Sword of the Bright Lady (3 page)

The line of fire went out, the pain suddenly just a memory. Christopher looked down in wonder at his whole flesh. Only the drying blood said it had ever been otherwise.

Svengusta was already kneeling over the other man. He examined him briefly, then stood and began removing his own wool cloak.

“Løp ,”
he said to Christopher. “Knockford.
Løp!”

Christopher did not need to speak the language to understand. Knockford was obviously somewhere, anywhere other than here. And “Run!” was utterly self-evident.

But the same lack of direction that had paralyzed him all morning nullified him. He stood up but did not know which way to turn. Helga was struggling into her own cloak as Svengusta struggled out of his, and when it was free, the old man threw it into Christopher's arms.

The impetus released him. He hurried after Helga, out of the doors into the village, down the road, carrying the cloak uselessly in his hands. After two hundred yards he fell to his knees, gasping for air.

Helga tugged at him, also spent, but fear drove her like a whip. He climbed to his feet and into the cloak. Even though it was too small, hanging barely below his waist, the warmth it gave was the difference between life and death. Helga hugged her own threadbare cloak tight around her shoulders, and they hustled on. She kept looking over her shoulder in terror until he made her quit. They did not have the energy to waste. Already he was dizzy and nauseous.

He began to notice the cold as the adrenaline in his system faded. Though his body burned with latent energy, a deep psychic weariness threatened to overwhelm him every time the wind reached under his cloak and through the rent in his T-shirt to prod him with icy fingers. He had been seriously wounded, more injured than he had ever been before in his life. It had not been a scratch that could be dismissed with conjuring tricks or ignored by the power of suggestion. But the wound was completely gone, his belly not even sore.

Eventually it occurred to him that his opponent might also be healed. In a panic he looked around for a place to hide, but the snow was unbroken on the roadside and would give away their trail. Nor could he last through the night without shelter. And in his confusion he had left his wooden stick behind.

His only option was to follow Helga, who determinedly marched along a wagon-rut cut through the snow. As the sun slipped to the horizon he began to hope that the cover of darkness would protect them. But nightfall brought its own fears—and the return of memory.

At first it was only the glitter of the country sky unobscured by city lights. But as the sun faded, the stars kept coming, until the wrongness of the night sky blazed out at him, a black velvet canopy crowded with diamonds. He could not find Orion's trusty belt; he could not even imagine constellations in that sparkling ocean.

His pretenses collapsed under the weight of twinkling stars. No one could kidnap the constellations; no plane could fly him to any part of the globe that would look like this. He remembered the confusion now, one moment desert heat and the next winter's cold. He had called for his dogs, but the jingle of their collars was gone. He had looked back for the way he had come, only to find his tracks began abruptly in the snow as if he had stepped through an invisible doorway. A doorway that was already closed when he'd rushed back, leaving him freezing and alone in a silent forest. With nothing for company but the trees and the impossible, innumerable stars.

He stopped, gaping at the sky, reading the pitiless message spelled out in brilliant points in the night:
lost
, beyond all hope and understanding, beyond all ordinary meaning of the word. Everything he had built, everything he had struggled for and fought for and won, was gone, stolen away in an instant.

And with it went the only treasure that really mattered: Maggie. He would never see her again. Robbed of purpose, he stood rooted by despair.

Helga pulled him into motion, leading him forward like a dumb beast.

2.

INTERVIEW WITH A PRIEST

They came to a town sprawled in the middle of a gentle valley, a small river running in front of it. Most of the buildings faded into the darkness; a large church dominated from the center of the town, with many-colored shining windows.

As they crossed over the simple stone bridge, he began to outpace the girl. He could no longer feel his feet; his tennis shoes were inadequate for the weather. The modernity of the light called to him, with its promise of shelter. Absurdly he began to hope they would have a telephone. Three large stone steps led to double doors, twice as large and impressive as those of the tiny chapel he had fled. They had no handles, so he grasped a huge bronze ring in the shape of a wreath of wheat and let it clang against the doorplate.

A blast of warm air: to his left, Helga had opened a small doorway framed in one of the large doors. He had to hunch over to follow her through the short, narrow space. Inside, he found a huge hall with light blazing from chandeliers and half a dozen crackling fireplaces.

A handful of tables were scattered about the room, mostly empty. At the closest a young man in a cassock frowned at them over a stack of black slates in wooden frames. The man standing next to the clerk was dressed as a soldier, in a chain-mail tunic with a long, straight sword at his hip. He stared at Christopher intently. Christopher stared back, heartbroken by the absence of a radio or a handgun, and shamed that he had let himself expect them.

Helga had shut the door, and now she hustled over to the two men, shaking and babbling. The clerk rose to his feet, concern on his face and in his reassuring touch. Helga calmed a bit and gasped out the rest of her story. Christopher could tell when she got to the part about the fight from the curious affect that flitted across the soldier's face. But then it was gone, replaced by the mien of the professional military man.

The agitated clerk sat Helga down in his chair and said something to the soldier, who dismissed him with a brief nod. Then the clerk ran off, disappearing through one of the many doors emptying into the hall. Helga sat and sniffled; Christopher stood, swaying from exhaustion. He wanted to move closer to a fireplace, but the pressure of the soldier's gaze pinioned him in place.

Soon the clerk returned, accompanied by a small crowd. A short, stout, middle-aged woman seemed in charge: she glared at Christopher and spoke to him. When he shook his head mutely, she muttered something in a different language, elegant and tonal, and waved her hand. While Christopher tried to decide if he should wave back, she studied him, and then reached a decision. The crowd surged around her, listening to her verdict, and then the soldier came forward to claim him.

Helga came also, and because of her, Christopher followed the soldier deeper into the church, through wood-paneled hallways lit by gas lamps, to a small, windowless office. Inside, a pair of armchairs faced a comfortable fire. One of the chairs contained a priest in crisp white robes trimmed in gold. At first Christopher thought he was young, because of his clean-shaven face. Every other man Christopher had seen here wore a beard; even the young soldier had a permanent rascally five-day growth. But the priest sat like an old man under a heavy burden.

Still, when he turned to Helga, he greeted her with a smile. The girl trembled in obvious celebrity-worship while she related her story, guided by a few gentle prompts. At the end of her tale, she squeezed Christopher's hand reassuringly and then abandoned him. By reflex he turned to follow her out, but the soldier was leaning against the wall, his arms folded in denial.

Christopher turned around again, and the priest waved for him to sit. The chair was padded in old leather, worn thin. Christopher leaned forward to soak in the heat, the crackling logs familiar and safe.

A pot of tea sat on a side-table. The priest poured two mugs and offered him one. Gratefully Christopher took it, wrapping his hands around the smooth stone cup.

“Thank you,” he said.

The priest said something, probably polite. Christopher shook his head.

“I'm sorry,” Christopher said, “I don't speak your language.”

The priest eyed him critically, bowed his head, and began a prayer. Again he spoke in a different language, beautiful and exotic, the same one the woman downstairs had used.

Christopher could not remember the last time a prayer had any effect on him. This one did. The air felt heavy and close, and the pressure of an unseen gaze lay on him, the sensation so vivid that he looked around the room. It was empty, save for the three men.

After his prayers the priest looked up at Christopher and said, in perfect English, “I am Krellyan, Saint of the Bright Lady, and I enjoin you to answer my questions truthfully and fully. Are you a spy?”

Having just accepted he would never see home again, the sound of his own language was disorienting. It gave rise to hope, and with hope came fear. The mixture was indistinguishable from anger.

“No, I'm not a spy. I can't speak the language. Why would you think I'm a spy if I can't even speak the damn language?”

“It is not helpful to speculate on my motives,” Krellyan replied calmly. “Please, just answer the questions. Is your intent here hostile?”

“No,” Christopher said, misery washing the hard edge out of his voice. “I don't even know where
here
is. My only intent is to not be here. I want to go home. Call the damn Embassy, already.” A tremor shook his body.

“What Embassy?”

“The American Embassy. I'm an American.” Christopher felt an odd compulsion to provide a complete explanation. “From Arizona.” The priest showed no recognition, but Christopher controlled his exasperation. Arizona was a fairly obscure place, after all. “It's right next to California.” Everybody in the world knew where California was.

“Where is California?” Krellyan asked with the perfect imitation of innocence.

The exasperation won, and his temper snapped. “Stop fooling around!”

From behind came a jingle of metal; Krellyan raised a forestalling hand and spoke in their foreign tongue. Christopher was reminded that an armed man watched him. The fire no longer seemed quite so cheery.

Krellyan turned back to Christopher with a subtle frown. “Calm yourself. I am not fooling around, as you say. I do not know of any county, realm, or land by those names.”

Christopher pounced with killing logic. “Then how in the hell can you speak English?”

“Is that what you call this tongue?” Krellyan answered. “I do not recognize that name, either.” When Christopher stared at him, Krellyan continued. “Surely you understand this is merely a spell, and that I do not actually know your language.”

“No,” Christopher said heavily, “I do not understand.”

“You are far from home, then,” Krellyan said with genuine compassion. “Helga says they found you unconscious on their doorstep, like a heap of abandoned rags. Do you know how you arrived in this state?”

Christopher shrugged helplessly.

“Tell me what you do know.”

“Nothing. I went for a walk, and then I was here. One minute I was at home, and then I wasn't, and I have no idea how or why.” Christopher gripped the stone cup fiercely, but it was not an anchor.

Krellyan sighed. “You did not enter any mysterious doorways? Or pass through unfamiliar arches or portals?”

“No, I didn't. I just walked. In the open. There wasn't any warning at all. Well,” he had to admit his guilt, “I wasn't paying attention. One minute there was sand, and the next there was snow. But I didn't see or feel anything. When I tried to go back, there wasn't anywhere to go back to.”

“I accept your innocence.” Krellyan smiled. “I have never passed through a gate myself, so I doubt I would recognize one either.”

“You haven't?” Christopher cried. A terrible fear overwhelmed his bafflement over talk of portals and doorways. “Then how can you send me home?”

“I do not recognize your dress, your speech, or your names. I have no idea where to send you back to, even if I could.”

Steadied by the priest's calm rationality, driven by a curiously stronger than normal urge to tell the whole truth, Christopher's fear spilled out before his conscious mind could silence it. “I don't think it's on this planet.”

In the plain wooden room, with its rustic beams and paneling, its stacked firewood and wrought-iron pokers, its creaking floorboards of knotted pine, the concept was absurd.

Krellyan raised his eyebrows. “You claim to be from another plane? Which one?”

Christopher struggled not to let confusion set in. Which one? What the hell did that mean? How many were there, anyway? But wait—if there were more than one, then space travel must be routine. There was hope!

“It's called, um, I mean, we call it Earth.” Christopher was rewarded with a flash of recognition. Krellyan knew that name, despite his frown.

“I do not believe you are from the elemental plane of Earth. You are clearly human and not in any guise, at least as far as I can detect.”

“Earth is full of humans,” Christopher argued back. “That's where we come from! Send me there!”

“No. The plane of Earth is extremely hostile to human life and populated only by elementals.”

“You mean there's a place you call Earth that isn't Earth? I mean, isn't my world?” That sounded like they didn't know how to get to Earth. His Earth, that is. The fear began creeping back.

Krellyan had his own concerns, though. “You mean to claim you are from the ancestral home of mankind?”

“Yes, I do. And so are you.” Christopher knew enough about biology to know that convergent evolution was a fantasy. And these people were plainly human. “You—or your ancestors—had to have come from Earth at some point. Judging by your technology, I would guess the last millennium or so. By the way, we've made a lot of progress since then.” On the other hand, Earth didn't have interstellar space travel, or universal translators, so maybe bragging was premature. “Send me there.”