Farslayer's Story Read Online Free PDF Page B

looked at the stranger dumbly. To get up and dress was something that humans did all the time.
    The hermit, still sleeping in exhaustion, was lying now at full length on the warm wooden floor, with his head fallen back between a pillow and a piece of firewood. The firelight gleamed on Gelimer’s bald head, and he snored vigorously.
    The visitor unwrapped his package, not noticing, or perhaps not caring, that the ties had earlier been cut. Then he pulled the Sword from its sheath, and shot another glance in the direction of the sleeping hermit.
    The hindquarters of the watchbeast moved in a swift surge, straightening its body in a line aimed at the stranger. The animal crouched, a very low growl issuing from its throat.
    But the stranger failed even to notice. His dazed mind was elsewhere, and he had no designs on his rescuer’s life. Instead, he was already making for the door, the drawn blade still in his hand. With his free hand he lifted the latch silently.
    Geelong subsided on his old blanket. Humans went out of doors all the time, in all kinds of weather. It was a permissible activity.
    The inner door was pulled shut, very softly, behind the stranger. The small tunnel penetrating the thickness of what had been a great tree’s bark was long enough to muffle the entering cold wind, muffle it enough so that Gelimer in his warm place by the fire was not awakened.
    Now all was silent again inside the house except for the furtive small noises of the fire itself. A stable warmth reestablished itself in the atmosphere. Faintly, as if at a great distance, the wind howled across the upper end of the carven passage of charred wood that served as chimney.
    Only a short time passed before cold air moved in again, faintly, under the inner door; and then that door opened once more. It had been left unlatched. The watchbeast raised his head again, alertly.
    The stranger entered, empty-handed. His face had a newly drained and empty look, paler even than before. Mechanically, unthinkingly, he latched the door behind him. Then he moved, very wearily but still quickly, to stand over the wrappings that had once held the Sword but now lay empty and discarded on the bed.
    He moved his hands over the emptiness before him, in what might have been either an abortive attempt at magic, or only a gesture of futility. His lips murmured a word, a word that might have been a name. Then he raised his eyes from the bed, and stood, swaying slightly on his feet, staring hopelessly at the curve of wooden wall little more than arm’s length in front of him.
    Again his lips moved, silently, as if he might be seeking the help of some divinity in prayer.
    Except for that he appeared to be simply waiting.
     
    * * *
     
    The sound that at last awakened Gelimer impressed the hermit as enormous, and yet he could not really have said that it was loud. It was as if the human ear, sleeping or waking, could catch only the delayed afterrush of that vast howling as it faded. As if mere human sense was inevitably a heartbeat too late in its perception to receive the full screaming intensity of the thing itself.
    The hermit woke up, to find himself lying in a strained position by the fire, with the strange remnants of that unearthly sound still hanging in the air. Upon the hearth the weakening fire still snapped and hissed. Across the room his watchbeast was standing up and whining softly, looking toward the bed.
    Even before he looked, Gelimer knew that whatever event had awakened him was already over.
    Sitting up, he turned his eyes toward the bed. And then he sprang to his feet.
    His visitor, once more fully clothed or very nearly so, was now sprawled facedown and diagonally crosswise upon the narrow bed, with the toes of his wet boots still resting on the floor. Above the stranger’s inert back protruded half a meter and more of beautiful steel blade, broad and mottled and glinting faintly in the firelight, beneath that black hilt with its god-chosen symbol. The