BOOK ONE:

HOW THE SWORDSMAN WAS SUMMONED

SMITH—Walter Charles Smith, aged 36 years, passed away on April 8th, at Sanderson Memorial Hospital, after a brief illness. He is survived by his sister, Mrs. Cecily Smith Paddon, of Auckland, New Zealand, and an uncle, Mr. Clyde Franks, of Pasadena, California. Born in Weyback, Saskatchewan, Walter attended high school in Binghamton, New York. He obtained his Bachelor of Engineering degree from the University of Waterloo, Ontario, and an MBA from Harvard. During the past three years he was manager of the local AKL petrochemical plant. He will be greatly mourned by the many friends he made during his short stay in our community, and his willing and generous contributions to it will be sadly missed. Walter was active in the United Way, Uncles at Large, and the Historical Society, and at the time of his passing was president of Avenue Tennis Club. In accordance with his wishes, his body has been donated to medical research. Memorial service will be held at Parkdale Unitarian Church on Tuesday, April 12th, at 2 P.M. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be sent to Uncles at Large, 1215 River Road.

†

“Keep my heart true to Your laws,” Honakura warbled, laying a shaky left hand on the smooth brilliance of the tiled floor.

“Let me serve Your will with all my strength,” he wailed, cracking on the high note as usual, and placing his equally frail right hand beside the left.

“And show my eyes Your purposes.” This was the tricky part—the ritual called for him to touch his forehead to the mosaic, but he had not achieved that maneuver these last fifteen years. He curled forward as far as he could. If the Goddess chose to stiffen his ancient joints, then She would have to settle for the best he could manage . . . and of course She would.

He strained there for a moment, hearing the quiet chanting of other priests and priestesses nearby as they also made their way through the morning dedication. Then, with a quiet and unscheduled “Ooof!” of relief he pushed himself back to sit on his heels, place his palms together, and look up adoringly at Her. Now he was permitted a silent and private prayer, a personal appeal. He had no doubt what it would be, this day as many before it. Most High Goddess, do something about the swordsmen of Your guard!

She did not reply. He did not expect Her to. This was not the Goddess Herself, but merely an image to assist humble mortals in visualizing Her greatness. Who should know that better than a priest of the seventh rank? But She would hear his prayer and one day She would answer.

“Amen!” he quavered.

Now he could start to plan his day, but he remained for a moment sitting on his heels, hands still together, reflecting, gazing up lovingly at the majesty of the Most High and the vast stone trelliswork above Her, the roof of Her temple, the holiest of all the holy places in the World.

He had many meetings planned—with the Keeper of the Coffers, with the Master of Discipline for Acolytes, with many others, almost all holders of offices that Honakura himself had held at one time or another. Now he was merely Third Deputy Chairman of the Council of Venerables. That innocent-sounding title concealed much more than it revealed. Power, he had long since discovered, is best exercised in secret.

Around him the morning dedications were ending. Already the first of the day’s many pilgrims were being led in to make their offerings and supplications. Money was clinking into the bowls; prayers being mumbled under the quiet prompting of priests. He would begin, Honakura decided, by guiding a few pilgrims himself. It was a worthy service to the Most Holy; it was a task he enjoyed; it was a good example for the juniors. He lowered his hands and glanced around in the hope that there might be someone handy to help him rise—not the easiest of movements for him now.

At once a brown robe was at his side and strong hands assisted him. With a quiet mutter of thanks, Honakura reached his feet. He was about to turn away when the man spoke.

“I am Jannarlu, priest of the third rank . . . ” He was making the salute to a superior, words and hand gestures and bowings. For a moment Honakura reacted with shock and disapproval. Surely this young man did not think that so trifling a service could justify him in forcing himself on a lord of the Seventh? This place, before the dais and the idol, was the holy of holies, and while there was no law against conversation or formal saluting here, custom forbade it. Then he recalled this Jannarlu. He was old Hangafau’s grandson, said to have promise. He must know better, and therefore must have good reason for the impropriety.

So Honakura waited until the salute was completed and then made the ritual response: “I am Honakura, priest of the seventh rank . . . ” One of Jannarlu’s facemarks was still slightly inflamed, so he was a very new Third. He was tall—much taller than the diminutive Honakura—with a bony, ungainly presence and a hook nose. He seemed absurdly young, but then they all did these days.

Close by, an ancient crone dropped a gold in the bowl and began entreating the Goddess to cure the agony in her bowels. Beyond her a young couple were praying that She not send them any more children, for a few years at least.

As soon as Honakura had finished, the words spurted from Jannarlu: “My lord, there is a swordsman . . . a Seventh!”

She had answered!

“You left him out there?” Honakura demanded furiously, keeping his voice down with difficulty, struggling not to show emotion to anyone who might be watching.

The Third flinched, but nodded. “He is a Nameless One, my lord.”

Honakura hissed in astonishment. Incredible! With forehead covered and wearing only black, like a beggar, anyone could become a Nameless One. By law, such persons could bear no goods and must be on the service of the Goddess. Many regarded it as a special penance, so the practice was not uncommon among pilgrims coming to the temple. But for a lord of the Seventh to reduce his standing in such a way was highly unusual. For a swordsman of any rank it was almost unthinkable. For a swordsman of the seventh rank . . . incredible!

It did explain how he had arrived alive. Could he be kept alive?

“I told him to cover again, my lord,” Jannarlu said diffidently. “He . . . he seemed quite pleased to do so.”

There was a hint of levity there, and Honakura shot him a warning glance while he pondered. Jannarlu’s ugly brown face seemed slightly flushed.

“You did not hurry, I hope?”

The Third shook his head. “No, my lord. I followed . . . ” He gestured toward the sick old crone, who was now being helped up by her attendant priestess.

“Well done, priest!” said Honakura, mollified. “Let us go and see this wonder of yours. We shall walk slowly, conversing of holy matters . . . and not in quite the right direction, if you please.”

The young man blushed with pleasure at the praise and fell into step beside him.

The great temple of the Goddess at Hann was not only the richest and oldest building in the World, it was certainly the largest. As Honakura turned from the dais, he was faced with a seemingly endless expanse of gleaming, multicolored floor, stretching off to the seven great arches that formed the facade. Many people were walking there, coming or going—pilgrims and their guides of the priesthood—but so vast was the space that mere human beings seemed hardly larger than mouse droppings. Beyond the arches, out in the brilliant sunlight, lay a view of the canyon and the River and the Judgment, whose rumbling roar had filled the temple for all its many millennia. Along the sides of the wide nave stood the shrines of lesser gods and goddesses, and above them the fretted windows blazed in hues of ruby, emerald, amethyst, and gold.

Honakura’s prayer had been answered. No . . . the prayers of many. He was certainly not the only one of Her servants here to make that prayer each day, yet it was to him that the news had been brought. He must move with caution and courage and determination, but he felt warm satisfaction that he had been chosen.

It took a long time for him to reach the arches, with the young Third fidgeting at his side. They made an odd pair, Honakura knew, in their priestly gowns, Jannarlu in the brown of a Third and he in the blue of a Seventh. The younger man was tall, but Honakura had never been tall and now he was shrunken and stooped, toothless and hairless. The juniors referred to him behind his back as the Wise Monkey, and the term amused him. Old age had few amusements. In the unkind silent hours of night he would feel his bones rubbing against the sheets and quietly wish that She would soon rescue him from it and let him start anew. Yet perhaps She was reserving him in this life for one last service, and if so, then this was surely it. A swordsman of the seventh rank! They were rare, as the priests had discovered—rare, and very precious when needed.

As he walked, he decided that young Jannarlu had shown great discretion in coming to him, and not to some blabbermouth middlerank. He should be rewarded. And kept quiet.

“Who is your mentor now?” he asked. “Yes, I know him. A worthy and holy man. But the Honorable Londossinu is in need of another protégé to assist him in some new duties. They are sensitive matters, and he needs a man of reticence and discretion.”

He glanced sideways at the youngster beside him and saw a flush of pleasure and excitement. “I should be greatly honored, my lord.”

So he should be, a Third being offered a Sixth as mentor, but he seemed to be hearing the message. “Then I shall speak to your mentor and the holy one, and see if a transfer can be arranged. It will have to wait until after this matter of the swordsman, of course . . . until after that has been successfully concluded.”

“Of course, my lord.” Young Jannarlu was staring straight ahead, but could not quite suppress a smile.

“And where are you in your inurement?”

“I am due to start the fifth silence in another week,” said the lad, adding helpfully, “I am eager to begin.”

“You will begin as soon as I have met this marvel of yours,” Honakura stated, with a silent chuckle. “I shall send word to your mentor.” An astute young man! The fifth silence lasted two weeks—the matter would certainly be settled by then.

At last they had reached the arches. Beyond them the great steps fell away like a hillside to the temple court. The top was already cluttered with rows of pilgrims patiently kneeling in the shadow. Later in the day, when the tropic sun discovered them, they would find the waiting harder.

Out of habit the priest glanced over the faces of the closest. As his eyes met theirs they bowed their heads respectfully to him, but from long experience he had already read the rank and craft marks of their brows and made a preliminary diagnosis—a potter of the Third, probably a health problem; a spinster of the Second, perhaps a sterility case; a goldsmith of the Fifth, good for a fair offering.

Few of the heads were bound. Honakura could make an easy guess as to the swordsman. The man had chosen to approach one of the side arches, which was fortunate because the token guard stood only at the center arch, but it was a curious choice for one of his rank. Something must be seriously awry for him.

“The big one, I assume? Very well. And there, I believe, is the Honorable Londossinu himself. Let us speak to him right away.” That was convenient, for Honakura disliked overloading his memory these days, and it was surely the handiwork of the Holiest. The whole affair was then disposed of in a dozen words—plus a few meaningful glances, nuances, hints, and insinuations. The transfer of mentors would be arranged, and Londossinu would get the committee appointments he had been seeking for two other protégés, plus promotion for another. And young Jannarlu would be kept quiet. Honakura waited until he saw the young man head back into the temple to begin the ritual of silence, quite unaware of most of the dealings that had just been completed around him. There was no hurry; the Nameless could bring no offerings and hence were low priority for the attendants.

Yes, the handiwork of the Goddess! His prayers had been answered by a highrank swordsman, the man had come—incredibly!—incognito and hence safely, and he had even avoided the two bored swordsmen posturing by the center arch, who might just possibly have guessed from his long hair that he was a swordsman. Praise to the Goddess!

Honakura began to amble in the right direction, nodding his head to the bows he received. By law, a Nameless One could only be questioned by priests or searched by swordsmen, but it was not unknown for junior swordsmen to torment such for sport. The little priest wondered what the reaction would be if some were to try that and discover that they were dealing with a swordsman of the Seventh. It would be an entertaining incident to watch. Fortunately, in the present case, the man’s rank had not yet been revealed.

At last he reached his objective.

The man was very large indeed—even kneeling, he carried his eyes not much beneath Honakura’s. Swordsmen were rarely large, for speed was more important to them than strength. If this man also had agility he would be formidable, but then he was, reputedly, a Seventh, and there could be none more formidable. Apart from the black rag around his head, he wore only a dirty scrap of black loincloth. He was filthy and sweat-streaked, yet his size and youth made him impressive still. His hair was also black, hanging to his shoulders, and his eyes were utterly black, the pupils lost in the iris. Forceful eyes . . . bearing anger they would strike dread. Looking into them now, Honakura saw other things: pain and fear and despondency. Those came often to the Goddess in the eyes of supplicants—the sick, the dying, the bereaved, the lost—but rarely had he seen them so intense, and their presence in the eyes of this huge and healthy youngster was a staggering shock to him. Awry indeed!

“Let us go over to a more private place,” he said quickly. “My lord?”

The young man rose effortlessly, rising over the little priest as dawn climbs the sky. He was very big and when he moved he rippled. Even for a swordsman he was young to be a Seventh, probably younger than Priest Jannarlu of the Third.

They walked to the end of the facade, and Honakura motioned to the plinth of a badly corroded statue. The swordsman sat without argument. His apathy was astonishing.

“Let us dispense with formalities for the moment,” Honakura said quietly, remaining on his feet, “for we are not unobserved. I am Honakura, priest of the seventh rank.”

“I am Shonsu, swordsman, and also of the Seventh.” His voice was in keeping with the rest of him, massive. Distant thunder. He raised a hand to remove the rag, and Honakura shook his head.

“You seek help from the Goddess?”

“I am haunted by a demon, holiness.”

That explained the eyes. “Demons can be exorcised, but they rarely ravage those of high rank,” Honakura said. “Pray tell me of it.”

The fearsome young man shuddered. “It is the color of sour milk. It has yellow hair on its belly and its limbs and its face, but none on top of its head, as though its head were put on upside down.”

Honakura shuddered, also, and made the sign of the Goddess.

The swordsman continued, “It has no foreskin.”

“Do you know its name?”

“Oh yes,” Shonsu sighed. “It babbles at me from dusk until dawn, and lately even by day. Little it says makes sense, but its name is Walliesmith.”

“Walliesmith?” Honakura echoed doubtfully.

“Walliesmith,” the swordsman repeated in a voice that could not be doubted.

That was not the name of any of the seven hundred and seventy-seven demons—but a demon would naturally not tell the truth unless properly invoked. And, while the sutras catalogued demons of the most hideous and grotesque aspect, Honakura had never heard of one so perverse as to grow hair on its face.

“The Goddess will know it, and it can be expelled,” he said. “What offering will you make to Her in return?”

Sadly the young man dropped his gaze. “My lord, I have nothing left to offer, except my strength and my skill.”

A swordsman, and he did not mention honor?

“Perhaps a year or two of service in our temple guard?” Honakura suggested, watching closely. “The reeve is the valorous Lord Hardduju of the Seventh.”

The swordsman’s was a hard face, and now he gave the priest a hard look. “How many Sevenths do you need in a temple guard?” he asked warily. “And by what oath would I be sworn?”

Honakura edged a little closer to his meaning. “I am not familiar with all your swordsman oaths, my lord. Now that you mention it, I never remember more than one Seventh in the guard at a time, and I have worked here more than sixty years.”

They studied each other in silence for a moment. The swordsman frowned. While his kind had few scruples at eradicating each other, they did not often appreciate advice on the subject from civilians. Honakura decided to reveal a little more.

“It is rare for highrank swordsmen to visit the temple,” he said. “None at all for at least two years. Curiously, though, I have heard of several who arrived at Hann and stated that to be their intention—at least one Seventh and a couple of Sixths.”

The swordsman’s huge fists clenched. “Implying?”

“I imply nothing!” Honakura said hastily. “Pure hearsay. They were reported to be planning to take the ferry, and then that long trail through the trees. Probably they changed their minds. One did make as near as a pilgrims’ hostelry, but was unfortunate enough to partake there of some tainted meat. You are all the more welcome for your rarity, my lord.”

Muscles did not necessarily imply stupidity—the young man understood. A dark flush of fury crept over his cheekbones.

He glanced around, looking at the grandiose facade of the temple and at the great court below, flanked by the shingle beach and the still pool, beyond that to the River frothing and foaming as it emerged from the canyon, and along the canyon to the mist-shrouded splendor of the Judgment. Then he turned his head to survey the wooded park of the temple grounds with the big houses of the senior officials. One of those would certainly go with the office of reeve. “To be a swordsman in Her temple guard would be a great honor,” he said.

“It seems to be even better rewarded these days than it used to be,” Honakura remarked helpfully.

The hard face became menacing. “A man could borrow a sword, I expect?”

“That could be arranged.”

The young man nodded. “My service is always to the Goddess.”

Now that, Honakura thought happily, was how a deal should be made. Murder had not even been mentioned.

“But first the exorcism?” the swordsman said.

“Certainly, my lord.” Honakura could not remember an exorcism in the last five years, but he was familiar with the ritual. “Fortunately, it does not require that your craft or even rank be mentioned. And your present garb will be adequate.”

The swordsman sighed with relief. “And it will succeed?”

One did not become or prevail as Third Deputy Chairman of the Council of Venerables without learning to cover one’s hindquarters. “It will succeed, my lord, unless . . . ”

“Unless?” echoed the swordsman, his broad face darkening with suspicion . . . 

Or was it guilt? Carefully Honakura said, “Unless the demon has been sent by the Most High Herself. Only you know whether you have committed some grievous transgression against Her.”

An expression of great agony and sorrow fell over the swordsman’s face. He dropped his eyes and was silent for a while. Then he looked up defiantly and growled, “It was sent by the sorcerers.”

Sorcerers! The little priest staggered back a step. “Sorcerers!” he blurted. “My lord, in all my years in this temple, I have never heard a pilgrim mention sorcerers. I had hardly thought that such truly existed any more.”

Now the swordsman’s eyes became as terrible as the priest had guessed they might. “Oh, they exist!” he rumbled. “I have come very far, holy one, very far. But sorcerers exist, believe me.”

Honakura pulled himself together. “Sorcerers cannot prevail against the Holiest,” he said confidently. “Certainly not in Her own temple. If they are the origin of your distress, then the exorcism will succeed. Shall we see to it?”

Honakura beckoned over an orange-gowned Fourth and gave orders. Then he led the swordsman through the nearest arch and along the length of the nave to the statue of the Goddess.

The big man sauntered at Honakura’s side, taking one stride to his three, but his head twisted and turned as he gaped around at the splendor, as all visitors must on their first glimpse of this most holy sanctuary—seeing the great blue statue itself, the silver dais before it loaded with heaps of glittering offerings, the multicolored flaming of the stained-glass windows along both sides, the miraculous fan vaulting of the ceiling hanging like distant sky above. The temple was busy, with many priests, priestesses, pilgrims, and other worshipers moving over the shining mosaics of the pavement, yet their tiny figures were dwindled to dust specks by its immensity, and the vast space seemed filled with a still peace.

Inevitably, as he drew near, the swordsman became conscious only of the majesty of the statue, the Goddess Herself, the shape of a robed woman sitting cross-legged with Her hands on Her knees and Her long hair spilling down. Huge and ominous and majestic, She loomed more and more enormous as he approached. At last he reached the edge of the dais and threw himself on the ground in reverence.

An exorcism called for many priests and priestesses, for chanting, dancing, gesturing, ritual, and solemn ceremony. Honakura stood to one side and allowed Perandoro of the Sixth to officiate, for it was a rare opportunity. He himself had led an exorcism only once. The swordsman crouched on his knees within the circle, head down and arms outstretched as he had been instructed—put a tablecloth on that back, and it would hold a dinner for three. Other priests and priestesses watched covertly as they went about their business. Pilgrims were shunted tactfully to the sides. It was very impressive.

Honakura paid little attention to the preliminaries. He was busy planning his next move against the unspeakable Hardduju. A sword was easy—he could get one from Athinalani in the armory. A blue kilt for a Seventh was no problem, either, and a hairclip was a trivial detail. But swordsmen sported distinctive boots, and to send for a pair of those, especially in the size required, would certainly provoke suspicion. Furthermore, he was fairly sure that the rituals of dueling required that his new champion obtain a second, and that could make things complicated. It might be that he would have to spirit this dangerous young man out of sight for a day or two while the preparations were put in hand, but so far his presence was a secret. Honakura felt great satisfaction that the Goddess had not only answered the priests’ prayers in this fashion, but had also entrusted him with the subcontracting. He felt sure that Her confidence was not misplaced. He would see that there were no mistakes.

Then the chant rose to its climax, and a chorus of, “Avaunt!” The swordsman’s head came up, first looking wildly around, and then up at the Goddess.

Honakura frowned. The dolt had been told to keep his head down.

“Avaunt!” proclaimed the chanters once more, their rhythm just a fraction off perfection. The swordsman jerked upright on his knees, head back and eyes so wide that the whites were showing all around. The drummers went ragged on their beat, and a trumpeter flubbed a note.

“Avaunt!” cried the chorus a third time. Perandoro raised a silver goblet full of holy water from the River and cast the contents over the swordsman’s head.

He spasmed incredibly, leaping straight from his knees into the air and coming down on his feet. The dirty loincloth fluttered to the floor, and he stood there naked, with his arms raised, his head back, water dribbling down his face and chest. He shrieked the loudest noise that Honakura had ever heard uttered by a human throat. For perhaps the first time in the age-old history of the temple, one voice drowned out the chorus, the lutes and flutes, and the distant roar of the Judgment. It was discordant, bestial, horrifying, and full of soul-destroying despair. It reverberated back from the roof. It went on for an incredible, inhuman, unbelievable minute, while the singers and musicians became hopelessly tangled, the dancers stumbled and collided, and every eye went wide. Then the ceremony ended in a chaotic, clattering roll of drums, and the swordsman swayed over backward.

He fell like a marble pillar. In the sudden silence his head hit the tiles with an audible crack.

He lay still, huge and newborn-naked. The rag had fallen off his forehead, revealing for all to see the craftmarks on his forehead, the seven swords.

††

The temple was a building whose origins lay hidden back in the Neolithic. Many times it had been enlarged, and most of the fabric had been replaced from time to time as it had weathered or decayed—not once, but often.

Yet the temple was also people. They aged and were replaced much faster. Each fresh-faced acolyte would look in wonder at an ancient sage of the Seventh and marvel that the old man had probably known so-and-so in his youth, little thinking that the old man himself as a neophyte had studied that same so-and-so and mused that he was old enough to have known such-and-such. Thus, like stones in an arch, the men and women of the temple reached from the darkness of the past into the unviewable glare of the future. They nurtured the ancient traditions and holy ways and they worshiped the Goddess in solemnity and veneration . . . 

But none of them had ever known a day like that one. Elderly priestesses of the Sixth were seen running; questions and answers were shouted across the very face of the Goddess, violating all tradition; slaves and bearers and healers milled around in the most holy places; and pilgrims wandered unattended before the dais itself. Four of the largest male juniors were led into back rooms by venerable seniors of unquestioned moral probity, then ordered to take off their clothing and lie down. Three respected Sevenths had heart attacks before lunch.

The spider at the center of the web of confusion was Honakura. It was he who poked the stick in the ant hill and stirred. He summoned all his authority, his unspoken power, his unparalleled knowledge of the workings of the temple, and his undoubted wits—and he used them to muddle, confuse, confound, and disorder. He used them with expertise and finesse. He issued a torrent of commands—peremptory, obscure, convoluted, misleading, and contradictory.

By the time the valiant Lord Hardduju, reeve of the temple guard, had confirmed that truly there was another swordsman of the Seventh within the precincts, the man had totally vanished, and no amount of cajolery, bribery, interrogation, or menace could establish where he had gone.

Which was, of course, the whole idea.

Even a day like that one must end. As the sun god began to grow tired of his glory and dip toward his exit, the venerable Lord Honakura sought rest and peace in a small room high in one of the minor wings of the temple. He had not visited those parts for years. They were even more labyrinthine than the rest of the complex, but ideal for his purpose. Trouble, he knew, was seeking him out—it might as well be given as long a search as possible.

The room was a small, bare chamber, higher than it was wide, with walls of sandstone blocks and a scarred floor of planks bearing one small, threadbare rug. There were two doors, for which even giants need not have stooped, and a single window of diamond panes, whorled and dusty, blurring the light to green and blue blotches. The window frame had warped so that it would not open, making the room stuffy, smelling of dust. The only furniture was a pair of oaken settles. Honakura was perched on one of those, dangling his feet, trying to catch his breath, wondering if there was any small detail he might have overlooked.

Knuckles tapped, a familiar face peered in and blinked at him. He sighed and rose as his nephew Dinartura entered, closed the door, and advanced to make the salute to a superior.

“I am Dinartura,” right hand to heart, “healer of the third rank,” left hand to forehead, “and it is my deepest and most humble wish,” palms together at the waist, “that the Goddess Herself,” ripple motion with right hand, “will see fit to grant you long life and happiness,” eyes up, hands at the sides, “and to induce you to accept my modest and willing service,” eyes down, “in any way in which I may advance any of your noble purposes,” hands over face, bow.

Honakura responded with the equally flowery acknowledgment, then waved him to the other settle.

“How is your dear mother?” he asked.

Dinartura was a stooped young man with thinning light-brown hair and the start of a potbelly. He had lately abandoned the kilt of youth for the sleeveless gown of middle age, a cotton robe in the brown color of his rank, and he tended now to hold things very close to his nose when he wanted to see them. He was the youngest of Honakura’s sister’s children and, in Honakura’s opinion, an inexcusably prosaic dullard, boringly reliable.

After the formalities had been given a respectable hearing, Honakura said, “And how is the patient?” He smiled, but he waited anxiously for the reply.

“Still out cold when I left.” Dinartura was presuming on his nephewship to be informal. “He has a bump on his head this big, but there are no morbid signs. Eyes and ears are fine. I expect he will awaken in time, and be as good as new in a day or two.”

Honakura sighed with relief, so the healer added hastily, “If She wills, of course. Head injuries are not predictable. If I did not know you, my lord uncle, I would be more cautious.”

“We must be patient, then. You think two days?”

“Three might be safer,” the healer said. “If you have any strenuous exercise in mind for him,” he added, being uncharacteristically perceptive. “When you need to tie him down would be about right, I think.” After a pause he said, “And may I inquire what all this is about? There are many rumors, not one of which seems credible.”

Honakura chuckled, slavering slightly. “Find the least credible and you will be closest to the truth. Under the nightingale, then?”

“Of course, my lord.”

Honakura smiled to himself at the memory. “Your patient is one of five young men injured in the temple today.”

“Five!” Dinartura peered closer to see if his uncle was serious.

For a moment Honakura wondered how much power he had expended during the day. He had very few IOUs left to call now; he had amassed debts. “Very sad, you will agree? All lying prone, covered by sheets, and not speaking or moving. All have been rushed to safe places—in litters, in sedan chairs, in carriages. In some case the litters were borne by priests, too! At least twenty-two healers have been running around, and a few dozen other people. A couple of the victims were taken right out of the temple grounds, into the town, but others went from room to room, in one door and out the other . . . There are eight or nine sickrooms like this”—he gestured toward the other great oaken door—“presently being guarded.”

That door led out into another corridor, but he saw no reason to mention the fact.

“Guarded by priests,” the younger man said. “Then you do not trust the swordsmen? Of course I saw my patient. Do swordsmen really act as you obviously fear?”

The priest nodded sadly. “In this case, nephew, perhaps.”

The temple had a guard to maintain order, to protect the pilgrims, and to punish crime . . . but who watched the watchers?

“I have heard stories,” Dinartura muttered, “of pilgrims molested on the trail, especially. Are you saying that the swordsmen do this?”

“Ah, well!” Honakura replied cautiously. “Not directly. The gang or gangs on the trail are not swordsmen—but they are not tracked down as they should be, so there is bribery.”

“But surely most are men of honor?” protested his nephew. “Are there none you can trust?”

The old man sighed. “Run down to the courtyard, then,” he suggested. “Pick out a swordsman—a Third, say, or a Fourth—and ask him if he is a man of honor. If he says—”

The healer paled and made the sign of the Goddess. “I had rather not, my lord!”

His uncle chuckled. “You are sure?”

“Quite sure, thank you, my lord!”

Pity! Honakura found the thought entertaining. “You are right, in a way, nephew. Most, I am sure, are honorable, but every one is sworn to a mentor, who in turn is sworn to his own mentor or, ultimately, to the reeve himself. He alone has given an oath to the temple. Now, if he does not order a patrol on the trail, who is to suggest it to him? The rest obey orders—and say nothing. Indeed, they must guard their tongues even more carefully than the rest of us. Their danger is greater.”

Then he noticed the look he was being given and knew exactly what thought accompanied it: The old boy is wonderful for his age . . . He found that very irritating and patronizing. He was still better at almost anything than this ninny would ever be.

“So what are you doing about it, my lord uncle?”

Typically stupid question, Honakura thought. “Praying, of course! Today She answered our prayers by sending a Seventh. She summoned a demon to drive him here.”

“Are your exorcisms always so violent?” Dinartura asked and flinched at the frown he received.

“Exorcisms are rare, but the sutras warn that there may be extreme reaction.” Honakura fell silent, and there was a pause.

The settle creaked as Dinartura leaned back and regarded his uncle with some curiosity. “This Seventh?” he asked. “Why insult him with those quarters, with a single slave instead of a flock of attendants?”

Honakura recovered his good spirits and chuckled.

“It was the most unlikely place I could think to put him—a lowly pilgrim cottage. It opens directly onto a busy road, and he has no clothes, so he isn’t going anywhere if he wakes up. But tell me,” he added with interest. “The slave? Kikarani promised a pretty one. How did she look?”

His nephew frowned, thinking. “Just a slave girl,” he said. “I told her to wash him. She was tall . . . and large. Yes, quite pretty, I suppose.” He thought some more and added, “A certain animal sensuality, if a man wanted that.”

That was typical! At least Honakura still noticed pretty girls. He knew very well what duties Priestess Kikarani assigned to her slaves. She fought fang and claw to keep her position as hospitaler, so he could guess what sort of girls she had. “Nephew! Did you not notice?”

The younger man’s face turned pink. “I think that she will suffice, uncle, if the swordsman wakes up and wants something to do . . . and finds that he has no clothes.”

The old priest cackled. He would have said more, but at that moment the door flew open, and loud voices could be heard shouting in the anteroom. Then the reeve marched in. Honakura scrambled to his feet and scurried over to the other exit. He turned his back on the door and the blandest expression he could manage on the newcomer.

Hardduju of the Seventh was a large man, although not the size of Shonsu. He was around forty, starting to run to fat. His beefiness bulged over the top of a kilt of blue brocade shot through with gold thread; it bulged also between the tooled leather straps of his harness. He had no neck. The sword hilt behind his right ear glittered and flashed with many small rubies set in gold filigree. The hairclip holding his thinning ponytail shone in matching gold and ruby fires, as did the gold and ruby band on one fleshy arm. His boots were of kidskin beaded with garnets. His heavy face was inflamed and furious.

“Hah!” he said on seeing Honakura. For a moment the two stood in silent confrontation—neither the priests’ craft nor the swordsmen’s could ever admit that the other had higher status. But Hardduju was obviously the younger, and the visitor. Moreover, he was impatient, so he yielded precedence, whipping out his sword. The healer flinched, but it was merely the start of the swordsmen’s version of the greeting to an equal. “I am Hardduju, swordsman of the seventh rank . . . ”

When it was finished, Honakura gave his most impeccable response in his thin, slurred voice, waving his twisted old hands in the gestures.

Behind the reeve appeared a muscular young swordsman of the Fourth in an orange kilt, and a weedy slave in the usual black loincloth. The slave carried a large bundle wrapped in a cloak. He was ignored, but after a hesitation, Hardduju proceeded to present Adept Gorramini.

Honakura in turn offered Healer Dinartura.

Then the swordsman stepped very close, folded his thick arms, and glared down at the little priest. “You have a swordsman of the Seventh?” he barked, without waiting for further niceties.

“You refer to the formidable Lord Shonsu, I presume?” Honakura said, as though there might be some doubt. “I did have the honor of being of assistance to the dread lord this morning, yes.” He studied Hardduju’s harness with interest, it being at eye level for him.

“An exorcism, I understand?” The swordsman was having trouble keeping his voice within polite limits, the priest noted—and made a vow to irritate him much more before he was done. He raised an invisible eyebrow at the harness and mumbled some nonsense about professional ethics.

“It would have been proper for the valiant lord to have paid his respects to me upon arrival,” Hardduju snarled, “but then I understand that he was not suitably dressed. I have come, therefore, to wait upon him and wish him a speedy recovery.”

“You are most gracious, my lord.” Honakura beamed.

“I shall certainly see that your good offices are reported to him.”

The swordsman scowled. “I have brought a sword and other trappings for him.”

That was unexpected good fortune. Honakura wondered how reliable the sword might be. “Your kindness is beyond belief! If you would be so good as to have your slave leave them here, then I shall see that he gets them and is informed of your benevolence.”

A low growl escaped from the beefy chest. “I beg leave to pay him my respects in person. Now!”

The old man shook his head sadly. “He is resting, and indeed is in the care of the resourceful healer.”

Hardduju turned to regard Dinartura like something scraped off the sole of his boot. “A Third, to care for a Seventh? I shall bring a more cunning and a better.”

“The knowledgeable healer is a nephew of mine,” Honakura remarked brightly.

“Aha!” Hardduju bared teeth in satisfaction. “So I have found the real one at last! Well, I shall not disturb the doughty lord unduly. But I shall pay my respects.” He reached to open the door, and Honakura spread his arms to block him. He was not seriously worried about overt violence, for priests were sacrosanct, but he knew that he might be laying himself open to dark deeds in the future. Hopefully Shonsu would take care of that possibility for him in a day or two.

For a moment the two faced off. The reeve started to raise his sword hand.

“Go ahead, my lord,” Honakura baited. Even the gorilla of the Fourth was looking startled at the move.

But the reeve was not quite rash enough to draw on a priest of the Seventh. Instead he just picked him up like a child and set him aside. Then he flung open the door and marched through it.

The younger swordsman grinned triumphantly at the priest and moved to follow. He was almost knocked over as Hardduju came storming back into the room.

Honakura winked at his nephew.

Then he turned politely back to the reeve. “You will have to be patient, my lord, as I said.” He paused and then added very deliberately, “But the implacable lord has assured me that he will call upon you in the near future.”

The swordsman glared furiously . . . apprehensively? Then he barked at the slave to lay down the bundle and led Gorramini away. The slave closed the door silently. Honakura looked at his nephew and chuckled, rubbing his hands.

He tottered off wearily then toward his own quarters, thinking he had earned a warm soak and a good repast. By the time he arrived, however, he had reluctantly concluded that his normally lackluster nephew had made an astute observation for once. No lord of the seventh rank would be pleased to awaken in a sleazy pilgrim hut. An important ally must not be alienated. He issued more orders.

Shortly thereafter, no less than six sedan chairs began to circulate around the temple grounds, all with curtains drawn. One by one they eventually passed out through the gate into the town and circulated some more. They dropped passengers and then picked up others . . . 

Having changed sedan chairs twice, and being satisfied that he had sufficiently confused any possible followers, Honakura ordered his bearers to proceed out of town. There was only one road, and it angled steeply up the valley wall. A few centuries earlier some enterprising builder had constructed a line of cottages along the side of this road, and these were available for pilgrims—not the wealthy, but not the poorest either, for the poor slept under trees.

He had not come this way for many years and he peered with almost childish excitement through a gap in the curtain at the tangle of roofs and treetops below him. Beyond the town, of course, towered the massive pile of the temple itself, its golden spires gleaming in the warm rays of the sun god, who was now nearing the horizon by the pillar of spray that stood always above the Judgment. The worst part of old age, Honakura decided then, was boredom. He had not enjoyed a day so much for longer than he could recall.

The chair stopped, and he clambered out as nimbly as he could, dodging then through the bead curtain that hung over the cottage door before him.

The place was even smaller and more dingy than he had expected, merely four walls of greasy stone blocks and a low thatch ceiling that stank abominably after a day of tropic sun. He noted the one window and a bed whose sag and tilt were obvious even from the doorway; uneven stone flags on the floor; two ramshackle wood chairs and a rough table; a small bronze mirror fastened to the wall. After a couple of breaths he could smell the acrid traces of urine and bodies under the stink of the thatch. The fleas and bedbugs could be taken for granted.

Evening sunlight streamed through the window onto the wall beside the bed, where the swordsman lay flat on his back. He looked even larger than Honakura remembered, wearing nothing but a cloth laid over his loins, sleeping as babies should but so seldom do.

A girl was sitting on one of the chairs at his side, patiently waving a fly whisk. She slid swiftly to her knees when she saw the rank of her visitor. Honakura waved at her to rise, then turned as his bearers followed him in with a large hamper and the bundle contributed by the nefarious Hardduju. Quietly he ordered them to return in an hour.

The swordsman was obviously alive, but not conscious, and hence no immediate problem. Because he had teased his nephew on the subject, the old man took the time to study the girl’s appearance more carefully than he might otherwise have done. She wore only a brief black wrap, of course, and her hair was roughly hacked short, but she was clearly of good peasant stock—tall and strongly built. her features broad but attractive, marred by the black slave line that ran down the middle of her face from hairline to mouth. Yet her skin was free of pockmarks, her breasts were splendidly rounded under the wrap, her limbs well formed. The wide, full lips looked enticing. Honakura was impressed. She was probably worth five or six golds on the open market. He wondered how much Kikarani made off her in a week and how many more like her the old witch ran in her stable. Yes, had the swordsman required entertainment, he would certainly have found this one adequate.

“Has he awakened at all?”

She shook her head, nervous at his high rank. “No, my lord.” She had a pleasantly tuneful contralto voice. “I thought he was going to, my lord, for he was groaning. Then he quieted. He seems to be just sleeping a normal sort of sleep now, my lord.”

That seemed a reasonable guess, and it was a perceptive comment from a slave.

Obviously she had obeyed Dinartura’s instructions and washed the swordsman. He looked quite respectable. She had even combed out his long black hair.

Honakura hesitated, but if there was truly danger, as he feared, then every visit he made would increase that danger. The potential victim must be warned. “Waken him!” he ordered.

The girl cringed. Probably she had never met a Seventh before and now she was alone with two of them. “Go on,” he said, more gently. “I won’t let him eat you.”

Gingerly she reached down and gave the sleeper’s shoulder a gentle shake.

The swordsman sat up.

The movement was so sudden that the girl leaped back with a gasp, and even Honakura retreated a pace from the foot of the bed. The man glared wildly around, heavy black eyebrows lowered in a scowl. He took in Honakura and the woman and the room in one lightning scrutiny. Then he seemed to relax a fraction. He looked them all over once more, sitting upright and not saying a word. He lingered his gaze appreciatively over the girl and finally brought it back to the man facing him.

“Who the hell are you?” he demanded.

Honakura recoiled another pace at this unexpected vulgarity. Then he recalled that they had not observed the proprieties of formal salutes at their earlier meeting and so, although he was the elder, he proceeded with the greeting to an equal: “I am Honakura, priest of the seventh rank, Third Deputy Chairman of the Council of Venerables, and I give thanks to the Most High for granting me this opportunity to assure your beneficence that your prosperity and happiness will always be my desire and the subject of my prayers.”

The swordsman raised an eyebrow incredulously at the recital and the elaborate gestures. He glanced at the girl to see her reaction. There was a long pause.

Then he nodded solemnly to Honakura and said, “Likewise, I’m sure. My name is Wallie Smith.”

†††

Jja leaped forward and assisted the old man to a chair. His face had turned gray and he was gasping for breath. She had been surprised to hear his name, for her mistress Kikarani had returned from a summons to the temple that morning in a storm of alternating terror and fury, breathing plagues and disaster against this same holy Honakura—Jja had envisioned an enormous, dreadful ogre, not a quiet and kindly old man. She hovered over him for a moment, worrying: should she run for a healer? But that would be for the swordsman to decide. She heard a creak from the bed and turned to see that he had pulled himself back so that he could lean against the wall. He was modestly adjusting the cloth over himself. She was going to kneel beside the priest, but the swordsman smiled at her and pointed to the chair at his side. He had a very kindly smile.

“And what is your name?” he asked, as she obediently went over.

“Jja, my lord.”

“Jja?” he echoed, sounding it. “Jja! How do you . . . ” He frowned and tried again: “How do you . . . Damn!” he muttered. He tried once more: “How do you make-marks-to-see for that?”

She did not understand. He was looking puzzled himself.

The old man had recovered some of his breath. “My Lord,” he said faintly. “This morning you told me that your name was Shonsu.”

The big man stared at him menacingly for a moment. “I don’t remember that.” He frowned, looking puzzled again. “In fact I don’t remember anything for . . . well, it feels like quite a long time.”

“You said,” the priest repeated, “that your name was Shonsu and you were being haunted by a demon named Walliesmith. Now you say that you are Walliesmith . . . ”

“Demon?” The swordsman uttered a deep, rumbling chuckle. “Demon? Shonsu?” He thought for a moment and repeated, “Shonsu?” as though the name had a vague familiarity. “Well, Wallie Smith is my name, but I’m no demon.” He grinned an astonishingly friendly grin at Jja and whispered: “Honest!”

“Certainly it is not the name of any of the known demons,” the old man muttered. “There is a demon of the seventh circle named Shaasu, but I’m sure that wasn’t what you said.”

The swordsman looked questioningly at Jja, as though asking her if the old man often raved like this. Then he slapped at a mosquito on his leg.

He stared at the leg. He peered at his arm, turning it over. He raised a hand to his face. Now it was he who went pale.

Again he moved with incredible speed. He jumped off the bed, holding the cloth about himself, and took two fast strides across the room to the mirror—and recoiled from what he saw there. “Oh, God!” He stooped once more to peer at his face, stroked his chin, rubbed a finger over his facemarks, tugged a strand of his long black hair. He found the lump on the back of his head and fingered that.

Time passed. A party of young women returning from the fields went by on the road. The hot little cottage was full of their giggling and the baiting calls of the boys following, jesting and shouting at the girls and one another. Both groups faded away down the hill toward the town, and still the swordsman stood by the mirror, looking himself over, even peering under his wrap. Finally he turned and came back, very slowly, with his face tightly closed. He sat on the edge of the bed and seemed to sag.

“Shonsu, you said?” he asked.

The old man nodded. “You got a bump on the head, my lord. Sometimes that can cause confusion . . . with all respect, my lord.”

“Tell me the whole thing—from the beginning!”

Honakura looked at Jja. “Leave us,” he said.

The swordsman did not appear to have moved, but his hand was on Jja’s arm. “Stay,” he said without looking at her.

It was a large and a strong hand, and a tremor ran through her at his touch. He felt it. She blushed as his eyes swiveled to study her. Then he smiled gently and took his hand away. “Sorry,” he murmured. A Seventh apologizing to a slave? She was astounded and confused. She hardly heard the start of the priest’s story.

Yet when he described the demon she was horrified. “Hair on its face and its belly? It must have looked like an ape.”

“I came,” Honakura said, his voice still shaky, “to explain why a noble lord like yourself had been put in such obnoxious quarters with inadequate ministration . . . ”

The swordsman glanced at Jja and winked, then said, “I have no complaint about the ministration.” Her heart turned over.

“You are gracious, my lord,” the priest continued, not paying much attention. “But the fact remains that your life may be in danger. Not that I doubt your prowess, my lord,” he added quickly. “I am sure that in a matter of honor you will dispose of Hardduju without the least problem. He is the only Seventh in the valley. He gives you fifteen years and is seasoned in debauchery. It is the thought of treachery that haunts me.”

The swordsman was shaking his head gently and frowning, as though he could not believe any of this.

“No, I do not fear swordsmen coming themselves,” Honakura explained. His color was returning, his voice stronger. “Rather the brigands who depend on the corruption of the guard for their protection. But no one will look for you here, my lord.”

Jja drew a breath and then fell silent, hoping that they had not noticed; but evidently little escaped the swordsman, for his fearsome deep eyes were on her again. “You were going to say?” he asked.

She gulped. “About noontime, my lord . . . ”

“Yes?” He nodded encouragingly.

“I stepped outside, my lord . . . just for a moment, my lord. But I had to relieve myself. I was only gone a moment.”

“That’s fine.” He was terrifyingly attentive and patient. “What did you see?”

So she told how she had seen a priestess of the Fifth, a round, middle-aged woman, coming up the road and looking in all the cottages. It was a sight she had never seen before, and she had remembered how her mistress Kikarani had stressed that no one was to know that the noble lord was there.

Honakura hissed. “As I feared, the subornation has penetrated even the priesthood! You are discovered, my lord!”

“Wait a minute, though,” the swordsman rumbled, still watching Jja and smiling slightly once more. “Did she get in and see me?”

Jja felt her face flame. “No, my lord.”

“But the fact that she was not admitted will tell them what they want to know,” the priest said angrily.

The swordsman ignored him. “What did you do, Jja?”

She bent her head and whispered how she had removed her dress and concealed him with her body, pretending that they were making joy together. The woman had not come in and could not have seen him properly.

Then there was a silence until she tremulously looked up and saw that he was smiling—no, grinning—at her, a cheeky, little-boy grin, very surprising on so strong a face.

“I wish I had been here”’ he said. He turned to the priest. “I repeat that I have no complaint about the service.”

Honakura was beaming. “It is the handiwork of the Goddess! Truly I was right to believe that She guided you here! Not one slave in a million would have had the wit to protect you in such fashion, my lord, or have wanted to.”

“Slave?” She had thought his smiles frightening and had given no thought to what his anger might be. “Is that what that line on your face means, that you are a slave?” She nodded timidly and the rage was whirled round toward the priest. “And who owns this slave?”

“The temple, I suppose, or Priestess Kikarani.” The priest was not cowed, merely puzzled. “Why, my lord?”

The swordsman did not answer. He scowled blankly across the room for a moment and muttered, “What cesspool did I drag that from?” Then he shrugged and spoke to the priest again.

“So I am supposed to kill this . . . Hardduju . . . person, am I? What about his friends?”

The old man seemed surprised. “If you mean the swordsmen, my lord, then they will respect the outcome of a formal challenge. Most of them, I am sure, are men of honor. Then, when you have been invested as reeve, you can punish the recreants, provide proper protection for the pilgrims, and hunt down the brigands.”

“I see.” He fell silent and sat staring at the floor. A mule train came clattering by, hooves staccato on the cobbles, the riders making relieved noises at seeing their destination so close at last. A single horse trotted up the roadway. The sun god was very low, the patch of light on the wall fading to pink. Flies buzzed. The swordsman waved them away idly, once in a while snatching one out of the air and killing it.

Then he frowned back at the priest. “All right, where is this?”

“This is a cottage for the use of pilgrims,” Honakura said.

“Where?”

“Just outside the town.”

“What town?” The swordsman’s voice was growing deeper and dangerous.

Patiently the priest answered. “The town by the temple, my lord. The temple of the Goddess at Hann.”

“Hann? Thank you,” said the swordsman. “Never heard of it. What . . . Which . . . ” He growled in frustration and then said with an effort and in a sudden rush, “What large-body-of-land-surrounded-by-salt-water are we on?” He seemed as surprised as they were.

“Salt water?” Honakura blurted. He looked at Jja, as if even a slave might give him support. “We are on an island, my lord, between the River itself and a small branch of it. But the water is not salt.” Then he added hurriedly, to forestall any more questions, “The small branch has no name of its own, although it is sometimes called the River of the Judgment.”

“And what is the big branch called?”

In a despairing voice the old man said, “Just the River. There is no other, so why should it have a name?” After a moment’s silence he added, “The River is the Goddess and the Goddess is the River.”

“Is she, though?” The huge young man rubbed his chin for a moment, thinking. Then he demanded, “What day is this?”

“It is Teachers’ Day, my lord,” the priest said. He frowned at the look he received and snapped, “The third day of the twenty-second week in the year 27,355 from the founding of the temple!”

The swordsman groaned and said nothing more for a while.

The patch of light faded out and the cottage grew dim. He rose and walked over to rest his elbows on the windowsill, staring out at the road. His bulk made the gloom deeper. Jja could see the passersby faintly through the beads over the door—workers heading home from the fields, a few pilgrims being led along to cottages by her fellow slaves. Then a horseman went by, and the big man jerked back with an oath.

He turned and leaned against the wall between the door and the window, so that his face was in shadow. He folded his arms—arms thick as most men’s legs—and spoke to the priest again.

“It’s an interesting tale,” he said, his deep voice very quiet. “There is one small problem—I am no swordsman. I wouldn’t know which end of a sword was the handle.”

“My lord,” Honakura bleated, “you are still disturbed from the exorcism and the blow on the head. I will send a healer to you again . . . after a few days’ rest you will be restored.”

“Or dead, according to you.”

“It is true,” the old man replied in a sad voice. “The danger is greater now, for if the reeve finds you in a vulnerable state, then he will certainly challenge. It would be his only hope.”

“No, it wouldn’t.” The big, deep voice was still strangely soft. “Let me explain. You do not exist, Lord—is that right?—Lord Honakura. Nor, I regret to say, do you, beautiful Jja. You are inventions of a sick mind, both of you. Truly I am Wallie Smith. I’ve been ill. I had . . . oh, hell! Words again! I got an insect in the brain . . . ”

He looked at their expressions and uttered a deep bass laugh. “That wasn’t right, was it? A bug? That means small insect, too, doesn’t it? I did get bitten by an insect, and it gave me a fever in the brain. It made me sleep a lot and have strange . . . dreams.” He rubbed his chin again, pondering. “I think that name ‘Shonsu’ came into them. Anyway, I was very ill. Obviously I still am. That’s why you don’t exist. I’m imagining all this.”

He frowned at the expression on the priest’s face. “I think I’m not expected to live, because my sister flew in from . . . Oh, never mind that bit!”

In diplomatic tones Lord Honakura said, “You have had a bang on the head, my lord. Just like a fever, a head injury may cause strange dreams, or even allow minor demons to penetrate. We can try another exorcism in the morning.”

“In the morning,” the swordsman said, “I shall wake up back in the . . . house of healing. Or perhaps I shall die before that. I am still very ill. But no more exorcisms. No duels. No swordsmen.”

There was a long silence.

“I wonder . . . ” The holy man wiped his lips. “When I was a boy, about two lifetimes ago . . . One day a swordsman came around looking for a recruit. Of course we lads all wanted to be sworn as swordsmen.” He chuckled. “So he tested us. You know the test he gave us, my lord?”

“No,” the big man growled. His face was shadowed.

“He made us try to catch flies.”

“Flies? With a sword?”

The old man chuckled again and glanced at Jja to see if she had noticed also. “By hand, my lord. Very few people can catch a fly. But you have been sitting there doing it, without even seeming to look at them.”

Then the big man chuckled very slightly also, in the shadow. “Whereas you, I think, could talk them down out of the trees, Lord Honakura. Let us discuss it again tomorrow, then—if you still exist.”

The priest rose, looking even older and more shriveled than he had before. He bowed and muttered a formal farewell to the swordsman, then pushed out through the curtain and wandered off down the hill. And Jja was alone with the swordsman.

††††

“Flies!” the swordsman snorted. “Are you hungry, Jja?”

She was starving. She had not eaten all day. “I could fetch food from the kitchen, my lord. It isn’t very good—for one of your rank, my lord.”

He swept up the hamper and laid it on the bed, where he still had some light. “I’m hoping this may help,” he said. “Yes!” Then he started to lift out great silver dishes wrapped in linen cloths, muttering in astonishment as he laid them on the wobbly little table. “Ruddy fortune in bullion! If we do get invaded by brigands, we’ll throw these at them, right? And enough forks and spoons for a whole gang of them. Can you fight off the brigands with a fork while I run for help, Jja?”

She was perplexed and uncertain. She ought to be setting out the food for him, not the other way around, but she had never seen such dishes or smelled such savory scents as those that now drifted through the cottage. And he had asked a question, obviously a joke, and jokes were difficult for a slave to handle. “I could try, my lord, if you were quick.”

He grinned, white teeth flashing in his faintly visible brown face. “Here’s a candle,” he said. “Do you know how to light it? I don’t.”

She fetched a flint from the shelf and lit the candle, and the whole table sparkled with many little flames.

“Candlelit dinner for two,” he said. “Pardon my informal dress. Now you sit there and tell me what you think we should start with.”

“My lord . . . ” she protested. She must not sit at table with a free man.

He paused, standing by the table with a bottle in his hand, his face and chest shining in darkness, lit strangely from below by the flickering light and its myriad reflections. “When your mistress, this . . . Kikarani? When she gave you orders about me, did she say what you were to do when I awoke?”

“Yes, my lord.” She looked down at her hands.

“And what were those orders?” She could hear amusement, but no anger or threat.

“I was to do anything you said, my lord.”

“Mmm? Anything?”

She nodded to the floor. “There are a few things I don’t have to do for the pilgrims, my lord, even if they ask. But she said . . . she said, ‘In this case do anything at all, anything, just keep him there.’ My lord.”

The man cleared his throat harshly. “Right. Well, here are my orders. First, stop ‘my lording’ me and call me Wallie. Second, forget you are a slave and pretend that you are a beautiful gentlewoman. I expect most swordsmen with seven swords have a beautiful lady at home in a castle somewhere?”

“I don’t know, my . . . ” It made her forehead prickle with sweat, but she managed to say, “Wallie.”

“Neither do I,” he said. “But let’s pretend that I’m a great swordsman and you are a great lady. Now, tell me what you think of this wine, Lady Jja.”

She had never tasted wine before. She had never eaten off silver dishes. She had never sat with a lord. But she was ravenous, and the food was the best she had ever tasted—meat in rich sauce and tender vegetables and fluffy white bread that she knew only by hearsay.

He did most of the talking, sensing perhaps the strain she was under and knowing that conversation was beyond her means. “You are very lovely, you know,” he said. “You should have long hair, but of course this is a hot climate. Laundry work, I expect? Yes, your hands . . . 

“Black is not your color,” he said later. “Blue, I think. I did a very good job of imagining beauty, but I should have imagined you in a long blue dress . . . no sleeves, shiny light-blue silk, cut low in the front and clinging . . . You would look like a goddess . . . 

“This wine isn’t too bad, is it? And this looks like a fruit pie for dessert. There was a jar of cream somewhere. And here’s a cake! Eat up, there’s lots . . . “

It was a dream, she was certain, sitting in the warm dark with a single candle flaring off silver and shining on a great lord smiling at her, teasing a little. Not a roughhanded old stonemason of the Third making a pilgrimage to beg the Goddess to cure his cough, or a toothless gray shepherd of the Fourth wanting his herds to prosper, but a very large and very handsome young lord, flashing white teeth in that big smile and sparkling at her.

A dream that might come in a dream.

And he cared. She knew men—she could see the man-interest in his eyes when he looked at her. For once, she was enjoying that. She tried very hard to be a good slave, to make amends to the Goddess by doing her duty conscientiously, but sometimes it was not easy. Tonight she thought it would be quite easy, although it was strange that he had not even handled her yet.

At last they had both finished eating, and her head was spinning from the wine. Now, surely, he would give her the usual orders. She waited for them with a strange excitement that she had never known before, but they did not come. He just sat, holding a goblet, gazing sadly into the candle as moths crazed wildly around it.

Then he seemed to remember her. He jerked out of his sadness. “We could dance,” he said. “If I could just imagine up some musicians! Do you dance, Jja?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know how . . . Lord Wallie.” Not wanting to disappoint him, or perhaps because of the wine, she added rashly, “I can sing a little.”

He was pleased. “Sing me a song, then.”

And even more rashly, she sang a little slave song.

He asked her to sing it again, listening to the words carefully. “That’s your explanation, is it?” he asked. “You think Shonsu lived in one world, and Wallie Smith in another, but they were the same person? The same soul? And somehow they got mixed up?”

She nodded. “That is what they say dreams are, my Wallie. Your other lives.”

He considered the idea carefully, not dismissing it as slave nonsense. “Reincarnations? I can see why you would like the idea. But surely one enters a world by birth and leaves by death?” Then he smiled, but as though it were an effort. “If I’m a newborn baby, Jja, how big am I going to be when I grow up?”

“I . . . don’t know, my lord.”

“Sorry! I shouldn’t make fun of . . . I know you’re trying to help, and I’m grateful. Why are you a slave?”

“I was very wicked, my lord.”

“In what way?”

“I don’t know, my lord.”

“In a previous life?”

She nodded, perplexed. Why even ask such things?

He scowled. “So the priests tell you to be a good slave in this life? Bah!”

He fell silent again, brooding. Greatly daring, she said, “The Goddess will care for them.”

“Who?”

She had been wrong, she sensed. “Your womenfolk . . . sons . . . ”

For a moment the sparkle of man-interest was back in his eye. He shook his head. “None of those! No one special . . . Were you wondering?” Then his mood went bitter. “And why only mention sons? If I had daughters, would I not care for them also?”

She stammered. “I thought . . . a swordsman . . . ”

He sighed. “I’m no swordsman, Jja. Not in this world nor any other. And I never will be!”

“The Goddess can do anything, my lord.”

He smiled again, ruefully. “I doubt if She could make me into a swordsman! Fencing must take years of practice, Jja . . . ” he paused. “Please listen carefully. I don’t want to make . . . joy . . . with you tonight, although I’m sure you expect me to. But you mustn’t think it’s because you’re not desirable—the sight of you makes me shiver and makes my flesh rise. It isn’t that, you’re gorgeous.”

She must not let her disappointment show.

He was looking down at the candle again. “And it isn’t because I know that you have to do it with a lot of men. I can guess that that’s what happens, isn’t it?”

Perhaps he had sworn an oath? “Yes, my lord . . . Wallie. If they pay my mistress.”

He bared his teeth at the candle. “So you have no choice, and therefore I do not think less of you because of it. So it isn’t that, either, you see . . . This may be hard for you to understand. Where I come from we despise people who own slaves. If I said lie down, you would have to lie down, and that isn’t the way it should be. A man and a woman should do that thing because they love each other and they both want to do it. So I’m not going to.”

“I do want to, my lord!” Oh, no! Where had she found the courage to say that? But of course, this was only a dream.

“Because it is your duty! No, Jja.”

It must be the wine . . . she had to fight down a desire to explain how she fetched the highest price, how Kikarani therefore saved her for the older men, the ones most likely to have the most money, how it was the older, uglier women who got the young men. Could he not guess why she had thought to hide him from the spying priestess in the way she had? Or even guess that she had wanted to weep with frustration because he was not able to respond, while at the same time she had been terrified that he might wake up and find a slave lying on top of him?

She said, “My lord,” bowing her head.

“You sleep on that side of the bed, then.” He rose, not looking at her. “And I’ll sleep this side. Now, where do I go to . . . ”

“Outside, my lord,” she said in surprise.

He grinned around at her—that strangely boyish grin that came and went very suddenly, making him look very young and happy. “I wasn’t planning to do it inside! Anywhere’s okay, huh?”

He stepped out through the curtain into the warm tropic night. She tidied the table. There was plenty of food to be saved for tomorrow, so she fished out a few moths that had fallen in, covered the dishes, wrapped them again, and packed the hamper. Finally she pinched out the candle and the cottage was dark, only a trace of a silver glimmer from the Dream God glistening through the window.

Then she heard him, and went out to see.

He was leaning against the wall by the door, his head on his arms. His whole body was shaking with sobs. A swordsman weeping? That seemed very strange, but already she knew that this was no ordinary swordsman.

Again, it must have been the wine that gave her the courage to put an arm around him, to lead him inside and over to the bed. He said nothing. The bed creaked loudly as he lay down. He buried his face and continued to sob. She took off her wrap and went around to lie on the other side of the bed as she had been told. She waited.

Finally he choked off his sobs and said in a whisper, “That light in the sky? What is it?”

“It is the Dream God, my lord.” He did not reply. She waited, but she knew he was not asleep.

It was the wine . . . “The god of sorrows and the god of joy are brothers, my lord.”

After a moment he rolled over and said, “Tell me, then. “

So she told him, as she had been told once, long ago, by another slave, a young man she would never see again. “The god of sorrows and the god of joy are brothers. At the time of the unrolling of the World, they both courted the goddess of youth. It was the god of joy she chose, and they loved greatly. In time she bore him a son, the most beautiful baby that even the gods had ever seen, and the father delivered the baby himself and held him up for his mother and the gods to look at.

“But the god of sorrows was jealous and greatly enraged at the sight of the child—and he hurled his wrath and killed him.

“Then the god of sorrows was terrified at what he had done and fled away, but all the other gods wept. They went to the Goddess Herself and besought justice. And so She decreed that ever after the god of joy might deliver from the goddess of youth the most beautiful of the gods, but he would always be a baby, and he would only live a few moments. But although he would be only a baby, he would be stronger than his father, and the god of sorrows, the most terrible of the gods, would not stand against him and would flee from him always. That is why only this smallest god, of all the gods, can put to flight the god of sorrows.”

“And what is the name of this smallest god?” asked the man in the darkness.

“He is the god of ecstasy, my lord,” she said.

He turned to her and took her in his arms. “Then let us seek this little god of yours together,” he said.

She had thought a swordsman might be brutal, but he was the most gentle of men. He was patient and strong and untiring and considerate in a way no man had ever been to her. Together they summoned the little god many times, and the god of sorrows was driven away.

†††††

A fly buzzed in his ear, waking him. He opened his eyes and then closed them again quickly. Thatch?

It had not gone away.

There had been hospital, with its grave-faced doctors in white coats and tired-looking nurses with needles . . . familiar faces faking cheerfulness . . . flowers sent by the staff at the plant . . . smells of disinfectant and the sound of floor-polishers . . . IV bottles . . . pain and confusion and the damp heat of fever.

There had been dreams and delirium . . . fog and a giant of a man with brown skin and long black hair and a brutal face—a wide face, high cheekbones, broad jaw; barbarian tattoos on his forehead. He had seen that monstrous naked figure shouting at him, threatening.

He had seen that face again last night in the mirror.

Under the damp sheet he felt one arm with the hand of another. That body was still there. Wallie Smith had never had arms like that.

So it had not disappeared as he had hoped it would.

A bird was calling an idiotic two-note refrain not far away, and he could hear voices, more distant, and a rooster, ever hopeful.

“Ferry mule train!” That must be from near the bottom of the hill. Then a very faint bugle . . . and under it all was the deep rumble from the waterfall, most distant of all. The sound of hooves echoed into the little room. “Ferry mule train!” He wondered if mules looked like that absurd horse he had seen, camel face and basset-hound body.

It had not gone away. Encephalitis often produced strange mental effects, they had said. He had thought the delirium was over, the strange visions and the pain and confusion. Now it had become more real, more terrifying.

It did not feel like delirium.

He must remember that it was all hallucination. They would cure him, somehow, and drag him back to the real world, the world of hospital sounds and hospital smells; away from this madness of stink and mule hooves and roosters.

Reluctantly he opened his eyes again and sat up. Only the woman had gone. Now if she had been real . . . 

She had felt real, deliciously, wonderfully real. Of course sexual hallucinations would be the most vivid, wouldn’t they? That would make sense. Nothing else did. What sort of Oedipal garbage was he fantasizing with this super-jock body he had conjured up? And what subconscious nastiness was he revealing when his delusions invented slave girls? A little insecure, are we, Wallie-boy? Ugh!

He rose and stretched. He felt good, enormously good. He strode over to the mirror and studied that cruel, barbaric face with its tattoos of the seven swords. Was this how he fantasized himself, his subconscious desires exposed by delirium? Did he see himself as an inadequate wimp and want to be a big, strong, fantasy hero?

The foreskin bothered him more than anything else. If he pinched it, it hurt. How could he feel pain in something that had been cut off when he was a baby? There was no trace of his appendectomy, but he did have a red birthmark on his left knee and a conspicuous scar on his right shoulder and some faint little marks on his ribs, mostly on the right side. So he wasn’t quite a perfect specimen, and somehow that was odd.

The mule train clattered closer and then stopped nearby. Again he heard the skinner make his call. He went over to the window and peered out, keeping back from sight. Two men were paying the skinner and climbing on mules, and there were half a dozen people mounted already. The mules were even more grotesque than the horse—long ears and camel faces. Then he remembered the rings he had seen in the night sky. It had been the rings that had finally cracked his precarious self-control. It was not only an imaginary country he was conjuring up in his madness; it was a whole imaginary world, a ringed planet.

And the people surprised him a bit—smallish, although that might be just because he seemed to be much larger than average. They had brown skins, all of them, with hair of light or dark brown. One of the women on the mules showed a reddish tinge, perhaps dyed. A neat, compact people, mostly slim and agile, they seemed to laugh and chatter a lot . . . features vaguely Amerindian to Caucasian. They might have stepped out of a documentary on the South American jungles, or perhaps southeast Asia. Beardless—he rubbed his chin and there was no trace of stubble, no hair on his chest or legs.

There were other people walking up and down the roadway—men in loincloths, and women in simple wraps that tied under their arms and hung to their knees, like bath towels. Jja’s had been shorter, but then she was a whore. The muleskinner wore leather breeches. The old man had worn a robe that covered all of him except his head and hands. Then he saw a middle-aged couple going over to the mule train, and they were wearing robes, but sleeveless, so the amount of cover must be related to age. Not a bad idea; show off the good-looking youngsters and hide the old. Some of the men and women in his world could learn a thing or two here.

Wallie reminded himself sternly that this was an illusion.

Yet he felt so good! And curious! He wanted to explore this fantasy world . . . but he had no clothes. Could that be his subconscious mind telling him to stay in his hospital room?

He had nothing at all—he could not even see the wrap he had used the previous evening. Newborn naked! He had never been a great collector of possessions, for he had been too much of a wanderer. His childhood had been a continual bouncing from parent to parent, from aunt to uncle; then college; then a succession of jobs. Roots were something he had never had, and worldly goods likewise. But to have nothing but a bed sheet to cover himself . . . 

Illusion! Delirium!

The mule train moved off. He watched the pedestrians for a while and then turned away. He thought of a test, and began by feeling his pulse carefully. It was slow, of course, an athlete’s heartbeat, although he could not clock it. He dropped to the grubby, smelly flagstones and did fifty fast push-ups. Kneeling, he tried his pulse again. It seemed very little faster. Wallie Smith might have managed ten or fifteen, never fifty, and his heart would have gone into fits.

That did not prove much.

A fly buzzed at him, and he snatched it out of the air to see if he really could. He could, but that proved nothing, either.

A small boy walked in through the bead curtain and grinned at him. He was naked, nut brown, and skinny. He had curly brown hair and an impish face and a tooth missing. He looked about eight or nine and he was carrying a leafy green twig.

“Good morning, Mr. Smith!” His grin grew wider.

Wallie felt a twinge of relief—no more “my lord” stuff! He stayed on his knees, because that made their eyes more or less level.

“Good morning. Who are you?”

“I’m a messenger.”

“Oh? To me you look like a small, naked boy. What should you look like?”

The boy laughed. “A small, naked boy.” He pushed himself up on one of the chairs.

“I was hoping that you might be a doctor.” But Wallie was unhappily aware of the dirt, the insects, the smells. Hospital?

The boy shook his head. “No more doctors. They call them healers here, and you’re wise to stay away from them.”

Wallie sat down and crossed his legs. The stone was cold and gritty on his buttocks. “Well, you did call me ‘mister,’ so maybe I’m starting to come out of it a little bit.”

The boy shook his head. “Last night you were speaking the language of the People. You had Shonsu’s vocabulary, which is why you couldn’t say some words that you wanted to. He was a fine swordsman, but no intellectual.”

Wallie’s heart sank. “If you were really a small, naked boy you wouldn’t know these things, nor talk like that.”

The boy grinned again. He started swinging his legs, leaning forward on his hands and hunching tiny shoulders. “I did not say that that was what I was. I said that was what I was supposed to look like! I need to convince you that this is a real world and that you were brought here for a purpose.”

His grin was infectious. Wallie found himself returning it. “You’re not doing very well so far.”

The boy raised a mischievous eyebrow. “The woman did not convince you? I should have thought that she was very convincing.”

Peeping Tom? Wallie pushed down a surge of anger. This boy was merely one more figment of his deranged mind, so of course he knew what had happened in the night. “That was the most unreal of all,” he said. “Every man has ambitions, sonny, but there are practical limitations. That was much too good to be true.”

The boy sighed. “The men of the World are even lustier than the men of Earth, Mr. Smith, hard as that may be to believe. Walter Smith is dead. Encephalitis, meningitis . . . they’re only names. There is no going back, Mr. Smith.”

They all wanted to convince him that he was dead! And if he were? Who would care? No one special, he had told Jja, and that was a depressing thought. He had no roots, anywhere. No loved ones left except a sister he had not seen in ten years. If he were indeed dead, it would hardly matter to anyone. The plant would run as well without him—he had built a good team there, able to operate with no supervision. Harry would move into the corner office, and business would go on as before.

Neddy would mourn. But Neddy’s mother had already taken him and moved back east. It had been on a farewell camping trip with Neddy that Wallie had been bitten by the damned encephalitis-carrying mosquito . . . in an area where mosquitoes had never been known to carry encephalitis before. Neddy would mourn him but would survive. Wally had to admit that he had done a good job on Neddy. The boy was in much better emotional shape to stand the loss than he would have been three years ago, when Wallie first became surrogate father to him. Neddy was already reconciled to their parting . . . 

No! Start thinking like that and he would indeed be dead. The start of recovery was always the will to live. Remember that it was still delirium! It had to be.

He looked up and saw the little boy watching him with a mocking expression.

“This is heaven?” Wallie scoffed. “It doesn’t smell the way I expected.”

The little-boy’s eyes flickered. They were extraordinarily bright eyes. “This is the World, the World of the Goddess. The People are preliterate, Mr. Smith. You should know from Earth that before the Age of Writing comes the Age of Legends. I am a legend myself.”

“I’ll believe that.”

The boy nodded rather sadly and paused. “Let’s try it from the other end, then. Shonsu was a swordsman, a remarkable swordsman. The Goddess had need of a swordsman. She chose Shonsu. He screwed up. He failed, and failed disastrously.”

“What does that mean?” Despite his skepticism, Wale was intrigued.

“Never mind! He was punished for his failure, by death. He died yesterday of a fractured skull.” He smiled once more as Wallie’s fingers reached for the lump on his head. “Never mind that, either—it was cured. That body is in perfect working order, a remarkable specimen of the adult male. As you doubtless noted?”

“Let’s leave that part of my fantasies out of this, shall we?”

“As you please.” The boy waved his twig idly. “Shonsu is dead, then, but the task remains undone. You were available, Mr. Smith. Never mind how. You have been given that remarkable body, you have been given the language, and you have been given the highest possible rank in one of the two top-ranking crafts in the World. All crafts have their patron gods, but the priests and the swordsmen belong to the Goddess Herself . . . and they don’t let anyone else forget it, believe me! Those are exceptional gifts you have received.”

“And I am supposed to undertake the mission?”

The gap-tooth grin flashed briefly. “Exactly.”

“Dangerous, I assume?”

The boy nodded. “Moderately, yes. So the body is at risk—but it was a free gift, remember! If you are successful, then you will be rewarded with long life and satisfaction and happiness. There are almost no limits on a swordsman of the Seventh, Mr. Smith—wealth, power, women. Anything you want, really. Any woman will accept you. No man will ever argue with you.”

Wallie shook his head. “Who are you?”

“I am a god,” the boy said simply. “A demigod, to be exact.”

The big man looked around the squalid little cabin, smiled, and shook his head. “I think the asylum must be very full. They are doubling up the inmates.”

The boy scowled angrily. The flies did not seem to buzz around him the way they did around Wallie. It was an insane conversation, yet Wallie had nothing better to do with his time.

“A swordsman is a soldier, is he?”

The boy nodded. “And policeman. And judge. And other things.”

“I know absolutely nothing about soldiering.”

“You can be taught, very painlessly. And taught to use a sword, too, if that is worrying you.”

“That is not something I yearn for breathlessly. Let me guess, though. The mission was to kill this Hardduju character. Am I right?”

“No!” the boy snapped. “You are wrong! However, you should do that also. As an honorable swordsman, you should regard it as your duty to uphold the honor of your craft. Hardduju is venal.”

Wallie rose and wandered over to sit on the bed. “He certainly seems to have more enemies than friends. It is none of my business, and no one has proved anything to me, anyway.”

The boy twisted round on the chair to face him, looking furious. “You don’t need a trial in his case, for he is a swordsman. All you need do is challenge. You need give no reason, and he cannot refuse. I assure you that he is no match for Shonsu.”

Wallie laughed. “He would be for me! Except perhaps at tennis. Can I choose the weapons?”

The boy bared his teeth in anger. “You were given Shonsu’s language, Mr. Smith—you can be given his skill as easily. The task is important! Much more important than shaving a few mils off the unit cost of polypropylene, say, or evaluating consultants’ reports on alternative catalytic systems for hydrogenation.”

“You’ve been going through my IN basket, haven’t you, figment? Well, prove it! Tell me what this so important task is.”

“Gods do not beg!”

Wallie shrugged. “And I do not believe in gods.”

“Ah! Now we have it, don’t we?”

“Do a miracle,” Wallie suggested, grinning. “Turn that chair into a throne.”

The boy’s face was shadowed, but the bright eyes seemed almost to flash. “Miracles are crude! And they are not done upon demand!” Then he returned to his grin again. “Besides, if I performed a miracle, it would hardly help you to believe that the World is real, would it?”

Wallie chuckled and agreed. He wondered when breakfast would be served. The boy leaned back in the chair. It was too big for him, and he bent like a banana, stared at Wallie with his chin on his chest. “Where does faith come from?”

He could bang the boy’s ear and throw him out, but what would he do with the rest of his day? “Faith? It comes from upbringing.”

The boy sneered at him. “That just pushes the problem back one generation, doesn’t it?”

“True,” Wallie agreed, amused. “Well, define faith as an attempt to attribute your own values to an omnipotent being. How’s that?”

“Lousy,” the boy said. “Why should you want to attribute etcetera, etcetera?”

Wallie felt that he was being nudged toward saying something he didn’t want do, but he wasn’t sure what. “To find a happy ending? To explain suffering by postulating a deeper meaning?”

It was growing hot already, although the sun was still low and the day young. Wallie could feel perspiration running down his ribs. The skinny boy seemed unaffected.

“Better,” he said. “Now, how can we give you faith in the World? You had a taste of its joys. Would a taste of its suffering do any more—a taste of hell work better than a taste of heaven?”

“No.” That was not an attractive prospect.

The dark eyes flickered again. “So you refuse the edict of the Goddess, do you?”

If it were not absurd, that small boy might be thought to be threatening . . . 

“Tell your goddess to blow it out her ear,” Wallie said firmly. “I have absolutely no intention of being a swordsman, in this or any other world.”

The boy stared at him coldly. “I’m only a demigod—I shall tell Her no such thing. Why don’t you come down to the temple and tell Her yourself?”

“Me? Bow to an idol? A clay idol—or stone?”

“Stone.”

“Never!”

“Why not?” the boy asked. “You honored a cloth flag often enough.”

Wallie felt he had lost a point somewhere. “But I believed in what the flag stood for.”

Then the boy laughed and jumped off the chair. “There it is again! But we must move—there are assassins on their way here, so you should leave.”

Wallie sprang to his feet also. “Kind of you to mention it. I need some pants.”

The boy pointed to the bundle on the floor. “You haven’t opened your present.”

How had he missed that earlier? Wallie lifted the bundle onto the bed and unwrapped it.

“Put on the kilt first,” the boy said, watching him. “A little short, perhaps, but it will do. Now the harness. The boots won’t fit.”

“No, they don’t,” Wallie agreed, struggling. He needed about a size thirty, he concluded.

“Cut the ends with the sword, then.” The boy sniggered. “You can’t be a swordsman with bare feet.”

Wallie drew the sword. It was fearsome. “What do they use this for?” he asked. “Elephant hunting?” Holding the blade near its end with his fingertips, he used the point to slit the toes of the boots. Then he could get them on, but they pinched and his toes stuck out the ends. The boy giggled once more.

“Why don’t I just leave the sword for now?” Wallie said.

The boy shook his head. “A swordsman without a sword would be a public scandal.”

The scabbard was attached to the harness and hung down his back. When he tried to lift the sword high enough to insert the point, his hand hit the roof. He tried to sit on the bed and found he was sitting on the scabbard. He began to lose his temper, for the boy was grinning widely.

“You could kneel,” he suggested. “Or bend over. Of course the scabbard will tilt to the side.”

So it would, sliding on the straps across his back. Wallie could pull the top of the scabbard to one side and the bottom to the other and, with much cursing and almost losing an ear, he sheathed the sword.

“Not bad,” the boy said, regarding him. “You have the guard on the wrong side. Shonsu is ambidextrous, so it doesn’t matter, I suppose. Remember to take it with your left hand when you want to kill someone.”

“I’ve no intention of trying to draw this!” But Wallie did draw it, then replaced it the other way round.

“Now straighten it up with the hilt beside your ear,” the boy said. He picked up a small leather thong, the only thing left on the cloak. “Hairclip,” he explained.

“I never went for the leather scene,” Wallie muttered, pulling his hair back and tying the thong around it—thick, heavy hair, not Wallie Smith’s hair. “I really have to go out in public in this rig? I’ll be arrested.” He scowled into the foggy, spotted mirror.

The boy laughed. “Only swordsmen arrest people, and you’re a high-orbit swordsman. No, you’re fine. The girls would whistle at you if they dared. Let’s go.”

Wallie hesitated, seeing the cloak on the bed and the hamper with the fortune in silver dishes inside it. “What happens to this stuff?” he asked.

“It will be stolen,” the boy answered. “Does it matter?”

Wallie detected an odd note in the question, saw a gleam in the sharp eyes. It was a trick question—if he admitted that it mattered, then he was admitting that the things had value and hence that they were in some way real. Once he took that hook, he would be as good as landed.

“Not to me.”

“Then let’s go,” the boy repeated, dancing over to the door.

“Hold it, Shorty!” Wallie said. “How do I know that you aren’t leading me into a trap?”

The mischievous pixie face grinned again, showing the missing tooth. “I am.”

The same question hung in the air, this time unspoken: Does it matter?

Wallie shrugged and smiled. “Lead on, then!” He followed the boy out of the cottage.

††††††

It was a beautiful morning, languorously tropical, even if it did smell too much of horses and people. As soon as he cleared the shadow of the cottage, the sun struck hot on his back—the sort of morning that made him think of summer vacations, of beaches and suntanned girls, of hiking in forests or beating tennis balls. The boy skipped across the road, jumped up on the low parapet, and started trotting down it, arms outspread to keep his balance, wobbling. Wallie marched over to join him and noticed the long drop to trees below. But any comment from him would draw the same question again.

There were only a few people coming up the roadway. As he approached they made gestures and bowed. He nodded to them and kept on marching.

“How do I respond to the salutes?” he demanded of his guide.

“A nod is fine,” the boy said, now walking more steadily on a broader stretch of wall. His face was almost level with Wallie’s. “Ignore the blacks and whites, of course. Yellows, too, if you like. Greens and blues you should acknowledge—clenched fist on the heart. That means you’re not going to draw, you see, just like a handshake means you don’t have a weapon hidden.” He spread his arms again for a crumbling, narrow section. “Don’t smile—it would be out of character.”

“Not even pretty girls?”

The boy glanced a warning at him. “From a swordsman of your rank it would be almost an order.”

Wallie took a closer look at the next few groups he passed. Orange garments went with four facemarks, brown with three. White meant one, obviously the very junior. He had seen no black garments yet, but he knew what that meant—slave. Preadolescents, male and female both, went naked like his companion.

“That’s for civilians,” the boy continued. “With swordsmen it’s a lot more complicated. One type of salute for just passing in the street, another for serious talk. Depends on whose rank is higher and so on.” He jumped a gap and landed as surely as a goat on the other side. “Replies are different from salutes.”

Wallie said nothing to that. The road angled down the side of the valley into a crowded huddle of buildings, beyond which towered an immense cathedral-like edifice, surmounted by seven golden spires . . . the temple of the Goddess at Hann. Certainly that was their destination. Beyond the temple, the far wall of the valley, steep and bare and rocky, was split by a canyon. From the window of the cottage he had been able to see along that canyon to the falls from which rose the great plume of spray; from his present position only the cloud was visible.

The rutted road was foul with mule droppings and other filth—he was having trouble keeping his toes clean, and he eventually gave up and let the chips lie where they may. The boots pinched, and the boy was keeping up a fearsome pace, even for legs as long as Shonsu’s.

Then they reached level ground, and the boy had to walk on the road beside him, and they slowed. The town engulfed them at once in rank, narrow squalor between high wooden buildings that covered almost every level inch. Between them snaked mean little streets full of scrambling throngs of people, carrying bundles or pushing carts or just hurrying. Yet somehow there was always room for a swordsman of the Seventh, and he was not jostled, although the saluting became perfunctory. The smell was much worse than it had been on the hill.

“Browns are the commonest?” Wallie asked.

The boy was having to do more dodging to keep up with him, but Wallie kept moving—let him worry.

“Thirds. That’s craftsman level.” He disappeared around a hawker’s cart and rejoined Wallie at the other end. “Qualified artisan. Whites and yellows are apprentices. Above that you’re into postgraduate.” He grinned up briefly.

There were many stray curs grubbing around the refuse, and the high walls shut out the sun. The air was a garbage of insects and smells, human and animal and stale cooking and decay, except where a spice shop or a bakery wafted its fragrance into the street like an oasis.

Wallie had it worked out now: white, yellow, brown, orange, and red. Green and blue must be at the top, but he had seen none of those. Apparently purely arbitrary.

“Why that sequence?” he asked.

“This way,” the boy said, turning down another winding alley, which was just as foul and dark and crowded. “No reason. Because it’s always been done that way. That’s the standard explanation for anything.”

Beggars wore black, usually just a grubby rag. Many of them had rags around their heads, too . . . to avoid disgrace to their crafts? He could guess at some of the facemarks. A loud clanging noise ahead proved to be a smithy, and of course the smith’s marks were horseshoes. A man pushing a cart of boots and shoes had three boot shapes. Many of them were ideograms, though, and he could not guess their significance: diamonds, semicircles, chevrons?

“They ought to bum this place down and start over,” Wallie grumbled.

“They do, every fifty years or so,” the boy said.

The ground floor of most buildings held a shop, with a sign above the door and sometimes a display table, carefully guarded, and those restricted the traffic even more. A few establishments, like the smithy, had people working in full view, weaving or sewing or turning pots. Jugs meant potter.

Wallie noted the signs of disease, too—blindness and emaciation and ugly rashes. The poverty was overwhelming, old women bent beneath bundles of wood and children working just as hard as adults. He did not like it. He had seen poverty before—in Tijuana, for example—but Tijuana had the excuse of being new, temporary. This town seemed ancient, and permanent, and therefore somehow worse.

The boy was continually dodging up alleys, avoiding the main streets, although those were barely wider and perhaps more crowded because they carried more wagons and carts. “Are you trying to confuse me, or are we avoiding someone?” Wallie demanded.

“Yes,” the boy said.

It was a shantytown with a glandular condition; some of the buildings were four stories high. Now he noticed that many of what he had thought were stray dogs were lanky pigs, rooting for their living in the gutters. Pigs would eat anything, even feces, and their presence explained some of the smell.

“I suppose a river goddess wouldn’t approve of flush toilets?” Wallie asked.

The boy stopped and looked at him furiously. “You will not make jokes like that!”

Wallie clipped his ear—and missed. He could catch flies but this urchin could dodge him? “Not too real there,” Wallie said, and laughed.

They were standing in one of the alleys, pedestrians edging nervously around both sides of the dangerous swordsman.

“Come here!” The boy stepped over to a display in a narrow doorway, a vertical board with strings of beads hung on it. A wrinkled old crone in brown crouched on a stool at the side, holding her toes in. The boy reached up and pulled off a string of beads. The woman scrambled up in surprise to fawn at the noble lord and be ignored.

“Look, now!” The boy waved the string of beads on one finger—green clay beads on a thread without a clasp. “Every one is the same yet slightly different; it has no beginning and no end; it runs the same in both directions; and the string goes all the way through. Okay? Let’s go!”

He started to walk. Wallie grabbed his shoulder and this time connected. “Those aren’t yours, Shorty!”

“Does it matter?” the boy asked, showing his tooth gap.

“Yes, it does. Worlds may differ, or minds may get sick, but morals don’t change.” Wallie glared down at him, holding the puny shoulder firmly in his big hand. The old woman fretted and chewed her knuckles and was silent.

“That’s something else you will have to unlearn, then,” the boy said. “But understand the beads and you’ll be getting close, Wallie Smith. Here, grandmother.”

He pulled the string through his other hand and then tossed it to her, but somehow the beads had subtly changed. They gleamed and they certainly were no longer clay. “Let’s go!” he snapped, and plunged off along the alley with Wallie striding behind him, trying to remember just what had been done to those beads and how the boy had escaped from his grip, and trying to understand what all the blarney had meant.

They crossed another street and entered another alley, squeezed past a parked wagon, then huddled into a doorway as an oxcart went by, pulled by something that looked more believable than the camel-faced, long-bodied horses.

Finally they emerged at the edge of an open space, wide enough to admit the sunlight. The boy stopped.

“Ah! Fresh air!” Wallie said. “Comparatively.”

The boy was studying the far side of the court, a wall like a cliff. Two enormous gates made of timbers thicker than a man hung crookedly on massive iron hinges, flanking an arched entrance. But the gates were spread wide and looked as though they could not be closed without falling apart. On either side of them, buildings huddled right up to the wall. Beyond the arch, sunlight shone on bright green grass and tall trees. Small groups of people were walking across the square from the various alleys that emptied into it and passing through the gates.

“The way into the temple?” Wallie asked.

The boy nodded. “The guards will not notice you.”

Wallie had not noticed the guards. There were two of them on each side, young swordsmen, three yellows and an orange. Two were leaning against the wall and the other two slouched with thumbs in their harnesses—a very unimpressive display of military style. They were eyeing the pilgrims in a bored fashion, periodically making comments, usually about the women.

The boy glanced disapprovingly at Wallie. “Your sword is crooked!” he snapped.

“It’s top-heavy,” Wallie complained, adjusting it back to vertical.

“Yes, but there’s a knack for keeping it right. Only Firsts go around straightening all the time.” He sounded annoyed.

“Well, I’m only a beginner!”

The boy stamped his foot. “You don’t need to look it.”

Wallie had not asked to go mad. “Let’s cancel the whole planet, and I’ll go back to chemistry.”

The boy shook his head. “You can live here or die here. The sooner you accept that, the better. Well, follow the next group of pilgrims in, and the guards won’t see you.”

That was absurd, for the groups seldom numbered more than a dozen and Wallie had seen no one as tall as himself. “The hell they won’t,” he said.

“Does it matter?” the boy asked triumphantly.

Wallie glared at him. Did it? For a delusion, this world was incredibly detailed, from the cold filth coating his toes up to the insects that buzzed around his head.

And the sunlight reflected most realistically off the hilts of the swords on the guards’ backs.

“It wouldn’t matter anyway,” the boy said. “They would salute you. When you didn’t return the salute, they ought to challenge—but they wouldn’t dare. Not a Seventh.”

“Four of them wouldn’t dare?”

“But which one goes first?” The boy chuckled. “Come on! Let’s go.”

Wallie stepped in behind a group of eight pilgrims, six men and two women—one Fifth, four Fourths, and three Thirds. They ambled across the square, while he watched the guards carefully out of the corners of his eyes and tried to ignore prickles of apprehension. As they reached the arch the guards looked over the pilgrims and one made a vulgar comment about one of the women being pregnant; but their eyes never seemed to touch Wallie, and he walked unchallenged into the temple grounds.

“You were right, Shorty,” he said. Then he looked around in surprise. The boy had vanished. He was on his own.

†††††††

Wallie followed the pilgrims’ leisurely stroll along a smoothly paved road. He marveled at the change from the squalid huddle of the town to a parkland of velvet lawns and precise beds of flowers, under high, soothing shade trees.

Like the horses, the vegetation seemed almost Earthlike but not quite. He was no botanist and could not find the exact wrongness in anything. Bushes of bougainvillea flamed in orange and purple next to scarlet hibiscus. Palms like pillars soared to fondle the indigo sky. There were formidable buildings hidden in the distance behind acacias and eucalyptus trees; a couple of them looked like dormitories, but some were marble-faced houses. Here were the elite of the temple, flaunting their power next to the town’s poverty, and cosseted by their slaves, for he could see many little brown men in black breechclouts grubbing at the roots of things, scything grass, and carrying bundles. He was nauseated at the injustice, finding that he was having more and more trouble remembering that this was all a figment of his own subconscious.

Two elderly women in blue silk gowns were standing in conversation and they looked up in surprise at the sight of him. He placed his fist on his heart as he went by, but that seemed only to increase their surprise. Almost certainly they would be priestesses, and he was obviously not invisible to them. The word would be out, then, that a swordsman of the Seventh had arrived. Does it matter? Uneasily he was reacting as though it did. He speeded up and went striding forward to overtake the pilgrims, hearing them exclaim in alarm as he went by.

His road was clear, winding ahead through the trees and around buildings and across lawns; the intersecting roads were obviously minor, and there were blobs of pilgrims strung out in front of him. The temple grounds were much larger than the town, the noise of the falls louder.

Then the road turned a corner, and he had arrived.

Ahead was a great courtyard like an airport runway. To his right it was flanked by a few trees and a wide, still pool, almost a small lake. On his left was the temple. His head went back as he looked up at it, and it was breathtaking. A high flight of steps ran the full width of the front, topped by seven huge arches, and above that were gold spires. He thought it was probably bigger than any church or cathedral on Earth, a set of seven blimp hangars side by side. The pilgrims ahead were wending their way up the steps, spreading out along the top like bubbles rising in a glass.

He marched straight ahead along the courtyard until he was level with the center arch, then he swung around and started up the steps, not sure if he was doing this because he was a Seventh and that felt right for a Seventh, or because this was his personal illusion and therefore he should exert his uniqueness.

As he climbed, he noticed that the huddled pilgrims at the top were all kneeling, facing into the temple. He decided that he was not going to kneel, but he was not sure what he was going to do. Grab a priest and ask to speak to Mr. Honakura, perhaps. Then what? The little boy had warned him that he was going into a trap. Yet he certainly ought to be safe from sudden death within the temple itself, oughtn’t he?

He was almost at the top when a bell began to toll, deep and menacing and louder than the rumble of the falls. The pilgrims rose at once and turned around. More people came drifting out of the temple to stand beside them. At first he thought they were all looking at him, and that was comforting because it was the sort of impossible thing that happened in dreams, but soon he saw that he was not the attraction—arms were pointing.

He stopped and turned around also. The view was spectacular: the court, the lake, and straight up the canyon to the white wall of the falls, framed in rainbow. He thought momentarily how thrilled Neddy would be to see that—Neddy liked waterfalls.

He wished that he had a camera. All his life Wallie Smith had worn glasses, but now he could see every detail of this view. That also was typical of dreams. What was the big excitement about, though? Was someone going over the falls in a barrel, perhaps?

Not quite.

Halfway up the face of the falls a lip of rock protruded from the face of the cliff to make a green-coated shelf, and his startlingly sharp vision could see people on it. As he watched, one of them floated out into space; at first slowly, then gradually gathering speed until it vanished into the spray below.

Human sacrifice?

The bell continued to toll.

Down by the water’s edge stood a small group of men and a few women. Another body sailed out from the rock. The River would bring it down into the pool, for now he could see the swirl of the current. And there came the first one already, drifting face downward and turning slowly. The watchers on the beach ran along the shingle with long poles, apparently reluctant to get their feet wet. The body eluded them, swung around out of reach, and was carried away by the River, past the end of the courtyard and off behind the temple. The second came closer. It was pulled in for examination, but then pushed out again, obviously dead.

In all there were five murders while Wallie watched, and none of the victims survived. All five bodies were removed by the River. The remaining figures on the green lip formed up and marched away out of sight, so they were undoubtedly swordsmen. A nice profession you chose, Walter Smith! He was disgusted. First slavery and now human sacrifice! Could he not have fantasized a better world than this? Yet his dilemma remained—if this world was real, then there was no explaining how he came here, not in his terms, nor in the terms of this world itself, for Honakura and Jja had been as puzzled as he. Human sacrifice or not, he could only continue to believe that it was all taking place inside his own fevered and infected brain.

He started up the steps as fast as he could walk. The pilgrims were back on their knees and facing away from him. Soon he could see the roof of the temple, an incredible maze of fan vaulting. There were no interior pillars. It was a single span, which was structurally unbelievable and did much to confirm his disbelief. As he neared the top he saw the idol at the end. There was his destination, then! He would go and talk to this goddess about her world and arrange a few improvements.

He stepped between the knots of kneeling pilgrims. Two brown-kilted swordsmen jerked to startled attention at the sight of him and pulled out their swords to salute. He ignored them, marching through the arch and into the nave, striding purposefully toward the idol at the far end, and marveling at the sheer enormity of the place. The great stained-glass windows were bright with complicated arabesques of flowers and plants and animals and birds and fish in vibrant reds and blues and greens. Take all the greatest churches and temples and mosques of Earth and roll them into one . . . 

Sauntering priests and pilgrims stared in outrage at his progress as he swept by. The word would certainly be out, and he would see who answered it—little old Honakura or the dark presence of the ill-famed Hardduju.

The size of the temple had been dictated by the size of the idol. But it wasn’t an idol. It was a natural rock formation, a conical pillar of some sort of bluish rock, metamorphic he supposed, although he knew little more geology than botany. While it suggested a seated and robed woman, a blank face toward the falls, no human tools had shaped it. It lacked symmetry. So the sacrificial victims died to honor an outcrop, did they? Five per day—if today was typical and if the show was a daily event—times twenty-seven thousand years . . . he needed a pocket calculator . . . how many days in a year on this world?

He reached the silver dais around the idol and stopped. Worshipers on their knees looked up uneasily at him and priests frowned. Wavy lines were the symbol for priests.

The idol was an impressive lump of rock, but the dais was obscene. Around its edge were golden bowls holding coins—some gold or silver, but mainly copper—presumably offerings. Those he could understand and forgive, but behind the bowls was a heap of other treasures: goblets; jewelry, cauldrons, carvings, daggers, and even swords, all kinds of precious things, in a blaze of gleaming metal and shiny faceted gems, in ivory and leather, polished wood and bright fabrics. Back from the front they aged. First the copper and bronze turned green, then the silver black and the ivory yellow, until at the base of idol itself the cloths and leather and woods had rotted away, and even the gold and crystal were hidden in dust. The wealth of centuries was piled there like a heap of garbage.

Wallie stared at this outrageous display in rank disbelief. All the riches of the pharaohs and the shahs and the rajahs and the sons of heaven could not have equaled this. Atahualpa’s ransom was small change . . . First that orgy last night and now this immeasurable hoard! If you must hallucinate, hallucinate BIG!

And he thought of the penury of the town, the hunger and suffering that could be alleviated by a tiny fraction of this . . . 

He must have stood there in shock for some time. When he glanced around he had been encapsulated, sealed off and quarantined by a semicircle of priests and priestesses, young and old, ranging from Thirds to Sevenths; silent, menacing, and resentful. Others were coming up behind to thicken the cordon, and there was not a friendly eye in the crowd. What was he going to do? Did it matter?

Then the barricade opened to admit the tiny form of Honakura, out of breath and troubled, minuscule in his blue satin gown, his intricately wrinkled face contrasting with the smooth brown baldness above it. His eyes searched Wallie’s, no doubt seeking to discover who had come: Shonsu or Walliesmith?

“You must kneel, my lord,” he said.

That broke the spell.

“Kneel?” Wallie roared. “I am not going to kneel to any lump of rock! I saw what was going on out by that waterfall. You are a murdering little monster, and your goddess is a fraud!”

The crowd hissed like snakes and made waving hand gestures. Honakura recoiled with dismay in his face.

Wallie opened his mouth to say something else and stopped. It wasn’t going to work. Whatever he tried, he was not about to start a religious revolution, at least not here.

Then the crowd parted once more, this time to admit the temple guard.

The fat man in the front with the rubies and fancy blue kilt had to be Hardduju. His coarse, dissipated face was regarding Wallie with amused and satisfied contempt. Behind him came three brawny Fourths in orange, smiling grimly. The priests backed away, widening the cordon, while the reeve smirked and waited expectantly. Evidently it was Wallie’s obligation to speak first.

He did not know what to say, so he said nothing.

His sword hilt had slid to somewhere behind his left shoulder.

Hardduju’s satisfaction increased. Then he flashed out his sword with impressive speed and dexterously zipped it around in a complicated routine.

“I am Hardduju, swordsman of the seventh rank, reeve of the temple of the Goddess at Hann, and I give thanks to the Most High for granting me this opportunity to assure your beneficence that your prosperity and happiness will always be my desire and the subject of my prayers.”

He shot the sword back into its scabbard and waited.

Before Wallie could think of anything to reply, little Honakura stepped forward and pointed a frail arm at him. “My lord reeve!” he snapped. “Remove this blasphemer!”

Hardduju glanced down at Honakura and laughed gloatingly. “I shall do better, holy one.” He waved his men forward. “I denounce this man as an imposter. Arrest him.”

Wallie backed up to put the dais behind him, knowing it was no real protection. The three young toughs grinned in anticipation, and then advanced warily, spreading out to come at him from different angles. Probably none was any younger or tougher than he was, but they could count.

If he drew his sword he was dead, he was sure, and it seemed that they were not going to draw unless he did. They wanted him alive so perhaps dead would be better.

He fumbled for his sword, and they pounced, simultaneously and irresistibly.

He parried one blow with his left hand, felt his right arm grabbed in two hands, took a savage punch to the side of his head, and then the infallible, age-old clincher of a boot in the groin.

And that did matter. It mattered very much.