Wielding a Red Sword Read online

  Thanatos lifted his skeletal wrist and touched a heavy watch there. Abruptly the scene froze. The minister's look of shock remained unchanging on his face; the clouds in the sky stopped moving. Smoke from a distant fire became stationary. Nothing moved, except for Thanatos, Mym, and the great pale horse.

  "The fact that you are able to perceive Incarnations suggests that you relate to us," Thanatos said. "Therefore I will explore this matter. Chronos will know." He touched his watch again—and suddenly a figure cloaked in white stood with them, holding up a large, glowing hourglass.

  "Yes, Thanatos," the new figure said. He appeared to be a normal man. "And Mars. Good to encounter you both again."

  "Mars?" Mym asked.

  "Mars?" Thanatos echoed, seeming equally perplexed.

  "Oh, hasn't he taken office yet?" Chronos asked. "I regret my slip. I travel in the opposite direction, you know. I will erase the episode."

  "No!" Mym cried, in his stress not stuttering. "Ignorance has brought enough mischief already! I will keep the secret, if that's what it is. What has Mars to do with this?"

  Chronos exchanged a glance with Thanatos, then shrugged. "Your problem here is war. War diverts necessary resources wastefully, so that food is destroyed instead of feeding the hungry. To alleviate misery like this, you must first abolish war. Since you are to become Mars, the Incarnation of War, you should be in a position to deal with this."

  "I—become Mars?" Mym asked, dumbfounded. "But I have a Kingdom to run, a bride to marry!"

  "Well, I suppose you could turn the office down," Chronos said. "Nothing is fixed, and certainly the reality I remember can become another reality. But if you are serious about alleviating suffering in the world—"

  Mym looked out over the pallets, each bearing a starving person—men, women and children. "I must stop this!" he said.

  "Then the opportunity will be yours," Chronos said. "I am glad that the future is not to change in this respect; I have enjoyed working with you and will be sorry to see you depart—though of course that is not the way you perceive it."

  "You—live backwards?" Mym asked, returning to his singsong as the stutter threatened. "From the future to the past?"

  "True. You would think that after a decade or two, I would remember that things are opposite for the rest of you—but every so often I slip." He turned to Thanatos. "Just how long ago was the change in the Mars office made? I have been absorbed by other matters and entirely overlooked the event."

  "It hasn't happened yet," Thanatos said.

  Chronos grimaced. "There I go again! Of course you have not yet seen the change. I've been jumping about so much, including an interaction with Mars, here, that—" He shook his head. "What was the reason you summoned me?"

  "I believe you have answered the question already," Thanatos said. "I was curious why this mortal could perceive Incarnations. Since you advise us that he is to become one, this becomes clear."

  "Glad to have been of help in that case." The hourglass brightened, and Chronos disappeared.

  "If he lives backwards," Mym asked, "why aren't his words backwards?"

  "He controls time," Thanatos explained. "He simply reverses it for himself, so as to align with our frame, for a short period. But as you saw, these constant reversals can lead to confusion at times. He's a good man and an effective Incarnation, but Fate is the only one of us who really understands him. Now if your question has been answered—"

  "Wait! No! It hasn't!" Mym sang. "I don't know anything about becoming the Incarnation of War some time in the future! I only want to alleviate the suffering I see here and now!"

  "You are taking the short view," Thanatos cautioned him. "When you become Mars, as Chronos said, you will be in a position to accomplish the alleviation you seek."

  "But that won't help these starving folk now!"

  Thanatos nodded. "True. In the interest of good relations between Incarnations, I will summon one who may help you now." He faced into the sky. "Gaea—will you answer?"

  "Gaea?" Mym asked. All of this was highly confusing.

  The air seemed to be thickening about them. Thin mist formed. It became fog, then a smokelike formation that coalesced into a vaguely human shape. The details clarified into those of a large, solid woman dressed in green. "Thanatos," she answered.

  "This man, at the moment mortal, is to assume the office of Mars at a later date," Thanatos said. "Chronos mentioned it. But right now, there is a concern about the folk here who are starving."

  Gaea considered Mym. "In that case, it behooves me to oblige him. I can improve the local climate, so that the crops flourish—"

  "That would require at least a season," Mym sang. "These here will all be dead by then."

  She considered. "Then I will provide manna."

  She stretched out her arms, became fog, and dissipated. "Manna?" Mym sang, even more perplexed than he had been.

  "Gaea's ways can be strange," Thanatos said.

  The thinning fog settled to the ground and coalesced. Mym stooped and scooped up a bit of the residue on a finger. He put it to his mouth, tasting it. "Manna?" he repeated.

  "Perhaps the concept is not in your legends," Thanatos said. "In the Judeo-Christian mythos, it is a nutritious substance that appears on the ground. I suspect it is some kind of rapidly reproducing fungus."

  "Food," Mym breathed, understanding.

  "I suspect you owe Gaea a favor," Thanatos murmured. Then he mounted his pale horse, touched his watch, and rode off into the sky.

  The scene returned to life. "Set men to collecting the manna," Mym sang to the minister. The man did not even try to argue; he got on it, evidently understanding very little of this development.

  In this manner a number of starving people were fed. The manna came every day and fed them all, and no one quite understood this phenomenon, except perhaps Mym himself. But he had a number of serious questions about the larger picture. He—to become the Incarnation of War? Not if he could help it! He had business to complete as a mortal. Yet the plight of the starving people had touched him deeply, and if there were some way to eliminate this kind of misery in the future—

  Time passed, and no further supernatural manifestations occurred. He began to believe that his encounter with Famine, Death, Time, and Nature had been a hallucination, and the manna a coincidence. Rapture of Malachite remained loving and dependent, and he took hold of the reins of government with increasing competence as his direct experience grew. The Rajah sent him on missions to other nations and to other parts of the world, so that he could work on the broader scale to benefit his Kingdom.

  He discovered himself to be surprisingly effective at this type of endeavor. He took Rapture with him to speak for him, literally. She was beautiful, so that none of the old men who ran the other nations objected to her presence, and she was trained in all the graces of royalty, so that the old men's wives found her compatible. But mainly, she understood Mym; he could convey his meaning to her by a few gestures and facial expressions and some faintly hummed words, and she would translate these to exquisitely rendered English. Since international dialogues often required the intercession of translators, no one found it remarkable that this handsome young prince of a nation of India used one, and some did not even realize that it was because of his stutter, not his ignorance of the language, that this was so.

  But Gujarat's most pressing need was for modernization, and for that it required money. This meant a loan from Uncle Sugar to the West.

  Mym pondered the matter. He realized that even Uncle Sugar expected some minimal quid pro quo. What did a poverty-stricken, backward kingdom like Gujarat have to offer in return for money?

  Mym came to a conclusion. He took Rapture and went to brace the Rajah. "My beloved says he can get a loan of one billion dollars from the West," she announced brightly.

  The Rajah almost did a double-take. He had evidently not appreciated just how well Mym and Rapture worked together. Normally women did not speak on matters of g
overnment, as they were, in the Rajah's view, incompetent for such matters. But after all the effort he had gone to gain Mym's agreement to the betrothal, he was glad to tolerate Rapture in whatever manner she manifested. "And how should this miracle be achieved?" he asked.

  She glanced at Mym, who hummed, "Base."

  "There is a military base that—" she began.

  "Absolutely not!" the Rajah stormed. "We have never tolerated foreign military equipment on our terrain!"

  Mym was already signaling and humming to her. "Oh, honored father-in-law-to-be," Rapture said dulcetly, flashing a winning smile at him. "My beloved well understands that. But this is the modern day, and the modern world is not a thing we can safely ignore. It would be better to accept the base and let them hire our people at their ludicrously high wages, and we can have our spies there to report on their secrets. It would represent a simple way to watch them." The Rajah paused, considering. It was more than the logic that impressed him, Mym knew; it was the manner that Rapture converted Mym to a brilliant negotiator. Of course most of the words were her own, based on the discussion Mym had had with her beforehand; but because they were nominally from him, he had the credit. Mym's handicap of speech had been a sore trial to the Rajah's pride, and this apparent eloquence had to be deeply satisfying to him. "Still, the base would represent an aggravation to Uncle Vinegar to the North—"

  Mym hummed and gestured. "Which may be no bad thing, Oh great Rajah," Rapture said, sending him a smile to melt ice. "It will help establish Gujarat's independence from the influence of that power."

  "But—"

  Mym hummed again. Rapture leaned forward persuasively. The Rajah was an old, old hand at women, but even his eyes glinted a smidgeon as they took in her décolletage. He recognized the finest vintage when he saw it. "And since Uncle Sugar will be obliged to grant us a loan of one billion dollars for the privilege of establishing that base, our independence will be further enhanced," she said.

  The Rajah shook his head. He sighed. "Do it, then," he grumbled. "A prince must be allowed to make his own mistakes."

  Mym knew that the Rajah would never have agreed, had it not been for Rapture. The old man was not getting soft; he simply realized that the logic was good enough to stand and that if this was the way Mym and Rapture could operate in the West, they would almost certainly get that loan. More than anything else, the Rajah wanted a truly effective leader of his own blood to succeed him, and Mym had just demonstrated how that could be.

  They took a royal carpet to the outdated airport and caught one of the few international flights to the West. Magic was fine for local transport, but science prevailed on the global scale. Rapture was a little awed by the huge airplane with its blazing jet engines, but she liked the plush first-class seats and the petite uniformed stewardesses. "We should have them on the carpets," she murmured.

  "They're better than eunuchs," Mym sang agreement.

  The airplane angled up, up, far into the sky, above the clouds. "But why doesn't the air get thin?" Rapture inquired, worried. "I never was able to take a carpet this high without suffocating, and it got cold, too."

  "Pressured cabin," he advised her.

  "Isn't science wonderful!"

  In due course they reached the fabulous West. Their plane landed at Washington, and they were met by a high level functionary with a limousine. They were set up in a fine hotel, where every room had scientifically heated water, electrical lights, and color television sets. Rapture just shook her head in wonder. She knew what these things were, of course, for her kingdom was not entirely backward, but had never seen them so freely bestowed on the populace.

  They met the President of Uncle-Sugar-land and made their presentation. After he and his Cabinet Ministers had gazed at Rapture, they agreed that this was the diplomatic thing to do; they really needed that base, and it was only neighborly to make the loan. Of course they preferred that the loan be spent on goods produced by the loaning nation...

  Rapture agreed, turning on one of her winter-banishing smiles. Of course there were complications to be handled, but the understanding had been reached. Mym placed orders for modern scientific fertilizer, harvesting machinery, and trucks to haul the produce to market, and the industrialists of the West were pleased. The modernization of Gujarat was proceeding.

  Meanwhile, the complex negotiations for Rapture's dowry were nearing completion, and the royal marriage was almost ready to be scheduled, two years after the month in Honeymoon Castle. "Soon you will be mine!" Mym sang.

  "I have always been yours," she replied. "Soon we can conceive the Heir."

  But the ways of fate and politics were treacherous. The world nearly always had war somewhere, ranging from global conflicts that spread across entire continents to tiny brushfires in isolated spots. At the moment everything was quiet except for Gujarat' s smoldering border war with the eastern neighbor, Rajasthan. This expended resources that Mym preferred to use for agriculture, so that he could see to the abolition of starvation in his Kingdom, so he turned his attention to it. He took Rapture to Delhi and met with the high Ministers of Rajasthan.

  The negotiation proved effective, for Mym and Rapture were by now a highly polished team. Indeed, the Ministers seemed hardly to realize that Mym was not the one speaking, so effectively did Rapture translate for him. They arranged to establish a demilitarized zone and to allow unarmed peasants to cross the border freely for purposes of trade and fraternization. Many of the peasants of that region were of the same ethnic tribe, and the war had been a special hardship to them; they would be glad to cooperate. The two Kingdoms exchanged lavish gifts, and peace was declared.

  Thanks to Mym's effort, the last festering spot of war in the world had been extinguished. There was a great celebration, and a special holiday was declared. But in this, ironically, was the seed of Mym's destruction.

  The Rajah of Rajasthan was so impressed with Mym's demeanor and skill as a negotiator that he decided to cement the new order with a marriage alliance. This was to be expected; and, indeed, the Rajah had a serviceable son, and Mym's sister was of nuptial age now and would make a suitable wife, provided the nuisance of a proper dowry could be negotiated.

  But the Rajah did not want just a royal marriage; he wanted Mym himself. "My son, while adequate in all necessary matters, lacks the particular genius you possess," he explained. "I want you in charge when I assume another incarnation." For of course people did not really die in India; they merely cast off worn bodies and reincarnated in new ones, better or worse as their prior lives justified.

  Mym, appalled, could not even stutter. "But Prince Pride is betrothed to me!" Rapture protested.

  "Set it aside," the Rajah declared. "My son will marry you. But my daughter must wed Prince Pride of Gujarat."

  Mym opened his mouth. "We shall consider your generous offer," Rapture said quickly, and urged him out of the hall.

  In private, Mym was shaking. "I can't marry her!" he sang in agitation. "I love you!"

  "And I love you," she returned. "But we can not throw the Rajah's offer in his face. Rajasthan is a good, strong Kingdom; we dare not aggravate it so soon after making peace. We must return to our Kingdoms and consider how to turn this down without bad feeling."

  She was right, of course. They returned to Ahmadabad and presented the situation to the Rajah of Gujarat.

  "An alliance with Rajasthan?" he asked. "Wonderful! It shall be arranged forthwith!"

  "But I am to marry Rapture!" Mym protested in singsong.

  "Do not be concerned. I hereby null the betrothal; she shall be free for Rajasthan's prince."

  "But I want to marry her!" Mym sang.

  The Rajah squinted at him." Since when did your desire have anything to do with it?" he inquired.

  "But when I resisted Rapture, you sent me to the Honeymoon Castle with her!"

  "You shall go again with the Princess of Rajasthan. This is a better alliance than the one with Maharastra."

  Mym realized tha
t it was useless to argue; his father's decision had been made. Almost steaming with chagrin and fury, he retreated.

  They sent a message to Rapture's father. His reaction was opposite to that of Mym's father. "We have negotiated the dowry! It is too late to null the betrothal! It must be consummated!"

  But Mym's father was adamant. The new betrothal would stand. Mym was abruptly confined to his palace and Rapture was shipped back to Maharastra.

  The Rajah of Maharastra, furious at this open snub, declared war on Gujarat.

  Mym, alone except for the guards and servants and concubines, strode wrathfully around the palace. His impotent rage floated about him like a foul cloud. He absolutely refused to be cheated of Rapture—but he knew of no way to avoid it. His father might be dying and getting senile, but while he lived, he ruled, and Mym was subject to his will. He would shortly find himself back at Honeymoon Castle, with a new princess, and if he did not come to love her, he would be forced to marry her anyway.

  He faced the great front window overlooking the entrance. Guards marched there, ensuring that no one passed by without authorization. Mym bit his tongue.

  His body made a slight anticipatory shiver as he tasted the blood. He would not be confined here much longer!

  But as his berserker rage developed, something strange happened. Outside, in the night sky above the lighted court, a glowing object approached.

  Mym stared at it. It was a great red sword, angled up at a forty-five degree angle, floating unsupported. The blade was shining steel, and Mym somehow knew that nothing that sharp edge touched could remain whole. This was a magic instrument.

  Still his rage governed him. Refusing to be distracted longer by the manifestation, he got ready to move.

  The red sword swung in toward him. It passed through the glass of the window without breaking it.

  Mym swung to face it, ready to destroy whatever came against him, whether natural or supernatural. Red froth bubbled between his lips.

  The sword came to a halt immediately before him. Its glow increased. It was challenging him!