And then he heard the creature’s hideous voice, a tone of dry bones breaking, dead leaves rattling, reverberating more in the man’s mind than in his ears. It sounded as if it were standing almost within arm’s length of Keyes.
With stately formality the demon announced its name. “I am Korku. Will you introduce yourself?”
“My name is Keyes.”
“Unhappy man named Keyes! Here you are down in this deep hole with no way to get out. And newly blind! Is it possible that you have angered a god? If so, that was unwise.”
“He’s coming back, the god who put me here. He’ll be angry if anything happens to me.”
“Oh, will he? But he is not here now.”
Keyes was silent. His lungs kept wanting to pant for air, for extra breath with which to scream, and he struggled to control the urge.
The demon said: “It is too bad that you are unable to appreciate my beauty visually. If only you could see me, I am confident that you would be-overwhelmed. Most humans are.
“Go away.”
“Not likely.” The dry bones crackled, the sound formed itself into words. “Not until you have handed over to me that ridiculous splinter of metal you now clutch so tightly. Then I will leave you in peace to wait for your dear god.”
“Go away!” Keyes tightened his grip upon the unknown hilt.
In response came a voiceless snarl that made his hair stand up, and then the voice again: “Hand it over, I say! Or I will cut you into a thousand pieces with your own weapon, and swallow you a piece at a time-and put you back together in my gut, where you will dwell for a million years in torment.”
“Not likely!” Keyes replied in turn. He thought it quite possible that this demon had as yet learned nothing about the Twelve Swords and their god-given powers. Or maybe the damned thing had learned just enough, or guessed enough, to make it determined to have this Sword for itself. But demons were notoriously cowardly; and so far it was being cautious.
This was not the man’s first contact with a demon-no magician adept enough to acquire deep skill was able to avoid all encounters with that evil race. But only magicians who had turned their faces against humanity entered willingly into commerce with such monsters, and Keyes still found pride in being human. In his present desperate situation, he might well have tried to bargain with a demon to lend him its perception, as other more powerful and unscrupulous wizards had been known to do-but he had nothing with which to bargain.
Except his unknown Sword; and that was all he had. He continued to brandish the mysterious weapon at his latest enemy, instead of handing it over as Korku had commanded.
The demon tried a few more arguments. It shouted at Keyes more loudly. But presently, when it saw that it was getting nowhere with mere words, it lost patience and reached out for the man with its half-material talons.
Keyes saw nothing of his enemy’s extended limbs. Nothing at all happened to the blind man waiting. But he heard Korku’s screaming threats break off abruptly in a muffled, bubbling sound. Then came a soft thump, as of a heavy mass of wet pulp falling some distance upon rock, followed by a slithering, which gradually receded.
Then silence.
Straining to hear more, unable to interpret what he had heard, the man uttered a small moan, compounded mostly of relief with a strong component of tormented puzzlement. Again his Sword, whichever Sword he held, had saved him somehow!
Yes, the demon must have been defeated. But perhaps not slain, not annihilated. Keyes probed about on the cave floor with the point of his Sword, and his imagination shuddered at the image of himself stepping blindly into a demon s body.
For several minutes he discovered nothing more helpful than a few more dead or dying bats. But eventually, when the blind man bent, listening intently over the brink of a certain deep but narrow pit, he heard Korku again. A tiny, screaming, threatening voice, muffled almost below the threshold of hearing, rose from the distant bottom of the pit.
After listening for a little while, the man dared to call down: “Korku? What has happened to you?”
The faint sounds coming back included nothing he could interpret as an answer-and, in any case, a human would be foolish to trust anything a demon said.
Logical thinking was still required-was more essential now than ever, since time was passing, and Mars would be coming back to subject his prisoner to some unknown horror. But logic was still difficult to sustain. By eliminating possibilities Keyes had made a beginning in the task of identifying his weapon. But the task was not accomplished. Which possibilities had he not yet considered?
There was Dragonslicer. There was Townsaver. There was Doomgiver, of course. Ah, in that last name might lie some real hope of survival! If only Keyes could be certain that he had the Sword of Justice in his hands, then he would dare to brazenly defy the gods. Even gods would risk bringing disaster on their own heads if they tried to harm him further. For example, if they poured in fire or water on him, he might make his way out to find them all burned or drowned.
Unless…
Unless, of course, one of the gods confronting him happened to be armed with Shieldbreaker. If Keyes’s extensive research was correct, and so far he had no reason to doubt its accuracy, no other weapon in the world, not even another Sword, could ever stand against the Sword of Force.
The thought of Shieldbreaker gave him pause. Suppose that he, Keyes, was now holding that one? Shieldbreaker’s invincible presence in his hand would have easily disposed of the demon, and the bats. But wait-here in the presence of enemies and danger, the Sword of Force ought to be audibly beating its drum-note of power.
Of course the drawback to relying upon Shieldbreaker was that any unarmed god, unarmed man, or unarmed child for that matter, could easily take that Sword away from whoever held it, regardless of the holder’s normal strength.
Keyes, probing gently with one finger at the slight self-inflicted cuts around his face, decided that the bleeding had already stopped. He tried desperately to recall whether wounds made by one Sword or another ought to heal quickly or slowly. But that information, if he had ever possessed it, escaped his memory.
Touch, smell, taste, none of them of any use in his predicament-but hearing! In that sense might lie his way to the answer!
Thinking, keeping track by counting on his fingers, Keyes decided that seven of the Swords, if all he had found out about them was correct, generated some kind of sound when they went into action. The other five exerted their individual powers in silence.
The man’s thoughts were interrupted by a pair of deep booming voices up above, outside the cave. The conversation of the gods was still somewhat muffled with distance, but coming closer at a pace no walking mortals could have matched. They were speaking to each other in the god-language that Keyes did not understand.
Mars, the god who had put Keyes in the cave, was coming back, holding like a toothpick between two fingers the sheathed metal of the weapon he had just been given by Vulcan, and now wanted to test. Hermes, a fellow-player in the Game, came with him, and the two deities discussed the matter as they walked.
The Wargod’s plan was to drop Soulcutter into the cave for Keyes to find, and let the man draw it, just to see what effect the Tyrant’s Blade really had on humans. Vulcan had promised the Council that Soulcutter-and indeed all the Swords-would have tremendous, overwhelming impact upon all lesser beings.
Mars commented: “I expect our respective worshipers will be using the Swords a great deal on each other, you know, when the Game really gets going.”
“What if he doesn’t draw it?” his companion asked.