One Bright Star to Guide Them (6 page)

Tybalt said softly, “He sniffs for the stench of the wards he has summoned. The dark magic, when it comes, brings a stink.”

Tommy stepped backward, wishing there were more trees. The street was behind him. “He will see us.”

“Be still. He will not recognize you. You forget how blind the creatures of the enemy are made by their masters, to prevent those servants from knowing what they serve.”

The curator had straightened, and turned towards them. Tommy, through the few birch trees and tiny patch of lawn separating them, clearly saw the Sign of the Eye branded into the curator's withered brow. The man's own eyes seemed filmy and pale, like the eyes of a sick man, or a drunk.

The trees were all too young, too thin to hide a grown man. As still as a stone, Tommy stood in plain sight of his foe, and silently he prayed.

Finally, the curator turned and slunk away.

Tommy released a long pent sigh, shook himself, and walked through the copse and across the lawn. Looking left and right, he saw no one was about.

Three ivy-covered buildings faced each other across a gravel courtyard. One was a cider house; the other a barn equipped with medieval or Roman tools. The third building was older, made of dark stone. A small sign hanging below the main library sign read:
Somerset Rural Life Museum. Downstairs basement. Elsworth Wimble, curator.
He approached the darkened library, then strode up the steps.

He examined the sky for a moment, then pointed his silver key at the North Star, and softly spoke his charm.

The lightest touch of the silver key on the doorknob made the door, hinges whining, slowly open of its own accord. But Tommy did not dare step over the threshold, not yet.

Now he took the shard of black mirror from the cigarette case. Holding it carefully, he examined the reflection of the library door.

The magic of the vampires was visible in the little mirror. Tommy could see little strands of spider silk stretched back and forth across the door in a web.

“Tybalt! Do we need the sword to cut this web?”

The cat crouched, sleek muscles tensed, whiskers still. His black tail lashed slowly back and forth. “The gossamer chains of the willow-women are made of false things, a tissue woven of lies. Only the light of the sword can reveal them. But this, this is a weaker enchantment, a thing spun by vampires when they wear spider's flesh, and wait for food to fly up of its own power and feed them. It is made of their substance, which is hatred and envy, and, like them, it cannot bear to see itself truly.”

With the sharp tip of the mirror, Tommy cut the strands away. The webs sagged to one side with a soft noise like a faint, grotesque, self-pitying whine.

Then they were within. Moonlight fell through narrow windows across stacks of tall bookshelves, crowded and cramped. Thomas pulled the main door shut behind him and cautiously walked among the high shelves, the little black cat slinking at his feet. A moment later they found the narrow stairs leading down toward the basement. At the bottom was a door with a sign reading
Museum
.

The locked door opened upon the touch of the silver key.

Inside were stone walls, with short, rectangular windows at the top, near the low roof. Upon these walls were hung a mixture of kitsch and of proper archeological artifacts. Next to a group of carven love-spoons, for example, which may have been made fifty or seventy years ago, were brass shield bosses dating back to before the Bronze Age. Yet also, someone had hung up displays of pie-tins and empty shell casings from World War Two, as if these things had equal claim to be on display with a tapestry from the Renaissance hanging next to it.

In the middle were two display cases, separated by a suit of Maximilian armor. In one case was a collection of chrome hubcaps taken from cars of the late sixties: in the other, surrounded by stone arrowheads and broken clay cups, was the Sword Reforged.

It was shorter than Tommy remembered it, but much more beautiful, with its hilt wrapped in gold and silver wire and its pommel capped with a knob of clear crystal. The guard was straight, and made of some metal not found on Earth, brighter than gold and stronger than iron.

The sword rested in a sheath made of black reptilian leather, with the loops of a leather war-belt curled around the rings of the scabbard. Tooled into the leather of the belt were images of an ancient hero slaying a dragon. Tommy knew that the scene showed the battle between Hal's forefather, Vardane the Just, and Anglachor, the Leviathan of Chaos. He also knew of whose skin this scabbard had been made after that dreadful duel was concluded.

The case was dusty, unkempt. There was a spider in the glass case, and already it had begun to spin a web along the hilts of the sword.

Tybalt sniffed suspiciously around the edge of the case. Tommy touched his key to the lock of the case. The lock opened. Then he lifted the glass lid and reached in for the sword. He made to brush the spiderweb away; his hand was stung as if by an electric shock. Tommy, his left arm numb, was flung from his feet by the force of it. The book fell to the ground and opened like a flower blooming.

From where he lay on the stone of the museum floor, he could see the spider crawl forward, and unfold itself into a stinking cloud of shadow. The shadow came out of the case like smoke, and rose up in the gloom. Then the shadow shrank and became solid, and there before him stood the form of Lord Wodenhouse, minister of the Admiralty, a straight-backed old man in a finely tailored black silk coat, tight narrow tie, white hair, and pince-nez glasses.

Behind the glasses, Tommy could see his eyes were merely pools of black shadow. When the creature spoke, its mouth was black, with no tongue or teeth inside at all.

“Fool,” the thing sighed softly, “We knew you would return here for your worthless toy.”

Tommy, without any pause for thought or fear, scrambled forward on his knees, reached into the case with his unhurt hand, drew the sword, and stood.

The creature stepped out of the way as Thomas pushed past him, and made no move to interfere.

Thomas came to his feet holding the sword. For a moment, Tommy was heartened that the sword deemed him worthy to wield it; then his spirit sagged as he saw the blade: dark, solid, ordinary. The blade was dull, and no light shined from it at all.

“Fool,” the creature repeated, “Old fool! The magic will not serve you. Children, armed by their innocence, we perhaps have cause to fear. But you, you are too old, too worn, too wise, too filled with sin and shame. The sword will not burn for you. Magic comes in childhood alone. Your time is long past, old man.”

Thomas pointed the sword at the thing, and chanted.
“By star, by stone, by shining spear! I call upon the Gathered Hosts of Light to banish wretched minions of fear once more into their dreadful night!”

Nothing happened, except that the creature smiled, sardonic and weary.

Then Tybalt spoke: “Tommy, by the love you bear Our Lady, I conjure you to heed me now. My time with you is done. Strike my head from my body!”

The man-shaped thing spoke in a voice like the creaking of old wood, the hissing of cold wind, “By all means, slay the beast. Become a murderer, and let the burden of your sin drag you ever nearer to our grasp.”

Tommy backed away from the eyeless, smiling hulk of the cabinet minister, keeping the sword pointed at the thing. “No, Tybalt!” he uttered in a voice of horror. “I can't kill you! Not you! There would be nothing left for me, no magic, no reason to believe… aieee!” He cried out, because, without warning, the sword began to sting his palm. It felt as if he held a burning coal in his hand.

The cabinet minister drifted forward, his feet making no noise at all as he came closer, and words came out of the darkness of his mouth. “The sword rejects you; the innocence of youth is lost. You have done too much evil in your life to strike at us. Who are you to dare to judge us? Your life is foul, worthless, and corrupt. Surrender, use the sword on our behalf, and we will give you gold, and women, prestige, and power, and all the things your pathetic, failed destiny has cheated from you.”

The pain in his palm grew hotter, but Tommy did not let go of the sword.

Tybalt said, “They cannot use or touch that sword, nor any weapon of the world. If men did not aid them, they would be nothing.”

“But he's right, Tybalt; the sword is burning me!” Thomas said, not daring to take his eyes off the thing.

“You are afraid,” the cat purred softly, “Strike me dead, and fear will vanish.”

The cabinet minister stepped closer. Thomas, wincing, raised the blade. The point of the sword was touching the minister's chest. Then, the darkness cleared from the man's eyes. Suddenly, they were blue eyes, human eyes.

The eyes were wide, frightened, helpless, pleading. A gargling strangled noise of fear came from the man's throat. From the black nothingness inside his mouth a haughty whisper came, “Look! The true Lord Wodenhouse. His body we inhabit; you cannot strike us, except that you kill the innocent. And once innocent blood is on your hands, you are one of us, Key-bearer.”

Thomas prodded the cabinet minister lightly in the chest. The blue, human eyes wept with fear. The black mouth smiled.

A cold sensation swept through Thomas. “Who are you?
What
are you?”

“Our Lord is the King of Final Winter,” said the dreadful and inhuman voice, “In his kingdom all things are the same, all are still and silent, lifeless, nameless. We have no names, no souls, and we cannot be harmed. Join us in unlife, and you will never die!”

But Tybalt said, “This is the Knight of Shadows, your final foe. He has forgotten his name, but you shall say it. Your First Ancestor, at the dawn of things, was called by the Light to name all beasts and birds, fishing and crawling things; and so dominion over Earth was his. Such is the legacy of all your race. You are magical creatures, but you know it not. Claim your birthright!”

“Claim it how?”

“Strike. Ignite the sword, read the book, say the name!”

Tommy took another step back. The pain in his hand grew fierce; the sword trembled in his hand, yet still he would not release it.

Tybalt, near his feet, hissed and showed his little pink tongue. Then he unsheathed his claws and scraped Tommy painfully in the ankle. Tommy shouted: the cat's claws felt sharp as needles. The black cat said, “The time grows short. Slay me now, Tommy. Strike!”

“I don't understand! I cannot simply do as you tell me! I am not a child any more!”

“It is not the stalwart soldiers of the Sons of Light who question orders, Little Tommy, but willful children. At the place of the Swordbearer, I bade you leap and you leaped not. Woe came of that, and capture, and Richard died, whom you were meant to save. Are you not a Man?”

A pang of guilt, more painful than the red-hot sword hilt, passed through him.

Are you not a Man?
He realized the cat was not asking him if he were brave or grown-up, but if he knew where he stood in the great hierarchy of all Creation. Beasts, even small and gentle ones, were placed under the dominion of Man because Man had the duty to be wiser and greater than a beast, to act for reasons higher than instinct.

But the reasons of Man were not the highest.

He did not understand, but he obeyed all the same. He struck down at his feet; the blade swept the cat's head off its neck; the blood fountained, red as roses in spring.

Half-blinded by tears, Tommy saw the pearly light collect together from the starlight shining through the small windows, and swirl in toward the blade. The metal became a shaft of light, bright as sunlight, cool as moonlight. Silver rays, surrounded by blue-white flames, shined from the sword and filled the room.

The book on the floor where it had fallen now rustled as an unfelt wind flipped the pages rapidly. Then they stopped. On the page of the open book, silver letters faded into view. Tommy looked down, read the name, and understood at once the nature of his foe.

Tommy pointed the bright-burning sword at the cabinet minister. The words written in the book came out from Tommy's mouth almost of their own accord, his voice made hollow and strained with sorrow. “Phobos, father of fear, I banish thee: Begone! With this, my instrument of light, I divide human from inhuman, true from false, substance from shadow. Wherever the light of true knowledge shines, you have no place!” And the sword was surrounded with a rainbow of pale light, like the ring seen around the moon on misty nights.

The cabinet minister staggered, his head thrown back. Up from his face, in three streams, black smoke boiled out from his eyes and mouth. The darkness rushed up across the ceiling, fled to the corners of the chamber, flickered down across the walls. The cabinet minister, his eyes now blue, his teeth now white, was pleading in fear. “Don't kill me! Don't kill me! It wasn't my fault! They promised me so much, and I only gave them a little piece of me, one small part–” Then he pointed over Tommy shoulder and screamed. The cabinet minister turned and fled up the stairs, out of the museum.

Tommy turned his head. The shadow had gathered itself behind him, spreading from his feet, across the floor, over the display cases, and up along the tapestries and hangings of the stone wall, to loom, gigantic, across the wall and ceiling. The shadow of his own head, distorted and enlarged along the ceiling, now turned and glared mockingly down at him.

When Tommy turned to strike at it with the radiant sword, the shadow turned as swiftly, and was behind him again. He struck left; the shadow pivoted around his feet and swung right. He stabbed between his feet; the shadow was above him. He held the sword high overhead.

Luminous, wonderful, the sword shone bright with steady, silvery light, and blue sparks drifted up about the blade like fire-flies.

In a pool at his feet, the shadow laughed.

“I am the Knight of Ghosts and Shadows,” said the little darkness underfoot, “In my world, I was gathered into one place, and even a child could see what I was. But in this world, I am spread throughout all mankind. Their sin, their fear, their foolishness feeds me. How can you dream to destroy me? You cannot even drive away the little piece of me that lives in you.”