Piers Anthony - Neq the Sword

"This is one of the two we traced," Tyl said. "She was reconnoitering in the village, the same as I, and when we met--"

"She traveled with a nomad?" Neq asked, still bemused by the parallel to his own experience of six years before. "A crazy?"

"I am Vara," she said. "I travel with my husband. He should be around here somewhere--"

Neq still had not come out of his fog. "Var? The Stick?"

"Yes! Did you meet him? From what Tyl says, we have a common mission--"

Then Neq came to total and ugly awareness. He touched the fresh burial mound with one foot. "I--met him."

Tyl looked at him and at the cairn, comprehending. He went for his sword, but stopped. He turned away.

Vara went to the caim and carefully removed a section of the stone lining. She excavated the fresh earth and sand with her slender fingers while Neq watched. Finally she uncovered a foot, with its blunted, hooflike toes. She touched it, feeling its coldness.

By this time it was dark, and night closed in completely as she contemplated that deformed, dead foot. Then she covered it gently, filled in the hole, and replaced the stones.

"My two fathers are dead," she said wistfully. "Now my husband. What am I to do?"

"We met. We fought."

"I served Sol," Tyl said from his section of the night, still facing away. There was an anguished quality to his voice that Neq had not heard before. "I served the Weaponless. Var the Stick was my friend. I would have barred you from the circle with him, had I been certain of what I suspected. When I saw Vara, I was certain. But you met Var too soon."

"I did not know he was your friend," Neq said, hating this. "I knew him only as a slayer of men by treachery, and of a child at Helicon."

"You misjudged him," Tyl said in the same quiet tone Vara had used. "He was bold in combat but gentle in person. And he had an invaluable talent."

"Var slew only of necessity," Vara said. "And not always then."

Neq was feeling worse, though it had been an honest combat He had struck too hastily, as he had so often before. His sword outreached his intellect. He could have disengaged, waited for Tyl's return.'Now he had to defend his action. "What need had he to slay the child of Sol?"

Vara turned to him in the dark. "I am the child of Sol."

Neq's stomach heaved with the pang of unwarranted killing, knowing what was coming. "He killed Soli at Mt.

Muse, when she was eight years old. All accounts agree on that."

"All but one," she said. "The true one. He claimed to have killed me, so that the nomads would win, and my two fathers could be together again. But then I couldn't get back to tell Sol the truth, and the Weaponless was seeking Var for vengeance--"

"Vengeance!" Abominable concept!

"So we had to flee. We went to China, and I took his bracelet when I came of age. Soli exists no more."

Now Neq recognized her face, though it was no longer visible in the night. The classic beauty of Sola! The crazy dress and his own dawning guilt had blinded him to her identity.

"The boy Var traveled with, going north--" Neq murmured. "A girl with her hair hidden."

"Yes. So no one would know I wasn't dead. I can't do that now."

She certainly couldn't! The child of eight had become a woman of fifteen. "And Sol pursued you too, not knowing... he must have met the Weaponless on the way!"

"They learned in China. And gave their lives carrying radioactive stones into the enemy stronghold, so that we could escape. Var always felt that it was his fault they died, but it was mine. I knew they would do it."

Var had blamed himself... and so had let Neq's accusation stand. Now Var's assumed guilt was Neq's.

"It was a mistake," Tyl said after a long pause. "Var told everyone he had killed the mountain champion. Helicon itself was fired and gutted to avenge thai murder--it does not matter by whom. Neq did not know. Only _I_ knew Var would not have slain a child. And I know the kind of terms Sola makes. She was kind to Var, but her price was surely the life of her daughter."

"Var did say something," Vara admitted. "He had sworn to kill the man who harmed me. And for a long time he was reticent, though he loved me...."

Neq remembered Sola's comment about Var's sterility. Strange, driven woman!

"Yet I knew it could have happened," Tyl continued. "Mt. Muse is high and steep, and there are rocks to drop. Had you attacked him with stones while he was climbing, he might have had to fight before he knew, and he was deadly in rough terrain. So he might have killed you, and I could not bar Neq from combat until I was sure. It was my mistake; I am to blame for your husband's death--"

"No!" Neq and Vara cried together.

There was silence again, as each person sifted his tangled motives. The conversation was unreal, and not because it emanated from darkness. Neq's emotions were partly in suspension. "Why do you not curse me? Why do you not weep? I killed--"

"You killed because you did not understand," Vara said. "I have some share of guilt for that, for I agreed to play dead. Tonight I make you understand. Tomorrow I kill you. Then will I weep for you both."

She meant it. She was like Miss Smith, who died Neqa. Changed of name, precious beyond all imagination, but loyal to her man. Neqa had tried to kill Yod when Yod made ready to cut off Neq's hands. Would Vara do less?

Yod had killed Neqa by accident. Now Neq had killed Var. The guilt was the same. Vengeance would be the same.

She would not have it, any more than he had. Neq bent his elbow, bringing his sword-arm to his own throat. It was past time for him to die.

"I claim my price," Tyl said, startling Neq as his muscles tensed for the fatal slice.

Of all times! Yet Neq had a debt of honor, and he would have to acquit it. "Name your price."

"Give back what you have taken this day."

Neq delayed answering, trying to discover Tyl's meaning. Obviously he could not restore Var to life.

"What you have to do," Vara said evenly, "do before dawn. When daylight comes I will destroy you in the circle."

"In the circle!" Now Neq could not fathom her meaning either. Women did not do battle. "What is your weapon?"

"The stick."

The morbid situation could not suppress Tyl's interest. "So Sol did train you in combat!"

"My father. Yes. Every day we practiced, inside the mountain. He hoped to take me away from Helicon some day, but Sosa wouldn't let him. And I have practiced since."

Now Tyl's voice was more concerned. "Mere practice can not make a woman into a man. My daughter is older than you, and she has a child of her own now--but this would never have come to pass if she had ever entered man's province. The circle is not for you."

"Nevertheless." Sol's child, all right!

"This man," Tyl continued persuasively, "this man, Neq the Sword, was second only to me in the empire, when the Weaponless departed. Now he has no hands, but he retains his weapon. He is less clever in technique, but more deadly than before because he cannot be disarmed. His sword is swifter than his mind. I think no man can stand against that sword today."

"Nevertheless."

"I can not permit this encounter," Tyl said.

Her voice was cold. "Your permission is irrelevant."

"Var was my friend. He taught me to use the gun. I hurt with his loss, as you do. Yet I say this: do not lift stick against Neq the Sword. We must not make this terrible mistake again."

"Var was more than friend to me," she pointed out caustically.

"Nevertheless."

"You have no right," she said.

Tyl did not answer, and the strange, tense conversation ended.

Neq did not know whether he slept that night, or whether the others did, but slowly the morning came.

Vara had changed. She no longer resembled an ineffective crazy woman. That guise must have been for the benefit of the local villagers, who were rather like crazies themselves in their dress, so that she could pass among them freely. Now she wore a nomad smock, and her hair was loose and long, falling down over her shoulders on either side and curling about the soft mounds of her breasts. She remained stunning by any definition.