years. She too makes a bid for world domination through the Swords, but after using Soulcutter, Yambu becomes a pilgrim "seeking truth." She eventually allies herself with Mark and Ben, becoming a trusted traveling companion of Mark's nephew Zoltan. The Emperor repeatedly attempts to reconcile with Yambu throughout the series. When she is old and powerless, she finally agrees. Draffut started life as a dog, and underwent a miraculous change into a giant fur-covered biped at some point 50,000 years earlier. This gave him intelligence and magical powers of life and healing. His past as "man's best friend" rendered him unable to harm humans, even those bent on his destruction, and at the same time he is sympathetic to their plight against the machinations of the gods, with a particularly ferocious animosity toward demons. It is Draffut who reveals that the gods are the creation of man rather than the reverse. The Dark King, known also as Vilkata, is one of the chief antagonists of the series. Vilkata is a powerful sorcerer and master of many demons. As a younger man, he gouged out his own eyes as a sacrifice in order to gain the power required to get revenge over those who had wronged him. Since then, he uses minor demons kept in thrall to give him a form of telepathic vision. He employs scorched earth, torture, and other deplorable tactics liberally to strike fear in any who would oppose him. Vulcan, the Smith, god of fire, volcanoes and blacksmiths, is the most prominent of the deities in the series as the creator of the Swords. Wood, also known as the Ancient One, is an evil wizard who ultimately becomes the primary antagonist in the Book of Swords series, after he escapes the downfall of Orcus and the Empire of the East. Wood was saved from the nuclear holocaust of Orcus' demise by being brought forward through time. This makes Wood one of only two characters who are present from the beginning of Saberhagen's Gods/Swords world to the end (the other being Draffut). He is described as mostly humanoid in shape, though he sports hair, claws, and horns like a beast, and has small bat-wings sprouting from his back. Reception In a retrospective of Saberhagen's works, Joan Spicci Saberhagen says the series "proved very popular among readers." A review of Armory of Swords in Kirkus was lukewarm, calling the