The Reluctant Swordsman by Dave Duncan Page A

beads, wasn’t it? ‘Every one is the same yet slightly different,’ you said. Many worlds, variations on a theme. Copies of an ideal world, perhaps.”
    “Very good!” The boy nodded approvingly. “Go on.”
    “So the goddess is . . . is the Goddess. She brought me here.”
    “And who are you?”
    That was the big question and now Wallie thought he knew. “I’m Wallie Smith and I am Shonsu . . . Wallie Smith’s memories and Shonsu’s body. Soul . . . I don’t know about souls.”
    “Then don’t worry about them,” the boy said. “And Hardduju? How do you feel about capital punishment now, Mr. Smith?”
    “I didn’t say that I didn’t believe in—”
    “But you thought it!”
    “Yes,” Wallie confessed. “Get me out of here and let me kill that bastard, and I’ll do anything you want—anything at all.”
    “Well, well! Will you?” The boy shook his head. “Revenge? Not good enough!” “But I believe in the Goddess now!” Wallie protested, his voice breaking. “I will repent. I’ll pray. I will serve Her, if She will allow it. I’ll be a swordsman if that is what She wants. Anything!” “My!” the boy muttered mockingly. “Such unexpected devotion!” He fell silent, staring fixedly, and Wallie had the strangest fancy that he was being skimmed, perused—read as an accountant might run his eye down a balance sheet to the bottom line. “It’s a very small faith, Mr. Smith.” “It’s all I’ve got,” Wallie said. It was almost a sob.
    “It’s a sort of chink of doubt in your disbelief. You will have to prove it.”
    He had been afraid of that. “The Judgment?”
    The boy pulled a face. “You don’t want to be Hardduju’s slave, do you? He wouldn’t sell you in the end—it would be too much fun to have a Seventh chained in the cellar. He has many other entertainments to try! So you’d rather go to the Judgment, wouldn’t you?” He grinned his gap-toothed grin for the first time.   “The trick is this: if you resist, they bang you on the head and drop you over the edge. Then you land on the rocks. But if you run and jump far out, then you come down in deep water. It is a test of faith.” “I can’t run on those feet,” Wallie said. “Is there anything left of them?”
    The boy twisted around briefly to look down at Wallie’s feet and then shrugged.   “There is a shrine at the Place of Mercy. Pray for the strength to run.” He was becoming indistinct as the light faded. “I told you that this was important. It is a rare opportunity for a mortal.”
    “I haven’t had much practice at praying,” Wallie said humbly, “but I will do my best. I thought of praying for Innulari. Would it have helped?” The boy gave him an odd look. “It wouldn’t have helped him, but it would have helped you.” He paused and said, “The gods must not provide faith in the first place, Mr. Smith. I could have given you belief, but then you would have been a tool, not an agent. A mortal’s service is of no value to the gods unless it is freely given—free will may not be dictated. Do you see? But once you have faith, the gods can increase it. You have found a spark. I can blow on a spark. I will do this much for you, in return for your kind thought about the healer.” He pulled a leaf off his twig. At once the raging fires in Wallie’s feet seemed to be plunged into ice water. The pain died away, and all the other pains also.   “Until dawn,” the boy said.
    Wallie started to gabble thanks, stuttering in his relief. “I don’t even know what to call you,” he said.
    “Call me Shorty for now,” the boy said, and his gaptooth grin was just visible in the growing light of the Dream God. “It’s been a long time since a mortal was so impudent. You amuse me.” His eyes seemed to shine in the shadow. “Once you played a game called chess; you know what happens when a pawn reaches the end of its file?”
    The mockery was obvious, but Wallie quickly repressed his