Grailblazers Tom Holt

by Grailblazers (lit)

  The Timekeeper raised her ladle threateningly. `I'd thtay right there ith I wath you,' she hissed. Or rather hithed.

  `Now look . . .' Lamorak began to say; then he broke off, bent double and clutched his jaw. `Now look what you've done,' he mumbled.

  `He's got toothache,' Pertelope explained. He was like that, of course; he was also perfectly capable of explaining that you were getting wet because it was raining, and that you'd just broken your leg because you'd fallen off your ladder.

  `Nethertheleth,' replied the Timekeeper grimly, and swung the ladle demonstratively. You don't get to stay a maiden of unspotted virtue for long on a pitch dark spaceship without knowing how to handle heavy kitchen implements. She backed away, didn't look where she was going, and tripped over the unicorn.

  Startled out of its narcotic dreams (in which, behind a bush with a gang of other unicorns, it lay in wait for a maiden of tarnished virtue to be attracted by a tethered kangaroo), the unicorn started, kicked against the ropes restraining its legs, and succeeded in loosening them.

  `Right, you bunch of Pommy woofters,' it started to say; and then the Timekeeper fell on it, knocking it out cold. It subsided into a heap, taking up its dream where it had left off.

  `Don't just stand there, you pillock,' Lamorak shouted. `Grab the bloody apron.'

  Pertelope hesitated. On the one hand, he was a Knight of the Table Round, and he distinctly remembered the bit in the rule book about succouring damsels in distress. He mentioned this.

  `So??

  'So I should be succouring, shouldn't I?'

  `Right,' Lamorak snarled. `And the thing to remember about succouring is never to give them an even break. Now move!'

  `Oh,' Pertelope replied. `That's what it means. I always thought it meant-' He got no further than this, because the Timekeeper belted him across the head with her ladle.

  Lamorak said something under his breath - it rhymed with pit - and made a half-hearted sort of lunge. He was hampered by the fact that he was trying to shield his jaw with his body, and only succeeded in putting his foot in the Timekeeper's discarded armour. There was a crash, and he landed heavily.

  `Thcumbag,' the Timekeeper yelled, and raised the ladle above her head. Then she froze.

  `If it's any consolation,' Lamorak said after a while, `I really don't feel good about doing this.' He waggled the Timekeeper's revolver, which had somehow found its way into his hand when he landed. `One, it's unchivalrous. Two, it's an anachronism. Three, these things terrify the life out of me. On the other hand . . .'

  The Timekeeper wasn't listening. She was looking at something over Lamorak's left shoulder, while trying to do high-level semaphore with her eyebrows.

  `Don't give me that,' Lamorak sighed. `Oldest trick in the book, that is, pretending to see something so's I turn round, and then you hit me with-'

  Then he too fell silent, as Trevor thumped him hard on the side of the jaw with a rock.

  The true origin of the Apron of Invincibility will probably never be known.

  One school would have it that the apron was worn by the head chef at Belshazzar's feast, and the distinctive red marks down the front are all the remains of the venison casserole, spilt there by the chef when he saw a huge hand materialise out of thin air and start writing graffiti on the walls of his newly-decorated taverna.

  Others claim that the red marks are the stains left by the particularly virulent Algerian beaujolais served to the guests at the wedding at Cana just before the wine finally ran out. This view is substantiated to a certain extent by the fact that generations of owners have done their best to bleach them out, but without success.

  Still others say that the red marks are just red marks, and that the Apron is a seventh-century Byzantine forgery; although what it's a forgery of, nobody even pretends to know.

  Whatever the truth of the matter is, the fact remains that the Apron has curious properties which cannot be explained in rational terms. For example; the touch of its hem cures certain extremely rare varieties of scrofula (not a particularly useful property, this, since the bacteria in question are so rare that they count as protected species, and anyone harming them is liable to a substantial fine); it mucks up Aussie Rules football like nothing else on earth; and a sponge cake baked by a person wearing it will invariably turn out as hard as millstone.

  After a while, Lamorak came round. He shook his head and gathered together the splinters of his memory.

  He realised that he was feeling a lot better.

  Something sharp was digging into his neck. He fished around inside his shirt, and found a dislodged tooth. He seemed to recognise it from somewhere.

  `Ah,' he said. `Good.'

  He looked up, and saw the barrel of the revolver. Behind it stood the Timekeeper and another figure, similarly dressed, male, its jaw moving steadily.

  `Threethe,' rasped the Timekeeper. `Or Trethor here'll drill you full of holeth.'

  It'th okay,' Lamorak replied, `don't thoot. Oh thit,' he added, rubbing his swollen jaw. `You'the got me at it now.'

  `What the hell's going on here, anyway?' Trevor enquired, with his mouth full. `The fight. The unconscious guy in the frock. The horse with a flagpole up its nose. I mean, what is this?'

  Lamorak grinned painfully. `Let me ecthplain,' he said.

  `I'the got a better ...' The Timekeeper growled impatiently, opened her mouth, and pulled out two little strips of shiny metal. `That's better,' she said, stuffing them in her pocket. `The hell with dental consistency. I've got a better idea, Trevor. Let's tie these two idiots up and get back to the ship, okay?'

  Trevor shrugged. `Please yourself,' he said. `What'll we tie them up with?'

  Lamorak coughed politely. `Ith I may make a thuggethtion,' he said.

  The Apron of Invincibility, torn into thin strips, produced enough material to keep the knights securely bound for six hours; at the end of which they were released by a party of wandering Fruit Monks on their way to replenish the cache of tinned lychees at Ayers Rock.

  On their return to Albion, the knights entrusted the job of restoring the Apron to the Sisters of Incongruity, an even smaller and more secretive order who devote themselves to prayer, meditation, needlework and spot-the-ball competitions (from which source is derived the fabulous wealth of the community). Three months of round-the-clock work resulted in an Apron that was almost, but not quite, as good as new. True, it no longer affected the outcome of football matches; on the other hand, it developed a quite staggering knack of turning anything left overnight in its pockets into small balls of disintegrating paper, discarded fruit-gum wrappings, delaminated metro tickets and demonetised fiftylire coins.

  Chapter 4

  `Admit it, Turkey,' said Bedevere, `we're lost.'

  You can tell of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, or the Colossus of Rhodes; if you're looking for the world's great wonders, try a knight of an ancient order of chivalry coping with a statement of the painfully obvious.

  `I know we're lost,' Turquine replied cheerfully, folding the road map and shoving it under the seat of the van. `We're supposed to be lost. If we weren't lost, we'd be going the wrong way.'

  Bedevere looked at him.

  `After all,' Turquine went on, `we're looking for a lost city. The lost city. Therefore . . .'

  `Yes,' said Bedevere patiently, `point taken. But right now, we aren't looking for Atlantis, we're looking for the M6.'

  Turquine grinned. `Not necessarily,' he replied. When

  Bedevere made an uncharacteristically impatient gesture,

  Turquine went on: `You don't seem to have tumbled to it yet,

  young Bedders. We're talking mysticism here.' He broke off

  to avoid and swear at a T -registration Allegro which had churlishly insisted on its right of way on the roundabout.* `You remember what old Beaky Maledisant used to say about mysticism.'

  Bedevere confessed that he'd forgotten. Turquine nodded.

  `Thought you had,' he said. `I seem to remember you
spending the Wisdom lessons looking out of the window at the girls from the-'

  `Anyway,' said Bedevere.

  Turquine changed gear noisily. `The point is,' he said, `if you're looking for a lost city, or a lost priory, or a hermit's cell under an enchantment of oblivion, anything like that, it's no good going through the index at the back of the A-Z; you've got to get lost yourself. Then it sort of finds you. That's,' he added proudly, `logic.'

  Bedevere raised an eyebrow. `Logic?' he asked.

  `Well,' Turquine replied, shrugging, `theology, then. All those that are lost shall be found, or words to that effect. Hell fire and buggery,' he added, staring at a road sign, `that's the Stirchley turn-off. How the devil did we get here?'

  Bedevere smiled wanly. `Theology, probably,' he said. `That and taking the wrong exit back at Brownhills. You want the A37.'

  `Give me the map a minute,' Turquine said. `I know a short-cut that should . . .'

  Bedevere was about to protest, from long experience of Turquine's short-cuts, when it occurred to him that all that stuff about being lost on purpose sounded uncomfortably

  *By right of his position as Seigneur de Montcalm and Earl-Banneret of Belfort, Turquine had a hereditary right of precedence over traffic feeding in from the right on roundabouts; and, being Turquine, insisted on exercising it even against articulated lorries and bulk tankers. His ambition was to cause an accident and get charged with reckless driving, so that he could stand up in court and produce the original charter, bearing the seal of Uther Pendragon. Unfortunately, all the drivers he pulled out in front of without warning either had hairtrigger reflexes or ABS brakes.

  reasonable. `Great,' he said, therefore, and even added, `Good idea.'

  Turquine's short-cut, predictably, took them up a singlelane cul-de-sac terminating in a deserted farmyard. They always did. In fact, Bedevere had often felt, if only one took the trouble to get out of the car and have a look, it would probably turn out to be the same farmyard each time. Which made sense, somehow . . .

  `Right,' he said, releasing his seat-belt and opening the door, `we're here.'

  Turquine looked at him.

  `What on earth are you doing?' he asked.

  `Following your premise to its logical conclusion,' Bedevere replied, grabbing his haversack from the back of the van and putting on his hat. `Coming?'

  `But . . .'

  Bedevere smiled nicely, slammed the door and set off towards the farmhouse. After a moment's therapeutic blaspheming, Turquine followed him.

  `You see,' Bedevere explained, as they squelched through the slurry, `if you've got to be lost in order to find a lost city, it follows that you've got to be as lost as humanly possible. I think a farmyard up a five-mile lane with grass growing up the middle of it is about as lost as we can get without actually poking our eyes out with a stick, don't you?'

  He smiled and knocked at the door. Surprisingly quickly, the door opened.

  `Good afternoon,' Bedevere said. `We're looking for Atlantis. Can you put us on the right road?'

  The woman who had answered the door looked as if she probably could, in a sense. She struck Bedevere as the sort of woman who has a son called Oak and two daughters called Skychild and Mistletoe, and she was wearing rather a lot of that peculiar silver jewellery that nobody ever buys at craft fairs.

  `Sorry?' she said.

  `Atlantis,' Bedevere repeated. `You know. . .'

  `Oh,' said the woman, `yes, right. You don't look the type, that's all. You'd better follow me.'

  She led the way into the house, and Turquine and Bedevere exchanged looks.

  `That's probably the nicest thing anyone's ever said about me,' whispered Turquine under his breath. `God, this place smells a bit.' He sniffed distastefully. `Looks like they go in for the old wacky baccy around here.'

  The woman opened a door and stepped aside.

  `In here,' she said. `You know what to do.'

  It was an odd room, in context. It was, Bedevere decided, exactly like the more fashionable sort of building society, except that there were no girls in uniform sitting behind the computer screens. Not a pentangle or a cabalistic sign in sight.

  `If you need anything,' the woman said, `we're all in the scullery, meditating.' She closed the door, and the knights could hear the plopping of her bare feet in the corridor.

  For about a minute, neither of them spoke. Then Bedevere shrugged.

  `All right,' he said, `maybe we should have gone left at the Shard End underpass.'

  Turquine sat down behind one of the screens. `Not at all,' he said. `I think I'm getting the hang of this. Neat,' he added, with a hint of admiration. He closed his eyes, flexed his fingers like a concert pianist, and dabbed the keyboard at random.

  `After all,' he said, as the screen went blank and the machine beeped a couple of times, `there's lost, and there's lost. Now, then.'

  'Do you know how to work one of those things?' Bedevere asked.

  `Previous experience is not essential,' Turquine replied. `Think of a number.'

  `Seven.'

  `And why not?' Turquine tapped a key. `For example,' he went on, `when was the last time you had any dealings with the Inland Revenue?'

  Bedevere blushed. `I . . .' he said.

  `All right,' said Turquine, `the telephone people, DVLC, British Gas, any of that mob. People who use computers a lot.'

  `They all have screens at the office,' said Bedevere, the insurance salesman.

  `And,' Turquine went on, `what's the commonest explanation for things getting cocked up?'

  `Lost in the computer, of course,' Bedevere said automatically, and then bit his lip. `Oh,' he said, `yes. I think I see what you're getting at.'

  Turquine smirked. `Took your time, didn't you?' he said. `How to lose something while still permitting it to exist. Feed it into the computer. Easy. I mean, it'll be in there somewhere; it's just lost, that's all, along with half a million renewal notices, paid parking tickets, standing orders, estimated meter readings and revised assessments. And all you need to do to get it back again is type in the magic word.'

  Bedevere smiled, full of admiration. `Which is?'

  `Ah,' Turquine wheeled round on the swivel chair. `There you have me. Still, we're almost there.'

  Bedevere slumped a little; then he perked up. `Absolutely,' he said. `Allow me.'

  He pushed Turquine gently out of the chair, sat down and rubbed his hands. `They do this at the office,' he explained, `whenever the wretched thing has a bit of a paddy and nobody can get anything out of it. You're not meant to, of course . . . Ah, here we are.'

  He found the button he was looking for and pressed it. The screen went blank and a floppy disk popped out of a slot. He pressed it back in, pressed the button again and smacked the side of the console with the flat of his hand.

  There was an interval while the machine swore at him in morse code; then the screen went completely blank. Bedevere was just about to start feeling a complete idiot when letters appeared on the screen.

  ALL RIGHT, YOU WIN

  `Bingo!' Bedevere exclaimed. `Right, let's see.'

  He typed in a message, one-fingered, and the screen went blank again.

  `What was that you just-?' Turquine started to ask, but Bedevere shushed him.

  READY TO TRANSMIT

  `Brace yourself,' Bedevere whispered. `This could be a bit disconcerting.'

  `How do you mean, brace myself? Brace myself against what?'

  `Ssh!'

  TRANSMITTING

  The world vanished . . .

  The question, `How did people manage before there were fax machines?' is fortunately academic.

  There have always been fax machines, but they have gone under other names, and some of the experimental models bear as much relation to the modern versions as, say, a pair of cocoa tins connected by a piece of string bears to a cellular carphone.

  For example; the Pyrolex IV Turbo, which had a passing vogue in the Near East around the time of the Pharao
h Rameses II of Egypt, operated by a primitive form of ftbreoptics, whereby concentrated beams of light were conducted through the upper air in the form of radio waves, collected by a rough and ready transducer - the leaves of a rare variety of palm tree, now long since extinct - and then focused on to the receiving medium through an organic lens formed by the tree's blossom.

  The fax was, of course, known to the Romans, who used it to communicate with the gods. The Lector Lucius model favoured for this purpose was reliable but slow; the message was relayed into the DNA of a flock of sacred chickens, and was read by cutting open a chicken chosen at random and having a look at its entrails.

  Albion used a form of fax technology very similar to our own; but after the fall of the Albionese kingdom we enter a period known to information-technology historians as `the long dark winter of the postcard', during which only a vestigial form of fax was available.

  The exception, of course, was Atlantis, where the fax machine has been known since the very earliest times; so much so that the seminal text of the Atlantean Apostolic Church, The Gospel According to St Neville, begins:

  `In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and by the time it reached the other end of the line

  the Word was Gnzd.'

  which suggests that at the time the Gospel was first reduced to writing, the Atlanteans were still using the Mark IVc.

  Where the Atlanteans outstrip all other fax-using nations, of course, is in their ability to transmit more than mere facsimiles of the written word . . .

  `Bedders?'

  The word hung for a moment in the empty air, glowed like embers, and died away. Then there was nothing but the faint howling of the wind that blows round the stars.

  `Is that you, Turkey?'

  The same, except that these letters flickered with a pale blue fire, and crackled in the thin air like sparklers.

  `Where are you?'

  `Over here.'

  `Where's here, for God's sake?'

  `I don't know, do I? Turkey, what's going on?'