The Golden Shield of IBF

by Jerry Ahern; Sharon Ahern

  “Never! Anyway, I was more interested in a bribe than a threat. So think of something interesting.” He bounced her in his arms like a child, and she laughed like one, her hands clutching his shoulders. “Come on! Let’s hear it!”

  “I’ll kiss you and kiss you and kiss you until—”

  “Sounds like a deal to me, darling.” Garrison set her down, drew her into his arms and kissed her hard.

  After a long time which wasn’t time enough, they walked together hand in hand toward the summit from beneath which the waterfall spilled. When they looked toward what Garrison mentally labeled the west—the sun set in that part of Creath—before them stretched higher and higher foothills, and snow-covered mountains beyond. A segment of the vast Arba’Il’Tac was also visible, vanishing within the peaks. The sight of the plateau’s unremitting stone sent a shiver of memory along Garrison’s spine.

  To what Garrison instinctively considered the north and east lay the sea. Woroc’Il’Lod’s enormity was, at first, hard for him to comprehend. Erg’Ran had shown him a map which looked familiarly like a standard projection for a flat surface map of the Earth, except for the sizes, shapes and positions of the continents and the almost total absence of islands. As he’d already known, there was but one continent here, but that one more like a series of continents interconnected by vast land bridges. There was only one true island chain, located what seemed to be a quarter of the planet’s circumference from the Land to the north, off Edge Land.

  Men of science and letters such as Erg’Ran had long known that Creath was round, although the planet had never been circumnavigated. It was just as the thinkers of Classical Greece had known the true shape of the Earth two millennia before Columbus or Magellan embarked upon their historic voyages. There had never been, however, nor likely would be a circumnavigation of Creath for two reasons: the planet’s land masses were all known, through the use of magic and the second-sight; and although there was no fear of “falling off” the edge of the world, in actuality sea creatures did wait to destroy ships and devour those foolish enough to be aboard them.

  The only race of seafarers anywhere in Creath, according to Erg’Ran, was to be found on the island chain, its inhabitants the Gle’Ur’Gya. The Gle’Ur’Gya rarely interacted with the folk of the Land. From Erg’Ran s description of them, if they shared a common evolutionary heritage at all, the Gle’Ur’Gya were as genetically dissimilar to the inhabitants of the Land as were the more esoteric forms of Australian fauna to the general run of terrestrial species.

  Garrison could fault no one for avoiding the vast global ocean of which he was able to glimpse only the most frigid part.

  Woroc’Il’Lod’s tidal surges were beyond anything Garrison had ever considered possible. Once, as a child, his family unwittingly found itself in the path of a hurricane. Despite the intervening years, Garrison’s recollection of the awesome height and force with which the Atlantic pounded against the Florida coast had not dimmed. Along the coasts of Creath, such was normal. He’d seen this with his own eyes over the last several days, from this very vantage point he shared with Swan. Erg’Ran had told him that, at certain periods of the year, there were waves of incredible proportions which moved in cyclonic rotation, floating hurricane-like, as Garrison referenced it, over the surface of the ocean. This occurred when Creath s two moons crossed orbital paths and was a result of their combined gravitational effect, Garrison presumed.

  “We’ll be out there soon,” Garrison observed.

  Swan held to him more tightly. “I wish that my magic could carry us all across it. But in order to accomplish that, I would have virtually none remaining when we reached shore. And I’ll need magic there.”

  “Let me ask you something,” Garrison began. The breeze was stiffening a little as the sun declined. He folded her more closely in his arms. “This place. How does it work?”

  Swan seemed to consider his words for several seconds, then responded, “You are wondering why we are safe here.”

  “I can accept the fact that the magic from the dead K’Ur’Mir protects this spot. Erg’Ran told me about it the other evening. He’d told Gar’Ath how that came to be, how he lost his foot. Spooky. And the other night he told me, said I had a right to know. But how come there isn’t an army of your mother’s goons waiting just outside the gates for us, laying siege?”

  “It wouldn’t do my mother any good, Al’An. It’s not just the keep and the courtyard and the walls which enjoy the protection of the spells cast by the dying K’Ur’Mir, it’s the surrounding area, for many, many lancethrows in all directions, including the sea.”

  “Fine, then why isn’t there an armada waiting offshore to intercept us?” Garrison didn’t know, for fact, that there wouldn’t be.

  Evidently, Swan was having difficulty with the word “armada” and Garrison explained. “It’s a fleet of ships for war.” Telling her about the Spanish Armada in 1588 wouldn’t have done much good, he supposed.

  “My mother has few ships, Al’An, only those which ply the coastal waters. There is no such thing here as an armada.”

  “So all we have to worry about between this coast and the far coast is ice dragons.”

  “And the other sea monsters, yes.”

  Garrison blinked. “Other sea monsters?”

  “I told you, Al’An, that my mother brought the ice dragons out of their great sleep? But there were always other creatures inhabiting the great ocean, some of them in Woroc’Il’Lod.”

  “So, monsters, but no bad guys.”

  Swan paused before responding. “The Gle’Ur’Gya? Some of their number are—” Garrison realized that she was searching for a word. Then, as if the lightbulb suddenly went on in a cartoon, she said, “Pirates! Some of the Gle’Ur’Gya attack coastal ships, my mother’s these days. Before my mother’s rule, when there was coastal trade, the Gle’Ur’Gya were more active.”

  Garrison shrugged his eyebrows. “At least these guys—the Gle’Ur’Gya—aren’t on your mom’s side. That’s something, I guess. If we meet up with any, maybe we can get them on our side.”

  “That would be wonderful, because they are very great fighters, especially the pirates.”

  “Okay, so all we have to worry about between here and Edge Land is pirates and sea monsters and ice dragons. And, on the plus side, we might be able to get the pirates to help us in the battle.” Garrison surmised that he really was going nuts...

  * * *

  The days at the summer palace were always warm and bright, nary a cloud in the sky. The weather was magically “programmed” for rain every day just before dawn, in order that the plants and flowers would get the moisture they required. There’d be no need to have The Weather Channel in a basic cable package here. He told that to Swan, then had to explain about basic cable which led to a short dissertation on Marconi and the invention of the wireless.

  At night, the skies above the summer palace and its environs were always clear and the stars were always sparkling and beautiful. He sat beneath them with Swan, on the keep steps, a good dinner in his stomach, a cup of wine beside him, a cigarette lit in his left hand from a continuously full pack.

  It was magic responsible for that full pack, magic responsible for the perfection of the summer palace. And magic, he knew, was the reason that he was here, alive.

  “Tell me,” Garrison almost whispered, “how you saved my life.”

  Swan leaned her head against his chest, her voice low. “I saw what was about to happen, with the second-sight.”

  “And you intervened. How?”

  Swan turned her face up toward him. “I couldn’t let you die, Al’An. You would not have been here if it were not for me, nor would you have fought the winged beast were it not for me. That was the most formidable of the creatures my mother raised up to destroy us, which meant that she knew that you were the Champion, and had to destroy you.”

  “Are those the only reasons?” Garrison asked her, his eyes leaving hers, focusing on the glo
wing tip of his cigarette, its pinpoint of light like a star held in the hand.

  “I couldn’t lose you, Al’An. I knew from the first moment that I saw you that...”

  Garrison kissed the tip of her nose. It was a very pretty nose. “When we were sitting in that little snack shop at the con, I was realizing that I loved you. Does that help with saying it?”

  “Yes.”

  “So,” he said, clearing his throat, “you just did what then?”

  “I wasn’t certain how to bring the winged beast softly to the ground so that you would not die. I had never done something like that, had never read a spell for that. But I did know a spell for shifting the life energy—”

  “The soul? The mind?”

  Swan seemed to ponder his words, then answered, “We think of things in different ways, but they’re the same. I knew that I could take the life that was in you, the essence of you, and transfer it to something else, another living creature. And I could return it to your body. Healing your body was merely the acceleration of natural processes, ordinary magic. We’ve spoken of this.”

  “Yes,” he nodded.

  “But if your life energy left your body at the moment of death, it would be irretrievable. You never died, Al’An. I know this has worried you. Your body was grievously injured, moreso than you would ever want to know. But the body can be made to heal itself. I kept your life energy in the bird until I was certain that I could restore your body and had restored it enough that it would hold your life energy and not surrender you to death. That took very little time. The bones in your chest were crushed, and had penetrated your heart and your lungs. I commanded the bones to return to their original position and shape. They still had to heal, of course. I ordered your lungs to seal, so that air could enter and leave. Your heart would heal, but it had ceased to beat.”

  “And?”

  She seemed oddly embarrassed. “I, uh, I ordered that your flesh and muscle should part over your heart, and I touched it with my hand.”

  Garrison was suddenly very cold, his body shaking. He snapped away the cigarette, rubbed his hand over his jaw. “You touched my heart,” he said slowly. “Silly girl for being embarrassed.” he whispered. “You touch my heart every time I think of you.” And he kissed her...

  Because of the tidal surges, Garrison supposed, the concept of a dock or wharf to which a ship could be tied was unheard of. Any such structure, if built high enough to be left unassailed by the pounding water, would leave whatever vessel secured to it accessible only by climbing down a ladder. Meanwhile, the boat would be battered to pieces by the tides.

  Garrison thought that the solution to Creath’s maritime dilemma was, considering the general lack of technology, ingenious. Ships were kept to a size reminiscent to him of those used by the Norsemen. Their overall canoe-like shape, high prows and simple mast structure were similar to Viking craft as well. When put in to shore at what passed for a naval facility, the ships were brought from and back to the water on parallel skids, not dissimilar to railroad tracks in gauge. Since the coastlines were constantly eroding, as the sea claimed more of the land, the rails were merely extended to a still higher elevation. Using ropes and primitive pulleys (magic substituting for muscle when available), the craft were drawn to their dry dock or eased into the surf. They were light enough, because of their modest size, that the crew which oared them could carry them if needed.

  Garrison and Erg’Ran stood at the mouth of an enormous cavern, some five hundred yards from the water’s edge and a good hundred feet higher in elevation. There were five ships within the cave being outfitted and rigged.

  “They’ll be ready by the morrow, Champion.”

  “I can hardly wait,” Garrison cracked. Yet he was anxious to be underway for a variety of reasons, his hopes for consummating the love he felt for Swan chief among them. On another level, he wanted to see Swan’s mother get what was coming to her. If he were somehow able to marry Swan—and the mere thought of how that could be done was mind-boggling—Eran would truly be the mother-in-law of all mothers-in-law.

  When the Company of Mir set sail for Edge Land across Woroc’Il’Lod, the only noncombatant would be Swan herself. The spouses of the male and female warriors, the children, the camp followers, all non-fighters would remain within the safety of the summer palace. A handful of warriors only would stay back with them, and merely as a precaution against the unforeseen.

  Only three out of the Company of Mir would be K’Ur’Mir: Swan, Erg’Ran and Mitan. Although more warrior than magic user, as a female K’Ur’Mir Mitan had some considerable capabilities. Erg’Ran freely admitted that what magic he, as a male, could employ would be of precious little use for anything serious.

  The five vessels were constructed using a combination of magic and (to Garrison) more conventional techniques. Since the Company of Mir was, effectively, a random cross section of Creathan society, most trades and professions were represented. Coopersmiths saw to precision fitting of planking, stonemasons saw to the pitch caulking, while blacksmiths and even Gar’Ath, a swordsmith by trade as was his father before him, saw to the making of grommets, cleats, oarlocks and other necessary metal items.

  Gar’Ath, as did many of the others, performed double duty, his principal task in what time remained before they set sail was the completion of spearheads. In preparation to combat the creatures which lay in wait within Woroc’Il’Lod’s waters, everyone was agreed that a large number of extra spears would be needed. Mitan, to Gar’Ath’s discomfort because of her necessary proximity to him, used her magic to apply the final edges to the spearheads, using her muscle power to mate them to the shafts. Garrison doubted that the symbology of the shafts being inserted into the orifices within the spearheads was lost on Gar’Ath, and from the mischievous look in Mitan’s pretty eyes, Garrison knew that she very much appreciated what it suggested.

  “It should prove a constant source of amusement, shouldn’t it?” Erg’Ran commented.

  “What?” Garrison inquired.

  They were walking along a scaffolding set between two of the ships toward the rear of the cave.

  “I mean having our young swordsman friend and the fair warrior maid taking passage on the same small ship. I wonder if Gar’Ath will survive it.”

  “I could lend Gar’Ath my vest—”

  “Your fabric armor, yes! Why?”

  “It’s not only good protection against bullets—the things my firespitters spit?”

  “Ah, yes. Bullets, indeed.”

  “But although it also provides a fair degree of protection against penetration—” Garrison didn’t mean that word the way it came out in the context of their conversation, so he quickly rephrased. “I meant to say that I don’t think it would provide much protection against Cupid’s arrows.”

  “Who is Cu’Pid?”

  “Cupid is a character from mythology—” Garrison realized that he was digging a hole and about to bury himself beneath a ton of inane verbiage before he could climb out of it. “What I mean is that there’s no armor against love, Erg’Ran.”

  “How right you are, Champion. How right you are!” At the end of the scaffolding, Garrison looked down. There was a high stack of canvas bags on something very much like a pallet. The bags were about the length and girth of a man in size, grommeted at the top, cord running through the holes, enabling the openings to be drawn tight.

  They were a sobering sight: body bags for burial at sea.

  A boy of about twelve, by the way that Garrison reckoned age, came as a messenger. Swan requested that Garrison join her in the keep’s highest tower. She had taken this over for her new—Garrison didn’t quite know what to call it. Was it a magical workshop, a laboratory? An office?

  After ascending the endlessly winding stairs, Garrison crossed a small outer room and entered the chamber through a doorless archway. Quill pens wrote furiously, filling empty scrolls and pages within books floating in the air, controlled only by Swan’s magical energy. Merely
watching them was unnerving.

  “Al’An!” The pens kept writing as Swan came across the room and into his arms.

  Garrison kissed her, held her. “How do you do that?”

  “What?”

  “The pens writing without anyone touching them.”

  “I can show you the spell.”

  “No. That’s okay. Why are you doing it?”

  “When my castle was consumed by the Mist of Oblivion, all of my things were lost with it. I memorize anything that I read, so I’m rewriting all of my spells and incantations and recipes.”

  “Recipes? Like in a cookbook?”

  Swan evaluated the term, then answered, “Some of the recipes are for the cooking of food, yes.”

  Garrison wasn’t going to ask what other kinds of recipes she was transcribing.

  “I thought that it was time that we saw to your armament, Al’An, as we will be leaving on the morrow. I will spellwork for you a sword the equal to any in the Land! See?” Out of thin air, floating among the books, scrolls and the quill pens still writing upon them, appeared a magnificent hand-and-a-half sword, double fullered along the blade’s entire length, with bronze ricasso, lobed quillon guard, hilt bound in polished wire, a skull-crusher pommel in the shape of some sort of animal head, gemstones set for its eyes.

  “That’s lovely, Swan, but—”

  “Gar’Ath tells me that you are becoming quite proficient with a sword. I am very proud.”

  “You’re sweet to say that, and even sweeter to make such a wonderful weapon for me. And Gar’Ath’s a heck of a fine teacher, but he’s being overly generous with his praise. If I had a lot more practice time, I’d be mediocre, darling. Such a fine sword should be in the scabbard of someone who really knows how to use it. No, I’ll make do. I wish I had more ammo, though.”

  “Ammo? Oh! Ammo! Please, give me one ammo.”

  “Cartridge. Sure.” Garrison reached under his bomber jacket, not bothering to withdraw one of the pistols from its holster, merely pressing the magazine release catch button. He thumbed a cartridge free and handed it to Swan.