Cloud Castles (32 page)

‘We must have your word! Should we
go after it? How many of us? How should we attack? Please!’

Silence.

I felt my face flush in the heat, in sheer fury. I spoke, all right, out loud and with a force that surprised me most of all.
‘She’s right!
Why don’t you answer her? What d’you want, damn it? Me? All right, Sangraal or whatever you are, you’ve got me. I’ll go. I’ll go after this Spear of yours – alone, if I have to! And you can at least say whether you’re forbidding anyone to come along with me!’

I stopped dead there, because every eye in the hall was on me now. I was standing smack in the centre of the floor; in that rush of anger I must have somehow gone barging straight out here. I stopped, shrivelling; I’d committed some sort of sacrilege here. Or had I?

They seemed more astonished than angry, those Knights; and Alison’s eyes glittered with a touch of gold. I turned on my heel and stamped back past them into the gloomy entrance. Suddenly I wanted the open air very badly, out of this stuffy mausoleum; I was burning inwardly. Behind me I heard footsteps, and a murmur of voices, very uneasy. The Knights were filing out after me, with no more ceremony than that. They’d had no answer either. Whatever its reasons, this great power was not responding, even to its own.

I caught Mall’s firm arm. ‘You! You felt something. What was it? Did it tell you anything?’

She smiled, not her normal flash of teeth but an almost sleepy, lopsided beam. ‘I? No, no speech passed. It was there, that sufficed. How to lay’t clear to you? If I hung my viol i’ the trees, so that the strings resounded to the reverberant airs – like the windharp, the Aeolian device. The strings I, shivering i’ the breath of that dread presence. The very fibres of my being sang its bourdon. What need of speech was there?’

High as a kite. I gave her up for a bad job and made for the way out. But as I laid my hand on the iron ring of the ancient door I thought I’d been electrocuted. Something juddered through me, a pulse that seemed to jolt my bones, every cell in my body, even. Not electricity; more like the tolling of a vast unseen bell, awaking reverberations all around. I stopped, breathless, caught in a play of great forces that seemed to stretch and flex my very bones. Tiredness, already fading in the tranquil air of the Heilenberg, shrivelled and vanished in the electric thrill that invaded every part of me. It stung
me, a sudden spray of icy water in my veins – not a pleasant sensation, and yet there was strength in it. The others bustled around me undisturbed, even Mall, rapt and remote. Nobody else
had felt it.

The atmosphere in the Rittersaal couldn’t be called panic, but it was perilously close. The Knights weren’t completely devastated. The Graal had been silent before, once or twice, generally when some great change or dramatic action had to be provided for and it couldn’t spare the attention. As far as they could explain, it existed largely on some more rarefied level, and found it a strain to interact with ours except in certain ways its rite and ritual preserved. More rarely, it had refused to respond when it felt the Knights would gain in some way by coping on their own. Evidently that was what threw them. With only a handful left in the city, how could they be expected to cope?

I thought there’d be some sort of formal meeting, but among themselves the Knights seemed to be informal, gathering in small groups around the great hall of the Rittersaal to discuss the problem. In was an airy, open place, medieval in design but so tall and clear it reminded me of nineteenth-century Scandinavian architecture, Eliel Saarinen’s romantic neo-castles, maybe. The warm carved wood and faded hangings covering its walls would have made it a calm, pleasant place to sit, normally; and the banners in the roof were an amazing pageant in themselves, crusader crosses and gaudy pennants, Byzantine leather serpents and war-torn medieval honours. There was even a legionary standard there, its shaft hung with gilded wreaths as battle honours, and older insignia too by the look of them, simple plaited designs on poles and a huge bearskin and skull that might have led the first charges out of the caves; they hung next to the rich arms of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe, to a world of little principalities and
dukedoms that Napoleon and Bismarck between them swept away. It was an intensely martial display; and yet the impression was more of conflict stilled. For all that, though, an air of deep unease and worry was building beneath it now. No shouting or table-pounding here, but even the quietly emphatic gestures were charged with growing tension; and every so often a hand would caress a sabre hilt, or slide it quietly a few inches from the sheath as if to check for rust.

Alison alone seemed close to losing her temper. She paced the floor furiously between one little group and another, occasionally stopping at our corner of the massive scarred table to report, or rummage around in the snowdrift of maps and old reports, describing what little was known of the Brocken. I’d read them all at least twice, and I was struggling not to feel left out. It was good of the Knights to have us in here at all, and several of them had come to consult us at length about our experiences. But nobody had actually asked our advice, or said whether they’d accept my offer, and I couldn’t help chafing at the bit.

‘Well, they’re agreed on one thing!’ was Alison’s verdict. ‘Whatever’s to be done, we have to have more of the Order. Most of those here can’t leave. There must always be a guard, in case of some direct assault on the City, or even the Graal itself. And they’re mostly old or young, with too much experience or too little. So whatever we decide on, we’ll need others. But that’s not easy. Most are committed to the Graal’s battles, scattered throughout the Spiral. The others are out on the search still, only to be contacted when they check back with us or pick up a message somewhere safe like the Tavern; we could put them in danger otherwise, break their cover. All that’s too slow. And beyond that …’ She kicked at the pale marble floor. ‘The Knights are divided. They like your plan, yes, but some want to wait till the Graal chooses to answer, build up our forces meanwhile, but wait. They say messing with the Brocken is so appallingly dangerous we daren’t take chances, we should concentrate on defending the Heilenberg; and I can sympathize with that. But the others know
it, too – and they’re ready to act as we want, to go after the Spear.’

‘Then why don’t we?’ I said rebelliously. ‘The Graal can stop us if it wants to, can’t it?’

She winced. ‘Yes, but what then? We’re not puppets, you know, or slaves. The Graal doesn’t choose us for that – would you? It knows it’s not infallible, either. It selects us as well as it can, it helps us make the best of ourselves, it shares its power with us – and it trusts us. More than that, it makes us trust ourselves. Sometimes it makes us act for ourselves, stand or fall, because guiding us would interfere somehow.’

‘So it might not stop us even if we were doing the wrong thing?’

‘Not if we were the only ones who’d suffer, and the responsibility was ours. If we all agreed on something that was wholly wrong, then it might intervene, I think.’

I nodded. ‘I begin to follow its way of thinking. Get the right people to begin with, motivate them, give them the skills and the targets and then let them do the job. Sound management theory, as far as it goes. But there’s another golden rule:
Be there when they need you.
Either it really has gone doolally, or it thinks you have the answer already.’ Even as I said it something filtered through the boredom and the bafflement and the dull besetting ache. ‘Wait a minute! Maybe you do. You can’t get through to the searchers – but there must be some you can pull out of the fighting line. How about them?’

Alison looked very dubious. ‘Maybe a few – but it’s no good, we can’t contact them either. The Graal could, in an emergency, if it had the Spear. The Spear can carry its power far afield; it concentrates and directs it, it can guide our people through the deepest shadows of the Spiral, between the places and times that cast them. Without it the Graal’s influence is confined to its own location, to this realm. Any messenger we sent would be as lost as you were that night of the riots – and in even more danger. Sorry, Steve—’

‘No, hold your horses! I hadn’t finished. All right, you can’t recall them. Why not go out and pick them up?’

‘Uh-
huh
!’ exclaimed Jyp, with a snap of the fingers.

‘What—’

‘Sure. You got me. Name of Jyp the Pilot, remember?’

‘He can speed you places not yet i’ your dreams!’ chimed in Mall. ‘Here, there and any the where! The swirlings of the Spiral are his playthings, its wastes his chessboard!’

‘Yes, but we haven’t any large ships in port, and we’d need to go to some places nowhere near
the sea—’

Jyp’s fingers drummed loudly on the table. ‘So? You got those damn great dirigible things there.’

Alison blinked. ‘Those? Could you—’

‘Anywhere. After a goddamn whirlybird those things’d come easy. Only it gets harder the longer we delay here.’

Something like an echo of that strange shock ran through my bones. It left a kind of grim relief, like the loss of a broken tooth, the sick throb overtaken by a keener but more wholesome pain. ‘That’s it!’ I snapped, loudly enough to stop every voice in the hall. ‘That’s what we’ll do!’ I rounded on the elderly Knight who’d come with Alison. ‘Torquil, isn’t it? Is that bird down there ready for flight?’

‘It is,’ he said. ‘But who would captain it? We are vowed to the city’s defence. We are too old to be much use outside.’

‘You can spare me,’ said Alison. ‘I was only waiting to be assigned. And these three, Steve, Mall and Jyp, each one of them’s as good as another Knight in their way. And as trustworthy.’

I expected Torquil to baulk at that. He only nodded, judiciously. ‘So I gather. Very well, then. I’ll put it to the rest—’

‘No time,’ I said sharply, feeling prickling fires spring up at the back of my neck, invading my mind. ‘Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but we’ve wasted enough already. This is it, isn’t it? This is the way we can both do something and leave the City guarded. So that answers both parties. What’s the quickest way down to the far bank?’

The old man – how old? – looked at me for a long moment, then he shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No need.’

The fires roared up. ‘Now you listen one damn minute—’

His gesture stopped me. ‘I meant, it would be quicker to bring it here. Raoul! The telegraph, if you please. My compliments to Ritter von Waldestein, and will he have the
Dove
brought over to the West Tower. Have them check the stores on the way over. And in the meantime,’ he added, ‘we will – inform – the others.’

‘You mean you agree? They’ll agree?’

His smile was wry. ‘You leave us hardly a choice. The Lady Alison commands this expedition for us, she will find our brothers and sisters. But who is its real leader – of that I’ve little doubt. I have known men like you
before; I am glad I have met another.’

‘But … I started this!’ I blurted out. ‘I stole your bloody Spear, didn’t I?’

‘Who better to get it back?’ He smiled. ‘You didn’t realize what you did today, stepping on the floor of the Hall, speaking to the Graal. Not that it would have hurt you, willingly; but its very existence, so close, is a flame to those who lack fires of their own. The Lady Mall was warmed by it – but you, my friend, you were
kindled.
’

He clicked his heels and bowed, then turned to the others clustered around him, speaking rapidly. He left me speechless. But maybe I did feel inspired, at that; or something more. Driven, fired – filled with fire. It was the memory of a shaft of flame that leaped and roared at the lightest touch, consuming, shrivelling. The Spear would be at the Brocken; well then, so would I, and anything or anyone between me and it had better watch out. I needed it.

Through one of the tall windows I saw movement, and went to look. From the mast on the far bank the white dart shape of an airship swung up and out, cables trailing away and last of all the heavy mooring link. Its reflection glinted in the river as its propellers spun, gradually turning the weightless bulk in the air, swinging its nose around to face the island and the great hall of the Sangraal. Into my thoughts another bulk heaved up, as it had out of whatever hellish depths lay within that pentacle, the ridged spine of the Brocken; and it was greater by far. There was the Spear, and more; there was Katjka, if she had survived the transition. It was that thought that struck the real sparks within me. That was what the spear meant to me now. To get it back for these people, for this enigmatic Graal, for Alison – fine. But to have hold of that power, to have a chance, the only chance of rescuing Katjka – that was what mattered. That was what fed the flame. Just let me get it in my hand once more …

I jumped. Alison had touched my shoulder. ‘The
Dove’s
mooring at the Graal Hall. We’d better go; there are a
lot
of stairs.’

I looked at Mall and Jyp. ‘This isn’t your fight, not anymore. It’s so dangerous I don’t even want to think about it. We’ll drop you off once we’ve got the Knights we need.’

Mall’s face was wry. ‘Messire, did I not once tell you, upon a certain moonlit night, that I was
sworn to set evil to rights, wheresoever I might set eyes upon it? And you laid the name of paladin upon me. A heavy burden, yet one I’d not willingly be discharg’d of.’ She caressed the worn hilt of her own great sword. ‘Then paladin let me be, and try not my pride with lesser esteem. That suffices.’

‘Yeah, and you can stick a hat on that an’ a pipe in its kisser an’ call it mine, too!’ spluttered Jyp, though his face was grim. ‘Thought we got through all this crap before. ‘Sides, how else’re you ever gonna find the Brocken, ’less you happen to trip right over it?’

Racing to the rescue is all very well, but before we were more than half-way up that tower we were walking, sedately; by the top I was almost on all fours. We were already high up here, and the extra altitude of the tower-top made quite a difference. I hadn’t felt like this since Cuzco. Fortunately the ladder above was quite short, and my straining lungs lasted the course; also, I had the sense not to look down. Crewmen in striped overalls hauled me into the gently swaying gondola, and then, at a sign from Alison, swung themselves down to the tower-top.