Destiny

by Alex Archer

  Incredibly, even after her workout, Annja still felt fast and strong. Her breathing was regular, her mind calm. Eddie had been right. She had changed. She didn’t know where the extra energy was coming from. She guessed anger and adrenaline had kicked in powerfully.

  Annja stopped giving ground. Keshawn came at her with another flurry of blows. She stood still, moving her arms just enough to block everything he threw at her. Then—when he was tiring, gasping for breath—she struck back.

  The right fist swept forward. Her first two knuckles slid through his defense and between the slits of his headgear. More blood gushed from his nose.

  She lifted a knee into his crotch hard enough to raise him from the mat. Before he could fall, she swept her leg out and knocked the unsteady man’s feet out from under him. He hit the mat hard.

  Sirens wailed just outside the gym.

  “You’re done,” Annja said in a slow, controlled voice. She felt much cooler than she would ever have imagined.

  ANNJA WATCHED as EMTs worked on Eddie Watts. Most of his injuries were superficial. He bled from his nose, split lips and a cut over his right eye. His left eye was swollen shut.

  Uniformed police officers had taken Keshawn and his friends into custody. Detectives stood questioning witnesses.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Annja asked as she held Eddie’s callused hand.

  “I’ll be fine, girl. When I came outta that fight with Cassius Clay, I looked worse than this.” Eddie gave her a lopsided grin. “Don’t know what you been doin’, Annja, but what you just did?” He shook his head gingerly. “That was something special. Ain’t ever seen nobody do that before.”

  Annja didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t believe everything that had happened. Over the years, she’d had to fight on occasion. Even in the past few days, she’d had to fight against the Brotherhood of the Silent Rain.

  But this time was different. She had changed.

  HOURS LATER, after the police had finally released her and she’d checked on Eddie in the hospital, finding that the old boxer’s daughter was with him, Annja returned home.

  She took a shower so hot that it steamed up the bathroom, leaving fog on the glass walls and the mirror. Scrubbed and feeling clean again, she sat on the floor in the center of the loft with the lights out. She pulled herself into a lotus position, back straight, and breathed deeply.

  Working slowly, knowing it would take time, Annja gradually relaxed her body. She breathed in and out, slowing her heartbeat, centering herself the way she had been taught.

  She stared at the dark wall, then imagined a single dot on it. She focused on the dot until the city ceased to exist around her.

  Something had changed about her, and she sought it out. In Eddie’s Gym, she’d moved with greater speed and more strength than she’d ever possessed. Where had that come from?

  Something had unlocked the speed and strength inside her. It wasn’t just adrenaline. She’d been afraid before. She’d felt pumped from fear. But she’d never been that strong or that fast. The source was something else.

  The image of the sword appeared in her mind.

  Earlier that day, after she’d returned from lunch with Bart McGilley, she’d sat in her loft and tried to reach the sword the way she had in the back of the taxi. Nothing had happened.

  Now she saw the sword perfectly. It was whole, resting once more in the case.

  Slowly, Annja reached in for the sword, closed her hand around the hilt and drew it out. When she opened her eyes, the sword was in her hand.

  It was real.

  She stood slowly, afraid that it would disappear at any moment as it had in the taxi the night before.

  Taking a two-handed grip, Annja started moving through one of the forms she’d been taught in martial arts. Her interest in swords had started early, before she was even a teenager. She’d learned forms for the blade in several disciplines.

  In the quiet of the loft, in the darkness of the night with the moon angled in through the window, Annja danced with the blade. In no time at all, it felt as if she’d always known it, and that it was a part of her.

  THE RINGING PHONE WOKE Annja. She blinked her eyes open and glanced at the clock beside the bed. It was 9:17 a.m. Caller ID showed it was Bart, calling from his personal cell phone.

  “Hello?” she said, her voice thick.

  “Sorry,” Bart said. “I guess I woke you.”

  “Yeah, again.” Annja sat up and reached for the sword. It was gone. She’d laid it beside the bed before succumbing to fatigue in the wee hours.

  “I heard you had a late night and a little excitement,” the policeman said. “I told you before that Eddie’s Gym is a rough place.”

  “I like Eddie. He’s a good guy,” Annja replied.

  “He is a good guy,” Bart agreed. “But his place is in a bad neighborhood.”

  Annja pushed up out of bed and walked over to the window. She raised the blinds and peered out. The city was alive and moving. “I live in a bad neighborhood.”

  “I know. Anyway, I wasn’t calling to gripe at you. I just wanted to know if you were okay.”

  “I am,” she said. “Thanks for caring.” Where does the sword go? she wondered, distracted.

  “I heard Eddie’s going to be okay.”

  “He will be.”

  “Good. Do you need anything?”

  “No.”

  “So what are your plans?”

  “I’m going to stay in all day and work on my segment for the show.”

  “Fantastic,” Bart said. “The way your luck has been running lately, maybe it’s in your better interests to keep a low profile for a while.”

  Annja smiled a little. “I resent that.”

  “Yeah, well, sue me. Right now, you seem to be quite accident prone.”

  “No more than normal,” she said, laughing.

  “Stay in, Annja,” Bart said. “Stay safe. If you need anything, call me.”

  “I will. You, too.” Annja broke the connection.

  She put the phone away and looked for the sword again. It made no sense. She wondered again if she was losing her mind.

  Had the sword really belonged to Joan of Arc? She had no way of knowing. But she wanted to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating. She didn’t believe in magic. But every culture she’d studied had very deep and abiding beliefs in the supernatural and incredible powers.

  Taking a deep breath, she visualized the sword hanging in the air before her. She reached for it. When she closed her hand around the hilt, she felt it. It was real.

  Walking over to the bed, she put the sword down and drew her hand back. The sword remained where it was. She sat down in the floor and watched it. Twenty minutes later, it was still there.

  Deciding to experiment, she closed her eyes and wished the sword was not there, that it would return to where it came from.

  When she opened her eyes, the sword was gone. Panic swelled within her. She couldn’t help wondering if she’d wished it away and broken whatever mysterious force bound them.

  Stay calm, she advised herself. Breathing easily, shaping the sword in her mind, she reached for it.

  She held it in her hand once again.

  It was the most frightening yet wonderful thing she had ever seen.

  FRUSTRATED, her back aching, Annja straightened up from her desk. Judging from the darkness outside her windows, it was evening—or night.

  She’d worked without stopping since that morning, except for phone calls to different museums and libraries to gain access to information that wasn’t open to the general public. Instead of working on the La Bête piece, she’d researched Joan of Arc.

  Surprisingly, she didn’t really find much more than what she’d remembered from childhood. There was little mention of the sword other than it was commonly believed at the time that it held magical powers. And there were stories that it had been shattered. But as far as she could tell, no fragments from the warrior maid’s weapon had ever be
en authenticated.

  Giving up for the time being, totally stumped as to what to do next, she went to the bed and picked up the sword. She was ready to experiment some more.

  Annja dropped the sword back onto the bed.

  Leaving the loft, she made her way up to the rooftop. Lightning ran thick veins across the sky, heated yellow blazing against the indigo of swirling clouds. The wind rushed through her hair and cooled her. She breathed in, wondering if what she proposed would work.

  Closing her eyes, she imagined the sword and reached for it. She felt the cool of the metal and the roughness of the leather in her hand. When she opened her eyes again, she held the sword.

  Thunder rolled, pealing all around her and echoing between the buildings. A light rain started, cooling the city and washing the air free of dust and pollution for the moment.

  Filled with childish glee, still not quite believing what she had proved over and over again, Annja whirled the sword. The blade glinted and caught lightning flashes. In seconds, her clothing was sodden and stuck to her, but she didn’t even think of going inside.

  The bizarre reality of her situation struck her hard. She was holding Joan of Arc’s sword! And somehow it was bound to her!

  On top of the building, with the sounds of modern life echoing through the concrete caverns of the city, Annja went through the sword forms again. This time she elaborated, bringing in different styles. Her feet moved mechanically, bringing her body in line with the sword.

  No matter how she moved, the sword felt as if it were part of her. When she was finished with the forms, breathing hard and drenched by the rain, she closed her eyes and placed the sword away from her.

  She felt the weight of the sword evaporate from her hand. When she opened her eyes, the weapon was gone. Another breath, eyes still open, and she reached out for the sword. In a flash, the sword was in her hand.

  Despite her familiarity with the process now, she still felt amazed. If it’s not magic, she asked herself, what is it? She had no answer.

  Giving in to impulse, Annja held the sword in both hands high over her head. Almost immediately, lightning reached down and touched the tip in a pyrotechnic blaze of sparks. For a moment, the blade glowed cobalt-blue.

  Annja dropped the sword, grateful she hadn’t been electrocuted.

  When she inspected the sword, it was unmarked. If anything, the blade seemed cleaner, stronger. Energy clung to the weapon. She felt it thrumming inside her.

  Soaked and awed, Annja stood for a moment in the center of the city and knew that no one saw her. She was invisible in the night. No one knew what she held. She didn’t even know herself. She breathed deeply, smelling the salt from the Atlantic, and knew she’d somehow stumbled upon one of the greatest mysteries in history.

  “Why me?” she shouted into the storm.

  There was no answer, only the rolling thunder and lightning.

  OF COURSE THE IDEA CAME to her in the middle of the night. That was when her subconscious mind posed a potential answer to one of the riddles that faced her.

  She sat up in bed and found the sword lying on the floor. I’ve got to protect this sword, she told herself.

  Though after the blade had been hit by lightning and hadn’t been harmed or allowed her to come to harm, she didn’t think much could destroy it.

  The sword was destroyed once, she reminded herself. Roux had told her that. She had seen the pieces. But why was it back now?

  Slowly, she visualized the pieces in the case at Roux’s house. She drew her fingers along the sword’s spine, trying to link to whatever force tied her to the weapon.

  Part of the sword had been the charm she’d found on the warrior who died bringing down La Bête. Somewhere inside that sword, the mark that had been struck on both sides of that piece of fractured metal still existed.

  In her mind’s eye, she lifted the image of the wolf and the mountain to the surface of the blade. On the other side of the weapon, she brought up the die mark of the Brotherhood of the Silent Rain.

  Thunder cannonaded outside, close enough to make the windows rattle.

  Annja focused on the sword. She traced her fingers along the blade. This time she felt the impressions of the images.

  Opening her eyes, she looked down. In the darkness she couldn’t see the images she felt. Then lightning blazed and lit up her loft for a moment.

  There, revealed in the blue-white light, the image of the wolf and the mountain stood out in the smooth grain of the steel. When she turned the blade over, the die mark of the Brotherhood of the Silent Rain was there.

  She grabbed one of the digital cameras she used for close-up work. She took several shots of the images.

  When she was satisfied that she had all that she needed, she stared at the imperfections on the blade. She ran her fingers over them again, feeling how deeply they bit into the metal.

  The sight of them, the feel of them, was almost unbearable.

  She willed the sword away, back into wherever it went when it was not with her. It faded from her hands like early-morning fog cut by direct sunlight.

  Taking a deep breath, she reached into that otherwhere and drew the sword back. Light gleamed along the blade. The marks had disappeared.

  A quick check of the images on the digital camera revealed that the shots she’d taken still existed. She put the sword on the bed and turned her full attention to the camera images.

  Was the sword weak while it was shattered? Annja wondered. Or had it allowed itself to be marked? And if it had allowed itself to be marked, why?

  She set to work.

  22

  Using the software on her computer, Annja blew up the images of the wolf and the mountain. After they were magnified, she saw there were other images, as well. The detail of the work was amazing.

  The shadowy figure behind the bars was better revealed. Although manlike in appearance, the figure was a grotesquerie, ill shaped and huge, judging from the figure of the man standing behind him.

  With her naked eye, Annja had barely been able to make out the second figure. Once the image was blown up, she couldn’t miss him. He wore the armor of a French knight. A shield bearing his heraldry stood next to him.

  Annja blew up the image more, concentrating on the shield.

  The shield was divided in the English tradition rather than the French. That surprised Annja. The common armchair historian assumed that all heraldry was the same, based on the divisions of the shield that English heraldry was noted for. But the French, Italians, Swedish and Spanish—as well as a few others—marked their heraldry differently.

  This one was marked party per bend sinister—diagonally from upper right to lower left. The upper half showed the image of a wolf with its tongue sticking out. The animal didn’t have much detail, but Annja got a definite sense of malevolence from the creature. The lower half of the shield was done in ermines, a variation of the field that represented fur. Ermines were traditionally black on white.

  The design was unique. If it hadn’t disappeared in history, there would likely be some documentation on it.

  Annja cut the shield out of the image with the software, cleaned up the lines as much as she could and saved it.

  Logging onto alt.archaeology, she sent a brief request for identification to the members. She also sent an e-mail to a professor she knew at Cambridge who specialized in British heraldry. She also followed up with a posting to alt.archaeology.esoterica.

  What was a British knight doing at a French monastery of an order of monks that had been destroyed?

  Annja returned to the image.

  The shadowy, misshapen figure had another drawing under it. Annja almost missed the discovery. The image had been cut into the metal but it was almost as if it had been scored there only to have the craftsman change his mind later.

  Or maybe he was told not to include it, Annja thought.

  She magnified the image and worked on it, bringing it into sharper relief with a drawing tool. In seconds,
she knew what she was looking at. A lozenge.

  Annja sat back in her chair and stared at the image, blown away by the possibilities facing her. The shadowy figure wasn’t a man. It was a woman.

  The lozenge was heraldry to represent female members of a noble family. Designed in an offset diamond shape that was taller than it was wide, a lozenge identified the woman by the family, as well as personal achievements.

  This particular lozenge only had two images on it. A wolf salient, in midleap, occupied the top of the diamond shape. At the bottom was a stag dexter, shown simply standing. A crescent moon hung in the background with a star above and a star below.

  Annja repeated her efforts with the postings, sending off the new image, as well.

  Back aching from the constant effort, Annja decided to take a break. She quickly dressed and went out into the rainy night, surprised to find that dawn was already apparent the eastern sky.

  ANNJA HEADED for the small Italian grocery store several blocks from her loft. The Puerto Rican bodega she favored was closer, but it wasn’t open at such an early hour. She didn’t mind as she wanted to stretch her legs.

  She loved being in the middle of the city as it woke around her. Voices cracked sharply. Cars passed by in the street, horns already honking impatiently.

  Stopping by the newsstand, she picked up a handful of magazines—Time, Newsweek, Scientific American, People, Entertainment, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

  She liked to keep up with current events. The entertainment and fiction magazines were guilty pleasures. If she hadn’t been able to occasionally borrow from fictional lives in the orphanage, she sometimes wondered if she’d have made it out with the curiosity about the world and the past that she now had.

  At the grocery store, she passed a pleasant few minutes with the owner, who loved to talk about her children, and bought a small melon, eggs, fresh basil, a small block of Parmesan cheese and garlic bread. She also picked up a gallon of orange juice.

  Back at the loft, Annja let herself in through all five locks. She was startled but not entirely surprised to find Garin seated at her desk. Her eyes immediately strayed to the bed, but the sword was nowhere to be seen.