BOOK TWO:

HOW THE SWORDSMAN BLUNDERED

†

“So that’s what a mountain looks like!” said Nnanji, emerging from the ground at Wallie’s side.

Morning was dawning, clear and fresh and virginal, with not a cloud in sight. Light flashed on distant whorls of the River to the east. To the north the view was blocked by a great humped peak, snowcapped and majestic, while its brothers and sisters stretched out beyond the limits of sight to the south. The travelers stood on the flank of a long range of volcanoes, a saddle to the west showing where the crossing must lie.

Wallie had guessed about volcanoes from the black rock he had seen the night before. Garadooi’s cave was a lava tube, a portion of whose roof had fallen in, providing a rubbly access slope. Obviously it had been used by generations of hunters and traders, for a fair path had been cut in the debris, smooth enough for the horses to descend, and the interior was roughly fitted out as a stable in one direction and human quarters in the other. When the two swordsmen had arrived the previous night—guided by Katanji, who had been shivering to death on the trail, waiting for them—there had been a blazing fire and hot food and crumbly old boughs to sleep on.

“That’s a mountain,” Wallie agreed. “And a good big one to start with! The Goddess be with you, builder!”

Not formal enough—this was a new day. “I am Garadooi, builder of the third rank . . . ”

Salute and response completed, the lad stretched and looked around, then pushed fingers through tousled curls. “You will ask Apprentice Quili to lead us in prayer, my lord?”

He had called for prayers the previous night, also. Wallie could believe in gods now, but he was still not a great praying man, being mildly embarrassed by even the swordsmen’s dedication that he performed every morning with Nnanji. Garadooi was the first religious zealot he had met in the World. Honakura and Jja and Nnanji were all pious servants of the Goddess, but they did not flaunt their beliefs as the young builder did. After being told about Wallie’s mission and the sword, he had prayed loudly and publicly.

Still, Wallie had much to be grateful for. “I have no objection to prayers, provided they are brief. We must hurry, I fear. How long until that river is fordable?”

“About a day, I suppose?”

Perhaps not even that, Wallie thought. These rubbly volcanic rocks would absorb water quickly. He turned to study the slope ahead and the trail faintly visible on it. It would be a long climb to the pass, and there was no cover. Any watcher with good eyes would be able to keep them in sight, without using sorcery.

“The western side is more wooded, my lord,” Garadooi remarked, clearly thinking on the same lines.

“Then I shall be happy to reach it.”

They crested the pass around noon, hot and already tired by the climb. Ahead the sun beat down upon a flat, barren upland that showed more rock than grass, with a few pustular cinder cones here and there, and some widely separated cairns to mark the trail. Wallie turned in the saddle for a last glimpse of the distant River, then waited anxiously for the western slopes to come into view. Every bone ached, and he felt sure that he had blistered the blisters on his blisters.

He had passed time during the ascent by questioning Garadooi about sorcerers. Rather reluctantly, the lad had admitted that the citizens of Ov did not seem to be greatly oppressed by them, nor even very resentful of the new regime. Even more reluctantly, and in reply to direct queries, he had confessed that the late Reeve Zandorphino had been disliked. He had not kept his men under firm control. Swordsmen, as Wallie well knew, could be arrogant bullies.

The elderly king of Ov had been left in charge, the only change being that now sorcerers kept order for him, instead of swordsmen. He had imposed a tax to finance the building of a tower for the sorcerers and had demolished buildings to make room for it. That had been an unpopular measure and was believed to be the result of a spell cast upon the old man by the chief sorcerer, a Seventh. But Garathondi was the contractor and was waxing even richer than before. Then the discussion had naturally come around to slavery. The family fortune was fertilized by the sweat and blood of slaves, and young Garadooi’s conscience tortured him over that. There was the source of his rebellion, and of Wallie’s present salvation.

“So a slave is a slave, my lord! He is still a child of the Most High. It is no reason to treat a man as an animal, is it?”

Wallie had not previously met antislavery sentiment in the World to match his own and he agreed wholeheartedly.

Nnanji had listened with open disgust to the tales of sorcerers. Probably he had never concerned himself with the ethics of slavery before, but his hero disapproved of it, so he had been adjusting his views to match. Now he intervened to tell how Lord Shonsu had befriended a slave in the temple and had thereby been assisted to escape. Wallie would just as soon not have had the incident mentioned, but Garadooi heard it with great approval.

On another point he set Wallie’s mind at rest and enraged Nnanji. Soon after the massacre—or so he claimed—Garadooi himself had slipped away by ship to Gi, the next city downriver. He had personally informed the reeve about the destruction of the Ov swordsmen. He had not been the first to do so, and no action had followed, for Gi was a much smaller place, and the garrison was neither able nor willing to attack the sorcerers now entrenched at Ov. Wallie was relieved to hear that there had been no cover-up. If he ever returned to the Garathondi estate, he would not have to judge a concealment. Nnanji muttered angrily about cowardice in Gi.

Yet Nnanji and Garadooi, two highly dissimilar young men, were forging a very unlikely friendship, based upon their respective obsessions with honor and religion. And perhaps, Wallie decided, he was a charter member, also, if a somewhat more cynical one.

He had ridden forward and was chatting with Jja and Honakura, riding at ease in the cart, when the upland began to tilt westward and the trail descend. Southwest and northwest stood more snowy peaks, and straight ahead, far off and glinting . . . 

“I told you it was everywhere!” Honakura remarked smugly. Of course Aus would lie on the River—all cities did.

“It flows northward at Ov,” Wallie said, “so here it must run south?”

That was geometry, not theology, and Honakura had to ponder the problem for some time before he agreed that such was probably the case. Even then he would not admit that it must necessarily be so—the Goddess could do anything She wanted.

The descent became steep, the trail a stony gash through thick brush mat soon prospered into hot, still forest. As Garadooi had said, the western slope was more lush than the eastern. The cover and the shade were welcome; the resident insects were not. Wallie saw trees very much like oaks and chestnuts and ash, with brambles and nettles and dogwood filling the spaces between. The trail wound to and fro and up and down, following old lava flows, scree slopes, riverbeds—any feature whose original vegetation had been sparse. As the land fell, small streams appeared in the hollows.

Now he organized his expedition on better military lines, with Katanji and Garadooi riding ahead as scouts. The procedure was primitive—the first man chose a point with as long a view as he could find, then waited for the second man to catch up to him before proceeding farther. The second waited for the cart and the rest of the party, then went ahead to find the first again. Their rear was unprotected, except for Wallie’s own presence behind the cart, but he lacked the manpower to cover that direction and he thought he should be safe from pursuit, for the rest of this day at least. Katanji was excited at being chosen, and also amused, flashing smug glances at his brother. Nnanji pretended not to notice, but in truth he was unable to control his horse well enough for such work—it would have refused to leave the others for him.

As afternoon wore on, Wallie noted more signs that the trail had recently been improved. He also saw traces of horses and wheels that had passed by not long since.

Then the cart caught up with Garadooi, who had sent Katanji ahead as first scout. “The mine road, my lord!”

Two identical trails ran off into the woods. Wallie studied the fork. “Again I am glad you are here to guide us, builder. One looks much like the other.”

“And they are both being used, my lord.”

No need for a Mohican on that problem—there happened to be horse dung visible on both trails. So the mine had been reopened; more sorcerer activity, or just coincidence?

“I should dearly love to know what is going on here,” Wallie said. “Is this the work of these cowled characters? If so, what do they mine? What gets transported to and fro on this road—and does the garrison in Aus know about it?”

He pondered for a moment. “How far to the mine?”

The youth shrugged. “I think it is a long way, my lord, but I don’t know.”

Wallie hesitated and then decided to risk it. “Take over, adept. Proceed with all deliberate speed. I’m going to explore up this other road a little way.”

Responsibility! Beaming, Nnanji thumped fist on heart in salute. Wallie turned his mount along the mine road and met rebellion at the first bend. Eventually he convinced the brute that a swordsman of the Seventh outranked a mere horse, no matter how stubborn, and then he managed to kick it into an excruciating trot. The road was just as narrow and winding as the one he had left, and he thought he had brought much more than his fair share of the flies.

Leaving Nnanji in charge was a risk. If he blundered into a caravan of sorcerers he might react in ways that Wallie would find irrational. Moreover, it was unlikely that this digression of Wallie’s would yield any useful information at all. At best he could only hope to find some evidence of what was being mined—a spillage from a tipped wagon, perhaps. But the change of pace and the solitude were a welcome break. He resolved to limit himself to a quarter of an hour and then turn back.

He found much more than he had bargained for. At first all he saw was more trees; road bending to the right followed by road bending to the left; a hill up and a slope down; bushes and outcrops and ruts. Just as he was beginning to feel that his time must be up, he reached the edge of a recent lava flow. The forest ended abruptly, giving a wide view across bare, black rock flooring a valley. The hill on the far side was bare also, probably burned off by an even later flow, and the road descending it was clearly visible . . . and in use.

Hastily Wallie applied brakes and then reverse, moving back under cover. He counted three wagons. He estimated that the work gang marching behind numbered about thirty—those would be slaves, of course—and the mounted band in front about a dozen. They were too far off to see if they wore cowls, but they were certainly dressed in robes and therefore could only be priests or old men . . . or sorcerers. Browns, mostly, but the one in front was either a Fourth or a Fifth, an orange or a red.

He turned his horse and kicked it savagely until it achieved a canter. Had he come along the road half an hour later, he would have blundered right into that procession. He cursed himself for a reckless idiot.

That was not the worst of it, though. If Garadooi’s geography was correct, the men were coming from the mine, so obviously it was being operated by the sorcerers. Two of the wagons had been drays carrying lumber, dressed tree trunks. The sorcerers were heading for the downed bridge, to replace it.

How did they know about that?

His companions looked up in alarm as he cantered his foam-flecked horse alongside. They had stopped in the center of a wide, almost dry, riverbed to water the livestock, and also to exchange mounts and spares. It was an exposed position, but one where they were not likely to leave conspicuous traces on the ground. That might be Garadooi thinking like a woodsman, or mere chance. Wallie did not care which it was, for he knew that the expedition had been leaving an obvious trail. The sorcerers would need no magic to follow it.

Unsaddling his own horse, he quickly explained the new problem. If the sorcerers were aware of the bridge, then surely they must also know of the fugitives.

“Twelve?” Nnanji said thoughtfully. “Six each way?”

“Perhaps. Except that they will soon see that we have gone by the junction, so maybe ten in this direction.” And in less than half an hour, likely.

“You think they can send messages?” Honakura remarked, leaning over the tailgate and leering. “Or can they see at a distance?” He was enjoying watching Wallie struggle with the concept of sorcery.

“Messages, I hope.” But the sorcerers would have needed time to load the drays after learning of the downed bridge . . . why had they not sent men off after the fugitives immediately? Either they knew exactly what the swordsmen were doing and where they were, or they expected to catch them easily on the trail. Or there might be another force ahead somewhere.

“Eagles?” Nnanji tilted his head to study the high blue sky. Faint dots floated there—kites or vultures . . . or sorcerers?

“I’m going to ignore that possibility,” Wallie said firmly, “because if they’re that powerful, then nothing we do will be of any use at all. But we’ve got to get off the road.”

“The horses need a rest, my lord!” Quili’s chin was raised in respectful but determined revolt. “We have been pushing them much too hard and too long.” Wallie resisted a temptation to consign the horses to perdition. The people needed more than rest.

“If we leave the road,” Garadooi said, “we’ll lay a trail as obvious as that mountain.”

Wallie stared along the river valley. “That mountain” showed fainter and bluer than it had been, higher and surprisingly far off. He turned and looked the other way. The river was typical of rivers he had seen near mountains before—more gravel than water, a very wide bed of shingle with scattered little streams and puddles in it, and a few grassy or scrubby islands. It would be easier terrain than the road.

“We can’t be very far from the River itself!” he said. “Let’s head that way. And stay in the water.”

“It’s safe enough,” Quili nodded to where some of the horses were wading.

Could animals sense piranha? Not wanting to show his ignorance, he did not ask. “Let’s move!”

“Her powers are always most manifest near the River,” Honakura said sagely.

“Indeed, in affliction we should seek Her aid,” Garadooi agreed.

“Katanji?” Nnanji asked, but as he did so, a sound of hooves announced that the scout was coming back to see what the delay was. Better and better.

So move they did, splashing along the stream. When one branch gave out, they crossed shingle to another. Soon the winding of the valley and the tufty islands had hidden them from the road, and then they left the water and walked dry-shod on the pebbles. A good tracker would find them soon enough, but, with any luck, pursuing sorcerers would go farther on toward Aus before realizing they had missed their prey.

After a while Wallie drew alongside Garadooi. “What are the chances that we shall find a hamlet or village on the River?”

The boy shook his head, looking worried and lost now. “We can only trust in the Most High, my lord. If there is a village, of course, they will have boats.”

Which was what Wallie had been thinking. He could acquire safer transportation on the River with gold, or with steel.

An hour or so went by with no signs of pursuit. Late-afternoon sun glared fiercely down and reflected back as savagely from the dark shingle. There was no wind. The horses were visibly flagging, footsore from the hard going, and making very slow time. The passengers in the cart were bone-weary from the endless lurching and bumping, the riders sore and raw. They were all eaten away by mosquitoes. Twisting and winding, the valley yet continued unchanged between thickly wooded walls.

Wallie chewed at his problems without tasting any answers. Boats and an escape by water had the greatest appeal, but the River might be far off—he had no way of knowing. Alternatively, common sense suggested that he find a campsite somewhere and leave the civilians. Hopefully only the swordsmen were in great danger, so they could retrace their steps and try to reach Aus, traveling by night. Then they could return with help. He did not like that program at all. He did not want to leave Jja undefended.

Suddenly the river changed and became a small lake, almost filling the valley. Its far bank was a rocky dam—an obvious lava flow to Wallie’s eye—and beyond that was open sky and a remote horizon of blue water, framed by the valley walls. Cheering broke out.

“Master!” Jja exclaimed. “Look—smoke!”

The cheering grew louder as the others also saw the filmy white cloud rising from somewhere ahead. Smoke meant people.

It had long been obvious that the previous day’s rain had not touched this side of the mountains. The lake was low, and the cart was able to skirt it on a shingle beach with only two or three dips into water. A low rumble ahead warned of falls. Even the horses seemed to feel the excitement as the expedition reached the end of the lake and began to cross over the hummocky black barrier. The river foamed along a narrow trench, then fell away into a rising cloud of spray.

Katanji had pushed his horse to the fore and was standing silhouetted against the sky. He yelled something into the noise.

Wallie dismounted, dropped his reins, and walked forward stiffly to see. When he reached the cliff edge, he was looking down into a small and boxy canyon, floored by grass and scrub. The waterfall cascaded down in giant steps into a pool, from which a stream wandered along through the trees to enter the River beside a rough pier of black stonework. There were no boats tied there, and it seemed deserted. A couple of roofless cottages guarded the landward end, overgrown and obviously ancient.

Jja came and stood at his side. He put his mouth close to her ear and shouted. “We’re a century or so too late!”

“But the smoke . . . ”

“Steam!”

He had forgotten that volcanic country could nurture hot springs. One side of the canyon was wooded, but the other was mostly bare and knobby rock, glistening and steaming like a motionless cascade of porridge.

The others had come to see, also. After a while they all retreated back to the cart, away from the tumult.

“It’s a quarry,” Wallie said, “or it was, once. The hot water makes . . . that brownish marble stuff.” Evidently Shonsu had never heard of travertine, for he could not put a name to it.

“Looks like no one’s been here in a lifetime. Well, it’s a sheltered spot, and we can have hot baths.”

“There are boats out there, my lord,” Katanji said, squinting into the westering sun.

The boats were much too far off to be of use, but a leader must keep his followers’ spirits up. Wallie looked meaningfully at Nnanji’s red pony tail. “We’ll take your brother down to the dock and wave him,” he suggested.

As a campsite, the quarry canyon could not have been bettered. There were indeed warm pools at the base of the cliff. Nettles had taken possession of the ruined cottages, but there was grass on which to pitch the two small tents the adventurers had brought, and they could build a fire without being seen by watchers inland. There was fresh water to drink and there would be shelter from wind, if wind came.

Getting there was the problem. It took another hour to move all the people, the supplies, and the horses safely to the valley floor, and by that time the sun was nearing the horizon. The cart was pushed a little way down the slope and wedged against a tree, less visible from the lake above.

Wallie had never felt more weary in two lifetimes, and everyone else looked equally bedraggled by the long, hard day. He sent the women off to try the hot pools while the men pitched camp. He himself went down and inspected the jetty. Built of discarded stone from the quarry, it was obviously very old, but probably still usable.

Then he joined the other men in a luxurious hot soak that unknotted muscles and soothed blisters, taming aching fatigue into sleepy weariness. When that was over, food was waiting.

The sun set in a celebration of gold and crimson, sky and River in duet. Water birds flew homeward.

There was little talk around the campfire as the valley gradually filled with darkness. Cowie fell over, asleep, and Nnanji ordered her to go to bed. She smiled vaguely and wandered away to the tents. Silence returned. Even the normally bubbly Katanji had lost his air of excitement, while Honakura looked dangerously spent. Wallie had arrived the previous day at a deserted jetty by a little canyon, and now he had reached the same sort of place on the same River on the other side of the mountains. Somehow it did not feel like much progress.

“Well, novice?” he said. “Three days you’ve been a swordsman now. You’re not getting bored yet, are you?”

Katanji managed a grin. “No, my lord.”

Nnanji snorted in mock disapproval. “When I was a scratcher, I spent my first three days doing sword drill. I thought my arm was going to fall off.”

His brother shifted position. “My arm is not the problem, mentor.”

“I know how you feel, and where. He’s done well, has he not, my lord brother?”

“Very well. We all have.”

Nnanji nodded proudly and asked, “What do we do now?”

“Suggestions will be welcome.”

“We should pray,” Garadooi said primly, “throwing ourselves on the mercy—”

“Rot!” Honakura deepened his wrinkles into a pout.

“Blasphemy, old man!”

“Rot, I say! I assure you that the Goddess knows exactly what She’s doing. You’ve been on hunting trips, builder? Did you ever find a campsite with hot and cold water, with sweet hay, with a view like this . . . safer, better sheltered, or more obviously a special provision of the gods?”

“But—”

“Lord Shonsu is Her champion, and we are being well cared for.”

“—You’re a priest?” Garadooi reddened.

“I was,” the old man admitted testily. “And I say that we were led to this place for a purpose, so any requests from you would be mere presumption. The only person here with brains is Cowie.” At that he clambered stiffly to his feet and headed for the tents. Evidently he did not enjoy being sermonized by a mere layman, although that was part of the price of anonymity.

Sparks flew up into the darkness, and the yellow light flickered over the circle of weary faces. The fire’s tenor crackling sang over the waterfall’s baritone. Katanji yawned mightily, rolled himself up in a blanket, and was still.

The problem remained. Garadooi and Quili began conversing quietly. Wallie put his arm around Jja. Nnanji poked idly at the fire with a long stick.

There was driftwood. On any other River, Wallie might have contemplated building a raft, but these waters were deadly. The sails in the distance would have been fishing boats or trading ships, but he could think of no way to signal them. Even smoke would not work in this case, for the plume of steam must be a well-known local landmark.

“We have a couple of days’ food, I suppose,” he mused. “At least on short rations. You and I could try to make Aus, Nnanji. Then we could bring a boat for the others.”

Nnanji grunted quietly in agreement and yawned.

“We haven’t had much sleep in recent memory,” Wallie said. “A good long rest may brighten our wits a little.”

“You wish me to take first watch, my lord brother?”

“Not much point. Nowhere to run and no way to fight.”

Nnanji frowned doubtfully. If Wallie asked, he would willingly stand guard until he fell over.

“I know what the sutras say,” Wallie admited, “but I just think this case is unusual. We both need sleep more than anything.”

Nnanji nodded obediently and wished him good rest. He pushed off his boots and began wrapping his long legs in a blanket. Soon he was stretched out like a mummy and in two more minutes was snoring.

Jja cuddled closer to Wallie and sniggered playfully. “Cowie has been given the evening off again, master. She’s not having to work very hard, is she, for a night slave?”

He tightened his arm around her. “No, she’s having a real easy time.” Pause. “At least he isn’t attempting to honor any priestesses.”

Jja smiled up at him. “I think the apprentice seeks honor elsewhere.”

Wallie looked across the fire. Quili and Garadooi were sitting very close together, still talking . . . discussing slave barns?

“Uh! I hadn’t noticed.”

“I was very bold, master—I mentioned it to Adept Nnanji, also. He hadn’t noticed, either.”

“He wouldn’t.”

“But he approves of Builder Garadooi. And Builder Garadooi is very impressed by Apprentice Quili. Never really appreciated her before, he says. He hasn’t spent much time on the estate since he swore to his craft.”

Wallie kissed her ear. “I forgive your presumption, slave. Well done!”

Jja yawned and fell silent. Then she said, “Lord Honakura is actually enjoying this, isn’t he?”

“He . . . ” Wallie was about to say “He is having a ball,” but he stopped in time. It might come out literally. “Yes. He’s weary, of course. But, yes. He’s happy.”

“Have you noticed something else, master? You changed my life, and Nnanji’s. Lord Honakura is happy. And Wild Ani . . . ”

“I gave her gold?”

“Gold is little use to a slave, master. She could buy wine or sweetmeats with it, not much else. But you let her make fools of the whole temple guard. She would have loved that, more than anything.”

“What are you implying, my darling?”

“I think that all those who help your mission are rewarded. Novice Katanji was going to have to apprentice to his father, and he didn’t want that.”

No, Katanji would not have been content to knot rugs all his life. Wallie recalled also Briu’s twin sons, and Imperkanni being appointed reeve of the temple guard. And Coningu would be reunited with his long lost son by now.

“Maybe you’re right,” he said sleepily. “I hope for Quili’s sake that you are, and that we can all get out of this alive to enjoy our rewards.”

Then Jja kissed him. It was a vigorous, inventive sort of kiss, and they ended lying prone together. “You’ll think of something to do, master.”

“Tonight I can’t think of anything,” he said. “Rewards must wait. Go to sleep.”

He remembered shivering briefly in the night, and Jja tucking a blanket around him. The sun god in summer needed much less rest than mortals, especially mortals so travel-weary that they could sleep on the hard ground as soundly as they would have done in feather beds. Birds made encouraging noises at dawn and were ignored.

Morning was half gone . . . 

“Mentor?”

Nnanji? No—that was Katanji’s voice. Shonsu’s warrior reflexes could leap from sleep to full awareness instantly. Wallie sat up and said, “Yes?”

Katanji’s impish grin hung against the sky. “May I have the honor, my lord, of presenting Novice Matarro, swordsman of the first rank?”

††

“The honor shall be entirely mine,” Wallie said, “if you will allow me a moment to find my hairclip.”

The boy at Katanji’s side had cowered back in shock as he registered Wallie’s rank. He was taller than Katanji and farther along in his adolescent metamorphosis, but probably little older. He looked healthy and well fed, his skin burned dark by sunlight. He wore a harness and sword, and the single craftmark on his forehead was certainly a sword and long since healed, unlike Katanji’s, which was now infected into a festering red sore.

Yet Matarro did not look like a swordsman. He had no pony-tail, or kilt, or fancy swordsman boots. His hair was cropped short and his only garment was a breechclout, a long strip of white cloth that he had tied around his hips, with one end hanging down as a tail behind and the other passed between his legs and looped over to form another tail in front.

Having clipped his hair back and disentangled himself from his blanket, Wallie took hold of his harness and scabbard and scrambled to his feet. He fastened buckles, putting on his most friendly smile for the nervous newcomer.

Somewhat reassured, the boy drew and began the salute to a superior. “I am Matarro . . . ” He moved his sword with confidence, but he made two of the postures in the wrong order and did not seem to realize his error.

“I am Shonsu . . . ” Even as he replied, Wallie was staring over the lad’s head at the jetty. The campsite lay at the rear of the valley, hidden by scrub. When the ship had arrived, the crew had seen only a deserted quarry and a few grazing horses. Novice Matarro had come ashore to scout, or had perhaps been ordered to do so as a joke.

One question that would need to be resolved was how Katanji had met him. If he had seen the ship first, then he should have wakened Wallie or Nnanji—who was now sitting up in bleary surprise, hearing the voices. Katanji, of course, had turned on his charm and invited Matarro to come and meet his mentor. He had then chosen Wallie because he had been told that Wallie was now his mentor, also, and he was grinning broadly at Matarro’s stunned reaction.

Nnanji bounced to his feet. “Allow me to present you, novice,” Wallie said, “to Adept . . . ”

The little ship had a blue hull and white masts—three masts, which seemed excessive for her size. She had a definite list to starboard. Two gangplanks had been set out, and men were carrying lumber down one, piling it on shore, and trotting up the other. Any sound of voices had been drowned out by the noise of the waterfall.

“What vessel?” Wallie inquired when the formalities were over.

Matarro’s alarmed eyes were flickering around the campsite, counting and inspecting as the rest of the party began to stir.

“Her name is Sapphire!” Katanji said quickly, smirking. Wallie wilted him into silence with a Seventh’s killer glare.

“Sapphire, my lord.”

“And what brings you to this deserted place?”

Matarro hesitated, uncertain how much he should reveal. Likely he had never met a Seventh of any craft before and he was right to be nervous. Highrank swordsmen were dangerous, especially to other swordsmen. Wallie could challenge the boy if he did not like his looks or the way he spoke. It would not be honorable to maim or kill a novice, but no one would argue the point with Shonsu, and it would be quite legal.

“We were brought by the Hand of the Goddess, my lord. We dragged our anchor last night . . . That has never happened to us before, my lord.”

“And the cargo has shifted?”

Matarro nodded, seeming surprised that a landlubber could make such a guess.

“And who is the master?”

“Tomiyano of the Third, my lord.”

Wallie smiled. “Then pray present my compliments to Sailor Tomiyano and inform him that I shall call upon him in a few minutes. We are on the service of the Most High and are in need of some transportation.”

The lad nodded once more. He began to turn, before remembering that he should speak a formal farewell. He made an even worse mess of that ritual than he had of the salute; but he knew how to handle a sword. Then he shot off through the scrub like a startled hare, heading for the jetty.

Nnanji snorted and said, “Water rat!” with bottomless scorn. “Sapphire, huh?” he added, grinning at Wallie. Then he turned to Katanji with a face like a Demon of Retribution—time to impart a few truths about proper military procedure.

Wallie headed for the tents. Honakura had already emerged and was beaming toothlessly.

“The Goddess be with you, old man.”

“And with you, my lord.”

“You were right again!”

“Aren’t I always?”

“So far,” Wallie admitted. “So tell me what has happened to the sorcerers? And I thought I was not supposed to benefit from miracles?”

Honakura’s tiny shoulders shrugged within his black gown. “As far as sorcerers are concerned, perhaps you have been overestimating them? Men may have great powers and yet make mistakes, you know. They are only human. They may still be on their way here, but too late. And I wouldn’t call this a miracle; it is the Hand of the Goddess. Besides, I never said you would not be granted miracles, only that you must not count on them. Heroes are allowed to be lucky, my lord. That is quite different.”

He smirked. Honakura could have knotted a college of Jesuits into a lace counterpane.

Chuckling, admiring the fine weather, savoring this dramatic solution the gods had provided to his problem, Wallie continued over to the pool at the base of the waterfall to spruce himself up. In a few moments Nnanji joined him, muttering under his breath about scratchers and figuratively wiping Katanji’s blood from his hands. He could not see that three days was not long enough to turn his brother into a textbook swordsman, or that he would never rise to Nnanji’s own impossible standards.

“Let me guess,” Wallie said. “He asked you to describe the proper procedure, and then you had to admit that we were not following it, because I had not posted pickets . . . ”

Nnanji growled wordlessly. He could pull rank on his brother, but too often he allowed him to talk back and then he invariably lost the argument. Grinning to himself, Wallie dropped the subject.

When the morning’s usual routine was completed, he said, “Now let’s go and call on Sapphire. What are the formalities for boarding a ship, Nnanji? Does one ask permission?”

“Permission?” Nnanji looked shocked. Deep in thought, he followed after Wallie for a moment and then said, “Yes! Adept Hagarando mentioned that once. And a captain expects the salute to a superior from anyone, regardless of rank. No swords drawn on board . . . ”

These were the sort of things that Wallie did not know about the World. This was the reason that the gods had assigned Nnanji as his assistant, with his flawless memory packed full of lifetimes of experience from the whole temple guard. But Nnanji’s pride was in his swordsmanship, and Wallie must be careful not to let him suspect that his main purpose was to be a human reference library. He would be crushed if he suspected.

So Wallie thanked him offhandedly, as if the matter were trivial, pushing his way through the bushes. “A water rat is a swordsman who lives on a ship?” Shonsu’s knowledge of swordsman slang had been passed along. “How many types of swordsmen are there?”

Nnanji blinked in surprise. “Three, I suppose: garrisons, frees, and water rats.”

“No ponytail, no kilt? Water rats are really sailors with sword craftmarks?”

“That may be, my lord brother—I never met one before. The frees always spoke of them with contempt. I’d have to think—”

“Don’t worry about it now,” Wallie said hastily, not wanting to call up another retrieval from the mental databank. “With a name like Sapphire, this ship has obviously been brought by the Goddess for—”

Nnanji shouted, “Devilspit!”

Blue and green sails spread, Sapphire was a hundred paces out in the River, still listing, but making good time downstream. A pile of lumber lay abandoned on the jetty.

Wallie had erred. He should have gone straight to the ship with Matarro.

How long until the sorcerers arrived?

“My lord brother! What do we do now?”

Wallie stood for a moment in angry silence, watching the ship dwindle, aware for the first time that there was a fair breeze blowing this fine morning out there on the River.

“I think we leave the problem to a friend of mine,” he said weakly.

“What friend?”

“I call him Shorty.”

Nnanji frowned. “Shorty?”

“You haven’t met him. He’s a god.”

Very funny, Mr. Smith! He had been told that he must not call for miracles. He had also been warned that he might fail, as Shonsu had failed. He could die on this mission. Now he had been given good fortune ranking close to a miracle, and he had let it slip through his fingers.

How long until the sorcerers arrived?

Jja and Quili had prepared breakfast. Wallie was too mad at his own folly to have much appetite. He brusquely ordered Katanji down to the jetty to watch the disappearing Sapphire. He assured the others that she would soon be returned. His fake confidence certainly did not fool Honakura, who smirked, or Jja, who looked worried. The others seemed to believe his prophecy, especially Garadooi.

Accepting a pile of roasted pork ribs and pancakes heaped on a wad of dock leaves, Wallie signaled Nnanji to accompany him. Once they were out of earshot of the others, he sat on the grass. Nnanji copied him, carefully balancing a triple helping of his own. Katanji appeared, puffing, to report that the ship had vanished. Wallie told him to go back and wait until it unvanished.

“Talk and eat at the same time,” he said; Nnanji usually did so, anyway. “I want to hear all the stories you can remember about sailors and free swords. The exact words this time, if you can.”

“Of course!” Nnanji looked surprised that there should be any question. He thought for a moment, chewing on a bone, then he chuckled. “At lunch on Potters’ Day, two years ago . . . ”

That was a humorous story of a Fifth who claimed to have killed, in the course of his career, four men and eight ship captains. The other tales were more specific, all told in Nnanji’s unconscious mimicry of the voices he had originally heard recount them. Free swords expected free transportation—they were on Her service. Sailors who declined to supply it, or who got cheeky with swordsmen, might lose an ear, or worse. Sometimes, of course, the swordsmen had to put up with the impertinence until the ship reached port. Then they were free to impose penalties, and did so. A couple of incidents sounded perilously close to rape. Not surprisingly, there were also rumors of swordsmen mysteriously disappearing in transit.

Of course these were the tales that had been worth repeating; for each of those there might have been a hundred uneventful, or even friendly, encounters. But the overall trend was clear.

“That’ll do! Thank you, Nnanji.”

“I’ve lots more!”

“That’s enough. They’re a revolting bunch, aren’t they?”

Nnanji nodded vigorously, chewing a lump of gristle. Then his eyes widened, and he swallowed it, half choking. “You mean the sailors, my lord?”

“No.” Wallie rose and stalked away, leaving his protégé openmouthed with horror.

“My lord, you do not need us now.” Garadooi had no doubts. “Apprentice Quili and I would take our leave, if you will permit it.”

“But the sorcerers . . . ”

“They will not harm her, my lord. Nor, I think, myself.”

“You can’t know that.” Wallie had expected to take these two with him when the ship returned, if it did. If it did not, of course, they might be safer away from his company, but the young builder was not thinking of that.

“My father is one of their main supporters among the guild-masters.” He did not like to admit that. Then he grinned innocently. “And how have I offended? Three swordsmen arrived, lost. I escorted them out of the sorcerers’ domain by the quickest route.”

“I am very grateful to you both.” Wallie put on his sternest face. “Go, if you wish, with my blessings. But I shall require an oath from you, builder.”

“I shall tell them nothing, my lord!”

“You will tell them everything! Answer all their questions. You must swear to that—I will not have you tortured on my account. Otherwise you stay here.”

The lad’s thin features took on their familiar fanatic sheen. “I am aiding Her cause. She will protect me!”

That might be so, but Wallie extracted a solemn oath from him regardless. Being preliterate, and having no other form of contract, the People put great weight on oaths.

“You will take the cart?”

Garadooi looked surprised. “And the horses.”

‘Two would be enough? I will buy the rest from you.”

“But . . . ”

Wallie put a finger to his lips.

Surprise became a smile. “We never discussed it! But I will not take your gold, Lord Shonsu. My family can afford to contribute a few hacks—’I lost them, Grandmother.’ ”

Wallie let him win the argument that time. The secluded jetty might be more than an escape route. It could also be his access to the sorcerers’ mine and the back door to Ov, an ideal place to land and muster a small army. The unwanted horses would not likely stray from such an equine heaven. They would be useful again.

Down at the jetty, Katanji was still sitting in lonely boredom on the lumber. Garadooi caught the two horses he wanted, and they were quickly loaded with supplies and a tent. Then Wallie accompanied him and Quili to the top of the cliff and helped drag the cart back to the flat. The River valley stretched off beyond the lake, with no signs of sorcerers yet.

The second horse, he noted, was tethered behind the cart as a spare; Garadooi was going to ride beside Quili. As he once more thanked them both, shouting over the noise of the falls, Wallie did not need Jja to point out a change in the little priestess—in both of them. They stood close. They had the undefinable air of two people wanting to be alone together. He wished them good luck and Goddess-speed . . . and very nearly offered congratulations, also. But perhaps that would be premature.

Then he saw that a tiny, distant figure on the jetty was jumping up and down and waving both arms.

“I must go,” Wallie said. Again he thanked them both, smothering the priestess’ renewed apologies for the initial misunderstanding. He shook Garadooi’s hand. Quili he kissed—her honor maybe, his pleasure certainly. She blushed crimson, but cooperated, seeming to enjoy the encounter as much as he did. Then he went scrambling and sliding down the hill again. The expedition was back to seven.

By the time he joined Nnanji and his brother on the jetty, Sapphire was close enough for sounds of angry voices to be floating in across the water. The wind had dropped completely, and her sails hung limp in the noon heat as she drifted toward the dock. She was not listing so badly as before.

Katanji was impressed, Nnanji triumphant—

“I just looked away for an instant, my lord—then there she was!”

“This time they’ll do as She requires of them, my lord brother!”

Wallie was not convinced. Obviously some of Sapphire’s crew were not, either. Now he knew how swordsmen regarded sailors and, therefore, why Matarro’s news had caused them to depart so hurriedly. The Goddess had brought them back to the same place, but he wished he could make out the words of the arguments going on aboard. The largest and loudest discussion was taking place on the raised deck aft . . . poop? The high bit at the front would be the fo’c’sle in English, but he seemed to lack maritime terms in his vocabulary. That was odd, because Shonsu must have traveled by ship. Then two men ran up on the fo’c’sle and the anchor ran out with a roar of chain. It stopped with a clang and sudden silence as it reached the water, apparently jammed. Oaths and screams of rage were followed by hammering noises. Sapphire continued to drift closer.

Wallie turned to see how the rest of his party was proceeding, coming at Honakura’s slow pace. “Nnanji! Look!”

A solitary figure was dancing up and down on the cliff top—Garadooi. He had a horse beside him. Wallie waved to show that he had noticed, and the lad acknowledged. He remounted and rode away.

Nnanji’s eyes had narrowed to slits. “They’re coming?”

“That’s how I take it.”

How long for mounted men unencumbered by a cart to travel the length of the lake? How long to scramble down the hill? And that might not even be necessary, if a spell cast from up there could summon demons to down here.

Wallie wiped sweat from his brow, but some of that was from the heat, for the sun was glaring off the water and the dark stonework. The still air was dead and enervating. Sapphire was very close, obviously about to reach the jetty at the exact place she had been tied up earlier. The arguments were over, and so were attempts to free the anchor. Two men were adjusting fenders, but most of the rest seemed to have disappeared. Jja, Vixini, Cowie, and Honakura had reached the jetty.

Gentle as falling feathers, Sapphire nestled against the pier. Wallie stepped to a bollard, waiting for a line. Nothing happened. No gangplank?

He jumped up on the pile of lumber, which put him almost level with the men standing on deck, and some distance back from the ship.

“You forgot this?” he asked politely.

For a while there was no reply, only a staring match. Five men were visible, and no one else. They were standing along the near side, well spaced to repel boarders and holding their hands down, out of sight below the gunwale, so he could not tell if they were armed. All he could see were bare brown chests and angry faces. He thought briefly of a line-up of wrestlers.

The one in the center was closest, and therefore likely the spokesman. He must be the captain, Tomiyano. He was visibly furious, eyes slitted, powerful white teeth bared in a grimace. Three shipmarks just below a Caesar haircut told of his rank and craft. He was young and well built, bone upholstered with muscle, and he was barely keeping control of himself. His hair was reddish—not as red as Nnanji’s—but his skin was burned to the same dark rosewood shade. In spite of his youth, he looked like a man accustomed to having his own way. He looked dangerous.

Wallie was not on board yet. He made the sign of acknowledgment of an inferior.

The sailor snarled. “What do you want, swordsman?”

“Permission to come aboard, Captain?”

“Why?”

“I seek passage for myself and these companions.”

“This is a family ship—we have no room for passengers.”

“I am willing to pay any reasonable fare.”

“That will not make the ship larger.”

“Then put your Jonahs ashore.”

The sailor’s weathered face flamed even brighter, although there was no shame in being a Jonah. “What the hell do you mean by that, swordsman?”

Wallie waited a moment to cool his own rising temper. To address a highrank by his craft was deliberate insult. He was also fighting a searing desire to turn and look at the cliff, to see if sorcerers had appeared there yet, but that would be a tactical error in this nasty negotiation. He could only hope that Nnanji was watching and would tell him when it happened.

“If you have no Jonahs aboard, then perhaps you were brought here to get some?”

Tomiyano, if that was who he was, drummed fists on the rail in frustration and looked up longingly at the limp sails.

“Sailor, this is benefiting no one. Let me come aboard and I shall salute you. Or you salute me here. Then we can resume our discussion in civilized fashion.”

The captain was silent. A whole minute seemed to drag by in wordless glaring. Then he snapped: “I am Tomiyano, sailor of the third rank, master of Sapphire . . . ” He gabbled off the rest with a few careless gestures. It was the cultural equivalent of spitting on a man’s foot.

Wallie let the rudeness sit in the air for a moment, then drew his sword. “I am Shonsu, swordsman of the seventh rank, chosen champion of the Goddess, and am . . . ”

“Chosen what?”

“Champion. This is Her own sword, Captain. It was given to me by a god. Note the sapphire? My hairclip is another sapphire, and also came from him. I am on a mission for the Most High. I am presently in need of transportation, and your ship was brought here, I understand, by Her Hand.”

Tomiyano spat. “Firsts talk too much.”

“He was lying?”

“No,” admitted the captain.

Katanji coughed loudly. Wallie’s head turned before he could stop it. Five men in cowled gowns were standing on the cliff top.

Tomiyano had noticed. He smiled with joy. “Running from someone, swordsman?”

“Yes, sailor. Sorcerers.”

“Sorcerers? This close to the River? Hah!”

Wallie glanced at the other four men. They were frowning, perhaps wavering, but he must convince their captain first. He turned to the cliff again. The sorcerers were hurrying toward the easiest descent. Nnanji was paler than Wallie had ever seen him. It was not fear of the sorcerers that was eating at Nnanji—he wanted to get at this insolent sailor. The rest of Wallie’s party were huddled behind the lumber, unhappily waiting. This might be another of the gods’ tests—Wallie had very little time left to negotiate his way onto the ship.

Tomiyano jeered. “You’ve been gulled, swordsman! You’re running from bogeymen.”

Keeping his voice calm with an immense effort, Wallie said, “Not so. A year ago, in Ov, forty swordsmen were slain by sorcerers.”

“They can have three more as far as I’m concerned.”

“And Matarro of the First? Save him, then! Sail away quick, Captain.”

The fury blazed up again in the sailor’s face. That reminder of his own impotence seemed to rob him of speech. His ship had been hijacked, and he could do nothing about it.

“The sorcerers summon fire demons, Captain. You wouldn’t want those near Sapphire, now, would you?”

Tomiyano seemed ready to start grinding his teeth. He turned to look at the River. For some distance out from the jetty, the water was as clear and smooth as plate glass. Beyond that it was rippled by wind.

“If I let you and your riffraff on board, then these sorcerers will come after you.”

“Let us on board and you can depart. It is Her will you are flouting, not mine. I did not summon you here.”

“No!” Tomiyano had thought of another solution—dead men do not need to go anywhere. His hand appeared, holding a knife. Wallie had no need to call on Shonsu’s encyclopedic knowledge of blades to tell him that it was a throwing knife; the way the sailor was holding it showed that. Suddenly he felt very mortal. He was utterly vulnerable at that range, but too far away to use his sword.

“No damned landlubber swordsman will ever set foot on my deck again! I swore at Yok that—”

“Quiet!” shouted a new voice. The captain’s arm dropped, and he turned to glare as a newcomer emerging from a door in the fo’c’sle. Wallie relaxed with a gasp. He stole another glance landward; the sorcerers were invisible, hidden in the trees, but they must be close to the valley floor by now. He looked at the River. The edge of that mysterious calm was racing landward—the wind was coming. He could only have minutes left before Sapphire began to move. If he could not board, then he and Nnanji should be heading for the trees, to meet the enemy under cover . . . 

“I’ll handle this, Tom’o,” said the new voice, and Wallie aimed to stare in bewilderment at the figure now standing beside the captain—a Fifth, in red. A swordsman, for there was a sword hilt beside the gray-streaked ponytail, but old enough to wear a sleeveless gown; short and enormously fat, and the harness was a strange type, with the chest straps crossing in an X instead of being vertical . . . Too fat. Fat in the wrong places . . . 

Then she began her salute: “I am Brota, swordsman of the fifth rank, owner of Sapphire . . . ”

A fat, middle-aged, female swordsman? As he drew his sword to respond, Wallie’s mind was reeling from this latest shock, and he could hear Nnanji growling. Tomiyano began to argue; the woman told him to be quiet, and he obeyed. Owner? She was obviously the true master of the ship, almost certainly Tomiyano’s mother. When the seventh sword clicked back into its scabbard, she turned her head briefly to study the River, then the apparently empty valley on the other side. Her ponytail was bound by an incongruous pink bow.

“What talk is this of sorcerers, my lord?”

“They slaughtered the garrison in Ov a year ago, mistress. The Goddess has sent me to deal with them—but at the moment I do not have the forces to do so. Five of them will be here in a few moments. I am not the only one in danger. You and Novice Matarro . . . ”

She was not as tall as Wild Ani, but probably fatter. Yet that pillowed brown face held none of the sullen air of defeat that haunted always the face of a slave. There was an ominous hardness there, and Wallie tracked it down to her eyes. The rest of her features were soft and rounded, but the eyes sat in dark caves like lurking dragons. Her eyebrows were bushy, white more than brown. They were an old man’s eyes peering out from a woman’s face.

“Thirty years we have traded on the River, Lord Shonsu, and never have we been taken by Her Hand. Never has She troubled us, nor we Her. Never have I heard of a ship being taken while at anchor, either. Perhaps you and I are indeed intended to do business together.” Again she glanced at the River, studying the telltale ripple of wind approaching. Above them the sails stirred very slightly. She was playing for time.

“Then we had better do it quickly, Mistress Brota.”

She shrugged bulky shoulders beneath crimson cotton. “What exactly do you seek from us?”

Wallie hesitated a second to line up his thoughts. With this woman he would prefer a signed, sealed, and witnessed contract backed up by affidavits and secured by a performance bond, but he would have to settle for a handshake. He glanced again at the innocent-seeming valley.

“Immediate embarkation. Safe passage for my companions and myself to . . . ”

Careful! The geography of the World was variable—Aus might not be the next city by River. “Safe passage to the nearest city where I can enlist some swordsmen. Food and shelter, of course.”

Again Tomiyano tried to speak, and again she slapped him down with a word. “Very well. The fare will be two hundred golds.”

Nnanji’s blasphemous shriek was lost in a bellow of relieved laughter from the captain. The other sailors grinned. The sails rippled.

Shrubbery rippled also, close to the two ruined cottages at the landward end of the jetty.

Two hundred golds was blatant extortion, far beyond the means of anyone but the rich. It would buy a farm.

“Done!” Wallie said.

Her eyes narrowed in anger, those dangerous male eyes behind a rubber female mask. “I would see your money, my lord.”

Wallie was already fumbling in his money pouch, two fingers feeling among the coins for the jewels that the demigod had given him. He found one and held it up between thumb and forefinger. “I sold one just like this for three hundred, mistress. So I have the fare. We have a deal.”

She scowled, staring at the tiny blue star. Greed won. “Get them aboard!”

The crew members jumped to obey. Two gates flew open in the ship’s side, and hands reached down. Wind caressed the sails and they billowed joyfully. As Wallie jumped off the lumber, figures emerged from the trees. Tomiyano ran for the poop deck to take the tiller. Jja and Vixini went in one gate, Honakura was almost thrown through the other by Nnanji. More crew members began to spill out from doors in fo’c’sle and poop. Wallie dragged a bewildered Cowie behind him and hurled her up, also. Sapphire began to drift away, a gap opening between her fenders and the edge of the dock. Katanji scrambled aboard, pushed by his brother and pulled clear by a sailor. Sorcerers were running for the jetty, anonymous monks in their brown robes and cowls. Nnanji and Wallie grabbed at the sides of their respective gates and their feet were dragged free of the dock. They fell against the ship’s side and for a moment dangled there, boots only inches above the piranha-infested waters. Then they scrambled up and were hauled aboard.

As Wallie rose to his feet, the gate banged shut behind him.

Whew!

†††

The sorcerers had halted halfway along the jetty, beaten. Their leader was a Fourth, and he shook his fist. Wallie waited for spell-casting to begin, but the sinister figures just stood there. Already Sapphire was a surprising distance out, turning her bow to open River. Either she was now out of range of magic, or the sorcerers were too winded by their run to chant.

Brota was standing in front of Wallie, feet firmly planted, hand outstretched. Male sailors had clustered around. Their faces were unfriendly, and their hands were behind their backs.

If it had been a test of Wallie’s ability to win his way on board, then he had succeeded. If the right answer had been to stay and fight, then he had failed utterly, delivering the sword of the Goddess to a gang of pirates. He would be feeding fish in minutes.

Nnanji’s boots drummed on the deck, and he appeared from around a dinghy that hung in davits amidships, next to the rail. He stopped, started to raise his hand, and then froze, nonplussed.

Wallie fumbled again in his pouch, deliberately taking much longer than necessary so the watchers would not know that there were more jewels there. “Ah!” He brought out a sapphire and dropped it onto Brota’s fat palm.

She studied it carefully, then slid it into a pocket without offering to give him any change. She held out both hands. Awkwardly he did the same, and they made a four-handed shake, a new custom to Wallie. He thought the tension decreased then.

“Come with me, my lord.” Brota turned on her heel, and sailors made way for her as she headed aft. Nnanji stepped back and almost fell into the hold.

Brota had a rolling, ponderous gait. Wallie followed with his head up, waiting for the knife in his back. It did not come, and a moment later Nnanji fell into step behind him.

Sapphire’s main deck was small and very cluttered. Wallie had boarded alongside a large open hatch. Immediately aft of that, dinghies restricted the deck on either side. Then he had to detour again for the main mast, and a second hatch behind that, avoiding the stays slanting up from the rail, the bollards and racks of pins and fire buckets that seemed to obtrude everywhere, and also piles of lumber, including planks that he decided must be the hatch covers. It was an obstacle course, and dangerous with the two big hatches open. Women and children had emerged from somewhere to study the intruders with sullen resentment.

Brota was heading to a door below the poop deck—that at least was an empty area, with Tomiyano sitting on a helmsman’s bench, holding the tiller and scowling. Two flights of steps led up there, one in each corner of the main deck, further crowding it. Wallie followed her through the doorway, ducking his head. Nnanji was at his heels.

The room was bright and airy, as big as the poop deck above it, although Wallie’s sword hilt almost touched the beams. The only furniture was a pair of big wooden chests at the back, and the only obstruction the mizzenmast, close to the door—that was why the door was off center, then. There were two large windows in each wall, their louvered shutters open to admit a fine view in all directions.

“This we call the deckhouse, my lord. If you are to be aboard overnight, then it must suffice, for we have no spare cabins.”

“It will serve very well,” Wallie said. “But what do you use this for normally? I wish to inconvenience you as little as possible, mistress.”

The bristly white eyebrows rose slightly. “We eat here when the weather is bad. The children play in it. The watch uses it at night. We can dispense with it for a day or so and not suffer unduly.”

He smiled. He got no answering smile, but her manner was not so hostile as her son’s had been; business was business. Wallie realized that he was not going to be tossed overboard . . . not just yet, at least.

“And what rules would you have us obey, as passengers? I want no trouble, mistress. I come in peace.”

Again mild surprise. “Heads and showers are through the forward door, my lord. I ask that you not go below.”

“Agreed.”

She studied him for a moment and glanced at Nnanji.

“Permit me,” Wallie said, and presented him. Both he and Brota used the civilian gestures—it would be difficult to draw a sword under so low a ceiling. Nnanji was curt, obviously still furious.

“There is one matter that often causes trouble, my lord. I am sure that you are honorable swordsmen—”

“Adept Nnanji and I brought our own slaves. The old man is harmless, and we shall warn the novice. If there is any friction at all, Mistress Brota, please inform me at once.”

She nodded, chins bulging. “You are gracious, Lord Shonsu.”

“And you on your side . . . ”

She frowned. “I apologize for my son’s brusque manner. He . . . You are welcome aboard. We shall serve as the Goddess wills.”

If Tomiyano had been brusque, then Wallie had no need to meet hostile. “I understand that the closest city is Aus, about a half-day’s ride to the north.”

She glanced out at the scenery. Sapphire was already in mid-River, heading upstream. “That will be our destination, then. One port will do as well as any other for us. When we have restored trim, we shall make better time.”

Wallie turned to look at the main deck outside. Voices and thumps revealed that work was going on in the holds. From time to time one end of a plank would appear and then disappear again. Some children were kneeling on the deck, watching what was going on below. The cargo had shifted and was being rearranged.

“If a couple of strong backs can be of assistance, mistress . . . ”

He had moved too far out of character; surprise turned to suspicion. “We have more hands available than room to use them, my lord. You will excuse me?”

Wallie watched her waddle out to the deck, that incongruous sword hanging on the plump red back, gray ponytail wagging, fleshy arms swinging. He turned to Nnanji and cut off the protests bursting to emerge. ‘Tell me about female swordsmen, brother?”

Nnanji scowled horribly. “It is one of the things about the water rats that annoy other swordsmen. I have heard it argued several times.” Then he quoted three separate conversations between people whom Wallie had never met. More familiar with legal arguments than Nnanji could ever be, he concluded in his own mind that the sutras did not prohibit female swordsmen. They were ambiguous on the subject, and so the water rats were entitled to their interpretation, but it would be unnerving to find oneself fighting a woman. Strictly speaking swordsman had no gender. Swordsperson? How could he think of Nnanji, say, as a swordsperson?

“She must have been good in her youth,” he said, “to have won her red. She could probably put up a good defense even now. Too slow for much of an attack . . . ”

Nnanji smirked. “We’re safe enough, then. I saw no others, except Novice Matarro.”

“Did you get a good look at the sailors?”

“Yes. Why?”

Wallie grinned and headed for the door. He was not quick enough. “My lord brother! Two hundred golds is robbery!”

“I agree.”

“Then you will take it back when we reach Aus?” Nnanji’s eyes burned. He was still under the influence of the barracks propaganda, planning to cut off ears, perhaps.

“No, I will not! When I shake hands I stay bound. I certainly hope Mistress Brota does, also.”

Nnanji stared back blankly.

“You didn’t look at the sailors. You’re not thinking. Come on!”

Honakura had perched himself on a fire bucket just outside the door.

“Did you miss any of that?” Wallie inquired waspishly.

The shriveled old face looked up at him. “I don’t think so, my lord. An interesting lady!”

“And a bloodthirsty son!”

“True. Tell me, do you feel spurned now?” The shrewd old eyes were mocking.

Wallie had never considered that he himself might be the mighty one of the riddle. And he had criticized Nnanji for not thinking? There could be none mightier than a swordsman of the Seventh.

“I hope so,” he said thoughtfully. “I should not like to be spurned much more than that. An army earned?” He had done nothing so far to earn an army. He tried to guess what Honakura was hinting at. The sly old rogue had seen something. “You think that maybe recruiting in Aus will not be as easy as I am hoping?”

“Perhaps. Have you found any circles to turn, yet?”

“Dammit! What have you worked out?”

“Me, my lord? I am but a poor beggar, an old and humble servant . . . ”

Wallie muttered something vulgar and walked away. The little priest was intolerable when he was in that mood.

The clamor in the holds continued, but Sapphire was not listing so badly. Jja was sitting on the deck near the fo’c’sle door, patiently restraining Vixini’s desire to explore the hatch. Cowie was slumped beside them. Katanji was in conversation with two adolescent girls and also Matarro, who was now swordless. He had no ponytail and wore nothing but his breech-clout. At this distance, there was no way to tell that he was not a novice sailor. How many more of the crew were swordsmen?

But the sun was shining, the wind cheerful, and the ship was sliding serenely through the water at a fair rate. Snowcapped peaks of RegiVul loomed along the northeastern skyline, majestic and beautiful.

Wallie walked over to the rail and leaned back against it, studying the deck, the coming and going of people. Nnanji stood beside him, frowning and trying to do the same. Jja rose and came over with Vixini in her arms and Cowie trailing behind.

“You’ve been on ships before, my love,” Wallie said. “How does this one compare?”

She smiled and glanced around the deck. “Only once, master. This one is cleaner.”

“Yes, she’s been well cared for.” Sapphire was old—the knots in the deck planks were raised lumps, evidence of many years of wear—but brass shone, paint and varnish glistened, the cables looked strong and new. The people were well groomed and healthy. Except for a couple of old women in gowns and a few bare children, everyone wore a breechclout. The women supplemented it with a bra sash, tied at the back. On some of them the bikini effect could catch male eyes like flypaper.

“You can take that rascal into the deckhouse,” Wallie said as Vixini began struggling furiously. A preadolescent girl had just shepherded two toddlers in there. Cowie followed behind Jja like a tame sheep.

Nnanji growled throatily. A lanky, dark-haired girl of about his own age was scrambling up the ratlines on the far side. Her twin sashes were yellow and even skimpier than most. The action was very interesting.

“Drop it!” Wallie said.

“I can look, can’t I?” Nnanji protested, with mock hurt.

“Not like that, you can’t! There’s steam coming out of your ears, and your ponytail is standing straight up.”

Nnanji chuckled, but he continued to watch intently, craning his head farther and farther back as the girl went higher.

Brota was seated at the tiller, swordless now—a harness would be uncomfortable over a gown. Tomiyano and another sailor had gone up to the fo’c’sle and were working on the capstan, probably trying to free the jammed anchor chain. Both wore brown breechclouts, but the captain also had a leather belt to support the dagger that was his symbol of office. Everyone else was unarmed; there were no weapons in sight.

“When I came aboard and was paying Brota, the men crowded around. Were they holding weapons behind their backs?”

“Yes, my lord brother. Long knives.”

“Where did they put them afterward, did you notice?”

“No,” Nnanji said grumpily. “They’re not very respectful, are they?”

The passengers were mostly being ignored, but Wallie caught hints of resentful glances that he was not supposed to have seen. Apparently the work in the hold was completed, and two men replaced the planks over the hatches. They walked by the two swordsmen several times without even seeming to notice them.

“None too friendly,” Wallie agreed. “What was it the captain said when he was about to knife me?” Then he quickly added, “Quietly!” as Nnanji drew a deep breath. Tomiyano had shouted, so Nnanji had been about to shout.

“Oh. Right. ‘No damned landlubber swordsman will ever set foot on my deck again! I swore at Yok that—’ That was all I heard.”

Wallie nodded. “It’s what I heard, too.” Back at the tenancy the women had been nervous and jumpy and too friendly. These riverfolk were being not friendly enough, yet somehow he felt a similarity. Again, there was too much tension.

There was one exception. The girl in the yellow sashes came sliding down a rope and then pranced along the deck toward the fo’c’sle. She was too slim to bounce very much, but that did not seem to matter—Nnanji growled once more. If she was trying to attract his attention, she was winning all the medals. She was younger than Wallie had thought at first, about Quili’s age, and tall, dark, and toothsome.

Nnanji sighed, a stupid leer still on his face as he watched her go. “First-rate equipment.”

“Try looking at some of the other sailors, protégé.”

“The others are a bit young for me. I ought to warn the nipper, I suppose . . . ”

“The men.”

Nnanji frowned. “What am I supposed to see, my lord brother?”

“Scars.” Tiny marks on shoulders and ribs, usually on the right side—old scrapes and recent bruises.

Nnanji had been leaning back dreamily against the gunwale. Now he sprang erect, glaring, as his eyes confirmed what Wallie had said. He began spitting sutras. Fifteen: a civilian must not be allowed to touch a sword, except in emergency. Ninety-five: never could he be given a foil. Ninety-nine: never, never, never might a civilian practice fencing with foil or stick . . . He fell silent, staring at Wallie in shock.

“The women have them also,” Wallie said softly. “I suspect that every person on this ship can use a sword.”

“But Brota is a swordsman! This is abomination, my lord brother!”

“Common sense, though. Ships are prey to pirates, are they not? No garrisons to shout for in the middle of the River.”

Nnanji’s reaction had been a surprise. Probably he had not noticed the scars himself because he was so accustomed to seeing them on his friends, but Wallie had been expecting an explanation. If they were truly evidence of an abomination, that could be why Tomiyano was averse to allowing swordsmen aboard. Yet the marks were obvious on every adult Wallie had been able to see, and every port must contain swordsmen to notice them, also. In some respects Nnanji was as innocent of the World as Wallie, and there must be many things he had not heard mentioned in the barracks. Foil scars on sailors might be an example.

“You don’t want me to denounce them?”

“Oh, Nnanji, Nnanji! Think! Brota and I shook hands. We’re guests, of a sort. That’s all that’s standing between us and the fish. I’ve got a fortune on my back and another in my hair. Now—be nice to sailors, please?”

Nnanji could not appreciate danger except from other swordsmen, but he looked uneasily at the sun-bright waters on either side of the ship, at the far-off smudges of shore. A few fishing boats to starboard were the only signs of human life.

“How many in the crew?”

Nnanji shook his head.

“So far I’ve seen five men, six women, five adolescents, and half a dozen children. That must be about all. I think they’re all sailors—apart from Brota and Matarro, of course—but I haven’t had a good look at all the faces.”

“Yes, my lord brother.”

“Now, where did they hide the knives?”

“Hide?” Nnanji looked even more wary.

He peered carefully around the deck. Wallie had never seen him so uneasy; perhaps the landlubber was beginning to appreciate how much of a trap a ship could be. In a few minutes he began to mutter, laying out his logic like playing cards. “Those buckets of sand . . . they don’t grow vegetables . . . fire fighting? Big enough to sit on, but I couldn’t lift one. You could. Why not stack smaller buckets to sit on?” He looked hopefully at Wallie.

“Well done! See, thinking isn’t so hard, is it?”

“It makes my head ache.” But he was pleased by the praise.

“Mentor?”

Wallie turned around to meet Katanji’s earnest gaze. Novice Matarro stood nervously behind him.

“Katanji, we’d better straighten this out—I’m not your mentor, except because of that strange oath Nnanji and I swore, and that’s not standard procedure. So let’s say that I am only your mentor if Nnanji’s not around, all right?”

“Yes, my lord.” Katanji turned glumly to his brother.

Wallie caught Matarro’s eye and winked. The boy twitched in astonishment and then grinned.

“Mentor, may I take my sword off? Mat’o, here, says he’ll take me up the ratlines to the crow’s nest. But swords aren’t allowed aloft.”

Nnanji frowned at the sailor jargon Katanji was flaunting. Wallie could guess at the meanings, but his need to guess showed that Shonsu had never bothered to learn the terms. To a swordsman, evidently, a ship was merely a convenience. “I expect he thinks a landlubber wouldn’t have the nerve to go out on those—what do you call the crosspieces, novice?”

Katanji shot Wallie an alarmed glance to say that he did not need help of that caliber.

“Yards, my lord,” said Matarro.

“Show him, then!” Nnanji said heartily. “Turn cartwheels! I’ll hold your sword. Perhaps he can find you a breechclout, too? A kilt isn’t very suitable for sailoring.”

Astonished by this unexpected indulgence, Katanji hastily stripped off his harness and handed it over, kicked off his boots, then ran off with Matarro. Nnanji’s eyes slid round to Wallie’s again.

Wallie nodded approvingly. “They are more useful.”

Nnanji was a quick learner.

For some time Wallie leaned back against the rail and watched ship life. Two youngsters were playing a board game on one of the hatches, three women peeling vegetables on the other. A very skinny young sailor had begun holystoning the deck. Tomiyano and a couple of other men sat cross-legged in a corner, pretending to splice cable, but mostly keeping a careful eye on the visitors. Laughter drifted out from the deckhouse and down from the rigging, where Katanji and a group of adolescents were apparently clowning, invisible among clouds of sails. The sun was high and warm. Honakura had disappeared. Brota sat like a red mountain at the tiller, chatting to an elderly woman in brown. Traffic on the River was increasing, and that might be a sign that Sapphire was approaching Aus. Or somewhere.

Then Nnanji hissed in astonishment. The girl in the yellow bikini had emerged from the fo’c’sle door. Smiling, she sauntered toward the swordsmen, taking her time so that they could enjoy the hip movement. She was wearing a sword.

Not merely female swordsmen, but young, beautiful, and sexy female swordsmen? Nnanji muttered, “How could a man ever fight that?” Wallie was wondering the same thing.

Tomiyano roared, “Thana!” and leaped to his feet. She turned and frowned as he bounded across to bar her path. He whispered something angrily and tried to stop her, but she dodged past him.

She walked quickly over to Wallie and saluted, while he stared in disbelief at the two swordmarks on her flawless brow. She had shiny black curls and a smooth, coffee-colored skin—an all-over perfect complexion, very little of it not visible. Her face was lovely, with a classic chiseled beauty. She was too young and too slim for his taste, which preferred Jja’s more ample curves; but he thought of fashion models and he could readily admit that few men would spurn this lithesome warrior maiden. Nnanji was almost panting.

Wallie responded and presented Apprentice Thana to his oath brother. Tomiyano hovered in the background, fingering his dagger.

Thana stood demurely with hands folded and eyes downcast below long lashes, waiting for the highrank to speak first. It had not been Nnanji she had been trying to impress. For a moment Wallie was at a loss for words. The crossed straps of her harness pulled the light cotton of her bra sash very tight, with outstanding results, worthy of much study.

He tore his eyes away and took a deep breath. “I was already enjoying my voyage on your fine ship, apprentice. Your company increases the pleasure greatly.”

She contrived a maidenly blush and fanned him with those eyelashes. “You honor us with your presence, my lord.”

“I am not sure that the captain altogether agrees.”

Thana pouted slightly and glanced around to see what Tomiyano was doing—he was leaning against the mainmast and still fingering the dagger.

“Forgive my brother’s rough tongue, my lord. He means no harm.”

The devil he didn’t! Brother? Then this svelte Thana was great, fat Brota’s daughter—incredible! There was no resemblance at all.

Before Wallie could think of a rejoinder, Thana said, “I can see that you bear a remarkable sword, Lord Shonsu. Would you be so gracious as to let me examine it?”

The obvious undertones were not accidental. Wallie drew the seventh sword for her to see. She had probably not been genuinely interested, but that weapon would impress anyone, and she was startled when she saw the Chioxin craftsmanship. He nodded to Nnanji, who eagerly recounted the legend as she studied the great sapphire, the griffon guard, and the chasing on the blade itself.

Tomiyano was not alone among the crew in disapproving of Thana’s fraternization. The women were frowning and the men openly furious. Wallie decided that Thana was a self-willed young minx. Perhaps her mother could handle her, but her brother clearly could not.

“It is wonderful, my lord,” she said at last, gazing earnestly up at Wallie and ignoring Nnanji. “We are fortunate to have this opportunity to aid the chosen champion of the Goddess.”

Wallie sheathed the sword. “I was fortunate to have Sapphire arrive when she did—although I hardly think that it was by chance. She is a fine vessel, and I can see that she is well looked after.”

More fluttering of lashes. “You are kind, Lord Shonsu.”

“Thirty years old, I think your mother said?”

“Oh, she is older than that! My grandfather . . . bought her. He was captain until about two years ago. He died of a fever. He was a great sailor. Then Tom’o took over.” She shrugged. “He’s crude, but not a bad sailor, I suppose.”

“Why not your father?”

Thana sighed conspicuously. “Daddy died a long time ago. Besides, he was a trader. We riverfolk have a saying, my lord, ‘A trader for the head, a swordsman for the hands, and a sailor for the feet.’ We lack a trader at the moment. My older brother, Tomiyarro—now there was a trader! He could buy the shell off a turtle and sell it feathers, Mother always said.”

“Then how do you trade?” asked Wallie, who could guess. He was being vamped. She was too young to have much skill at it, but that very youth made even her clumsy efforts effective.

“Oh, Mother handles it,” Thana said offhandedly.

“Mistress Brota is a very shrewd negotiator.”

Thana sniggered. “You outsmarted her, my lord.”

“I did?”

“She got a nice sapphire out of you, but she was really after your hairclip.”

Not knowing what to say to that, Wallie looked at Nnanji, but Nnanji was glassy-eyed. Time to change the subject. “Your brother said this was a family ship. Who are the others, apart from your mother and brother?”

“Cousins,” Thana said. “Uncles and aunts. Dull! I so rarely get to meet any—” She sighed deeply. “—real men.”

“So obviously you have no Jonahs, yet you were brought here by Her Hand last night?”

“It is exciting!” Thana said, with a nervous glance at the landscape. “That has never happened to us before.”

“So your mother said. I expect you will be returned to your home waters as soon as we disembark.”

“Well, I hope not!” She tossed her curls. “We’ve been trading between Hool and Ki for years and years and years. It’s very dull. I keep telling Mother to try somewhere new.”

“And why does she not, then?”

“Profit!” Thana spoke with contempt. “She knows the markets. Sandal wood from Hool to Ki, pots and baskets from Ki to Hool. Back and forth, back and forth. Dull! This is an adventure! We’re not even in the tropics any more, are we?”

“No, we’re not. But excitement can be dangerous.”

Thana smiled winningly. “What should we fear when we have a swordsman of the Seventh on board? I’m sure you could handle a whole shipful of pirates all by yourself, Lord Shonsu.”

“I certainly hope I don’t have to!”

Pirates could be a tricky subject, bringing in the matter of sailors using swords. No sooner had that thought occurred to Wallie than Nnanji blundered into the conversation. “It must be very difficult for you to get fencing practice, Apprentice Thana?”

The topic did not seem to bother her. She turned to look at him rather calculatingly. “Indeed it is, adept. Would you be so kind as to give me a lesson after lunch?”

Nnanji beamed. “I should be delighted!”

Thana smiled and turned back to her main business, Wallie. Wallie had not liked that smile.

“We must be getting close to Aus,” he said. “So there may not be any ‘after lunch.’ But surely we are your Jonahs, and it is said that Jonahs bring a ship good luck.”

“We need it!” Thana dropped her voice conspiratorially. “I have wondered sometimes, Lord Shonsu, if we were cursed.”

“How so?” Wallie sensed the approach of some creative storytelling.

“Well, first my grandfather . . . then Uncle Matyrri died of a cut on his hand . . . and then pirates! A year ago. They killed my brother, and another uncle, and one of my cousins died of wounds later.”

“That’s terrible!”

“Yes. It was tragic. I’ve gotten over the worst of it, you know, but of course I still miss them terribly.”

“This was at Yok?” Wallie inquired.

She reeled backward as if he had struck her, turning so pale that he thought she might be going to faint.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Tomiyano had half drawn his dagger. He was too far off to have heard the words, but he had seen his sister’s reaction.

What had Wallie provoked? “Your brother mentioned Yok.”

She nodded dumbly, staring at him, trembling,

“I assume that these pirates were renegade swordsmen?”

Thana licked white lips and then merely nodded again, seemingly incapable of speech. Wallie felt that he was walking a sheet of glass over an abyss. Tomiyano was not the only one to have noticed.

Wallie lowered his voice. “Of course I would not say this to anyone outside our craft, apprentice, but a bent swordsman is a terrible abomination . . . deserving of no mercy.” He glanced swiftly at the perplexed Nnanji. Even he had noticed Thana’s terror, but he had not yet worked out the only possible explanation. “My oath brother and I ran into a band of renegades two days ago. We dealt with them severely. The World is a better place without such scum.”

Thana seemed to relax slightly, and a trace of color crept back into her cheeks. “That . . . that sentiment does you great honor, my lord.”

“Such things are better not discussed,” Wallie said pompously, and looked to Nnanji for agreement.

Nnanji said, “Er? What?”

Then adults and children began emerging from the fo’c’sle carrying baskets of fruit and loaves. Wallie felt relief like a cool breeze. “Ah! Here comes lunch! You watch what happens now, apprentice. This is where Adept Nnanji gets back all the profit your mother hopes to make on my sapphire.”

††††

By the People’s standards, the riverfolk were an informal lot. Lunch was laid out on the forward hatch cover, and the people sat around wherever they liked, on hatches or buckets or the deck. The food was plain but satisfying: fruit and cheese and sausage. Brota yielded the tiller to Tomiyano after a heated discussion that included covert glances toward the swordsmen. Then she parked her massive form on the rear hatch and proceeded to demonstrate how she had acquired her bulk, almost rivaling Nnanji’s Gargantuan efforts.

Crew and passengers separated into clumps. Wallie was given a wide berth, but Katanji had won acceptance by the younger sailors. Nnanji attached himself to Thana and was gobbling without pause, while animatedly relating how Lord Shonsu had been given the seventh sword. He was using the version Wallie had given Garadooi, almost word for word, and that was safe.

Wallie sat crooked-leg on the deck, leaning against the starboard bulwark with Jja at his side, trying not to seem as worried as he felt. Clearly his mission was going to be more complex than he had thought. Granted that Sapphire had been sent to rescue him from the sorcerers, her purpose must be more than merely transporting him to Aus. What exactly had happened at Yok a year ago? Thana had mentioned pirates, but that was not what Tomiyano had said. Thana’s panic had been horribly reminiscent of Quili’s apprehension when Wallie had brought up the subject of assassinations. These sailors were not humble peasants who would flee into the hills; any hint that Lord Shonsu was prying into a murky past would bring the knives out of the fire buckets very quickly. Hostility hung over the sunny deck like invisible fog.

There had been no concealment at Ov—Garadooi had proved that—but Sapphire could have reported a crime to swordsmen in any city on the River, so the first answer did not work for the second problem. The next city up ahead might not be Aus. It might be Yok.

Wallie had chosen the wrong side to sit for a good view of the mountains, but Sapphire’s tacking let him catch a glimpse of them now and again. They were faint and blue in the noon heat, not visibly changing.

He needed a talk with Honakura, but private conversation was impossible on this crowded deck. The old man was sitting happily on a hatch cover, chatting to a woman as ancient as himself.

The meal drew to a close. Children began clearing up the food. Without a glance at Lord Shonsu, Brota stumped off to relieve her son at the tiller. Tomiyano trotted down from the poop and began assembling a meal for himself before the baskets were removed.

People were staring out to starboard. Wallie rose. Sapphire was arriving at a city.

At first glance he could see nothing remarkable about it. The mountains of RegiVul stood unchanged to the northeast, so it could only be Aus, and it looked much as Wallie would have expected a city of the World to look. Lying on flat ground, it was already largely obscured by the high warehouses of the dockyards—two- and three-story wooden buildings, weathered silver and topped by red tile roofs. Beyond those roofs a few gold spires and taller buildings of gray stone with the same red tiles stood stark against the cobalt noontime sky. The frontage of warehouses was broken by narrow alleylike streets winding back into the town. The bustling crowds were too far off to distinguish the colors of their ranks, but seemed to be composed of quite unexceptional people going about unexceptional business. Sapphire was picking her way among anchored ships of many types and sizes, and others were moored along the quay. Horse-drawn wagons rumbled along the streets, their sound wafted over the water by the wind.

Wallie studied the roadway for a while, looking for swordsmen, but it was still too distant. Then he took another look at the buildings.

Then he took three long strides over to the hatch cover where Tbmiyano was eating.

“Captain? What is that tower?”

The sailor flashed him a hostile glance and then stared at the city. He chewed for a while, swallowed, and said, “No idea.”

“You’ve never seen one like it?”

“No.” He laughed contemptuously. “You thinking it might be full of sorcerers, swordsman?”

Yes. Garadooi had talked of sorcerers building a tower in Ov. Several of Nnanji’s stories had mentioned towers, although none of them had described what sorcerer towers should look like. The structure that concerned Wallie was quite unlike anything else visible in Aus—assuming that this was Aus. It was square and dark and much taller than anything else. It stood close behind the row of warehouses, a block from the riverfront. Its windows were blacker gaps in the black stonework. It was sinister.

“I have never seen anything like that, either,” Wallie said, without mentioning that he had never seen a city of the World before. “If my suspicions are correct, then it is not only me who will be at risk, Captain. Your mother and sister are swordsmen also.”

Tomiyano snorted. “I am sure they will defend you. You paid your fare to here, Lord Shonsu, Here you are. Here you stay.”

Then he added, “Good riddance.”

Nnanji caught Wallie’s eye. Nnanji was thinking the same thing he was.

Wallie marched to the nearer steps, trotted up to the poop, and strode over to where Brota sat by the tiller.

“That tower, mistress? Have you ever seen anything like that before?”

“Down, please, my lord. I need to see.”

Restraining his warming temper, Wallie knelt. Please do not speak to the driver. Now he saw that Brota was performing some tricky maneuvers, bringing her ship in through a crowded anchorage in a fitful breeze. The wind seemed to be failing.

“No,” she said. She frowned. “No, I haven’t.”

Neither Quili nor Garadooi had ever been to Aus, and suddenly Wallie remembered the inexplicable something he had seen on the face of one of Lady Thondi’s companions. Thondi associated with highrank sorcerers. If they had taken over Aus as well as Ov, then both she and her friends would know about it. Hilarious—Wallie had been heading from frying pan to fire. That would also explain why the pursuit in the mountains had not been more strenuous.

He did not need to explain for Brota. She glowered at the mysterious building, her strangely masculine eyebrows lowered in thought. “You bought passage to this city, my lord.”

“No, I did not. I bought passage to the nearest city where I could enlist swordsmen.”

She grunted. “So you did. Well, I have never heard of sorcerers near the River. Yes, I’ve heard tell of them in mountain lands, but they worship the Fire God. The Goddess would not . . . ” She glanced at Wallie’s sword and stopped.

Tomiyano wandered up the steps, munching a peach. He leaned against the gunwale and regarded the kneeling swordsman with disdain. The city was coming closer. Wallie twisted around to study the crowded dock road again, wishing heartily that he had a good pair of binoculars. “If I am correct, mistress, then you are in danger also.”

“Not as many as I would have expected for a place this size.” Brota was counting the ships tied along the dock and those anchored out in the River. “But every ship carries water rats, my lord.”

“Maybe not here.”

She reached up and untied the bow that held her pony tail. The graying hair fell loose about her shoulders. “One city is much like another to a trader. I have cargo to sell. You take your swordsmen into the deckhouse, my lord, and we shall see.”

Wallie could not argue further, not with the contemptuous sailor listening. He rose and stalked away.

As he stood by the deckhouse door, ushering his charges ahead of him, he stared again at the approaching dock. It was still just too far off to distinguish either swordsmen or cowled sorcerers, but getting close enough that he, in turn, would soon be visible to them. He ducked inside quickly.

Nnanji was pouting at this concealment, but had the sense to say nothing. Wallie walked around, closing the shutters and opening their louvers so that he could see out without being seen. Honakura had parked his tiny form on one of the big chests and was smirking.

“Don’t tell me I should have expected this!” Wallie growled.

“I would never be so crass, my lord.”

Wallie sat down beside him. They were directly below the helmsman, but enough shouting and wagon noises were drifting across the water to drown quiet voices. Quickly he recounted the mysteries he had uncovered on Sapphire: the interview with Thana, and the problem of sailors with foil scars.

The old man reacted with some glee. He was enjoying himself immensely. “As far as the scars are concerned, my lord, I think I have observed them on sailors.”

“But never on other civilians?”

Honakura shook his head. “And I have known sailors to seek absolution for killing men in sword fights.”

“There must be a sutra, then. Certainly it would make sense to let sailors defend themselves against pirates.” Not that the World always made sense. Wallie pondered and caught himself nibbing his chin, a mannerism Nnanji had begun to copy. But eleven hundred and forty-four sutras took too long to search and must wait until another time.

“Also,” Honakura remarked innocently, “I was talking to Swordsman Lina . . . ”

“Who? I didn’t know there was another—you mean that antique crone you were sitting beside at lunch?”

“Well, if you mink her age discredits her testimony . . . ”

“Beg pardon, old man! Forgive me.”

Honakura snorted. “She said one thing I ought to pass along. ‘Warn that fine lord of yours not to try his swordwork on the captain.’ ”

“She’s color-blind!”

Honakura bridled. “Senile, I expect.” He went into a sulk and refused to say more.

Sapphire nudged gently against fenders.

Wallie stood by a window, next to Nnanji, who was cuddling Vixini in sullen silence. Lines had been thrown, and men were making them fast . . . perhaps sailors from other ships, for they waved cheerily as crewmen called down thanks. One of the gates was thrown open, and a gangplank laid ready, but it was not run out.

Nothing more seemed to be happening. Jja and Katanji and Honakura had gathered around the other dockside window. Even Cowie was peering out at another, although she probably did not know what she was looking for.

The dock road was much too narrow for its traffic, squeezed between the water and die warehouses. A much larger ship directly aft was unloading bales of cloth and gray sacks, with many slaves milling around and wagons lined up to be loaded. Carts full of firewood rumbled slowly past at intervals in one direction, wagons loaded with building lumber in the other, the iron-shod wheels deafening on the cobbles. Solitary horsemen and sedan chairs and handcarts provided more hazards for the dodging pedestrians. It all looked like a port should. It smelled of dust and horses and fish and river.

Then Nnanji hissed and pointed. Two sorcerers were progressing through the crowd, a brown Third and an orange Fourth. Cowls hid their faces and long hems their feet; their arms were folded inside voluminous sleeves. The effect was sinister and impersonal. They strolled as if patrolling, heads moving slightly from side to side, pace slow and regular. The other pedestrians made way for them. After a few heart-stopping moments they had passed the ship and were continuing on their way. Wallie released a long breath that he had not known he was holding.

The door flew open and Brota rolled in. She scowled at Wallie and then stood aside as Thana followed. Then came young Matarro, struggling with a long leather bag, and finally the very old woman who had to be Swordsman Lina. Brota banged the door closed. She had seen the sorcerers, obviously, and was going into hiding, along with the Sapphire’s other swordsmen. None of them bore swords, and only Brota had long hair.

Matarro dropped the bag and it clinked. Nnanji stiffened. He thrust Vixini back at Jja and went prowling over to inspect that bag.

“It is not my doing,” Wallie said. “You would have come here anyway—there are only Black Lands downstream.”

Brota pulled a face and lifted flabby arms to tie up her pony-tail.

“What are we waiting for, mistress?”

“Port officer.”

“Is that a craft?”

She rolled her eyes at such ignorance. “No. It is a sinecure. The king’s nephew or an elder’s son or such trash—swindlers, bloodsuckers, and bastards . . . 

“They’re usually faster after our money than this,” she added sourly.

Having to bend forward under the low ceiling, Wallie drew his sword . . . just in case. Nnanji had been rummaging in the bag of swords that Matarro had brought; he drew his own and rose. The gangplank ran out with a screech and a thud. The watchers moved to the windows on the deck side.

Thana stood very close by Wallie, peering through the louvers. “Oo!” she whispered. “That’s very nice!”

Her enthusiasm was understandable. The young man striding up the plank was almost as tall as Wallie, moving with a smooth grace. He could have been carved from oiled walnut—very dark and notably handsome, wearing orange sandals and breechclout, with a gaudily embossed leather pouch slung over his shoulder. Wallie thought of beach wear advertisements.

The newcomer flashed white teeth at Tomiyano and made his salute. “I am Ixiphino, sailor of the fourth rank, port officer of Aus, and it is my deepest and most humble wish that the Goddess Herself will see fit to grant you long life and happiness and to induce you to accept my modest and willing service in any way in which I may advance any of your noble purposes.”

Tomiyano made his reply with surprising grace, while the visitor’s eyes slid back and forth, studying the assembled sailors. The men were all near to fire buckets, Wallie noticed. Dislike of swordsmen did not automatically make them sorcerer supporters.

“I welcome you and your ship to Aus, Captain,” said the beachwear model with another shimmering smile, “on behalf of the elders and the wizard.”

“Wizard?”

“Ah! Your first visit to these parts? Yes, the wizard is the ominous Lord Yzarazzo, sorcerer of the Seventh. Aus has long been free of swordsman barbarism.”

“What about water rats?”

Again the teeth shone. “They will not be molested if they stay on board. We have two local laws I must explain, Captain. The first is simply that any swordsman setting foot ashore will be delisted. Permanently.”

Tomiyano reddened. “My mother is a swordsman. She normally handles our trading.”

“That is unfortunate. She may trade from the deck. If she steps off the plank, she will violate the law.” Ixiphino shrugged and then chuckled. “But she will find that Aus is a good place to trade. Trading on deck is not uncommon, and the profits will probably be higher than you are used to.”

“Why?”

“Because some ships have a prejudice against sorcerer towns, so fewer call than before. But the traders are honest—relatively speaking, of course—and the people are peaceable.”

“Then the sorcerers keep order?”

The port officer laughed. “They do, and very well, too.”

The man had not once looked at the deckhouse, although the crew members were carefully leaving that side of him clear, for the benefit of the watchers. Curious!

“What does a sorcerer do if, say, the apprentices riot?” Tomiyano asked.

Another laugh. “We keep our apprentices under better control than that, Captain. But we have had violent persons—visiting swordsmen have attempted violence on occasion. I can tell you that the sorcerers’ methods are just as effective as the swordsmen’s. More so, I should say. A spell can be cast from a distance.”

Tomiyano was a skeptic. “Turning them into frogs?”

“Turning them into corpses, Captain. Sometimes charred corpses.” Pause. Within the dim deckhouse, glances were exchanged.

The officer was still being amiable. “But apart from that one restriction, Captain, Aus is like any other city and more pleasant than most. The trading fee is two golds.”

The captain raised his eyebrows into the fringe of his hair. “That seems very reasonable.”

“In most cities that is the fee. The difference is graft, and my masters do not permit that.”

Tomiyano silently handed over two coins and shook hands. The young man bowed his handsome head slightly and turned as if to go.

“You said two laws?”

“Oh, yes. Stupid of me.” The port officer flashed his smile again. “There is an absolute restriction against swordsmen of high rank—Sixths or Sevenths. They are not even allowed in port. But such are rare. You have no free swords aboard, do you?”

“Of course not,” said Tomiyano.

The officer turned to look at the deckhouse, then back to Tomiyano with quiet amusement. “And you swear that by your ship, sailor?”

Sweat broke out on Wallie’s brow. His hand tightened on the hilt of the seventh sword.

“I do.”

Nnanji drew breath with a hiss.

The port officer gave the captain a long cynical smile, shaking his head as one might disapprove of a naughty child. Then he spun on his heel and departed, his sandals slapping on the gangplank. Tomiyano absentmindedly wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and began shouting orders.

“My lord brother!”

Here it came. Ever since the first time they had met, Wallie had known of Nnanji’s impossible idealism. He had known that some day it must lead to trouble. And here Nnanji had an open-and-shut case.

“I have told you that you cannot make a denunciation to me, Nnanji. Will you denounce the captain to his mother?”

Nnanji flushed scarlet and glared around the group. Even in the gloom of the shuttered deckhouse, Thana, Lina, and Matarro were visibly hostile. Brota’s eyes were chips of steel.

“I think my son’s remark was made for your benefit, adept!”

“I do not hide behind perjury, mistress! Then my own honor would be sullied.”

This was insanity! Suicide! Wallie had two cities full of sorcerers to worry about now, and Nnanji was provoking the sailors as if he actually wanted to be thrown ashore. He would certainly not live to the next port, nor would Wallie. Then Wallie saw away out.

“It was not perjury, Nnanji. It was simple, honest-to-Goddess truth. We are not free swords.”

Nnanji turned to stare at him blankly.

“You told me there were three types of swordsmen. You missed one—mercenaries.”

“Well, that’s not really a type, lord brother. I mean the chance doesn’t come up very often.” Nnanji was ambivalent about mercenaries. Taking money to wage war was barely honorable. On the other hand, mercenaries could wallow in blood and feats of honor.

“Nevertheless, we are on a specific mission for the Goddess. Therefore we are mercenaries, not free swords! So the captain spoke the truth. Now shut up!”

“Yes, mentor.”

Brota gave Wallie a long, hard look and then almost smiled. “You swear that, my lord?”

“By my sword.”

She nodded, apparently satisfied.

Tomiyano marched in and pulled the door closed behind. He leaned against it and glared at Wallie. Old Lina threw open a shutter on the River side, admitting gratifying light and fresh air.

“Thank you, Captain,” Wallie said.

“He knew you were here!”

“Apparently.”

“I think we should leave,” Brota muttered. “I don’t like this.”

“Can’t!” her son snapped. “No wind now. Calm as milk.”

Wallie was not surprised. “I should prefer that you stay awhile, anyway.”

Brota scowled. “You mean that? Why?”

“Because,” Wallie said, “I have to learn more about sorcerers. The Goddess would not have given me an impossible task, so there must be some way to fight them. They must have a weakness. I can’t guess what it is, and the only way to find out is to ask questions in places like this. How many more cities have been captured? When? How? Where is the nearest swordsman city? Those sorts of questions. You can find out for me, mistress; you and your crew. It will be a service to the Most High.”

It might be a penance, also, but Wallie was not about to inquire about Sapphire’s cryptic past.

Tomiyano looked at his mother and she nodded. “I’ll lay out some samples, then,” he said grudgingly.

“Two questions, “ Wallie said. “You shook the port officer’s hand. Was it smooth or calloused?”

“Smooth. Why?”

“Not a sailor’s hand?”

The captain’s eyes narrowed. “I expect his father is an elder, or something. He’s just a playboy sailor. Never mind that—”

“Second question: have you ever in your life queried a tax for being too low?”

Tbmiyano’s face reddened. “What the demons does that matter? You saw and heard, didn’t you? He knew about you. The sorcerers have told him.”

“He was a sorcerer,” Wallie said.

Facemarks were so basic to their culture that the idea took a while to sink in. Brota seemed to accept it first, and her shrewd eyes shrank to slits within their wrinkles. “Why do you say that?”

“Because he refused the extra money,” Wallie said. “If that really is the custom, as he said?” She nodded. “So? He did that to persuade us that his masters were all-seeing, all-powerful. But he didn’t act like a flunky being watched by his masters—he was amused, relaxed. And you can’t buy that sort of higher loyalty, because he could take the extra salary and demand the graft, too. His hand is smooth. He is a sorcerer.”

The others exchanged frightened glances.

“Well, we’re here,” Wallie said. “Go and do your trading. But remember that anyone may be a sorcerer, regardless of facemarks. I suggest you don’t allow more than one stranger on board at a time.”

“My lord brother?”

“Yes?”

“Sorcerers can make themselves invisible. The ship may be full of them already.”

Wallie groaned. “Thanks, Nnanji. Good thinking.”

†††††

A display of lumber and a few brass pots had been set up on the quay. Brota settled into a chair on deck and waited for customers. Sailors slipped down into the crowd and wandered off in search of information, river lore as well as military intelligence. Honakura went also, at his tortoise pace, and he was sure to be a shrewd investigator. Hawkers came by with carts, calling wares. Old Lina tottered down to haggle over pink plucked fowls and baskets of strawberries. From time to time sorcerers went by in pairs, paying no especial attention to Sapphire. The afternoon wore on, hot and airless.

Nnanji had gone back to sit by Matarro’s bag of swords. He had scowled over each one in turn, finding them much shorter than he expected, and had finally pulled out his whetstone and started to sharpen them.

Vixini had gone to sleep. Jja and Cowie sat like sculptures, with slaves’ unlimited patience. Wallie watched through the shutters.

“Mentor,” Katanji said. “May I go out on deck?”

“No. Why aren’t you wearing your sword?”

“My kilt is downst—below decks, in Mat’o’s cabin.”

Nnanji grunted and went back to whetting. Wallie did not interfere, although he saw no reason why Katanji should be imprisoned as he and Nnanji were. Katanji had no ponytail and his facemark was a festering red sore, almost unreadable even at close quarters.

Time passed. Nothing much happened. A trader sniffed disparagingly at Brota’s lumber and walked on. The first two sorcerers went by again. Nnanji’s whetstone scraped nastily and untiringly. Honakura wandered back past the ship to explore in the other direction. Katanji fretted, mooning from window to window. Wallie grew tired of standing, rolling his problems around in his mind until he was giddy. Always the answer was the same—he must have more information.

It was not fair! How could he wage a war unless he knew his enemies’ powers? Military intelligence was what he needed. Mata Hari . . . George Smiley . . . In Thondi’s house he had been a whodunnit detective. Now he found himself in a spy thriller, and the damnable facemarks of the People made it impossible. He needed to become, for a while, James Bond, or even Travis McGee. A few days as a longshoreman or a porter in Aus would let him uncover the data he needed, but he had seven swords indelibly engraved on his forehead.

Nnanji’s whetstone made a tooth-jarring screech.

That did it.

Several times, Wallie had been forced to remember that emotions were not a mental process. In acquiring Shonsu’s body, he had also acquired his glands. He had learned to look out for danger signals when he had his sword in his hand and adrenaline could be expected, but sometimes those glands could sneak up on him.

As now.

Frustration, impotence, the ignominy of hiding, even perhaps some residual jet lag, all suddenly boiled over. Wallie Smith lost Shonsu’s temper.

“Hell!” he snapped. “I’m going ashore!”

Nnanji looked up approvingly. “Right!” he said, and put away his whetstone.

“You’re staying here,” Wallie told him. “You’ll guard my sword and my hairclip. Katanji, go to Brota and ask her for some black cloth. Shut up, Nnanji.”

Ten minutes later, he had stripped down to a piece of black burlap around his loins and a rag around his brow. He had never felt more naked, and his conscience was whimpering cautions at him, but it was too late to back down. He started for the door.

“My lord brother!” Clutching Wallie’s harness and sword, Nnanji was glaring mutinously. “This is wrong! A swordsman without his sword is without his honor. You asked me to tell you—”

“Your objection is noted.” Wallie stepped around him and marched out on deck.

Brota stood with fists on hips and looked him over without expression. “You’re all beef and no brains. What are you trying to prove? It’s stupid!”

Insolence! But he was not a lord of the Seventh when his head was bound. He walked by her without a word.

Jja stood at the top of the plank, pale and troubled. He smiled cheerfully and tried to get by her, also, but she stepped in his path and put her arms around him.

“Master, please? I know a slave should not say such things, but please do not do this! It is very dangerous.”

“Danger is my business, Jja.”

He kissed her forehead and eased her out of his way.

She clung to him. “Please . . . Wallie?”

She never called him that except when they were making love.

He shook his head. “We must trust in the Goddess, darling.”

He looked both ways for sorcerers. Not seeing any, he trotted down the plank and mingled into the pedestrians, settling to their pace. He had a good view over people’s heads, and no one seemed to pay much attention to him, although he intercepted a few scowls that he found more puzzling than threatening. He strolled past display tables loaded with wares and guarded by traders; past hawkers’ carts bearing piles of bright fruits, golden loaves, and heaps of bloody meat encrusted with flies; past stationary wagons with horses tossing their nose bags in a jingle of harness. He stepped out of the way of other wagons rumbling along; he jostled in and out of the crowd and was careful not to get his bare toes stepped on, or stub them on the cobbles. He scanned the litter of trade goods being loaded and unloaded. He began to enjoy himself.

The air was still; hot and sticky. The docks of Aus stank, but he was having fun.

Then he saw a couple of cowls approaching. Turning his back on them, he squeezed into a group around a hawker’s cart where lumps of something were being roasted on a brazier and offered on sticks. The old man tending it gave him one of the scowls he had noticed and then muttered, “Here, then,” and handed him a stick.

Now Wallie recalled that beggars also wore black and bound their heads. So the mighty Shonsu was a beggar, a big, husky beggar who should go and find an honest job? He suppressed a grin, thinking of his pocketful of jewels back at the ship. He bit into the offering and found it rubbery but delicious, hot and spicy. On a second mouthful he decided that it was octopus, or squid. Fresh-water octopus?

In return he mumbled a benediction: “May She strengthen your arm and sharpen your eye.”

The scruffy old hawker recoiled in shock, and at once Wallie wished he could bite back his words, for that was a swordsman’s blessing. The hawker was frowning—an athletic young man with long hair . . . 

Wallie grinned. “As they say.”

The hawker’s eye flickered over Wallie’s shoulder, to about the spot where the sorcerers might have reached. “Not any more,” he whispered. “Not here.” Then he shouted, “Be off with you!”

Wallie glanced round and the sorcerers had passed. He set off again through the crowd, chewing on his snack. He passed a ship unloading baskets of vegetables, another loading tiles. Then be stopped in surprise, causing a man behind to bump into him and curse. Just ahead was a large, two-horse wagon, parked by a small ship. Sacks from the wagon were being carried up the plank by a gang of youths, and the plank squeaked loudly with every step. Beyond it the dock was heaped with goods—mostly long rolls of cloth, with a few anonymous bales and bundles. In front of the plank, closer to Wallie, the rest of the ship’s cargo had been spread out all over the ground, from ship to wagon: boxes and jars, but mainly copper and brass pots, shining bright in the sunshine.

What had caught Wallie’s eye among this clutter were two large, snakelike copper coils. Studying the collection of pots, he identified a couple that were as big as garbage cans and had lids and narrow spouts at the top. Hypothesis: the coils fitted on top of the pots. That meant distillation.

Wine, yes; beer, yes; but he knew of no words for brandy or moonshine or spirits or alcohol. Was this sorcery? Excited by his discovery, he headed toward the ship.

And there was Tomiyano, talking to a sailor. He saw Wallie at the same moment as Wallie saw him, and his face blazed with rage. He broke off his conversation and strode over.

“What in hell are you doing, Shonsu?” he demanded in a low and furious voice.

“Snooping,” Wallie said. “I am a Nameless One, though. Only swordsmen may search me.”

The captain was not amused. “There’s enough under that headband to kill you seven times over. You’re endangering my ship!”

Perhaps he was, but Wallie smiled innocently. “No I’m not. Your ship is safer with me ashore. Now tell me, see those copper snakes? What are they, and what are they for?”

Tomiyano looked around reluctantly. “I’ve no idea,” he said. “Come over here, out of sight.”

He returned to the bottom of the plank, and Wallie followed, safely hidden from general view by the high-piled wagon. The gang of grubby adolescents and young men continued bearing sacks on board, many of them trailing a trickle of yellow dust behind them, while a blowsy woman leaned over the rail and counted on an abacus. The older sailor wore a captain’s dagger and he was pulling sacks down from the wagon for his workers. The ship’s hull was shabby and badly in need of paint. It was a mean and dirty parody of the family ship that Wallie had left.

The captain was overweight, gray-haired, and looked both stupid and lazy, compared to the sinewy Tomiyano as their respective ships compared. He eyed Wallie suspiciously, but greeted Tomiyano’s return as an opportunity to break off work once more and continue their chat. When the next adolescent came for a sack, Wallie hauled one down and loaded it on his back. Then he did the same for the others; that would keep the captain talking.

Wallie eavesdropped. Down from Aus were shoals, said the sailor, and beyond those the Black Lands—no cities and no people for two weeks’ sailing. Captain Tomiyano should head up. Next city was Ki San, big and rich. No sorcerers there. Things had been slack in Aus ever since the sorcerers came. Ki San would pay more for luxury stuff like sandal wood. A big copper and brass city, Ki San. That was a natural opening for Tomiyano to ask about the coils—and the sailor closed like a constipated clam, an obstinate oyster. Coils he would not discuss.

Now Tomiyano’s curiosity was aroused, also, and he went over to examine the mysteries. Wallie joined him. The tubing was made from soldered copper sheeting, but it was skillfully wrought, and when Wallie picked one up he had no trouble in attaching it to one of the two big pots. The lids were tight-fitting, and both pots were empty, but they could only be intended for distillation. The old sailor was nervous and trying to change the subject, although in answer to a direct question he admitted that the goods were headed for the tower. Tomiyano, obviously intrigued now and being helpful to his silent companion, offered to buy one and was emphatically turned down.

“What would a sailor want with those?” asked a high-pitched voice behind them.

Wallie spun around and found himself facing two sorcerers.

One of them was holding a silver fife.

Both were strangely bulky in their cumbersome garments. The taller was a man of about forty, wearing a Fourth’s orange. A thin, suspicious face showed from under his hood, and his arms were folded inside his sleeves.

The other was in brown and had three feather marks. He was plumper and younger. His lips were curled in an arrogant sneer, close to the mouthpiece of that slim silver tube. Three notes on one of those had been enough to kill Random.

The remark had been addressed to Tomiyano, but both sorcerers were looking at Wallie.

Trickles of sweat ran cold on his ribs; he was trapped. On one side was the wagon and on the other the ship, with the sorcerers blocking the exit toward Sapphire. Behind him the way was obstructed by the litter of trade goods and the gangplank and the mountain of rolled cloth. He could think of at least three sutras that should have warned him, quite apart from common sense. Nnanji’s honor, Brota’s practicality, Jja’s love—he had spurned them all and now must pay for his folly.

Worst of all, he did not know what dangers he faced. Could a man outrun a spell? Even if he were facing only knives or swords, he would have little hope of escaping by dodging and taking to his heels, although the sorcerers’ gowns would impede them if it came to a chase. If all they had to do was blow into that fife, or they could chant some words to turn him into a charred corpse . . . 

“Just curious, adept,” Tomiyano said in a voice unusually humble. “We hadn’t seen anything like them before.”

“Curiosity is dangerous, sailor,” the Fourth replied, without looking at him, “especially for swordsmen of the seventh rank. Would you not agree now . . . Wallie?”

††††††

Impossible! Jja knew that name, and Honakura, and Nnanji. No one else in the World. Even had one of them been captured, there had been no time to extract information, by torture or . . . or by any means that Wallie could imagine.

Jja had spoken his name at the top of the gangplank. There had been no one within earshot. Not even Brota could possibly have heard that. It had to be invisibility. Or telepathy.

But if the sorcerers had either of those abilities, then they were unbeatable.

“Oh, you do look worried!” The sorcerer smirked. “And you told Jja that you would trust in the Goddess?”

No one could have overheard that.

Wallie knew he had gone pale and he was struggling desperately to keep himself from trembling. Fear, yes. Fear of the unknown, more so. But mostly fury at his own utter brainlessness. Idiot!

“Move!” the Fourth snapped. “Move over there!” He nodded toward the plank.

The ship’s captain was perhaps not as stupid as he seemed—he had fled up to the safety of his deck. Work had stopped.

Wallie hesitated, then shrugged and turned. He picked his way through the pots, halting when he reached the plank to look back at the sorcerer.

“The other side—against the ship!” the Fourth commanded in his squeaky voice.

Obediently Wallie moved to the edge of the dock and ducked under the plank.

The sorcerer nodded in satisfaction. “I don’t like the smell of swordsmen.” His laugh was as shrill as his voice.

The junior sorcerer grinned. ‘Take off that headband!” he ordered. He had folded his arms like his superior, and the flute had disappeared. Was that perhaps a short-range magic?

Wallie shook his head and spoke for the first time. “I am a Nameless One, serving the Goddess.” His voice sounded steadier than he had expected.

“You are a swordsman of the seventh rank! And here we honor the Fire God. Take off that rag and tie your hair back.”

Wallie obeyed in silence.

Why did both sorcerers now have their hands hidden inside their voluminous sleeves? They seemed to be holding something in there, either a weapon or some sort of magical charm, Wallie assumed. A knife would be bad enough, and he had no idea how to fight magic. Their eyes were cold in the shadow of their cowls, but they seemed more relaxed, now that their captive was farther away. Could that mean that their spells would take time to operate, and they needed distance between them and their victims? If so, then Wallie had already been outsmarted, for now he was even more hemmed in than before, by the drop to the water on one side, the rolls of cloth behind him, and the chest-high plank in front.

He glanced down. The fenders and the curve of the bow left a gap between the dock and the peeling wood of the ship. There was room enough to jump there, into the deceptively innocent water. On Earth he would not have hesitated, but here even in harbor the water was free of floating litter except for a few fragments of wood. He could no longer trust to the gods to recognize his ignorance and save him from the piranha. He had been warned—miracles were never performed upon demand. That way of escape was closed.

“Jump if you wish,” mocked the senior sorcerer. “It will save me a spell and save the trouble of pushing you over afterward.”

“I’ll wait,” Wallie replied, as calmly as he could manage.

The sorcerer sneered at him triumphantly. Then he spoke to his companion without taking his eyes off the swordsman. “We should deal with the sailor accomplice first.”

“Leave him out of this!” Wallie shouted. “He never met me before today. I took his ship at sword point.”

“He tells fibs, swordsman. The usual penalty for perjury is a mouthful of hot coals.”

“He had no choice, adept! I was listening, in the deckhouse, with my sword at his sister’s throat.”

The Fourth hesitated. “I think you are lying, swordsman. But we shall be merciful. Show him what we use the kettles for, since he is so curious.”

The Third moved toward Tomiyano, gliding through the copperware pots like a ghost, seeming not to touch the ground. He went very close, peering into the captain’s eyes, causing him to step back warily, hard against the copper stills.

“So you want to know our business, do you?” The sorcerer sounded amused. He seemed the more confident of the two, and therefore by comparison the older sorcerer was not confident. That must mean there was hope—but where, and how?

Wallie could not see Tomiyano’s face, only his back, but he could hear the anger in his voice: “I apologize. I did not know they belonged to you.”

There was devilry brewing; the sorcerer’s voice was mocking. “Well, pick one up, and I will show you.”

“No,” Tomiyano snapped.

The sorcerer snapped also: “Pick it up!”

The sailor put his hands on his hips. “No!”

The sorcerer muttered something and waved a hand before the captain’s face. Tomiyano recoiled angrily; then he screamed and clutched at his cheek. He doubled over, cursing and stamping his feet.

Wallie clenched his fists and glanced at the Fourth. He was still watching the swordsman, apparently enjoying his impotent rage and fear.

Furiously Tomiyano straightened and grabbed for his knife.

It had vanished. The shock seemed to sober him; he turned a fear-filled face toward Wallie. He was pale with pain and there was a hideous burn at the side of his mouth. He was shaking his left hand as if the fingers hurt, also.

“Swordsmen cut off ears when people annoy them,” the Third said. “We are not so barbarous, but we like to remember those who transgress. That will warn any of my brethren who meet you in future that you are not to be trusted. Now, Captain Tomiyano, pick up that kettle!”

A crowd was gathering at a respectful distance behind the sorcerers, and the sailors were watching from above. Tomiyano shot Wallie a glance of fury. He knelt and wrapped his arms around the big pot. It was not heavy, and he straightened up, turning again to face his tormentor.

“We use them, Captain, to breed birds in,” said the Third. “You don’t believe me? Look!”

He reached out and pulled off the lid. With a loud flutter, a white bird flew up into Tomiyano’s face. Startled, he stepped back, tripped over a cauldron, and crashed to the ground in a clamorous rattle of metal and bouncing pots. The two sorcerers laughed heartily, and after a moment there was laughter from the sailor audience on the ship and also from the steadily growing crowd at the end of the wagon. Tomiyano rose shakily, while the bird circled away into the sky.

The junior sorcerer turned and floated back to the side of his superior, and they both looked across at Wallie.

“Now it is your turn, swordsman,” the Fourth said in his high voice. Wallie’s heart was racing, and he was wondering how long a spell took and how fast he could jump. He should have done it while the other was busy tormenting the sailor.

There was a pause, an agonizingly long pause, while sorcerers stared at swordsman, and swordsman stared back. Wallie kept his breathing slow and tried not to tense his muscles, but he was soon wishing that they would get on with whatever they planned.

“You were astonishingly stupid, Wallie,” said the Fourth. “Even for a swordsman, you were very stupid.”

“I don’t dispute that,” Wallie said. What was going on here?

The Fourth nodded faintly inside his cowl. “This is a very humble swordsman, Sorcerer Resalipi.”

Studying the shadowed face, Wallie thought he saw beads of sweat on it—the man did not want to kill. Perhaps if Wallie were to attack them, he could do it; but killing in cold blood is not to everyone’s taste. Wallie knew.

The brown hood turned toward the orange and whispered something inaudible. Was the Third offering to perform the execution?

“No, Resalipi,” the Fourth said, “I think a humble swordsman could be instructive. I give you a choice, Lord Wallie. You can die now, or you can crawl back to your ship on your belly, as a demonstration of your humility.”

Hope! Hope like a small flame rising in dead embers. Wallie Smith would rather crawl than die any day. “And then I and the ship may leave safely? You will give me your oath?”

Even that tiny show of resistance was almost enough to change the sorcerer’s mind. “You are in no position to bargain!” he squeaked. Then the junior prompted him again. “Good idea! Know, swordsman, that we of the sorcerers’ craft swear by fire. Take off that sack and throw it over.”

Wallie hesitated for a fraction of a second as realization of what was coming began to dawn. Then he reached down to rip off his loincloth. He wadded it and threw it over the plank toward the sorcerers. As long as they played with him, he was still alive. He glanced ruefully at Tomiyano, watching in angry and surprised silence. He did not look at the crowd.

The Third glided forward and picked up the burlap, carried it back and dropped it in front of his superior, who held out a hand and mumbled something over it. It began to smoke, then burst into flames. Both men looked at Wallie to see if he was impressed, so he looked impressed.

“I so swear,” the Fourth said. “Now—over there and lie down.” He pointed at the bottom of the plank.

Again Wallie was momentarily tempted to refuse. The Shonsu part of him was rebelling violently at the thought of a swordsman humiliated. Naked except for the tie around his ponytail, feeling mortally ashamed and vulnerable, he walked to the place indicated, knelt, and then lay down, head raised to watch them.

The sorcerer stared at him for a minute, apparently surprised. “Well! Start crawling! If you stop, then you will die.”

Wallie looked to his companion and even he was astonished. “I have a hot-blooded junior on board,” he said. “Captain, please go back to the ship and warn them. Nail Nnanji to the mast if you have to. I want no more trouble.”

“But tell him to watch,” the junior sorcerer said. He laughed, and the captain jumped over some pots and ran.

“Crawl, swordsman!”

Wallie rose to his hands and knees.

“On your belly, I said!”

Wallie lowered himself flat and began to drag himself along the cold, lumpy, and incredibly foul road. They used a lot of horses on that road. He passed the litter of copperware and the end of the wagon, and the crowd parted for him.

He had only five ship-lengths to go.

It took about ten years.

“Keep your head up, swordsman!”

The sorcerers followed behind him, shouting to the crowd to make way for a swordsman. A corridor opened in front of him, a corridor lined with surprised, mocking faces and loud with ribald comment. He detoured around the piles of goods on the dock. He passed by the wheels of the hawkers’ carts and the legs of the display tables. He told himself to be pragmatic—humiliation was greatly preferable to death.

The laughter started before he reached the end of the first ship. Then the throwing: filth and rotted fish and a few harder things.

“Keep your head up, swordsman!”

He saw bare feet and boots and sandals and then gowns that reached to the ground, so he knew that more sorcerers had arrived. The crowd told him to move faster and to be careful not to scrape anything off. The children started building an obstacle course with bales and boxes, so that he had to drag himself around them.

“Keep your head up, swordsman,” said that high-pitched voice behind him. He had been mocked by a crowd before, when he was on his way to the Judgment of the Goddess, but then he had been Wallie Smith, a confused Wallie Smith and in pain. Now he was a swordsman of the Seventh and already accustomed to thinking of himself as such. Now the scorn cut deeper.

“Make way for a swordsman!”

The corridor of people and boxes twisted around until it led to a wagon, and he obediently crawled through underneath and was cheered when he emerged. He wondered what he was crawling away from—music? A white bird or a burning cloth? Perhaps the sorcerers had been bluffing all the time. Yet Kandoru had died. The garrison in Ov had died, and probably the garrison of Aus. The fat sailor had run up his gangplank.

He might not have made it at all had he not suddenly thought of Nnanji. Nnanji had denounced him to Imperkanni for using a disguise. Disguise was not honorable, but this—Nnanji could never forgive this. And Wallie had made the kid swear the fourth oath, Your honor is my honor. So he had destroyed Nnanji’s honor as well as his own. Nnanji would kill him, strike him down unarmed as a reprobate, without as much as a warning . . . except that Nnanji in his own eyes would be a reprobate also and hence not have the right. Perhaps Nnanji was more likely to kill himself, proper behavior in a shame culture. Frantically Wallie scanned sutras. What was the World’s equivalent of the Roman falling on his sword, or the Prussian officer cleaning his pistol? He could find nothing in the sutras to show that the Goddess expected seppuku. Swordsman slang, then: “He washed his sword.” Of course.

Now he saw the full extent of his stupidity. Shonsu or Nnanji would never have gone ashore unarmed, but had either somehow been trapped as Wallie had been trapped, then he would have jumped from the dock. That had been what the sorcerers expected; probably what the gods expected, too. He should have had more faith. He had tailed not once, but twice.

Nnanji valued his honor above all else in the World, and Wallie was literally dragging it in the dirt. There could be no forgiveness, no forgetting, no understanding. The fourth oath was irrevocable. He could not have been more cruel had he planned it, and it was entirely possible that he would arrive back at Sapphire to find Nnanji already dead. He was still frantically hunting for a solution when he realized that he had reached almost to the end of his torment and in worrying about his protégé he had been crawling automatically and had forgotten to listen to the jeering around him.

Sapphire’s gangplank was in view: an oasis, the Holy Grail. He finished the distance and dragged himself onto the plank. He rose to his knees and then to his feet, waiting for some final treachery, but all he got was a derisive cheer from the onlookers.

He was filthy beyond words, scraped and shaking. He turned and looked at the sorcerers. He thought they were watching him with satisfied amusement, but it was hard to tell under the cowls. He nodded his head in a hint of a bow, then he spun round and walked up the plank.

One: Sorcerer sees swordsman. Two: Swordsman crawls.

But not end of story.

At the top of the plank a very pale Jja handed him a cloth, and he wrapped it around himself. They stared at each other in silence for a moment, and then he glanced around the deck. There were sailors there, and Brota and Thana, but there were no faces. No one was looking at him. He was invisible.

Except to Jja. Slaves were supposed to keep their eyes lowered. Jja never looked him in the face unless they were alone together.

“Only you!” he whispered. “Only you do not care about honor?”

“Honor? Honor to a slave?” She grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the fo’c’sle. Astounded, he let himself be led through the door and into a cramped shower cubicle, dark and smelling of mold. She pulled the wrap away from him and worked the pump handle, getting almost as wet as he did as he rubbed away the filth.

“Jja . . . I’m sorry,” he said.

“Sorry? I told you!”

She was furious with him, terror turned to rage, and the transformation in a meek and obedient slave was more unexpected than all the sorceries he had witnessed.

“Where is Nnanji?” he asked.

“I have no idea!”

Clean at last, he clutched her and kissed her, and she tried to struggle against his vastly greater strength—and that was another sorcery—but he forced his kiss on her until she acquiesced and returned it. When they parted she stared at him again for a moment in the gloom and men burst into tears. He held her tightly, both of them soaking wet.

“You did tell me, my love, and I should have listened. I am very sorry,”

She leaned her head against his chest and whispered, “No, it is I who must be sorry, master, for speaking to you so.”

“You will never call me ‘master’ again! Never!”

“But . . . ” She looked up in dismay. “What can I call you?”

“Call me ‘lover’ when I deserve it,” he said, “and ‘idiot’ the rest of the time—and that is positively the last order I shall ever give you. Oh, Jja, you are the only sane person in the World, and I love you madly. Come. Let’s go and see what we can rescue from this mess I’ve made.”

She handed him his kilt and his boots. He ran a comb hastily through his hair and then braced himself to go out on deck once more in the stark, pitiless sunshine. Brota, Thana, Tomiyano, other sailors . . . still none of them was acknowledging his presence, the invisible swordsman. His appearance provoked a cheer from the dock. He did not look that way.

His hairclip and sword were in the deckhouse. He marched across. As he rounded the aft hatch cover, the door opened, and Honakura came out, very wearily, reminding Wallie of the stereotype of the kindly old country doctor leaving the sickroom. You may go in now. The old priest walked forward and tried to go by Wallie, who moved to block him.

“Well, old man?”

He looked up, his face giving nothing away. “That young man has a head like a coconut. I have never met a harder. But he understands now.”

“I am very grateful, holy one.”

The bleary old eyes seemed suddenly to flash. “I did not do it for you. You are a contemptible lunatic.” The old man walked away.

Wallie went in and pulled the door closed.

Cowie was sitting on one of the chests at the far side, staring blankly into space. Nnanji stood in the middle of the floor, very pale . . . young and hurt and vulnerable. He was still holding the seventh sword in its scabbard, the straps and buckles of the harness dangling. Wallie walked over to him. He should have prepared something to say, but for a moment he could only stare at the strangely bruised look in Nnanji’s colorless eyes.

“The gods are cruel, my lord brother.”

“Nnanji . . . ”

“I could not have done it.”

That was absurd. I could not have displayed such cowardice, and therefore you have more courage than I have? Some of Honakura’s contorted logic, no doubt.

“Nnanji, I am sorry.”

Nnanji shook his head sadly. “The gods are cruel. ‘When the mighty has been spurned’? The old man explained that you had to suffer that, brother . . . but I could not have done it. Not even for the Goddess Herself.” He looked as if he wanted to comfort Wallie with a hug.

“Oh . . . Oh, hell!” That cute little solecism might excuse Wallie’s behavior to Nnanji, but it was a lie. He could not hide behind such deception, no matter how hateful the truth. “I did not think of the riddle. It never entered my mind. I crawled because I did not want to die.”

Nnanji closed his eyes and shivered.

“It was the way of honor in my other world.” There was no way Wallie could ever reconcile a shame culture and a guilt culture. The ways of thinking were too unlike. But he had to try—try to show Nnanji that what he had done was not such an atrocity to him. “I had broken a law. I paid the penalty. It hurt no one but me, you see. It was better than dying, I thought. I told you I was doing my best in this world . . . but I warned you. I said that I was not really a swordsman.”

“Uh!” Nnanji shook his head as if to clear it and turned away to hide his face. “But the gods must have known that you would do that thing.”

“I suppose so. Perhaps I should have jumped. Perhaps She would have let me . . . return safely.” There was no easy word for swimming.

Moments crawled by. Crowd noises drifted in from the dock.

“I did warn you, Nnanji. That first day, when we sat on the wall in the temple gardens . . . ”

“ ‘I am not one of those heroes you find in epics.’ I remember.”

“I can’t release you from the fourth oath. It is irrevocable. But the second has lapsed, if that is what you want. We remain oath brothers, but we need never meet again. At the next port you can leave.”

After another moment, Nnanji turned around and straightened his bony shoulders. “No. I also have a part to play. The old man still thinks so. I will stay.” He held out Wallie’s hairclip.

Surprised and gratified, Wallie took it and scooped his hair back to fasten. “It may not be for very long. The little god warned me—punishment for failure is death, or worse. Honakura may be mistaken about the riddle. I may have screwed everything up. So it may not be for very long.”

Nnanji swallowed hard. “Worse? You have been punished already, then. Maybe not . . . And it was my fault, too, brother!”

“Never! What do you mean?”

“You told me to warn you when you were making a mistake. Taking off your sword—”

“You did warn me. I ignored you.”

Nnanji drew the seventh sword.

Wallie’s heart skipped a beat and then began working a little harder than usual. He was unarmed. Nnanji with a naked sword in his hand was a matter to consider very carefully.

“I could have stopped you, brother,” he said softly.

Wallie said nothing. In the dimness of the deckhouse, light flashed from the deadly blade as Nnanji twisted it to and fro, looking down at it pensively. “I should have stopped you. But you were Her champion.”

Were? One thing certainly had died this day—Nnanji had been brutally cured of his hero worship.

Then he looked up at Wallie and forced a thin smile—as insubstantial as dust, a smile that registered much more wry than joyous.

“Are,” he said. “Her champion, I mean.” He held out the scabbard and harness. He retained the sword.

Very uneasy now, Wallie took the harness and began buckling it on, wondering what was happening under that red hair.

“I hope I still am. But I don’t feel like a champion today.”

Again Nnanji looked down at the sword in his hand, watching the play of light on the sapphire, the silver, and the razor steel. “Do you remember the last thing Briu said, my lord brother?”

“No.”

“The last-but-one thing. He said, ‘I suppose we must keep trying to do better.’ ”

Perhaps Nnanji was regretting his change of mentors.

No; he stared calculatingly at Wallie for a moment, and then went down on one knee. He held out the seventh sword in both hands, proffering it. He said solemnly: “Live by this. Wield it in Her service. Die holding it.”

It was the ceremony of dedication. The sutras required it for a recruit’s first sword, but the swordsmen applied it to any new blade. Nnanji was using it for a rededication—a renewal, Shonsu reborn. But it also meant friendship, for when a swordsman acquired a new sword he would ask his best friend to give it to him. So it meant forgiveness and reconciliation, affirmation and a fresh start. It meant: “Be a swordsman now.” It was full of squishy swordsman romanticism that was typical of Nnanji and now felt absurdly reassuring and right.

Angry at the childish lump in his throat, Wallie spoke the reply: “It shall be my honor and my pride.”

He took the sword and smiled at Nnanji as he rose. “Thank you, brother. I shall try to do better.”

Nnanji did not return the smile. He said softly, “So shall I.”

They both swung around as the door opened.

“Master!” Jja said urgently. “The ship is about to leave. Novice Katanji is not on board.”

†††††††

Nnanji was almost at the door when Wallie’s hand closed like a lion’s jaw on his shoulder. “Bad tactics, brother!”

“Oh, right!” Nnanji said.

So he remained to fret unseen, and it was Wallie who marched out to investigate. Ironic cheers from the dock greeted him. Lumber and pots had been retrieved and untidily piled on the deck. The wind had returned. Hands stood at lines, Brota was at the tiller, and two men were already stooping to take hold of the gangplank. They straightened up angrily as Wallie’s boot came down on it.

One of them was Tomiyano, and his eyes spat fire at Wallie. The burn on his left cheek was black and cracked like charred alligator hide. Even under a thick wad of grease, it had to be hurting like hell. His voice was slurred as he tried not to move that side of his mouth. “What the demons are you doing now, swordsman?”

“Our First is still ashore.”

“The bag-heads told us to leave,” the captain mumbled. “You going to go argue with them?”

“I suppose I must.” Wallie stepped out on the plank, and the crowd hushed at once.

There were eight or nine sorcerers down on the dock now. They had closed off the roadway from the water across to the warehouses, and spectators massed behind the cordon on both sides. There were people leaning from the warehouse windows and people precarious on wagons and people in the rigging of the nearby ships, apparently assembled to view this unobtrusive scouting mission by the Shonsu expedition, sneaking unnoticed around Aus.

The Fourth with the squeaky voice was still there, but a Fifth now stood beside him, an impersonal red monk with a blotch of shadow instead of a face—so the Sapphire affair was bringing out the big fish. Katanji might be miles away, but hopefully he was somewhere close, trapped in one crowd or the other with empty roadway between him and the gangplank. His facemark had been a suppurating mess, but it would not stand a close scrutiny.

Wallie paraded down the plank with all eyes on him, his skin tingling in expectation of some unpredictable supernatural attack. He stopped a foot from the end, folded his arms, and stared across at the Fourth and Fifth.

“I would speak with you, Adept Sorcerer,” he called. The two cowled heads, one red and one orange, turned toward each other, conferring for a few moments. Then the Fourth came slowly forward and stopped a few feet away, out of sword range from the plank. The cold eyes stared out of the cowl.

“What more do you want, swordsman?” asked the squeaky voice.

Wallie tried to read the thin features. There was something new there—less triumph? Resentment? A reprimand, perhaps?

“I wished to thank you for sparing my life, adept. Indeed, I would shake your hand if you would allow it.” Of course, if you can read my mind, you’ll see what I am doing is distracting you and your friends.

“Shake hands with a sorcerer? Have you asked any swordsmen to shake your hand yet, Shonsu?”

Hurry, Katanji!

Shonsu!

“You did not know me by that name earlier, sorcerer.”

A flush swept over the shadowed face. “That is not true!”

Wallie had not planned to do more than create a diversion. To rouse the sorcerers’ ire further might be dangerous folly—but instructive. He smiled. “You are lying, adept!”

The sorcerer bared his teeth. “No! It would have been fun to have carried out the original sentence, but this way is better, We shall have no further trouble from you now. You might have displayed heroism, which could have been dangerous. Your friends will be impressed by this.”

Original sentence? Tell me more!

“No, adept. You were being merciful, and I appreciate that. Again I offer you my hand.”

“Again I spurn it. My masters’ patience is not unlimited. Only my oath has protected you this far. Get back on that ship, Shonsu! You will have more crawling to do when you return to your nest.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Wallie saw someone break out of the crowd and come running along the edge of the dock. He dared not turn. The sorcerers’ cowls must restrict their peripheral vision hopelessly.

Where is my nest? You know more about Shonsu than I do. “Well, I hope that your leniency has not caused you trouble.” It had—the sorcerer colored again.

Someone jumped up on the plank behind Wallie and ran up to the deck. Wallie turned, as if surprised, and caught a glimpse of Katanji’s skinny form, breechclout tail flapping.

“Who was that?” the sorcerer squeaked.

Wallie shrugged. “Some sailor brat. Well, I bid you farewell, adept. The Goddess be with you. The next sorcerer I meet, I shall spare for your sake.”

“It is the next swordsman you need worry about, Shonsu!” The sorcerer turned and swept away.

Wallie started back up the plank, beginning to shiver with the release of tension. But the sorcerer had been correct. Now that he was known by name, Shonsu’s reputation had gone to much less than zero. How could he ever earn an army now?

“Invisibility,” Wallie said. “It has to be.”

He stood beside the starboard poop steps with an arm around Jja. Honakura sat halfway up, at eye level for once, a tatty black monkey with his elbows resting on his knees. Nnanji leaned against the rail with one boot on the bottom step, looking bleak as tundra. His eyes were dull, as if somehow turned inward. At his side Novice Katanji, restored now to proper swordsman dress, was being small and humble and inconspicuous, waiting for the skies to fall when his brother got him alone—or sooner, if Lord Shonsu chose to pull them down personally. The other two were in the deckhouse, Cowie caring for Vixini or possibly vice versa.

Aus was sliding away into the distance, Sapphire starting to roll as the wind blustered in mid-River. The sun rode high yet, and the evening was far from over. Being champion for the Goddess was exacting work—in the first three days of his mission, Wallie had managed to antagonize two cities’ worth of sorcerers, the entire swordsmen’s craft, and a shipful of sailors. And perhaps the gods themselves.

The sailors were the most important at the moment.

And in return he had learned . . . what?

He had described what he had seen—a burning rag, a bird appearing, a dagger disappearing, an inexplicably scorched sailor. Add in the stories from Ov, stories of magic fifes and rampaging fire demons. Add in the tales Nnanji had recounted from the temple barracks. Yet worse than what he had seen was what he had heard.

“I thought perhaps they could tell people’s thoughts,” he said—Shonsu had known no word for telepathy. “Listen to our minds? But we can rule that out, because I fooled them when I was covering for Katanji; they didn’t know what I was thinking then. So it has to be invisibility. When Jja spoke to me, there was a sorcerer standing beside us.”

Honakura sighed. “And how many on board now?”

“Who can say? Keep talking and we may hear them start to laugh.”

Nnanji lifted his head and began looking around, as if counting invisible sorcerers. Or perhaps he was watching the sailors. They had almost finished tidying up the deck, and the glances they directed at the passengers from time to time bore a nasty flavor of menace. Tomiyano had run up the other steps to the poop, going to talk to his mother at the tiller. He had replaced his stolen dagger.

“My mind chokes when I ask it to swallow invisibility,” the old man complained. He had not previously heard Nnanji tell Tarru’s story of the sorcerer on the donkey, the first mention of the subject, so Nnanji had repeated it for him. Honakura bared his gums in a hideous scowl.

Wallie agreed. “Mine, also. But I can see no other explanation. Perhaps . . . if my folly in going ashore had any value at all, it was in giving me a chance to talk with sorcerers. And I learned that much. So my stupidity was not a total loss.”

“Why not invisible swordsmen?” Nnanji remarked glumly. “Make me invisible, my lord brother, and I’ll clean up Ov and Aus for you.”

He would, too—and enjoy doing it.

Tomiyano came down the steps and hurried to the far end of the deck. Sailors, men and women, clustered around him like a huddle of children plotting mischief.

“Honorable Tarru’s story could have another explanation,” Honakura mused. “The sorcerers may be able to alter face-marks. Then the man on the donkey just became a tanner or a serf, or something.”

“I had seen that,” Wallie said patiently. The old man could not adjust to the idea of a swordsman using brains.

“And that would explain the fake port officer, too, if you were correct in believing that he was a sorcerer.”

“That also! But facemarks cannot explain how they over-heard Jja and me. There must have been a sorcerer on deck.”

Honakura sighed. “Yes. And if I could change my shape, I suppose I should choose to look much like that port officer—young and beautiful. Would you love me then, Jja?”

“He was very handsome,” Jja said tactfully. She smiled and reached up to kiss Wallie’s cheek. “But I love only swordsmen.”

“One swordsman,” Wallie said.

“One big, strong swordsman.”

He kissed her for that. It was a long time since they had shared the feather bed in the royal suite of the temple barracks, a long time when a man had a body as lusty as Shonsu’s. Already the temple was beginning to feel like the good old days.

There was trouble brewing among the crew. The surreptitious glances were now revealing amusement. Something had been decided, and the word was being passed. Wallie’s disgrace had changed their fear into contempt. The captain had been disfigured for life, the ship itself put in danger. Whatever the cause of the sailors’ original hostility, they had valid reasons now to resent these swordsman intruders—and less cause to fear the Goddess. Champions do not crawl in the mire.

“Next topic,” Wallie said. “How did they know I was on board? The port officer did. I went into the deckhouse before I was visible from the shore—I’m sure of that. My eyes are as good as any, and I couldn’t make out the people on the quay.”

Honakura’s wrinkles writhed as he screwed up his monkey face in thought. “We thought they could send messages, my lord. The sorcerers at the quarry saw you board a blue ship. I didn’t see many blue ships in Aus.” In an illiterate World, of course, ships did not bear their names emblazoned on their stems.

“Possible,” Wallie said. “Although I am convinced that the sorcerers did not know me as Shonsu. Not at first. Thondi would have told them my name, but that message did not get transmitted all the way to Aus. Someone in the crowd recognized me.” He was distinctive. Big swordsmen were rare.

“Then they can see at a distance,” the priest said. “They saw that the bridge was down, but perhaps not that swordsmen had crossed it. Then sorcerers from both sides met at the ruined bridge . . . That would fit! That was why they were so long in following us to the quarry!”

“Possibly,” Wallie conceded. “And they saw me on board as Sapphire came into port? Possible, possible!”

The sailors were spreading unobtrusively around the aft end of the deck. The children had been taken below. Nnanji straightened and reached up as if to feel that his sword moved freely. Just in time he changed the gesture into one of gripping the nearest mainstay and leaning against it. He could recognize danger from civilians now—he was growing more tense by the minute.

“You are amassing an impressive list of your opponents’ powers, my lord,” Honakura remarked. There was enough cynicism in his tone that Nnanji flashed him an irritated glance.

“So what did you learn, old man?” Wallie asked.

“Very little, I admit. I could see nobody watching the ship. I saw you come down the plank and then I saw two sorcerers go after you, but I did not see where they came from. They had not passed me.”

Wallie grunted. Had those two been invisible until then? Invisible men on that tumultuous dock road would have been trampled to death in minutes. So had they been invisible on board Sapphire and then followed him ashore?

“The locals were reluctant to discuss sorcerers with a stranger,” Honakura said crossly. “Naturally. But I did learn that they have been there a long time—ten years or more.”

“Ten years?” Wallie had not expected that. “How many more cities have they seized, then?”

“I don’t know.”

A small voice said, “My lord?”

“Yes, novice?”

“With respect, my lord, it was eleven years ago, Swordsmen’s Day, 27,344.”

“Indeed?” Wallie said. “Who told you that?”

The boy colored slightly. “A wench, my lord. She was selling perry in mugs. She had a swordsman fathermark.”

Wallie felt a smile escape him. He glanced at Nnanji, who frowned warily.

“Was the perry good?”

Katanji grimaced. “Horrible, my lord. It was the fathermark; I don’t like perry.”

This time Wallie laughed, in spite of the tension building around the deck. “What else did she tell you, then, after you had complimented her on her excellent perry?”

Gathering confidence, Katanji said; “Her father was killed by the sorcerers, my lord, so I didn’t think she would betray me, although she noticed my facemark. They didn’t use fire demons here. The garrison was hosting their annual banquet and the sorcerers came. They sent in a challenge.”

“And the swordsmen would all be two-thirds drunk—or four-thirds. What happened?”

“They all ran out the front door, waving their swords and . . . and shouting, my lord. She said the sorcerers slew them by calling down thunderbolts.”

“Thunderbolts?” That was new.

“A flash of lightning,” Katanji said solemnly, “and a clap of thunder. As each one came out, he was struck down. It wasn’t like Ov. They weren’t torn to pieces or chewed, my lord. Almost no marks on the bodies at all, she said. A few burns, but almost no blood.”

And from another wisdom gain . . . “Go on!” Wallie said.

“Then the sorcerers ordered everyone out, checking for survivors hiding among the guests, she said. They found a couple trying to climb out a back window and they killed them, too. Then the sorcerers burned down the hall to make sure. Eighteen died, the whole garrison. And she thought about another dozen had come to town since and been killed, at various times, my lord.”

“Very well done!” Wallie said. “Nnanji, I think you should overlook the matter of going ashore without permission.”

Nnanji nodded, grinning proudly.

Katanji looked relieved. “The sorcerers have driven out the dyers.”

“They’ve done what?”

“All the dyers have left town. The woman did not know why, but it has raised the price of textiles, and clothes.” He glanced over at the crew. “And leather . . . I thought the sailors might be interested.”

Nnanji growled. “Never mind that! What else that matters?”

“That’s about all . . . Oh, my lord? The next city up is Ki San, and there are no sorcerers there. But the next one on this side is Wal, and there are. Are sorcerers, I mean. She didn’t know about any other towns, not even Ov.”

The People did not travel much, except for traders and sailors and minstrels. There were no newspapers or TV stations.

“You have done very well, novice! That is excellent information. And you uncovered all that in very little time.”

Katanji flushed, obviously very pleased with himself and enjoying the praise. “I didn’t have time to talk with anyone else, my lord.”

“Nnanji, you will instruct your protégé in sutras seven seventy-two, seven eighty-three, and seven ninety.”

Nnanji nodded—those dealt with military intelligence and espionage. “And eight hundred and four, my lord brother!” He grinned briefly—cats.

“However,” Wallie said, “that facemark of yours will heal properly in a few days, novice. I don’t suppose that we shall be sailing back into Aus again, but if we do, you will not try that same trick again, is that clear?”

“Of course, my lord,” Katanji said, not quite humbly enough to stop Nnanji scowling at him suspiciously. Then he was distracted. The shapely Thana had come out of the fo’c’sle door and been greeted by broad grins. Was this what the sailors had been waiting for? She was not wearing her sword. There were no weapons in sight except for the captain’s dagger.

“So?” Honakura remarked. “You think that now the mighty has been spurned and you have gathered wisdom from another? What about earning armies and turning circles?”

Wallie glared at him. “You tell me!”

“It is your riddle, my lord.”

“Yes, but you’ve seen something, haven’t you?”

“I think so.” The old man leered. “It was something you said yourself, my lord, but it seems so obvious that I hesitate to—”

“Trouble!” Nnanji said.

Thana was holding two foils and two fencing masks and she was heading aft, toward the swordsmen.

“Adept Nnanji?” She stopped alongside the mainmast, slim and ravishing and still clad in only the two skimpy strips of yellow cotton. She smiled endearingly. “You promised me a fencing lesson?”

Nnanji gulped audibly. “How can I fight facing that?” he whispered.

Wallie had other worries. “It’s some sort of trap. For gods’ sakes, check her foil before you start.” That notion did not come from the sutras or from Shonsu’s swordsman instincts—Shonsu would never have thought of that sort of treachery. Shonsu had never seen Hamlet, Act V.

Nnanji shot him a look of incredulity. “And anyway there isn’t room to draw, let alone fence!” He glanced up at the more open area of the poop deck. That would still be small.

Wallie shook his head. “See how short those foils are? And this is where the fight would be if pirates boarded, so it makes sense to practice here.”

The largest clear space on Sapphire’s main deck was before the mainmast, where Thana was standing, but it was minuscule by a landlubber’s standards, cramped between the dinghies and the forward hatch. The crew were spread all around it, waiting with unconcealed glee.

“Delighted, Apprentice Thana.” Nnanji did not sound convincing.

“Let me hold your sword,” Wallie said, thinking of all those overhead ropes. “And don’t underestimate her!”

Again Nnanji registered disbelief—he might be suspicious of trouble, but he obviously did not doubt his ability to outfence a female Second. Wallie was not so sure. The swordsmen sported very long swords, as long as a man could possibly manage with one hand, and they were fond of flamboyant leapings and swashbuckling strokes that would certainly not work on shipboard.

Nnanji glanced overhead, drew his sword carefully, and handed it to Wallie. He paced over to inspect the foils Thana was offering. Frowning, almost as if she had guessed Wallie’s warning, she held out both and let him choose. He obviously liked neither, but he took one and tried a few swings with it. Then he stepped to the center of the cramped space and turned to face her. They donned their masks.

“Best of seven, adept?”

Nnanji lowered his foil. “I thought this was a lesson, apprentice?”

“Of course, adept. Foolish of me.” She guarded at quarte.

“Try that a little higher,” Nnanji’s mask said. “Better. Now?”

Thana lunged, Nnanji recovered and fell flat on his back on the hatch cover. Thana shouted, “One!” The crew howled.

He lasted a fraction longer on the next passage, standing his ground as well as he could while the blades whirled. But then he started to recover again and either he was uncertain what was behind him, or the effort of remembering spoiled his concentration. A cut to the head connected. “Two!”

He had overlooked the possibility of jumping up on the hatch cover, which would have given him more room, but then Nnanji had never seen pirate movies. On the third pass he attacked furiously and managed to gain ground. Thana recovered easily, backing away between the mast and the stays. It was fast and devilish close-in work, quite unlike the style Nnanji was used to. He caught his foil in the shrouds, and Thana jabbed him in the ribs. “Three!”

The crew was screaming like an aviary of parrots. Wallie was clenching his teeth and cursing through them at the same time. If Thana was a Second then the water rats judged rank much harder than landlubbers, but he was impressed with the swordsmanship being displayed and thinking that he wouldn’t mind some of that close-in practice for himself.

The ship rolled . . . 

“Four!” Thana yelled triumphantly. She pulled off her mask and capered about, taking bows and being loudly cheered.

Scarlet-faced, Nnanji slunk back to his friends like a whipped dog, still holding his foil and his kilt, and mask. He had been gone about three minutes. Avoiding his mentor’s eye, he leaned forward against the rail as if he were about to double over and throw up.

The unwelcome guests had been shamed at their own game. After the fun would come the business.

Tomiyano sauntered across, jumped up on the aft hatch cover, and put fists on hips. Three sailors slipped by behind him to stand opposite the visitors—close to fire buckets.

“We’re going to put you off at the first jetty, Shonsu. You can walk from there.”

Nnanji straightened and turned around.

The ship had crossed the River and was skirting the bank at a safe distance. Wallie saw farms. There would be jetties. “I remind you, Captain,” he said with faked calm, “that I paid our fare to the first port at which I can enlist a band of swordsmen.”

The sailor sneered lopsidedly. “Who would serve under you, Shonsu? The first swordsmen you meet will put you on trial for cowardice. The contract can never be fulfilled. You’re going ashore, and good riddance!”

To call a swordsman a coward must lead to blood as surely as lightning led to thunder. Tomiyano might be seeking to provoke a fight so he could kill the passengers, gaining the seventh sword and whatever else of value they possessed. The absence of the children was ominous. However, the adolescents like Matarro were present, so probably bloodshed was not the main intention. But it was certainly being offered as an option.

It was not an option Wallie could accept. Nnanji had just been shown up as useless under shipboard conditions, and even Shonsu could not prevail against a blizzard of flying knives.

Nor, even if his pride would allow it, could he appeal to Brota, for she had been informed in advance and so must have agreed. He could acquiesce and go ashore, relying on the Goddess to prevent the ship from leaving, but obviously the sailors were no longer worried about divine intervention, and Wallie thought they were probably right. He must not demand more help from that quarter. He had been given Sapphire as a man might be given a cantankerous steed, and it was up to him to ride her. In epics, heroes never fell off.

To go ashore meekly now would be to resign his commission—he felt certain of that. It might be another test, or the start of punishment. But there was absolutely no satisfactory way out.

And Nnanji was waiting to see what he would do. Be a swordsman now!

Wallie still held Nnanji’s sword. “Catch!” he shouted and threw it, hilt first. Tomiyano caught it like a circus juggler. The other sailors reached hands down to the buckets and then froze.

“What the hell?” the captain demanded furiously.

Wallie took the foil and mask from Nnanji’s nerveless hands, ignoring his startled stare.

Again he shouted, “Catch!” He threw the mask.

Tomiyano dodged. It struck the shrouds, fell, and clattered away across the deck.

“What the demons are you doing?” he roared.

“As you please.” Wallie walked forward to the edge of the hatch. “Sailor Tomiyano, I, Shonsu, swordsman of the seventh rank, do hereby empower you as a posse for the purpose of resisting a passenger, armed with a foil.”

“What? You’re crazy!”

“We’ll see.”

“What are you playing at?”

Wallie sprang up on the hatch cover. “Sailor, you are an insolent dog. You are about to be whipped. Guard!”

He leaned forward and struck with the foil. Tomiyano parried and instinctively riposted. Wallie parried that and lunged. In the background, Nnanji’s voice said, “Devilspit!”

Clang-clang-clang . . . For a few moments Wallie summed him up. He was fast and he had some very good routines. Much better than Thana. About a Sixth, maybe? Then Wallie got down to business. He smashed the foil across the sailor’s chest, raising a red welt. The captain swore, lunged, was parried. On Wallie’s riposte, the foil button ripped a strip across the sailor’s ribs. Then Wallie deliberately bloodied his nose; it was dangerous to strike so close to his eyes, but it would hurt. The torrent of blood was very satisfying.

Recovering before the onslaught, Tomiyano jumped down backward from the hatch cover. Wallie followed and drove him in fast reverse around his own deck, thrashing and cudgeling without mercy.

And why had he embarked on this insanity? Not just to impress Nnanji. Nor the sailors. He was signaling to the gods: Here is my flesh, and there is a sword. If my life is forfeit, take it. If sentence has been passed, then carry it out.

Foil against sword was an impossible handicap. Tomiyano could take risks that Wallie could not, for all he would suffer was another welt, while Wallie’s first miscalculation would be his last. He must also hit hard, while Tomiyano was wielding Nnanji’s sword, and none could ever be better sharpened—it would cut flesh as easily as air; a touch could be fatal.

Yet Wallie had two advantages. It was astonishing how much Shonsu’s muscles could accelerate that foil within a few inches of movement, how hard he could hit with it. And, although the captain was astonishingly good, Shonsu was the best in the World.

There was no contest. It was a massacre.

And the crew could do nothing. Their captain was in no real danger. They could hardly intervene unless he called for help. And Tomiyano would not call for help when the odds were so much in his favor—Wallie had judged his man correctly.

There was no sound but the rasping of breath, the strident clamor of metal, and the steady pounding of Wallie’s boots as he stamped, left foot following right. Horrified sailors scrambled clear as the butchery came their way. He had done this before—Shonsu knew how to fight on a ship’s deck. His style of fighting had changed completely. Neither the clutter nor the moving deck impeded him at all.

Foil and sword whirled in noisy silver fog. Tomiyano back-stepped almost as fast as he could go, parrying as well as he could, never connecting. Wallie followed relentlessly, knocking the man’s offense aside as if he were a paralytic, shredding his defense like paper. Soon both men were gasping and sweating, but the captain was also pouring blood. His back and chest and ribs were battered and skinned, as if he had been flogged.

“That’ll do!” Wallie panted. “Throw down the sword.”

But the fight went on.

Tomiyano was a proud man. He would not quit. He would not call for help. He had tried everything he knew and been thrashed in spite of it, and still he would not quit.

Wallie stopped striking and continued to parry.

“I said to drop that sword!”

Still Tomiyano was trying to kill his opponent. Their mad progression around the deck had ended, and his strokes were slower and shaky, but he was not going to quit.

Wallie would have to break his collarbone. “Last chance, sailor!”

Suddenly the captain switched to a two-handed grip and made a hard, long, slow downward cut like a scythe stroke or a golf swing. Wallie made an easy parry and the sword cut through his foil and his kilt, and severed his femoral artery. Impact!

He lay on his back, staring up at two triumphant, pain-maddened eyes behind a blade drawn back for the coup de grâce, stark against a whirling brightness of sails and sky, and he heard only the thunder of his own heart as it sprayed his life out in a scarlet fountain. Time was frozen into eternity. No one breathed. Then the sailor cursed and turned away, removing the sword.

Wallie tried to sit up, and someone turned out all the lights.