Sword of the Bright Lady (9 page)

Computer manuals.
That's exactly what he was reading. How to interface with an incredibly complex system that was largely the product of arbitrary decisions. But not completely artificial: it wasn't law or philosophy. There were inflexible, if incomprehensible, rules that had to be followed.

The rituals were like passwords and procedures, to run specific programs. Each program did its own thing, and in fact was often unrelated to the other programs, as if each one had been written by a programmer with little knowledge of or less concern for what others had done before.

And tael—tael was bandwidth. Tael was how much giga-whack you could get from central computing before they cut you off for the day. The ability to instantly heal some damage was just a side benefit.

Global dissemination, expensive bandwidth, no user-interface standards, and chaos for organization. He'd traveled God-knew-how-many miles from home and found the damn Internet all over again.

There was a ritual for readying the rituals, which turned out to be meditation again. He was alone in the chapel at the moment, everyone else having retreated to the kitchen. Watching him read was apparently not as interesting as watching Helga wash dishes.

He forced the noise of the kitchen out of his head, ignored the snatches of conversation and laughter, and went to his snowy childhood. The meditation was difficult, but the trance it brought on was more than just a state of mind. The hallucination was vivid and real.

In front of him, on the white dark-bright moonlit street, stood an empty suit of armor. It addressed him in chill and hollow tones, although not unfriendly.

“Greetings, Pater Christopher,” it said, or rather he, since it was clearly a male voice. “How will you serve the Marshall of Heaven today?”

“I need a menu,” Christopher said. “Help? Where's the help key?”

The apparition was a little taken aback. “I cannot provide instruction. You should look to your elders for that. I can only provide you with spells.”

“It's my first time. Do you have any default settings? Preferably for a duel or just general fighting.”

The suit paused, considering. Christopher couldn't make up his mind if the suit of armor was a program or not. On the one hand, it seemed to interact like a real person, even displaying emotions despite a total lack of facial features or even a face. On the other hand, it felt a lot like talking to Siri on an iPhone.

“The most commonly requested spells before a duel are these.”

Pearly symbols appeared in the air next to the suit of armor. They were fantastically complex, like Chinese ideographs gone wild, subtly shifting shape whenever he stopped focusing on them. Yet he could divine their meanings as easily as reading a sentence. The suit took the symbols down and handed them to Christopher.

“Okay, thanks. Anything else?”

“No, young priest,” the apparition said with amusement, “you are charged with only this much of the Marshall's power.”

The suit of armor and the snowy background began to fade, and Christopher found himself concentrating fiercely on the mystical glowing pretzels in his hands. Keeping them intact and separate without dropping them drained his attention like an open spigot. The symbols slid through his fingers without sensation, and only pure thought kept them from drifting away. But it was a losing battle; eventually they faded like the afterimages of a bright light, and he felt saddened by the loss of beauty.

When Christopher came to his physical surroundings again, Svengusta was watching him. “I intended to offer you advice on what spells to prepare, but I am glad you did not take it. An old village healer is perhaps the worst source of wisdom before a battle. I am not even sure of the rules for dueling.”

“There are rules?”

“Many,” Karl said, coming into the room, “as any village boy could tell you, no doubt in exacting detail. But in your case, you need only worry about surviving. What will you do for armor?”

“Nothing,” Christopher said. “I don't need armor.”
Your armor is in your mind
, his sensei used to say. Not getting hit was the key.

Karl stared at him, as if the words were a challenge. Then he shook his head. “Shameful enough that we throw you to wolves with hardly a day's rest. Must we send you defenseless?” He began unlacing his chain-mail tunic.

“I don't want it,” Christopher said, but Karl ignored him.

To Christopher's surprise, the heavy armor did not impede his movement. It also fit well; although he was taller than the younger man, he was no broader around the shoulders. The weight of it gave him confidence.

“And how shall you perform your duties without it?” Svengusta asked Karl.

“For an unranked man, armor is merely vanity,” Karl said. “But for the Pater, it may slow a killing blow long enough for a healing spell.”

“I'll give it back afterwards,” Christopher said.

Karl shrugged, unconcerned.

The next day Svengusta charitably let him sleep in, and the household was already up when Christopher awoke. Helga served him a fine breakfast, a ration of bacon on the side. He found that a little too close to a “last meal” for comfort, especially when he saw that no one else was having any.

After breakfast Karl dressed him in the armor, cinching it expertly for maximum protection and minimum interference. He had other gifts, a plain open-faced helmet, the katana safely contained in a simple wooden scabbard so new it still had splinters, and a long cloak to hide the sword until the proper moment, the better to surprise Hobilar. Svengusta watched carefully through these preparations for battle, and then took Christopher into the main hall.

“I trust that Karl has prepared you physically for your ordeal. Now it is my job to prepare you spiritually. For you, a stranger to our land, I have no words of comfort to give. Nor should you, on the dawn of battle, seek advice from one as old and dry as myself.”

The old man built up a fire while he spoke, Christopher handing him chunks of firewood.

“But I can give you this much wisdom: you must be of one purpose, in your own mind. Your misgivings are plain to me, and the battlefield is no place for thinking. So sit here and consider, until you are certain what your fate demands of you.”

Svengusta left, closing the kitchen door with a sense of finality. Christopher felt alone for the first time in days, with only himself and the wooden gods for company.

Was he really going to do this? Was he really going to try to kill another human being? He had never attacked anyone in anger in his life on Earth. He had never even wanted to kill somebody. He had never contemplated it, in the sense he was now, sitting here waiting for noon so he could shove a razor-sharp piece of steel into another man's body and watch his blood and guts spill out while he screamed and screamed and screamed.

He could walk away from this. They would pay the man off, and he would survive. He would be reduced to poverty again, having only just escaped it, but nobody would get killed. It was the rational thing to do, and he was a rational man. Why wasn't he doing it?

Because Hobilar was wrong. But what did he owe Dynae? He couldn't protect her from all the thugs in this world. He couldn't protect all the peasant girls from all the Hobilars. It wasn't his job. Nobody had asked him to do it, and in fact a lot of people were asking him not to. Even Dynae would understand if he walked away.

Because he was proud? But he was reasonable. He couldn't believe he would let his pride get him killed. There were other ways to deal with bullies like Hobilar. Giving up his pride would diminish him, make him less the Christopher he used to be, but wouldn't becoming a killer make him even less? None of the priests he had met would think less of him for not fighting this fight.

Because I want to go home.

The thought sat there, waiting for him to acknowledge it. War and blood had been presented to him as his only hope of return. Was he prepared to climb back to Earth over a stack of bodies? Would Maggie still want him then? Would she even recognize him? Would he recognize himself?

He called back the sound of her voice. In the quiet of the stone chapel he thought he could hear her speaking to him through the crackling flames. He knew that it probably didn't matter. Even if he won this duel, it was unlikely he would survive the next three years, let alone ever find his way home. He knew that she would forgive him for failing, even if she never saw him again. He knew that she would love him, had always loved him, for who he was, had never asked him to be anything else.

Half an hour before noon, Karl came in through the double doors. He left them open to the cold, hard sunlight.

“It's time.”

Christopher stood up, followed Karl out into the day silently. His tongue was leaden and he could not speak.

A crowd was waiting, hovering discreetly at the periphery of his consciousness. Faren was there, resplendent in a white cloak, like a lordly snowman. The gold rings on his fingers flashed in the sunlight.

“The rules are simple,” Karl explained. “The field of honor is the village square. You go to the center, with Hobilar. Faren checks you both for magic, then asks if you still insist on fighting. If you say yes, then Faren says begin, and you try to kill each other. You stop when somebody dies, goes off the field, or yields.”

Christopher wasn't listening. They'd covered all this before. He was listening to the horse neighing, the fresh, sharp snow crunching under his feet, a lonely bird chirping in the trees.

Hobilar was on the other side of the square, armored like a squat, thick beetle. He was alone, save for a huge brown horse. The villagers clustered in knots, leaving a wide gap between themselves and the knight. Hobilar saw someone and called out. The peasant reluctantly approached.

Faren spoke to Christopher, quietly, for his ear only. “I will not ask you to risk yourself, nor hold your blow, yet if it is possible, try not to kill him. Unless it is possible that you have come to your senses and will yield.” The Cardinal turned away without waiting for a reply.

Karl pointed him to the center of the square, and Hobilar trudged out to meet him. The two men stood ten feet apart, and Faren glided in between them like an angel.

Faren asked with deep sincerity, “Is there no hope of reconciliation? Is there no peaceful resolution?”

“I have done nothing wrong,” Christopher said thickly. “I do not ask for this fight. I hold no offense against Ser Hobilar.”

“Give me my money,” Hobilar growled.

The wind blew gently through the square, crept quietly across the snow, playfully ruffled the hem of Faren's cloak.

“No,” Christopher said.

Faren's face radiated dismay. He chanted his prayer and studied both men carefully.

“I pronounce you both free of magic,” Faren said. Christopher took off his cloak, dropped it in the snow. His armor and sword were now clearly exposed. Hobilar's only reaction was a low growl of discontent.

Faren backed up, perpendicular to the men. “Will you not yield?” he cried in desperation, although no one could tell to which man he was speaking.

Hobilar drew his sword, hefted it. The metal scraped on the scabbard, the sound unmuffled by the snow. Christopher didn't bother to draw.

Faren stepped back again, now twenty feet away. “To arms,” he barked—angrily, sadly, bitterly.

Christopher spun and bolted back the way he had come, running at full speed. Behind him he heard Hobilar laughing.

He reached the edge of the square, threw himself to his knees facing the chapel. Hobilar roared behind him. Triumph and derision could not fully disguise the relief in his laughter.

“He flees the field,” Hobilar shouted. “Your dog yields.”

“The field is the square,” Karl was already countering, “he has not left it.”

Both their voices were drowned out by Christopher's shout.

“If this be your will, Marcius,” he raged, blaring the dulcet tones of Celestial jarringly across the snow, “then show me your favor!”