The Sword of Aradel (8 page)

“I see.”

“The thought frightens me, son. We've been working on the peasant groups for a long time, getting them secretly organized. What happened today set them off in a way that nothing else could. They're suddenly wild to fight. It took all my power of persuasion to get them to hold off for two days. If we fail to have the sword by then, they'll attack Rondelaine on their own—and they'll be slaughtered. They rose against Albericus not long after he came, when they had no sword to follow and no leadership. Many hundreds died.”

“Was that when my father, Harle, was killed?”

“Yes.”

Brian's jaw hardened. “I'll make Albericus pay if it's the last thing I do. Let's go over these copies again.”

Hours later Nysa called a halt. “It is past midnight,” she said. “We've been through an incredible day, and this is much too important for us to struggle over it and risk making mistakes when we are tired. Let us get some rest, and go over it again in the morning.”

Brother Benedict, his broad scarred face drawn with fatigue, rolled up in one of the blankets Nysa tossed down the stairs, and went almost instantly to sleep on the floor near the fireplace. Brian chose the other side near the curious and undefined door that seemed to open only to a rhyme.

He was awakened long later when someone stepped carefully over him, and he heard the door rhyme being softly whispered. But before he could sit up and see who it was, the door had opened and closed again.

Brian rubbed sleep from his eyes and frowned at the place where the door had closed. Suddenly he glanced behind him, but Brother Benedict was still swaddled in a blanket, at peace with the world. Then he noticed that Tancred's perch was empty.

Brian knew he ought to go back to sleep and get all the rest he could. Then he realized sleep would be impossible. Finally, as if drawn by a string, he found himself standing before the door area, whispering the rhyme. When the door opened, he slipped quickly out into the night.

After an uncertain step or two in the blackness he paused, listening to the song of a nightingale while he waited for his eyes to become accustomed to the dark. Was that Tancred singing? It almost had to be, for it was the only birdsong he could hear, and the singer couldn't be more than a dozen paces away.

When he could make out the dim trunks of the trees, he began moving cautiously around the edge of the spring. Dawn was much closer than he'd thought, for little patches of graying sky were showing through the black canopy of leaves overhead.

All at once he stopped, shaken by the discovery that he was hearing far more than a nightingale's song. For behind it, joining in, rose a soft and lovely chorus that seemed to come from many silvery voices singing all through the ancient grove. He stood listening, hardly believing his ears.

“Isn't it beautiful, Sir Brian?”

He could not see Merra, and before his fumbling tongue could form a reply, she went on gaily, “I willed for you to come out. If you hadn't, I would have awakened you. All my friends are singing to us while Tancred leads. For the Dryads know we are leaving with the dawn and they are wishing us well.”

“But—but—the formula! How—”

“I stayed awake thinking of it, and sent my thoughts to the Dryads. They helped, and now the right numbers have all come together in my mind. Only the last few words are confusing, but they are names of some kind that should help us locate the sword after we arrive. But we will not worry about that now. It is your turn to bathe in the sacred spring.”

“Huh? Bathe in it? But—but I've washed in it twice already!”

“Oh, fiddle! That was for the outside. This is for the inside. You silly goose, don't you know there is magic in these waters? Heaven preserve us! But right now we need all the magic we can get. Quickly! Off with your handsome new clothes, and in you go!”

He had no choice but to obey. He stripped off his clothes, crossed himself, and stepped out into the great spring while Tancred and the invisible chorus continued to pour forth their melody in the grove.

Maybe he was just imagining it, but when he turned at last and crawled up on the bank, it seemed that something had brushed all the cobwebs from his brain and that his body had gained the strength of ten.

A towel was flung to him, and Merra called, “Hasten, Sir Brian. Dawn is near!”

The moment he was dressed she appeared from behind a tree, still toweling her golden braids, which she had allowed to become soaked. The darkness had faded slightly and the vague patches of sky overhead were more distinct.

As they hurried toward the great oak, she asked, “Did you wet your head, Sir Brian?”

“Yes.”

“So did I. It sharpens the senses better than Nysa's tea.” Then, lapsing into English, which she did on occasion: “Thou fearest not what dreadful pass lieth ahead of us this fateful morn?”

“It—it's only normal to fear the unknown. But I've awakened to fear so many times at the abbey that I've become used to it.”

“I know. You've been beaten, cut and jabbed with swords, flogged … I—I used to cry sometimes when Uncle Benedict told me what they'd done to you. He—he lived in fear that you would be killed, and he watched over you all the time. Yet he told us that what you were going through was for the best. That it would make you tough and strong.”

Merra stopped and caught her lip between her teeth. They had reached Nysa's tree. Now she looked up, and in a voice that did not sound quite steady, repeated the rhyme for entrance. As she did so, Tancred flew down and alighted on her shoulder. Before Brian could pull his wits together and begin asking questions, they were inside.

Brother Benedict, up but not quite awake, was sitting on a bench frowning uncertainly at Nysa, who was putting food on the table. At the sight of them the monk's frown deepened, and Nysa began pouring tea.

“You have only a few minutes,” she said. “Sit down and eat. You should eat all you can, for it may be impossible to obtain food until you return.”

“What is all this?” Brother Benedict asked, suddenly coming awake. “Where are they going at this hour, Nysa? What about the formula?”

“The formula has been solved, Benedict. That is, as much as it can be solved until they try it out. Merra was awake most of the night, going over it with our sisters of the grove. It will take her almost to the sword. And it has been decided by everyone that the best time to leave is at dawn, which is almost here.”

“Merciful God!” the monk whispered. He shook his head. “Sit down, you two,” he added. “Eat. And while you are replenishing yourselves, I will pray.” He bowed his head and began to mumble a prayer. It was surprising to see him do this, for he was not a devout man.

Brian sat down near Merra. He drank some of his tea, then looked at the food and shook his head. “I—I'm not hungry.”

“I'm not either,” Merra said. “It would make me sick if I ate anything now.”

Brother Benedict finished his prayer and said quietly, “I have seen men on the eve of battle who could not eat. It is only natural, and perhaps best. But, Nysa, they will need something later. Put bread and cheese in those pouches at their belts.”

Nysa did so. Merra fed Tancred some crumbs, then the nightingale flew up and alighted on her shoulder.

“Are you taking him with you?” Nysa asked.

“Of course! I—I wouldn't think of going without him.”

There followed a little silence. Suddenly Nysa closed her eyes and said, “I can see crimson showing in the east. It is time.” Tears stained her cheeks as she quickly embraced Merra.

Brian, hastily buckling on his sword, was all at once enclosed in a bear hug by Merra's uncle.

“Take care of her, son!”

“I will!”

“God bless you both!” The monk thrust them into the passageway that led under the hill. “We will wait here till you return.”

Silently Brian followed Merra and Tancred into the cavelike room with the circle-covered floor. A chill went up his spine as his eyes swung to the corner where, years ago, Cerid had drawn the largest circle of all.

Merra, without faltering, moved straight to it and stood near the center with its intricate design of triangles. Brian swallowed and took his place with his back to hers. It was not until he clasped her small cold hands, and felt the tremor in them, that he realized how frightened she was.

“Don't worry,” he managed to say. “Everything will be all right. I know it!”

“I—I—you are very brave, Sir Brian. Thank you.”

“You are the brave one, your grace.”

“Please, I wish you wouldn't address me that way.”

“But it is your right! And as long as you call me Sir Brian—”

“That is the way I want it. Later, when we—but the dawn is here. Take a long breath.”

He did so.

“Ready, Sir Brian?”

“Ready!”

He closed his eyes and waited. In a low voice she began the curious chant with its many numbers, far more numbers than he had heard her use before. At last she finished with a rhyme:

“By all my right, and power bright,

Please take us through the dawning light—

A thousand years of day and night;

Please take us to that realm unknown

Where Cerid fled when hope had flown,

And hid so well that none can tell

Where hangs the sword of Aradel.”

There came the familiar giddiness, as if he were whirling and flying apart, only it was far worse now than he ever would have dreamed it could be. Abruptly he came down hard on his heels, so hard that he crumpled.

When he opened his eyes he gasped in disbelief.

Merra screamed.

7

Nightmare

F
OR TERRIFYING SECONDS
B
RIAN'S ONLY IMPRESSIONS
were of noise and blinding lights, of hordes of hurrying humans, strangely dressed, who were swirling about them, and of impossible mechanisms on wheels that seemed to be charging madly upon them from all directions.

He and Merra had fallen in a tangle on the edge of hard pavement, and for a dazed and bewildered moment he was unable to move or even think. Then the blare of horns and the sudden sharp awareness of the hurtling things on wheels brought him to his senses. He managed to stand up and jerk Merra to her feet, then he pulled her through the moving press of people to what appeared to be the entrance of an incredible building made of glass. It took them out of the human tide and gave them a chance to take stock of this monstrous caldron of another era into which they had tumbled.

Gradually Brian's shock wore off. The size of the place awed him, but everything about it repelled him. He stared blankly at the endless streams of people, wondering where they came from, where they were going. So many, many people! Why did they build their buildings so impossibly high? Why did they jam their streets with those frightening machines? And the lights—he couldn't get over them. It was night here, but the lights made it bright as day. Lights uncounted, garish, flashing, constantly changing color and pattern. And under it all was something he'd never heard before: the sound of a monster city. It was humming, grinding, blaring …

“It—it's like a horrid dream,” Merra whispered, her hand clinging tightly to his arm.

“Yes. I can't understand why Cerid ever chose such a place as this.”

“She didn't. It was the formula. All she knew was that it would take her safely into the future.”

“Do you suppose she landed here, in
this
spot?”

“She must have. Or a place very close.”

Brian shook his head. “What a chance she took! She might have been killed.”

“Yes, but she hardly cared. You mustn't forget that she was nearly out of her mind with grief. I—I would have run too—just as fast and as far as I could. The Dryads are that way. Bringing the sword and hiding it here was almost—well, I mean she wouldn't have dreamed of doing it ordinarily.”

“But—but where around here would she have hidden it?” His eyes followed the soaring lines of the impossible sky-reaching structures that made a deep valley of the street. “Don't tell me she left it in one of
those
places!”

“I—I hope not—and I really don't think so. Remember those words she gave after the formula? There was
docteur le grande
, which we must have heard wrong—”

“I remember.
Docteur
is teacher, and why would she refer to a great teacher? It doesn't fit. Besides, it's French.”

“Well,
mouseion
isn't French, and we all agreed it was what Cerid said and meant. It has to be right, for
mouseion
is a place for the muses—which naturally is where people go to sing or recite poetry, or maybe hear the minstrels and troubadours.”

Brian looked doubtful. “This doesn't seem to me like a city that cared much for poetry. As for minstrels and troubadours …”

He stopped suddenly and peered around. “What's happened to Tancred?”

“Don't worry about him. He flew up when we fell, and he's off somewhere looking things over. Oh—here he comes!”

The nightingale appeared as she spoke and settled again on her shoulder, making harsh little twitterings as if he did not care for what he had seen. At the same moment a group of oddly dressed youths in sleeveless brown jackets drifted around the corner at the edge of the crowd. There was the hint of a swagger in their movements, but they proceeded warily, their restless eyes seemingly taking in everything around them. Brian, ever watchful, caught sight of them first. Uneasiness shot through him as one of the youths paused abruptly and pointed at Merra.

“Hey, dig the chick wit' th' boid!”

Instantly the group crowded close, staring at Tancred while one of them asked questions in a sharp, nasal voice. “What kinda boid's that? You got 'im trained, huh?”