Swan Knight's Son

by John C. Wright

  Ruff said, “An animal spirit. Ireland is mostly where we come from.”

  “We?”

  Gil’s heart sank. He had not realized that he had promised Nerea not to tell Ruff.

  “Sure! Sure! I have relatives in Brittany and Aragon and Basque lands, and some in Germany, and I have heard of a tribe of us around the shores of the Caspian Sea. Why do you ask?”

  Gil sighed, “Because I just think I did a really unwise thing, and I made a promise, but I don’t want it to come between us.”

  Ruff sat down and let his tongue loll out. “Sure! Sure! Nothing can come between us! We’re best friends! No secrets between friends! Share and share alike!”

  Gil petted the dog, but a gloom was in his heart, and his face was sad. “Maybe everything will turn out okay,” he said softly.

  “Anything happen while I was gone?” asked Ruff brightly.

  Gil wondered when keeping silence was the same as lying. It certainly felt as rotten in his stomach as a lie would feel. But he did not know how breaking a promise to the girl would feel either. “Do you know when Lammas is?”

  “Sure. Feast day of Saint Peter in Chains. The Feast of the First Fruits. The Blessing of the Loaves. Everyone knows that! I am a smart dog! I know things like that!”

  “When is it?”

  “First of August.”

  “Well, I got a place I have to go when that date rolls around. You can’t come.”

  The dog’s ears drooped. “If it is dangerous, I can bite them. I can. Is that why?”

  “No. That is not why.”

  “Then why?”

  Gil only shook his head and sat down with a sad sigh and put his arm around the mutt. “I made a foolish promise. I cannot break a promise.”

  Immediately, the dog brightened up, and his ears stood up like little flying flags. “Oh! It’s one of those honor things! I got it. Dogs know all about honor. Don’t worry! You didn’t hurt my feelings!”

  And to prove it, he licked Gil’s face.

  Chapter Six: The Lights of the Haunted Mountain

  1. Lady Day to Lammas

  Weeks turned into months, and the days grew hotter, then scalding, and then hellish.

  He saw the mermaid girl, Nerea, only once more as June turned into July, and then only at a distance because she fled when Ruff barked at her.

  Gil outgrew his shirts because his biceps were bigger as summer passed away. He was not handy with a needle and thread, so he merely ripped the sleeves off. The exercises grew easier, almost as if the distances he ran and the weights he lifted grew smaller.

  The bear he wrestled every day seemed never to grow any weaker, however.

  The only count of time he kept was his Sundays, when he would trek back to church to meet his mother there before services. She did not let him spend even one night under her roof, which convinced him that she was up to something.

  She rarely had much to say and answered obliquely when he asked about mermaids and exorcists and cousins flying to the moon. She did, however, buy him a thick leather jacket to wear to protect him from bear claws.

  He did not tell her about his date with Nerea. He began marking off the days with a bit of chalk on the walls of his cave.

  Gil wondered how to keep Ruff from simply following him.

  2. Lammas Eve

  Finally, the night came. Ruff was curled on his cot next to him, snoring. Gil slipped away, taking his clothing in a bundle, and then only making the noise and motion of getting dressed once he was out of the cave in the cool night air.

  He went to the waterfall. The moon rose and painted the cloudy sky silver, and Gil saw the girl’s slim silhouette rise from the waters of the pool. In the dark, her mirrored lenses shined like the eyes of a frog.

  She waded toward shore, saying, “Well met, cousin. This is for you.” She drew a pin from her hair and proffered it to him.

  He looked at it in the moonlight. It was a nine-inch-long needle of solid gold, topped with a pearl.

  “What is this for?” he asked.

  She smiled, “We Moths always look out for each other. Sell it for rent money or groceries.”

  He proffered it back. “I cannot take a gift from you.”

  She would not take it. “Wages then. As my protector. We go into danger.”

  Gil folded the pin into his handkerchief and put it in his coat pocket. “Which way?”

  She said, “I have brought an herb from the bottom of the sea that will enable you to breathe water until the stroke of midnight. You must be out of the water by then and not a moment after! All charms end at midnight! We have many miles to go, and it is upstream the whole way.”

  Gil said, “What? We are swimming? Why not hike?”

  “The watchful Night Folk walk the air unseen after dusk and have allies among the insects, especially those that eat their mates or mothers. The oak, the ashtree, and the willow, and any tree to whose ancestors in ages past human blood was spilled in grisly sacrifice is theirs. They would not wish their melee seen by common eyes. They are a proud folk and proud of their noble blood, pure and fine. Take and eat this herb. It is bitter on the tongue but sweet in the stomach.”

  The two of them climbed the rocks beside the falls. Gil started below the girl, scampered up the rock to pass her, and at the top held out his hand to help her up.

  She said shyly, “That is not really necessary….”

  He picked her up and put her on firm footing. “Consider it part of the services you paid for. Protecting you from falling.” The moon was visible here now that they were above the shadow of the gorge, and it was full and bright, touching the trees and waters with silver light and blue shadows. He could see her face and saw her twining a strand of hair nervously about one finger.

  He said, “Don’t be embarrassed! You are stronger and faster at rock climbing than any of the girls at my school. My former school. None of them could get to the top of the peg board.”

  She giggled. “Were we competing? I would have picked a different contest. Do the girls of the surface world think there is shame if a tall boy made mostly of muscles has more strength in his arms than they do? I would be more ashamed if my fine and pretty arms were all thick and hairy like yours.” Nerea held up her black-clad arms, one overhead, the other flung out at shoulder height, in what looked like a ballet pose. “Are my arms prettier than those of your girlfriend?”

  They were interrupted. In the moonlight, they saw a large bulk emerging from the brush near the lip the cliff. It was the one-eyed bear.

  3. The Parting

  “Farewell!” said the bear solemnly.

  Gil said, “Wait. What are you saying?”

  “I spoke with Francis, and he told me you would go to look at the elfs. He said that once that happens, the training is done. You should return to the house of your mother after this.”

  Gil felt a stab of unexpected sorrow in his heart. The bear was better company than most people he knew. “Why? What have I done wrong?”

  “Nothing wrong. You are not meant to be an apprentice to a bear. But tell your mother you put in a good, solid summer of work, the labor was hard and honest, and that your master was satisfied. You will find your wages on your doorstep when you return.”

  “Who is Francis?”

  “He is a man who rebuilds old and broken churches. He was born a Son of Adam but now has a better father. The beasts of the wild are in his charge. He and I are old friends. Anyway, it is time to part. My heart tells me we will not meet again, Gilberec Moth.

  “Remember your lessons and learn to look sharp. You are too easily distracted.”

  4. The Upstream Way

  Gil had a thousand questions to ask Nerea, but even though the herb allowed him to breathe under water, it did not allow him to talk. It tasted truly terrible, like a combination of lemon juice and Tabasco sauce. It also did not prevent him from suffering a terrible, nightmarish choking sensation when the water first entered his lungs.

  For hours and ho
urs he swam against the stream, watching the girl dart ahead of him and then fall behind. She rarely used her arms and kicked with both legs together. When he paused for a break, as he did every half hour, she would swim in a circle around him, tickling fish and doing loops.

  On land her playful demeanor vanished; ashore, she was frightened and crouched, sneaking from shadow to shadow to go from one branch of the river to another, trying to stay out of the moonlight. But she shushed him when he tried to talk.

  They stopped halfway in their journey to eat. Nerea had disappeared ahead of him, and when he came around a bend in the stream, he saw she had spread a white cloth on the sand of the streambed and had two fish, one in either hand. He was surprised to see that she cooked her fish. She took a small crystal stone out of her pouch and thrust it into the fish’s mouth. The stone grew red-hot: the light of it could be seen shining through the flesh of the fish, and steam bubbled from its mouth. She took out something that looked like a cross between a switchblade and a two-pronged fork. It had two parallel blades, and she used one of them to skin and gut the cooked fish, which she proffered to Gil.

  It was weird eating under water, but the fish had a sharper and more delicious taste here. Obviously, there was nothing to drink.

  Then came more swimming.

  Eventually, they reached a place where the stream was narrow, shallow, and swift. He put his eyes above the water but kept his mouth and nose under the surface. He saw her head next to his, the jeweled net in her hair glittering, her eyes invisible behind the round silver disks of her glasses. Silently, she raised her wet and black-glistening arm from the water and pointed.

  There, huge in the moonlight, was the mountain peak. At the side of the stream were tall and silent trees. Between the trees, not far above them on the slope, were strange lights shining like a line of red-colored lanterns.

  Gil heard trumpets blowing.

  5. The Portcullis

  Gil had excellent night vision, and the moonlight was bright enough to show him where not to put his feet, so he was able to rush up the slope without stepping on twigs or rustling leaves.

  His heart pounded in his chest; his breath was short, but this was more from excitement than exercise. The exertion helped warm his body, which was cold in the dank, dripping clothes he wore.

  On he ran, seeking the source of the silvery horn calls and the strange lights. He glanced over his shoulder. He could see the barefoot mermaid in her black wetsuit loping after him. The lenses of her spectacles were dark, perhaps turned to the setting she used in unlit sea-trenches, for she lithely avoided thorns and brush in the night under the trees.

  She hissed a warning. He looked back. She was frantically gesturing to him to get down, to hide, and she jumped and rolled beneath a likely bush herself. He crouched down, wondering what had startled her.

  The ground was trembling. He could feel it in his fingers beneath the grass. It was like a small but continuous earthquake, or the murmur of vast subterranean machinery.

  Then he saw a huge slab of the ground, bearing trees, rocks, underbrush, and all, tilt down into the ground and form a ramp. Starting from the top, a sunken wall of rock was revealed. The rock was rich with geodes and crystals. In the midst of this rock wall, a vast open gateway was dug, leading into an underground corridor of polished onyx through which veins of cobalt and silver ran. From somewhere deep in the corridor came a golden light that rippled and swam. It was not firelight nor electric light, nor anything Gil knew.

  When the lip of the tilting slab touched the bottom of the sunken gateway, there came another blast of silver trumpets, and up the ramp of grassy ground came floating lamps carved of titanic emeralds held in golden frames, as weightless as balloons, serene as fireflies, lifting themselves up into the night air, shedding light on the leafy trees.

  Gil crept closer, straining for a view, ignoring the frantic whispers of Nerea telling him to stay back. He heard the tramp and stamp of marching men and the hoofbeats of cavalry.

  A she-lion, gold of eye and gold of coat, came into view, and on her back was a naked child wearing a crown of white roses. In the child’s hand was a banner of green. On the green field was the image of a lioness rearing up to claw a golden disk of rays.

  Four warlords of the hidden world next emerged, their silver helms gleaming, plumes nodding, and their habergeons of white metal were set with emeralds and opals, crusted with diamond dust, and their spears of solid moonlight and silvery fire were inset with chalcedony, smargads, crysoberyls, and malachite green as blown glass. Their steeds were of some slim and lightfooted breed with tails and manes of white and tawny coats like creamy gold. At the feet of their prancing steeds sported swift and slender hunting dogs with silver collars and red ears.

  The steeds moved in step. Bells on the harnesses rang with a strange hypnotic chime that sounded as if it were coming from beyond the horizon countless miles away, but also from a point inside Gil’s head beneath his ear, both at once.

  The steeds wore barding of silver mail and breastplates set with diamond-hued sparks of light. They wore helms fitted to their equine skulls, with crests and plumes to match those of their riders, and each was caparisoned and adorned in the colors, patterns, and images of the riders, shields, and surcoats: the first was a knight of roses, with images of the red rose on his shield and breast, and a coronet of sharpened steel blooms, set with thorns, was on the crest of his helm; the second was of lilies, adorned in purple and white; the third was the forget-me-not in blue; the fourth was the brilliant sunflower in yellow and black.

  Behind were four more knights, adorned with the heraldry of hawk and hippogriff, falcon and martin-bird. But their mounts were some strange and graceful creature with the body of a horse, the tail of a lion, and the head of a stag. These steeds had split hooves like the hooves of a deer.

  Behind them were four more, and on their shields and coats were images of apple, pomegranate, olive, and clustered grape with vine leaves; but these four were riding what seemed horses with the heads of rams. And the next four rode ibexes and were adorned with images of stars and crescent moons; and knights even more fantastically caparisoned on beasts even stranger came behind.

  Gil saw windows cut into the sides of the underground corridor set with grilles of silver wrought into intricate floral shapes. From these windows leaned maidens of unearthly beauty in robes of woven moonlight. They showered flower petals onto the parade of knights.

  There came a shout, and the elfin knights began to sing. Their voices were deep, beautiful, and sad, and Gil could not understand the words.

  Now came a figure adorned in green and gold, and on his helm was bolted a kingly crown of golden tines set with emeralds, and on his shield was the image of a she-lion rearing, a golden sun caught in her claws. His horse was a massive black Clydesdale with a black mane and socks of white. He wore a face of gold with a beard of silver as the faceplate of his helm.

  On four sides of this figure rode knights in black and gold mounted on leopards, each holding up a wand, and between the wands a canopy adorned with figures of stars and constellations hung over the head of the crowned horseman. Before them came a black chariot with diamond wheels pulled by a yellow lion in whose car rode a herald with a silver trumpet as long as his arm. Behind the crowned horseman came two massive and silent creatures that looked like walking trees of black bark and silvery leaves, with the faces of wrinkled old men solemn with beards of leafy twigs peering from the bark, and lanterns hung in their branches. Incense was mingled with the lamp-oil, and a savory fume in lines of blue smoke ascended from the tree-creatures.

  The cavalcade moved down the slope of mountain, and Nerea and Gil followed at a distance, creeping from tree to tree.

  6. The Tourney

  Nerea said in fear, “I was not expecting to come across the portcullis to the underkingdom! We are too near….”

  Gil said, “Not near enough, you mean! But now that I know where it is, I am coming back here….”
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  “It is never in the same place twice.”

  “How can it move?” asked Gil.

  “How can the stars move? Keep your voice down! You must take care not to be seen! Be less reckless!”

  Gil’s voice trembled with awe and wonder. “Why is there a host of supernatural beings living underground in the National Park? How can these things be? Why does no one know about them?”

  Nerea said, “Because they enchant or slay those who glimpse them! At least cover up your hair! It shines in the moonlight!”

  Gil had crammed his Gamecocks hat in his back pocket during the long swim, so now he stuck it on his head, wet and sopping. Gil took Nerea by the wrist and pulled her along after him, and she was unwilling to speak any complaint. Perhaps her eyes were flashing with anger at him, but behind the opaque black disks of her lenses, Gil did not see.

  The two of them followed the marching cavalcade and floating lanterns.

  They came to a meadow beyond which the wooded slope rose to a dark crest where a stand of conifers grew. A wide circle of the hills and gorges was visible over the shoulders of this crest, and unwooded peaks hung above them like clouds, gleaming in the moon, for the meadow was halfway up the slope of Brown Mountain, which was a very great mountain.

  Between the trees were a line of red lanterns of black metal, floating motionlessly. They were the lights in the distance Gil had seen during the trip upriver.

  A blare of trumpets, harsh and brassy, and the sound of gongs and drums answered the silvery shrill horns of the knights who followed the banner of the lioness.

  From the pine trees now emerged a line of knights in silver and black, following the banner of a white wolf on a black field. In the cloaks and caparisons of the cavalry the winter constellations shone like bright diamonds on sable fabric. On their shields and helms were images and crests of pinecone, spruce bough, and mistletoe leaf. Many of the knights following the banner of the white wolf were mounted on horses, but some rode wolves or reindeer or polar bears. One was seated on the back of a monstrous snowy owl larger than a barrel.