One Bright Star to Guide Them (7 page)

Tommy scowled and spun the sword in his hand and drove the blazing blade into the floorboards. With his foot, he kicked against the flat of the blade with all his strength. The magnificent blade snapped cleanly in two, and both parts flared brighter than the sun.

Tommy held the burning sword hilt high over his head. The shining shard burned at his feet, raging incandescent glory. Above and below, overhead and underfoot, the two fragments blazed. Tommy was surrounded by light, streamers and swarms of sparks were everywhere, and there was no place for any shadow to hide.

The darkness dissolved with a faint and hideous high wail, and was no more.

Tommy flourished the broken sword hilt overhead and shouted with joy. “Beware all you wizards, and servants of sin! A knight of the Light now is here! Your dark champion is done! Who dares follow him shall share in his fate!”

But when he looked up, he saw the sword he held was not whole. The glorious light was fading away. The shard of the shattered sword buried in the floor flickered, grew faint, and became ordinary metal once again.

Stricken, bereft, abandoned, his heart shattered like the sword, Tommy fell to his knees. In front of where he knelt, there was nothing but a dead cat and a broken sword. Slowly, tears blurred his vision.

The sword hilt dropped from his weary fingers. Tommy hunched forward, his head cradled in his hands, and he wept.

“Tybalt,” he whispered, face hidden behind his hands, “Please get up. Oh, please, Tybalt.”

When, after an endless time, Thomas had no more tears to shed, he slowly raised his head. He felt nothing inside except an aching, bone-chilling void. With red-rimmed eyes, he stared at the ruined sword, at the tiny, stiff, dead animal and the bloodstains matting its black fur.

Nothing happened and nothing continued to happen. Thomas sat there. He had nowhere to go, he had nothing to do, and nothing would ever be worth doing again.

Had he saved England? The Knight of Shadows was defeated. But what about all the other monsters he knew lurked around the country, the hollow women, the simulacra in Parliament and other places of power, the teachers marked by the Sign of the Worm?

He began to worry about his future. Did this mean he had to return to his life as it was before? Could he even do so? His old employers probably would not take him back; at his age he would have trouble finding a job anywhere. He was still being sought by the police. If so, he had no future, not anywhere. Where was he even going to live?

And still he sat, unwilling to leave, but having no reason to stay.

Red-gold light crept slowly into the chamber to one side. At first Thomas felt a momentary thrill of hope. But then he realized he was seeing nothing but the dawn-light shining through the chamber's cramped windows. He had been here all night.

Still he sat. He waited. For what, he knew not.

From outside there came the ordinary noise of the little town gradually stirring to wakefulness. He heard the rumble of the milkman's truck; he heard a bird singing.

There was stirring overhead; someone was in the library above, moving about. Thomas realized that they would soon come down and find him here. And yet he could not bring himself to leave the broken and dead remnants of his life.

Footsteps sounded very softly on the stairs, a whisper of slow, massive motion. The door opened. Larger than a panther, larger than a tiger, with wings like dark flame folded along its sleek shoulders, a terrible creature stalked silently down the stairs and into the room, surrounded by a golden light. It was twice the size of an Earthly lion, with a mane like black fire, swimming and flashing around its massive head. The wings were plumes of black and gold, shining.

White fire darted from the creature's mouth from between fangs like lightning.

It paced forward, regal, mysterious, awesome. The creature spread its mighty wings, the room was filled with light, and there came a tremendous noise like a choir, or like the pealing of bells, the roar of trumpets.

The creature's eyes were whirlpools of gold. So fierce, so stern, so majestic was the glance of those eyes, that Tommy threw himself on his face, too terrified to scream.

“Fear not,” it spoke in a voice like muted thunder, and many echoes said the words again.

Tommy raised his head, but could not meet that awful gaze. He felt the warmth stirring in the air above him, could feel the hot scented breath of the creature near the top of his head. The breath was warm and crisp, not like any breath coming from the wet lungs of a creature composed of flesh and blood. The odor of the breath reminded Tommy of the smell of bread baking in an oven, or the scent of cedar logs burning on a campfire.

The warmth from that breath entered into his body, and he felt the cold aching in his bones depart.

The huge sable paws were before his face; in the corner of his eyes, Tommy could glimpse the flutter and spread of the great wings.

More quietly, the ringing voice inquired of him, “Thomas, why do you weep?”

“Once, I was young,” Tommy answered the great creature. “A black cat guided me to a magical adventure into another world. Then I grew older and the magic was lost. Only this year did I remember my youthful dreams, and meet that cat again. He was my friend. My only friend. Now he is dead, and by my own hand.”

“Thomas, I have not died. Rejoice; I am risen. The Lord of the Fortunate Islands, the Emperor of the Summer Country, has banished death and dying from his kingdom, and only those who flee his kingdom will encounter them. You weep over nothing more than my old garment, which you tore and which I discarded. Now I am come again, clothed in glory. Look up, Thomas. Look at me, my friend.”

And Thomas looked into the terrible golden eyes. He felt something dawn within himself, as proud, as great, as noble as those eyes, and found he could endure their gaze without shrinking.

“You are Tybalt,” said Thomas in wonder. And yet one small part of him was not surprised, not at all, but was filled with solemn, undoubting joy, crying out
I knew it, I knew he would come back!

“We spirits, when we are young, are sent forth to combat evils where they gather openly, unhidden, so that even a child can see them. We must grow before we can war against hidden evils, evils disguised as good, corrupt and subtle evils. In this, I deem, our race is not so different from mankind. Innocence and faith are the weapons children bring to bear against the open evils; wisdom is required to deal with evils better disguised.”

Thomas held up the broken shards of the sword. “How am I to fight once more? My weapon is broken.”

“The slaves and followers of the Champion of the Dark still infest your green realm, under many guises, and many names. But it is not for you to fight them.”

“But then—who? Sally is so afraid.”

“The Elf Prince will bring his harp to her once more, and she will find her courage again. She will sing a song of freedom, and encounter many woes and endure much loss before the final victory is won. She will not be alone. There shall be others.”

Thomas nodded. He was glad.

“As for you, your time as this land's Champion of the Light is done, for you have grown old, and the faith of a child is no longer yours. Two tasks you have completed. Another task I lay upon you now, and it shall be yours for many a weary year.”

“What task is that?” asked Thomas. Then he frowned, for he wished he had instead said:
I am ready.

“Know you why, out of all the years and seasons of the world, the Dark chose this day to come forth from the Winter Country?”

“No.”

“It is because the Wise Old Man of this World sleeps.”

“Sleeps?”

Thomas saw a reflection of light in the surface of the broken blade in his hand. He held the hilt nearer to his eye and looked into the silvery steel, and it was as if he saw into the surface of a still lake of water. In a small chapel nestled in a green valley, behind the tall mansion where, long ago, Thomas and his four friends had spent a summer's afternoon, was a graveyard. There was a headstone, and the words CEDRIC PENKIRK were written on it.

“Professor Penkirk!”

“He was your squire, for he armed you children with the heart you needed to prevail; he was your nurse, for he comforted you when you returned; and one thing more he was — your herald! He went before you into the land of Vidblain, into the Lost Kingdom, and told the animals and dryads of your coming. He was not permitted to strike the blow against the Winter King. That was the task of the Four. His task was to guide, and to advise, and to open the way.”

Thomas whispered. “The Key! This key is what opened the Way of the Well, and let us through the Hidden Door into Vidblain. He meant us to find it. I had always wondered…”

“Now it falls to you to become what Cedric was, for he has gone into my Father's realm. There he has another task you cannot have described to you as yet; but it is a work of long-abiding joy. They have given him a crown and a robe of white, and anointed his head with oil.”

“What am I supposed to do, then?” Thomas grinned. “Find some English schoolchildren and get them into trouble?”

“You will have many roads to walk, and there will be many worlds under your care. There will come a child who leads a Star by the hand, whose voice can still the Lion's rage. It is for him you carry the shards of Angurvadel, the great sword. It is a weapon none may use until he reforges it and makes it anew himself, as with all such weapons of my Father's Kingdom. Now, come! You will find this child is in a world beyond the Pleiades, considered young for his ancient and supernal race, but, compared to humans, old and wise beyond all reckoning: he is rash and eager, and he will come at your word to save this green Earth and all its inhabitants from the Dark Master.”

“Beyond the stars?”

“In his own land, the child is neither prince nor sage, but a humble blacksmith's apprentice: yet men would call him magic, for his art is to forge the stars and set them in their constellations. You will find your way with the book you hold and the key you bear. Say farewell to this land, Thomas. No world will be your home hereafter, but every place the light of the stars can touch!”

“And where I go, shall I see you there?”

“That is for you to say. For I have been with you all these years, my friend, with the signs of my Father's power all around you—you forgot to look.”

“Is this a darker world than Earth? Or brighter?”

“Dark or bright, you shall make it brighter than it was.”

And the great cat swelled into gigantic size, growing dim and bright and vast. He was somehow larger than the whole museum above and around him, and yet he did not touch the walls. He was larger than the night sky, and yet he did not scatter the stars. Then he vanished from sight, and the note of a trumpet rang out overhead, traveling from the west to the east.

Thomas blinked, seeing only the museum room around him again, dark and solid. He raised his hand. The book, fell open to a certain page and he knew it was the correct one. He found the diagrams in an appendix in the back of the volume, with images of zones and tropics and belts of constellations, and the Latin was easy enough for him to puzzle out. He spoke the words and used the key, and a shining doorway, surrounded with stars, appeared wide-open before him, and the music of the stars poured out from it, dreamlike, terrifying, and wondrous.

The newly-anointed Wise Old Man, who felt much too young for the task and not very wise at all, squared his shoulders and strode forth into the doorway, his eyes upon a solitary shining star.

Without a backward glance, he left Earth and childhood behind.

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