With his red left arm, he shoved her behind him, blue-hilted sword
deflecting an arrow. Slowly he backed against the sheer gorge. A man
dropped at his feet, the arrow still humming in his back. Another man,
caught by a thrown spear, slipped over the edge of the gorge, and
plunged downward, screaming.
Flane and the man standing beside him looked at each other and chuckled
grimly.
"It was a good fight, Flane."
"We stood them off two days and a night," agreed Flane. "They'll put us
in their legends, the Darksiders will. They like brave men."
The man laughed, "As a ghost I'll come to their winter campfires and
listen to their bards extolling us. It will be a reward, in a way."
Club in hand, the blonde Darksider was leaping toward them, a line of
axemen and archers at his back. Before them the Darksiders saw two men,
and a girl with hair the color of a sunset. In her white hands she held
the violet-gun. The two men were bloody and fierce, unshaven, in rags.
Swords glimmered in their hands as they stood waiting. They had fought
well, but the time for play was over.
"Take them," cried the club-bearer.
But Flane astounded them by coming in himself, bent low, right arm up
and swinging. His blade came and went, and where it had been, the knees
of a dying man buckled. Uniform in tatters, brown skin dyed red, he was
a miracle of speed and sureness--and slaughter.
Behind him Aevlyn watched, dangerous as a tigress whose kittens are
threatened. The violet-gun came up, covering Flane's back.
Men drove in for that unprotected back, daggers lifted. The violet-gun
belched once, and then it died. But that once was enough. The lavender
fire sizzled and flared, and it ate up the men and their weapons. But
Flane had already whirled, and his sword stabbed out, toward the purple
flame.
The blade swam in the amethyst mist; glowed brightly, shimmering with
opalescent hues. With staring eyes, Flane watched the steel dissipate
into drifting powder.
He held half a sword in his hand.
A cry of alarm broke from the lips of the Darksiders. They eyed the
half-blade, mouths open in awe. From guard and pommel it coruscated
blazing whiteness as the sun caught at the seven globes inside the blue
stuff. Like suns those points of whiteness glittered ... _like stars_!
"The prophecy!" howled the Darksiders.
"He bears the stars in his hand!"
"He holds the key to the Machine!"
The blonde Darksider stared at him, frowning. He let the club fall
until its knotted end hit the stone.
"Is it true, Flane of Klarn?" he whispered. "Is that sword the key to
the Machine, as the prophecy has said?"
Flane looked at the sword, at the blue hilt with its blazing pinpricks
of light, at the diamond-shaped blade that was half a blade, now--
It was the truth!
The diamond blade was key to the Machine! Fool, fool, not to have
guessed! Its diamond shape, and the star-formed guard, and the dead
body beneath the spaceship: the Keeper, of course! The stars in the
hilt for the prophecy, and the blade for the key!
"Yes," he cried hoarsely, "oh, All-Highest, yes!"
The blonde Darksider dropped the club and knelt before Flane, lowering
his head. A great rustling was heard, as the other Darksiders knelt
with him. Only the _mekniks_ drew aside, muttering.
"You are him for whom the Darksiders have prayed, year in and year
out," he said. "You are the saviour who is to come, to unite Darksider
and Klarnvan. You bear the key!"
Flane heard Aevlyn sobbing behind him, as he lifted the sword and
stared at it. He felt like weeping, too. For the diamond-shaped blade
was only half a blade, now. The violet fire had eaten it up. The key to
the Machine was in his hand at last, but it was a ruined key!
The Darksider was bowing and saying, "I swear fealty to the bearer of
the sun-starred sword, for he shall be my Keeper."
Behind him the others roared out the ancient oath, their voices lifting
triumphantly.
"By the grip that plunges home the blade, by the hand that is turned
away to ward off evil, by the voice of the Machine, I swear my oath
and pledge my faith. I am obedient. I am true. I am his who bears the
sword!"
The rolling echo of the oath was swept into silence, but still Flane
stared at the broken sword in his hand.
A ruined key!
_There was no hope, now!_
Flane stood with legs apart and flung his head to the blue sky and
howled his laughter like a madman, until froth grew in the corners of
his mouth, and tears rolled down his cheeks....