The Destiny of the Sword Read Online Free PDF

for the Goddess.”
    Now Polini understood and was impressed. “Then you are to be leader of the tryst, my lord!”
    “Perhaps I am,” Wallie said. “If so, then She is in no hurry to get me there, which may be where you come in.” He looked to Nnanji, who nodded thoughtfully.
    “Me? Us?”
    “I am wondering if we were meant to meet, Master Polini. Stranger things can happen—indeed they happen to me all the time. It is curious that you chose this ship, and even more curious that you and your prote”g should be familiar with one
    of the other seven swords of Chioxin. A tryst might be good training for a swordsman prince. After all, a novice will not be expected to do any fighting, so he will be in no great danger.”
    For the first time, the youngster showed some normal boyish excitement. He swung around to his mentor to see what he thought.
    Polini rose disapprovingly. “You may well be right, my lord. I hope that you are. But I have already sworn my oath and I must attempt to return my protg to Plo. If I am wrong, then I am sure that we shall meet again—in Casr.”
    The light died in the boy’s eyes, and he stood up dutifully. Princes learned more than flowery speeches, and Firsts did not argue. Then he turned and looked up at Nnanji.
    “Adept,” he said, his voice now curiously flat, “was it truly you who led the wagon charge against the sorcerers in Ov?”
    Nnanji grinned. “We skinned them! Fourteen dead sorcerers.” He glanced regretfully at Wallie, who had spared an easy fifteenth.
    The boy reached up and unfastened his ponytail. “I shall not likely be going to the tryst, adept,” he said. “Lord Shonsu has a hairclip that was given him by a god, so he will not mind. This one belonged to my ancestor, and he wore it on the tryst of Xo. Will you take it for me and wear it against the evildoers?” He held out the silver clip.
    “Novice!” Polini barked. “That clip has been in your family for centuries! Your father would not approve of your giving it away to a stranger. I forbid this!”
    “Not a stranger, mentor, a hero.”
    “I think he is right, novice,” Wallie said gently.
    That settled the matter, of course, but Nnanji, immensely flattered at being called a hero, swallowed hard and said that he also agreed. Reluctantly Arganari replaced the clip, looking very juvenile between the three tall men.
    “We thank you for your hospitality, my lord,” Polini said formally. “I wish now to withdraw, with your permission, and seek a vessel. Probably a smaller would be more suitable. With no sailor,swordsmen Sixths!” he added, his smile openly skeptical.
    Puzzled and vaguely worried, Wallie led the visitors back to
     
     
     
    the top of the gangplank, arriving just as Lae came aboard, closely followed by Jja. Jja had discarded the riverfolk bikini sashes she normally wore on the ship in favor of a conventional slave’s black wrap. But the perfection of her figure could triumph over any costume, and her face was the stuff of legends. Wallie smiled her a welcome. He put an arm around her and unthinkingly proceeded to commit a major social blunder. Accustomed over many weeks now to the informality of ship life, he had forgotten the stilted formality of land,based culture in the World.
    “Jja, my darling,” he said, “here are visitors from your hometown, Master Polini and his Highness Novice Arganari.”
    The swordsmen stared aghast at the slavestripe on the woman’s face. Jja was momentarily paralyzed, also. There was no ritual for presenting slaves, as Wallie should have remembered.
    Then Jja fell to her knees and pressed her forehead to the deck. Wallie bit his lip in fury at his own stupidity. Polini was totally at a loss for words. It was young Arganari who reacted first. He stepped forward and raised her.
    “Truly I see how Plo earned its reputation for beautiful women,” he said in his singsong, childish voice. “If it did not have it before, then it would now.”
    That was a