Chapter Nine
Alan Garrison awoke to the sounds of music and laughter, opened his eyes and turned his head, a window—as large as a good-sized door—fully open to his right, near the foot of the bed, sunlight streaming in through it.
There was a very faint smell of flowers on the gentle breeze which flowed over him.
From the chest down, he was covered in a light blanket.
Without thinking, he sat up abruptly.
The blanket fell away, and he realized that he was naked beneath it. His body seemed to be without harm, moved at his will, showed no evidence of scarring, neither were there bruises nor abrasions apparent.
He was hungry without feeling malnourished.
Garrison looked down to his left. The bed was of extremely generous proportions, larger than king-size. Swinging his feet over the side, they barely touched the stone floor. The bed was so high that a single-step ladder was beside it. A ruffled canopy was stretched over it.
Garrison stood up, the stone cool but not cold beneath his bare feet. He snatched the blanket from the bed and wrapped it about himself at the waist. He felt a little unsteady, but he had no idea how long he’d been—what, he wondered? How long had he been unconscious? Or—Garrison shivered when he considered the alternative.
Garrison walked toward the window. The blanket—it dragged around his feet—nearly caused him to trip. As he approached the window, the sounds of music and laughter grew louder. When he looked out the window, Garrison blinked.
“This is it,” Garrison told himself. “I died and wound up inside A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.” Half expecting to see either Bing Crosby or William Bendix if he studied the faces below him, Garrison turned his back and leaned hard against the window opening.
He’d been riding on the back of the flying monster thing and about to crash when he saw a bird. Then there was this blinding light. And he was floating. And he saw Swan. After that, he was in darkness. Garrison remembered seeing Swan again, after that, and—Had she actually told him, “I love you,” or—“I’m really fantasizing,” Garrison half-whispered, shaking his head.
He looked outside again. If he had to wake up inside a movie, he supposed this one was as good as any. More or less, anyway. Bendix had really been good as Sir What’s-his-name, one of the few actors who could play a comedic role just as brilliantly as he played a psychopathic killer, as he had opposite Alan Ladd. The spelling of Garrison’s first name was due to Alan Ladd; his mother had always been a great fan of the actor.
“More stuff to think about besides this,” Garrison murmured. He looked out the window again.
There were no suits of armor on the men, but some of the women wore those weirdo pointed duncecap hats with goofy scarves flowing from them. And the music—it sounded kind of nice, contra-dance-like with flutes and everything—fit in perfectly. Garrison’s eyes tracked toward the origin of the music. “Yeah, I’m dead or nuts or something!” Flutes, little drums, mandolins, tinkling bells, all of them floating in the air totally unsupported and playing themselves.
Garrison rubbed his hands over his eyes, realizing as he did so that he had dropped the blanket and was standing stark naked in the open window.
He stepped back, and as he picked up the blanket, he began to look about the room. There was a small, round table. “Round table! Oh, boy. Betcha all the tables are round here.” On the table were his personal belongings, except for his clothes: his three pistols, spare magazines, his knives, his wallet, money clip, badge case, keys, cigarettes and fighter.
Garrison went over to the table, holding the blanket around his waist with one hand, shaking a cigarette from the pack with the other. He lit up. His hand shook, and not from a craving for nicotine. The pack was full, but it hadn’t been. They didn’t sell cigarettes in Creath, nor, for that matter, in old movie musicals set in Camelot.
There was a big wooden cabinet at the far end of the room, the kind called an armoire. Garrison walked over to it, opened its double doors. His clothes were inside it, totally devoid of bloodstains. Garrison shivered again. When he’d seen his body—he remembered seeing it—there was blood on his clothing. A lot of it. He closed his eyes. He remembered seeing his eyes open, staring. He’d seen dead bodies on the street and in morgues; when he’d seen his body, it was dead.
“Oh, shit,” Garrison rasped.
He wondered if there was such a thing as a shower around here? At the foot of the bed there was a chamber pot. “I’m doomed to primitive plumbing. Great.”
Alan Garrison had never urinated into a chamber pot before, but he figured that there was a first time for almost everything...
Neither of his SIG-Sauer P-220 .45s showed the slightest sign of being damaged from impact against the rock surface of Arba’Il’Tac. He would have figured that the one he’d had only stuffed into his belt would have gotten scratched or something. In fact, a small crack he’d had in one of the pistols’ grip panels wasn’t even there anymore. Short of shooting them to be sure, they seemed mechanically perfect.
All of his belongings were perfect.
There’d been a couple of scratches on his bomber jacket, and there were worn smooth places around its elbows. Not anymore.
The Pocket Natural which he used with the little Seecamp .32 had been with him for several years. As a result of constant contact with the oils from his hands, the natural finish leather had developed “the patina of use,” as advertising people called it; the leather had darkened quite a bit. As Garrison snugged the holster and the little pistol which it carried into his right front pocket, he noticed that the leather looked as fresh and clean as the day he’d gotten it. All wear marks were also absent from the little pistol’s surface.
Not the tiniest scratch was in evidence on the crystal of his Rolex, nor did the bar-shaped scar on his left wrist remain. The soles and heels of his cowboy boots looked brand new and the leather uppers gleamed as if spit-shined. A crown on the lower left side of his mouth wasn’t there anymore; a natural-seeming tooth was where it had been.
Rubbing the back of his hand along his jawline, Garrison felt no stubble, as if he’d shaved less than an hour ago; but he hadn’t shaved since Saturday morning, the day he’d met Swan.
“Okay. Sure.”
The music and laughter persisted from the courtyard below his window. Alan Garrison set out to investigate.
By the time he’d descended the stairs, Garrison was used to torches in sconces along the walls flickering to life as he neared them, extinguishing themselves after he passed.
He wasn’t surprised when the metal-studded double doors leading from what was apparently an entry hall opened without his touching them. Beyond the doorway lay a flagstoned courtyard. If he had his bearings correctly, the music and laughter, which he could hear only very faintly at the moment, would be off to his left, in what he mentally labeled “the backyard,” which was a perfectly logical place to hold a party. Nothing odd about that.
Garrison started off in what he hoped was the right direction, the steadily increasing sounds of music and laughter reassuring him. Leaving the courtyard, he passed beneath an elaborately latticed rose arbor, blossoms trellised above him and on both sides, the colors ranging from bright yellow to warm pink to brilliant shades of red, their smell heady on the warm air. He was, in fact, just slightly uncomfortable with his bomber jacket, but kept it on to cover the double shoulder holsters.
There was a natural stone pathway leading upward, wide enough for several men to walk abreast. Garrison followed it. He realized that the building seemed to grow out of a hillside, the contours of structure and grounds in perfect harmony.
The path was interrupted by a bridge, the kind of bridge one usually saw in ornamental gardens, gently arched, but here crossing over a fast moving little stream. Garrison stood at the center of the bridge, looking down. There were fish swimming rapidly beneath him, patches of white foam where the tumbling waters broke around higher rocks to form miniature rapids.
The sun was strong, warm, the air so fresh that merely breathing it was nearly dizzying.
Garrison didn’t keep track of how long he stood there on the bridge, but after a time he continued on, leaving the bridge and rejoining the stone path, climbing gently upward.
Trees were everywhere flanking the path, the huge ones that were called Ka’B’Oos, and ordinary seeming pines and willows.
A waist-high stone wall was coming into view as he walked on. It extended outward and back from both sides of the path, at its center a tall archway. The sounds which he had been following—partially masked by the muted roar of fast rushing water—were considerably louder. The music fell so pleasantly on the ear that it had Garrison himself wondering—stupidly—if it were available on CD.
A few yards after passing beneath the archway, the path took an abrupt left. There was another bridge; but, a moment after first spotting this, his eyes were drawn to the waterfall cascading out of the living rock perhaps a quarter mile upstream. The water still frothed, flowing along beneath the span.
Garrison paused on this bridge as well, the waterfall’s beauty compelling him to do so. And the air, which rushed toward him, cooled by the water, invigorated him.
Exhaling so deeply that the act became a sigh, Garrison quit the bridge, taking up the path once more. It wound through a grove of heavy-boughed willows, the music and laughter nearly at full volume. As it passed out of the timber, the stone path ended and an expanse of lush green lawn, stretching as far and wide as a dozen football fields, lay before him. To his immediate left lay the wall in which, several stories up, the window from which he’d first looked out was set. Near the wall were well over a hundred people in groups small and large, some seated on the grass, some standing, children running about madly playing.
The majority of men were clad in leather jerkins over billowing-sleeved shirts, their legs in tights of red or green or black. Each, of course, was armed with sword and dagger. The women wore long dresses of every description and color, some quite elaborate, others simple. Although many were bareheaded, just as many wore the silly duncecap headgear or simple veils or crowns of flowers wound into elaborately arranged hair.
There were pits, what looked to be pigs—or something similar—roasting in them, small groups of the men, like men everywhere, overseeing the barbecue. Tables—these attended by some of the women—were being set with bowls of fruit and vegetables and trays of bread.
The instruments—no musicians—kept playing, floating in midair, roving, from group to group, like strolling players. He wondered, absently, if they got tipped?
Garrison took a deep breath and started walking in the direction of the throng. A freight train of frantically running children stormed past him so rapidly that he nearly stumbled into them. He heard a woman’s voice chiding them to watch where they were going. He kept going, looking for a familiar face, hoping he’d find one in particular.
And he did. She was part of a group of a half dozen women, laying out food on one of the tables. Buffet-style, he supposed. Garrison quickened his pace, approaching her.
“Swan?”
She looked up from her task and smiled. “Al’An.”
“We have to talk.”
“Do you want to eat first? Remember? I promised you a feast. And the meat is nearly ready.”
“I’m hungry, yeah, but that can wait. Okay?”
She smiled again. “Okay.” Swan turned to her companions, two of the women—one of them particularly pretty—glancing furtively at him as she said something Garrison could not hear. Several of them laughed brightly as Swan pinched her skirts between her fingertips and walked toward him.
“Where can we talk?”
“Wherever you wish, Al’An.”
“Over by the trees, there.”
“As you wish, Al’An.” Swan eased her right hand into the crook of Garrison’s left elbow. “You seem rested.”
“I am rested.”
“And you feel well?”
“I feel great, perfect, never better. That’s what’s worrying me.” They hadn’t reached the trees yet, but Garrison stopped, turned to face her, his hands grasping her upper arms near the shoulders. “Tell me the truth. I mean it, Swan.”
“What truth do you wish to know, Al’An?” She was tall for a girl, but a head shorter than he was, and her eyes were doing that thing that a woman could always somehow do even if she were taller than the man she was looking at: her eyes looked up at him, while at the same time appearing to be downcast in anticipation.
Garrison realized that he was probably hurting her arms. He let go of her. They just started walking, past the trees he’d picked as their destination, following instead along the boundary of the vast expanse of lawn. The sun was warmer here, or maybe it was Garrison’s blood pressure. All the other guys back by the party were visibly armed, so Garrison determined for himself that it wouldn’t be that socially taboo for his guns to be seen. He took off his bomber jacket, hooked it on his thumb over his left shoulder. Swan grasped his right hand in both of hers. They walked on, neither speaking.
The sun was warm on Garrison’s face and neck, on his skin below the sleeves of his dark blue T-shirt, but he wasn’t perspiring. The grass seemed to go on forever. Maybe it did, here. Garrison licked his lips, sniffed. “Uh, was I dead?”
“Was that the most important question you wanted to ask me, Al’An?”
Garrison shook his head. “No. Did you tell me that you loved me?”
“Yes.”
“Was I dead?”
“No, but you were very close to death.”
“Let’s eat, but after we do this.” Alan Garrison dropped his jacket and folded Swan into his arms. She tilted up her chin. Alan Garrison kissed her. Even if he had been dead, this alone would have brought him back.
Swan’s head close against his chest, Garrison heard her whisper, “I love you, Al’An.”
Garrison’s lips touched her ear. “And I love you, Swan.”
Alan Garrison had never meant anything more than he meant that...
She straddled the body beneath her, hands twisting at his nipples, her mouth devouring, penetrating his mouth.
Her fingernails raked along his neck and shoulders and across his upper arms, drawing blood as they gouged into his chest and her finger tips squeezed at him again.
He cried in pain.
She laughed and bit his lower lip hard, the salty taste of his blood washing over her tongue. Her hands twisted his delicate flesh harder than before. He almost lifted her as he swelled within her. He shrieked with the pain she caused him. She screamed with delight. He exploded within her.
Eran sank back onto her haunches, her hair heavy and wet with sweat, her breathing hard.
The young lieutenant was not enough, not nearly enough at all. She dismounted him, caught up her robe from the flagstones and walked away from the bed. He moaned for more. Eran despised his tears and blood.
“That was great. I could do it again.”
“Really?”
Alan Garrison gestured toward the far end of the longest table. “I could start eating on that end and still be hungry by the time I reached this end.”
Swan’s face lit with laughter. “You will be fat!”
“No, just happy.”
She flung her arms about his neck and kissed his cheek. “I will bring you all that you desire, Al’An.”
Swan took his plate from the grass beside them, Garrison reaching for her. She laughed, almost a schoolgirl giggle, scrambling away from his grasp. He started to his feet, but sank back to the grass, calling after her rather than running after her. “I already have all that I desire, Swan!”
She was still running, long legged and beautiful, laughing as she looked back at him over her shoulder, skirts and petticoats hitched high, flowing auburn hair bouncing Marsha Brady-perfect.
Perfect. Everything was perfect.
Garrison knitted his fingers behind his head and stretched back in the grass, looking at the perfect blue sky. This was paradise. He’d been wrong. The term was not unknown here. But in this world called Creath, paradise was not a lost gift, but made by magic.
He took a cigarette from his pack, lit it. He was almost sorry for once in his life that he wasn’t a heavier smoker. Almost.
Here, cocooned within this perfect magical energy, he could have smoked ten cartons a day with no risk to his health. “Yuck,” Garrison murmured. The thought of even a pack a day held no appeal.
But a cigarette every once in a while tasted good.
Maybe magic was like that. Using a little magic here and there didn’t really hurt, was pleasant, enjoyable. And maybe this Queen Sorceress who was Swan’s mother had too heavy a habit.
On a rational level, Garrison knew that, sooner or later, they’d have to leave this place, set out across Woroc’Il’Lod for Edge Land and Barad’Il’Koth. He accepted that as his destiny now, and so long as Swan was an intrinsic part of that destiny, he could live with it. He could live with it quite nicely. He still didn’t know how he’d managed—how Swan had managed it, actually—to survive the crash, why he’d been able to see his own body and it had looked dead. Swan would explain it, and he’d believe it, no matter how bizarre it sounded. She wouldn’t lie to him. That he knew he could depend upon.
The music was still playing. There was laughter. Some of the men, who might have been drinking a bit too much of the hearty red wine which Garrison had more than sampled himself, were singing. They’d be wise not to give up the day job.
Swan returned, dropped to her knees beside him in the grass. Her hands offered him a plate heaped with meat—it tasted like barbecue—and vegetables, and a large cup of wine.
Garrison sat up. “I’m happy.”
Swan laughed. “I know you are.” She held the cup for him and Garrison sipped wine from it, then took his plate. He started to eat. Swan’s face darkened slightly, a blush and a hint of sadness in her eyes. “I don’t want to make you unhappy.”
“How could you possibly do that?”
“Well, I have never been with a man.”
Garrison touched her cheek, kissed her forehead. “Telling me that doesn’t make me unhappy at all, darling.”
She smiled sweetly, not responding for a moment. He knew what she was doing, trying to understand a word for which there was no perfect equivalent in her language. After another second or so, Swans smile broadened. “I like that word. Is it correct for a woman to call a man so?”
“If you want, yes.”
“Darling. Darling Al’An. Al’An darling.”
Garrison laughed, careful not to choke. But that probably couldn’t happen here in paradise, anyway.
Swan began again. “I know that the next thing which we should do is to make love.”
Yes, it was possible to choke here, at least almost. Garrison coughed, cleared his throat, looked at her. “I’d like that, very much.” More food wasn’t all that important, really. He started to set down his plate.
Swan spoke again, quickly. “The prophecies of Mir say that a Virgin Enchantress must seek out the origin of her seed, if we are to have any hope for victory and freedom. And, darling, I can be nothing but a virgin in order to do so.” Her eyes lowered, staring into his cup of wine as she said those last words.
“And after that?” Garrison asked her.
Swan raised her eyes. “If we survive, Al’An, I will be yours as much in my body as I am in my heart, forever if you so desire.”
Garrison took a deep breath. Looking at Swan, listening to her, understanding her, what else could he say but, “Then, let’s get on with whatever it is that we have to do here, and let’s go to Barad’Il’Koth and do what needs to be done there. And, if we live, or if we die, the forever part will still be forever. Nothing your mother or her damned army can do will ever change that.”
Just breathing the air which Swan breathed was erotic beyond imagining.
Garrison set down his plate, closed his hands around hers which still held the wine. Swan tilted the cup toward him and he sipped from it. Turning the cup in her hands, so her lips touched where his had touched, Swan drank the wine as well...
“Okay, now come at me. And don’t be afraid that you’re gonna hurt me or anything, because you won’t,” Garrison told Gar’Ath.
Gar’Ath, grace personified with a sword in his hands, just lowered his head like a bull, balled his fists and charged.
Garrison sidestepped into a roundhouse kick, catching Gar’Ath’s right side as gently as he could, sending him flying to the grass.
“Just like you tell me with a sword, Gar’Ath, keep your balance, and keep your wits.”
Gar’Ath nodded soberly. “All right, you come at me, then, Champion.”
Garrison grinned and assumed a T-stance. It was late in the afternoon, the sun warm across the grassy expanse which Garrison mentally labeled “the backyard” of the castle. Like Gar’Ath, he was naked from the waist up.
Garrison started moving in a slow semicircle, feigned a punch and let Gar’Ath come at him. He blocked Gar’Ath’s right, his left, got inside Gar’Ath’s block, deflected a poorly launched knee smash, then delivered a soft heel of the hand to Gar’Ath’s chin. Gar’Ath stumbled back, but kept his footing. “You’re doing better, Gar’Ath!”
Garrison moved in, but Gar’Ath no longer staggered, instead pivoted left, snapping a series of beautifully executed soft kicks to Garrison’s abdomen.
Garrison doubled over, Gar’Ath’s foot snapping up and stopping just inches from Garrison’s face.
“You sandbagged me,” Garrison announced, breathing hard.
Gar’Ath lowered his foot, perfectly in balance. He stepped back. The idiomatic expression evidently deciphered, Gar’Ath smiled broadly. “Yes, I did, didn’t I?”
“Been practicing?”
“More than a little, but hardly a lot, Champion.”
“My ass,” Garrison laughed.
This expression gave Gar’Ath not a moment’s pause. “And it was your ass, indeed!”
“Well,” Garrison suggested, “let’s see if I’ve been practicing with a sword, then.” This was, of course, ridiculous, Garrison knew. His hopes of winning against Gar’Ath blade to blade were as likely to succeed as either one of them separately or even both of them together taking on Chuck Norris hand to hand and winning.
“Now, remember, don’t be afraid that you’ll hurt me, because you won’t,” Gar’Ath advised.
“Ha, ha!”
Garrison retreated to his “corner” where, among other things, he’d left his borrowed sword. Its blade was about the same length as Gar’Ath’s, and it had a double quillon crossguard and skull crusher pommel, but there the similarity ended. Gar’Ath’s sword, made with his own hands, was sharp as a razor and gleamed like the sun. Garrison’s loaner was sharp enough to hurt somebody and it wasn’t rusty.
“Now, remember, if you parry with your blade, parry with the flat whenever possible. Parrying with the edge just nicks the edge. Bad for the sword, Champion.”
“Right.”
What little Alan Garrison had known about the various forms of classical European swordfighting (the style of Creath embodying various elements from several of these) prior to Gar’Ath’s tutelage derived from novels written by Rafael Sabbatini and fine old movie fights between Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone. In more recent times, Garrison enjoyed the resurgence of swordfighting in films and television, most of this, however, predicated on the Japanese katana used in the discipline of kenjitsu. In neither case, although he was fairly conversant with sword types as a consequence of his writing interests, had he any practical experience.
After his first session with Gar’Ath, Garrison’s right forearm had been stiff and sore from manipulating the sword. Because they were at the summer palace and all was magical, the considerable discomfort vanished within minutes of onset.
After his next session, Garrison walked away realizing that much of what he’d seen in movies, old or new, had some validity, while other material was totally useless and silly.
In their third session, Gar’Ath had Garrison handle several different types of swords. Garrison learned that hand, wrist, arm, upper body and legs had to function together fluidly. Making a slender-bladed sword sing through the air with that wonderful old movie whooshing sound (which scared the crap out of an opponent just prior to cutting a candle in half) required use of the shoulder, the arm as a whole, elbow and wrist motion and hand manipulation. Simultaneously. By the end of that session, Garrison could carve a “Z” in the air, reliably whooshing three times in a row.
“Let’s just fight,” Gar’Ath suggested.
“Oh, you wanna hurt me, huh?”
Gar’Ath laughed, raised his sword to a guard position and waited.
Garrison had been practicing.
Garrison charged clumsily, thrashing through an awkward, downward hacking motion, Gar’Ath waiting to intercept with a casual flick of the wrist and possibly disarm him. Garrison drew his blade rearward at the last second, Gar’Ath parrying nothing but air. Garrison’s blade was already in motion again, its flat striking Gar’Ath’s, deflecting Gar’Ath’s parry.
Garrison wheeled right, a full circle, his blade angled downward, blocking Gar’Ath’s recovering blade from inside his guard. Garrison’s left fist snapped upward, lightly tapping Gar’Ath on the tip of the chin. At the same time, Garrison shoved against Gar’Ath, knocking him slightly off balance.
As Gar’Ath dodged rearward, Garrison wheeled once more, his sword arcing toward a dead stop (he hoped) inches from Gar’Ath’s throat. Gar’Ath wheeled, his sword in both hands, blocking Garrison’s blade, circling round it, flicking upward.
Garrison was disarmed.
Gar’Ath stayed the tip of his blade, poised an inch away from Garrison’s forehead.
“I was getting a little carried away,” Garrison admitted sheepishly.
“You’re getting considerably better, Champion. You have the makings of a fine hand with the blade.” Gar’Ath lowered his sword. “Unfortunately, we may not have the time that we’ll require in order to teach you all that you’ll need to know.”
It was a sobering thought, and Garrison nodded his agreement to it. Gar’Ath’s blade snatched up Garrison’s loaner, the sword sailing easily through the air and Garrison caught it at the hilt. “What if I hadn’t been able to catch it?”
“You would have cut yourself quite badly, you would, Champion. And, more importantly, I’d have felt terribly embarrassed.”
Garrison shook his sword at Gar’Ath as if he were going to attack again, laughed instead and said, “Gosh, we wouldn’t have wanted you to be embarrassed because I cut myself!” Garrison shook his arms to loosen his muscles. “Let’s call it a day, huh.” It wasn’t that he was tired, but he saw Swan approaching, crossing the grassy expanse toward them.
Gar’Ath glanced in Swan’s direction as well, looked at Garrison and winked. “It’s a bit tired I am, too, Champion. On the morrow, then?”
“Same time, same channel, buddy.”
Gar’Ath nodded, walking over to his corner and donning his shirt almost a little too quickly. Gar’Ath seemed easily embarrassed around women, one drop-dead gorgeous woman in particular. Her name was Mitan and it was obvious that Gar’Ath was nuts about her, and she about him, obvious to everyone except Gar’Ath.
Or maybe it was too obvious to him. Garrison had seen guys run scared when they realized there was something serious going on with a woman. Mitan was K’Ur’Mir, Garrison had learned, meaning that a union between Gar’Ath and Mitan would be comparable to a commoner marrying into the British Royal Family.
“Be seeing you,” Gar’Ath called out, buckling on his sword as he went.
Garrison shot him a wave.
As Gar’Ath made his way toward the trees, Swan and Gar’Ath crossed paths, stopped to talk for a moment. Gar’Ath s body language graphically revealed his shyness, his desire to walk on and escape the conversation. Garrison found himself smiling.
Gar’Ath escaped.
Swan continued on her way, Garrison’s eyes on her. Her hair was loosely arranged in soft waves, the sides drawn back from her face, caught up at the crown of her head. She wore an ankle-length dress of pale blue satin or a similar material. White petticoats were visible beneath its hem as her fingertips clutched to her skirt, raised it to run to him. At its rounded neckline and the cuffs of its three-quarter sleeves were narrow ribbons of white lace trim.
Garrison saw no weapon, but knew that her dagger would be bound to her leg beneath her skirts.
She came into his arms in a rush. Garrison picked her up, cradling her against his chest, and kissed her hard on the mouth. “Put me down, please.” But her smile said otherwise. He held her. “Please?”
“And what will you do for me if I do?”
“What would you like?”
“Well, we can’t do that just yet. Make an alternate suggestion, Swan.”
Swan seemed to consider this for several seconds, then told him, “I could stay in your arms like this until your muscles become numb. I know that I don’t weigh much, but I’m heavier than a feather. You would tire eventually.”
“Never! Anyway, I was more interested in a bribe than a threat. So think of something interesting.” He bounced her in his arms like a child, and she laughed like one, her hands clutching his shoulders. “Come on! Let’s hear it!”
“I’ll kiss you and kiss you and kiss you until—”
“Sounds like a deal to me, darling.” Garrison set her down, drew her into his arms and kissed her hard.
After a long time which wasn’t time enough, they walked together hand in hand toward the summit from beneath which the waterfall spilled. When they looked toward what Garrison mentally labeled the west—the sun set in that part of Creath—before them stretched higher and higher foothills, and snow-covered mountains beyond. A segment of the vast Arba’Il’Tac was also visible, vanishing within the peaks. The sight of the plateau’s unremitting stone sent a shiver of memory along Garrison’s spine.
To what Garrison instinctively considered the north and east lay the sea. Woroc’Il’Lod’s enormity was, at first, hard for him to comprehend. Erg’Ran had shown him a map which looked familiarly like a standard projection for a flat surface map of the Earth, except for the sizes, shapes and positions of the continents and the almost total absence of islands. As he’d already known, there was but one continent here, but that one more like a series of continents interconnected by vast land bridges. There was only one true island chain, located what seemed to be a quarter of the planet’s circumference from the Land to the north, off Edge Land.
Men of science and letters such as Erg’Ran had long known that Creath was round, although the planet had never been circumnavigated. It was just as the thinkers of Classical Greece had known the true shape of the Earth two millennia before Columbus or Magellan embarked upon their historic voyages. There had never been, however, nor likely would be a circumnavigation of Creath for two reasons: the planet’s land masses were all known, through the use of magic and the second-sight; and although there was no fear of “falling off” the edge of the world, in actuality sea creatures did wait to destroy ships and devour those foolish enough to be aboard them.
The only race of seafarers anywhere in Creath, according to Erg’Ran, was to be found on the island chain, its inhabitants the Gle’Ur’Gya. The Gle’Ur’Gya rarely interacted with the folk of the Land. From Erg’Ran s description of them, if they shared a common evolutionary heritage at all, the Gle’Ur’Gya were as genetically dissimilar to the inhabitants of the Land as were the more esoteric forms of Australian fauna to the general run of terrestrial species.
Garrison could fault no one for avoiding the vast global ocean of which he was able to glimpse only the most frigid part.
Woroc’Il’Lod’s tidal surges were beyond anything Garrison had ever considered possible. Once, as a child, his family unwittingly found itself in the path of a hurricane. Despite the intervening years, Garrison’s recollection of the awesome height and force with which the Atlantic pounded against the Florida coast had not dimmed. Along the coasts of Creath, such was normal. He’d seen this with his own eyes over the last several days, from this very vantage point he shared with Swan. Erg’Ran had told him that, at certain periods of the year, there were waves of incredible proportions which moved in cyclonic rotation, floating hurricane-like, as Garrison referenced it, over the surface of the ocean. This occurred when Creath s two moons crossed orbital paths and was a result of their combined gravitational effect, Garrison presumed.
“We’ll be out there soon,” Garrison observed.
Swan held to him more tightly. “I wish that my magic could carry us all across it. But in order to accomplish that, I would have virtually none remaining when we reached shore. And I’ll need magic there.”
“Let me ask you something,” Garrison began. The breeze was stiffening a little as the sun declined. He folded her more closely in his arms. “This place. How does it work?”
Swan seemed to consider his words for several seconds, then responded, “You are wondering why we are safe here.”
“I can accept the fact that the magic from the dead K’Ur’Mir protects this spot. Erg’Ran told me about it the other evening. He’d told Gar’Ath how that came to be, how he lost his foot. Spooky. And the other night he told me, said I had a right to know. But how come there isn’t an army of your mother’s goons waiting just outside the gates for us, laying siege?”
“It wouldn’t do my mother any good, Al’An. It’s not just the keep and the courtyard and the walls which enjoy the protection of the spells cast by the dying K’Ur’Mir, it’s the surrounding area, for many, many lancethrows in all directions, including the sea.”
“Fine, then why isn’t there an armada waiting offshore to intercept us?” Garrison didn’t know, for fact, that there wouldn’t be.
Evidently, Swan was having difficulty with the word “armada” and Garrison explained. “It’s a fleet of ships for war.” Telling her about the Spanish Armada in 1588 wouldn’t have done much good, he supposed.
“My mother has few ships, Al’An, only those which ply the coastal waters. There is no such thing here as an armada.”
“So all we have to worry about between this coast and the far coast is ice dragons.”
“And the other sea monsters, yes.”
Garrison blinked. “Other sea monsters?”
“I told you, Al’An, that my mother brought the ice dragons out of their great sleep? But there were always other creatures inhabiting the great ocean, some of them in Woroc’Il’Lod.”
“So, monsters, but no bad guys.”
Swan paused before responding. “The Gle’Ur’Gya? Some of their number are—” Garrison realized that she was searching for a word. Then, as if the lightbulb suddenly went on in a cartoon, she said, “Pirates! Some of the Gle’Ur’Gya attack coastal ships, my mother’s these days. Before my mother’s rule, when there was coastal trade, the Gle’Ur’Gya were more active.”
Garrison shrugged his eyebrows. “At least these guys—the Gle’Ur’Gya—aren’t on your mom’s side. That’s something, I guess. If we meet up with any, maybe we can get them on our side.”
“That would be wonderful, because they are very great fighters, especially the pirates.”
“Okay, so all we have to worry about between here and Edge Land is pirates and sea monsters and ice dragons. And, on the plus side, we might be able to get the pirates to help us in the battle.” Garrison surmised that he really was going nuts...
* * *
The days at the summer palace were always warm and bright, nary a cloud in the sky. The weather was magically “programmed” for rain every day just before dawn, in order that the plants and flowers would get the moisture they required. There’d be no need to have The Weather Channel in a basic cable package here. He told that to Swan, then had to explain about basic cable which led to a short dissertation on Marconi and the invention of the wireless.
At night, the skies above the summer palace and its environs were always clear and the stars were always sparkling and beautiful. He sat beneath them with Swan, on the keep steps, a good dinner in his stomach, a cup of wine beside him, a cigarette lit in his left hand from a continuously full pack.
It was magic responsible for that full pack, magic responsible for the perfection of the summer palace. And magic, he knew, was the reason that he was here, alive.
“Tell me,” Garrison almost whispered, “how you saved my life.”
Swan leaned her head against his chest, her voice low. “I saw what was about to happen, with the second-sight.”
“And you intervened. How?”
Swan turned her face up toward him. “I couldn’t let you die, Al’An. You would not have been here if it were not for me, nor would you have fought the winged beast were it not for me. That was the most formidable of the creatures my mother raised up to destroy us, which meant that she knew that you were the Champion, and had to destroy you.”
“Are those the only reasons?” Garrison asked her, his eyes leaving hers, focusing on the glowing tip of his cigarette, its pinpoint of light like a star held in the hand.
“I couldn’t lose you, Al’An. I knew from the first moment that I saw you that...”
Garrison kissed the tip of her nose. It was a very pretty nose. “When we were sitting in that little snack shop at the con, I was realizing that I loved you. Does that help with saying it?”
“Yes.”
“So,” he said, clearing his throat, “you just did what then?”
“I wasn’t certain how to bring the winged beast softly to the ground so that you would not die. I had never done something like that, had never read a spell for that. But I did know a spell for shifting the life energy—”
“The soul? The mind?”
Swan seemed to ponder his words, then answered, “We think of things in different ways, but they’re the same. I knew that I could take the life that was in you, the essence of you, and transfer it to something else, another living creature. And I could return it to your body. Healing your body was merely the acceleration of natural processes, ordinary magic. We’ve spoken of this.”
“Yes,” he nodded.
“But if your life energy left your body at the moment of death, it would be irretrievable. You never died, Al’An. I know this has worried you. Your body was grievously injured, moreso than you would ever want to know. But the body can be made to heal itself. I kept your life energy in the bird until I was certain that I could restore your body and had restored it enough that it would hold your life energy and not surrender you to death. That took very little time. The bones in your chest were crushed, and had penetrated your heart and your lungs. I commanded the bones to return to their original position and shape. They still had to heal, of course. I ordered your lungs to seal, so that air could enter and leave. Your heart would heal, but it had ceased to beat.”
“And?”
She seemed oddly embarrassed. “I, uh, I ordered that your flesh and muscle should part over your heart, and I touched it with my hand.”
Garrison was suddenly very cold, his body shaking. He snapped away the cigarette, rubbed his hand over his jaw. “You touched my heart,” he said slowly. “Silly girl for being embarrassed.” he whispered. “You touch my heart every time I think of you.” And he kissed her...
Because of the tidal surges, Garrison supposed, the concept of a dock or wharf to which a ship could be tied was unheard of. Any such structure, if built high enough to be left unassailed by the pounding water, would leave whatever vessel secured to it accessible only by climbing down a ladder. Meanwhile, the boat would be battered to pieces by the tides.
Garrison thought that the solution to Creath’s maritime dilemma was, considering the general lack of technology, ingenious. Ships were kept to a size reminiscent to him of those used by the Norsemen. Their overall canoe-like shape, high prows and simple mast structure were similar to Viking craft as well. When put in to shore at what passed for a naval facility, the ships were brought from and back to the water on parallel skids, not dissimilar to railroad tracks in gauge. Since the coastlines were constantly eroding, as the sea claimed more of the land, the rails were merely extended to a still higher elevation. Using ropes and primitive pulleys (magic substituting for muscle when available), the craft were drawn to their dry dock or eased into the surf. They were light enough, because of their modest size, that the crew which oared them could carry them if needed.
Garrison and Erg’Ran stood at the mouth of an enormous cavern, some five hundred yards from the water’s edge and a good hundred feet higher in elevation. There were five ships within the cave being outfitted and rigged.
“They’ll be ready by the morrow, Champion.”
“I can hardly wait,” Garrison cracked. Yet he was anxious to be underway for a variety of reasons, his hopes for consummating the love he felt for Swan chief among them. On another level, he wanted to see Swan’s mother get what was coming to her. If he were somehow able to marry Swan—and the mere thought of how that could be done was mind-boggling—Eran would truly be the mother-in-law of all mothers-in-law.
When the Company of Mir set sail for Edge Land across Woroc’Il’Lod, the only noncombatant would be Swan herself. The spouses of the male and female warriors, the children, the camp followers, all non-fighters would remain within the safety of the summer palace. A handful of warriors only would stay back with them, and merely as a precaution against the unforeseen.
Only three out of the Company of Mir would be K’Ur’Mir: Swan, Erg’Ran and Mitan. Although more warrior than magic user, as a female K’Ur’Mir Mitan had some considerable capabilities. Erg’Ran freely admitted that what magic he, as a male, could employ would be of precious little use for anything serious.
The five vessels were constructed using a combination of magic and (to Garrison) more conventional techniques. Since the Company of Mir was, effectively, a random cross section of Creathan society, most trades and professions were represented. Coopersmiths saw to precision fitting of planking, stonemasons saw to the pitch caulking, while blacksmiths and even Gar’Ath, a swordsmith by trade as was his father before him, saw to the making of grommets, cleats, oarlocks and other necessary metal items.
Gar’Ath, as did many of the others, performed double duty, his principal task in what time remained before they set sail was the completion of spearheads. In preparation to combat the creatures which lay in wait within Woroc’Il’Lod’s waters, everyone was agreed that a large number of extra spears would be needed. Mitan, to Gar’Ath’s discomfort because of her necessary proximity to him, used her magic to apply the final edges to the spearheads, using her muscle power to mate them to the shafts. Garrison doubted that the symbology of the shafts being inserted into the orifices within the spearheads was lost on Gar’Ath, and from the mischievous look in Mitan’s pretty eyes, Garrison knew that she very much appreciated what it suggested.
“It should prove a constant source of amusement, shouldn’t it?” Erg’Ran commented.
“What?” Garrison inquired.
They were walking along a scaffolding set between two of the ships toward the rear of the cave.
“I mean having our young swordsman friend and the fair warrior maid taking passage on the same small ship. I wonder if Gar’Ath will survive it.”
“I could lend Gar’Ath my vest—”
“Your fabric armor, yes! Why?”
“It’s not only good protection against bullets—the things my firespitters spit?”
“Ah, yes. Bullets, indeed.”
“But although it also provides a fair degree of protection against penetration—” Garrison didn’t mean that word the way it came out in the context of their conversation, so he quickly rephrased. “I meant to say that I don’t think it would provide much protection against Cupid’s arrows.”
“Who is Cu’Pid?”
“Cupid is a character from mythology—” Garrison realized that he was digging a hole and about to bury himself beneath a ton of inane verbiage before he could climb out of it. “What I mean is that there’s no armor against love, Erg’Ran.”
“How right you are, Champion. How right you are!” At the end of the scaffolding, Garrison looked down. There was a high stack of canvas bags on something very much like a pallet. The bags were about the length and girth of a man in size, grommeted at the top, cord running through the holes, enabling the openings to be drawn tight.
They were a sobering sight: body bags for burial at sea.
A boy of about twelve, by the way that Garrison reckoned age, came as a messenger. Swan requested that Garrison join her in the keep’s highest tower. She had taken this over for her new—Garrison didn’t quite know what to call it. Was it a magical workshop, a laboratory? An office?
After ascending the endlessly winding stairs, Garrison crossed a small outer room and entered the chamber through a doorless archway. Quill pens wrote furiously, filling empty scrolls and pages within books floating in the air, controlled only by Swan’s magical energy. Merely watching them was unnerving.
“Al’An!” The pens kept writing as Swan came across the room and into his arms.
Garrison kissed her, held her. “How do you do that?”
“What?”
“The pens writing without anyone touching them.”
“I can show you the spell.”
“No. That’s okay. Why are you doing it?”
“When my castle was consumed by the Mist of Oblivion, all of my things were lost with it. I memorize anything that I read, so I’m rewriting all of my spells and incantations and recipes.”
“Recipes? Like in a cookbook?”
Swan evaluated the term, then answered, “Some of the recipes are for the cooking of food, yes.”
Garrison wasn’t going to ask what other kinds of recipes she was transcribing.
“I thought that it was time that we saw to your armament, Al’An, as we will be leaving on the morrow. I will spellwork for you a sword the equal to any in the Land! See?” Out of thin air, floating among the books, scrolls and the quill pens still writing upon them, appeared a magnificent hand-and-a-half sword, double fullered along the blade’s entire length, with bronze ricasso, lobed quillon guard, hilt bound in polished wire, a skull-crusher pommel in the shape of some sort of animal head, gemstones set for its eyes.
“That’s lovely, Swan, but—”
“Gar’Ath tells me that you are becoming quite proficient with a sword. I am very proud.”
“You’re sweet to say that, and even sweeter to make such a wonderful weapon for me. And Gar’Ath’s a heck of a fine teacher, but he’s being overly generous with his praise. If I had a lot more practice time, I’d be mediocre, darling. Such a fine sword should be in the scabbard of someone who really knows how to use it. No, I’ll make do. I wish I had more ammo, though.”
“Ammo? Oh! Ammo! Please, give me one ammo.”
“Cartridge. Sure.” Garrison reached under his bomber jacket, not bothering to withdraw one of the pistols from its holster, merely pressing the magazine release catch button. He thumbed a cartridge free and handed it to Swan.
“Are these runes which are inscribed here of magical importance to your firespitters?”
She was referring to the Federal Cartridge Company headstamp. “No, it’s how they’re made that counts. That’s why I use this brand—kind of ammunition for my firespitters, pistols.”
Swan tossed the cartridge into the air, simultaneously speaking words which were totally unintelligible to him—had to be from the Old Tongue. The cartridge floated, weightless seeming, and a vortex formed around it. Light appeared to emanate from the cartridge, filling the vortex. From deep within it, a single cartridge fell, then another and another. The succession of cartridges became a stream, flowing out of the vortex, heaping onto the flagstones below. The pile of cartridges grew and grew, to the height of Garrison’s knee, to the height of his hip. Still, the stream continued to flow from the vortex.
“Tell me when you think you will have enough, Al’An.”
“Oh, anytime now really would be just fine, actually.” Garrison knew that he should be used to magic by now, but realized that he was shaking his head in disbelief.
The flow slowed to a trickle, then a handful more spilled from the vortex and the vortex began to close.
The original cartridge Garrison had placed in Swan’s hand, which she had flung into the air, arced back into her waiting palm. Swan returned it to Garrison. “Thank you,” he told her, his eyes on neither Swan nor the thousands of rounds of ammunition, but on the original cartridge.
He heard her telling him, “I’ve never made ammo before. It’s easy.”
“You’ve brought a whole new meaning to hand-loading, darling.”
“And,” Swan continued, ignoring his quip, “your ammo is magical, now. If you must use it against a magical enemy, it will be much more effective.”
Still looking at the original cartridge, seeing nothing odd or different about it, he asked, “So I should use the new stuff and put my old ammunition away?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
“If you do not see yourself using a sword, Al’An,” and the sword which Swan had made and which had hung in thin air since she’d shown it to him instantly vanished, “then you will at least need protection from the swords wielded by your enemies.” This seemed to be quite serious to her, judging from the look on her face as he finally stopped staring at the cartridge. “I know!”
Garrison felt movement in the left side of his bomber jacket. As he looked down, his badge and Bureau ID had already floated from his pocket, the gold badge floating on into Swan’s hand, the ID returning to his pocket. “I heard this object called a shield, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, but—no, Swan!”
Garrison was too late. She’d flung his badge into the air. For a split second, nothing happened, except his badge still floated, and he wondered if he was going to wind up with another vortex and another pile beneath it, only this time—But, his badge began to glow, differently than the cartridge had. There was a burst of light and Garrison blinked.
When Garrison looked again, his badge was almost two feet wide and nearly three feet long. The gleaming shield returned to Swan’s hands and she presented it to him. “It is magical and will help to protect you, Al’An.”
All of the embossing on the surface of his badge was present, just as it had been, the letters perfectly reproduced, but perfectly reversed. “IBF,” Garrison commented.
“IBF? What does that mean?”
“On my shield, darling. IBF.”
“Oh!” She smiled sweetly. “The Golden Shield of IBF. The Golden Shield of IBF. It sounds nice.”
Garrison nodded, walked to the pile of ammunition and picked up one of the cartridges. It felt perfectly normal, looked perfectly normal to him as he glanced at the headstamp. The letters were not reversed, but their order was, perfectly.
“IBF. That is a good name for your shield, Al’An.”
Garrison smiled, nodded. “Yes, I think so! There’s not another one like it anywhere, I’ll bet. Thank you, darling, very much.”
Swan lowered her eyes, embarrassed by his gratitude he presumed...
Alan Garrison wondered if all shields felt this heavy to begin with, but supposed he’d get used to the weight. The Golden Shield of IBF was slung over his left shoulder, and in his right hand he carried a wooden bucket brimming over with cartridges. “I could carry your shield, Al’An.”
“No, darling, it’d be a little heavy for you.”
“Don’t worry!” The Golden Shield of IBF left his shoulder and fell in beside them, floating surfboard-like in the air.
Between the two bridges leading to the keep’s backyard, Garrison had remembered a spot where the trees were widely spaced and there was an embankment rising into the hill on which the summer palace was built. It was the perfect spot to shoot, and he was not about to stake his life or Swan’s or anyone’s on magic ammunition which was never tested.
The Golden Shield of IBF was alternately at their heels or beside them, like a puppy. When they reached the spot which Garrison had remembered, he asked Swan, “Would you like to put down my shield now?”
The Golden Shield of IBF made a perfect landing to lean against the trunk of a willow tree. “Is there anything which I can do to help, Al’An?”
“Yes, actually. Would you find some pinecones?”
Half expecting a pile of pine cones to appear out of thin air, Garrison was mildly but pleasantly surprised that Swan ran off to find some in the ordinary way. While she was gone, Garrison set to unloading his magazines, then reloading them with the ammunition Swan had made for him with her magic.
Swan soon returned, carrying a woven basket which she hadn’t had when she left, the basket stuffed with pinecones.
Garrison thanked her, took the basket and set out the pinecones as targets. The maximum range he could get without the trees interfering was about fifty feet. He wasn’t after all, testing his marksmanship skills, Garrison reminded himself. Swan stood beside him, but Garrison waved her back, in case magical ammo exploded when fired from nonmagical guns. “Cover your ears. Tight!”
There were a few emergency items which Garrison carried along with him whenever possible, among them a Leatherman Supertool, a folding magnifying glass and a small case containing a pair of earplugs. Unfortunately, when Swan magically whisked him into her world, none of those things—except for the magnifying glass—were on his person. On the plus side, any ringing in his ears or damage done to his hearing would be gone in no time because of the magical energy at the summer palace.
Keeping the pistol well away from his face, and partially averting his eyes as he began to squeeze the trigger, he fired. The sound was just as loud as ever, but no louder. Looking at the weapon, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He’d seen the bullet impact the general area of the target. Keeping the muzzle pointed downrange, he spied the spent cartridge case in the grass and picked it up. Nothing unusual. “So far, so good.” Garrison repeated the procedure with the same results. Confident that firing the magically made ammunition wasn’t especially dangerous, Garrison fired through his two primary and two spare magazines, wiping out a considerable number of defenseless pinecones in the process. By the time he was through, his hearing was suffering. Under normal conditions, the hollow sound which some people called ringing would have gone away in an hour or two.
By the time he turned to face Swan and signaled that she could lower her hands from her ears, Garrison’s hearing was already returning to normal.
“Was the ammo okay?” Swan asked.
“The ammo was better than okay,” he told Swan. “It was perfect.” He wondered if she’d want to use her magic to pick up the fired brass...
Swan stood between Al’An and Erg’Ran, in the passageway leading to the chamber in which the Sword of Koth prisoner had been placed.
“Which of us is going to be the good cop and who’s gonna be the bad cop?”
“I don’t understand, Champion,” Erg’Ran told Al’An. Swan was glad Erg’Ran had said it. “We are fighting for good,” Erg’Ran continued, “and our Sword of Koth prisoner fought for evil. And you’re the only cop who is here.”
Al’An shook his head and smiled good naturedly. “No, see, Erg’Ran, we gotta get this Sword of Koth guy feeling that he can trust one of us to protect him from the other guy. I’ll give you an example. Say, you’re the bad cop, right?”
“I’m the bad cop, right.”
Al’An shook his head again. “No, I don’t mean say it, but just pretend.”
“Erg’Ran should pretend that he said it, Al’An?”
“Start over. Okay. Now, Erg’Ran, you pretend that we’ve got the Sword of Koth trooper there in a chair all alone in a room. Okay? So in you go, and you’re the bad cop. I mean, you’re not really bad, but just pretending to be. You tell this little bad ass you’re puttin’ him away in the house of many doors for the long count, how you’re gonna make sure he’s buyin’ so much hard time he’ll be too old to qualify for Social Security if he ever gets out. Like that.
“Then,” Al’An went on, “you make like you lose your temper when he doesn’t answer you, see? You get your face up right in front of his and shout at him, tell him that if he doesn’t come clean and spill his guts you’re gonna put the word on the street that he ratted on his homies, sang the whole opera, huh! Then, either way, whether it’s the big house or some liberal judge lets him walk on a technicality, his ass is grass with his posse and, if they don’t whittle on him with a chain saw first, he’ll be cryin’ for Witness Protection. And we won’t give it to him. That’s the bad cop routine, Erg’Ran.”
“I see, Champion.”
“You do? Good. Now, see, pretend you’re the good cop. You walk in, see that the bad cop’s giving the prisoner a hard time. You tell the bad cop to go grab himself a cup of coffee and a danish or somethin’. As soon as he’s outta the room, you offer this Sword of Koth guy a cigarette, light it up for him. Tell him how the bad cop can really make a lot of trouble, da-da-da-da-da. You win over his confidence, telling him that you’ll put in the good word with the judge, like that. Tell him you’ll keep the bad cop from getting anywhere near him.
“Then, the bad cop comes in again,” Al’An continued, “and he snatches the cigarette away from the Sword of Koth guy, starts pitchin’ a fit. You calm him down, shag him outta there and tell the Sword of Koth there’s not much you can do unless he throws somethin’ your way and starts to talk.”
“You have found such a charade efficacious in the interrogation of a prisoner?” Erg’Ran queried, sounding incredulous.
“On a lotta guys, yeah. See, he’s lookin’ at a Federal rap. Same thing here, really. When we defeat Eran, Swan’s going to be in charge and you guys helping her, so you’ll be the government. Same idea.”
Swan cleared her throat. “I was considering using magic in order to secure his cooperation, Al’An. Is the good and bad cop technique to be preferred, you think?”
Al’An said nothing for a moment, took a cigarette from its package—Swan lit it magically—and said, “Well, we can try the magic thing first, I guess. If it doesn’t work, then we go into good cop-bad cop.”
“Oh, that is a fine approach,” Swan assured him.
The three resumed walking along the passageway. “We’re going to want to get the dope on troop strength, their overall defensive posture. Remember,” Al’An advised, “if he starts telling us about which Horde of Koth units are where, we want to push him to know if the units are at full strength, like that.”
“Very good suggestions, Champion,” Erg’Ran noted.
“We are looking for weaknesses in their defenses,” Swan observed. “Those are very good things to find out.”
“How will you do this, with magic, I mean?” Al’An asked.
“It is cruel, which was why I had wished that he would speak before now. I will make him believe that he is with his comrades among the Sword of Koth, merely conversing about the topics over which we are concerned. He will be temporarily unaware that he was ever captured.”
“What’s cruel about that, Swan?”
Erg’Ran answered for her. “When the spell is lifted, he will remember that he has betrayed his oath and his honor, if indeed the Sword of Koth have honor.”
Swan watched Al’An, who nodded his understanding.
No one stood guard, the chamber door was secured by magic. Swan caused the door to open. She looked away, burying her face against Al’An’s chest.
Erg’Ran spoke. “He had some little magic, perhaps.”
Al’An asked, “That how he got the knife, you think? Or maybe we missed it in the search?”
“We may never know.”
“Nobody could have murdered anybody here, right?”
“Such cannot happen at the summer palace; the magical energy prevents evil from having any power here. He is dead at his own hand. No magic can prevent that, I fear, when despair seizes the mind.”
“So much for getting information. G’Urg!”
“Yes,” Erg’Ran responded. “As you say.”
The Sword of Koth had opened his wrist and bled to death. His skin was a ghastly shade of grey, and there was blood congealed in the fissures between the flagstone beneath him.
Swan had seen worse, but the realization that this Sword of Koth had taken his own life somehow made her think of what might happen when their current endeavor had run its course and was ended. If she defeated her mother’s forces, and her mother, too, then what? Swan could not bring herself to cause her mother’s death.
And if her mother defeated her? That her mother would almost certainly find a worse fate than any death however horrible was the likely scenario. In that case, her magic spent, her cause lost, would she—
“I’m getting Swan out of here,” Al’An said to Erg’Ran.
“Agreed. Send Gar’Ath and some others.”
“Right.”
Swan felt herself being moved along the passageway, almost lifted from her feet, Al’An’s arms tight about her. If she failed, all that she loved was doomed to horror beyond imagining. If she succeeded, there would be horror enough as well. Tears fell from her eyes; there was no hope of stopping them other than by magical means; she would not do that.