Cascade Point and Other Stories Part 14

Not Always To The Strong

The flat stone jutted up out of the log-and-thong vise like the gray tooth of some giant predator. Squinting along its surface, Turek set his cutter carefully against a small protrusion and hit it a sharp blow. A chip of the stone fell away, and for the hundredth time Turek ran his fingertips along the cutting edge. Almost done, he decided; by noon he should have a functioning hoe again. He spotted another flaw, and had just set his cutter again when the knock came at his door.

He paused, listening, wondering if he'd imagined it. Visitors these days were few and far between, especially since one of Javan's spanking new Mindlight Masters had taken up residence in Keilberg, eliminating the villages last real need for a Shadow Warriors services. It was conceivable that someone from one of the farms to the west had come to ask his help, but even they seemed to prefer to walk the two extra miles into Keilberg. That it might be someone merely interested in Turek's company was unlikely in the extreme.

The knock came a second time, too loudly to be imagination. Putting down his tools, Turek got up and went to answer the door.

There were two of them; big men, both, dressed in gray cloaks and the dust of a long journey. The man in front was perhaps twenty-five, his companion a couple of years younger. "Master Turek, the Shadow Warrior?" the first man asked politely.Turek studied him a moment before answering. From his coloring and accent Turek would guess him to be a northman, possibly from the Lazuli region... Javan's home territory, where his Mindlight school was centered. The old feelings, long buried, began to churn again within him. "I am Turek," he acknowledged coldly.

"And you?"

The other didn't so much as move a single muscle-but Turek suddenly felt as if he'd tried to push over an eighty-year-old plains oak. The young man's aura of authority remained untouched by Turek's mild hostility; his eyes held a pride the Shadow Warrior had seen only rarely in his fifty years. Here was a man whose internal power bent to no one, and Turek's first suspicion vanished like dew under that steady gaze. Whoever he might be, he was emphatically no Mindlight Master.

"I am Krain," the man identified himself, "ruler of Masard, to the north. My aide, Pakstin. We'd like to talk with you, if you're free."

Something about his att.i.tude suggested that he expected Turek to say no. But Turek had no interest in a battle of wills. Stepping to one side, he gestured them in.

The meeting area of the house was small and modestly furnished; Turek never entertained much. "Please sit down," he said, indicating the room's two chairs.

"Pakstin will stand," Krain said as he sank into one of the straw-filled contour chairs, his aide taking up position beside him.

Shrugging, Turek took the other seat. "What can I do for you?" he asked.

"Ask rather what we can do for each other," Krain answered. "I've come here to offer you a permanent position in Masard."

"I see," Turek managed. It wasn't exactly the sort of response he'd been expecting. "To what do I owe this offer?"

"To my regret at seeing the n.o.ble brotherhood of Shadow Warriors in decline," the other said. "At Masard we are dedicated to improving the lives of our people by expanding the number and quality of tools available. Naturally, such attempts multiply the growth of Shadows in the region."

"Naturally." What the Shadows were and where they had come from was unknown, but the one absolute truth on Vesper was that everything made by man sooner or later grew a thick coating of Shadow. Invisible, intangible-but unpleasantly real. "And so naturally you need to hire more Shadow Warriors to deal with it. Right?"

"Of course."

Turek leaned back a bit more in his chair and favored the other with his most sardonic smile. "Sure you do. I don't know what kind of fool you take me for, Krain, but you're on the wrong road. In the first place, anything a Shadow Warrior can do for you one of Javan's swarm of eager young Mindlight Masters can do faster and easier-and Masard is practically next door to his Lazuli school. And in the second place, there must be dozens of Shadow Warriors closer to you than I am. Are you really going to try and persuade me that you had to come all the way down here-personally-to find one to hire?" He shook his head. "Try again."

"Very good." Krain's expression showed a pleased sort of satisfaction. "Very good indeed. You're quicker than most I've talked to. I'd begun to wonder if fighting Shadow diminished the mental faculties after a time. Tell me, would you like to be revenged on Javan?"

Turek stiffened. Memories flooded back.... "What would I want vengeance for?" he asked carefully.

"For destroying your livelihood, for starters." Krain's eyes swept the room carefully, his gaze lingering for a moment on the new hoe blade clearly visible through the open workroom door. "Ten years ago you would have had someone else making your tools and growing your food in exchange for your services against Shadow. You would have been the most valuable man in the entire Keilberg region. Javan's Mindlight technique ruined all that, usurping five generations of Shadow Warrior authority on Vesper."

"We never had any real authority," Turek disagreed quietly. "Nor did we desire any. Our desire was to serve the people, to help limit the Shadows that would otherwise force them to live like animals. Javan simply found a better and faster way to do that. Why shouldn't it replace our method?"

Krain shrugged, his eyes on Turek's face. "Yet I understand that your method eliminated Shadow at a high cost to your personal comfort and even, shall we say, to your long-term mental health. Why would you endure that if not for the prestige the blue cloak gave you?"

Turek shook his head; there was no answer he could give that would satisfy the other. "You spoke of revenge?"

"Yes." Krain leaned forward slightly. "As you stated, the power to destroy Shadow has s.h.i.+fted to Javan and his people, and with it has gone control over Vespers technological growth. I submit that Javan is not qualified to make the decisions that such control will require."

The young northman stopped, but the message underlying his words was clear enough. "Pa.s.sing up for the moment the question of whether or not your qualifications are better than his, what makes you think you can gain the influence you want anyway? Javan's probably got a couple of hundred students at any given time, and with all of them running around Lazuli destroying Shadows the village can probably support a population of over a thousand by now. Few of them are going to take kindly to interference or pressure from Masard."

"I won't be going to Lazuli alone," Krain said. "My army numbers nearly three hundred, and is well trained."

"So what? Fighting sticks are fighting sticks, no matter how expert your men are."

"True-but we have something a bit better than fighting sticks." He gestured to Pakstin, still standing by his seat. In a single smooth motion the aide threw back his cloak, reached across to his left hip, and pulled out- A three-foot-long sword.

Turek had seen swords before, of course; carved wooden things, usually, sometimes with sharp bits of stone embedded in their edges. Glorified clubs, really; but this one was different. Its handle was wooden, but its blade had the smooth sheen of pure metal, and even from several feet away it was clear that the point and edges were sharp. "Impressive," he murmured. "Probably draws Shadow like crazy, too."

"Why not check it for yourself?" Krain suggested.

Turek frowned, then shrugged. "All right. Hold it steady, Pakstin."

Closing his eyes, Turek set his mind into the proper pattern and dilated his pupils. He snapped them open for a second, then squeezed them shut again; and on the afterimage the Shadow was very clear. It was a good two feet in diameter, surrounding the sword like a black coc.o.o.n. Opening his eyes, Turek studied Pakstin's face briefly. Gripping the sword hilt, his hand in the middle of a Shadow of that size, the northman should be feeling a fair amount of discomfort-and, sure enough, the signs of tension were there. But just barely. Pakstin clearly had a good deal of self-control. If all of Krain's men were so well disciplined...

"How long would you estimate the Shadow has been growing?" Krain asked, breaking Turek's train of thought.

"Oh, six hours or so. Maybe twelve if the metals not too well refined."

The other shook his head, a slight smile on his face. "We had a Mindlight Master clean it-and the blanket it was wrapped in at the time-in Paysan three days ago."

"Three days?" Turek hunched forward, interested in spite of himself. "What kind of metal is that?"

"First of all, it's an alloy, not a pure metal-a combination of copper and tin, actually-which should make it a little closer to a natural material. But the key, I think, is the fact that oriflamme bones are mixed into the molten metal during the alloying process. They don't seem to decrease the metals strength appreciably, and the extra impurity dramatically decreases the rate of Shadow growth."

Turek nodded slowly as Pakstin sheathed his blade again. It made sense, he supposed-a metal loaded with impurities was certainly less advanced than a pure metal would be, and that seemed to be the only criterion Shadow cared about. But there was something else that was not quite right about this scheme, something he couldn't quite put his finger on. "So I presume what you're asking me to do is to come to Masard and keep Shadows off your weapons while you beat Lazuli into submission. Right?"

"Actually, I'm hoping there will be no fighting at all, that the village will recognize the futility of resistance," Krain said offhandedly. "But you're not just being hired for this single operation. You and the other three Shadow Warriors who've joined me will have honored positions in my realm, regaining the prestige you once held."

-And the missing piece fell into place. "These swords of yours," Turek said slowly, "you make them yourself?"

Krain nodded, the pleased look back on his face. "We have a group of smiths right in Masard turning out ten blades a day."

"With your new Shadow Warriors standing by to keep Shadows away from the final product," Turek nodded. "But you can't be making the metal itself, because to get an alloy strong enough for a sword blade you'd have to start with almost pure copper and tin. Three Shadow Warriors couldn't even begin to keep up with the Shadows that would grow-never mind the advanced smelters you'd also have to have." He gestured toward the hidden sword. "Someone in Lazuli developed this alloy, didn't they? Someone with a Mindlight Master or two standing over his shoulder. What did you do, sneak into the village and steal some of the metal?"

"More or less." If Krain felt any guilt over his action he hid it well. "But don't worry about that-we have enough to make all the swords we'll need to bring Javan to his knees. And after that we'll have both the smelter and the Mindlight Masters and can make all the weapons we'll ever need." The northman leaned back in his seat. "But I think you've heard enough to make your decision. What say you, Master Turek?"

Turek held the others gaze for only a second. Then, almost of their own accord, his eyes s.h.i.+fted left to stare out the window as he remembered that day in Akkad-so long ago!-when Javan had once and for all proved his new technique... and had totally humiliated Turek in the process. He could still feel the stabbing pain of Javan's "psychic light"-the light which only Turek, because of his years as a Shadow Warrior, had been able to see... could still feel the shame of fainting in front of the crowd, and then awakening to discover the huge Shadow had been completely destroyed by that single blast. He'd hated Javan for a long time after that-and the knowledge that such feelings were unjustified had only made them worse. But of course the hatred had long since died... hadn't it?

And now he was being offered vengeance... and the chance to once more do something that would affect people's lives. Krain had been right-he missed the prestige of the blue cloak. Missed it more than he'd realized... perhaps more than was good for him....

Krain was still watching him when Turek brought back his gaze. "Yes," the Shadow Warrior said firmly. "I'll come with you."

They left the next morning, picking up provisions in Keilberg on their way. It was a good ten-day trip to Masard; but though the two northmen were agreeable enough companions, Turek learned far less about them during the journey than he'd expected to. Krain, particularly, seemed unwilling to talk about his personal life and ambitions, and was adept at s.h.i.+fting the conversation whenever Turek tried to draw him out. Such reticence surprised the Shadow Warrior; he would have expected a would-be conqueror-especially one so young-to be more given to self-centered boasting. As a partial result, a great deal of their talk centered on Masard and the surrounding region, so that by the time they reached the village Turek felt almost as if he were coming home, even though he'd never before visited the area. Perhaps, he thought, that was the goal Krain had had in mind.

Masard was a huge village by Vesperian standards, its adobe buildings sprawling over several square miles and its population approaching the eleven- hundred mark. Krain's residence was on the northern edge, and as the three men walked through the village Turek kept his eyes open for signs of war preparations.

Surprisingly, he saw none.

"Because the general population doesn't know about my plans," Krain said when Turek questioned him about it.

"How did you hide the conscription of three hundred men? Make up some story about a labor levy?"

"The core of my army is my personal guard. For the rest"-he shrugged-"I've hired men from Gla.s.stone and the Fens."

Turek frowned. How did Krain expect to make any sort of permanent conquest if he wasn't even preparing his own people for the idea? And why keep the truth from them, anyway?

He found the answer to at least part of his question as they pa.s.sed the next street. Two buildings down the avenue a young man was listening to an old fruit merchant near the latter's cart. Fastening the youths ordinary brown cloak about his shoulders was a distinctive sun-shaped gold pin.

Turek paused, and apparently his blue cloak caught the youth's attention. For a moment they eyed each other across the gap, the Shadow Warrior and the Mindlight Master, as the old merchant prattled on, oblivious to the sudden tension in the air around him. Unconsciously tugging his cloak tighter, Turek turned away and moved on. Within seconds the youth was lost to view behind the next building.

"His name's Isserli-one of about six who live permanently in Masard," Krain murmured at Turek's side.

The Shadow Warrior nodded. Of course Krain hadn't told his people of his plans for Lazuli-aside from the fact that word would be bound to get back quickly to Javan, the people of Masard depended on the Mindlight Masters for the life of their village. Any threat to Javan would bring howls of protest and possibly a full-fledged insurrection.

"Once we have Lazuli and the Mindlight school, of course, there'll be no problem." Krain might have been reading Turek's mind. "Then we'll have all the Mindlight Masters we need and no one in Masard will have any cause to complain about my methods."

Or at least such protests would be few and far between. "When do you plan to move?" Turek asked.

"Very soon." Krain paused until they had pa.s.sed a particularly crowded part of the street. "Already we have men watching the only road into Lazuli, watching to make sure they don't bring in more of the ores they would need to make their own weapons. In a week or less we'll seal the road completely and call on the village to surrender. If they refuse... we'll go in."

"I see." Turek strove to keep the surprise out of his face and voice; he hadn't realized the plan was that close to readiness. "What do you want me to do in preparation?"

"Pakstin will take you to the weapons shed to meet the other Shadow Warriors and the smiths," Krain told him. "They'll show you what needs to be done."

They walked in silence after that, and a few minutes later came in sight of a large but unpretentious house whose main distinctions seemed to be the wall surrounding it and the liveried guard at the main entrance. Krain said his farewells and headed for the house; Pakstin and Turek veered west and circled the wall. It turned out to be more extensive than Turek had realized, stretching back several hundred feet past the rear of the house itself. Set into it was another door, this one unguarded, at least on the outside. Stepping up to it, Pakstin knocked twice and spoke quietly through the peephole that opened in response. The door swung wide; beckoning to Turek, Pakstin led the way inside.

The area looked as if it had once been a formal garden-orchard of the imposing type Turek would have expected someone like Krain to own. But most of the flowers and bushes in the center had vanished, and the circle of trees now ringed a swordsman-training area. Twenty or thirty men were engaged in drills as Pakstin and Turek skirted the area, and the sunlight flas.h.i.+ng from so many swords was an awesome sight. From somewhere to the south, the sound of gentle hammering was audible.

"The smithy is back this way," Pakstin said as they threaded their way through a group of medium-sized tents and headed toward the sound. The tent material was a fairly advanced type Turek had seen before: cloth impregnated with tree resins for waterproofing purposes. The resins, he remembered, had the unfortunate side effect of being flammable, but as long as one was careful the benefits usually outweighed the risks. Turek hoped Krain hadn't neglected that aspect of his men's training.

A moment later they had arrived at the smithy, an open-air sort of thing where four muscular men were carefully hammering the edges of embryonic sword blades, while other strips of the metal softened over a nearby fire. Standing off to one side, well away from the heat, were three old men in blue cloaks.

Pakstin made the introductions. "Rusten, Spard, and Brisher; this is Turek, who's just joined us. Perhaps you can fill him in on whatever Shadows need to be cleared out?"

"Yes, we'll take charge of him," Brisher rumbled. "You can go back inside and play with your maps and stones."

Pakstin's smile was tolerant and just a little bit condescending. "Maps of the area around Lazuli and markers indicating our men," he explained to Turek. "We use them to plan our strategy. I'll leave you to get acquainted."

For a moment after he left the Shadow Warriors eyed one another in silence.

Turek had never met these particular three men before, but had heard of them, and was a little surprised they had lent their services to this endeavor. Older and more experienced than he was-Brisher, the youngest, couldn't have been less than sixty years old-they should have been among the most willing to step down when Javan's technique began to take root. But even as he studied their lined faces and tired eyes, Turek realized they were no more paragons of n.o.bility than he was...

and they had fought Shadow longer than he had before seeing their quiet sacrifices rendered unnecessary and unnoticed by the people of Vesper. No wonder Krain had spoken so much of revenge; that approach seemed to have already proved its effectiveness. Feeling vaguely embarra.s.sed, Turek s.h.i.+fted his gaze from them and turned instead toward the smithy. Closing his eyes, he did his afterimage trick.

Forges and their a.s.sociated tools grew Shadows fairly quickly, but this one seemed reasonably clean. "You're doing a good job with the Shadows here," he commented, just for something to say.

"That's what we were hired to do," Rusten said, a bit tartly. Turek's reaction to his tone must have been visible, because his next words were a degree more civil.

"Sorry-didn't mean to jump all over you. You're from Keilberg, aren't you? I seem to remember hearing your name some years back."

Turek nodded. "You've got a good memory for trivia. I've heard of all of you, of course. You were considered among the best Shadow Warriors on Vesper when I was an apprentice."

Spard smiled thinly. " 'Were' is the proper word," he said.

"Yes." Feeling awkward, Turek hunted for a less painful topic of conversation. "Tell me, what do you think Krain's chances are?"

Spard shrugged and glanced at his fellows. "Pretty good, I suppose.

Considering that no one's ever tried warfare on this scale before, Krain seems to have the details worked out reasonably well."

"His chances are excellent," Brisher growled, fingering his beard restlessly.

"Lazuli's built with its back against sheer cliffs to the north and east, and a narrow but very fast whiteriver to the west. Even with only three hundred men he can easily control the villages exit, and can therefore starve them into submission."

Turek nodded; he'd already come to more or less the same conclusion.

Lazuli's unusually sheltered location, he remembered hearing, had been an experiment to see if cliffs and rapids hindered Shadow formation in any way. It hadn't worked, of course.

"Krain's not going to bother with something like that," Rusten disagreed. "He can't afford to spend that much time without control of Javan's school-all of us will be needed to clear Shadows from the weapons and there's no guarantee he'll be able to keep Isserli and his friends working in Masard."

"Speaking of weapons," Turek put in, "could I see the swords Krain has ready? I'd like to test the Shadow growing there."

"It's no different than the Shadow around a single one, except in degree,"

Spard said. "But they're piled over through there if you really want to see them."

He pointed past the smithy. "Don't worry about the guards; they'll have been told about you by now."

"Thanks." Turek moved off as the discussion continued in a halfhearted sort of way behind him. Just another group of hirelings, he thought with mixed pity and contempt-hirelings submitting to Krain's ambition. He wondered if they realized how far they'd fallen.

Only later did he wonder if they saw him the same way.

The swords were stored in a thick-walled adobe shed, whose single door was flanked by two of the biggest men Turek had ever seen. Big, able-looking-and somewhat fidgety. A quick check showed why; the Shadow around the swords was already extending several feet outside the shed.

Sighing, Turek squared his shoulders and moved forward. A Shadow that size would take at least two a.s.saults, and he might as well get started now. Besides, it would give him the chance to look at the swords. Nodding to the guards, he pulled open the shed door and stepped inside.

It wasn't as bad as it might have been. Shadows around the most advanced man-made objects not only grew larger and faster than average, but also were "denser" in their effect. Before Turek had even entered the shed he'd felt the first uncomfortably nervous sensation; once inside, it got quickly worse as his skin began to creep and nausea grew like poisonous fire in his stomach. But he could fight it somewhat-and he could walk right up to the neatly stacked swords without feeling any of the muscular twitches which could incapacitate a man if allowed to grow large enough. Turek had heard of only one man who'd ever gone that far into Shadow, down at Lander's Waste where the old stars.h.i.+p lay. He'd died for his audacity, the legend said. Presumably in agony.

But such thoughts wasted time. Gritting his teeth, Turek focused his mind against the Shadow... and after a time he felt its resistance break...

Shaking his head to clear it, he stepped a bit unsteadily to the wall. The sensations vanished just as he reached it, showing him where the Shadow's new edge lay. A half hour's rest, and he'd be able to clear the rest of it out. But first- He glanced out the door, confirmed that both guards were facing away from him. Moving quietly, he walked back to the Shadow's center. The sword he picked up was heavier than he had expected, but not unreasonably so. And fastened securely to his waist sash, hidden under his cloak, it would be invisible. Outside, off among the trees, he could take the time to destroy the Shadow that still clung to it.

Leaving the shed, he set off in search of privacy.