The First Book of Lost Swords - Woundhealer's Story by Fred Saberhagen Read Free Book Online

taken shelter, and where the river was born, was one of them. It burrowed into the foot of a hill just beyond those that Zoltan was able to see from his room.
           After staring for another few moments at the hills, he jumped up and began putting on his clothes.
           In the great hall downstairs, Zoltan found that the usual morning routine had not yet been reestablished. His mother and sister were not yet up, and formal breakfast for the family was not yet ready. He made his way into the kitchen, exchanging morning greetings with the cooks and servants, wheedling and pilfering to assemble a breakfast of fruit, cooked eggs, and fresh bread.
           Stowing a second small loaf inside his jacket, he went outside. Summer was showing signs of waning—the leaves and fruit on the nearby trees established that—and the early air was cool. Zoltan gave good morning to the stable hands, who were busy, and saddled his own riding-beast, Swordface. The name derived from a bold forehead patch of bright white hair.
           Soft black hair … and the scent of certain flowers . They were sharper memories than mere dreams should ever leave in waking life, and during the daytime they kept coming back to Zoltan at moments when he least expected it.
           He rode out through the open front gate of the Manor. A soldier was stationed there this morning, and Zoltan waved before heading his mount at a steady pace toward the hills. He had said nothing to anyone about his destination, but he was going back to the cave. When he got there he … but he didn’t know yet exactly what he was going to do.
           Two days ago, coming out of the cave with the other children, all of them shaken and unnerved, he had got a close look at some of the bandits, who of course by that time were already dead. Neither Zoltan nor any other Tasavaltan had been able to recognize any of them. At the time, looking at the corpses, about all Zoltan had been able to think of was that men like that would never have had a beautiful young girl traveling with them. Unless, of course, she were their prisoner. And then she’d have to be tied up, hobbled somehow, to keep her from running away. But he had the impression that the girl he had actually seen had been perfectly free.
           Now, two days later, there were moments it seemed to Zoltan strange that he had not yet mentioned the girl to anyone. It was not that he had deliberately decided to make a secret of her existence. It was just that when Karel, and Uncle Mark, and others had talked to him, questioning him about what had happened while he was in the cave, she had vanished from his mind completely. Zoltan had told his questioners that he hadn’t even looked out of the cave. Later on, dreaming or awake, the memory of her would pop back, and he’d think: Oh yes. Of course. And then he’d wonder briefly how he could ever have forgotten, and wonder whether he ought to tell someone next time he had the chance.
           Maybe going back into the cave this morning and looking out again from the exact same spot would help him to fix the whole experience in his memory. Then he could tell everyone all about it. He really ought to tell someone…
           That girl, though. The more Zoltan thought about her, the more he realized she was a great mystery. He wasn’t at all sure that she was the little dark-haired girl that he remembered from his childhood. Sure looked like her, though. It might take a wizard as good as Karel to figure out who this one really was.
           Zoltan’s brow furrowed as he stared forward over the neck of his riding-beast, for the moment not paying much attention to where Swordface was taking him. It was more than strange, it was really alarming that he hadn’t mentioned the girl to anyone, not even to Karel when the wizard had questioned him. It was very peculiar indeed. Almost as if—
           Swordface stumbled lightly over