The Golden Shield of IBF (21 page)

The majority of men were clad in leather jerkins over billowing-sleeved shirts, their legs in tights of red or green or black. Each, of course, was armed with sword and dagger. The women wore long dresses of every description and color, some quite elaborate, others simple. Although many were bareheaded, just as many wore the silly duncecap headgear or simple veils or crowns of flowers wound into elaborately arranged hair.

There were pits, what looked to be pigs—or something similar—roasting in them, small groups of the men, like men everywhere, overseeing the barbecue. Tables—these attended by some of the women—were being set with bowls of fruit and vegetables and trays of bread.

The instruments—no musicians—kept playing, floating in midair, roving, from group to group, like strolling players. He wondered, absently, if they got tipped?

Garrison took a deep breath and started walking in the direction of the throng. A freight train of frantically running children stormed past him so rapidly that he nearly stumbled into them. He heard a woman’s voice chiding them to watch where they were going. He kept going, looking for a familiar face, hoping he’d find one in particular.

And he did. She was part of a group of a half dozen women, laying out food on one of the tables. Buffet-style, he supposed. Garrison quickened his pace, approaching her.

“Swan?”

She looked up from her task and smiled. “Al’An.”

“We have to talk.”

“Do you want to eat first? Remember? I promised you a feast. And the meat is nearly ready.”

“I’m hungry, yeah, but that can wait. Okay?”

She smiled again. “Okay.” Swan turned to her companions, two of the women—one of them particularly pretty—glancing furtively at him as she said something Garrison could not hear. Several of them laughed brightly as Swan pinched her skirts between her fingertips and walked toward him.

“Where can we talk?”

“Wherever you wish, Al’An.”

“Over by the trees, there.”

“As you wish, Al’An.” Swan eased her right hand into the crook of Garrison’s left elbow. “You seem rested.”

“I am rested.”

“And you feel well?”

“I feel great, perfect, never better. That’s what’s worrying me.” They hadn’t reached the trees yet, but Garrison stopped, turned to face her, his hands grasping her upper arms near the shoulders. “Tell me the truth. I mean it, Swan.”

“What truth do you wish to know, Al’An?” She was tall for a girl, but a head shorter than he was, and her eyes were doing that thing that a woman could always somehow do even if she were taller than the man she was looking at: her eyes looked up at him, while at the same time appearing to be downcast in anticipation.

Garrison realized that he was probably hurting her arms. He let go of her. They just started walking, past the trees he’d picked as their destination, following instead along the boundary of the vast expanse of lawn. The sun was warmer here, or maybe it was Garrison’s blood pressure. All the other guys back by the party were visibly armed, so Garrison determined for himself that it wouldn’t be that socially taboo for his guns to be seen. He took off his bomber jacket, hooked it on his thumb over his left shoulder. Swan grasped his right hand in both of hers. They walked on, neither speaking.

The sun was warm on Garrison’s face and neck, on his skin below the sleeves of his dark blue T-shirt, but he wasn’t perspiring. The grass seemed to go on forever. Maybe it did, here. Garrison licked his lips, sniffed. “Uh, was I dead?”

“Was that the most important question you wanted to ask me, Al’An?”

Garrison shook his head. “No. Did you tell me that you loved me?”

“Yes.”

“Was I dead?”

“No, but you were very close to death.”

“Let’s eat, but after we do this.” Alan Garrison dropped his jacket and folded Swan into his arms. She tilted up her chin. Alan Garrison kissed her. Even if he had been dead, this alone would have brought him back.

Swan’s head close against his chest, Garrison heard her whisper, “I love you, Al’An.”

Garrison’s lips touched her ear. “And I love you, Swan.”

Alan Garrison had never meant anything more than he meant that...

She straddled the body beneath her, hands twisting at his nipples, her mouth devouring, penetrating his mouth.

Her fingernails raked along his neck and shoulders and across his upper arms, drawing blood as they gouged into his chest and her finger tips squeezed at him again.

He cried in pain.

She laughed and bit his lower lip hard, the salty taste of his blood washing over her tongue. Her hands twisted his delicate flesh harder than before. He almost lifted her as he swelled within her. He shrieked with the pain she caused him. She screamed with delight. He exploded within her.

Eran sank back onto her haunches, her hair heavy and wet with sweat, her breathing hard.

The young lieutenant was not enough, not nearly enough at all. She dismounted him, caught up her robe from the flagstones and walked away from the bed. He moaned for more. Eran despised his tears and blood.

“That was great. I could do it again.”

“Really?”

Alan Garrison gestured toward the far end of the longest table. “I could start eating on that end and still be hungry by the time I reached this end.”

Swan’s face lit with laughter. “You will be fat!”

“No, just happy.”

She flung her arms about his neck and kissed his cheek. “I will bring you all that you desire, Al’An.”

Swan took his plate from the grass beside them, Garrison reaching for her. She laughed, almost a schoolgirl giggle, scrambling away from his grasp. He started to his feet, but sank back to the grass, calling after her rather than running after her. “I already have all that I desire, Swan!”

She was still running, long legged and beautiful, laughing as she looked back at him over her shoulder, skirts and petticoats hitched high, flowing auburn hair bouncing Marsha Brady-perfect.

Perfect. Everything was perfect.

Garrison knitted his fingers behind his head and stretched back in the grass, looking at the perfect blue sky. This was paradise. He’d been wrong. The term was not unknown here. But in this world called Creath, paradise was not a lost gift, but made by magic.

He took a cigarette from his pack, lit it. He was almost sorry for once in his life that he wasn’t a heavier smoker. Almost.

Here, cocooned within this perfect magical energy, he could have smoked ten cartons a day with no risk to his health. “Yuck,” Garrison murmured. The thought of even a pack a day held no appeal.

But a cigarette every once in a while tasted good.

Maybe magic was like that. Using a little magic here and there didn’t really hurt, was pleasant, enjoyable. And maybe this Queen Sorceress who was Swan’s mother had too heavy a habit.

On a rational level, Garrison knew that, sooner or later, they’d have to leave this place, set out across Woroc’Il’Lod for Edge Land and Barad’Il’Koth. He accepted that as his destiny now, and so long as Swan was an intrinsic part of that destiny, he could live with it. He could live with it quite nicely. He still didn’t know how he’d managed—how Swan had managed it, actually—to survive the crash, why he’d been able to see his own body and it had looked dead. Swan would explain it, and he’d believe it, no matter how bizarre it sounded. She wouldn’t lie to him. That he knew he could depend upon.

The music was still playing. There was laughter. Some of the men, who might have been drinking a bit too much of the hearty red wine which Garrison had more than sampled himself, were singing. They’d be wise not to give up the day job.

Swan returned, dropped to her knees beside him in the grass. Her hands offered him a plate heaped with meat—it tasted like barbecue—and vegetables, and a large cup of wine.

Garrison sat up. “I’m happy.”

Swan laughed. “I know you are.” She held the cup for him and Garrison sipped wine from it, then took his plate. He started to eat. Swan’s face darkened slightly, a blush and a hint of sadness in her eyes. “I don’t want to make you unhappy.”

“How could you possibly do that?”

“Well, I have never been with a man.”

Garrison touched her cheek, kissed her forehead. “Telling me that doesn’t make me unhappy at all, darling.”

She smiled sweetly, not responding for a moment. He knew what she was doing, trying to understand a word for which there was no perfect equivalent in her language. After another second or so, Swans smile broadened. “I like that word. Is it correct for a woman to call a man so?”

“If you want, yes.”

“Darling. Darling Al’An. Al’An darling.”

Garrison laughed, careful not to choke. But that probably couldn’t happen here in paradise, anyway.

Swan began again. “I know that the next thing which we should do is to make love.”

Yes, it was possible to choke here, at least almost. Garrison coughed, cleared his throat, looked at her. “I’d like that, very much.” More food wasn’t all that important, really. He started to set down his plate.

Swan spoke again, quickly. “The prophecies of Mir say that a Virgin Enchantress must seek out the origin of her seed, if we are to have any hope for victory and freedom. And, darling, I can be nothing but a virgin in order to do so.” Her eyes lowered, staring into his cup of wine as she said those last words.

“And after that?” Garrison asked her.

Swan raised her eyes. “If we survive, Al’An, I will be yours as much in my body as I am in my heart, forever if you so desire.”

Garrison took a deep breath. Looking at Swan, listening to her, understanding her, what else could he say but, “Then, let’s get on with whatever it is that we have to do here, and let’s go to Barad’Il’Koth and do what needs to be done there. And, if we live, or if we die, the forever part will still be forever. Nothing your mother or her damned army can do will ever change that.”

Just breathing the air which Swan breathed was erotic beyond imagining.

Garrison set down his plate, closed his hands around hers which still held the wine. Swan tilted the cup toward him and he sipped from it. Turning the cup in her hands, so her lips touched where his had touched, Swan drank the wine as well...

“Okay, now come at me. And don’t be afraid that you’re gonna hurt me or anything, because you won’t,” Garrison told Gar’Ath.

Gar’Ath, grace personified with a sword in his hands, just lowered his head like a bull, balled his fists and charged.

Garrison sidestepped into a roundhouse kick, catching Gar’Ath’s right side as gently as he could, sending him flying to the grass.

“Just like you tell me with a sword, Gar’Ath, keep your balance, and keep your wits.”

Gar’Ath nodded soberly. “All right, you come at me, then, Champion.”

Garrison grinned and assumed a T-stance. It was late in the afternoon, the sun warm across the grassy expanse which Garrison mentally labeled “the backyard” of the castle. Like Gar’Ath, he was naked from the waist up.

Garrison started moving in a slow semicircle, feigned a punch and let Gar’Ath come at him. He blocked Gar’Ath’s right, his left, got inside Gar’Ath’s block, deflected a poorly launched knee smash, then delivered a soft heel of the hand to Gar’Ath’s chin. Gar’Ath stumbled back, but kept his footing. “You’re doing better, Gar’Ath!”

Garrison moved in, but Gar’Ath no longer staggered, instead pivoted left, snapping a series of beautifully executed soft kicks to Garrison’s abdomen.

Garrison doubled over, Gar’Ath’s foot snapping up and stopping just inches from Garrison’s face.

“You sandbagged me,” Garrison announced, breathing hard.

Gar’Ath lowered his foot, perfectly in balance. He stepped back. The idiomatic expression evidently deciphered, Gar’Ath smiled broadly. “Yes, I did, didn’t I?”

“Been practicing?”

“More than a little, but hardly a lot, Champion.”

“My ass,” Garrison laughed.

This expression gave Gar’Ath not a moment’s pause. “And it was your ass, indeed!”

“Well,” Garrison suggested, “let’s see if I’ve been practicing with a sword, then.” This was, of course, ridiculous, Garrison knew. His hopes of winning against Gar’Ath blade to blade were as likely to succeed as either one of them separately or even both of them together taking on Chuck Norris hand to hand and winning.

“Now, remember, don’t be afraid that you’ll hurt me, because you won’t,” Gar’Ath advised.

“Ha, ha!”

Garrison retreated to his “corner” where, among other things, he’d left his borrowed sword. Its blade was about the same length as Gar’Ath’s, and it had a double quillon crossguard and skull crusher pommel, but there the similarity ended. Gar’Ath’s sword, made with his own hands, was sharp as a razor and gleamed like the sun. Garrison’s loaner was sharp enough to hurt somebody and it wasn’t rusty.

“Now, remember, if you parry with your blade, parry with the flat whenever possible. Parrying with the edge just nicks the edge. Bad for the sword, Champion.”

“Right.”

What little Alan Garrison had known about the various forms of classical European swordfighting (the style of Creath embodying various elements from several of these) prior to Gar’Ath’s tutelage derived from novels written by Rafael Sabbatini and fine old movie fights between Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone. In more recent times, Garrison enjoyed the resurgence of swordfighting in films and television, most of this, however, predicated on the Japanese katana used in the discipline of kenjitsu. In neither case, although he was fairly conversant with sword types as a consequence of his writing interests, had he any practical experience.

After his first session with Gar’Ath, Garrison’s right forearm had been stiff and sore from manipulating the sword. Because they were at the summer palace and all was magical, the considerable discomfort vanished within minutes of onset.

After his next session, Garrison walked away realizing that much of what he’d seen in movies, old or new, had some validity, while other material was totally useless and silly.

In their third session, Gar’Ath had Garrison handle several different types of swords. Garrison learned that hand, wrist, arm, upper body and legs had to function together fluidly. Making a slender-bladed sword sing through the air with that wonderful old movie whooshing sound (which scared the crap out of an opponent just prior to cutting a candle in half) required use of the shoulder, the arm as a whole, elbow and wrist motion and hand manipulation. Simultaneously. By the end of that session, Garrison could carve a “Z” in the air, reliably whooshing three times in a row.