Finally, after a solid minute, the cheering subsided; Gor raised his arms for quiet and, when satisfied with the lessened sound level, he said, "I'm sure that most of you have heard that our ancient enemy, the Northern Empire, unleashed the demons of Hell itself upon the eastern marches of our nation.

This is true, and I'm sorry to say that at first the attack was a great success -- if any of you had family or friends to the east of the southern mountains, I'm afraid that they are almost certainly gone, as what fragmentary reports our magicians can provide indicate that all the eastern lands, from the Empire's borders right to the southern edge of the world, are now a burning waste. General Terrek is dead, and his armies destroyed."

He paused to allow that to sink in; shocked murmurs arose and died. The earlier elation was gone, and Valder was sure that many of the people were now wondering whether the war had ended in victory or defeat. For his own part he was sure, from Gor's face and the fact that the Fortress itself still survived undamaged, that at worst a truce had been arranged.

Gor continued, "The fact that our vile foes resorted to demonic aid, despite the horrible price such aid always demands, shows us that, as we had thought, their situation had become desperate and their cause hopeless by any other means."

He paused again, then continued, "Many of you may also have heard rumors about divine intervention, and I am pleased to say that these stories, too, are true! The gods themselves, in all their glory, intervened on behalf of their chosen people! The theurgists tell me that an ancient compact prevented both gods and demons from interfering directly in human affairs and that, once that compact was broken by the northerners and their demonic mentors, the gods were free to unleash divine retribution for centuries of injustice and evil.

We have established this divine intervention by every means at our disposal: divination, clairvoyance, oneiromancy, and every variety of verification we could devise. There can be no doubt at all of the effects, but we will probably never know the details -- only the inhabitants of the Northern Empire were witnesses to the final conflagration, and in the past day the Northern Empire has ceased to exist!"

He paused there for the inevitable renewed cheering. When the crowd had calmed down sufficiently to allow him to continue, Gor said, "The gods have achieved in a single day what we could not in all these centuries of war! The Black City, capital of the Empire, has been blotted from the face of the world as if it had never been, and the other northern cities lie in ruins or worse.

The Imperial Army is broken and scattered. The demons have been forced back into the Netherworld -- and, that being done, the gods in turn have retreated into Heaven, swearing never again to interfere so directly in human affairs.

The openings from the world into both Heaven and Hell have been permanently sealed; there can be no more prophets, no more shatra, no more night-roving demons, no divine messengers, no unsought miracles. Let us all offer a prayer of gratitude to the beings that forsook their nonviolent principles to defend us against evil!"

That roused a cheer, followed by a moment of confused muttering. When Gor judged that the faces turned expectantly toward him made up most of the crowd, he spoke again.

"Now, I fear I have some unpleasant news."

The crowd sobered; an uneasy hush fell.

"Oh, it's not all bad. The war is over, and with the help of the gods we won. A few northern stragglers remain to be mopped up but nothing significant.

However, the world may not be quite as you have imagined it to be at the war's end -- those of you who have thought about it at all.

"Firstly, due to the withdrawal of the gods, some of the laws of magic may have changed. I'm no magician, I can't say anything very definite about it, but my advisors tell me that magic we have taken for granted may no longer work. What this means remains to be seen.

"For most of you, that's a minor detail, though. Far more important for all of you is that, whatever you may have expected, the end of the war does not mean that you will all be going home to our motherland of Old Ethshar. You can't."

Gor apparently had not intended to stop there, but the hubbub was such that he had no choice. He held out his arms and waited for the crowd to quiet somewhat before continuing.

"There are two reasons that Azrad, Anaran, and myself will not be leading you home. Firstly, there is simply no room for the three million men and women who now occupy the camps and battlefields. The eastern half of Ethshar -- yes, fully half -- was destroyed by the demonic invasion and is now uninhabitable.

In the remainder -- well, you all know that this war has dragged on for generation after generation and that our defenses were sound. Despite the ravages of war, the population of our old homeland has increased steadily, and there is simply no room for more."

He paused; the crowd waited expectantly.

"That's the first reason. The second has been carefully kept secret for years, lest it damage morale and aid the enemy. Now that that enemy is destroyed, the time has come to reveal the truth. Ethshar is no more."

Gor paused again, as if expecting a loud response, but received only a puzzled silence.

He said, "Or rather, I should say, Old Ethshar is no more. The government collapsed almost a hundred years ago, and where the Holy Kingdom of Ancient Ethshar once was -- or at least the western half of it -- there are now dozens of squabbling little fiefdoms, each claiming to be the rightful government of the country, and therefore our superiors. We in the military have refused to acknowledge any of these factions and, instead, have been operating independently -- Azrad, Anaran, myself, and, until his death, Terrek have answered to no one but ourselves. We four were chosen, not by the civilian government as we led you to believe, but by the commanders who came before us.

We have traded with the small kingdoms that were once Old Ethshar for the supplies we need and have defended them against the northerners, but have never heeded their authority. We are the government of Ethshar -- not of the Old Ethshar that was once our people's homeland, but of the new Ethshar, the Hegemony of Ethshar, all the lands that have been taken and held by our victorious armies. All the lands that lie outside the old borders -- all the lands outside the borders now that the Empire is destroyed -- are ours. Are yours! Captured with your strength and your blood and your courage, they belong to you, not to the cowards who stayed behind and couldn't even hold their own nation together!"

This was apparently intended to evoke a cheer, but the response was feeble and quick to die, as each individual in the crowd tried to absorb what had been said, evaluate it, and guess what it meant for him or her, what place he or she might hold in the new order.

Valder wondered if it actually was a new order, when in fact the generals had been running everything for centuries anyway.

"There is much to be done," Gor went on, hiding any disconcertment he might feel at the lukewarm response. "This stronghold is to become our new northwestern capital, one of three, to be called Ethshar of the Rocks. I fully expect that in our lifetimes, now that the demands of the war are gone, it will grow into a great and beautiful city."

An uneasy murmur seemed to be bubbling up here and there in the crowd.

"Of course, the army will be disbanded as quickly as possible, save for a small contingent to keep the peace and defend against any marauding northern survivors. My staff will remain in authority temporarily, but will be converted from a military establishment to a civilian government. The rest of you will be discharged as fast as you can be -- with full pay, of course!

After that, you will be free to do as you please, to stay here and help build our new city or to go where you like and do what you will. For those who wish to take up farming or other settled tasks, all the lands in the Hegemony not already privately owned, all the plains that reach from this ocean to the Great River, will be free to any family that wants them. You need merely find your new home, claim it, and use it -- only claims by those who actually work the land will be recognized, as we need no landlords or other parasites."

Valder tried to digest this. How did one go about becoming a wine merchant? Would he need to claim a vineyard somewhere? He was not interested in growing the grapes and making the wine, merely in selling it. Would he be free to do that under the revamped regime?

And what would he do with Wirikidor? A merchant did not need a sword.

That was nothing to worry about, he told himself. He could just put Wirikidor away somewhere and forget about it, live a normal life -- a normal life that would go on indefinitely. He would never be called upon to kill twenty more men, not in peacetime.

He was so involved with consideration of his own future that he paid no attention to the crowd around him, which was restive and uneasy.

"That's all," Gor announced. "I've said what I came to say. If you have any questions, ask your superiors. We aren't keeping any more secrets. And as quickly as the change can be made, we will no longer be the Western Command of the Holy Kingdom of Ethshar, but an integral part of the new Hegemony of Ethshar, and I will no longer be a general, but rather overlord of the city of Ethshar of the Rocks. After centuries, peace has come! The war is over, and victory is ours!"

Even Valder, lost as he was in his own musings, noticed that the crowd was still so unsettled and confused by the news that this surefire applause line received only a brief, half-hearted cheer.

CHAPTER 18

For three days after the self-proclaimed overlord's speech, the busiest man in the Fortress was the paymaster. Hundreds of soldiers took Gor at his word and mustered out as fast as they could get through the red tape, each one collecting his back pay -- less a fee for early discharge, of course, a fee carefully calculated to keep the treasury solvent without letting anyone feel seriously cheated. It came to a single silver piece, which Valder had to admit was reasonable enough, and the cash settlements were reportedly being made promptly and honestly.

When Valder attempted to collect his pay and go, however, he was refused.

Enlisted men were free to go, but as yet officers and special services people were being asked to wait.

Valder thought about just packing up and leaving anyway. He doubted that anyone, in this chaotic new peace, would care about a deserter. However, he had a goodly sum owed to him; whatever its other drawbacks, assassination paid well. He knew he would need money to set himself up in the wine business, and so he waited.

In doing so he was operating on the assumption that he actually intended to become a wine merchant, but now that the prospect was an immediate reality, rather than a vague plan for the distant future, he was having second thoughts. What did he know about being a merchant?

Whatever he might do, however, he would almost certainly want money and he saw no harm in waiting a few more days to collect it. Tandellin, too, was staying, for the moment; he had not yet decided what to do with himself; as he explained it, "Why give up free room and board?" Sarai, too, was staying, and somehow, with the arrival of peace, it became implicitly accepted that Tandellin and Sarai would be married when they got around to it.

Valder remained uneasy about staying in the Fortress, however. He tried to reassure himself as he watched the men and women trickling away down the hillside, leaving the inner corridors ever less crowded. He caught glimpses of their faces -- some as they turned back for a last look at the Fortress, others as they turned to face new directions. Some were smiling, full of life and hope, ready to conquer a piece of the world for themselves. Others seemed worried and uncertain as they left behind the only life they had ever known.

For three days, new-made civilians walked away down the hillside, and for three days, at irregular intervals, soldiers would march up into the Fortress, alone or in patrols or squads or entire regiments, to be made into civilians and join the outward stream. A few were determined to remain soldiers, of course, and the barracks population fluctuated, rather than decreasing steadily.

As yet Gor had done nothing about his announced intention of building a city around the Fortress and its adjoining shipyards, but a ramshackle city was growing up anyway, a city of tents and crude huts. People were arriving faster than they could be dealt with and sent away, and no one wanted to bother finding places inside the walls for all the newcomers. Furthermore, many of the new civilians who descended the hill went no further than the impromptu camps.

Valder had not ventured outside the Fortress for fear he would have difficulty getting back in; his tall, narrow room with its inaccessible window was not much, but he had become accustomed to it and greatly preferred stone floors to dirt. He suspected that, when someone found the time to update accommodations, it would be given to someone more useful in peacetime than himself, but he intended to use it while he still could.

He did find himself spending hours on end standing on the ramparts above the largest landward gate, watching the departing figures and trying to decide whether he actually envied them or not. He made no secret of his time at this post, so he was not surprised when, on the third day after the overlord's speech, someone called his name.

He turned to see a messenger boy, perhaps twelve or thirteen, standing at the top of the nearest ladder. "Are you Valder of Kardoret, sir?" he called.

Valder nodded.

"I've been looking all over for you! The general -- I mean, the overlord

-- wants to see you immediately!"

"General Gor, you mean?" Valder was puzzled. He could think of no reason that Gor would want to see him, now that the war was really over. There were no more enemy officials to assassinate.

Or were there? Perhaps he was to be sent against the stragglers. Stories had come in of encounters with northern forces who were still fighting.

Of course, those who didn't fight were often butchered by overenthusiastic Ethsharites, even after they surrendered, so Valder hardly blamed those who resisted. Still, he had not thought that Wirikidor's special talents were called for. Wizards and ordinary soldiers were more practical for such work than assassins.

Perhaps he was to take care of a lingering shatra the wizards could not handle.

"Yes, General Gor," the boy was saying. "Except he's an overlord now.

Didn't you hear the speech?"

"Yes, I heard the speech," Valder admitted as he crossed to the ladder.

He wondered what the correct form of address might be for speaking to an overlord.

He followed the boy down the ladder and into the Fortress, through the maze of rooms and passageways, until he found himself in Gor's office, unchanged by the switch from military to civilian authority.

A secretary leaned over and whispered through his beard, "Address him as

'my lord,'" answering Valder's unasked question. Apparently the point had come up before.

Gor looked up and said, "Ah, Valder. I would like to speak to you in private." He rose, crossed the room, and opened a small door in the rear wall, a door Valder had never really noticed before. He gestured, and Valder reluctantly came and stepped through the door into the tiny room beyond. A glance behind him showed him that some of the half-dozen secretaries and aides in the office were at least as surprised as he was at this unexpected secrecy.

Once inside the bare stone chamber, Gor carefully closed and locked the door. The room was small, perhaps eight feet wide and ten feet long, with two simple wooden chairs the only furnishings; Gor seated himself on one and indicated that Valder was to take the other.

Wary, Valder obeyed.

Once both men were seated, Gor wasted no time on preliminaries. "Valder, I don't know what you had planned to do now that peace has come, but I'd like you to stay on here."

Confused, Valder stammered in asking, "As a soldier, you mean?"

"As a member of my staff -- soldier or civilian, it doesn't matter. Take your choice."

"Why? What would I do?"

"Why? Because I think I might find an assassin very useful."

"An assassin? In peacetime?" Valder was shocked and made no attempt to hide that fact.

"Yes, in peacetime -- perhaps more than ever. When somebody gives me trouble now, I can't just order him hanged, you know; not anymore. I know that there are people who aren't happy with this triumvirate that Azrad and Anaran and I have set up; by the gods, there are times when we aren't very happy with it ourselves! Still, it's better than chaos, and that's what there would be if we stepped down. That's what happened in Old Ethshar when it wasn't clear who was in charge, and it's not pretty at all -- all the small kingdoms fighting over the bones of the old one. I don't want to see that happen out here in the Hegemony. I'll use whatever methods I need, whatever methods I can find, to prevent it, and that includes assassination. Wizards can handle some of it, but magic leaves traces, and most magic can be guarded against -- just as the northerners tried to guard against it. That sword of yours seems to be an exception, though -- you got through in the north where wizards couldn't, and it would be no different here. Besides, I may need to eliminate a wizard or two, and they have a guild -- they're more loyal to their guild than to anything else, including me or any other mortal, so I can't often get them to attack each other. I think Wikridor, or whatever its name is, could be just what I need to keep the Wizards' Guild in line."

"Wirikidor," Valder corrected absently.

"Wirikidor, then."

"Um."

"Well, man, what do you say? The job will pay well, I can promise you that."

"Sir -- ah, I mean, my lord -- I don't think I can do it. The day you told us the war was over I had been planning to come to you and resign and ask for different duties. I don't like being an assassin. I can't take any more of it. It isn't in me to do this sort of killing. If I hadn't stumbled into owning this sword, I wouldn't... well, I wouldn't have been assassin, certainly."

"Why not?"

"I don't like killing! I don't like danger, or sneaking about, and I don't like killing. I don't like blood. When the war was going on, it wasn't too bad -- everybody was doing it, after all, killing or being killed, and there was a reason for it. We were defending ourselves. Now, though, I wouldn't be killing the enemy, but our own people, just to protect you. I..."

Valder suddenly realized that not only was he expressing himself badly, but he was on the verge of saying something irretrievably tactless. He changed direction abruptly. "And besides, the sword is cursed, you know, and is due to turn on me soon if I keep using it. I couldn't serve you for very long in any case. All I want to do, sir -- my lord -- is to collect my pay and retire quietly, perhaps set myself up in business somewhere. I'm not interested in fighting or killing or government or politics. I never was. Please, my lord, don't misunderstand me, but do just let me go."

He stared hopefully at Gor. The overlord, obviously irritated, had gone from leaning back in his chair to leaning forward, elbows on knees. Now he rose, his hand falling naturally to the hilt of his sword. "You're sure of your decision?"

Valder rose, but pointedly kept his own hand well away from Wirikidor.

"I'm quite sure, my lord. I will not be your assassin." An odd feeling of confidence seeped into him as he stood facing Gor. Here he was, defying one of the three most powerful men in the world -- and he had nothing to fear! Gor could not kill him; Wirikidor would make sure of that. Nor could Valder be demoted or court-martialed, now that the war was over; he was sure that an attempt at military justice against a man who had tried to leave the army peacefully would result in a public outcry Gor could ill afford, and what would demotion matter any more?

Gor seemed to sense Valder's changed attitude; his own became less certain, less belligerent, and he glanced at Wirikidor. "You won't speak of this conversation with anyone, I hope," he said. "I would not appreciate that.

Unpleasant things might happen. I can allow you to go in peace, Valder of the Magic Sword, but I cannot allow you to work against me. I know the sword guards you against death, but there are other unpleasant things that can happen. Remember that and say nothing."

"I'll remember."

"Good." Gor turned to open the door. "That's all, then."

"Not quite, my lord." Valder stayed where he was and allowed his hand to drop nearer Wirikidor's hilt. In this room he had the upper hand; if he drew Wirikidor there could be no doubt that Gor would die. Of course, there would also be no doubt about who killed him, but Valder could claim it was an accident; given Wirikidor's untrustworthy nature, he might be believed.

He had no intention of drawing the sword, but it made a very effective threat indeed.

"Oh?" Gor was wary and, Valder sensed, very dangerous. He might hope to wound Valder and delay him long enough to slip out and allow the sword a choice of victims.

"I realize it's an imposition, but if you could send a message to the paymaster to release the money owed me, I would like to be discharged and go about my business. You don't need me around here anymore, talking to people."

"Oh, is that all?" Gor relaxed visibly. He turned and opened the door, then leaned through and called to the people waiting in the main office.

"Bragen! Inform the paymaster that Valder of Kardoret has been discharged without prejudice and is to be paid the full amount due him upon request!"

"Yes, my lord," replied the secretary who had told Valder the appropriate form of address.

"Thank you," Valder said as he made his way past Gor and out of the little room.

Gor did not answer; he was already bellowing for some other officer to pay attention.

Valder and Bragen marched side by side down the corridor, not speaking.

Valder was thinking and planning intently, as he had not really done for months.

Gor was not a man prone to making empty threats; he undoubtedly really did have wizards working for him who would not balk at an assassination or two. He might well decide that Valder was simply too dangerous to have running around loose, particularly in his own home. That was why Valder had insisted on his immediate discharge and full pay; he did not care to stay in the Fortress where Gor might stumble across him and be reminded that Wirikidor was a real threat and where Valder could easily be found, if the overlord decided to do something about him. It was time to go -- and quickly -- as he had no desire to be blinded or hamstrung or imprisoned.

In his first rush of worry, he was not even certain he should take the time to collect his few personal belongings and make his farewells to Tandellin and other friends, but he decided, while the paymaster was counting out his coins, that Gor would be too busy to worry about him for at least a few hours yet. He would have time, once his pay was all securely in hand, to gather his things and stop by the barracks briefly.

That settled, the next question was where to go. Since the ocean lay to the west and an almost-empty wilderness to the north, his choices were limited. To the east was the former Central Command, under Anaran of the Sands; beyond that, he was not sure, since the demonic attack had wiped out the old Eastern Command. Somewhere to the southeast was Azrad's Coastal Command, which had always been concerned with supply and communication rather than combat, and beyond that, across the Gulf, lay the small kingdoms that had once been the Ethsharitic homeland.

He had no interest in wandering about in the wilds, nor in being alone.

If he were to hide from Gor, as it seemed he might need to, it would be easier to lose himself in a crowd than somewhere in the wilderness. Any decent wizard could locate the general area an individual was in with a few simple spells, and if he were living by himself somewhere he would be easily found by such methods -- but the spells could not pick one man out of a camp.

The Fortress and the surrounding area were certainly crowded enough, but he did not care to stay so close. What of the other two headquarters, then?

Anaran was based on the south coast, well on the other side of the major western peninsula, and Azrad's home port, reputed to be an actual city rather than a camp, was far beyond, on the northeastern corner of the eastern peninsula, not far from the mouth of the Great River and almost at the borders of the small kingdoms -- after all, Azrad had been in charge of ports and coasts throughout the world, and his command had been the link between the other three and the old homeland.

Azrad's base sounded promising; it was on the far side of Anaran's, making it that much less accessible to Gor; and furthermore, Valder judged that there would be far more business opportunities there, where trade was already established. He might not wind up a wine merchant, but, by all the gods, he would find something and not wind up a farmer!

When he stopped in and told Tandellin he was leaving, Tandellin naturally asked where he would go.

"Oh, I don't know," he muttered.

"Yes, you do, Valder; you wouldn't just leave this suddenly if you hadn't picked a destination."

Sheepishly, Valder admitted, "Well, I was thinking of Azrad's home port

-- should be plenty of work there."

"So there should. Good luck, then, in finding it!" With that, Tandellin embraced him and then turned away.

Valder was slightly startled; he had expected Tandellin to try and extend the conversation, not cut it short. Unsure whether to be relieved or hurt, he headed for the gate. Just an hour after the end of his interview with the overlord, he was marching down the hillside with a full purse on his belt, bound for Azrad's headquarters.

CHAPTER 19

Valder was no sailor, nor was he particularly fond of the sea, though he did think its scent freshened the air nicely. Still, he decided after due consideration to travel by ship, rather than overland. He estimated the distance to Azrad's home base at more than a hundred leagues, a long and weary walk under the best of circumstances. Nor did such circumstances exist, as the roads, he knew, were not good. Much of the route had been disputed territory at one time or another in the past few decades, and although roads had been built to accommodate troop movements, they had been intended as temporary and had not been maintained. A few had been torn up by actual battles.

And a walk it would have had to be, as no horses or other beasts of burden were available. The hundreds of people who had left the Fortress before him had bought or stolen every one to be found in a two-league radius.

Once this became clear, Valder took the first shipboard vacancy he could find. Fortunately, ships were coming in steadily, so that this caused no delay.

He was surprised to learn that these ships were bringing people in from further south and east, people who hoped to find greater opportunities in this most northerly of the three new capitals. Less startling was the observation that dozens of others were following his own course, leaving the Fortress for places closer to the old homeland.

He wondered how things stood elsewhere. Was all the Hegemony as unsettled as this? The sudden end of the war had apparently left hundreds or thousands of people unsure where they might fit in.

As he stood at the ship's rail and watched Gor's demesne fade in the distance, he assured himself that he had done the right thing. True, all his living friends were still in or near the Fortress, but his departure meant a clean break with his past as an assassin and with all the rest of his former life. Nobody would know him in Azrad's city; nobody would know that Wirikidor was anything more than an ordinary sword such as any veteran might carry. He would make new friends in time, friends who would not care what he had done during the war, and he would live peacefully as long as he kept Wirikidor sheathed.

If he kept it sheathed long enough, he could just outlive everyone who knew of its existence.

He wondered if that was really a good thing. He enjoyed life, or at least he usually had enjoyed it, but might it get wearing eventually? Living on indefinitely while everyone around him grew old and died might be depressing.

Of course, he would presumably be growing older, too.

That thought brought him up with a start. Just how would that work? Would the sword keep him young, or merely alive? It would not protect him from injury -- his left arm still ached sometimes where that sorcerer had wounded him -- so why should it protect him from aging?

In that case, would it really prevent him from dying of old age? Darrend had said the only way he could die without breaking the spell was on Wirikidor's blade, so presumably it would keep him alive somehow.

Living for several centuries and aging normally all the time might be worse than death -- if anything could be. He had seen men who were worn out at sixty, others who still enjoyed life at eighty; but after a century or two, surely no life would still be worth living.

Well, maybe the sword would keep him young. He had plenty of time left before he had to worry about it, and there was always a way out of anything --

though not always an easy or pleasant one. He turned away from the rail and went below. His stomach was uneasy.

The ship stopped briefly at a town called Shan on the Sea at the tip of the southwestern peninsula, but Valder paid little attention. He was too seasick just then to rise from his hammock.

The second stop was at Anaran's vast walled camp, now called Ethshar of the Sands; by then Valder was well enough to stagger up on deck and lean heavily against the rail. He debated with himself as to whether he should disembark and put an end to the internal discomfort he felt by returning to dry land, but finally decided to continue. He was recovering and knew that he would be safer in Azrad's city.

In any case, the maze of tents and temporary buildings that covered the flat, sandy ground was not particularly encouraging. A large building of polished stone was under construction in the center, its immense unfinished dome half-hidden by scaffolding. An extensive system of lighthouses, port facilities, and coastal defenses lined the waterfront. In the distance he could see an impressive city wall. Everywhere else, however, Ethshar of the Sands was a tangle of narrow unpaved streets, lined with mismatched tents and crude houses, apparently thrown together from driftwood and wreckage. People were jammed into these structures in incredible numbers, even more than in Gor's Ethshar of the Rocks.

All this was plainly visible as the ship inched in toward the docks, and, seasick or not, Valder thought it best to stay on board and sail for Azrad's port -- Azrad's Ethshar, the crew called it.

Within a day or two of leaving Ethshar of the Sands, that decision seemed wise indeed, as his stomach had finally adapted to the ship's motions, and he was able to stroll the deck casually, watching the progressively greener and lusher coastline slip by. When they had rounded the headlands at the tip of the peninsula that separated the Great Ocean from the Gulf of the East the countryside seemed even more beautiful, the loveliest Valder had ever seen.

Finally, two sixnights after leaving the Fortress, Valder caught sight of Azrad's Ethshar.

At first it was nothing but a gray line on the horizon, a gray line amid the green that grew and grew until it covered the entire shoreline. By the time the ship crept up one of the canals to its own dock, Valder had had a chance to readjust his thinking.

This was no camp, in any sense of the word; even calling it a city seemed an understatement, as it was far larger than any he had ever seen, larger than he had imagined any city could be. The waterfront extended for miles, every inch of it lined with docks and warehouses, piers and tenements. Two large canals cut their way inland and were likewise lined with docks and warehouses.

No mere tents or shacks were anywhere to be seen; these buildings were mostly stone or brick, and not particularly new.

That was reasonable, of course, since this had been the headquarters for the navy, not the army, and for the extensive supply system that had kept both branches of the military fed and equipped. Although technically outside the borders of Old Ethshar, the enemy had never claimed the area, never approached it or threatened it in any way, so there had been no reason not to build it up, and the navy had not had much else to do in the war against a landlocked enemy.

Valder's consideration of the subject was rudely interrupted by a gang of blue-kilted sailors, marching arm in arm along the deck bellowing, "All ashore! All ashore!"

He managed to get back to his tiny shared cabin long enough to snatch up his bundled belongings and then found himself, with the rest of the passengers, herded down the gangplank onto the dock, where they were left to their own devices.

Almost immediately, some of the new arrivals turned around and clamored for passage elsewhere -- Ethshar of the Rocks, Ethshar of the Sands, Shan on the Sea, anywhere but this strange, forbidding place of stone and brick. None of them had ever seen a real city before; after all, this was the only one in the Hegemony at present, though two more were building, and travel to the Small Kingdoms had been carefully restricted for a century or so.

Valder was an exception. He had visited three different northern cities in the course of his assassinations, so the endless rows of buildings, the stark bare walls and streets, did not seem completely alien and unfamiliar.

The northern cities had been smaller and half-empty, almost abandoned, and Azrad's Ethshar teemed with life, which seemed a good sign. Such a place was surely far more promising than the other two Ethshars; he marched down the dock to where it met the waterfront and turned left, inland, onto the street there.

This street paralleled the canal; as might be expected so near, the docks, it was lined with buildings that had shops on the ground floor and brothels or warehouse space upstairs. He saw no inns, which seemed a bit odd, but the shops did include shipfitters, ropemakers, coopers, carpenters, sailmakers, chandlers -- and a distressing number of wineshops. The market here, Valder realized, was already full. If he were going to go into the wine business, he would need to go elsewhere; if he were going to stay here, he would need to choose another occupation.

He noticed all this while fighting his way through crowds. The streets were jammed with people, going in both directions at varying speeds, clad in a fantastic variety of dress. The tangle at one intersection was such that he had to fight his way into the thick of the crowd simply to avoid being forced over the ankle-high parapet and into the canal. He was grateful that all the traffic was on foot, as horses or oxen would have made the tangle impassable.

A few hundred feet from the dock where he had disembarked, the canalside street was joined diagonally by another, and where they met was a good-sized triangular marketplace, where farmers and fishermen were hawking their wares.

At the near end three men stood on a raised platform, one of them shouting numbers to a small crowd, another wearing chains. Valder realized with a start that this was a slave auction in progress.

He had known that such things existed; the few northern prisoners who survived had presumably wound up as slaves somewhere, and certain crimes were punishable by enslavement, but this was the first time he personally had come into direct contact with the institution of slavery.

He wondered where the man being auctioned off had come from and how he had arrived in his present state -- and just what a healthy slave was worth.

He had no intention of buying one -- he had no use for a slave and did not want the added responsibility -- but he was intensely curious all the same to learn what a man's life was worth in silver. He pressed forward to listen.

He was too late; the auctioneer called out, "Sold!" just as Valder came close enough to make out what was said. He waited for a moment to see if any more slaves were to be sold, but this one had apparently been the last in the lot. The auctioneer stepped down from the platform, and the other free man led the slave away.

Mildly disappointed, but also thrilled with the exoticism of this strange city, Valder shrugged and turned away -- and nearly stepped on the tail of a tiny golden dragon, scarcely three feet long, that was being led past him on a chain held by a plump woman in red velvet. Valder stared after it; he had not realized that even newborn dragons could be so small.

When the little monster had vanished in the throng, Valder resumed his former route, pushing his way southward through the crowd toward the inland end of the market. He had reached the midpoint of the plaza when he suddenly realized that he had no idea where he was going. He was in Azrad's Ethshar, and that was as far as he had planned. His hope of setting himself up as a wine merchant was best abandoned, as the competition was too fierce and too well established. He was alone in a strange city, with a few clothes and personal items, a full money-pouch, a magic sword, and nothing else.

Obviously, the first order of business was to find food and shelter. A city would have inns, certainly; he need only find them. Once he had a room and a meal he could take his time in deciding what to do. He had his whole life before him -- and a very long life it might be, at that -- to do with as he would and as he could. He was free, unfettered, and uncertain, with no obligations and no plans.

He had rather expected to find inns near the docks, but none were evident. The next logical place would be near the city gates. That left the question of where the nearest gate might be.

He reached the narrow end of the market and found himself with a choice of two streets, one heading east across the head of the canal and the other angling off to the southwest. He chose southwest and struggled onward. The crowds were somewhat thinner here, but seemed to move faster, though still exclusively pedestrians.

Roughly five hundred feet from the intersection, the street he had chosen ended in a T, offering him northwest or southeast. He stood for a moment at the corner, puzzled, then stopped a passerby in a pale yellow tunic and asked,

"Which way to the city gate?"

The man glanced at him. "Westgate?"

"If that's nearest."

The man pointed southeast and said, "You follow this to Bridge Street, turn right, follow that until it merges into West Street, follow that to Shipwright Street, and that goes to Westgate Market." Before Valder could thank him or ask for more detail, the man had pulled away and vanished in the crowd, leaving Valder wondering if he might have asked the wrong question.

There might well be inns closer at hand.

Still, he had directions and he followed them as best he could. The street leading southeast ended at a broad avenue after a single block; although Valder saw no sign of a bridge nor any indication of the avenue's name, he assumed he had the correct street and turned right.

Bridge Street, if that was what it was, seemed interminable and was as crowded as the other streets. After he had gone roughly half a mile, elbowing his way along, he reached an intersection where the avenue did not continue directly across but turned at an oblique angle. He hesitated, but guessed that this must be the junction with West Street and turned right. A glance at the sun convinced him that he was now heading due west.

As he progressed, the nature of his surroundings altered somewhat. The shipfitters and ropemakers had vanished when he left the canal behind, replaced by wheelwrights and metalworkers, and to some extent the brothels and warehouses had given way to residences. This new street was lined with weavers and cloth merchants, tinkers and blacksmiths, carters and tanners. Valder had never seen so many businesses gathered together before; any street in this city put to shame the traveling markets that had serviced military camps.

The buildings in this area also appeared to be newer than those right on the canal, favoring the modern half-timbered style for upper floors rather than the older custom of solid stone from foundation to ridgepole. That made sense, of course; naturally the city would have started out clustered around the port and only gradually grown inland.

West Street, if that was in fact the street he was on, ended eventually at a diagonal cross-street; Valder chose the left turn, to the southwest, without hesitation. Quite aside from any more abstract considerations, he could hear and smell a market and, from the corner of West Street, he glimpsed the top of a stone tower that he took to be a gate tower.

Sure enough, as he rounded the next curve he found himself looking down a straight street at a market square, a very crowded market square, in the shadow of two immense towers.

He wanted to hurry forward, as the long walk had made him impatient, but was unable to do so. The street was too populous, and it seemed that a significant part of the crowd was not moving. A good many people were just standing, not walking in any particular direction.

He managed to force his way into a stream of people that was moving steadily toward the market, marveling at the endless throngs as he did so. He had not realized there were so many people in all the world as he had seen in Azrad's Ethshar.

A hand thrust itself in front of him and a voice demanded, "Alms for a crippled veteran!"

Valder thrust the hand aside with a shudder and marched on. Beggars! He had somehow not expected beggars in this vast, overwhelming city. Of course, it made sense that they would be here. They would naturally want to go where there was money to be had, and Azrad's Ethshar certainly had money.

A signboard caught his attention. It depicted a huge, golden goblet with purple wine slopping over the rim, and a line of runes across the bottom read,

"Food & Lodging." Valder turned his steps in that direction, back out of the flow of traffic.

A good many people, mostly scowling, stood around the door of the inn, but they did not interfere as Valder shoved his way through. He stepped over the threshold into the dim interior and stopped dead.

The inside of the inn was almost as crowded as the street. The main public room, just inside the front door, was more than twenty feet on a side, but, except for a narrow path that led from the door to one end, across the hearth, down along the row of barrels, and then to the back corner where a stair and two doors led to other rooms, the floor was completely covered with blankets, displacing all the expected tavern furnishings. These blankets were neatly laid out in rectangles about two feet wide and six feet long, and on each one a man or woman sat or stood or lay, each with his or her personal possessions stacked at one end. Some had nothing but a spare tunic, while others had large, unwieldy bundles. Virtually all wore the green and brown of the Ethsharitic armies.

Startled and confused, Valder followed the path across the hearth and paused at the first barrel. The innkeeper emerged from one of the doors.

"What can I do for you?" he asked.

"Ah... a pint of ale, for now."

"That'll be four bits in silver," the innkeeper warned.

Valder stared at him in astonishment, forgetting the crowded floor for the moment in the face of this greater shock. "What?"

"Four silver bits, I said. We've only got half a keg left, and no more due for a sixnight."

"Forget it, then. What about water?"

"A copper a pint -- no change for silver, either."

"That's mad! You're selling ale for the price of a fine southern vintage and water for the price of the best ale!"

"True enough, sir, I am indeed. That's what the market will bear, and I'd be a fool not to get what I can while these poor souls still have their pay to spend."

"It's theft!"

"No, sir, it's honest trade. The gate and the market are so jammed, and the roads so full, and the ships so busy with passengers, that I can't get supplies in. We have a good well out back, but it's not bottomless and yields only so much in a day. I understand that the taverns nearest the gate are only accepting gold now."

"And your rooms?"

"All taken, sir, and the floor here as well. I'm an honest man and I won't lie about it; there is nowhere left to put you that won't block my path.

They're sleeping four to a bed upstairs, with six on each floor, and a blanket and a space down here would cost you a full silver piece, if I had any left."

"It's all mad. Where are all these people coming from?"

"It is mad, sir, I won't argue that. It seems as if the entire army of Ethshar is jammed into Westgate. I've never seen anything like it. It's the end of the war that's done it, of course, and I'm sure we'll never see anything like it again. If prices come back down, I'll retire a wealthy man at the end of the year -- but who's to say what prices will do when once they've started changing? The army doesn't set them any more, so I need to charge what I can get."

"I have money, innkeeper, but I'll be damned to a northerner's hell before I'll pay a silver bit just for water."

"A copper piece will do."

"I don't intend to pay that, either."

The innkeeper shrugged. "Please yourself. I have, all the trade I need without you."

"Isn't there anywhere in the city that still charges honest prices?"

"I have no idea, really. There might be some poor fool somewhere. If so, he's surely drained his every barrel dry by now."

"Well, we'll just see about that," Valder said, knowing even as the words left his lips that they sounded foolish. He turned and, in a petty display of temper, marched directly across the array of blankets and back out into the street, ignoring the angry protests from those he stepped over.

CHAPTER 20

To Valder's surprise, he found the situation to be exactly as the proprietor of the Overflowing Chalice had described it. In fact, each door closer to the Westgate Market brought another jump in prices. The inns and taverns that actually faced on the market were indeed accepting nothing smaller than a gold bit, even for water, let alone bread, cheese, or ale.

Valder estimated that his entire accumulated pay, which he had thought ample to live on for two years or more, would scarcely buy a good dinner and a night's lodging at the Gatehouse Inn -- which was, oddly, not in the actual gatehouse or even adjoining it. The gatehouse itself was in the base of one of the two towers and was still manned by the army, as were the rest of both towers and the wall. Taverns and inns faced the gate from across the broad market square, and the Gatehouse Inn was at their center.

Strangely, the north and south sides of the market were completely open, marked only by a drop in the level of the ground, and Valder could see the city wall stretching off into the distance. Paralleling it, but a hundred feet or so in, was a broad, smooth street, also stretching off out of sight. In the rough depression between the wall and the street were no buildings, no structure of any sort, but more blankets like those in the Overflowing Chalice

-- hundreds upon hundreds of them, each with its occupant. These, Valder realized, were the veterans too poor -- or too frugal -- to pay for space in an inn or tavern. Several, he noticed, were crippled or wounded, and most were ragged and dirty.

After he had inquired at a dozen or so inns without finding food, drink, or lodging at a price he was willing to pay, Valder found himself standing in the middle of the market square, surrounded by the milling crowds. To the north and south were the homeless veterans on their pitiful blankets; to the east were the incredibly priced inns; to the west was the gate itself, fifty feet wide and at least as tall, but dwarfed by its two huge towers. He suddenly felt the need to talk to someone -- not a greedy innkeeper nor a wandering, aimless veteran, but somebody secure and sensible. Without knowing exactly why, he headed for the gatehouse.

The towers, of course, were manned by proper soldiers, still in full uniform, and Valder found himself irrationally comforted by the sight of their polished breastplates and erect carriage. Three men were busily directing the flood of traffic in and out of the gate, answering shouted questions and turning back everything but people on foot, but a fourth was obviously off duty for the moment. He was seated comfortably on a folding canvas chair, leaning up against the stone wall of the gatehouse.

Valder made his way over and leaned up against the wall beside the soldier. The man glanced up at him but said nothing, and Valder inferred from this that his presence was not unwelcome.

"Has it been like this for very long?" Valder asked, after the silence stretched from sociable to the verge of strain.

"You mean the crowds? It's been going on for two or three sixnights, since they announced the war was over. Nobody knows what to do without orders, so they all come here, hoping somebody will tell them."

"It can't keep up like this, can it?"

"Oh, I don't think so -- sooner or later everyone will have come here, seen what a mess it is, and given up and left again."

"I expect a good many will stay; I'd say this is going to be a very large city from now on, even more than before."

"Oh, no doubt of that; they're already laying out new streets wherever they can find room inside the walls."

"Is anybody doing anything about all these people?"

"Not really -- what can they do? We have orders to keep out horses and oxen, to reduce the crowding in the streets, and Azrad did have free blankets issued, so that nobody would have to sleep in the mud, but that's about it.

There just isn't anything to do with them. There's plenty of land outside the walls if they want to go farm it, and I suppose there will be work for builders and the like, but beyond that, I don't know what's going to happen to them all. I stayed in uniform for a reason, you know; the army may be rough at times, but it's secure, even in peacetime. Someone's got to watch the gates and patrol the borders and keep order."

"You said the overlord gave out those blankets?"

"That's right; that was intended to be the entire supply for the whole Ethsharitic army for the next three years, and they've been given away to whoever asked for them. Need one? We've got about twenty left, I think."

"I might, at that, unless you can tell me where I can find lodging at a reasonable price."

"Friend, there isn't a place in this whole city where you can find cheap lodging except the Hundred-Foot Field and the barracks, and the word is that the penalty for civilians sleeping in the barracks is a hundred lashes -- and you re-enlist. And not as an officer, either, regardless of what you were in wartime."

"Seems severe, but I know better than to argue. What's the Hundred-Foot Field?"

"You walked right past it." He gestured vaguely toward the market.

"That's the space between Wall Street and the wall. The law says you can't build there, ever, in case the army needs the space to maneuver or move siege machines -- but the law doesn't say anything about sleeping there on a blanket or two in warm weather. Even during the war, we usually had a few beggars and cripples who slept there, and now it's jammed full of these damned veterans, all the way around the city -- or so I'm told, I haven't checked. I never go south of Westwark, nor more than a few blocks into Shiphaven."

"I don't know my way around the city, but I take it those are neighborhoods?"

"That's right; even without these veterans, the city was already too big, and it's more like a dozen little cities put together -- Shiphaven and Westgate and Westwark and Spicetown and Fishertown and the Old City and the Merchants' Quarter and so forth."

"I hadn't realized it was so big." Valder glanced back at the mobbed marketplace. The crowd seemed to be thinning somewhat -- or perhaps the fading light just made it appear to be. He realized with some surprise that the sun was below the western horizon, and the shadow of the city wall covered everything in sight. He still had not eaten, and had nowhere to stay the night.

"Ah -- how many gates are there?"

"Three, though they're planning to put in a fourth one to the southwest."

"Are there inns at all of them?"

"I suppose so, but Westgate gets the most traffic. This is the main highway here, going through this gate, the road to Ethshar and Anaran and Gor and the northern lands, while the other gates just go to the local farms on the peninsula. I think most of the inns must be here."

"How far is it to the next gate?"

The soldier leaned back in his chair and considered that for a moment.

"I'd guess two miles or more," he said. "It's a big city."

Valder glanced at the thinning crowds, then at the dimming sky. Torches were being lighted in front of some of the taverns and shops, but the streets would still be dark.

Walking two miles through an unfamiliar city at night on the slim chance that the other gates would be preferable when he was already tired was not an attractive prospect. "Let me have one of those blankets," he said. "It looks as if I'll be spending the night in the Hundred-Foot Field."

The soldier grinned. "Right. Got to make that back pay last, don't you?"

He sat up and let the chair's front legs down, then got to his feet. With a nod, he vanished through the gatehouse door, to emerge a moment later with a brown bundle. "It's all yours," he said, tossing the blanket to Valder.

Valder decided against replying; he nodded politely and slipped away into the crowd.

As he made his way southward on Wall Street looking for a blanket-sized opening in the Hundred-Foot Field, he kept a steady eye on the field's inhabitants. The further from the market square he went, the less savory his view became; by the time he had gone six blocks, he had the blanket tucked securely under one arm in order to keep his hands free, his right resting on his sword hilt and his left clutching his purse.

The wall, and Wall Street with it, jogged three times before he found himself a spot. He judged the distance from Westgate Market at roughly a mile and briefly considered continuing on toward the second gate.

He quickly dismissed the notion, however. Night had fallen, and the light from the scattered torches and lanterns did not amount to much. He did not care to travel further by such uncertain illumination, particularly with a full purse. Furthermore, if the crowd from Westgate extended this far, might not the crowd from the next gate extend as far in the opposite direction, so that he would be walking into a throng similar to the one he had just departed? Westgate might be the most active gate, but the others would surely be almost as busy and expensive.

It was quite obvious that he was not going to get anywhere in Azrad's Ethshar; far too many people had gotten here before him, and every available opportunity must certainly have already been taken. He would have to get out into the countryside, at least temporarily. He still had no interest in becoming a farmer, but surely something, some sort of an opportunity, would present itself.

He had not eaten since leaving the ship, and his stomach was growling persistently as he smoothed his blanket on the hard-packed, bare dirt of the field. He promised himself that he would buy something to eat in the morning, no matter what the cost.

With a wary glance at his neighbors, he settled down, keeping his right hand on Wirikidor's hilt, his left still securely gripping his purse. He did not intend to be robbed. He fell asleep, finally, and awoke at dawn to find sword and purse still intact. Any thieves who might have been around had presumably found easier pickings.

He was stiff and cramped from sleeping curled up in his blanket. He struggled to his feet and stretched vigorously. All around him, men and a few scattered women were still sleeping. A few were awake, some of them moving, some just sitting and gazing about sleepily. Valder found himself becoming depressed just looking at them -- all this potential going to waste! He was determined that he, at least, would not sit and rot in the Hundred-Foot Field.

He would get out of the city and find himself a career. He had not seen the horrendous inflation in prices anywhere but Azrad's Ethshar -- which was, of course, far more crowded than anywhere else -- so he hoped his savings would tide him over.

He had wanted to lose himself in a crowd, where Gor would be unable to find him, should he decide ex-assassins were dangerous, but the crowding in this city was more than Valder had imagined possible, so much so that now he was eager to leave it behind. Rolling up his blanket, he picked his way carefully across his neighbors to Wall Street, where he turned left and headed for Westgate.

No one took any special note of him as he marched out the gate onto the highway. The guard he had spoken with was nowhere in sight.

By noon he was almost four leagues from the city wall.

As the day progressed, the traffic grew from virtually nothing moving to a steady stream in both directions. People were still drifting in toward the city from the disbanding armies, while others who had already seen the situation and given up on finding a place in Azrad's Ethshar were heading back out to look for someplace better.

This struck him as futile, and he tried stopping a party heading toward the city to tell them that there was nothing for them there. They ignored his warning.

"Maybe there's nothing there for you, fellow, but perhaps we aren't as picky," the leader said, glancing significantly at Valder's black-and-gray uniform. Like most people, the man wore green and brown; very few people had bothered to acquire civilian clothes yet, though insignia and marks of rank were now rare, and only those that remained soldiers were permitted to keep their breastplates.

"I'm not picky," Valder insisted. "The whole place is mobbed. Food is running low, and lodging costs more for a night than it should for a year."

"Well, we'll just have to see this for ourselves. We don't know you; why should we believe you?"

Valder shrugged. "I'm just trying to help," he said.

"We don't need your help," the spokesman said, turning away. Valder watched helplessly as they trudged on toward the gates. When they were lost in the streaming traffic, he turned and headed onward.

The highway had left the city running due west, but quickly curved around to the north, leading from the peninsula to the mainland. Valder knew a little basic geography, enough to know that the only land routes from Azrad's Ethshar to anywhere worth mentioning would have to run northward across the isthmus to the mainland; there simply wasn't anything except open countryside surrounded by sea to the south, east, or west. He supposed that some of that land might be suitable for farming -- though he had an impression it was too sandy to be much use, even for that -- but he was not willing to try farming it.

That meant he had to head north, and that was what he was doing, but once he reached the mainland he had more of a choice. He could head back west along the coast to Ethshar of the Sands, perhaps -- but that would take him closer to Gor, and though Ethshar of the Sands was less crowded than Azrad's Ethshar, it was more primitive, and he was not at all sure it would be any real improvement. Somewhere far to the north were the mines and mountains taken from the Northern Empire in the course of the last century or so, and beyond them lay the ruins of the Empire itself. He had no interest in mining and knew that it was never the common miners who got rich from the jewels and metals they found, but those who owned the mines, or bought from the miners, or sold to the miners. A wine merchant might do well in the mining country, but first he would need stock, and as yet Valder had no stock and no idea where he might find any.

In all the wide arc of land between the mines and Ethshar of the Sands, there was only wilderness, forests and grasslands, and a few scattered farms that had been established to help feed the armies fighting in that wilderness.

Those armies had once had camps dotting the plains and forests in every direction, but were now disbanded. A few camps might survive as villages and towns, but Valder doubted any would have much to offer him.

That covered the compass from south sunwise through northeast, leaving only the east and southeast. That was where the old homeland had been. It had never actually been his home, of course; he had been born in the camp-town at Kardoret, a base on the line between the western and central commands, and had never seen Old Ethshar. The official story, which he had no reason to doubt, was that it was now fragmented into dozens of pretty states, warring with one another. Valder had had his fill of war, certainly, but he wondered whether there might not be opportunities to be found there. Certainly, Gor of the Rocks had no authority there and so could not pursue him; the Hegemony of Ethshar claimed only the lands outside the old borders.

His worries about the overlord might be unfounded, he knew; but even so, the prospect of actually seeing the land he had fought for so long, a land that had history extending back before the war, had a certain charm to it.

Most of the veterans were unimaginative enough to accept the official line and stay in the Hegemony, he was sure, so the competition for work would not be as fierce in the Small Kingdoms.

That decided him. He would head for the Small Kingdoms, where Old Ethshar used to be. That meant he must bear right at every major fork, following the highways around the northern end of the Gulf of the East.

So far, however, he had seen no forks; the highway rolled on, indivisible, across the isthmus.

He marched on through the afternoon, despite mounting weariness. He was not accustomed to long walks any more, after his enforced inactivity at sea and his long stint as an assassin, where speed and stealth had been far more important than stamina. Furthermore, he had realized he had broken his promise to himself in his rush to get out of the city and had not eaten anything since his last meal aboard ship, which had been a large breakfast the day before. He had found water at several small streams that crossed the highway, but no food.

For that matter, he had not encountered a stream recently, and, although the day was no more than pleasantly warm, he was again growing thirsty. He cursed himself for not having planned more carefully and brought adequate supplies.

Of course, he had expected to find everything he needed in Azrad's Ethshar. The impossibly high prices had been a complete surprise and had shocked him so badly that he had forgotten how essential food and drink could be. He had refused to buy anything at all, despite his sizeable store of cash, and was now paying for his miserliness. He wished he had somehow wangled a Spell of Sustenance somewhere along the line, but he no longer even had a bloodstone; he had turned his in after his last assassination, in accordance with his orders.

If mere food and drink were so outrageously expensive in the city, he wondered what astronomical sum might be required to buy an enchanted bloodstone.

Somewhere along the highway, he told himself, there would surely be an inn or a tavern, or at least a farmhouse, where he might buy bread and ale, or find water. With that in mind, he kept marching and even managed to pick up his pace a trifle.

The sun was reddening in the west when he reached the fork. As he had decided, he bore right. Some of his fellow travelers were already settling by the roadside for the night, some with elaborate camps, others with just a blanket. Virtually all the traffic that was still moving was using the left-hand fork, and Valder realized that that must be the road to both Anaran's territory and the northern lands. Since the left fork headed due west and the right due north, he would have assumed otherwise, if not for the traffic, but among those coming down the west fork were men and women in clothes far warmer than the climate called for, some with mining tools on belts or backpacks.

Those who had stopped for the night were strewn haphazardly along the wayside with whatever supplies they had brought, which hardly seemed to indicate the presence of an inn anywhere on the road. Valder had brought nothing and still hoped to find shelter; he marched on past the fork and almost immediately felt a cool breeze that carried the scent of water -- but not the salt tang of the ocean.

The fork had been on the side of a low rise, with the west fork following the contour of the land, while the north headed directly up over the crest.

Valder pushed on over the ridgetop to where he could see what lay beyond, could see the broad river that lay at the bottom of the slope, the widest river he had ever seen just half a mile further down the road.

That meant fresh water, though perhaps not the best, unless the river was somehow too polluted to drink from. There might well be fish and edible plants of some sort, rather than the endless grasses that covered most of the countryside.

The road itself ran on across the river by means of a bridge -- a bridge Valder judged to be a prodigious feat of engineering, one that quite possibly had required magic in its construction, since the river was very wide indeed.

Men were standing on the bridge; perhaps, he thought, he had finally found some clever farm folk cashing in on the steady stream of traffic by selling their produce. Exhausted as he was, he stumbled down the slope toward the river.

CHAPTER 21

The men on the bridge were soldiers, in full uniform and heavily armed.

They stood in front of a gate that blocked the south end of the bridge.

Pitched nearby was an army-issue tent.

They did not appear to be there to sell vegetables. After a glance at them, Valder left the highway and made his way down the bank to the river. He drank his fill, wiped the sweat from his face and arms, splashed a little water on his tunic to cool himself down, then sat and rested for a few moments.

The last daylight was fading; on the bridge above him the soldiers were lighting torches. He glanced up at the hiss as the first one caught fire, and watched the procedure with interest.

This was obviously a toll bridge. He had heard of such things, though in wartime they had been illegal outside the borders of Old Ethshar -- or rather, the Small Kingdoms, since Old Ethshar had apparently collapsed before Valder was born. Toll bridges might have interfered with the movement of troops or supplies, so they had not been permitted.

The war was over, however, and that law seemed to have been repealed --

assuming this group was here legally. With four of them and Valder alone, he had no intention of questioning their rights.

He glanced at the river. Already the far side was invisible. He could not possibly swim so far, he knew, and he doubted that a river of such a size could be forded anywhere within twenty leagues. Certainly, no one would get any goods across without using either a bridge or a ferry. He saw no ferries.

All trade, then, would use the bridge. The toll collection should prove profitable.

When he was feeling somewhat less exhausted, he got to his feet and climbed slowly back up the bank to the highway.

No traffic was moving. Three small parties, perhaps a dozen travelers in all, were camped along the roadside up toward the fork, with campfires burning. The only other people in sight were the soldiers on the bridge; in addition to their torches, they had a small cooking fire in front of their tent.

Valder was at a loss as to what he should do next. He was tired, hungry, and lonely, with no idea what would become of him; these common problems seemed more important at present than his unique one of being linked for life to a magic sword he did not trust. The sword was strictly a long-term problem, while the others were all immediate.

He could handle his weariness by trampling out a circle in the grass and going to sleep -- in fact, he could probably find an abandoned campsite and save himself the trouble of trampling one out. Food, however, was becoming a very serious concern, and the sight of a soldier hanging a kettle over the cookfire decided him. He trudged up onto the bridge.

The soldiers saw him coming, despite the gathering gloom. Two had cocked crossbows in their hands, but did not bother to aim or release the safety catches, while a third dropped his hand to the hilt of his sword. Valder saw five in all; the fourth was the man tending the kettle, and the fifth was dozing nearby.

"Hello there!" Valder called.

"Hello," the swordsman replied.

"What are you doing here?" His assumption that they were toll collectors was, after all, only a guess.

"Guarding the bridge."

"Guarding it against what? The war is over!"

"Guarding against unauthorized crossing. It's one copper piece to cross for veterans or their families, and no one else is welcome."

"On whose orders?"

"Lord Azrad's."

That made sense. In fact, Valder respected Azrad for thinking of it. Not only would it add to the coffers, but it would keep the people of the Small Kingdoms -- who would not be veterans, since the army had not been responsible for the homeland and had long ago moved all operations, including recruiting, elsewhere -- from coming to Ethshar and further increasing the crowding in the cities. While the war had continued, none would have dared to venture into the war zones and military lands without a good reason, but now that peace had come and the war zones were transformed into the Hegemony of Ethshar, some might think there were opportunities to be exploited.

Valder had no intention of crossing the bridge until morning, when he could see the other bank and decide whether it was worth a copper piece, but he was very much interested in food and conversation before he slept. "What's cooking?" he asked, pointing to the kettle. "It smells good."

"Just stew; Zak caught a rabbit this afternoon."

"Might I join you? I haven't eaten in almost two days; I can't afford the prices in the city."

The swordsman glanced at his companions, and, although no objections were spoken aloud, Valder sensed reluctance all around.

"I'll pay a fair price, if you want; I've still got my back pay. I just wasn't willing to pay those robbers in the city what they wanted."

"I can agree with that," one of the crossbowmen remarked. "If I had any doubts about staying in the army, those prices cured them. Silver bits for ale, they wanted!"

"Four the pint at the Overflowing Chalice, and worse in Westgate Market!"

Valder agreed. "I can't pay that! Better to drink seawater!"

That broke the ice, as the soldiers all chimed in with complaints. A moment later the whole crew, Valder included, was clustered around the kettle, dishing out rabbit stew. No matter where or when, soldiers loved to complain, and Valder had given this group an opportunity for which they were properly grateful.

They even forgot to charge him for the stew.

The food did not stop the conversation. Between bites, Valder exchanged accounts of wartime action seen, commanders served under, and so forth. Coming as he did from the extreme west, Valder's tales seemed strange and exotic to the guardsmen, even though he avoided any mention of his work as an assassin.

Their stories, in turn, seemed odd to him; they had lived and served without ever seeing northern troops. Their only action had been against magical assaults, either sorcerous or demonic, or against rebellion among the civilian population.

Valder had never lived in an area where there were civilians, other than camp followers and perhaps a few traveling merchants or coastal fishermen. He had never heard of civilian rebellions and could not really picture how or why they might occur.

His lone scouting patrols through empty forests were just as alien to the southerners, of whom four of the five had never seen a forest. Also, it seemed that Azrad's command structure was far tighter and more complex than Gor's.

When Gor had needed something done, he had pointed to a person and told him to do it; when Azrad had needed something done, he had formed a committee to study the problem and set up the appropriate chain of command. Both systems had apparently worked. In fact, as the soldiers described it, once Azrad had all his systems established, they ran themselves, leaving him free to devote his time to his own amusement, where Gor had remained closely involved with day-to-day operations.

This was all new to Valder; it had never occurred to him that there could be such variation within Ethshar, either Hegemony or homeland. He found great delight in this new learning.

When war stories began to wear thin, around midnight, Valder asked, "Why are there so many people in the city? Why doesn't someone do something about it?"

"Where else can they go, and what can anyone do?" a soldier asked in reply. "Ethshar's the only real city there is, and only soldiers are fool enough to sleep in tents. All these veterans want roofs over their heads, and the only solid roofs in the Hegemony are in Azrad's Ethshar, so that's where they go. Sooner or later, they'll realize they can build their own, I suppose, but for now they go to the city."

"The supplies are running low there, I think."

"Of course they are! Even before the war ended, supplies were running low and, with all the eastern farmlands blasted to burning desert, supplies are going to run even lower until someone starts farming all this grassland we're sitting on. What food there is is probably sitting in warehouses, rotting because the distribution system has all come apart with the end of the war!"

Valder glanced around at the darkness beyond the torchlit bridge. "Who owns all this land, anyway? Is it really free for the taking?"

Manrin, the swordsman, shrugged. "Who knows? I guess it is. After all, it was wilderness before the war and it's been under military law ever since. The highway Azrad's keeping for himself, but the proclamation said the rest was available to anyone who would use it."

"Yes," Saldan, the cook, said. "But who knows how to use it? Everybody has grown up learning to be soldiers, not farmers."

A vague idea was stirring in the back of Valder's mind, but he was too tired to haul it forward and look it over. Instead, he tossed the last well-gnawed rabbit bone into the river and announced, "It's been a pleasure talking, and my thanks for the meal, but I need some sleep."

"It's time we all slept"," Zak, one of the crossbowmen, agreed. "Manrin's off until noon, but the rest of us are supposed to be up at dawn. Somebody kick Lorret awake; he's supposed to take the night watch."

Valder left the soldiers to their own business and walked off a few yards into the darkness. He found a spot where the grass seemed less scratchy than most, curled up in his blanket, and went to sleep.

He was awakened three hours later by fat raindrops on his face. He rolled his blanket out from under him, draped it over himself instead, and went back to sleep.

He awoke again just as the first light of dawn seeped through the clouds.

The rain was still falling in a thin drizzle; his blanket was soaked through and stank of wet wool. He flung it aside and stood up, still tired, but unable to sleep any more without shelter.

"Somebody," he muttered to himself as he staggered toward the bridge,

"ought to build an inn here."

He stopped, frozen in mid-step.

"Somebody ought to build an inn here," he repeated.

That was the idea that had been lurking in the back of his mind during the night's conversation. Somebody really should build an inn here, convenient to the river, the toll bridge, and the fork in the highway. All the land traffic in and out of Azrad's Ethshar and the southern peninsula had to pass by this spot. All the traffic crossing the lower reaches of the Great River would use this bridge. All boats coming down the Great River to the sea -- and Valder was sure there would be plenty in time -- would come past. It was almost exactly one day's walk from Westgate, just where northbound travelers would be ready to stop for the night.

Could there possibly be a better site for an inn in all the world? Valder doubted it. Only the war had prevented one from being built here long ago, he was sure. The land had belonged to the military, and the military was not interested in inns.

Somebody should build an inn here, and Valder was somebody. He had his accumulated assassin's pay for capital. He had wanted a quiet postwar job other than farming, and innkeeping seemed ideal. He could undoubtedly recruit all the labor he needed in the Hundred-Foot Field.

He could scarcely believe his good fortune. Could he really have been the first to think of it?

He imagined what it would be like -- a comfortable little place, built of stone since no forests were nearby, with large windows and thick cool walls in the summer, a wide hearth and blazing fire in winter. Wirikidor could hang above the mantel; surely that would be close enough to him that the sword would not object, particularly if he placed his own chamber directly above, and no one would think it at all odd or inappropriate for a veteran to keep his old sword on display, even in peacetime.

He peered through the gloom and rain and tried to decide exactly where to put such an inn. The best spot, he decided, would be right at the fork, between the west and north roads. He could claim a strip of land along the roadside from there to the river and build a landing for river traffic.

Or perhaps the inn should be right on the river? There might be some difficulty in claiming half a mile of roadside.

No, he decided, the river traffic would not be as important as the west road, since boatmen could sleep in their boats. If he could not have his landing, he was sure he would still get by with the land traffic.

How, he wondered, did one go about claiming a piece of land? Perhaps the soldiers would know, he thought. He headed eagerly for the bridge.

Not surprisingly, most of them were still asleep, but Lorret, the night man, was bored and tired and glad to talk. He knew nothing of any official methods, but made suggestions and provided a few materials.

By the time the rain stopped at mid-morning Valder had marked off his claim with wooden stakes and bundled grass, all marked with strips of green cloth, his name written on each stake and each cloth with char from the night's cookfire. He had paced off room enough for a large inn and a good-sized stable, a decent kitchen garden, and a yard and then arbitrarily doubled each dimension -- after all, if the-land was free, why stint? He had indeed claimed his landing site near the bridge, but had decided against taking the entire half mile of roadside. He did not really need it, after all, and there was no need to be greedy. His customers could come up the hill on the public highway readily enough.

That done, and with assurances from the soldiers that they would enforce his rights for him until his return, he set out for Azrad's Ethshar to hire a construction crew.

PART THREE

Valder the Innkeeper

CHAPTER 22

Valder gazed at the room with calm satisfaction. It was almost exactly as he had pictured it four months earlier, when he had first staked his claim to the land at the fork. The windows were shuttered, since he had not yet been able to buy glass for them, and the furniture was mostly mismatched and jury-rigged, the tables built of scrap and the chairs upholstered in war surplus tent canvas, but the wide stone hearth, the stone chimney, oaken mantel, and the white plastered walls were all just as he had wanted them. A fire blazed on the hearth, keeping out the autumn chill, and a dozen lamps lighted the room.

In the rest of the inn, every room, upstairs or down, was taken for the night, and no one had complained of the accommodations or the fare at supper

-- even though the only wine he had been able to get was truly horrible, and as yet he had no ale at all. The most popular beverage was river-water filtered through five layers of canvas, surely an unheard of situation in any roadside inn!

He wondered whether he should sink a well. The river water seemed safe enough so far and did not taste bad at all, either before or after filtering, but he did not entirely trust it. There were just too many people upstream who might be pouring garbage, sewage, or poisons into it.

Getting ale and decent wine was more important, of course. He had appointed half a dozen of his erstwhile construction crew as agents and sent them out looking, in various directions, for suppliers. One was permanently posted in Azrad's Ethshar at no pay, but with a promise of three pieces of gold if he found a reliable supplier -- a sizable sum now that prices had come back down to more reasonable levels, though they were still higher than in wartime. The other five had been given expense money and scattered across the Hegemony of the Three Ethshars, as the name now seemed to be, and the Small Kingdoms.

Valder's original supply of money had given out long ago, since he had paid generously at first in the interest of speed; but even before his inn had a roof, customers had been at his door, eager to pay for a night's shelter. He foresaw no difficulty in earning a living and paying for any improvements he might care to make.

Of course, the original flood of traffic had not lasted. Within a month of the war's end, the southbound flow into Azrad's Ethshar had thinned to a trickle. By then, however, the northbound exodus was in full flood, as the new arrivals finally convinced themselves that the city was not the golden land of limitless opportunity.

That, too, had passed, and Valder had had a bad six-night or two when business slowed drastically. He had used it as an excuse to cut his bloated, overpaid crew in half, and then in half again. Initially, he had wanted as many men as he could find work for, since speed in construction was more important than economy, and hauling stone from the riverbed took plenty of manpower. Once the walls and roof were in place, however, speed was no longer essential, as most customers asked no more than to get in out of the rain and the cool night air. His sixty-man crew, lured by the prospect of a copper piece a day, free water, and whatever food he could find for them, was an unwanted expense.

He had been glad to be rid of most of them. A man did not require much in the way of character or intelligence to drag rocks from the riverbed to the building site and drop them in place, so he had just taken anyone who volunteered when he shouted out his offer. The interior work, furniture, and finishing, however, called for more skill, skill that most of the men did not have and could not learn quickly.

He had kept a crew of fifteen, even when that meant paying out more than he took in -- he had refused to give in to temptation and had set his charges to his customers roughly at wartime levels, rather than the absurd rates that had been asked in Azrad's Ethshar during the great confusion. He had been convinced that traffic would increase again and that the completion of the inn would prove worthwhile. He had been right. Refugees and wandering veterans were no longer arriving in any significant numbers, though a few still drifted in every so often, but merchants and tradesmen had begun to appear, bringing supplies into the city or skills and goods out. He had bought the foul stuff that passed for wine from one such commercial traveler, and the surplus-canvas had come from an enterprising young ex-sergeant who had bought up hundreds of old tents cheap when the border camps were disbanded.

After the merchants had come the farmers bound for market and the would-be farmers searching for land. As yet, the farmers were few and their produce unimpressive, and the would-be farmers were invariably poverty-stricken, but Valder was sure that within a year that would change dramatically. The war had not ended until well after planting season, after all, so that crops had not been planted on schedule.

Now his income once again exceeded his expenses, though not by as much as he might have liked. He had cut his payroll once again by dispatching his six agents. Of the nine men who remained, seven were making other plans. One had taken a fancy to the river and was waiting for a berth on a barge. Another was saving his pay and working odd jobs for guests with plans to become a brewer, which pleased Valder quite well, as that might assure him of a supplier. The other five were still vague, but three had been foresighted enough to stake out claims on land in the vicinity while the opportunities were still there, and all were among the cleverer and more skilled of his original group; Valder had no doubt they would find suitable work when the inn was finished.

One of the two men planning to remain was Tandellin. Valder had been utterly astonished to find his old friend among the mob in the Hundred-Foot Field, and delighted as well, and had wasted no time in signing him on with the other volunteers. Sarai had been with him, and, although she was too small to be of any real help in hauling stone, she had helped out considerably on lighter jobs. She had been the only woman on the site, and some of the other men had grumbled mildly about her presence and exclusive attachment to Tandellin, but there had been no serious problems involved.

Only after three days of work had the couple been willing to admit that they had followed Valder, taking the next ship after his, rather than turning up in Azrad's Ethshar by sheer coincidence. Tandellin would give no reason, but Sarai explained, "You always seemed to know what you were doing, and nobody else did. The moment you had your pay, you were gone, as if you actually knew where you were going to go and what you were going to do. We had been sitting around for three days arguing, without coming up with a single idea we could agree on, until you left -- then we agreed to come see what you were doing, and here we are." She shivered. "Things looked pretty bad there in the city, when we lost track of you."

It came as a surprise to Valder that he had seemed to know what he was doing, as he certainly had not thought he did, but when he said as much, Sarai simply pointed out that everything had worked out well enough.

Valder had to agree with that.

Tandellin and Sarai were not the only ones to follow Valder's lead. His inn acted as a spark or a seed; once he had claimed his piece of land, others took to the idea, and farmhouses were abuilding all along the highway between the bridge and the city. Customers told him that other inns were springing up, as well, further up the road.

He was pleased by that, particularly by the proliferation of farmers determined to plow under the grassland. He had gotten by at first by hunting small game and fishing, or by buying what others caught, but his supplies were always low. Some food came down the highway or the river, mostly fruit from the orchards around Sardiron of the Waters, in what had been the southwestern part of the Northern Empire, and Valder bought what he could afford of that to augment his catches. He suspected that people were starving in Azrad's Ethshar, though he knew supplies were reaching the city by ship. If farms were in production all along the highway and throughout the countryside, that would change.

For the present, he was getting by, and the future looked bright, with the inn built and paying customers in every chamber. He was well pleased as he looked about the dining room. Wirikidor hung above the fireplace on pegs driven into the stone; he smiled at it. He had no intention of ever drawing it again, and looking at it now only reminded him of the unpleasantness he had left behind and how lucky he was to be free of it and doing well. He had never thought he would be fortunate enough to outlive the war, but here he was, alive and thriving, and the Northern Empire was no more than a memory. The sword's enchantment might complicate his life eventually, with its supposed grant of immortality but not freedom from harm, but that was far from urgent.

He enjoyed being an innkeeper, able to hear the news of the world from his guests without leaving home.

A knock sounded, though everyone else in the inn had retired. Valder turned and hurried to the door, hoping that, late as the hour was, the new arrival would be someone selling something he could use. He would settle for a customer willing to sleep on the dining room floor, though.

Two men stood on the threshold, wearing the tattered remnants of Ethsharitic uniforms, huddled together against the cold wind. As yet, no snow had fallen this year, and the locals assured him that often years would pass without a single flake in this region, but winter was assuredly coming and the winds were cold, even this far south.

"Come in!" Valder said, trying to conceal his disappointment. Ragged as they were, these two were not likely to be selling anything, nor to have enough money to be worthwhile as customers. Still, an innkeeper had obligations; everyone must be made welcome.

The two entered. One made directly for the fire on the hearth, but the other hesitated, staring at his host.

Disconcerted, Valder stared back. Something was very familiar about the man. Undoubtedly they had met somewhere before, but Valder could not place where.

"I know you," the man said.

"Valder the Innkeeper, at your service," Valder replied. "Welcome to the Inn at the Bridge." He saw no reason to deny his identity if the man did know him; but on the other hand, he was not in the mood for reminiscing about good old days that had, for him at any rate, been relatively miserable. Calling himself an innkeeper made clear that he lived in the present, not a nostalgic, glorious past such as many veterans seemed to prefer.

Of course, peace appeared to have treated this pair far worse than the war had; they were thin and hungry, and their clothes had obviously been lived in for months, probably months without shelter.

"Valder?" The man stared at him. "You mean Valder of Kardoret?"

"That was I," Valder admitted.

"The man who killed a shatra in single combat?"

Startled, Valder asked, "How do you know about that?"

"I was with the party that found you standing over the corpse. Gods, that was a weird thing! That body had all this strange black stuff in it -- I'll never forget it. When we burned it, it stank like nothing I have ever smelled.

And it was you! It was! You look different now, without the uniform, and you've put on a little weight, I think, but it's you."

"Yes, it is," Valder agreed.

"And you're an innkeeper now? Valder of the Magic Sword, an innkeeper?"

"Better than starving, isn't it? The war is over -- not much call for magic swords anymore." He smiled.

The other grimaced. "Anything is better than starving, I'd say. I've had a little more experience of it than I like. Still, a man like you -- you weren't any common soldier, you could have made your way in the world."

"I am making my way in the world. I own this inn and the landing on the river, don't I?"

"Oh, but you could have been rich! A man who could kill a demon, you could have done almost anything!"

"It was the magic sword that killed the shatra, not me; I'm happy here."

The man shrugged. "If you say so," he said.

"I say so. Now, what can I get you? Supper was over hours ago, and there isn't any ale, but I can find some cold food, if you like, and we have wine and good clean water."

The man looked embarrassed. He called out to his companion, "Hey, Tesra!

Have you got any money?"

Valder sighed inwardly. These two were obviously not going to make him rich.

Tesra produced five copper bits, and after a little dickering Valder conceded that that was a fair price for staying the night on the floor by the hearth with a meal of scraps and water. When that was settled and the two tattered veterans were gnawing on pigeon bones -- rabbits had become quite scarce, due to extensive hunting, but pigeons made a decent pie -- Valder asked, "Where are you headed? You must have been on the road quite some time."

Tesra looked up at him. "We thought we'd try our luck in Azrad's Ethshar; it's been no good anywhere else. We've been on the road since the war ended, been up to Sardiron of the Waters and on through the Passes, and then came down the Great River from there."

Valder felt a twinge of guilt. "Was that five bits your last money?

Ethshar's expensive these days, and, from what I hear, there isn't much work."

"Oh, we'll get by," said Selmer, the man who had recognized Valder.

"We're not picky."

Valder shrugged. He had made his gesture, given his warning; if the two of them chose not to heed it, that was not his problem. Rather than continuing with the subject, he asked about Sardiron. He had heard of the town, captured almost intact from the Northern Empire when it fell, but he knew little about it.

He talked with the pair until almost dawn. Tesra fell asleep, utterly exhausted, while the conversation continued, but Selmer lasted several hours before his eyelids, too, drooped. Finally Valder rose and left the two of them asleep on the floor. He left a brief note for Parl, the man who was to handle morning business, saying the two had paid in advance for the night but not for breakfast, and then retired.

When he awoke, the sun was high in the eastern sky, and the two veterans were gone. Parl reported that they had left an hour or so earlier, hoping to reach the city by nightfall.

Valder knew they would not manage it; one had to leave the inn within an hour after dawn to reach Ethshar before dark, traveling on foot. He wished them well and forgot about them.

At least, he forgot about them for a sixnight or so.

Supper was being dished out, a thick chowder and stale bread being all that Valder had on hand, when a late arrival knocked. Valder happened to be free, so he answered the door himself, admitting a party of four. First in the door was a young woman in flamboyant red velvet trimmed with white fur; behind her came two huge men wearing what looked like military uniforms, but in a pattern and color Valder had never seen before. Last came another woman, this one short and plump and wearing blue satin.

"Welcome, all!" Valder said. "Supper is just being served, if you would care to join us. The meal is a copper each with water, or a silver bit with wine. I'm afraid we have no ale or strong spirits."

"We did not come here to eat," the woman in red announced.

"A room, then? We have a few still available, two coppers the night."

"We are looking for someone."

Valder noticed that the woman spoke with a peculiar accent. He had taken it to be nervousness at first, but now thought she might be from somewhere where the language was spoken differently. He had noticed a slight difference between the people of Azrad's south and Gor's northwest previously, but this was far more marked. It made judging her tone difficult. Valder guessed she was from some obscure corner of the Small Kingdoms.

"This is my inn," he said. "And I want no trouble. You will have to tell me whom you're looking for and why."

"We seek Valder of the Magic Sword."

The woman insisted on speaking quite loudly, and the entire population of the room -- three of Valder's employees and fourteen guests -- were now listening closely, the chowder forgotten for the moment.

"I'm Valder, now the Innkeeper," he said. "Come inside and close the door." He had no idea why anybody might be looking for him and was not at all sure he wanted to find out. This group hardly looked like anything Gor might send after him. He remembered Tesra and Selmer, who had insisted on calling him Valder of the Magic Sword, and wondered if they had anything to do with it.

He was about to suggest a more private conference when the thought struck him that Gor of the Rocks might not care to send anyone obvious on a mission to deal with his former assassin. Gor was tricky enough to have contrived a group like this. Valder decided abruptly that privacy was not called for. When the woman in blue had closed the door, he led the way to an unoccupied table and gestured for the newcomers to sit.

The woman in red hesitated, and the others were all obviously following her lead. "Is there no place more private?" she asked.

That convinced Valder that he did not want to be alone with his group.

"No," he said. "We speak here if you wish to speak with me at all."

Reluctantly, the woman in red nodded and took a seat; her companions followed, and Valder, too, sat down.

"I am Sadra of Pethmor, Pethmor being the rightful capital of all Ethshar. We have come seeking your help."

Valder interpreted this to mean that Pethmor was indeed one of the Small Kingdoms. Most of them claimed to be the ancient capital. "What sort of help?"

he asked.

"We came to Azrad's city to find someone who might be able to help us, and two men there told us where you might be found. They said that you were the greatest fighter that had ever lived, that you had slain a northern demon in single combat. Is this true?"

"No." Valder was reluctant to elaborate.

"No?" Sadra was taken aback. "But you are Valder of the Magic Sword? They swore..."

"They swore? What did they swear?"

"One of them swore that you had slain a demon..."

"Oh. Well, yes, I did kill a shatra, which is half demon, but I'm hardly a great fighter. I had a magic sword." It seemed unwise to mention that he still had the sword and that it was in fact hanging in plain sight not ten yards away.

"Ah. The sword is gone, then?"

Valder shrugged.

"Of course it is, or you would not be an innkeeper -- but perhaps you could get it back? Or perhaps you might help anyway?"

"You still haven't said what sort of help you want."

"Oh, it is quite simple. There is a dragon, a rather large one, that has been scorching the fields..." Again, as seemed to be a habit with her, she let the sentence trail off.

"You want me to kill a dragon for you?"

"Yes, exactly."

Valder put his palms on the table as if to rise. "I'm sorry, Sadra, but I can't help you. I wouldn't stand a chance; the only time I ever fought a dragon single-handed, I wound up running for my life."

"Then you have fought dragons before?"

"Just a little one and, I told you, it almost killed me. I will not fight your dragon for you. Talk it out of burning your fields, or hire a dragon-tamer from the city, if no one will fight it. Now, will you have supper here, or a room for the night, or will you be going?"

The party from Pethmor stayed for supper and for the night, and for breakfast as well. Sadra made several more attempts to enlist Valder as a dragon slayer, but without success.

In the morning, as she was about to depart, Sadra stopped and turned back. "Selmer told me you were a hero," she said. "That you would be glad of an excuse to give up this dreary inn. I think he misjudged you badly."

Valder nodded agreement. "I think you're right. I like it here."

Sadra nodded in turn, plainly disgusted, and left.

Valder thought that was the end of the matter -- until the next party turned up, trying to recruit him. This group was not after a dragon, but intended to loot the ruined cities of the north and wanted to hire Valder as a guard. A few surviving shatra were said to linger still amid the ruins, and what better protector could they have than the only man who had ever slain one in fair fight?

Valder got rid of them politely and marveled at how nobody acknowledged the part the sword's magic had played. They all credited him with far more prowess than he actually possessed. They wanted to believe in heroes, not ordinary, everyday magic.

Valder was no adventurer, no great warrior; he was just an innkeeper and glad to be one. He said as much to anyone who asked. Yes, he had a magic sword once, and yes, he had killed a shatra with it, and yes, he even admitted to having served as an assassin when that story finally surfaced -- but all he was now was an innkeeper.

That was what he told the doddering wizard who wanted to hire him to fetch the ingredients for a certain unspecified spell and what he told the self-proclaimed mercenary captain who was trying to raise a company of war heroes to fight in the continuing border squabbles in the Small Kingdoms. From what Valder had heard from his guests, these little conflicts were too small to be considered real wars. The "captain," who had never risen above sergeant in the Great War, believed a small group of experienced men could make a big difference. Valder suspected he was quite correct in that, but was not interested in being one of those men and said as much.

He liked being an innkeeper. He enjoyed hearing his guests talk of their travels, their hopes, their goals. He enjoyed seeing the weary to bed, feeding the hungry, and serving drink to the thirsty, and watching their faces relax as their problems faded. As an innkeeper, he took no great risks. True, he made no great gains, but that did not bother him. He had not killed anyone since the end of the war, nor had anyone seriously attempted to kill him -- he discounted a few drunken threats from men who could barely stand, let alone fight. The worst problem he ever confronted as an innkeeper, once he had found reliable suppliers of food and drink, was an occasional boisterous drunk, and the one advantage he saw in his growing fame as Valder of the Magic Sword was that troublemakers who had heard of his reputation avoided him. As the inn's proprietor, he was his own man; admittedly, he took orders from his customers, but only when he chose to. It was nothing like the military.

Yes, he liked being an innkeeper. It was infinitely more enjoyable than being an assassin or an adventurer. He preferred Wirikidor over the mantel, not on his belt. He had to repeat this often. The talkative Selmer and the various guests who had overheard his conversation with Sadra or with others who had tried to coax him away spread his fame far and wide. In general, Valder did not mind; he rather enjoyed being famous and suspected that his reputation drew business that might otherwise have passed up the Inn at the Bridge in favor of other, newer inns that had sprung up along the highways.

He turned down offers that ranged from dull and dangerous to downright bizarre, requests for aid from silk-robed aristocrats and starving children --

the latter leaving disappointed, but always well fed. He refused to rescue princesses, slay dragons, depose tyrants, locate lost siblings, kill pirates, loot tombs, battle wizards, terrorize witches, dispose of demons, settle boundary disputes, and search for everything from ancient magical treasures to a missing cat. Whenever possible, he tried to suggest someone who might serve in his stead. He was dismayed that, even safely sheathed, Wirikidor was still affecting his life.

He suspected that nobody ever believed him when he said that he enjoyed innkeeping, that many thought him a coward or a fraud. When a messenger from Gor of the Rocks came to ask if he had reconsidered his retirement, Valder turned him down politely, as he had all the rest, and was relieved when the man departed peacefully, apparently convinced that Valder was a harmless coward.

Nobody, not even Tandellin, believed that all he wanted was to be an innkeeper, but it was the entire truth.

CHAPTER 23

The Inn at the Bridge flourished. Valder flourished with it, and in fact all the world seemed to be doing well once the initial confusion had passed.

In 5000 the three overlords of the Hegemony of the Three Ethshars announced that the last northern stragglers had been eliminated and the last vestiges of the Empire destroyed. In celebration, the annual Festival that began 5001 ran for seven days instead of the traditional five. A few realists pointed out that this corrected astrological errors resulting from wartime neglect of the calendar, but they were generally ignored in the widespread merry-making.

That was the year that Valder finally got glass panes in all his windows.

In 5002 the northern territories surrounding Sardiron of the Waters refused to acknowledge the rule of the Hegemony when tax collectors came around. Instead they set themselves up as an array of baronies under the erstwhile officers of the occupying armies, with a high council meeting at Sardiron itself. The triumvirate, well aware that the people of the Hegemony wanted no more war, did nothing about it. The rumor circulated that Azrad and Gor had decided to wait, outvoting Anaran, in hopes that the baronies would tear themselves apart in petty rivalries as the Small Kingdoms had done, allowing the Hegemony to move in and pick up the pieces. If the rumor was true, this appeared to be a miscalculation; no reports came of internecine strife in the north. Instead, caravans came down the highways and barges down the Great River, filling Valder's guest rooms and his purse.

Valder heard all the news and all the rumors from his guests, but paid little attention. That was the year he finally considered his cellar to be adequate, with thirty wines, a dozen ales and beers, and both brandy and oushka in stock. One of his former workmen now had a brewery and provided much of his supply. His staff was down to just himself, Sarai, Tandellin, and Parl.

By 5005 virtually all the veterans were settled, and the offer of free land was discontinued. Almost all the old battlefields were now farms, and the vast grasslands that had stretched from the Great River to the western ocean had been plowed under and sown with corn and wheat and barley. Ethshar of the Rocks and Ethshar of the Sands were real cities now, rivals -- but never quite equals -- of Azrad's Ethshar, now called Ethshar of the Spices in recognition of its most profitable trade. The Small Kingdoms were still splintering and fighting amongst themselves, and most of the people of the Hegemony had come to think of them as barbaric. It was hard to remember that they had once been the heart of civilization, Old Ethshar. But then, nobody mentioned Old Ethshar any more. The past was forgotten, and the Hegemony and its three capitals were the only Ethshar.

That was the year that Valder tried unsuccessfully to start a ferry service in competition with Azrad's toll bridge. A torch "accidentally"

dropped from the bridge onto the ferry one night and burned it down to the waterline, putting an end to that enterprise. Valder decided against rebuilding; the next stray torch might have hit his inn. The walls were stone, but the roof was thatch.

In 5009 the northern coast followed Sardiron's lead and declared itself the independent Kingdom of Tintallion, with joint capitals on the mainland and on the island from which it took its name. Valder calculated, after much discussion with travelers who had been there, that the mainland capital was just about on the site of the camp where he had served prior to the desperate enemy drive to the sea that had left him stranded alone in the woods.

That was the year an incompletely tamed dragon accidentally burned down Valder's stable. Terrified by the results of its actions, the dragon had smashed its way out through the wall and vanished, never to be seen again.

Fortunately, the dragon's owner did not get away in time to avoid a generous cash settlement for the damages, and the only injuries were to two boys knocked down and bruised when they attempted to catch the other animals fleeing through the hole left by the dragon's departure.

In 5011 Anaran of the Sands died at the age of sixty-three, and, after a month or so of widespread concern, Azrad and Gor declared Anaran's ten-year-old son Edaran of Ethshar to be the new overlord of Ethshar of the Sands. Since would-be commanders could no longer prove themselves in battle, the surviving overlords had decided to make their positions hereditary. Nobody seemed to object, Valder noted, and it did ensure peaceful transitions. Azrad and Gor both had sons to succeed them, and no one seemed very concerned about having a mere child as cornier of the Hegemony.

That was the year that someone tried to rob the Inn at the Bridge.

It was a slow night in deep winter, the fourth day of the month of Icebound. Enough snow was falling to discourage the neighbors from dropping in for a meal or a drink, and no trade came down the highway from the north at this time of year. The river never froze this far south, but, as it happened, no boats had stopped that day, and no travelers from the Small Kingdoms to the east or the Hegemony's other cities to the west had happened by. Tandellin and Sarai had gone home to the house they had built for themselves on the other side of the highway, and Parl had gone off, as he often did, with a young woman. He might not be back for days, but in winter he was rarely needed.

Valder sat alone in the dining hall, keeping the fire alive and contemplating the coals, not thinking about anything in particular.

A knock sounded; startled, Valder looked up. He did not particularly want to leave the hearth and get a faceful of cold air, so he bellowed, "It isn't locked! Come in!"

For a moment he thought that the latch must have frozen or the new arrivals had not heard him, but then the door swung open.

He did not much like the look of the two men who came in. The first one was short, with dark hair that looked curiously lopsided; it took Valder a moment to figure out that the man had been wounded on the scalp and that no hair grew from the resulting scar tissue, leaving him partially bald on one side and not the other.

The second man was huge, perhaps six and a half feet tall and disproportionately broad. Both wore battered breastplates -- not standard army-issue -- and carried old swords on their belts, unusual in these peaceful times. The larger man had one of the strange, black, Northern helmets jammed onto his head, the first such helmet Valder had seen in years. Both had the look of men who were perpetually broke and always blaming others for it, though what money they acquired would invariably go for oushka or inept gambling. Valder had seen enough of the sort and did not like them. Such men usually felt that because they had served a few years in the army the world owed them a living.

Valder judged this pair to be his own age or a year or two younger --

mid-thirties, certainly. That would mean they had only served a few years each, probably not a decade between them. No one owed them anything.

Still, he was an innkeeper. "Welcome!" he said. "Come in and get warm!

What can I get you?"

The two looked around for a moment. The big man remembered belatedly to close the door.

"Cold out there," the small man remarked. "Have you got something that will warm a man's gut?"

"Brandy or oushka," Valder answered. "Two coppers, or a silver piece for a bottle."

"Oushka," the little man replied, as Valder had expected. These two did not look like brandy drinkers.

He nodded and headed for the kitchen. He had not expected any customers tonight and had stored the keg away earlier than usual. "Make yourselves comfortable," he called back over his shoulder. He decided silently to be as quick as he could, so that he would be back before this pair could cause any trouble. There was little to steal in the big room, but they might decide it would be fun to smash a few tables.

"Hey, innkeeper," the big man called after him before he had reached the door. "Is your name Valder?"

Valder stopped and turned. "What if it is?"

The big man shrugged. "Nothing; we just heard that this place belonged to someone named Valder of the Magic Sword, supposed to be a war hero."

Valder sighed inwardly. These two were obviously not just going to express polite interest in his wartime experiences. They undoubtedly wanted something from him, probably aid in some unsavory scheme, and might get ugly about it.

Well, he could take care of himself. "I'm Valder," he admitted. "I was in the war; I fought and I killed a few northerners, but I don't know that I was a hero."

"What was this magic sword, then?"

"I had a magic sword; got it from a crazy hermit out on the west coast."

The big man waggled a shoulder in the direction of the hearth. "Is that the sword, up there?"

Valder did not like the sound of that. "What if it is?"

"Hey, just asking. I never saw a magic sword up close before."

"Well, that's it. Take a look, if you want, but I wouldn't try touching it." He hoped the vague threat would discourage the pair. He was not particularly worried. Unless he had been sleepwalking and killing people without knowing it, nobody else would be able to draw Wirikidor, and no other weapon could kill him.

"What about that oushka!" the smaller man demanded.

"I'll get it," Valder answered. He marched out through the door to the kitchen, leaving it open so that he could hear anything that happened.

He heard nothing but low voices and quiet little bumps that could be chairs being moved about. That was fine, then, if the two were settling down at a table. He filled two crystal tankards with oushka. Most inns avoided using glass due to its high cost and breakable nature, but Valder was convinced that strong spirits did not taste right in anything else and had gone to considerable expense to have a wizard shatterproof his glassware. He had thought the expense was worthwhile, as his customers appreciated such nice little touches. Some of them did, anyway.

He arranged the tankards on a tray and headed back into the main room, where he found the big man standing on a chair on the hearth, tugging at Wirikidor.

Since Valder had had no intention of ever taking the sword down, he had wired it securely to pegs set into the stonework. He suspected that, if he had not, the two would already have gotten it down and vanished into the snow.

"Oh, demons drag you to Hell!" he said. He did not want to deal with this sort of unpleasantness. He put the tray down on the nearest table and demanded, "Leave that sword alone! You can't use it anyway."

At the sound of his voice the small man whirled, drawing his sword. The big man heaved at Wirikidor's scabbard, and with a twang of snapping wire ripped it from its place.

"Oh, we can't?" the small man said.

"No, you can't," Valder replied. "Ever hear of the Spell of True Ownership?"

"No," the little thief said. "And I wouldn't believe it if I did. If that sword's magic, I can use it."

"Go ahead and try," Valder replied. "Try and draw it." He suppressed a sudden flash of terror at the possibility that Darrend and his compatriots had somehow miscalculated the duration of the sword's attachment to him.

The smaller man did not move. He remained facing Valder, his sword at ready, as he said, "Draw it, Hanner."

Hanner was trying to draw it, without success. "I can't," he said. "I think he's glued it into the scabbard."

"No glue," Valder said. "Magic. It's part of the enchantment on it."

"I think we'll take it anyway," the small thief said.

"It will come back to me; that's part of the spell."

"Oh, is it? How nice for you. What if you're dead, though? We didn't come here just for the sword, innkeeper. You must have a tidy little heap of money tucked away somewhere. I don't think you'll be getting much business tonight; if we kill you now, we'll have until dawn to find where you hide it. And even if we don't find it, we'll still have the sword and we can sell that for a few bits of gold, whether we can draw it or not. If you help us out, make the sword work for us and tell us where your money is, we might let you live."

"You can't kill me," Valder replied.

"No? What's going to stop us? There are two of us, with swords that aren't enchanted but they've got good edges nonetheless. You're all alone and unarmed, unless you've slipped a kitchen knife under your tunic. We've been watching this place. You haven't got a single customer, and your helpers left hours ago."

Valder felt a twinge of uneasiness. His situation did look bad. The only thing in his favor was the magic of a sword that had not been drawn in more than a dozen years -- and an untested aspect of the enchantment, at that. The army wizards had said that he could not be killed, but he had naturally never put it to the test. He stood for a moment, trying to think of something to say. Nothing came.

"Hanner," the small thief said, "I think it's time we convinced Valder of the Magic Sword to help us out, don't you?"

Hanner grinned. "I think you're right," he said. He took Wirikidor in his left hand and drew his own sword with his right. Side by side, the two thieves advanced slowly across the room, winding between the tables without ever taking their eyes from Valder's face.

Valder watched them come, tried to decide whether there was any point in retreating into the kitchen, tried to think of something he might use as a weapon, and watched Wirikidor, clutched in the big man's hand. The thief, Valder thought, was making a mistake; the smart thing to do would have been to leave Wirikidor behind somewhere, well out of reach. He remembered the odd compulsion that had made people bring him the sword whenever it left his possession back in General Karannin's camp and wondered if Hanner was aware that he was holding the scabbard.

Idiotically, he also found himself wondering what the smaller thief's name was.

As the two drew near, Valder moved as quickly as he could, snatching up the tray of oushka and flinging it at the pair. Two swords flashed, and tray and tankards were knocked harmlessly aside, spraying good liquor across the floor. The crystal vessels bounced in a truly alarming manner, but the thieves were not distracted by this unnatural behavior. Either they had seen enchanted glassware before, or they were so intent on their victim that they had not even noticed anything unusual.

All Valder's effort had done was prove that both men knew how to use swords and that the wizard who had charmed the tankards had not cheated him.

He stepped back, not toward the kitchen, but toward the wall.

The two advanced another few steps, then stopped. Hanner's sword inched up to hover near Valder's throat, while the other's blade was pointed at his belly.

"Now, innkeeper," the small man said, "tell us about that sword and, while you're talking, tell us where you keep your money."

Valder watched from the corner of his eye as Hanner's left hand moved forward, apparently without its owner's knowledge; his own right hand was open and ready. "The sword's name is Wirikidor, which means 'slayer of warriors.'

Nobody knows exactly what the spells on it are, because the wizard who made them vanished, but they're all linked to a Spell of True Ownership, so that nobody can use it except me, until I die." He was talking primarily to keep the two thieves occupied; Wirikidor's hilt was less than a foot from his hand.

Suddenly he lunged for it, calling out, "Wirikidor!"

Hanner tried to snatch it away as he realized what was occurring. Valder was never sure exactly how it happened, whether the sword had really leaped from its sheath under its own power or whether he had made a lucky grab, but the sword was in his hand, sliding smoothly out of the scabbard.

Banner reacted with incredible speed, chopping at Valder's wrist with his own blade. Wirikidor twisted about in a horribly unnatural fashion, so that Valder felt as if his wrist were breaking, but it successfully parried the thief's blow.

The smaller thief was not wasting any time; his sword plunged toward Valder's belly. Valder dodged sideways, but not quite fast enough; the blade ripped through his tunic and drew a long, deep cut in his side. Blood spilled out, and pain tore through Valder's body. He hardly saw what happened next.

Wirikidor, now that it was free again, seemed to be enjoying itself. It flashed brilliantly in the lamplight as it swept back and forth, parrying attacks from both thieves. Valder made no attempt to direct it; his hand went where the sword chose to go.

The character of the fight quickly altered; rather than two swordsmen bearing down on a mere innkeeper, it became two swordsmen fighting for their lives against a supernatural fury.

Hanner's guard slipped for an instant; Wirikidor cut his throat open. A return slice removed his head entirely, spraying blood in all directions.

With that, Wirikidor lost all interest, and Valder found himself in a duel to the death with a swordsman smaller than himself but far more skilled and obviously much more practiced, not to mention partly armored. Realization of his peril helped him to ignore the intense pain in his side as he concentrated on parrying a new attack.

The small thief, noticing a change, grinned. "You're getting tired, innkeeper -- or has the sword's magic been used up?"

Valder tried a bluff. "Nothing's used up, thief," he said. "I just thought you might prefer to live. Go now, and I won't kill you. Your partner's dead; isn't that enough?"

"Hanner's dead?" In the intensity of his concentration on the fight the thief had failed to comprehend that. He glanced at his comrade's headless corpse and was obviously shaken by what he saw.

Valder seized the opportunity and swept Wirikidor in under the other man's guard, aiming just below the breastplate.

What should have been a killing stroke was easily deflected as the man recovered himself and made a swift downward parry. Still, the attack disconcerted him, and he stepped back.

Valder pressed his advantage, but the thief met his onslaught easily.

Even so, Valder noticed that the man was no longer taking the offensive, but only defending himself.

"I'm holding the sword back," Valder lied. "But the demon in the steel is getting stronger. I don't like feeding it more than one soul at a time; it might get too strong someday. Go now, while I can still control it." He was grateful for the popularity of legends about vampiric swords.

The thief glanced at Wirikidor, then at the body on the floor, and his nerve broke. "Keep it away from me!" he screamed as he turned and ran for the door.

Valder let him go, but quickly wiped Wirikidor's blade on Hanner's tunic, then picked the scabbard up off the floor and sheathed the weapon. If the thief returned, he wanted to be able to draw the sword again and use its magic.

The thief showed no sign of returning. The pain in his side was growing with every movement, but Valder made it across the room and slammed the door that the fleeing man had left standing open. He leaned against it, tempted just to slide down into oblivion on the floor, but he forced imself to pull off his tunic and wrap it around himself, forming a makeshift bandage over the wound. That done, he looked around the room, at the broken wires on the pegs above the mantel, at the severed head rolled into one corner, at the lifeless corpse by the kitchen door, and at the blood, Hanner's and his own, that was spattered everywhere. He looked down at the sheathed sword he held.

"Damn that hermit," he said.

Then he fainted.

CHAPTER 24

The door hit him in the side and he awoke in agony. He rolled over, groaning, away from the door and whatever was pushing in against it.

Tandellin slipped through the opening and looked down to see what was blocking him.

"Gods!" he said. "What happened?" He bent down to try and help.

Valder looked up at him and feebly waved him away. "I'll be all right, I think," he said. "I need something to drink."

"Right," Tandellin said, "I'll get you some ale." He looked up to see where the nearest keg might be, and for the first time noticed the rest of the room.

"Gods!" he said again and then decided that that wasn't strong enough.

"By all the gods in the sky, sea, and earth, Valder, what happened here?"

"Ale," Valder said. He did not feel up to explaining yet.

"Oh, yes," Tandellin agreed. He stood and headed for the kitchen, making a careful detour around Hanner's corpse and the surrounding pool of blood.

Valder sank back and closed his eyes until he heard footsteps returning.

He opened his eyes and tried to sit up, with his back to the wall. After a brief struggle, he managed it and accepted the mug Tandellin offered.

The ale helped. After he drank it, his throat no longer seemed to be stuffed with felt and his breath was no longer actively painful, if he kept it shallow. His side was still roaring with pain, and his head throbbed, but he felt better.

"More," he said, holding out the mug.

Tandellin fetched more.

After that, Valder felt almost human again. He arranged himself more comfortably against the wall. "Know any healing spells?" he asked.

Tandellin shook his head.

"Know any good wizards who might? Or witches, or theurgists?"

"I can find someone -- but healing spells are expensive."

"I have money," Valder said. "That's not a problem."

"You weren't robbed? There was just the one man?"

"There were two, but the other one ran. I don't think he took anything, unless he sneaked in the back way while I was unconscious, and I doubt that he did that, because, in that case, he would have tried to finish me off."

"Oh. Well, you certainly took care of that one; his head's clean off. Was he the one who wounded you?"

"I know his head is off, Tan; I'm the one who took it off, remember? And it was the other one who cut me; they both attacked at once."

"Oh," Tandellin said again. "How sporting. What should we do with this one? We can't just leave him there."

"Of course not. Look, get me another mug of ale and see if there's something I can eat cold, and then you can start cleaning up. I think we can bury him out back; I don't want to take the trouble and the wood to build a proper pyre. I'm not very concerned about seeing that his soul is freed to the gods, if you see what I mean." He glanced down at Wirikidor, lying innocuously at his side, and a thought struck him.

"Leave the head, though. I think we'll put that on a pike out front, to discourage any other thieves who get ideas about this place." He had not seen a head on a pike in years, not since he was a boy, but he thought it would make for a fine warning.

"We'll probably have to sand down that floor to get the bloodstains off,"

Tandellin remarked.

"Might be easier just to replace the boards, or paint over them," Valder suggested.

The door behind him opened again, admitting Sarai. As was her custom, she had arrived later than Tandellin because she took charge of feeding their daughter, Sarai the Younger, before leaving home.

She looked down at Valder, sitting on the floor bare-chested with the bloodstained remnants of his tunic wrapped about his middle, then looked around the room, taking in the headless corpse, the spattered blood, and the general mess.

"I take it you had a rough night," she said.

Valder stared up at her for a moment, then burst out laughing. The laughter was cut short by renewed pain in his side, but he smiled up at her and said, "You could say that, yes."

After that, his problems somehow seemed less serious. He pulled himself up into a chair and supervised the cleaning up, the disposal of Hanner's body, and the disposition of the head. No pikes could be found anywhere in the inn, but Tandellin improvised one from a boathook from the landing and set it up outside, near enough that its connection with the inn would be apparent, but far enough away that odor would not be a problem. Below the head he tacked up a sign that read, "THIEF," in large black runes, in case anyone might miss the point.

When the inn was again fit for customers, Tandellin set out to find a wizard who could heal Valder's wound, leaving Sarai to attend to the handful of travelers who drifted in, despite the cold and slush. Valder himself did not feel up to moving about much. Instead, he sat back and watched and thought.

He had not expected anyone to try to steal Wirikidor, or for that matter to try robbing him at all, though he did keep a goodly supply of coin securely hidden in his own bedchamber. The possibility had simply never occurred to him.

That, he realized, had been foolish.

The thief's head would probably serve to discourage further attempts for a time, but it would also remind people that there might be something worth stealing. Something would have to be done about that.

He had heard that there were people in Ethshar of the Spices who would guard one's money, for a small fee; they called themselves bankers. That suddenly seemed like a good idea. He had enough gold and silver tucked away to tempt an entire horde of thieves, he realized. He had nothing in particular that he wanted to spend money on, now that the inn was properly finished and supplied, so it just accumulated. He would do something about that.

The only other theftworthy item, really, was Wirikidor. It was far too late to quash the stories of his magic sword, and he would never convince anyone it was gone while a sword still hung over the mantel: That meant he would have to dispose of it somehow, if he didn't want some young idiot to cut his throat while he slept in order to steal the fabled Valder's weapon. He would not die of a cut throat, if Wirikidor's enchantment held true, but he doubted he would enjoy the experience.

That was rather a shame; he had liked having it on display above the hearth.

The next question was what to do with the sword. Its magic was still strong and still as quirky and inconvenient as ever. He had not died, as the spell had promised he would not, despite losing an incredible amount of blood

-- but he had been seriously wounded. The sword would still fight for him, but only against men and only until he had killed one. The ownership spell still linked it to him; he was not sure whether it had actually jumped into his hand, but Manner had been unable to draw it, and he could not imagine any reason the thief would have been stupid enough to bring Wirikidor within reach had the spell not been working.

He shifted in his chair, and his side twinged. That reminded him of his wound all over again. What good was a magical spell that guaranteed his life, if he could still be cut to pieces? That might be worse than death. That infernal old hermit had promised the sword would protect him, but he thought he might well have been better off without any such protection as this. He smiled bitterly.

He should, he thought, have been able to avoid the blow. The little thief was a good swordsman, true, but Valder had once been at least competent, and he had possessed size, strength, and reach in his favor. He sighed. He was getting older and out of shape. He had not drawn a sword in more than a decade; no wonder he was out of practice! His reflexes had slowed, as well; he was thirty-seven, no longer a young man.

Not that the thief had been much younger, but even a few years could make a difference. Besides, the thief had obviously kept in practice.

Thirty-seven -- he had not thought about his age much, but he was undeniably growing older. What did that mean as far as Wirikidor was concerned? Obviously the sword would not prevent him from aging, any more than it had saved him from being slashed. What would happen when old age came?

Would he just deteriorate indefinitely, unable to die, growing weaker and weaker, losing sight and hearing, until he was little more than a vegetable?

He had heard tales of men and women still hale and hearty past a hundred years of age -- probably exaggerated -- but, as he understood Wirikidor's enchantment, the spell had no time limit on it at all. He might live not just one century, but two or three or a dozen, if he never again drew the sword.

No, not might live that long, but would. He could theoretically live forever

-- but would he want to, if he kept aging?

That was an unpleasant line of thought, one that did not bear further exploration just at present. He was only thirty-seven; he had decades yet before the question became really important.

He would, however, want to be very, very careful to avoid maiming or blinding or any other sort of permanent injury. He had once asked himself what sort of a life one should lead when one could live forever; he answered himself, "A cautious one."

For now, he intended to put Wirikidor somewhere out of sight, where it would tempt no one. He might bury it, or throw it in the river; he knew that the Spell of True Ownership would prevent it from being carried downstream away from him. He was sure that he would be able to recover it should he ever want to.

Perhaps, he thought, I should hire a wizard to break the spell and live out my life normally. The war is long over; why do I need a magic sword?

He remembered then that Darrend had thought the spell was unbreakable.

Well, Darrend could have been wrong. It would undoubtedly take a very powerful wizard to break the spell, of course, and wizardry was expensive -- not just because of the greed of its practitioners, but because so many of the ingredients needed for charms were so difficult to obtain. He recalled when a call had gone out, years earlier, for the hair of an unborn child, needed for some special spell Azrad had wanted performed; he wondered if any had ever been found. Other ingredients were said to be even more difficult to acquire.

By ordinary standards he was well off, as the inn was successful, but, if he tried hiring high-order wizardry, his savings could easily vanish overnight.

He resolved to ask whatever wizard Tandellin might bring back about the possibilities of hiring powerful countercharms, but for the present he had no intention of actually having the spell broken. Wirikidor could be useful.

Dangerous, but useful. He could safely draw it at least fifteen more times, perhaps as many as twenty-three, by his best count. That was still a safe margin.

When it dropped to single digits he might reconsider -- or when his health started to go.

He would mention it to the wizard -- assuming Tandellin did not bring a witch or theurgist instead -- but for now he would simply bury the sword out back.

Two days later, his wounds magically healed, he did just that, working alone late at night by the light of a lantern, using a patch of ground that he had thawed with a bonfire that day.

The earthquake that followed a sixnight later was small and localized. It broke a few windows, emptied a shelf or two, sent a wine barrel rolling across the cellar floor, and, of course, split open the ground and flung Wirikidor up, to lie against the inn's kitchen door.

Valder considered throwing it in the river only until he had estimated how much damage would be caused by a flood big enough to carry the sword half a mile up the slope to the inn. The flood might not come, but he was not willing to risk it.

He wondered idly what a concealment spell would cost, but finally just tossed the sword under his bed and forgot about it.

CHAPTER 25

The news of the death of Gor of the Rocks in 5034 sent Valder into a brief depression. He had admired Gor once, but that admiration had largely worn away, starting with the overlord's request that Valder serve as his personal assassin in peacetime. The loss of the territory where Valder had served, when it became the Kingdom of Tintallion, had been another blow. The Hegemony of the Three Ethshars, which had once seemed so pure and all-embracing, had been corrupted and whittled down.

Gor's part in putting Edaran of Ethshar on his father's throne had not raised Valder's opinion any; it had left the entire central region that Anaran had once controlled at the mercy of Gor and Azrad, who had taxed it heavily.

Gor had gotten an edge over Azrad by marrying off his son and heir, Goran of the Rocks, to Edaran's sister Ishta of the Sands in 5029, despite Ishta being eleven years older than the boy.

Over the years Gor had gone from being virtually an object of worship in Valder's eyes to just another conniving tyrant, but still, his death was not welcome news.

It removed any possibility of further difficulty over Valder's long-ago refusal to serve as an assassin, but it also removed the last vestige of his boyhood hero.

Gor had been only a dozen years older than Valder, at that, and yet he was dead of old age. Valder still felt strong and healthy, but Gor's death was another reminder that he, too, was growing old and that Wirikidor was doing nothing to prevent it.

Goran was now overlord of Ethshar of the Rocks, a young man in the prime of life -- and he had not even been born until thirteen years after Valder built his inn. The thought of that oppressed him as he sat in a corner staring at the half-dozen patrons in the dining room, every one of them too young to remember the Great War.

Perhaps, Valder mused, part of the depression was because he had never taken a wife and, to the best of his knowledge, had sired no children. He had had women, certainly, but none had stayed. When he had been a soldier, none of his pairings had been expected to last by either party, because most did not in a soldier's life, and since becoming an innkeeper the only women he saw were those with the urge to travel. Some had stayed for a time, but all had eventually tired of the calm routine of the inn and had moved on.

It seemed a bit odd that Tandellin, who had always seemed rowdy and irrepressible as a youth, had been happily married for thirty-seven years, while Valder, who had always thought of himself as dull, ordinary, and predictable, had never married at all. It went against the traditional stereotypes.

He knew that he could have found a wife in Ethshar of the Spices, had he ever wanted to; but since the completion of the inn, he had never once returned to the city. He disliked the crowds and dust and knew that swords were no longer worn openly there, save by guardsmen and troublemakers, so that the necessity of carrying Wirikidor would mark him as a stranger.

He had always done well enough for himself without visiting the city. His lack of a family had never really bothered him; Tandellin and Sarai and their children had been his family in many ways.

He mulled all this over, sitting in the main room with a mug of ale that Sarai the Younger kept filled for him. As he glanced up to signal her for another pint, his eye fell on Wirikidor, hanging over the hearth.

The sword had lain neglected beneath his bed for scarcely a month before he restored it to its place. He had gotten tired of questions about its absence from familiar customers; too many had gone away convinced that the thieves had indeed gotten away with it, even if they had lost one of their number in doing so. Although that might have deterred thieves on the grounds that there was nothing left worth taking, it grated on Valder's pride.

Besides, Valder had gotten tired of seeing the empty pegs and could not think of any way to remove them short of sawing them off as close to the stone as possible.

So he had returned Wirikidor to its place of honor, but devised another approach to the problem of removing temptation. He held contests whenever the inn was crowded, offering ten gold pieces to any man or woman who could draw the blade. This served as good entertainment on many a night and demonstrated to all present just how useless the sword was to anybody else. Rather than suppressing details of the sword's enchantment, as he had before, Valder made a point of explaining that it was permanently linked to him and that every time he drew it a man died.

That had discouraged any further attempts at theft. After all, who cares to risk one's life for a sword that nobody can use, knowing that, if it does leave its scabbard, someone will die -- and that that someone will not be the sword's owner?

He had not mentioned that the spell was limited to another score or so of uses, however, nor that it would then turn on him. He did not mention his theoretical immortality, lest someone be tempted to test it.