BLIND NAN'S BLADE

by Fred Saberhagen

The gods' great Game  of Swords, and with  it the whole later  history of planet
Earth, might have followed  a very different course  had the behavior of  one or
two divine beings-or the  conduct of only one  man-been different at the  start.
Even a slight change at the beginning of the Game produced drastic variation  in
the results. And Apollo has been heard to say that there have been several  such
beginnings.

One of those divergent  commencements-which, in the great  book of fate, may  be
accounted as  leading to  an alternate  universe, or  perhaps simply  as a false
start-saw all of  the gods' affairs  thrown into turmoil  at a remarkably  early
stage, even before the first move had been made in the Game. It happened on  the
day when the Swords, all new and virgin-ally fresh, all actually still warm from
Vulcan's forge, were being  brought to the Council  to be put into  the hands of
those players who had been awarded them by lot.


The sun  had just  cleared the  jagged horizon  when Vulcan  arrived at the open
council-space, there  to join  the wide  circle of  deities already assembled in
anticipation of his coming. They were his colleagues, all of them standing  much
taller than humans, their well-proportioned  bodies casting long shadows in  the
lingering mists,  but still  dwarfed by  the surrounding  rim of  icy mountains.
There were  moments when  they all  looked lost  under the  breadth of  the cold
morning sky.

The Smith brought  with him a  whiff of forge-smoke,  a tang of  melted meteoric
iron. His cloak of  many furs was windblown  around his shoulders, and  his huge
left  hand cradled  carefully its  priceless cargo  of steel  and magic,  eleven
weighty packages held in a neat bundle.  And, despite the fact that a small  but
vocal minority  of the  Council still  argued that  no binding  agreement on the
rules of  the Game  had yet  been reached,  the Swords-almost  every one  of the
Twelve Swords-were  soon being  portioned out  among the  chosen members  of the
meeting.

Among those gods and goddesses who received a Sword in the distribution, no  two
reactions were exactly the  same. Most were pleased,  but not all. For  example,
there was  the goddess  Demeter, who  stood looking  thoughtfully at  the object
limping Vulcan had just  pressed into her strong,  pale hands. She gazed  at the
black sheath covering a  meter's length of god-forged  steel, at the black  hilt
marked by a single symbol of pure white.

Demeter said pensively, in her high, clear  voice: "I am not at all sure  that I
care to play this Game."

Mars, who happened to be standing near her, commented: "Well, many of us do want
to play, including some who have been  awarded no Sword at all. Hand yours  over
to someone else if you don't want it." Mars had already been promised a Sword of
his own,  or his  protest would  doubtless have  been more  violent. Actually he
thought he could  do quite well  in the Game  without benefit of  any such trick
hardware; but he would not have submitted quietly to being left off the list.

"I said I  was not sure,"  Demeter responded. A  male deity would  probably have
tossed the  sheathed weapon  thoughtfully in  his hand  while trying  to decide.
Demeter only  looked at  it. And  she was  still holding  her Sword, down at her
side, the dark sheath all but invisible in one of her large hands, when her tall
figure turned and strode away into a cloud of mist.

Another of her colleagues called after her  to know where she was going; and  as
an afterthought added the question: "Which Sword do you have?"

"I have other business," Demeter called back, avoiding a direct answer to either
question. And then  she went on.  For all that  anyone could tell,  she was only
seeking other amusement, displaying independence as gods and goddesses were wont
to do.

Meanwhile  the  distribution  of  Swords was  still  going  on,  a slow  process
frequently interrupted by arguments. Some of the recipients were trying to  keep
the names and powers of their Swords  secret, while others did not seem to  care
who knew about them.


The council meeting  dragged along, its  proceedings every bit  as disorderly as
those of such affairs were wont to be, and not made any easier to follow by  the
setting-a high mountain wasteland of snow and ice and rock and howling wind,  an
environment  to which  the self-convinced  rulers of  the earth  were proud   to
display their indifference.

Hera was complaining  that the original  plan of allowing  only gods to  possess
Swords, which she believed to be the only good and proper and reasonable scheme,
had been spoiled  before it could  be put into  effect: "That scoundrel  Vulcan,
that damned clubfoot, enlisted  a human smith to  help him make the  Swords. And
then chose to reward the man!"

Zeus stroked his beard. "Well? And if it amuses Vulcan to hand out a gift or two
to mortals? Surely that's not unheard of?"

"I mean he rewarded the human with the gift of Town-saver! That's unheard of! So
now we have only eleven Swords to share among us, instead of twelve. Am I wrong,
or  is  it we  gods,  and not  humanity,  who are  supposed  to be  playing  the
Swordgame?"

The speaker had meant the question to be rhetorical; but not even on this  point
could any general agreement be  established. Many at the meeting  expected their
human worshipers to play a large part in the Game-though of course not in direct
competition with gods.

Debate  on various  questions concerning  the distribution  of Swords,  and  the
conduct and  rules of  the Game,  moved along  by fits  and starts, until Vulcan
himself came forward, leaning sideways on his shorter leg, to demand the  floor.
Aa soon as the  Smith thought he had  the attention of a  majority, he haughtily
informed  his  accusers  that he  had  decided  to give  away  the  Blade called
Townsaver, because the  gods themselves had  no towns or  cities, no settled  or
occupied places  in the  human sense,  and thus  none of  them would  be able to
derive any direct benefit from that particular weapon.

"Would you have  chosen that one  for yourself?" he  demanded, looking from  one
deity to another nearby. "Hah, I thought not!"


As the council meeting  wrangled on, perpetually on  the brink of dissolving  in
disputes about procedure, at least  one other member of the  divine company-Zeus
himself-complained  that  the  great  Game  was  already  threatened  by   human
interference. How many of  his colleagues, he wanted  to know, how many  of them
realized that there was  one man who by  means of certain impertinent  magic had
already gained extensive theoretical knowledge of the Twelve Swords?

Diana demanded: "How could a mere human manage that? I insist that the  chairman
answer me! How could a man do that, without the help of one or more of us?"

Chairman  Zeus,  always  ready  for  another  speech,  began  pontificating. Few
listened to  him. Meanwhile,  Vulcan sulked:  "Who pays  any attention  to human
magic tricks? Who  cares what they  find out? No  one said anything  to me about
maintaining secrecy."


In another of the rude, arguing knots of deities, the discussion went like this:
"If  putting Swords  in the  hands of  humans hasn't  been declared   officially
against the rules, it ought to be! It's bound to have a bad result."

"Still, it might be fun  to see what the vile  little beasts would do with  such
weapons."

Mars drew himself  up proudly. "Why  not? I hope  no one's suggesting  that they
could do us serious damage with any weapon at all?"

"Well..."

Someone else  butted in,  raising a  concern over  the chance  of demons getting
their hands on Swords. But few  in the assembly were particularly worried  about
that, any more than they were about humans.

A dark-faced, turbaned  god raised his  voice. "Cease your  quarreling! No doubt
we'll have the chance to learn the answers to these interesting questions. If we
are  to  use  Vulcan's new  toys  in  a Game,  of  course  they'll be  scattered
promiscuously about the world. Sooner or later at least one of them is bound  to
fall into human hands. And, mark my words, some demon will have another."


Meanwhile, in a small  cave at the foot  of a low cliff  of dark rock about  two
hundred meters distant from  the nearest argument, a  mere man named Keyes,  and
another called  Lo-Yang, both  weather-vulnerable human  beings, shivering  with
cold and excitement though wrapped in many furs, were sitting almost motionless,
watching and listening intently  as they peered from  behind a rock. Keyes,  the
leader  of  the pair,  had  chosen this  place  as one  from  which he  and  his
apprentice could best observe the goings-on among the gods and goddesses,  while
still enjoying a reasonable hope that they would not be seen in turn.

A dark  and wiry  man, Keyes,  of indeterminate  age. His  companion was dark as
well, but heavier, and obviously young. They had come to this place in the high,
uninhabited mountains searching for  treasure, wealth in  the form of  knowledge
Keyes, an accomplished magician, was willing to risk everything in the pursuit.

Lo-Yang was at least as numb with  fear as with cold, and at the  moment willing
to risk everything for a good chance to run away. He might even have defied  his
human master and done so, at any time during the past half hour, except that  he
feared to draw the attention of the mighty gods by sudden movement.

Keyes was  in most  matters no  braver than  his associate  and apprentice,  but
certainly he  was more  obsessed with  the search  for knowledge  and power.  He
cursed the fact that though some of the gods' stentorian voices carried  clearly
to where he crouched  trying to eavesdrop, he  could understand nothing that  he
heard. Despite his best efforts at magical interpretation, the language the gods
most commonly used among themselves was still beyond him.

Keyes, exchanging  whispers now  and then  with his  companion, whose teeth were
chattering, considered  an attempt  to work  his way  even nearer  the place  of
council. But he rejected the idea; it would hardly be possible to do better than
this  well-placed  but shallow  little  cave, inconspicuous  among  a number  of
similar holes in the nearby rock.

He was in the middle of a whispered conversational exchange with his  apprentice
Lo-Yang, when without warning a great roaring fury swirled around him, and Keyes
realized that he had  been caught-that the enormous  fingers of some god's  hand
had closed around him. Hopelessly the man tried to summon some defensive  magic.
Physically he struggled to get free.

He might as well have  endeavored to uproot a mountain  or two and hurl them  at
the moon.


Mars, who had  captured Keyes, was  not really concerned  with the obvious  fact
that the man  had been spying.  Who cared what  human beings might  overhear, or
think? The god was  focused on another problem:  he was due to  receive a Sword,
though  Vulcan  had not  yet  put it  in  his hands.  Mars  wanted a  human  for
experimental purposes,  so that  he could  learn a  thing or  two, in  practical
terms, about the powers of whatever Sword he was given before he used it in  the
Game. Mars considered himself fortunate to have been able to grab up a human  so
promptly; the creatures were not common in these parts. Keyes had happened to be
the nearer of  the two specimens  Mars saw when  it occurred to  him to look for
one.


The captured man, knowing nothing of his captor's purpose, certain that his last
moment had come, could feel the cold mist on his face, and thought he could hear
the echo of his own frightened breath.

The god-hand which had scooped Keyes up did not immediately crush him into pulp,
or dash him on the rocks. The sweeping breeze of god-breath, redolent of ice and
spice and smoke, told Keyes that an enormous face loomed over him.

But his captor was not  even looking at him. Only  when the man saw that  did he
fully realize how far he was,  for all his impertinence, beneath the  gods' real
anger. Nothing he might do would be  of any real consequence to them-or so  most
of  them thought.  Some mice  were doubtless  nearby too,  scampering among  the
rocks, but none of the debaters paid any heed to them at all.


The god who had captured Keyes considered how best to keep him fresh and  ready.
Physically crippling the subject might affect the results of the experiment; and
anyway  some  measure  less drastic  should  suffice  to do  the  job.  A simple
deprivation of  eyesight, along  with a  smothering of  the man's  ability to do
magic,  ought to  make him  stay where  he was  put... so  one god-finger  wiped
Keyes's face ...

Now.  Where best  to put  him, for  safe-keeping, until  Mars should  come  into
possession of the Sword he wished to test?

The captor,  still holding  casually in  one hand  the wriggling, moaning, newly
blinded human form, looked about.  Presently the terrible gaze of  Mars fastened
on the  handiest hiding  place immediately  available. A  moment later, treading
windy space  in the  easy, heedless  way of  deities, he  was descending  into a
house-sized limestone cave,  by means of  the wide, nearly  vertical shaft which
seemed to form the cavern's only entrance and exit.

At the  bottom he  set his  helpless captive  down, not  un-gently, on the stone
floor. Keyes was still mewing like a hurt kitten.

"Here you will stay," Mars boomed in Keyes's human language. "Until I get  back.
That won't be long-there's something I want to try out on you. As you can see...
well, as you  probably noticed when  you could see...  the only way  out of this
cave is  a vertical  climb up  a steep  shaft with  slick sides  and only  a few
scattered handholds."

The god  started to  ascend that  way himself,  but disdaining handholds, simply
walking in  air. Halfway  up he  paused in  midair, looking  back down  over his
shoulder, to warn the  once-ambitious wizard about the  deep pits in the  floor.
"Better not fall  into one of  them. I don't  want to find  you dead and useless
when I return." The tone seemed to imply that Keyes would be punished if he  was
impertinent enough to kill himself. And then the god was gone.


The newly blinded  man was seized  by an instinctive  need to try  to hide, some
vague idea  of groping  his way  voluntarily even  farther down  into the earth.
Maybe the god  who'd caught him  would forget about  him-maybe he wouldn't  even
notice if Keyes disappeared-

But soon  enough the  man in  the cave  ceased his  gasping and  whimpering, his
pointless attempt  to burrow  into the  stone floor,  and regained  enough  self
possession to reassure himself that although his vision was effectively gone, at
least his eyeballs  had not been  ripped out. As  far as he  could tell his lids
were simply closed, and he could not open them. There was no pain as long as  he
did not try. Attempts to force his eyes open with his fingers hurt horribly, but
produced not even a pinhole's worth of vision.

Physically his body seemed to be undamaged. But he felt that even more important
components of  his being,  directly accessible  to the  divine intervention, had
been violated ...

Presently, his mind having begun to work again at least intermittently, he  went
on groping his way around  the cave, in search of  some way out, or at  least of
better knowledge of his prison. He had barely glimpsed even the entrance to  the
cave before his  sight was taken  from him. It  was wanner down  here out of the
wind, so much so that he shed some  of his furs. In some locations, as he  moved
about, he was able to feel the warmth of the sun, which was now beginning to  be
high enough to penetrate the cave. There was tantalizing hope in the red glow of
the direct sun through his sealed eyelids.

In  a  conscious effort  to  force himself  to  think logically,  Keyes  took an
inventory of  his assets.  He had  the clothes  he was  wearing, a  small dagger
sheathed at his side, and a small pack on his back, which his captor had allowed
him to retain. The pack contained a little food, and very little else.


Lo-Yang,  Keyes's  assistant on  his  dangerous quest  for  knowledge, had  been
ignored by  the deity  who had  grabbed Keyes  up. And  moments later  the stout
apprentice, unpur-sued, had scrambled successfully away, running for his life in
the direction of  the distant  camp where  he and  Keyes had  left their  riding
beasts.

After sprinting only a short distance, Lo-Yang, out of shape and also unable  to
endure  the suspense,  had felt  compelled to  look back.  Then he  had  paused,
panting.  The  god  who  had  caught  Keyes  was  in  the  act  of  disappearing
underground, his  prisoner in  hand. All  the other  gods were considerably more
distant, and none of them were paying the least attention to Lo-Yang.

Fatalistically, the apprentice dared to crouch behind a rock and wait,  catching
his breath.  Paradoxically his  fear had  become more  manageable, now  that the
worst, or almost the worst, had come to pass.

Presently the great god who had  taken Keyes-Lo-Yang was able to identify  Mars,
by the helmet the god was wearing, and by his general aspect-Mars came up out of
the ground again, but without his prisoner, and went striding away to rejoin his
colleagues.

Time passed, and the sun rose higher. The frightened apprentice remained  behind
his rock. Eventually, gradually,  the council of the  gods broke up, though  not
entirely. The remnants, still wrangling, moved even farther off.

When it seemed to Lo-Yang that all the gods were safely out of the way, he crept
but from behind his rock, and dared to  come back to the upper rim of the  cave,
looking for Keyes. With a  surge of relief he saw  that his master was at  least
still alive.

But Keyes took no notice when  his apprentice waved. Lo-Yang called down  to him
cautiously.

At the sound the man below raised his head, turning it to and fro, in a feverish
motion that spoke of near-despair and sudden hope. "Lo-Yang? I'm blind, I..."

"Oh."

"Lo-Yang, is that you? Where are the gods?"

"Yes  sir,  I am  here."  The apprentice  raised  his head,  squinting  into the
sunlight,  then looked  down again.  "They're all  moving away,  at the  moment.
Slowly. Still bickering among themselves.  No one's paying any attention  to us.
Master, if Mars has blinded you, what are we going to do?"

"Your voice seems to come from a long way above me."

"I'd say twelve meters, master, or maybe a little more. I saw him carry you down
there, and I thought..."

"Lo-Yang, get me out of here, somehow."

The young man surveyed  the entrance to the  cave below, and shook  his head. It
pained him to see his proud master  reduced to such a state of helplessness,  to
hear an unfamiliar quaver in the voice  usually so proud. "We need a long  rope,
master.  Looking at  these rock  walls, I  wouldn't dare  to try  to climb  down
without one. I'd only fall in there with you, and..."

"Yes. Of course. And you have no magic that will get me out."

"Unhappily, master, you have  as yet taught me  nothing that would be  useful in
this situation."

"Yes. Quite true.  And I also  find that my  own magic has  been taken from  me,
along with my sight." Keyes paused. When he spoke again, his voice had lost  its
urgency, had become slow and resigned. His shoulders slumped. "Hurry back to our
camp, then, and get the rope. We have a coil in the large pack."

"Yes, master." A pause. "It might take me a couple of hours, or even longer,  to
get there and  back. Even if  I bring our  riding-beasts back with  me. Should I
bring them back here, master?"

"Yes. No! I don't know, I leave the details to you. Go!"

"Yes, master."  And Keyes  could hear  the first  few foot-steps, hurrying away.
Then silence.

He was alone.


Fiercely Keyes  commanded himself  to be  active, more  to I  keep himself  from
dwelling  on his  fate than  out of  any real  | hope.  Slowly the   approximate
dimensions and  contours of  the flatter  portions of  the cave's floor revealed
themselves to the blind man's probing. With his hands he explored as much of the
walls as he could reach. Seemingly the god had not lied. The cave consisted of a
deep shaft, down which Keyes had  been carried, and an adjoining room  or alcove
whose bottom  remained in  shade. The  whole space  accessible to the prisoner's
cautious crawling  was no  larger than  the floor  of a  small house, and it was
basically  one  big room.  Here  and there  around  the perimeter  were  certain
crevices which might,  for all Keyes  could tell, lead  to other exits.  But the
crevices were too narrow for  him to force his body  into them. He was going  to
have to wait until Lo-Yang got back, with the rope.

If Lo-Yang came back in time.

If the assistant  ever came back  at all. If  he had any  intention of doing so.
Mentally the newly helpless magician reviewed the times in the past when he  had
treated his apprentice unjustly. He had  hardly ever beaten him. Surely, on  the
whole, he had been a fair master, and even kind....


Mindful of the  divine warning about  pits, Keyes continued  his exploration for
the most part on all fours, and, when he did stand up, walked very carefully. By
this means  he located  several perilous  gaps in  the floor,  holes into  which
tossed pebbles dropped for a long count before clicking on bottom. Presently  in
his groping about the cave he came  upon some bones. After he had found  a skull
or two, he became convinced that the bulk of the bones were human, evidence that
other human victims had  died in this cave  before him. Sacrifices, perhaps?  Or
simply unlucky hunters, blinded by night  or by driving snow, who had  fallen in
by accident.

Lo-Yang had  said that  the god  was Mars-and  Mars had  said that he was coming
back, and soon. Mars had spoken of using Keyes in some kind of an experiment.  .
. . Once more quivering with horror and fear, the trapped man persevered in  his
compulsive search for something, anything,  that might offer him some  chance of
escape.

And so it was that at last,  behind some loose rocks in the comer  farthest from
the entrance,  the blind  man's trembling,  groping fingers  fell upon something
that was round, and smooth, and narrow, and was not rock. When he pulled on  the
object, it came toward him.

When he  stood up  again, he  was holding  in both  hands the padded, meter-long
weight of a sheathed Sword.

Even with his sense of magic almost numbed by Mars, Keyes could tell this was no
ordinary weapon. He had no real doubt  of what he had discovered, though he  had
never seen or  touched one of  Vulcan's Swords before,  and had not  expected to
ever have the chance to touch one-at least not for a long, long time.

Thanks to his magical investigations  at a distance, the difficult,  painstaking
studies  he'd  carried  out even  before  the  forging of  the  Blades  had been
completed, he knew the Twelve  Swords well in theory-understood them  better, no
doubt, than all but a few of the gods yet did. But how one of the Twelve  Blades
had come to  be tucked away  in the remotest  comer of an  obscure cave was more
than the human magician could understand. Certainly it had not been placed there
for him to find; only his fanatical thoroughness in searching, his determination
to keep busy, had led him to the discovery.

Slowly one possible explanation took shape in the man's mind: One of the  divine
gang might have stolen another's Sword, as  a prank or as a ploy in  their great
mysterious Game, and had found a  handy, nearby hiding place at the  very bottom
of this cave.

Impulse urged Keyes to draw the unknown Sword at once, to end, if possible,  the
suspense of waiting in ignorance, and to endow himself immediately with whatever
powers his  find might  confer upon  him-but there  was one  ominous contingency
which made  him hesitate.  Fate, or  some cruel  trickster of  a god, might have
given him Soulcutter.

He was aware  that in recent  months his ambition  had, perhaps more  than once,
irritated certain  of the  gods. Until  now, by  good fortune,  none of them had
become more than half-aware of him, as humans might be vaguely cognizant of some
troublesome  insect in  the air  nearby-but his  magic, practiced  as subtly  as
possible on Vulcan's human assistant, had been clever and strong enough to bring
him  extensive  theoretical knowledge  of  the Twelve  Swords  and their  unique
powers.


It was utterly frustrating  that he had no  way to determine which  Sword lay in
his hands.  He knew  that all  but one  of the  Twelve Blades  were marked  with
distinguishing white symbols on their black hilts-a target shape for  Farslayer,
a human  eye for  Sightblinder, and  so on.  But sightless  Keyes had  no way to
perceive the sign, if  any, on the Sword  he held. Holding his  breath, he tried
with all his will and care to  find and read the symbol with his  fingertips-but
for all he was able to discern by touch, there was no sign there to read.

Ah, if only Lo-Yang with his two good eyes had stayed with him a little longer!

Suppose it  was only  the black  hilt, unrelieved-that  would mean  that he  was
holding Soulcutter. Keyes shuddered. But he  could not be sure. The odds  seemed
to be against it. For all he knew, there might very well be a symbol right under
his hand, dead flush with the rest of the hilt, undistinguishable by touch.

Everything depended upon his finding out. An enemy more powerful than any  demon
had stuffed him into this hole, and was coming back, perhaps at any moment  now,
to use him  in an experiment.  It was vitally  important to identify  the Sword,
before he made any plan to use it.

Which one did he have?

Well, there was one sure way by which Soulcutter, at least, could be ruled  out.
Hesitantly Keyes began to draw the weapon, starting it first one centimeter  out
of its sheath, then two. Meanwhile he  held his breath, hoping that if the  hilt
in his hand was indeed Soulcutter's, he could retain enough sense of purpose  to
muzzle that deadliest of all  Blades again before its growing  power overwhelmed
him with hopelessness, before all  possible actions, and even life  itself, were
robbed of meaning.

If this experiment should demonstrate that he was holding the Sword of  Despair,
Keyes decided that he was desperate enough to use it, by threatening to draw  it
against the returning god.

His cautious tugging was exposing more and more of the Blade, but still no black
cloud of despair  rose up to  engulf Keyes. He  felt no more  miserable with the
Sword half-drawn. With a  sigh of relief he  concluded that his prize  had to be
one of the other eleven.

He pulled  hard on  the unseen  hilt, and  with a  faint, singing sigh, the long
steel came completely free.

Keyes soon disposed of any lingering doubt  in his own, mind that the weapon  he
held was  genuinely one  of the  Twelve Swords.  Proof lay  in the  facts of its
unbreakableness, and that  the extreme keenness  of the edges-he  tested them on
the tough leather of his dagger's sheath-could not be dulled by repeated bashing
on rock.

Several of  the Swords,  his earlier  investigations had  informed him, ought to
produce distinguishing noises when they went into action. But the only sound  so
far generated by this one was the bright clang, purely mechanical, of thin steel
on tough rock.

The blind man uttered a prayer to Ardneh that the hilt he was gripping  belonged
to Woundhealer, and that  that Sword's power would  let him see again.  Feverish
with hope, maneuvering  the long Blade  awkwardly, he nicked  first his eyebrow,
finally the  bridge of  his nose  and very  eyelids, with  the keen edge. All he
achieved were stinging pains and a blood-smeared face. His fevered hope that  he
might be holding  the Sword of  Healing, that its  steel would pass  painlessly,
bloodlessly, into his flesh on its mission of restoration-that hope was lost  in
a few drops of blood.

Hope was lost briefly but not killed. Actually his situation would be better  if
this  was one  of the  other Swords,  carrying some  power that  could free  him
completely from his enemy.

Under the stress of his predicament,  the attributes and powers, even the  names
of all the Swords seemed to have fled his memory. Might this be Wayfinder, then,
or Coinspinner?

Keyes whispered a short string of urgent requests to the magic Blade he held. He
asked it to show him how he might  get out of the cave, and where he  might find
help. When nothing happened, he repeated his demands more loudly, but as far  as
he could tell, he was granted no response of any kind. In this situation, either
Coinspinner or Wayfinder ought to be pulling his gripping hands around,  bending
his wrists in a particular direction, showing him the way he ought to move.  And
Coinspinner, whether it indicated any  particular direction or not, would  bring
him great good luck,  in fact whatever extreme  of luck he needed.  If necessary
the Sword  of Chance  could call  up an  earthquake on  behalf of its client, to
shatter the rocky cage around him and let him walk or climb away unharmed.

But  nothing of  the sort  was happening.  Two more  possibilities, it   seemed,
eliminated.


When it occurred to Keyes to make the effort, testing for Stonecutter was simple
enough. One thing he had in ample supply down here was rock. And Stonecutter  in
fact could be just what a man in his situation needed, the very tool with  which
to carve his way out, creating a tunnel or a stair, slicing hard stone as easily
as packed snow.

But the cave's walls did not yield  effortlessly to this Sword when he swung  it
against them, then tried it as a saw. Now he realized that his first attempts to
test the durability of  the blade ought to  have been enough to  convince him of
this fact. Hard, noisy  hacking produced only dust  in the air, small  chips and
fragments which stung  the man's blind  face. A steady  pressure, indestructible
edge against limestone, did no better.

Well, then, quite possibly he was holding Farslayer. But Keyes could think of no
way to distinguish  that Sword from  its fellows, short  of naming a  victim and
throwing it with intent to kill. The  stony walls that closed him in would  pose
no obstacle  to the  Sword of  Vengeance, which  would pass  through granite  as
through so much air, if that  were necessary to reach its prey.  Farslayer would
kill at any distance- but would not come back peacefully to its user. To  employ
that weapon  at a  distance was  to lose  it, and  even should  Keyes succeed in
slaying the god who had trapped him here, he would still be trapped.


His  musings were  interrupted by  the onslaught  of a  swarm of  large,  furry,
carnivorous  bats.  No doubt  disturbed  by the  racket  he'd been  making,  the
creatures came  fluttering out  of some  of the  high, dim  recesses of the deep
cave. Indifferent to sunlight, they erupted  from their holes by tens or  dozens
to threaten Keyes,  who at the  sound of their  approach got his  back against a
wall and raised his Sword.

He could hear  the bats piping,  crying out blurred  words in their  thin little
voices, uttering incoherent threats  and slaver-ings of blood-hunger.  They were
napping their wings violently-they got close  enough to let him feel the  breeze
of their wings, and he cringed from the expected pain of their needle-like teeth
and claws-but that did not follow. In blind desperation he waved the naked Sword
at his attackers, and he remained untouched. Once the blade clanged accidentally
on rock,  but he  had no  sensation of  it striking  anything fleshy  in midair.
Still, one after  another, the little  bat-cries became shrieks  of anguish, and
then died away.


Panting, gripping the  hilt of his  still-unknown weapon with  both hands, Keyes
stood waiting, straining his ears in silence. Not a bat had touched him yet, nor
had he touched them,  but when he cautiously  changed his position by  a step or
two, his foot came down on a  dead one. Gingerly he felt the furry  little thing
with his free hand, making sure of what it was, then kicked it away from him.

Not Farslayer, then.  Whichever Sword he  held had somehow  killed at least  one
animal without making physical contact.

The  bats had  not been  routed for  more than  a minute  or so  when the  demon
arrived-drawn up  out of  the rocks,  perhaps, by  a sense  of the  proximity of
helpless human prey, or simply by the disturbance man and bats were making.

Even sightless as he was, Keyes could tell that a demon was near him, and coming
nearer. He knew  it by the  feeling of sickness,  a gut-deep wretchedness,  that
preceded the monster's physical presence. Again the man experienced overwhelming
fear, panic that  made him cry  out and tremble.  Better to be  torn to bits  by
flesh-devouring bats than to wind up in a demon's gut, where flesh was the  last
component of humanity to be destroyed.

And then he heard  the creature's hideous voice,  a tone of dry  bones breaking,
dead leaves rattling, reverberating more in the man's mind than in his ears.  It
sounded as if it were standing almost within arm's length of Keyes.

With stately  formality the  demon announced  its name.  "I am  Korku. Will  you
introduce yourself?"

"My name is Keyes."

"Unhappy man named Keyes! Here you are down in this deep hole with no way to get
out. And newly blind! Is  it possible that you have  angered a god? If so,  that
was unwise."

"He's coming back, the god who put  me here. He'll be angry if anything  happens
to me."

"Oh, will he? But he is not here now."

Keyes was silent. His lungs kept wanting to pant for air, for extra breath  with
which to scream, and he struggled to control the urge.

The demon  said: "It  is too  bad that  you are  unable to  appreciate my beauty
visually. If  only  you  could  see  me,  I  am  confident  that  you  would  be
overwhelmed. Most humans are."

"Go away."

"Not likely." The dry bones crackled,  the sound formed itself into words.  "Not
until you  have handed  over to  me that  ridiculous splinter  of metal  you now
clutch so tightly. Then I will leave you in peace to wait for your dear god."

"Go away!" Keyes tightened his grip upon the unknown hilt.

In response came  a voiceless snarl  that made his  hair stand up,  and then the
voice again: "Hand it over, I say! Or I will cut you into a thousand pieces with
your own weapon, and swallow you a piece at a time-and put you back together  in
my gut, where you will dwell for a million years in torment."

"Not likely!"  Keyes replied  in turn.  He thought  it quite  possible that this
demon had as  yet learned nothing  about the Twelve  Swords and their  god-given
powers. Or maybe the damned thing had learned just enough, or guessed enough, to
make it determined to  have this Sword for  itself. But demons were  notoriously
cowardly; and so far it was being cautious.

This was not the  man's first contact with  a demon-no magician adept  enough to
acquire deep skill  was able to  avoid all encounters  with that evil  race. But
only magicians  who had  turned their  faces against  humanity entered willingly
into commerce with such monsters, and Keyes still found pride in being human. In
his present  desperate situation,  he might  well have  tried to  bargain with a
demon  to lend  him its  perception, as  other more  powerful and   unscrupulous
wizards had been known to do-but he had nothing with which to bargain.

Except his unknown Sword; and that was all he had. He continued to brandish  the
mysterious weapon at his latest enemy,  instead of handing it over as  Korku had
commanded.


The demon  tried a  few more  arguments. It  shouted at  Keyes more  loudly. But
presently, when  it saw  that it  was getting  nowhere with  mere words, it lost
patience and reached out for the man with its half-material talons.

Keyes saw nothing of his enemy's extended limbs. Nothing at all happened to  the
blind man waiting. But he heard Korku's screaming threats break off abruptly  in
a muffled, bubbling  sound. Then came  a soft thump,  as of a  heavy mass of wet
pulp falling some distance upon rock, followed by a slithering, which  gradually
receded.

Then silence.

Straining to hear more, unable to interpret what he had heard, the man uttered a
small moan,  compounded mostly  of relief  with a  strong component of tormented
puzzlement. Again his Sword, whichever Sword he held, had saved him somehow!

Yes, the demon must have been defeated. But perhaps not slain, not  annihilated.
Keyes probed  about on  the cave  floor with  the point  of his  Sword, and  his
imagination shuddered at  the image of  himself stepping blindly  into a demon's
body.

For several minutes he discovered nothing  more helpful than a few more  dead or
dying bats. But eventually, when the blind man bent, listening intently over the
brink  of  a  certain deep  but  narrow  pit, he  heard  Korku  again. A  tiny,
screaming, threatening  voice, muffled  almost below  the threshold  of hearing,
rose from the distant bottom of the pit.

After listening for a little while, the man dared to call down: "Korku? What has
happened to you?"

The faint sounds coming back  included nothing he could  interpret as an  answer
and, in any case, a human would be foolish to trust anything a demon said.


Logical thinking was still required-was more essential now than ever, since time
was passing,  and Mars  would be  coming back  to subject  his prisoner  to some
unknown  horror.  But  logic  was still  difficult  to  sustain.  By eliminating
possibilities Keyes had made a beginning in the task of identifying his  weapon.
But  the  task  was  not  accomplished.  Which  possibilities  had  he  not  yet
considered?

There was Dragonslicer. There was Townsaver. There was Doomgiver, of course. Ah,
in that last name might lie some  real hope of survival! If only Keyes  could be
certain that he  had the Sword  of Justice in  his hands, then  he would dare to
brazenly defy  the gods.  Even gods  would risk  bringing disaster  on their own
heads if they tried to harm him further. For example, if they poured in fire  or
water on him, he might make his way out to find them all burned or drowned.

Unless...

Unless, of course,  one of the  gods confronting him  happened to be  armed with
Shieldbreaker. If Keyes's extensive research was  correct, and so far he had  no
reason to doubt  its accuracy, no  other weapon in  the world, not  even another
Sword, could ever stand against the Sword of Force.

The thought of  Shieldbreaker gave him  pause. Suppose that  he, Keyes, was  now
holding that  one? Shieldbreaker's  invincible presence  in his  hand would have
easily disposed of  the demon, and  the bats. But  wait-here in the  presence of
enemies and danger, the Sword of Force ought to be audibly beating its drum-note
of power.

Of course the drawback to relying  upon Shieldbreaker was that any unarmed  god,
unarmed man, or unarmed child for that matter, could easily take that Sword away
from whoever held it, regardless of the holder's normal strength.

Keyes, probing gently with one  finger at the slight self-inflicted  cuts around
his face, decided that the bleeding had already stopped. He tried desperately to
recall whether  wounds made  by one  Sword or  another ought  to heal quickly or
slowly. But that information, if he had ever possessed it, escaped his memory.

Touch, smell, taste, none of them of any use in his predicament-but hearing!  In
that sense might lie his way to the answer!

Thinking, keeping track by counting on his fingers, Keyes decided that seven  of
the Swords, if all he had found out about them was correct, generated some  kind
of sound when  they went into  action. The other  five exerted their  individual
powers in silence.

The man's thoughts were interrupted by  a pair of deep booming voices  up above,
outside the cave. The conversation of  the gods was still somewhat muffled  with
distance, but coming  closer at a  pace no walking  mortals could have  matched.
They  were  speaking  to each  other  in  the god-language  that  Keyes  did not
understand.


Mars, the god  who had put  Keyes in the  cave, was coming  back, holding like a
toothpick between two fingers the sheathed metal of the weapon he bad just  been
given by Vul. can, and now wanted to test. Hermes, a fellow-player in the  Game,
came with him, and the two deities discussed the matter as they walked.

The Wargod's plan was  to drop Soulcutter into  the cave for Keyes  to find, and
let the man draw it,  just to see what effect  the Tyrant's Blade really had  on
humans.  Vulcan had  promised the  Council that  Soulcutter-and indeed  all  the
Swords-would have tremendous, overwhelming impact upon all lesser beings.

Mars commented: "I expect our respective  worshipers will be using the Swords  a
great deal on each other, you know, when the Game really gets going." .

"What if he doesn't draw it?" his companion asked.

"My man down in the hole? I think  he will. Oh, not intending to use it  on us!"
Mars laughed. "I doubt  he'll be that arrogant.  But there are some  vermin down
there, bats and such,  that are probably bothering  him already. He'll want  the
best tool he can get to fight them off."

Hermes shook his head. "Those flesh-eating  bats? They may have finished him  by
now."

Mars frowned. "You think so? He was carrying a little dagger of his own."

"But getting back to this Sword,  Soulcutter-what about the effect on us?  We'll
be nearby, won't we, when your subject draws the weapon?"

"Bah, nothing we  can't overcome, I'm  sure. And I  understand that Soulcutter's
effect on humans, whatever it may be precisely, spreads comparatively slowly."


Keyes continued to listen  intently when the two  voices stopped, not far  above
him. He was startled, and immediately  suspicious, when a moment later he  heard
some object, obviously dropped by  one of the beings above,  come providentially
bouncing and sliding down into the cave, landing with a thump practically at his
feet.

Without loosening his grip on the hilt already in his possession, he groped  his
way forward  to where  he could  put his  free hand  on the  fallen object,  and
identify it as another sheathed Sword.

Only now, it seemed, did  the pair of gods above  really take notice of the  man
who was trapped below, and of  the sprinkling of dead and mortally  wounded bats
around him. Only now did they  observe that their subject was already  holding a
drawn Sword.

Mars's companion pointed down, in outrage. "Look at that! Where in the world did
he get that?"

And Mars himself, gone red-faced, bellowed: "You down there! Drop that Sword  at
once! It doesn't belong to you, you have no business using it!"

Keyes needed all his resolution to  keep from yielding to that shouted  command.
But instead of dropping his Sword, he raised its point in the general  direction
of his enemies, as if saluting them, and turned his blind face up to them at the
same time-let them do their damnedest. He had naught to lose.

He called  out, in  a voice  that quavered  only once:  "You have  just given me
another Sword-why?"

"Impudent monkey!" the Wargod shouted back. "Draw it, and find out!"


They have  given me  Soulcutter now-it  is the  only Blade  one would give to an
enemy.

But trapped as he was, his life already forfeit, Keyes saw no other course  than
to accept the gamble. Silently he bent again, swiftly he pulled the second Sword
out of its sheath. Doubly armed, he straightened to confront his tormentors.

The sun was  shining fully on  the man's face,  and in an  amazing moment he was
once  again able  to see  the sun.  Whatever magic  spell had  blinded him   was
abruptly broken, and his lids came open easily. His eyes were streaming now with
pent-up tears, but through the tears he  could see the two gods on the  high rim
of the cave.

He could see the  two tall, powerful figures  quite clearly enough to  tell that
they were  gods-and also  that they  were stricken,  paralyzed with Soulcutter's
poisonous despair, turned back  on them by Doomgiver.  The strands of their  own
magic had come undone. Keyes could  recognize Mars, who'd captured him, and  now
Mars abruptly sat down on the rim of the pit, for all the world like a human who
suddenly felt faint. The Wargod slumped  in that position, legs dangling, for  a
long moment staring at nothing. Then he buried his face in his hands.

The other god-Keyes, seeing the  winged sandals, now knew Hermes-took  no notice
of this odd behavior, but slowly turned his back on the cave and his  companion,
and went stumbling off across a rocky hillside. Now and then Hermes put out  one
hand to grope before him,  like a blind man in  the sun. In a moment  his mighty
figure had vanished from Keyes's field of view.

Doomgiver had prevailed! The Sword of Justice had turned Soulcutter's dark power
back upon the  one who would  have used it  against Keyes, while  immunizing the
mere man who had been the intended target.  Both gods on the rim of the pit  had
been caught  in the  dark force,  as must  everyone else  in range  of its  slow
spread.

Keyes almost cried  out in triumph,  but the hard  truth restrained him.  He was
still a prisoner. His own eyes,  searching the smooth cave walls, now  confirmed
that neither Lo-Yang nor Mars had  lied about the hopelessness of his  trying to
climb out.

He  was beginning  to feel  dizzy, and  ill-at-ease, a  normal reaction  in  one
holding any two naked Swords simultaneously. Now he could easily see the symbol,
a hollow white circle, on Doomgiver's  hilt. To keep himself from collapsing  he
had no choice  but to put  away the other  Blade, the unmarked  one. He slid the
Sword of  Despair back  into its  sheath, and  his rising  dizziness immediately
abated.

In this case, at least, Doomgiver's power had been dominant over that of another
Sword. There  was at  least a  chance that  some of  the other Swords might also
prove inferior  to Doomgiver.  That anyone  hurling Farslayer  would be  himself
skewered  by  the Sword  of  Vengeance. That  Sightblinder's  user would  see  a
terrifying apparition,  but would  himself remain  vulnerably visible.  That the
wielder of the Mindsword would be condemned to worship his would-be victim.  And
Coinspinner's master would suffer excruciatingly bad luck.

But  of Shieldbreaker's  overall dominance  there could  be no  doubt. And   the
unanswered question still gnawed at Keyes: Which god had Shieldbreaker? Or might
that Sword have somehow come into the hands of another human?


After Soulcutter was muzzled again, a minute or two passed before Mars, who  was
still sitting on the rim  of the cave, took his  hands down' from his face.  The
Wargod's expression was blank, and he appeared to be sweating heavily. His great
body swayed, and  Keyes thought for  a moment that  the god was  going to topple
into the pit. But instead Mars, taking  no notice of the man below, shifted  his
weight and turned. Quietly, on all fours, he crawled away from the cave's  mouth
and out of sight.

Keyes knew that Soulcutter's effects ought to linger for several days, at least,
in humans. Probably  the stunned gods  would recover somewhat  more quickly, but
how soon they might come  back to deal with him,  Keyes did not know. When  they
did,  he would  have to  risk drawing  the Sword  of Despair  again-even  though
Doomgiver might not protect him next  time. This time Soulcutter, though in  his
own hands, had really been a weapon directed against him by another.


What now?

Pacing nervously about in the confined space, trying desperately to imagine what
he might  do next,  Keyes paused  to look  down into  the hole  from whence  the
demon's muffled groans still rose.  Far below, almost lost in  shadow, something
moved. Something as big as a milk-beast,  but truly hideous to, look at, like  a
mass of diseased entrails.  In a moment Keyes  realized that Korku on  attacking
him had suffered Doomgiver's justice-the demon had promptly found himself folded
painfully into his own gut, in effect turned inside out. When that had happened,
the self-bound and helpless thing, still almost immortal, had gone rolling  away
to plunge into the deeper pit.

Now the creature in the pit, perhaps sensing that the man was near, was  turning
its  muffled, barely  audible threats  to equally  faint pleas  and  extravagant
bargainings for  help. Keyes  made no  answer. Probably  he could  not have done
anything, if he had wanted to, to relieve the demon's doom.


Some minutes later, Mars,  who was still in  the process of gradually  regaining
his wits, and his sense of divine purpose, was having speech again with  Hermes.
They were standing fifty meters or so from the cave.

"What happened?"  demanded Hermes,  who seemed  to be  recovering somewhat  more
rapidly.

Mars stood blinking  at him. Then  he proclaimed defiantly:  "To me? Nothing.  A
little test of the Sword called Soulcutter. As you see, there was no great  harm
done."


His companion stared  at him in  disbelief. "No great  harm? We both  of us were
stupefied! You should say that nothing happened to your human in the cave-except
that his sight was restored, when your  magic came undone. Oh, and he still  has
his Sword-no, now he has two of them!"

The Wargod remained determined to put  a good face on the whole  situation. "But
he was  forced to  put away  the one  that annoyed  us." As  usual, his tone was
bellicose.

"Annoyed!"

Hermes  went on  to insist  that dropping  Soulcutter into  the pit  had been  a
serious mistake, in fact  a debacle had resulted.  Other gods must have  been at
least somewhat affected. They  were going to be  angry about having been  put at
risk.

Mars, still struggling against the  lingering effects of Soulcutter, refused  to
tolerate such an attitude.  The very idea, that  a god could be  endangered, not
simply inconvenienced, by Sword-powers!

Mars darted  away, but  soon came  back. He  had argued  or bargained or bullied
another of his colleagues into loaning  him another Sword, which happened to  be
Stonecutter.

Again Hermes protested. "Your man in  the cave now has two Swords-are  you going
to give him a third?"

Mars  considered  this  mere  sarcasm,  unworthy  of  an  answer.   Muleheadedly
determined to do what he  had set out to do,  conduct tests on his specimen,  he
announced that he was going back to the cave again, with a new plan in mind.

"I think we had  better first consult the  Council." Hermes paused. "Unless  you
are worried about what they might say," he added slyly.

"What? I? Worried?"


Keyes, pacing his open-air cell on weary legs, kept shooting frowning glances at
the Sword of Despair where it lay on the cave floor. He was trying feverishly to
think  of some  way he  might trade  the sheathed  Soulcutter for  his  freedom.
Suppose another god, or  goddess, were to appear  on the upper rim  of the cave,
and he suggested  some kind of  trade? But no,  he doubted they  would be in any
mood for bargaining. And  he was still unable  to climb out of  the pit unaided.
His magical capabilities, which might have  got him free, were stirring, but  he
could tell that their restoration was going to take much longer than that of his
eyesight.

Again he was being threatened by a sense of hopelessness.

He had now been in the cave for hours, and straining to study the gods for  long
hours before Mars caught him. As the afternoon wore on, Keyes sat down to  rest,
and in a few  moments fell helplessly into  an exhausted, stuporous sleep-  with
Doomgiver still gripped in his right hand.


A number  of the  gods, including  Mars and  Hermes, had  hastily reconvened  in
Council. They were enough, or so they said, to form a quorum. And they were much
concerned with Shieldbreaker too. None of those present would admit to being  in
possession of that weapon,  or to knowing where  it was. Who had  received it in
the lottery? Regrettably  Vulcan was absent,  and could not  be asked. Maybe  he
would not have revealed the secret anyway.

Around  midaftemoon,  the  Council  passed  a  resolution  stating  it  as their
intention that all Swords should be reclaimed from human possession.

Mars the  warrior, still  stubbornly determined  to establish  himself as  above
Sword-power, volunteered to enforce the order.

Zeus told him to  go ahead. Others, enough,  it seemed, for a  majority, were in
agreement. "If there is any real problem, you seem to have caused it.  Therefore
you should find a remedy!"


Still,  Hermes once  again tried  to argue  Mars out  of taking  too direct   an
approach. "Doomgiver has now overcome you twice-wait, let me finish! I tell you,
we must either arrange to borrow Shieldbreaker from whoever has it, or else  get
that other Sword out of the man's hand by guile."

"Guile, is it? I have other ideas about that. And I wasn't overcome. I was  only
taken unawares, and-and distracted for a moment. Who said that I was  overcome?"
Mars glowered fiercely.

Hermes heaved a sigh of divine proportions. "Have it your own way, then."


... and then Lo-Yang, like some figure  out of a dream, was bending over  Keyes,
shaking him awake.  The magician's body  convulsed in a  nervous start, bringing
him  up  into  a  sitting position.  He  comprehended  with  amazement that  his
apprentice had returned  after all. He  saw the long,  thin rope, its  upper end
secured somehow, hanging down into the cave.

"Master! Thank  Ardneh, you  can see  again! What's  happened? Your  face is all
dried blood. And what are these two swords?"

"Never mind my face. Pick up that Sword on the floor, and bring it with us,  but
as you value your life, do not even imagine yourself drawing it. Let us go!"

They scrambled  toward the  rope. But  before either  of the  men could start to
climb, Mars appeared, his face set in a mask of stubborn anger, and put out  one
finger to snap the long rope from its fastening at its upper end.

Keyes could feel all hope die with the falling coil.

Mars said nothing, but  he was smiling, ominously.  And he had another  Sword in
hand. It  was soon  plain which  Sword this  was, for  the god wielding it began
carving out a block of stone, part  of the solid cave-roof. It was a  huge slab,
and when it fell  the men trapped in  the cave would have  to be very alert  and
lucky to dodge it and escape quick death.

Lo-Yang collapsed on his knees, forehead to the ground.

Mars's companion, he of the winged sandals, was standing back a little watching,
with the attitude of  one who has serious  misgivings but is afraid  or at least
reluctant to interfere.

Maybe, thought Keyes suddenly, all hope  is not dead after all. A  moment later,
he could see  the sudden opening  to the sky  as the block  of stone came loose.
Aiming Doomgiver at it like a spear, he saw the slab twist in the air, and  then
fall up instead of down, looping through the precise curve necessary to bring it
into violent contact with the Wargod's own head.

Mars reeled, and his helmet, grossly  dented, flew aside. Only a god  could have
survived such an impact. The Wargod did not even lose consciousness, but in  his
shock let Stonecutter fall from his hand into the cave, the bare Blade  clanging
on rock.

"Now you know as well as I do,  what I have here." At first Keyes whispered  the
words. Then he shouted  them at the top  of his voice. "Doomgiver!  Doomgiver! I
hold the blessed Sword of Justice!"


Mars,  battered, lacking  his helmet  but refusing  to admit  that he  was  even
slightly dazed, still pigheadedly confident  of his own prowess, came  down into
the cave with some dignity, treading thin air as before. Mars was coming to take
the Sword back, hand-to-hand, from Keyes. Well, Shieldbreaker could be  captured
that way, couldn't it? And it the strongest Sword of all?

While  the  two  men  cowered  back,  the  god  first  grabbed  up  the sheathed
Soulcutter, and tossed  it carelessly up  and out of  the cave, well  out of the
humans' reach. Any god who thought he needed a Sword's help could pick it up!

Then Mars turned his attention to Doomgiver, and confronted the stubborn man who
held it. Keyes noted with some amazement that his great opponent, bruised as  he
was, appeared less angry now than he had at the start of the adventure; in  fact
the Wargod was gazing at Keyes with a kind of grudging appreciation.

"You seem a brave man, with the fiber I like to see among my followers. I  would
be willing to accept your worship. And for all I care personally, you might keep
Vulcan's bit of steel  and magic. Humans might  retain them all; we  who possess
the strength  of gods  have no  need of  such-such tricks.  But the  Council has
decided otherwise. Therefore, on behalf of the Council, I-"

And Mars  reached out  confidently, to  reclaim Doomgiver  from Keyes's unsteady
grip-but somehow the Sword in the man's hand eluded the god's grasp. Mars  tried
again, and failed again-and then his effort was interrupted.

A roaring polyphonic outcry reached the cave, a wave of divine anger coming from
the place a hundred meters distant where the Council had so recently passed  its
resolution.

"My  Sword  is gone!"  one  of the  distant  voices bellowed,  expressing  utter
outrage.

"And mine!" another answered, yelling anguish.

The protest swelled into a chorus, each with the same complaint. Keyes could not
interpret the wind-blown, shouted words. But  he needed only a moment to  deduce
their meaning.  Mars acting  in the  Council's name  and with  its authority had
assaulted a man who held Doomgiver, by  trying to deprive the man of his  Sword,
and intending  to fling  that Sword  away-and Doomgiver  had exacted its condign
retaliation. The Council of Divinities had lost all of their Swords instead. The
great majority of Vulcan's  armory had been flung  magically to the four  winds,
and lay scattered now across the world.

The uproar mounted, as more deities realized  the truth. A number of gods at  no
great distance were violently cursing the  name of Mars, and the Wargod  was not
one to let them get away with that.  He listened for a moment, then rose in  his
divine wrath and mounted swiftly from the cave.

His mind  was now  wholly occupied  with a  matter of  overriding importance-the
names the others called  him. So he had  forgotten Stonecutter, which still  lay
where he had dropped it.


Several more hours  had passed, and  the westering sun  was low and  red. before
Demeter returned to the cave in which  she had hidden the Sword of Justice.  She
had wanted to get it  out of the way for  a time, so that her  colleagues should
not nag her with questions when they saw her carrying a Sword.

Demeter had spent  most of the  day thinking the  matter over and  had come to a
decision. The Game still did not greatly appeal to her, and it would be best  if
she gave Doom-giver to someone else.

On her approach to  the cave, Demeter  observed the tracks  of a pair  of riding
beasts, both coming and going, and when she looked in over the edge of the  deep
hole, she beheld a set of crude steps, more like a ladder than a stair,  freshly
and cleanly hewn out of one  solid wall. Human beings! No other  creatures would
carve steps.

Rising wind  whined through  the surrounding  rock formations.  The only  living
things now in the cave were a helplessly immortal demon, strangely trapped in  a
lower pit, and a few mortally wounded bats.

No need to look in the place where she had hidden her Sword, to know that it was
gone. Well, why not? Let it go. Perhaps the humans needed Justice more than  any
of Deme-ter's divine colleagues did.


Perpetually at odds  with each other  as they were,  the members of  the Council
needed some time to realize that their terrible Blades had been scattered across
a continent, perhaps  across the whole  earth, among the  swarms of contemptible
humans. As  that realization  gradually took  hold, the  gods met  the crisis in
their usual fashion, by convening  to enjoy one of  their great, wrangling,  all
but-useless arguments.

The only  fact upon  which all  could agree  was that  their Swords had all been
swept away from them. All the  Swords, that is, except for Shieldbreaker,  which
remained, as far as could be determined, immune to the power of any other Sword,
and thus would not have been affected by Doom-giver's blow.

But whichever divinity still possessed the Sword of Force was obviously refusing
to reveal the fact,  doubtless for fear it  would be taken away  by some unarmed
opponent.

For good or ill, the Great Game was off to a roaring start.
