So he thought. But some five decades later (the date was on the order of 12,000 B.C.) it occurred to him that all truths find a use somewhere, sometime. And so he built another disc and recited spells over it, so that (like a telephone number already dialed but for one digit) the disc would be ready if ever he needed it.
The name of the sword was Glirendree. It was several hundred years old, and quite famous.
As for the swordsman, his name is no secret. It was Belhap Sattlestone Wirldess ag Miracloat roo Cononson. His friends, who tended to be temporary, called him Hap. He was a barbarian, of course. A civilized man would have had more sense than to touch Glirendree, and better morals than to stab a sleeping woman. Which was how Hap acquired his sword. Or vice versa.
The Warlock recognized it long before he saw it. He was at work in the cavern he had carved beneath a hill, when an alarm went off. The hair rose up, tingling, along the back of his neck. "Visitors," he said.
"I don't hear anything," said Sharla, but there was an uneasiness to her tone. Sharla was a girl of the village who had come to live with the Warlock. That day she had persuaded the Warlock to teach her some of his simpler spells.
"Don't you feel the hair rising on the back of your neck? I set the alarm to do that. Let me just check ..." He used a sensor tike a silver hula hoop set on edge.
"There's trouble coming. Sharla, we've got to get you out of here."
"But..." Sharla waved protestingly at the table where they had been working.
"Oh, that. We can quit in the middle. That spell isn't dangerous." It was a charm against lovespells, rather messy to work, but safe and tame and effective. The Warlock pointed at the spear of light glaring through the hoopsensor. "That's dangerous. An enormously powerful focus of mana power is moving up the west side of the hilj. You go down the east side."
"Can I help? You've taught me some magic."
The magician laughed a little nervously. "Against that? That's Glirendree. Look at the size of the image, the color; the shape. No. You get out of here, and right now. The hill's clear on the eastern slope."
"Come with me."
"I can't. Not with Glirendree loose. Not when it's already got hold of some idiot. There are obligations."
They came out of the cavern together, into the mansion they shared. Sharla, still protesting, donned a robe and started down the hill. The Warlock hastily selected an armload of paraphernalia and went outside.
The intruder was halfway up the hilclass="underline" a large but apparently human being carrying something long and glittering. He was still a quarter of an hour downslope. The Warlock set up the silver hula hoop and looked through it.
The sword was a flame of mana discharge; an eye-hurting needle of white light. Glirendree, right enough. He knew of other, equally powerful mana foci, but none were portable, and none would show as a sword to the unaided eye.
He should have told Sharla to inform the Brotherhood. She had that much magic. Too late now.
There was no colored borderline to the spear of light.
No green fringe effect meant no protective spells. The swordsman had not tried to guard himself against what he carried. Certainly the intruder was no magician, and he had not the intelligence to get the help of a magician. Did he know nothing about Glirendree?
Not that that would help the Warlock. He who carried Glirendree was invulnerable to any power save Glirendree itself. Or so it was said.
"Let's test that," said the Warlock to himself. He dipped into his armload of equipment and came up with something wooden, shaped like an ocarina. He blew the dust off it, raised it in his fist and pointed it down the mountain. But he hesitated.
The loyalty spell was simple and safe* but it did have side effects. It lowered its victim's intelligence.
"Self-defense," the Warlock reminded himself, and blew into the ocarina.
The swordsman did not break stride. Glirendree didn't even glow; it had absorbed the spell that easily.
In minutes the swordsman would be here. TheWarlock hurriedly set up a simple prognostics spell. At least he could learn who would win the coming battle.
No picture formed before him. The scenery did not even waver.
"Well, now," said the Warlock."Well, now!"And he reached into his clutter of sorcerous tools and found a metal disc. Another instant's rummaging produced a double-edged knife, profusely inscribed in no known language, and very sharp.
At the top of the Warlock's hill was a spring, and the stream from that spring ran past the Warlock's house. The swordsman stood leaning on his sword, facing the Warlock across that stream. He breathed deeply, for it had been a hard climb.
He was powerfully muscled and profusely scarred. To the Warlock it seemed strange that so young a man should have found time to acquire so many scars. But none of his wounds had impaired motor functions. The Warlock had watched him coming up the hill. The swordsman was in top physical shape.
His eyes were deep blue and brilliant, and half an inch too close together for the Warlock's taste.
"I am Hap," he called across the stream. "Where is she?"
"You mean Sharla, of course. But why is that your concern?"
"I have come to free her from her shameful bondage, old man. Too long have you-"
"Hey, hey, hey. Sharla's my wife."
"Too long have you used her for your vile and lecherous purposes. Too-"
"She stays of her own free will, you nit!"
"You expect me to believe that? As lovely a woman as Sharla, could she love an old and feeble warlock?"
"Do I look feeble?"
The Warlock did not look like an old man. He seemed Hap's age, some twenty years old, and his frame and his musculature were the equal of Hap's. He had not bothered to dress as he left the cavern. In place of Hap's scars, his back bore a tattoo in red and green and gold, an elaborately curlicued penta-gramic design, almost hypnotic in its ex-tradimensional involutions.
"Everyone in the village knows your age," said Hap. "You're two hundred years old, if not more."
"Hap," said the W.irlock. "Belhap something-or-other roo Cononson. Now I remember. Sharla told me you tried to bother her last time she went to the village. I should have done something about it then."
"Old man, you lie. Sharla is under a spell. Everybody knows the power of a warlock's loyalty spell."
"I don't use them. I don't like the side effects. Who wants to be surrounded by friendly morons?" The Warlock pointed to Glirendree. "Do you know what you carry?"
Hap nodded ominously.
"Then you ought to know better. Maybe it's not too late. See if you can transfer it to your left hand."
"I tried that. I can't let go of it." Hap cut at the air, restlessly, with his sixty pounds of sword. "I have to sleep with the damned thing clutched in my hand."
"Well, it's too late then."
"It's worth it," Hap said grimly. "For now I can kill you. Too long has an innocent woman been subjected to your lecherous-"
"I know, I know." The Warlock changed languages suddenly, speaking high and fast. He spoke thus for almost a minute, then switched back to Rynaldese. "Do you feel any pain?"
"Not a twinge," said Hap. He had not moved. He stood with his remarkable sword at the ready, glowering at the magician across the stream.
"No sudden urge to travel? Attacks of remorse? Change of body temperature?" But Hap was grinning now, not at all nicely. "I thought not. Well, it had to be tried."