Фред Сейберхэген: The First Book of Swords

So, if the sword hadn't entered into it, Mark's brother and father would both be still alive. And the Elder Kyril too. And probably even the Duke's cousin would be alive and well cared for in his abductors hands, to be sent home as soon as a ransom was paid — or, perhaps more likely, released with abject apologies as soon as the kidnappers found out who he was. Yes, the sword had destroyed warbeasts and bandits. But it had also brought ruin upon the very town and people that its name suggested it might have saved…

On top of all the other deeper and more terrible problems that it caused, it was also a damned awkward thing to carry. And the more time that Mark spent carrying it, the more maddening this comparatively minor difficulty became. He continually tried to find a safe and comfortable way to hold the thing while he walked with it. In a way his mind welcomed this challenge, as an escape from the consideration of difficulties infinitely worse.

After he washed the sword he tried for a little while carrying it unwrapped, but that quickly became uncomfortable too. The only halfway reasonable way to carry a naked sword, particularly one as keen-edged as this, was in hand, as if you were ready to fight with it. Mark wasn't ready to fight, and didn't want to pretend he was. More importantly, the weight borne that way soon made his wrist and fingers ache.

Careful testing assured him that the edges were still sharper than those of any other blade, knife or razor that he'd ever held; if he were to try to carry this weapon stuck through his belt, his pants would soon be down around his ankles. And, to Mark's vague, unreasonable disappointment, it was soon obvious that the sword was not going to rust because of its immersion in the river. The brilliant steel dried quickly, and in fact to Mark's fingertip felt very slightly oily. With a mixture of despair and admiration he stared at the finely mottled pattern that seemed to lead on deeper and deeper into the metal, under the shiny surface smoothness.

Before he'd walked very far after the washing, he had paused to rewrap the sword in the still-wet cloth, and tied it up again, leaving a loop of cord for a carrying handle. Mark slogged on, shifting his burden this way and that. If he hung it from one hand, it banged against his legs; if he put it over one shoulder like a shovel, he could feel it threatening to cut him, right through its wrapping and his shirt. Of course, with the sword tied up like this, he wouldn't be able to use it quickly if he had to. That really didn't bother Mark. He didn't want to try to use it anyway.

Mark kept fighting against the memory of how Kenn had used the sword — or how it had used Kenn, who was as innocent as Mark of any training with such a weapon. In the militia exercises, Kenn had always practiced with the lowly infantry weapon, a cheap spear. Swords of even the most ordinary kind, let alone a miraculous blade like this one, were for the folk who lived in manorhouse and castle.

And yet… this one had certainly been given to Mark's father. Given deliberately, by a being who was surely of higher rank than any merely human lord.

Gods and goddesses were… well, what were they? It struck Mark forcibly now that he'd never met anyone but his own father who'd claimed convincingly to have any such direct contact with any deity.

Nor, it occurred to Mark now, could he remember meeting anyone who had sincerely envied Jord his treasure, considering the price that Mark's father had had to pay for it.

All this and much more kept churning uncontrollably through Mark's mind as he trudged the riverbank and waded in the stream, meanwhile listening for pursuers. From the time of Mark's earliest understanding, the sword, and the way his father had acquired it, had been among the given facts of life for him. Never until today had he been confronted with the full marvel and mystery of those facts. Always the sword, with its story, had simply hung there on the wall, like a candlesconce or a common dish, until everyone who lived in the house had grown so used to it that it had almost been forgotten. Visitors asking about the odd bundle had received a matter-of-fact answer, one they'd perhaps not always believed. And the visitors repetitions of the story elsewhere, Mark supposed now, had probably been believed even less often.

And Vulcan had said it was called Townsaver… thinking again of the town's saving, Mark had to fight back tears again. Now, as in some evil dream or story, the cursed burden of the sword had revealed itself for the curse it truly was, and now it had come down to him. He was the heir, the only surviving son, now that Kenn was dead… he knew that Kenn was dead. The sword was Mark's now, and Mark had to run with it, to at least get the burden of it away from his mother and his sister.

Mark didn't want to let himself think just yet about where he might be running to.

His eyes were blurred with tears again. That was bad, because now it was starting to get dark anyway, and he was very tired, so tired that his feet were dragging and stumbling at best, even when he could see clearly where to put them down.

Mark stopped for a rest in a small clearing, a few steps from the main riverbank path. Here he ate most of the food that he'd brought along, and then went to get a drink from the brisk rapids nearby. Already he'd come far enough upstream to start encountering rapids, a fact that made Mark feel even more tired. He went back to his small clearing and sat down again. He was simply too weary to go on any farther, at least not until he'd had a little rest…

Mark woke with a start, to early sunlight mottling its way through leaves to reach his face. At once he started to call Kenn's name, and to look around him for his brother, because he'd wakened with the halfformed idea that he must have come out with Kenn on some kind of hunting or fishing expedition. But reality returned as soon as Mark's eyes fell on the sword, which lay beside him in its evilly stained wrapping. He jumped up then, a stiff-muscled movement that startled nearby birds. When the birds had quieted there was nothing to be heard but the murmur of the rapids. There were no indications of pursuit as yet.

Mark finished off what little food he had left, and too another long drink from the stream. About to push on again, he hesitated, and, without quite knowing why, once more unwrapped the blade. Some part of his mind wanted to look at it again, as if the morning sunlight on the sword might reveal something to negate or at least explain the horror of yesterday.

There was still no trace of rust to be seen, and the sword and its wrappings were now completely dry. How should he try to carry the thing today? When Mark stood the weapon upright on the path, point down, and stood himself beside it, the sword's pommel reached as high as his ribcage. The weapon was just too long for him to carry about handily, and far too sharp… Mark was momentarily distracted when he looked at the decorations going round the hilt and handle, white on black. He could remember sleepy evenings at home, in the dwelling-rooms beside the creaking mill, when Jord had sometimes allowed the children to take the sword down from the wall and in his presence look it over. Sometimes the children and their mother, interested also, had speculated on what the pattern of the decorations might mean. Mark's father had never speculated. He'd never spoken much about the sword at all, even at those relaxed times. Nor had Jord ever, not in Mark's hearing anyway, said anything directly about the great trial through which the sword had come to him. Nothing about how Vulcan had taken his right arm off, or with what implement, or what explanation, if any, the god had given for what he did. That was one scene that Mark had always forbidden his own imagination to attempt.