A grave, I guessed; somebody buried, somebody powerful enough to have this whole vast pile for his mausoleum. Somebody a whole nation had believed in, believed in still, maybe, and were waiting for him to wake. Arthur; Frederick Barbarossa; even Attila, as much a hero in the lands east of the Rhine as he was a villain in the west. The dust was in my throat as I approached that hunched shape; and I thought I was right when I saw it closer. It was a low dais, of black marble or some other polished stone, smooth and featureless. Across it, almost carelessly, a great swathe of material lay draped, something like heavy silk with encrusted embroideries. As far as I could make out in that gloom it was a long cloak or robe or mantle, of some dark colour; the embroideries looked like Byzantine figures in dull gold, saints or something of the kind, but it was hard to be sure in the dimness. Beneath the robe there seemed to be something long, and beneath that a stone, maybe some sort of marker. But as I very gingerly lifted the edge of the material I saw it was no conventional gravemarker, whatever it was; it looked very roughly dressed, far cruder and more ancient. It was about the size of a small flagstone, and a foot to eighteen inches thick, and it had no inscription, none at all; just rough irregular markings. The only significant one was a deep bowl or cup shape set some way off from the centre, and surrounded by a curious pattern of scratched-in rings, some deep-worn, others mere scrape marks, but all concentric, all very deliberate. And stranger still, lying across the top of this stone, held there by the long cloak, was a short strong-looking shaft of wood, bound with bands of brighter metal and tipped with a very businesslike head of – what on earth was it? Black glass, I guessed, but volcanic glass, obsidian; not chipped but smoothed and honed to a perfect surface.
Mystery piled on mystery, and I was wasting my time in here. They could have surrounded the whole place by now. I lowered the mantle very gently and padded as quietly as I dared towards the colonnade opposite. But just as I reached it, I heard the boom of that outer door thrown back, and the crash of running feet. There was a harsh shout, wordless but threatening, and two men came charging up to the archway; men dressed in hussar fashion, not unlike the guards, but all in grey, with froggings and pipings and epaulettes of chain mail that sparkled silvery even in that submarine gloom. Their drawn swords gleamed a grimmer hue, huge straight sabres with basket hilts, broadswords almost. I expected them to charge across the floor, but instead they dashed into the colonnade, and began circling the hall towards me. I let them come – far enough and I could bolt across the floor and out – but then the door boomed again, and others came racing in. Even from here I could see the swords, and the uniforms: more grey hussars. I thought of my own sword, suspended above the mantel in my flat, as out of place as ever; in my mind I reached up for it, I worked my fingers as if to close about its grip. For an instant I seemed actually to touch the wirebound sharkskin, cool and comforting in my hand, and weigh the solid steel. Then the darkness of the place pressed in on me, and I felt it slither, slip, fall away with a faint fading clatter.
I swore horribly, tensing my fists. What was it now, five, six against one? One weaponless. I could give myself up, take a chance on their mercy; somehow I didn’t fancy that. They’d shot at me on sight, perhaps because they’d linked me up with Stryge. The swords were levelled, steady, unyielding; any one could kill. The unfairness of it rose in my throat like bile. I had to defend myself somehow, if only to make them listen; and damn the cost, I’d do it any way I could. I poised, waited till they were all in the colonnade, circling me like jackals around a fire; and then I dashed where they wouldn’t go, right across that mosaic mandala. Sliding the mantle down I snatched the spear from across the stone and swung it, taut and heavy, in my hand.
The result was unexpected, to put it mildly – and electrifying. It sounded like one great gasp, echoing around the shadowy vaultings above, but it came from all of them, in horrified unison. And as one those sombre swordsmen sank back and down, tall shapes of menace shrinking to crouching defensives, backed up against the walls like baited beasts before a trainer’s whip. Heartened, I jabbed the spear at them. Their swords swung wildly in their hands; one dropped his, another gave a shout of alarm. They were between me and those other doors now; too bad. I strode boldly towards the archway, wondering if they’d scream and run; they didn’t. They just watched me, six pairs of eyes glittering in shadow. I glanced at the nearest one as I passed, and he returned the glare like a parry. He was blond, with bushy sidewhiskers and upturned moustache that barely concealed two long scars seaming his red cheeks.
Despite those, it wasn’t a harsh face; there might have been laughter lines around those eyes normally. But now they were stretched tight with helpless, contorted hatred, and his sword twitched in his hand. For half a cent that man would have jumped at me and cut me to pieces, whatever the cost to himself. So whatever was holding him back had to be something a lot greater. Fear? I didn’t buy it, somehow. The man on the other side was dark-skinned, with plump features that couldn’t blunt a hawk nose, a North Indian type with three white bars painted on his forehead. From somewhere I remembered these were the marks of a warrior and teacher of warriors. He was purple-cheeked with outrage; but he was just crouching back, sucking in his breath, watching.
I passed under the arch and into that long corridor, wondering what was going on outside. Maybe things had died down now, the good citizenry gone about their daily business; maybe not. I looked back; there were the grey swordsmen piling in through the arch. They stopped as soon as I looked at them, but like hounds held back by a leash; and one had poised his sword to throw. Another stopped him with a gesture. I didn’t fancy going back, and I couldn’t see any more side-doors, so there was only one way to find out. I leaned on the huge door and opened it a fraction; sunlight streamed in, and I wasn’t shot at. So I pushed a little further, and stepped out – only to freeze like the swordsmen when the crowd clustering around the steps growled and surged forward. Just ordinary citizens, not guards. Quickly I raised the spear two-handed, swinging this way and that – and again the effect was electrifying. I could have been casting thunderbolts, in fact, because in instant accord they yelled, turned and ran, tripping, falling, being dragged along, spilling over the sides of the steps into the shrubbery. All the scene needed was a bullet-riddled pram bouncing down those stairs – with me cast as the entire Imperial Guard. I swallowed, took a few steps down and saw the panic go rippling out from the heart of the crowd to the mere gawkers and distant onlookers. In minutes the way was clear. But so much for appealing to the people in the street.
I staggered back across a bridge now completely empty except for the odd deserted hat or fur muff; and evidently the word was going ahead. As I reached the street opposite and began to climb, doors slammed, children wailed, figures vanished hastily up side-streets. I looked back, once, and saw the grey hussar types, close together, pacing swiftly across the bridge, swords levelled again; but when I looked they stopped. I started running.
It was uphill now, and a terrible slog over those lumpy cobbles; but I kept going, driven by my own astonishment and confusion as much as anything else. By the time I reached the top of the main street any child could have stopped me with the average feather duster; but nobody even tried. The most I heard was cries of distress, and shutters slamming. Within sight of the gate the burly officer of the watch shouted again, snatching for his sword, and the guards sprang into my path; then I raised the spear. They wilted, gaping in horror; the officer, cursing violently, backpedalled till he was almost flat against the archway, panting and sweating. If I’d been carrying a live atom bomb they could hardly have responded better. I gestured, and the officer groaned despairingly and threw aside his sword with considerable force. I plunged past him and into the narrow inner gateway; carters and farm workers took one look, screamed and tried to plaster themselves flat against the walls, hiding their eyes. Women burst into tears. Nobody tried to stop me. Nobody so much as threw anything. So I stumbled out on to the open road outs
ide the wall, free of the city, but feeling dazed – and oddly disgraced.
I stood there a moment, gulping. I could have thrown the bloody spear aside there and then, left it hanging in the hedgerow like some king or other’s crown. Or rather, put it down carefully, for it was evidently something incredibly precious or sacred. But then horsemen could come after me, ride me down; and somehow I suspected they would. That guy in the church would have hunted me with hounds. I’d leave it by the helicopter, that would do. Leave it clearly visible somehow – trample the grass, maybe.
By the time I’d made it back to the meadow I hardly had the energy. Fall flat on my face in it, maybe. Stashed behind my seat there was a pack of isotonic fruit drinks, and I longed for those as if they were the fountain of youth; my tongue was sticking to my mouth. It almost froze there, though, when the short figure rose from the ‘copter skid he’d been sitting on, and nodded with mild contempt.
‘Well! A fool has duly rushed in where angels fear to tread. My good sir, you have most admirably completed the task I set you. You have but to hand over that barbaric instrument, and you may go on your way free of all obligation.’
‘You son of a bitch, Stryge!’ I croaked, my voice nearly as harsh as his. ‘You’re telling me you made me do all that?’
‘Why, of course. It was laid upon you from the moment you exchanged words with me up above there. It did not occur to you, did it, that you were not acting entirely in accordance with reason in never exchanging a word with those of the city? In never explaining yourself, or seeking explanation? Of course, it helped that I provoked them into firing on you in the first place. But did you never once wonder what was the root of the curiosity which led you so directly to the Hall? No doubt you rationalized it to yourself, for that is the nature of such … obligations. But nevertheless you discharged my instructions with commendable despatch. You are a tool that comes apt to the hand, young sir.’
I unglued my tongue with difficulty. ‘Do you want to know what you are?’ I raised the spear. ‘I’ve half a mind to—’
Stryge snapped his bony fingers, a sound like dry tinder catching. ‘Half? You can scarcely claim even that much.’
From around the helicopter two huge figures stepped, one holding a long narrow metal case. They bore down on me with a lumbering, menacing swagger to their stride. For a moment I thought they were Wolves, those appalling demi-humans, till I saw that their skins weren’t that dead elephantine grey. They were just plain Caucasian pink, but it didn’t stop them looking weird. Over the double metre in height, built like the original brick outhouses, with fat heavy limbs, almost hairless heads and nightmare faces, square and crumpled – and yet somehow horribly familiar. They wore heavy coveralls and boots, like caricatures of labourers; and they stank like animals. The old man sniffed, and rasped a thumb over his bristly chin. ‘I repeat, young fool, hand that over and you may go about your petty business. Or—No. There is no or.’
I was stunned, exhausted, doubly humiliated; and I was impelled by an inner drive that I was only just realizing wasn’t my own. It still felt as if it was as much a part of me as my thirst or my anger and as hard to shake free of. I really wanted to hand the damn thing over and be done with it, however much my rational mind objected. It felt like the only natural thing to do. The two ogreish characters squinted down at me from piggy eyes deep sunk in creases of pale flesh; one of them broke wind with deliberately noisy contempt. The other rumbled something, saliva trickling down his jowls, and flipped open the case. The velvet lining had been clearly shaped to an exact fit; and somehow that evidence of planning and forethought unmanned me completely. It was exhaustion that saved me, and shock. I trembled with indecision, Le Stryge hissed his impatience – and unthinkingly, almost automatically, I held out the spear to him. He positively hopped back, spry as a cricket, and snapped at the ogre who held the case. The brute stamped forward and pointed with a great horn-tipped finger. I was to put the spear in the case myself.
Something clicked. Disingenuously I offered it to him. He growled something incoherent and swung back a huge paw as if to cuff me. The flatulent one gave a gross, belching laugh. But he didn’t make any move, either. They wanted it so much, but somehow none of them would touch it.
I made as if to lay the spear in the case – and then I swung it up in their faces. The one behind blundered back, knocking Le Stryge flying, but the ogre with the case, less agile, instinctively cuffed at it. His hand touched it—
There was no transition. One minute he was there, the next a mere shadow in a roaring spout of fire that almost took off my eyebrows, capering in a great gargling bellow of agony suddenly cut off. I staggered back, clutching the spear. The fire didn’t come from it; it rose like a waterspout around the ogre. The blackened figure was swaying, folding, sinking down into itself, a dwindling outline. The fire popped out in a column of greasy smoke, and a charred lump fell sizzling into the steaming grass, a little stubby parody of the hulking outline of before. No human body would burn so; this was more like a burned vegetable. The other creature let out a high whining squeal and blundered away across the meadow like a stampeding elephant, shrieking. That left me with Stryge, half sprawling in the grass; and of all the things I hated and feared, the invasion of my mind was the worst. He raised himself on one elbow, long dark sleeve swinging, and I lunged at him. I caught one glimpse of his malevolent face; then the sleeve flapped across it, and the spear struck harmlessly down into the grass. The sleeve went fluttering away of its own accord across the field, an early bat swooping after insects, leaving me staring.
I hefted the spear in my hand, wondering what would happen if I touched the head – but I already had, hadn’t I, back in the hall? I gave up. Exhausted as I was, I knew I would be best advised to head straight back to the town with it, start talking as I should have done in the first place. It’d be a lot riskier now; but trying to hold on to something like this would be even worse. I was looking back, wondering whether to go on foot or risk the ‘copter, when I saw, rising behind the bulk of that mysterious hall, a glimmer of glistening white against the greying sky. A drone of engines came to me over the fields, and up from beyond the towers of that strange hall rose the pale outline of an airship, like the one that had chased me. Behind it, nosing upward like a breaching whale, came the rounded prow of another.
Thanks to Le Stryge’s influence I’d evidently left it a little late to talk. Wearily I fumbled for the keys; luckily they were still on my belt. I stared dully at the spear. I was tempted just to chuck it down into the grass for them to find; but Le Stryge and the other brute were still around somewhere, and the airships would be more concerned with catching me. It might easily fall into the wrong hands before anyone got to it. Impatiently I snatched up the old necromancer’s case from where it had fallen, and slapped the spear into the velvet. It fitted perfectly, and the case snapped easily shut. The airships were approaching arrows now; and they were fast, far faster than I’d expected. I tore open the cockpit door, thrust the case back behind my seat and leaped in. I twisted the key in the starter and jammed on my helmet just in time to save my ears. No preliminaries; the moment she reached full revs I shoved the collective forward and twisted the throttle, and she fairly leaped off the hillside. I tipped the cyclic, tapped the rudder pedal and sent her sweeping away up and out across the valley. The airships saw me and climbed after me; I banked across the top of them to turn in a tight arc around the tall towers in my path. They tried to follow, almost collided, and fell away to my rear as I soared up and away towards the clouds. A grey shroud closed around me, the note of the rotors changed slightly, and once again I was flying blind.
Radar showed me the mountainside, and I climbed higher yet. Then, quite abruptly, the world was full of light and noise again, the long rays of a sinking sun and the voice of the Frankfurt flight controllers squawking in my ears, demanding my position and flight path, and how did I manage to vanish from their screens like that?
Unthinkingly I
tabbed on my little navigational computer. Its entry rang up on the control screen.
Landed: Ref unrecord: Heilenthal.
Port reference: OOOI – fac. airship only.
Frequency: unlisted.
Portmaster: Adalbert v. Waldestein, Ritter.
Deputy: Arcite v. Lemnos, Ritter.
Authority: nil.
Clearance: nil.
Stay: hrs 4.
Fuel: none.
Other Service: none.
Refuel: within hrs 4.5.
There was a moment of what I could only call strangled silence from the controllers, and then a great shout of laughter.
Chapter Four
All the way home the metal container lay on the floor behind my seat, clinking gently against the support like a dog pawing for attention. When I had to land at Rouen to top up the extra fuel I’d used, I tried wedging it against the back seat with my cases, but it fell down again when I took off. Even without the clinking, I wouldn’t have been able to get it off my mind. Something important, evidently; something appallingly powerful; something I could touch with impunity – so far – but who else? I’d have some interesting explaining to do if some airport security man went up in flames.
As it turned out, there wasn’t a problem. This was my home heliport, the men on duty knew me, and waved me and my trolley full of climbing gear right on through without checking anything. All the same, I heaved a sigh of relief as I jammed it into the back of my car; it wouldn’t fit in the boot of this vintage design. I’d been afraid that black glassy head would get damaged despite all the velvet, but there wasn’t a mark on it. So far, so good – but what was I supposed to do with it now?
I knew what I ought to do, of course – return it to the city, somehow. But they’d been a touch too trigger-happy for my taste; and besides, that might easily draw Le Stryge down on me. As it was, even on the drive back from the heliport I began to get the feeling I was being marked or followed in some way, though my mirror didn’t show any cars tailing me. I wanted to know what it was all about, this sinister object, before I made up my mind. I knew people who might well have more of an idea than I did – not too difficult; I’d find them, and ask. But till then I’d better hide it. It wasn’t exactly the sort of thing you hang on your wall, and it wouldn’t fit in any of the office safes – besides, I didn’t want those kind of forces attracted to either my home or my business. I’d had enough trouble with that before. Unless …
Cloud Castles Page 8
