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

      Ben asked: “But what’s going on here, Zoltan? Yambu?”

      The two pilgrims told Mark and Ben of Farslayer’s presence here, and how the Sword had wrought such havoc among the clanspeople on both sides of the river.

      Mark nodded. “We must do what we can to get it.”

* * *

      A little later, when the people of the clan had left them, Mark also fretted aloud to his nephew about his ten-year-old son Adrian, who had been recently enrolled, or was about to enroll, in a new school, unspecified. There, his father hoped, he would be able safely to master the arts of magic for which he had such a natural aptitude, and which might otherwise prove such a burden to him as he grew up.

      To Ben, Zoltan, and Yambu, Mark declared: “Old Karel has arranged something in the way of schooling. This time I expect it’ll work out successfully.”

      Zoltan said: “We could use someone here right now with a little natural aptitude along the line of magic and a little schooling, too.”

      No such luck.

      Bonar and his sisters gawked at this royal personage when he rejoined them, and made efforts not to be overly impressed. They struggled not to be awed by his presence, or by that of the Sword he carried. Yet, at the same time, the Malolo survivors were more at ease now. If their manor was to be occupied at all, far better that it should be done by a reigning prince and his entourage.

      It was easy to see that Bonar, despite his rather hollow protests that it did not matter, was somewhat perturbed by the tunnellike hole carved in the stone wall of his house, and by the ease with which these strangers had penetrated his defenses. But the physical damage could be easily enough repaired, and in the morning the huge man Ben helped the Malolo servants push back into place the blocks of stone that had been cut free.

* * *

      Zoltan had already told Mark of his, Zoltan’s, successful search for Black Pearl, and in the same breath had informed the prince that Black Pearl had said she knew something of the Sword’s hiding place.

      Bonar and his sisters repeated to Mark and Ben what they had already told Zoltan and Yambu, about the man Chilperic, who had come through here saying that he acted as the agent of the great magician Wood.

      That got the prince’s full attention. “What did you tell him?”

      “There is little enough we can tell anyone. He went on his way dissatisfied.”

      Yambu and Zoltan also told Mark of the hermit.

      Mark, who had of course heard of Black Pearl at great length while Zoltan was still in Tasavalta, listened sympathetically now to his nephew’s continued pleas to help her, but could not promise to be of any real assistance. “You’re sure it’s the same wench, hey?”

      “Of course!”

      “Pardon, Zoltan. Of course you are. It’s just that I have many other things to think of. Like Farslayer.”

      Still, Mark promised that if another winged messenger should come to him here from Tasavalta, he would use it to send a return message, asking Karel about magical help for mermaids.

      Zoltan momentarily regretted bothering his uncle with a personal problem. But only momentarily.

      An hour or two before dawn, when the fire in back had burned itself out without any renewal of the mercenaries’ attack, and when most of his comrades were asleep, Mark found his way alone up to a flat portion of the manor’s roof.

      Here he found a comfortable seat, which for a time he occupied in silence and solitude, regarding the night sky and its mysteries. But when a quarter of an hour had passed, there came an almost inaudible whisper of wings. The expected messenger, an owlish, half-intelligent creature, whose wingspan was greater than the span of the prince’s arms, came gliding down out of the stars to land beside him on a small parapet.

      The prince of Tasavalta was not surprised and did not stir. “Hail, messenger,” he murmured in greeting.

      “Greetings to the prince of Tasavalta.” The words were clearly only a memorized formula, and the thin, small voice in which they were spoken was far from human. Still, the words were clear enough.

      “Do you bring me word from my father? From the Emperor?”

      “Message for Prince Mark: No news from home. All goes well at home. I stand ready to bear a message back.”

      No news in this case was good news. The prince had been away from Tasavalta for several months now, and he tended to worry about matters at home.

      True, Mark had left the affairs of Tasavalta as well as the care of his second son, Stephen, now eight years old in the very capable hands of his wife, Princess Kristin. But still he inevitably worried.

      “Any news from the Princess Kristin? Or greetings from either of my sons?”

      “No news from home. All goes well at home. I stand ready to bear a message back.”

      Mark sighed, and began to say the words he wanted the creature to memorize.

Chapter Ten

      On the morning after that on which the prince conversed with a winged messenger, the hermit Gelimer was sitting on a block of wood in his dooryard, gazing in the direction of his woodpile, which had been much depleted by winter. But at the moment the hermit was hardly conscious of the wood, or anything else in the yard around him. Gelimer was enjoying the promise of an early spring sun, and thinking back over his life. He found much material there for thought, especially in the days of his youth, before he had become a hermit.

      He had become an anchorite long years ago, chiefly out of a sense of the need to withdraw from evil. But from time to time it was borne in upon him that evil, along with much else from his old life, was not to be so easily avoided.

      Gelimer possessed, as