Piers Anthony - Neq the Sword

Momentarily? Crazies were crazy, naturally!

Then Dr. Jones got up and left the room.

Neq remained, baffled.

A few minutes later Dr. Jones returned with another man, a rotund crazy in spectacles. "Please tell Dr. Abraham and you told me," Jones said. "About your plans."

It was Dick the Surgeon--the man Neqa had rescued from the cage! Now he only remotely resembled the thin fugitive of four years ago.

Neq repeated his philosophy and his plan.

"Why do you come to us?" Dick asked, as though he had never had experience with the wilderness.

"Because I am a sworder, not a builder. I can't read, I can't operate the machinery of Helicon. You crazies can."

"He knows his limitations," Dr. Jones observed.

"But he is a killer."

"Yes," Neq agreed. "But I have had enough of killing." He lifted his arm. "I would make this sword into--"

"A plowshare?" Dr. Jones asked.

Neq did not answer, not being familiar with the term.

"Your former leader, Robert of Helicon," Dr. Jones said to Dick. "Was he not a ruthless man?"

"Robert? Oh, you mean Bob. Yes, ruthless but efficient. Maybe you're right." Dick looked at Neq. "It is ugly, but--"

Neq did not follow much of this. "I have cleaned and restored the mountain, but I cannot do more without your help. I can't fill it with people who can make it function. That is why I'm here."

"It would take a year for a man in your condition to tidy up that carnage!" Dick exclaimed.

"Yes."

There was a silence. The crazies hardly seemed enthusiastic!

Finally Dr. Jones brought out a sheet of paper. "Bring me these people," he said, handing it to Neq. "Those who have survived."

"I can not read. Is this the service you require of me in exchange for your help?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes. I must ask you to tell no one of your project. And I must advise you that your weapon will be valueless in this endeavor--perhaps even a liability."

That seemed to be the extent of his answer. Neq glanced at his sword, wondering whether he should remind the old crazy that it was impossible for him to set aside his weapon, useful or not. "Tell me the names."

"You can remember them accurately?"

"Yes."

Dr. Jones picked the paper out of Neq's pincer-grasp and read. "Sos the Rope. Tyl of Two Weapons. Jim the Gun."

Neq halted him, astonished. "Sos the Rope went to the mountain... oh, I see. He may be alive after all. Tyl is master of the largest remaining tribe. Jim the Gun--"

"You may know Sos better by his later designation: the Weaponless."

"The Weaponless! Master of Empire?" And yet of course it fit. Sos had gone to the mountain; the Weaponless had come out of it. To take the wife he had always wanted--Sola. Neq should have made the connection long ago.

"Have you changed your mind?"

Angry, Neq kept silence while he considered. The crazies were trying to set him an impossible task! Was it to be certain he would fail? Was this really their way of refusing assistance? Or was Dr. Jones serious, having decided that it was necessary, before Helicon could be rebuilt, to eliminate its destroyers? The Weaponless, Tyl, Jim the Gun--these had been the architects of Helicon's demise. The Weaponless had provided the motive; Tyl the manpower; Jim the weapons....

Perhaps it made sense. But how to locate the Weaponless now! If the man lived, so did the empire, and Neq himself still owed him fealty!

"I think the Weaponless is dead," Neq said at last.

"Then bring his wife."

"Or his child," Dick said.

"And if I bring these people to you, then you will give me the help I need for Helicon?"

"There are more names." Dr. Jones read them: all unfamiliar.

"I'll bring every one that lives!" Neq cried recklessly. "Will you help me then?"

Dr. Jones sighed. "I should be obliged to."

"I do not know where to find them all."

"I will travel with you," Dick the Surgeon said. "I know many of the Helicon refugees by sight, and have some notion where they might hide. But it would be your job to persuade them to come--without killing them."

Neq mused on this... The company of the surgeon did not appeal to him, but it did promise to facilitate an onerous task. "I can't tell them and I can't kill them. Yet I must make them come. The leading warriors of the old empire, including the very man who--" He shook his head. "All because I want to rebuild Helicon, and restore your source of supply, so that you can bring back the circle code."

Dr. Jones didn't seem to comprehend Neq's irony. "You have the essence, warrior."

Angry and disappointed, Neq walked out. But Dick the Surgeon followed.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Tyl's tribe was not as large as it had been in the heyday of empire, for he had taken losses in the Helicon reduction and in the anarchy following. But its demesnes were larger because of the general decimation of nomads in recent years. Now it represented a kind of civilization itself, for shelters had been built, fields cultivated, weapons forged, and the circle code was enforced. There was now a preponderance of staffs, clubs and sticks, mostly wooden weapons, because metal was much cruder than Helicon's product. The fine old weapons were increasingly precious now. Neq knew that those who carried swords of the old type were veterans, for today a man was challenged as frequently for possession of a superior weapon as for woman or service or life.

"You come to challenge me?" Tyl demanded incredulously. "Have you forgotten the code of empire: the sub-chiefs of the Weaponless may not war against each other?"

"They may not war for mastery," Neq answered. "No, I have not forgotten. But the empire is dead, and so are its conventions."

"It is not dead until we know the Weaponless is dead--and he is a difficult man to kill, as you would know had you ever met him in the circle. And the circle code is not dead where my tribe travels."

"It is dead wherever your tribe departs, however." But Neq approved the fine order Tyl maintained. "I did not say I came to challenge you with weapon, for I may not use my sword on this mission. Were any man to question my competence in the circle, I should be glad to show him my blade--but not for mastery, not for death, only for demonstration, no blood shed. I challenge you only to do a service for me, and perhaps for the nomad society."

Tyl smiled. "I would do you a service without inducement in the circle, however circumspectly hinted, for we were comrades in better days. And I would aid the nomad society if I only knew how. What is it you wish?"

"Go to the crazies."

Tyl laughed.

"Nevertheless," Neq said, remembering how Sol had reacted to disbelief, so many years ago. More than half Neq's life had passed since his conquest by Sol of All Weapons.

Tyl lookeu at him more closely, responsive to the tone. "I have heard--this is merely rumor--that you were injured in a conflict with outlaws."

"Many times."

"The first time. That they overcame you by means of the advantage of fifty men and a gun, and cut off your hands."

Neq glanced down at his cloth-wrapped extremities, nodding.

"And that you achieved some semblance of vengeance... nevertheless."

"They slew my wife."

"And she was a crazy?"

"She was."

"Yet now you espouse another crazy cause?"

Neq's sword-arm twitched under the cloth. "Do you slight my wife?"

"By no means," Tyl said quickly. "I merely remark that you have had adventures I have not, and must have strong motive for your mission."

Neq shrugged.

"I will go to the crazies," Tyl said. "If I do not find reason to stay, I will return to my tribe."

"That suffices."

"Any other favor I can do you?" Tyl inquired dryly.

"If you can tell me where the Weaponless might be."

Tyl controlled his surprise. "He has been absent five years. I doubt he resides within the crazy demesnes."