The Fourth Book Of Lost Swords : Farslayer's Story (Saberhagen's Lost Swords 4) by Fred Saberhagen (most inspirational books txt) 📗

      Zoltan hesitated for a moment, trying to understand. Then he asked: “I don’t suppose you can tell me anything about the Sword that killed them all? I would like very much to get my hands on it.”

      Black Pearl splashed water with her hands, nervously. It was a gesture that an ordinary girl might have made in swimming. “Whom do you want to kill?”

      “I? No one, at the moment. No, it’s a matter of seeing that certain people don’t come into possession of Farslayer.”

      “Well, I know something, perhaps. But I am not sure that I should tell you.”

      “Why not? Yes, absolutely you should tell me. Where’s Farslayer now? Can you tell me that?”

      “No, I can’t. Not right now.”

      He took a step toward the mermaid, but she slid effortlessly out of his reach in the water. “Black Pearl?”

      “Zoltan, at our next meeting I will tell you something, I promise. Maybe that meeting will have to take place at night again.”

      There was a gentle disturbance in the surface of the water nearby. Another mermaid surfaced; this one had lighter hair, but in the darkness Zoltan could not otherwise distinguish her.

      “It’s only Soft Ripple,” said Black Pearl. “You remember, she’s my best friend, who came to the bachelors’ hut with me.”

      “I remember,” said Zoltan and nodded politely in the direction of the newcomer. Then he resumed his conversation with Black Pearl. “I’ll seek you out again by night if need be. But if I come out here looking for you by day, I hope you don’t intend to hide.”

      “I will not hide, by day or night. Zoltan, you have really come all this way downriver seeking me.” Black Pearl’s voice was gently marveling.

      “Of course I have. What did you expect?”

      But Black Pearl would not tell him what she had expected. Again, with Soft Ripple looking on, the lovers embraced, and this time exchanged passionate kisses. Zoltan thought he had been ready for the coldness of her mouth, but still his own nerves felt it as a shock. And another shock—though it was hardly a surprise—came when his hand, sliding down Pearl’s bare back in the moment before they separated, encountered the border where smooth skin abruptly changed to scales. It felt as if her lower body were completely encased in some flexible kind of armor.

      Hastily they arranged another meeting. Then, his body feeling shriveled and numb with cold from the waist down, Zoltan slowly and unhappily waded back to shore. Then he turned his steps uphill in the direction of the Malolo manor house.

* * *

      Ascending the rough path that followed beside the little stream, he crossed a small clearing in bright moonlight. Looking back from the uphill end of the open space, Zoltan realized abruptly that he was being watched and shadowed. At least it looked that way. First there was one, and then, he thought, there were two dark and nimble figures just visible at the edge of moonlight at the lower end.

      Zoltan wasted no time. He turned, ducked into the shadow of the trees again, and ran. The people who might be trying to follow him were not going to get any closer if he could help it. The path was very dark in stretches, but it was basically familiar to him after his trip down, and if the two figures were trying to catch up they were having no success. Now and then, looking downhill behind him, he caught a glimpse of one or another of them in moonlight, and was satisfied that they were gaining little if any distance on him.

      Zoltan did not slacken his pace. Running softly, dodging among trees like a shadow, he soon drew near the cleared area around the manor. Here, to his surprise, he came close to running into several more mysterious figures. These were keeping watch on the house from the shadowed edge of the forest.

      Zoltan got past these additional complications without incident. As he entered the clearing, a man’s voice, its owner invisible in the darkness, called softly from somewhere off to his right. Zoltan thought that he could recognize the voice of the mercenary officer Koszalin. If this identification was correct, the mercenaries had come back from spending their pearl money sooner than expected. Or else something had happened to keep them from ever going as far as the nearest town.

      Whoever the watchers at the edge of the clearing were, they must have been aware of Zoltan’s passage. But they made no attempt to stop or overtake him. In a few score running paces he had reached the back door of the manor.

      Lady Yambu had evidently been listening for Zoltan’s return, for the moment he gave the agreed upon signal, the door swung open to admit him to the house.

      Bonar and his sisters were waiting in the kitchen along with Yambu, and the clan chief and his sister Rose were openly relieved to see that Zoltan had returned. Violet, on the other hand, immediately expressed her suspicions that he had been treating with the enemy.

      Zoltan denied this flatly.

      “Then where were you?”

      “If I told you I was visiting a mermaid, would you believe it? I’ll give you the details, if you like.”

      There was silence; at least the accusation of treating with the Senones was not immediately renewed. Meanwhile Yambu, not bothering to ask Zoltan what success he’d had with his mermaid, hastened to bring him up to date. For whatever reason, at least some of the mercenaries, Koszalin among them, were here instead of enjoying their binge in town. Possibly their captain had decided that much more treasure could be extracted here, and had been able to enforce patience on his men. Whatever the reason, they had returned a little after midnight, to hammer on both doors of the manor, demanding what they called their fair share of the wealth.

      Zoltan, mindful of possible flanking movements, started upstairs to check on the manor’s defenses there.

      Somewhat to his surprise, dark-haired Rose volunteered to come with him, saying that he might need