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all besides the weapon, no pack or canteen.
    “Good morning to you, Sir Hermit. Or do I read your white robes wrongly?” The young man’s voice was as cheerful and confident as were his face and bearing.
    “No, you read them properly. I have lived here alone for some twenty years, trying to serve Ardneh as best I can. My name is Gelimer.” He stroked the watchbeast’s ears as it crouched beside him, trying to quell the excitement inevitably produced by any visitor.
    “And I am Zoltan. I come from the land of Tasavalta, which as you must know lies far to the north and east of here. My companion and I find ourselves somewhat inconveniently stranded at the moment. There was a little wind and rain last night, which confused the captain of our riverboat completely, and he succeeded in running us aground on some of the many rocks below.” And the youth nodded carelessly toward the gorge, from which the faint voice of the Tungri could be heard as always.
    “Ah, then no doubt you are embarked upon some pilgrimage downstream? But I am forgetting to be hospitable. You are doubtless hungry and thirsty. Come in, come in, and —”
    “Thank you no, Hermit Gelimer. So far we’ve not lacked for food or drink.”
    “You mentioned a companion?”
    “Yes, a lady. Being somewhat older than I am, she preferred to stay below with the boat rather than climb the cliff. But she too is well provisioned.”
    Still Gelimer continued to press his offer of hospitality. Presently Zoltan, who seemed at least willing to continue the conversation, accepted.
    No traces of last month’s visitor now remained inside the dwelling. Zoltan chose one of the two chairs and sat down, crossing his legs and making himself at ease.
    “From Tasavalta, you say?” The hermit was heating water on the hearth now, starting to brew tea. Meanwhile Geelong had lain down with head on forepaws on his mat, still perturbed by the fact of another visitor in the house. The last one had not worked out at all to the watchbeast’s liking.
    Gelimer continued: “That is the country, is it not, where the king has so many magic Swords stocked in his treasury?”
    The visitor shook his head. “The rulers of my homeland are a prince and princess, rather than a king. Prince Mark and Princess Kristin. They do possess a few of the Twelve Swords so it is said. But I think they keep them in the armory.”
    “Ah yes. Of course.” And Gelimer, carefully spooning out tea—a treasured gift from another traveler—took thought as to just how to proceed with his questioning. He wanted to gain knowledge without giving any of his own away.
    He already knew what almost everyone else knew about the Twelve Swords, those mighty weapons that had been so mysteriously forged, more than thirty years ago, by some of the now vanished gods. And the hermit had heard some of the stories to the effect that the Swords themselves had had more than a little to do with the strange disappearance of their powerful creators.
    Each of the Twelve Blades was burdened with its own distinctive power, and according to all the testimony of witnesses there was no other force anywhere under the sun capable of standing against the power of any one of them.
    “I know that there are twelve of them, or were,” Gelimer went on, talking to his newest guest. “But I forget what their names are.” He blinked, trying to look as holy and unworldly as he could. Sometimes he could be successful at it.
    His young guest, thus encouraged and apparently finding no reason to be suspicious, was soon rattling off the names and attributes of the various magic weapons, as if he indeed might be something of an expert on the subject. From the few blades that were generally admitted to be kept in the Tasavaltan vaults, his cataloguing soon moved on to others. Presently it arrived at the one in which Gelimer had reason to be particularly interested.
    “—and then there’s Farslayer, which is sometimes also called the Sword of