The Sword of Skelos by Andrew Offutt Read Free Book Online Page B

Argos, whose claws are sheathed in silk?”
    Below: the twenty-fourth step bore both the girl’s feet, for she hesitated there, seeking a way around, rather than across, the naked corpse of a man she did not know had been one of nigh incredible bravery and daring.
    “Aye, my good lord,” Zafra said, and his eyes seemed to glitter when he looked down at the girl’s back, and then at the pendant-strung sword standing from the dungeon floor like a monument to two violent deaths.
    Three
, Zafra thought, and he said very quietly, his lips hardly moving, “
Slay him
.”
    Earth and water, fire and air had anointed the sword while the ancient words were said over it. Gold rang off steel as the sword of Akter Khan drew itself from the earthen floor. Without hesitation, it turned itself in air and rushed, like an arrow loosed by a strong-thewed archer of great skill, at the little daughter of the desert.
    She had naturally glanced at it when she heard the
ting
of metal on metal—as Akter Khan had glanced at Zafra when he heard the pronoun the mage used. Her throat was frozen in awe and terror; the khan’s was not.
    “
Him
?” he demanded.
    “Even a sword of sorcery knows no gender, my lord. Too, any against whom my lord presently employs it are almost sure to be men.”
    Below, the girl’s nascent cry broke off in a horrid indrawn gasp as the ensorcled blade proved it had no knowledge of gender or pronouns. Between and just beneath her golden breastplates it plunged, and just left of center.
    The khan drew a deep long breath through his nostrils. He expelled it from his mouth in a windy sigh.
    “Ah, and to think she died a virgin,” he said, as though making paean at graveside, “and to such a great cause! Nor will her people know this, for not for a month will we sadly send word that she died of a fever that also nigh took the life of her beloved lord—” the khan coughed— “and was buried with honor and mourning in the Cemetery of Kings, doubtless bearing within her a royal son and taking him with her…
to Hell
!”
    Even Zafra swallowed.
    So recently wizard’s apprentice; votary of abominable sorceries gained from the ancient Book of Skelos and the evil-reeking tomes of Sabatea of the golden peacock and envenomed ink; caller upon Set and dark Erlik and even those Pictish Children of Jhil of which those savages knew less than he… and recent slayer of his late master; all and each of these was Zafra, and yet more, for he dreamed of rule, and broad sway in future with kahns subject to him while he said “my lord” to no man… and yet he swallowed at the sheer evil and toxin-laden words of his employer, if not at the murder of innocent beauty.
    Villain
! Zafra thought.
So men will call me in times to come
—
and none will know that once I served the greatest villain since Thugra Khotan died in Khorshemish three thousand years agone
!
    Akter Khan, having vindicated his manhood, droned on in the same deadly voice. “That sword will hang in new brackets of gold on the wall, behind my throne, Zafra, and I shall steel myself not to test it now and again. And you, O genius, are henceforth Wizard of Zamboula, advisor to the Khan, quartered in the second apartment of the palace, served by him of your choice from among mine own and a girl chosen by my very self. And… this night… visited by a Tigress!”
    “My lord,” Zafra said with sudden oleaginousness, “is exceeding generous.”
    The khan looked at him, and above his eagle’s beak his eyes were eagle-bright.
    “Not passing generous, Zafra, Wizard of Zamboula. Not so long as you serve me.”
    Zafra executed one of his abbreviated bows. “I am your liege-man, Khan of Zamboula!”
    “Good. Now fetch me my magnificent new sword! Next, go out into the city, and employ two ruffians for a piece of gold and the promise of three more—each— for an hour’s work. That baggage below is to be stripped, mutilated, and carried from here in leathern bags—several.