Robert Charrette - Arthur 03 - A Knight Among Knaves

by Robert N. Charrette

  "Short? Sometimes two."

  "Two?" Bear nodded as if he understood. "Mostly edge work then."

  "No edges. I said sticks, remember?"

  "No edges, right. No points either. Sounds undisciplined. Even Vegetius understood the use of the point."

  "Don't assume I don't."

  Bear raised an eyebrow, then smiled. "This could be interesting. When you're dressed, the gym's at the end of the hall."

  Holger didn't take long to dress, less time than it took to locate suitable clothing in the closet and bureau. They weren't his clothes, but they were sized to fit, a full wardrobe of business and casual clothing. His final selection was a sweatshirt emblazoned with the words "If found, return to CIA (drop in any mailbox)" surrounding what he recognized as the logo of the old spy organization.

  Bear had left the gym door open and Holger followed the sounds of clanking weights. The gym wasn't big, but respectable for a private one. Half of it was crammed with assorted exercise machines, while the rest was open space lined with equipment cabinets. In one corner a new computer console gleamed amid a tangle of wires. An inner doorway led to a small locker room and beyond that was another space from which Holger could hear the sounds of a shower. Bear put down the weights and gave Holger the cheap tour. They ended at a set of cabinets full of wooden weapon replicas, padded garments, and plastic helmets, as well as more conventional fencing gear. Bear selected a suite of protective equipment for each of them and got Holger into his. Holger was helping Bear lace up his body armor when Wilson came out of the locker room.

  "What do you two think you're doing?" the dwarf asked.

  Bear hefted a wooden broadsword. "We're going to do a little sparring. A warrior has to stay in shape and keep his skills up. You never know when you're going to be in a fight."

  "You want to fight, you use a gun. Swords! Swords have been out of style since before I was born." Wilson shook his head. "You spend too much time thinking retro, Art."

  "And you spend too much time with machines," Bear retorted. "I intend to test Mr. Kun's mettle, and I intend to do it my way."

  "All right, all right! Who am I to get in the way of archaic fixations? But before you get Mr. Kun all excited, let's take a precaution or two, eh?" Wilson went over to the computer console and came back with a handful of sensor pads. He held them out to Holger. "Here, put these on."

  Suspicious but trying to remain polite, Holger asked, "What are they?"

  "They're just ordinary medical sensors to monitor heart rate, perspiration level, stuff like that. You won't even know you're wearing them, but they'll let us know if you start shifting into overdrive. We don't want any training casualties."

  "We'll be fine. It's just a friendly practice," Bear said. "Mr. Kun doesn't need your monitors."

  "I think he does," Wilson said, staring resolutely at Bear. Bear glared back.

  "I'll wear the monitors," Holger said.

  "I will too," Bear said, taking them away from Wilson. "Where the hell do they go?"

  Wilson helped them attach the monitors, then fussed at the console until he was satisfied that the sensors were functioning correctly. "All right then, we're set. Go ahead and beat each other silly. I'll be watching."

  They finished donning their protective gear and went on to selecting their weapons. To Bear's surprise, Holger found several pairs of escrima sticks among the wooden weapons. When Holger pronounced them overly heavy, Bear said, "What did you expect from practice weapons?"

  Bear selected a wooden sword longer than Holger's two sticks put end to end and they went at it. They circled each other, shifting en garde stances and gauging each other's reaction. The first passes were tentative, stick slapping against stick. The tempo picked up. Bear caught Holger by surprise several times. The stinging slaps and bruising pokes only spurred Holger on. He tried harder, using some of the tricks Mannheim had taught him, and Bear scored less often. After a few unsuccessful exchanges, Bear started circling warily, attacking in flurries that usually ended with Holger putting a solid blow through Bear's defenses. Bear just gritted his teeth when that happened and set up for another go. Each time Bear pushed it up a notch, striking a bit faster, a bit harder. Holger met him with a measured response, matching speed and power. Bear came back fighting harder and more fiercely. Sticks clacked against sticks, occasionally thwacking against protective gear. Holger struck Bear far more often than Bear scored against him. Bear threw himself against Holger's defenses, threatening to overwhelm them. Holger fought back, losing himself in the whirl of combat. He fought. His opponent wouldn't give up. Each time Holger beat him down the man got up again. Holger pummeled him, stick on stick, stick on flesh. Again and again, until the man stumbled back. Again, until he fell. Again. Again. A—

  Someone was holding Holger's arms, pinning them to his side. The grip was strong. He started to wrest himself free, but then he heard the shouting.

  "That's enough, Holger Kun! Fight's over! It's over."

  Wilson's voice. Wilson's grip. Holger stopped struggling, and looked down at the groaning Bear at his feet. Holger realized that he had slipped into the berserker madness, apparently his last and lasting gift from Department M. The escrima sticks dropped from his nerveless fingers. He had no words, unable to think of any way to apologize to the man he'd beaten. His ears filled with thunder and he began to shake.

  "Are you all right, Art?" Wilson asked.

  "Been worse." Bear rolled over onto his back and looked up at Holger. "How about you?"

  Holger didn't know what to say.

  "He's come back to earth," Wilson said. "He'll be fine."

  Holger realized that not all the roaring in his ears was internal. The building was vibrating slightly as the noise of an aircraft engine beat against it.

  "Verrie coming in," Holger said.

  "Scheduled?" Bear asked Wilson.

  The dwarf shook his head. "I'll go check it out. You'd better get cleaned up, Art. We might need you presentable."

  "I was about to call it quits anyway," Bear replied, somewhat out of breath.

  While they were dressing after their showers, Bear said, "I think that I'm glad those sticks weren't swords. I haven't had such a drubbing since—well, never mind. You handle those swords well for a man bred to firearms."

  "You're pretty good with firearms for a man bred to swords."

  "I hadn't thought you a flatterer."

  "I'm not. You really are pretty good, allowing for—"

  "Don't make allowances." Bear's voice was a whip crack. "There's no room for unrealistic evaluations on the battlefield. A man has to know what he can and can't expect of himself. His commander has to know even better."

  Holger was taken aback by the outburst. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean—"

  "I know. I'm just—well, never mind. Let's forget it, okay?"

  "It's forgotten." It seemed strange to be pardoning Bear; Holger was the one who needed forgiveness.

  "You're a good man, my friend. Would that Wilson and his lot were so accommodating."

  "I thought the dwarves were your allies."

  "Oh, they are, they are. They have done a lot to set up the foundation and to get me oriented in this modem age—and I won't deny that I am grateful for it—but for all their goodwill, they're still dwarves and not humans. I'll be happier when there are more people like you around. I need men I can trust."

  "I will try to be one."

  " 'Try to be one,' not 'am one.' " Bear slapped Holger's

  shoulder. "By the Lord, I find your honesty refreshing. Have you any brothers, Mr. Kun? I could use them, especially if I hey fight like you."

  "No brothers."

  "Too bad. Let's hope we don't get to the sharp end before we get a few more recruits, eh?"

  Bear had hinted before that trouble was coming. Holger was ready to help him. "What kind of an op are you planning? What's the target?"

  "1 don't think you understand. Didn't your Department M bosses ever explain to you about the sl
eepers? The once-and-l uture stuff? The promised return in a time of great peril?"

  He knew the legends, but as a recovery ops agent he hadn't been involved in sorting the legends from the truth. Ile'd just been responsible for bringing in the target, and he'd left the sorting out to the doctors and the specialists. " They never told me much."

  "Did they say that the time had come for the sleepers to awaken?"

  "Yes, they did." That much they had told him.

  "And did they tell you why?"

  "No. I don't think they knew."

  "I'm not surprised. The world has grown remarkably complex, and sometimes the enemy is hard to see without a mir-lor. The peril is out there. Several perils, in fact. You can see I hem if you open your eyes and look around."

  "You mean the return of magic?"

  "I know some people are afraid of that, but there's been magic before and it didn't destroy things—except when serpent-loving idiots misused it. Don't get me wrong; I don't like it, but I don't think it's the real danger. The real problem is that the earth is dying—unthinking people are killing it. I'cople who don't understand their place in nature, people who lack ideals, and people who just plain don't care. The dreams are dying, and the earth with them. I ask you, my Iriend, what's the point of living if you have no dreams?"

  "Better no dreams than nightmares."

  "You're wrong there. Nightmares have meaning. They give you something to fight against."

  "How can you fight what you don't understand?"

  "People have been doing it for centuries. You don't have to understand your enemy to fight him, although it helps. You just have to understand that he is your enemy, and do what you believe needs to be done. If you're on the right path, you'll win out. Eventually. Otherwise what's the point? Without dreams there's nothing, just surviving day to day like an animal. I, for one, believe that man is more than an animal, and I know that you, my friend, believe that too."

  He had, once. Listening to Bear, he was coming to remember that belief. "I will fight at your side."

  "Any battle, Mr. Kun?"

  "Any battle."

  "I will fight the battles that need to be fought, but that won't always mean combat. A good warrior knows when to fight with swords—or guns—and when to fight with words. This world is a lot bigger than the last one I knew. It needs different answers. I think I've got a few. I know that some of the people I'm working with are sure that they have some of the answers. I think they may be right. I hope they are. Otherwise, I see little chance to heal this world. The Pend Foundation is my way to work against what I see is wrong. The foundation is opening doors, getting people to listen. We've gathered some influence already. I hope for more. Call it my dream, my hope to heal the world. I'd like to have you be a part of that dream."

  "Do I get to be a knight?"

  "You know, I'm still not sure I understand all the freight that this knight stuff carries, but I do have a round table down in the strategy room, and you're more than welcome to sit at it." Bear smiled. "Right now, however, we need to see about our unscheduled visitors."

  Holger went along with Bear, who made no objection. Holger was glad of that. Walking at Bear's side seemed the right place to be.

  CHAPTER

  34

  The house might once have been nice—maybe about a century or two ago. It huddled under the bare trees of its corner lot, awash in a sea of leaves. The path to the porch was nearly covered, nearly an unblazed trail. The shabby property sure didn't look like the home of somebody who could endow a chair at a major university.

  "Are you sure this is the place?" John asked.

  "It's the address of record," Dr. Spae replied. She led him up the walk and onto the porch, which thumped hollowly under their feet. Pointing at a row of mailboxes fastened to one side of the door, she said, "See? J. Daniel Carter."

  "How can you be sure it's the right J. Daniel Carter?"

  "Is there a reason for all this negativity?" she shot back.

  Other than not wanting to be involved in this? "... No."

  The door had no call box or keypad lock, not even a buzzer. Dr. Spae tried the door, opening it to reveal a hallway. They entered.

  The old house was sectioned into apartments, shown on a laded map hanging by the door. According to the mailbox, Carter's apartment was "A," formerly the front rooms. They walked down the short hall and around the corner to the door. The "A" that had once been nailed to the wood was gone, its former presence shown by a lighter tone on the dark wood and three small nail holes. Dr. Spae knocked.

  There was no response.

  "Maybe we should have called first to see if he was home," John suggested.

  "No phone," Dr. Spae reminded him as she knocked again.

  They waited again to no effect.

  "Did you hear something?" Dr. Spae asked. John hadn't and said so. She frowned meditatively. "I'm sure I heard someone in there."

  She knocked a third time. Almost immediately John heard a mechanism trip on the other side of the door, and slowly the knob began to turn. Half a revolution later the bolt slid free of the catch plate and the door opened, but only the slightest, the barest of cracks. They looked at each other. Dr. Spae put her hand to the knob and opened the door farther.

  "Mr. Carter?" Dr. Spae's voice was tentative, not at all like her usual tone.

  The apartment was a single room, barely bigger than the hall and all unlit and shadowy. The walls had wainscoting of dark wood; the lighter walls above were so age darkened that John couldn't tell if they had once been patterned, or if the vague shapes he saw were from his imagination. Most of the space was filled with a bed, a huge, gnarly four-poster draped in an unwrinkled, faded spread. In one corner, next to a small table piled with dishes and glasses and mugs, squatted a humming refrigerator surmounted by a compact microwave crowned by a two-burner hotplate—the kitchen. In the opposite corner was a desk cluttered with papers that piled like autumn leaves against an antique-style computer so old that its plastic casing was yellowed. The far wall was dominated by a bay window, its panes covered with Venetian blinds angled closed so that only faint strips of outside light leaked between the overlapping slats. Set in the alcove of the bay, its back toward the door, was a rattan chair of the high, round-backed sort that furnished all the bars in Pacific Intrigue™, the kind of seat that the beautiful enemy spies always favored so that they could make a dramatic appearance when they rose from the chair's concealment. Like

  Ihose chairs, this one was occupied. The weave of the chair was just loose enough to show the silhouette of the occupant, presumably J. Daniel Carter. The only things visible about Hie man were his hands, liver-spotted with age, and the fingernails were long and ridged, almost claws.

  "Come in and close the door," said a dry, raspy voice. "You're letting in a draft."

  John couldn't feel any air moving at all.

  Dr. Spae stepped into the room and tugged John along. She closed the door behind them, cutting off most of the light. Now that they were inside, John became aware of a strong odor of mold and decay. How wise were they to accept the invitation? At least the bed lay between them and Iheir shadowy host. Of course, there wasn't much room to do anything; John would have to get Dr. Spae to move just to open the door again.

  Dr. Spae spoke. "Mr. Carter, my name is—"

  "Elizabeth Spae," the fragile voice finished for her. "Doctor of occult philosophy by training and practice if not by degree, and your companion, who is other than he appears, carries the name John Reddy. Consider yourselves introduced. I had expected you somewhat before now."

  "How did you know we were coming?" Dr. Spae sounded more curious than surprised. John thought she ought to be a little more worried.

  "I see much better in these latter days. I see things that were hidden from me in the past. Unfortunately, I see much that I do not care to see." He coughed lightly. "You were at the university. In my office. You found my closet. I was surprised that you took so long to go there."


  John didn't care for the man's attitude. "I suppose you know why we came to see you, as well."

  Carter laughed a laugh just this side of a cackle. "Motives are murky things, are they not? Even after all these years of heightened awareness, I cannot see into the hearts or delve the depths of minds. Would that I could—that I could have long ago. But such vision is not given to me. Concerning motives, I am as blind as the most mundane and benighted unbeliever. Were I to guess, I would say that you have come because you want to know about it."

  " 'It'?" John found the vehement distaste that Carter put into the word unsettling.

  "That which we, in our ignorance, uncovered and brought back here to such woe. The talisman of the worm."

  "Talisman of the worm," Dr. Spae repeated thoughtfully. "That would be the telesmon that Quetzal took from your hidden closet?"

  "Name not the feathered serpent!" The passion in the withered voice caught John by surprise. It must have done the same to Dr. Spae; she looked a bit stunned. For several minutes no one spoke, then the old man whispered, "His heart was as cold as the clime from which we disinterred the talisman. I felt the barrenness when the serpent broke the seal around the talisman. But you two knew his nature, for you fought him, risking your souls to stop his evil. I salute you, unrecognized heroes. Know that your deeds are not wholly unrecognized, even though the greater world remains ignorant of the debt it owes to you."

  John's unease was growing. "You know that we fought Que— the feathered serpent? How?"

  "I felt the serpent's touch," Carter said. "I saw the flares of power. I heard the earth swallow him, heedless of his cries."

  The old guy sounded as though he'd had a front row seat for the battle. Not only that, it sounded as though he'd known that it was coming. How could he have—unless ... yes, there was a scent of power around this strange old man. John no longer had any doubt that this man was more than a simple geologist. He felt apprehensive about Carter's place in what was happening, and remembering how helpless he'd felt going up against Quetzal, he wondered where the old man had been then. "Carter, if you knew the bastard had copped your toy, why didn't you do something? We could have used help."