"And if it is?"

'That's just too bad, isn't it?'

CHAPTER EIGHT.

Althalus and Emmy woke early the next morning, but they waited until the villagers started stirring before Althalus mounted his horse and rode through the woods to the trail that led on down to the settlement. He noticed that the houses were more substantial now than they'd been last time he'd been here.

They reached the settlement just as a husky fellow in a dirty kilt came out of one of the houses near the wall of the castle. He was stretching and yawning, but when he saw Althalus riding toward him, his eyes became suddenly alert. "You there-stranger," he called.

"Were you talking to me?" Althalus replied innocently.

"You don't live here, so you're a stranger, aren't you?"

Althalus made some show of looking around. "Why, blast my eyes, I do believe you're right. Isn't it strange that I hadn't noticed that myself?"

The man's suspicious look softened, and he started to chuckle.

"Was it something I said?" Althalus asked, feigning wide-eyed innocence and climbing down from his horse.

"You're a humorous fellow, I see."

"I try. I've found that a little humor smooths over the awkward moments when I first meet somebody. It lets people know that I'm not really a stranger, but only a friend they haven't met yet."

"I'll have to remember that one," the now openly grinning man said. "And what might your name be, friend I haven't met yet?"

"I'm called Althalus."

"Is that supposed to be a joke?"

"That wasn't what I had in mind. Is there something wrong with it?"

"There's a very old story in our clan about a man named Althalus. Oh, my name's Degrur, by the way." He held out his hand.

Althalus shook hands with him. "Pleased to meet you. What's the gist of this story about that other Althalus?"

"Well, as it turned out, he was a thief."

"Really? What did he steal?"

"Money, I'm told. The Clan Chief back in those days was named Gosti Big Belly, and he was the richest man in the world."

"My goodness!"

"Oh, Yes. Gosti's strong room was filled to the rafters with gold-until Althalus came along. Anyway, this Althalus could tell jokes so funny that they made the walls laugh. Then, late one night after everybody in the hall had drunk himself to sleep, the thief Althalus broke into Gosti's strong room and stole every single gold coin there. The story says that he had to steal twenty horses just to carry it all away"

"That's a lot of gold."

"It was indeed. I'd imagine that the story's been exaggerated a little over the years, though, so there probably wasn't all that much gold in the strong room."

"I'm sure you're right, Degrur. I heard a story once about a man who was supposed to be as big as a mountain."

"I'm going on to the hall," Degrur said. "Why don't you come along, and I'll introduce you to our Chief? I think he'd really like to meet a man called Althalus."

"Probably so that he can keep his eye on me. My name might raise a few suspicions around here."

"Don't worry, my friend. Nobody takes those old stories seriously anymore."

"I certainly hope not."

"Would it alarm you if I told you that you've got a cat peeping out of the hood of your cloak?"

"No, I know she's there. I was camped up in the mountains, and she wandered in-probably to steal some food. We sort of took to each other, so we're traveling together for a while. What's your Chief's name?"

"Albron. He's young, but we think he's going to work out fairly well. His father, Baskon, spent most of his time facedown in the nearest ale barrel, and a drunken Clan Chief tends to make mistakes."

"What happened to him?"

"He got roaring drunk one night and went up to the top of the highest tower to challenge God to a fight. Some say that God took him up on it, but I think he just wobbled and fell off the tower. He splattered himself all over the courtyard."

"Everybody dies from something, I suppose."

They went on to the courtyard of the stone castle. Althalus noticed that it was paved, much as the courtyard of the House at the End of the World had been. Degrur led the way up the steps to the massive door, and they proceeded down a long, torchlit corridor to the dining hall.

There were bearded men sitting at a long table there, eating breakfast off of wooden plates. Althalus glanced around as he and Degrur approached the table. The bleak stone walls were decorated with battle flags and a few antiquated weapons, and the logs burning in the fire pit crackled cheerfully. The stone floor had obviously been swept that morning, and there weren't any dogs gnawing bones in the corners.

'Neatness counts,' Emmy's voice murmured approvingly.

'Maybe,' he replied, 'but not for very much.'

"My Chief," Degrur said to the kilted man with shrewd eyes and a clean-shaven face at the head of the table, "this traveler was passing through, and I thought you might want to meet him, since he's very famous."

"Oh?" the Clan Chief said.

"Everybody's heard of him, my Chief. His name's Althalus."

"You're not serious!"

Degrur was grinning openly now. "That's what he told me, Albron. Of course, if that's really his name, he might have lied about it to put me off my guard."

"Degrur, that doesn't make any sense at all."

"I just woke up, my Chief. You don't expect me to make sense when I first get up, do you?"

Althalus stepped forward and bowed elegantly. "I'm pleased to make your acquaintance, Chief Albron," he said. Then he looked around the hall. "I see that you've made some improvements since my last visit."

"You've been here before?" Albron asked with one quizzically raised eyebrow.

"Yes-quite some time ago. The Chief in those days used to keep pigs in this hall. Pigs are nice enough animals, I suppose-good to their mothers and all-but they don't make very good house pets. And the dining hall isn't really the place to keep them-unless you like your bacon very fresh."

Albron laughed. "Is your name really Althalus?"

Althalus sighed with feigned regret. "I'm afraid so, Chief Albron," he replied theatrically. "I was positive that your clan had forgotten me by now. Fame can be so inconvenient sometimes, can't it, my Lord? Anyway, since my dreadful secret's out in the open, and if you're not too busy, maybe we can get right down to cases here. Has your clan managed to amass enough gold since my last visit to make it worth my while to rob you again?"

Chief Albron blinked, and then he burst into laughter.

Althalus pushed on. "Since you already know my dreadful secret, there's no point in beating about the bush, now is there? When would it be most convenient for you to have me rob you? There'll be all that shouting and running around and organizing pursuits, and the like. You know how disruptive a robbery can be sometimes."

"You carry your age very well, Master Althalus," Chief Albron noted with a grin. "According to that story we all heard when we were children, you robbed Gosti Big Belly several thousand years ago."

"Has it been that long? My goodness, where does the time go?"

"Why don't you join us for breakfast, Master Althalus?" Albron invited. "Since you plan to rob me of all my gold, you're going to need a few dozen horses to carry off all your loot. We could discuss that over breakfast. I've got a few spare horses, and some of them even have all four of their legs. I'm sure we can strike a bargain on them. Just because you're planning to rob me, it shouldn't get in the way of our doing business together, should it?"

Althalus laughed and joined the group of men at the table. They bantered back and forth over breakfast, and after they'd eaten, the young Chief Albron offered Althalus a tankard of something he called ale.

'Never mind,' Emmy's voice murmured.

'It wouldn't be polite to refuse, Em,' he sent back his silent reply. Then he lifted the tankard and drank.

It took all of the self-control he could bring to bear to keep from spitting the awful stuff onto the floor. Good, rich mead was one thing, but Albron's ale was so bitter that Althalus almost choked on it.

'Told you.' Emmy's voice sounded smug.

Althalus carefully set the tankard down. "This has all been very entertaining, Chief Albron," he said, "but there's a question I need to ask you."

"The best escape route to take after you've robbed me?"

Althalus laughed. "No, my Lord. If I really were that other Althalus, I'd have planned my escape before I even came down here. As you've probably noticed from my clothes, I'm not an Arum."

"That had sort of crossed my mind, Master Althalus."

"Actually I come from over to the east in Ansu, and I've been trying to track something down for several years now."

"Something valuable?"

"Well, not to anybody else, probably, but it's something I need to have to lay claim to an inheritance. My father's older brother is the Arkhein of our region."

"Arkhein?"

"It's a title of nobility, my Lord-sort of an equivalent to your own title. Anyway, my uncle's only son-my cousin-had an argument with a bear a few years back, and not many men win those kinds of arguments, since the bears of Ansu are very big and very bad tempered. Anyway, my cousin lost the argument, and since his father, my uncle, only had the one son, his title's going to be vacant after he dies."

"And you'll succeed him? Congratulations, Master Althalus," Albron said.

"It's not quite that cut and dried, my Lord," Althalus said, making a sour face. "I've got another cousin, the son of my father's younger brother, and he and I were both born in the same summer. We Ansus don't have a very precise calendar, so nobody can really be sure which one of us is the eldest."

"Wars tend to break out over things like that."

"My uncle, the Arkhein, realized that too, my Lord. That's when he called my cousin and me to his castle and told us very firmly to stop recruiting armies and forming alliances. Then he told us a story. It seems that many years ago one of our ancestors had owned a very pretty dagger. There'd been one of those little wars that break out in Ansu from time to time, and our ancestor had gotten himself killed. Then, after the sun had gone down, the scoundrels who lurk around the edges of every battlefield like vultures came out to rob the dead."

"Oh, yes," Albron said, nodding grimly.

"You've seen the same sort of thing yourself, I gather. Anyway, one of those scoundrels picked up our ancestor's dagger. It didn't have any jewels in the hilt or anything, but it was ornamental enough that the rascal thought he could probably sell it for enough to make it worth his while. Our uncle told my cousin and me that he was proposing a sort of contest. Whichever one of us could track down that dagger and bring it back to him would be the one who'd get his title." Althalus sighed dramatically. "I've been running hard ever since that day. You would not believe how interesting life can be when you're looking for an antique with one eye and watching for assassins with the other."

"Assassins?"

"My cousin's a bit lazy, my Lord, so the idea of wandering around the world looking for an ancient knife doesn't light any warm fires in his heart. He seems to feel that it'd be much easier to have me murdered than it'd be to try to win a race with me. Anyway, to get to the point here, I happened across a fellow who told me that he'd been in your arms room once, and he said that he was almost certain that he'd seen a knife there that fit the description of the one I'd just told him about." Althalus cast a covert look at Chief Albron. The story he'd just conjured up out of whole cloth seemed to have fired the Clan Chief's imagination. Althalus was quite pleased to discover that he hadn't lost his touch.

Chief Albron rose to his feet. "Why don't we go have a look, Arkhein Althalus," he suggested.

"I'm not the Arkhein yet, my Lord," Althalus amended.

"You will be if that dagger's in my armory. You're a well-spoken man with a civilized sense of humor, Althalus. Those are noble qualities, and your cousin's an absolute knave. I'll do everything in my power to see to it that you inherit your uncle's title."

Althalus bowed. "You honor me, my Lord," he said.

'Wasn't that all just a little thick?' Emmy's voice suggested.

'I know these Arums, Em, so I know exactly what kind of story to tell them. Actually, that was a very good one. It had a threat of civil war, a hero, a villain, and a quest fraught with danger. What more does a good story need?'

'A little bit of truth might have added something.'

'I don't like to contaminate a good story with truth, Em. That'd be a violation of my artistic integrity, wouldn't it?'

'Oh, dear.' She sighed.

'Trust me, little kitten. That knife's as good as in my hands already, and I won't even have to buy it. Albron's going to give it to me outright, along with his blessing.'

Albron's armory was a stone-walled chamber at the back of his castle, and it was littered with all kinds of swords, axes, pikes, helmets, daggers, and shirts made of chain.

Albron introduced Althalus to a blocky, kilted fellow with a bristling red beard. "This is my armorer, Reudh. Describe this dagger you're looking for to him."

"It's about a foot and a half long, Master Armorer," Althalus told the red-bearded man, "and it's got an odd-shaped blade-sort of like a laurel leaf. There's a design etched into the blade. From what I understand, the design's actually writing in some ancient language that nobody understands anymore."

Reudh scratched his head. "Oh," he said then. "It's that one. It's very pretty, but it's a little ornate for my taste. I prefer more businesslike weapons.

"It's here, then?"

"Well, it was. Young Eliar came here to arm himself before he went off to that war down in Treborea. He took a fancy to that knife, so I let him take it."

Althalus gave Chief Albron a puzzled look. "Have you got a quarrel of some kind with somebody in Treborea, my Lord?"

"No, it's a business arrangement. In the old days the lowlanders were always trying to persuade the Clan Chiefs of Arum to agree to alliances with them-alliances where we'd do the bleeding and they'd get the profit. There was a conclave of all the Clan Chiefs of Arum about fifty years ago, and the Chiefs all agreed that there weren't going to be any more of those alliances with the lowlanders. The way things are now, if the lowlanders need soldiers, they have to rent them."