Glen Cook - The Swordbearer

"We're cutting it fine," Gathrid observed. "Just a minute left."

"You won't get back to Bleibel in time," Rogala grumbled.

A great slab of a door stuttered open. Its rusty hinges howled like a chorus of singing dragons.

Light exploded from the other side.

Gathrid flung Daubendiek ahead of him and charged.

The sole occupant of the chamber was Gerdes Mule-nex. The fat Fray Magister lay on his back on a stone bench, breathing shallowly. His bloated face was pale and without character.

"Let me," Rogala said, gesturing them back. He approached the fat man. After prodding Mulenex with a blunt finger, peeling back eyelids and smelling Mulenex's breath, he announced, "A Toal. With the demon on vacation."

"That explains a few things," Gathrid said. "And I think I know where the demon is. Hold it!"

Tracka was about to use his blade. The youth pushed it aside. "She'll know what's happened if you do. We can't let her. Not yet." Slowly, like a sleepwalker, he eased round Mulenex and stalked toward the source of the brilliant light.

"Theis, look at this."

Rogala grunted. "No wonder Count Cuneo was pushing us about betraying Anderle."

Gathrid probed the glow with his left hand. "He knew this was here."

"Undoubtedly. Yes. No wonder."

Gacioch had grown strangely silent. Till now he had been providing a barrage of unsolicited suggestions. Gathrid frowned. Gacioch silent was more an attention-grabber than Gacioch with his normal logorrhea.

"Misplaer would have known," Gathrid reasoned. "And Eldracher, Elgar and Ahlert. This was why the Mindak wanted Sartain so bad. Mulenex probably didn't know till the end." The youth's fingertips brushed what felt like solid, polished iron. "The Shield of Drie-brant."

He found the Shield's handgrip and armstraps. Laying Daubendiek aside, he fixed the Shield on his left arm. The Sword protested. Gathrid said, "We'd better hurry if we want to get to Bleibel in time."

Tracka nodded. The Thaumaturge-General's face remained expressionless. It seemed nothing fazed the man.

"Theis, stay here. If Mulenex starts to come round, kill him. Give it half an hour. Then do it anyway."

The dwarf protested, but found himself talking to the Swordbearer's back. Gathrid last heard Gacioch trying to convince Rogala that this was the best strategy.

Bleibel met them in the council chamber, ten minutes past deadline. Tracka's soldiers had managed to stall him without further bloodshed.

The Colonel stared for a long time. Finally, "You'll come with me now?"

"Yes," Gathrid said. "I wouldn't miss it."

"Yes," said Tracka, distracted. He was lost in the nuances of sorceries he might need to survive this day. Gathrid had shared his suspicions during their climb from the Shield Chamber.

"Your weapons, then."

"Don't be silly."

Tracka's hand went to his hilt. "I know only one way to give a weapon, Colonel."

"We're going with you," Gathrid said. "But don't expect us to put ourselves at your mercy. The grandest fool wouldn't do that after all that's happened."

The right side of Bleibel's face twitched. His sword hand strayed weaponward. He thought better of it, spun, stamped up the stairs. Gathrid followed. Tracka assembled his men, followed too. Near the door, at Gathrid's gesture, he recovered the Staff of Chuchain.

Lines of ragged Guards Oldani formed to their flanks once they descended the Hundred Steps.

Glancing back, Gathrid reflected that this tattered, limping parade was a microcosmic crosssection of the continent west of the Nirgenaus. It had been a bitter, demanding, devouring series of wars. A lot that was good had been destroyed.

To what purpose?

It was not finished yet. He might find an answer.

He hoped it would be acceptable, and feared that it would not be.

Imperial Palace The palace was more impressive than the Raftery. Like the Queen City itself, it had grown with the centuries. Its vast maze rolled down Faron's flanks like melted wax down the sides of a candle. In places it had begun insinuating fingers into the surrounding city.

The Raftery, externally, had remained little changed since the reign of the Immortal Twins. The Frays Ma-gister, when unable to resist the desire to expand, had added new chambers underground.

Not so the.Emperors. They had insisted that their works be on public display. Many had built to overawe the memories of their predecessors.

Plain vanity was the raison d 'etre for most of the vast stonework crowning Faron. The palace had become a city within the Queen City.

Gathrid had no time to sightsee. He was busy learning the ways of the Shield. By concentrating he could compel it to remain quiescent. When not shining it looked like just another battered instrument of war.

The thing was as slippery as Daubendiek. He had to stay with it every second.

The route they followed was so jagged Gathrid stopped the guide they had collected at the palace gate. "Straight on from here, fellow. No more stalling. Unless you'd prefer the Kiss of Suchara to that of your wife."

The man gulped. Internal conflict revealed itself in stance and expression. "Yes, Lord." Two minutes later he opened a door on a vast hall with a floor of jade.

Daubendiek quivered, hummed softly. It remembered this place. There, near that alabaster throne, looming so huge despite distance, Tureck Aarant had slain Karkai-nen. The floor remained scarletly alive where the Immortal Twin's lifeblood had poured out.

Guards tramped, stamped. They formed a precise line shielding the preposterously bloated specimen ensconced on Anderle's throne. They were quick and dangerous, the cream of the Guards Oldani.

Gathrid advanced cautiously. He sensed the presence of Nevenka Nieroda.

She was in that disgusting man-mountain called Elgar!

In this hour when Anderle's dream waxed strongest, when circumstance had made the Empire the one force capable of reuniting the west, its soul had been vampir-ized. The last dreamer had been dragged down. Nieroda had cut them out one by one and had brought their fancies to an end.

I'm the last one left, Gathrid thought. And anything I do is futile. She's murdered the dream. In that sense she can no longer lose.

The loss of Anderle angered him as much as the loss of Loida or Anyeck. The Empire was the last of the realities of his boyhood.

A gravelly voice deep within him rumbled, demanding attention. The Empire was not dead, it insisted.

Yedon Hildreth remained a stubborn man.

Gathrid thought the chance too remote, too improbable, too dependent on the unknown quality of the Contessa Cuneo. She was just an Oldani girl, a soldier's brat, thinly lacquered with civilization.

What could she do, battling the subtle rigors of imperium?

She is my flesh, Cuneo insisted.

Gathrid had not met her. He admitted he could not know. If she were her father's daughter ...

But what value will and stubbornness against such as Nevenka Nieroda?

Irritably, Gathrid brushed off an attack by the Guards.

Bleibel went berserk. He screamed. Hordes of Sar-tainians swept in. They hurled themselves on the bewildered Ventimiglians.

Gathrid felt removed from it all. He seemed to be an observer watching killing machines at work.

The attackers kept coming. Their corpses piled in drifts. Their blood gathered in lakes on the vast jade floor.

He felt no sense of time. It just seemed that, finally, they stopped coming. He stood alone except for grim, pale Tracka.

He felt stronger than ever. Daubendiek had fed on countless lives. He felt no connection with place or event. He was the Instrument of Suchara... .

He began speaking the words she wanted said.

Something inside him monitored and adjusted them. "Now, Nieroda. Now we settle the accounts.