I explained all this to my paranoia, but it didn’t help. By the time I made it to the European galleries, I could barely focus on the pictures there. I was so busy seeking out that weirdly sexless, weirdly sensual kitten face of his.
All the same, I found my painting. It was there in a fine hall of sky-blue walls and misted glass. There were only two other visitors wandering here, a middle-aged Japanese couple. The moment I came around the corner, I spotted two framed pictures hung one on top of the other. They were on the far wall, flanked by two statues, one of a nymph and one of a hero—I didn’t know their names. The bottom painting—that was the one I wanted, the one in Gunther’s snapshot. It gave me a mystic thrill to stand before it, to stand where Ellen Evermore had stood.
For a few seconds, I lost myself in the painting. I forgot my fear of Sera. I stepped out of the traffic jam of troubles and dangers crowding my mind. I found enough focus to really study the picture and to read the description on the plaque to one side.
This was Hercules choosing between Virtue and Pleasure. Virtue was a stern helmeted woman, pointing upward toward a climbing, narrow path. Pleasure was arrayed at Hercules’ feet, beckoning. She was a beauty, her clothing in disarray, revealing tempting swaths of rounded flesh. Hercules leaned on a post and listened to Virtue’s lecture with a quizzical expression, as if he were trying to figure out what possible argument there could be for leaving behind the luscious babe below him in order to climb the rocky, strait-and-narrow way.
I gazed at the painting for long seconds, searching desperately to see some relevant meaning in it, some clue to the whereabouts of Another Kingdom. But there was nothing. Nothing I could figure out at least. And I had lost faith in the whole idea anyway. How could Ellen Evermore know I would find Gunther, that he would show me her picture, that I would understand the clue? It was all ridiculous, I thought. A dream of desperation.
And then I thought: Wait.
The woman pointing upward. Maybe …
I lifted my eyes to the painting above the painting. I knew at once that I had found the clue that Ellen Evermore had left for me.
I didn’t understand it. Not then, not yet. It was a painting of a queenly woman in a chair: Wisdom—that’s who the plaque said she was. Like Virtue, she had a soldierly helmet on. She held a shield with the emblem of a dove like the Holy Ghost. There were angels around her—cherubs—“putti,” the plaque said, though I’d never heard the word before. One of the cherubs held a mirror to the woman, symbolizing self-knowledge, I guess. One overhead held a snake coiled into a perfect circle, its tail in its mouth—a symbol, the plaque said, of eternity.
But what drew me, held me, excited me, was the third cherub sitting at the woman’s feet. He held an open book, a radiant book. He was pointing to the words on the page. The words were in script, hard to make out, but the word just beneath his finger was “kingdom.”
“The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.”
I held my breath. I leaned in close, trying to read more of the words. This had to be it, didn’t it? This had to be what I was looking for. The photograph of Ellen here. The seated queen—like Queen Elinda maybe? An open book with the word “kingdom” in it. It couldn’t all be coincidence. This had to be the clue that Jane had said there’d be.
But what did it mean? What?
I went on gazing, so intent I felt I might almost fall right into the picture. But all at once, I snapped back into myself. My sense of dread returned to me—stronger for my having forgotten it. I turned quickly to survey the gallery, to make sure no one was creeping up on me.
No one was. In fact, I was all alone here now. The Japanese couple had left. There was no one else in sight. There wasn’t even a museum guard. It felt eerily deserted.
I heard footsteps approaching from the far hall. I felt a chill go through me. Sera?
It couldn’t be. But it didn’t matter. I was too nervous now. I couldn’t stay there. I hurried out the nearer door. Came into a broad sunlit stairwell. Went down a winding flight and found the bridgeway. There were a few people here, walking to the next building. I joined them, looking back over my shoulder as I went.
Down another flight of winding stairs to the ground floor, into a broad atrium encased in glass and striped with beams of light. There were exit doors on either side, to the panorama of the city to the east and out to the fountains in the museum courtyard to the west. I don’t know whether it was superstition or phobia or a sixth sense, but I felt danger closing in on me. I chose a way. I hurried through the sunbeams toward the eastern exit.
And there he was: Sera. Coming toward me. Coming for me. Cat’s eyes bright. Cat’s mouth open on a toothy grin. Walking with purpose straight my way. He was three steps from the door, no more than that.
I froze. Should I run? Where would I go? Could I escape him? He took another step. Another. He was at the door.
Then his smile went out like a light, and the light in his eyes went out as well. He was looking over my shoulder, looking past me.
I turned. Followed that look.
Two people, a man and a woman, were approaching the atrium from the west, coming toward the door with three jets of a fountain springing high into the air behind them. They were walking with just as much purpose as Sera. And like Sera, they were walking straight toward me.
The man was shortish, white. He seemed to have been assembled out of blocks. His head, torso, arms, and legs were all cuboid. Even his thin mustache was rectangular. The woman was black, a head taller than the man and big, around 250, maybe 300 pounds. She had a smooth, almost featureless face, oval. A wry expression stuck on the corner of her lips, suspicion implanted permanently in her eyes.
I knew who they were—what they were—in a flash. Police detectives. Looking for me. Looking for a suspect in the murder of Sean Gunther.
I turned back to the eastern door. Sera was gone. He’d seen the cops and run for it. That way was open.
I rushed to it, threading between two tourists who were in my way. It occurred to me that I was making myself a fugitive, but what could I do? If I talked to the cops, Orosgo would have me killed.
I pushed out into the daylight, looking back over my shoulder.
I saw Sir Aravist charging at me, his sword upraised.
LADY BETHERAY SCREAMED MY NAME: “AUSTIN!”
I turned toward her and saw Aravist’s two other guards just cresting the stairs down the hallway, their swords drawn. They were driving toward us, one just behind the other.
I still had my silver sword in my hand, Elinda’s magic sword. I still had my mercurial armor on me. But any small knowledge I had gleaned from those internet videos—well, that had been blown completely out of my head by the whirlwind of troubles I was in and the sudden shock of this latest transition.
I turned back to Aravist. Already too late. He was right on top of me. Bringing his sword down from on high in a killing stroke. His handsome, bearded face was contorted into ugliness by his murderous rage.
In fact, it was his murderous rage that saved me. He was so furious—and he had me there so helpless, at his mercy—that he didn’t even bother to use his famous sword-fight mastery. He simply brought the edge of the blade whipping at my neck as if to swipe my head off.
On pure instinct, I dropped down low, went almost to my knee before I stumbled and fell on one hand. Not only did the sword stroke sweep right over me, but Sir Aravist kept coming with the force of his charge and tripped over my legs and fell headlong on the faded carpet.
I used the moment to leap to my feet. I swung around to face him.
I saw Lady Betheray pinned in terror against the wall beside a slender vase set on a tall pedestal there. She watched helplessly as first one burly guard and then the other came rushing past her to get at me.
They were already close—but they weren’t prepared for Aravist’s fall. Guard One nearly stepped on the
captain’s hand where it lay stretched out on the runner. Trying to dance around it, he lost his balance and came stumbling toward me.
I killed him.
It was the most shocking moment of my life, more shocking than when I first stepped into Galiana, more shocking than all the mad creatures of this brain-tumor fantasy world, more shocking than all the dangers I’d faced both here and in LA.
The way it happened: it was almost an accident. The thickset guard was falling my way, still coming on fast. I half lifted my sword in a half-hopeless half attempt to defend myself against him. He stumbled into the point belly first, and I guess I pushed and the blade went into him, into him deep.
Shocking. Shocking in the ease of it, shocking in its simplicity. Shocking in its completeness and existential finality. The look in his eyes, just a few inches from mine. The sudden understanding there that every dream and hope of life was over utterly. And then life left him—all in a second—I saw it go, a whole unique experience of the world suddenly made nothing.
My mind frizzed like a broken machine, all sparks and fragments, flashing thoughts. I tried to deny the enormity of it. I tried to tell myself he wasn’t real. He was just a character in a book, a hallucination in this whole hallucinated kingdom I was in.
But I didn’t believe it, couldn’t. I’d seen him. I’d seen him die, seen his humanity snuffed out. I’d killed him, and all I really knew just then—knew all through me, knew without words—was that I never wanted to kill anyone ever again.
Then the other guard reached me, and I killed him too.
It was all happening in a chaos out of time, slow motion and high speed at once. The dead weight of the falling guard pulled my sword down across my body. The corpse slipped off the blade and thudded to the floor. I looked up, and my vision was filled by the roaring face, the deadly blade, of Guard Two, attacking. He’d brought his sword back over his shoulder for a backhand blow. I was out of position. No way to defend myself. I was a second from dying.
Then the vase hit him in the head. Lady Betheray had snatched it off its pedestal and hurled it at him in a panic of fear for me. She hadn’t had time to put any force behind it. The vase didn’t even break when it struck him. It just thumped him behind the ear and dropped to the rug. But the guard thought he was under attack from behind, and it confused him. He threw his sword up to defend himself, leaving his front unguarded.
I brought my sword up quickly and slashed it blindly across him. To say I cut his throat is not to tell it. I nearly took his head clean off. It tilted back unnaturally as he spun away from me. He spattered the wall with a geyser of blood and dropped to his knees. There was a brief horror show of convulsions. Then he lay still.
By now Sir Aravist was on his feet.
The traffic of the battle had kept him off-balance. Two men dead in—what?—five seconds? The hall was a jumble of flying bodies and slashing swords. Aravist had had to roll away before he could stand. Then the second guard, charging, had shouldered him, and he’d staggered against the wall. Even now, as he steadied, it took him a second to get his bearings so he could read the situation.
He was standing maybe six feet away, with the first guard’s corpse between us and the second guard’s corpse against the wall. Lady Betheray—red faced, her raven hair wild—had been brought forward by the motion of throwing the vase. She was standing a little off to my left, equidistant from the both of us.
Both of us—both Sir Aravist and I—realized in the same frantic instant that she was the key to the battle. If Aravist grabbed her, he could use her as a shield and I’d be helpless. We both reached for her at once.
But she lunged for me, and I got her.
I grabbed her reaching hand. I pulled her quickly behind me. I let her go and squared off against the captain. We stood face to face in the broad hallway, a corpse on either side of us.
Aravist was angry at the death of his men, I could see that. Still, he smiled. He raised his sword for battle. He crooked his free hand at me.
“Come on, then,” he said.
FROM THE VERY start, there was no question who was going to win this fight. I was going to die here. I knew it. He knew it too. The man was obviously a master with a blade. You could see it in the way he stood, the spring and flexibility in his legs and torso, the way he held the sword as if it had no weight, the alertness and certainty in his eyes.
And me? Well, I had my magic sword, I guess, and the liquid armor that seemed to move with me like a second skin. And now that we were man-to-man, the few techniques I’d learned from the sword-fight videos came back to me—forehand down to the hand, back slash up to the face—came back to my memory, at least, for what they were worth. Somehow, too, I was steady inside myself, more steady than I would have expected. After all, just a few hours ago I’d stood paralyzed in front of my own bathroom, unable to step over the threshold for fear of coming back here, coming back to this.
But now that the worst had happened, now that I was here … I don’t know. Maybe it was some magic in the sword that strengthened me, or maybe all the terrors I had faced had made me brave. Or maybe it was just that Lady Betheray was behind me, and I knew I had to do my best to protect her, even if it meant dying. Whatever. The point is, I was not afraid. Not as afraid as I would have thought I’d be, anyway.
All that said, I knew I didn’t stand a chance.
He came at me, and if it hadn’t been for some magic in my armor, I’d have been dead in the first second, in a single exchange. His sword was everywhere, so fast I couldn’t follow it. His blows were a criss-cross of blue-white arcs in the air. From the very start, he had me staggering backward, awkwardly turning my blade to defend against his last attack even as his next attack was coming from a new direction. In the first few moments, he scored three strikes, any one of which could easily have killed me.
My armor seemed to have some magic quality in it that made it flow and thicken at the spot where it was needed. Whenever Aravist’s sword came at me, the metal rose like living water to turn aside the blade. So his first strike hit me hard on the side and should have cut into me, but the armor somehow made it glance off harmlessly. His second strike went directly into my left shoulder, but the armor dulled it so a slash that should’ve taken my arm off only scratched me. His third strike should have been a killing thrust, but I managed to twist a bit, and the armor carried his blade away to the side.
I never got to use any of the techniques I’d learned in the videos, not one. He never gave me the chance. The only time I managed to hit him at all was with a clumsy backhand flick after he’d nearly skewered me and was off-balance. It took him by surprise. The edge of my blade struck his chest, but there was no power behind it. He leapt back just in time, and I only managed to take out a piece of his doublet near his breast. I didn’t even nick him.
We drew apart and faced each other again. I was already completely out of breath, gasping for air behind my mercurial helmet. Sir Aravist—he was fine, calm, breathing easy, smiling. He had forced me back down the hall, almost to the door of the bedroom again. Lady Betheray must have still been behind me, though I couldn’t see her.
I had a moment of clarity then at the end. My whole position came to me. Austin Lively, story analyst, Hollywood hanger-on. Standing here in armor, holding a sword. Fighting for my life and the life of a lady in this gothic pile in a fairy-tale kingdom.
What a crazy way to die, I thought.
Then the end came. It was quick and awful. Aravist moved in on me, light on his feet, his sword swirling. He feinted high with the blade, and I lifted my sword to block it. His sword was already gone from the spot. He had drawn it back, and in a flash he thrust it into me.
I could feel my armor rush to gather at the spot and deflect the blade. But too late—and there was too much power behind the blow. The point of the sword pierced right through the liquid metal. The blade sank into me, deep into my flesh. I could tell right away he’d killed me.
Somewhere in the dist
ance, I heard Lady Betheray scream my name again: “Austin!”
But I was lost in the shock of an obscene agony, the blade filling my guts, slicing through my guts. I saw Sir Aravist’s eyes, bright with victory.
I heard Betheray scream my name again: “Austin!” I felt black grief at having failed her, at leaving her here unprotected.
But now I was falling helplessly into darkness, and the world was flying away from me. The whole business of life was fading into a distant irrelevance. I fell and fell toward the black pool of emptiness that was opening up beneath me.
The last thought that went through my mind was of Jane Janeway: her face, her tender blue-green eyes, the children we had never had a chance to have.
Sir Aravist lifted his foot and kicked me off his sword. All the air and all the life went out of me. Every thought was gone from my mind and every feeling gone from my heart. I was simply toppling sideways into—who knows?—oblivion or eternity.
“AUSTIN!”
And still, the voice kept calling out my name. It seemed to have been calling for a long time. I tried to answer: Betheray. But I didn’t have the strength.
“Austin! Listen to me!”
I listened. Slowly, it came to me: This wasn’t Lady Betheray at all. It was a man’s voice, very far away.
“Austin! Damn it …”
I struggled to open my eyes. It was hard. Hard. I used all my strength but my eyelids only fluttered like wounded butterflies before they settled closed again.
“Austin, you have to wake up! Okay? You have to listen! We haven’t got much time!”
I drew breath, gathered myself, tried again. My eyelids rose a little, just enough to let in a blur of light. An unfocused figure was at the center of the brightness. I fought to make the shape come clear.
It was a face. For a moment, I saw it, the familiar features. Swept-back golden hair. Blue eyes. A grand Viking beard moving with the motion of his lips.
“Austin!”
Another Kingdom Page 20
