The Sunset Warrior by Eric Van Lustbader - Chapter 01

1977 Genre: Vintage Paperback / Heroic Fantasy

THE DOLMAN

A being all nightmare, it prepares the end of all creation, while mankind cowers in fetid cities under a frozen world. Then from the bowels of the earth a warrior comes, baptized in blood, skilled in the dread language of swords...

Chapter 01

Ronin was dying and he did not know it.

He lay quite still and completely naked on the center of an elliptical stone slab which occupied roughly the center of a square, cold chamber. Despite this, tiny beads of sweat glinted in the bristles of his short, black hair. His fine features held no expression whatsoever.

Standing over him, bent, eyes intent, was Stahlig, the Medicine Man. Ronin tried to relax, thinking, This is all a waste of time, as Stahlig's fingers probed and pushed at his chest, moving slowly down toward his ribs on the left side. He tried not to think of it but his muscles had a will of their own and they betrayed him, jumping in pain under the thick fingers.

"Uhm," Stahlig grunted. "Very recent."

Ronin stared at the ceiling; at nothing. What was bothering him? It was merely a fight. Merely? His lips curled in distaste. A brawl; ·rolling in the Corridor like a common—abruptly remembrance blossomed. . .

His bare arms slick with sweat, his thick sword just sheathed, heavy at his side, his hands light after almost a full Spell of Combat practice. Walking alone and distracted out of the Hall of Combat into a knot of people, all at once surrounded by loud voices disclaiming hotly, stupidly, and he paid no attention. Something pushed against him and a voice cut through the din.

"And where are you going?" It was cold and affected and belonged to a tall, thin, blond man who wore the obliquely striped chest bands of the Chondrin. Black and gold: Ronin did not recognize the colors. Behind the blond man on either side stood five or six Bladesmen wearing the same colors. Apparently they had stopped a cluster of Students on their way from practice.

He could not think why.

"Answer, Student!" the Chondrin commanded. His thin face was very white, dominated by a waxy nose.

His high cheeks were pocked and a scar ran down like a tear from the comer of one eye so that it appeared lower than the other one.

Ronin was momentarily amused. He was a Bladesman and therefore practiced with other Bladesmen. But these days he did not have much to do and boredom had led him to practice with the Students also. When he did that, as now, he wore plain clothes and those who did not know him took him for a Student.

"Where I go and what I do is my own affair," Ronin said blandly. "What is your business with these Students?"

The Chondrin goggled at him, stretching his neck forward-like a reptile about to strike, and two spots of color appeared high on his cheeks, accentuating the whiteness of the pockmarks.

"Where are your manners, Student?" he said menacingly.

"Speak with deference to your betters. Now answer the question."

Ronin's hand strayed to the hilt of his sword but he said nothing.

"Well," sneered the Chondrin, "it appears this Student is in need of a lesson." As if the words were a signal, the Bladesmen rushed at Ronin. Too late he realized that he could not draw his sword rapidly within the confines of the crowd. Then they were piling into him, the sheer force of their combined weight bearing him to the ground, and he thought, I do not believe this is happening. Instinctively he kicked out as he was borne under, and had the satisfaction of feeling his boot smash into flesh that gave way. Almost at the same moment, a blow along the side of his head disrupted his enjoyment. Adrenaline spurted and he punched up and out, and even though he was on his back and the leverage was not there, he felt his fist connect as it split open skin, cracked into bone. He heard a brief wail.

Then the boot caught him in the side and a thick gauze came down over his brain. He tried to hit again, could not, struggled with an enormous weight on his chest. His lungs were on fire and he felt ashamed. When the boot hit him again, he passed out. . .

The wave of pain came again but this time he had it under control and there was only the slightest movement.

He looked at the wide head bent over him with its shaggy brows, rheumy eyes, and creased forehead.

"Ach!" exclaimed the Medicine Man, as much to himself as to Ronin. "What have you been up to, ah?"

He shook his head and, without looking at Ronin, turned and put a dark, furry cloth against the mouth of an opaque white-glass bottle, and turned it upside down. He applied the cloth to Ronin's side. It was cold and the pain subsided.

"So. Dress and come inside." He threw the cloth over the back of a hard chair and disappeared through a doorway. Ronin sat up, his side stiff but now without pain, pulled on his leggings and shirt, then his low leather boots. He stood to strap on his sword, then followed in the wake of Stahlig's body into a warmly lighted cubicle in sharp contrast to the starkly geometrical surgery outside.

Here all was a jumble. Shelves of bound papers and tablets rose like wild ivy from floor to ceiling along three walls. Occasionally gaps appeared in the contents of the shelves, or markers stuck out at odd angles. Stahlig's desk was set close to the far wall, and it was covered completely by mounds of papers and tablets, as were the two small chairs set before the desk. Behind the Medicine Man lay glass cases filled with phials and boxes.

Stahlig did not look up from his work as Ronin entered but he reached out behind him and got a clear bottle of amber wine, and from somewhere produced two metal cups, which he blew into perfunctorily before filling them halfway. He looked up then as he held one out. Ronin took it, and Stahlig sat back and waved an arm expansively.

"Sit," he said.

Ronin had to set his cup down in order to clear away the masses of tablets from the chair. He hesitated with them in his arms.

"Oh, drop them anywhere," said Stahlig with a flick of his thick hand.

Ronin sat and sipped, felt the sweet wine unroll its carpet of warmth along his throat and into his stomach.

He took a long swallow.

Stahlig leaned forward, elbows on the masses of tablets, fingers steepled, his thumbs tapping absently at his upper lip. He said: "Tell me what happened."

Ronin, swirling the wine slowly in his cup, said nothing.

He sat very straight because of his side.

The Medicine Man dropped his eyes, crumpled a sheet of paper, and threw it into a comer apparently without caring where it landed. "So." He sighed audibly, and when he spoke again his voice had softened perceptibly. "You do not wish to speak of it, yet I know something troubles you." Ronin looked up. "Oh, yes, the old man still sees and feels." He hunched forward over the desk again.

He stared at Ronin. "Tell me, how long do we know each other?" His fingers moved along the desktop.

"Since you were very young, since before your sister dis—" He stopped abruptly and color came to his worn cheeks. "I—"

Ronin shook his head. "You will not hurt me if you say it," he said softly. "I am beyond that."

Stahlig said quickly, "Since before her disappearance," as if, even in speech, it was a terrible thing to linger over. "A long time we know each other. Yet you will not speak to me of what troubles you." His hands came together again. "You will leave here and go and talk to Nirren"—his voice had acquired a hard edge—"your friend. Ha! He is a Chondrin, Etrille's Chondrin, and what is his first concern? You are without affiliation—you have no Saardin to order you or protect you. He is without feelings, that one. He pretends friendship, for information. That is after all one of his functions."

Ronin put down his cup. Another time he might have been angry with Stahlig. But, he thought, he truly likes me, watches out for me, he does not realize—yet I must remember that he fears many things, some justly, others not. He is wrong about Nirren.

"No one knows better than I the deviousness of Chondrin," he said. "You know this. If Nirren seeks information from me, he is welcome to it."

"Ach!" Stahlig's fingers flailed the air. "You are not a political animal."

Ronin laughed. ''True," he said. "Oh, how very true."

The Medicine Man frowned. "I do not believe you realize the precariousness of the situation. Politics is what rules the Freehold. There has been much friction among the Saardin recently, and it becomes worse daily.

There are elements within the Freehold—very powerful elements—who, I believe, want a war."

Ronin shrugged. "I could think of worse things happening." He sipped his wine. "At least the boredom will be relieved."

Stahlig was shocked. "You do not mean that, I know you better. Perhaps you think you will be unaffected."

"Perhaps I will be."

Stahlig shook his head slowly, sadly. "You talk without thinking because there is little for you to do. But you know as well as I that none shall remain unscathed by an internal war. Within this confined space such a foolhardy action can only have disastrous consequences."

"Yet I am uninvolved."

"You are without a Saardin, yes. But you are a Bladesman, and when the time comes you cannot be uninvolved."

There was a small silence. Within it, Ronin took another swallow of wine. He said, finally: "I shall tell you what occurred today."

Stahlig listened to Ronin through half-closed eyes, his blunt thumbs again idly tapping his upper lip. He could have been falling asleep.

"I find it incredible that I should be attacked in such a manner—and by Bladesmen. If I were Downshaft in the Middle Levels—you know the Code as well as I.

Fistfights are not for Bladesmen. Any grievances are settled by Combat; it cannot be otherwise. For centuries it has been so. And today I am attacked by Bladesmen led by a Chondrin—as if they were urchins who did not know any better."

Stahlig sat back now. "It is as I have said. Tension, and something more, is in the air. A war is certainly coming, and with it a breakdown of all the traditions that have allowed this Freehold, among all other Freeholds, to survive." He shuddered, just once, a pathetic gesture. "The victors, whoever they may be, will change the Freehold. Nothing will remain the same." He gulped his wine, poured more. "Black and gold, you said. That would be—Dharsit's people. He is one of the relatively new Saardin. A new Order they want; new ideas, new Traditions, so they say. Their ideas, I say." He was suddenly vehement, slamming his cup down so hard that the contents flew across his desk, staining the tablets.

"It is power they want!" He jumped up in exasperation, flinging the wet tablets away from him, heedless of where they fell.

"Oh, Chill take it! Ask your friend Nirren," he said darkly. "He will know."

"We do not normally talk of politics."

"No, of course not," Stahlig said contemptuously.

"He would not divulge the strategies Estrill thinks upon.

But I will wager he gathers Corridor gossip from you."

"Perhaps."

"Ah!" Stahlig paused, sitting down once again, and then rushed on as if surprised at having elicited this from Ronin. "As for this incident today, I trust you are not contemplating a precipitous action."

"If by that you mean that you are worried I will use this"—he partially withdrew his blade from its scabbard and slammed it home with a whack—"rest assured I am not interested in being drawn into the world of the Saardin."

The Medicine Man sighed. "Good, because I doubt if Security would believe you."

"What about the Students who witnessed the attack?"

"And jeopardize their chances to be Bladesmen?"

Ronin nodded. "Yes, of course. Well, it is no matter to me. And who knows, sometime I may run into Dharsit's Chondrin at practice." He grinned. "He will have cause to remember me then."

Stahlig laughed then. "I daresay he will."

Boots sounded in the surgery and two figures filled the doorway of the inner cubicle as Ronin and Stahlig turned to look. They did not enter the room. They wore identical gray uniforms with three daggers held in scabbards attached to black leather straps buckled obliquely across their chests: Security daggam. Both had short, dark hair and even features; faces one would never look at twice, faces one would have to study closely to remember.

"Stahlig," said one. He had a crisp, clear voice.

"Yes?"

"Your presence is required. Please pack your healing bag and come with us." He handed Stahlig a folded sheet. The other one did absolutely nothing except watch them. Both his hands were free. Stahlig read the sheet.

"Freidal himself," he murmured. "Most impressive."

He looked up. "Of course I shall come, but you must tell me something of the nature of the summons. I must know what to bring."

"Bring everything." The daggam eyed Ronin suspiciously.

"That is quite impossible," said Stahlig impatiently.

"I am his assistant. You may speak freely in front of me," said Ronin. The daggam's eyes swung darkly upon him, then back to Stahlig.

The Medicine Man nodded. "Yes, he is helping me."

"A Magic Man," the daggam said slowly, reluctantly, "has gone mad. We have been forced to restrain himfor his own safety as well as the safety of others. He had already wantonly attacked his Teck. But his health seems to be failing, and—"

Stahlig was already busy cramming phials and paraphernalia into a worn leather bag. Seeing this, the daggam stopped, and instead of finishing his thought he stared stonily at Ronin.

"You are no assistant," he said icily. "You carry a sword. You are a Bladesman. Explain."

Stahlig ceased to fill his bag but remained with his back to them. That does not help, Ronin thought.

"Yes, of course I am a Bladesman, but as you can see I am unaffiliated and so have much free time. So I help the Medicine Man from time to time."

Stahlig finished filling his bag. He turned. "All set,"

he said. "Lead the way." He looked at Ronin. "You had better accompany me."

Ronin stared at the daggam. "It would certainly relieve the boredom.".

The Corridor swept away from them in a smooth, gently curving arc. The walls were painted a gray that at one time had been uniform; now, through years of wear and neglect, there were patches made oily and dark by dirt, areas crusty with grime, sections bleached almost white. Here and there spiderweb cracks extended their fingers like tenacious plants seeking sunlight.

Doorways marched by them on either side at regular intervals. Those with doors were invariably shut. Occasionally an open doorway revealed cubicles dark and musty, debris piled in comers, refuse strewn about the floor. But, beyond the evidence of human detritus, they were empty save for the brief flash of small scurrying bodies: click-click of claw, whip of tail.

Gradually the gray of the walls gave way to a tired lusterless blue. The daggam turned left into a dark passageway in the interior wall of the Corridor and the pair behind them followed. None of them gave a second look at the stalled Lift across the Corridor.

They were on a landing of the Stairwell that ran vertically along the rim of the core of the Freehold. One of the daggam, the one who talked, reached up into a niche in the wall and removed a torch of tarred reeds bound tightly with cord. He held it in front of him while the other daggam produced flint and a tinder box, got a flame going, and touched it to the torch. It flared and crackled as it caught. Sparks jumped in the air and fell blackly at their feet.

Without a backward glance, the daggam proceeded down the concrete steps. Ronin was surprised to find that they were descending rather than ascending. The little he knew of the mysterious Magic Men indicated that they held a lofty position in the hierarchy of the Freehold. Their talents and wisdom were constantly courted by the Saardin despite their traditional vow to forever work toward the good of the entire Freehold.

But it was possible that they were not immune to politicization.

By all rights the Magic Man should be quartered on one of the Freehold's Upper Levels, yet they were descending. Ronin shrugged mentally. No one knew much about them except that they were rumored to be strange individuals. If one chose to reside on the fringes of the Middle Levels with the Neers it was no concern of his.

Between each Level the Stairwell doubled back on itself at a landing. They traversed the Levels silently, the shivering torchlight distorting their shadows into grotesque parodies of human shapes, shambling things that danced along the walls and low ceilings, expressionless, unthinking, desireless, receding from and approaching their human counterparts disconcertingly.

At length they reached the proper Level and emerged into a Corridor identical to the one they had quit above, save that here the walls were painted a drab green.

They waited while the daggam snuffed the torch and placed it in the niche in this landing.

There was more activity on this Level. Men and women passed them going in either direction and the low hum of distant conversations filled the air like a tidal wash. Perhaps two hundred meters from where they emerged, they came upon a door painted dark green. All the others they had seen on this Level were the same color as the walls. Before the door stood two daggam.

A brief, muffled exchange passed between the four daggam. The shorter of the pair guarding the door nodded curtly, turned, and rapped a peculiar pattern on the door. It was opened by another daggam, and the messengers and Stahlig stepped through. Ronin moved to join them but was stopped short by the palm of one of the guards pressed against his chest. The daggam's jaw jutted. "Where you gain'?" His voice managed to sound bored and contemptous at the same time.

"I am with the Medicine Man." Ronin met his eyes with a steady gaze. He saw a round, jowly face too large for the small, fat nose and close-set eyes the color of mud. But, thought Ronin, an efficient machine that will respond instantly and unfailingly to orders. I have seen so many.

The square mouth with its thick red-lips opened like a reluctant gate. "Don't know anything 'bout it. Move along 'fore you get into trouble."

Ronin felt the pressure from the other's hand and stood his ground. Surprise showed briefly in the daggam's eyes: he was used to a certain response to the application of his power. He recognized fear in others easily, loved creating it, seeing it burn before him as if it were a sacrifice. He saw no fear now, and this disturbed him. Anger flared within him, and his fingers plucked at the top dagger strapped across his chest.

Ronin's hand was on the hilt of his sword when a face appeared from around the still partially open door.

"Stahlig, you absentminded—"

The Medicine Man's eyes widened. "Ronin. Wondered where you were. Come along in."

Ronin stepped forward but the daggam still barred his way. The daggam, anger still beating within him, shook his head, and the blade of the dagger gleamed in the Corridor's light.

At that moment Ronin saw another face appear.

Long and lean with a cleft jaw filled with determination, a very high, narrow forehead topped by coal-black hair so slick and shiny it had blue highlights, it was dominated by wide-apart eyes of a clear piercing blue, whose penetrating gaze appeared to take in everything while giving away nothing.

"Qieto, Maresh. Let the fellow through." The voice was deep and commanding.

Maresh heard the words and automatically moved aside, but the anger refused to die, beating ineffectually at the cage of his burly chest. He glared in silent resentment as the figure moved past him, careful that his Saardin should not see, and thus punish him.

Ronin found himself in an antechamber off which he saw two rooms set at angles. The one on his left was furnished starkly and functionally with a large work table and smallish writing desk along one wall, and a narrow bed along the opposite wall. The room was dark but he could make out a figure sprawled on the bed.

Battered and scarred cabinets lined the upper areas of three walls. A lone chair squatted empty in the middle of the cubicle.

The room to the right was less utilitarian. Two walls were lined with low couches and cushioned chairs. The daggam, including the two who had been sent for Stahlig, sat on the couch farthest from the door, amid a meal. In the anteroom two more daggam stood flanking Stahlig and the man who commanded the daggam.

Ronin thought they must have torn down some walls in order to make these quarters. Two-cubicle quarters were rare enough Upshaft, but Down here— "Ah, Ronin," said the Medicine Man. "This is Freida!, Saardin of Security for the Freehold."

Freida! inclined his long body from the waist in a gesture that was somehow theatrical. He did not smile, and his eyes were blank beacons that studied Ronin for another brief moment before he returned his gaze to Stahlig. They resumed their discussion.

Freidal was dressed all in deep gray save for the knee-high boots of the Saardin and the oblique chest stripes of the Chondrin, both of which were silver. Ronin wondered at this: overlord and tactician, eyes and ears, all rolled into one.

"Nevertheless," he was saying now, "do you take responsibility for this man being here?"

"Ach!" Stahlig rubbed his forehead. "Do you think he will walk out with Borros? Nonsense."

Freidal eyed the Medicine Man coldly. "Sir, there is much here that is of the gravest import to the Freehold."

The brass hilts of his daggers winked in the light as he shifted easily. "I cannot take unnecessary risks."

He spoke in a curiously formal, almost anachronistic manner. He stood very straight and he was very tall.

"I assure you there is nothing to fear from Ronin's presence," Stahlig said. "He is merely observing my techniques, and is here only because I invited him."

"I trust you are not so foolish as to lie to me. That would lead to dire consequences both for you and your friend." He glanced briefly at Ronin and the light turned his left eye into a silver dazzle. Ronin started slightly as the Saardin turned back to Stahlig. A reflection, he thought. But it cannot be, not a flash as bright as that. Then he had it, and now, because he was looking for it, he saw that Freidal's left eye did not move in its socket.

Stahlig put up his hands. "Please, Saardin, you have misunderstood me. I merely thought to reassure—"

"Medicine Man, permit me to make clear my position.

I did not wish to summon you. Your presence here disturbs me. Your friend's presence here disturbs me. I am thrust deeply into the midst of a highly volatile Security matter with grave ramifications. Had I my way, no one but my hand-picked daggam would have access to these quarters. However, I am now resigned to the fact that such a course is no longer possible. Borros, the Magic Man, is seriously ill, so my Med advisers tell me. They can no longer help him. They say it is beyond them. Hence, a Medicine Man must be summoned if Borros is to live. I wish him to live. Yet I have little patience with your kind. Please attend him as quickly as possible and leave."

Stahlig inclined his head slightly, an acknowledgment of Freidal's authority. "As you wish," he said softly.

"However, may I ask you to recount the events immediately prior to Borros's illness?" Ronin bristled inwardly at the Medicine Man's obsequious tone.

"May I ask what for, sir?"

Stahlig sighed and Ronin observed the lines of tiredness in his face. "Saardin, I would not ask you to defend the Freehold with one arm bound to your side. I ask only that you give me the same courtesy."

"It is essential, then?"

"The more information I have, the greater the chance of helping the patient."

"All right." The Saardin beckoned and a daggam appeared.

He had been standing just inside the threshold to the room on the right and they had not noticed him before. A writing tablet lay along the inside of his forearm.

In his other hand was a quill with which he drew symbols on the tablet. "My scribe is never far from me," said the Saardin. "He takes down all that I say, and all that is said to me. In this way there can be no misunderstanding at a later time." He looked from the Medicine Man to Ronin and back again with a neutral gaze. It was impossible to guess what he was thinking.

''He shall read from the report made to me earlier today."

"That will be fine," said Stahlig. "But let us go in first, so that I may see Borros's condition."

Freida! bowed stiffly and they moved silently into the shadowy cubicle and over to the cot on which the figure lay. "I apologize for the lack of light," Freidal said without a trace of regret. "The Overheads have recently failed, hence the lamps." Two of the familiar clay pots sat on the work table across from the bed, their flames illuminating the room with an uncertain smoky glow.

The figure lay lashed to the bed—an otherwise unremarkable affair consisting of a wooden frame and large, soft pillows—with leather straps around chest and ankles.

Both Ronin and Stahlig leaned closer to get a better look in the low light In all ways he appeared singular. He was long-waisted with a thick barrel chest and peculiarly narrow hips. His hands had long delicate fingers tipped with protracted, translucent nails. However, most unusual of all was his face. The head, an elongated oval, was entirely without hair, and the skin, drawn tightly over the scalp and high cheekbones, was of a most peculiarly somber hue with a yellow tinge. His eyes were closed and his breathing was shallow. Stahlig bent at once to examine him.

At that moment the scribe began to recite: " 'Recorded on the twenty-seventh Cycle of Sajjit—' "

Frieda! raised a hand. "Just the text, if you please."

The scribe inclined his head. " 'Statement of Mastaad, Teck to Borros, Magic Man. We had been working for many Cycles on the final phases of a Project, the goal of which Borros steadfastly refused to confide in me. I did the mixing and controlling of elements, that is all. For several Cycles Borros had been working nonstop.

I would leave him at the end of the sixth Spell and when I returned at second Spell, he would be as I had left him, hunching over his table. Three Cycles ago I arrived to find him immensely agitated. But he would tell me nothing, though I begged him for the sake of his health to—' "

"What are these, Saardin?" Stahlig interrupted.

Throughout the scribe's recitation, he had been hard at work probing and listening, trying to ascertain the seriousness of the Magic Man's condition. So he had missed them at first. But he had seen them at last and now he pointed. Ronin bent and saw three small spots, like dark smudges of charcoal, forming a triangle, imprinted on each temple of the hairless head.

Freidal too was looking at the spots, and for the first time Ronin felt a heavy tension fill the room. The Saardin continued to stare at the recumbent body. "You are the Medicine Man, sir," he said carefully. "You tell me."

Stahlig seemed about to answer, then apparently thought better of it. In the silence, Freida!, looking satisfied, lifted his hand again.

The scribe's voice once more took over: " '—let me help him more fully. He refused, becoming abusive. I withdrew. The next Cycle his agitation had increased.

His hands trembled, his voice cracked, and on more than one occasion he found cause to insult me. Second Spell this Cycle, when I arrived, he screamed at me to leave. He said he no longer required a Teck. He began to rant incoherently. I feared for his health. I tried to calm him. He flew into a rage and assaulted me, throwing me into the Corridor. I came directly here to—' "

The Saardin made a brief sign and the scribe was silent.

Stahlig stood up and turned to Freidal. "Why has this man been restrained?"

The Saardin's good eye blazed. "Sir, I wish to know if Borros will live and, if so, whether his faculties have been impaired. When I have the answers to these questions I shall entertain your queries."

Stahlig wiped the back of a hand across his perspiring brow. "He will live, Saardin. That is, I believe he will.

As to his faculties, I cannot tell you until he has regained consciousness and I have had a chance to test his reflexes."

The Saardin thought about this for a moment. "Sir, this man was quiet violent when my daggam arrived. He fought them although they wished him no harm. They were forced to subdue him and to make certain he would stay that way. It was as much for his protection as for others'." For the first time Freida! smiled, giving his face the look of a predatory animal. It flashed and was gone, leaving no trace that it had ever been there at all.

Stahlig said: "It is an inhuman way to treat anyone."

Freida! shrugged. "It is necessary."

He left them abruptly, posting two daggam at the threshold to the room and admonishing them to leave a soon as the Medicine Man had satisfied himself as to Borros's condition. "If he dies, I hold you personally accountable," he told Stahlig, and this served as his farewell.

Stahlig hissed softly when they were alone in the room with Borros, the nervous ·sound of released tension.

He sank into the cubicle's lone chair and his shoulders slumped. He clasped his hands in front of him. They trembled slightly. Ronin thought that he looked very frail and very old and he felt pity stir inside him.

"I am a fool." Fatigue. "I should never have asked you to come here. I thought for a moment as I thought many years ago, when I was young and foolhardy. I am an old man and I should know better."

Ronin put a hand on his shoulder. He wanted to say something but no words came to him. Stahlig looked up into his face. "He has marked you now, do not forget that." Ronin tried to smile, found he could not. Stahlig rose then, and returned to his ministration of the Magic Man, turning his back on Ronin, who stood, immobile and silent, regarding the dark countenance of the singular man with yellow skin, strapped to the bed, smoky orange light flickering now and again along the considerable lengths of his translucent fingernails, like the traces of some unimaginably mysterious animal.

So it was that when Borros opened his eyes Ronin saw it first, and he called softly to Stahlig, who was at that moment searching his bag.

The eyes were long, that was all he could tell, for they were in deep shadow and Stahlig was bent over him. "Ah," the mouth said. "Ah." He blinked slowly several times. His eyelids drooped. His lips were dry.

Stahlig lifted a lid, peered at the eye. "Drugged," he said very softly.

"Ah," the Magic Man said.

Ronin leaned over so that they could talk without fear of being overheard. "Why drug him like that?"

"The Saardin would tell us it was to calm him. But I do not believe that was the reason."

"Why not?"

"Wrong drug, first of all. Borros is semiconscious, but he is still affected by whatever it was they gave him.

Had he been sedated, he would either be out completely or awake and wondering what had happened to him."

"Ah. Ah."

Stahlig said quite clearly: ''Borros, can you bear me?"

The lips ceased their noises and a tension came over the figure. "No," the lips said very weakly. "No, no, no no—" A bubble of spittle had collected at one comer of the mouth, and now it inflated and deflated with the piteous cry. "No, no."

"By the Frost," breathed Ronin.

The head moved from side to side as the mouth worked. Tendons stood out along his neck and he strained against his bonds. Stahlig reached into his bag and administered something to Barros. Almost at once he quieted. His eyes closed and his breathing became less labored. Stahlig wiped his sweating brow. Ronin began to say something but the old man stopped him with a hand on his arm.

"Well, I have done all I can now," he said in a normal tone. He picked up his bag and they left the room.

At the door, he left a message for Freida! with one of the daggam. "Tell your Saardin that I shall return during the seventh Spell to check the condition of the patient."

''What did you find out?"

The homey clutter was somehow comforting. The dim Overheads threw a dismal light. The clay lamps were in a comer, resting precariously on a pile of tablets, waiting to be used. The crumpled paper lay where it had been tossed. Across the room, the darkness of the surgery filled the open doorway.

Stahlig shook his head. "I do not wish to involve you further. It is enough that you have encountered the Saardin of Security."

"But I was the one—"

"I gave the assent." He was angry at himself. "Believe me when I tell you that I am going to forget what I have seen. Borros is just another patient in need of treatment."

"But he is not just another patient," said Ronin.

"Why will you not tell me what you have learned about him?"

"It is far too dangerous—"

"Chill take that!" Ronin exclaimed. "I am not a child who needs protection."

"I did not mean—"

"Did you not, then?"

In the small silence that built itself around the two, Ronin recognized a potential danger. If one of them did not speak soon, they would be irrevocably separated.

He did not understand why this was and it bothered him.

Stahlig lowered his eyes and said softly: "I—have always thought of you in a certain way. As Medicine Man, many things in life—things that at one time I perhaps wanted for myself—were not allowed me. Both you and—your sister—were very close to me when you were young. And then—there was only you." He said it in a halting, protracted manner, and it was obvious that it was difficult for him. Yet Ronin could not find it in himself to make it any easier. Or perhaps this was not possible. "But I understand that you are a Bladesman now. I know what that means. But every once in a while I remember—that child." He turned and poured himself a drink, swallowed it at once, poured another and one for Ronin, handing him the cup. "And now," he said, as if nothing had happened, "if you insist, I shall tell you what I have learned."

Stahlig told him that from what he had observed he was sure that Security had had Borros for more than a Cycle. "Possibly as long as seven Cycles, it is hard to say with that particular drug." Further, it seemed fairly clear that in defining the drugs used and Borros's reaction to Stahlig's voice, Security had been interrogating him.

" 'Interviewing' they call it," he said. "One of the effects of this drug is to submerge the will. In other words—"

"They were picking his brain."

"Attempting to, yes."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, these things are very tricky and they are certainly not foolproof."

"But why not just confiscate his notes? Surely that would have been easier."

The Medicine Man shrugged. "Perhaps they could not decipher them, who knows? In any event, most of what Freida! told us and allowed us to hear was false."

"But why go to all that trouble? And if what you say is true, that means Security has deliberately interfered in the work of a Magic Man."

"Quite so." Stahlig nodded. "And then there is the matter of the Dehn spots—" He stopped abruptly. They both heard soft footfalls in the darkness outside. He said in a louder voice: "Time is passing. It is near to Sehna." In an undertone, he added: "You must be at board. You understand?"

Ronin nodded.

"And tomorrow and tomorrow." Then louder:

"Good, I shall see you later. I will need to take another look at that bruise." He flicked his eyes and, with the briefest movement of his head, Ronin again nodded. He rose and left. In the surgery he passed two daggam groping through the dark on their way to see Stahlig.