at the titanium dagger. It was receding toward distant stars. A vague glow surrounded it. "She's getting the feel of it. The old, stories say they glowed too brightly to look at."

The commander nodded. Then she gasped, "Where did it go? Radar. Where is that target?"

"Gone, Commander. I'm not getting anything . . . Wait. Here it is. Nadir, thirty-five degrees, range fifteen."

Kerath exchanged glances with the commander. "Through the Up-and-Over," she murmured. "She's found her demons."

"So that's true too." The commander looked frightened. "Witches. You know, I didn't really believe this before."

Kerath stared at the empty screen. "I didn't either, Commander. Not down deep in my heart." She began to grow a little frightened too.

.V •

Fifth day on station. The second darkship had completed repairs. Both crews were outside learning to handle their ships. Kerath thought practice seemed unnecessary. "They appear to have been born to it," she said. The commander growled, "They are, aren't they?" Kerath's ears tilted slightly, expressing mild amusement. The

152 GLEN COOK

silth claimed to possess the memories of all their foremothers. Watching these sisters ride their darkships, she was inclined to discard former doubts.

"Do they have names?" the commander asked.

"The silth? I don't know. I see. You can't keep them straight. Neither can I."

"One is faster than the other. I'd like some way to differentiate before we go into rehearsal."

Kerath's hackles rose slightly. She checked the time. In half an hour she would be out there herself, riding a darkship during the first mock attack. Dreamkeeper would play alien, its technicians searching for weaknesses Suslov could exploit.

Kerath was not sure why she was going out. An observer run was not essential to her mission. But she had been invited by the Mistresses of the Ships. Acceptance seemed politic.

Fear stalked her like a shadow that disappeared when she turned, like the grauken sliding out from under the far side of the bed as she bent down to look for it. The silth had reasons for being here that had nothing to do with saving the Meth home-world. That would be incidental to their accomplishment of their true ambitions.

Seconds and minutes rolled past. Kerath watched the tank and screens and hoped they would forget her. Out there she would be the powerless minority, unable to call for help. She turned. "Commander, there's a hole in this thing. Darkships were meant to fight alone, against other darkships. They could smell each other in vacuum. But how will they find a human ship? How will they handle unexpected changes? This is going to be an attack by rote."

The commander nodded. "I was going to suggest we throw some kinks into the later maneuvers, to test their flexibility. Lack of flexibility broke them back when. They couldn't cope with the flood of novel ideas that came after meeting the humans. They couldn't shed roles programmed by their foremothers."

"I'll mention that to the silth."

"In a way, I feel sorry for them. Time has passed them by."

"Perhaps." Kerath glanced at the screen. A darkship was docking. "They didn't forget me. Wish me luck."

The Mistress of the Ship met her in docking bay. She had brought her darkship inside. It floated free, ignoring Dream-keeper's artificial gravity. Fresh, updated symbols had been painted on the titanium beams. A variety of new mystical hardware had been installed. Overall, the darkship looked new.

Kerath opened a locker to secure an eva suit.

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"No, Marshall. No artifacts. You alone, naked."

Kerath bared her teeth. "No."

"We wish you to partake of the silth experience. We wish you to meet those-who-dwell."

"That's your problem. If you really want me to make the fly, do it on my terms."

"No."

"Compromise?" Kerath thought the female's eyes flared for an instant. Silth did not compromise. "I want my clothing and my communicator,"

"Clothing is neither dignity nor worth, Marshall."

"Then shed yours, silth."

The female's eyes flared. "Very well. Set your communicator to receive only. We wish you to concentrate on the experience, not what to report." : "Agreed."

The Mistress glided away. Kerath followed. The silth was angry. She stepped heavily enough to be heard.

The Mistress led her to the axis of the titanium dagger. "Stand here. This is the traditional Place of the Mother in combats to determine the fates of sisterhoods in blood feud. Fear not. A dome of power will shield you from the breath of the All." The silth left her and took her own station at the tip of the longest arm of the cross. Riding the point of the dagger, Kerath thought.

"Marshall?" Another silth held out a silver bowl filled with an amber liquid. Kerath had seen the sisters sip from similar bowls before each of their trips outside. Shakily, she took the bowl and drank.

"More," the sister said.

Kerath drank.

"More . . . Enough. Yes. I think that's enough."

Kerath felt lightheaded. Her eyeballs felt prickly.

The silth took the bowl to each of the stations, then assumed her own place at the tip of one of the dagger's arms.

Kerath became aware of microscopic points of light around her. She caught hints of similar phenomena surrounding the other females. The phenomena grew more pronounced as Dreamkeeper evacuated the atmosphere from the bay.

The bay door opened. Naked stars stared in. Kerath felt only a slight moment of chill; then the golden points redoubled in intensity.

The darkship turned, pointed toward the stars—then stabbed toward them at screaming speed. Kerath felt ho inertial drag.

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155

She turned and saw the rectangular lighted bay shrink with incredible rapidity. This was impossible. Even more impossible, her fur rippled as if in a strong wind.

Dreamkeeper shrank to a point and vanished.

She was alone among the stars, standing in space. She could not see the darkship. Her companions were golden columns that looked more like distant star clusters than nearby phenomena. She was alone, and frightened as she had never been frightened before. Something burned in her veins. Her head spun. Her eyes would not track. The amber drink? Strange, colored things crawled round the edge of her vision.

Had they poisoned her? No. They had drunk from the same bowl. Suddenly it became clear, a whole different view of the darkful deep between the stars, a view of a chill filled with color and life. Life? Life was impossible out here . . .

A swarm of a million bright little deltoid darts drifted toward her, slowly shifting color from yellow through red and back again, in perfect unison. They sensed the darkship suddenly. As one they turned white, flipped around, and streaked away. They moved almost faster than the eye could track.

There were little things, big things, even bigger things. Some crowded the darkship, curious. Some remained indifferent. Some fled. A few cruised with the ship, seeming to pull it along. Those were the demons of legend, Kerath decided. The demons the silth summoned and commanded to carry their darkships through the Up-and-Over.

In her wonder she forgot her fear. "Oh!" Fear returned a doz-enfold. But why? It was nothing. Just a dust cloud obsquring a few stars. Wasn't it?

The stars rotated around her. Vaguely, she sensed the approach of the second darkship. The creatures of color shuddered and made way, slithering over and around one another like a nest of serpents. Four columns of witchfire took station to Kerath's right. The entire second ship began to glow. Ahead of Kerath, her Mistress of the Ship caught fire. The stars began to rock. Moving again, Kerath thought. The things of color—those-who-dwell, in silth parlance—scattered. So fast!

The universe turned inside out. Horrible things clawed and howled at her. "Up-and-Over!" she screamed. The silth had conjured them into the Up-and-Over, where the darkship 'dagger hurtled faster than light. She.screamed again as Dreamkeeper's lights appeared for a second, so close she could almost touch them.

156 GLEN COOK

And she screamed once more as the darkship returned to the Up-and-Over.

Drifting. Shaking. Dreamkeeper a few light-seconds away. A voice in her ear. It was several seconds before she could concentrate on the message. "Impressive, Marshall, but abort the drill. I say again, abort the drill. We have unfriendly company. Get aboard fast."

Get aboard? How was the Mistress of the Ship to know? No! She couldn't. But she found her feet moving of their own volition, carrying her forward. The commander kept chattering in her ear, telling her how close the enemy was. In half a minute she was at the tip of the dagger. Her shielding melded with that of the silth. "Enemy ship, Mistress," she gasped. "Only a light-minute away, right on a line with our sun. We have to get back aboard Dreamkeeper."

The Mistress bobbed her head, asked a few questions. Then she said, "Back to your position."

The return trek seemed far longer. She finished it with a bad feeling gnawing her gut.

VI

The darkship began to glow. Round it those-who-dwell scattered. They seemed suddenly two-dimensional, bright paper cutouts imbued with panic, flickering toward silent stars. Only the silth's driver creatures remained, stretching and rolling, straining as they dragged the darkship.

Kerath glanced upward. A chill seized her. That dark dust-cloud thing hovered overhead, obscuring different constellations.

The darkships became a pair of fiery daggers hurtling toward nowhere. The universe twisted and folded and opened its evil belly and gave birth to a horde of silently screaming horrors. They had gone into the Up-and-Over. Kerath screamed back. They weren't supposed to do this.

Normal space exploded around her. She caught a half-second glimpse of a human warship, long and lean and deadly, its riders already running free. Dreamkeeper had been spotted!

Cold blackness enveloped her. She could not see her sisters on the darkship. She felt their fear, felt the Mistress waver. The stench of death stung her nostrils. Something that felt like the damp at the bottom of a grave crawled over her protective shielding. In her mind she heard the first of a thousand death cries . . .

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Twist. Fold. The Up-and-Over. A distinct feeling of hard deceleration, a twinge of fear. Something was wrong with the Mistress. The darkship was out of control. Dreamkeeper was swelling ahead, docking bay ablaze with light. "Too fast!" Kerath cried. "Slow down!" Her ears folded forward. She sank to all fours, sure she was about to die.

What a waste, to end it all here. Dreamkeeper would be crippled, and the Meth could no longer manage major repairs. She had failed, and would not live to see the final consequences.

She was right and she was wrong. The darkship continued its deceleration, lowering its daggertip slowly. In a flicker the warship swelled, rose . . . they were going to make it! They were going to slide beneath it.

The shock of an earthquake hit her. The titanium girderwork ripped, tore, screamed in the silence of the big chill. Kerath clung to the metal. The stars twirled. And then they went out.

She awakened in her quarters. The ship's commander appeared almost immediately, her face grave. "I told you one of them was slow."

"How bad was it?"

"The darkship was a total loss. An arm torn off. One of the silth is dead. Dreamkeeper lost a main vent stack. It's not serious as long as we don't have to face heavy particle beam fire."

"One darkship left to complete the mission. Maybe we should abort!"

"I don't think so."

"Commander?"

"You'd have to see the human ship to understand." The commander paced, made several 'false starts before saying, "The old darkwar legends understate. I say send the fast one in and hope the humans get her before she gets all of them. She might have impact enough to encourage a negotiated peace."

"I don't understand, Commander."

"You haven't seen that ship. There may be futures worse than surrender. Would the silth be forgiving if they returned to power?"

"No."

"When you visit the human ship, remember that you're looking at enemies of the silth. The ancient mothers confined darkwar to their high duels in deep space, but it could be used against a world. The Command made a grave mistake. The silth offered a straw to grasp, and they grabbed it without looking for the trap. These are new, young Mistresses of the Ships, probably bred and

158 GLEN COOK

trained for a mission like this. The silth claim to see the future. If they really do, then they would have foreseen desperate times and would have prepared Mistresses like these. If just one survived, with her ship, the silth would win their gamble. They would return."

"You're uncommonly emotional today, Commander."

"I saw the enemy ship. See it yourself. All else will follow.

She had nightmares every time she slept. The human ship had been that grim. The dead had looked as though they had been torn apart from within, or as though they had tortured themselves to death slowly. Just what the silth would wish on their enemies. A lot of Meth would go the same way if the silth had their day.

Kerath studied the rehearsal runs of the surviving darkship. The Mistress, of the Ship was superb. She never gave Dream-keeper's weapons people time to track, train, and fire. And unlike her failed sister, she had no trouble handling the Up-and-Over in rapid sequence. She was a creature without soul, a reflection of the popular view of what silth were.

Kerath studied the silth while they were aboard. They were cold creatures, but her taste of the amber drink, of flying with the darkship, had sensitized her to subtle nuances. Even the failed Mistress was frightened of the other.

Days rolled away. Kerath was tugged this way and that. It would be so simple to abort the mission, equally easy to loose the darkwar and blind herself to the harvest that must follow. Or equally difficult. Either way, she would live in infamy in the legends of the Meth, as she who was afraid to save the race, or as she who had destroyed everything gained in generations free of the silth. She saw no middle road—unless Suslov's gunners got lucky.

Dreamkeeper, last of the great warships of the Meth, was creeping toward home system. Whose dream would it preserve?

VII

Kerath turned her back on screens and tank. "Scan on the asteroid?"

"In the groove, Marshal. Three days until it's too late to divert." She turned to see if the silth had sent an observer. They had: the talker. From a place of power and honor she had fallen to go-between. Kerath almost pitied her. She had suffered that decline

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herself after Snow-No-More, until the Command had needed her for another suicidal operation.

"Tight beam to the Command. Full report. Request update and instructions." She went to the silth. "Could your people divert the asteroid past the point where it's no longer possible for technology to do so?"

The silth looked at her with empty eyes. "No."

"Thank you." So. There was very little time to decide. The darkship strike had to be launched soon if there was to be time left for reshaping the asteroid's orbit. But for now she could only await the Command's reaction to what had happened in the deep.

She fell asleep and dreamed worse nightmares than ever before. The commander awakened her.

"Reply from the Command. Proceed with mission."

"That's all?"

"That's it."

"No shock? Commander, would the silth have collaborators there?"

The commander eyed the screens. "I've wondered about that since I visited the human ship. I think so. I can't picture the Command jumping into anything blind."

"My own impression. That means I'm more a pawn than I thought. Perhaps I was supposed to be converted."

"Have you decided? I'll follow your orders even if they contradict the Command's apparent intent."

"Thank you. I won't be long." Kerath moved away. She wanted to pace, but there wasn't room. She chewed a claw and searched for a middle road.

She had little choice about the strike itself. It had to go on. The question was how to ensure that the silth did not survive. She checked the observer from the corner of her eye. The silth was watching intently. This would be delicate. Timing would be critical. "Commander, are we in enemy detection?"

"I don't believe so, Marshall. They would have reacted."

Of course. Suslov would want to finish Dreamkeeper, definitely as a symbolic move, possibly to retaliate for ships recently lost.

She turned slightly and examined enemy positions estimated from data squirted in with Command's message. "Prepare to launch the strike."

The silth turned and glided out.

"Commander, tight beam to Suslov's flagship. I want the Admiral himself. Quickly."

"This will reveal our position, Marshall."

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"So be it. Quickly, now. Quickly." Kerath grabbed a young male. "Go stand by the hatch. Watch for the silth." She turned. "I want the docking bay on screen. What's holding that link, Commander?"

"Have to find a target first, Marshall."

"Don't waste time." Kerath faced the screens. Someone had keyed into an eye cell overlooking the entrance to silth quarters. Kerath watched the observer enter.

She could not remain still. Somehow, movement was soothing.

Ping!

"We have a beam lock on a human ship, Marshall."

"It had better be the right one," Kerath murmured. The silth were leaving their quarters. All seven turned toward the docking bay. Kerath released a long sigh.

"... Corps Marshall Kerath Hadon for Vice Admiral Pyotr Suslov, personal access only urgent," the commander said loudly, as if volume could make up for her difficulty in speaking the alien language.

Suslov's rumpled face appeared with gratifying swiftness. "Kerath. I thought I smelled your touch in that breakout." He exposed his teeth. She reminded herself that humans considered that a pleasantry. "Why haven't they hung you out yet? Calling to surrender? It's almost too late."

"I want to offer you the opportunity you gave me before Snow-No-More. I hope you have more sense than I had."

"Really? You're going to hurt me with one ship?"

"One ship like nothing in human experience, Pyotr Suslov. Conscience forces me to advise you to depart."

The sentry called, "She's coming back, Marshall."

"Pyotr Suslov. Key darkwar your Meth history tapes. Out. Secure, Commander." She faced the screen relaying events in the docking bay. The silth were aboard their darkship. The titanium dagger floated away from the docking grappels. Camera and screen were unable to relay the true intensity of the golden nimbus surrounding the darkship, but Kerath felt its power in some remote recess of being still touched by the amber fluid.

She went to meet the silth. "Darkship ready?"

"Yes." The female's voice was hollow. Failure had emptied her.

"The enemy have a saying, sister. They also serve who stand and wait." The attempt at comfort fell flat. For silth there were no shadow gradients between success and failure. Kerath gestured. "Launch the darkship, Commander."

The commander hit an alarm. It honked throughout the vast

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warship. "Commencing darkship strike. All personnel take combat stations."

The docking bay screen relayed the cry of klaxons warning of decompression under way. The titanium dagger rotated until its blade faced the bay door.

"Decompression complete, Commander."

"Open the bay door."

Everything went so slowly. Every detail registered on Kerath, even the tiny groan of scraping metal, conducted through the fabric of the ship, as the bay door moved.

It was just a third of the way open when the darkship surged out into the night. On visual, the darkship dwindled rapidly. Such a tiny thing to be-so deadly, not a thousandth the mass of Dreamkeeper. Kerath faced the tank. Detection had the darkship moving away fast. "She's in a hurry," Kerath whispered to the commander.

"Maybe she enjoys her work."

Four red alien blips were moving toward Dreamkeeper. Kerath beckoned the silth observer. "You'll have a better perspective from down here."

She had racked her brain trying to figure how the darkship would locate its targets without radio. She now understood. The Mistress of the Ship had mind-to-mind contact with her unshipped sister on Dreamkeeper's bridge. That was why the silth had taken her into space. They had meant her to become their contact until the slow sister's unshipping made her redundant.

Mind to mind. More,silth sorcery. No capability surprised Kerath now, not since she had seen the dead ship.

The observer descended to the operations deck. She did nothing to support or refute Kerath's suspicion or to acknowledge her aid.

"Up-and-Over," a tech announced.

VIII

"Four," the silth whispered.

That was the last of the outbound hunters. Dreamkeeper was safe for the moment.

What state was Suslov in, after losing contact with four heavy warships? How would she respond in similar circumstances?

She would get the hell out. But she was Meth, and she knew about darkwar from old legends. Suslov would examine his Meth

162 GLEN COOK

historical data and scoff. Being human, he was sure to delay too long.

"Up-and-Over."

A moment later, the silth murmured, "Five. She is well named."

"What?" Kerath was startled by the gratuitous remark.

"She Walks in Glory."

"Ah. Commander, it'll be a while. I feel the need to roam. I'm on pager three if I'm needed."

"Very well, Marshall."

She stopped at her quarters briefly, collected her sidearm, then went on to a weapons observation bubble high on Dreamkeeper's humped back. She chased the weaponry technicians out and stood there staring at the stars. A part of her yearned for another darkship experience. A part sobbed for the sentients dying down near the sun of the Meth.

Colored cutouts flickered at the edge of her vision, legacy of the amber drink. The silth sisters must see them all the time. She forgot Dreamkeeper and tried to bring those-who-dwell into focus. Success opened her to a trickle of screams irom down near the homeworld.

The cutouts faded. She was not silth. She faced the cold, colorless stars, the stars she loved, the stars that would be lost to the Meth if she made one misstep traversing her middle road.

She took one deep breath for courage and started the long walk back to the fighting bridge.

"Status?" she demanded as she entered.

"Fourteen gone, Marshall," the commander replied in a tight voice. "The silth says the darkship suffered slight damage by catching the edge of a particle beam. Suslov seems to have developed an attack profile. He'll get her if she doesn't control her silth arrogance."

"Fifteen."

"Tell her not to underestimate the alien, silth," Kerath said.

"Marshall, here's an anomaly," the commander said. , Kerath stepped over to study the tank. "He's jumping out," she whispered, excited. "Those look like long jump lines. He's running, Commander."

"He'll come back."

Kerath controlled her emotions. "Of course. But maybe he'll be more amenable when he does."

"The High Lord will be pleased."

"Sarcasm, Commander? The High Lord lives numbered days.

DARKWAR 163

His clique are walking worm food." Including her sire, she thought. Poor Shadar, doomed though he was but a servant.

"There goes the last squadron, Marshall. Can the silth follow them?"

"No. Commander, in the next few minutes I'll need absolute obedience. Yes?" She turned to the silth's touch.

"She's hit, Marshall. The last attack. One of her bath was killed."

"Bath?"

"The females who help. Bath. She will have difficulty returning."

Bless the All, Kerath thought. "Medical team and damage control people to docking bay, Commander."

"Thank you," the silth said. The words seemed to rip themselves from her hidden self.

"Up-and-Over," a detection technician called.

Kerath drew her handgun and shot the startled silth through the heart. "Order here!" she shouted, as panic hit the bridge. "Order. Full battle alert, Commander. I want that darkship under fire the instant it reappears. Somebody get rid of this body. Send a security party to arrest the other two silth."

The commander executed orders in a daze. "What are you doing, Marshall?"

"Ensuring the failure of the silth design. The All favored us by taking one of her crew. She will have less control. Less ability to resist the vacuum. By firing upon her I prevent her from coming aboard, reaching safety, and finding a replacement bath. Maybe I'll destroy her. Maybe not." ,

"She'll attack us."

"She can't send the cloud against us. She can't destroy Dreamkeeper without destroying herself."

The commander looked puzzled. "Can't she Up-and-Over home and let one of the orbital tugs pick her up?"

"She doesn't know where home is, Commander, not without somebody here to tell her. To reach homeworld she first has to get orbital data from us and translate it into something understandable by those-who-dwell. To survive she has to come here and has to get inside. I don't intend to let her."

The commander nodded. After a few seconds she said, "But you would have done this even if she were returning healthy."

"Yes. I sought a middle road between surrender and a return of the silth. This was the best I could do."

"They'll make a villain of you."

"They would in any case. That's why they sent a loser of battles who always came home a hero. This time they gave me one they thought I couldn't win no matter what."

"Darkship is here, Marshall. Headed for doeking bay."

Kerath nodded.

"Commence firing," the commander directed.

IX

Swords of fire flailed the dark. The darkship reeled, slid sideways. Something in Kerath's backbrain buzzed. She saw the dark-ship as a glowing, tumbling cross. One arm flew off, chased by a golden shape grabbing wildly at nothing. The silth bath's death-wail burned through the core of her mind.

You traitor.

Kerath wobbled under the impact of the mental blow.

You have betrayed your sisters.

The Mistress of the Ship! She couldn't be alive. Nothing could come through that fury ... 7 am not silth! she cried back.

The darkship straightened up and turned its daggertip toward Dreamkeeper. Bright paper cutouts swirled around it. A black cloud slithered across the stars behind it. Panicky, Kerath shouted, "Commander, destroy that damned ship!"

"I'm trying, Marshall. I'm trying." Terror haunted the commander's eyes.

"Then jump, dammit. It's a short jump to Biter orbit. Leave her out here."

The commander stabbed a finger at the jump operators. "Program it."

Kerath stared at the screens, transfixed. The darkship was coming in, accelerating, a screaming, flaming sword. A skeleton rode its tip, jaws opened wide, blood trailing from its fangs. A hungry darkness coiled behind its hollow eyes. The silth was insane. She meant to board by ramming!

Alarms sounded. Collision alarms, never heard except during drills. "Jump, Commander. Dammit, jump anywhere."

The darkship kept accelerating.

Jump alarms shrilled a five-second warning—just as the dark-ship reached Dreamkeepefs fat guppy belly.

The warship began to twist with the impact. Torn metal shrieked. Breech alarms wailed. Kerath watched the burning

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165

blade drive deeper and deeper into the great vessel's belly. "No," she breathed. The silth had lost control and come in far too hard.

A tendril of the black cloud touched the ship.

Then Dreamkeeper finally jumped, carrying the darkship with it, still boring into its guts.

Crew people added their screams to those of the alarms, responding to the instant of cloud-touch. On the fighting bridge they clawed their scalps and smashed their foreheads against their consoles. Below, where the darkship's momentum still drove it deeper into Dreamkeeper's belly, it was worse. They were clawing at their eyes.

Dreamkeeper rolled out of jump. Kerath glanced at the readouts. Orbit around homeworld. Almost perfect... Only then did she realize that the blackness had barely caressed her. The silth drink had prepared her for that, too.

The comm boards began lighting up, announcing incoming traffic. Kerath ignored them. She listened. No sound came from below. The darkship had come to rest. "Commander!" She swung hard. "Snap out of it." She exaggerated. "We're in a decaying orbit."

The glaze left the commander's eyes. She scanned the bridge. "Internal pressure is down, but the collision doors have maintained integrity. Help me shake these people out of it. We've got to get moving. The ship is in a bad way." She surveyed the available data again. "We will be lucky to save it."

"We'll save it, Commander. We have no choice. We have to shunt that asteroid."

"That's the Command channel screaming over there."

"To hell with Command. We don't have time for them."

Getting the bridge crew back to work was not difficult, but there was trouble down in the collision area. Half the crew there was dead. The rest had to be restrained for their own protection. Officers culled every department for extra bodies.

Kerath went down, donned an eva suit, and combed the wreckage for the Mistress of the Ship. She refused to be satisfied until she found a mass of torn, raw meat and fur in tatters of black near the head of the column of scrap that had been a darkship.

An hour passed before Kerath was sure that Dreamkeeper would survive—if nothing else went sour. She returned to the bridge and collapsed into the first seat she found vacant.

The Command was still trying to get through. By now, they would have studied the damage optically from the surface. They

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could guess that the darkship had rammed. They wcAild be thinking up cruel replies to her middle-road venture.

Detection showed a number of small vessels closing in—coming to look Dreamkeeper over, of course, maybe to put a representative of the Command aboard.

She did not much care now.

"Route that Command call to this board, please," she said. "I might as well face them now."

"Sure you want to deal with them?" the commander asked. "I can ... "

"There's no getting out of it." Kerath stabbed a button.

A weathered old female appeared on screen, growling and snarling. Kerath allowed the storm to run its course. When it slackened, and she could pull the main thread from the skein of complaints, she decided that the Command was more interested in the fate of the silth than in Kerath Hadon or Dreamkeeper.

"Here's our silth insider," Kerath whispered to the commander.

"The Supreme Commander. I suppose it had to be."

Kerath was exhausted, but she had enough anger and outrage left to respond. She depressed the send key and shouted a line spoken by a victorious pup to conclude a popular story told to small Meth. "The grauken is dead."

The Commander revealed her teeth. She was amused. She keyed into the Command net herself. "Command, this is Dreamkeeper. Confirm that last from mission officer Kerath. The grauken is dead." Off comm, she added, "They can't court-martial everybody."

Kerath leaned back, closed her eyes, and said, "Secure outside comm. Commander, we'll let them wonder what we meant. The grauken is dead. I wriggled away again." She had found the middle road.

But middle roads went nowhere. They just bought time. Suslov would return. The silth would persist. But there was time now, precious time, to buttress the bridge she had begun to build. •

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167

Herewith a delightful fairy tale, in which we meet a cheated wizard, a brawny (but illiterate) hero, a hot-blooded princess, and a curse that creates—

THE NIGHTS OF DREADFUL SILENCE

GLEN COOK

Illustrated by MIKE KALUTA

AN OMINOUS THING was happening at Itaskia's Royal Palace. Aristithorn of Necremnos, the infamous sorcerer, was being cheated by King Norton.

The wizard repeated, "Your Highness, your servant is certain he heard the promise of the Princess Yselda's hand to the man who would slay that up-country ogre."

Norton asked, "Vizier, did we make that ridiculous promise?" "No, Majesty."

"You see, wizard?" The King glared. Of course he had made the proclamation—he made it every time a dragon, troll, or other disaster arose— but he had no intention of following through. Never had.

Aristithorn sighed. "Ah, so that's the way of it. Hast heard of Ainjar, King of Alfar, Majesty? He cheated Sil-'magester the Dark—sad, his reward. Three plagues: first, dragons; then locusts in swarms; later, thirty-three daughters so ugly they are unmarriable, and each of whom eats with the appetite of ten lusty men... ."

"You threaten?" the King roared. "Nay, Illustrious. I merely make a moral: dishonesty seldom pays."

44

"Seize him!" Norton bellowed. Softer, "Good an excuse as I'll find, I guess."

Aristithorn shook his head sadly as pikemen closed in. "Hate to do it, but: "Past six nights and come seventh

sun.

Itaskia's lying shall be done; This treacher Norton's wicked

realm Black vengeance mine shall

overwhelm;

Then ever after shall be heard No slightest sound of singing bird, No low of cow, nor spoken word." There was more, equally bad poetry, which does not bear repeating. He finished with a muttered, "Not bad for spur-of-the-moment." He threw his staff to the marble floor, watched it become a huge serpent, mounted it and rode from the palace, past horrified guards.

THAT WAS THE SAME DAY Bragi Rag-narson suffered a fit of nostalgia and, to the hoots and jeers of his friends, galloped off north toward Trol-ledyngja, a place someone once

FANTASTIC

described as "the arse of the world on ice." Bragi only remembered the good things, though, until, two days north of Itaskia, a sudden rain squall came rumbling along and pounced. He had equally sudden visions of himself forced to face the weather as it would be a few hundred miles farther along—snow and sleet and ice and all that. Quickly, he turned back for the warm taproom at Itaskia's Red Hart Inn, all pride fled.

Shortly, he fell asleep. And shortly, his scatter-brained mare had them hopelessly lost. Bragi woke to find himself being carried -through unfamiliar forest typical of the kingdom anywhere north of the Silverbind.

Three days later he was still searching for the road home, completely miserable. The cold drizzle would not stop. Then he heard someone singing. Also hearing his indignant stomach rumbling, Bragi thought he might cadge something to eat. He studied the camp of the singer from hiding, saw a bedraggled old donkey and a ragged old man huddling around a small fire where a cauldron exuded aromatics. The clearing around the old man was dry, but, being so hungry, Bragi did not notice. He stepped out of the underbrush.

"Hello, grandfather," he said, "could you spare a starving man a smallish bite?" He waved a hand in the direction ofthepot.

The old man, bent over something he was trying to sew, started. He looted at Bragi uncertainly. "You're a long way from Trolledyngja," he observed. "You're welcome, sure, if you've brought your own tools. I've no extra gear, not being accustomed to guests."

THE NIGHTS

45

"Thanks. Say, how'd you know where I'm from?" While talking, he dug battered utensils from his saddlebag.

The old man rummaged through his own gear, found a spoon and bowl, joined the northman over the pot. "Where else do men grow big as bears, and twice as ugly?" he asked. "Who else butchers the King's Tongue such a way? You're one of those wandering heroes, eh? Dragon-slaying and maiden-rescuing. Ah, what a life. Wish I were young again .... What would you be doing out here?"

"Times are tough," Bragi grumbled. "Too much competition. In the old days, before Norton, it was 'a dragon in every cave and a troll under every mountain.' But since Norton killed King Willem, things have gotten worse. Trolls and dragons're almost gone . . . Willem was a conservationist." Then he remembered the question. "I fell asleep in the saddle coming down the North Road. Stupid horse decided to go exploring. Been lost three days." He finished filling his bowl and said around a mouthful, "Good! Well seasoned. What of you?"

"Cooking is my hobby," the old man replied, also with a full mouth. "I'm out here trying to think up a spell to fit a curse I cast on Itaskia." "Sorcerer, huh?"

"Uhn. Aristithorn of Necremnos . . . you don't seem distressed." He sounded hurt.

"Should I be?" He tossed his head to get the ends of his blond hair out of his stew. "Judging by Zindahjira, a man's safe if he isn't jumped straight off. I don't have anything a wizard would

46

want anyway. Can I have another bowl?"

"Help yourself. You've met the Silent One, eh? Biggest windbag in the trade."

"That's him. Say, what kind of curse are you brewing up?"

The old man snorted. "You been in the kingdom lately?" "Left the city five days back." "Ever hear of the King's proclamation about the ogre? The one that's been stealing maidens and the like, not the one who robs travelers. He has a license, and pays his taxes."

"Heard somebody finally got him. Why? You the fellow?"

"Got him and two of his brothers who were helping handle a surfeit of maidens."

"And Norton wouldn't pay, eh?" "No!"

"Should've expected it. How'd you get old, being so naive? He promises his daughter every time there's trouble. What happened to the maidens?"

"Well, after stoning me for ruining what they said was a good thing, I suppose they went home and made do with ordinary men. There'll be a passle of ugly, warty, hairy little bastards born come spring. I hope they all grow up trollish and go into the independent ogre business. Serve Norton right." "What're you going to do about iit?" "Don't know. When he refused me Yselda, I cast the first curse I thomght of. Said that, starting the seventh day after I left, Itaskia would be stricken by total silence until Norton pays."

"Hey, that's good!" Bragi chuckled, speaking more clearly as his belly filled and his mouthfuls grew smaller. '''I've

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got some friends there who need just that. How're you going to do it?"

"That's my problem. I don't know. Never tried anything like it. Wish I'd thought before I opened my mouth. Norton's probably still laughing."

"Be good if you could do it. Might get Yselda after all. Some woman, from all I've heard. A little skinny, but... '."

"What? How?"

Bragi considered a moment, said, "Put yourself in Norton's place, King in a city with no sound. Like everyone's deaf, eh? Everything would have to be in writing, eh? How many written promises can a man break before he gets hung from his own rafters? A liar like Norton would sell his mother to keep on cheating. Mark me, Norton'll have his daughter up for whoever gets rid of the silence. Bet?"

The' wizard grunted thoughtfully. Bragi imagined fiery lines from dreadful tomes where spells were written in blood on parchments of virgins' skins, bound in dragon hide, raging before his eyes.

"What do you want with Yselda, anyway? I thought sorcerers had to do without, or lose their powers."

"I'm old, ready to retire. I want to raise roses and practice the magicks of love."

"At your age? She'll kill you inside a week."

"No, no. I'm a wizard, remember? All my abstentions of three hundred years are stored up inside me, ready to go. I can hold my own even against Yselda."

"I suppose it's possible," Bragi muttered. "What's she got to say about it?"

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"She didn't like me until I mentioned my wizard's savings. 'Ha! Then she pressed my case more passionately than I. That fool Norton is blind. The Palace Guards stand in line at her door, and the idiot thinks I want her as a source of virgin's blood."

Laughter, uproarious. Every man within a hundred miles of Itaskia, except the King, knew at least a dozen ribald stories about the Princess's boudoir adventures. She was a girl of a fiery nature, and always kept a fireman handy.

"Oh! What magicks would come of using her blood!" Bragi roared. "She'd wreck your whole profession. So! What about the spell?"

The sorerer grunted noncommittally. He and Bragi started as an idea occured to both. As one, they said, "I'll make you a deal... ."

An hour found diabolical plots plotted and wicked agreements agreed.

The next two days were dull. Bragi was accustomed to bloody action or drunken inaction. Neither was available here. He amused himself by devouring vast quantities of Ari-stithorn's excellent stews.

The day the curse was to be fulfilled, Bragi made a point of staying out of the way. Aristithorn was uncertain he could cast the necessary spells, was terrified of his all-too-probable failure. However, he would hazard it. Bragi fled camp, following a desire to be at a safe distance when the wizard started summoning demons.

He sat on the earth in the forest, leaning against a tree, watching the squirrels at play among the autumn leaves. His pleasures were simple. But

47

even that little amusement was soon denied him. Wails and demonic howls from Aristithorn's conjurations frightened the animals. Then the outcry died and the forest became unnaturally silent. The northman grew worried. He was working up the courage to investigate when, "Ho! Bragi! Come on in! I've done it!"

He found the ancient dancing around his pentacles. "Tomorrow I go," he said. "You'd better write the messages. But how'll I understand the answers? I can't read."

"What's to understand?" the wizard asked. "Just give him the list of demands, then sit tight until you get the woman and gold. What could be easier?"

"Norton taking my head." "There is that chance, true." "Can I hear the one to Yselda? You were up awful late with it." ,

The wizard stirred through a mound of thaumaturgical gear and came up with a smallish scroll. "To the Princess Yselda, Duchess of Scarmane, et cetera, greeting from the great thaumaturge Aristithorn, Archimage of Necremnos, Lord of Eldritch Sprites... ."

"Why do all you magicians brag so?" "Huh? We have to! Nobody else will. Necromancy's a hard way to make a living. Everyone cheats us. Knights try to kill us. Devils are after our souls. Everyone, everywhere, insists we're evil. Hell of a life! Praise for our modest efforts has to come from somewhere, so we do the applauding ourselves... ."

"Maybe. Write. Save the speeches for Yselda. I'm leaving at first light.

48

That'll give me a little time to scout before I stick my head in the dragon's lair."

"Uhm!" the wizard grunted, already writing, tongue protruding from the corner of his mouth. "Have you memorized the way back to the road?" "Yes."

Bragi left at sunrise, was more than halfway to the city by nightfall. He rose with the sun again and by late afternoon had camped atop a hill two miles from the city walls. From there, he watched amazedly as refugees dismally came out Itaskia's gates and marched toward the boundaries of silence. He saw many a stout wife dragging her man toward where she could catch up on her backlog of nagging. Compulsive talkers shouted with glee when they were free of the curse and could once more bore their neighbors with tales of themselves. Bragi found he was tempted to leave, to let the silence go on, but thoughts of his share of the profits strenghtened his determination. He slept late next morning, did not ride until mid-morning. The flow of refugees had not slackened. Fighting their flow, he took until noon to reach the gates where he gave the guard officer the first of several scrolls.

Bragi was surprised by the gloominess of the city, then realized how many little noises he had always taken for granted. The song of wind was gone. The humming of insects. The creaks and groans of wagon wheels. The sounds of hooves on pavement. The silence was unnerving. He was beginning to understand the mood of the fleeing thousands. The northman's scroll cheered the

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sour guard captain. The soldier quickly delivered him to the palace and King's herald. The herald got a second letter, danced with joy. He directed Bragi's attention to a poster. The northman was certain it was another of Norton's proclamations. He nodded.

The Vizier himself soon appeared, ushered Bragi into the Royal Presence. Here he delivered a scroll to the King. While Norton anxiously poured over the text, Bragi slipped a letter to Yselda. She read and laughed. Then, knowing there was nothing to do but wait, he sat on the floor, leaned against a pillar, and went to sleep.

Mountains of parchments and buckets of ink were used during an argument between Norton and his advisers, the latter pleading for accession to Aristithorn's demands. Bragi went unnoticed only because his prodigious snoring was inaudible. Later, however, someone did notice him and decide he might be pressured into betraying the wizard. Bragi was given parchments dripping doom and golden promises. He grinned at them all. Considering the direness of some of the threats, Norton soon concluded he could not read.

Bragi—always wearing his lackwit's smile—considered the Royal argument. It seemed the King's advisers wanted to pay Aristithorn. The King refused to give up a politically valuable daughter. The Vizier, however, found Norton's weakness.

The King, so the Vizier argued, would be lord of an empty city if the silence continued—the people were fleeing in thousands. Where, when the people were gone, did the Crown expect

to apply taxes?

A telling blow! If there was anything Norton enjoyed more than lying, it was taxing his subjects to staggering. Insufferable demand, with no return, had made Norton one of the better known tyrants of his end of the world. Other monarchs envied him. These were distinctions he would not willingly surrender. Therefore, after breakfast, he put on his sad face and sent for Yselda. Sorrowfully, he told her what he had to do.

Yselda tearfully made apparent her willingness to sacrifice herself for her people.

Norton seemed delighted with Yselda's sorrow—but suspicious because her possessions were already waiting on a cart at the palace gate. However, he shrugged that off as he had all the other oddities about his child—unaware she had needs other than those complementing his own.

Bragi and the woman quickly departed.

His daughter gone, the King dried his tears and turned to business. He sent his bodyguard after the two, with orders to slay the northman and sorcerer. The wizard's death should cancel all his spells. He would then have his daughter back and could put her to good use.

However, a chuckling Aristithorn was watching from afar.

Bragi and Yselda left the silence, rode up a tall hill, over, and entered a smallish wood. Behind them, outside the wood, shimmerings appeared, coalesced into duplicates of the couple. The specters rode at right angles to the path of those they imitated.

THE NIGHTS

49

Norton's soldiers topped the hill, followed the decoys. Only later did they notice the chimeras had no cart—and then it was too late to find Bragi's carefully concealed trail. Somewhere afar, an old man chortled at his decption, then, weary, retired.

Bragi and Yselda covered most of the distance to the wizard's camp before nightfall. Yselda had ridden silently the afternoon long, eyes always on the northman. He grew wary of the hungers he saw there. He had his own desires, and one of the strongest was to avoid antagonizing Aristithorn.

But there was no avoiding the trap— all too well did the woman know how to bait it. Bragi was a long time getting to sleep. And rode with guilt the next morning. He was surprised when the wizard greeted him pleasantly.

"Hai!" the old man cried when they rode up. "So Norton can be beaten. Wonderful - wonderful - wonderful! Hello, my dear. Did you have a pleasant journey?"

"Indeed I did, Thorny," she replied, sighing. "Indeed I did."

A suspicious look passed across Ari-stithorn's face, but he was too eager to waste time worrying. "Thank you, thank you," he said to Bragi. "I hope you did well too."

Grinning, the northman held up a sack with the mark of the Itaskian Treasury.

"Ah, good. My friend, you've helped an old man beyond all hope of repayment. If you ever need a friend, drop by my castle in Necremnos. It's the one with the chained chimeras guarding the gates and the howls coming from inside—I suppose I'll give

50

that up, now I'm retiring. Drop by any time. I've got to go. The silence will end when I do. One more magick, then I'll get to the business of renouncing my vows."

The wizard was so excited he flubbed hi* incantation three times. The fourth, while Bragi watched, saw woman, sorcerer, cart, and two donkeys vanishing in a fearsome cloud of smoke.

Shrugging the affair off as profitable and amusing, but of no great import, Bragi returned to Itaskia. He stopped by the Red Hart Inn for a stoop with old friends.

But the story did not end so easily. Bragi found himself outlawed for his part in the affair. Off he went, on an adventure into Freyland where he planned to liberate a fortune said to be lying in the heart of a certain mpuntian. The treasure he found—and the dragon guarding it. The worm won the ensuing battle handily.

The singed northman, outlawed all along the western coast, decided to impose on Aristithorn's hospitality. The wizard welcomed him warmly, immediately took him to see his children. Yselda had recently given birth to a pair of sturdy little blond, blue-eyed sons.

Innocently, Bragi asked, "How old are they?"

"Two months," Yselda replied. Confirmation of his suspicion was in her face.

Aristithorn said something about it

being time to feed the vampires in the

basement. He shuffled off. Bragi and

Yselda went for a walk in the garden.

"Is he the man he claimed?" the

(cont. on page 129)

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The Nights (cont. from page 50) northman asked.

"Indeed! A one-man army on that battlefield. There's a problem, though. He abstained so long he can't father children. He doesn't know, I'm sure." A strange light twinkled in the Princess's eyes as she added, "It's a pity. He wants more children. So do I, but I just don't know how we'll manage ....." "If lean be of any help . . . ." Deep in the dungeons, Aristithorn

hummed to himself as he tossed wriggling mice to his vampire bats while watching a garden scene in a magicical mirror... .

He'd lied when he said he was retiring.

Celibacy has nothing to do with his kind of magick.

He'd known of his sterility.

Trust a wizard no more than a King. They're all chess players.

—GLEN COOK

129

THE SEVENTH FOOL

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Glen Cook was born in 1944 in New York City and moved to Indiana in 1948 He began writing sfin 1967 and published a novel. The Heirs of Babylon in 1972. He writes that he is employed by General Motors, 'lives in a very'old three story house with a wife and five cats and 10,000 books, own a farm I manage on weekends and get very little time to write, though it is a pursuit I love."

The Seventh Fool

by GLEN COOK

Cantanzaro sang as he walked along the road to Antonisen. Occasionally, he glanced back, smirked. The road remained an empty, meandering scar of brown on springtime's green. The Maniarchs of Kortanek hadn't yet picked up his scent.

Then he frowned. He had been compelled to flee without the Jewels ofRegot

He grinned again. The thousand gayly colored spires of Antonisen pricked the sky ahead. The man who had flummoxed Regot's pragmatist priests could, surely, make his fortune in a city ruled by a Council called The Seven Fools.

Springtime was spreading through Zarlenga like a happy disease. The Hundred Cities were opening like bright flowers. Travelers buzzed among them like bees. His reception at Antonisen's Har-

lequin Gate wasn't the least unfriendly.

Serendipity! he thought moments after penetrating the dusty streets. He had arrived just in time to witness one of Antonisen's fabled elections. A Fool had retired. Half the men of the city were vying for his Chair.

A clever man should be able to find an avenue to profit in that.

Antoniseners reasoned that, since government was evil but necessary, it ought, at least, to be entertaining. Those who wished to become Councilors, therefore, had to convince the voters that they could provide the most amusing show.

There was a clown on every corner. Antoniseners were partial to humorists. The more inspired were winning votes with scandalous libels on the retired Fool's manhood.

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Cantanzaro ventured from clown to clown, observing fingers and toes. Theft was the swiftest path to wealth. And in Antonisen it was the custom to flaunt one's fortune in the form of rings.

His natural impulse was to palm a few while shaking hands. But that, he noted, could be tricky business. Antoniseners seemed pre-ternaturally sensitive to such maneuvers. Whenever a foreigner made a try — there were a good many in town for the election — the victim would shriek, a gang would fall on the thief, pummel him senseless, hoist him by the arms and legs, run him to a nearby low, shadowed archway, and chuck him in with a cryof'Hornbostel!"

Whatever it meant, Cantanzaro had no curiosity. He had had his encounters with the mysteries of the Hundred Cities before. Few had been pleasant.

He needed a better idea. And one came.

Cantanzaro seldom lacked for ideas, only for means.

He dug into his tattered purse. Still only four green-tinged copper alten of Kortanek, and one useless map.

So he sought a market with an antiquary. All Zarlenga was deep in the rubbish of its ten-thousand-year history. Every city had its junk men.

This one was typical, an old

man whose place of business was a filthy blanket spread in the square, piled high wjth history's leavings. He probably went home to a palace. Zarlengans were suckers for anything ancient.

"Your wish, Grace?" The old man wrinkled his nose at Cantan-zaro's shabbiness, but at election time one was rude to no man. That he himself was grubbier didn't faze the man. Poverty was part of his act too.

"A book."

"Ah. Yes. I've got a dozen. A hundred. Cook books, romances, histories, journals, magic by the right hand, magic by the left...."

"It should be unreadable."

"Unreadable?" A live one, the merchant thought, rubbing his hands together. "Li Chi." He held up a scroll. "Got caught in the rain...."

"No. In a forgotten tongue." Cantanzaro smiled. The old man kept gawking at his ringless fingers.

"This, then. A genuine antiquity, recovered at great personal risk, by a tomb-miner working the Mountains of Dautenhain."

Cantanzaro considered the title. It was in no alphabet he knew. But he found the tomb-miner story doubtful. The tome was in too fine a shape. Stolen, likely. "Good enough." He tossed a copper, started off.

The merchant shrieked like a

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scalded cat. A dozen men closed in, already arguing over the quickest route to the nearest low black archway, Cantanzaro turned back, pretending bewilderment.

A half hour later he thundered, "But you admit you can't even read the thing!"

"Can't read anything." The old man went on to mourn about being cheated, robbed, losing money on the deal, but settled for Cantan-zaro's remaining three alten.

The most desperate candidate, street talk said, was one Ablan De-craehe, son of a retired Fool who claimed the youth was a bad joke on legs.

While waiting to obtain audience with Decraehe, Cantanzaro worked his map into his scheme. It was a crude thing, but would do.

He had a low opinion of the intellect and morals of anyone who wanted to get into government. The best system, he thought, was that practiced in Immerlagen, where they seized a man off the street, carried him screaming to his inauguration at the Mayoral Palace. As soon as he showed signs of enjoying his post, the Aldermen had him stuffed and put into the City Museum.

"The book is the rare and famous Tales of Arabrant, of which great humorists have whispered for generations. A man of your stature has doubtless heard of it," Cantan-

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zaro told Decraehe, a slim, snobbish man who affected an unnecessary monocle and would not have been caught dead entertaining a commoner outside election time. "The ultimate collection of humorous tales, some with such magic that men have been known to die laughing on hearing them. I heard you tell a censored version of 'The Bureaucrat's Revenge.'" It was the youth's obvious favorite and most successful story and the brightest spot in his leaden monologue. "I thought you'd be a man interested in the original."

Decraehe frowned suspiciously.

"It's always good to have .a friend on the Council when one changes cities. One hand washes the other." He made the motions with slim, uncalloused fingers.

Cantanzaro had chosen his mark well. Decraehe was the sort who could admit no shortcoming, especially ignorance. "I've heard of it, of course." He tried to look con-spiritorial. "How'd you come by a copy?"

Cantanzaro glanced around, leaned closer. Wishful thinking was doing his convincing. "Accidentally. Gambling with a thief. He left it as security for a debt. When I saw what I had, I hurried to Antoni-sen." A mark, he had long ago learned, often could be disarmed by an open admission of knavery. Forewarned, he would relax, sure

THE SEVENTH FOOL

he could not be had himself.

"Hardly proper, my dear fellow." Decraehe glanced meaningfully at a dark archway.

The things seemed to be everywhere.

This was the tricky part, getting past being robbed and chucked through the opening. Cantanzaro handed him the book.

"But... but..."

"Yes. It's in Old High Trebec. All the copies are. And the Brothers of Allgire guard the three known copies of translation dictionaries with unbreachable spells. But my victim... er, debtor, also knew what he had. And lately had come into knowledge of the whereabouts of a fourth dictionary." He produced the map. "He had taken this off a tomb-miner in the Mountains of Dautenhain, who mentioned the dictionary as he was dying."

"I see. What good does this do me?"

"For a fee I would recover that dictionary. Just enough to establish myselfhere."

Decraehe frowned.

"The book is yours. A gift from a grateful immigrant. It's useless to me anyway. Being a foreigner, I'm ineligible for public office.

"Never understood why the Brothers worry about it getting out. The dictionary is the important thing. With that, a man could make himself King of Antonisen."

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"Those mountains are four days away. Four there, four back, plus time to find and open the tomb. The election's in seven days." The claws of greed kept pulling De-craehe's face into off expressions.

"The tomb is found and open. Given a good horse and suitable incentive fee, traveling round the clock, I could deliver in five days."

"Why didn't you bring it?" Decraehe whined.

Cantanzaro tried to look a-mazed. "With the streets full of rogues who'd cut my throat to get it? No, begging your pardon, I wanted a firm contract and gold in my purse before I took that risk."

"But if I paid you, what would keep you from running off with my money?"

"The honor of the contract. The value of Cantanzaro's word is known in a dozen cities. Also, you'd hold half the fee for payment on delivery. In fact, I'll leave the map. It's burned on the back of my brain anyway. Then, if I cheated, you could sell book and map, at a handsome profit, to someone willing to wait till next election. Moneywise, you can't lose."

Cantanzaro settled back in his chair, let the wheels turn. Decraehe would be thinking that he could have him chucked through the archway after relieving him of money.

"Twenty percent advance."

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Cantanzaro smiled thinly. De-craehe had swallowed the whole six-legged horse. "Fifty. Against your certitude of becoming Chief Fool."

"But you'll have no time to spend it anyway...."

"A matter of principal. Of having equal amounts to lose. Just a hundred soli...."

"A hundred! Thief! What..."

"Against the certitude of becoming Chief Fool? A bargain at ten times the price. The payoffs from gamblers and thieves' markets would return that in a week. You must realize, a man of my station must establish himself properly in his new land."

"Twenty. Ten now and ten later."

"Ninety now and ninety later."

An hour later, with fifty gold soli practically ripping his belt off, Cantanzaro swung astride De-craehe's best horse. The would-be Fool had saddled the beast himself. With book held tightly in hand, he opened the courtyard gate.

An older man stumbled through. "Any way to greet your father, boy?" he grumbled. He scowled at Cantanzaro, at De-craeh, at the book. "What's this? My first edition Zavadil, that was stolen a month ago! Nursing a thieving viper in my own bosom...."

This Cantanzaro heard as he spurred through the gate, cursing

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the ill-fortune that dogged his steps. It happened every time, at the moment of triumph. Those old crones, the Fates, must have developed an abiding hatred for him.

Decraehe shrieked like an old woman. Antonisen poured into the streets. The warning swifted ahead; Cantanzaro reached the Harlequin Gate only to find it already closed. He swung into a side street, switched back and forth till he had gained a momentary lead, then eased up to the first inn he encountered. To the stableman he called, "Return this animal to the home of Ablan Decraehe immediately," and tossed a solus. The man's eyes grew huge. It was a small fortune to .one of his station.

"Instantly, my lord."

Five minutes later, from a rooftop, Cantanzaro watched the protesting stableman being hustled to an archway. "Hornbostel! Horn-bostel!" the crowd chanted.

Grinning, Cantanzaro waited till night, then went over the wall.

He kept on grinning till, in Ven-verloh, he tried spending one of his remaining forty-nine soli, all of which proved to be lead thinly surfaced with gold. The one he had checked by biting, which Decraehe had given for that purpose, had been the one he had tossed to the stable worker.

They had low black archways in Venverloh too.

' 7 suppose you don't think this is hard work!' 83