title: Wielding a Red Sword (Book Four of Incarnations of Immortality)
author:  Piers Anthony 
description: Mym was a dutiful son, but rather than agree to his father's choice for his marriage, he took up the Red Sword, symbol of office of the Incarnation of War, in order to ameliorate some of the suffering caused by Earth's constant petty wars. But Mym discovered that Satan was waiting to trap him, and he must now take desperate measures to outwit the evil genius who aimed to destroy the world....
zlib_text: 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The Red Sword
  
  The Red Sword Trilogy #1
  
  by Michael Wallace
  
  Copyright ©2017 Michael Wallace
  
  Balsalom Publishing
  
  Cover art by Miguel Coimbra
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter One
  
  Markal was tending the severed head of his master when a knight stepped into
  the garden with a drawn sword. Sunlight reflected off the knight’s gleaming
  breastplate, blinding the apprentice wizard, who stood staring, his work
  covering the dead man’s head forgotten.
  
  There was violence in the intruder’s posture, and fear rose in Markal’s
  breast. The man’s sword gleamed red, blood dripping from the tip to splatter
  the flowers, and from there falling to pollute the sacred ground of the
  gardens. Clods of dirt fell from the spade gripped in Markal’s suddenly
  sweating hands.
  
  
  By the Brothers, he’s slain the keepers.
  
  The knight could not have reached this inner sanctum without attacking and
  killing the keepers who protected this space. And what of the other
  apprentices, Markal’s fellow students in the gardens of