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

up before her eyes and looked at it. The amulet was plain, almost crude, a little knot of glazed clay with symbols on it.

      Having put the little chain over her head, he hesitated. Then he said: “We are almost ready to make a serious attempt now; still I fear you are not ready.” But even as he spoke his great dark eyes were glowing their message of compassion, of love, into her eyes, into her heart.

      Cosmo moved a little closer, and with his right hand he brushed back Black Pearl’s long, black hair so that he could see more clearly into her eyes. Again he repeated another warning he had already given her several times.

      It was this: that the cure, even if against all odds it could be achieved this early in the course of treatment, could be no more than temporary at first.

      “However successful we are at this stage, you will revert to being a mermaid again, in less than a quarter of an hour—quite possibly much less. Such a temporary alleviation of the curse would be a first step only. But it would also be proof that eventually other steps are going to be possible. Strong evidence that in time we will find a way to cure you completely, permanently. You and all the mermaid sisterhood.”

      The mermaid nodded.

      His hand took her hand as she lay floating in the shallow water. And then, as he muttered incantations, his fingers began to stroke her hand, her arm, her shoulder.

* * *

      And it was during that very treatment, what Cosmo had said would be the first serious attempt, that the miracle occurred for the first time.

      Black Pearl’s body, already awakened sensually by the magician’s caresses even before the change he wrought had come fully upon it—her body found itself suddenly, entirely human. Completely and wholly that of a woman. Utterly female.

      And Cosmo, responding to her sobs of joy with certain rather similiar sounds of his own, was right at her side when the change came. Right there to draw Black Pearl from the water, cradling her two lithe, gently kicking legs in his left arm, his right arm under her shoulders. There to swing her round with a swift motion of strong arms to the soft bed only two meters distant, where, as he said, he sometimes slept.

      A quarter of an hour later, when the expected return change overtook Black Pearl, her new lover, despite all of his cautions that such a relapse was bound to happen, looked disappointed. But not for long. And she, absorbed in her new happiness, accepted the situation, too.

* * *

      The sessions of magic, lovemaking, and magic again, went on. There were many such sessions, one every few days, extending over several months. Sometimes the periods of two-legged normalcy were a little prolonged—once almost to half an hour—but still the final, permanent cure eluded the researcher and his patient lover.

      Each time Black Pearl swam into the grotto to meet him, Cosmo questioned her sternly as to whether she was continuing to keep their secret.

      “We are not so deeply into this that everything—your own fate as well as mine—depends upon your sharing the knowledge of what we do with no one. If you fail, the powers of magic will, I fear, doom you forever to keep your mermaid shape. Indeed—I have no wish to frighten you, my darling, but I must say this—they might warp you into something truly hideous.”

      So Black Pearl continued to keep the secret faithfully. She would have done anything, that the burning joy of her meetings with her lover might be made permanent.

* * *

      Autumn was yielding to the onset of this land’s brief winter when a night came that changed everyone’s life. A riverboat, whose origin Black Pearl was never to discover, came plunging down the Tungri from upstream, hurtling through the series of rapids and cascades known as the Second Cataract. The passage was extremely difficult even in bright daylight, even for an experienced crew. In wind and rain and clouds and fading daylight, the crew of this ship probably never had a chance. The bits and pieces of their upriver craft that later washed ashore were of no familiar make.

      The riverboat might well have been in precipitous flight from someone or something. In any case it failed to make the passage, which only experienced boatmen who were favored by a measure of luck could ever hope to complete successfully. The craft was knocked to pieces upon the rocks within the gorge, with the loss of all hands so far as could be told.

      Most of the inhabitants of the valley, the many who lived on land and the few who dwelt in water, were not aware of the wreck until hours or days later. Black Pearl, because she had just left a secret rendezvous on Magicians’ Island, happened to be first to reach the scene of the disaster.

      And so it was she who discovered Farslayer, one of the Twelve Swords of power and legend, lying undamaged and uncorroded on the river bottom, where the smashing of the boat had dropped it, among the deep cold boiling wells of current just below the cataract. Only a mermaid or a dolphin could have reached it swimming.

      Whenever a wreck similar to this one occurred, which was not often, the mermaids as a rule came swarming round, trying to help the injured and save the drowning if they could, trying also to see what treasure and trinkets they might be able to salvage from the victims’ cargo.

      But here were no survivors or victims, living or dead, immediately visible. When Black Pearl first saw the Sword lying in the twilight of the river bottom, her first thought was for almost-forgotten Zoltan, because this impressive weapon so closely resembled one she’d seen him wear. She’d seen him use it too in her defense.

      Much additional memory that had been almost lost came rushing back. If Zoltan had indeed been in the wrecked