The old man gave no sign of replying, but Saram burst out, "Garth, have you gone mad?"

"Silence, human," Garth said without turning. "This is not your affair."

"Garth, that thing will possess you again and drive you mad! You might destroy Skelleth again, and that means it is my affair. I cannot allow you to take back the sword!"

"Silence!" Garth bellowed. "Saram, I need that sword to take my vengeance upon Kyrith's murderers; their magic protects them from ordinary weapons, and I have no other magic available."

"I cannot allow it," Saram insisted. "Not in my village, not while I am Baron."

Garth turned to face him and said, "I have no intention of staying in Skelleth with the sword. Once I have slain whatever Aghadites I may find here, I will go to Dыsarra to destroy their temple, as I have sworn to do. I may not return. If I do return, I will try my best not to bring the sword back with me. If I do bring it, rest assured, I will be doing everything I can to keep myself free of its control. I do not like the sword, but I need its power. Now, be quiet!"

Saram had half-risen as he protested, and would have stood and argued, but Frima was pulling at his embroidered sleeve, urging him to sit down again and listen. Reluctantly he yielded and sank back into his chair.

Garth glared at him for a second, to be sure he was done arguing for the present, and then turned back to the Forgotten King.

"Your pardon, O King. I ask again, let us abandon our agreement, and return to me the Sword of Bheleu."

The old man spoke, without looking at the overman. "No. You must being me the Book of Silence."

Garth hesitated. He could no longer agree and simply hope that he would not be asked to deliver; the King had remembered, just minutes earlier, where he had left the book, where it might be found and recovered. Garth had hoped that by taking back the sword, he might avoid the problem and retain his pretense of honor; it now appeared that he was not going to be allowed that luxury.

Now that he took the time to think about it, even through the haze of his righteous rage, he realized that he had been ridiculously optimistic. The King had no reason to free him of his vow. He cared nothing about whether he had the Sword of Bheleu or not; he wanted only to have the Book of Silence.

No, Garth corrected himself, that was not quite right. The old man's greater magic required both the book and the sword, if the overman had understood him correctly. That made him even less likely to agree to give up both.

"Let us forget my oath for the present, then," Garth said. "I will not ask you to renounce it, but rather will ask simply that you return to me, only temporarily if you would prefer it so, the Sword of Bheleu."

"If you do not renounce your oath, then when will you fulfill it? I have told you that I know now where the Book of Silence is."

Garth struggled to keep his anger under control, not to lash out uselessly against the old man. His face was so slack and expressionless with rage that he appeared almost half-wilted, like a drunkard or one under the influence of narcotic potions. He still held the fragment of his sword; to dispel some of the tension in his body, he rammed it down against the table. The jagged, broken edge bit into the oaken tabletop, scarring it, but did not embed itself as a real blade would. Instead, it turned and skidded across the surface, gouging up curls of wood. Garth's wrist was twisted painfully, and his sore knuckles scraped as well.

The pain added to his fury, and he lost control, blurting out the truth. "I have no intention of fulfilling my oath, foul deceiver. You extorted my agreement, knowing I had no choice. I would rather die in disgrace than aid you."

Behind him, he heard Frima gasp, and Saram draw breath.

The King lifted his head slightly and murmured, "Your word is not good? Your sworn vow means nothing?"

Feeling cornered, his fury subsiding as he realized his mistake, Garth replied, "No."

"The vow you swore in this place not an hour ago is meaningless?" The old man's voice was a low grating that tore at Garth's nerves.

Rage flowered anew, and Garth said, "I did not say that! I will destroy the cult of Aghad."

"Can one oath be binding and another meaningless, sworn by the same tongue?"

Garth, trapped, said nothing, and a moment of tense silence ensued. Saram and Frima dared not speak.

"Garth," the old man said at last, his voice more nearly normal, but with a trace of either sorrow or sarcasm in it, "I regret to hear this. If you are not bound by your oath, then I must propose a new bargain. You want the Sword of Bheleu so that you may destroy the followers of the god of hatred and those responsible for the death of your wife. I want the Book of Silence so that I may perform a certain magic that will cause many deaths, my own among them. I will not give you the Sword of Bheleu at present, but we both may yet have what we want. You want the Aghadites dead. I want to complete a spell that will kill them."

He paused, and Garth said, "What?"

The King lowered his head again and said nothing.

"Do you mean that your magic will destroy the cult?"

The old man nodded.

"Are you sure?"

The King shrugged.

Garth tried to think; it was difficult, for his mind was full of anger and confusion.

It had never occurred to him that the King's final magic might be guided, that the King might have some control over who died when it was performed. Garth had assumed that the spell would involve conjuring The God Whose Name Is Not Spoken into the mortal world and that, thus freed, the god would kill all those in the immediate area.

Perhaps this was not the case at all. Perhaps the god would demand a certain number of deaths, but this summoner could choose who would be sacrificed in order to banish him again. That seemed to be what the King was implying. There was no reason to assume that a god would be limited by distance or even by time; weren't gods supposed to be everywhere and nowhere all at once?

He did not trust the King, however.

Furthermore, there seemed to be something unsatisfying about the solution the King proposed. Garth wanted to kill the Aghadites himself, to see the color of their blood, to watch them die.

"I..." he began, then stopped. "I am not sure."

"Another bargain, then. Bring me the Book of Silence, and I will loan you the Sword of Bheleu. I must require it back from you eventually, but I am sure you will not object to being freed of the god's control."

Garth turned that proposal over in his mind and, awash in fury as he was, could see nothing wrong with it at first. He would have the Sword of Bheleu, and with it he could destroy the cult of Aghad. He dismissed without thought the fact that he would be giving himself over to the god of destruction rather than simply wielding a weapon; it did not occur to him that Bheleu might not be satisfied with killing only Aghadites.

He did, however, realize that he would be delivering the Book of Silence to the Forgotten King, and after planning for three years to avoid that, he was reluctant to give in so quickly simply because the King now claimed that the other victims of his magic would be Aghadites.

The old man might be telling the truth; it might be that delivering the Book of Silence to him would do no Harm to innocents. Although Garth had been fooled in the past by partial truths and things left unsaid, the King had never, so far as he knew, told an outright lie.

This was a matter that deserved more than a moment's thought, but there was no time to waste, he felt, in his pursuit of his wife's murderers.

That pursuit would go nowhere, however, without the Sword of Bheleu.

If he accepted the King's offer, he would be in possession, at least temporarily, of either the sword or the book, and it was his belief that both were required for the final magic. If he remained unconvinced of the King's intentions, he could always withhold whichever totem he had at the time; after all, he was already forsworn, in his heart, and had no more honor to lose by such treachery. It would, he thought, be a just repayment for the King's own deceptions and manipulations.