Cloud Castles (24 page)

Jyp swung around to look at me. ‘Gettin’ to be quite a navigator yourself!’ he shouted. ‘I was just about to suggest that – westward a point it is.’

I eased off the tail a little and pitched the rotors to steer us around. My compass settled easily enough, but the satellite navigation display was behaving oddly, and I half expected to hear the Frankfurt controllers demanding what I thought I was playing at; as far as they knew I’d never made that unscheduled landing outside town. I wished I never had –

Mall’s shout resounded even over the engines, and her out-thrust arm almost ripped out my intercom cables. But I didn’t blame her when I followed her pointing finger, and saw far ahead, in the midst of a wide pool of blue this time, the pair of gigantic spires that topped the Hall of the Graal. I leaned on the pedals, tilted the stick, and swung us away towards the billowing slopes of cloud, away and down. ‘I’m not going near that place in the air!’ I explained. ‘No knowing what they’d think. I’ll land and walk in, like before.’

Jyp nodded, and watched in excitement as the clouds thinned suddenly, and the valley he’d named the Heilenthal sprang to life below us. The sky was clearer, and the dawn sun blazed on the rough white stone of the cliffs and the greenery at their feet; the rivers shone like steel and bronze, and down their long stair-falls rainbows glowed. Mall’s hand clutched at my shoulder as she saw the walls of the city appear round the edge of the mountain, then sagged in disappointment as I hastily pulled back and down, careful to stay out of sight. We fell towards rougher ground than I’d sought out before, but better sheltered. At the margin of the forest a clearing opened, at its centre a roofless ruin whose bare gable toppled at the touch of our downblast; a mighty cloud of fireweed fountained outward as I brought us in to land, glittering white in the sun. I eased the ‘copter down, stilled the engines and threw the door wide even as the rotors whistled to a stop.

We sat, and let the sun warm us, and the air of the place blow around us; and I marvelled. I’d felt something before, some sense of wonder at this place. But how could
I have failed to sense the fullness of it, when even the very air seemed to carry some special benediction of its own, given without grudge or question? It took the grief and anger and desperate worry within us, that crisp dawn air, and without in any way diminishing it it somehow lightened the impact, and the weight. I could bear it now, and look to its ending. The sun warmed the tensions out of us, soothed our bruises and our weariness, left us content simply to sit and rest. It was hard to rouse myself up for the long walk ahead; but I knew I had to.

‘You two can wait here,’ I told them, and overrode their protests. ‘Look, it makes sense. First, if something does happen, then you know where I’ve gone; second, I’ll look more harmless alone – and be a smaller target; and third, with you two here I’m a lot happier about leaving the machine. For one thing, I’m less likely to find Le Stryge lurking round when I get back.’

Mall smiled. ‘An we see him, we’ll e’en convey him your love and
benedicite.
’

‘Do. On the end of a long sharp stick would be fine.’ I swung myself down into the deep growth of the old clearing. Fireweed and thistledown erupted around me, hanging in the air like a slow snowfall. ‘If I don’t come back, play it by ear. If these people are all you say they are, you ought to be safe enough. But, for God’s sake, be careful, okay?’

‘’S funny,’ drawled Jyp. ‘Just what I was gonna say to you. They’re good people, sure, but these are hard times, and you ain’t exactly endeared yourself to them already.’ He tossed me one of the forgotten lunch packs we’d laid on. ‘Long walk. Enjoy yourself, Steve.’

Strangely enough, I did. I followed
one of the likelier streams down, and the air took hold of me, and lightened my step. It didn’t feel long, that walk; I wanted to linger over every moment of it, even though I was ravenous before I’d gone a mile. Partly it was playing tourist, because there were things to see here; strange old standing stones and dolmens, half-hidden ruins that looked distinctly Roman, and once an entire village standing empty. I thought at first they must all be in the fields, till I saw the sagging shutters and decaying thatch, and the empty millrace from which the wheel had fallen. On the far side of it I stopped by the river, and washed down my sandwiches with great draughts of the Stream. I slopped it over my head and neck and managed to forget the amount of sleep I hadn’t had lately. It was icy meltwater, clear and fresh, and even more than the air it set heart in me – not by any mysterious virtue I could detect, but by its very ordinariness. Plain water, but the best plain water there could be, without taint or infection, without even the natural staining of some soils, yet with all the full flavour of an ideal mineral content. The more I thought about that, the more miraculous it did seem, after all. If you could bottle this stuff it would knock every other mineral water off the market – but that idea threatened to spoil it. You couldn’t bottle this valley, the air, the trees, all that went with it; the water was only one part of something greater. Something that didn’t seem to go with deserted villages, though …

I sat up. I’d dropped off – only for twenty minutes or so, by my watch, but I felt amazingly refreshed; I’d had less restful nights than that. Through the trees the wall and the towers looked closer than I’d expected. I felt better about facing them, too; the sooner it was over with … I climbed to my feet, and went on.

As often happens, they weren’t quite so close as they looked. It wasn’t far short of three hours’ walking before I reached the last rise, and long before that I’d noticed something was different. There was nobody about, no beasts in the fields, or even on their way to them, and this in the middle of the day. The roads, when I reached them, were empty, and I felt conspicuous as an ant on a tablecloth. As I came within clear sight of the walls I ducked back under the trees again. This was worse than I’d bargained for.

I couldn’t just walk up to the great gate, as I’d planned to, and talk to the sentries. It was shut tight, and above it was the first sign of life I’d seen – heads pacing back and forth along the walls, a network of sentries. As if they were on a war footing, preparing for a siege, even. That could make them very, very jumpy indeed; I wished I’d brought something to make a white flag. Moving carefully, keeping my eye on those slow-pacing watchers, I ducked through the trees towards the wall. I couldn’t get very close, but at least it was in hailing range. I took a deep breath and stepped out into the open, waved my hand and called out. My leg muscles were taut springs ready to hurl me back into shelter, but I raised a hand and waved, as naturally as possible, and called out.

The reaction was
instant. The parapet sprouted rifles, and I had to fight my urge to run like a rabbit. From above a hard voice drifted down. ‘
Wer da? Halten sie zuvor!’

‘Freund!’
I yelled back, keeping my hands in clear sight.
‘Ich bringe gute Neues! Ich will mit ein Offizier sprechen! Darf ich hereinkommen?’

There was a hurried conference on the walls.
‘Bleib’ da!’
came the answer.
‘Man soil’ der Kapitan hohlen. Steh’, und kein Spass, sonst bist du Rabensfutter!’

As much as I could expect, though I didn’t like that bit about food for ravens. I crossed my arms and stood waiting, until a small wicket in the great gate opened, and out of it stepped two men in black uniforms, crisp and military in an ornate, flamboyant style that hadn’t been seen in the Core for a century or longer, redolent of a world that ended in blood, mud and extremism after 1914. Silver buttons fastened the long jackets, encircled by a Sam Browne-style belt in white leather; silver piping encircled the high tight collar and heavy cuffs, and ran in double braids down the seams of their riding breeches. Swords clanked by their sides, ornately sheathed sabres, but they both carried sidearms in their hands. The bigger one, taking the lead as they stalked up to me, had a Mauser machine pistol, a jewel of engineering that looked far too modern for the late nineteenth-century product it was. His hair was cropped almost to nothing under his black enamelled
pikelhaube
helmet, and his moustache was waxed into upturned spikes – a caricature Hun, ridiculous in pictures, but a lot more formidable in front of you and well armed. The younger man was lean and bony, with longer gingery hair and a small-eyed, clean-shaven face, but he moved with an athletic, self-assertive swagger that was threatening in itself. I didn’t like the look of either; but if anyone was in the wrong here, I was. Time, decidedly, to be polite.

I raised my hand, and we
disposed of a few courtesies. The Hun turned out to be a Hauptmann Dragovic, not a Hun after all, the other a Leutnant von Albersweg, officers of the City Guard of Heilenberg, and they were obviously impatient or edgy. When I told them I had news about a recent disappearance, though, news important enough to be brought to these Knights of theirs, their entire manner changed. The captain gave me one sharp look, and then impressed me by holstering that fearsome gun; the lieutenant only lowered his, but the captain gestured and he followed suit. ‘Best that you come with us,’ the captain said in passable English. ‘You have the right of it, such news should be told at once. Come!’

Encouraged, I let them bustle and chivvy me down to the gate and through, beneath the slow measured tread of the sentries. But I had to stop in the gate a moment and look out to the open square beyond. It was all I recalled, and more, much more. I’d remembered the neat houses, the gardens and the winding alleys, the wealth of trees, the clear air and all the sense of life and freshness that clung around the streets even when they were empty. Now, though, I saw what lay behind their charm. They were a sign of strength, of a near-perfection it took power to maintain. Power that could hold this whole community stable within the constant flux of the Spiral, power that kept it an enduring, unchanging island where other places, or those who dwelt in them, would soon slip back into the Core and be overtaken by history. How had I ever managed to miss the aura of this place? I could almost see the radiant power in the vast buttresses of the wall, in the noble classical colonnades of the larger buildings, in the coronal of white clouds behind the reaching towers. Had I been blind? No, only blinded, by the compulsion laid upon me. This place was a strength, a bulwark; if it looked even a touch over-civilized, that was because it dare not give any opening to what it shut out. These walls, these guards were not for show, or for oppression; this place had enemies real and immediate, and ones with whom no compromise was possible.

‘Ah,’ said the captain quietly, ‘so I thought. You have been before within the walls of the Heilenberg. If you please, will you come this way? The Knights will be anxious to hear your tidings.’

He ushered me swiftly into
a small doorway set within the inner corner of the looming double gate itself, and up a long spiral stair of stone, lit only from above and flanked by faceless doors. I thought for a minute we were going to climb right to the top, but some way short of it he produced a bunch of keys, opened a door and waved me courteously inside. The corridor beyond was dark, and I hesitated. Dragovic seemed to catch my unease. ‘Such Knights as are still here, and many others, attend a … ceremonial,’ he said, stiffly apologetic. ‘We must ask you to wait in the guardroom while we send word.’

I shrugged; I didn’t like it, but I couldn’t expect them to let me run around loose. Dragovic led the way to another door, unlocked, and as it opened on a lighter room he stood aside to let me pass. But the light came only from a narrow slot in the wall, and it was an instant before my eyes registered the empty lamp chains hanging from the vaulted ceiling, the dull banners stacked around the stone walls, the bareness and faint dustiness of long disuse. No way was this a guardroom. But even as I rounded on the two officers I expected to hear the door slam, and find myself alone. I was wrong. They were still with me; but the lieutenant’s hand was on the hilt of his sabre.

‘And now,’ he said, also in English, ‘you will at once tell us where is the Great Spear and how it may be found.
Zur stelle!’

I’d been neatly shanghaied; but not that neatly. ‘I’m only too happy to tell,’ I repeated. ‘To somebody in authority. Not you.’

‘We are all the authority that is required,’ said the captain, with icy calm. ‘A spy has been caught returning to the scene of his crime, as a dog to his vomit. He will, however, make some slight atonement by disclosing the whereabouts of the property he stole. The Knights need not concern themselves with such as you,
mein Bursch’.
Now, for the last time, will you speak?’

Oh, great. Two more over-ambitious cops out to notch up Brownie points. I’d had my bellyful of the breed lately, and I dug my heels in. ‘I told you,’ I grunted, ‘I’ll talk to these Knights – nobody else. And that’s final.’

‘As you wish,’ said Dragovic coldly. ‘No consideration of honour arises with such as you. If necessary we will cut the truth from you piecemeal.’

I grunted again. ‘The Knights wouldn’t thank you for killing me.’

Von Albersweg shrugged. ‘If you die it will dissolve whatever forces you have used to conceal the Spear, and we will surely set hands upon it then.
Und nun—’

My sword was in my hand before his
left the scabbard. The lieutenant flushed, and swung it up high, into the stilted Heidelberg on-guard. I almost laughed; Heidelberg duelling is fast showy swordplay with the edge only, on a fixed stance and swathed in face and body armour, its main purpose to decorate callow
Junkers
with shallow scars. I’d played rougher games. I stamped forward into a forceful on-guard, setting my body well back beyond his reach, my point levelled at von Albersweg’s solar plexus – very steadily, I was glad to see. I braced myself, but the lieutenant hesitated, staring at the blade.
‘Zum Teufel!’
he hissed.
‘Sehen Sie dock dieser Stahl—’

Dragovic twitched that vile moustache, and snorted.
‘Beruhe dich!’
he barked, and added contemptuously to me, ‘So you have been stealing other things as well!’ Then abruptly he elbowed the lieutenant aside, swept out his own sabre and came on guard, all in the same flowing motion, at least as easy as mine. His point tapped at mine, without any tremor I could see. Not to be outdone, I raised my sword to salute, and after an instant, grudgingly, he followed suit – and then lunged, with fearsome speed, driving me stumbling back against the wall before I could parry properly. His point struck little puffs of nitre from the stone beside my shoulder. Our guards clashed, we met
corps-a-corps
and I threw him aside and launched a fierce riposte over his blade. He disengaged effortlessly, and I found myself parrying a blinding sequence of slashes at shoulder and thigh – and then a sudden lunge at my stomach. I was ready for that, simultaneously side-stepping and cutting fast at his head. He ducked, countered – and drove, appallingly fast. I skipped back, halted him with a stamping
appel
and caught his lunge as it licked at my throat – just.