Swords: 08 - The Fifth Book Of Lost Swords - Coinspinner’s Story (6 page)

      
“That’s right,” chimed in another. “How ’bout giving us the chance to get some of our money back?”

      
Kebbi, who had been half expecting such protests, had already decided in the interests of peace to give in to them the first time they were offered. The next time matters would be different, and no one could say he hadn’t given them a chance to recoup their trivial losses. Perhaps when the protesters had lost more, they would be willing enough to see his back.

      
“As you wish,” he said, shrugging, and resumed his seat.

      
“This time,” announced the physically largest of his adversaries in a challenging voice, “we use my dice.”

      
“That’s all right.”

      
A few moments later, the owner of the crooked, probably magical dice was staring at them in disbelief. His pet artifacts had obviously betrayed him; whatever spell or other trick he’d used had been overridden as if it did not exist. The pattern of the pips represented a very ordinary combination, but obviously it was not a pattern the owner had expected from these particular dice on one in a million throws.

      
And naturally it was a pattern that won for Kebbi yet again.

      
A series of muttered remarks among the locals, only partially audible to the stranger, revealed that their opinions had now begun to differ sharply. One faction was definitely ready to let the over lucky stranger go his way in peace. But another faction, fast becoming dominant, was entertaining quite different ideas.

      
The biggest of the local men stood up. Glowering at Kebbi, he proclaimed: “We don’t need any wizards in this game.”

      
The Culmian shook his head. “I should think your friends would pay more heed to your protest—if it didn’t come from a man who brought crooked dice into the game.”

      
As he finished speaking, Kebbi pushed back from the table and stepped free of the encumbering bench. From that position he backed away, intending to get his back near one of the scrawny trees in the inn yard. Not that he doubted the power that protected him, but somehow he saw no need to make things unreasonably difficult.

      
One or two players remained at the table, waiting for the interruption to be over. The rest of them came after Kebbi, unhurriedly, methodically. Now they were beginning to surround him, and some of their hands were reaching toward weapons. Their proposed victim had his right hand on the black hilt of his own blade, though he’d not actually drawn it yet.

      
There was a pause. So far the air of confidence displayed by the stranger was holding the others back. But none of them seemed to recognize a Sword, and Kebbi understood that in a matter of moments things were going to get really ugly.

      
Before the storm could break, there came an interruption.

      
Kebbi, his attention warily on his fellow players, was among the last to notice the arrival of a tall and handsome man, who now appeared silently, standing at the edge of the firelight, with a shadowy and much smaller attendant poised just behind him. It was as if the two of them had just arrived by walking—there had been no sight or sound of any animals they might have ridden—along the lightless road. Coinciding with the arrival of the pair, the moon emerged from behind a fragmentary cloud, and in the change of light the two figures took on a spectral look.

      
The tall newcomer was richly dressed. Putting up a hand, he threw back the hood of his sumptuous cape, revealing golden curls and a healthy beard to match. Simultaneously he advanced slowly toward the gaming table. The lamp-light fell on clear blue eyes, muscular shoulders, large hands, and a handsome face. A long sword of some kind was belted at the newcomer’s waist.

      
His much smaller companion followed him closely, but maintaining a certain distance like a respectful servitor. A few steps closer to the lamps and it was easy to see that she was a woman, as fair as the man, and with a delicate feminine beauty of face that more than matched his masculine good looks. Her beauty was combined with an aura of power and self-confidence, enough of both that Kebbi heard not a single mutter of lechery from any of the scum present. He thought that even had her escort not appeared so formidable, the result would have been the same.

      
“I hope that the game is not yet finished.” The voice of the tall newcomer was powerful, and strangely accented, and he was looking steadily at Kebbi as he spoke. “Come, I am sure that it must not be finished. For I intend to play.” His smile showed perfect teeth.

      
Kebbi said nothing in reply to this. Nor did the men who had almost surrounded him. They were leaving him alone now, and beginning to drift back in the general direction of the table. The tall blond man moved in the same direction now, and their group shattered, softly and silently, and began to disperse into the background.

      
The music of drum and tambourine, which had faded away when the threat of violence loomed large, now resumed slowly. Very gradually the tempo began to pick up again.

      
The new arrival still smiled at Kebbi across the battered table, where two lamps still flared upon brown cloth. The dice, the original dice belonging to the landlord, lay at one end unattended.

      
“Shall we?” The newcomer gestured toward the abundance of empty chairs.

      
“Why not?” As he stepped forward Kebbi had his hand on the hilt of his Sword, and he could feel the immense power so subtly playing there. Fortune had somehow found a door to open for him, even in this almost uninhabited wilderness. He returned the stranger’s smile.

      
The former participants in the game were now drifting back again a little toward the table. Not that they had any intention of sitting down; they were glad to excuse themselves from this particular contest, but they did not want to miss seeing it, either.

      
The stranger was as indifferent to what these men did as he was to the indifferent women who had now resumed their dance.

      
Kebbi and the newcomer, as if by unspoken agreement punctiliously observing some rule of courtesy, seated themselves simultaneously.

      
Kebbi, feeling an intoxication much more of impending triumph than of drink, faced his single opponent across the blanket-covered table. The tall man’s shadowy companion, as if she meant to protect his back, moved up close behind him, where she remained standing.

      
And now, moving slowly, the hand of the unknown brought forth from somewhere inside his cape a truly magnificent jewel, holding it up for all to see. The stone was the shape of a teardrop, the color of a sapphire’s blood. His large, strong fingers held it up, turning it in the lamplight for Kebbi to see and admire. Still the man’s attention was entirely concentrated upon Kebbi, as if he were totally indifferent as to anything that other folk might see or do.

      
Unhurriedly the tall man said: “I will stake this gem against the Sword you wear.”

      
All Kebbi could think was that Fortune, the Sword’s Fortune, was working even more swiftly and powerfully than he had dreamt was possible.

      
“One roll of the dice?” he asked.

      
“One roll.”

      
“Fine. I accept.”

      
Satisfied, the stranger nodded and looked away. Now his long arm went out to scoop up the dice where they lay at the end of the table; and now he was putting them down on the cloth in front of Kebbi.

      
Now, at the last moment, Kebbi felt a twinge of reluctance to stake his Sword in any wager. But Coinspinner would not, could not, have led him into this situation only to have him suffer such a loss.

      
Unless this could be the Sword’s method of taking itself away from him? But no, according to the stories Coinspinner used no human agency for that.

      
Another musician, he thought vaguely, had joined in. It now seemed to him that he could hear the sound of a third drum, tapping a jarring counterpoint to the first two.

      
And Kebbi threw the dice against a lamp—an eight.

      
Now it was the stranger’s turn. His large right hand cupped the landlord’s dice, and threw them out with careless impatience.

      
Seven.

      
The rich jewel that Kebbi had just won came arcing toward him through the lamplight, tossed by the stranger. Kebbi automatically put up his hand and caught the bright pebble in mid-flight.

      
“Now,” said the stranger, to all appearances unperturbed by such a loss. “Now, we are going to play again. Double or nothing.” And between the fingers of his gloved right hand appeared two more gems, each looking exactly like the one he had just lost.

      
Kebbi’s breath hissed out between his teeth. “I accept.” His doubts had been foolish. Whatever might happen next, he was protected.

      
This time the stranger threw first.

      
Four.

      
Yielding to a mad twitch of bravado, Kebbi threw left-handed this time. As he did so, three fingers of his right hand were resting lightly on his sheathed Sword’s hilt, and the great, strange jewel he had just won was clenched securely in the remaining two.

      
But there was something wrong with the result, and Kebbi could only stare at it without comprehension.

      
Three.

      
The dice read only three. A single pip on one ivory cube, two on the other. And that meant that this time, he—he and Coinspinner together—had lost.

      
Such a result could not be true. It could not be true. It could not be possible, or—

      
Struggling to make sense of the impossible, Kebbi did not notice that again only two drums beat in the background.

      
There had been some mistake, some error in the way the world was working. The Sword of Chance could not be beaten, least of all in a game of chance. But he could not bring himself to utter a word. How could his luck, how could the power of the Sword, have suddenly deserted him? The Sword itself was still with him. He could still feel its silent energy, seemingly unimpaired.

      
Kebbi was too stunned to make any effort at resistance when the tall stranger, giving up an effort to talk to him, came moving lithely around the table. He was jerked to his feet. Strong hands undid his sword belt and pulled it away, carrying its priceless contents with it. A moment later the great jewel that had been his so briefly was torn from where his fingers still clenched it, mindlessly, against the palm of his hand. Then Kebbi was cast aside, staggering, like some emptied and discarded vessel.

      
A moment later the tall stranger and his diminutive attendant were in retreat, vanishing almost as suddenly as they had appeared. And already the local men, the losers in the first game, were closing in on the fallen Kebbi, determined to reclaim the few coins he had won from them.

      
Still too shocked to do anything, the most recent loser could already hear them arguing over who would get his riding-beast.

* * *

      
The tall blond man in the sumptuous cloak, hurrying away from the poor tavern with his companion and his new-won prize, had not far to go down the dark road before he was met by a griffin, a mount bigger than a war beast, winged like a giant eagle and taloned, fanged, and muscled like a lion. The creature crouched before the man in the attitude of a submissive pet.

      
In the next moment the man’s diminutive helper, the tiny woman of great beauty, moving like an active child, hopped aboard the beast. Then she looked down at him where he still stood gloating over the Sword he had just won.

      
He had drawn another Sword that looked identical to the first and was exulting with one blade in each hand.

      
“Master Wood?” she called, deferentially puzzled.

      
“One moment. With Coinspinner now in hand, I have some spells to cast. Trapping spells. Before I do anything else.”

      
“Against Prince Mark?”

      
“Against his whelp. The elder one, the heir. A softer target, dear, by far.”

Chapter Five

      
As Adrian and Trilby continued their steady advance into the City of Wizards, the landscape through which they passed became even less like that of the normal world outside. Within the domain they had now entered, a glow of extra magical potential, perceptible to their trained senses, touched and transformed almost everything.

      
As they approached the center of the City, the architecture around them grew ever more extraordinary too. Hovels and monuments stood side by side. Segments and quarterings of palaces, disconnected from their rightful places in the outside world, loomed over shanties. Mausoleums carved with incomprehensible inscriptions bulked next to fishermen’s huts, far from any water.

      
And that center was somewhat closer to the travelers than had at first appeared. The bizarre urban skyline ahead of them, not really as tall as they had thought, was rapidly separating itself into distinct structures as they walked toward it. And at the same time the individual structures grew more distinct, in both their normal and magical outlines. In all this the two apprentice magicians found nothing overtly alarming. But still, despite the study and preparation that had led them to expect such phenomena, the intrinsic strangeness of the place was awesome.

      
As the two adventurers advanced, looking around them alertly, each reminded the other at least once, in a low voice, that the most efficient way to accomplish their objective would be to obtain the desired paving tile and return to the compound of Trimbak Rao before midnight.

      
Their pace slowed somewhat as they found themselves, almost before they had expected it, moving right in among the taller buildings. Here the descriptions given them by Trimbak Rao continued to prove accurate. Their dog-leg road had turned into a broad paved street, not quite straight, wide in some places and narrow in others, crossed at short intervals by other thoroughfares, most of which were more distorted than itself.

      
Presently the explorers reached a distinctive intersection, marked by a triple fountain in the center. To reach their goal from here, if what their Teacher had told them was correct, it would be necessary to walk about a kilometer on a circuitous route. They could expect serious difficulties in ever reaching the park they were attempting to enter, Trimbak Rao had warned them, unless they approached it from the proper direction.

      
So far they had seen no living presence, human or otherwise, in the City besides themselves. The buildings around them appeared to be completely uninhabited, by humanity at least, and yet they certainly were not silent. At intervals there was music—of a kind. It was so unlike anything that Adrian had ever heard before, that he was unable to find words to describe it. He could tell from Trilby’s expression that she was puzzled by it too. These sounds issued from unseen sources among certain of the buildings as the visitors passed. At other moments strange voices could be heard, some crying out as if in pain, some laughing, others singing or reciting gibberish. Trimbak Rao had not warned his students about these voices, and the explorers exchanged glances. But then, they had known that the City was in some sense inhabited, and there had been no reason for the Teacher to warn them of every harmless oddity they might encounter. Small waves of magical disturbance came washing across the cityscape with the voices, but still Adrian thought that most of them at least sounded human.

      
When he and Trilby had gone on a hundred meters from the square of the triple fountains, their pace slowed again, as by some unspoken agreement. Now something, some instinct, seemed to be telling Adrian not to hurry. Caution was essential here. Again and again he could hear the Teacher’s voice, in memory, warning against undue haste.

      
The steps of his booted feet dragged on the cracked pavement.

      
Trilby appeared to be having somewhat similar thoughts, for her steps were slowing too; her eyes looked troubled when he glanced at her.

      
Moving at an ever more slothful pace, the explorers presently came in sight of a small, briskly flowing stream that appeared to have cut its course haphazardly between buildings. Most streets stopped abruptly at its banks, but a few had somehow acquired bridges.

      
Following the stream’s bank, Adrian and Trilby soon entered the park-like plot of land that was their goal. At his first sight of the patch of thriving greenery, Adrian experienced a sense of anticlimax, though he was not sure how it was different from what he had been expecting.

      
The park was basically an expanse of grass that appeared to still be well maintained. Here and there a bank of hardy-looking flowers had been placed, as it seemed, by some gardener much given to random choices. Trees and bushes appeared in pleasingly unplanned positions, and narrow walks of fine gravel curved among them. The whole occupied not much more than an irregular hectare of land, and just beyond its hedged borders the structures of the City stood as before.

      
There on the park’s left side stood what must be the Red Temple the Teacher had warned them about, looking very much as Trimbak Rao had described it, yet somehow not exactly as Adrian had expected. The customary Red Temple colors of red and black dominated what he could see of the structure’s outer walls, which were also decorated with many statues depicting the joys of the senses.

      
“We’d better take a look around the perimeter of the park,” said Trilby. “Before we start digging up tiles. Just to scout things out.”

      
“Sure.”

      
Beginning a clockwise circuit, the two young people walked closer to the Temple. As the angle from which they viewed it changed, the building began to take on a look of considerable deformity. From within the Temple’s several doorways, all dark but wide open, issued sounds that made the young Prince think vaguely of some huge spinning mechanism, and also of a crowd of humanity all speaking in low and urgent voices.

      
Not that there was any crowd to be discovered when Trilby and Adrian peered over the hedge bordering the park, trying to see into the Temple’s main entrance. Where once, no doubt, some eager throngs of customers and worshippers had passed, unmarked dust had drifted on the pavement, and small plants were growing here and there. There was no visible trace of human presence.

      
In the direction of the Red Temple, the indications and auras of magic, subtle and faintly ominous, were even more numerous than elsewhere in the City. But all the traces were weak and old; there was nothing that suggested clear and present danger.

      
They paused to study the statues and carvings on the Temple wall, showing the usual copulations and debauchery.

      
Adrian’s companion, her head on one side, was taking time to consider the art critically.

      
“I intend to remain a virgin,” said Trilby at last, speaking as if more to herself than to her companion. “For the foreseeable future.”

      
Maintaining virginity was a frequent goal, Adrian knew, among both males and females who intended to devote their lives, or at least their youth, to magic. He was still a year or so too young to have to confront this as a personal decision; now he only nodded and moved slowly on.

      
“We’d better go slow,” said Trilby, rather unnecessarily, as they turned away from the border hedge, back into the innocent-appearing parkland.

      
“Right. Take out time to scout this place, and do it properly.” Adrian felt vaguely reassured that Trilby now shared his growing reluctance to be hurried into any aspect of their mission before they could think it out thoroughly in advance.

      
The park was more or less centered on a pool formed by the small river’s encounter with a low dam. Over this barrier, no more than a couple of meters high, the water rushed with a continuous if muted roar.

      
“That’s not as loud as it might be,” Trilby commented.

      
“Magic?” Adrian asked.

      
“Magic?” repeated Trilby. Then with a shake of her head she answered her own question. “Well, of course it’s magic. At least to some extent. Like everything else we’ve come across today.”

      
Bordering on the pool was the paved square from which they were expected to remove a tile. Again things were not quite as Adrian had thought to find them. It was as if the soil had somehow been extracted from underneath, and the surface from which the tile would have to be removed was concave, with its lowest central portion under half a meter or more of standing water, at about the level of the surface of the nearby pool. This encroachment of the pool was evidently not a purely recent or temporary development. Furry-looking green plants of various sizes, thriving in this damp environment, grew over much of the exposed pavement and through the water, adding at least one more minor obstacle to the job of tile removal.

      
“Wow!” said Adrian suddenly, ceasing to be a coolly detached investigator.

      
“What is it?”

      
Probing with his powers as best he could into the earth directly beneath the pavement, Adrian confirmed what he had just detected there. “What a pool of energy. Could I ever raise an elemental here!”

      
Trilby looked at him with interest. “Are you going to try it?”

      
“No, not now. There wouldn’t be any point. But wow, what a potential,” he murmured, letting his perception range farther among the strained and troubled rocks and soil many meters beneath this fancy pavement.

* * *

      
Trilby was frowning lightly now, with more than concentration, Adrian thought; and he himself felt an undercurrent of slight uneasiness. Well, it was hardly astonishing if land in the vicinity of an ancient Red Temple, which had been transported magically into the City at some time in the past, should prove to be inhabited or infested by beings, powers, that seemed strange even to magicians. Perhaps yet another plane of existence, containing yet other inhabitants, was nearby.

      
“Well,” said Trilby at last, and sighed like one unable any longer to avoid facing a distasteful job. “I suppose we ought to see about digging out our tile.”

      
“I suppose,” the Prince agreed doubtfully. “But listen, Trill—”

      
“What?”

      
“Are we really sure that this is the right place? The Teacher didn’t say anything about the pavement being sunken in like this. I thought the place we wanted was going to be square and level.”

      
“Good point. I wonder?” Trilby scraped with the toe of her boot at the green-scummed tiles of the visible portion of the floor.

      
And now, to Adrian, the tiles in this pavement were indeed beginning to look different than the ones he remembered in the study of Trimbak Rao. Because of the flood, the only tiles he could see clearly here were those around the edge. These were of an abstract pattern, containing no erotic figures, whereas those in the study had portrayed a scene, or several scenes…

      
“I don’t know,” Trilby was saying. “Remember those tiles we saw on Teacher’s wall? Didn’t some of them make up a scene, a figure of a woman, giving birth?”

      
“Yes. I can remember that. And some of them were just porn, like the Temple wall.”

      
“No, that’s not right.”

      
The two explorers stood looking at each other in moderate puzzlement. Not that they were really concerned. Neither of them saw anything in their situation to worry about.

      
“The main point,” said Trilby, giving her dark hair a shake, “is that we shouldn’t rush things. We must make sure of what we’re doing.” The air seemed to be growing warmer, and she fanned herself with the hand that did not hold her staff.

      
Adrian had to agree. “Yes, you’re right. The Teacher told us not to rush things. Over and over he told us that.”

      
“Maybe we should scout around the area a little more.”

      
“I think we should.”

      
Without really thinking about it, they had turned their backs on the square of tiles, and were now standing side by side on the edge of the little pond. Its water looked deep and was almost calm, mirror-like until it began to curl into a white roar at the very edge of the dam. A small pier, wooden and moss-grown, projected from the near shoreline out into the pond, and a dugout canoe was tied at the pier’s far end.

      
Trilby knelt down suddenly and thrust her hand into the water. “Feels cool.”

      
Slipping off his pack, Adrian knelt beside her, cupping water in his own palms. “Sure does.” Then he raised his eyes suddenly, staring at the canoe. There was something unusual about it, besides the fact that it had been carved from a single log, and finished smoothly, with exquisite skill. But for the moment he couldn’t quite pin the oddity down.

      
Yes, something unusual, with overtones of the festive and the unpredictable…

      
“The sky’s changed,” Trilby informed him suddenly.

      
And indeed the day had now become almost normal. A bright and normal-looking sun, not too hot, was clearly visible over the building that adjoined the little park on the side opposite the Red Temple. Adrian made a mental note to himself to be sure to observe the way the sun moved as the day advanced. He still had no idea of the proper directions in this world—if indeed such an idea had any real meaning here.