The wind flapped awnings and gowns, blustering among the wagons and pedestrians on the riverside plaza, chasing a few remaining leaves. Traders strode homeward, with their slaves dragging wearily behind. Most of the ships had fallen silent as sailors prepared to enjoy an evening in the law-abiding sanctuary of Casr.
Wallie drooped despondently on a bollard, watching the lengthening shadows creep over the bronze stones. The day that had begun with Griffon’s return was drawing to a close, and the World would never be the same again.
Nnanji had gone, marching up the plank as the band played The Swordsmen in the Morning, standing on deck with Thana and nine sorcerers as the ship had sailed away. He had no doubts that he would return safely, with treaty sworn. For him the sorcerers were now but a minor nuisance to be tidied up before he got down to his serious work of reforming the swordsmen of the World.
The bodyguards and bandsmen and minstrels had gone. Seeing no danger now, Wallie had sent Forarfi and his troops off to enjoy what was left of the holiday. He ought to go back to Jja—but he had been thinking that for quite a while and he was still on the bollard.
Where had he gone wrong? It was almost half a year since he had promised the Goddess that he would be a swordsman. He had tried. If his mission had been to defeat the sorcerers, then he had failed, for now they would spread freely across the World. Their disruptive technology would follow.
If his mission had been to save the swordsmen, then he had still failed. The sorcerers could be no threat to Nnanji’s universal tryst, but he was sure that Nnanji’s universal tryst would soon be killing off swordsmen at a far greater rate than the sorcerers ever had. The fiercely independent free swords would not readily submit to a central authority, nor garrisons yield their autonomy.
Or had his mission been Nnanji himself? The demigod had said that the task would be revealed, and Nnanji had been the first person Wallie had met afterward. Nnanji had received his share of miracles. Yet, if Nnanji had been his mission, then Wallie had still failed, for he had loosed a power-mad psychopath on a helpless World. Dri and Ki San, Wo and Tau, Quo—those unsuspecting cities would be the first to fall, and there would be hundreds of others before he could be stopped. Every day his power would grow. Who or what could ever stop him?
Not Wallie, certainly. He was still deputy leader of the tryst, and for the next twenty days he was going to be run ragged, he and Linumino and Zoariyi. Nnanji had made sure of that. Wallie had taught him that an army must be kept busy.
But after Nnanji returned? Wallie had now concluded that he must then leave. He would not be able to bear to watch what his folly had created. He would quarrel with Nnanji, and there could only be one ending to such a quarrel. So he would accept the sinecure he had been offered—retire to Tau and be reeve of that smelly little Tudor town. In his spare time he could help Jja make babies. His work was done—bungled, but finished. Failure!
He was about to rise when a crowd of small, naked children ran giggling by him. One little brown boy stopped and flashed a gap-toothed grin . . . pixie face . . . every bone showing like a bundle of sticks, hair dark and tightly curled, eyes glittering like gems.
Wallie made to drop to his knees, and the boy said, “Stay where you are. You’ve had a hard day.”
So Wallie stayed on the bollard and said nothing, but his skin crawled with fear. Punishment, the god had said before, would be death, or worse than death.
“Oh, no!” the demigod said. “I came to thank you, Mr. Smith! You have done everything required of you, and more.”
The sudden sense of astonishment and relief was like falling into a cold bath. “I have?”
“Certainly!” The boy laughed. “You trained him. You taught him compassion. You gave him the tryst. You made the treaty with the sorcerers and, finally, you gave him the sword, unasked. A task well done, indeed!”
Wallie snorted with bitter disbelief. “Compassion? He would kill a man as soon as eat a peanut.”
“That is a job requirement,” the god replied sadly. “Genghis Khan was just the same. But he is a polite, quiet-spoken young man and he has learned much from you. He still admires you beyond words. You have done well!”
“I don’t understand, Master!”
The boy laughed. “That’s why I came. You see, Walliesmith, not all worlds follow quite the same path, but always the invention of speech begins the Age of Legends. The invention of writing ends it.”
Revelation! “You mean that the swordsmen were a curse on the sorcerers, like the curse on Nnanji?”
“More or less! Because after the Age of Legends comes the Dark Age, like a birth canal, and then the Age of Wisdom—although some worlds never seem to get out of the Dark Age.”
A hawker pushed his cart slowly past. The boy held out a hand and two apples jumped from the cart into it. He gave one to Wallie. They bit simultaneously and the boy grinned.
“But he will be a tyrant! The gods will support tyranny?” Wallie almost dared to sound disbelieving.
The pixie face turned sad. “The gods will not be interfering much anymore—I just told you. And think of ‘empire,’ not tyranny! Of course there has never been an empire, so he cannot conceive of one. He will discover that by ruling the garrisons he is also ruling the cities. That will annoy him hugely! Thana invents the empire.”
Wallie shook his head. “I thought he was mad.”
“Oh, not at all!” the boy said. “It is not madness to think the gods are on your side when you have received so many blessings. You thought the same of yourself. No, he knows now that he is a man of destiny. He has supreme power. He is ruthless, fearless, zealous, and incorruptible. He cares nothing for money. He seeks power only for his ideals.”
An empire? Easy for gods, who need not live in it. Wallie believed in democracy. Could he ever learn to support an empire?
“You have one thing left to do,” the demigod said with a teasing smile.
“Yes, Master.”
“The last line of my riddle—you must accept the destiny of the sword!”
“Yes, Master.”
The boy shook his head reprovingly. “More enthusiasm! He will be Nnanji the Great, founder of the first dynasty. For almost a thousand years, the symbol of his house will be the sapphire sword.”
Wallie remembered that day when he had first seen the seventh sword—he had at once thought of crown jewels. He should have guessed! Now he regarded the god warily. “Nnanji never met Shonsu, but You let me think I was being given the same task that Shonsu had failed at. Was that fair?”
Another gap-toothed grin. “I did not lie to you! You knew that the words of gods or their oracles must be considered very carefully. The objective was not sorcerers, or Nnanji, or Shonsu . . . always the objective was an empire. That was why I could not tell you! But you predicted what chaos the sorcerers’ knowledge might produce as it escaped. Only an empire can control that.
“Shonsu’s surprise attack very nearly succeeded—it would have done, had he thought to use horses to speed his approach. He would have made himself king of Vul, then king of everywhere else, using firearms. You would not have been brought into play at all, and Nnanji would have lived and died in obscurity—and died young, for his is one of the great souls, and would have been needed elsewhere.
“Your treaty keeps the firearms under control, which is much better. It will shorten the Dark Age. Nnanji could not have made that treaty.”
“And I could not make an emperor,” Wallie said sadly.
The boy gave him a steady look. “No. You could not hurl your legions at Quo and Ki San as he just did. But it was offered to you! You turned down a world for the love of a slave girl, Mr. Smith—and all the halls of heaven rang with joy!”
Wallie blinked. It still hurt a little. Had that been the only reason for Jja—to distract him? “There will be much bloodshed!”
“Not as much as you think,” the god said. “The swordsmen are very civilized about that, much more so than your other world was. And it is the Dark Age now.”
There was another long silence while Wallie pondered and chewed apple. A troop of swordsmen clattered by on horses on the far side of the plaza. His melancholy seemed to amuse the little god more than annoy him.
“You nave done well. You have all done well—Brota, Tomiyano. You will all be rewarded.”
“Honakura?”
“Of course. You must say farewell to him tomorrow, but his reward will be glorious.”
Wallie nodded and could not speak.
“Come!” the boy said. “For my time is short and I have something to show you. We can talk on the way.”
Wallie rose and walked alongside. He still could not feel convinced. “Master,” he said. “Explain the prince to me. Did he have to die just to send me a signal with that hairclip?”
The skinny little boy had a terrifying frown. “If you are going to judge the gods, Walliesmith, you must know what the gods know. However, since you have done so well this day . . . know that there are some souls brighter—older, more effective. Higher on the ladder! Like Nnanji’s. Had Shonsu made his empire, then about fifteen years from now there would have been a crisis—a node, a cusp—at Kra, which is the sorcerer city south of Plo. A strong ally, a swordsman king . . . now can you understand what Arganari was to be?”
“I think so.”
“There will be no such need under Nnanji, for the sorcerers are on his side. But he is founder of a dynasty, so there will be a different crisis, later.”
“The succession?” Wallie asked, beginning to see.
“Right! Do you remember the night Arganari died?”
“Nnanji’s wedding night?”
The boy nodded and smiled, which was much more comforting than the frown. “Thana conceived a son that night. She does not waste time. Nnanji surely did not! Now do you understand what Arganari is to be? Don’t try to be a god, Mr. Smith. You could not even be an emperor!”
They left the dockside plaza and headed up one of the wider streets. The few pedestrians parted readily for the big swordsman. The boy they did not notice.
“Nnanji will make a much better emperor than Shonsu would have done,” the god remarked. He looked up with a sly smile. “And Thana a better empress than Doa!”
Wallie snorted. “I certainly do not understand what Doa is!”
“Hardly surprising! Genius on her scale comes rarely to any world!” He chuckled at the vagaries of mortals and led the way around a corner. “Forget Doa! She has lost interest in you and she can smell history in the making. She is on that ship!”
“Going to Vul?”
“She will try. You will never meet her again. You have exorcised Shonsu, Mr. Smith!” The boy’s tone said that the subject was closed.
Doa had served her purpose, also, Wallie decided, by rousing Shonsu in him—but a quick frown from the little god warned him not to put the thought into words.
Now he could see that their destination was the lodge, and he had many questions to ask before they got there.
“So Nnanji is right when he says that the swordsmen will submit to him?”
“Most of them.”
“But what of the cities, the civilians? As soon as he controls the garrisons he will have to adjudicate their disputes—internal politics and taxes and trade. The tryst’s finances are going to be a madhouse of corruption. The whole economy of the World will tremble. I just can’t see Nnanji coping with those problems! He can’t and he won’t!”
“Of course not!” The demigod’s scorn made Wallie break out in goosebumps, “But he has Thana, and he has Katanji, Ikondorina’s black-haired brother! With a crippled arm he will not alarm the civilians, but to the swordsmen he is one of them, and brother to the liege. Of course he is a scoundrel! He will be the richest man in the World before he is twenty. But he is loyal to Nnanji, which is all that matters.”
Katanji for Prime Minister?
“Chancellor,” the boy said.
The gods had made their plans well. Lost in thought, Wallie almost walked into a horse, standing between the shafts of a parked wagon. He gave it his apple core and went on.
“So Nnanji seizes power, Thana turns it into an empire, and Katanji keeps it profitable? It will be a force for good?”
“They will make mistakes, of course,” the god said. “But Nnanji is a fast learner. They need wise counsel to minimize their follies.”
Wallie’s heart jumped. Did that mean . . .
“Certainly!” The boy vanished around a group of gossiping women and rejoined Wallie beyond them, “You don’t really want to spend the rest of your life wrestling drunks in Tau, do you? You have been Merlin to Nnanji’s Arthur. Now you can be Aristotle, Alcuin, or Imhotep—loyal friend, advisor, and sometimes conscience; resident wizard. The power behind the scabbard!”
“Will he listen?”
“Most of the time. I do not say it will be easy. But he knows that you know things he never can, just as he can do things you can’t.”
“Nnanji and me? Like the sword—sharpness and flexibility?”
“Like the griffon—a lion and an eagle!”
And suddenly Wallie felt better. No, he was not yet ready to retire to Tau. How could he be happy there, knowing that Nnanji was trampling unchecked through the life of the People? He followed his divine master through the alley and into the wide plaza, growing dim now in twilight . . . and stopped in surprise at the huge and rowdy party in progress. The tryst was vacationing. Oxen were being roasted over bonfires. Swordsmen and their ladies were everywhere, laughing and singing and whirling in dance. Minstrels and heralds were being drowned out in the hubbub and the music.
Then he realized that they must be celebrating more than Boariyi’s victory. Nnanji’s accession was already known. The young hero of Ov was more acceptable than the ambiguous, unorthodox Shonsu. Sutras and swordsmanship had returned. Perversions like archery could be forgotten. Nnanji had known.
Feeling wounded by their ingratitude, Wallie looked down and saw the demigod studying him with amusement, his face indistinct in the shadow, but his eyes gleaming bright.
“Wealth for Katanji, power for Thana, glory for Nnanji,” he said softly. “But you chose love, did you not?”
Wallie nodded.
“You shall have it, then . . . unless you wish to change your mind? If you want to try being emperor, the Goddess can still arrange for Nnanji to die in Vul.”
“No!” Wallie said hastily. “I . . . I’ll settle for love!”
The boy chuckled. “I thought so! Power does not appeal to you, Shonsu, just as the People do not interest Nnanji or the other two. You would rather right a wrong, would you not?”
That was true, Wallie admitted thoughtfully. And an empire could do so much: impose uniform laws, stamp out injustice and torture and perhaps even slavery, install good drainage . . . It would need hundreds of junior sorcerers to be scribes and accountants; city elders ought to be elected, not self-appointed; taxes should be fairly assessed and honestly collected . . . Ideas and plans began to romp through his mind until at last he saw the little god grinning at him. They both laughed.
“Your reward!” the boy said. “The World seems old to you, Shonsu, but in truth it is very young. To all the ages that are to be, this day will seem tike the dawn of history, the Coming of Nnanji. The Swordsmen in the Morning!”
He gestured for Wallie to move again. They wound their way across the plaza, between the dancers and the bonfires. No one noticed the passing of the deputy liege lord; that was a trick that the demigod had demonstrated once before, and Wallie was grateful for this temporary invisibility.
“But you will need a house for your lady,” the boy said. “Real estate in Casr is an excellent investment just now. Talk to Katanji.”
Wallie choked. “I have to get rid of that damned rug before Nnanji gets back! You think he will stand for my getting a house? A furnished house, I suppose?”
“But you will give Katanji Griffon, which is yours. Fair exchange, so Nnanji will not mind.”
“A leaky old tub like that? What sort of hovel would that buy?”
The god laughed shrilly. “A modest mansion! Nnanji will not know any better—he does not care about money. You will be amazed at the palace that Thana builds—with the money she gets from Sapphire, of course! You must learn to manage him, just as his brother and Thana have learned. He is an autocrat, remember. You are a courtier now.”
“Am I no better than those two, then?”
“Don’t judge! You taught Nnanji that every man must be arbiter of his own honor. You will be as true to him as you can. You can’t be a god, Walliesmith, you can’t be an emperor, and you can’t live by Nnanji’s standards! But you can be a good friend and helper.”
“And what does Katanji get out of this mansion-for-ship deal? Katanji and his friends?”
“Offer to make him treasurer of the tryst and see what he says! If you don’t, Nnanji will anyway. And warn him about the gold coming in from Ki San and Dri—he is sharp enough to see what it will do to prices and he will make another fortune on that alone. Tomorrow will be time enough. Swordsman Katanji has just heard the news, and at the moment he is still delirious over the prospects of a permanent tryst. This is a primitive World still, Shonsu. Don’t expect payroll deductions and medical insurance and pension plans . . . Ah! Here we are.”
He stopped and pointed at the lodge entrance ahead. A woman in blue was coming down the steps with a small, naked boy at her side.
Wallie looked twice and then again at his companion.
“That’s you, isn’t it?” he said.
“Of course! Could I ever get all my work done if I were only in one place at a time? And the lady with me, the seamstress of the Seventh?”
Wallie’s eyes misted over, and he could not see.
“Some swordsman you are!” The boy chuckled. “Shonsu, the gods are grateful! Your rewards will be wonderful: long life and happiness, power, and accomplishments.” He snickered. “And loving, of course! You will rule when Nnanji is absent. You will plot the atlas of the World and watch the circles close. You will force justice on Katanji, reason on Thana, and mercy on Nnanji. You will travel the World as his ambassador and ride at his side when he returns to Hann to thank the Goddess and visit his parents.
“The others will have the honor and fame, but you get the love of the People. And when at last you die, with your grandchildren’s children beside you and a multitude in vigil at the gates, then a World will weep. Until then, Jja’s love is yours and her beauty unfading. She minded little being a slave, but you minded, so she and Vixini have been freed. No one but you and she will even notice the change—it is a retroactive miracle, and the last. I have just explained to her.”
Wallie rubbed his watering eyes angrily. The little boy had run off to meet the other little boy, and then they were running side by side, except there was only one of him, and then he had vanished altogether in the darkness between the dancers and the bonfires . . .
And Lady Jja was standing at the bottom of the steps, smiling and waiting for her swordsman.