Glen Cook - The Swordbearer

They stared at the gray stone mausoleum for a long while. The Mindak's artisans had told the story of each girl in skillful bas-relief.

"Why?" Rogala asked.

"The dagger. It was time."

"Suchara has lost you already."

"I left, Theis. She didn't let me go. No more, I think, than she'd ever let you go. Her pride will compel her to try something."

"You think she still rules me? I'm free, Gathrid."

"I don't hear your conviction, Theis. If you're free, what're you doing here with me?"

"Where else have I got to go? What else, whom else, do I know? They left me no options when they took my eyes. It's go with you or become a beggar. The Esquire has his pride too."

"Uhm." That sounded as though it contained a grain of truth. Long life was a curse upon Rogala. It made him a time traveler marooned far from home. He had nothing in this world but his fragile association with the youth he was supposed to kill once Suchara had tired of him.

Was there anyone else with a use for the blind dwarf?

Perhaps someone who would use him as Ahlert had used the Toal.

"How did it begin, Theis? What are the Great Old Ones? Where did they come from?"

"I don't know."

"Really, Theis? Pardon me if I have trouble believing you. You've always known more than you were willing to tell."

"Gathrid, I'm a tired old man. Rehashing the past, and my ignorance, won't do any of us any good."

"I want to understand, Theis. I've been a part of something. On a grand scale. I want to know what. I want to know what it means. And on a smaller scale, I'd like to unravel the mystery called Theis Rogala. You puzzle me more than the Great Old Ones."

Rogala's sightless eyes scanned the ruined land. He did not say a word.

"Who are you, Theis? What are you? Why do you live on and on? Even Nieroda has to change flesh.

Where were you born? When? Were you born at all? What's your real connection with Suchara?''

"That's all long ago and far away, Gathrid. None of it . matters anymore."

"It matters to me. Tell me about Suchara. Is she real? Is she a goddess? Why does she torment humanity so?"

"Peace, I say!"

"No, Theis. Not anymore. Peace is dead. I've lost everything I value. I've had my life shaped and warped in a direction I would've rejected had I been able. I've seen my whole world destroyed. I want to know why!"

"It can't be changed."

"Tell me."

"Damnit! Aarant was stubborn and nosy, but he wasn't half the pest you are. Let it lie, I say."

"Start with Suchara."

Rogala sighed. "You win. Yes. She's real. She does exist. She was a human woman once. One member of a family which delved deeper than even Nieroda. Farther and deeper than Nieroda could imagine, even as Queen of Sommerlath. And they went too far. They tempted fate too much. They outlasted most researchers, but they finally stumbled into the trap that takes them all. Now they lie caught in an endless sleep, hidden away somewhere. Sometimes they dream the shaping dreams. They touch the world with their minds. The world responds. They don't know that what they touch is real. They think they're playing on a game board with the scale of a world. After all, it isn't the world in which they fell asleep."

"I saw them awake, Theis."

"No. They only dreamed. Only dreamed."

"But ..."

"Were Suchara here, Gathrid, you'd see nothing but a woman. A plain woman who clothes herself in gauzes of aquamarine to distract the eye from her homeliness. She uses perfumes that smell of the sea. She has eyes of green and, perhaps, a strand of seaweed threaded into her coppery hair. Her voice would be modulated to contain undertones reminding you of the whisper of the waves. She's a dramatic, and a talent, but she's just a woman."

Gathrid watched the man while he talked, startled. This was his terse, insensitive companion, Theis Rogala?

"It sounds like you knew her. Like you were maybe in love with her."

"Perhaps."

"And the others?"

"Chuchain. Her husband. Bachesta and Ulalia are daughter and son. Bachesta was a dark one. An evil one. The sleep may have been her doing. She wasn't a patient woman. Ulalia was her antithesis.

Pure, if you like. And slow, lazy, and easily fooled."

Softly, Gathrid said, "I see why he attracted my sister. This family. Is their fighting for real?

Are they just whil-ing the time?"

"It's real. Endlessly, agonizingly real. They knew, as the sleep took them, that only one of them would ever come back out. Three must perish that one may waken. Or be wakened. It'll take an outsider nearly as great as they. And in that aspect, they may unconsciously know what they're doing to the world. They may be trying to create their deliverer.''

"Ahlert. ..."

"He might have revived Chuchain. He came near succeeding without realizing what he was doing. For a while he had control of the dream, rather than the dream of him. The people of Ansorge had done most of the work for him. Had he found Daubendiek before Suchara quickened, and taken it to a certain place ..." The dwarf shuddered.

"And what about Daubendiek? What is Daubendiek?"

"A sword. A trap. The Hell wherein Suchara's soul is tormented. In those days it was the practice to hide part of one's soul in some object. So with the Staif."

"And the Shield?"

"Like your blade there, just a creation of Nieroda's. No. Not 'just.' Bachesta nurtured Nieroda forages. And, as she did with Ahlert, she turned on her master. She became capable of matching Bachesta evil for evil, on this plane."

"She seemed more lonely and unhappy than evil." Gathrid related his experiences before the Great Old Ones.

"What is evil but misery and loneliness?" Rogala muttered. "The child of those parents, surely."

Gathrid frowned. Theis had taken quite a philosophical turn.

"Even Nieroda is human, Gathrid. Dead and immortal, but human. Loneliness is the price of power.

Even Gerdes Mulenex had his good side. You saw that side in your sister so strongly you couldn't see any other. So it goes. You should have learned that lesson by being Swordbearer. You tasted a lot of souls."

"There was love in Anyeck, Theis. There was even a spark of it left in Nieroda."

"That's what I said."

"There was no love in that place we went. Only hatred."

"Hatred born of jealousy. Or envy. Or inability to handle love. Love makes a family. And love destroyed that one, yet binds them in their dreams. They don't understand."

"I'm not sure I do, either."

"To be unable to comprehend love is human too, Gathrid. They still have love without knowing it.

Only Bachesta has lost it entirely. Ulalia has lost care. His only desire is a peaceful, dreamless sleep."

"And Theis Rogala? What is he in all of that?"

"Once upon a time there was a man named Theis Rogala who was Suchara's lover. He was a whole man.

... Now he guards the blade where a jealous Chuchain chained her soul. He brings it forth to do battle when he must. To protect its existence. To help Suchara defend herself. But what's left of that man has grown weary of the whole mess. I owe, but must I pay forever?"

The dwarf seemed to be thinking aloud rather than speaking to his companion.

"Why slay the Swordbearers?"

"They become too enamored of their roles. They enjoy their might. And they grow too strong. And she grows fond of them, thinking they might set her free. She gives them knowledge and power they might wield against her. I can't permit that. It has to be me. But I dare not use the blade myself. I'd become enslaved. She knows me too well, and her desperation is too great. So I wait till she chooses, and hope that someday all the right things happen at all the right times. But despair gnaws at me like the worms of the earth. I have so little left to give- unless I do take up the blade."