While Edyrn gathered a mass of parchment and maps and stuffed them into a carrying bag, Nob sidled close to Blade and caught.his ear.
«She bids you come to her this night, sire, when you have finished your business. She will wait for you in the cavern of music. She bids you come alone.»
Blade cocked an eye at his man. «And where is this cavern of music? And how shall I find it?»
Nob's good eye closed slightly. «My Ina, the Gray girl you know of, sire, will take you there. I have arranged evg.».
Blade smiled and, dismissing him, said, «Have a care that you do not arrange trouble for yourself. And do not waste your time-I have put you in charge of the beggars and mendicants and you know what to do. I expect results-if I do not get them, and I find it is the fault of your lust for women, it will go hard with you.»
«Aye,» said Nob hastily as Edyrn approached with his heavy bag. «Aye, master, I understand. Do,not misdoubt old Nob-always business before pleasure with me, sire.»
Blade smiled. «See to it, then. Your beggars and thieves are all the intelligence I have. I depend on them.»
Edyrn, when Nob had gone, bowed and said, «If you are ready, Sire Blade? I will show you what you wished to see.»
Blade nodded. «I am ready. You say it is a long walk? Good enough, Edyrn. We will talk as we go.»
With his knowledge of events furnished by Nob, Blade found no great difficulty in coping with Edyrn. They left the caverns and walked along a path of crushed lava. They skirted a darkling taro and,Blade glanced back at the looming bulk of the volcano they were leaving behind. There was a lurid flare — for a moment, a movement of flame deep within the bowels of the cone, and Blade was sure he saw the silhouette of a tall woman against the fire, like a puppet seen for a moment before an open furnace door. He stopped and gazed, blinking, wondering if the blow had affected his eyesight as well as his memory. There was nothing there now, nothing but the sullen rumble and belch of volcano.
Edyrn touched his arm. «We must hurry, sire. There is much to do and little time-«
Blade pointed. «I thought I saw-«
«You did, sire. It was Izmia, the Pearl. My grandmother. She goes often to the brink to look and think. For her Weird is an the fire and soon she must meet it.»
Blade did not question. He merely looked at Edyrn and nodded. «You and Juna are brother and sister?»
Edyrn nodded in his turn. «Aye, sire. By another hero who came from nowhere, as you have come, and who vanished into nowhere as you will vanish. Shall we go on, sire?»
They came out onto the plain and walked through fields of fragrant loti. Ahead of them loomed an angular, open work tower supported by three legs. The fields were deserted.
Edyrn said, «All supplies of penthe have been destroyed as you ordered, sire. The Gray People have been put to work on fortifications and fire trenching, such as are able to work after withdrawal.»
Blade cast him a sidelong glance. «How did that go, Edyrn?»
«Badly at first. There was much murdering and rioting, and a deal of insanity. Cybar was destroyed by flames.»
«A pity,» murmured Blade. «It was a beautiful city.»
Edyrn stared at him in surprise. «But you yourself ordered it burnt, sire.»
Nob had not told him that. Damn the rascal. Then Blade withdrew the thought. Nob was only Nob, after all, and it was not his fault that Blade had amnesia. And Nob had saved his life after he had taken the blow on the head in the beach skirmish. But Blade began to wonder what other things he had done, or ordered done, that he could not remember and of which Nob did not know. Edyrn would have to help him there.
The tower was some three-hundred feet tall. Several Gray People manned a winch and basket and Blade and Edyrn were lifted to the top. On the way up Blade said, «How as to horses, lad? We are going to need them badly.»
«There are no horses on Patmos, sire. There never have been. We have never felt need of them.»
Blade remembered what Nob had told him of the charging Samostan cavalry in the Beggar's Square in Thyme-and scowled.
«Well, Patmos has need of them now.»
They were nearing the top of the tower. «Hectoris has horses,» said Edyrn. «Thousands of them on transports. They lie off our coasts at this very moment.»
Blade fingered his newly shorn beard and smiled. «Yes I had that thought myself.»
A single great room perched atop the tower. All four sides were transparent. There were desks and chairs. Edyrn went to a large desk and began to unload his bag of maps and papers. Blade walked about the room. From this vantage he could see the whole of the island and was surprised. He had not thought Patmos so small. To his right, and level with his line of sight, was the smoky maw of the volcano. This coign of vantage allowed Blade to see what he had not seen before-.a path leading to the edge of the crater and ending there in a fiat stone platform. Blade felt a visceral twinge and knew, without any conscious knowledge, the purpose of the platform.
«Her Weird is in the fire.»
For a moment he thought Edym had spoken the words again, but when he turned he saw the boy still busy with his maps and documents. Blade went to join him. And got straight to the point.
«How many real soldiers do I have?»
Edyrn straightened and squared his shoulders. «There is only the Pearl's Guard, sire. Which I command. The toy soldiers of Kador and Smyr are useless and anyway most of them have fled the island. The Gray People, even without penthe, are cattle and can only be used as such. And your man, Nob, has gathered some ragamuffins and knaves, but-«
Blade gestured impatiently. «No matter that! How many men?»
Edyrn consulted a paper. «A thousand and three, sire. Counting myself.»
Blade turned away so that the boy could not see his face. It was not much of an army with which to face Hectoris, the barbarian, with his lancers and his bowmen and his cavalry, his catapults and his battering rams. It was, in fact, no army at all and Blade knew that Patmos was lost, and so was he, unless he could somehow bring Hea. toris to single combat and kill him. This had been in his mind all along and now.he examined it openly and did not see how it could be accomplished. Hectoris was any-
thing but a fool. Blade let it go for the moment. When the time came he would have to think of a way.
One- great advantage he had-he knew of the Samostan plans. Unless Ptol had lied, and Blade did not think he had. There was a chance, a bare chance, that he could force a confrontation with Hectoris and taunt him into battle, hurl the gauntlet, force the Samostan chief into a position from which he could not retreat with honor. All that would have to wait. First things first.
Edyrn came to stand beside him. Blade, realizing that by now the boy must have guessed the truth-and yet for some strange quirk of his own not wishing to admit itkept mostly silent as Edyrn pointed out this and that and kept talking.
«Your orders, sire, have been obeyed to the letter. The Gray People, and all others who can be pressed, toil at the fortifications and shore barricades and cavalry traps. Most of them are fakes, manned by dummies as you ordered. Such of the Gray People who can fight have been armed with wooden swords and lances, for we have not enough arms, and we keep them marching and counter-marching to give the impression of numbers. We keep a diligent watch for spies and do not slay them, but treat them well, question them, and try to win them over to our side. In this we have been many times successful, for Hectoris is not loved.
«I have stationed small units of the Guard about the island, sire, but keep the main force in reserve near the volcano.»
Edym pointed past Blade's shoulder to a largish camp laid out in rectangular fashion. Much, Blade thought, as an old Roman camp would have been. Had he ordered that, too? Again he damned his amnesia and the computer and the whole of Dimension X. He felt a longing for the head pains that would presage his return to Home D, and pushed the thought away. His duty was here. Duty? The thought was not supportable by logic, made no sense at all, and yet there it was.