Jandar of Callisto

10. LUKOR THE SWORDMASTER

My host was an elderly gentleman of about sixty years, but slim and strong, straight as a spear shaft, and he moved with the agility and elastic grace of one in the most perfect health and fitness, as might be expected of one whose craft and art is the blade.

He would not hear of my leaving. Word had' gotten about the City in the Clouds of the escape of a wheel slave with tan skin, yellow hair, and blue eyes. I would be seized on sight, and Lukor would not permit the man who had saved his life to fall victim to the first guard that came along. I knew without question that I could trust him, for he was one of those rare individuals whose worthiness and honesty are evident upon the slightest meeting. He bent a sympathetic ear to the tale of my troubles, and vowed that I would have a haven in his house for as long as I desired to stay.

The house of Lukor opened upon a small secluded court to the rear; the front faced on one of the major thoroughfares of the Middle City. It was two stories high, the first story given over to Lukor's living quarters, and the second story, an enormous empty loft, to the fencing school he managed. This was a large high-ceilinged room, one wall lined with floor-to-ceiling mirrors, the other covered with pegs and racks from which depended fencing masks, padded gloves and tunics, and a variety of swords. Sabers, foils, rapiers, cutlasses, swords, and daggers of every description hung there, kept in perfect condition. Not a fleck of rust or speck of dust was to be found.

Lukor had few pupils and his academy barely managed to survive. The sons of a few merchants and innkeepers, with pretensions towards gentility, came to him every other day for brief lessons. And twice a week he made the long trek to the royal citadel in the Upper City where he gave private lessons to a couple of lordly young courtiers too proud to descend to the Middle City for tutelage.

As I could not hope to remain invisible to all eyes, my newfound friend prevailed upon his friend Irivor for cosmetics. Irivor worked backstage at one of the theaters in the Middle City, which produced adventure melodramas featuring considerable swordplay and thus required a resident fencing master to train the actors in the art. Through his colleague, Lukor obtained a bleaching cream which turned my skin milk white, and a hair dye with which my yellow locks were transformed to silken black. Naught could be done to disguise the unusual color of my eyes; however, the rest of me could be made over in the likeness of the average citizen of Zanadar.

On days when Lukor had no pupils, he tested my skill in the mirror-walled fencing room. I was interested to see how the art of the blade, as practiced upon the jungle moon, differed from terrene tradition. We stripped to the waist, our features protected by fencing masks, selected slim rapiers with button-guarded tips, and set to.

As I watched Lukor with a sword in his hand, it was difficult to realize that he was sixty years old; his light, spare frame moved with extraordinary grace and elasticity. He had a wrist of supple steel and an arm that never tired. Within moments the room echoed with the click and slither of steel on steel.

I suppose that any two worlds inhabited by human beings using basically the same kind of sword will invent virtually identical modes of swordplay. At any rate, I saw that the Thanatorians knew the ward of tierce, the coupe, the eight guards, and even the quinte par dessus les armes―which have been common in the art of fence on Earth for centuries. One after another I tried all the tricks I knew, only to watch as Lukor disengaged or parried with magical case. He was immune to double and triple feints, and to the most advanced tactics with which I was familiar.

We broke for a rest period and refreshed ourselves with chilled wine. I, the younger and stronger man, my thews toughened from a week at the slave wheels, found I was covered with a sheen of perspiration and was breathing heavily, while my elderly opponent was calm and unruffled. It was humiliating: I had not touched him once.

As we opened the second bout, I began with a swift glizade. For a moment our blades clashed and rang together, a blur of flashing steel, the large empty room resounding to the chiming song of steel on steel. Then from a low engagement in sixte I stretched forward to lunge in tierce. My blade glided past his parry with a supple twist and I was lucky enough to touch him above the heart.

We disengaged and sprang apart. Lukor was laughing delightedly, his keen eyes sparkling.

"Well played, my young friend! That was superb―my compliments! I had not expected you should be able to touch me at least until the third bout. You have a gift for the fence, and you have obviously studied under a master."

"A lucky stroke, nothing more," I said, attempting to sound modest, although actually I was glowing with satisfaction. He shook his head appraisingly.

" 'Twas luck in part, but only in part. You have a good wrist, a steady arm, and a cool head. You are able to think and plan while engaged, and these are the essentials of a master swordsman. With practice and training you will acquire the only thing you lack at present―which is science. Come―once again?"

I did not manage to touch him in the third bout, and by the fourth I was shaking with exhaustion. We called it a day.

Guards were still combing Zanadar for the runaway slave, and rumor had it that Prince Thuton was particularly anxious that I should be taken. So it was decided that I stay on with my new friend. I felt a trifle uncomfortable at sleeping in his spare bed and eating at his table without being able to repay my debt to him in any way. Lukor, the most tactful and chivalrous of gentlemen, soon became aware of this and so suggested that I lend him assistance with his pupils. There were so few of these that it seemed superfluous to add a second tutor, but he explained that a few novices were always coming in fresh, and while he gave advanced training to his more experienced pupils it would spare him much if he could rely on me to teach the newcomers the rudiments of the art. As my disguise was sufficient to protect me from chance discovery, we decided to pass me off as his nephew, newly come from Ganatol. My new name was Lykon.

One day followed another without incident. Between my training of the novices and my periods of advanced practice under Lukor I was rapidly developing into a brilliant swordsman, as Lukor often remarked himself.

These were happy days―my happiest on Thanator ―and I look back on them fondly. Between work and practice and training, we relaxed at a wineshop frequented by theater people, jugglers, mountebanks, and magicians. Sometimes we spent the evening at the theater, and sometimes we strolled in the pleasure gardens of the Upper City into which Lukor was permitted to pass by virtue of possession of a medallion which gave him entree to the citadel for his private lessons.

As my plans were vague, I remained at the Academy Lukor for the better part of a month. The fortunes of the Princess of Shondakor were now in hands better equipped than my own to render assistance to her cause; my only other friend, Koja, was doubtless dead. I had no plans for the future save for a dim hope of somehow finding my way back to the Gate Between The Worlds.

And that hope was extremely dim. Two thousand miles of mountain and jungle lay between the City in the Clouds and the circle of monoliths that was my one hope of ever returning to Earth. Alone and on foot it seemed an impossible task.

So I stayed. And, while waiting for some chance to offer itself, I was well on my way to becoming a great swordsman.

My discovery of the secret botte came about as follows.

One evening I had gone to the theater as the guest of one of my young pupils, the son of a prominent merchant. Lukor, that night, was host to his friend Irivor; as the play that night was a romantic comedy devoid of swordplay, the fencing master had a night off. The old comrades usually got together at least once a week to drink a few bottles and chuckle over old times.

Returning home alone in the small hours, I found neither my host nor his friend in the living quarters; but from the practice hall above I heard the ring and slither of blades. I went up the stairs and found the two in their cups, stripped to the waist, industriously plying their flickering rapiers and bawling ribald commentary on the other's style.

For a few minutes, grinning, I watched the duel unseen. Then fat, red-faced Irivor made some stinging remark that touched Lukor to momentary rage. As I watched, the Swordmaster executed a very adroit and rapid action which ended with his button-tip tapping the astounded Irivor above the heart.

Never had I seen that deft and dazzlingly swift bit of strategy, and it puzzled me. The next day I asked Lukor about it, and he was shocked and somehow taken aback that I had witnessed the action. When I pressed, he admitted that he should not have used that attack even in playful bout. Indeed, he would not have, had he not been in his cups and had not the boisterous Irivor taunted him until he lost his selfcontrol.

"It is a secret botte, known only to the greatest Swordmasters, and never taught or even demonstrated to ordinary pupils," he confessed shamefacedly. "You will understand, Jandar, that a teacher in the art of fence is forbidden to duel, as to pit his superior professional skill against an ordinary swordsman would be tantamount to murder. Some generations ago a great Swordmaster named Kamad of Tharkol discovered a secret botte that is invincible―the Botte of Kamad, we term it, and it is a secret of the profession.

I am forbidden even to discuss the matter, so I will ask you not to press me further."

Of course, as was only good manners, I agreed not to embarrass Lukor further on this point. But I could not help being intrigued by my discovery. I tried to remember the exact sequence of moves that I had seen Lukor make. You will understand that by this time I had been breathing, eating, sleeping, and living swordsmanship for every day of the past month, and I was by now trained in all the finer points of the art. Alone before the mirrors, I practiced what I could recall of Kamad's Botte, and one afternoon Lukor caught me thus engaged. I flushed crimson, but he waved my embarrassment away, saying my curiosity was natural enough. And then, because it was obvious I was not going to forget about the secret attack, he set out to teach it to me.

The art of fence consists of a sequence of attacks and parries, a succession of disengages from one line into another. You attack and your opponent parries the attack; as you recover, he attacks; you parry and make another attack, and so on. Where superior skill comes into the picture is through a higher knowledge of the forms and varieties of attack and parry, and the ability to think while fighting.

Lukor patiently instructed me in the secret botte, which was at once staggeringly simple and remarkably sophisticated. As the Thanatorian fencing terms would be meaningless to my reader I shall render his instruction in the comparable terrene terms for the art of fence, insofar as I am able to recall them correctly.

"First, Jandar, you engage in tierce, which your foe will most likely counter with a demi-contre. Next you counter with a thrust in quinte, and when it is parried, you reenter lower―thus―and, as you are parried your foe will be slightly off balance and his arm here, his point there. As you can see, it is remarkably difficult for him to recover in time to parry your next thrust―and, if you lunge with your point in carte, it is physically impossible."

We practiced the action. It was incredibly beautiful in its simplicity. And it was foolproof. I said as much.

"Quite so. For that reason, the Swordmasters' Guild have kept it a carefully guarded professional secret. Armed with this simple technique, you can overcome any swordsman alive―even another Swordmaster who, however well he knows the trick, is physically unable to counter it. Most masters think it preferable to enter into a series of four passes and then to strike on the fourth disengage. Or, if you like, you can thrust on the fifth, but that is pressing it a bit."

"Master―could not the botte be employed after a double feint just as well?"

Lukor's eyes flashed with approval.

"Ah! Very good. You are thinking, Jandar! Yes, it can follow a double or even a triple feint, if you are pressed for time and doubt if you have leisure for the entire sequence. But now I must enjoin you to secrecy as regards the Botte of Kamad. I do not ask you to promise me that you will never use it in a duel, for when one's life is at stake, such vows are foolish. But I ask on your honor that you will never divulge the botte to another."

Although with my disguise I could come and go as I pleased, Lukor was still my major link with the outside world; especially with the Upper City.

I should perhaps have explained earlier that the old Swordmaster was no friend of Thuton's regime. The Prince had succeeded to his father's throne only a year or two before, and Thuton's father, Gryphar, had himself been a rogue, usurping the throne and slaying the last member of the true Zanadarian dynasty in a palace coup. Lukor had supported the old king of the previous dynasty, and considered himself an enemy of the present family of usurpers, paying only lip service to his Vow of Fealty to Prince Thuton, whom he disliked and distrusted.

To Lukor I had disclosed the whole story of my recent adventures, my enslavement by the Yathoon Horde, my rescue of the Princess Darloona from the attack of the vastodon, our capture by the komor Gamchan, our escape and capture anew by the frigate Skygull. Indeed, I had withheld nothing from his sympathetic ear save the fact that I was not native to Thanator.

He often returned from his tutorial visits to the Upper City with news concerning the Princess of Shondakor. It was his considered opinion that Thuton was planning to wed the Princess only to have a claim to the throne of Shondakor, which he hoped to tear from the hands of the Chac Yuul warriors on the pretext of being the champion of Darloona's cause. But this was merely Lukor's opinion, as I reluctantly was forced to point out. I tended to disregard my own inclination to distrust the wily Prince, still hoping he was sincere in his avowed purpose of helping Darloona regain her rightful throne.

Lukor relayed certain morsels of palace gossip to me. Thuton, said the wagging tongues of the Upper City, was a thorough villain: he was simultaneously negotiating with Arkola of the Black Legion in secret while, in the open, pretending to raise a force to lay siege to the city of Shondakor.

"Negotiations to what purpose?" I asked Lukor.

"Just this, my overtrustful young friend," he stated firmly. "If Arkola can raise enough gold to buy Darloona, Thuton will sell her without a qualm. If not, he will win her promise of marriage and then invade with his flying fleet, conquer the Black Legion by force of arms, and make himself Lord of Shondakor. The Princess knows nothing of this, of course."

I scoffed. "Where is your proof of all this? No, Lukor, it is too incredible. The Gods know I have no reason to love Thuton, but even he is not capable of such out-and-out dastardly behavior."

He yielded, grumbling. "Someday you will listen to me; I only hope it will not be too late."

Incurable romantic that he was, Lukor was disgruntled that I did not go charging off, sword waving, to rescue my princess from the very stronghold of her enemies single-handedly. I tried to argue that such things happen only in romantic melodramas, and that this was real life. He shrugged eloquently.

"Life, then, could learn a little from a study of the stage," was his rejoinder.

Then it was that we learned of the whereabouts of Koja, and the idyll of my month in the Academy Lukor came to a precipitate end.

Every year the Sky Pirates of Zanadar hold great, week-long gladiatorial games in the colossal amphitheater adjoining the citadel of Thuton.

In the main, these games consist of armed contests between champion gladiators. There are also thaptor races, chariot races, and competitions of athletic prowess.

But the feature that most delights the citizens of Zanadar is that which takes place on the last day of the games. For then it is that condemned criminals, those who have committed crimes so great that the usual punishment of slavery at the wheel of the flying galleys is deemed insufficient, are slain.

The prisoners are torn apart by wild beasts in the arena, while thousands of bloodthirsty Zanadarians watch avidly, drinking in the last death throes of the unfortunates.

A list of these criminals, together with their crimes, is on public display for some days before the Day of Blood, as it is called, when these men and sometimes women must battle with bare hands against ferocious jungle monsters.

It was Lukor who saw Koja's name on such a list.

My familiarity with the written script of Thanatorian was not adequate to puzzle the whole thing out. But Lukor saw and remembered the name of the komor of the Yathoon who had become my first friend on this strange world, and he gave the grim news to me.

It was grim indeed. I had thought Koja probably slain when the guards interrupted our escape. Now it seemed that his crime of attempted escape―so very against the rule of va lu rokka!―placed him in a rare class of supercriminal, and as such he was decreed a lingering death in the arena on the Day of Blood.

What could I do to help him? For I instantly resolved that I must do whatever I could.

There was just one chance.

It was an enormous gamble, but I was in a mood for such a gamble.

Lukor's medallion gave him the right to unquestioned entry into the Upper City and the royal citadel at any time, night or day. For half a year now he had come and gone in the royal precinct, giving private tutelage to the young nobles who patronized his academy. The citadel guards were well accustomed to seeing the tall, trim, stiff-backed old man with the neat gray heard and quiet, conservative clothing.

They would not find it remarkable that he continued to give his tutoring even during the games of Year's End Day. Or so we hoped!

Once within the citadel itself, what could we do to free Koja? Perhaps little, perhaps much. But it was worth a try. Because the pits below the citadel communicated directly with the pens of the arena, which was situated to the rear of the palace.

And Lukor knew of a secret passage through the walls ....