The Sword of the Lady

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Dawn made shadows across the moving deck. Rudi stretched and drew his sword, saluted the glow where the rising sun was about to break over the horizon and began a slow routine that gradually quickened. There was enough space on the main deck just behind the foremast to work out, if you were careful-and being careful was part of the training. A longsword and a tall man?s arm had a great deal of reach, but endless practice had given him a reflexive grasp of where every bit of edge and point would go. It wasn?t quite as certain on the pitching deck of a ship, and he needed to do better with that.

A little like horseback, but not entirely. It?s fortunate indeed that I enjoy the sword, he thought. For I?d have to spend just as much time at it if I didn?t. Also, I wouldn?t be as good at it, and would die… die sooner, at least.

When he finished he was sweating despite the cold that bit at his nose and ears and made the inside of his nostrils stick occasionally. He steamed a little, in fact, and not just the deep puffs of white breath. That warmth wouldn?t last more than a few seconds if he stayed still, with this wind out of the northeast that lashed his shoulder-length mane backward from his face beneath the headband. He sheathed the sword on the belt hung from a belaying pin in the collar around the mast, put his waterproof parka back on and buckled on the belt over it. Nobody else but the deck watch was up yet. This was the day they expected to make landfall, and the hold was stuffy and crowded, but the others preferred it to early rising.

Or most did. Someone was standing on the fantail by the war engine; he recognized a Bjorning voice, and a woman?s-not Asgerd, but deeper and rougher. Ulfhild Swift-sword, then. And she was chanting softly, facing northwards along the white track of the schooner?s wake, with arms raised at either side and palms upward. There was a dreamy yearning in her tone that made him blink in surprise. ?Skadhi, shining goddess

Hear me, ice-bright beauty

Your winter white wards Midgard

As Ulfhild sails the whale?s-bath

To drighten lord is oath-bound

Ring-giver fares to Utgard

And Skadhi?s shield-maid follows

Yare am I for battle

So Skadhi, stand by Ulfhild

She-wolf fights?gainst trollcraft

Holy huntress, help me!? ?People will always surprise you,? Rudi murmured very softly to himself.?For their minds turn upon themselves in coil and counter-coil. We do not ever know ourselves completely. How can we know another??

He waited until she was finished to walk up the short ladder staircase to the poop. The two men at the wheel nodded to him-one was a Southsider, the other a corsair. Ulfhild had already turned; she gave him a short dignified inclination of the head and then met his eyes, standing proudly with her left hand on the hilt of her sword. He liked that. Norrheimers didn?t truckle to their Gods or to their chieftains either. ?Good morning, Ulfhild Swift-sword,? he said.?Today we make landfall.? ?Good morning, lord,? she said.?I am ready.?

Which was about as many words as they?d exchanged since the oath she?d sworn, apart from orders. She hesitated, and he waited patiently, withdrawing the edge of his self. There was a trick to that, almost like hunting, which drew folk out. ?The others are awake,? she said.

They?d turned the captain?s cabin over to the womenfolk of the party; a little inconvenient for the two wedded couples, but on balance the best way to handle the crowding of the ship as a whole. ?May I ask you a question?? He nodded, and she went on:?Why did you arrange the quarters that way, lord?? ?Princess Mathilda?s folk have different ways from mine. They?re. ..?

He hesitated; modest wasn?t exactly what he meant.?Much more shame-fast about their skins, I think you would say. You can?t always take account of that when men and women are together on a campaign, but there?s no harm in doing so when you can.? ?I understand,? she said. Then more hesitantly:?I don?t think your betrothed… the Princess Mathilda… likes me, lord. Have I offended her?? ?No,? Rudi said.

Or not by doing anything in particular, he thought, which was what she?d actually meant. Aloud he went on: ?Some people just don?t take to each other. I have no ill to say of you; you fought well at Kalksthorpe, and you?ve worked hard and obeyed orders without complaint since. And you are sworn to me, not her. Tell the Princess that we?ll be having a conference in there as soon as it?s clear; her, myself, the Moorish captain, Ingolf and Father Ignatius.?

She hurried off, with an air of relief. ?We just nearly there,? Abdou al-Naari said twenty minutes later.

The captain?s cabin of the Bou el-Mogdad had touches of lavishness; inlaid wood, mother-of-pearl in traceries of alien script, thick cushions of butter-soft red leather, hanging lanterns of intricate metal fretwork wrought in brass and silver. Rudi admired the workmanship-there were few things Mackenzies valued more highly-and the neatly compact folding tables, chart case and cupboards for instruments, racks for weapons and armor. There was also a shelf of books, mostly older works on navigation and geography in French, pre-Change guidebooks for travelers giving details of cities on the western side of the Atlantic, and several volumes of poetry in languages he didn?t recognize. Besides leather and cloth and lamp oil the room smelled surprisingly of some faint flowery scent.

Right now, five tightly bound bedrolls rested against the walls, or against the cushioned couch below the slanting stern windows. Rudi and Edain had the little cabin to the port, Ignatius and Ingolf the one to starboard, and the rest of the crew had the hold and forecastle, carefully arranged so that the corsairs were always shadowed by at least one of his war band.

The lanterns glowed, dispelling the last of the dawn twilight, and Rudi?s closest stood around the table and looked at the map, with the dividers and set square atop it. More and more cold bright sun spilled through the skylight as the night died, flowing clear as diamond.

They all held bowls in their hands and plied spoons as they thought. The Bou el-Mogdad had a well-fitted galley but she?d been down to dried dates, dried salt fish, a little rice and weevily sorghum by the time the corsairs reached Kalksthorpe. Rudi had restocked before they sailed, and this was steel-milled oats cooked with dried blueberries and honey, welcome for stoking the fires. Nowhere on a wooden ship was completely dry, or less than cold on these seas in this season. He hadn?t grudged the Moorish captain a monopoly of his coffee set and beans; it was a rarity for the very wealthy in Montival, but the man came from a land where it was common and he was used to it. Abdou sipped at a cup as he indicated the map. Rudi had to admit the scent was intoxicating, though the Moors brewed it thick and strong enough to melt a spoon. ?We sight Sorcerer?s Isle today, if this wind holds,? the rover captain said.

He traced their course; southeast down to just below the hook of Cape Cod, and then across the wind west and south towards Nantucket. That had been a little more tricky, a shorter leg but needing more time; these were shoal waters, and the shallows had shifted unpredictably since the charts were made. ?And that fast sail. No troubles,? Abdou said.

There had been one ship flying the White Ensign of Greater Britain, but it had simply come close enough for King-Emperor William?s men to hail them and check that they weren?t Moors. That conversation had taken place with the Imperials? twenty-four-pounder catapults pointing at them out of open firing ports in the steel hull, and a team at the pump handles of a flamethrower. Rudi had prudently sent all the hostage seamen below before the warcraft reached speaking distance. ?Really, should give me ship back, for such goodish sail working,? the corsair went on, his voice elaborately reasonable. ?And then you awaken from the pleasant dream, Abdou, weeping for the fading beauty of it in the cold light of dawn,? Rudi said dryly.

We?ll never be friends, he thought. If I hadn?t needed him I wouldn?t have sworn him safety, and then the Kalksthorpe folk could have hung him and dedicated the sacrifice to the High One for all I cared.

It was a King?s duty to see pirates dead without excessive formality, and a very needful one. What was a King for, if not to see that his folk could sleep sound in their beds and know they?d be able to keep what they grew and made? Still…

But he?s a brave man and no fool, and a likeable rascal. Though doubtless I?d feel a wee bit less charitable if it was my coasts and folk he and his kind threatened. ?Best to approach from the north,? he said aloud, with an uncomfortable feeling that Abdou had followed the thought. His finger showed where the harbor entrance opened between its breakwaters. ?Though from what the guidebook says it may have silted up,? he added.?We may have to go in with the longboat.? ?It?s not just more ruins from before the Change,? Ingolf said.?I don?t know… but I don?t think we?ll just… walk in.?

He set his bowl aside and wiped his mouth with the back of one big hand, elaborately unconcerned, but his battered features were tight-held. One thick finger rested a little to the west of the town?s hatch of streets. ?This is where I landed, back… uff da, four years ago! There?s a village there. Partly refugees from the mainland who came after the Change, a couple of families… but Injuns, too. Injuns who?d never heard of white men, or seen iron or corn. We walked through the woods to what the maps said should be the center of Nantucket Town, on the harbor there and… that?s where it all happened. But it wasn?t anything like what the books say. No houses, no open fields or recent scrub-forest, old, old forest. Oak trees that had been growing two or three hundred years. And chestnuts… the books say all the chestnuts in this part of the world died of a blight nearly a century before the Change.?

Abdou nodded impassively, but Rudi could see his Adam?s apple move. The Moor?s voice was calm when he spoke; like anyone who dealt with extreme danger routinely, he knew that the best way to tame fear was simply to ignore it, refuse to admit it even, so that it couldn?t build on itself. If you kept the body calm, it calmed the mind. ?You to understand, we would have use for island there. Good safe place within range of dead cities to water ship, take on wood, not be possible many savages… Eaters, you say… like are in dead cities, near dead cities.? ?It would make a good base, you mean.? ?Yes, base. But we not try many year from now, ah, you say, for many years now? Only one harbor, and… when ships get close, crews say many things. Lights, head hurting. Sometimes just find they far away again and-?

He reached out to his chronometer where it hung on the wall and slid one finger across the glass, as if moving the hour hand ahead.

– ?time is… gone. Maybe rest of island better. Maybe not. Not try.? ?I?ve reason to believe we?ll be allowed in,? Rudi said.?And-?

A cry came, and the ringing of a bell:?Sail ho!?

Abdou almost jostled him in the doorway; they all leapt up the stairway to the poop. The ocean reached crisp blue to the horizon, with a wind out of the north that chopped icy spray from the running whitecaps. The lookout was Edain, long since past his illness. He scrambled down the rigging-harder than on a square-rigger?s ratlines-and pointed westward. ?Two-master, Chief. Looks a lot like this ship.?

Rudi?s brows went up.?All hands on deck,? he called.?Battle stations.?

He noticed how the corsair?s bosun-Falilu, the man?s name was-gave a quick glance at his skipper and received a nod before obeying. Whistles and bells called the crew. Metal shields went into prepared slots in the rails, giving the defenders a rampart against boarders. Nets were rigged above that; folk helped each other into their armor, and set out garlands of stone shot for the catapults, sheaves of arrows and javelins for humans. Long boarding pikes were ready to hand. The rover crew weren?t armed, but they helped with the labor.

He turned his head to Abdou al-Naari as the rushing drumbeat of feet and cries subsided. The last sound to cease was the crink… crink… as the war engines were cranked to full compression, and the multiple click… click… sounds as their triggers engaged. Abdou had been allowed to keep his binoculars, if not his sword; they were needful for his work conning the ship. He leveled them now, and breath hissed between his teeth. ?Is ship Gisandu,? he said, when the oncoming vessel was still doll-tiny.? Shark, English word. Jawara captain.? ?Why would he be here?? Rudi asked. ?I do not know,? Abdou said, and then hid his distress under an iron calm.?How know we come here? I did not until you say! Jawara know-think me dead. No Kaolaki captain come here. And Gisandu short supplies, have cargo, not want to meet Empire ship. Makes no… no sense… not go home.? ?Would your Jawara try to rescue you?? ?Yes, yes-my wife his sister. We be like brother, sail, fight side by side years. But how rescue me, even if he knows? Sea fight, most likely everyone die. Better pay ransom. That right fashion of doing. Dead man not bring back good thing for children, family, town, tribe. Not… not responsible, is the word??

Rudi nodded. When both ships could throw globes of napalm at wooden hulls, death was the most likely outcome of a slugging match with no restraints. He knew these corsairs were proud and brave, good fighting men, but they were in business to make a profit and not to die. Salvaging was a dangerous trade but a trade still; so was outright piracy, in a way. ?Then from what you say, I think it most likely that your friend does not command that ship,? Rudi said.?The false Marabout does, or the High Seeker, or both. And Graber should still have twenty or so of his men; and some of his Bekwa. If they escaped to the Gisandu with your friend?s crew and struck without warning-?

Abdou hissed again, and raised the binoculars.?Maybe. If those two evil sorcerers like you say. Now I want rescue Jawara. Will talk to him.?

The Gisandu came closer with shocking speed; both vessels were sailing with the wind on their beams, a good angle for their rigs. She looked much like her sister-ship, save that someone had painted a toothy mouth on her bow at the waterline. He leveled his own glasses. Most of the crew tending the sails were corsairs, but he could also see the reddish armor of the Sword of the Prophet, and Bekwa. More might well be waiting belowdecks. ?Land,? Abdou said.?Nantucket.?

Rudi started slightly; he?d put it out of his mind. When he looked over his left shoulder it was there, a long low bluish-green line, marked with white where surf pounded. Just as Ingolf had said, the high bluffs were marked with a tangle of low thick forest. None of the trees were over fifty feet or so, between the sandy soil and the salt sea breeze, but it was plainly old-established. ?Jawara at wheel,? Abdou said.?Shields up. Catapults ready. They closing us, want come alongside.? ?Don?t come too close,? Rudi warned.

He didn?t put his hand to his sword. Abdou had had personal experience of what Rudi Mackenzie could do with a blade, and confirmation watching him practice since. Strain showed on his face, graving the lines beside his dark eyes that a lifetime of squinting over water had produced. The deck was silent now; Rudi looked behind him for an instant, and Mathilda gave him a cheerful-seeming smile and a thumbs-up from beside the murder-machine on its turntable.

For one mad instant he imagined telling the corsair turn back. And sailing, sailing away over the horizon, ignoring the place he could feel calling him as northward drew a compass needle. Going somewhere peaceful, and…

Just saying?No, thank you very much, O Powers, you never asked me what I thought of the idea of being the foredoomed Hero, now, did you??

His mouth quirked upward. He could imagine that; he could imagine strolling barefoot over the waves and into Nantucket. And both were about as likely. A spire showed there now, white and beautiful, like a Christian church. A squat lighthouse, beside the narrow entrance to the harbor. No wrecks or obvious impediments in the channel. He blinked. Was that a spire? Or buildings? Or was there a ship, a metal ship of oddly towering squared-off shape in the channel itself? When he blinked again the water was empty of all but a few wildfowl and a curious seal that reared its fore-quarters out of the water to watch. But there seemed to be a shuddering in the air. His mouth felt dry, and he swallowed several times. ?Let?s get by this man, so inconvenient and obstructive as he is, first,? he muttered. ?Close,? Abdou said.?They on starboard. Safer for us.?

The Gisandu was heeled over against the same norther that was making the Bou el-Mogdad bound forward at a good twelve knots. That put the rail the Shark had towards its sister ship sloping down, and its counterpart on Rudi?s own ship point up. Which meant that the Bou el-Mogdad?s war engines would bear on the other corsair vessel while the enemy weapons were pointing down into the water.

He glanced out of the corner of his eye at Abdou. Just opening fire was not going to be a good idea, if he wanted this man?s cooperation. And he?d promised not to try to force him to fight his own people. Onrushing speed; the Shark?s bow was dark with men. Soon he?d be able to see their faces. Closer, well within range, closer still…

Abdou had a speaking trumpet. He used it to shout across the diminishing distance, through the whine of wind in rigging and the endless slapping white-noise shsrrshshrrsh of water along the hulls of the ships: ?Jamm ga fanan!?

Rudi had learned that much Wolof in the last few days; it was a greeting. ?Nanga def, Jawara??

The thickset black man at the wheel of the other vessel didn?t reply. Not in words; instead he screamed, a long desolate sound like a prisoner?s cry from deep within some dungeon. Almost at the same instant Tunnggg!

A globe flew towards them from the bow engine of the other ship. It trailed smoke in a low flat arc. There was a crack as it struck near the Bou el-Mogdad?s own prow, and the onrushing bow wave scrubbed its load of liquid fire off to float oily orange-red on the ice-blue waters. ?Shoot!? Rudi shouted.

He hardly needed to. Arrows lifted in a rushing cloud from the Bou el-Mogdad at Edain?s bark of wholly together! A like volley came back, and every one of the broadside engines on the other ship cut loose. Most of their loads struck the water harmlessly-even at maximum elevation their angle was bad. The arrows were another matter. Rudi swept his knight?s shield up, giving the corsair shelter as well. Three shafts stuck quivering in it, and one banged off his left greave and skittered off across the deck. More rattled like metal hail on the sloped shield of the engine Mathilda commanded.

The tunggg of its discharge sounded very loud, and all the starboard broadside machines and the bow-chaser shot in the next half second. Sheet-metal shields rang and distorted and collapsed as the heavy granite balls struck; some of them went over the barricade or through it, plowing gruesomely through flesh and sending snapped rigging and wood splinters flying.

Abdou was screaming orders at the crew on the rigging lines and at the helm; the men there crouched and spun the wheel. The schooner paid off suddenly and heeled southward; booms swung out as it turned to run before the wind, and Rudi ducked as the thick timber swept by overhead. The Gisandu turned behind them; the world swung with disconcerting speed, and suddenly he could look over his shoulder and see the other vessel appallingly close. Another globe of napalm snapped out. There was a crash below as of glass and shutters, and a wisp of smoke billowed up. ?Falilu!? Abdou barked.

The bosun led a rush of men with buckets of sand and water. Then the slim Moorish captain shook his head in amazement. ?He not talk! Just try to kill me, his brother!? ?He?s not his own man, Abdou al-Naari,? Rudi said grimly.?His mind and soul are not his own.? ?Now I believe,? the corsair said grimly.?Not before. But now, yes.?

Mathilda jerked the lanyard as the stern rose. Rudi could feel the deck quiver a little beneath his feet as the force of the throwing arms was transmitted through the turntable. The stone ball skipped twice, plunked through the very top of a wave and then caught the Gisandu?s bowsprit at its base. There was a cracking sound loud enough to hear, and Abdou winced even then; he must love these ships like his own children.

Falilu came back upside; there were scorchmarks on his clothing. He spoke in rapid Wolof, moving his hands in a fashion that left no doubt as to what he was saying. ?Old pagan dog not get use of Bou el-Mogdad after all,? Abdou said with grim amusement.?Falilu make fire slow, not able put out. Ship burn to waterline. Soon now, soon.?

Tunnnggg.

They both ducked, but the bolt from the Gisandu?s bow-catapult hit the steel protection of their stern-chaser and pinwheeled away and up in fragments. Shields were raised and men ducked across the deck against that hail. Father Ignatius came to the wheel, wiping off hands bloody from field surgery. ?Two dead, five wounded,? he said.

Rudi thought swiftly and spoke to Abdou.?Take her straight in and to the dock.? ?Dock?? ? That dock!? Rudi said.

Abdou blinked as if he were only then aware of the tangle of quays ahead. Rudi realized with a chill in some distant part of his mind that the Moor hadn?t seen them until that moment. ?Ram it. We?ll leap off-the ship is doomed anyway. Ignatius, see that the wounded all have someone to carry them.?

Unexpectedly, Abdou spoke:?I, my men not fight. We carry hurt, though.?

Rudi nodded grateful acknowledgment as the corsair called orders in his own language. ?Ingolf?? he went on.

The Richlander swallowed. Rudi didn?t think that was the dangers of battle that brought the sheen of sweat to his face despite the cold. ?I came in the other way. But… right up that street from the harbor, the one the maps call Center, and then left where it forks. The house with the pillars on your right. I think. It was… mixed up, there, at the end.? ?That?s what we?ll do, then. You lead and-?

Ignatius shook his head.?You and the Princess must go first, Your Majesty,? he said.?I will hold the rearguard with the rest.?

He smiled when Rudi started to object.?What have we made this journey for if not to get you to the Sword? And the Princess is my charge. If you would save us, accomplish your mission swiftly.?

The smile grew broader as he patted his own hilt.?Gain your Lady?s Sword, your Majesty. I also have a sword blessed by a Lady, and a mission laid upon me. I will fulfill it.? ?Right,? Rudi said tightly.

More smoke was coming out of the stern windows, trailing along on either side of them as the wind that pushed the ship took it. It gave a little cover, and the Gisandu had to turn slightly every time she fired; the bow-chaser couldn?t shoot directly over her own bowsprit. The stern-chaser on their own ship could, but… ?The deck?s starting to get very hot here!? Mathilda called; not alarmed, just reporting.

She jerked the lanyard. Tunnnggg. This time there was a splintering crack almost immediately, as the shot caught the other vessel at the waterline. They were gliding southeast through a narrow passage now. A broadside of incendiaries came flying at them as they came about to head directly south and the harbor opened out around them, a broad shallow lagoon. Two globes smashed against the steel shields and hissing fire ran down. Their own replied, and a sail came rattling down on the Gisandu as a stay was severed. Corsairs worked frantically at a deck pump to wash the napalm down and into the sea before it started another fire.

Edain and his picked archers crowded onto the poop deck. He was firing like a machine across the hundred-yard gap, draw-aim-loose nock-draw, chanting under his breath: ? We are the darts that -got you bad, bastard!- Hecate cast!?

Rudi made himself turn. As he did he realized that something had been inhibiting him, something besides his natural desire to keep his eyes on the men trying to kill them all. He blinked and shook his head, but there was nothing wrong with his eyes. It was as if he saw multiple images laid one upon another, like paintings on layers of glass. A festival where men and women danced through snow. Tall-masted ships tied at the docks. Something smooth and silvery and massive that floated above the water, then turned its nose skyward and rose with impossible speed…

Then a very solid dock and roadway, wharfs on barnacle-encrusted tree trunks, what looked like a street of low brick buildings, interspersed with white-trimmed gray shingle shops and leafless winter trees, with church steeples rearing beyond. No dwellers… or was that a band in oilskins with duffel bags over their shoulders? No, they were gone. And the dock was there. ?Brace for impact!? he shouted, as it loomed before their bowsprit, and looped his elbow around a line.

Crack. His feet skidded out from beneath him. A long crunching, grinding sound, and the bow reared up as the huge momentum of the two-hundred-ton vessel ground into timber and stone. Nearly everyone else fell too; Mathilda went sliding past him as the impact pitched her off the gunner?s seat of the weapon, and he snagged her with a leg. She clung to his sword belt as the long echoing crash continued and the deck canted more and more steeply beneath them. Their helmets rang together as the foremast broke with a sound like thunder and came down on the shattered dock.

Silence except for snapping wood and the growing burr of the fire beneath them. ?Go, go, go!? Ignatius shouted.

Rudi hauled Mathilda upright as if her solid weight and the armor were nothing. They ran along the side to the buckled rail, up to it, down onto the crazy-quilt mess of the dock where the schooner?s weight had struck. His leg went through a broken board and he wrenched it free. Then they were running, up past a dry fountain and onto a stretch of cobbles. His weight pounded down through his boots, but the sound was too deep, as if he were walking on a drumhead. An arrow went past them… but it floated past. His run turned to steps in a dream, one where you floated. He floated, past primeval forests, past a rough hamlet hacked from the woods where folk in rust-colored coats and high-steepled hats and long dresses gaped at him, past the street he?d first seen, but dense with the cars and trucks of the ancient world, past the same with ox carts heaped with fish… ?Here. We?ll hold them here!? Ignatius shouted; the stone basin of the fountain blocked part of the street.

Shields locked on either side, and the archers fanned out in two forward-slanting wings from side to side of the roadway. The Bou el-Mogdad was burning like a pillar of fire now, delaying the men the Gisandu carried and making it impossible for her deck engines to shoot. They came staggering out of the smoke anyway, and first was a man in a tattered red robe the color of dried blood. His hands were held out before him like claws, and his eyes were windows into negation. ?Noooooooo!?

The endless wail was as much shriek as word, and less a protest than a single long scream of what he was, or what the thing that wore the man like a glove was. Ignatius raised his sword and brought up his shield, but behind the visor of his helm he shouted for joy as his gaze met those wells of night without end. ?Yes!? he cried.?Eternally, yes!?

Behind him Edain barked:?Let the gray geese fly. Wholly togetherShoot!?

The bows snapped, and men went down in the ragged mob of Bekwa and Sword troopers and corsairs who rushed forward as the arrows sleeted into them, but there were too many, far too many. Three punched into the High Seeker, but his body simply flexed and came on. ?Nooooooo!? ?You shall not pass, Hollow Man!? Ignatius cried.

And then Knight-brother Ignatius snatched at his sword. It wasn?t there, nor was his armor and gear. Instead he wore the simple Benedictine robe and cowl; after an instant he was conscious that he sat on a bench. Before him was a cloister, slender white stone columns supporting arches on three sides of a garden and fountain where water played before an image of the Virgin. The shadows within the walk hid tall doors; behind them was a hint of bookcases full of leather-bound volumes. Within the court the sun ran dappled on the water that lifted and fell in its basin, shifting in spots of brightness through the leaves of tall beeches; a few flower beds stood in troughs between walkways of worn brick, shimmering in gold and silver and hyacinth blue.

The day was mild and dry and warm, with scents of rock and wet and warm dust, and somewhere a hint of incense. It was very quiet; the sound of the plashing fountain, a few cu-currrus from doves that stalked past, perhaps very faintly a hint of chanted plainsong in the distance. He smiled. It wasn?t Mt. Angel, but it was as if…

As if it is the distilled essence of everything I loved about the abbey, he thought. Peace, beauty, wisdom. God.

Beside him another monk sat; the man threw back his cowl and smiled. Ignatius? eyes went a little wide. It was Abbot-Bishop Dmwoski, but as he?d first seen him as a postulant, the square hard face amused at his earnestness but in a way that was kindly, not mocking. ?Am I… is this…? ?No, you are not, my son,? the abbot answered. ?Then, you-?

Dmwoski laughed; it had been a rare thing on Mt. Angel, but it lit the warrior-cleric?s sternness like a candle through the glass shutter of a lantern. ?Not yet, as your life thread is drawn; there I am currently fighting the sin of despair, and grappling with a sea of troubles. Time is different here. Or rather, we?re not entirely in time as men understand it.? ?I always thought you would be a saint,? Ignatius blurted.

Dmwoski frowned.?All human souls are, potentially. I… have been allowed to progress.? ?And this is-?

Another chuckle:?And yes, this is where you think it is. Or as much of this… one of the many mansions… as you can currently understand. Think of it as a metaphor, but a true one.? ?Such peace,? Ignatius breathed, wondering.

He drew the air into his lungs, and then glanced behind him. A long table reached into dimness; someone was turning the pages of a text, and the bright colors drew him even through the glass and across the distance. ?Yet…? he said.?It does not feel in the least static.? ?Never. More like an endless high adventure; or rather, what an adventure should be. We cannot fully know Him, yet we can know ever more of Him; and in that is the completion of our natures. Come, walk with me, my son.?

They rose and folded their hands in the sleeves of their robes. A bell rang somewhere as they paced through the cloister and out the gateway, a great bronze throb that seemed to scatter brightness through the air. ?Why am I here, then, Father?? ?Partly as a reward. I flatter myself that I was a good judge of men, and choosing you for the mission to the east was perhaps the best decision I ever made. And you met one who is a far, far better judge; one who laid a charge upon you. Both of us are very pleased with you.?

Outside they walked on a country lane. Land rolled around them, green field and wood and orchard. It was like and unlike the land of little farms around his birthplace, like the summers of his remembered boyhood when the chores were done and he lay watching the clouds and dreaming vast formless dreams until his mother called him in for dinner. Far distant mountains climbed steep and blue, their peaks floating like ghosts of white. He thought the silver towers of a city rose in their foothills, tall and slender and crowned with banners. ?And partly you are here to give you heart for what is to come. Much depends on you.? ?Then…? He looked around.?Victory is not assured? Even though we have reached our goal??

Dmwoski shook an admonishing finger.? This is our common goal, my son. And no victory is ever assured until the very last. We are made in His image; and so we have freedom, which must necessarily include the freedom to fail. Adam and Eve walked with Him in unimaginable closeness when time itself was young, and they failed their test. Yet even their failure was redeemed, for mercy is infinite and grace fills all creation.? ?But… forgive me, Father, but if you are here, don?t you know whether we succeeded or failed?? ?No. That I am here is… sealed in Eternity, as it were. But how I arrived at this is still-from your point of view-contingent, because it is in Time, not in the eternal Now. Did I die defending the altar at the last, against a tide of triumphant darkness? Did I die of old age, in bed, with you among the watchers, contented and tired and longing for this with hope and confidence? That, my son, is up to you .? ?And where are my companions?? ?They also are being told as much Truth as they can bear, in the words that will mean most to them.? ?As am I?? Ignatius ventured.

Dmwoski laughed again.?There is one God, maker of Heaven and Earth,? he said.?Start with that, my son, for it is absolutely true. But you must build your own faith. That is something only you and God can do together.?

A bird flew from the hedgerow by them, caroling and trailing colorful feathers. Their sandaled feet scuffed through the thick white dust of the road; insects chirped. Beyond the hawthorn barrier apricots glowed like little golden suns in their world of green leaves.

Ignatius shook his head in rueful acknowledgment.?You still reward work accomplished with yet more work, Father!?

They laughed together. He stooped and picked up an acorn: ?I remember, Father, how once you lectured my class of novices and used a seed like this as a simile for the soul. How every stage of the tree?s long life was implicit in it, yet never guaranteed before it came to pass?? ?I?m glad you remember. I taught you as best I could… and what I taught you is true. Very true, I find. But not… complete.? ?How could it be?? Ignatius said.?Didn?t you tell me also that Truth is a ladder of many rungs, and that from each we gain a new perspective??

The abbot rested a hand on his shoulder; it was a light touch, but the younger monk felt a sudden shock at the depth of the contact. As if he was a ghost, a figment, and the contact had revealed him as unreal, a dream within a dream that strove to wake itself from illusion. ?I tried my best,? Dmwoski said.?I sinned as all men do, and sought forgiveness, and sinned again despite my wishes. Yet perhaps the most important thing I accomplished in my life was my part in forming you, my son.? ?That… is a humbling thought.?

Dmwoski snorted.?It should be! I merely had to be the best possible version of myself. For every day of your life, you must strive to be the chosen Knight of the Immaculata!? ?Yes,? Ignatius said, and was elsewhere.

Rudi Mackenzie made another step, and another. Arrows drifted past him, and he could see them turn as the fletching caught the air. He cast away the world-huge weight of his shield and knocked the sallet helm off his head. Their clatter on the cobbles was distant, like the beating of surf on beaches a world away. Mathilda staggered beside him, then slid to the ground and crawled, dogged and brave, and her love like a force behind him, pushing him forward into a world of resistant amber. A building loomed, handsome and simple, three stories of red brick with white pillars beside the door.

The door swung open, and light blazed from it. His hand went up before his eyes, but the light shone through it, through him, as if it were real and he a shadow. Within it was a shape, straight sweep of tapering blade, crescent guard, long double-lobed hilt, pommel of moon opal grasped in antlers. Pain keened into his ears, his eyes, his mind. A lifetime of it passed in each step. His foot touched the first step, the second, the threshold?Mother?? Rudi Mackenzie said, walking forward.

The three figures around the campfire looked up at him. His eyes flicked back and forth. The fire killed some of his night vision; he could sense huge trees rearing skyward, like the Douglas fir in the Cascades above Dun Juniper but grander still and with more deeply furrowed reddish bark. Scents like spice and thyme and flowers drifted on air just cool enough to make him glad of his plaid.

He glanced down for an instant. He was in shirt and kilt and plaid. The short slight redheaded figure in the middle wore a shift and arsaid, and leaned on a rowan staff topped by a silver raven?s head. On her left was a tall thin woman with black skin and broad features scored by age, her cropped cap of white hair tight-kinked, wearing unfamiliar clothes that had the look of a uniform. On her right was a not-quite-girl of a little less than his own age, long-limbed and blond and comely, in a strange outfit of string skirt, knit tunic, feathers and a necklace of amber-centered gold disks. ?Mother?? he asked again.

Then the wholeness of what he was seeing caught him. Three women, youthful and matronly and aged… ?Yes,? the one who bore the countenance of Juniper Mackenzie said. ?I am.? ?Are you-? He hesitated.?Are you my mother? Or… Her??

His hand moved in a sign. She answered it.?And the answer to that, my lad, is… yes!?

Impish amusement glinted in her green eyes for a second. The black woman snorted; there was something about her that reminded him of Sam Aylward, though there was no physical resemblance at all. When she spoke there was a soft drawl to her words: ?Call me a Crone, and you?re toast, bukra boy.?

Rudi didn?t know what a bukra was, but he suspected the word-she prounced it as bookra -wasn?t a compliment.

He brought the back of his right hand to his brows. ?As you wish, Wise One,? he said-which was just another name for the eldest of the Three. ?Damn, but it?s annoying to be just a person again when you?re used to being an archetype. Or vice versa. I suppose we had to. I feel like someone has squeezed me down into a can of Coke.?

She looked at her own hands, flexing the fingers as if the sensation were unfamiliar. ?Marian, how long have we known each other?? the blond girl said, a soft purling lilt in her tones. ?Forty-seven years, or untold billions, depending on how you define we and know.? ?And either way you?re still a grouch.?

She smiled at Rudi.?And they called me Deer Dancer, in my day. I died three thousand years before your birth, on another turn of the Wheel. I was the Maiden sacrifice, and I was the Mother who loves, and in my age I tossed silver hair to dance down the Moon. Now I wear this face of Her once more, for a little while.?

Two ravens soared down from the branches and landed on one of the logs that flanked the fire, preening and grooming themselves. Somewhere a wolf howled. Sparks drifted upward, into boughs underlit by the flames, towards stars larger and brighter-colored than any he?d seen before; yet that paled beside the shining glory of a full moon. Despite the darkness, what he could see was hard-edged, somehow more definite than any vision by the light of common day.

If the trees had spoken, he would not have been surprised. He did not feel as if he dreamed; rather that he had woken, as if he had been drifting beneath the sea all his life and now had plunged upward like a leaping dolphin into the shock of air and light.

Rudi made reverence; then he stood erect, his arms crossed on his chest. ?Why am I here, Ladies?? he asked bluntly.?When last I remember I was on a task of some urgency.? ?You are here to understand, a little,? the Mother said.?We have to come towards you in forms you can grasp so that we can talk at all; but that limits Us.? ?Of course,? he said.?How can a man tell all his mind to a child, or a God to a man? What can you tell me?? ?What did I tell you about magic, child of my heart??

Many things, he thought. But… ?That it doesn?t stop being magic when you understand it??

She nodded.?Then see.?

Darkness; a nothingness in which he floated, nothingness so complete that even emptiness was absent and duration itself had not yet begun. A point of light, and existence twisting as it expanded and the arrow of time sprang from the string, soaring upward. Darkness that swelled, dense and hot and pregnant with Being, and then a flash of light as suns fell in upon themselves and lit. They burned with a glow that illuminated curtains of red and yellow fire, structures so vast that worlds would be less than grains of sand amongst them. Stars and galaxies flying apart from each other. Darkness again, as they dwindled into distance. Suns turned swollen and red and guttered out, or exploded in cataclysmic violence that faded into cankered knots of twisted space. Those boiled away in turn. Darkness more absolute than imagination could encompass, as the stuff of matter itself decayed into absence. Darkness without end, for nothing was different from nothing and nowhere was anyplace and everywhere. ?What does that remind you of?? his mother?s voice asked.

He blinked back to something like the waking world, where light flickered ruddy on tree bark. ?It?s… it?s like the way Sandra Arminger sees the world. From what I picked up over the years in what you might be callin? her unguarded moments. Dead, in a way. Everything moving on its own, without spirit. Grand and glorious and wonderful, but… empty. And we gone like a candle flame when we die.?

He blinked alarm.?You?re not saying that?s true, are you now??

She smiled gently at him, and indicated their surroundings. He nodded, taking the point, and she spoke: ?No. But once it was, until it was made to be different. What did?-she looked up at the ravens-?a certain old gentleman tell you once about history and time??

He blinked again; that night on the mountainside was far distant in miles and months, but it wasn?t the sort of thing you forgot. Even if you?d been dreaming a vision while your wasted body lay on the edge of death. He repeated what those deep tones had so cryptically revealed: ?Fact becomes history; history becomes legend; legend becomes myth. Myth turns again to the beginning and creates itself. The figure for time isn?t an arrow; that is illusion, just as the straight line is. Time is a serpent.?

After a moment he went on:?Was that truth? The whole truth?? ?Yes. No.?

The figure who bore his mother?s semblance smiled sympathetically as she denied him certainty. The blond maiden spoke:?It?s so hard to say this in words-? ?But hey, you?ll give it a try,?dapa,? the black woman said sardonically.

The Maiden tossed her fair head and said:?Then see again.?

His body dropped away, and once again he floated in nothingness. The point of light, and the same eon-upon-eon passage from light to dark. But this time a light was born in the last darkness, and it looked at him. ?That is Mind,? the Mother whispered.?Wisdom. Wisdom itself, that brought together all knowledge of all that ever was.? ?Hope,? the blond Maiden added.?Love.? ?That?s us,? the black figure of the Wise One said.?Including you. Many times removed. Mo? removed than you can imagine. More than we can say in words-? ?You keep saying that, but you speak in words nonetheless!? Rudi said, exasperated.?And it?s more ignorant I am afterwards than ever I was before!? ?Then see,? the Three said together.

This time the perspective was different. More abstract; he strained to see pattern, and meaning, but for a long moment all was chaos. Then order appeared. Instead of the point of light, there were two great sheets of… Being. Rippling through spaces in which whole universes of stars would be less than one kernel of barley in an ocean, like the banners of divinity flying on the ramparts of the Western Gate. The sheets drifted towards each other, and in that contact was born the light he had seen at the Beginning of his twin visions.

But there was a difference. Something passed from one cycle to the next. Something tiny, yet containing everything, and from that all changed as existence spread out again. ?Mind,? his mother, all Mothers, said.?The universe births life. Life creates Mind. Mind encompasses that which bore it blindly, spreads through all the stuff of matter and makes a new Heaven and a new Earth. One in which from its beginnings through all time life is no accident, and is not doomed to death forever, but instead is transformed. To return upon itself once more and give Itself birth.? ?And now there is a God,? the Wise One said.

He fell through singing veils of light, struggling with awe and anger at himself, that he could not grasp the concepts roaring by him like dragons. Then he stood before the fire again. ?Is Godhood many, or one?? the Mother said. ?Both,? Rudi replied.?Both at once.? ?She is all things.? The Maiden nodded. A sigh.?And so, He is divided.? ?Your friend the padre would say there was war in Heaven,? the Wise One added.?He?s not wrong, either. Don?t mistake this you?re seeing for the only truth.? ?The Cutters!? he said suddenly.?As above, so below. Sure, and if there?s war here, there must be so above.?

The three nodded. The Mother spoke: ?Not exactly. In the stuff of Mind, there is… it?s more like arguing with yourself than a fight between Good and Evil. Would you say a tilled tamed field is best, or a wilderness unbound and unguarded, living only by its own law??

Rudi blinked.?Why… both, of course. How could either be best ? Both are needed for the wholeness of things. Humankind is there to be the guardians of it; to tend, to take what they need, but not to take all.? ?Yet some long for order; for the hedged garth, for the tame-bred kine, for the richness of the grafted fruit. Some long for the wolf?s howl. Some would have the universe unfold as it will, and run to its ending as matter itself decrees; others would take matter up into the stuff of Mind.? ?Submission against structure,? the Maiden said. ?Not a fight for us, unless you mean inner conflict and that happy therapeutic horseshit,? the Wise One snorted.?But it?s sure enough a fight at your level, boy! One between Good and Evil, or Us and Them, which is close enough for government work.? ?You need have no doubt I?ll fight,? Rudi said grimly.?Whether I may win or no. The Cutters… the Cutters and the Power behind them claim all humankind and the world as well, and say none of us may breathe or believe save as they permit. If a God said that to me, a God with the sun in His left hand and the moon in His right, I would dispute it by the sword. Or my fingernails, if they were all I had.? ?Good man! And it?s a fight you?d better win,?cause we can?t do it for you. Not without undoing ourselves and more worlds than this.?

Rudi nodded his head, a single brief jerk. He wasn?t sure of much, but he was suddenly certain that the person whose appearance that Power bore had also been a warrior once. ?You?ve shown me matters great and terrible, Ladies,? he said. ?But… one thing I do know, and always did. This Earth of ours, however bright and dear and grand to us, is but the smallest fleck in all that is; and you?ve shown me that that All is vaster by far than I knew. Yet here the Powers are contending for our allegiance as if we were the sum of things. Why us??

The Three looked at him. The Maiden spoke gently: ?Because here is where Mind begins. There has to be a one first place… and this is that one. From it, all else springs.? ?Fermi,? the Wise One added.?Not to be too paradoxical.?

The Mother cast an exasperated sidelong glance.?Don?t stray from the issue just because you?re limited enough again that you can be distracted, Marian.?

To Rudi:?It nearly didn?t happen here either. Mind is a weapon as well as a blessing, and its power is terrible even when newborn.? ?The Wanderer spoke of a child with a knife, or with fire.?

She nodded.?Terrible especially when newborn.?

They faded before his eyes. For a moment he saw the island, but with no cover save a few crumbled ruins of brick and stone, a bank of sand that glowed with heat. Hills of salt lay where the ocean should have been, save for pools in the distance that seethed in a bubbling roil that would end only when they were gone forever. The air lay thick, hazy, hot, and motionless. ?A thousand times ten thousand times that was the end,? the Maiden said.?Or others that were worse.? ?What could be worse than that??

The same landscape, but the very air was gone somehow; the sea had turned to ice, that sublimed outward into the outer dark beneath a sky that crawled with steely energies and strange, powerful engines. Then another vision, where water still curled on the sandy beach beneath a clear blue sky where birds flew, but their patterns were mathematics precise beyond his comprehension. A man walked between buildings that were perfect, and empty. He turned to look at Rudi for an instant, and where his eyes should have been were silvery tendrils that waved and sought. ?We could agree on stopping those histories,? the Mother said, as the campfire returned.?Edging them out, cycle upon cycle, until they vanish in implausibility.? ?Yet the Others would not let us do much more,? the Maiden said, sadness in her voice.?What we did… was something so terrible that only a greater terror made it possible to think it.?

The Mother nodded.?All we could do while Mind was divided… was take this island out of its year, so that it could then reach across the spiral and make the Change. The Change gives you time, no more, as the island was given time. Time to learn, so that when you regain the powers taken from you they?ll be used properly. How the future of this turn on the Wheel is shaped… what we become… that is up to you. You youngsters. You are the seed of God. We can turn through time-we have traveled the endless coil-but we cannot do more than help, and open possibilities.?

The Maiden scowled.?The Others can. They take, because they care less for the damage they do, they who serve entropy. So we have made the Sword for you, to sever their power and show humankind the truth of things. That much we can do in this turn of the Wheel, without breaking reality asunder with our contentions. All the rest is your burden.?

Rudi took a deep breath.?I will bear it.?

There was a glint of tears in the Mother?s eyes as she spoke with a trembling tenderness: ?Then bear what you must, O my child, my child.?

The Maiden?s warmth, a scented flower meadow in spring: ?Do what you must, beloved.?

The Wise One?s sternness, like rock and iron: ? Become what you must, to serve the world?s need.?

And he was… elsewhere.

The others saw him as he stumbled down the stairs, bleeding from nose and ears and eyes and mouth. The sheathed form of the Sword lay across his palms. He met their eyes, and choked out: ?Remember. Remember, all of you. Most of all you, Matti, anamchara , beloved.?

Mathilda?s voice was infinitely gentle:?Remember what, my darling?? ?That I was a man, before I was King. Remember for me, when I forget.?

His hand closed on the black double-lobed hilt, and the moonfire in the opal glowed. He drew the Sword, thrust it high.

And screamed as pain beyond all bearing ripped through him like white fire, turning his body to a thing of ash and smoke.

He screamed, and knew.

TheSwordoftheLady