The Sword of Aradel (14 page)

The monk knew Gaelic and had understood everything Mary Day had said to Dr. Legrande. Now Albericus was trying to locate the private entrance by which Dr. Legrande would arrive.

Brian found the knob at the back of the cabinet and very slowly eased it shut. Then cautiously, carefully, he pressed the point of his sword between the wall and the wood, pried it tight, and used the sword as a lever to hold it that way.

By the sounds, the man on the other side was moving along the wall, testing the shelves and tapping the spaces in between. Presently he reached the cabinet. Brian chilled as the tapping increased. Suddenly a powerful hand seized the cabinet and gave it a jerk that nearly tore it away from the point of the sword. All Brian's strength was needed to hold it in place.

Finally, sensing Merra near, he turned his head and saw her standing in the vague light of the stairs, one clenched hand pressed to her mouth. In the other hand was the small dagger she always wore at her belt.

“He's gone,” she whispered at last, as the room beyond them grew quiet. “I can tell.”

Even so, they waited till the rising hum of the city told them dawn had come, then they swung the cabinet aside and entered.

Nothing seemed to be changed in the room. The door was locked as securely as it had been the evening before, and the sack containing the remainder of their food was still on the desk where they had left it.

“I'd feel better if he'd taken our burgers,” Brian muttered. “At least it would show he's human!”

“He's human,” Merra said, lips compressed. “But I told you he has powers.”

“Will those powers open a locked door?”

“Yes, and lock it again.”

“But what about food? If he's human—”

“One such as he. needs little food, and he can carry that under his robe.” She paused. “Sir Brian …”

“Yes?”

“If you are forced by the fates to cross swords with him, beware of his eyes. Like my uncle, he is skilled at casting a spell.”

It was an unsettling beginning for an unpleasant day. The instrument called a phone rang continually. Several times there was a knocking at the door. Finally, after someone impatiently tried the knob, they thought it wiser to hide beyond the cabinet until Mary Day arrived. But Mary Day did not return that morning. By late afternoon, when there was still no sign of her, Brian realized something must have happened.

Far more worried than he wanted to admit, he climbed the stairs to the cubicle and peered through a crack, wondering from what direction Dr. Legrande would arrive. His attention was momentarily taken by several workmen near the excavation, discussing the giant machine. From the few words of their speech he could understand, he gathered that the digging arm had broken, smashing a tank of oil which had run down into the pit. Then he noticed the line of shrubbery that shielded the area from the street, and the curving steps winding to the strip of park below. It would be up those steps, surely, that Dr. Legrande would come.

The workmen left. Twilight came, and he watched the steps with increasing uneasiness. Merra climbed to the cubicle, bringing the remainder of their food. “We ought to eat while we have the chance,” she said. “We may not be able to later.”

He scowled at the graying steps. “You sound as if the world is ending shortly.”

“It could be for us. The fates haven't decided yet.” She spoke lightly, but in the near-dark of the cubicle her green eyes were troubled. “You see, Sir Brian, the time of my birth was many hours ago. I am still alive—but in the wrong world. In our world I'm afraid the peasants are already attacking Rondelaine.”

His jaws knotted helplessly. He sat down and tried to eat one of the burgers, but could not. Thinking of Mary Day and what he should do in her absense, he got up and tested the bar on the door, then tried out the lock so he would be able to open it quickly when Dr. Legrande came. As he did this he began worrying again about Albericus. The monk would be watching too. But where was he?

Suddenly he crouched, trying to see through other tiny openings, but all he could make out were some of the skylights marking underground rooms. Would Albericus be hiding near one of those?

Though night had come, the lights around the museum cast a glow over the area, making everything visible except the steps. These were shadowed by the shrubbery. As he stared at them, he began to have the feeling that something was wrong—or was it just the ice in his stomach? The ice was colder, and it seemed to have become permanent.

But something
was
wrong. All at once he realized it was his thinking. This was the worst possible place to wait for Dr. Legrande.

With unsteady fingers he unlocked the door and threw back the bar.

“No!” Merra gasped. “You're not going outside! Albericus—”

“A plague on him! I have to go—just pray I'm not too late!”

“But—but—”

“I must be nearer the avenue. Stay here—watch for Mary Day!”

“But the guards—the police—if they see you—”

He did not take time to reply, but rushed across the gravel toward the steps.

He was almost there when he made out movement in the shadow. Someone was coming up. He stopped short. The figure emerged into the glow of the museum lights, and now he saw a frail man with bushing white hair who carried a package under his arm. The package was the size of a sword.

“Dr. Legrande?”

The man looked up with a smile. “Yes?”

Brian's relief was quickly ended as a towering shadow detached itself from the blackness of the great machine and swooped like a hawk upon Dr. Legrande. The package was jerked from the frail man's grasp, and the black-robed shadow whirled for the steps.

Somehow Brian managed to get there first. As he spun to face Albericus, his sword was in his hand, swinging with all the force and fury he could put into it. Against such an adversary, he knew, his only chance was speed. So swift and sudden was the attack that he might have done for his enemy then. But the long package was in the way.

Albericus dropped the thing, stepped quickly back, and whipped out a gleaming blade from the folds of his robe. “Scum of Aradel!” he spat hoarsely. “You should have been burned with the rest of your rotten breed! But I will have your head tonight—that I will take back and burn!
Look at me
, you whelp!
Look at me!”

Beware of his eyes
, Merra had cautioned, but under that compelling voice it was hard not to look at them. Brian forced his attention first on the sword, and then on the headless cross the monk wore on a chain about his waist. That polished cross caught the light from the museum, and flashed with every movement of the sword arm.

With his eye on that telltale cross, which told him in advance where to be or not to be, he darted in and leaped aside, trying to use speed to make up for his enemy's reach, and hoping the power of the sword itself would nullify the other's strength and skill.

“Look at me!”
Albericus demanded again.
“Look at me!”

So insistent was the demand that it was suddenly impossible not to look. He stared into those merciless eyes, and was suddenly caught and held by them. An icy chill shot through him, for he knew he was looking at death. As steel clashed against steel, his hand went numb with the force of his adversary's blows. He tried desperately to cling to his weapon, and almost lost it when his foot slipped on the gravel. He managed to roll away from the next great blow, his head saved only by his quickness. But the terrible eyes held him, and he might have died a moment later had not Merra rushed forth, screaming her hate and flinging gravel into that deadly face under the hood.

“Ghoul!” she cried. “Murderer! Killer of children! Cut him down, Sir Brian! He fights with his eyes—not his sword!”

Albericus cursed and threw up an arm to shield his eyes from the gravel. It was all the diversion Brian needed. He attacked with a greater fury, and the point of his sword made a gash in the robe and cut through the heavy chain. The headless cross fell to the ground. An instant later the blade flashed again, and the long sword in the monk's hand was sent flying.

Albericus roared in pain and hate. His sword arm dangled, but he managed to raise the other and shake a clenched fist at his advancing victor. He stepped back and began a dreadful imprecation, but before he could voice it the ground beneath him crumbled. He tumbled downward with a final curse and vanished in the pit.

Merra ran close and passed her trembling hands over the edge of it, snapping her fingers. Flame shot up from the oil, a great mounting pillar of flame. “Burn!” she cried. “Burn! Burn! Burn!” Then she turned away, hands over her face, and began to sob.

With the roaring flame came sounds of confusion in the distance. There were excited cries, and then the sudden scream of sirens. Brian was hardly aware of it. For long seconds he stood mute and half in shock, conscious only of a change within him. He wondered if he could have defeated Albericus more easily with the true sword, but he doubted it. After all, the true sword was really a symbol, and its real power must come from the hand that held it. Certainly it wouldn't have given him this feeling of confidence, this sureness that he was finally ready for whatever purpose Brother Benedict had trained him. It had been a very hard and Spartan training, and surely only a part of the reason for it had been the recovery of the true sword.

He was groping for it when he saw the headless cross at his feet. A tau cross, he remembered it was called. He picked it up and carefully tucked the chain in his belt, then all at once became aware that Mary Day was there. She was holding the sword Albericus had fought with.

“I saw it!” she managed to say. “I got here in time to see it all. I—I can hardly believe it, but I saw it.” Suddenly she shook her head. “What strange worlds we live in! Though which is the strangest, yours or mine, I hardly know. All I know is that my world has no right to question you or yours, which it surely will be doing soon if the police catch us here.” She raised her head quickly, listening. “Oh, dear—there's a police car now! Hurry, everyone—we must get below!”

“But no lights!” Dr. Legrande cautioned, as they tumbled down the stairway and pushed through the swinging cabinet. “It is better that no one know we are here—for what could we say that anyone would believe?”

The fire's glow came through the skylight, enough of it so they could see each other's faces, but not enough to make out the details of the fabled sword Dr. Legrande was hurrying to draw from the torn package. “For five years I have been trying to decipher this inscription near the hilt,” he said in his soft Latin, his voice eager as a child's. “But it is in a rare form of Gaelic, and so worn that it has baffled everyone. Would either of you know what it means?”

“Sir Brian can tell you,” Merra said, her green eyes suddenly full of mischief.

“But how could I?” Brian protested. “I've never seen it!”

She gave a gay little laugh. “Let him hold it, good sir.”

Brian swallowed. Hesitantly, reverently, he reached for the weapon that only the kings of Aradel had owned. His hand closed over the hilt.

Shock like a thunderclap went through him.

“God help me!” he whispered hoarsely.

“What is the matter?” Dr. Legrande asked quickly.

Merra said quietly, “For five years he has been under a spell. Now that he has touched the sword, the spell is broken. He remembers who he is. And indeed he will need God's help.”

Mary Day blinked. “Then who—who is he?”

“The rightful heir to the sword he holds,” Merra whispered. “He is Brian the Fair of Rondelaine, ranking prince of Aradel, grandson of Gratian, who was king.”

She peered up at him shyly. “Brian the Fair, tell them the meaning of the inscription on the sword.”

For a moment he barely heard her. He was still in shock, hardly believing the truth. Yet truth it was, for memory was flooding through him: a thousand happy scenes of Rondelaine in its glory … then the dreadful ending. Sharply he lived again the bitter flight from Celadon with Merra and her uncle, years ago when they were fleeing the butchers of Albericus, and again he felt the relief of finding sanctuary in the hut of Harle, the woodcutter. It was much easier, he realized, to be a woodcutter's son than heir to the sword he held.

Finally he saw Mary Day and Dr. Legrande watching him, the first with tears of understanding in her eyes, the other with the eagerness of a child for knowledge. His hand tightened on the hilt. “The inscription,” he said, “has always been translated into Latin like this:

“‘If strong the hand that wields me be,

And ever good as well,

Then long shall be the reign of he

Who rules fair Aradel.'”

He swallowed, then added firmly, “If I am to rule Aradel, I first must set her free. Though Albericus is dead, there is fighting to be done, and already it has started. We are late—”

“We are not late,” Merra said quickly. “I thought we were at first, but this is my first experience with time and I quite forgot the nature of it. It is impossible to be late if one makes allowances. It was very silly of me.”

“I—I don't understand,” said Brian.

“I don't expect you to. It
is
confusing. We were in such haste when we fled from the police and
returned
through time, that I failed to make an allowance in the formula. Which was fortunate in a way, for we arrived home two days before we left.” Her laugh tinkled. “That's why no one was there.”

“But—but that's impossible!” he exclaimed.

“No, it isn't. Oh fie, haven't I told you there's no such thing as time?” She rolled her eyes in despair. “But of course you can never understand, being a mere mortal, even though soon to be a king.”

She gave a little sigh, then said, “But have no fear of being late. If we leave three hours from now, we will arrive on the hour of my birth, just as planned.”