torg 01 - Storm Knights (20 page)

Bryce's eyes widened when he saw that the flower was just as crisp and fresh-looking as the first time he had seen it.

"Well, anyway, how are you today?" he asked, avoiding asking about the unwilted flower and the scars on her legs. He had spent the better part of his adult life questioning and seeking answers to his questions. Once again, in return for his questions, life had not supplied answers to him, only more questions.

Her mouth split in a grin, showing white, evenly spaced teeth. "Hungry," she said.

Bryce laughed at her robust appetite. "Coyote and Rat are bringing breakfast. They should be here soon."

As they waited, he gently led her to the only chair in the room, got her to sit in it, and arranged the bed table to the correct height for her. As he did all this he spoke of small things, the weather and the heavy traffic in the city. He knew little of what he said made any sense to her, but his aimless chatter seemed to ease her tension.

When the boys arrived with the food, they sat with Bryce and Tolwyn. They joked about the quality, or the lack of quality, of hospital food. Tolwyn never noticed or laughed at their jokes, and she ate as if she hadn't had a meal in a lifetime.

The taste of the food never mattered to her. What mattered was that it was food. Tolwyn used the last half slice of toast to mop up the last bit of yolk on her plate and shoved the yellowed toast into her mouth. She popped the last bit of bacon into a mouth still busy chewing toast, leaned back in her chair, swallowed and burped contentedly.

Rat and Coyote laughed at the fine eating display, and at the look of shock on Bryce's face. Slowly, he began to giggle, joining the boys. Mystified, Tolwyn watched them roll with laughter. Then, without really knowing why, she laughed, too.

When they finally settled down, Tolwyn grew very quiet. Rat and Coyote looked at each other. It was evident that they were still trying to figure Tolwyn out. So am I, thought Bryce.

"Christopher Bryce," Tolwyn began hesitantly, "there is a deep gorge in my dreams lately. I have never been to this place before, never seen its like. What does it mean, Christopher Bryce? Why can I not remember?"

60

Claudine Guerault, French correspondant for the international wire services, examined the murder site with professional care. Chalk marks on the ground traced where the two bodies were found, a young French boy and a Japanese diplomat. Both had been stabbed to death. The international ramifications were yet to be determined, but with the events transpiring in America and Great Britain, Guerault did not believe it would make much of an impact. Still, she had a job to do.

Clicking on her tape recorder, Guerault began to verbally take notes. So far, the police had no suspects, no motives.

"Inspector, is it true that the Japanese diplomat was on his way to a meeting at Elysee Palace when he was murdered? That he was going to meet with the Prime Minister?" Guerault asked the officer in charge of the investigation.

"No comment, Ms. Guerault," the inspector said, waving her off. "I refuse to speculate about a case still under investigation."

"Inspector, come here please," said one of the other officers. Behar followed behind him.

"Look at this sir," said the officer, "we found it in the trash bin."

It was a leather briefcase of fine craftsmanship and make. Obviously an expensive accouterment, very much like something a diplomat might carry.

Using his gloved hand, the inspector snapped the latch and opened the case. Inside was a portable computer of some sort. Claudine Guerault noted the impressive logo on the machine, a chrome "K" on a red circle. It was not from a company she recognized.

"Ms. Guerault, if you don't mind," the inspector said, an annoyed tone in his voice.

"Excuse me, inspector, but I have everything I need for the moment. I will call you later today to see if there have been any breakthroughs." With that, Guerault turned and left the alley, her dark hair bouncing as she walked.

When she reached the main street, she had to push her way through a crowd of people listening to a preacher. The preacher caught her eye, and she noticed that he was staring at her as he spoke. He was dressed in monk's robes, reminding her of something out of the Middle Ages. She looked back at the man, but he had already turned away to address the crowd.

"The True Church is coming, and when it arrives it will drive the heathens and blasphemers before it as a strong wind drives a storm," the preacher spoke powerfully, inspiringly. But he was not an isolated case these days. Similar preachers had appeared all through Paris and the rest of France, proclaiming that the world was about to change.

"Repent!" the preacher yelled out, his gaze was again fixed on the reporter. "Admit your sins and seek the True Church!"

Guerault shivered, though the day was unusually warm. A side effect of the longer days and nights, she assumed. The world was changing, she realized. Maybe the preacher was right, maybe she should repent.

She almost laughed aloud at the thought, then dismissed the preacher and his crowd as she went to file her story.

61

Tolwyn dreamed. She dreamed of confusion and alarm on a bright, rolling plain. She dreamed of battle in a field where the wind-rippled waves of crys flowers were crushed and stained red with the blood of warriors, where a once-beautiful land was churned under foot and claw and cloven hoof. There were other memories associated with the battle, but they refused to surface yet, so her mind traveled further into the tunnel of time.

Now her dream was of the day she ran out of childhood and directly, unheedingly, into the back of Duke Tancred himself. He walked through the narrow,

flagstone-paved lanes of the castle gardens, with his hands clasped at the small of his back and his head bent in thought. Tolwyn's lithe, running form caromed off the solid, warrior's body of the Duke, and she spun to a standing halt in a bed of fragrant mint. The Duke, caught completely off guard, went sprawling from the path, his hands digging up the soft earth, crushing the leaves and releasing the strong aromas of basil and chicory as he tried to halt his fall. With her hands covering her mouth and her eyes wide with apprehension over the consequences of her action, Tolwyn silently watched the Duke roll quickly onto his back, gather his legs under him, and reach for the gold-hilted dagger he wore at his belt.

"Tolwyn!" the Duke roared laughingly, his eyes losing their feral, battle-ready hardness as he recognized the girl standing knee deep in a bed of mint. "Never," he grunted while hauling himself to his feet and brushing dirt and leaves from his clothing, "Never in all my campaigns have I been dealt such a blow. Do you realize, child, that you have succeeded in doing what the assembled hosts of continental chivalry have never done? You, Tolwyn of House Tancred, have 'unhorsed' the mighty, undefeated Duke Tancred."

He chuckled and added, "I suppose I shall have to change that last epithet. I may still be mighty, but I am certainly not undefeated."

"Oh, how the mighty have fallen," said Tolwyn softly, forced by her quick humor to speak the words aloud to the Duke.

The Duke's soft laughter subsided as his thoughts returned to the troubles beginning to plague his country. Soon it would be called the War of Crowns, but for now it was just "the troubles." Quietly he observed Tolwyn where she stood watching him, her smile of relief brought about by the Duke's good humor faltering as somberness overtook him. She feared she had pushed the Duke too far with that last spoken jest.

Abruptly, he asked, "How old are you now, girl?"

"Twelve, father," Tolwyn answered, quietly at first, then gaining animation as she continued. "But I shall be counted thirteen at the summer solstice and gain the right to wear the maiden's twin braids as I wait to be taken to wife."

"Your mother was the best warrior who ever fought at my left hand side," Duke Tancred said, studying Tolwyn, almost as if he had not heard her answer to his question.

"I do not remember her, father."

"We are both more aware of that than we would ever want to be, daughter." The Duke shrugged his shoulders as if trying to shed the weight of a heavy, water-soaked mantle. "Well, conquering maiden of House Tancred, what is it you would wish to do?" he asked lightly, attempting to force the river of his thoughts into other, shallower channels.

"Was it truly a mighty blow that I struck?"

"The mightiest," he answered with mock seriousness.

"Perhaps, then, father," Tolwyn said musingly, "I should be a soldier and a warrior as was my mother."

The Duke reached out his hand to his daughter. As Tolwyn began to reach out to her father, she saw his palm turn to cinnamon brown, and the skin of his wrist and arm become black. She looked up and her father was gone, replaced by an old black man clad in a loincloth. She looked about for her father and saw that the gardens were gone, and the castle. She and the black man stood high on a wind-swept shore overlooking a turbulent ocean.

The black man was lean and wiry and held a knotted rope in his right hand. When his broad face broke into a grin, she saw that he was missing one tooth, and she saw the hole in his tongue. "G'day, luv, where's the blokes that are supposed to be with you?" the black man asked.

When Tolwyn had no answer for him, the aborigine studied her, shook his head from side to side, making his mound of white hair jiggle. He lost his grin, and said comfortingly, "No worries, it's too soon for you to be out here in the never never. Best you go back, now."

The aborigine pointed into the eastern distance, and Tolwyn felt herself hurtling through the air. She flew over desert lands; blue, white-capped waves; a rocky, shore; large cities full of tall buildings and milling people; and landed, on her hands and knees, in orange sand sparsely dotted with scrub brush. From somewhere in the long shadows of late afternoon, she heard a hunting howl. The horizon and the nearer distances were pierced with craggy, vertical formations of rock that rose starkly from the orange sands into the gathering blackness of the sky. Nearer still, illuminated by the sinking sun at Tolwyn's back were two monumental, weather-carved formations that looked like two mit-tened hands, with clumped fingers and separate thumbs, raised in salute to the coming of night.

"I am in the gorge," Tolwyn realized. Deeper still, down in the great crack in the ground, she saw a subtle blue-red glow emerging from a cave. The light spoke to her, but she couldn't hear the words. She only felt the pain and fear, the unfathomable call for help.

"I am coming," she whispered, "I vow that I will finish my mission."

Then she fell into a deeper, dreamless sleep.

62

Tolwyn awoke to sunlight and the smell of bacon. She blinked away the sleep and saw that Christopher Bryce was at the window, opening the curtains to let in the light.

"So, at last you're awake," said Bryce in a glad voice. "You've slept away the whole morning and most of the afternoon." He seemed pleased that she had awakened.

"I remember my father, Christopher Bryce," Tolwyn said. "I dreamed about him last night."

"That's good, that shows progress," Bryce said. "What was Mr. Miller like?"

Tolwyn looked at him strangely, but ignored his question. "What manner of beast is calling?" she asked.

"Beast?" asked Bryce, startled at her question.

"Aye, that howling I hear. Do not tell me you cannot hear it screaming madly just outside the walls of this castle."

"Oh, that's the wind. There have been incredible storms since everything began. And now I hear that they think the planet is slowing down. I honestly don't understand what the world is coming to."

Tolwyn looked questioningly at Bryce. "You mean it is taking longer for the light to make its journey through the world?"

Now it was Bryce's turn to be confused. "Come over here. Take a look out the window."

She threw the sheet back and started to slide out of the bed. She swung her legs over the side and placed her feet on the floor. Her hospital gown began to rise up her thighs.

"Wait," said Bryce, "let me get a robe for you."

Wrapped in a blue, antiseptic-smelling hospital robe, Tolwyn stood next to the short figure of Bryce and looked out the window. Winds of hurricane force hurled litter, debris, leaves, and unidentifiable flotsam through paved streets lined with tall brick buildings. Hard-driven rain rattled against the glass of the window. Huge clouds scudded visibly across the sky and over the towering rooftops, looming ominously. In the streets below, a few military and police vehicles fought to make headway against the wind, uselessly trying to enforce martial law in a city whose citizens had locked themselves up in whatever safe place they could find, trying to survive the storms.

Tolwyn looked from the sky to the buildings and then to the vehicles moving slowly through the streets. "Christopher Bryce," she said, "this is not the world in which I was born and in which I died."

"What ...?" But before he could ask more, the young woman spoke again.

"I must find the gorge in my dreams, Christopher Bryce. It is my mission, the purpose for which I came here."

"Tolwyn, I don't understand."

"I am Tolwyn. My father is Duke Bordal of House Tancred. Those are the sum of my memories right now, but I know that something calls to me from the bottom of the gorge. I must go to it, I must answer its call."