The Coming Of Wisdom by Dave Duncan Read Free Book Online

adventuring in damp clothes. Nevertheless, he seemed to be in good spirits, beaming his gums at the swordsman. Vixini was fretting, and his mother smiled rather wanly at her owner.
    Nnanji directed a bleak gaze toward Katanji, perhaps suspecting what had been going on in his absence. “Lord Shonsu and I have just sworn the oath of brotherhood!” he announced.
    Katanji contrived to look impressed, if rather cynically so.
    “That makes him your mentor, also!”
    Now Katanji looked alarmed.
    “It does?” Wallie said. “ 
‘Your oaths are my oaths’
? Yes, I suppose it does. And also my brother, perhaps? Well, we shall have to make sure he is a credit to us both, shan’t we?” He stepped over and settled on the pallet beside Jja, having to tilt his sword at an angle across his back and keep one leg twisted under him. If this was how free swords had to sit all the time, then he disapproved. Nnanji moved in under cover and squatted on his heels.
    “So you have solved the first line of the riddle,” Honakura said. “Now what happens?” He smirked mockingly.
    “Has your mission begun, then, my lord?” asked Katanji.
    Nnanji bristled. In so formal a culture, a mere First must not address a Seventh without invitation, but Katanji had already summed up Lord Shonsu and knew he was in no danger.
    Hastily Wallie said, “I don’t know, novice. I was explaining to Nnanji that I was not told exactly what my mission is to be. It may have begun, but—”
    “My lord brother! He is only a scratcher. He does not know one seventy-five yet!”
    Wallie nodded. “Nnanji will instruct you in the sutra ‘On Secrecy,’ ” he told Katanji. “Meanwhile, just remember that this is in confidence, all right?”
    The boy nodded, wide-eyed. He had already packed more excitement into his first day as a swordsman than most men would achieve in years. He had even saved Wallie’s life the previous evening—and probably Nnanji’s, too. Obviously he had a part to play also, but whatever it might be, it would not likely require a sword. Nnanji, in his first flush of excitement at being promoted, had impetuously rushed off, bought that ludicrous slave, and sworn his young brother as his protégé. Cowie might make some old man very happy in a comfortable home somewhere, but she was not a swordsman’s woman. Katanji, likewise, was not swordsman material. He completely lacked his brother’s natural talents as an athlete, as Wallie had confirmed with his horseplay on the jetty. Katanji had almost fallen over, even in a straight drop of three feet or so. Nnanji would have landed like a cat.
    Nnanji was scowling, playing middlerank as he had seen it played in the temple barracks, wearing his topkick-facing-grunt face.
    “You say you’re not good at riddles,” Wallie said. “How is he?”
    Reluctantly Nnanji said, “Not bad.”
    “Then let’s try him on this one.” Wallie explained the riddle that defined his mission. Katanji frowned. Honakura had heard it before. Jja was certainly trustworthy. Cowie would understand little more than Vixini . . . and yet Cowie had also played an unwitting part in the gods’ plans, a reminder that mortals should not jump to conclusions.
    “So the question is: what happens now? I do have a couple of clues. No, three, I think. Two of them are things that . . . my predecessor said, just before he died. He said he had come very far. Well, we were moved very far in the night. Secondly, he mentioned sorcerers.”
    “Rot!” snapped Honakura. “I will never believe in sorcerers. Just legends!”
    Wallie knew that he would take a great deal of convincing himself, but he had come to believe in gods and miracles, so he was not going to close his mind on the subject of sorcerers. Shonsu had said they existed.
    “There would be no honor fighting sorcerers,” Nnanji said grumpily, which was what he had said when Wallie had asked him once before. Then he grinned. “And there aren’t any here! I asked