Nightside the Long Sun

They fell as he spoke; one spindle-thin leg was black synthetic and gleaming steel. At the touch of the old man’s fingers, it too fell away, leaving him swaying on a single, natural, knotted, blue-veined leg. “What do you think of my secret? Five it took!” He hopped toward them, balancing himself precariously with his foil and the yellow walking stick. “Five I found!”

Almost too late, Silk blocked a wide, whistling cut at his head.

“Too many parts? Scarcely enough!” Another swinging slash. “Don’t cringe!”

Auk lunged at the old man. His parry was too swift for the eye to follow; the crack of his foil against Auk’s skull sounded louder than Auk’s shot in the Cock. Auk sprawled on the sailcloth mat.

“Now, Patera! Guard yourself!”

For the space of a brief prayer that seemed half the night, that was all Silk did, frantically fending off cut after cut, forehand, backhand, to the head, to the neck, to the arms, the shoulders, the waist. There was no time to think, no time to do anything but react. Almost in spite of himself, he began to sense a certain pattern, a rhythm that governed the old man’s slashing attack. Despite his ankle, he could move faster, turn faster, than the old man on his one leg.

“Good! Good! After me! Good!”

Xiphias was on the defensive now, parrying the murderous cuts Silk launched at his head and shoulders.

“Use the point! Watch this!” The old man lunged, his slender stick the leg he lacked, the end of his foil between Silk’s legs, then under his left arm. Silk himself thrust desperately. Xiphias’s parry sent his point awry. Silk cut at his head and lunged when he backed away.

“Where’d you study, lad?”

Auk was on his feet once more, grinning and rubbing his head. Feeling that he had been betrayed, Silk thrust and parried, cut, and parried the old man’s cuts. There was no time to speak, no time to think, no time to do anything but fight. He had dropped the lioness-headed stick, but it did not matter—the pain in his ankle was remote, the pain of somebody else far off, of some body that he hardly knew.

“Good! Oh, very nice!”

The clack, clack, clack of the foils was the beating of the Sphigxdrum that called men to war, the rattle of crotala that led the dance, a dance in which every movement had to be as quick as possible.

“I’ll take him, Auk! I’ll teach him! He’s mine!”

Hopping and half falling, propped by his slender stick, the old man met each attack with careless ease, his mad eyes burning with joy.

Maddened too, Silk thrust at them. His bamboo blade flew wide, and the slender walking stick struck a single, paralyzing blow to his wrist. His foil dropped to the mat, and Xiphias’s point thumped his breastbone. “You’re dead, Patera!”

Silk stared at him, rubbed his wrist, and at last spat at the old man’s feet. “You cheated. You said I couldn’t hit with my stick, but you hit me with yours.”

“I did! Oh, yes!” The old man flung it into the air and parried it as it fell. “But aren’t I sorry? Isn’t my heart torn? Overflowing with remorse? Oh, it is, it is! I weep! Where would you like to be buried?”

Auk said quietly, “There ain’t any rules, Patera, not when we fight. Somebody lives, somebody dies. That’s all there is.”

Silk started to speak, thought better of it, swallowed, and said, “I understand. If I’d considered something that happened this afternoon more seriously—as I should have before now—I would have understood sooner. You’re right, of course, sir. You’re both right.”

“Where did you study?” Xiphias asked. “Who’s your old master?”

“No one,” Silk told him truthfully. “We used to fence with laths when I was a boy, sometimes; but I’d never held a real foil before.”

Xiphias cocked a bushy eyebrow at him. “Like that, eh? Or perhaps you’re still angry because I tricked you?” He hopped over to Blood’s fallen walking stick, snatched it up (practically falling himself) and tossed it to Silk. “Want to hit me back? Punish me for trying to save you? Do your worst!”

“Of course not. I’d rather thank you, Xiphias, and I do.” Silk rubbed the crusted bruise Musk had left on his ribs. “It was a lesson I needed. When may I come for my next?”

While the old man was considering, Auk said, “He’ll be a good contact for you, Patera. He’s a master-of-arms, not just of the sword. He was the one that sold the boy your needles, see?”

“Mornings, afternoons, or evenings?” Xiphias inquired. “Would evenings be all right? Good! Can we say Hieraxday, then?”

Silk nodded again. “Hieraxday after shadelow, Master Xiphias.”

Auk brought the old man his prosthetic leg and helped him keep his balance while he closed its socket about his stump.

“You see,” Xiphias asked, tapping it with his foil, “that I’ve earned the right to do what I did? That I was cheated once myself? That I paid the price when I was as young and strong as you are today?”

* * *

Outside, in the hot, silent street, Auk said, “We’ll find you a litter before long, Patera. I’ll pay ’em, but then I’ll have to get going.”