The Reluctant Swordsman Read Free Page B

the singers and musicians became hopelessly tangled, the dancers stumbled and collided, and every eye went wide.   Then the ceremony ended in a chaotic, clattering roll of drums, and the swordsman swayed over backward.
    He fell like a marble pillar. In the sudden silence his head hit the tiles with an audible crack.
    He lay still, huge and newborn-naked. The rag had fallen off his forehead, revealing for all to see the craftmarks on his forehead, the seven swords.
    ††
    The temple was a building whose origins lay hidden back in the Neolithic. Many times it had been enlarged, and most of the fabric had been replaced from time to time as it had weathered or decayed—not once, but often.   Yet the temple was also people. They aged and were replaced much faster. Each fresh-faced acolyte would look in wonder at an ancient sage of the Seventh and marvel that the old man had probably known so-and-so in his youth, little thinking that the old man himself as a neophyte had studied that same so-and-so and mused that he was old enough to have known such-and-such. Thus, like stones in an arch, the men and women of the temple reached from the darkness of the past into the unviewable glare of the future. They nurtured the ancient traditions and holy ways and they worshiped the Goddess in solemnity and veneration . . .
    But none of them had ever known a day like that one. Elderly priestesses of the Sixth were seen running; questions and answers were shouted across the very face of the Goddess, violating all tradition; slaves and bearers and healers milled around in the most holy places; and pilgrims wandered unattended before the dais itself. Four of the largest male juniors were led into back rooms by venerable seniors of unquestioned moral probity, then ordered to take off their clothing and lie down. Three respected Sevenths had heart attacks before lunch.   The spider at the center of the web of confusion was Honakura. It was he who poked the stick in the ant hill and stirred. He summoned all his authority, his unspoken power, his unparalleled knowledge of the workings of the temple, and his undoubted wits—and he used them to muddle, confuse, confound, and disorder.   He used them with expertise and finesse. He issued a torrent of commands—peremptory, obscure, convoluted, misleading, and contradictory.   By the time the valiant Lord Hardduju, reeve of the temple guard, had confirmed that truly there was another swordsman of the Seventh within the precincts, the man had totally vanished, and no amount of cajolery, bribery, interrogation, or menace could establish where he had gone.
    Which was, of course, the whole idea.
     
    Even a day like that one must end. As the sun god began to grow tired of his glory and dip toward his exit, the venerable Lord Honakura sought rest and peace in a small room high in one of the minor wings of the temple. He had not visited those parts for years. They were even more labyrinthine than the rest of the complex, but ideal for his purpose. Trouble, he knew, was seeking him out—it might as well be given as long a search as possible.   The room was a small, bare chamber, higher than it was wide, with walls of sandstone blocks and a scarred floor of planks bearing one small, threadbare rug. There were two doors, for which even giants need not have stooped, and a single window of diamond panes, whorled and dusty, blurring the light to green and blue blotches. The window frame had warped so that it would not open, making the room stuffy, smelling of dust. The only furniture was a pair of oaken settles. Honakura was perched on one of those, dangling his feet, trying to catch his breath, wondering if there was any small detail he might have overlooked.
    Knuckles tapped, a familiar face peered in and blinked at him. He sighed and rose as his nephew Dinartura entered, closed the door, and advanced to make the salute to a superior.
    “I am Dinartura,” right hand to heart, “healer of the third