The Swordbearer - By Glen Cook Page 0,85

ways. She had to support him or abandon all hope of success in her own enterprise.

Gathrid heaped bodies before him. The Ventimiglians lost their momentum. They fell back, tried sorcery.

Sea-green light blazed. It blinded them. They charged again. Again they failed to best the Swords.

It may have taken minutes or hours. Time had little meaning when Gathrid had Daubendiek in hand. Finally, he sensed the Mindak approaching.

The man was reluctant. There was a feel of panic about him. He did not want this meeting. But both Chuchain and his own obsessions drove him to it.

Mead's ethereal beauty ghosted through Gathrid's thoughts. He wished there were another way.

The flyers stopped assaulting the Maurath. The constant clangor of combat faded as an uneasy truce developed. Gathrid smote the timbers blocking the tunnel and stepped outside, onto the head of the Causeway. He would have more room there.

He waited.

A silhouette appeared in the tunnel's mouth. It bore nothing save a tall staff.

Ahlert seemed to walk a mile, so slowly did he approach. He stopped ten feet away.

He wore no armor. He had shed all weapons save a ceremonial dagger. He had robed himself as High Thaumaturge of Senturia, one of his many titles. His face was sad. His eyes were remote.

"I'd hoped we could avoid this, Gathrid. I felt like an older brother toward you. But the Great Old Ones are indifferent to friendships."

"How well I know." Get out of my heart, Tureck, he snapped at himself. Though Kacalief remained in the back of his mind, he added, "I'd hoped to avoid it too. I keep thinking of Mead. Can't you go home? Can't we end this any other way?"

"Ask your Sword, Gathrid. Ask your Mistress. If I dared defy Chuchain, if I dared turn away, what would happen?"

Gathrid pictured it. Daubendiek would leap into Ahlert's back. He would not be able to stop the blade. "There must be a way."

"Not for us. For us it's too late. Only if They were conquered . . . . There's no end to the Game, Gathrid. I learned that much in Ansorge. And we have to play. However it comes out, I'm sorry."

"So am I. For you, for me, for everyone who's died and for all of us yet to die. What are you after, anyway? Why are you here? What do you have to gain by overcoming me?"

Daubendiek whined impatiently.

Ahlert shrugged. "I don't know. Do you know why you're here? What's Sartain to you, that its fate should matter enough to risk death?"

"As you say. We have to play. Even when we think we're free, we're being manipulated. You've come unarmed. Do you really expect to win past me? Or are you going to defy Chuchain by committing suicide?"

"Not likely." Ahlert smiled. But his eyes hardened.

Gathrid never really saw the move, so swift did the Mindak swing his staff. Daubendiek lightninged up, absorbed most of the blow's force. But the staff's tip caressed his temple.

His ears rang. His knees wobbled. His head began to ache.

"The Staff of Chuchain," Ahlert explained. "You didn't see it in the Brothers' War . . . . Aarant? Are you still there? The Great Old One showed me where the people of Ansorge had hidden it."

He struck again. The Staff slid over and along Daubendiek to prod Gathrid's stomach. Agony exploded at the touch, like all the cramps in the world. The Sword's counterstroke rang like thunder as Ahlert turned it. "You don't have Aarant to help you anymore, do you? And I have at last come into the fullness of my Power as the Chosen of Chuchain."

Daubendiek wove a deadly pattern. Ahlert retreated a few steps into the tunnel. Its confines seemed to expand around Gathrid as he experienced the feeling of growth. All things mundane became beneath notice. Rogala, who chattered advice from an observation port, was no more worthy of attention than a chattering monkey. Count Cuneo, leaning out a sally port, was of even less account.

Daubendiek turned Ahlert's third blow. Gathrid had a feeling of a universe sagging past on rusty wings as the Staff's tip rocketed away from his face.

The Sword had encountered this weapon before, in ages past. It remembered. As it did, so did Gathrid.

Daubendiek had been defeated in their last encounter.

That battle had lasted two entire days. Then, as now, the fates of Empires had swung on its outcome.

Daubendiek had learned from that defeat. It applied its lessons now. But the Staff had learned, too. The two rang upon one another