The Fourth Book Of Lost Swords : Farslayer's Story (Saberhagen's Lost Swords 4), Fred Saberhagen [100 best novels of all time TXT] 📗

      “Well—where was I?”

      “You mentioned Shieldbreaker.”

      “Yes. Then there’s Woundhealer, which can cure any wound, even a thrust of magic through the heart, if it’s brought into play promptly enough. And then, maybe, Sightblinder—I don’t know if Sightblinder would offer any protection against Farslayer or not. It’s an interesting thought, though.”

      And with that the youth, his good humor apparently restored, suddenly threw back his head and began to recite:

Farslayer howls across the world

For thy heart, for thy heart, 

who hast wronged me!

Vengeance is his who casts the blade

Yet he will in the end no triumph see.

      The youth made a good job of the recitation, putting a fair amount of feeling into it. Gelimer made himself smile in appreciation. He had heard some of the old verses about Swords before, decades ago, and over the past days those rhymes had been slowly coming back into his memory, as he continued to think and fret about the subject.

      Young Zoltan cheerfully continued his cataloguing of the remaining Swords. The hermit made sure to seem to be paying equal attention to the verses and anecdotes about Coinspinner and Soulcutter and the other Swords that followed, that his interest in the subject might not seem too particular. Meanwhile, in his concealed thoughts, he was increasingly aghast. His worst fears about the treasure he had hidden had now been confirmed, and he still had no hint as to who ought now to be considered its rightful owner.

      The hermit had not been keeping count of verses, but he was just thinking that the catalogue of Swords must be nearing its end, when it was interrupted. Geelong the watchbeast sprang up suddenly on all four legs and whined loudly, facing the door. Someone else must be approaching the house.

      When Gelimer went out into the front yard this time he stopped short, blinking in mild surprise.

      A white-haired lady, whose age at a second look was hard to guess, was standing confronting him on the north side of his little yard, as if she had perhaps just climbed up from the river. Her erect body, clad like Zoltan’s in pilgrim gray, might have belonged to a vigorous woman of forty, but her lined face looked twenty years older than that. The pilgrim gray she wore confirmed some connection with the youth, who now had followed Gelimer out of the house into the bright day of sunlight melting the last spring snow.

      Zoltan quickly performed introductions.

      “Lady, this is the hermit Gelimer, who has kindly offered us food and shelter should we be in need of either. Gelimer, this is the Lady Yambu, whom I serve.”

      “Say rather, with whom you travel.” The lady’s voice, like her bearing, had something regal in it. She smiled at Gelimer and stepped forward to grip him heartily by the hand.

      When Zoltan had earlier informed him that his companion was a lady somewhat older than himself, several possibilities had suggested themselves to Gelimer. This lady did not appear to fit any of them very neatly.

      “Yambu,” repeated Gelimer aloud, and frowned in thought. “Some years ago there reigned, far to the east of here, a queen who was called the Silver Queen, and that was her name, too.”

      “That queen is no more,” the lady said. “Or she might as well be no more. Only a pilgrim stands before you.”

      Smiling slightly, she shifted the direction of her gaze to Zoltan. “The captain has informed me that the Maid of Lakes and Rivers has now been permanently disabled,” she reported. “Therefore, from here we must proceed for a time on foot. There is no need for us to return to the boat, as I have brought along all that was essential of our baggage.” So saying, the lady slipped a pack of moderate size from her back and dropped it on the ground in front of Zoltan; it would be his to carry now.

      Gelimer took a moment to reflect that the lady must be far from decrepit with age, to have made the steep climb up out of the gorge while carrying the pack. Then he courteously invited both of his visitors back into his humble house.

* * *

      Half an hour later, the hermit was serving both the travelers some hot tea and simple food, meanwhile pausing frequently in his own mind to wonder what further questions he ought to ask them. They represented his first contact with the outside world since the Sword had come into his possession, and he thought that his next such contact might be months away.

      But it would not do to stick too doggedly to the subject of Swords. When Gelimer asked the Lady Yambu politely about the object of her pilgrimage, she smiled at him lightly and told him that she was seeking truth.

      “And Truth, then, is to be found somewhere downriver?”

      She sipped her tea regally from its earthen cup. “I have had certain intimations that it might be.”

      “It might not be easy to find another boat to carry you on from here. The fishermen have boats, of course, but as a rule they don’t want to go far.”

      The lady was unperturbed. “Then we shall walk.”

      Gelimer switched his attention to his other guest. “And you, young man? Do you seek Truth as well?”

      “Yes,” said Zoltan, and paused. “But not only that. Tell me, good hermit, do you know anything of a race of merpeople living in or near these waters? I have seen several of their kind far upstream, but no one there seems to know where they come from.”

      Gelimer looked at him, and thought carefully again. “Aye,” he said at last. “There are mermaids in these waters. Hardly a race of them. But there have been a few such folk, whose homes are not all that far from where we sit. All maids, fish from the waist down. Their fate is a result of magic directed at certain fishing villages, by enemies.”

      Zoltan’s eyes lit up at the discovery.

      “Whose magic, and why?” Yambu asked at once. Suddenly she seemed almost as interested as the