The Fourth Book Of Lost Swords : Farslayer's Story (Saberhagen's Lost Swords 4) by Fred Saberhagen (ereader iphone .TXT) 📕

      “Young woman—are you in need of help?”

      She gazed up at him boldly though fearfully. “I am,” she said, with the water sloshing spasmodically around her silver tail. “My need is very great. And I have come to you, come up all the way from the river, to try to get the help I need.”

      “You’ve come to me?” Gelimer, still somewhat bewildered by this unheard-of presence so far up the side of the mountain, ran a hand over his bald head. He felt himself to be at a total loss. “I will do what I can. But what can I do?”

      The mermaid sat up straighter in the water, with her tail now in front, propping her torso erect on both hands extended behind her. “Sir, if you will only wait a few moments, it will be easier for you to understand my difficulty. I will demonstrate as well as explain. Wait while I rest, and then watch carefully. And I will show you a great wonder.”

      “Then I will wait,” Gelimer said simply, and seated himself upon a handy rock.

      A quarter of an hour later, Gelimer had witnessed the coming and going of the change in the young woman’s body. Having seen what he would not otherwise have believed, he tended to believe the rest of the amazing story she had told him.

      He had changed his position by the time the story was finished, and was seated upon a different rock, handier to the stream, with Geelong crouching contentedly near his side. Frowning in deep thought, the hermit asked: “Will you describe to me this Cosmo Malolo you say has disappeared? I seldom have any contact with the leaders of the clans, and I have never met any of the younger ones.”

      When he had heard the mermaid’s description of her magician lover, Gelimer’s frown deepened, because now he was sure. The traveler who had called himself Chilperic had given a false name for the man that he was seeking. That man, Gelimer’s tragic early visitor, was certainly the same man that this mermaid sought, no doubt with better reason.

      Gelimer knew a little more of the truth now, and he knew it was his duty to tell Black Pearl that her lover was certainly dead. But as far as he could see, that truth would be of no benefit to her; it would only deprive her of hope. And if he, Gelimer, were to reveal that he knew where Cosmo lay buried, the mermaid along with other folk would justly suspect that he knew where the Sword was hidden also.

      But if he dared not tell the truth to this girl who had appealed to him for help, then what could he do for her?

      “I am no magician,” he confessed at last. “No real healer, either. If there were any solid help that I could give you, child, I would be glad to do so. But I fear there is nothing.”

      For several minutes after she heard these words Black Pearl simply sat in the water, staring up at the man she had been thinking of as her last hope. Her very human cheeks had dried in the breeze since she emerged from the water, and they stayed dry; the destruction of hope had been too sudden and complete to result in tears.

      The silence stretched on, until at last Gelimer could bear her empty gaze no longer. “I will try,” he promised, “to find magical assistance for you somehow.”

      “Oh sir. Thank you, sir.” The words sounded almost devoid of emotion; it was hard for Gelimer to tell if she were only being polite to him in turn, or not. “What can I give you in return?”

      Gelimer thought, and sighed. “At the moment, I can think of nothing for you to give me. It may be that I will be able to give you nothing, either. I fear that it very well may be so. And yet I do pledge that I will try.”

      They exchanged a few more words, and the hermit promised that he would meet the mermaid, at a certain time, at a certain place at the river’s edge. Years had passed since he had gone that far down into the gorge, but it was a place he could remember well enough.

      Then, after bestowing Ardneh’s blessing as best he could, he turned and began climbing wearily back to his house, his watchbeast moving subdued at his side.

* * *

      With the edge of her despair at least somewhat blunted by the hermit’s kindly attention to her troubles, and his conditional promise, Black Pearl pulled herself together as best she could, and started on her way back to the mouth of the stream. The passage downhill, with the swift current’s help, was physically much easier than the ascent, and she progressed quickly.

      Deep in her own thoughts, she had by now ceased to pay much attention to her surroundings, and she was within thirty meters of the two mercenaries before she saw them.

      Calling to her to stop and wait for them, calling to each other to run her down, howling their lust and wonder and delight on finding her almost helpless before them, the two armed and shabby men moved on quick legs to cut her off from the broad river and freedom.

      Black Pearl had not seen such men in the valley before, and the strangeness of their appearance only added to her terror. They were dressed unlike any of the native men on either side of the river, wearing scraps of alien looking armor and green scarves round their throats, and both were well armed.

      The men were trying to make their voices soft when they called to her, but the look of their faces belied the softness. In complete panic, her worries about tomorrow swallowed up in immediate terror, Black Pearl turned around and threw her tired body again into the struggle to ascend the stream. One hope, though a feeble one, lay in reaching one of the deeper pools above,