Mists of Everness

by John C. Wright

  Lemuel turned and bowed to Pendrake. “Mr. Pendrake, I need your permission to do this work.”

  “Certainly, you have it,” said Pendrake, hiding whether he felt any puzzlement.

  “Then touch me on the shoulder with your sword.”

  Pendrake snorted as if he thought the idea was mildly absurd, and it was somewhat awkward raising the enchanted blade with two people crowded around him on the chariot car. But, leaning out, he touched Lemuel on the shoulder with the flat of the gleaming blade.

  Then, with no more ado, Pendrake snapped the ribbons holding the cats, shouting, “Hey up, Whiskers, Muffin, Snuggles! On Smudge, on Frisky! On Fluffy!”

  Several cats turned and regarded Pendrake with looks of infinite dignity and infinite disdain. One yawned, her little pink tongue flicking in the air. Another began to wash her paws.

  “I hate cats … ,” muttered Pendrake, then, louder, “Titania, can you get your pets to move their tails?”

  Titania nodded and pointed to the East, and immediately the tiny, furry figures were leaping into the air. The chariot was yanked skyward in one long, dizzying swoop of motion. Pendrake wrestled with the reins, his black cape flapping around him. To his left and right Van Dam and Raven clung to the slim, silver rails with both hands. Wendy was flying in the midst of the cluster of cats, sometimes on her face, sometimes on her back with her fingers twined behind her head.

  Pendrake said to Raven over the noise of the wind, “There is a navigational instrument in my weapons harness under my right armpit, could you get it for me? I don’t have a free hand. Do you see the coil of fiber-optic of my television periscope? It’s a little black box in the holster just under that.”

  “Everything here is little black box! Is it this?”

  “No, that’s my radar jammer. Leave that on anyway; it will make sure we don’t get shot down. The Loran box is right there under my right arm. Do you see the line of grenades on a bandolier? Okay, moving up the belt, you should see three pockets, one with a filter mask, one with an ultraviolet lamp, and then …”

  “I have it.”

  “Can you give me a reading?”

  “Yes, is same as we use aboard ship.” And he read off their longitude and latitude, and gave the bearing the instrument showed.

  “I should hope it is considerably smaller than the Loran you have aboard ship,” said Pendrake.

  Raven turned his head. The darkened sea had fallen away in long swooping plunges of swift motion; the aircraft carrier and the ruins of Acheron were gone from sight. “Wish I could hear what Titania saying to Merlin, you know?”

  “Ah,” said Pendrake “dial the radio-phone clipped to my belt to the channel marked ‘memory six.’ That should tune us in to the bugging device I left on Azrael.”

  22

  The Sword of the Just

  I

  Titania’s voice came over the tiny radio. They had missed the beginnings of her conversation with Merlin Azrael.

  “Behold the wise magician! So wise. Wise enough to find the heir of Uther when Uther left no heir. Wagging tongues claimed the child was some bastard son of Gorlois or of Ector. How cleverly you stilled those tongues by showing all the land the miracle of the sword in the stone! But why was it none ever guessed that the babe the magician found, and proved to be the rightwise king born of England by a magic trick, was indeed the magician’s own son? A miracle indeed!”

  Azrael Merlin’s voice: “A hidden catch held the sword in place till Arthur’s hand was on the hilt. He never guessed that I stood nearby on the platform, with my toe upon the switch. To him it seemed a miracle indeed. Do you question my rightness? I faced terrible foes; all the kingdom was torn; that small lie let Arthur never doubt his rightness to rule!”

  “A great and enduring rightness, Emrys. How ran the rest of your little lie? You said he was the son of Uther and Igraine, oh, happy fate! To be thus the heir both of Caer Leon and likewise of King Lot’s estate! Blood of mingled houses, he, to whom both houses owed due loyalty.”

  “Mingled blood indeed, O Lady of the Lake. Your own son you mock; though, by law, you could not deny him the arms which he rowed out upon the lake to take. All men saw those who came on Easter Day to do him homage, the petty kings and barons of great estate. But only you and I saw what ancient ones came forth from the deep greenwood on that moonless night to dance him fairy-rings and anoint him with immortal powers, for they could not deny him what fealty to thy blood, O Vivian, required.”

  “Were you pleased, then, with your works, O Mage? What matters it if a dead king and a living widow were name-blackened and branded with adultery?”

  “You dare, madame, to upbraid me, that I branded others with a name better deserved by you?”

  “Your part in that was not small, as I recall, my lover.”

  “Indeed; but I hold it as a unstained honor. I made a kingdom!”

  “And what did you give the king?”

  “In that first fairy-ring which danced around him, he saw the mystery and power; and he bad me devise for him a table of like shape, to make all equal who sat there, a table without head or foot, and all the tiresome squabbling of priority and precedent made hush. The dolmens at Stonehenge he likewise commanded I erect, to bind the spirits of heaven, that his Round Table never fail while ancient stones still stood. But there was a secret flaw within the staunchest pillar which I took for my main support, the mighty champion of the Lady of the Lake, Sir Lancelot. Your champion, madame!”

  “And what else did you give the king?”

  “I do not know your meaning, madame.”

  “Where was the Moly Wand that was meant to be his scepter? To allow him to see the truth and falsehood in all hearts? The treasons of Lancelot would have been discovered in an instant, had he had it. But, no, I forget. Your lies would have been discovered all as well. How necessary to the kingdom’s weal were your practical, dark-minded schemings now?”

  “Is this, finally, the reason for your terrible betrayal of me? My long imprisonment?”

  “What imprisonment was that? Surely if the Silver Key had been in the King’s hand, as we agreed when I told you how to slay my husband’s unicorn, and steal the power of the beast Oberon used to betray and slaughter Ouranos (the power I gave you!), the High King, my son, he could have instantly released you, for that is the nature of keys. Was it cold in the roots of the world-tree where I locked you? I thought the kingdom might prevail without your meddling; yet I was wrong; and I was equally as cold as I stood upon the boat looking down at my dying son after Mordred’s blow; cold in the sea-wind, terribly cold, without the arrows of Belphanes to warm me, without the Grail to give me hope. He had sent them out to find it, don’t you know, but could not uncover where you had hidden it. And so I took my son back home.”

  “My son as well, who should have stayed on Earth, with me! I could have dream-cursed Mordred, had I been free, or blamed him for some horrid crime, or met him with venom-coated dart shot in secret from afar. Any of these means would have served the King, provided always that he never learned of them. But now, what evil fate oppresses me! I shall never see my son awake until the world’s last day! You stole my son and stole my life, Queen of the Other World! And now you ask me to restore the pomp and power of Oberon, another husband you have betrayed!”

  “To let the Sun be reborn, and bring the world to life again. No one knows the secret of Oberon’s Cauldron but he. Are you still so loyal to the Pendragon? Another holds the Pendragonship today. He is of your blood. He, and all the Waylock line, and all the world alike will die in darkness, if you lift not your curse on Oberon. Think, think, O Wizard, and all your pride in all your dark service to the kingdom; where is your pride now? Where your loyalty? Swept away by jealousy? By hate? How then is this world of today so different from our failures in Albion? How are you different?”

  There was a long silence. The signal began to fade.

  “And if I say I will lift my curse on Oberon, if the Pendragon will
lift his arrest of me, and grant me liberty?”

  “You saw him speak to Morningstar. Do you think he will agree? Do you think anything you do will persuade him to allow you to escape the punishments you have earned for your many murders? Why do you turn away? Do you realize, now, at last, that no just kingdom can be built upon injustice?”

  “Prometheus! I see you there. Put that down and answer me; you can see the future! Should I demand my freedom, even if it means the world die in frozen gloom? Will the Pendragon capitulate to my demand? What does your wisdom say?”

  There was a long pause over the radio. Then the deep, rapid voice of Prometheus came over the channel. “I don’t see it matters. With a simple application of the technology I showed them, men can build their own sun now. A sufficient charge of antimatter directed at the planet Jupiter would ignite …”

  The signal began to fade in washes of static.

  Raven said, “Prometheus really my father? Is nothing like me!”

  Wendy called back over her shoulder, “I wouldn’t say that, you little titan, you!” and she laughed.

  Pendrake said, “Is that Merlin fellow related to me? The man’s a bloodthirsty maniac. Scary guy. He’s nothing like me.”

  Van Dam, clinging with both hands to the chariot railing at Pendrake’s elbow, stared up at the tall figure in wind-whipped black billows, the deadly weapons and amazing equipment neatly holstered in his black harness, the magic sword thrust unsheathed through his belt. Van Dam whispered to himself, “I wouldn’t say that …”

  II

  As the cat-drawn chariot flew over Los Angeles, they saw the city still standing; but the electrical power was out, and there were torches and fires in the streets, screams and mob-roars.

  Pendrake saw the Beast of War crouched over the city.

  It turned and fled at his coming.

  Raven held the instrument Pendrake had given him, which stimulated the sleep center of the brain. When they landed the chariot in the midst of the rioters, the electricity that streamed from Raven’s hands caused people in the mobs to fall, but only into sleep. In a moment half the people were down.

  The other half stared in awe at the black-cloaked figure hovering in the chariot. Pendrake brandished the sword. An instrument electronically amplified his voice to echo across the city: “Return to your homes! Every crime you commit is being watched! You cannot hide because those around you do evil! Looters will be punished! Whatever injustice you imagine you have suffered at the hands of others shall be redressed!”

  The mob became a crowd, and thinned, and fled like fog before the sun.

  In the air, passing over the Rocky Mountains, Raven said, “Why did they believe you?”

  Wendy, surrounded by flying cats, called back, “I think I did that! Something Mommy said, and I thought that maybe the Moly Wand can make a person feel when someone is lying. I let them feel Daddy’s words. And they thought they were true! Or maybe I just waved the wand in the air and nothing actually happened …”

  They landed again in Kansas City, and in Baltimore. Only once did Raven have to call down a thunderstroke to daze the mobs. Where they found federal troops fighting local militia, Van Dam was able to order the federal officers to disarm. Along three major highways they cleared roadblocks and ordered the tanks to stand aside. The truck drivers with their shotguns, who had been besieging the federal troops, cheered as they flew off, shooting into the air to salute them.

  As they flew over Washington D.C., they saw troops on every street corner, tanks and armored vehicles blockading the streets; but in other places, wrecked cars had been piled one atop the other, blockading the federal troops in turn; and militia from Virginia and Maryland prevented the federal troops from moving. The capital was paralyzed.

  Pendrake, looking down, said, “This city was designed for barricades.”

  Raven said, “Always heard had bad traffic here, you know?”

  Van Dam said, “Why are the Virginians here in arms but not the Districters who live here?”

  Pendrake said, “The only people with guns in the District are criminals. Here is the Capitol. Van Dam, I’m going to land between those two machine-gun nests on the Capitol stairs next to that armored personnel carrier. Do you think your badge can get us into the building?”

  “Well, sir, I can try. But look at all that television equipment; the Vice President, excuse me, I mean the President, is addressing Congress, like the announcement said over your radio. We might have some trouble.”

  Raven looked up at the still-nighted sky, the autumn constellations hanging, despite the season, above streams of black clouds. At his frown, lightnings flickered around the outline of those clouds. “Am ready for trouble,” said Raven, “but those who try to make this country, free country, like Russia? Ha! They are not ready.”

  The chariot landed.

  III

  Van Dam’s credentials got them past the first set of guards at the outer doors and then past the next set who were guarding the lobby with drawn machine guns. The security officer merely looked at Van Dam’s face, grunted, saluted, and waved him on through. But they made Pendrake leave his sword in the lobby, and his weapons. He carefully tied his weapon harness to the sword hilt, wrapping them together with a leather band, before turning it over to the sergeant-at-arms.

  Once they were beyond that guard post and out of sight, Pendrake opened his hand, and spirals of gold rainbows formed themselves into his sword again. The harness was still attached, with all his gear, and he took a moment to shrug back into it.

  They continued forward, footsteps echoing off the wainscoting and the vaulted ceilings.

  Then they were in the long, main marbled corridor leading to the congressional chambers. There were a line of sandbags across the corridor, and fifty-caliber machine guns on tripod mounts peered out across the top of the bags to cover the length of the corridor. A voice from behind the bags shouted for them to halt.

  Van Dam stepped forward, raised his badge overhead, and identified himself.

  A voice said, “I’m sorry, Colonel Van Dam, but we have orders to shoot anyone who tries to come down this corridor, no matter who it is, till the President has finished his broadcast.”

  “But this is an emergency!”

  A warning shot ricocheted off the marble near his feet.

  The group backed up around a corner. They stood in a narrower side corridor, one carpeted in red, lined in dark wood paneling, interrupted by large, oak doors.

  Raven said, “Pendrake, think I can knock them all out, even if not outdoors, with thunder.”

  Pendrake took out his grenade launcher and put on his goggles. “We don’t have much time before the announcement. I don’t have any spare photomultiplier goggles; you’ll all have to hang on to my cape. Raven, on my mark, thunderstrike them, and douse the area with a nonlethal electric charge.” He had his launcher in one hand, a long-barreled dart gun in the other. “These men are not criminals, and the neurotoxin I’m using takes three seconds to take effect. Ready?”

  Raven stepped out, his face unnaturally calm; and when he snapped his fingers, the echo from the walls shattered the air, breaking windows and chandeliers.

  A group of overeager soldiers came over the top of the sandbags, guns ready. Beams of lightning gushed from Raven’s eyes; and where he glanced, soldiers toppled, paralyzed with convulsions.

  Pendrake leaned around the corner and fired. The sandbags were obscured in black smoke. The soldiers, unable to see, held their fire. Pendrake strode quickly down the corridor, spreading smoke as he went, Van Dam, Raven, and his daughter behind him, holding on to his cape hem.

  Inside the gas cloud, Raven, despite that he could not see, made no noise as he walked, and Wendy floated. Pendrake, who could see everything clearly, stepped around the groping and blinded soldiers, those few who had not been rendered unconscious by Raven.

  Twice Van Dam bumbled into a soldier; both times Pendrake casually turned and shot a dart into an exposed arm
or neck before the soldier could react. The lieutenant on duty was shouting to his men to gather in a line and block the corridor. Pendrake turned on his pocket tape recorder, taped a sentence or two of the lieutenant’s voice, shot the man with a dart, and then threw the tape machine down the corridor, where it repeated a phrase calling for the men to gather to him.

  Raven’s fingers stiffened on Pendrake’s shoulder. “Smell grave-dirt.”

  “I see him, Mr. Varovitch.”

  Pendrake’s goggles gave him a clear view of the skeletal hand, with elongated fingernails, reaching around the edge of the corridor up ahead and then the unnaturally tall, hideously thin shadow which followed it.

  Koschei took a position in front of the great doors leading into the congressional chamber. His famished, thin face floated near the level of the upper lintel; his crown of severed fingers was higher still. The dark fog he wore stretched from one side of the door to the other, and bones like chicken claws reached down from his greaves to scratch the marble to either side of his thin feet.

  Koschei loomed horribly in Pendrake’s view, and the rib cages he wore as breastplate opened and closed like a man drumming his fingernails, sharp ribs folding and unfolding from Koschei’s midsection.

  One of the soldiers called out, “Get them when they try for the door!” and then sagged, a moment later, as Pendrake, without turning his head, casually shot a dart into him.

  Koschei said, “You shall not pass, Pendragon! You shall not pass by me.” The points of green light that served him for eyes were not deceived by the smoke or by Pendrake’s black garments, but they stared with sinister hatred at Pendrake.

  When the dart he shot into Koschei had no effect, Pendrake drew his magic sword. “You have to let go of me, Raven, Van Dam. I fenced a bit in college. Let’s see how much I recall.”