Cloud Castles

by Michael Scott Rohan

  Encouraged, I let them bustle and chivvy me down to the gate and through, beneath the slow measured tread of the sentries. But I had to stop in the gate a moment and look out to the open square beyond. It was all I recalled, and more, much more. I’d remembered the neat houses, the gardens and the winding alleys, the wealth of trees, the clear air and all the sense of life and freshness that clung around the streets even when they were empty. Now, though, I saw what lay behind their charm. They were a sign of strength, of a near-perfection it took power to maintain. Power that could hold this whole community stable within the constant flux of the Spiral, power that kept it an enduring, unchanging island where other places, or those who dwelt in them, would soon slip back into the Core and be overtaken by history. How had I ever managed to miss the aura of this place? I could almost see the radiant power in the vast buttresses of the wall, in the noble classical colonnades of the larger buildings, in the coronal of white clouds behind the reaching towers. Had I been blind? No, only blinded, by the compulsion laid upon me. This place was a strength, a bulwark; if it looked even a touch over-civilized, that was because it dare not give any opening to what it shut out. These walls, these guards were not for show, or for oppression; this place had enemies real and immediate, and ones with whom no compromise was possible.

  ‘Ah,’ said the captain quietly, ‘so I thought. You have been before within the walls of the Heilenberg. If you please, will you come this way? The Knights will be anxious to hear your tidings.’

  He ushered me swiftly into a small doorway set within the inner corner of the looming double gate itself, and up a long spiral stair of stone, lit only from above and flanked by faceless doors. I thought for a minute we were going to climb right to the top, but some way short of it he produced a bunch of keys, opened a door and waved me courteously inside. The corridor beyond was dark, and I hesitated. Dragovic seemed to catch my unease. ‘Such Knights as are still here, and many others, attend a … ceremonial,’ he said, stiffly apologetic. ‘We must ask you to wait in the guardroom while we send word.’

  I shrugged; I didn’t like it, but I couldn’t expect them to let me run around loose. Dragovic led the way to another door, unlocked, and as it opened on a lighter room he stood aside to let me pass. But the light came only from a narrow slot in the wall, and it was an instant before my eyes registered the empty lamp chains hanging from the vaulted ceiling, the dull banners stacked around the stone walls, the bareness and faint dustiness of long disuse. No way was this a guardroom. But even as I rounded on the two officers I expected to hear the door slam, and find myself alone. I was wrong. They were still with me; but the lieutenant’s hand was on the hilt of his sabre.

  ‘And now,’ he said, also in English, ‘you will at once tell us where is the Great Spear and how it may be found. Zur stelle!’

  I’d been neatly shanghaied; but not that neatly. ‘I’m only too happy to tell,’ I repeated. ‘To somebody in authority. Not you.’

  ‘We are all the authority that is required,’ said the captain, with icy calm. ‘A spy has been caught returning to the scene of his crime, as a dog to his vomit. He will, however, make some slight atonement by disclosing the whereabouts of the property he stole. The Knights need not concern themselves with such as you, mein Bursch’. Now, for the last time, will you speak?’

  Oh, great. Two more over-ambitious cops out to notch up Brownie points. I’d had my bellyful of the breed lately, and I dug my heels in. ‘I told you,’ I grunted, ‘I’ll talk to these Knights – nobody else. And that’s final.’

  ‘As you wish,’ said Dragovic coldly. ‘No consideration of honour arises with such as you. If necessary we will cut the truth from you piecemeal.’

  I grunted again. ‘The Knights wouldn’t thank you for killing me.’

  Von Albersweg shrugged. ‘If you die it will dissolve whatever forces you have used to conceal the Spear, and we will surely set hands upon it then. Und nun—’

  My sword was in my hand before his left the scabbard. The lieutenant flushed, and swung it up high, into the stilted Heidelberg on-guard. I almost laughed; Heidelberg duelling is fast showy swordplay with the edge only, on a fixed stance and swathed in face and body armour, its main purpose to decorate callow Junkers with shallow scars. I’d played rougher games. I stamped forward into a forceful on-guard, setting my body well back beyond his reach, my point levelled at von Albersweg’s solar plexus – very steadily, I was glad to see. I braced myself, but the lieutenant hesitated, staring at the blade. ‘Zum Teufel!’ he hissed. ‘Sehen Sie dock dieser Stahl—’

  Dragovic twitched that vile moustache, and snorted. ‘Beruhe dich!’ he barked, and added contemptuously to me, ‘So you have been stealing other things as well!’ Then abruptly he elbowed the lieutenant aside, swept out his own sabre and came on guard, all in the same flowing motion, at least as easy as mine. His point tapped at mine, without any tremor I could see. Not to be outdone, I raised my sword to salute, and after an instant, grudgingly, he followed suit – and then lunged, with fearsome speed, driving me stumbling back against the wall before I could parry properly. His point struck little puffs of nitre from the stone beside my shoulder. Our guards clashed, we met corps-a-corps and I threw him aside and launched a fierce riposte over his blade. He disengaged effortlessly, and I found myself parrying a blinding sequence of slashes at shoulder and thigh – and then a sudden lunge at my stomach. I was ready for that, simultaneously side-stepping and cutting fast at his head. He ducked, countered – and drove, appallingly fast. I skipped back, halted him with a stamping appel and caught his lunge as it licked at my throat – just.

  I sprang forward into his attack, cramping his style, and launched my own best display of compound attacks, never letting the line of engagement move an inch, staggering the rhythm so it never became predictable. One lunge nicked his ear, another came within an ace of clipping that bloody moustache; he fell back and I went after him. He was going purple in the face; but he was holding me, beginning to beat me back. And all the time the lieutenant was dancing around us like a kid eager to join in – a vicious kid, because I could see by the way he was lifting his sword that he wasn’t just enthusiastic, he was looking for a clear opening to take a swipe at me himself. He saw one, too, and sprang in, ready to slash out at my back. I’d seen it too, though; I ducked back and stabbed out, spiking him neatly in the thigh. He screamed, skidded and fell, clutching his hip. Dragovic skipped over him with what might have been an amused grunt – and then laid into me again. This was a real swordsman and not just an overgrown school bully, and I was flagging fast. Cut, feint and lunge followed each other in a flickering sequence that held me to the spot, too engaged to risk a move, though the lieutenant was twisting at our feet. Then I skidded in his blood, lost my balance and the initiative together, desperately tried another traverse and completely fumbled it—

  ‘Halt!’ The shout jarred the air, high and clear. It galvanized the captain, leaving his vicious riposte quivering in mid-air; I froze, too – then slipped and crashed down on one knee with stinging force, my weight on my sword hand. The captain’s moustache bristled, his blade hovered – and the shout came again, with a clatter of boots in the corridor, and the slam of the outer door. ‘Halt’, sagte ich! Kein Schlag mehr! Versteh’n, Hauptmann?’

  The captain drew a deep breath between his teeth. His sabre sagged, and his heels clicked. He looked to the corridor, his face a study in repressed disappointment and baffled resentment. I risked taking my eyes off him for a moment. But I wouldn’t like to think what my face showed then. His last chop, if it had connected, couldn’t have hit me much harder; now I’d really had it. Yet all I felt was numb, stunned by that instant of recognition – although what I recognized was hard to say, the transformation was so total.

  The soft dove-grey uniform I’d seen before. It looked inconspicuous compared to the gaudy sentries’ uniforms or the trim black of the city guard; but even in the shadows of the corridor the flashes of gold insignia st
ood out – at the breast especially, because this was, quite unmistakably, a woman. Tall, trim, dark-haired, she clicked quickly down the last few steps and into the doorway, taking in the chaotic scene with one crisp glance. It didn’t last; she saw me, and her expression went blank. But I’d had my share of shocks already. I managed to speak first. ‘Well, hi there,’ I said loopily, staggering to my feet. ‘Some uniform. It suits you a lot better than your burglar gear, Miss 1726.’

  Then I had to leap for my life as the captain launched another vicious slash. It would have connected, too, but for one more shock – a sword was suddenly in its path, almost faster than sight, and rock-steady. Mall could have done better, perhaps, but not many others. The captain’s sabre rang and bounced; he clutched at his wrist and unleashed a stream of barely comprehensible oaths. ‘Can you not see?’ he bellowed. ‘This, this is the one – the thief! Caught sneaking back within the walls again, to who knows what purpose this time. He insults you, and you—’

  She ignored me completely and rounded on him. One terrible look, and his bluster ran right down. ‘Control yourself!’ she snapped. ‘You face serious trouble! Just as well I happened to leave the conclave, or you’d have been in far worse! Weren’t your orders clear enough? This is a matter for the Rittersaal alone, the City Guard’s not free to interfere. You have no business arrogating anything so grave to indulge your personal ambitions! I am taking charge of this prisoner.’

  His face went from flushed to deadly white. ‘You are incompetent. You are but newly invested and not fit to decide. I will call out the guard!’

  She faced him calmly. ‘Do, and it will be to detain yourself. I am what I am, and that is not answerable to you.’

  ‘You turn your back on a felon armed and dangerous!’ he blustered.

  ‘Dangerous?’ She glanced at me a moment. There was none of the old anger in her face – not even any special sign of recognition. All she said, quite calmly, was, ‘Put down your sword.’

  ‘Now just hang on!’ I objected, though I was impressed as hell. ‘I came here openly – this time – to ask for a hearing in good faith. I know where the Spear is, I’ll help you find it, gladly – if I can only explain!’ But then I couldn’t hold it back any longer. ‘You! What the blind bloody hell are you doing here?’

  She looked at me with steely authority. It was only then I realized just how radically her face had changed. It was like seeing a flattering photograph or an idealized portrait; it was as if those brief glimpses I’d had were really looks beneath a mask. All the lines of temper and resentment were smoothed off her face as if they’d never been, and that in itself stripped away ten years; but there was more. There was a balance in the features that had never been there before, so what had seemed harsh and angular became subtly smoother, less stark. Her hair wasn’t that different, cut short and slightly tousled; but it had lost the cropped, aggressive spikiness. Her nose was still quite prominent, but her cheeks had filled out, so it fitted her face better. Those high cheekbones sloped down more delicately now to a jaw that was only well defined, and a mouth fuller but just as firm; the strong chin hadn’t changed, but it fitted. The notch between her eyebrows had gone, and the permanent frown, along with the hollowness around her eyes. Now I could see it was their slight natural slant that had made the frown look so fixed. For the first time I noticed they were a striking blue-grey.

  The closer I looked, the harder it was to believe that this was the same person and not some twin or clone; yet I never had the least doubt who it was. Even her voice had softened. ‘Whatever I am elsewhere, or was, here and now I am a Knight of the Sangraal. You will have your hearing, if you offer no further violence. But first you’d better demonstrate your own good faith – or shall I shed enough of your blood to take your sword anyway? Believe me, I can do that.’

  I didn’t say anything to that. I’d bested her before, unarmed. But I was tired, and distrust racked me like physical pain. ‘Last time I saw you, you were a gibbering wreck trying to kill me out of hand. What says you won’t do it now?’

  She stiffened slightly, and then, surprisingly, she almost smiled. ‘Look at me!’ was all her answer.

  ‘I am looking! What in God’s name’s happened to you?’

  ‘Look at me!’ she said again, more sharply. I stared. It wasn’t so much what was still there, drive and intensity; it was what wasn’t. The instability, the paranoia, the sheer hate – it was gone, down to the last traces, so that what was beneath shone through. As if a filthy window were suddenly scoured clean to let in bright day, in one enlightening sweep. And she knew it; and that was almost the most alarming thing of all. As if that day had always been there, and been obscured by the grime of the world, by disillusion and despair. That disturbed me. What did my own window look like? What had the world trodden deep into my face?

  Impulsively, formally, I laid the hilts across my arm, and offered her the sword.

  She reached out, but she didn’t take it; she stared, just as the others had. ‘You see, meine Ritterin?’ hissed the captain. ‘You see?’ She did; and this time, so did I. The sword I offered her was the image and pattern of her own.

  She didn’t ask; she just looked.

  ‘You saw this in my flat,’ I said. ‘I didn’t steal it; I won it in fair fight from someone who’d no better claim to it. The most anyone’s been able to tell me is that it looked like Bavarian make.’

  ‘It is,’ she agreed grimly, taking it now and examining it. ‘But no ordinary make. This broadsword with the basket hilt, of sabre shape, it’s of a pattern and strength forged here alone, within the aegis of the Graal. It is the sword of a Graalsritter, a Knight, a very ancient one.’ She held it up to the light, squinting at the traceries along the blade. ‘Made around the time of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, perhaps. Some have been lost throughout the years; not many. They tend to find their own way home.’ She shot a sudden edged look at me. ‘And the Spear? You say you know where it is? Because it was you who took that as well?’ A shadow of the old anger crossed her features. ‘Why? And while we’re about it, how exactly?’

  ‘Why? Because I was suckered by an old bastard called Le Stryge. He helped me once – the time I got that sword. Then he called in the tab, though I didn’t know it …’

  ‘Hauptmann Dragovic!’ she said sharply. She looked down at the grey-faced lieutenant. ‘You will assist this man to medical attention, then return to your post, pending further orders!’ She could still look very sour. Von Albersweg’s head sagged. Dragovic clicked his heels, expressionlessly this time, and watched us as she sheathed her own sword, and with mine motioned me out into the corridor and down the stairs. Open air had never felt better as we emerged from the gatehouse, and I was glad when she briskly led me to a bench set around the base of a big old lime tree. I sat, at her order; but she remained standing, putting one foot up on the bench and leaning comfortably elbow on knee, my sword held lightly but ready in her hand. ‘So,’ she said grimly. ‘Consider this your hearing. Make the best of it!’

  As briefly as I could, I rattled off the story. I’d expected questions, but not the crisp, continual grilling she gave me at every choice, every turn; obviously she’d been a trained interrogator. But there was something more, a sense of vision; the details she asked for were almost always telling, central, as if she could envisage practically the whole picture from my sketchy account. I’d spent more harassing half-hours, but not many, not least when it came to glossing over that little episode at the window. When she let me finish, she swung my sword up again, considering it. ‘And this – you took it from someone, you say?’

  ‘Years ago. From a sea-raider, a Wolf, first mate of the privateer Chorazin. Where he got it I never knew; he wasn’t around to ask any more.’

  ‘A Wolf?’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘That can’t have been easy.’

  ‘You know them, then?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Her face was hard to read. ‘I wonder how it ever came into such hands; we may never know. But th
ere’s just one thing you haven’t told me. You hid the Spear – where? What’s happened to it?’

  ‘It’s safe—’

  ‘Safe?’ No trouble reading her expression now. The old half-hysterical fury had turned into something much more controlled and channelled, but her eyes still seemed to crackle with it. ‘Safe? How can you be so sure? How dare you? You haven’t a clue what you’re playing with here! Half the Rittersaal’s out scouring the Core for it – and more than half our enemies, you can be sure of that. If you’ve somehow managed to keep it safe from them it’s pure fool’s luck at best!’

  ‘Look,’ I managed to get in, ‘I know you don’t trust me, but—’

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘Oh, no, I trust you. Implicitly – as far as this matter’s concerned.’

  ‘That’s a change. Maybe even a nice one. Why the sudden conversion?’

  ‘It isn’t sudden. I trusted you the moment I knew you were the thief.’

  I goggled. Maybe she was still crazy, after all. ‘I – don’t exactly follow—’

  ‘You mean you think I’m still crazy? No, Mr Fisher. A great many things that were wrong with me have been straightened out, in body and mind both. That is the way of the Sangraal. I trusted you because you were able to steal the Spear in the first place. Because you could touch it without harm, as only the Knights can. No ordinary human could approach it, even; and anyone of seriously evil intent – well, you saw. Only a power of great strength could hold it directly.’

  ‘Yes!’ I swallowed at the memory. ‘I felt – nothing. So you don’t think Le Stryge shielded me somehow?’

  ‘If he could shield anyone, he’d have shielded himself. So, strange as it seems to me, the Graal must have allowed you to steal the Spear. There must be some point, and I can only follow where it leads and await an answer. Personally – well, I studied the Department’s dossier on you; my likes and dislikes don’t count. But my duty does; and every moment our danger grows more acute.’ She turned on, eyes glittering. ‘Do you realize what it means? Without the Spear the Graal has only half its being – it’s lost all its power to strike outward. And if they got hold of it, its enemies might even be able to breach its defences.’ She looked around at the little square, at column and buttress and tower beyond, and shivered. ‘The Brocken could do that, or any one of a dozen other dark forces. Even a failed attempt could leave worse scars on the lands.’