The inn was cool, and the wine in the cup of Basdon the Bloodshot was potent and sweet. He drank and smiled—politely though grimly—at the joking exchanges of the graingrowers sitting with him. They, after all, were paying for his wine.
"And anything else you want, good swordsman!" the largest of the farmers bellowed, slapping him on the back. "You served us well today, and by all that's devious we'll see you served no worse tonight! Ho there, Keep!"
The thick-middled man in the apron turned. "What, Jarno?"
"Me and the lads will get along to our own diggings after a cup or three," the farmer Jarno told him. "But our good friend the swordsman Basdon stays tonight. You tend him well, and we'll pay."
The aproned man nodded and looked curiously at Basdon. "Fair enough," he agreed, waddling closer with his gaze still on Basdon. "Might I ask, stranger, how got you in the good graces of Jarno and his bucolic cronies?"
"He found five graves we would have missed!" bellowed Jarno.
The aproned man frowned. "Out in the Narrowneck ground?" he asked.
"That's right. Them god-warriors got tricky, I guess," one of the other graingrowers chimed in. "They must have chopped the holes through the roots of a young chestnut tree. In five years, the roots grew back, to cover the bodies in the ground beneath. We couldn't snout them at all."
"But Basdon could!" said Jarno, giving the swordsman another slap on the back. "What's more than that, he got off his horse and helped us dig them out and burn them. You'd think a swordsman would be too snooty to dirty his hands with hard work. But not Basdon!"
His eyes still studying Basdon, the aproned man asked Jarno, "Could you recognize any of the bodies?"
"No. All five were grown men, and there was nothing to identify them. Basdon figures they could be god-warriors."
"Oh? My name is Jonker, swordsman. For a fighting man, you must be a bit of a magician to snout those bodies underneath living roots."
Basdon sipped from his cup. "A bit," he said, looking at his wine.
"And you think they were god-warriors?"
Basdon shrugged. "No magic in that guess. The god-warriors bury all the dead, because that's in keeping with their beliefs. But they would be most concerned for their own, so they would be most likely to bury them where they would stay buried." He saw the innkeeper Jonker was frowning uncertainly, so he added, "I know it's hard to follow the way they think, but to them a buried body is not an invitation to the first necromancer who comes along to enslave the body's soul. To them, burial is safe, and the worst thing that could happen to a body of a fallen comrade would be unearthing it. That would disturb the sleep of the soul."
Jonker nodded slowly. "Right you are, swordsman, now that I think it through."
"This talk of god-business gives me the shivers," one of the men complained uneasily. "It's bad enough to spend a day a week out there undoing the filthy work of those accursed worshippers. We do it, because it's our duty. But we don't have to gab about it all evening!"
Jonker chuckled, then said, "It's not very appetizing pre-supper conversation, I agree. How's the wine, swordsman?"
"Very tasty, and with bite," Basdon replied. "I haven't tasted better anywhere in Nenkunal." Jonker looked pleased. "I spelled it myself. And as the results demonstrate, I'm not without magical ability."
A couple of the graingrowers snorted and one said jokingly, "A top-grade magi, that's our Jonker, all right."
Basdon gathered that Jonker's pretensions in The Art were something of a standing joke. Which was a comforting thought, even though Basdon's personal secrets were protected by spells. Jonker's penetrating look had made the swordsman uneasy.
Attention turned to a bit of byplay between Jarno and the serving girl, who was trying to sit on the big man's lap.
"Go perch your pretty bottom elsewhere, Suni!" he growled unhappily. "A man's got his limits!"
"Ho, Jarno's getting old!" jibed one of the farmers.
"No, just sensible," Jarno denied angrily. "My wife's niece is staying with me while my wife's birthing, and she's an ardent and demanding piece. She would knot my head if I came home with no desire for her!" He gave the girl a shove. "Go perch on the swordsman, wench! He's a handsome stag, and with ardor to spare!"
Suni turned to study Basdon. "So he is," she giggled.
Basdon had paid her little heed before, but as she came toward him he looked her over. She was a shapely lass with a face of carefree prettiness rather than beauty. He put down his wine and opened his arms to her as she sat down on his lap.
She stroked his stubbled cheek, then kissed him on the mouth with the full lack of restraint of a healthy-minded woman. His thought of Belissa was only a brief, hurting flick across his brain, quickly crowded out by the lush wench in his arms, though his eyes burned sorely.
"Ho, the swordsman will content you!" guffawed Jarno approvingly. "He'll content her only for as long as it takes," observed another. "Suni's no babe to be soothed through the night by a milkless pacifier."
The girl worked her skirt out from under her, and Basdon's exploring hands found much to approve in her structural details. Suddenly he lifted her onto the table, as the farmers hastily rescued their cups and the flagon, and climbed up with her.
She made a lively match of it, constantly wriggling and straining against him while she moaned and giggled into his mouth. Basdon was through all too quickly for her pleasure. But as he stood up and adjusted his clothes one of the younger graingrowers moved quickly to take his place with the girl. The others shouted their approval and three of them began casting lots for the next turn.
Basdon sat down and recovered his cup from the floor and refilled it. Belissa was strong in his mind now, depressing him bitterly. She had been so different from this lusty lass Suni . . . so damnably different.
Jarno touched him on the shoulder. "Watching this discomfits me," he said, flicking a thumb toward the pair on the table. "I must depart for home in haste. But remember you have a friend in this valley, swordsman, if you pass this way again."
"That I will, Jarno," said Basdon. They touched each other's foreheads, and the big graingrower hurried out the door.
Moodily he watched the sporting on the table while he nursed his wine. Presently Jonker told him supper was prepared, and guided him to a table in a quieter corner of the room. The graingrowers soon departed, shouting goodbyes to him and promises of future visits to Suni. The girl also found reason to leave the room.
In the quiet, Jonker came to have wine with his guest.
"Not often in these unsettled times does a man of arms find comradeship among tillers of the soil," he remarked. "I'm pleased to see it happen. It reminds me of calmer days."
"Perhaps those days are returning," said Basdon.
Jonker shook his head. "All that is finished. The god-warriors will return, more numerous, time and again, until finally they will come to stay. Here and everywhere. They are the wave of the future."
"I think not," Basdon countered. "The god-warriors are . . . are afflicted with a soreness of the mind. Some will die of this affliction, and others will heal. That is the way with sicknesses, is it not?"
"With most sicknesses, yes. Not this one." Jonker gulped his wine while staring at Basdon. "Swordsman, you cannot judge the full course of this affliction upon the world by the course it has taken in you. And you must see that, while you seem to be a special case, your recovery is not complete."
Basdon tensed, prepared to come to his feet with sword in hand. But the innkeeper made no move other than to lift his cup. Although he had so much as said he recognized Basdon as a god-warrior . . .
Jonker said softly, "The age of the magical arts draws to a close, swordsman. This earth now faces an age of superstition, of religion, as the leaders of the god-warriors are beginning to call it. This will endure nigh twenty thousand years before The Art begins its slow recovery."
"You speak as one who knows," Basdon commented tightly.
"I was not always an innkeeper, swordsman. Nor were countrymen always encouraged to regard my abilities as a matter for laughter. Yes, I speak as one who knows."
"Then why don't you use your knowledge?" Basdon demanded. "If you have The Art, employ it against the . . . the enemy."
Jonker shrugged. "That would be futile. We must be overwhelmed. The earth is not the only world, swordsman. It is one among many. The starry sky is filled with worlds, and the powers of magic span the gulfs between. Only of late those powers have turned to darkness—to necromancy on a scale that makes our own black-spellers seem prankish children by comparison. That is the power behind the god-warriors, swordsman, the power of universal necromancy! We are all but helpless in the face of such strength."
Basdon was shaping a question when the innkeeper signaled him to silence, and Basdon saw that Suni was re-entering the room. "I will go see to your bed, swordsman," said Jonker, rising. He went out, and after a moment Suni came over and took the chair he had vacated. She regarded the swordsman with large blue eyes that were still interested, but now a trifle sleepy.
"You are a hasty man, Basdon," she murmured. "If you are equally swift with your sword, your enemies must die with merciful suddenness."
"My apologies," he replied. "I have traveled far and seldom meet such hospitality as you offered, so I fear I was inconsiderate . . ."
"You can make amends," she giggled. "I was wondering: Is it the dust of the roads that reddens your eyes?"
"Perhaps so," he replied, blinking rapidly now that his attention had been called to the ever-present but slight burning in his eyes.
"Basdon . . . Basdon the Bloodshot!" she laughed.
He flinched. Why did everyone hit upon that naming for him, even on the briefest acquaintance? It was irritating.
"It's but a trivial imperfection," the girl said hastily, seeing his annoyance, "and the only one I noticed . . . other than your haste, of course."
He smiled. "The haste, if not the redness of eye, can be considered cured."
Jonker returned. "Your room is ready, swordsman. I believe you will find the bed comfortable and . . ." he glanced at Suni " . . . large. But if the day has not left you too exhausted, perhaps you would honor me with an hour of conversation in my private quarters?"
Basdon nodded, smiled at Suni, and followed the innkeeper from the room. They passed along a dark hallway and down some stairs, the flickering lamp carried by Jonker revealing little more than the walls and the dusty night-light fixtures, which had not glowed since their operational spell had failed shortly before the god-warrior raiding began.
Having realized Jonker was more than he seemed, Basdon was not surprised to see subtle indications in the man's quarters that The Art was far from dead here. There was a general cleanliness in the appearance of the furnishings. The light from the lamp, which Jonker placed on a central table, seemed amplified by the brightness of the walls. A sense of ease that could not be attributed to the wine, the girl, and the good supper came over the swordsman as soon as they entered.
But he was determined not to be gulled into an overly relaxed condition, which he guessed was Jonker's intention. He took the offered chair, letting his right hand rest casually on the hilt of his weapon.
"I am curious about the god-warriors," said Jonker, seating himself comfortably on a lounging chair.
"Seemingly you know more of them than I," Basdon parried.
"In some respects, yes. But I have not lived among them, have not been one of them. I don't know how they respond, as individual men, to the geas of universal necromancy. Nor how they differ in particular personal traits from a man such as Jarno, for example."
"You think I can tell you that?" asked Basdon. "You are suggesting that I've been a god-warrior?"
Jonker shrugged. "You know what you've been, perhaps better than you know what you are now. And I know what I see in you, especially in your reddened eyes. Why deny it?"
Basdon grimaced. "Very well," he conceded. "But I paid dearly for the casting of a concealment over my mind, which should have protected my secrets from the gaze of a magician."
"Few casts and spells endure these days, and yours was probably done by a practitioner of mediocre skill," said Jonker.
For a moment Basdon considered his situation in silence. Jonker obviously knew him for what he was . . . an enemy. But, no, that was not what he really was. True he had been an enemy, a god-warrior, but no longer, and Jonker knew that as well. And the innkeeper had revealed nothing in the presence of the graingrowers, who among them could have easily done their will with a lone swordsman . . . So the magician had passed up the best opportunity to take vengeance on him.
Basdon frowned. He found it difficult to keep in mind that vengeance was seldom a motivation in Nenkunal. Only those, like himself, who had grown up in the new culture of religion rather than the old of magic tended to consider a man a lifelong enemy on the basis of one injury done. To Jonker, an enemy would be he who threatened future hurt, not one who had inflicted past hurt. So probably the innkeeper meant him no harm.
Without preamble, he answered the magician's question. "The god-warriors differ from a man like Jarno by being burdened with discontent. They differ among themselves in the things they are discontent about. Some worry about whether the gods attend their worship. Others are troubled because their fellows do not give them the positions and honors they feel they deserve. But most . . ." Basdon hesitated, then finished, " . . . most are troubled by women, either a woman who won't be theirs or a woman who is theirs but whose actions displease them."
"Ah," said the magician. "And the women?"
"They are much the same as the men," said Basdon. "Easily irked for reasons difficult to comprehend, seldom at ease with a man. The religion doubtless has something to do with that. It teaches that a woman's body is at the same time filthy and sacred. This must confuse them, but they seldom admit confusion."
"Then a girl of the worshippers would not be likely to entertain men in the manner that Suni entertained you and the graingrowers," mused Jonker.
"Some few might," Basdon replied uncertainly. "They would be those not convinced that their bodies were sacred, but who were sure they were filthy. I'm not sure that even those would couple while others watched. In the city of Vestim, for one example, a girl who behaved like Suni would be reviled by all, probably beaten to death by the other women."
With a glint of amusement, Jonker asked, "And how do you regard Suni?"
Basdon frowned, and shook his head. "Well, I know she's a fine, loving lass, but what I feel doesn't quite fit with what I know. I can't respect her, though I should."
"Fundamentally, then, sex is dirty," said the magician.
"It comes down to that," Basdon nodded.
"And what of your own woman?"
Pain bit at Basdon's mind, and he rubbed his burning eyes. "She is . . . she's one of those who considers her body very sacred. The last words I spoke to her, and angry words they were, was that she thought herself too good for any man, that only a god would be worthy of her."
"But this woman was not your only source of discontent," said Jonker. "If that were the case, you could hardly have enjoyed Suni with such enthusiasm, and so openly."
"That's true, perhaps," agreed the swordsman. "I think my real problem is that I don't quite believe in the gods."
The magician laughed. "Or that you don't quite disbelieve in them."
"Yes."
"You were one of the legion of god-warriors who engaged in the battle at Narrowneck five years ago," stated Jonker.
Basdon lowered his head and nodded. "The Art enables you to read that in me?"
"Partly. But mostly I guessed it through ordinary reasoning. You found the graves under the chestnut roots. No god-warrior is sufficiently free of universal necromancy to do that by snouting. You had to know those bodies were buried there."
"I helped cut the holes," said Basdon, his eyes clenched shut. "Then last year, when I saw at last that my desire for the woman—she is called Belissa—when I saw it was fruitless, I deserted the warriors and set out to retrace the route my legion had followed. I hoped that, here and there, along the way, I might be able to make some amend of the harm we had wrought. As I did today at Narrowneck."
The magician shrugged. "It matters little now whether bodies are burned or buried. The necromancers out there"—he pointed a thumb toward the sky—"will see to it that all souls meet the same fate. Your pilgrimage is honorable, but futile."
Basdon leaped to his feet to pace the room angrily. "Then why do you keep on living, magician, since to you everything seems hopeless?" he shouted. "You say the age of magic is dead, that the sickness of religion is going to overwhelm us all, that fighting back is useless! Then what keeps you going, magician?"
"Perhaps I would keep my spirit free a few years longer, as long as this body holds together," Jonker replied softly. "Also, there is still something needful of being done."
"What can be done, if all is lost?" Basdon demanded.
"You may recall that I said, while you were dining, that the age of religion would endure twenty thousand years, before man would begin to pull free of the tiring necromancers and a new era of magic would start its growth. My greatest ability in The Art is to see such distant matters with some clarity, if one considers twenty thousand years distant. It really is little more than a moment in the total span of a soul's existence.
"In any event, there will come a moment, in the advance of the new era of magic, when The New Art will be imperiled by its own incompleteness. Men will have learned many important but elementary traits of gross matter and motion. Such as being able to mark out with great precision the path that a thrown object will follow—trivialities no present-day magician would concern himself with.
"The demi-magicians of the future will interest themselves almost exclusively in such pursuits, because the lingering necromancy will block what few efforts are made to examine the nature and abilities of the human spirit. Those who look will usually see nothing but a peculiar obsession with sex—which, as you and I know, will be no basic trait of the spirit, but merely the result of a necromantic geas.
"However, this will allow the continued one-sided growth of The New Art, dealing generally with purely physical matters, while the old religious superstitions will remain accepted in psychical matters. I can't adequately describe to you the weirdness of such a mingling, or the absurdly unbelievable conflicts that will result."
Basdon said, "I think I can imagine a little of it. Having been a god-warrior, and now being . . . whatever I am, I know something of mental conflicts."
"So you do," nodded the magician.
"But you have told nothing of what you said needs to be done," the swordsman reminded him.
"I was getting to that. The age of The New Art will have to surmount its unbalanced development, or destroy itself. To win through the crisis, man will need nothing less than a favoring destiny."
"Favoring destiny?" Basdon asked, puzzled.
"That's good luck in layman's terms," explained the magician. "It was the last great development of The Art, before the decline began a century ago when universal necromancy began to shadow the earth and negate our work. A potent talisman of destinic adjustment still exists amid the ruins of Oliber-by-Midsea. It is powerless now, and defenseless."
"What power did it ever have?" Basdon asked sharply. "I would say the people of earth have seen little good luck during the past century!"
"In answer, I can only say that, bad though our condition is, it could have been worse by far," replied the magician. "The fate we were able to compromise ourselves out of, because of the strength of our favoring destiny, was . . . well, it's best left unhinted at. Even a spirit such as yours, swordsman, with the strength to struggle as you are doing against the geas of the necromancy, might fail if faced, unprepared, by such knowledge."
Basdon nodded acceptance of that, having little curiosity for horrible might-have-beens. "Then you hope to forward this favoring destiny to the next age of magic," he surmised.
"Yes, I wish to recover the talisman of Oliber-by-Midsea and conceal it where it will keep safely. Then, when the universal geas loses its potency, the talisman will begin functioning once more."
"May you fare well in this undertaking," said Basdon. "For myself, I care little for what happens twenty thousand years from now."
This remark appeared to depress the magician. "It is doubtless true that the geas occludes from you all knowledge of the human spirit's infinite survival," he mumbled. "The concept that you will live many lifetimes in many bodies, both during and after the age of religion, has no real meaning for you. Thus, you are not too concerned about future conditions. I regret that. Your help would have been useful in my quest."
Basdon blinked. He should have guessed that all this talk was leading up to something. "You want me to go with you to Oliber?"
The magician nodded. "I will need two with me. First, a guide to the ruined city and to the proper place in it. And second, a man of arms who is familiar with the ways of the god-warriors, as the worshippers of Vishan are now sovereign in the Midsea region. She who will guide is not far away, waiting, as I have been, for the proper third member of our party."
Basdon considered in silence. Finally he spoke. "You said it matters not if bodies be buried or burned. Why is that?"
"Because in either case the universal geas seizes the spirit immediately upon the body's death. Unlike our own piddling black-spellers, those from beyond earth do not need unburnt remains from which to trace and capture the departed soul. They seize all spirits, degrade them into worshippers, and return them to earth to seek new-conceived bodies for new lives as god-warriors and god-women. It saddens me to think the child near birthing by Jarno's wife will, as a near certainty, prove afflicted by the geas."
"Then there is little point in my pilgrimage along the legion's route, if that is true," said Basdon.
"It is true," Jonker assured him. "Although it is not a truth to be told to such good and simple men as Jarno. It is better to let them find comfort in freeing bodies from the earth—and freeing earth from bodies."
Basdon made his decision. "Very well, magician, we will seek Oliber-by-Midsea together. I have little concern for your purpose, but . . . but I have nothing better to do."
Jonker rose and extended his hand to touch Basdon's forehead, the swordsman returning the gesture to seal the pact.
"You will be welcome on those terms," said the magician, "and may the journey be more rewarding than you expect."