The shatra was not so indecisive. The two wounds to his sword-arm, while scarcely more than pricks, nevertheless seemed to have affected his control; accordingly, he shifted his stance and tossed his sword from his right hand to his left before renewing the attack. This gave Valder time enough to rise to one knee.

For a moment Valder was unable to follow what happened, even though his own right hand was a part of it. At first the shatra was attacking, and then he was defending as Wirikidor met every attack and retaliated, pressing home its own assault, all in a blur of motion far too fast for a mere human like Valder to follow, never allowing so much as the fraction of a second the shatra would have needed to step back out of reach. Blood flowed redly down the northerner's black tunic and spattered the grass.

Then, abruptly, it was over, and Valder found himself still on one knee, not yet having managed to arise, but with his sword thrust through the northerner's heart. The northerner's own sword had fallen from his hand, the blade still gleaming and unstained.

Shatra, however, were not mere mortals, and the northerner was not dead.

He looked down at the sword that had impaled him and reached for it with both hands. The right was unsteady.

Valder stared in horror. He had no doubt that Wirikidor had found the shatra's heart; the blade was buried in the northerner's chest just left of center, yet he still lived.

Perhaps, Valder thought, he had no heart. He was shatra, not human, after all.

Valder tried to pull his sword free, but human reactions could not match shatra; the hands grabbed Wirikidor's blade.

Wirikidor writhed, ripping open the shatra's chest, and that was the end of it; the hands fell away and the northerner toppled backward, sliding off the enchanted blade. He lay in a heap on the trampled grass.

Valder sank back to a sitting position and stared at the corpse, half-afraid that it would return to life. He could see the proof of its inhumanity in the gaping chest wound, where something smooth and slick and black gleamed, something that was definitely not human flesh or bone. He shuddered. On the outside the thing had seemed human enough -- tall and pale and fair-haired, like most northerners.

Finally, he looked at Wirikidor, drooping in his hand. His wrist ached; his hand had been dragged along, willy-nilly, in the sword's movements, and, as a result of moving so much faster than it was meant to do, his wrist was now very sore indeed.

The sword had saved him. It had seemed hesitant at first, but it had saved him. He wiped the blade clean on a corner of the dead northerner's tunic, then sheathed it with a sigh of relief. It was good, very good indeed, to have it on his belt instead of naked in his hand.

He wondered why the sword had not immediately been enthusiastic. Surely, there could be no doubt that a shatra was a true warrior! The very name was said to be an old word for a great warrior -- though apparently not in the same tongue as his sword's name.

The sword had seemed to hesitate after each of the first two wounds it had inflicted, he thought, as he stared at the body of his enemy. Those two wounds had almost seemed to strike sparks; perhaps the blade had encountered a demonic part of the shatra and had been daunted by it. Shatra were half man and half demon; perhaps Wirikidor was not up to handling demons.

Valder decided that that made a certain amount of sense.

As he sat gathering his wits and regaining his breath, he heard a faint rustling and something that sounded like distant voices. His hand went to his sword hilt, but he resisted the temptation to draw; he did not want to be stuck carrying Wirikidor unsheathed again should he manage to avoid fighting.

Carefully, he got to his feet and looked back along his tracks, expecting to see more northerners.

There were none.

The rustling continued, and the voices grew louder. Valder realized they were coming from the opposite direction. He turned around and saw half a dozen men advancing toward him through the grass; others were visible behind them, and still more on the horizon.

His hopes shriveled within him. Wirikidor would handle the first one without any difficulty; but if his one-warrior-per-drawing theory was correct, he would be on his own after that, and he knew he would stand no chance at all against so many. He must have come upon the entire northern army!

"You there!" one of the advancing men called, in good Ethsharitic. "Stay right where you are!"

Valder glanced at the corpse at his feet. At least, he told himself, he had killed a shatra. That was something that not very many could say. He sighed, trying to decide whether to surrender or go down fighting; he was sure that he would die in either case. He did not want to die, but he could accept it if he had to.

The sun was sinking in the west, and its light was reddening; the shadows were long, and he had been alone, surrounded by enemies, for months. Perhaps that was why it took him so long to realize the true situation. It was not until the six men of the advance party came within a hundred yards that he recognized their uniforms.

The new arrivals were not northerners; they were an advance guard of the Ethsharitic army.

He had made it. Wirikidor had brought him home.

PART TWO

The Reluctant Assassin

CHAPTER 9

They took away his weapons, of course. Despite the trouble it had caused him with its mysterious behavior, he found himself reluctant to let Wirikidor go; it was not so much an attachment because it had saved his life as it was a wordless feeling of unease at the thought of someone else handling it.

The soldier who confiscated his weapons seemed reluctant to handle the sword, but obeyed his orders and accepted it along with Valder's dagger, sling, and broken-stringed crossbow.

After a little discussion, someone located a pair of boots for Valder, which he pulled on gratefully. They even fitted him fairly well.

The brown-clad officer in charge of the party asked him a few questions

-- who he was, how he came to be where he had been found, and whether he knew anything about enemy positions. Not feeling up to long explanations, he briefly gave his name, rank, and unit, explained that he had been cut off months earlier, and said that the only enemy position he had seen was the small encampment he had passed through a day's walk to the northwest.

With that, the officer seemed to lose interest in him. Valder hesitated and then asked, "Sir, who are you people? What are you doing here? I thought I was still behind the northern lines."

The officer looked back at him. "I can't tell you anything," he said.

"You might be a spy."

Valder had to admit that that would seem like a reasonable possibility.

He said, "Oh."

Seeing his disappointment, the officer took pity on him. "I suppose it won't do any harm," he said, "to tell you that, as far as we know, there no longer are any northern lines around here to be behind."

Valder was not sure whether he was glad to have this tidbit of information or not, since it opened up vast areas of speculation. He lapsed into silence and stood waiting for instructions while the officer considered something.

A young soldier, one of the group that had found Valder, came up and saluted, the back of his hand tight to his shoulder in parade-ground style.

"Sir," he said, "That dead northerner -- he's shatra."

The officer looked up. "What?"

"The corpse we found this man standing over -- it's shatra. No doubt of it. And the body's still warm."

The officer looked at Valder with renewed interest. "Care to explain that, scout?"

Valder shrugged and tried to look nonchalant. "He followed me, I think from that camp I mentioned. I killed him, just before you found me."

"You killed a shatra?"

"Yes."

"Single-handedly?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"With my sword; it's enchanted." He gestured in Wirikidor's direction.

The officer followed Valder's gesture, then turned back and eyed him carefully. "What's a scout doing with an enchanted sword?" he demanded.

"Oh, it wasn't enchanted when it was issued. I ran into a wizard in a marsh two sixnights or so north of here; he put a few spells on it to help me get back to my unit."

The officer did not bother to hide his disbelief, and Valder realized just how stupid his story must sound. Before he could say anything further, however, the officer said, "All right, your sword's enchanted. In that case you're not my problem; the general's magicians can decide what to do with you.

Sergeant Karn! You and your detail will take this man and his belongings back to camp with you!"

That dealt with, he turned away and attended to other matters. Valder no longer concerned him.

Sergeant Karn was a black-haired giant of a man, well over six feet tall and heavily muscled; his detail consisted of five young soldiers, whom Valder guessed to be new recruits. Their green kilts were unworn, their breastplates still bright, and the oldest looked no more than eighteen. Valder greeted them, hoping to strike up a conversation, but the sergeant quickly stifled that. "He might be a spy," he reminded his men.

Within ten minutes of being given the order, Karn had Valder's weapons and belongings gathered together and added to the bundles his men already carried and was leading his little party southward along a newly made path through the tall grass. This path was merely the simplest and narrowest of trails at first, nothing more than the place a dozen or so men had trampled their way along; most of the advancing Ethsharitic line had been spaced out across the plain, but the commanding officer and his attendants had traveled in a tight little group, leaving the path behind them.

As Karn's party moved on to the south, however, they passed an assortment of people heading north -- supply wagons, fresh troops, messengers, and even curious civilians. They passed captured northerners and wounded men traveling south more slowly than themselves and were passed in turn by hurrying messengers. By the time they had gone a league, the path had become a road, the grass trodden into the dirt. This was a welcome relief for Valder's tired feet after so long trampling his own paths -- though any sort of walking was not something he welcomed. It did not help any that the soldier carrying Wirikidor kept stumbling and bumping into him.

Shortly after that they passed the smoking ruins of a small northern outpost; Valder stared in fascination, but the others, obviously not interested, hurried him on.

The sun was down and the light fading when Karn called a halt. "All right, boys," he said. "We'll take a break and see if we can hitch a ride on a supply wagon going back empty. Once the men at the front have had their dinner, there should be a few."

"We aren't stopping here for the night?" Valder asked.

Kam looked at him scornfully, the expression plain even in the gathering dusk. "No, we're not stopping for the night. We're on campaign, soldier!"

"I'm not," Valder protested. "I've been barefoot for two sixnights or more and walking for three months, and I need my rest!"

"Rest in the wagon, then." Karn turned away.

As he had predicted, an empty wagon came trundling southward perhaps half an hour later, as Karn was showing his men how to make torches of the tall grass. Valder had refused to help with the instruction, so that he was the first to see the wagon's own torches.

Once they were aboard the wagon, the rest of the journey was almost pleasant; the road was smooth enough that even a springless ox-drawn cart did not jolt excessively, and Valder was able to sleep off and on until dawn.

They reached the camp early in the afternoon. The first sight of it, as they topped a final hill, was impressive indeed; lines of dull green tents reached to the horizon in three directions amid hundreds of streamers of smoke from cooking fires, broken here and there by an open space. Of course, the camp lay in a narrow depression, so that the horizon was not as far away as it might have been, but Valder was impressed nonetheless. Certainly the encampment was far larger than any he had seen before; he judged that it must hold more than fifty thousand men, and at least one of the open spaces held a tethered dragon. Some of the others held horses or oxen.

He had several minutes to look it over as the wagon made its way up over the hill and paused, while the sentries at the perimeter met them with a perfunctory challenge. They were quickly allowed through and moved on down the slope past the outermost line of tents. At the third row, Sergeant Karn signaled the driver, who slowed the oxen to a halt and allowed his passengers to disembark.

After that, the party split up; besides escorting their prisoner, the detail had brought an assortment of papers and captured materials that were to be delivered to various places. Three of the soldiers were selected to take Valder and an assortment of magical or possibly magical devices to the magicians' section, while Karn and the others went elsewhere.

Valder was led back into the depths of the camp, up over another hill, and around a corner, where he found himself looking, not at yet more straight lines of identical military-issue green, but at a circle of bright tents in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and colors, clustered around a large area of open ground.

His escort stopped at a chalked line a dozen paces from the outer edge of the circle; Valder stopped as well, though he saw no reason to. The four of them stood and waited for several minutes. Valder was growing restless when a middle-aged woman in a blue gown came hurrying over to them.

"Stuff from the front," one of the soldiers said before the woman could speak.

"I'll take care of it," she replied.

One of the others grabbed Valder by the arm and pushed him forward. "We found this man up there, too. He claims he got cut off from his unit and got back by using a magic sword. Tell your people to check him out. Here's the sword." He indicated Wirikidor, thrust into a sack with the rest of Valder's possessions.

The woman looked at Valder with mild interest. "I'll take care of it,"

she repeated.

"Where do we put everything?"

She turned and pointed to a small pink tent. "On the table in there, as usual -- the wards aren't up, so you can go right in. And I'll take care of this fellow and his sword myself, for now."

"Right." A soldier handed her the bag containing Valder's belongings, Wirikidor protruding gracelessly from the top. "He's all yours."

"Come on, then," she said as she led the way toward a red-and-white striped pavilion. Valder followed obediently.

CHAPTER 10

He had been in camp for two days before he was allowed outside the magicians' section. During that time he was passed from hand to hand and subjected to various interrogations, magical inspections, analyses, and divinations, verifying that he was indeed who he claimed to be and had not been possessed by demons nor placed under any sort of sorcerous control -- at least, no sorcery that the latest in modern wizardry and witchcraft could detect, as the camp did not have a competent sorcerer on hand.

Valder wondered anew at this omission; surely Ethshar had a few good sorcerers somewhere, enough to supply one to a camp of this size!

Other than these constant investigations, he was not mistreated. The blue-robed woman turned out to be a sort of clerk who acted as a general helper and liaison between the community of magicians and the rest of the world, but was not a magician herself. She found Valder a bunk in a gold-trimmed white tent otherwise occupied by an old man who did not stir out of his trance at any time during Valder's stay, and it was she who scheduled his appointments with the various wizards and witches who were to study his case.

Shortly after his arrival, as he was checked out by a nervous young wizard who had been put in charge of his case for the moment, another wizard contacted his old unit -- or what was left of it. A plump theurgist let slip shortly after contact was made that the unit had caught the brunt of the enemy's drive to the sea and been badly mauled -- in fact, it effectively no longer existed, the survivors having been distributed elsewhere. Fortunately, the survivors included men who knew Valder, such as his bunkmate Tandellin, and his identity was confirmed through dream images the night after his arrival in camp.

In what seemed an excessive precaution to Valder, they even double-checked the wizardly dreams by witchcraft, lest some unknown enemy wizard's trick interfere.

Every test bore out his story, of course, since his every word was the truth, and eventually his interrogators were convinced of his honesty and accuracy. He had not realized until he had tried to explain himself to his rescuers -- or perhaps captors -- just how unlikely his story sounded.

Surviving, lost and alone, behind enemy lines for two months, then being rescued from an enemy patrol that had him hopelessly outclassed by a mysterious hermit wizard nobody had ever heard of... Valder had to admit that, stated simply, it did sound unlikely, even before bringing Wirikidor into it.

And then, to top it off, he had killed a shatra in single combat. Nobody would ever have believed that at all, had he not been found standing alone over the fresh corpse. He suspected that a great many people still did not believe it, even with witnesses and magical verifications.

Eventually, though, after two days of continuous probing, the whole thing was officially accepted, and he was allowed the run of the camp. That done, the various wizards turned their attention to Wirikidor. Until his identity was established, he had not been permitted weapons, naturally; and furthermore, no one had touched Wirikidor, lest it be booby-trapped. The sword had remained on the table in the pink tent with other unknown magical items.

It still looked like any ordinary, standard-issue sword, but, when it was brought out into the open circle, Valder could somehow sense, beyond question, that this was Wirikidor and no other.

He was currently in the hands of a red-haired young wizard in a dull green robe who had refused to give her name and a man called Darrend of Calimor, dark haired and middle-sized, of indeterminate age, wearing a standard military tunic and kilt, but with no breastplate and carrying no sword. Instead of the usual simple soldier's dagger he bore an ornate ceremonial knife and wore a soft green cap instead of a helmet. Valder assumed him to be a wizard, though he had not actually seen the man perform any spells. These two stood on either side of him as the clerk brought out the sword.

"That's it, is it?" Darrend asked.

"Yes," Valder answered without hesitation. "That's Wirikidor."

Darrend glanced at him, then took the sword from the clerk. "We've heard your story, of course, so we know a little about how this sword behaves, but how is it you can be so certain that this is in fact your sword and not another?"

Valder shrugged. "I don't know, but I am sure."

"It's inactive as long as it's sheathed; we tested that right after you were delivered here. Do you know anything about what it's likely to do when someone draws it?"

"Ah... not really," Valder said unhappily. "But each time I drew it, I was unable to sheathe it again until it had killed a man."

"Was it in any great hurry to kill someone?"

Valder's unhappiness grew. "I don't know," he confessed. "Each time I drew it, the next person I saw was an enemy, and each time I killed him as quickly as I could -- or the sword did."

"That doesn't help much. Perhaps we had best assume that it will demand a victim immediately."

"It might," Valder agreed.

"We need to draw it in order to examine it, so I think we had best find ourselves a prospective victim."

"How are you going to do that?" Valder asked. He quickly wished he hadn't, as he remembered the northern prisoners he had seen on the road south.

"I'll have to talk to General Karannin," Darrend replied. "Until then, I think perhaps you should carry the sword again; you'd look out of place around camp without it, and if it does carry an ownership spell, as I suspect, keeping you apart for much longer might be dangerous." He handed Valder the scabbarded weapon.

Valder accepted it gravely and restored it to its accustomed place on his belt.

"Until we find a prisoner, I don't think we'll be needing you," Darrend said. "You're free to go where you please, so long as you don't leave the camp, but be back here at dusk."

"Thank you," Valder said. Darrend nodded a farewell and then strolled away. The clerk and the other wizard, after a moment's hesitation, also moved off, leaving him alone in the magicians' circle.

For a moment he was not sure what to do. He had no friends in this camp; although his old unit was scattered, none had wound up this far inland, and he had not had time since arriving to meet anyone but his interrogators. It was faintly possible, though highly unlikely, that a cousin or other kin could be in the camp, but he had no idea where any such relatives might be found.

That meant there were no people he wanted to see, but that did not leave him utterly without purpose; after three months of near-total isolation, more than anything else he wanted news -- and he would have no objection to wine and women -- song would be strictly optional, as he had never been particularly musical. He had picked up a few bits of information in conversation with the wizards and witches, but only enough to whet his appetite for real news. His meals had included only water or weak beer, and the idea of a good drunk, on wine or something stronger, was appealing. The various female magicians or magicians' helpers he had encountered had been unavailable, unattractive, or both.

If this camp followed the pattern of every other camp he had ever been in, he knew exactly where to go for what he wanted -- but it was not technically in the camp, nor was he likely to return by nightfall.

What the hell, he told himself; he deserved a little relaxation. He had been cooperative enough since his capture. He turned south and headed for the rear of the encampment, where the camp followers and hangers-on were sure to have a camp of their own.

Sure enough, as he had expected, the tents and shacks of the camp followers were strewn across the plains south of the main camp; and, as he had expected, the largest structures were all either bars or brothels. The others catered to different interests; some even sheltered soldiers' families, which was the official reason such camp-towns were tolerated. Valder ignored the freelance seers, officers' wives, and other respectable or semirespectable people and headed directly for a large, tan-colored tent hung with red lanterns.

News, he decided, came first, since it was still only mid-afternoon. He suspected he might not remember the evening and he did not want to forget anything important. With that in mind he settled at a table in the half-empty, improvised tavern in the front of the tent, ignoring what lay beyond the bead curtain. He ordered a mild wine, since he intended to start off slowly.

As he had hoped, there were a few other people in the place; and as might be expected so early in the day, they included some serious drinkers. It was not difficult to get one of them started talking. Valder asked questions whenever the stream of words seemed to be slowing and sipped at his wine every so often to keep the taverner happy.

He started the conversation off with the usual banter about how miserable military life was, but quickly brought up the fact that he had been cut off for months.

"Did I miss anything?" he asked, half-jokingly. "Any generals drop dead, or anything?"

"Nope," his drinking companion, a lieutenant by the name of Sidor, replied, "It's still Gor and Terrek and Anaran and Azrad running everything --

them and their flunkies, like our own dear General Karannin, sitting here in the middle of nowhere because he doesn't want to cause trouble."

That sounded interesting; Valder prompted the lieutenant, asking, "How do you mean that?"

The resulting tirade was not always clear, but the gist of it seemed to be that the enemy was in a state of near-collapse and General Karannin was failing to take advantage of it. The northerners' drive to the sea, which had cut Valder off from his unit in the first place, had apparently been a desperate gamble that had not paid off; the Empire had put everything it could muster into a highspeed attack that had supposedly been intended to sweep around the western end of the Ethsharitic army, down the coast and back across toward Old Ethshar itself -- or at least toward Admiral Azrad's home base. The attack had failed; the Ethsharitic resistance had been enough to wear away the northern assault force until, by the time it ran up against General Gor's coastal fortress, there was almost nothing left of it.

Naturally, realizing the enemy's weakness, Ethshar had counterattacked along a broad front, advancing up across the plains and meeting virtually no resistance. The few scattered northerners they did encounter appeared to be simply scouts, sentries, and remnants of the assault force's supply line that had been left behind when the attack collapsed.

It was obvious to anyone with any wits, the lieutenant said repeatedly, that the Empire had finally run out of troops and launched their last attack while they still had men to do their fighting. Everyone had seen that the northern soldiers had gotten younger and younger of late. All Ethshar's army had to do to end the war was march straight on into the Empire's capital and take over.

The generals, of course, would not do that. Sidor got quite sarcastic on that point. The generals, he claimed, were afraid the whole thing was a trap or trick of some sort, when anybody could see that it was nothing of the kind.

General Karannin, in particular, had insisted on advancing with what Sidor considered truly absurd caution. The very fact that his camp had stayed in one place for the two days Valder had been in it was, to Sidor, proof that Karannin was wasting a golden opportunity to put an end to the interminable conflict.

For his own part, Valder had some doubts. The Empire still appeared, from what he had seen, to have a good many sorcerers and shatra on hand, even if they were running short of regular infantry; furthermore, nobody knew what other surprises the northerners' tutelary demons might provide, should shatra prove inadequate.

Besides, the war had been going on for centuries. It seemed unlikely to Valder that, of all the generations that had fought in his family, he should happen to be the one lucky enough to have it end during his lifetime.

Of course, he was the first in his family to own a magic sword -- but that was a minor thing, really, where the end of the Great War would mean an entirely different world.

He had managed to nurse his single cup of wine for over an hour of Sidor's diatribes and gossip, but it was gone at last, and he decided it was time to move on to more serious drinking. He ordered a mug of oushka and took a sip as Sidor raved about why the war should have already been won.

The drink burned going down; he coughed. It had been a long time since he had drunk oushka, and, he realized, he had lost his taste for the stuff. That took most of the fun out of the prospect of getting drunk -- and now that he thought about it, he did not really want to get drunk in the first place. That had been what he always did in the evening when he had nothing better to do, but most of the fun of it had been in the company he kept -- friends who were not here, many of whom were apparently dead. He had come here out of habit.

Sidor was a poor substitute for the comrades he had spent years with.

He looked at the bead curtain, unsure whether he wanted what it hid; his hand fell to his purse, and he decided the point was moot. He had forgotten that he had almost no money -- in fact, his only money was the single silver bit every scout carried. The magicians might have established his identity, but so far nobody had given him his back pay, and all his belongings left behind had presumably been lost when his unit was overrun. The lone coin was probably not even enough to pay for his two drinks.

He glanced around, trying to seem casual, and saw that the taverner was not looking in his direction. He dropped the silver bit on the table and sauntered out, his heart beating a little faster than he liked.

No one called after him. The sun was reddening in the west; he decided to obey orders after all and return to the magicians' circle.

CHAPTER 11

General Karannin's tent was no more luxurious, inside or out, than that of any of his officers. Even the number of cots was the same, as he had his secretary and two aides sharing his quarters, to be available when he wanted them. It was, however, somewhat larger, and the extra space was occupied by a table jammed into one end, with an assortment of gear stowed underneath.

Valder was slightly surprised by the lack of ostentation. He was unsure whether to credit it to practicality on the general's part or a show of egalitarianism. He waited for perhaps five minutes, guarded by two soldiers, before the general arrived. The wizards who had brought him slipped quietly away out of the tent after making their delivery. Valder waited, looking around with unconcealed interest; he had not expected to be brought directly to the general himself.

Karannin was a short, balding man, brown-haired and green-eyed, wearing an ordinary green kilt and brown tunic; he moved quickly and energetically when he moved at all and swept into the tent like a breaking wave. "You're Valder," he said as he slapped aside the tent flap.

Valder saluted, open palm at his shoulder. "Valder of Kardoret, Scout First Class, Western Command, Coastal Division, Third Regiment, detached, sir."

"Right. Sit down."

Valder obeyed, seating himself on the edge of the nearest cot. The general remained standing throughout the conversation, taking a few paces back and forth, then pausing for a moment, then pacing again.

"The wizards have been telling me about you, trying to convince me to let them have a condemned prisoner. You got cut off by the enemy's drive to the coast?"

"Yes, sir."

"Has anybody told you what happened, how the attack went?"

"No, sir, not really," Valder replied; he had not officially been told anything and did not care to explain his chat with the drunken lieutenant.

"Good; not all of my men are blabbermouths. So you survived and escaped northward, where you encountered a wizard -- or at least a hermit you took to be a wizard -- who enchanted your sword. Correct?"

"Yes, sir." Valder knew better than to point out that he knew beyond any possible doubt that the hermit had been a wizard.

"Just what sort of an enchantment is it supposed to be? Did he say? I'm not asking you to remember any details, son, just whether he said."

"No, sir, he made a point of not telling me, it seemed. I'm afraid that we weren't on very good terms by that time."

"You're absolutely sure he didn't say anything about the nature of the spell, or mention any names?"

"He told me that he had put every spell he could manage without his supplies on it, sir -- or at least every one he thought would be of use. He mentioned some kind of ownership spell, I think. And he told me the sword's name was Wirikidor and that I mustn't draw it until I was well out of sight of him."

"You told my people this when they asked you?"

"Yes, sir."

"My wizards heard this?"

"Yes, sir."

"That's your sword there, right? The one that was enchanted?" He paused in his pacing and pointed at Val-der's belt.

"I believe so, sir."

"And you used this sword? Killed a sentry or two, fought a dragon, and an enemy you thought was shatra"!"

Valder suppressed his urge to take offense at the doubting way his killing a shatra was mentioned. Karannin was not Gor or Azrad or Anaran or Terrek, but he was still a general, whatever Sidor might think of him. One did not argue with generals. "Yes, sir."

"My wizards tell me that it might be dangerous to draw the thing."

"Yes, sir, it might. Every time it's been drawn since it was enchanted, it has killed a man at the first opportunity."

Karannin stared at him. "Tell me about it," he said.

"Sir, once I draw the sword, I won't be able to sheathe it or put it down until I've killed a man with it. Furthermore, I don't know for certain whether I can choose which man I kill. Remember, the hermit would not let me unsheathe it in his presence. So far, I have never drawn it in the presence of anyone not an enemy, so it hasn't been put to the test."

The general looked at him shrewdly. "The sword can act on its own? You don't need to direct it?"

"Yes, sir, that's right. That's how I survived against the shatra; if I had been controlling the sword I'd be dead now."

"I've heard of such things, but the spells aren't reliable."

"Yes, sir."

Karannin contemplated him for perhaps three seconds before barking at one of his guards, "You, there, sergeant, go fetch the wizards, and then ask Captain Dar to bring that prisoner."

The soldier bowed in acknowledgment and slipped out through the flap.

Karannin began pacing again, but did not resume his questioning.

A moment later the guard returned and stepped aside to allow Darrend and the young red-haired wizard to enter. Behind them came a burly black-haired man in a captain's uniform, hauling by one arm a young soldier who was extraordinarily unkempt and, to judge by his odor, long unwashed, his hands tied behind him. To Valder's surprise, this prisoner was an Ethsharite, not a northerner.

"Well, Captain Dar?" the general said.

"Yes, sir," the brawny captain replied. "This is Felder Venger's son. He was caught robbing the corpses of his comrades and stripping their jewelry.

When spotted, he ran; when apprehended two days later, he stabbed the arresting officer in the belly. He was sentenced to be flogged, as it was a first offense and the officer survived, but three days ago, while awaiting punishment, he attempted escape and brained one of his guards. We were waiting to see whether the guard died before deciding what to do with him; the guard died this morning. Will he do?"

"I think so, Captain. Wizards? Valder? Will he do?"

Valder shrugged, the redhead stammered, and Darrend said, "I would think so." The prisoner himself was staring at the lot of them, trying to figure out what was happening.

"Good enough, then. I want to see this. Scout, give Darrend your sword.

Reluctantly, Valder removed Wirikidor from his belt and handed it over.

The wizard accepted it cautiously, then held the scabbard in his left hand and put his right to the hilt, preparing to draw the sword.

Staring at Darrend's hands with morbid fascination, Valder said, "Sir, need I remain here? I would prefer not to watch."

The general peered at him. "You expect danger?"

"No, sir, I just don't want to watch."

"Squeamish?"

"Yes, sir."

"All right, then, you may go -- but don't leave camp."

"Yes, sir." Gratefully, Valder slipped out the tent flap and looked about, glad to be outside, away from the impending killing. He tried to decide which way to go.

Somewhere, he knew, there must be a paymaster -- and he was due three months' back pay. This was not his unit, so some argument would probably be required, but he thought he ought to be able to get at least part of what he was owed. A guard stood nearby, in addition to those inside the tent -- but Valder suddenly decided, upon hearing voices from inside the tent, that he wanted to get out of earshot as well as out of sight of what he was sure would be the execution of Felder Venger's son. He had no quarrel with sentencing such a criminal to die, but he was also not fond of watching or listening to anyone's death. He turned left, choosing his direction at random, and started walking.

He turned left again a few tents down and began working his way toward camptown. Maybe, he thought, someone would treat him to a drink. Despite his earlier experience with the oushka he thought he could use one now.

He had gotten perhaps halfway when he heard someone calling his name.

Surprised, he turned and saw a young soldier waving at him.

He waited while the soldier came up to him. "Are you Valder of Kardoret?"

he was asked.

"Yes," he replied, mystified; the soldier was a complete stranger.

"The general wants to see you immediately in his tent."

Still mystified, Valder followed the soldier back to the general's tent.

The instant he stepped through the flap, Karannin stopped pacing and barked at him, "You said you used this infernal sword?"

"Yes, sir," Valder answered, still puzzled.

"Then why in Hell can't anyone here draw it for the wizards to study?"

The question startled Valder. "I don't know, sir." It had not occurred to him that anyone would have any difficulty in drawing it. He never had.

The general had not resumed his pacing and was now staring at him as if expecting him to say more. Valder stared back for a few seconds, not feeling particularly cooperative -- after all, he had not been treated very pleasantly

-- but then remembered the penalties for insolence.

"I never had any difficulty in drawing the sword, sir," he said. "At times I found it impossible to sheathe it, but I never had any trouble drawing it. Ah... the hermit told me that the sword's name means 'slayer of warriors,'

and I suspect it has a certain affinity for soldiers; perhaps the people who tried to draw it did not meet its standards."

The general stared at him for another second before snapping, "One of these wizards who tried to draw it is Darrend of Calimor, thrice commended for bravery in action. When caught without the tools of his trade, he once fought and killed an enemy sorcerer with only his ceremonial dagger. Furthermore, I tried to draw it myself. If your sword doesn't consider any one of us to be a warrior, I would like to know just whom it would accept!"

Taken aback, Valder replied, "I don't know, sir." He glanced at Darrend with renewed interest and wondered how old the wizard was; he looked no more than thirty, which was young to have the sort of respect the general gave him.

He did not have the appearance of a man who had often been in combat.

"Well, then, let's find out, shall we? There's the sword, Scout First Class; let us see if you can draw it where Darrend could not."

"Ah... sir... if I might say something?"

"Speak, damn it, that's what you're here for."

"Sir, I would really prefer not to draw the sword. While I have no love for this prisoner, I would rather not kill him. Killing an enemy in battle is one thing -- I've done that a few times -- but killing a defenseless man in the same uniform I wear is something entirely different."

"I am sure your scruples do you credit," the general replied. "However, I believe that if we're going to have a demonstration of the sword's magic, you will have to be the one who draws it. Assuming, that is, that anyone can draw it."

Delaying in hopes of a miracle, Valder asked Darrend, "You tried to draw Wirikidor?"

Darrend nodded. "It was like trying to pull apart a steel bar. A highly polished one, at that; it kept slipping out of my hands."

"I tried it, too," the other wizard remarked. "Felt as if I nearly broke my fingers."

"Really?" Valder stared at the sword in the general's hand. "I never had any trouble."

"Well, we all did," Karannin said. "Slippery thing, isn't it?" He handed it to Valder, hilt-first.

It did not feel slippery to him. His hand closed firmly on the familiar grip, and he looked unwillingly at the waiting prisoner. The man was sweating profusely, his mouth tight shut, his eyes fixed on the tent's ridgepole.

Of course, Valder told himself, no one was sure that Wirikidor would insist on a killing. It was all just guess-work and inference. Reluctantly, he drew the sword.

It slid easily from the sheath, as it always had done for him; this time, however, it seemed to be trembling in anticipation as soon as it left the scabbard.

"There it is," he said, displaying the bared blade to the general and the wizards.

"Can you sheathe it again?" Darrend asked.

Valder made the attempt, but Wirikidor not only refused to return to its scabbard, it actively fought against him. It was, he realized, struggling to get into a position where it might strike out at one of the people in the tent.

The general was the closest; Valder found his hand being dragged in Karannin's direction. Realizing he had little choice now that the sword was free of the sheath, he turned and took a step toward Felder.

Wirikidor flashed out and cut the prisoner's neck open, half severing his head. Felder died with only a dry croak, his eyes and mouth suddenly wide with surprise. As he fell to the floor, Valder felt the tension vanish from the sword; the trembling ceased completely, leaving him holding what seemed an ordinary blade.

"Don't sheathe it!" Darrend called.

"I wasn't going to," Valder replied. "You wanted to study it, didn't you?

Here, then; you take it!" He turned the weapon and passed it to Darrend hilt-first, then passed the scabbard along as well.

The wizard accepted both gravely, and Valder smiled beneath an overwhelming wave of relief as it left his hand. The smile vanished an instant later as he again caught sight of the corpse on the dirt floor of the tent.

Disgust seeped up his throat.

He was, he assured himself, glad to be free of the sword responsible for such a killing. He wished he were also free of the general who had arranged it and the wizards who had requested it.

CHAPTER 12

The wizards kept Wirikidor, but bed space in the magicians' circle was at a premium, so the day after Felder's death, Valder was transferred and assigned to share the quarters of three lieutenants. The previous fourth occupant of their tent was missing in action as a result of a brief and inconclusive skirmish between the advancing Ethsharites and a small party of northerners that had included at least one sorcerer.

The lieutenants were less than delighted with his presence. They had hoped for the return of their comrade, or else for the greater space a vacancy would allow; to have a stranger thrust upon them, a soldier from an entirely different part of the army, and not even an officer, was not welcome. Another regular lieutenant would have been someone with whom they might talk shop, exchange stories and perhaps duties -- but instead, they found themselves with a battered scout, nominally below them in rank but with considerably more experience of the world and the enemy and with no assigned duties at all.

Valder, understanding their position, did everything he could to accommodate them. He had no belongings to take up precious space, and his lack of duties allowed him to keep whatever hours suited their mutual convenience.

He was perfectly willing to stay awake until all hours talking, or to stay quiet, or even to go elsewhere for a time, if his tentmates so desired.

He was also a willing listener in his eagerness to catch up on everything he had missed, not just while lost in the north, but even before, as his unit had been an isolated one. For that matter, just the sound of human voices, regardless of what was being said, was comforting.

Everyone liked a good listener. After a few hours, his affability and open interest in what his new companions had to say had worn down the initial strain, and one of the three, a gangling young man of twenty-two, freshly arrived from a training camp near the port of Shan on the Sea, got talking.

The lieutenant's name was Radler Dathet's son, and, although he was only a year or so younger than Valder, he seemed to the scout little more than a boy.

Radler agreed, in general, with Sidor's assessment of the strategic situation, but attributed the slow advance to the lack of roads and adequate means of supply, rather than to timidity on the part of the Ethsharitic commanders. General Gor's Western Command and General Anaran's Central Command were both advancing, chewing up the scattered enemy units they encountered. In the interior, Azrad was doing his best to provide the necessary logistical support, but supplies and men were both becoming scarce. General Terrek's Eastern Command was still stalemated, as no foolhardy attack had been made on that front -- and Terrek, suspecting a ruse, was not willing to send anything to his compatriots.

General Karannin was one of Gor's subordinates, as Valder had thought --

though the possibility that he was one of Anaran's, somehow strayed west, had occurred to him. Gor himself was reportedly still in his coastal fortress, coordinating, rather than leading the advance personally.

Losses had been fairly heavy on both sides, Radler thought, despite the small numbers of the northerners, because a disproportionate number of the enemy were either sorcerers or shatra. Nonetheless, like Sidor, he thought the long war was finally nearing an end.

Valder still didn't believe that, but, not wanting to antagonize Radler, he said nothing of his doubts.

After that topic was exhausted, Valder picked up assorted camp gossip --

none of it, unfortunately, mentioning anyone he had met. He asked about Darrend, but none of his tentmates knew anything about the wizard.

As the afternoon wore on, the three lieutenants, one by one, departed on various errands. Radler was on duty, commanding a supply detail; the others, Korl and Tesra, mentioned no destination. Valder thought they might be headed for the brothels of camptown. Having no money and therefore nothing better to do -- it was far too late to find the paymaster -- Valder settled back for a nap.

He was awakened by the sound of the tent flap opening.

"Excuse me, sir," a soldier said, standing in the light so that Valder could not see his face, "but I believe this is yours." He held out an unsheathed sword, hilt-first.

Valder took it without thinking, then started to protest. He stopped suddenly before the first word was finished, when he realized that the sword he held was indeed his own.

That made no sense. The wizards were supposed to be studying Wirikidor.

Surely they weren't done with it already? And if they were, would they hand it back so casually? And where was the scabbard? He turned back toward the flap, but the soldier had gone.

He sat up, and his foot struck something. He reached down. As he had half expected, he found Wirikidor's sheath lying on the dirt floor. He picked it up and stared at it, sword in one hand and scabbard in the other.

Puzzled, he arose and peered out of the tent. Nobody was in the immediate area; nobody was looking at him. Still confused, he emerged into the late afternoon sun and gazed about.

The camp was going about its business; men were sharpening blades, talking, eating, hurrying back and forth.

He saw no sign of the soldier who had delivered the sword.

With a shrug, Valder turned toward the magician's circle. He was not sure whether he was meant to have the sword back or not, and the wizards were obviously the people who would know.

As he approached the chalked line where the warding spells began, someone caught sight of him and called out. Figures emerged from the polychrome tents and faces turned toward him.

He stopped at the line until a wizard beckoned him on; a moment later he was in the circle, surrounded by magicians.

Darrend was among them. "So there you are," he remarked.

"Here I am," Valder replied. "Where should I be?"

"I really couldn't say soldier, but that sword of yours is supposed to be right here. No one was authorized to move it, yet the first time we took a break -- just for a moment -- it vanished. Not magically vanished; someone walked off with it. And while we were looking for the sword, the same thing happened to the scabbard. Now here you are, with both of them. Odd, isn't it?"

"Perhaps so, sir," Valder replied. He had the impression that Darrend ranked as an officer. "It was none of my doing, though, or I wouldn't be here bringing them back, would I? Someone just handed the sword to me, and I found the scabbard on the floor of the tent, as if someone had tossed it there while I was taking a nap."

Various magicians exchanged glances. "The Spell of True Ownership, I'd say -- or at any rate, a close variant," one remarked.

Darrend frowned. "I tested for that and got ambiguous results. It isn't the standard form, but it could be something close."

"But," the redhead said, "that's why no one else could draw it, of course. And now it's found its way back to Valder as if by chance -- that's the Spell of True Ownership, if I ever saw it!"

"It's an odd form, though," Darrend insisted. "There's something unhealthy about it."

"There's always something unhealthy about True Ownership to my mind,"

someone new answered.

"No, it's different. I tested for it, of course -- when no one else could draw the sword, True Ownership was the first thing I thought of. But there's no trace of a gold ring's use, and how can you work the Spell of True Ownership without a gold ring?"

Valder had no idea what Darrend was talking about. Only recently awakened from his nap and still not entirely recovered from his adventures, he was not very much interested in anything but once more disposing of the sword. "True Owner or not, I'd prefer you take the sword and finish your tests, if you're going to," he said testily. "Sir," he added belatedly.

"Yes, of course," Darrend said, accepting the weapon's hilt.

Valder relinquished the sword and scabbard and then paused. "How long will the tests take?" he asked.

Darrend shrugged. "I have no idea. It depends on just what was done to it. With luck, we'll finish by midnight; without it, we may never figure it out completely."

"Oh." Valder looked at the sword. "Well, good luck, sir." He turned and marched back toward his tent.

He was fairly certain that sooner or later either the sword would again find its way back to him or he would be drawn to the sword. He wondered how much of his future would be tied to Wirikidor and whether the enchantment might be broken, or perhaps just the Spell of True Ownership removed, so that anyone could use the sword.

Darrend watched him go, fighting down a sudden urge to follow. He found himself thinking of urgent errands to be run in the vicinity of Valder's tent.

Annoyed, he recognized the action of the Spell of True Ownership, trying to return the sword to its master -- or perhaps its slave. One could never be sure with magic swords. He worked a simple counterspell against compulsions and stalked back toward the laboratory tent.

CHAPTER 13

After four days of study, days during which more than half the camp had been packed up and sent north while Valder did nothing of any use other than finally obtaining his accumulated pay, the wizards had finished their investigation of Wirikidor's properties. Shortly after the noon meal, a messenger fetched Valder and brought him to the magicians' circle.

Darrend was waiting for him in a blue-and-gold tent, where Wirikidor and its sheath lay on one of the two cots. Valder took the seat he was offered on the other cot and listened as Darrend spoke.

"We have finished our studies of the sword you call Wirikidor, despite its resistance to being handled by anyone but you and despite its constant attempts to get back to you. There are several details of its enchantment we can't make out by any means currently at our disposal, but we have the basic characteristics figured out."

Valder nodded, listening attentively.

"I've discussed it with the general. I don't know if he has any use for it in mind yet, but he told me that, as the sword's owner, you should be informed."

"Very kind of him," Valder remarked with mild sarcasm.

"Yes. Well, firstly, we were right about the Spell of True Ownership. The sword does have a variant of that spell on it, a deteriorating and unhealthy form. The Spell of True Ownership can be bad enough in any case, since nobody has yet established whether the person owns the enchanted object or the object owns the person, but in your case it seems to be especially bad, due to the spell's decaying nature. The link between the sword and yourself is quite strong and will stay that way for... well, for a time. Before I can explain that, let me explain some of the other things."

He paused, as if uncertain what to say, and Valder prodded him, asking,

"What other things?"

"Other spells -- there are several other spells here, all woven together.

I've never encountered anything like it. There's Ellran's Immortal Animation, for example -- that's a nasty, awkward spell, and your crazy hermit had no right to use it, if you ask me. It's irreversible, completely irreversible --

and what's worse, it makes any spell linked to it irreversible, too. It's the Animation that allows your sword to move of its own volition, as you've seen it do. Furthermore, the Animation makes the other spells on the sword permanent and unbreakable -- unless one were to use really powerful counterspells, and, even then, it would be incredibly dangerous. The combination of the Animation and the True Ownership has the effect of linking you and your life to the sword -- breaking the spells would kill you, at the very least, as well as destroying the sword."

Valder stared at the sword on the cot opposite him. This was not anything he had expected. What it would mean to him was still unclear, but it appeared that Wirikidor's existence was not going to be a mere passing episode in his career.

"This has its good side, of course," Darrend went on. "The sword is virtually indestructible now, and there's a curious benefit for you in that, as nearly as we can determine, you can no longer be killed by any ordinary means. Since your life is now bound up in the sword, you see, you can't be destroyed by anything outside the sword.

"If the sword is destroyed, you'll die, very definitely -- but it's almost impossible for anyone, even a very high-powered wizard, to damage the sword, let alone destroy it. Ellran's Immortal Animation is indeed very close to the immortality it claims. The sword itself can kill you, under certain circumstances -- I'll speak of that in a moment -- but to the best of my knowledge, after intensive study by myself and my comrades, there is nothing else in the world that can."

"What?" Valder blinked. He did not believe he had heard Darrend correctly. He was shocked out of the torpor that had beset him since Felder's death.

"You can't be killed, Valder; you can't die by any means whatsoever, except to die on Wirikidor's blade, or if someone should find a way to destroy the sword."

"What?" Valder stared, still not comprehending.

"No one is going to destroy the sword; doing so would almost certainly cause a catastrophe. Valder, you are going to live until you die on Wirikidor's blade. There is no other way you can die, not since you first drew the sword."

Valder stared in mute astonishment.

"This doesn't mean you're invulnerable. You can still be injured -- you just can't die. You can be maimed, tortured, blinded, deafened, driven mad, crippled, dismembered, even cut into pieces -- but you won't actually die until Wirikidor kills you. That's part of what's so nasty about the Immortal Animation."

Valder struggled to assimilate this information. "I can't die?"

"Not from any ordinary means. However, there is a catch, and this is where that deteriorating spell comes into it. Your hermit substituted something else for the ring of drawn gold that's supposed to be a part of the Spell of True Ownership, and the resulting enchantment is corrupt. You became the true owner of the sword when you first drew it; whoever drew it would have owned it. However, because of the flaw, you won't stay the true owner forever

-- only gold never tarnishes, not whatever substitute was used here. You'll be able to draw the sword and use it one hundred times, give or take one or two

-- and that's all. After that, the sword will renounce you. The next time the sword is drawn after that -- and you, Valder of Kardoret, will be the only man in all Ethshar not able to draw the sword then -- whoever draws the sword will be its new owner, and you will be the first man to die on Wirikidor's blade when that happens. The new owner will be able to draw and wield it ninety-nine times, give or take -- one fewer than you, at any rate -- and then it will turn on him. After that the third owner will be allowed ninety-eight, and so on, until some poor fool, centuries from now, will draw it and have it turn on him immediately. That will use up the spell completely, and there will be no true owner thereafter."

"Wait a minute -- nothing else can kill me, but Wirikidor is going to turn on me and kill me?"

"That's more or less correct."

Valder was outraged. "That's insane! What sort of an enchantment is that?"

Darrend shrugged. "Hermits often are insane. I suspect this one didn't like you."

"How long will this take, then? How long do I have to live?"

"Who knows? That doesn't seem to be built in anywhere. There isn't any compulsion to draw the sword; leave it undrawn and in theory you could live forever."

Valder stared first at the wizard and then at the sword. He was still having trouble taking this in. As a soldier, he had long lived, albeit reluctantly, with the idea that he might be killed at any moment. Now that was no longer true. How could the hermit have wreaked such havoc on his life?

He could still be harmed, though. "I'm not sure I want that," he said slowly. "Can the spell be removed?"

Darrend sighed. "Not by me. I don't think anyone could do it. Your hermit was either very lucky or an incredibly talented wizard. It would take a spell more powerful than all the ones he used put together to remove the enchantment, the way he has everything linked up, and I doubt that any wizard alive could handle such a spell. I certainly can't. Ellran's Immortal Animation is usually rated as an eighth-order spell, and that's just one of the charms he used. Only one wizard in a hundred or so makes it past fourth-order enchantments alive. On a good day, I can handle one eighth-order spell, but not a tangle like that; nobody I ever heard of short of Fendel the Great could undo that mess." He paused, a startled look on his face. "I just thought of something," he said. "Nobody really knows what happened to Fendel; do you think he might be your hermit?"

Valder shrugged. "I suppose he could be."

"Oh, probably not." Darrend waved the possibility away.

"Isn't there any other way of getting the enchantment off, other than this impossible counterspell?"

"Not that I know of. There are legends about ways of canceling out wizardry entirely, like snuffing a candle, but I've never believed in them. If they existed, the northerners would have found them by now and used them against us."

Valder knew enough to dismiss such scare stories.

"Why worry about it, though?" Darrend said. "You don't need to remove the spell; it won't be that hard to live with, if you're careful about drawing and not drawing the sword. You'll have to keep Wirikidor with you, of course --

leaving a Truly Owned object around can be dangerous. If it takes a tidal wave or an earthquake to bring it to you when the spell has built up enough potential, you'll get a tidal wave or an earthquake and all the damage that would cause. It's a ruthless sort of spell."

"Oh," Valder said. He had been thinking of quietly burying Wirikidor somewhere to keep it from being drawn that hundred-and-first time -- or ninety-ninth or one-hundred-and-third or whatever.

"I think that covers the ownership angle," Darrend said. "Now, about the sword's name and what it does. The hermit told you that 'Wirikidor' means

'slayer of warriors,' but that's a bad translation. 'Mankiller' is closer. It doesn't care if its victims are warriors, so long as they're human, male, and past puberty."

"Oh," Valder said again. That explained why the sword had not killed the dragon or the woman and why it had hesitated against the half-human shatra.

"Furthermore, as you have discovered, it's 'man killer,' not 'men killer.' It's only interested in taking one life each time it's drawn."

"I had noticed that," Valder agreed.

"Yes, I'm sure you have. Each time it's drawn it will kill a man as quickly as you can provide it with a victim. You'll want to be careful about that. I think you can control which man of several it kills, but I doubt you can hold it back entirely -- it needs to kill someone. You saw that with that convict. Against its proper foe -- a single man -- it's as close to unbeatable as wizardry can make it. You'll never need to worry about being outmatched.

Besides the Animation that lets it all work, it's got three separate blessings

-- one of which I never encountered before -- and the Spell of Perpetual Sharpness and a few other little charms and cantrips. This hermit may have been mad, but he knew an amazing amount of magic and he didn't stint in using it. If he could do something like this after most of his supplies were destroyed, he'd certainly be an asset to the war effort."

"He said he had already served."

"If he did, he either kept his talents hidden, or has developed them since -- or maybe he was kept secret. Ordinarily, I'm sure I'd have heard of anyone with his abilities."

"He seemed quite old," Valder said. "Maybe he was before your time. Maybe he is this Fendel the Great you mentioned. I don't know."

"Well, whoever he is, you've got an impressive weapon here. Not flashy, but powerful. I'm returning it to you -- no point in letting the Spell of Ownership get dangerous -- but I want to warn you to be extremely cautious with it." He reached out and pulled the sword and scabbard from the table, then handed them to Valder, who accepted both, then slid the blade into its sheath and hung it on his belt.

"Get to know it," Darrend said. "You and Wirikidor are going to be together for the rest of your life, so you had better become accustomed to its behavior. Be grateful that it hasn't got a mind of its own -- reflexes, yes, but no mind that I can detect, no whims, no personality. It's a very powerful and valuable item -- and a very dangerous one as well, both to you and to others."

"Yes, sir." Valder was not absolutely certain that Darrend was technically a superior officer, but he spoke like one and obviously commanded considerable respect, so that the "sir" seemed natural.

"Remember that it will keep you alive but not safe. Don't get overconfident, or you might wind up so badly crippled or maimed that death would be mercy. And don't forget that you're destined to die on its blade.

That sword is both friend and enemy; remember that."

"Yes, sir." Valder did not think he was likely to forget anything of such vital personal importance.

"I've passed on a complete report, and your superiors are considering just what to do with you. Since your old unit is disbanded, you'll be given a position here, I understand. I think they'll probably find some special use for you and Wirikidor -- it would be a shame to waste such a sword's talents."

"Yes, sir." Valder was still too busy absorbing what he had been told to wonder about what special duties he might be given.

"I believe the general had hoped we might produce more swords like Wirikidor -- after all, a weapon that can kill shatra at close range is impressive. Unfortunately, though we have identified most of the spells on it, we can't figure out how to reproduce most of them without killing half a dozen people in doing it, so it looks as if you, Valder of Kardoret, are going to remain unique."

Valder could think of no sensible reply to that. After a moment's pause he simply said again, "Yes, sir."

"That's all," Darrend said, motioning toward the tent flap. Valder got to his feet.

"Yes, sir," he repeated, as he stepped out into the sunlight.

CHAPTER 14

Valder settled quietly on his cot, Wirikidor on his hip, and mulled over what Darrend had told him.

The wizard had seemed very sure of his findings. Valder saw no reason to dispute them, but had vague recollections of once hearing that magical analysis of enchanted weaponry was not always reliable. He glanced down at the sword in the dimness of the tent. It looked like an ordinary sword, just as it always had, yet its power had supposedly made him virtually immortal -- so long as he did not draw the sword too often. About a hundred times, the wizard had said. Since leaving the marsh he had drawn it three -- no, four times. He had killed the coast-watcher, the swordsman, the shatra, and the prisoner.

That left him with a minimum of ninety-four and a maximum of ninety-eight more drawings, which seemed like a safe enough margin. Very few soldiers actually confronted a hundred enemy soldiers at close range in their whole careers, let alone killed that many. He himself had served six years before Wirikidor's enchantment without ever being sure he had killed anyone.

Of course, there was the mention of possible special duty. That prospect might prove troublesome. He was a scout and preferred to remain a scout if he was to be a soldier at all. He tried to think what unusual service Wirikidor's characteristics would be suited to.

He certainly wasn't going to be a fencing instructor, or anything else where he might need to draw his sword for any reason other than battle to the death. That eliminated sentry duty and guarding prisoners, as well, unless he were to carry a second sword, which would be awkward, to say the least.

He could be a fine executioner, but that seemed a waste of the sword's power. Besides, he violently disliked the idea. He did not like killing anything, especially not people, most particularly Ethsharites. The fact that they would be helpless prisoners made it even worse. Not, he reminded himself, that the army had beheaded anyone in centuries or that they used a professional executioner in the first place. Murderers and deserters and so forth were usually hanged by whoever was handy. The poor fool he had killed in the general's tent had been an exception; dying by the sword usually happened only in battle.

He tried to approach the question logically. Wirikidor's magic was directed toward keeping him alive and killing other men one at a time, if the wizards had analyzed it correctly. The men that his superiors would presumably most like to kill would be the enemy's soldiers. Therefore, it followed that Valder would be sent to kill enemy soldiers.

How was that a special duty? And would it be practical to send him into battle when he would need to sheathe his sword after each killing before its power would serve again?

He sighed and gave up. Whatever the special duty might be, it was likely to be dangerous and unpleasant, and there was no point in making life unpleasant by worrying about it sooner than necessary. He would have plenty of time to worry when he knew what was to happen. Whatever the duty, he could live with it -- or if not, he would find some way out. There was always a way out.

With that thought, he rolled over and went to sleep.

He found himself in a dream -- very obviously a dream, as huge runes on the wall in front of him spelled out, "This dream is being provided by Sharassin of Shan." He supposed such runes might be drawn on a real wall somewhere, but he had no reason to doubt what they said in this instance; he felt as if he were dreaming. As soon as he had read them, the runes writhed about and reformed to say, "Dreams and communication wizardry of all sorts at reasonable rates."

That seemed to complete the advertisements; the runes faded away, leaving him staring at a blank stone wall.

"Hello, Valder," a familiar voice called from behind. He turned.

He was in a library; the walls of rough gray stone were mostly hidden by shelves of books and scrolls. The ceiling was coffered wood, the floor polished flags. In the center of the chamber stood a large oaken table, and sitting atop the table was a handsome young man in his late teens, wearing military tunic and kilt but no breastplate or helmet. His curly black hair was in disarray, his eyes bright, and a broad grin covered his face. Valder recognized him immediately as his former bunkmate, Tandellin Landin's son.

"They told me you were still alive, but I wanted to see for myself,"

Tandellin said.

Valder grinned back. "And they told me that you were still alive, and I figured I had best leave well enough alone. What's this spell costing you?"

"Oh, not all that much; Sharassin's a friend of mine. All I had to do was buy her the ingredients and provide her with a few vials of blood -- but one of the ingredients was a pan of beaten silver, so you better appreciate this!"

"Oh, I do!" Valder hastened to reply. "How long do we have?"

Tandellin shrugged. "I'm not sure -- I think until you wake up."

"Plenty of time, then -- I just went to sleep." He hesitated. "At least, I think I just went to sleep, but you know how dreams are."

"Well, let's not waste it, then. Tell me what happened -- we all thought the northerners got you when they first came charging down out of the woods at us."

Valder related his adventures, glad to be able to do so at his own speed and without being completely serious about everything. Even though he had told the story several times, this was the first chance he had had to tell it to a friend rather than an interrogator.

When he had finished he asked, "And what about you?"

"Oh, I was just sitting in camp when the attack came. At first I was out there with my bow and sword, like everybody else, but, when we saw that we didn't stand a chance, Captain Lorret sent half a dozen men south to see if we could find reinforcements. He picked the youngest, I suppose because he thought we could run fastest -- I was the last one he chose, and he told me to head straight for General Gor's fortress. I did -- and I'm still here, because I was too tired to go back out and fight after I got here. I was up on the ramparts with a bow when the enemy finally got this far, though; don't think I hit anything. And I may have been spending some time with wizards, but I haven't gotten my sword enchanted -- just my heart. Or maybe somewhere lower down. You'll have to see Sharassin some time; she's really... well, you'll have to see her."

Valder laughed. Even though it was only a dream, it felt good; he had not laughed much in recent months. It was indescribably good to know that someone, somewhere, still cared about him. He had lost contact with his family years earlier, and friends had come and gone; of them all, only Tandellin had taken the trouble to find him again.

He asked after other friends and was dismayed by how many had died or vanished. After that, the conversation rambled on, largely taken up with the gossip of the Fortress.

Tandellin was making a lewd suggestion as to why General Gor hadn't yet married when Valder suddenly felt himself seized and shaken. The library walls wavered and dimmed around him. "I must be waking up," he called. "Stay in touch!" Then Tandellin and the library were gone, and he was lying on his cot in General Karannin's camp, looking up at two hard-faced guardsmen, their features eerily lighted by a single shaded lantern.

He glanced around the tent. Radler and Korl were watching silently from their beds; Tesra slept on, oblivious.

"Come on," one of the guardsmen demanded, in a voice like stone scraping stone.

Valder made a vague noise of agreement and rolled off the cot onto his feet, somehow managing not to snag Wirikidor on anything. He started to smooth down his hair and adjust his clothing, but the guardsmen politely convinced him not to bother by grabbing his arms and moving him gently but irresistibly out of the tent.

Valder went along without further argument or delay. Apparently, he thought, he was about to find out what special duty had been chosen for him.

The guardsmen said nothing further but merely escorted him to an undistinguished tent near the dragon pens. They thrust him inside and then vanished into the night.

Inside he found himself facing two men, a tall, brown-haired officer and a short, pale man in civilian attire but wearing a sword on his belt like a soldier.

"I'm Captain Endarim," the officer said. "You're Valder of Kardoret?"

Valder acknowledged his identity.

"Good. I think we've figured out what to do with you."

No answer seemed to be called for, so Valder said nothing. He looked politely interested and glanced at the other man, inviting an introduction.

None came.

"Darrend and the rest have explained something of the workings of your sword to me," the officer said. "They have also sworn, under oath to a good theurgist, that they have no chance of duplicating it. That means that you're unique and a resource not to be wasted." He rose up onto his toes for a moment, then dropped back, as if emphasizing his point.

"Yes, sir," Valder answered noncommittally. He did not particularly care to be called a resource. This was a rude contrast to his warming magical chat with Tandellin.

"We've been giving the matter considerable thought as to how best to employ you. Putting you in open combat seems wasteful. You would need to be constantly sheathing and unsheathing your sword to be really effective, and you might get yourself killed in between."

"Yes, sir," Valder said again, noting to himself that this pompous captain seemed to be unaware of the semi-immortality the sword theoretically provided. Even if he could not be killed, however, he had no desire to be cut up, so the point was essentially correct.

"You've been trained in reconnaissance and have demonstrated over the past few months that you can take care of yourself and survive alone behind the enemy lines. You can, as I understand it, kill any man with ease and with great speed -- that should allow you to deal with sentries. I'm told the sword provides a certain measure of protection, though I'm not clear on that. And you're ideally suited to fighting individuals, rather than groups. It seems to us, therefore, that there is one job exactly right for a man with your talents. We want to send you after not just enemy soldiers, but the really important men among the enemy -- generals, sorcerers, members of the government, and so forth. Each such man you remove is worth dozens, maybe hundreds, of enemy soldiers. Do you follow me?"

Valder followed him all too well. "You want me to be an assassin?"

"That's an ugly word, but you do have the right idea."

"I'm not sure..."

Endarim cut him off. "Before you go any further, let me say that the pay for such work is excellent. You would rate as a captain to start and go up from there. You would have no other duties; when not working, your time would be your own."

"It's not that," Valder said. "I'm just not sure that I could do the job.

I don't know how to find these men you want me to kill, for example, and I really don't like the idea of killing..."

"Of course you don't like the idea of killing," Endarim interrupted him.

"But this is war, soldier. The more damage we do to the northerners, by whatever method, the less they'll be able to do to us. If you can kill one enemy sorcerer, you might be saving the lives of a dozen or more of your own comrades in arms! As for the technical problems, our wizards will help you with those. We have used assassins before. Finding targets and delivering our men to the right area has never been very difficult. The problem has always been getting through the personal defenses and getting our man out alive --

and your sword should make that part much easier."

"I..."

"Listen, Valder, we prefer to have volunteers for this sort of work, but you're a special case. I can order you to take on assassination duty if I have to, because you are, without a doubt, one of the most promising candidates we've ever had, thanks to that sword, and we need a good assassin right now.

We would prefer that you go willingly, because that would greatly improve your chances of survival, but we don't insist on it. If you refuse an order, we may even resort to a geas."

"Are you ordering me, then, sir?"

"No, I'm not -- not yet, Listen, try it once and see what you think. If it's that much worse than regular combat for you, maybe we can put you somewhere else -- but that magic sword you've stumbled onto doesn't entitle you to any more pampering than any other man in the Ethsharitic army, soldier, and, one way or another, you're going to fight and you're going to kill."

"Yes, sir." Valder was not happy, but he saw that his only options were obedience or desertion -- and he was not a deserter. He knew, firsthand, that the northerners were ruthless and were out to destroy Ethshar. He loved his homeland and its people, even if he had never actually seen very much of either. All he knew was the army, since that was all he had seen since turning sixteen, and a healthy young man wasn't welcome anywhere else. He had no choice. He liked to believe that there was always a way out of everything, but he could not see one here.

"Good," the captain said. "Very good. I'll have your formal orders drawn up tomorrow, and you'll start drawing pay at your new rank."

"Yes, sir."

"And Valder -- I wouldn't tell anyone what you're doing. It wouldn't do any good for everyone to know we use assassins, and I'm sure it wouldn't do you, personally, any good. It may seem dashing and romantic at first, but assassins are never really popular. They make people nervous."

"Yes, sir." Valder had wondered vaguely why he had been brought here in the middle of the night and now guessed that it was to maintain the secrecy of the assassination project.

"If anyone asks, you're a wizard's assistant now."

"Yes, sir."

"Good. You'll start immediately. Kelder, here, will tell you what to do."

The captain waved at the civilian. Valder looked at him, openly curious now.

"Come on," the man called Kelder said, speaking for the first time. He had a high, thin voice.

Valder looked him over. He was short, of medium build, with an unusually scraggly beard and mustache. His skin was unhealthily pale, his hair a nondescript brown and thinning. His clothes were of undistinguished cut and material, though better than peasants wore. The sword on his belt was standard military issue, very like Wirikidor in appearance.

After this brief appraisal, Valder glanced back at the captain, who was already turning his attention elsewhere, looking at a stack of papers on his cot. With a mental shrug, Valder turned and followed the civilian out of the tent.

They headed directly toward the back of the camp, past the dragon pens and the last few rows of tents and into camptown, where the vintners and whores, undaunted by the late hour, still plied their trades. The main camp was mostly dark, but here about half the tents were still brightly lighted, often with multicolored lanterns. Valder heard singing somewhere and nearly tripped over two soldiers lying semiconscious in the dirt, obviously very drunk.

Kelder led the way past the rowdiest area, past the bright lanterns and thinly clad women, almost to the edge of the circle of wives' tents that served as a market. He ducked suddenly into a small tent, the abrupt change in course catching Valder by surprise.

He started, then followed.

Once settled on the dirt floor of the little tent -- there was no furniture nor room for any; a quilted mat served as a bed -- Valder demanded,

"Who in Hell are you, anyway?"

"I'm called Kelder," the other replied. "No parentage, no birthplace, no eponym -- just Kelder. I'm a spy." He smiled, as if he had just made a joke.

Valder stared at him uncertainly, not sure whether he was joking or not.

"Seriously," the little man went on, "I'm a spy. In fact, I'm in charge of espionage for this entire front, which, unfortunately, doesn't mean much, because we haven't got any espionage to speak of here. General Gor sent me to fix that, and I happened to arrive in time to hear about you and your sword.

You may be interested to know that we have seven wizards and two witches searching for your mysterious hermit with all the magic at their disposal, and a relay of theurgists praying for information about him. We take this very seriously. A scouting party will be sent up the coast to look for him, as well. So far we haven't found anything, but a wizard who can casually throw around eighth-order spells is worth a little effort. We don't have very many of them. Whether we find him or not, though, we have you and Wirikidor."

Valder could think of nothing to say; he stared at the man in the dimness; the only light was what seeped through the tent's canvas.

"I suppose you're feeling overwhelmed by all this. You've gone from being an ordinary scout to an unimportant bit of coastline to being involved in all sorts of strange things, tangled up with wizards and spies and assassins. Life can be like that. I'd like to give you time to sort it all out, but I'm afraid we can't spare any. I'm to train you, and then you'll start work. Ten days from now, with any luck, you'll kill the Northern Empire's chief sorcerer on the western front."

Valder started to protest.

"Let me rephrase that," Kelder said. "Within the next ten days you'll give Wirikidor the opportunity to kill the enemy's chief sorcerer on the western front." He smiled. "You're going to be very useful, Valder."

Valder was not at all sure of that, but he did not argue.

If assassination proved unbearable, he could botch it, and they would reassign him. He found it impossible to believe that he was going to kill any sorcerers,

Nine nights later, as he stood over the body of a dead sorcerer, he still found it hard to believe.

CHAPTER 15

His first five assassinations were made in fairly quick succession, at two- or three-day intervals; each time Kelder told him how to find and identify his target, each time a wizard or two got him into the general area, and each time he managed to get in and out without serious injury. Two of the five were sorcerers; he was never told just who the other three were.

Wirikidor disposed of all of them in short order, in addition to dealing with assorted guards and other interference. Valder had been pleasantly surprised to discover that sorcerers died as easily as anybody else, once the blade reached them; he had expected them to be at least as bad as the shatra had been, reaching for the sword or doing other eerie, discomforting things after they should have been dead. His fears proved unfounded; sorcerers folded up and died just like anybody else when their throats were cut.

This was not to say he had no trouble; one sorcerer had had an ugly metal talisman that spat magical fire at him and gashed his left arm rather badly.

Valder had brought the talisman back with him after killing the man but turned it over to Darrend for study and never saw it again.

After the fifth mission, he was left alone for a full sixnight, giving him time to recover -- and time to think.

At midevening of the sixth day he lay sprawled on his cot, staring at the dark canvas overhead. His left arm still ached dully where the sorcerous wound had been, despite a prompt and mostly effective healing spell; that ache combined with the lingering effects of an inadequate dinner washed down with oushka made it difficult to concentrate.

It had not been good oushka, either; Valder suspected it was made locally and was quite certain it was watered. Watered oushka was replacing wine as the standard tipple, because wine was becoming impossibly expensive, due to short supply.

Several supplies were running low, which was why his dinner had been rather skimpy. The army was relying ever more heavily on forage rather than proper supply caravans, and grasslands and forests did not provide very much in the way of forage. Sustenance spells were being left intact when men came in from patrol in order to save food -- and because fewer wizards were available to renew them when the men were sent out again.

In fact, it seemed to Valder that every resource was being stretched thin. The magical assistance provided for his assassinations varied from night to night, according to what was available, and there was no longer a single witch in the entire camp. He had heard from his tentmates that entire regiments were going into battle with no magical support at all. No more troops were coming up from the rear, and the camp had been stripped, leaving Valder wondering whether any replacements were being sent to the front. He was not sure what had become of the men and material, but they did seem to be far less plentiful than in times past.

Could it be, he asked himself through a thin haze of pain and alcohol, that the war really was drawing to a close? It didn't seem possible -- yet it didn't seem possible that the army could stretch itself much further, either.

What would happen, he wondered, if the war did end? What would become of him? What did he want to do with his life? What did one do with a life that might last forever if he could avoid drawing his sword?

Valder supposed that one did very much the same thing one did with any life. No one ever knew how long he would live, after all; Valder did not know how long he would live -- merely that the rules were different for him.

But then, what did he want to do with himself, whether for a normal span or all eternity?

He knew what he did not want. He did not want to kill anybody else.

Counting the various guards and others, as well as his intended targets, and adding in the four he had killed before reaching camp, he had drawn Wirikidor seventeen times, and seventeen men had died on its blade. That was too many.

If peace actually came, he did not intend to draw Wirikidor again.

He did not want any sort of adventure any more. He had had quite enough of that, first with his three months in the wilderness and then with his five assassinations. He wanted to settle down quietly somewhere, with a place of his own and perhaps a family. Not a farm -- he had no interest in working the soil and was not fond of tending animals. A shop, perhaps -- he knew nothing of the mercantile trades, but they seemed appealing.

His head hurt. He reminded himself that he was still a soldier and that the war was still going on, as it always had. The war would probably be going long after he was dead, even if he lived to a ripe old age. The promise of living forever was still too new and too incredible to accept, after living all his life in the sure knowledge of his own mortality, so he ignored it for the present.

He would be a soldier until he had served his full thirty years if the war went on. He would be forty-six when he was finally discharged, just over twice his present age. That was hard to imagine. Some men were still strong and healthy at that age -- General Anaran was fifty or so, but was said to be still in perfect condition. Valder might be equally lucky and emerge still vigorous, ready to start a new career. The army usually offered such men promotions or other incentives to re-enlist, but Valder told himself that he would never be so foolish as to be swayed by such blandishments. He would go and open a shop somewhere, dealing in wines, perhaps. He could leave Wirikidor in a back room and forget about it. Even just working for some wealthy merchant might be enjoyable; every civilian business was always short of men, since the army got first pick.

He had been taking orders all his life -- first from his parents and then from his officers. Taking orders from a merchant could be no worse, and he would have none of the risks or responsibilities of running his own business.

On the other hand, he was getting tired of taking orders from anybody and he still had two dozen years to serve. There was no knowing what he would be like at forty-six. People change, he decided, including himself.

He had just reached this profound conclusion when the tent flap swung open and Kelder entered.

Startled, Valder swung his feet to the floor and sat up. Before he could rise, Kelder said, "Don't get up yet."

Valder stopped where he was, looking up at the self-proclaimed spy.

"May I sit?" Kelder asked politely.

Valder gestured at the empty cot opposite, and Kelder settled on it.

Valder was puzzled; he had assumed when he first saw Kelder that his rest was over and he was going to be sent out to kill another northerner, but in that case, he would ordinarily have been summoned either to Kelder's tent in Camptown or Captain Endarim's near the dragon pens for a briefing. He was not sure what to think now; this change in the pattern might mean anything. He tried to decide whether he dared protest again that he did not want to be an assassin; after he had been successful on his missions no one had taken his claim seriously any more.

They had no idea what it was like, alone and terrified in the enemy's camps and cities, knowing that the only way he would be brought back was if he either completed his task or was seriously injured. He was no hero; he hated the thought of pain and carried out his assassinations as quickly and efficiently as he could so that he could go home that much faster.

Kelder knew his views, but had still sent him out repeatedly. He decided there was no point in rehashing the matter.

"I was beginning to wonder what had happened to you," he said instead.

"I was away," Kelder replied. "But now I'm back. I have your new orders."

"What new orders?"

"From General Gor. I told him about you, and he thinks you're being wasted here, killing sorcerers and administrators."

Valder was unsure whether that was good or bad. Much as he hated what he had been doing, it was always possible that what General Gor had in mind for him would be even worse.

He suppressed a slight shiver at the thought of General Gor thinking about him at all. Gor commanded the entire land-based Ethsharitic military west of the Great River's basin, after all; he was one of the four or five most powerful men in Ethshar, along with General Anaran and General Terrek and Admiral Azrad, and perhaps whoever was the current civilian head of state.

"What," Valder said at last, "does General Gor have in mind?"

"I wouldn't presume to guess General Gor's thoughts, Valder -- and I wouldn't say, even if I did. However, your orders state that you're to be transferred from General Karannin's command to General Gor's personal staff, effective immediately, with the same title and position. It seems to me --

though this is strictly a guess, and I'll deny ever saying it -- that our illustrious commander has no objection to your current services other than the choice of targets."

"More assassinations, then?"

"I would think so."

"What if I refuse?"

"Don't be silly, Valder. That would be treason; you know that."

"But damn it, Kelder, I don't want to be an assassin! It scares me half to death, and I hate killing people -- I get sick to my stomach."

"There are times when I don't like being a spy."

"I wouldn't mind spying as much, I don't think. Couldn't I do that?"

"Oh, maybe you will; I can't say. I'm just here to give you your orders and get you safely to Gor's headquarters on the coast. It's too late tonight; we leave at dawn."

"But..." Valder's objections trailed off.

Kelder smiled ruefully. "I sympathize, Valder, honestly. You have no choice, though. That hermit trapped you for life when he enchanted your sword; we can't possibly allow something like that to remain unexploited."

Valder glared resentfully at Wirikidor where it hung at the foot of his bed.

Kelder stood up and pulled the tent flap open. "We leave at dawn," he said.

Valder watched him go, then lay back, hoping that somehow dawn would not come.

Dawn came on schedule, however, and they departed.

Valder was startled by the transportation provided. They rode no horses, used no levitation spells; instead, Kelder led him to a small lavender tent in the magicians' circle, empty save for a rich tapestry that seemed stupendously out of place in a military camp. It hung from a crossbar nailed to the rear tentpole, its ornately fringed lower edge dragging in the dirt, and depicted a seascape seen from a stone rampart.

Kelder calmly walked directly into the tapestry, pulling Valder in after him.

To his astonishment, he found himself standing on the seaward battlement of General Gor's coastal fortress, Kelder at his side. The salt air washed into his nostrils, and he realized for the first time how accustomed he had become to the stench of General Karannin's camp, compounded largely of sweat, dust, and cattle. The sun was rising behind him and pouring out across the sea, lighting the wave crests with gold.

He turned around, expecting to see an opening back into the little tent, but instead he saw the upper court of the Fortress.

"Now, that tapestry," Kelder remarked. "That's a twelfth-order spell, and it took a very good wizard a year to produce it, but it does come in handy.

They carefully avoid changing this section of the ramparts so that it will keep working. It has its drawbacks -- you'll notice that it only works one way and that we had to leave the tapestry behind. It will be shipped wherever it's needed next. I wanted to get you here immediately, and there simply isn't anything faster, so I requisitioned the tapestry; nobody else was using it just now, so I was able to get it."

Valder was still staring about in amazement at the solid stone of the Fortress, trying to convince himself it was not a dream or illusion. "Oh," he said. Then a thought struck him. "Why did you wait until dawn, if the tapestry works instantly?"

"Because the tapestry depicts this spot just after dawn, of course. We'd arrive at dawn regardless of when we left, and I prefer a good night's sleep to several hours in some wizardly limbo. We could have entered the tapestry at any hour, true enough, but we would not arrive here until the hour the tapestry showed, regardless of how long a wait that might require. We wouldn't have noticed anything; to us the trip would still be instantaneous, but we would actually have lost those nighttime hours. I did that once; it messed up my sleeping schedule for days. And the weather can affect it, too -- in fact, we may have missed a day or two if the weather was bad, but the prognostications were all favorable, so I don't think we have."

"I never heard of anything like that before."

"Of course not; it's a military secret, like almost any useful magic.

Only the Wizards' Guild and important officers know anything about most of the more powerful wizardry. You'd be amazed what wizardry can do; there are spells for any number of things you would never have thought possible."

"Could they make more tapestries?"

"There are others, but right now no wizard can be spared for long enough to make more."

Valder was over his shock and beginning to think again. "Couldn't they use them to dump assassins, or whole regiments, behind enemy lines, maybe right in the enemy's capital?"

Kelder sighed. "It's a lovely theory, isn't it? But it won't work. The wizard making the tapestry needs to see the scene he's weaving very, very clearly. If it isn't absolutely perfect, right down to the smallest detail, the tapestry won't work -- or at least won't work properly. We don't have any way of seeing clearly enough behind enemy lines; our scrying spells are good enough for most needs, but not for making these tapestries."

After a moment's pause he added, "Yet."

Valder decided against pursuing the matter; instead he looked around the battlements. He had seen this fortress from a distance, assuming that it was indeed General Gor's headquarters, but he had never before been inside its walls. Tandellin was here somewhere, he remembered.

The place was impressive. The stone walls appeared to be several feet thick, and the outer faces were steep enough that he could see nothing of them from where he stood. He did not care to lean very far out over the seaward parapet; the height was dizzying.

From where he stood, he could see nothing beyond the fortress walls but the sea, the sky, a few gulls, and, very far off in the northeastern distance, a line of dark green hills. The citadel was built atop the highest ground in the area, a jagged cliff that towered above broken rocks right at the ocean's edge -- Valder remembered that from his previous visit.

The wall he stood upon stretched for almost a hundred yards in either direction; behind it, the courtyard was more than a hundred feet across, but long enough that that seemed disproportionately narrow. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of people were going about their business there. Men were sharpening swords or practicing their use, women were hanging clothes out to dry, and members of both sexes were sitting or standing in pairs or groups, talking.

Off at the northern corner, two sentries peered out over the ocean; to the south, a bend in the wall and a small guardhouse hid the next pair from Valder.

"Well," Kelder said, "if you've finished admiring the view, we have an appointment with one of General Gor's staff, a Captain Dumery, who is to get you settled in and tell you your next assignment."

"Oh," Valder said unenthusiastically. He had no interest in any assignments, and the mere mention of one had ruined his enjoyment of his surroundings.

Kelder ignored the soldier's tone and led the way to one of the staircases down into the court. They descended and, from the foot of the steps, proceeded across the court, through a vestibule into a corridor, down a flight of stairs, back along another corridor, across a large hall, along still another corridor, down another flight, across yet another corridor into a smaller hall, from there into an antechamber, and finally into a small room lined with tightly packed shelves. Valder was startled to see a small window slit with a view of the ocean; he had gotten turned around and would have guessed that they were deep in the interior of the Fortress, facing south toward the shipyards, and nowhere near the seaward side.

The room was inhabited by a small, white-haired man who invited them to sit down. He himself was perched on a stool, so that, when Valder and Kelder took the two low chairs provided, he could, short as he was, still look down on his visitors.

"You're Valder?" he asked. His voice was thin but steady.

Valder nodded.

"That's Wirikidor?"

"Yes," Valder said.

"It works the way Darrend says it does?"

"It seems to."

"Good. Then we want you to kill the Northern Emperor."

Valder stared up at the old man in silent astonishment. Kelder started and said, "You're not serious!"

The white-haired man shrugged. "Oh, well, maybe I'm not. If we can locate him, however, I think this man might be our best shot. After all, that sword is like nothing anyone has ever had before, so far as I know, and they probably have no defense against it. They can defend against just about everything else we throw at them!" He sighed. "Unfortunately, we can't locate him. Never could. So we'll be sending you against anyone important we can locate, Valder. Any problem with that?"

"Ah," Valder said, trying to give himself time to think.

"You know, I assume, that the sword is going to turn on me eventually, after a certain number of drawings."

"Yes, of course -- but you have a long way yet to go. Darrend told me that it would take a hundred or so deaths before it could kill you, and you've only used up what, maybe five?"

"Seventeen," Valder corrected him.

"So many? Ah, well, that still leaves us with eighty-three, give or take a couple."

Valder was desperately unhappy at the sound of this, but could not think how to phrase a protest. Before he could work out what to say, the white-haired man raised a hand in dismissal. "I'll call you when we need you,"

he said. "My secretary will tell you where to go."

Valder started to speak, but Kelder shushed him and hurried him out of the room.

CHAPTER 16

While Valder remained inside the fortress walls, life as General Gor's assassin was not unpleasant. The food was good and plentiful, where the meals in General Karannin's camp had not been, although a far larger portion of it was seafood than Valder might have liked. The floors were dry stone, rather than dirt or mud, and most of them had some sort of covering, whether carpets, rush matting, or at least strewn straw, so that they were not unpleasantly cold and hard underfoot. He had been assigned his own little room deep in the bowels of the stronghold, with a tiny slit of window letting in air and, for a few hours a day when the sun was in the right part of the sky, light. He could not see out of the opening, which was eight or nine feet from the floor, but he judged it to be facing southwest.

To keep him from being called upon for menial duties, he had been issued new clothing. His worn and weathered old uniform was disposed of, and he was instructed that from now on he was to wear the gray-and-black tunic and black kilt that indicated the wearer to be performing some special service for General Gor. This outfit was more practical for sneaking about at night and had a certain drastic elegance, but Valder thought it uncomfortably reminiscent of northern uniforms; he was reluctant to be seen in it until he had observed other people in the Fortress, including Kelder, similarly attired.

He quickly discovered that the new uniform had one very definite advantage: it attracted women. Valder, unsure just what special services Gor was in the habit of demanding, was not sure why this was so, but it was undeniable that women who had scarcely glanced at him in his old green kilt and battered breastplate now stared at him with hungry eyes and looked for excuses to speak with him. Since he did not know when he might be sent off on a mission that could easily end in capture or mutilation, he refused to make any sort of long-term arrangements, but did spare an hour now and then to accompany a particularly eager or attractive young woman back to her quarters.

He hoped that such women were not disappointed, that the black-and-gray uniform had not led them to expect something more than an ordinary man.

He had been in the Fortress for almost a day before he managed to find Tandellin. The youth's barracks was nowhere near the areas Valder found himself frequenting; but once he had taken care of the minimal necessities of settling in, he took the time to track down his former bunkmate.

Tandellin had been permanently posted to the Fortress as part of the garrison; he stood a watch on the ramparts for six hours a day and was on call as a messenger and errand boy for six more. Calls came frequently. Still, he was able to find time for a quiet drink and conversation with Valder in a seldom-used storeroom on the evening of the day following Valder's arrival.

When they had exchanged a few polite phrases, Valder asked, "How are things going? Still running errands for that wizard?"

"Sharassin? No."

The answer seemed uncharacteristically brief. "What happened?" Valder asked.

Tandellin grinned crookedly. "If you must know, she found out where I had been spending some of my time when I was off duty and she wasn't. She didn't take it well. Just as well; she was transferred out a few days ago, anyway."

Valder grinned back. "So where were you spending that time -- or wasn't it always the same place?"

"Oh, it was the same place all right. Her name is Sarai of the Green Eyes."

Valder waited, but Tandellin did not continue. "What's this?" he asked.

"No description? No suggestion that I really must meet her? Could there be something special about Sarai of the Green Eyes?"

Tandellin's grin turned sheepish. "Maybe there is."

"Ah, well, congratulations, my boy, if it's true." Valder was genuinely pleased. He was a great believer in love and marriage, or so he had always said -- though he had, as yet, no particular inclination in that direction for himself. It delighted him to see Tandellin showing signs of settling down, giving up the wildness of youth. The world needed more quietly settled people, he was convinced, something to provide stability and offset the chaos of the eternal war.

That thought brought to mind his own part in the war, systematically trying to produce chaos among the enemy by killing the men who kept order. He wondered whether any northerners were attempting similar missions in Ethshar.

If so, they did not appear to be very successful, since the approximate whereabouts of the commanders, Azrad, Gor, Terrek, and Anaran, were common knowledge, yet no assassins had killed any of them.

Given a choice, Valder decided, he would much have preferred to be maintaining order in Ethshar, rather than creating chaos in the Empire -- but since acquiring Wirikidor he had had no choice. Wirikidor was very much an agent of chaos, it seemed, and his superiors would not allow him to keep the blade sheathed and ignore it, as he wanted to. Some time soon, when they had found a target worthy of him, he would once again be sent out to wield Wirikidor. That took a great deal of the pleasure out of life in the Fortress.

It was three days after his arrival that Captain Dumery's secretary found him and led him to his first briefing.

That first mission went well; he was able to kill the enemy general they had chosen quickly and without killing anyone else. That brought his total to eighteen.

The next, three days later, was disastrous; Valder managed his part well enough, but it was a joint mission, involving himself, a wizard who provided magical transportation, and a cocky young thief, and the thief botched his part. Valder and the wizard made it back alive, though the wizard had a long scar to show for it and Wirikidor's total was up to twenty-five, which did not include the intended target.

Twenty-five down, seventy-five to go -- or seventy-three or seventy-seven. Valder almost began looking forward to his next task; if he kept on using Wirikidor at that rate, he would be forced to give up assassination in a matter of months. Dumery could not order him to draw the sword once the possibility of it turning on him became imminent. He would still be a soldier, but no longer an assassin; he could leave Wirikidor safely in its scabbard and fight with more ordinary weapons.

He had been resting up from that errand for a day or so when he was summoned, not to Captain Dumery's little office, but to meet General Gor himself. With some trepidation, he went.

Gor of the Rocks was of medium height, but heavy, broad at shoulder and hip, with thick black hair and beard. He stood with his feet planted well apart, as if bracing himself, and wore the standard brown tunic and green kilt of the Ethsharitic army, his badges of rank hung in a bunch on a chain around his neck.

"Valder, is it?" he said.

"Yes, sir," Valder answered.

"From now on you take orders from me and nobody else; not Captain Dumery, not Kelder, not Azrad or Anaran or Terrek. You understand that? If I want you, I'll send for you, but you take your orders for where to go and what to do when you're outside this fortress from me and me alone. I don't want you wasted on any more messes like that last one Dumery thought up. You did well enough -- brought back Cardel, and the gods all know we need every wizard we can get at this point -- but you shouldn't have been there in the first place.

Wasted seven out of a hundred!"

"Yes, sir," Valder said with calm resignation.

"Good. You're getting your food and pay on time?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. This war is finally getting somewhere, Valder, and we need all the help we can get, even swords with curses put on them by deranged hermits we can't find, if they can be useful. You may not like what you're doing, and I wouldn't blame you. It's not exactly glorious, sneaking in and killing people with an unbeatable magic sword -- more like butchery than soldering, in a way.

Still, remember, it's useful. You're doing something that may turn out to be essential."

"Yes, sir." He admired Gor's estimate of his own thoughts and attempt to answer them. He did not agree with it; his objections were not rational but emotional and had nothing to do with glory or its lack. Still, the general was at least trying to help him accept his role, which was more personal attention than he had expected.

"Good luck, then. I'll send someone when I need you."

Valder nodded, bowed, and withdrew.

He was somewhat overwhelmed by General Gor, who had managed to cover everything essential within three minutes, including his little speech of encouragement. On consideration, though, assassination was not so much like butchery as like burglary, save that, rather than jewelry, Valder stole lives.

With Wirikidor's talents and habits, it did seem very much like stealing.

It was ten days after that that Gor sent for him and gave him another assignment.

This one was planned very neatly and went off smoothly. That, Valder discovered, was to be the standard in his work for Gor. The general did not plan the assassinations himself, but he did review the plans and modify or reject them, if they were in any way flawed or incomplete.

From then on, it was a rare and difficult mission when Wirikidor was drawn more than once. The missions came less often, but seemed more important.

Valder disposed of the Empire's minister of transportation, assorted generals, and even a prince, as well as unidentified targets. Assignments came, on the average, one every three six-nights.

In between, he was free to roam the Fortress, spending Tandellin's off-duty hours drinking and gaming with his old friend and spending most of the rest of the time either with women or alone in his bed, staring unhappily at the ceiling.

Winter came and went, and Valder continued his duties ever more reluctantly. The count of his victims mounted. He was horrified, after one exceptionally complex errand involving three related targets he took to be the entire family of a northern nobleman, to realize that he was no longer absolutely sure what the correct count was.

Occasionally, one of his brief liaisons developed into something more; the first was with a girl named Hinda, a few years younger than himself, who stayed in his room for almost a month before finding a more cheerful companion. She was followed by someone who called herself Alir; Valder suspected that that was not her real name, though the only reason for his suspicion was her excessively romantic nature. She seemed to be convinced that Valder was doing something very exciting and glorious whenever he was out of the Fortress; she finally departed when, even in bed, he refused to say just what it was that he did for General Gor.

He acquired friends of both sexes as well as lovers, though none were especially close. He grew to like Sarai of the Green Eyes, a vivacious girl of eighteen or so, and was glad when Tandellin included her in their evenings together. He encountered Kelder occasionally and found that, once the little man was no longer telling him who to kill, he was pleasant company. He came actively to dislike Captain Dumery, who seemed to resent having Valder removed from his authority. In this latter opinion he was joined wholeheartedly by several of the men in Tandellin's barracks, but few agreed with his assessment of Kelder, who was generally considered to be a fool.

The summer of the year 4997 arrived, and, by the fourteenth of Summerheat, Valder's count had hit eighty, give or take one. He lay alone in his room for a long time, staring at the vaulted ceiling and considering this.

He had killed eighty men. With the connivance of the old hermit and his enchanted sword, he had ended fourscore lives. Most soldiers never actually managed to kill anybody. In his six years of regular service, he had never been certain he had killed anyone. He had drawn blood on occasion in skirmishes or with his bow, but he had never known whether anyone he had struck had died.

Wirikidor, on the other hand, never left any room for doubt. He had killed eighty men and sent eighty souls to wherever northerners' souls went --

Hell, presumably. Those men might have been anything -- good, evil, or somewhere between. He had no way of knowing anything but that they had been the enemies of the Holy Kingdom of Ethshar.

Why, he wondered, was it called a kingdom? So far as he knew, there had never been an actual king. He had never been very clear on just how the civilian government did operate, having spent his entire life under martial law in the lands outside the traditional boundaries where there was only the military, but he thought he would have heard of a king if one existed.

What would the gods think of a man who had killed eighty men? Would they condemn him as a murderer or praise him for doing so much to rid the world of the demon-guided enemy? Everyone agreed that the gods favored Ethshar over the Empire, but not all agreed on why they did not directly intervene in the war, even when petitioned. One school of thought maintained that they were, in fact, waging war on an entirely different level, but were being countered so exactly by the demons aiding the Northern Empire that no sign of this conflict penetrated to the world. Another school argued that the gods were so pure that they could not take, were actually incapable of taking, any aggressive action; that they found violence so repugnant that they could not bear to help even their chosen people in the violence of war. There were dozens of variations.

If the gods were repulsed by violence, though, then had Valder damned himself by wielding Wirikidor?

If he had, it was far too late to do anything about it now. He wished that he had never drawn the sword or that he had never told anyone how he had come to kill the shatra on the plain that day.

His thoughts were interrupted by someone shouting in the corridor outside his room; the words were unintelligible, and he tried to ignore the noise.

He was, he told himself, a young man, scarcely twenty-three. He owned a magic sword that would, supposedly, prevent him from dying indefinitely. Yet, less than a year after acquiring this wonderful weapon, less than a fourth of the way through his term of service in the military, he had used up four-fifths of his ownership of the sword.

That, he told himself, was stupid. It was idiotic to go on squandering his life in this manner. His life was tied to his ownership of the sword; with each killing a part of his life slipped away. His superiors were forcing him to throw it away.

He would refuse, he promised himself, to continue doing so. As politely as he could, he would tell General Gor at the first opportunity that he, Valder of Kardoret, had done his duty, contributed his fair share to the war effort, and would no longer be available for assassinations. After all, they could not kill him; only Wirikidor could do that.

The shouting in the corridor was still going on, and now someone was pounding on his door. Annoyed, he rose and lifted the latch.

Tandellin tumbled in, panting. "Valder, have you heard?"

"Heard what?"

"The enemy has broken through on the eastern front, clear into the homeland! Old Ethshar itself is under attack by demons, they say, real demons, not just shatra! General Terrek is dead, and the Kingdom is in retreat.

Everyone is to be ready to leave on a moment's notice; the wizards are getting spells ready, and we expect to be sent to the new front at any time."

"Demons?"

"Oh, there are hundreds of stories about them! There's definitely something new happening!"

"Demons." Wirikidor would be of no use against demons. He knew of nothing that would be -- but then, he did not know what wouldn't be, other than his own sword with its insistence on killing men. Nobody, so far as he knew, had ever actually fought a demon before. Even the very few Ethsharitic demonologists, or the theurgists who worked both sides, never directly fought the demons they conjured up, but instead controlled them through complex magical restraints and elaborate prayers that only the original summoner could use. If the northerners had really unleashed demons on Ethshar, the war might well end very soon -- perhaps with no victor at all.

This, he thought, would be a good time for the gods to intervene if, by some chance, they had been waiting for the right moment, like the magicians in the songs who always appeared in the last stanza to rescue the doomed heroes.

He strapped on his sword and headed for General Gor's office to see if he had any orders. This was not, he knew, a good time to try resigning from his job as an assassin.

CHAPTER 17

Valder sat in the bare stone antechamber feeling stupid. Naturally, Gor had been besieged with questions, advice, requests, demands, and information; he had no time to spare just now for an assassin. Valder knew that, had he given it any thought, he would have realized as much. What could an assassin do in a battle against demons?

Having come to offer his services, however, he was not about to slink back to his room. Instead he sat and waited while officers and messengers ran in and out, so that he might be ready if summoned and so he might catch a few bits of information in passing. All the magicians in the Fortress and some brought from elsewhere were busily gathering information -- the wizards by various spells, the theurgists by prayer, the witches and the lone sorcerer by arcane methods Valder did not understand. Gor's two demonologists had utterly failed to make contact with anything, or so rumor had it, which seemed to confirm that quite literally all the demons of Hell were loose in the east.

As people hurried in and out, Valder could catch snatches of conversation, and every so often someone would pause to rest, or be asked to wait, and might be willing to answer a hurried question. Nobody seemed very sure of what was happening. A steady babble poured out through the door of the inner chamber, but Valder could make sense of none of it.

Then, abruptly, the babble died. In the sudden silence as the echoes from the stone walls faded, Valder heard a single voice exclaim, "Gods!"

He heard questioning voices raised, and the silence was washed away as quickly as it had come by officers and men demanding to know what had silenced the magicians.

Valder could not make out the reply and was astonished by an outburst of wild cheering. He could stand it no longer. He rose and marched up to the door.

"What's happening?" he demanded of the guard posted there.

"I'm not sure, sir," the soldier said, deferring to Valder's special uniform.

"You couldn't hear what was said, what started the cheering?"

"I'm not sure, sir -- I think he said something about a counterattack, that the gods themselves had counterattacked. I don't really know. The gods couldn't do that, though, could they?" The soldier's voice was pleading and uncertain, though he struggled to maintain the properly stolid expression a sentry was expected to have.

"I don't know," Valder said. "I'm no theologian." The whole affair seemed unreal. He knew very well that gods and demons existed, had always existed, but, aside from the halfbreed shatra, they had always been aloof from human affairs, intervening in the world only when summoned by elaborate invocations, and even then usually offering little more than advice and the occasional petty miracle. Had this somehow changed? The whole universe seemed to be turning topsy-turvy around him.

Valder found himself wondering whether perhaps he wasn't lying delirious in a coastal marsh in the summer of 4996, imagining it all. He had led an ordinary life for twenty-two years, boring and predictable -- born to a soldier and his woman of the moment, raised in an assortment of camps and villages, signed up at sixteen and trained as a scout, and assigned to the western coast where nothing of importance ever happened. Then, suddenly, everything had shifted. The enemy had attacked, seemingly out of nowhere, destroying his home unit and driving him into the wilderness, where he found an old hermit who had enchanted his sword and thereby granted him the possibility of eternal life -- or of a rather nasty doom. That enchantment had made him an assassin, prowling the streets of northern cities and camps that most of his former comrades never knew existed. Former comrades, because his work as an assassin set him apart.

All that, however, seemed logical and coherent compared with the news that demons were attacking eastern Ethshar and the gods themselves counterattacking. The world had always been fraught with magic, controlled by unseen forces, but those forces had been predictable unless manipulated by men and women. The gods had never been prone to whims.

What would this superhuman conflict mean to the world, to the war -- to Ethshar and to Valder?

The cheering in the inner room had spread, become universal, and then died down again. Now Valder heard the unmistakable tones of orders being given, and a stream of men and women began pouring out past him. Among them was Kelder, who spotted Valder and paused, stepping out of the onrushing human current for a moment.

"Go get some rest," he said. "None of us can do anything right now; it's all in the hands of the gods. That's not just a pious saying anymore, but the literal truth. Go back to your room and get some sleep, so you'll be well rested if we need to move quickly. Everyone is getting this same order -- wait and be ready. Go on."

Reluctantly, Valder got to his feet and went. He was not in need of sleep, but he sank back on his cot again nonetheless, one hand slipping down the side of the mattress to grip the rope webbing beneath. He lay there, staring at the ceiling, until he knew every joint in the vaulting and the shape of every stone.

The universe was coming apart in the east, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Eventually he must have dozed off, because he was awakened by a knock on the door.

"What?" he managed to say in reply.

"Everybody in the upper court -- General Gor has an announcement.

Everybody up!"

Whoever the messenger was, he had a voice like an avalanche. He roared off down the corridor, rousing all and sundry.

Valder was still fully dressed and, at this point, cared not at all about his appearance, so that he rose immediately and without ceremony headed for the upper court, hoping to find a spot where he could hear the general directly, rather than needing to rely on relays.

That hope did not last long once he reached the top of the stairs; his corridor, not surprisingly, given its out-of-the-way location, must have been among the last to be called. Men, women, and even children jammed the courtyard, and some were standing on the surrounding ramparts as well. He squeezed to one side to allow the people behind him to emerge and looked about for General Gor, hoping that he would be able to follow the proceedings from where he was. The din was unbelievable, even under the open sky, as everyone present seemed to be trying to guess what Gor was going to say.

Valder saw no point in that particular game, since a brief wait would tell all. He was more interested in trying to figure out who all the hundreds of people were. There seemed to be far more present than he had thought the Fortress housed; had some been summoned in from elsewhere?

Before he could pursue this line of thought, he was pushed back by guards emerging from the stairway door; to his surprise, immediately behind them came the general himself. Once out in the sun -- for the first time Valder noticed that it was late morning; he was unsure of what day -- Gor turned and ascended one of the emergency ladders to the battlements. To his surprise, Valder found himself standing almost directly below, in the front row of the entire mob. He had expected General Gor to appear elsewhere, as had, apparently, almost everyone else; it took several minutes for the noise to fade as people gradually noticed Gor's arrival.

When at last the roar of conversation had died to a dull muttering of breath, shifting feet, and rustling garments, Gor took a deep breath and announced in a powerful, carrying bellow, "I am Gor of the Rocks, heretofore High Commander, Field Marshal, and General Commanding the Western Forces of the Holy Kingdom of Ancient Ethshar."

Valder wondered at this formality. Surely all present knew who Gor was!

"I have come here today to tell you several things. The world in which we now live is not the one we have all known for so long -- and the time has come to reveal that most of you did not know the old world as well as you thought you did." He paused to catch his breath and a low murmur swirled through the crowd.

He looked about and hesitated, then shouted, "The war is over!"

If he had intended to say anything more right away, he never had a chance; the wave of cheering battered at him like a storm wind. He grinned and looked out at the sea of faces and flailing arms, mopped perspiration from his brow with his sleeve, then folded his arms and waited for the noise to abate.

The noise did not abate for several seconds, during which time Gor said, apparently to himself but loudly enough that Valder, almost beneath his feet, managed to catch it, "Oh, gods, I have always wanted to live to say that!"