I struggled to focus my swimming thoughts; and then Jyp noticed my shoulder, and stopped shaking me. ‘Jehoshaphat! A mite lower and he’d have skewered your heart!’
‘Not … quite. Alison?’
‘She’s here. But she’s bad. The bullet wound, a broken leg, maybe something internal. Lucky, at that; if the forest hadn’t been so tangled and all this goddamn underbrush that thick, you’d’ve been succotash. Mall’s getting some branches for a stretcher. Don’t know if we can get you folks away from here, but we’re damn well going to try.’
I pushed him aside, because I hadn’t the words, and levered myself up on my elbow. Alison was beside me, face grey, lips dark, the Spear lying limp in her fingers; the slab of stone had fallen from my arms, only a few feet away. I looked at the mountain crest, a howling, heaving mass of flame in which something thrashed and spouted, setting the whole mountainside quaking, and the milling, baying shadows running in renewed panic – chaos rampant. The fire was spilling down among the trees now; that meant it would soon be spreading wholesale. Who was Jyp kidding? And the little knot of people gathering around him, the survivors. Here a Byzantine archer without his horse or his bow, helping along a wounded doughboy still clutching the shattered stock of his rifle, bayonet attached. There, two of the partisans, quietly slipping cartridges from their pockets into the magazines of their Schmeissers while an English archer covered us with his last shaft. There were others, but not many; fourteen, fifteen, maybe, from all our force. The centurion was gone; Hastein was there, one arm in a bloody sling. They watched over us, these battered warriors, their eyes wide in wonder; and they waited. ‘This … is all?’
‘All,’ echoed Mall sombrely. ‘No man or woman more, no horses. Nor any food or water, or aught to ease your pain – no clean herb grows in this place.’
‘Save … yourselves,’ said Alison faintly. ‘Take the Graal and the Spear. Steve might still make it. Leave me …’
I reached out to her; but my hand touched something else.
‘No,’ I said.
Mall chuckled faintly. ‘The very word I fumbled after! Well, now that’s reasoned out, let’s to our road—’
‘No,’ I said again, feeling the hair on the back of my neck prickle. ‘Mall, help me up—’
‘And have you bleed your life out on me? I’ll do no such thing—’
‘Help me up, damn you! You don’t know what’s going on.’ I’d been going to swear at her again, but I softened my tone. ‘There’s another way, – and it’ll work! You see – you see – they told me all along – all along—’
Without another word Mall took my good arm and hauled me to my feet. It did start the wound bleeding again, but that didn’t matter. I took two steps, to that slab of stone, and I knelt again, before it. The pain was jarring, and as I struggled to raise my arms above my head it made my head sing and my guts heave; but none of that mattered now, not in the slightest. In my hands I held a power that was greater than the Brocken, greater by far; for its schemes reached farther and longer, and even when those schemes failed, they carried within them the germs of new success. When they succeeded, however high the cost, the success was absolute. They’d told me; they’d prepared me for this, all along, knowing there was no way I could possibly understand until now – until I held both Graal and Spear together in my hands.
I guessed it now, I saw the relationship between them; and once seen, I saw what the Graal had once been, in what guise it had appeared to the first shamans of the first men, stumbling after knowledge and succour in their desperate struggle to survive. I might have laughed, if I hadn’t been so filled with awe. I knew what that ancient ceremony must have been, and in imitation of it, with reverence and even with fear, I swung the Spear high above my head. Alison saw, and summoned energy enough to scream, ‘No, Steve! You haven’t the right! Only one man—’
Too late.
The spearhead struck; but not into the base of the rough stone chalice. Into the shimmering pool of light it contained.
Interface—
And the light overflowed, and spilled, and came racing up the shaft to envelop my hands and draw me down, down to the death I expected, and out of my pain embraced. My momentum carried me on and down, down like a swimmer into deep waters.
There were clouds, clouds everywhere, and they closed over me like waves, and I thought I was going to drown. Involuntarily, stupidly I kicked out, and rose to the surface again. Looking up, I saw the shadowy coastlines of the cloud archipelago high overhead, and above them the great arching tunnel of cloud that framed a glittering arc of starry sky, moonless and clear. And coursing through it, sails billowing with moonlight, spray leaping from beneath her bows, rose the high stern of a mighty merchantman, ablaze with lanterns, laden with strange cargoes for stranger destinations. It was the same surreal seascape I’d commissioned so carefully for my office wall. But this was its great original, those eerie seas of cloud and night, those shadows the waters of the Core cast deep into the Spiral, infinite where they were only endless, the oceans over the airs of the Earth, the seas I’d sailed so often. Never without peril; yet never, also, without friends.
Now, in all their vastness, I drifted alone. No barque to bear me, no ship to succour me; and my strength was failing. The cool clouds closed over me, and I sank back—
There was a soft discreet hiss, and the chair’s pneumatic damper stopped me. I crossed my legs and settled back comfortably, enjoying the luxurious give of the white kid upholstery, contemplating the seascape with detached pleasure. Then my intercom chimed discreetly, and I sighed and touched the hidden control.
‘Your visitor is here,’ said Claire’s voice.
‘Oh,’ I said, trying not to sound nonplussed or admit I’d completely forgotten I was expecting anyone – you never knew if they could hear. ‘Thanks, yes. Please ask him to come in!’
I sat up hastily, glanced around the office, wished I’d remembered to clear away those reports. No matter; just time to straighten my tie, and the door was opening. I was glad I’d closed the blinds; the sunlight through the outer office was blinding. That thought brought on a moment of confusion. Claire wasn’t my PA any more, hadn’t been for – what? Twelve years or more. So why – perhaps she’d brought whoever this was up, that must be it. Something from Personnel, then: oh, God. And who the hell was this, opening the door with the sun behind him?
Part of me shrivelled with potential embarrassment. Had I met him before, this character? I must have; but the face eluded me. It was a strong, distinctive face, and yet it was somehow hard to pin down; he looked very much like a number of well-groomed middle-aged businessmen, right down to the quietly immaculate suit and the silvery streaks at his temples – a touch handsomer, perhaps, and fitter, but nothing exceptional. And yet I kept seeing flashes I recognized, his tall build – only a little heavier than mine – a lithe energy in his walk, the general outline of his head, the wry lop-sided lift to his smile as he held out his hand to me, his deep resonant voice as he spoke my name. Resonant, but not just deep; it echoed all kinds of accents, but with relentless clarity. All told, an impressive-looking character, not the sort you forget meeting; yet damned if I could put a name to him, or remember where.
That made me a touch too effusive as I seated him in my best guest chair, and he waved an apologetic hand as he settled back. ‘Very comfortable,’ he remarked, looking around. ‘Like the rest of this office, in fact. Well-designed, elegant even, yet, if you don’t mind my saying so, not at all pretentious. None of this investment art rubbish.’ He nodded at my skyscape. ‘A nice mixture of the romantic and the practical. A strong expression of personality, both the company’s, and your own. I remember liking the old atlases. I’m glad you kept those.’
An old client, from my early days in the office; that would be it. ‘Yes, I inherited those from Barry,’ I said as I poured him coffee, wondering vaguely who had brought the tray in, and where all these compliments were leading. ‘He had an even bigger col
lection once, but it was destroyed in a burglary.’
‘Ah yes,’ said my visitor, ‘I believe I heard. Well, Mr Fisher, I expect you’re wondering why I’m here and what I’m leading up to. I know you’ve a lot on your mind just at the moment, going through a busy period, people depending on you …’
‘Well, since you put it that way …’
‘Exactly. But I assure you, this will take little or no time, and it may be well worth your while. Mr Fisher,’ he said seriously, as I settled back into my chair, ‘you’re very comfortable here, that’s evident. And I don’t doubt you look equally at home over at C-Tran, though I don’t like those high-tech offices as much. But comfort isn’t always satisfaction. Are you satisfied? Mr Fisher, you have shown considerable skill at creating companies that run themselves.’
‘No company does that,’ I objected, a little nettled. ‘If they seem to, that’s just slow stagnation. You need active minds at the top, always – questioning, reshaping, continually seeking new business or new ways of operating. Like the old joke about the swan, you know? Floating serenely above the water, paddling like hell underneath.’
He grinned. I liked that grin; I just wished I knew where I’d seen it before. ‘Of course that’s so. And you’ve built in mechanisms to keep that happening. You yourself are part of them, but your scope is limited. You leave most of the running of this company to David Oshukwe.’
‘Of course. He’s better at it than I am. And there are people at C-Tran who I hope will be able to take over in the same way from me and Baron von Amerningen—’ Something jarred in my head, and I stopped, uncertainly.
‘And that’s precisely my point!’ said my visitor. ‘Mr Fisher, you are or will soon be as rich as most men ever feel the need for. You have no real motive to struggle, to compete. Are you not a little lacking in … challenges? Are you not ready to try something new?’
I steepled my fingers. I didn’t like having my thoughts read. ‘Now that,’ I said severely, ‘is a loaded question, the kind that affects share prices and brings speculators circling around in droves.’
My visitor sipped his coffee and smiled. ‘Mr Fisher, you don’t need to answer it, not outright. The fact is that I’ve come here to offer you just such a venture. Our prospectus …’ He reached into his briefcase, pulled out a neat-looking morocco binder and laid it gently on my desk. ‘You’re very welcome to read it now, if you can spare the time, and while I’m here to answer any immediate questions you may have. But be warned, you may be surprised at our longer-term planning; and the fact that some of it already involves yourself.’
‘What?’
‘We have assumed that because we didn’t dare assume anything else. Before you judge us, please read to the end.’
I treated him to my most suspicious frown as I picked up the folder and opened it. My hair prickled, my heart gave that leaping extra breathless beat. There at the head of the first page, embossed on the heavy cream paper, the emblem of a dove flew above two graceful – and suddenly very familiar – towers.
I read that page, and the next, and the next, with eyes widening and astonishment building. I glared at my visitor over the top of it. ‘So this – all of this – is something you planned?’ Astonishment vanished under growing fury. ‘Are you trying to tell me you – you sacrificed all these people in some half-baked bloody—’
‘No, no, no,’ he said, a little irritated. ‘I did ask you to read on. We knew something was stirring, yes – call it a hostile takeover bid. In a sense, it was remembered – though over a gulf you really couldn’t imagine – but only in the most general terms, so we had to evolve a general plan, a broad strategy to cover as many instances as possible. But Le Stryge’s secrets were never quite as secret as he liked to think. He was following a trail; we followed it in both directions, the way he’d come, the way he was going. Either way, at either end, there was you. It was clear that you were going to be involved, though at that time we had no idea why; so we kept on searching, and we were both surprised and appalled when we found out, and realized the significance of your name. It required us, at so many stages, to have faith in you, in what you could do. We had no idea who Le Stryge’s master was, or Baron von Amerningen’s when he became involved – or even that it was the same power.’ He grinned briefly. ‘Or that Alison would take such a fancy to you when we prompted her to keep an eye on you, a fancy, of course, that she resented like hell because she thought you were the same sort as the late Baron. We’re not gods or tyrants – we don’t confine the human heart, or compel it. It’s a fearful handicap when dealing with adversaries who do – but, then, it’s one of the chiefest things that set us apart from them. Some of them started with the best intentions, but—’
I nodded. ‘I can guess. Means determine ends. Absolute power corrupts—’
‘Absolutely. So we couldn’t map everything out neatly; we had to narrow it down to definitions, and provide for them. It was inevitable some attempt would be made to steal the Spear, using you, and that an assault to steal the Graal would follow; we couldn’t stop that. We had several possible definitions of success in varying degrees: you never took the Spear; we got it back without you; you got it back without trouble; you got it back with trouble, before it got into enemy territory. Any of those, and the assault on the Heilenberg never coming. We had one ultimate failure standard – the Spear and the Graal both taken and reaching our enemy.’
‘God!’ I slumped back, feeling the blood leave my cheeks. ‘Was it that close, after all?’
The tall man’s face grew sombre. ‘It was. But it was also our ultimate standard of success – getting the source of our power into the enemy camp. Provided, that is, you were there to do the necessary, namely retrieve one or the other and let fly. If you hadn’t come through we’d have been sunk. And if we’d tried to direct you somehow we might have cramped your style, fatally. That’s why we didn’t dare say anything, one way or another, when you asked for guidance. So in the end all we could do was try to see that if Spear or Graal did reach the enemy, so would you, with the knowledge you needed to use them. Knowledge that wouldn’t make sense till the time came, yet would stick in your mind.’ He grinned again. ‘So it kept popping up on your computers. Irritating as hell, wasn’t it?’
I bridled. ‘Too damn right! But me – why all this on me?’
‘Because you were there. Because of your name. Because only you could do it.’
‘That’s a load of – that’s rubbish. A lot of people did it. Alison, Jyp, Mall – Katjka. Her especially. What about her? Did your plan involve compelling her?’
He looked sombre. ‘No. She chose. She knew what was coming, and she chose it, to wipe out a past that wouldn’t leave her. Remember those extra cards that seemed to deal themselves? She was warned, and she chose. True, she did a lot to aid you. But even without her you’d have managed. Differently, but you would have. The same with your friend Jyp. He played an important part, but there were other ways to get through – the pentacle at Baron von Amerningen’s, for example. And other ways of launching an assault than by recalling the Graal Knights. There was no way to know which would work. We had to trust you.’
I was rapidly getting furious with this urbane creature. ‘I wish I’d had your bloody confidence! You used me, you son of a bitch! You used my friends, you threw them away the way you throw away those Knights of yours! Okay for them, maybe, they’ve chosen to serve. But I never got the chance to choose, did I? So let’s just run that one by again. Why me?’
‘Because you’re special.’ He sipped at his coffee, and reached for a biscuit I’d forgotten to offer him. ‘Excellent. Because Le Stryge did do something clever, in ferreting you out. His mind was blinkered by its own narrowness, of course. He only saw how you could be of use to him; but we saw in you the germ of a greater success than just restoring the status quo ante bellum. He told you about your ancestry, didn’t he?’
‘You mean that I’m descended from a Frankish princess’s little mista
ke? Yes. What’s that got to do with the price of tomatoes?’
‘Is that all he thought of it? She was one of Charlemagne’s daughters, man, the first Holy Roman Emperor, the first king to unify any part of Europe, however sketchily, since the Romans. And incidentally, the last reigning monarch who was also the Graal King.’
‘What?’
‘Oh, yes. A rather rough and rumbustious character, but a genius in his way. You have to make allowances. Late in life he even tried to learn to read. That was fearfully progressive for those days. And you’re a direct descendant, via a line of sturdy peasantry in Germany, France and England, mostly the richer sort. There’s a good gene for making money somewhere in that line.’
I sat back. ‘I see. And – what? I’m sort of a favourite nephew, am I? That was why I could touch that bloody Spear without being incinerated?’
‘That’s right. That’s why Le Stryge thought he could use you. Actually we wouldn’t seriously hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it, but we don’t advertise that. It’s better to seem untouchable. People are people; there’s always some treason, especially when we don’t have a king to interpret for us. It’s hard to love just a cup and a spear.’
I shook my head. ‘Then why take that shape? Why not appear as you’re appearing now, a sort of smug father-figure wolfing bloody chocolate biscuits? Always good for a friendly chat, the chocolate biscuits …’
He contemplated one of them a little sadly, and bit into it again. ‘Would that we could. I told you you were exceptional. It’s a long time since we were in any shape to appear to anyone. Out by the Rim things get a little … refined, would you say?’
‘How the hell would I know? I’ve never been there.’
‘You will, one day. If you’re the right sort you gain … rather a lot. But you lose a lot of other things, too. We had bodies once, very good ones. They lasted rather longer than you might expect, and even then we kept them around for occasional use, poor old threadbare things. But they wouldn’t fit us very well any more. They’d cramp our style; and we’re not as … individual as we once were. We can only maintain the barest toehold in the material; and even that has to reflect different forces at work within us. The Cup and the Spear were convenient symbols for the first men, easy to understand; and we’ve never really improved on them. A syringe and a phial? A Kalashnikov rifle and a TV set? Hardly as compelling. And they don’t express so succinctly just what we’re capable of – in our opposing states. Think of them as poles together and poles apart, if you want. Apart, thrusting strength and deep knowledge, war and peace, defence and consolidation, wounding and healing. Together …’ he chuckled, ‘well, let’s call it creative friction. It’s a potent symbol everyone responds to, the primitive mind and the modern, even if they don’t wholly understand. Opposites working together instead of apart; and conceiving something new.’
Cloud Castles Page 32
