Swan Knight's Sword

by John C. Wright

The right head spoke, “Blood.”

  Rabicane said, “Stay back out of its reach!”

  Gil said, “Don’t worry. It’s chained up….”

  The monster laughed and raised a paw to its middle neck. The chain opened and slithered to the stone in a bright ringing clatter.

  The monster said, “My master requires I chain myself. All who serve him do.”

  Gil licked his lips, not sure what to do. He had the distinct impression the creature was playing some sort of game with him. “Is the Green Chapel beyond those door you guard?”

  The central head said, “No.”

  The left said, “The Green Chapel is behind you.”

  The right said, “You walked past it.”

  Gil was then convinced the monster was lying. He wondered how he could slip past the creature, or, more to the point, once he was inside the Green Chapel, how he could get out again.

  Gil was sure there was a way to befriend the three-headed monster. He stepped back, hung helm and shield on his saddle bow, and took the paper bag out of his saddle bag.

  The monster sniffed with six nostrils. “What is that?”

  Gil said, “Grilled steak. Baked in some sort of pepper sauce. And I also have a hamburger. And some spirits. It’s called iced tea, but it is not really tea. I forget what is in it. Vodka, I think. You want some?”

  The monster tilted its various heads left and right, squinting and snarling, as if puzzled. “You offer me… food and drink? Why?”

  Gil said, “Call it a Christmas Eve present.”

  “Why did you not eat it?”

  Gil said, “I am fasting for Advent. No meat, no wine. Saint Christopher told me so. You’d like him. His head looks like yours. But not so many.”

  The three heads looked at each other.

  “What say you?” said the middle head.

  “The ring of truth is in his voice,” said the left head.

  The right head said, “I smell no deception in his sweat.”

  The monster raised a great paw and struck the stone before him. The stone was pulverized beneath the titanic paw and left a crater deep as a dish.

  “Pour the spirits in there!” “The meat!” “Fetch it forth!” All three heads barked at once.

  Gil stepped boldly into the range of the creature’s teeth and claws, knelt, and emptied the flask he had been given into the crater. Then, he unwrapped the steak and the burger patty.

  Seen in the sunlight, Gil now saw the burger patty was wrapped in bacon strips. Even cold, it looked delicious. He had to wipe his mouth with his wrist as he fed the meat into mouths bigger than coffins.

  Gil raised his hand to scratch one head behind the ear, hoping the poisonous snakes would not bite. “Good boy!” said Gil. “Good dog! Er, dogs.”

  Gil felt a pang of pride as he saw the monster’s muzzle unwrinkle. All trace of snarl departed. The monster relaxed.

  “Yeah! Really tasty…” said the middle head.

  “Where is it from?” said the left head.

  Gil said, “This restaurant called Knockers. I was there last night. The manager was this huge… uh… giant.”

  The right head reared up. “What have you done! What have you fed me!”

  The monster raised a paw to strike him, but Gil dodged the blow. The stone next to him exploded under the force of the blow, making a second small crater.

  All three heads now drooped. The snakes lashed back and forth, hissing horribly for a moment, and then they hung down and dangled, forked tongues lolling. The three heads sighed. The four legs trembled and folded.

  The monster groaned. “Curse you! How did you outsmart me! May the cat eat you and the Devil eat the cat!”

  And then the great green eyes closed.

  Gil stood a moment, amazed. The creature was breathing slowly and deeply. It was not dead, but asleep.

  A strange little smile began to deepen in one corner of Gil’s mouth, and his eyes narrowed, not in anger, but in mirth. “Finest fare in the land, she said. It will knock you out!”

  Rabicane looked on, puzzled.

  Gil said, “I think I am beginning to figure this out.”

  He walked past the sleeping monster and under the archway.

  3. Darkness and Light

  With each step into the corridor, the sunlight was less. Soon he walked in utter darkness.

  After a few more steps, he saw smalls lights ahead. Gil came forward cautiously, wondering it these were piskies or some evil magic.

  It was candlelight.

  The corridor of stone led to a dead end. It was not a tunnel, but a cave. Or rather, not a cave, but a cave-in. The corridor was filled with tumbled rock forming a rough slope from floor to ceiling. The rubble was made of dressed stone. From the debris, some had been mortared together before being smashed apart. It looked as if this corridor had once led somewhere but had been sealed and bricked over; and then the seals broken and the wall battered to open the way again; and then bricked over again. From the different sizes and shapes of bricks in the rubble, it looked like it had happened several times. From the age of the layers of dust, it had been long, long ago.

  It was a mystery whose meaning Gil doubted he would ever discover.

  The light here came from a rack of candles set before an alcove in the right-hand wall. This candle rack was a hundred steps away from the rubble blocking the corridor. Gil peered.

  Within the alcove was a set of figures: to one side were kings in rich raiment, bowing. To the other side were shepherds in coarse robes, hands clasped in prayer. Oxen and asses were kneeling. Midmost were a woman and a man kneeling before a baby in a manger.

  Above the scene, at the apex of the alcove, was an august winged figure, garbed in white vestments more devoid of hue than any fabric could be, and above his head hung a coronet of gold. In one hand the figure held a golden trumpet. It seemed neither to be male nor female, but had long, flowing hair that reached to its broad shoulders.

  Gil looked and could see no wires. There was nothing coming from the cave wall or ceiling touching the statue. It seemed simply to stand in midair on the toes of its sandals.

  Gil felt a weird moment of fear because the eyes of the statue were so realistic that they seemed to be boring into him, looking straight into his heart. Yet, at the same time, the glass eyes seemed to be windows opening up into a sky bluer than the skies of Earth, and larger. It was dizzying.

  For a moment, he was convinced the being was alive. But then he noticed it was not breathing, not blinking, not moving.

  Gil relaxed. It was just a statue after all. Yet…

  A sense of terror and awe smote through him them. There was no change, no noise, no motion, but Gil knew that the entity was alive, more than alive, and watching him. It was not breathing or moving because it did not care to. It did not blink because it suffered no pain, nor fatigue, nor smallest discomfort.

  Gil found himself trembling. He bowed to the entity.

  BOW NOT TO ME. I AM BUT A FELLOW SERVANT.

  The voice was louder than a voice could be, but it did not strike into his soul through his ears. It came directly.

  Gil covered his face with his hands. He honestly could not recall having been this afraid before in his life, ever. His knees were shaking.

  He said, “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit!”

  It was all he could think to say. His mind was blank.

  FEAR NOT!

  The sensation of having meaning without words shoved directly into his mind like a lightning bolt was not the sort of thing which brought calm. But he drew a breath and tried to calm his racing heart, to still his shaking limbs, even though he did not have the nerve to take his hands from his face.

  Gil tried to think of something to say. He tried to think of a prayer. “Hail, Mary! Full of grace, blessed art thou above women…” he could not remember the next part.

  SO I SPOKE. THE WOMAN SAID: BE IT DONE TO ME ACCORDING TO THY WORD. THAT ANSWER I BORE ABOVE
AND PLACED BEFORE THE THRONE, AND IT WAS FOUND PLEASING.

  Then, Gil knew to whom he spoke. This was not merely an angel. It was an archangel. It was one of the seraphim.

  The strength in his legs gave out. He fell to his knees. He could feel the sting of tears in his eyes. Gil wondered at himself.

  Why was he so afraid? Surely this was one of the highest and noblest servants of the Most High! It meant him no harm. Why the terror?

  But he knew. He was a killer. He had deceived people. He had been disobedient to his mother, to a saint, to Heaven itself. He walked around in armor studded with gems while poor people starved for a scrap of bread. The insane, reckless, overwhelming love which makes a man love even his enemies was not in him.

  It was the sight of a sinless being that frightened Gil to his marrow bones. When a man fails at some merely human task, or breaks a law, he always has a way to lie to himself, to make it seem not so bad. Gil could not do that, not now, not here, not with eyes like those watching.

  YOU HAVE BLESSED OUR LADY, SO YOU IN TURN ARE BLESSED.

  Gil said, “Here I am. Speak. I will obey.”

  LET THE LANCE OF THE CENTURION WHICH STRUCK THE DOLOROUS BLOW BE DRAWN FROM THE STONE WHEN THE HOUR IS COME. LET IT BE GIVEN TO THE HAND OF THE GHOSTLY FATHER’S NOVICE.

  Gil said, “I don’t understand. What hour?”

  THE MISTS OF EVERNESS PERISH BEFORE THE LIGHT TO COME. NOTHING IS SECRET THAT SHALL NOT BE MADE MANIFEST, NEITHER IS ANYTHING HID THAT SHALL NOT BE MADE KNOWN.

  Gil felt a moment of elation. “Does that mean the elfs will be overthrown? Will I live to see it?”

  YOU WILL BE WITH THE DEAD BEFORE THE GATES OF HELL ERE THAT HOUR COMES.

  So terrible was this pronouncement that Gil’s heart failed him even while his mind was struggling not to accept the meaning of the words. Dead? In Hell?

  Gil said, “What must I do to escape the fires of Hell, Gabriel? What must I do to be saved?”

  THAT BLOOD HAS BEEN SHED. ON YONDER THRESHOLD STONE HIS FEAST IS LAID: TAKE, EAT, DRINK.

  Gil said, “And what must I do to save my life from the Green Knight? Am I going to be alive tomorrow?”

  TAKE NO THOUGHT FOR THE MORROW.

  Gil waited, but that was all. The angel was silent and offered no comfort.

  More words burst out of him, “I don’t want to die. Please, I don’t! The Green Knight is going to kill me! I wish I was not afraid, but I am! Dear God, I am!”

  Ashamed with himself, Gil gritted his teeth and tried to stop the trembling through his body. In a firmer voice, but still not daring to open his eyes, he said, “Let this danger pass me by. Pray to the Lord you serve in bliss, O Angel, pray for me that I be spared. But if–” and now his voice broke out of his control again “–if there is some plan, some purpose to this—if it is the will of Heaven—then let God’s will be done, not mine–”

  His strength failed him utterly. Gil fell on his face, and faintness entered his brain. How long he lay there, lightheaded and unable to rise, he did not know. But then a sense of immense pressure came into the cave, as if some vast living thing huge beyond all telling had entered there. A warmth passed over him and filled his body like wine being poured into a cup, wine that revived life and brought joy. The silence that came then was like the silence of outer space, or a space even larger and older than that.

  After a time, the silence became more like a normal quiet. He could hear the wind outside the cave and hear the drip of wax. The mighty spirit that had passed over him was gone.

  He rose to his feet, bowed to the image of the babe, and retreated.

  Rabicane was outside, head down, waiting. The giant snake-haired three-headed monster was gone, but in its place, in the exact same posture and snoring the same snores, was a mongrel that looked half-collie and half-wolf. His tail and flanks were scarlet. Around his neck, on a strap, was a small curved cone of ivory. It was a hunting horn.

  It was a fairly large dog, but compared to the shape it had been wearing when Gil had entered the cave, it seemed puny.

  Rabicane said, “What happened?”

  Gil said, “Everything.”

  4. Breaking Fast

  Remembering the words of the swans to him, Gil took the horn about the large dog’s neck and the green strap by which it hung. It was carved from the tusk of an elephant, half a cubit long, and bands of dark metal circled near the bell and near the mouthpiece. In a circle around the circumference was scrimshawed an image of two lions facing each other, claws raised as if in combat, but on the other side of the horn’s mouth, their tails were tied to each other. It looked as if their eagerness to fight would only draw the knot tighter.

  Gil said, “Would you know Roland’s horn if you saw it?”

  Rabicane said, “No. Horse cannot match the eye of man. Does it depict two lions combatant yet addorsed, nowed, and twined?”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “A knight unversed in heraldry? Your teachers should have beaten you more. Blow, and let me hear.”

  Gil put the horn to his mouth and winded the horn. A deep roar issued forth, clear and fair as the chime of a great brass bell, and spread across the land. A sound like it answered him dimly in the distance, as if the cry of the horn had reflected off the sky.

  He snatched the horn away from his lips, frowning.

  Rabicane said, “That is the horn. By what mischance it came to be carried by a dog I know not, but you cannot leave it in such unworthy hands. Or paws.”

  Gil slung it about his neck.

  Gil said, “Are you strong enough to carry this big dog if I drape him over the saddle?”

  “Am I not the foal of Tencendur, Charlemagne’s good steed, and Llamrei, Arthur’s mare? I could bear twentyfold that load. Whither bear we him?”

  Gil said, “I want to return him to his master.”

  “Where?”

  “The Green Chapel.”

  Gil prayed, and he ate the bread and drank the wine sitting on the cloth on the stone. It smelled and looked like wine, but he knew it was something more, so he did not hesitate to drink it to the dregs. It cleared his head of all fog, his heart of all fear.

  And the bread was so delicious he felt as if he were eating life itself.

  Chapter Seven: The Lord of Hautdesert

  1. The Living Chapel

  The fruit trees, which held only tiny and unripe fruit that morning, were rich and heavily laden with apples, plums, peaches, oranges, and pears as he walked back downstream. The snow was melting, and, after an hour, instead of being some spring and winter together, it was spring in the air, summer in the grass, and a very abundant autumn on the branches of the trees. Rabicane walked behind, the big white dog draped over the red steed’s saddle.

  The trees were taller and thicker than they had been that morning, and the many colored leaves formed an impenetrable canopy overhead.

  Now the air was warm and fresh as springtime air yet somehow held the strange and wild scent of autumn. In Gil’s mind, that scent was always a time for journeys to new homes because it was always in October that his mother moved and left their old home behind without a word of farewell to anyone. The mingling of the spring wind with the ghostly smells of autumn sent strange longings through Gil, just as if all the beauties in the world, the green trees, the bright waters, the dark mountains, and the mournful cries of geese flying south, were all just a prologue or foreshadowing to some greater and deeper world beyond. Gil breathed in a deep breath, delighting. He wondered if this were indeed the air of Eden.

  Gil plucked fruit from one tree after another, eating a different and more delicious fruit every hundred paces, until his stomach forgot even the concept of hunger.

  Without the red neon side to guide him, Gil almost did not recognize the spot where the restaurant stood, but he saw the white stone marked with a sign of a Celtic cross and turned away from the bank and went deeper into the trees.

  The trees grew taller and closer together. Soon
Gil found himself as if in a corridor of pillars with a green roof overhead, green carpet underfoot.

  He came into the clearing where the restaurant stood, or once had. It was gone. Instead, there was a bloodstained chopping block set up for an execution.

  Here, the trees were larger yet and grown so closely together that the boles touched. Other trees, although still living, had been cropped or trained to grow into the shape of a double row of pillars. Parallel to these were living trees shaped like flying buttresses.

  The canopy of leaves overhead in this place was the bright green of late spring, except for a parallel row of archways high above, evenly spaced between the living pillars, where the many colored leaves were translucent, shining with sunlight, and the different colors and shapes of the leaves formed scenes and images: a baptism, a wedding feast, a pilgrim with staff and cockleshell, a figure on a mountaintop clothed in light, a Passover meal. At the far end of the nave, where the lines of perspective from all the living pillars and buttresses converged, was a large, round rose window, made entirely of autumn leaves.

  For some reason, the beams of sunlight only passed through the autumn leaves, but the green leaves were opaque so that this spot was as dark as night, except for the many colored beams of red and gold, orange and scarlet, that slanted down through the rose-shaped and arch-shaped designs hanging in the green canopy.

  Gil said aloud, “Is this the Green Chapel?”

  As he spoke the name, the wind rustled overhead, the leaves tossed, and the many colored beams of light danced. A bell in the living carillon swayed and sounded. The echo of the bell’s voice passed across the scenery.

  Gil now saw the Green Knight.

  2. The Chopping Block

  It was as if the voice of the bell had summoned him.

  The giant had been standing motionless next to the chopping block, ax in hand. His green hair, kirtle, cloak, and leggings made him blend into the green background of leafy walls behind him. He wore a breastplate of metal, enameled over with green, and his skirts and arms and leggings were covered with many heavy metal scales of green shaped like leaves.