The Blue Sword (Damar #2)(51)

"I have seen our enemy's face," Corlath said calmly. "It is not pretty."

Then the man came to carry the Water away, and the wine was brought back, and the shadows were chased away for a little. The Riders began looking expectantly toward Corlath, but this was a happier expectancy than that which had predicted the Meeldtar, and Harry caught the eagerness herself, though she knew not what it was for, and looked around for clues.

They had eaten their meal alone in the vast hall, and their few voices ran up into the ceiling like live things with wills of their own. But after the Water bag had been taken away, people had begun to appear around the small dais where the king and his Riders sat; they entered from all directions and settled on cushions or chairs. Some of them mounted the lower dais and sat around the great table that surrounded the Riders. More of the folk of the household appeared, some bearing trays and some low tables, and set out more food, or passed it among the increasing audience. There was a murmur of talk, low but excited. Harry rubbed her fingers up and down the length of the gold pin in her sash till it was no longer cold.

One of the men brought Corlath his sword, and he stood up and slung the belt of it around him. Harry wondered sourly how many years it took to learn to sling oneself into a sword as easily as yawn; and then wondered if she wanted to spend so many years that way. Or if she would have the choice. She had not liked waking up to find herself clutching her sword hilt as a child might clutch a favorite toy. Perhaps it was as well to have to think of shoulder and waist, belt and buckle. Another man came in, carrying another sword. Corlath took this one too, and held the scabbard in his left hand, letting the belt dangle; and he pulled it free and waved it, gleaming, under the light of the candles in the great chandelier. There was a blue stone set in its hilt, and it glared defiantly in the light. This was a shorter lighter sword than Corlath's, but the suppleness of it, and the way it hung, waiting, in the air, gave it a look of infinite age, and sentience, as if it looked out at those who looked at it. "This is Gonturan," said Corlath, and a murmur of assent and of recognition went around the hall; the Riders were silent. "She is the greatest treasure of my family. For a few years in his youth each son has carried her; but she was not meant for a man's hands, and legend has it that she will betray the man who dares bear her after his twentieth year. This is the Lady Aerin's sword; and it has been many a long year since there has been a woman to carry it."

Harry was staring at the blade, and barely heard Corlath's words; she was watching a flame-haired woman riding in a forest that seemed to grow against the flat of the shining sword; in her hand was another sword, and the hilt sparkled blue.

All the other Riders were standing up, and Corlath reached down and seized her wrist. "Stand up, disi," he said. "I'm about to make you a Rider." She stood, dazed. A disi was a silly child. There was another who rode with the woman who carried the Blue Sword; he rode a few paces behind her.

"A Rider?" Harry said.

"A Rider," Corlath replied firmly.

She dragged her eyes away from the winking sword edge and looked at him. Another man of the household set a small flat pot of yellow salve at Corlath's right hand. The king dipped the fingers of that hand in it, then drew them to smear the ointment across his palm. He had shifted Gonturan to his left hand; now he seized the blade near the tip with his right, and gave it a quick twist. "Damn," he said, as the blood welled between his fingers and dripped to the floor. He picked up a napkin and squeezed it. "Take my sword, Harimad-sol," he said, "and do the same - but not so enthusiastically. I think, though, that Katuchim has not the sense of humor that Gonturan does, so do not fear him."

She dipped her fingers in the salve, and touched them gently to her palm; reached out and, as awkwardly as if she had never learned one lesson from Mathin, dragged Corlath's sword from its scabbard. It was so long she had to brace the hilt against the table to get a reasonable angle on the edge. She closed her fingers around it, thought about something else, and felt the skin of her palm just part. She opened her hand, and three drops of blood only sprang from the thinnest of red lines across her skin. "Well done!" said Mathin over her shoulder, and the Riders cheered; and the whole hall picked it up, shouting.

Corlath grinned down at her, and she could not help smiling back. "There have been more graceful kings and Riders since the world began, but we'll do," said Corlath to her, quietly, below the roar around them. "Take your sword, and mind you treat her well. You will have Aerin's shade to answer to, else."

Harry's fingers closed round the blue hilt and she knew at once that she would handle this sword very well indeed - or it would handle her. For a moment she found herself wishing that she had been carrying Gonturan the day of the trials, and at this a slow sly smile spread across her face. She raised her eyes to Corlath's face - he had taken his own sword back and sheathed it, and one of the Riders was tying the napkin around the wounded hand and saying something sardonic; but Corlath only laughed, and turned back to watch her. Such was the slow sly smile he offered her in return that she rather thought he knew just what she was thinking.

"Damalur-sol!" the people cried. "Damalur-sol!"
   





Harry had trouble falling asleep that night; she listened to the gentle sound the water made walking down the three stone steps, and often she stretched out her hand to touch the hilt of the blue sword that lay beside her, carefully laid upon a small carpet of blue and green and gold that she had found in a corner of a hall on her way back to her mosaic palace after the feast. She had appropriated it, rolled it up, tucked it under her arm, and glared at the woman of the household who was conducting her. The woman dropped her eyes, but did not seem unduly disturbed. Who would grudge a damalur-sol a little rug? Harimad-sol thought airily.