Farslayer's Story by Fred Saberhagen Read Free Book Online Page B

guest. “And you, young man? Do you seek Truth as well?”
    “Yes,” said Zoltan, and paused. “But not only that. Tell me, good hermit, do you know anything of a race of merpeople living in or near these waters? I have seen several of their kind far upstream, but no one there seems to know where they come from.”
    Gelimer looked at him, and thought carefully again. “Aye,” he said at last. “There are mermaids in these waters. Hardly a race of them. But there have been a few such folk, whose homes are not all that far from where we sit. All maids, fish from the waist down. Their fate is a result of magic directed at certain fishing villages, by enemies.”
    Zoltan’s eyes lit up at the discovery.
    “Whose magic, and why?” Yambu asked at once. Suddenly she seemed almost as interested as the young man.
    Gelimer heaved a sigh. “It is a long story,” he said at last. “But if you are interested—I suppose you should hear the main points of it anyway, if you are going on downstream from here by foot—the journey, you must realize, will not be without its dangers.”
    “Few journeys are,” said Yambu calmly. “At least among those which are worthwhile.”
    “When you have finished eating and enjoying your tea,” said the hermit, “you must come outside, and we will climb up on a rock. From there we will be able to look downstream for many kilometers, and see the land on either side of the river, and there I will tell you something of the situation.”
    Presently, when their modest meal had been consumed, they were outside again. Gelimer took them to a promontory a little above his house, a place from which they could look to the south and west and see where the Tungri eventually lost itself among distant hills.
    Gelimer waved his right hand to the north. “The land on the right bank is, for as far as you can see from here, under the domination of a clan called the Senones. The land on the left bank, whereon we are standing, is ruled by the Malolo clan. The two clans are bitter enemies, and have been so for many generations. The mermaids you have seen upstream were girls from one of a handful of small villages on the Malolo side, down there beyond the place where the river widens—you can barely see it from here.
    “Their strange, unnatural form is a result of Senones magic, a bitter and destructive curse that was inflicted upon people in the Malolo territory several generations ago. Sometimes the girls deformed by the curse are sold into slavery as curiosities. I have heard that traveling shows and the like buy them. An evil business.”
    “Yes. I see,” said young Zoltan. He was shading his eyes, and staring very intently and thoughtfully at the village barely visible in the distance. “And has no one ever found a cure for this particular curse?”
    “It would seem that the Malolo at least have never been able to find any.”
    Zoltan was silent, gazing off toward the horizon. It was left to the Lady Yambu to ask their host some practical questions about the trails.
    Shortly after he had imparted that information, Gelimer was again left without human companionship. His guests were on their way—long hours of sunny daylight still remained, and both pilgrims, the young man and the older woman, were eager to be gone.
    The hermit, looking after them when they had vanished down the trail, still could not quite decide what was the relationship between them. The young man seemed more true companion than servant. And if that woman had really at one time been the Silver Queen … having talked to her now, Gelimer found he could believe she had.
    Eventually the hermit, frowning, turned back to his hermitage. Hiding the Sword had really done nothing to relieve him of its burden. He still had matters of very great importance to decide.
     
     

 
    Chapter Three
     
    T he sun had nearly disappeared from sight behind the tall trees of the valley’s forest before the two pilgrims again came in sight of the small