The Swordbearer - By Glen Cook Page 0,98

himself. Reassurances would be pleasant, but he no longer needed outside support or direction. He could be his own creature and survive. In a few years he might fit the popular image of a hero.

He had been an introvert all his life. He remained one, but the impact of his adventures had shattered his fear of the world. He felt better about Gathrid of Kacalief. His shift in feelings about himself he saw clearly cast on the inside landscape of himself.

He had become a man.

His changes in attitude toward externals were more elusive and less satisfying. Mainly, he cared less.

The world's agonies no longer pained him. He had little sympathy for its self-torment. It had become an irritation.

Yet his idealism had not vanished. He just seemed unable to apply it in any direct, specific fashion.

Grass and brambles infested Kacalief's remains. Bones still lay heaped in monumental piles round the castle hill. Rusty weapons and armor could be found everywhere in the weedy fields.

A handful of stubborn, enterprising peasants had begun reclaiming the land. It was blood-enriched earth where plows more often turned on broken swords than stones. The peasants were collecting the iron in hopes of someday selling it.

Gathrid abandoned his eastward journey for a time. Some of the peasants remembered him from his youth. They were not thrilled with his return. They knew too much of his tale.

For days he prowled the ruins or sat staring at the mausoleum on the flank of the hill. He tried to wish back the dead.

They were gone from his mind as well as his world. He could find them only in his heart, in faint, sad echoes of feelings that once had been.

Sometimes he considered searching for Loida's people. They would want to know what had become of her. He never got around to going.

He was sitting in the tall green grass, sword across his lap, sucking a sweet stalk and staring at the mausoleum, when he heard the soft brush of grass against stealthy legs. He listened carefully as the sound crept up behind him.

"Come on up and take a seat, Theis."

He had not turned. The sound died. Nothing happened for several seconds. Then the dwarf moved up briskly and settled himself. "You're learning."

"Yes. I am." The dwarf had healed as quickly as ever, except for his eyes. He remained blind. "And I've been expecting you."

They stared at the gray stone mausoleum for a long while. The Mindak's artisans had told the story of each girl in skillful bas-relief.

"Why?" Rogala asked.

"The dagger. It was time."

"Suchara has lost you already."

"I left, Theis. She didn't let me go. No more, I think, than she'd ever let you go. Her pride will compel her to try something."

"You think she still rules me? I'm free, Gathrid."

"I don't hear your conviction, Theis. If you're free, what're you doing here with me?"

"Where else have I got to go? What else, whom else, do I know? They left me no options when they took my eyes. It's go with you or become a beggar. The Esquire has his pride too."

"Uhm." That sounded as though it contained a grain of truth. Long life was a curse upon Rogala. It made him a time traveler marooned far from home. He had nothing in this world but his fragile association with the youth he was supposed to kill once Suchara had tired of him.

Was there anyone else with a use for the blind dwarf?

Perhaps someone who would use him as Ahlert had used the Toal.

"How did it begin, Theis? What are the Great Old Ones? Where did they come from?"

"I don't know."

"Really, Theis? Pardon me if I have trouble believing you. You've always known more than you were willing to tell."

"Gathrid, I'm a tired old man. Rehashing the past, and my ignorance, won't do any of us any good."

"I want to understand, Theis. I've been a part of something. On a grand scale. I want to know what. I want to know what it means. And on a smaller scale, I'd like to unravel the mystery called Theis Rogala. You puzzle me more than the Great Old Ones."

Rogala's sightless eyes scanned the ruined land. He did not say a word.

"Who are you, Theis? What are you? Why do you live on and on? Even Nieroda has to change flesh. Where were you born? When? Were you born at all? What's your real connection with Suchara?"

"That's all long ago and far away, Gathrid. None of it matters anymore."

"It matters to me. Tell