Warriors Of Latan

Chapter 15

Blade didn't know what to expect after they reached the open ground. He settled for breathing slowly and deeply, to get his mind and body under as much control as he could.

He also kept a watchful eye open for an escape route. He did want to stop his running here if he could, but wouldn't stop if the Uchendi were setting him up for murder. The circle of would-be witnesses around the testing area grew steadily thicker, but at least only a few of them were armed. Children kept wandering too far forward and being hauled back by their parents.

The Guardian's wife Kyarta also wanted to get a good look at Blade, but Eye of Crystal stopped her. The two women started another half-serious argument, too far from Blade for him to hear more than one word in three. Winter Owl did not intervene-he was too busy placing the handful of armed men at precise intervals around the circle of witnesses. River Over Stones also kept his mouth shut for once. Probably he expected Blade's testing to prove that he'd been right all along about the Englishman's having evil magic.

While all this was going on, the Guardian was standing in the center of the bare ground, his feet slightly apart, his arms crossed on his chest, and his eyes on the ground. It was impossible to tell whether he was hypnotizing himself, communing with the Spirits, or simply trying to fight off boredom.

Finally the Guardian raised his head.

«Blade, come here.» He might have been addressing a puppy who'd made a mess on the floor. Blade swallowed his resentment at the tone, assuming it was part of the ritual, and obeyed the command.

«Blade, stop right there.» Blade did so, about six feet from the Guardian.

«Is it the custom among the English to use the Seed of Wisdom?»

«By this, do you mean what the-your enemies-call the kerush?»

«That is their unlawful name for the sacred seed, yes. You are forgiven for using that name in this place-once.»

«I will have no need to call it by other than its lawful name now that I know that name.»

«You certainly have some wisdom. So, do you use the Seed of Wisdom in English magic?»

«No. But I did use it when I was among your enemies. It made it easier for them to learn about my magic. It also made it easier for me to learn how unlawful their wishes were for me. I do not know if your magic is like your enemies' magic, or if you and I will also need the Seed of Wisdom. And that is not seeking to gain knowledge I must not have. It is just the wisdom of knowing that I do not know everything.»

Blade hoped this effort at tact would pay off. He only knew as much about Uchendi telepathy as the Rutari had told him, which wasn't much. It certainly didn't include what form of the kerush the Uchendi used, and he didn't like the idea of taking unknown quantities of drugs even among a people who'd treated him decently.

In fact, he didn't even know if he would be telepathic without either Cheeky or the kerush. But he wasn't going to hint at that possibility, not with someone as shrewd as the Guardian.

There was a long silence. It seemed to Blade that this trip to Dimension X was full of long silences, while he or somebody else decided what to do next. He'd read science fiction stories in which telepathy solved all human problems. All his experience with telepathy so far suggested that it caused more problems than it solved. The only thing he'd really gained from telepathy was Cheeky-and then he'd lost the feather-monkey to a case of the hots!

Blade's eyes roamed around the circle of witnesses. River Over Stones was looking nakedly triumphant. Winter Owl's face was unreadable, but his eyes moved back and forth, from the Guardian to Blade. Eye of Crystal was frowning, but this might be her mother's fault. Kyarta looked ready to shout advice to her husband.

Then the Guardian smiled. Blade didn't need to hear River Over Stones's snarled obscenity to know that was a good sign. «You do indeed show much wisdom. Also a kind of courage not common in a warrior: the courage to admit a weakness.»

«If you wish to kill me, Guardian, you can do so whether you know my weaknesses or not. If you do not wish to kill me, then knowing my weaknesses will do me no harm. Indeed, it may keep you from killing me by chance. I do not think you would be happy to do that.»

«I would not. But let us leave the contest of praise until after I have tested you. For now, I will say that we boil the Seed of Wisdom with water and the juices of fruit. Then we drink it. Does this seem to make it dangerous for you?»

«It does not.»

«Good. Then it is my advice that you drink it. If you have survived the kerush-magor of our enemies, our Sweet Wisdom can do you no harm. Also, it will make your testing easier. «

«Do you wish to make my testing so much easier, that I might succeed where I ought to have failed? Is that wise for you and the Uchendi?»

«As you say, Blade of the English, if I want to kill you I can do so easily. And I assure you that if you fail the testing I will very probably wish to kill you. By making the testing easy I mean only that it will take less strength from either of us. I should guard my strength for other tasks, you also if you do succeed.»

That made sense, and Blade said so, then added, «Bring me the Sweet Wisdom, and I shall drink it.»

The Guardian clapped his hands, and Eye of Crystal herself ran out, carrying a gourd closed with a gilded-leather stopper on a loop of thin copper wire.

The Sweet Wisdom fizzed like a carbonated beverage; the Uchendi must have mixed it with gasified water from a natural spring. The fruit juice was purple and sweet without being overpowering, like a cross between an apple and a peach. Blade knew that the slight bitterness of the kerush would be lost under the sweetness, so he didn't waste time trying to guess the dosage. He simply drank the gourd empty, then set it down.

«You should sit down, Blade,» said the Guardian, pointing at the ground.

Blade started to shake his head, then found his knees quivering slightly. He quickly obeyed the Guardian so none of the watchers would suspect him of being afraid.

Then suddenly the world twisted around him, so much like it did during a Transition that he half expected to see the booth surrounding him. Instead the circle of Uchendi spectators seemed to widen enormously, until they were only a dark fringe of barely human figures around a vast empty expanse of bare earth.

At the same time Blade felt as if his head were sitting on a sheet of glass, entirely separate from his body but still alive. He could see his body down there below the glass, but he couldn't make it do anything or feel any sensation from it. He was a disembodied brain attached to just enough sense organs to remind him that there was something outside his brain.

So he wasn't surprised to hear the Guardian's voice as if it was spoken both in his mind and in his ears.

(«Welcome to the Sphere of Wisdom, Blade.»)

(«It is for you to say if I am welcome or not, He Who Guards the Voice. «)

(«You are more welcome because you have come here swiftly. And yes, that is a good sign for your judgment, and yes again, I can see even the beginning of a thought and from that beginning read the whole.»)

(«I can see why you were sure you could kill me easily.»)

(«Very surely, Blade. Without much effort, I could stop your heart. With a little more effort, I could make you tear your flesh from your bones with your own hands. I have not punished anyone that way in my whole life, but He Who Guards the Voice before me did it three times and died of old age… And tell me, Blade, who is Lord-Lay-tun-and why should he wish to know me?»)

(«Lord Leighton was my teacher. He is a great teacher among the English, and would give much to learn the Wisdom and the Voice of the Uchendi.»)

(«From your mind I understand that he is an old man. Did he begin to learn the Voice and the Wisdom when he was six years old, as I did?»)

(«He did not.»)

(«Do you English know so little of the Voice and the Wisdom that you do not teach it to your children?»)

(«There are many among the English who use these things for evil purposes. So it is unlawful for all but warriors such as myself to learn.»)

(«That seems to me like burning down the village to kill the rats in one hut. Of course the Voice and the Wisdom are ill used, if they are not properly taught. Few who are not taught before they are men and women will ever learn properly!»)

The mental equivalent of a shrug and then: («This Laytun seems to be a very great teacher indeed, so I would like to meet him, but your mind also tells me that Lay-tun is far away. A man that old might not survive such a long journey. He cannot come here, and I cannot leave my people in their time of need?… Yes, I will tell you what that need is, when you have passed your testing.»)

(«Then perhaps it will be best for all the Uchendi if you go on with the testing.»)

(«Most surely, Blade. But I must say that you have done much to pass it already. You entered the Sphere of Wisdom quickly, showed no fear at meeting me there, and did not seek in vain to hide your thoughts. Nor do you have the aura that any man who works unclean magic would have when he has reached your age. Yet I must go deeper into your mind to finish the testing.»)

(«Then do so.»)

(«Breathe quickly and deeply until you become dizzy. Then empty your mind of all thoughts, and fear nothing.»)

Blade laughed. When he'd hyperventilated enough, his mind would be empty of all thoughts, whether he wanted it to be or not. He figured, it would do him no harm-he was already at the Guardian's mercy, and if death did come now it would most likely be quick.

He raised his arms and took the first deep breath, then the second, then the third, and after that a steady rhythm…

Darkness and a great shape looming over him, a fanged head on a long neck and great wings spreading into the shadows. Blade was naked and holding a curiously modern rifle, aimed at the shape. Then the shape blazed orange flame, and he smelled the swamp-stench of methane. He raised the rifle to his shoulder and took aim, knowing where he was.

The Guardian was making him go way back into his mind to relive his trips to other Dimensions. Now he was in the Dimension of the strange other-England called Englor, facing a biologically-engineered dragon sent against Englor by the Red Flames of Russland. Behind him was an inn and Rylla, the Russland scientist who'd helped develop the dragons before she defected. If he didn't find the dragon's vulnerable spots before it set the inn on fire…

A steel corridor stretching ahead and behind as far as he could see. Other corridors branching off on either side. He was running, with something like a laser in his hand. Around him were other men with lasers, also running, also wearing uniformlike jumpsuits.

He was aboard the Avenger, the giant starship built by Earth's mad dictator Loyun Chard. He and his comrades, aided by a woman named Riyannah from a distant world, were going to destroy the ship to keep Chard from taking death and destruction to the distant stars…

Mist swirling, and in the background vast colored cylinders soaring up toward the sky, so tall their tops seemed to be lost in the mist or the clouds. Hard-packed gravel underfoot, and silence everywhere.

He was standing among the Towers of Melnon, on the ground where they'd fought out their ritualized but deadly combats until Blade took a hand…

The deck of a ship heaving under his feet, the smell of salt air, and the creak of rigging or perhaps oars. Somewhere a rough voice was shouting orders.

He couldn't tell where he was-there'd been so many ships and so many seas in so many Dimensions, and deadly battles in all of them…

A vast blue-lit chamber, with pulsing walls that seemed to be made of living flesh. At the far end a delicate latticework of crystal rods and shining wires, and a terrible presence. Blade had no trouble in recognizing the Ngaa, the Dimension X monster the experimental KALI capsule had unleashed on Home Dimension.

He also had no trouble recognizing the woman in the white nurse's uniform lying on the floor between him and the Ngaa: Zoe Cornwall. His first and truest love, and now he suspected likely to be his last. Snatched into this Dimension of horror because in her love for him she'd battled for his sanity against the Ngaa that had driven him mad.

He ran forward and lifted her in his arms. He could tell that she recognized him. He could also tell that she was dying, that the Ngaa was killing her-

And that this time he would see her death from inside her own mind.

No.

(«No! I will not let you put me through this. I refuse. THERE ARE SOME THINGS YOU CANNOT MAKE ME DO AND THIS IS ONE OF THEM. GET OUT OF MY MIND, YOU FILTHY BARBARIAN GHOUL!»)

The sensation of Zoe in his arms and her mind linked to his vanished in a blur of light so dazzling that Blade cried out from the pain in his eyes. Thunder cracked in his head, then rumbled away into silence.

He felt himself weightless, as if he were in space or falling from a great height. All around him was blue, but somehow it was a saner, more healthy blue than the nightmare light of the Ngaa's chamber of death.

The Guardian was falling beside him, his arms outstretched, looking helpless and even frightened for the first time. It was hard to judge distances in this blueness, but the shaman seemed close enough to reach out and touch.

A great pulsing golden bar was growing rapidly below them. Blade somehow knew that he would fall across the bar and be saved. If he reached out a hand and gripped the Guardian, the man would also be saved. If he let the Guardian fall past the bar, however…

The bar slammed Blade in the stomach so hard all the wind whooossshed out of him. It was a terrifyingly strong physical sensation to have in this world he'd been told was a thing of the mind. It also confirmed his judgment, that he should reach out and catch the Guardian.

Blade balanced himself across the bar so that he could use both hands to reach out. The steel-hard muscles of his arms rippled under the skin as he pulled the Guardian to a stop in midair, then started hauling him in like a gaffed fish. The man's eyes were blank and staring. Blade couldn't help wondering if he'd been too late, if he was hauling in a dead man-

Then he was hauling an unconscious man toward him across the bare earth of the testing place, with a two-handed grip on the man's left wrist. Blade hastily let go. His hands were strong enough to break the shaman's older and smaller bones if he wasn't careful! The arm flopped limply to the ground …. Blade heard a hiss of indrawn breath and an angry muttering all around him.

He looked up. Everyone who wasn't looking at the unconscious Guardian was looking at him, and he didn't like most of the looks. He wasn't sure what he'd done to the Guardian, though he was sure it was an accident. That obviously didn't matter to the circle of witnesses. Blade had never seen anything that looked quite so much like the beginning of a lynch mob.

He wouldn't kill Eye of Crystal or her mother, he decided. He would try not to kill Winter Owl if he could avoid it. The Uchendi would need him if the Guardian was dead or mindless. Anyone else who got in his way had better look out.

Blade bent over the Guardian's wrist and felt for a pulse. One was there, and it was steady but also weak enough to worry Blade. He drew the man toward him, ready to start mouth-to-mouth respiration or even cardiopulmonary resuscitation if he had to.

A howl of rage came from the crowd.

«He works further magic,» shouted someone. «Kill him now.»

Blade stood up, ready to move fast, but just then a hysterical screech from a woman cut through the crowd noises. It might have launched everybody forward to tear Blade to pieces. Instead it stopped everyone who'd started moving, as if they'd stepped into concrete. It was the Guardian's wife Kyarta. She went on screaming as Eye of Crystal tried to hold her up, calm her down, and get her to drink some water all at once.

Before anybody else could do anything wise or foolish, the Guardian groaned and sat up. He looked to Blade like a man suffering from a crashing hangover. However, he was definitely alive and conscious, and possibly even of sound mind. About the sound body, Blade wasn't going to take any bets now.

Blade knelt again, which accomplished two things. It looked like a gesture of respect, and he and the Guardian could talk without strain or the risk of anyone overhearing them.

«I am sorry if I have done you harm,» Blade whispered. «But what you asked of me-I would rather die than give it, no matter to whom.»

The Guardian blinked and seemed to be able to focus on Blade for the first time. «You-die? I was far closer to death than you could have been.»

«That was not my wish.»

«I know. But-I have never been hurled out of a man's mind like that before. I was doomed but for your help.»

«If I have passed my testing-«

«Oh you have, you have,» the Guardian said almost irritably. «You have done so well I think it may have been a waste of my time to test you at all. «

«I thank you,» said Blade. «Now, if I have passed my testing, will you teach me as much about the Wisdom and the Voice as you think I can learn? Clearly you will not be the only man I can put in danger, if I have this kind of strength in my mind.»

Then he looked around the circle and added quickly, «But first, could you tell these people that I have passed the test and you are not hurt? Otherwise I fear I shall not live long enough to be taught anything, or else have to kill some of your people to keep them from killing me.»

The Guardian managed to laugh. «Certainly, Blade of the English. If you will help me to stand…»

Blade pulled the Guardian to his feet and then held him with a hand under one arm as he spoke to the crowd. «Put down your weapons and set aside your anger,» he began. He had to repeat himself twice before anyone heard him, and twice more before people started obeying. Then he had to be quiet until he'd caught his breath.

«Blade of the English has passed his testing. He is a good man, with a great power, but his people did not teach him how to use it to the fullest.»

«He used that power against you!» shouted River Over Stones. «How can he be within the law?» Mutters of agreement.

«Do you know the law better than I? Is it the custom that a barely fledged warrior shall dispute He Who Guards the Voice?» That silenced River Over Stones, but not the muttering.

«Blade is a mighty warrior. His strength and his skill and his heart are all good, though he does not know all that he ought to know about using them. He has traveled far, fought in many lands, and used strange and magical weapons. I have seen them, and I have also seen that he always used them lawfully, against unlawful enemies.»

«Then why did he fight you?» said someone. He didn't sound angry now, just curious. That was a considerable improvement.

The Guardian whispered, «Blade, I must tell the tale of your-dying woman-before they will understand. May I?» Blade nodded.

«The last memory I reached was the death of the woman he loved most, at the hands of a great and evil magician.» Blade supposed that was as good a description of the Ngaa as any other these people would understand. «He would not live through her death again, so he drove me from his mind. He did not wish me harm, only that I should not know something that indeed I did not need to know, because it was very painful for him to think of it.»

The Guardian seemed to glare at each person in the circle of witnesses in turn. «Who here has not lost one they loved? And who here would care to live through the moment of that death again? If there is one among you who would not fear to do that, he may speak against Blade. Everyone else will keep silent or face my anger.»

The silence was agreeably long. Blade reflected again on how the Guardian could control a crowd. He knew that if the shaman had spoken against him, the people would have swarmed over him and torn him to pieces with their bare hands no matter how many he killed. When it came to being either a good friend or a deadly enemy, He Who Guards the Voice of the Uchendi made the Wise One of the Rutari look like a child.

The Guardian turned toward Blade. «It seems our day's work is done. I thank you for your help. As for teaching you-may we speak of that another day? I am not against the idea. But I am more in favor of food, sleep, and beer now. Travel into the Sphere of Wisdom can be as hard as war ….»

If Blade hadn't known before that telepathy could be hard work, he knew now. He wasn't sleepy, but he very much wanted to sit down. Sweat was streaming off him, and his mouth felt like a lump of charcoal. Sitting down and letting Eye of Crystal serve him hot food and cool beer did seem the best way to spend the rest of the day.

«And of course, my daughter will be glad to honor you by serving you,» said the Guardian.

Blade was fairly sure he hadn't felt any telepathic contact from the Guardian just then-but then, did a loving, observant father need telepathy to know when his daughter was attracted to a man?