Fred Saberhagen Lost Swords 06 Mindswords story

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nature of our partnership is to be."
The Eyeless One clapped hands to his face. Now truly blind, he groped and whimpered helplessly on
his slippery roof.
"Be of good cheer. If you were to grovel properly in supplication, I might be willing to shorten
your period of darkness."
But instead of groveling, Vilkata ceased to whimper. Drawing himself up, he regained and
maintained some dignity in the face of this threat.
He muttered a few words in a low voice.
"Calling for help, great wizard? Feel free to do so. I can repel your " Akbar's voice broke off.
The Dark King had risked all, diving bodily forward, over empty space, in a blind lunge aimed at
the Sword he could no longer see; his right hand and arm, groping, grasping for treasure or for a
life-saving grip, made violent contact with the razor-keeness of the Blade. The impact gashed
Vilkata, and knocked Skulltwister from its perch.
The Sword fell again, once more passing out of everyone's immediate reach.
Vilkata, his gamble lost, clung blindly to the cornice for an instant, with his uninjured hand.
Then he fell but not to his doom. The shape of his newly summoned demon blurred through the air,
catching him in mid-tumble.
The maidenly human shape of Akbar was leaning over the balustrade, watching the Sword fall, when a
bulky man burst into view behind it on the balcony and grappled the demon from behind.
Murat, still single-mindedly intent, resumed his infinitely determined, crawling descent. He could
still see Skulltwister, which this time had come to rest point uppermost, hilt and pommel stuck
down into a drain on a roof's corner. Again his Sword had not fallen far, and he thought he could
quickly get within reach.
In the instant of being seized by human arms, Akbar the demon let out a little sound of genuine
fear. The maiden's shape vanished in an eyeblink, to be replaced by the semblance of a great ape.
A violent struggle began.
Murat, his immediate enemies vanished or distracted, had needed only the space of a few breaths to
get within reach or almost of the Sword. From the wall to which he clung, the man, stretching his
right arm out to the uttermost, might have barely touched Skulltwister's point. It was impossible
to clamber any closer, without going an impossibly long way around.
Drawing in his body, pressing himself against his own wall once again, the Crown Prince took a
moment's rest. If only Carlo could help. But Carlo . . .
Concentrating totally on his goal, working as swiftly as he could, Murat unhooked the long empty
sheath from his belt. As when he had once before picked up and claimed the naked Sword, he would
now have to work the sheath onto the Blade before he dared try to seize the god-forged thing,
whose unstemmed tide of magic now bathed him at close quarters.
Sheath in hand, Murat stretched out again. One last effort brought leather sliding over steel. But
in making that effort he had reached too far, and felt his supporting fingers slip.
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He fell. No intervening cornice here.
The last clear thought of his life was that the sheathed Sword was tumbling after him, and that he
might still have a chance to catch it in midair.
Kristin screamed. She had been out on the roof, trying to make her way closer to the scene of
action, and at the same time trying to compel her son to stay back on the balcony, to save
himself.
Karel had at last appeared inside the royal quarters, and then upon the balcony; the old man was
in time to keep Stephen from rushing out onto the roof after his mother, but not in time to hold
the Princess back.
Madly scrambling over the wet tiles toward the place from which Murat had fallen, she did not stop
at the roof's edge, but plunged down after him.
TWENTY-ONE
DESPITE warnings to depart, given by Karel and others, a few servants and a handful of soldiers
had gathered and were still gathering on nearby balconies and in windows, to watch the struggle
for the Sword of Glory.
Stephen and Karel watched from their balcony, the old man's powerful grip restraining the boy from
rushing out on the roof after his mother.
Upon a balcony in the next wing of the palace, the dark and apelike shape of the demon Akbar
struggled desperately, but to little avail, as if the strong man who had seized it were really
more powerful than any mere human could possibly be. The combatants swayed back and forth.
Karel had no trouble recognizing Ben, who was not only maintaining the solid hold he had obtained
at the start, but was gradually improving his advantage.
It was not long until Karel, at least, understood what must be happening.
"Shieldbreaker!" he muttered to Stephen, who still struggled in his grip. "The demon must have
it!" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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