The Sword of Straw

by Amanda Hemingway

  “At least we know Nenufar is back,” he said, resorting to practical matters. “I mean, she’s gone now, but it’s just a strategic retreat. She’s obviously obsessed with the whole Grail thing, and she thinks I’m part of it.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “I suppose so.” He couldn’t talk about his meeting with the Grandir: it had touched him too deeply, stirring feelings—instincts—too private to express, too complex to define. A silence fell between them of things unsaid, and Hazel, inevitably, thought she knew what it meant, and made no attempt to break it.

  “We ought to discuss things with Uncle Barty,” Nathan said eventually. “He could help you with the magic business. He’s a wizard, after all.”

  “I don’t need help. Not going to try it again.”

  “You never know,” Nathan persisted. “It might come in useful. It could be cool, to be a witch. I wish I’d seen those cats in your class, when the flies went for them.”

  “Not funny,” Hazel said.

  “Sorry—I know you’re upset—but—but—stop agonizing over it.” He meant, what she’d done to him. “It’s history now. Let’s just forget it.”

  “You’re being kind,” she said furiously. “I knew you’d be kind. I can’t stand it.”

  “Sorry…”

  “Friends should be equals. We’re not equals. You’re cleverer than me—more attractive—more popular—and nice. How am I supposed to forget all that? Just by—by being there, you’re shoving it down my throat. Then I do something terrible to you—really terrible—and you forgive me. Why don’t you shout at me, and swear, and call me names?”

  “Sorry.”

  “And stop saying sorry. It’s worse than nice—it’s wet.”

  “All right. All right. You’re a rotten deceitful little cow who sold out your dearest friend to a manipulative evil spirit, just to—to win the love of a boy who wasn’t worth it. I’m so hurt by that I don’t want to talk about it, and I’m trying to blame myself because it’s more bearable that way, and I’m not going to punish you because—because I can’t think of any punishment awful enough. Satisfied?”

  “Not really,” she said, “but it’s an improvement.”

  They walked on without further conversation. Nathan was still looking for his shoe.

  “I’m not wet,” he said at last, “am I?”

  “A bit,” Hazel lied. “Like, when you say sorry a lot, and forgive people, and keep acting nice when any normal person would be totally vile. You could try being mean sometimes.”

  “I’ll work on it,” Nathan promised.

  And then: “We’re not going to find that shoe. How about you buy me a new pair? It’s your fault I lost them.”

  Hazel said something that sounded like umph.

  “They were very expensive,” Nathan added, with what he hoped was an evil smile.

  Hazel said something that sounded like shit.

  They walked back to the village, side by side.

  For over a week, Nathan didn’t dream. It was as if some controlling power—perhaps the Grandir, perhaps a dream-ometer deep in his psyche—decided he needed a respite, a period of normality in which to recoup his strength and restore his nervous system. He did the usual teenage things, slightly limited by the fact that his term had ended sooner than Crowford Comprehensive—slept in late every morning, played cricket with George and his mates after school, went shopping with Hazel for new sneakers, borrowed George’s brother’s new computer game, Ultimate World Domination, and went to level one first time. He climbed Chizzledown Hill with Eric and gazed at the strange chalk symbol cut deep into the turf—an arc bisected by a straight line, enclosed within a circle—which the exile said was an emblem of great magical importance on Eos, though what it imported he didn’t know. And Annie took Nathan, Hazel, and George to Corleone’s, the upmarket pizza restaurant that had just opened in Eade, reputedly in response to the needs of all the wealthy Londoners who were moving into the area. Normal service has resumed, Nathan thought. If he had any dreams, they were the ordinary kind, and stayed in his sleep where they belonged.

  The only one of which he could remember anything—and that not much—was about the motor launch, and the woman in the bows had turned into Halmé, bride-sister of the Grandir and the legendary beauty of her time, wearing a white bathrobe as she had when he first met her. She was just unfastening it when he heard the princess, running along the riverbank and calling to him—or was it Hazel, waving a dripping sneaker? When he turned back Halmé had reverted to the phantom, pale Lilliat, dark Nenufar—and Nenufar became Agnis—and Agnis became someone else—and when he awoke he thought: That’s it… but the dream fled from him and he couldn’t recall who it was Agnis had become. He thought about Wilderslee—Nellwyn—the Grandir—in the periods between sleeping and waking, and went to bed in his clothes with the crystal vials in an inner pocket; but it was the summer holidays, and for a little while at least he was able to relax and be just Nathan.

  Hazel was persuaded to confide in Bartlemy, and began to visit Thornyhill on her own, discussing her experiments in magic, her great-grandmother’s legacy, her private fears and doubts.

  “It was all a cheat,” she said. “The power felt as if it came from me but it didn’t, it came from Lilliat, and the spell didn’t make Jonas love me—”

  “You can’t make anyone love you,” Bartlemy said, “with or without magic.”

  “It was nothing but illusions and lies,” Hazel went on. “Lilliat—Nenufar—Rianna Sardou—they’re just faces, identities she takes on and off like clothes. I bet the real spirit looks quite different—if she has a face at all. She could be just a—a kind of entity, like Nathan’s elemental in the sword. She used me—and I let her. I knew really it was using, I knew I was being stupid, but I did it anyway. And now I know I can do things—call up spirits…I don’t want to try again but I’m so afraid I will.”

  “Believe it or not,” Bartlemy said, “I do understand. I understand very well. I was born with the Gift, in an age when wizards were commonplace, though mostly charlatans, and there were spirits who used me, for a little while. Then I learned to use them. But like you I distrusted the feeling of power—the high—the rush—whatever you would call it. I distrusted the desire to use that power, to manipulate other human beings. And so having learned to control the power, I had to learn to control myself. That is the important lesson. You know already that it must be learned, so you’re halfway there.”

  “How old are you?” Hazel blurted out. “Sorry—that was rude—but you said in an age when wizards were commonplace…”

  “Old enough,” Bartlemy responded, with the hint of a smile.

  “Great-Grandma said she was two hundred—three hundred—something impossible. Are you—?”

  “I’m older than that. An effect of the Gift—sometimes. Do you wish for long life?”

  “N-no, I don’t think so. It would be scary. The world changes all the time, and it might be difficult to keep up. And you’d be so lonely. Your friends would die, and you’d just go on, and on, all by yourself. I wouldn’t like that. Death is scary, too, but it’s natural. Are you…lonely?”

  “Let us say I am alone. I have lost many that I loved, and had more time than most for missing them. But there are always new friends to care for—and I have Hoover.”

  “Is he old, too?” Hazel contemplated the dog with fresh interest. He put his chin on her lap and gazed wistfully at the scone she was eating.

  “Enough of the personal questions. Hoover’s very sensitive about his age.”

  “He doesn’t look sensitive,” Hazel objected.

  “Back to the matter in hand. We know you have the Gift, so you must learn how it works. It will be your choice what to do with it—you may never try another spell—but it’s vital no spirit is able to use you again. I can teach you to control the power, but self-control you must learn on your own.”

  “Do you do much magic?” Hazel asked, a little shyly. “Nathan a
nd I watched you draw the circle that time, and summon spirits, but I’ve never seen you do anything else.”

  “I just cook,” Bartlemy said, and his eyes twinkled blue and innocent as a baby’s. “Food and drink is the best magic. It gives strength to the body—warms the heart—cheers the spirit. The most potent spells happen in the kitchen.”

  “I’m not much good at cooking,” Hazel said.

  “Maybe it’s time to learn.”

  TEN DAYS had passed without adventure or horror, and Nathan was growing restless. He felt he had been given a brief period of leave before the final battle, a lull before the storm, but now he wanted to get back to Wilderslee and finish what he had begun—even though he wasn’t sure how. The future seemed to loom over him like a great dark cloud, its sagging belly heavy with rain, rumbling with thunder, the leading edge of the storm only a footstep ahead of him. He had to take that step, take it now, before the suspense became too much for him and the feeling of imminent doom overwhelmed him. Waiting is always worse than doing, or so he had heard. He didn’t want to wait any longer.

  In bed that night he reached for the portal, behind closed eyes, stretching out into the wide dim spaces of his mind. But there was light there—a hidden light, felt but not seen, coming from somewhere else—light pushing against the portal—a sudden ray of brilliance streaming through a chink in the blur of the doorway. For an instant, as he plunged into the tunnel of stars, he was irradiated, lit up like a comet, tumbling through the blackness of another world in a trail of blazing sparks. It was an experience like no other—it would be long before he tried to describe it, a lifetime before he would forget. Afterward he was strengthened, somehow empowered, as if the light in passing through him had left a glimmer of its splendor deep in the kernel of his soul.

  When at last he was back in himself, he half expected to see his body glowing, as when he had seen off the Urdemon outside the palace in Carboneck. But he looked ordinary enough, and he wasn’t in Wilderslee with a demon to challenge. He was back on Eos, facing a door that looked vaguely familiar, with his hand already on the bell panel. The door opened, and there stood a man with braided beard and three-quarter mask, his hands ungloved. Osskva. Osskva Rodolfin Petanax.

  Nathan thought: Bugger. What am I doing here?

  “Well, well,” Osskva said. “You leave from the central salon, but return by the door. It is nice to see some of the old courtesies preserved.”

  “I didn’t mean to offend you,” Nathan found himself saying, in the formal speech of Arkatron. “I can’t—”

  “You can’t predict your arrival or departure. I believe you mentioned that. Come in. You are looking rather less ghostly this time.”

  Nathan took a seat on a curving sofa near the cakestand-fountain where the water circulated endlessly, rippling down the glasswork and sending mirror glows dancing across the ceiling. There was daylight beyond the window screens but Osskva removed his mask and, in deference to Nathan’s solidity, offered him a drink that both smelled and tasted like floral tea. A tiny bowl of pale green crystals proved to be a kind of sweetener; Nathan added several to his cup.

  “We talked about the Sangreal,” Osskva observed, “on your previous visit. I gather it remains in your world, supposedly for safekeeping. What did you come to talk about now?”

  “I don’t know,” Nathan admitted. “Last time, I thought I had to tell you about Kwanji—that’s why I was here—but…”

  The old man studied him thoughtfully with those amethyst-blue eyes; perhaps it was their color that made them appear at once penetrating and profound, windows onto a great depth of soul. “You have done many things since last we met,” he said. “I think you have grown, though not in height. Welcome back, Nathan Ward. You told me you tried to help Kwanjira, and I believe you spoke the truth: a first-level practor is not easily deceived. In return, I will help you, if I can.”

  Nathan didn’t respond—the floral drink was hot, and he had scalded his throat. “Indeed, I probably would anyway,” Osskva continued, “since your presence here—so near the end of my world—is obviously of enormous significance, even if I have no idea what that significance is. One like me should know when he is touched by fate, or he is not worth the name of magus.”

  “Thank you,” Nathan said, recovering, “but I’m not sure what to ask.”

  “What is on your mind?”

  “The sword. The Sword of stroar. In the world where it’s being kept, they call it the Traitor’s Sword.”

  “It has been called that here, too. Do you know its history?”

  “Romandos made it—the first Grandir,” Nathan said promptly. “But he was killed with it, by his friend Lugair. It might have been treachery and murder, but it might have been a sacrifice. It mayn’t be important—it was awfully long ago—but…I should like to know what really happened.”

  “Romandos…Few have heard that name, even now. Where did you get it?”

  “In a dream. It’s like…I can enter other worlds at any point in their time. I’m not restricted to dreaming things in chronological order. I saw Romandos, forging the sword, and Lugair came in to talk to him. It was in a cavern hung with green stalactites.”

  “I have heard of that place,” Osskva said, his voice almost a sigh. “Some say it was on Gabirone, some say Alquàrin. It hardly matters now: they are all gone, eaten by the contamination in a few hundred years. Did you see…the killing?”

  “No.”

  “Evidently your dreams are censored; it would be interesting to learn by whom.” Nathan didn’t comment. “I will tell you what I can, since this may be what you came for. It isn’t much, I’m afraid. In this world it has become a crime to invent or embroider a story; therefore, when no accurate records remain, stories are seldom told, and the nucleus of truth in a myth or legend can be lost, along with the fantasy. The law was made by the previous Grandir, no doubt for the best of reasons, but I have often deplored it. Privately, at least. Grandirs do not brook criticism.”

  “About Romandos…?” Nathan said, hoping to stick to the point.

  “Romandos…As is traditional in the ruling family, he had a sister. Only the present Grandir is childless: normally, children were born before magical longevity rendered both parents sterile. Have your dreams ever shown you Halmé, bride-sister to our current ruler?” Nathan nodded. “I, too, have seen her. They say she is the most beautiful of women. Of course, that is said in every generation, of one girl or more. Nonetheless, Halmé is—exceptional. Romandos’s sister, Imagen, was such another, or so it is written. He wedded her—it had long been the custom, in families Gifted with the greatest powers, in order to maintain the superiority of their lineage.”

  “In my world,” Nathan said, “we think incest is unhealthy. For the children, I mean. Too much inbreeding is supposed to make people stupid.”

  Osskva smiled. “A strange idea,” he said. “Mate intelligence with intelligence, power with power, and the children will be more powerful and intelligent than their parents. That is nature.”

  “Genetics doesn’t work that way with us,” Nathan said. “We think variety is good.”

  “Your world must be very primitive,” Osskva remarked. Maybe Nathan imagined the hint of condescension.

  “My world isn’t about to self-destruct,” he said.

  “That is all too true. Forgive me if I offended you. We were talking of Romandos, and Imagen. He loved her, and accepted her love, without questioning its depth or its meaning. We know this from writings of his that survive. They had three sons and a daughter: the eldest boy inherited his rule. But Imagen had long been close to his friend Lugair, though whether she had given him her body is not known. No account of hers endures, and the Hall of Voices, where the witnesses of history left their words, preserved forever in undying echoes—that was destroyed in war more than an age ago. Of one thing we can be certain from other records of the time, Lugair loved Imagen—loved her so much that his affection for his friend was destroyed, and only b
itter envy remained. He came from a family nearly as powerful as that of the Grandir; he was ambitious, ruthless, greedy. Exactly why he killed we do not know—he may have hoped to seize power, or fooled himself it was a sacrifice—but Romandos’s heir discovered him, and snatched up the sword that Lugair had let fall, and cast it at him. Unhappily, Imagen came between them, and so she was slain, and Lugair was executed later. It was considered fortunate that there were the children to carry on the purity of Romandos’s line. It is said, the present Grandir is molded in his image.”

  “But—” Nathan said, and stopped. He had seen the ghost of the past in the Grandir’s face, and it was not Romandos. “What if—what if the heir had been the son of Lugair?”

  “Unthinkable.” Osskva all but shuddered. “To corrupt the blood of the ruling family would be a terrible crime. The taint, remember, could never be erased. The present Grandir’s right to rule might even be called into question.”

  “Isn’t it a bit late for that?” Nathan said. “After all, there isn’t much left to rule over.”

  “You do not understand. The Great Spell—the spell that may yet save those of us who are left—was initiated by Romandos. His blood dripped from the sword, and filled the cup. The one who completes that spell must have the same blood, or the magic may be distorted. It is one of many reasons why I could not do it. The sorceror who starts the spell must finish it—he or one of his descendants, genetically almost identical. There are laws that cannot be cheated. The sacrifice, too…”