by Melanie Rawn
In fact, as Sam clapped Roger lightly on the shoulder, he looked as if he'd already won.
"Now?" Zoey asked.
"Not yet," Alia murmured. "Wait."
The two men bowed extravagantly to the royal couple. When the herald beckoned, Alia climbed the short step to stand beside Queen Elinor. She tried to catch Sam's gaze. For all the attention he paid her, she might have been orbiting Mars.
He looked . .. not serene, exactly. Calm?
"Resigned to defeat," Zoey commented silkily.
Alia knew she was wrong. She watched Sam accept an oblong shield and turn smartly on his heel, walking down the field beside Roger, worrying the sight of his face over and over in her mind. Whatever Sam was resigned to—fate? destiny?—it clearly was not defeat. The thought would never enter his head.
"... terribly silly of them," the queen was saying. "But I must admit it's rather exciting all the same. Frankly, my lady, I'm wondering why you let this go on."
Alia shrugged, then belatedly recalled her persona and said, "With all respect, Your Majesty, do you think anything could have stopped them?"
The queen gave a rueful smile. "I see your point. Proud as Lucifer, those two."
"How would she know?" Zoey asked.
"And stubborn," Alia added, from sure knowledge of Sam Beckett.
Queen Elinor sighed. "Well, you're right, of course. They're angry and nursing a grudge, but they're also accomplished fighters who know the rules. I'm glad they're both using shields today, though."
"At my insistence," said a brown-clad noble seated directly behind the queen. Alia recognized him as the man she'd seen earlier at the sword smith's. "Better they should dent steel than skulls."
The queen half-turned to nod over her shoulder. "Very wise of you, Duncan. But I don't think we need worry overmuch. Neither will be seriously hurt, though I do anticipate quite a few bruises." She chuckled richly. "I trust, Lord Physician, that you have your poultices and potions ready. The stinkier the better, to teach them a lesson!"
"Eh, those two need a shrink, not a surgeon." Lord Duncan snorted, fingering his chain of office—which Alia now saw featured a caduceus pendant. "They're certifiable. And what's all this about a book, anyway, Lady Cyndaria? I thought you joined the League because it gave you an escape from Judith Krantz wanna-bes."
Alia gave him a demure smile. "I know a hot property when I see one, Lord Physician."
"I can't imagine Sir Percival as a closet romance writer," the queen mused. "And as for Lord Rannulf...!"
King Steffan hooked a casual knee over the carved arm of his throne. "Yeah, and none of us ever thought we'd see the erstwhile Earl of Stonybrook on 'America's Most Wanted,' either!"
The herald's horn blasted one last time. "Challenge and counter-challenge having been legally issued and legally accepted, Lord Rannulf of the Franks, Sir Percival of York—begin!"
After a brief buzz of last-minute wagers, everyone sat forward eagerly as the battle commenced. Zoey paced below the royal dais, hacking away on the handlink, muttering ferociously. Alia ignored her.
Insofar as Alia could tell, both men were holding back, testing each other, reluctant to take
the offensive until they'd established each other's physical parameters. Roger had the advantage in height, weight, and reach, but Sam— despite lack of sleep—was the quicker. It was reminiscent of the opening moves of a stately dance, almost a flirtation of swords and shields. As muscles and tempers warmed, Sam began to move in, taking the aggressor's role—which surprised Alia.
"Very nice, very pretty," crooned King Steffan, judicious, as if he were awarding points. "Good tactics, Phil. Make him heft that great heavy shield again and again, and wear out his sword arm at the same time—oh, good stroke!"
"My liege!" admonished the scandalized queen. "You're supposed to be impartial!"
His Majesty gave her a disgusted glance and resumed his color commentary. "Get in under his guard now—oh, bad luck! Come on, Phil, move your ass! That's it! Pivot and swing!"
Every crash of blade on shield brought shouts of approval and groans of sympathy from the crowd. Alia heard a pretty even split of partisanship. She kept her own mouth sealed shut by the simple expedient of biting her lips together. Cynthia's lipstick tasted terrible.
Zoey stepped in front of her, blocking her view. "You'd better give me plenty of warning. Lothos says it might not be instantaneous. There's a possibility that it won't work at all. Alia, darling, do you really know what you're doing?"
She answered with a single scathing glare, and shifted to the right so she could see.
"Come in low now," the king muttered. "Pull back around—ha! Good shot on the shield! Bet that one rattled his teeth!"
Sunlight drenched both chain-mailed knights in glistening heat, striking flashes from shields and plumed helms. Each sword swing became a streaming arc of light, each movement a glitter of sun and silver. Alia supposed it was all rather beautiful, in a barbaric sort of way.
The ground underfoot, already summer-dry and trampled by other jousts, began to exhale little puffs of dirt with every step the two men took. They'd be sweating by now, Alia told herself, needing water, breathing more heavily and inhaling only dry dusty air. Each wore at least forty pounds of metal—chain mail, helmet, sword, and shield—all of it in constant motion as they attacked or defended or absorbed the shock of a blow. She marveled that either of them could stand, let alone fight.
"Alia!"
She shook her head defiantly, anticipating her moment, heart racing as Sam began to falter—but whether she feared for him or feared he would lose too soon, she could not have said.
"Lothos has a lock!"
About bloody time, she thought furiously. Roger drove Sam back with multiple ringing assaults on his shield. Alia strained forward, not knowing enough about swordplay to judge how much trouble Sam was in. But King Steffan's abrupt silence warned her that he was worried.
Suddenly someone cried out as Roger's foot skidded on a patch of relatively fresh grass. His arms
windmilled wildly and he lost his balance, going down hard on one hip. Somehow he kept hold of his sword, but the shield flew from his grasp and skidded twenty feet.
Sam gallantly tossed away his own to keep the battle even.
"Nobly done, Sir Percival!" shouted Queen Elinor as the throng roared its approbation of Sam's gesture. Alia decided these people were out of their collective minds—except for the practical Lord Duncan, muttering about X rays and arthroscopic knee surgery, and King Steffan, who flopped back in his throne grumbling, "Stupidly done, Phil!"
Sam proved himself as insane as all the rest of these people by reaching a gauntleted hand to Roger, offering to help him up.
"Yes, yes, yes," Alia chanted under her breath.
But Roger slapped the hand away and clambered to his feet, raising the sword once again.
"They're tiring," murmured the queen. "Just trading parries now, trying to get some breath back."
She was right: movements were sluggish, attacks halfhearted and parries slow. The crowd seethed with worry and impatient speculation. Wagers were traded, odds changing constantly. Alia clasped both hands together, Cynthia's rings digging into her fingers, and tasted a drop of coppery blood on her bitten lip.
"Give it a minute," the king said. "They're pacing themselves, that's all. Must be a hundred and ten inside that chain mail—"
"Damn it, Alia!" Zoey exclaimed. "It had better be soon! Lothos can't keep this lock on forever!"
"Ha!" shouted His Majesty. "See? Here we go again!"
The stands rocked with cheers as both knights recovered air and strength enough to come at each other with renewed vigor. Sam advanced, keeping his sword low to spare the muscles of arms and back; Roger scorned the easy way and lifted his blade high and strong. Part of Alia's mind noted each move, realizing that while both were angry, neither was yet desperate enough for an all-out offensive.
Th
ere was a strange music to the swords now, or perhaps it was Alia's painfully heightened senses that transmuted each steely clang into a summoning chime that rippled through every nerve. Soon— please, soon, she whispered to herself, almost flinching with every blow.
All at once Sam surged close, sliding insidfe Roger's guard. He grabbed the other man's sword arm with his free hand, struggling to keep the blade immobile. Alia was sure he was telling Roger to stop this insanity now, to stop the fight and talk out their differences before they did each other real damage. Alia's lips twisted tight. Sam could always be counted on to do the rational thing.
What he was about to experience was nowhere near rational.
"Now!" Alia cried.
Queen Elinor, deafened in one ear by the shout, gave a violent start and turned—just as Cynthia keeled over in a dead faint.
Sam heard Her Majesty's distant scream, but what he saw and what he felt dominated his other senses in a rage of disbelief.
One moment Roger was there—tall and massive, handsome face sweat-streaked behind the slotted visor, muscles bulging beneath Sam's glove—
And the next Sam was looking at Alia—slim and supple, her cool pale beauty shimmering inside the silver helm, her wrist bones surely too delicate to support the weight of the sword.
Sam stared thunderstruck into the wild brightness of her eyes.
Her voice was soft and taunting. "I told you, Sam— you don't dare touch anyone again."
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
Sam staggered back from Alia as if the touch of her scalded him. She raised the heavy sword in both hands, saluting him—and then brought the blade around in an arc that sought his neck. He lunged out of the way, steel hissing on its way past.
"How the hell'd she do that?" Al demanded.
Even if he'd known—which he didn't—Sam had no breath to reply. He was too busy keeping his guard up, in more ways than one.
"Nice work, Zoey!" Alia flung to the empty air nearby, and planted both feet in the trampled grass, marking out her ground. "Give Lothos my compliments!" She swung powerfully at Sam's left thigh, laughing behind the visor.
Sam brought his own blade across and down to block, and the clang of impact reverberated all the way up his arms.
Oddly enough, they were a fairly even match at swordplay. In a moment of sheer insanity, Sam wondered if they'd watched the same Errol Flynn swashbucklers when they were kids. Or maybe the
Star Wars movies—and suddenly he understood something about how to use this massive sword. Don't try to be an Olympic fencing champion, idiot! Be Luke Skywalker!
For the moment, however, Darth Vader in the slender form of Alia had the advantage of him: she was fresh and unwinded, and Sam knew she was stronger than she looked. But surely the weight of armor, helmet, and sword would slow her down. It took two very long minutes and a dozen swift and precarious parries for him to realize nothing was going to slow her down short of knocking her out cold. But his shift in attitude about the sword was beginning to pay off. Treat it like a lightsaber—it's even almost as bright in this sunshine.
"Get in there and get her, Sam!"
The swords met again, sliding against each other until the hilts met and locked like lovers. Sam stared down into glittering blue eyes, laser-bright inside the helm.
"What're you going to do, Alia?" he gasped. "Run me through? You won't kill me. You can't kill me. Whatever it is you want, you don't want to die."
The fire in her eyes flared dangerously. "I want exactly what you want, Sam—to be free."
Of everything he had ever heard her say, this one thing he believed without question. He fought to keep the swords steady between them as she pulled and pushed with increasing fury, trying to break his lock.
To be free. They wanted the same thing—but they came at the wanting from totally opposite directions. Or maybe not. Didn't they both want freedom
from the loneliness? From the fear that they'd never go home?
"I'm you and you're me, Sam Beckett." No. Whatever emotions they shared, he and she were not the same.
Alia's cheeks were flushed, her lips thin with effort behind the steel cage of the visor—like cell bars, Sam thought, his mind reeling. How would it be to be trapped as she was trapped, to Leap into someone's life knowing you had to destroy it or face the threat of being yourself destroyed?
She must have seen pity in his face. "You make me sick, you with your self-righteous nobility—"
"Was that for Zoey's benefit?" he panted, forcing her back one step, then another.
He'd guessed correctly; a sudden catch of breath betrayed her. But she rallied instantly, crying out, "Either you kill me or I kill you!"
And in her wild eyes he saw what she really meant: "You can set me free, Sam—"
"No! Not that way!" he blurted out, not caring if he betrayed her to Zoey or not. He couldn't let her fall over the edge into the madness swirling in her eyes. "Neither of us has to die, Alia! I can help you, I know I can—"
Hope flashed in her eyes. But then her neck twisted, and she glanced to her right, and terror contorted her features. "Stay out of this! I can take him, damn it!"
"Alia! Don't listen to her! Look at me, let me help you—"
Not this time.
Something he'd read about—and had experienced
a few shameful times—came to life in her eyes. Blood lust, battle fever, the near-berserker state when the brain knew nothing but the need to kill. Though perhaps in her it was also the need to die. Whichever, it was too late for Alia; her fragile balance had been lost.
Sam unhooked the hilts and jumped back. The sword was twice as heavy as it had been before and its weight seemed to double with each passing minute. Sweat stung his eyes, matted his hair, slicked his palms inside the leather gauntlets. He had to last long enough to wear her down. Alia wasn't Roger—big-shouldered and skilled, canny with the sword. Sam could win this even if he wasn't Luke Skywalker.
"She's right-handed, Sam—that means her guard's weak on the left!"
But she was fighting like a madwoman now, her lips drawn back in a snarl and a low feline growl coming from her throat with every swing of the sword.
"Sam! Look out!"
But he had to win, because if he did, Ziggy's projections about Philip and Cynthia and Roger would come true, and he could Leap out of here.
"Follow up! Damn it, Sam, don't give her time to recover—"
And Alia would find him again. Touch him again.
"That's it! Move in, Sam!"
If he won, she lost. But if she won, they were all lost.
His aching muscles were suddenly flooded with renewed strength. "A Jedi feels the Force flowing
through him"—Sam heard the line echo in his head and decided he was becoming hysterical. But whatever it was that had provided the energy, it was his to use. He beat back every blow, taking the attack now for himself. He hacked at her guard until her sword dropped, flat-bladed her on the upper arm, dug the blunt sword tip into the chain mail covering her thigh. She cried out in pain and he flinched with guilt. I have to do this—I don't have any other choice—Alia, forgive me—
Failure was staring her in the face. She couldn't win this. She must have known going in that he was stronger. Sam did some frantic mental backtracking, suddenly so astounded that he nearly missed knocking away her sudden swipe at his ribs. God, the sword was so heavy now. His arms and back were so tired. The crowd's roars were a dim and distant buzzing past the thunder of blood in his ears and the harsh wind of his own breathing.
She came at him again, and he parried again, and she gave up a few more feet of dust-choked ground. She must know she couldn't win, that eventually she'd tire. So why was she doing this? Why did she Leap into Roger?
Did she want Sam to win?
"Trust in the Force, Luke—"
He let her drive him back step after step. Even as she pressed the attack, her movements telegraphed her bewilderment at hi
s yielding. She drove him across the field toward the wooden fence. Lurching away from the sword slice that damned near hamstrung him, his back slammed hard into the rails. Through a haze of pain he hoped the cracking sound
was the wood and not his ribs.
And then she did a bizarre thing. She let him knock her sword away—when he wasn't even trying. She went down on her face, not in an awkward sprawl but in a lunge with both hands outstretched to the saw-horse that propped up more swords, more shields. When she rolled over, she was gripping something he'd never seen the like of before in his life. A wooden handle swirling with blue paint, an iron chain with a spiked ball attached—he gaped at it. Luke had never faced anything like this.
Alia was breathing deeply, smiling a terrible smile. The blood lust was gone, replaced by something even more calculating, even more lethal. Perhaps even more insane.
"I bought you a present this morning, Sam."
"Holy shit!" Al yelled. "Look out—that's a morning-star!"
A meaningless identification—until Alia pushed herself to her knees and began to whirl the iron sphere over her head. Golden star-burst spikes blurred as the momentum increased, and then flew like a comet toward his knee.
He barely got out of its way. The spiked ball hit wood with a force that splintered the railing and would have shattered his kneecap.
"She's gonna kill you, Sam!"
"No," he would have said if he'd had breath. What she wanted was for him to believe himself in such mortal danger that the only way to live was to kill.
Alia hefted the blue handle again. The morning-star arced upward and spun, gathering speed. Sam stood between her and the stands, so no one saw
clearly that "Roger" was threatening homicide. A few more revolutions, and the morningstar would smash into Sam's left side and probably crush chain mail and ribs clear through to his heart.
Sam flung his sword like a javelin at the chain, and at the same time lashed out a foot, clipping the arm that swung the deadly weapon. Alia shrieked in pain and collapsed to one side. Deprived of momentum, the spiked ball thudded to the ground. Sam dropped immediately and spread-eagled himself across Alia's struggling body.
